On Fire's Wings - Christie Golden [141]
That night, Kevla curled up close to the Dragon, and away from the prying eyes of the clansmen of Arukan grieved for all that she had lost.
The day of the battle dawned clear and bright, one of the loveliest mornings Kevla had ever seen. She had been awake for some time, addressing each of the separate forces in turn, sending them off to fight with inspirational words that she wasn’t sure she believed. Her exchange with her father, who was leading one group, had been stiff and formal. She was not sure that was how she wanted it, but any conversation with him would be highly emotional, and instinctively she knew she needed to guard against that right now. She needed to keep everything tightly in check, or else, like Mount Bari, she would erupt.
Melaan accompanied her as she walked to where the Dragon waited. At one point, he said, “It was supposed to be Jashemi, wasn’t it?”
Color rushed to her cheeks. “What do you mean?”
“Over these last few days, I have become the closest Lorekeeper to you. I’m the one you turn to when you need information, when you need to have word spread among the Lorekeepers. You have trusted me, and you honor me beyond words with that trust. But it wasn’t supposed to be me. It was supposed to be Jashemi.”
“Yes. It was.”
“Kevla—how did he die?”
She didn’t want to answer, but she looked at him with such a stricken expression that she felt sure he guessed at some of the truth. His face softened and he reached to squeeze her arm. “Be careful, Flame Dancer. Any of us is expendable. Even Jashemi was. But you aren’t.”
His words were obviously meant to comfort, but they had the opposite effect. Kevla didn’t want any of this. She didn’t want to be the leader of a force of armed men more than three thousand strong. She didn’t want to be perched atop a dragon, knowing that she had almost unimaginable power at her fingertips, getting ready to use that magic to kill.
But she had to be here. She had to do what she didn’t want to do, so that her people would survive. This strange Emperor had little mercy, and she harbored no illusions that he would accept anything other than complete victory.
She was shaking and her stomach roiled as she mounted the Dragon. Her mouth was dry as the sand, and no amount of liquid from a waterskin eased it.
The Dragon crouched, then leaped into the sky. The earth fell away from them. Kevla looked down, watching as the tents grew smaller, and the warriors looked like small white dots on the sand. As they went higher, Kevla was able to see all four of the separate fronts the gathered clans had formed standing ready to meet the enemy. The Dragon’s wings beat the air steadily and they flew even higher. The faint sunlight touched the white stuff on the top of the mountains, turning it a delicate shade of rose-gold. Kevla laughed aloud at the thought of such a pretty color heralding a morning that would end with blood spilled on the sands. She clapped her hand to her mouth, stifling the hysteria.
It was at that moment that the first wave of soldiers crested the mountain ridge.
The Dragon said nothing; he must have felt her subtly tighten her legs as she sat astride him. For a long moment, Kevla looked at the men as she and the khashims had discussed. She was trying to guess their numbers, but the sheer mass of them was so great it overwhelmed her senses. It was like a flood, a river, a—
“At least five thousand in this first wave,” came the Dragon’s calm, deep voice, cutting through her shock. “They are the vanguard, making preparations for the second, third and fourth waves.”
Twenty thousand men to the Arukani’s three thousand, then. Kevla took a deep breath and tried not to give in to despair and panic.
As she and the khashims had discussed in their strategy sessions, the Emperor’s army was using the only pass between the mountains. It curved around the peak of Mount Bari, creating a flat saddle for a few leagues, and then wound down through the jutting, raw-looking areas of the mountain and into the softer,