The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [131]
In Sentinel Tower, the difficult step would have earned applause. Dabrak gave no reaction at all. Ashi ignored him and focused on the music. The hardest part of the dance was yet to come.
Ekhaas’s hands began to clap along with the rise and fall of her voice. Ashi moved into the attack phase of the dance, lunging and stamping her way across the cavern. Baerer had made this part of the dance look light and precise. She couldn’t match that precision. Instead, she threw herself into the raw energy that Baerer had said was her greatest strength.
She imagined that a sea of enemies stood between her and her goal. As they came rushing at her, she met each one, cutting her way through them. She could almost let herself go, could almost lose herself in the dance as Baerer had taught her. Her body knew what to do. She couldn’t do that this time, though. She kept her focus, and when Ekhaas’s song and rhythm slowed, she was ready. She entered the second part of the dance, the battle, as easily as stepping into real combat.
The unseen fight slowed along with Ekhaas’s song, but in Ashi’s mind it only became more intense. Each blow was deliberate, drawn out so that the audience could appreciate the sweep of the blade, the unfolding of a bent arm into an elbow strike, the long lines of her body as it extended into a kick. The battle was grace and power combined. Ashi didn’t look to see Dabrak’s reaction. She concentrated on the battle as if her life depended on it—which, in a way, it did.
Ekhaas’s voice rose again. The slap of palm on palm became increasingly rapid. It was different from dancing to viol and drum, but that was good. It was more primal, more suited to Ashi’s style of dance. Baerer had been elegant like the viol. She was unshaped, like a wild song. The battle she fought in her imagination took place on an open hill beneath the light of many moons. Wind lifted her hair, and the smell of churned soil filled her nose. Her enemies came at her faster and faster, in time with the rhythm of Ekhaas’s clapping. Ashi fought them off, but her movements become tighter as they pressed at her. She backed across the battlefield in the dance’s third phase, the defeat. Her enemies pursued her. She blocked their blows, feeling the impact. The song whirled faster. Her enemies crowded in close, so close she couldn’t move. Her sword rose, perhaps in an effort to parry once last attack, before a body that stood rigid once more. The dance was almost over—
Now, she told herself, and broke free of the movements Baerer had trained into her. In Deneith tradition, the sword dance ended with defeat, the warrior caught among the blades of his opponents. Ashi had to take it one step farther. In her imagination, a sword thrust up into her breast. Cold metal pierced flesh, forced ribs aside, and buried itself in her heart. Her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened slightly. Her rigid body arched backward.
And she died. Ekhaas’s song rose briefly into a keen of mourning, then fell away like a fading wind.
Ashi held her pose in silence, then gulped air and straightened up. Across the cavern, Ekhaas stood still, but her eyes were shining and her ears were tall. The dance had been perfect. Ashi could feel it. She turned and looked at Dabrak. The withered hobgoblin watched her with undisguised appreciation.
“In my palace,” he said, “I had twenty-five dancing slaves. I don’t believe any of them ever danced like that. The performance was flawless.”
Breathing hard, Ashi walked to Geth’s curled form, laid Wrath beside him, and retrieved her torch. She held her hand out to the emperor. “The rod, marhu.”
Dabrak’s shriveled ears twitched. “No,” he said. He gathered his robes around himself and turned back to his chair.
“No?” Ashi’s voice cracked with disbelief and she stalked over