Treasures of Fantasy - Margaret Weis [52]
Skylan was wrenched from a black sleep by a horrific noise. He was on his feet before he was awake, staring about dazedly in the lambent light of the stars and a thin, sullen moon. Sigurd and the others were all awake, stumbling about, demanding to know what was going on.
“What the—”
The words died on Skylan’s lips. He stared in appalled disbelief, his insides twisting like worms in the mud, at disaster.
The head of the Dragon Kahg lay on top of a pile of broken oars. The head was intact. It had not been damaged in the fall.
The dragon’s empty eyes stared into the empty heavens.
The next day, Zahakis captured the Venjekar without a fight.
The Torgun, stunned by despair, sat listlessly on the deck, paying no heed as the soldiers locked the iron manacles and reattached the chains. Zahakis freed the Legate and he returned to his war galley. Men stretched a heavy cable from the Light of the Sea to the Venjekar and took the broken ship in tow. Treia shouted across the water, trying to persuade Aylaen to come aboard the Light of the Sea. Raegar added his pleas, as well. Aylaen would not speak to either of them.
A favorable wind, sent by Aelon, filled the sails of the Light of the Sea. The war galley sailed south to Sinaria—a wealthy city, a fat city, a city that knew it was destined to be the capital of an empire that would someday rule the world. The Venjekar rolled and bobbed sluggishly in the galley’s wake. The head of the dragon lay on the deck, seemed to glare at the Torgun accusingly.
Skylan stared at the broken prow, feeling the heavy weight of the manacles on his legs and thinking that the weight was heavier on his heart.
“Maybe the gods have abandoned us,” he said to no one in particular.
To his surprise, it was Aylaen who answered.
“When you are in battle, you cannot hear your children wail,” she said, speaking softly, more to herself than to him. “You hear only the clash of arms. So it is with our gods.”
CHAPTER
1
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BOOK TWO
The Light of the Sea sailed slowly into the Trevalis Bay early in the morning. Though the sun had barely risen, the day was already hot. The Torgun hated the heat. In their homeland, the days were pleasantly warm in summertime, the nights were always cool. In this part of the world, the heat was constant. The only change night brought was that sometimes the wind died, leaving them sweltering and sweating and unable to sleep.
As the heat rose in shimmering waves off the still water, Skylan sat in chains on the deck of his captured ship and stared in dazed amazement at the sights of the city known as Sinaria that was yet in the distance. Zahakis had said that the population of Oran’s capital city, Sinaria, was greater than the population of the entire Vindrasi nation.
Skylan had, of course, not believed him.
Now he stared at the rows upon rows upon rows of buildings made of stone and wood, stacked one atop the other, covering the sides of the hills, jutting from the tops of the hills, spreading into the valleys. Narrow streets, twisting like snakes, crawled up and down and slithered sideways among the buildings.
The port was crowded with vessels of all types, from small fishing boats to merchant ships loaded with amphorae and passengers lounging on deck beneath awnings. The moment the war galley was sighted, boats put out from the shore, their occupants offering to sell everything from wine to food to whores, who brazenly showed their wares and called out the names of the streets on which they could be found.
Warehouses lined the port. Wagons carried goods from the ships to the warehouses. When night fell, the wagons would roll into the city. The streets were so crowded and narrow that wagons were not permitted to enter the city until after dark. Behind the warehouses, guard towers constructed of wood rose at intervals from a high wooden fence that formed the port’s fortifications. The hot wind blowing from the land carried with it the stench