Legacy of Moth Page 12

  "And rid it of your brother, of Prince Torumun?" said Ymir. "Yes, son of Orin, I know of your brother, your elder. With one hand, you would cleanse the hall of its foreign banners. With the other, you would strike your brother down, seeking to usurp him and claim his rightful throne."

  Eris felt rage flare within him. He took a step closer to the giant. "My brother forfeited his throne when he aligned himself with the Magerian witch."

  "And you forfeited all your bonds of family when you slew your father." Fresh, bright blood pumped through Ymir's icy body. "I know of your sin, and I will not aid you, lesser son of a house long fallen from glory. You may bear his horn, but you are not the hero Orin was."

  Eris felt the old rage rise in him, the rage that had led him to slay so many enemies, to slay his own father, to slay the wingless dragon as it lay meekly upon his ship. He wanted to charge at the giant, to swing his sword, to cut through its heart. Yet he stilled his hand. Perhaps Yiun Yee had weakened him. Perhaps she had made him wiser.

  A harp's note sounded again.

  Eris turned his head.

  Yiun Yee had placed her hands upon the icy crystal that contained the harp. Her hands did not touch the strings, for they were embedded deep within the ice, yet as she moved her fingers upon that ice, the harp sang. It sounded to Eris almost like a human voice, as if the harp were alive and crying out mournfully, a song beautiful yet sad.

  "Harps are made to sing," she said softly as she played, moving her hands across the ice. "It's a saying in our land. I was never skillful at music, no matter how many times I wished to be a musician like the heroine Koyee. But here is the harp of my family. Here is the song of my home. Harps are made to sing, and mead is made for drinking, and homes cannot be lost." She looked at the giant. "This I know. Here is the song of my home, and that home awaits me in the darkness. Do not let my husband's home fall to ruin."

  Her music continued, the harp strings trembling inside their icy prison, and the song was so beautiful, so mournful, that even the Oringard fell to their knees and wept to hear it. The giants gathered close, forming a ring around Yiun Yee and her music, and they too wept, their tears flowing down their icy cheeks.

  "Harps are made to sing," whispered Ymir, King of the Jotnar. "For many years, we tried to play this harp, yet it sounded like a wounded animal, broken, afraid. We feared for it. We placed it in an altar of ice to protect its beauty." The giant fell to his knees, cracking the ice beneath him, and his tears flowed. "Yet the beauty of its song is one greater than I had ever imagined. Here is the song of a home, of a family."

  Yiun Yee's fingers fluttered against the ice, playing her music. "And I have a new family now, Lord of Frost. For I am wed to Eris, and his hall is now my home too. Will you help us reclaim it? Not for glory. Not for the memory of old heroes long buried. But for the music of a home, for the light that can still fill frozen hearts."

  The giants looked at one another, then down at Eris and Yiun Yee. She lowered her hands, and her song faded with a last quivering note.

  For long moments, Ymir was silent. Then, slow as the beats of a frozen heart, the giant raised his hand, and he pointed southward. To the sea. To Orida beyond. He spoke in a voice deep as the oceans and unforgiving as the plains of ice upon which he lived.

  "The jotnar will march."

  CHAPTER TWELVE:

  THE ELEPHANTS OF SANIA

  Neekeya no longer had the strength to row. She let the waves wash her boat ashore. When finally her boat rested in the sand, she stumbled out, took a few steps forward, and fell face down onto the beach. She kissed the sand, laughing weakly, her eyes too dry to shed tears. The shore was grainy, salty, filling her mouth. She lay prostrated, too weak to rise. A wave rushed over her, pushing her a few inches forward, then tugging her back toward the ocean.

  Neekeya crawled. She dragged herself a foot forward. Then another. The water tugged at her feet, and she stared down at the beach, and she realized for the first time that universes existed within sand. These were not simply faceless grains but tiny rocks, each one a unique world, exoskeletons no larger than specks of dust, tiny seashells of all shapes, countless creatures and structures, an entire cosmos.

  Do you too struggle and bleed? she thought, the sand on her lips. Do you too fight and die and hope?

  Her eyes fluttered shut. Her cheek hit the shore, and the sun baked her, and she slept.

  When she woke, she found seaweed tangled around her limbs. She chewed the long, rubbery leaves and the beads of fruit, finding some new vigor in the meal. A mollusk washed ashore, a little creature with a swirling shell. She cracked the shell open and drank the gooey saltiness within. This gave her enough strength to rise to her feet and look around.

  Palm trees rose across the shore. The beach stretched out east and west. In the distance, she saw a hut built of wood and straw. Perhaps there would be aid there. Fresh water. Medicine for her feverish brow. She took a step across the sand. Her head spun. When she gazed down her body, she saw thin limbs caked with sand and salt, peeking through rents in her ragged cloak. She kept walking toward the hut, each step a battle.

  The hut grew nearer, shaded under palms, and Neekeya saw a garden outside full of squash, beans, and bell peppers. Strings of fish hung outside to dry. An elderly man knelt in the garden, tending to the plants, and raised his head as Neekeya approached.

  Neekeya took one more step closer, then fell again.

  Once more she slept.

  When finally she woke, she found herself lying in a hammock. She blinked feebly. Reed walls rose around her and a straw roof stretched overhead. Gourds stood on a windowsill, and outside she could see the ocean. An empty, dusty crib stood in the corner. Neekeya's eyes widened to see a ewer of water at her side. She drank greedily. The water was cold and infused with berries, sweet and wonderful. It dripped down her chin and neck and flowed down her throat, filling her with healing energy.

  She climbed out of the hammock, opened a reed door, and stumbled out of the hut into the sunlight. The old man was back in his garden, watering a trellis of beans. He turned toward her and smiled.

  "Are you ready for a meal?"

  He had a brown, leathery face, and his eyes were kind, though Neekeya thought there was sadness in them too. Most of his teeth were missing, and his hair was white as snow. He wore a cotton tunic and a necklace of clay beads. He spoke Sanian, which Neekeya spoke well; the language was similar to the tongue of Daenor, for both people were from the same southern family of nations.

  Neekeya nodded. "Thank you, elder."

  He led her toward a table in the garden in the shade of palms. A little path, lined with flowers, led toward the beach, and the waves whispered. She sat in a wicker chair, and the elder brought out two plates. Upon each rested a fried fish, diced bell peppers, and spiced beans mixed with chilies. Neekeya wanted to be polite, to nibble her meal like a proper latani, but she was too famished. She bolted it down.

  "Slow down!" the elder said, laughing. "You will choke on a fish bone."

  "I thank you again," she said.

  He bowed his head. "I am grateful for company. For many years I've lived here alone." That sadness returned to his eyes. "You are a child of Daenor. I hear it in your accent."

  She nodded. "I sailed here alone from across the sea."

  His eyes widened. "You are brave! That is a great journey even for large ships manned by many sailors."

  "Brave or foolish," she said softly. She thought back to those turns before leaving into the sea—a widow consumed with grief, stumbling weak out of the marshes, desperate for any aid she could find, perhaps courting death. Perhaps yes, more foolish than brave, but at least she was a living fool.

  She stayed with the kind old man for several turns, slowly recovering her strength. In payment for food, water, and shelter, she helped work in his gardens, patched his roof, and sang to him many old songs of Daenor which soothed him. Neekeya wished she could have stayed here forever, but she knew she must go on, to see
k the city of Nhor in the Sanian savannah. As a child, Neekeya had met the royal family of Sania; they had visited her father in his pyramid. She remembered little of that visit, for she had been very young, but if they remembered her, and if they still held love for her family, perhaps they would aid her.

  Finally, on her seventh turn with the old man, she felt strong enough to continue her journey.

  "I'm sad to see you leave," said the old man. "Please take this with you, a parting gift." He handed her a tunic made from zebra fur, a garment finer than the tattered woolen tunic she wore. "It belonged to my wife . . . many years ago."

  She accepted the gift, stepped into the hut, and donned the tunic. It fit her snugly, soft and warm and comforting.

  "I will return here some turn," she said when she stepped back outside. "I will return with coins and gemstones to repay you."

  "What use have I for coins or gemstones?" said the old man, laughing. "They are pretty things, perhaps, but with your company, you paid me a far greater treasure. Return not with gems and coins but with more songs, with more smiles. Return to warm an old man's heart in his final years alone upon the shore."

  She nodded. "I will return." She kissed his leathery cheek.

  She left the hut.

  She walked south, heading between the trees, leaving the coast behind.

  Across her back, she carried a leather pouch full of vegetables and fish. The palm trees gave way to pines, then to groves of acacia trees. She walked for what felt like a turn before she slept, then walked again. She navigated by the sun, keeping it at her back. Here in the deep southern hemisphere of Mythimna, the sun always hung a little lower in the sky, bright and hot but casting long shadows. On her second turn of walking, she reached the savannah.

  The grasslands spread into the horizon, rustling in the wind. The grass was knee-high and golden, a second sea. Acacia trees rose in clumps like leafy islands, and distant yellow mountains rose from haze. In the maps Neekeya had seen, the fabled city of Nhon, capital of Sania, lay south from here by a great lake. Her books back home claimed that all Daenorians had come from Sania, immigrating north across the sea thousands of years ago, perhaps to escape famine or war, settling in the swamps and building great pyramids. Perhaps finding Nhon would feel like coming home.

  As she kept walking, she saw tall, mottled animals ahead, stretching up their long necks to feed from the acacias.

  Giraffes, she realized. She had heard of such animals, even had a wooden doll of one as a child. Her father had often called her a giraffe, for she had sprouted up tall at a young age. She smiled and approached them, hoping to see one close. Her father would never believe she actually saw one, he—

  Her smile died.

  She lowered her head.

  My father is dead, she thought. And so is my husband. It was funny how the pain of losing them never left her, and yet she so easily still thought of them as alive.

  She tightened her lips and kept walking. The priests of Cetela back home claimed that dead souls could reincarnate, returning to life as animals. Perhaps the giraffes ahead, these gentle giants, had once been men and women. Perhaps her father and husband would return, maybe even to this place, to roam the savannah. Neekeya did not know if those stories were true or simply tales to comfort the grieving, but perhaps now she needed comfort more than truth.

  She kept walking, drawing closer to the mountains. The sun seemed to grow warmer with every step, and Neekeya soon ran out of water. A river flowed in the distance, and she saw animals approaching to drink—herds of wildebeests, antelopes, and hyenas. Pelicans and finches flocked above in great clouds. Mouth dry, Neekeya walked through the grasslands toward the water, seeking a clear spot on the bank.

  She was only a few steps away when the growls rose behind her.

  She spun around and hissed.

  A lion crouched in the grass, staring at her, ready to pounce. The grass rustled around her, and Neekeya whipped her head from side to side. Several more lions padded closer, eyes golden and gleaming. They surrounded her, and they were hungry. They snarled, fangs bare.

  Neekeya bared her own teeth right back at them.

  I wrestled crocodiles in the swamps, she thought. I faced down hordes of soldiers and dark mages. I will not cower from lions.

  Her sword was gone to the sea; instead, she lifted a branch and swung it in wide arcs. "Back! Back, beasts! Back or I'll hit you."

  The lions growled and their fur bristled. Neekeya growled right back.

  "Get back!" She stamped her feet, swinging her branch madly.

  The lions hissed, then turned tail and fled.

  Neekeya nodded in satisfaction and lowered her branch.

  "Keep on running!" she called after them, pride welling inside her. "I beat crocodiles, and I can beat you. Get lost, cats! Get—"

  Roars rose behind her, drowning her words.

  Neekeya spun around, and her heart leaped into her throat.

  Oh Cetela . . .

  A dozen hippopotamuses, each quite a bit larger and angrier than a lion, were emerging from the river, rage in their eyes.

  Neekeya did not bother swinging her branch this time. She ran after the lions. Behind her, the earth rumbled as the hippopotamuses chased. When she glanced over her shoulder, she felt the blood drain from her face. For such large, rounded beasts, they ran at a ferocious speed. Their mouths opened wide, revealing fangs like swords and gullets that Neekeya thought could swallow her whole. They were quickly gaining on her.

  Had she survived battling Serin on the road, facing armies on the mountains and in the swamps, and crossing the sea to die here like this, a hunted beast, a death no nobler than that of a hunted antelope?

  Her ankle twisted on a hidden rock and Neekeya fell. She flipped onto her back to see the hippopotamuses trundling toward her, and she raised her fists, prepared to fight before they trampled her and tore her apart.

  Shards whistled above her.

  Yipping battle cries rose.

  Shadows fell upon her, and Neekeya leaped aside. A herd of elephants raced across the grasslands, beasts even larger than those chasing her. On their backs rode men and women clad in fur and feathers, and they fired bows with red fletching. The arrows sank into the hippopotamuses, drawing blood. The great river-beasts roared in pain, turned, and fled back into the water.

  Neekeya leaped to her feet. The lions and hippopotamuses were gone. Now fifty elephants, each topped with an archer, surrounded her, and those arrows were pointed right at her chest.

  "Sania just keeps getting better all the time," she muttered.

  She had seen elephants before—Nayan warriors, bearing Serin's banners, had ridden them across Teekat Mountains into Daenor. These beasts were even larger, a breed with wider ears and longer tusks, creatures of the savannah rather than the jungle, symbols of Sania. Red and yellow rings were painted onto their tusks, and tasseled saddle bags hung across their wrinkly hides. Headdresses of gold and gemstones lay upon their lumpy brows. The riders on their backs sported just as much splendor. Red and white paint covered their bare chests, and many necklaces of beads, silver, gold, and gemstones hung around their necks. They wore skirts of colorful patches, and their hair hung in many braids, each braid tipped with a ring of precious metal. Arrows and spears hung across their backs, and they held bows engraved with holy runes.

  One of the riders dismounted and landed in the grass before Neekeya. He walked toward her and frowned. Neekeya was a tall woman, but this man towered over her. His chest was bare and wide, and golden rings were painted around his arms. A golden amulet hung around his neck, engraved with an elephant's head, and he bore a feathered spear and wicker shield.

  "Are you lost, wanderer?" the man said. "You are many leagues from Nhon, Atan Nor, or the plains where the wild tribes roam."

  "I'm seeking Nhon," she replied. "I'm not lost but a traveler from across the sea. I am Neekeya, daughter of Kee'an, a latani of Daenor."

  The man's eyes widened. "Neekeya?" he w
hispered.

  She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "That's my name. Would you give me yours?"

  He laughed and rubbed his eyes. "By the gods! It is you. I am Kota, son of King Odiga."

  Now Neekeya's eyes were those to widen. "Kota! By Cetela, you've grown. You were a scrawny boy last time I saw you."

  He laughed again. "And you were a little girl with scraped knees, speaking of magical artifacts, swamp monsters, and old spellbooks. It was many years ago, but I still have fond memories of my visit to Daenor." His smile faded, and he lowered his head. "I grieved to hear of the marshlands falling to the Radian enemy. We've just returned from the port of Atan Nor where Radian ships have been attacking. We repelled them but they muster still, flowing south from the marshlands that they claimed."

  "Kota!" rose a voice from behind him. "She doesn't need to hear about our wars and the movements of troops. She's weary and thirsty and far from home, and you're regaling her with dull tales of your heroics."

  A second rider leaped off an elephant and came walking toward them. She was slender and bore a spear bedecked with many feathers. Like Kota, she wore her hair braided. Her skin was dark and bared to the sun, aside from a beaded loincloth and many beaded necklaces that hid her chest. Arrows fletched with wide, red feathers peeked above her shoulder. She smiled at Neekeya, a smile of kindness and warmth.

  "Adisa?" Neekeya whispered. "It is you."

  The young Princess of Sania nodded. "I was only a little one when we last met. As were you." She approached Neekeya, hugged her, then handed her a water gourd. "Drink, Neekeya, then ride with me. We return to Nhon."