The Rise and Fall of a Dragonking - By Lynn Abbey Page 0,41

Hamanu when the deeds were finished. The elf’s bright yellow robe and metallic right sleeve were torn and stained. The thoughts on his mind’s surface were painfully clear. His name was Kalfaen, and this had been his first campaign. He hadn’t risen through the war-bureau ranks, but had been given an adjutant’s enameled medallion on the strength of his family’s connections. “The Oba’s templars are all dead, except—except for the wounded—”

Kalfaen’s voice trailed. His thought-shapes shifted. He imagined himself on a less fortunate day, wounded, in dire pain, and waiting for some other living god to unravel his memories.

Hamanu ignored the young man’s distress. He tolerated nepotism in the templar ranks because it gave the likes of Kalfaen no real advantage. “Wait here,” he commanded, and insured obedience with a frigid thought that held the youthful elf where he stood. “When I am finished with the wounded, you shall recount what happened here, from the beginning.”

Elves were chancy mortals. A good many of them crumpled and died the first time Hamanu touched their minds. The best of them matured into loyal, independent templars such as Javed. If he’d made the effort, Hamanu could have learned to separate the weak from the strong before he put them to the test, but it was easier—certainly quicker—to nail Kalfaen to the ground and see if he survived.

None of the Oba’s wounded templars would survive. Those who remained welcomed the release provided by yellow-robed surgeon-sergeants, usually with a quick slash through the jugular. The two knife-wielding sergeants bowed low when Hamanu’s shadow fell between them. Without a spoken word, they scuttled off to join their comrades beside the Urikite wounded. They left their king to tread silently among the bloody Gulgans, carefully severing the spiritual fibers that bound essence to substance. Hamanu had subsumed one man’s spirit already, and he neither wanted nor needed to add another name to his army of grievance against Rajaat.

He was careful as well because these templars had belonged to Inenek and she could have easily tampered with them. He himself had done so, from time to time, with the men and women he’d sent into war.

With Nibenay between them, Urik and Gulg—the Don-King and the Oba—had rarely warred with each other. While Borys lived, Rajaat’s champions made war with their closest neighbors and uneasy alliances with the rest of their peers. Gulg and Nibenay had never been anything but enemies, until now—

Hamanu plunged his awareness deep into the ground and located himself. A chill shook his heart. This battle had taken place far from any road, farther still from any village or oasis, deep within the barren borderlands that Urik and Nibenay had contested for thirteen ages.

Hamanu didn’t doubt that Gallard knew where Inenek had sent her templars, but he doubted that his old nemesis knew she’d been trading secrets with Rajaat. In other times, communion with the War-Bringer was the only crime that the champions would unanimously condemn and punish.

Times had changed. Everything had changed—except Hamanu, the Lion of Urik. As Hamanu thought of dragons and champions, the last of the Gulg templars heaved a shuddering sigh and passed from life into eternal sleep.

The Lion-King strode toward the Urik infirmary tended by his surgeon-sergeants. He granted unlimited spells to the war-bureau healers in the aftermath of battle, for all the good it did the injured. Working with second-hand magic, the surgeon-sergeants were barely competent in their craft. Templars moaned and wailed when their wounds were tended. They healed with troublesome scars such as Pavek bore across his otherwise handsome face.

Hamanu used the endless potential of the Unseen world when he chose to heal. As a restorer of life and health, he was more than competent, but not even his flexible consciousness could attend the needs of so many. He chose not to choose a lucky few among them. He chose, in truth, to keep his compassion well-hidden from the templars who served him, and he defended his choice with the thought that it was better that mortals not rely on his mercy.

Pale and streaked with clammy sweat, Kalfaen waited precisely where Hamanu had left him.

“Recount,” the Lion commanded, tugging the Unseen strings laced through the elven youth’s mind.

Hamanu’s sorcery kept Kalfaen upright. His own will shaped the words and thoughts that the king skimmed off the surface of his mind.

The disaster had begun innocently the previous night, when a clutch of refugees approached the templar camp. They were better fed than the usual wanderers—richer, anyway, with enough