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Carwan Pestle had entered the same chamber tentatively only a few months before, nervous then because he had been sent by Yatol Grysh to beg for hundreds of soldiers How reater that ner-vousness was now for the poor Shepherd, walking into the chamber of the Chezru Chieftain with the news that Yatol Grysh had failed, that all twelve hundred of the soldiers the Chezru Chieftain had sent to Dharyan were dead, and that Dharyan had fallen!

Merwan Ma shot Pestle a truly sy man, so much like Merwan Ma in ht before the seated Yakim Douan

They already knew much of the tale, Carwan Pestle realized, from the sympathy of Merwan Ma to the intense expression on the face of the Chezru Chieftain The ht ahead, his thu with his bottom lip

With his free hand, the Chezru Chieftain motioned for Carwan Pestle to speak

"I hardly knohere to begin, God-Voice," the Shepherd re

"Is Yatol Grysh dead?" He was hanged by the Dragon of To-gai"

Yakim Douan&039;s fierce eyes turned up to bore into the poor ai?" he echoed ?Pray you tell ai"

"A wo and small woon, as if one of the legends of old" But she is!" the Shepherd explained, or tried to

"A great beast! She flew over the city at night, her fiery breath setting great fires On the first night, she destroyed the te as he spoke, so overwhel out of breath with each word "And then she flew up high, God-Voice! So high, and dropped great stones upon us! We could do nothing to har to calm the man, and eventually, Pestle did pause and take a deep breath

"And this dragon killed three twenty-squares of my soldiers?" th Chezru Chieftain asked

"Alone?"

"No, God-Voice The Dragon of To-gai careat army-thousands of warriors! I do not know that she even took her dragon form in that battle, and in the end, when she swept over our wall and conquered Dharyan, she was in the guise of a human, a simple woman"

"Not so simple, I would say," Douan said dryly

"They killed so reat liberties with our women, and then murdered many"

"But most of the citizens of Dharyan came down the desert road?"

"Yes, God-Voice She sent us out into the desert with hardly any food and water We were lucky to make the Dahdah Oasis with only a few losses Many are still there, hoping to return to their hoon"

"She occupies Dharyan?"

"She has changed the na it Dharielle now"

Yakim Douan nodded ?And tell me, Shepherd Pestle, were any Jhesta Tu mystics involved in this unprovoked and heinous attack?"

"She had one beside her, God-Voice A e - soht at Dharyan with Ashu, though I cannot be certain"

"Likely, he is," Douan replied with a knowing chuckle

"God-Voice?"

Yakim Douan held his hand up to calm the man ?Rest easy, Shepherd Pestle You will have your hoon"

"She will fall, quite dead, and her warriors will be sent running back to their forsaken steppes And there, I will catch theai will rue the day that this dragon-woman came into their midst" He finished with a nod and wave of his hand, and a smile so wicked and confident that it surely bolstered Carwan Pestle

The Shepherd bowed and exited the rooMerwan Ma, who, like Pestle, had believed that the God-Voice had all of this under complete control ?Damn this witch and the Jhesta Tu! And damn Yatol Grysh, the failure!"

"God-Voice, it seems as if he was overwhelmed" Merwan Ma dared to interject

"Overwhelmed?" the Chezru Chieftain echoed incredulously ?Over-whelai-ru?

Yatol Tohen Bardoh captured half gai with fearriors than Grysh had at his disposal, and that was the open plains, not huddled behind a fortified city wall! No, he erred erred badly, as Kaliit Tiths, jt &039;t you see? We are underestion, God-Voice? Surely neither the Kaliit nor Yatol Grysh could have anticipated - "A trick, likely," Douan insisted ?The Jhesta Tu can do such illusions, I am told"

"But you heard Carwan Pestle He claiend"

"And in the dark night, with fires burning and the city under siege, and likely bo that he heard or saould be on?

Well, per-haps this fool To-gai-ru woman is such a beast, or has harnessed such a beast They do exist, or did, and so it is not impossible"

"But then, what are we to do?"

"Kill it," the Chezru Chieftain said cal-ons are not immortal, nor are they invulnerable Send every scholar to the library to study every legend and detail about such creatures This Dragon of To-gai has ice, but both with the eleainst her will be ready to deal with any dragon, I assure you Phalanxes of great bows and poison-tipped arroill bring the beast down"

Douan paused and chuckled ?If there even is such a beast, and I doubt that there is But nonetheless, ai is at its end They dare to conquer Dharyan? Well, I will respond, do not doubt As I promised Pestle, I now proarrisons In a fortnight, ill send fifteen thousand soldiers reatest engines of e can devise Let the Dragon of To-gai show her-self Perhaps her fiery breath will kill a few, but then she will fall, right be-fore the stunned and horrified eyes of her foolish followers

And then where will they turn?

"Back to the steppes of To-gai? Ah, but ill pursue them, from Dharyan and from the south, where Yatol Tohen Bardoh will march with fifteen thousand more soldiers"

Merwan Ma rocked back on his heels, amazed by how profoundly this disaster had sparked his ai had been just that,for an all-out war against the people of the steppes, as he had done a decade and more before

The Shepherd left the audience room quite unsteadily, quite shaken, but also quite reassured that his rowing ai-ru strike so boldly and ht the barbarians soht a better way of life to the wilderness of To-gai?

His breath co in short and harsh rasps, the Chezru Chieftain conti ued to pace, kicking his heels against the floor with each step

A sudden burning pain erupted in his left shoulder, spreading like a way of fire down his arm

Douan stumbled and nearly fell over His visio blurred briefly, and when it cleared, the ain

And now the pain was in his chest

Yaki, then stumbled to the door He started to call out for Merwan Ma, but changed histhat he had to go there alone

Step by step, the stubborn oldthe corridors to the chalice room The pain had lessened considerably by then, but still Yakierly, so much so that he spilled so the chalice to his chest, the ray depths

He went inside hi desperately to find the haran to breathe easier al powers, butserious had befallen him, a point accentuated by a series of loud belches

Yakihed at himself and his desperation, a clear reminder of howas he re-mained in control of the situation about hi attack felled him, would he be able to spiritually connect himself to the hematite in time to soar out and find a replaceers separated froemstone by a thin sheet of ible power to take hienerations and the centuries

A crash from the back of the roo there, a look of both surprise and horror on his face, and a plate of utensils, the sacrificial knife a on the floor at his feet

Yaki the chalice, blood on hiht of Merwan Ma&039;s expression, and he knew at once that the Shepherd understood that there was so attendant," the Chezru Chieftain said with asyour duties before going out to the Chezhou-Lei, I see"

Ma sta undecipherable, but otherwise did spend He bent low and picked up the utensils lO"V6&039;hat is it?" Yakih hority to freeze the poor young man where he knelt &039;?&039;&039;God-Voice?"

"You are surprised to see ht that you would rest in your audience "But it is much more than that, is it not?" Yaki toward Merwan Ma with each word

"God-Voice?"

"What do you know of the chalice? ?

Merwan Ma began sta the rituals and supposed powers of the sacred chalice, and Yakim Douan let him ramble for some time Each re froh, and so the perceptive Douan began to under-stand the truth of it, that Merwan Ma knew about the hematite in the chalice

The Chezru Chieftain sent his spirit into that gemstone, used the portal that was the stone to let him fly free suddenly of his physical body He didn&039;t slow as he ca Mer-wan Ma, his spirit rushing right into thebare his soul for Yakim Douan to see

And he knew then, in that instant, that Merwan Ma did indeed know of the he with Yaki of the chalice, that had prompted the horrified look upon his face

Confronted by the spirit of the God-Voice, the poor Shepherd fell back, toppling over to a seated position on the floor, one ar theback to his body, afraid to give too much away here to the curious Shepherd He went back into his own body and blinked his physical eyes

"What is it, radually relaxed, but only somewhat He pulled himself to his feet and tried to act as if all was normal But Yakim Douan saw the truth tor what it was Merwan Ma knew, and was afraid because he knew

&039;Iman stuttered

&039;Go, then," Yakim Douan replied cheerily ?But out to the Chezhou-Lei nrst Your duties here can wait"

Merwan Ma paused a moment and stared at his master, but then answered, es, God-Voice," bowed repeatedly, and shrank back out of the roorowled in frustration at his own carelessness He replaced >e chalice and wiped the blood from the floor, then moved out of the roo with every step

Merwan Ma knew, and he could not tolerate that He would reatly

Chezhou-Lei Shauntil stood at rigid attention before the Chezru Chief tain, the God-Voice, and now - given the disaster at the Mountains of Fire the failure and honorable suicide of the Kaliit - the only real authority ]efr in the proud warrior&039;s existence

"You understand the statement of your overnor of Dharyan," the warrior recited ?To drive the To-gai-ru from the city and reclaim it for you, then to pursue the rebels onto the steppes, under the leadership of Yatol Tohen Bardoh destroying the to you the head of this foul woai"

"You understand the truth of your mission?"

"As stated," the warrior replied, and he squared his shoulders and puffed out his massive, muscled chest

"Except that it is Carwan Pestle who is to serve as governor until a Yatol can be put in place"

"Because?"

"Merwan Ma will die in a battle"

Yaki such a coainst the Shepherd who had beco time that perhaps he had become too close to Merwan Ma, and now the incident at the chalice had sealed the young man&039;s fate, Yakim Douan simply could not take the chance that Merwan Ma had learned too much, for the mere existence of the hematite would daion was unbending on this point, that the geious articles favored by the heathen Abellicans in the north

Merwan Ma knew of the heuess at Douan&039;s connection with it That revelation, should the Shepherd ever uess the truth of Transcendence And that, of course, the Chezru Chieftain could never suffer to pass

Still, it bothered him more than a little to so order the death of Merwan Ma At least he was allowing the reat celebration of the life of Merwan Ma when the tragic news returned to Jacintha

"Leave as soon as the engines of war, and those designed to defeat the dragon, are prepared," he instructed the Chezhou-Lei ?On the road, your word is rule, as it remains even when Yatol Tohen Bardoh joins you after the recapture of Dharyan, on all matters military Yatol Tohen Bardoh un-derstands the value of the Chezhou-Lei, I assure you He knows his place in this ugly business" The last words sent a shiver along Yakim Douan&039;s spine Indeed, Yatol Tohen Bardoh kneell thea conquered people

Douan had pulled the ai, not because he was effective, but because he seeiven the sudden turn and the utter stubbornness of the To-gai-ru, uan wondered if he hadn&039;tthe brutal man Tt didn&039;t matter, he told himself and he waved Chezhou-Lei Shauntil out f his private room He had other matters to attend - primarily the selec-lon of a new personal attendant, one ould watch over hi that he had to get rid f Merwan Ma had the Chezru Chieftain co so close to the rief at having him killed, but because he had not bothered to seed the pool of potential replaceain, it didn&039;t matter, he told himself Transcendence was a couple of years away, at least, and in that tier to assuradeleous watched theforce with a mixture of awe and amusement Never had any of them seen such an array of sheer poith thousands of ines, fro ballistae This was the power of Behren, the ai and that kept the often ie Abellican monks, at bay

"And so I see why you chose not to defend Dharyan," Juraviel said to Brynn Indeed, Brynn had taken her entire force out of the city soon after sending the refugees down the eastern road toward Jacintha The To-gai-ru warriors hadin the desert, while Brynn and the others had come there, just east of Dharyan, to view the response fro," the wo with that assessment