Dogged the obsidian path, p.24
Dogged (The Obsidian Path), page 24
“Saath,” I said. “That was the emperor’s dragon.”
Had he returned to crush the mages or had some other demonologist risen to take his place? I wasn’t sure how I felt about the latter possibility. I wanted the Wizards’ Guild punished but couldn’t imagine serving any other than the Demon Emperor. Some people could be replaced. Different men and women had cooked our meals and cleaned our kennels over the years. They came and went, and we rarely bothered to learn their names. But the emperor… He was like Balen. There was only one. No one could ever replace Balen.
A war raged overhead. I heard the meaty impact of two massive horror lizards colliding and steaming blood rained down on the jungle. There were people up there too, riding the dragons of both sides. Wizards loosed magefire and demonologists called foul creatures to this world. Unfortunately, the reptilian stench overpowered the scent of humans, and I couldn’t be sure if my emperor had returned.
Despite my hatred of climbing, I wanted to clamber up a tree to get a look and join the battle, if possible. Maybe I could throw something if one of the dragons flew low enough.
Hugging herself much like she’d hugged me, Sahar looked small and fragile. If I abandoned her, she’d die here, even if one of the dragons didn’t kill her. Last time, she’d had a lumbering earth elemental to scare off all the things that wanted to eat her. Without proper supplies and preparation, she wouldn’t last in the jungle. She carried within her all that remained of my friend.
I darted a look at the hidden sky, wondering if my emperor was up there. If he was, my duty was clear. Even if he wasn’t personally here, those were his demonologists—representatives of his empire—fighting the mages.
I hesitated, wrestling with a question that had no answer.
I served the Demon Empire.
I’d obeyed Nhil because he was a representative of the emperor.
Whoever fought the wizards, they too served the same empire.
My duty was clear: fight the mages.
The emperor’s presence—or the lack of it—changed nothing.
And still I hesitated.
A Sofame never abandons a friend.
Balen never abandoned me and abandoning him was unthinkable.
If a part of him, no matter how small, lived on in Sahar, I couldn’t leave her either.
Compared to the empire, one life was nothing; not mine, not hers.
I had to leave her—I had no choice!—and I couldn’t leave her.
My thoughts spun in circles, a wardog pup chasing the tail it would never catch.
‘Break it into bite-sized chunks,’ I heard Vigilant Aggression say. ‘Stop trying to eat the whole thing at once.’
I could climb a tree—assuming I didn’t fall out of it—and throw my sword at a passing dragon, but nothing I did from down here would change how the battle above ended. Normally, this wouldn’t matter. I’d climb the tree and hurl my sword because not doing so was unthinkable. Wardogs fought whether or not they thought they’d win. But now, if I stayed with Sahar, I could have a real impact on her chances for survival. Barring being crisped by dragons, even in my wounded state there wasn’t much in this jungle I couldn’t kill.
‘You always have a choice,’ my mate said. ‘Sometimes you eat the thing you’re supposed to eat and sometimes you eat the thing you want to eat.’
Like stew with pepper.
I effortlessly lifted Sahar to her feet, and she stared up at me in stunned shock.
“We have to go,” I said, gently turning her. “West.”
“The fire.”
I nudged her from behind to get her moving. “Won’t last long. Too wet.” When she started walking, I followed. “Decisions are like food,” I added.
“How so?”
“You don’t know if it was good until it’s too late and you’re pooping splintered bones, grey fur, and water.”
She made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a snort.
Soon after, we reached a line of steaming mud and smouldering ash cutting through the jungle. I pulled Sahar to a stop and stepped past her to take a look. The sounds of aerial battle had faded, the fight ranging beyond the borders set by the mages’ attempt to trap us.
Looking up and down the length of the burned trench, I saw no threats. “Go!”
We dashed across the cleared area, the heat and stink of seared plants and burnt meat confusing my nose and pushed into the jungle on the far side.
I wondered if Thelm had been among the mages circling overhead and hoped she was the one I heard crash into the jungle. I would have prayed, but I’d seen enough gods fall to the Demon Emperor to know how pointless that was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
That evening we stumbled across a broad river and followed it west. Many wardog strides across, the water moved a little faster than Sahar walked. Enough large and dangerous things lurked beneath the surface that I stayed between her and the riverbank. Though I was happy to drink the water, wading in to dunk myself and swallow as much of the gritty stuff as my belly would hold, she worried it might be too polluted for her.
The next morning, after staring longingly at the river, Sahar said, “I need water, but we can’t stop to constantly dig seeps.”
“There are several plants which hold a decent amount of water,” I suggested.
“Have you seen any here?”
“No,” I admitted, embarrassed I hadn’t thought of that.
Seeing the dejected hang of my tail, she said, “Not to worry. I have a plan.” Sahar looked back the way we came. “Do you think they’re following us?”
“If they are, I can neither hear nor smell them.”
“Good.” She surveyed the jungle around us, nodding to herself. “This will work. I’m going to summon an earth elemental.”
Confused, I looked from the mud to the river. “Wouldn’t a water elemental be better?”
“Probably, but I only know earth and fire. Anyway, I’m not sure how wise it would be to attempt to bind a water elemental so close to such an ancient river.”
“With fire, you could boil the water.” I’d seen people do that before, and not just to make tea which smelled like the inside of a barn.
“I can pour dirty water into an earth elemental and command it to circulate it through its body. After a bit, I can ask it to expel the water—”
“You’re going to drink earth elemental piss?”
“I… I guess so, though that wouldn’t be my first choice of phrasing. The earth acts as a filter, much like digging a seep.”
I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Can you gather some vines and rocks for me?” she asked.
Remembering the big lumbering earth elemental who followed her when we first met, I set about tearing all the nearest vines from the trees, piling them up beside Sahar. A couple of them turned out to be rather upset snakes and I ate those, sometimes after being bitten. Once I had what I thought should be enough vines heaped in a pile, I set about collecting rocks. One of them, a fist-sized wedge of sparkly stone, squeaked in outrage and charged off into the undergrowth.
Because there were few things more fun than chasing fast-moving little stuff, I set off after it until Sahar said, “Let it go,” from behind me. “The feisty ones aren’t worth the trouble. Too difficult to bind. It’s easier when they’re sleepy.”
After that, I nudged each rock to check how tired it was. They were all fast asleep and ignored me, even when I shouted at them.
“That’s enough,” Sahar said as I deposited another armful of rocks and pebbles. Looking up, she blinked in surprise. “Your face! What happened?”
“Snake bit me.”
“Looks painful.”
It was. I shrugged one shoulder like I’d seen Balen do.
“Should we—”
“It’s fine,” I said.
Sometimes having a person’s attention on you was good—like when they were picking burrs from your fur or scratching your ears. But sometimes it was bad. I’d already suffered several debilitating wounds and had been hiding from my friend how bad they were so she wouldn’t think I wasn’t useful anymore. If she thought I might die from a few snake bites—two more swelling lumps were hidden beneath the fur of my left arm—she might decide she was better off without me.
“I’ve had worse,” I added, and that was true. Having your knees bent the wrong way hurt way more than any snake bite. “The swelling will go down soon.”
I hoped that was true. Hiding how much the wounds I’d suffered impeded my movement and ability to fight was easy; I ignored the pain and moved normally no matter what it cost. But there wasn’t much I could do about a swollen face.
Stupid snakes.
She rose from where she’d knelt and moved to stand before me. Like one of those little people pups who liked to tackle my legs, she stood so close I could smell her breath and hair and the subtle shift in hormones the pregnancy caused. Her face did something I didn’t like.
“Why do you look like that?” I asked, resisting the urge to retreat from her.
“I’m a little concerned.”
My tail sagged. That was bad. Anytime Sigaria said she was ‘a little concerned’ about one of us it meant we weren’t healthy enough to bring the emperor’s peace to a new world. It meant we had to stay home and heal until she decided we were useful again.
“I’m fine.” My head hurt. My heart hurt. All my other hurts stopped mattering, even the hot pain in my swollen face. “I can still fight.”
I’d said the wrong thing and now she looked even more concerned. “What?”
Was that why she wanted an earth elemental? A big thing made of rocks and mud could probably protect her as well as a wounded wardog.
“I’m still useful. I can still fight.” I wanted to howl, to slink away in shame. “Don’t send me away.”
Sahar tackled me. Or that’s what I thought until I realized it was another hug, just more forceful. Face in my fur, arms around my torso, she squeezed as hard as her little people arms could.
“Send you away?” she said, voice muffled in my fur. “I’m terrified you’ll leave me because I’m slowing you down. There were demonologists back there. That means the empire hasn’t completely fallen. I don’t know much about wardogs, but I know…” She shook. “But I know.”
She knew wardogs were born to die, and that we were born to die in service to the emperor. She knew the right thing for me to do was abandon her and return to PalTaq. She was right and yet…
“A Sofame never abandons a friend.”
She pulled back to look up at me, fingers still tangled in my fur. I wondered if I’d said the wrong thing. I wasn’t a Sofame.
“You’re not going to leave me?”
“Never.”
Even though I’d effectively promised that I would never again return to PalTaq and die in service to the emperor, the pain in my heart and belly subsided.
Sahar wasn’t going to send me away. I was still useful.
She darted a glance at my tail, which had begun a slow and pleased sway now that it knew I wasn’t going to be cast aside. Her eyes changed and I knew she was pleased.
“I’ll never send you away.”
I wanted to ask what would happen when I got old and slow but knew that would never happen. Then it hit me that, if I wasn’t serving the emperor, I might not die a good death in battle. Suddenly, old age was an unpleasant possibility.
It was such a strange idea, so utterly unlike any difficulty I’d ever faced or contemplated, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I was trapped. I couldn’t abandon my friend and couldn’t face the shame of dying old.
And so, I did what any wardog would do in that situation.
I stopped thinking about it.
Sahar disentangled herself from me, returning to her piled rocks and vines. I saw she’d also scooped armloads of mud into a knee-high hill.
“I need to focus,” she said. “No distractions.”
“I shouldn’t ask questions?”
She snorted a laugh. “Probably not.”
“Can I patrol the area?”
“That should be fine. Just don’t interrupt me unless it’s an emergency.”
She knelt by all the stuff we’d collected and started constructing a tubular thing of mud and stones, all held together by the vines. While she worked, I circled our small camp, checking the branches for snakes—preferably not the bitey ones—or anything that might distract her. Wardogs weren’t sneaky stealth hunters like cats. We didn’t skulk about in long grass. It was all about the chase. The most fun thing was leaping screaming out of the bushes and setting your prey dashing everywhere in a mad panic. If we’d been instructed to cull a certain type of animal for some reason, we’d look for the old and slow and kill those. If we were just having fun, we’d pursue the fastest. We didn’t always catch our prey but since we got regular meals at the kennel that hardly mattered. Like I said, the chase was everything. However, that didn’t mean we were incapable of being quiet. We were the emperor’s killers and sometimes, when facing mages or sorcerers or huge and vicious insects, you wanted to get nice and close before attacking so they didn’t have time to turn you inside out.
I didn’t make a sound, each step taken with care.
A cat would have been jealous.
I kept an eye and ear on Sahar while patrolling. Her previous earth elemental had been vaguely people-shaped, with two arms and legs and a blunt thing on top that was probably supposed to be a head. This one had none of that. It was a simple tube of mud and rock wrapped in vines. I guessed she intended to carry it rather than having it try to match our pace on stunted legs, which made sense. If all she wanted from it was clean water, there wasn’t much point in giving it limbs. It wasn’t like we had anything it could carry.
Sahar knelt in the mud, the thing she’d constructed lying before her. Eyes closed, hands held over the dirt tube, she chanted nonsense under her breath, a string of random syllables that seemed to repeat every score of heartbeats. Honestly, it didn’t look that difficult. Even with my paws and claws I thought I could have done at least as good a job crafting the elemental. Though wardog jaws, teeth, and tongues tended to turn the more sibilant sounds to slush, I thought I could make most of the same grinding and percussive sounds she made. I wished Vigilant Aggression were here to see this. He’d have memorized every step and then snuck off to try it himself at the first opportunity.
About to ask what the sounds meant and if she was speaking a rock language, I remembered her admonition not to disturb her. I decided I’d try to remember to ask her about it later. Maybe I’d even ask if she’d show me everything she did so I could try it myself. My mate wouldn’t be here to see it, but he’d have greatly enjoyed it if he were. No doubt my efforts would end in failure but that was hardly a reason not to try.
The weird tube of rock, mud, and vines squirmed on the ground, writhing as if it sought to crawl away, and Sahar’s voice rose in volume. Frustrated I wasn’t allowed to tell her to be quieter, I expanded my patrol circle, ears and nose alert for lime and olive oil. Extra frustrating was the fact I dared not stray too far in case the binding went wrong, or some jungle creatures came to explore the noise.
Checking in after another loop, I saw the vines squeeze tight like constrictors—they were tasty and it was funny when they tried to choke the life out of my arm—and mud squished out between the loops. The trapped rocks groaned in response, sounding much like the noises Sahar made in the back of her throat.
Finally, she dropped her arms and blew out a long breath. “It’s done.”
I returned to the camp, less careful now about how much noise I made. Considering she’d just worked magic, the result was remarkably unremarkable. Nothing looked any different than it had except now she was caked to the knees and elbows in dirt.
“It worked?”
“It did. Though this one was surprisingly stubborn. The last one I woke was happy to carry my stuff as long as it got to explore the world. This one was annoyed that I woke it and would only agree to filter water if I dismantled it when I was finished and left the various components somewhere pretty.”
“What does a bunch of mud consider pretty?”
“The vines want to be near a pine tree, which it considers exotic. The rocks want to be buried in clay, and the dirt didn’t much seem to care.”
I looked around, examining the jungle. “I haven’t seen any pine trees.”
“Me neither. I’ll keep the vines until I find somewhere suitable. It’s important to keep your promises.”
“What do we do next?” I asked. “Dunk it in the river so it can soak up some water?”
Sahar shook her head. “Water and earth barely tolerate each other when they’re asleep. Submerging an alert earth elemental into a river might anger either or both. We’ll put it on the shore, as close as we dare, and I’ll splash water on it until it’s full.” She cupped her hands and made little scooping gestures.
Since splashing was fun, I said, “I’ll go in the river. I can make big splashes and soak it much faster.”
As we weren’t far from the riverbank, I strode a few paces and stomped into the river until I was waist deep. While I ducked under the water, scrubbing myself to shed dirt, caked blood, and anything living in my fur, Sahar propped the little earth elemental upright against a tree. Once she’d backed away—apparently not everyone loves getting splashed—I began heaving great waves of water up onto the bank, drenching everything. Seeing there was a gap at the top of the elemental where the dirt was exposed, I realized that should be my target and adjusted accordingly. I soaked everything for several paces around the elemental, but most of the water landed atop it.
