The elders' song grew louder yet. Pa K'un felt he could not stand it a moment longer. He must clap his hands over his ears, he must scream, he must leap up and break the circle. He must stop this. It was wrong, wrong. The song would tear the world open. It would shatter night and day around them. It was too huge, too loud, too terrible to be contained.

The emperor shot to his feet, and in that exact moment, the Phoenix rose from the altar.

It was dazzling. It shone like the sun as it lifted its wings, each feather a tongue of flame. The blue of the heart of the flame burned in its eyes. Pa K'un felt he would be blinded if he looked too long, but he could not turn his face away from the power and the unearthly beauty of this creature that rose, graceful as smoke, into the night sky, dimming the stars themselves with its blaze. It uttered one cry that pierced Pa K'un's ears through to his heart, and it flew, a star of impossible proportions rising from earth instead of falling from the heavens, toward the north.

Only when its blaze had faded could Pa K'un breathe again. He fell back on his chair, his strength gone. The afterimages of the Phoenix flickered brightly across his vision. Sometime, he could not have said when, the elders had ceased to sing. They clasped hands now, bowing toward the empty altar. There were only eight of them in that circle. Xuan, the Minister of Fire, was gone.

Pa K'un gathered himself back into the approved position of calm reflection, then, he too bowed toward the empty altar.

Thank you, Xuan, for your sacrifice. Thank you, immortal one, for answering our call. If there is a price, I will pay, but I beg you, burn these invaders from our door.

As his prayer winged skyward, a fierce cry echoed in the distance. Pa K'un knew then he had been heard, and he could not help but tremble.

Chapter Nineteen.

The white crane soared through the sky. The long plains passed beneath it, giving way to rolling hills and ragged mountains. Inside the crane's shape, the man, Yamuna, reveled in the freedom of his flight. Despite the cold of the bottled curse he carried around his neck, his heart was warm.

He remembered the day he took his oath to the Pearl Throne, and how heavily the words fell from his tongue. He remembered watching the sullen, petulent boy he was bound to serve and wondering how the old emperor could bear to call that his son.

Soon. Soon I will be transformed forever. Soon the Mothers will answer for my fate.

Avanasy sought his friend Peshek. So too did Yamuna. Last night, as he rested, his scrying showed him Peshek lurking in the woods of a mountain pass, getting ready to commit his own treasons. Avanasy would find him there. So too would Yamuna.

When they all met, it would be the beginning of the end.

"Majesty?" General Adka stepped into the dim imperial tent and knelt. Dawn was still too far off to bring any warmth to the air and his breath steamed in front of him, a white cloud in the flickering light of a single brazier. No servants were present. The emperor himself was nothing more than a shadow beside the dark lump of the bed.

"Adka. Is the decamp proceeding?" The emperor's voice was harsh with fatigue, and something else Adka could not fathom.

"Yes, Majesty. We should be able to move before full light." The order had come hours ago, delivered by the emperor's chief secretary. Over Colonel Gavren, Adka's second-in-command, had gone to the imperial tent to make sure his majesty was informed as to what the coming day would bring, and had returned with a surprising and disturbing order.

Emperor Kacha wanted no scouts sent forward. The army would move out without hesitation, and without information.

So, here Adka knelt, perplexed, and more than a little concerned. No one had seen the emperor in days. He had taken to traveling in a curtained litter and barking out his orders in a strangled voice. Worry was growing among the men, and among the officers as well.

Adka understood the caprice of emperors. His imperial majesty was a young man at his first command. A nonsensical order or two was to be expected. But his absence from camp and council was spreading unease, and the desertions continued, despite the increased patrols on the perimeters of the camps and the marching columns. It was time to get some solid reassurance he could take to his officers and set percolating through the camp as a counter to the rumors that had been building since they left Ontipin.

Adka kept his voice low and humble. "Imperial Majesty, we will be entering the Pass of Padinogen today."

"You wish to give me a lesson in geography, General?" The shadow that was the emperor moved in the darkness, but Adka saw nothing he could clearly identify as a gesture to stand, so he remained on his knees.

"No, Majesty. I only wished to confirm the order to proceed without the scouts."

"They will only delay us." The emperor's voice shook a little as he spoke. "We must make all speed to the plains. Hung Tse is surely on the move. We are still in Isavalta. No one opposes us here."

"No, Majesty," Adka said. He did not ask if the emperor had forgotten those lords and lords master who had failed to send their levies to join the troops. "But there is an additional possibility ..."

"I am not interested in possibilities, General, only speed."

"Yes, Majesty. However ..."

With three deliberate steps, the emperor strode out of the shadows, and Adka saw him fully for the first time in days. He saw the round black eye that should not have looked out of any human face, and the skinny hand so grotesquely twisted into a parody of a bird's skinny claw.

"What are you gawking at, General?"

He had thought it might be drink that slurred the emperor's voice, but now that Adka saw his face, he realized it must be pain.

"Is something wrong with my coutenance?" the emperor demanded.

As a soldier, Adka had looked on horror before, and knew how to keep his voice steady. "No, Imperial Majesty."

"I am glad to hear it." The emperor half-turned, hiding his ghastly right side in the shadows again. "March the men on as soon as they can hoist their packs. Nothing is going to delay our victory, do you understand me? Nothing."

Adka drew himself up. He served the imperial house. He had his orders. But he also served Eternal Isavalta. He swore to protect the land with blood and bone, as Vyshko and Vyshemir had. That oath necessitated he try just once more.

"We have made good time. Our best estimates put us a week ahead of the Hung. If His Imperial Majesty wished to ... rest for a day or two, it would lose us no more than ..."

"You will not question me!" The emperor swung around, raking the air with his twisted hand.

Now, Adka saw beyond the pain to something else. The young man who was emperor of Eterna Isavalta was terrified. The smooth, calculating assurance that had been his since he came as a boy to Isavalta had vanished. He had no idea what he was going to do or how he was going to do it. His only thought was to push forward and hope he broke through. But to what?

Cold inside, Adka drew himself up and gave the soldier's reverence.

"All will be as His Imperial Majesty commands."

"You may go." The emperor shrank back to the shadows again.

Adka left the tent before he had to look again on the emperor's transformed face. He walked through the chaos of the camp - the shouts, the clatter, the men scurrying about like ants - without seeing any of it. His mind instead ran back and forth over the encounter with the emperor, and what he had just seen.

"Well, General, what do we do?"

Over Colonel Gavren had come up beside him, and Adka hadn't even noticed. He thought on the rocky pass that waited ahead of him. He thought on the black, birdlike eye, on the twisted hand, the pain and the terror, and the fact that the emperor could have him killed instantly for disobeying his orders, and in pain and panic as he was, he just might. Something had happened, something bad that stank to the sky of magic. He needed a sorcerer and he had none to ask. The emperor did not permit any to be brought on the campaign. Once again, Adka found himself wondering why.

Adka made his decision. "Get the baggage train moving immediately. Put the lightest possible guard on it. Bring the imperial litter right behind, again, lightest possible guard. Keep as many of the men back as you can for as long as you can. Make sure the runners are ready to keep communication with the head of the train."

He watched Gavron's eyes flick back and forth as he absorbed the order. He saw the questions rise in the man's mind, and knew that the over-colonel was far too good and disciplined a soldier to voice any of them.

Adka gripped the man's shoulder briefly. "Let us work toward seeing the sun down today. Tonight, we will talk further."

Gavren laid his hand over his heart and without another word turned to march back toward the baggage carts.

Adka struggled to muster his own discipline, but part of his mind was heavily occupied with an old prayer he had learned when he first came into the service.

The child came from the womb. It had no mind, no eyes, no will, no wicked heart. So may the fates of war have no mind, no eyes, no will, no wicked heart against me, Adka, faithful servant of Vyshko, Vyshemir and Eternal Isavalta.

But the prayer brought no comfort, and Adka shivered as he set himself to his work.

Peshek watched the columns of blue-coated men marching east, and swore. He had been right in many ways. As it was, Isavalta's navy could not seriously challenge Hung Tse's, at least not at first. Kacha meant to start this war on land. He was hurrying his troops to the place the Isavaltans called Miateshcha and the people of Hung Tse called Erh Huan. It was a narrow peninsula of land that stood between the two empires. Mostly flat plain, with few difficult mountain ranges, it had been in Isavaltan hands, or in Hung Tse's hands, or in the hands of its own people on and off since time immemorial, fought over, invaded, taken, re-taken, laid waste again and again. Its advantage to Kacha at this moment was that he could get Isavaltans to march there faster than the Hung Tse emperor could. Now the emperor could surely sail troopships up the coast, but if Kacha had not already started hiring pirates to harass any such attempts, he was an utter fool, which, unfortunately, he was not.

Put that together with what Peshek knew of the reinforcement of the garrisons on the coast, and the strategy became clear.

Kacha would attack the peninsula defenses swiftly, making short inroads and digging in before winter came. The Hung Tse, unable to maintain a winter siege, would get what they could through the pirate harassment and attack the Isavaltan coast. Having thus tied up and weakened Hung Tse's navy, which was their true strength, Kacha would, come spring, start the real press, on land, down the Miateshcha peninsula, and up from the south. Because, by next year, his father in Hastinapura would be brought into the battle, and Hung Tse would be facing its worst nightmare. They would be besieged from north and south, and for all the size of their lands, they would not be able to survive that for long.

The only question truly was, did the Heart of the World realize yet what was happening to them? And if they did, what would they do? The armies of Hung Tse, Peshek did not fear overmuch. He was a soldier, and he had faced them. Isavalta could match them, not easily, perhaps, but it could be done, but the Nine Elders would not be idle, and their powers ... Isavalta had nothing to match that, and how then would those men down there suffer? The Nine Elders were said to be able to call down armies of demons from the clear blue sky, or to be able to open the earth at your feet and swallow you whole.

It was this thought that steeled Peshek toward what must be done. They had to attack the army on the march, and inflict heavy damage doing it. The only place they could do that was while the marching men were confined within the pass, because this was the only place where he and his followers could create advance preparations unseen. On the other side of the pass waited Raichik's plains, and they would have to move to much more dangerous night raids, swift hit-and-run efforts. That would harry and annoy, but would inflict minimal actual damage, even though Lord D'rno was promising them help in the form of two score of his famous horses. If they were going to strike a true blow, here and now was when it must happen.

Peshek squinted toward the east. The masses of men were thinning, giving way to the slower and more cumbersome supply and baggage carts.

This was wrong. These were Isavaltans. These were members of the house guard, whose only crime was obeying the orders that had come down from the imperial hand.

Peshek crawled backward from his perch to where Ferin waited for him. Ferin's raised eyebrows asked the only question there could be, and Peshek's nod gave the only answer needed.

They had chosen this overlook because it was heavily forested. It gave them cover for when Kacha's advance scouts rode through, and it gave them the raw materials for their work. Ferin raised his hand in signal to the nearest crew of men, and that signal traveled all down the ridgeline. The men crouched behind the great piles of pitch-and resin-soaked brush that they had spent the past few days gathering. Each team set to work with their flint and steel, starting up a tiny fire, little more than a spark on the end of a taper.

Peshek raised his hand. Ferin raised his. Peshek flattened himself down, and scanned the pass. The first of the baggage carts passed under the first of the waiting brush piles. He could hear the faint echo of the driver cursing the mules as they struggled with the stony ground. At last, the beasts pulled him clear of the obstacles. A knot of boys ran up and began clearing the stones away for the next cart. Peshek swallowed. He had forgotten the boys. How could he have done so? The second cart entered the pass, and the third, and the fourth.

Now. It had to happen now. Peshek closed his eyes, and swung his arm down.

He smelled the smoke instantly as the nurtured sparks were applied to the brush, with the pitch-soaked logs underneath. The crewmen scrambled back instantly and took up the long-handled pushes they had fashioned. The dry brush caught clean, clear and fast, the flames rising up and the heat reaching down.

The smell of it was strong, and reached the bottom of the pass quickly. Heads rose, and spied the fire, and voices shouted out, but the carts could not be quickly turned, and no archers were in position, and Peshek gave the signal to Ferin, and Ferin gave it to the men.

They pushed the piles of tarred and burning brush down onto Kacha's baggage train. The burning bundles fell like stars, trails of sparks shining in their wakes. For a moment, it was beautiful.

Then the burning mass landed at the feet of the mules, who reared and stamped, struggling at their traces and screaming in their mindless, animal voices. Horses bucked and ran, beyond the control of any rider. The fire fell onto the carts, which erupted with fresh flame at once. It fell on the heads and backs of the men, who screamed even louder than the animals and threw themselves to the ground trying to smother the flames, and then it spread to the boys, who, lacking any experience or discipline, simply ran, and took the fire with them down the train. The stench soon grew worse than the screams.

But there was no time to wait. Already the fire crews had retired, making their retreat to the rendezvous. A man had Peshek's horse and he mounted swiftly, charging down the ridgeline to join the other raiders cascading down the shallower pass toward the far end of the train. Someone among Kacha's men had organized a response, and arrows flew up toward the raiders, and were met with an answering volley from Peshek's own men. Lit torches flared in their hands, and pikes and swords were held at the ready.

He noted that absently, as the majority of his concentration was occupied trying to keep his horse and himself upright as they charged down a slope that was still steeper than he would have liked to see. The arrows whistled overhead, and the shouts of the hale and ready mixed with the screams of the burning.

"Medeoan!" shouted Peshek, and his men, as agreed, took up the cry. "Medeoan! Empress Medeoan!"

The litter rocked and tipped under him. Kacha pushed himself up on his good hand. Pain from the eye that strained to see coupled with the pain from the too-much wine he had drunk so he could find rest in the bottom of his cups.

"What is it!"

No answer came, only chaotic shouts and the maddened cries of men and animals. The litter swung this way and that and the horses neighed and balked. The smell of burning wood, and burning flesh, drifted through the curtains.

"What is happening!"

"Attack, Majesty!" answered some man. "Peshek and his deserters!"

Peshek. He dared.

Kacha curled his twisted hand. "Get me my sword!"

"Get His Majesty back!" barked someone else.

Voices shouted, men whistled and a whip cracked. The litter tipped again as the handlers attempted to back and turn the horses.

"Stop!" Kacha thrust open the curtains. "You will bring me my sword!"

Servants and handlers stood and stared, despite the rain of arrows, the rising flames, and the rush of men and beasts all around them.

Kacha climbed out of the litter, landing heavily on the rocky ground. "My sword, and if I have to ask again it will be over your corpse!" he bellowed at the nearest servant. I will not cower in here. I am Emperor!

The man ran. Kacha did not bother to watch him go.

"Medeoan!" the wind brought the cry along with all the sounds and scents of burning, "Empress Medeoan!"

Damn them. Damn her. "Where is General Adka?" he demanded of the nearest soldier. "What is the situation?" I will take command. I am the Emperor. Yamuna be damned as well, wherever he has gone.

The man opened and closed his mouth several times as he gaped at Kacha's ruined eye, but endeavored to pull himself together.

But before he could speak, there came a new sound overhead - a scream the size of the whole world, as if the heavens themselves had been wounded.

Kacha looked up in time to see his own death streaking down from the sky.

They poured down the slope into the baggage train. The flames roared high in the narrow pass, cutting the baggage train off from the majority of the army. Peshek rode hard down the line, swinging his sword at those who challenged him, knocking them off balance or out of the way, long enough for the men behind him to thrust their torches into the baggage carts and spread the fire further yet.

"Medeoan! Empress Medeoan!"

Shouts, flames, screams of horse and man, all blurred into one incomprehensible roar. The smells of tar, wood and flesh assailed his nostrils, and the smoke stung his eyes and wrung tears out to trail along his face. Heat pounded at his back and right side. The guards in the train managed to assemble themselves for their own charge. Screaming their own battle cries, they rode head-on into Peshek's company.

Peshek could spare no thought for what was happening behind him. Men reared up before him, swords or pikes jabbing and slashing, and it was heat and noise, and only instinct and reflex to keep him alive.

Fight through, fight through, fight through. The words sang in his mind as he slashed at the men he should have been fighting beside. He pushed his horse forward, wading through the fray. Fight through! That was the order, that was the plan. Fight through and get out the other side, and run for it. Ignore the screams, ignore the way your arm is beginning to ache, don't see the faces, see the weapons, knock them aside, thrust, parry, hit hard, take down the horse and the man goes with it, ignore the arrows, ignore the flames, ignore the screams ...

All at once the way in front of him opened to the sloping and stony apron that was the mouth of the pass, and Peshek drove his knees into his horse's sides. The animal launched itself forward, streaking free down the remaining slope, galloping hard to leave the smells of smoke and battle far behind.

Peshek found himself grinning. He sheathed his sword and gripped the reins with both hands, hearing the other hoofbeats behind him.

They'd done it, they'd done it. They'd done serious damage to the baggage train; they'd slowed the march while the fire was dealt with and the damage assessed. They had maybe weakened Kacha's force, not just by the dead and wounded they'd left behind, but by the men who might be sent out to find them.

If they were pursued, let it be so. They could deal with any such, especially if they were given a moment to talk, to show their proofs and make their pursuers believe. Then they would be that much stronger, and Kacha that much weaker.

"Vyshko's name! What is it!"

A heartbeat after he heard that shout, the whole world changed. The light turned orange. A rush like the roar of the sea filled the sky, accompanied by a scream that grated Peshek's bones and left him deaf. Then all was heat and a light of blood and brass overhead. Peshek tried to rein in his horse, but the animal bucked and fought, and it was all Peshek could do to keep his seat. He looked up, and the heat beating down from the sky felt as if it would singe his face.