The silence was broken suddenly by outraged laughter.
“Humans? A great empire?” Belag roared, his large hands grasping at his belly as he laughed uncontrollably.
“Ooh! Fear the terrible two-armed beast!” Ethis hooted, throwing his four arms up in mock alarm. “The brittle-boned warrior in his might!”
“Hey, stop it,” Thuri said through an irrepressible grin that broke into laughter as well. “It’s not. . it’s not that funny.”
“Their empire is probably invisible, too,” Belag snorted loudly, his side beginning to hurt. “The gods know their hordes of humans are not to be seen!”
“No, you don’t understand,” Jugar shouted into the hilarity that swirled around him. “I can prove it to you! I can show you. .”
“Show us your invisible kingdom?” Ethis nearly choked.
“We’re probably in it right now, eh, Thuri?” Belag shook with laughter. “What a fool!”
Jugar sighed and caught sight of Drakis.
The human was not laughing, but rather staring angrily back at the dwarf.
“I can show you,” Jugar said emphatically to Drakis, his words nearly buried by the laugher that still rang around him. “Believe me, I can show you!”
But Drakis just turned and walked into the complete darkness that had finally fallen over the meadow.
The lightning edges of the fold flashed as Drakis stepped through onto the floor of the small temple. It was a minor community fold that served the local Houses of the Icaran Frontier-the farthest reaches of the Imperial Western Provinces. Three weeks and a lifetime ago, Drakis had marched into this same fold with over eighty of the House Timuran Centurai.
Now he stepped down the wide treads again onto the same tall grasses and low undulating hills. The gentle, early morning breeze drifted across the slopes, rustling the young wheat in the fields that surrounded him. Drakis drew in a deep breath, taking in the familiar smells of the dewy earth and the faint tang of the seashore to the south that lingered in the air. His field pack was suddenly lighter.
He longed to hold onto the peace he felt and linger in its embrace for a few moments more.
“So this is where you are kept a slave, then?” the dwarf said quietly, his voice sounding harsh in the morning stillness.
“No, dwarf,” Drakis sighed with contentment. “This is my home.”
He looked back at his companions. As chimera, Ethis and Thuri had no real faces for him to read, but Belag held his head high, the furrows of his broad brow now relaxed. The manticore, too, was glad to be home.
So few, Drakis thought, would return to share that joy. Less than half of his own Octian had survived, and the rest of their Centurai had fared little better. Part of him longed to return to the camps at the foot of the Aerian Mountains, to see to the Impress Warriors of his Centurai and bring what remained of them back to these same fields. But his orders from the Tribune were unequivocal-and in the morning air he was satisfied that it was so.
Drakis glanced back through the fold. The liquid image of the previous marshaling field-a small plaza surrounding the crystal pillar of an Imperial Aether Well-still had several Centurai trying to sort themselves out through the various folds around the open courtyard.
Drakis turned his back on the war and smiled again. It was easy to discern the sets of parallel House totems-planted by the House mages and much smaller than the Imperial versions-marking the paths from the temple to the various dispersed Houses of the settlement. Drakis did not hesitate, choosing one of the paths and starting between the fields of knee-deep green blades of the young wheat toward the top of one of the low, undulating hills surrounding them.
The dwarf frowned, struggling to keep up as well as peer over the sea of stalks that suddenly surrounded him. “Are you sure this is the right path?”