Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts) by Holly Lisle Read Free Book Online Page A

where smaller forces had defeated greater ones. Somewhere in the past, someone she’d studied about had found himself in a similar situation, and had managed to survive. In most of the cases, like the Brejmen defeat of the Cathomartic hordes or the Marepori repelling the Jast invaders, the smaller force was better-armed and better-disciplined.
    With the right terrain and the right weapons and plenty of time to prepare, Kait thought the three of them might have had similar success. But without those advantages . . .
    There is always a way to win,
General Talismartea had written in his masterwork,
The Warrior’s Book. If you are willing to redefine winning.
    Ian had defined winning as taking over Ry’s ship and forcing the crew to sail back to Calimekka. But she knew that even if she and her friends could wrest control from the captain, they’d have a hellish time keeping it—and if they lost it, they were dead. But what if they didn’t need to be in charge to win?
    She had to redefine winning. They won if all of them got back to Ibera alive and free, with the Mirror of Souls in their possession. That was the only thing they had to have.
    If they didn’t have to take over the ship and control it for months, they were free to consider any form of safe passage as winning. They couldn’t hope to have safe passage given to them. But they might hope to demand it.
    How?
    An idea came to her. She’d have to get Hasmal and Ian on her side, though she suspected from his reaction to Ry’s name that Ian wouldn’t like her proposal. Then she’d need subterfuge and negotiating skill and a bit of Hasmal’s magic and more than a touch of luck to make it work. She found herself wondering if her years of diplomatic studies would serve her as well as even a day’s worth of real experience. She closed her eyes and breathed in the ash-scented air, and hoped she’d learned as much as she thought she had.
     
Chapter 6
    A fter three days in which Ry had become more and more certain that Kait was dead, the tiny flashes of energy that linked him to her suddenly reappeared. He couldn’t guess what had happened to her to make her disappear, and he wouldn’t try. He was satisfied to discover that she was still alive, and better yet, that she was close. Incredibly close.
    When the
Peregrine
marooned her, he’d seen through her eyes that she was not alone, but he didn’t know if any of those who had been with her had survived. He wished he could get another glimpse through her eyes, so that he could see what he was heading into, but she was wary, holding her magical shields as tight around herself as a woman would hold her cloak in a blizzard. Only flickers broke through to guide him to her; he suspected that she hid herself as much from the dangers around her as from him, but he couldn’t touch her mind, so he wasn’t sure.
    At the moment when the tug he felt from her ceased to be “ahead” and became “beside,” he was standing at the prow of the
Wind Treasure,
anxiously watching the coastline that ran by off the port side of the ship. He wouldn’t have been able to explain to the captain or any of his friends how he knew that the ocean had brought him as close to her as it could, but he did know. So he shouted, “Here! This is the place. Go inland here!”
    The captain sailed through smoke-laced fog into the bay and dropped anchor.
    For the first time, Ry saw the place where Kait hid. Rain-washed ruins dotted the burned hills and cliffs that rose out of the bay on all three sides. Not a single tree, not a single blade of grass or scrawny shrub, offered reprieve from the sea of black ash that covered the ground. In his travels, Ry had seen the aftermath of a volcanic eruption; what he saw before him reminded him of that.
    He stared at the bleak panorama and smiled slowly. Kait’s city of the Ancients lay before him. Such cities existed in Ibera, as well. But an Ancients’ city that had not been known for at least a hundred