Mercedes Lackey - Elvenbane

"I answer that challenge!" cried a female voice he did not recognize...though by Alara's start of surprise, she did. "Are you willing to fight to defend it?"

"Who speaks?" Keoke called impatiently. "Who answers the challenge?"

"I do!" replied the same voice, and the dragons crowded around Keman moved aside to let the challenger through. For one moment, as the young female dragon pushed and shouldered her way to the front of the crowd, Keman did not recognize her, she had changed so much since he had left. But then her coloring, a certain sullen look in her eyes, and the petulant cast of her features gave her away.

"Myre?" he said, bewildered.

"What, you didn't think that your sister would have the sense to see what a fool her brother is?" Myre sneered...sounding very like Rovylern. She cast a sideways, guilty glance at Alara, but did not show any sign of backing down. Instead she remained exactly where she was, feet planted stubbornly, spinal crest signaling her aggressive intentions. "The halfbloods have no call on us," she said scornfully. "No two-legged animal does. Your brain has gone soft, brother, to think that we owe anything to animals. The Kin serve only the Kin. The Kin answer only to the Kin. That's the way it should be."

:.After you left, Rovylern changed his bullying from physical to verbal...and Myre left my lair and moved in with Lori and her son, and became every bit as much of a bully as he had been,: Alara told Keman quickly. :She and Lori are two of a kind, and with Rovylern lurking in the background, Myre can intimidate just about anyone. The only difference between Myre and Rovy is that she's careful never to be caught harassing anyone. I sometimes think,: she concluded bitterly, :that I gave birth to a changeling.:

"How do you challenge me, sister?" Keman asked mildly. "A physical contest would be blatantly unfair, don't you think?" Female dragons, once they matured, tended to be much larger than males, and Myre was no exception to that rule.

"Magic," Myre said, and Keman thought she had an odd, sly look to her when she said it. "Your magic against mine. Here and now."

"Done..." he said, without thinking...and realized from the smothered gasps around him that he had made a major mistake.

But it was too late to back out now...assuming he could have. A physical challenge was out...he was small even for a male, and Myre, though not yet at her full growth, was much bigger than he was...if he had turned down magic, what did that leave?

He leapt down from his rock to the ground, and faced her; the rest of the Kin cleared well away from the combat area...and he tried not to notice his mother's glance of despair as she moved back out of the way.

He had learned things with Shana she couldn't possibly know. He had an edge she couldn't guess. He would beat her. He had to.

But the sly expression in her eyes did not change as he braced himself for the first trial. "Let the combat begin..." said Keoke.

Ahhh!

Keman shuddered as another shock convulsed him, holding him upright, although he could no longer see and could hardly hear.

... got to hold on...it hurts...hurts ...

The sounds of the crowd of Kin were growing more and more indistinct, as he tried to break Myre's hold on him, and failed.

" Enough !" Keoke roared...it sounded as if his voice were coming from the other side of the universe...

The pain stopped, and Keman collapsed in a boneless heap into the dust; dimly hearing Myre's bugle of triumph, and no longer caring. He simply lay where he had fallen, head on one side, eyes closed, the bitter taste of defeat choking him, and no less an agony than the ache of his abused flesh.

He would live...in fact, in a while, he would be mostly recovered, for recovery from magically caused hurts came swiftly for a dragon. Right now he wasn't certain if that was what he really wanted.

He'd lost. He told Shana he'd bring back help...but he'd lost. Myre didn't even cheat; she didn't have to. The magic he knew was no match for combative Kin-magic. And that was all she knew.

If he had been in halfblood form, he would have wept.

How could he face them again? How could he go back to them and tell them that the help he promised wasn't coming?

But if he didn't go back...they wouldn't have even him.

He was exiled now beyond all recalling, as good as dead; if he were to approach anyone of the Kin, they would pretend he was not there.

He waited as sounds receded; as the last of the Kin left the arena, left the "dead one" to vanish discreetly. At least that would give him the privacy to pick himself up and take himself and his defeat away. Finally he opened his eyes, and slowly, aching in every fiber, got himself to his feet. He felt as if every scale had been separately hammered, then set on fire.

The canyon was completely empty; there wasn't even a hint that anything lived here. Somehow, that made him feel worse. Contrary to the Law, he had hoped that at least Alara would have stayed.

But...perhaps it was just as well. Now he was free to do whatever he felt had to be done. He would do it alone...but he need no longer fear the censure of anyone of the Kin.

You couldn't condemn a ghost, he told himself. You couldn't punish someone who was already dead. He didn't have anything else to bring Shana, so he would bring her what was left of his life.

Even though he was ready to give up, he would not begrudge her that. Whatever was left for him to do, he would. Even though it was probably not enough to save her.

He lifted his wings and spread them to the sun...and threw himself and his defeat into the cold, uncaring skies.

Alara climbed the back of the cliff to avoid being seen by any of the Kin. Right now, she was so angry that she could hardly think...she certainly wasn't going to be coherent enough to come up with a convincing lie.

Keman should be flying very slowly...and he would without a doubt have to stop fairly soon to make a kill. The fight would have left him terribly depleted. It shouldn't be too difficult to follow him.

She seethed with anger at the Kin of her Lair...at the Kin in general. Keman had been right; he'd been right since the beginning. His challenge should have been answered properly, with a responsible acknowledgment. The Kin should have protected him. It should never have come to trial-by-combat.

She reached the flat top of the cliff, and paused for a moment to rest and take in sun and the energy it supplied. She would need it; this was going to be a long flight.

The one thing that this sorry situation had done was to force her to set her priorities. What was the point of being shaman to a Lair full of bullies who did what they wished because no one stopped them, and cowards who abdicated their responsibilities because they were too lazy and too selfish to think of anything outside their own petty needs? What kind of a self-respecting shaman would remain in service to Kin like that?

What was important? To act on responsibilities, no matter what anyone else did. To do as Keman had done...stand up for what was right.

To stand behind the child who had the guts to do all of that, and shame to those who did not.

She climbed to the edge of the cliff, balanced there, and gathered herself for flight.

:Alara, wait.:

Alara stopped herself in midlaunch with a lurch, and turned to see who was behind her.

Keoke hauled himself laboriously up the cliff-face, and behind him, she saw the heads and snouts of a dozen others. She tightened her claws on the rocks and drew herself up stubbornly as they all climbed up over the edge and surrounded her.

"Don't try to stop me," she warned. "Keman was right...he's been right all along, and no stupid trial-by-combat with a bully is going to make him wrong. I'm following him, I am going to help him and my fosterling, just as I should have when he first ran away, and the Lair can just find itself another shaman. There is nothing you can say or do that is going to make me change my mind."