Blood Dawn

Timon could taste the fear laying like a fog over the streets and oozing from the buildings. It lingered in the back of his throat like the taste of bad blood. This city was not a cup he wished to drink from. Timon saw no children playing in the streets. The few people abroad walked quickly without meeting anyone's eyes, their cloaks pulled tight around them against the early autumn wind. A glance at his companions told Timon that they tasted fear also, as well as noticing its manifestations.

He had intended to spend several days here. Now he just wanted to get the flute, warn his father, and leave. No. He just wanted to leave. Timon wished he had brought Anksha; who could have told him much more than his own senses could. But she had remained behind to guard the estate and Isranon.

Something was out there, something none of his kind had seen in many millenniums. He needed to see it for himself, to make a judgment call on this, to take its measure. He was not a captain who ordered his myn into battle, but one who led. Until he had done so, he would not risk Anksha who might be the only one strong enough to stop it.

No one came to take their horses when they entered the mansion grounds. He signed to his companions to wait there, dismounted and knocked on the door. A servant Timon remembered answered. He turned haunted eyes to Timon.

"The master is in his garden," the servant whispered.

Timon nodded. The place was empty. As he passed the table in the great hall he saw that everything had been removed on it and in the middle were two objects: dried flowers, azaleas and jasmine. Amalthea to Jedrua. The code. They were to disperse and flee to Jedrua. Everyone had been sent away. Timon climbed the stairs to the rooftop garden and found his father.

Hoon sat on the bench beside his withered plants, staring out across the city. He remained sitting, as if unable to take his eyes from what he saw. "Timon! I was sending this to you today, but I see you've come for it instead. He picked up an envelope from a stack before him and handed it to Timon. "Turn around and go. I sent everyone away this morning that could be spared. The rest will go tonight."

Timon took the envelope. "What went wrong?"

"I don't know," Hoon said, sounding distracted. "The city has become flooded by sa'necari, lesser bloods, royals that I do not know. Several of my people have been killed."

Timon tensed. "People I know?"

"Zinzi. They left her head hanging from my gatepost with a note saying they knew me. Ulik has vanished and all his birds are dead. Galee is in the city. I feel her."

Zinzi. I should have confided in you. "Galee? Father, Galee was destroyed. The Twice-Born Son tore her head off." Galee had turned his father. Timon had wondered for centuries how long his father, Brandrahoon, could continue hiding from the vengeance of Dynarien, the Twice-Born Son. He sometimes felt as if that yuwenghau son of Willodarus, God of the Woodlands and Wild Creatures, was close to breathing down all of their necks. Sooner or later Dynarien and his twin sister Dynanna God of Cussedness and Perversity would come after all of them. The divine pair, warrior-brother and trickster-sister, were very dangerous. They had destroyed Galee. Surely she could not have returned.

Hoon finally looked up at his son. "There is something else in the city. Something that smells like a yuwenghau, but different." He stood suddenly, and seized Timon in a tight embrace. "Whatever happens, Timon, remember that I love you."

"I love you, too, father," Timon responded, struggling to Read the mon.

"There are fresh horses in the stable. Take them and get out."

Timon gazed into his father's eyes. When he released his father and left, his spirit felt troubled. His father's words hung in his mind like a proclamation of disaster. What smelled like a yuwenghau but wasn't? Irrfelghau? Oh, hells let it not be an irrfelghau, the dark opposite of the yuwenghau, the get of the hellgods. A sa'nekaryiane and irrfelghau both? Godwar. And my people with no gods to turn to.

GODWAR CENTRAL

Blood Dawn