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The sparking white electricity lit him. The gemstones in his crown sparkled as though they were living things, bright with light.

The battlefield was silent, no one daring to speak.

“I am Dragon Chosen Emperor Tallu. I have defeated three imperial generals. I will reclaim my throne and hang their bodies from the walls of the Mountainside Palace. Unless you would like to join those traitors in their fate, bow before me.” His voice carried across the desert, as though the wind itself wanted to make clear that Pehine’s men should listen.

With a thrusting motion, he sent the electricity into the air, blasting a line of brilliant white into the sky.

A few men lowered themselves to the sandy ground, then more, then the entire unit. Commander Rede immediately picked out the leaders, telling his men to bind their wrists and take them into captivity with the nobles that had been captured.

From a distance, the elephants trumpeted, “Have you won?”

“Come back,” I called.

The ground shook as the elephants returned. I let Commander Rede make the arrangements, let him decide how to manage the new influx of trained imperials. Asahi stood at my side as I watched the imperials and goblin slaves climb down from the backs of the elephants. It was slow going. The massive platforms the elephants wore on their backs could hold dozens of men.

When the last of them was off, I asked Storm Survivor to lower himself so that I could examine the collar around his neck. The other two elephants came close, nervously asking what he was doing, and I had to introduce myself all over again, glad that Asahi was keeping most people away from me.

Storm Survivor got down on his legs, thrown off balance by the platform. The other two elephants had to help him stay steady with their trunks so he didn’t fall. As I came close, I patted his skin, the way I might a nervous wolf, trying for kindness, but sure I was coming off as patronizing, a child reassuring an adult.

I didn’t like what I found. The collar around his neck had bitten into the skin. Underneath I could see the flesh was worn away. When we pulled it off, I was sure there would be sores and blood.

The lock itself was twice as large as my hands, but I reached in my pocket and found two thin pieces of metal I had on me in case I needed to pick any locks in Lord Pehine’s estate. Inserting one, I bent the other, testing the lock until it clicked open.

“This is probably going to hurt,” I warned Storm Survivor.

“Do it,” he said.

With Asahi’s help, I pushed the collar open, and the flesh underneath was worse than I had imagined.

“Oh, no,” said a small voice beside me. “No.”

It was a goblin, with her horns sanded down, the stumps decorated with bronze inlay. Her face was wrinkled, her ears creased, although it was difficult for me to tell her actual age, given how little I knew about goblins in general.

“Is there anything that can be done?” I asked, thinking of the miracle concoctions that Nohe had been making in the jungle.

“I am not sure,” the goblin said. “If it has poisoned his blood, then he will die. Can you get the other collars off?”

I looked at the other two elephants, smaller than Storm Survivor, but still frighteningly large.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s do that.”

Twenty-Two

It took time to remove the other two collars, and when we were done, I sent one of the men for Nohe as the goblin soothed the elephants.

“Should we take off their platforms?” I asked.

“Do you intend to use them?” The goblin put her hand on one elephant’s closest leg, coaxing it until she could check the bottom of its foot, cleaning away debris and coming away satisfied that there weren’t hidden injuries.

“Use them?” I asked.

“You claimed to want to travel into the Ariphadeus. You claimed to want to help the goblin tribes stop General Bemishu. If you intend to enter the sands, you will need elephants.” The goblin looked at me, and I got the feeling that she was much older than I had initially assumed. “I heard that you spoke to Xuetie in our tongue.”

Startled, I realized that I had been communicating with her in her own language. Had I been talking to Xuetie in one of the Ariphadi languages without even realizing it? This was more than an expansion of animal speak. Animal speak was one magic I knew intimately well, and this—communicating in another human language—was not animal speak.

My stomach roiled, going tighter as I thought through the issues involved.

The goblin seemed unaware of my turmoil. “Xuetie is a fool, but you cannot blame her. One can only be broken so many times before it becomes permanent. Even the sands of the desert eventually harden into rock.”