Chapter Forty Nine: The Poisoned Light
(Artwork not my own, all rights go to stockcake.)
Peter rippled over the wreckage of the town of the Wizard’s Tower,
antennae twitching and waving. His hundreds of feet moved like waves
on the sea shore, propelling him forward. He flowed on to the road
and reared up, insect eyes scanning the area. He turned and ran up
the street like water. His antennae flicked over Quenril’s limp
form. After a moment he reared up again ad started whistling like a
steaming kettle.
His bug head swung
round as Bartholemew came waddling out of the darkness, Tasnar
hanging on as the giant lizard scrambled through the cluttered
streets. Tasnar slid off and came hurrying across the cobbles to
Quenril’s side. He visibly relaxed once he saw that Quenril was
breathing and uninjured, that the blood and other less pleasant stuff
coating him had belonged to werewolves and not himself. Peter
whistled, whilst Bartholemew blinked and flicked his tongue. Tasnar
pawed at his throat, pulling his cloak free.
“I have you
brother,” he muttered as he wrapped Quenril’s prone form in the
thick material, “I have you. Don’t you die on me tonight. Don’t
you dare.”
The crackling was
just back ground noise to him as he gathered his brother’s limp
body in his arms and struggled to lift him on to Bartholemew’s
back. The lizard flicked his tongue and then turned his head at
Tasnar’s tap, Peter scuttling along in their wake, peeping and
whistling quietly as his antennae flicked over the rubble and broken
road surface.
Tasnar turned his
head sharply as he heard the massively heavy steps behind him but it
was Lady Zilvra and her siege beast.
“Is he...?”
Lady Zilvra started.
“Quenril is
going to recover,” Tasnar interrupted, heedless of the dangers of
interrupting a women and a Matriarch no less. He had no strength to
care about that right then, “Sabal…” He stopped ad swallowed,
the vision of what his cousin had been reduced to swimming across his
vision and he shuddered, “Sabal… will not. Sabal… is for the
flames. I’m sorry. The… the werewolves got to him before…
before we could.”
He didn’t look
up at her, didn’t see her expression, didn’t see Estella embrace
her from behind. He heard the siege beast’s rumble shudder through
the air but he was too tired to look, staying sat on Bartholemew out
of sheer habit, his arms locked around his brother’s limp form
because he could not conceive of letting go.
The beasts marched
on to where Ulrich’s siege beast had started cleaning up the mess
of battle. It was surprisingly delicate about nipping the werewolf
corpses out from among the rubble before it flicked them to the back
of its throat and swallowed. That was when it wasn’t being fed by
Damned Souls who had already started the slow, cold, stinking job of
cleaning up the battle field.
There was the
sound of a slow surf on the shore as Valodrael followed them up
towards where Ulrich was crouched over Kaelin’s grandfather, knife
busy at work.
“A little damage
in the throat and over the heart but other than that it should look
preachy spread out on the floor once it has been cured,” Ulrich was
saying out loud to one of the Damned Souls which was watching him
work.
Estella watched as
she waited to climb down after Lady Zilvra and then she sniffed. She
could smell woodsmoke but it was stronger then chimney smoke usually
smelled.
“Fire!” Kaelin
screamed, “Fire!”
Amelia’s sodium
elemental weapon had been effective at destroying werewolves and
their unnatural derivatives but the fires she’d turned them into
were spreading through the wreckage and the flames crackled hungrily
as they spat sparks into the darkening night, crawling over shattered
timbers, broken barrels and splintered furniture.
“Bucket chains!”
Cyril cried from the battlements, “Bucket chains!”
Damned souls
turned their malformed faces from the business of cleaning up the
mess to scramble for pots, pans, buckets and barrels, some smashing
out windows to scramble through into unbroken houses to raid kitchens
for what they needed. Others dashed to the wells and started winching
on the windlasses, drawing up water from the deep wells, pouring it
out into every pot and pan held out to them.
Jeremiah pushed
off from the steps of the Wizard’s Tower’s deeply recessed door,
beating up into the night sky as the flickering orange glow grew and
pulsed, the voices of the fire growing towards becoming a chorus of
destruction. He liked that. Elisha had been another who had dared to
judge him for his worship of the One True God, if the fires now
claimed everything this Mastersmith had tried to build then it was
merely the Will of the One True God being done, his righteous
judgement being visited upon those who proved themselves unworthy by
their denial of the glory of the One True God. He tugged his beard as
he surveyed the south and east quarters of the Tower’s grounds. He
turned his head, catching the flash of orange out of the corner of
his eye.
Amelia seemed to
be fleeing, disappearing into the gloom over the Dead Swamp. It
surprised him , a little but she was a descendant of those who had
risen in wicked and sinful rebellion against the One True God so it
was hardly surprising that she herself was false. Without full and
complete submission without any boundaries to the Will of the One
True God there was no salvation, only selfishness, only sin and the
condemnation of damnation.
At the three
o’clock mark of the Tower’s grounds the goblins yelled ad
cringed, afraid and fascinated by the leaping twisting flames in
equal measure. They were lovely, so lovely, great billows of heat and
light that twisted like the veils of dancing figures. They swirled
and spun and spiralled, living things that coiled around their fuel
and devoured, lashing through the air, hunting for more.
The goblins yipped
and yattered, frightened of the fire but entranced by the light, the
warmth, the sparks shining, reflected in their eyes as their ears
flapped and twitched.
“Behold the
glory of the One True God,” Jeremiah smiled, swooping low, hovering
just above their heads, dragon fingered wings fannig the flames
higher, “Behold the purity of his cleansing Will. It is pleasing to
the One True God that the fires be fed with the worthless trash of
the unbelievers. Feed their bodies to the fire, consign them to the
flames. Send the burning higher so that all those that house a
rebellious spirit maybe cleansed from the surface of Hestia so that
she maybe a pure and perfect bride for her only proper master, the
One True God.”
The goblin
jibbered and jabbered, gazing up at hi, brows furrowed with confusion
and doubt. The story of how Stink-of-the-Midden had died warred in
their heads with the vision of the dragon they had seen hovering over
them as they fought the werewolves and how like giants they had felt
when they had done what the dragon had told them to do.
Jeremiah narrowed
his eyes, seeing their hesitation and then he smiled.
“Oh my God,”
he muttered, “The One True God of all the world. Grant unto me the
image needed to win these souls to your cause. Make it so that they
will pledge themselves to you body, mind and soul with no barriers
and no boundaries so that you may do with their eternal essence
whatever you wish. Grant me the power to make them bow wholly and
completely unto you. So may your will and your will alone be done.”
Even as he
finished the prayer the warmth spread from the books in the pocket at
the small of his back until it enveloped him whole.
“Dragon!” the
goblins squeaked and squealed, “Dragon!”
“Obey the one
true god,” Jeremiah proclaimed, “Feed the fire with those that
displease him. Prove that you are worthy of his love. He watches you,
tests you. Prove that you are worthy of his regard. Feed the unworthy
to the fire and cleanse Hestia of their presence, this is the will of
your god, the One True God.”
“Dragon!
Dragon!” the goblins squeaked and then, then they did as they were
told. They swarmed towards the carcase of the white werewolf they had
brought down and grabbed it, tugging and pulling against each other
as they ceased it. Gabbling and shouting and spitting, they somehow
managed to goblin handle the dead werewolf towards the fire even
while they argued and quarreled.
The stink of fur
going up in flames was rank and sour, making the eyes water. A goblin
squealed, flame licking over the back of a hand but the rest of the
swirling, squealing mob were busy laughing, dragging other pieces of
wood out of the wreckage, tossing them into the fire, squeaking with
glee as the flames claimed them and climbed higher.
The whooping
voices of damned souls suddenly echoed through the night. With a
thunder of wings, be that bat like, feathered or insectoid, two
squads of the malformed beasts dropped out of the sky, barking and
growling at the goblins, knocking both wreckage and further bodies
from goblin fingers, kicking away wreckage before it could ignite,
some of them physically grabbing goblins by the scruff of their necks
and hauling them away from the hungry flames.
Goblins squeaked
and squealed back, slapping away the hands trying to save them,
grabbing at the damned souls trying to corral the fire, trying to
herd it, pen it and control it, lashing out at the ones trying to
stop the folly of feeding a conflagration that was already out of
control.
Jeremiah spiralled
higher and smiled as the goblins turned on the damned souls. They
hadn’t managed to feed the fire that much but they were tying down
some of the ones who could have put the blaze out quite nicely. He
grinned wider as his wings caught the building updraft and he was
pushed into the sky without an ounce of effort. He winced as an ember
pinged off his wing membrane but it was a small price to pay to be
able to watch the goblins and damned souls fought in the streets as
the blaze grew around them and embers sheeted into the air, little
fire fly lights that winked and sparkled as they carpeted the
shattered road surface, melting into the strange black resin it had
been laid with and biting at any foot, paw, hoof or boot that stood
upon them.
Jeremiah flew off
into the night, leaving them to look after themselves. His god was
pleased with the chaos and destruction he had wrought but he still
had work to do. He was close, he was so close. He heard the whispers
of it. The locks were restored, the keys were in place. It would not
take much more to turn them but they still needed turning, there was
still a critical mass that needed to be reached. Then, then the world
would see the pure glory of the one true god and Jeremiah would be at
his right hand, his favourite servant, his first and greatest
disciple.
Behind him, almost
heedless of the fire beginning to roar and whip its tendrils around
them, the goblins screamed and swarmed, grabbing and pulling and
yanking at the damned souls trying to put out the fire. Long things,
short things, chimeras of man and elf and other people mixed with
snakes and rabbits, horses, bears and wolves. Beaked thing cawed and
croaked, things with feathers hissed, hooves clattered on stone as
damned souls strove to pull the goblins away from their single minded
drive to try and plunge themselves into the growing inferno or at
inferno or at least feed more fuel into its maw. The night turned
black and orange around them, a thousand stinging, biting embers on
the wind, little flames beginning to crawl up window frames and
across roof tiles.
At the nine
o’clock mark Kelin finished lashing a rope around a water butt, the
rope hanging in two long loops, the longer one trailing from the
bottom of the butt. The water splashed and plished into the great
barrel as a damned soul struggled to fill it.
“Are you sure
this will work?” it asked, the words coming from a human style
mouth in an inhumane face, its six arms not pausing in its work.
“Best shot we’ve
got,” Kaelin grunted, not meeting the eyes that looked at her
through secondary, smaller mouth, “Just keep filling that second
one.” She tensed and jumped, pushing down with her wings as hard as
she could. Every arm and chest muscle she had screamed in protest but
she dragged the load of water into the sky. She just clearer the roof
tops with her load but she didn’t need height, if anything the
lower the better as it would make the drop more accurate. She pointed
herself in the direction of the fire at the ten o’clock mark and
screwed her eyes shut, panting with the effort, soot catching at the
back of her throat. The heat hit her wings, lifted her and without
looking she let go of the shorter loop. The butt dropped, flipped and
dropped its load. “With a raging hiss steam rose, fire spat and
flames died. Kaelin turned and looked down. The fire was shrunken but
not out, leaning away from the damped ground, hissing and more
fitful. She drifted on, dropping, managing to summon enough energy to
make sure the butt didn’t crash and crack. She stumbled to her
knees as she landed gasping but she forced herself back up, shaking
off the other loop and reaching for the now full water butt.
“Shut it,” she
grunted at the damned soul as it opened its speaking mouth. She
hauled the new water butt into the air. As she fought for height she
saw Amelia lumber back into sight at the edge of her vision. Kaelin
frowned even deeper than effort and pain was making her do. Amelia
seemed to be in trouble, her flight unsteady and her belly heavy,
sloshing with the contents she’s swallowed.
The orange dragon
dived head down, dropping at a viciously steep angle towards the fire
that was flaring at the two o’clock mark. She flared her wings,
slamming into a break stop and the contents of her stomach slammed
forward. The noise was one part burp, one part burf.
The fire whined
and spluttered, roughly two thirds out and Amelia wobbled in midair,
gulping with discomfort.
“Ow,” she
muttered, “Ooph.” She struggled back to the level and turned back
to towards the pond she’d found in the Dead Swamp.
“I’m never
getting this taste out of my mouth,” she complained to the night
air.
The flying damned
souls at twelve o’clock beat at the flames with soaked towels and
blankets, slamming the flames again and again, stamping out embers
and sparks, no matter how much it hurt their feet. Their surrounded
it, beat it back, chased it down. It whined at them fitfully as the
flames shrunk, starving as the damned souls denied it food.
The fire at the
six o’clock mark unfortunately seemed to have a fuel source hidden
under the wreckage of a siege beast shattered house as it leapt and
roared and billowed in the faces of the damned souls trying to
contain it, threatening to melt flesh and char bone. They flinched
and cringed back, buckets of water and sand going wide of their mark.
They yelped in distress afraid of the fire but also desperate to
please their Master Smith.
Hartseer came
careering out of the dark, a bucket of water in all four of his
hands.
“Get me water!”
he barked, “I’ll do the rest!”
The damned souls
stared for a second as bucket after bucket was tossed on the flames.
A serpent tailed thing with a siren’s face slapped the damned souls
around it, hissing and barking at them. Driven by its blows and
scolding the damned souls hastily formed a line behind Hartseer,
bucket after bucket passed from hand to hand to him. The fire roared
and shrieked and snapped at Hartseer, tongues of flame licking across
his limbs. Hartseer paid them no mind, face still the unchanging
metal mask, eyes steady as he forced the blaze to halt its charge.
The fire writhed, shrieking like a soul being torn apart at the lip
of the crucible.
Further round the
circle Thorian dashed through the streets carrying a massive beer
barrel that he’d refilled with water once he’d drunk the
contents. He’d been told once that a tree that was still full of
water was too wet to burn so he figured that if he was full of drink
he’d be too wet to burn as well.
“Nee Nah!” he
bellowed as he ran, “Nee Nah! Nee Nah! Nee Nah!”
His boots squeaked
on the ground, the barrel swung and the water sloshed… on to the
stones.
“Oh…”
Thorian belched, “Burger it!” He swayed slightly and squinted.
Tasnar came up
beside him and throw the bucket of water with a lot more accuracy.
The fire cracked and popped, the flame equivalent to a whimper as it
lost ground to the smothering water.
“More drink on
the fire, less in you,” Tasnar noted to Thorian.
“Yeah,”
Thorian sniffed, “That might be a good idea.” He belched again.
The cracking of
wing beats made them both duck. The water butt swung by crazily on
the end of its ropes as Kaelin grunted and heaved with every wing
beat. Every muscle in her upper body was screaming, her lungs felt
like she’d swallowed a red hot coal and spots were beginning to
dance before her eyes but she gritted her teeth until her jaw hurt
and as a shifter there was a lot of jaw to ache. She forced herself
on.
“Load away!”
she yelled as she reached the fire, letting go of the shorter loop.
The water dropped and the fire at the ten o’clock mark died with a
wet sizzle and a cloud of steam that stank of damp ashes.
“Nice one
Kaelin!” Thorian yelled up to her with a grin. Tasnar gave a more
subdued wave of his arm.
Away from them,
closr to the edge of town two siege beasts lay, eyes confsed as they
watched their riders. Ulrich had left the work of shinning Kaelin’s
grandfather. With the ten o’clock fire now officially out and with
so many fighting the fires else where, he had instead chosen to
support Lady Zilvra through this moment. If any thing now was the
perfect time for it, everyone else was busy, they were distracted,
they weren’t paying Lady Zilvra any attention as she went through
her first wave of grief for her cousin. She had lost body guards as
well this night but her cousin was family and Zilvra was running out
of family. Together they washed what they could of him but the
werewolves had made a shredded mess of most of him. In places there
was no washing, it was more a case of trying to pack and wrap what
they could with what they had to hand to hold him together long
enough so that they would be able to have the funeral without him
falling to pieces in the process. Lady Zilvra cried the while time as
they worked, shuddering and sniffling, a total break down from the
dignity a Matriarch was supposed to have. Ulrich let her lean on him.
He could not understand grieving for a brother or a cousin as his kin
had made it plain from his earliest memories that they would have
preferred him dead but he had grieved for his grandfather, the only
one who had thought he was worth anything, he had mourned and had his
grief weaponized against him so he knew why she had sent Tasnar away.
She had broken down once before in front of her kin and the fear that
one day that moment of weakness would be used against her still
lingered so here, now, in the dark, she could grieve with only her
favourite, her love as witness. It was when it went quiet and it
would go quiet, that she would pull the dignity of an Ash Elf
Matriarch back into place and become all regal authority again. For
now though, in the noise and the fire light and dark she could cry.
The noise was loud
even here in the dark, half a circle away from the fight.
The goblins yelled
and snarled and bite, swarming and clawing at the damned souls who
were trying to stop them from feeding more fuel into the fire. Embers
billowed around them, timbers cracking and splitting as the wind
began to build, flame curling around the still standing window and
door frames, jars and bottles exploding inside pantries and kitchens
as the blaze ran fingers over still standing eaves and broken
furniture.
Choking on smoke,
half blinded by soot, cinders, burning fur, feathers and skin akin
the damned souls did their best to hold the goblins back, chattering
to each in their own tongue. They could see the light in the goblin’s
eyes, not the red glow of the fire they seemed so desperate to feed
but an infernal pale glow that blinded rather than illuminated. The
damned souls recognised the signs of beings that had been caught in a
delusion not of their own making, this was not the goblins’ fault,
it was the fault of the one who had chained their minds and used
powers that no mortal should touch to break them to his Will. The
damned souls recognised a colour of hell.
Even while they
heaved and pulled and sometimes physically carried the goblins away
from the fire, the damned souls barked their thoughts to one another.
Most of them involved making sure that they spoke to Hartseer once
the fire fight was done and told him exactly what had been done to
the goblins. In their minds, the King’s Special needed a prune as
some of its member where not even trying to be better people.
Like toddlers
having a temper tantrum the goblins struggled and hit and kicked at
the very ones trying to save them. Damned souls grunted as little
green and grey feet kicked them in the ribs and hands battered at
their shoulders and heads. Some swore as little hands grabbed ears
and pulled. Despite that they still tried to save what they could
from the fires.
Estella held on
grimly as Peter scuttled up the side of a still standing house. She
had borrowed the the bug from Ulrich and now she sat tall as he
reached the apex of the roof. She craned her head, looking first
north and then south. The blaze at six o’clock was still trying to
break out but Hartseer and a whole cluster of damned souls had
surrounded it and seemed to be working efficiently to pour on the
water. Whereas, the fires at twelve and what she could see of the
fire at two o’clock, only had small squads of damned souls
battering the flames back and they were working at the edge of wht
they were capable of.
Behind her Thorian
finished climbing back up the rigging on to the back of his siege
beast’s neck.
“That away,”
Thorian gestured and his siege beast stopped off south. That decided
it.
“That way,”
Estella gestured to the fire at twelve o’clock and below her
Valodrael grinned and surge up the street, oily black form surging
and bunching. As he did so he drew in the rattling breath that
preceded the Chill of the Void. It was the wind rattling the branches
of a forest encased in the ice of a freezing rain storm, the first
cracks of the shattering ringing through the frigid air.
The damned souls
leaped back with yelps as the air screamed with the snap contraction
as the fuel the fire was feeding on froze, the glacial touch of
Valodrael’s elemental weapon locking the heartwood in his freezing
will. The very stones cracked and popped as fractures split wide,
pinging sharp splinters into the night.
Valodrael slowed
so he could grin at the dumb founded damned souls and give them a
very magnanimous nod. After a moment one of them had the where withal
to bow back to him and the others followed suit after a moment. That
was just delicious for the night. An absolute treat. Valodrael looked
round and saw the fire at two o’clock. In an instant, he could tell
that though it had been water bombed once it had not been properly
doused and it was trying to grow again. He started forward, frowning.
Amelia was spiralling above the flames but she didn’t seem to be
well, clutching at her stomach, her head hanging as she flew.
Valodrael’s eyes
narrowed into a scowl as he saw Jeremiah heading towards Amelia and
something in the priest’s movement told Valodrael that he did not
have Amelia’s best interests at heart.
“Oh my god, the
One True God,” Jeremiah muttered as he flew, “He who owns
everyone and everything as you created them all, look upon the
descendant of the ones who betrayed you and deliver your judgement.
Let the guilt of the forefathers be passed down, even unto the
seventh generation. Let her pay for the rebellion of her fowl,
unworthy ancestors. Let the world see that she is no different from
her selfish, self centred, self willed, self serving originators so
that they may judge her and all her unnatural, hybrid kind. Let her
see foes where friends once stood. Let her see enemies where she
should see allies. Let her turn on her comrades so that they will
know the truth of all her traitorous kind and finally realise that
she and all her species as lives unworthy of life. That they should
be scrubbed from the surface of Hestia, never to darken the skies
with their unnatural, unclean wings ever again. In the name of your
gracious and righteous Will so mote it be!”
Amelia reeled in
the air, the pain driving like a dagger strike through her skull. She
vented a scream and stumbled, wing beat fouled. Gasping again the
vicing that was making her eyes wobble in her skull, she recovered,
fighting the rolling pain in her stomach that threatened to turn her
inside out.
“Help us!” She
heard the cry of the nice Jeremiah man. Still trembling, her head
throbbing she managed to turn to see him, flying desperately through
the air towards her. Part of her wondered how he had started becoming
a dragon himself but through the pain haze the thing she saw most of
all was his look of terror. Struggling to focus her eyes it looked
genuine.
“Jewel of the
Heavens!” Jeremiah cried, “They are attacking again! The
werewolves are attacking again!”
“Where?” she
barked.
“There! There!”
Jeremiah dipped and pointed. Her vision swam as she turned her head
but then it cleared and she could see the pack of werewolves trying
to use the fire at the two o’clock mark to sneak back into the
city.
“You!” she
roared, “Get out of our swamp!”
The damned souls
had a chance to look up just before the flood of grey gloop struck.
Instantly the trio hit flung themselves to the ground and started
rolling, knowing that they had to get as much of the stuff off of
themselves before ignition happened. The damned souls that hadn’t
been hit scattered, knowing what was going to happen and wanting to
be no where near it when it did.
The coughing roar
echoed through the night.
Limping round the
wall, hanging on to Cyril, Elisha stared, eyes wide, mouth slake.
“Amelia,” he
whispered, “What have you done?”
Jeremiah watched
with gleeful satisfaction as the trio of damned souls burned and the
fire spread. Thus was the Will of the One True God completed. The
True God of the world did not forgive sinners, he burned them, as
they rightly deserved. Only when all the broken, all the impure, all
the imperfect were cleansed from the world would there be the
perfect, unbroken paradise of complete and total obedience to the One
True God. No barriers, no boundaries, no boarders. Complete and utter
unquestioning total and immediate obedience. Purity in its cleanest
form.
“Be thou
perfect, even as thou father is perfect,” he quoted, feeling the
books in his pocket grow hot as his god accepted the sacrifice but
even as he basked in the approval of his god his hold on the minds of
the goblins begin to slide.
Several of the
goblins kept hitting and kicking at the damned souls even as their
minds began to lose sight of the dragon that had gazed with approval
at their efforts. Like toddlers the height of a temper tantrum their
brains where caught, locked into a single track of action and they
were going to scream and scream and scream until they were that
exhausted their brains crashed and rebooted. The problem being that
they were punching and kicking at the same time as screaming. Others,
released from their visions of Jeremiah’s god, when from screaming
because they needed to feed the fire to screaming because they needed
to get away from the fire. Unfortunately for the damned souls, they
couldn’t tell the difference. A scream of frustration sounded much
like a scream of terror so they hung on to the wriggling, shrieking
goblins, not realising that much of the kicking and punching would
stop if they just let go.
And all the while,
all around them, the fire spread and grew and devoured. Its voice
mutated from a crackle to a growl to an outright roar as it sucked
the air in from the surrounding town, the mind beginning to build as
the flames licked higher, tasting the sky.
Blackened with
soot, cinders crunching in his joints, Hartseer threw bucket after
bucket on the fire at the six o’clock mark, the damned souls not
handing him water as they were the group that had scurried down from
the ten o’clock mark were swotting at fountaining embers with
soaked rolls of cloth and heavy mats, keeping the fire at six o’clock
from spreading north east towards the one at three o’clock. What
ever happened they had to keep the fires from linking together. Once
the fires started merging together there would be no stopping it. It
would be a fire storm in a matter of minutes, a conflagration that
they would be hard pressed to put out without the aid of a Storm
Dragon and as none of their kind lived near Portasia it would be damn
difficult to attract the attention of any of the blue scaled dragons
before the fire ravaged across half country.
Hartseer didn’t
look away from the flames as he heard the odd creaking and groaning
from above. A trickle of water splashed across one shoulder as he
continued seizing bucket after bucket, hissing to steam in a moment.
If Hartseer could have frowned he would have done so. The damned
souls must have been getting tired if they were sloshing water so
carelessly. Then it occurred to him that where the water had landed
on his shoulder it must have come from above.
“Load gone!”
Kaelin yelled and the water hit the fire in a single lump, back
washing with a surge and a splash, cutting runnels in the soot caking
Hartseer and at the same time splattering him with black mud made of
doused ash.
“Charming,” he
noted, “I suppose I should thank you that you didn’t drop that on
me.”
Kaelin didn’t
hear, trying to spot if there was a well closer to the fire at the
three o’clock mark that the one Hartseer’s damned souls had been
using, her six handed helper shadowing her through the streets below,
his eyes apparently more than fine despite living behind lips and
blunt teeth rather than the eyelids of a regular face.
The inner wall
shuddered and the head of Thorian’s siege beast looked over it, its
cheeks bulging and its throat ballooned out and rippling from side to
side. It scrambled, kicked, hauled itself up on to the top of the
wall above the fire at three o’clock, its feet caked with the rich
earth and leaves of the inner garden of the Wizard’s Tower.
“Up you go,”
Thorian encouraged, “Now spit!”
Thorian’s siege
beast opened its mouth a fraction as its throat contracted. The water
sprayed in a great fan, some of it sticky and smelling of dog’s
breath but that did not stop it from working. The fire contracted a
fraction, wailing and hissing, embers dying in the sudden puddles
that splattered the road closest to the wall.
“How’s that?”
Thorian asked. Ulrich didn’t answer for the simple reason that
Ulrich wasn’t there. Lady Zilvra was sat at Sabal’s side, puffy
eyed and haggard but quiet now, watching as Ulrich administered to
Quenril. Ulrich was not happy about Quenril’s colour and was busy
trying to rub some circulation back into his limbs, which had the
added benefit of roughly scrubbing off the slick of blood and other
less pleasant fluids he’d got coated with.
“He must have
fought like a demon,” Ulrich muttered, checking Quenril’s fingers
for breaks. It occurred to him to wonder how fast werewolves usually
healed. He knew Kaelin’s now finally deceased grandfather had
seemed to regenerate more like Thorian did these days but he couldn’t
remember Kaelin managing the same trick. He’d have to ask about it
sometime.
“How are the
others doing?” he asked, rubbing Quenril’s arms briskly. He
thought a little colour was coming back into Quenril’s skin.
“The fire
directly north of the Wizard’s Tower and the fire directly south
are extinguished,” she reported, “There appears to be trouble
with the other fire to the north of the tower. There is something
wrong with the orange dragon. I’ve never heard tell of a dragon
like her before so I am not sure but she seems to be stoking the
flames.”
“What?” Ulrich
looked up and stared at Amelia’s erratic behaviour. He heard a
faint whisper of what she was yelling. Kneeling down, he rubbed more
frantically at Quenril.
“Blasted
priest,” he muttered as he worked, “I wish we had left him
behind.”
In the streets of
the town the damned souls from the now extinguished fire at twelve
o’clock raced to the fire at two o’clock, the fliers water
bombing the flames in several successive runs, making it squeal and
hiss, the lashing flames waning as the water denied it fuel.
Several of the
unwinged damned souls scrambled up on to the roof tops as the houses
there were more complete, unruined by the attentions of a werewolf
siege beast. Once they gained the roofs they jabbered and flapped
their arms, trying to catch Amelia’s attention, trying to draw her
away from their comrades. Several even threw things in their efforts
to lead her away.
“Oh my god, the
One True God,” Jeremiah pressed his palms together even as he
hovered, “Let this unworthy descendant of the traitors who abused
you bare the righteous punishment for their heinous acts. May she
awaken from her delusions only
when she has finished burning every ally, every friend and every
single single last member of her unclean family to ashes and ruin.
May she wake only when there is no one left who can forgive her. May
she live forever with the guilt that her ancestors should have felt
when they merely considered betraying and abandoning your righteous
and upright ways so that she may never, ever live in peace ever
again. May her every waking and sleeping moment be consumed with the
knowledge that she and she alone destroyed everything she cared
about. In your most holy and ever lasting name, so may it be!”
The books grew uncomfortably hot in his pocket and Amelia dived
again.
“Get out of our swamp!” she bellowed at the werewolves she could
see capering on the roof tops of the town. Her sodium breath followed
a minute later.
The damned souls on the rooftops realised that they had in fact
attracted Amelia’s attention and threw themselves across the roof
tops to avoid that trailing rain of chemical based pain. They ran,
they fled, some leaping the gaps between roofs, some jumping down
into the alley ways as Amelia scorched by over head, each one not
knowing how many she had missed or if they themselves were the only
survivors of her attack. There was something wrong, they knew it.
Amelia had been their friend, there was no reason she would suddenly
turn on them and she kept yelling about ‘our swamp’, still using
the collective possessive so who did she mean if she was not talk
about them?
Jeremiah turned with a smile and swooped low, diving towards Thorian.
“Thorian?
Thorian!”he cried, “The
dragon has gone mad! She’s attacking our people! You’ll have to
slay her!”
“Er
what?” Thorian looked up from where his siege beast was sucking fry
another pond.
“The dragon! Amelia! The Jewel of the Heavens!” Jeremiah
explained impatiently, “She has gone insane. She’s starting the
fires and attacking our people!”
Thorian frowned and looked around. Jerry wasn’t under attack.
Kaelin wasn’t under attack. Hartseer was fine. Thorian twisted
round in his rigging, trying to check that Ulrich was alright.
Jeremiah glared.
“The damned souls! You twit!” he thundered.
Kaelin had heard enough. She slammed her barrel down and shook out
her pinions, twisting Haggis round as she did so. She thumped into
the air, her slip stream rocking Jeremiah’s hover, turning him
slightly.
“How
rude,” he muttered, straightening his roes. He didn’t notice the
wisps of smoke coiling from the edges of his garment’s huge pocket.
Valodrael on the other hand had noticed the smoke coiling from the
edges of eves and round loft windows where sodium had dripped between
tiles into attic spaces and was now in the process of setting roof
beams on fire!
He reared up, braced against the heating wattle and daub wall. He
flicked his left hand, the claw on his forefinger lengthening,
glowing with the light of a thousand suns. The window exploded as the
heat punched through it from both sides. A second later the flash
over happened, fire roaring louder than a dragon, louder than fury,
louder than the end of worlds. The loft became an airless void of red
and orange, a vicious maw snapping and biting, chewing and gnawing at
beam and strut and truss. Valodrael was already drawing his answer
in, his star speckled hide shimmering with dying suns as he
metastasized the power within.
The artic air blasted through the loft, fire brushed out before it,
chard wood rimmed with frost in an instance. Without breaking for
breath Valodrael turned his head and sent the chill of the space
between stars blasting over the tiles. Flames perished in an instant,
the air groaning as snow fell in autumn and started melting on the
tiles in a heartbeat.
Valodrael surveyed his work, nodding to himself and only then sunk
back to the road. He craned his head back to track where Amelia was.
There was something seriously wrong here, he could smell it. A moment
later he could smell the warm dog and feather smell of Kaelin as she
landed on the tiles. He smiled as the skirling drone of the pipes cut
through the air. He wondered if the wolf woman would concent to being
part of his horde. Though they hadn’t had the chance to be close in
the last few weeks,he knew that she and his queen, Estella, had been
close to being friends. Kaelin was going to be alone after this
night, without pack or family. Little people were not supposed to be
left alone in the world so perhaps she’d consider the shelter
beneath his wings. Estella had been alone for far too long and it
would be a fair trade if this journey to find flesh and blood of his
own resulted on her having a chosen family big enough to hold up her
and her horde.
A second later he winced as Kaelin’s music cut through the night
with all the smoothness of a rusty knife, the notes scratching and
scrapping over his ear fins. He flinched, backing down the street,
shaking his head and grunting, trying to resist the urge to paw
helplessly at his head.
Above
Amelia roared and whipped round in the air, snarling and shrieking.
Wings thumping, she started powering towards the roof where Kaelin
stood. Kaelin played on, braced, tensing, ready to leap out of the
way. Amelia suddenly broke sideways,
pulling up, hanging in the air for a moment, clasping her head, her
vision flicking between the sight of yet more werewolves grappling
with the goblins in the flames and the view of damned souls
desperately trying to keep the goblins from their efforts of self
immolation. She groaned, temples thumping and stomach churning.
Hartseer
clambered over the lip of the inner wall at the six o’clock mark.
It was the quickest highway in this town and he took off, limbs
slicing air, the view blurring as the stones rang to his foot falls.
He made no other sound, no breath, no yell of effort as he reached
the turn at the three o’clock mark and threw himself off the edge.
He was pushing off again
almost before his foot touched the tiles. The apex beam cracked,
splintering but Hartseer was already gone. A leap, a hand spring, a
half twist, metal impossibly lithe and fast. This was what the
paladins had feared above all else, the fact that Hartseer could move
in ways they could not calculate and could not sense. He arched off
the end of the roof above the fire and crashed down into the blaze.
The sparks fountained high.
The goblins quietened, eyes wide, mouths agape as the fiery wreckage
shifted and settled. The damned souls blinked, confusion stamping
across their mismatched features.
The embers geysered into the sky as the fist punched up through the
wreckage. Glowing cherry red the figure of the paladins’ nemesis
shouldered aside burning timbers and shattered tiles, shoved away
blazing wood, stamped embers and coals into dust, seized flaming fuel
and hauled it away from what had not yet caught fire, corralling the
heat, denying it its ability to spread, denying it escape routes.
Some of the goblins backed away, panting in the heat and the awe of
this being that strode through flame and battle as if such things
where to be shrugged off with barely a glance. Others stood still,
heedless of the embers and sparks kissing their skin with scars
finding themselves a new god to worship.
Some however were still struggling and screaming in the grip of the
damned souls. A damned soul who torso was a halo of so many pairs of
arms it was difficult to count them all reached the limits of its
patience. It moved with a speed and co-ordination that made the eyes
ache to watch. Barking like any patient telling their errant young to
sit down, shut up and be more considerate of others, it ceased the
still struggling goblins, all the still struggling goblins and
knocked their heads together before dumping them in what was left of
the gutter to nurse their skulls and snivel.
Jeremiah noticed the little side show and realised that the goblins
were no longer serving their purpose. He circled a moment,
considering his options. Those that did not serve their purpose
wholly and completely, without question were not worthy servants of
the One True God, therefore they had not earned the right to live and
deserved only to die screaming. Not that their deaths would redeem
their faults. Nothing could redeem a failure once they proved that
they were not worthy of the One True God.
Then he saw it.
A damned soul standing shoulder to shoulder with Hartseer, growling
and barking something as they fought the flames. It was gesturing
back at the goblins and it didn’t take Jeremiah a moment to
understand that the accursed thing was reporting that the goblins had
been under Jeremiah’s influence. Jeremiah ground his teeth.
“By your power as the One True God,” Jeremiah spat, “Make these
pathetic insects fear you Klu’ga’nath!”
The goblins screamed as one.
“Dragon!” they shrieked in terror, “Dragon!”
It was back, the dragon that shone with an inner light only now the
inner light was no longer a blessing, a beacon calling them to serve,
now it was scolding. It looked at them and judged them as not good
enough, as not worth the effort, as not acceptable. Their minds did
not have the words for it, could not have explained it but their
souls felt it, felt it to the bottom, to the core of their beings.
The dragon in the light looked at them and hated them, hated them
because they were not good enough. They had been unacceptable, they
were unacceptable, they would never be acceptable. They were
worthless, valueless, useless. If they laid down and let the pigs
trample them to death that would not be a painful enough death for
them to make up for the air they had stolen, the space they had
thieved, the foulness they had spread upon the world by choosing to
be not good enough, by choosing to be selfish, self centred, self
worshipping, self willed. By choosing to have boundaries, to have
wants, to have needs that the dragon did not give them permission to
have. They were worthless, they were foul, they deserved to die. They
were nothing, if they threw themselves into the fire to burn right
this very instant it would not be enough to earn acceptance because
their very existence, their selfish, boundary constricted existence,
was enough for them to be condemned and damned for all time. They
were foulness, they were disgust give form and nothing they
ever did would change that!
Screaming in terror, the goblins broke and ran, some running right
through the fire to get away from what they saw, even as part of them
knew that they would never be able to run far enough to get away from
it because its judgement, which was right and good and true and just,
would be forever there in their minds, telling them that they were
dirt, they were filth, they were waste. That they were nothing and if
their entire race was to die right that very instant it would not be
enough to repair the damage they had done to the world by stealing
its air from proper people who earned the right to live by serving
the dragon without any limits, any limits, at all.
Most of the goblins didn’t realise that they were sobbing as they
fled but they knew they deserved that because they were nothing, they
had failed to earn the right to work and therefore did not even have
the right to die. They only that the right to lay down in the rest of
the filth and wallow in it like the scum they were until it ate the
flesh off their bones and even that would not be an agonizing enough
end to earn forgiveness.
The damned souls and Hartseer stared as the goblins disappeared into
the dark. Hartseer shuddered. Their wails were the wails of those
damned because they had failed and he knew that sound. The fire
licked around the wreckage around him and for an instant he wasn’t
standing at the foot of the Wizard’s Tower. He was standing in the
burning shell of manor, the smoke column mingling with the savage
wrongness of the sky violated by magics that should never have
existed, the flames flicking with colours that were all wrong as he
screamed, the blackened, twisted shell of his adopted daughter at his
feet. He screamed, wordless, long, hopeless, his soul breaking inside
his metal frame as he knew he’d betrayed the last child he had
left.
Reality snapped savagely back.
Hartseer screamed and stamped on the fire. He screamed and screamed
and screamed, crushing the fire out of existence, his screams
becoming high and thin, almost song like, almost ritual. When the
fire leaned away from him at last he slowed and stopped. He buzzed,
the sound of metal vibrating to the frequency of agony as he learned
once again the true agony of leaving behind his mortality – that
eyes of glass cannot cry.
There was a thump of a wing beat behind him and the fire flared as
fresh air billowed past him. He turned. Jeremiah smiled as he folded
his wings.
“So considerate of you to help us with our little goblin problem,”
he stated.
Hartseer twitched, an arm lifting, fingers splaying. If he’d still
had teeth he would have gritted them. Pure, unadulterated loathing
poured through his frame. He loathed the priest. He utterly loathed
him. He loathed everything about him, the self indulgence, the smarmy
charm, the cruelty, the under handed cunning, the way he used the
cracks in society to get away with his abuse. At Nether Wallop,
Hartseer had wondered if Jeremiah had learnt to channel his sadistic
desires into the channels he himself had done, the channels that kept
them tamed so they could be used for the right reasons, used for the
serve of the many and the protection of the few, but it seemed all
the priest had done was learn who he could bully and torment without
being brought to task. Hartseer wanted to strangle him.
At his back the fire surged and snarled, licking flames over his
shoulders. Without a word he turned back to beating the fire into
submission. Here was something he could beat, that he was allowed to
beat.
As Amelia twisted and turned in midair, the surviving damned souls at
the two o’clock mark scrambled for buckets and wet blankets,
beating the fire back, trapping it, dousing its fuel, controlling its
spread, chasing down the hot spots and destroying its air supply. The
fire snarled and snapped but it was shrinking, fading, whining as it
retreated and found no where to retreat to.
Above them Kaelin stood, the piper on the roof, blowing into Haggis’
wing bag as hard as she could, the drone cutting through the air, the
tune swirling, whirling through the night, fast, exciting and some
how grounding all at the same time. It cleared the mind, it called
for choice, for the hearer to decide their own path. It demanded
resistance, it demanded questioning authority, it demanded that the
hearer think. They didn’t have to think what the music named, they
just had to think.
In the sky, soot stained and scorched, Amelia threw her head back and
screamed. She arched, inverted and fell. She came down back first,
wings out stretched, screaming the entire way. The house had been
sturdily built and strong, its beams firm and untouched by fire but
nothing made by human hands was built to withstand the weight of a
fair sized dragon dropping, uncontrolled and flaying from the sky.
The roof caved, the walls burst, windows shattered, everything
tumbling in on top of the moaning, sobbing mass that was a Tropic
Dragon who was in the throws of tasting betrayal for the first time
ever.
Jeremiah turned away from the angry form of the King’s Blade and
muttered a prayer to his god.
“Are you just going to stand there?”
Thorian jerked around, heart hammering as he heard Jeremiah’s voice
just behind him. His siege beast bucked and fidgeted as well,
apparently also hearing the priest’s voice where the priest’s
voice shouldn’t be.
“I thought you orc children were supposed to be brave,”
Jeremiah’s scorn was biting, “I thought you were supposed to
never be afraid of a fight. Since when has Thorian Vandervast been a
coward! A yellow bellied, crawling coward! Slay the dragon before she
slays all of us!”
Thorian frown and scratched an ear, watching the pile where Amelia
was buried. He opened his mouth to reply and instead reached out and
tugged one of his siege beast’s ears as it went to lunge off the
wall. There was something not right with the whole thing. He couldn’t
say what it was exactly but after a season of travelling with the
priest he had a feel for when the priest was trying to cause trouble
and right now his mind was saying Jerry was trying to cause trouble.
In fact, Thorian nodded to himself, he was fairly sure that Jerry had
lost the plot some where along the way. Granted Thorian wouldn’t be
able to help him find it again as he didn’t know what the plot
looked like but he was fairly sure Jerry had lost it.
Hartseer could feel Jeremiah’s gaze locking on to the centre of his
back as he worked, striding into the fire, the buckets of water he
carried steaming before he even dumped them on the fire, the flames
coiling about his legs, fire licking over his frame. He didn’t care
what the priest was planning. Once they were done here he was
dragging the man back to the capital and throwing him right back into
the cell he’d come out of. Let the King and courts of law decide if
the man was worth sparing or not, Hartseer for one was sick of the
damage the priest was doing while he was loose. Whatever good he had
done was out weighed by the mayhem that was following him.
Hartseer stamped out embers and cinders, the damned souls following
him into the breech, beating the fire back. They nearly had it back
to the size it had been when it had first started, before the goblins
had either run crazy or been bamboozled into feeding it with fuel.
The fire wailed but they were implacable. Fire had its place but that
place was not chewing through the entire town. This fire needed to be
tamed, corned and killed. There was no pity for the rabid animal. The
shepherd drove the injured wolf from the flock, he did not bind its
paw.
On the west side of the Tower, out beyond the broken outer wall, a
little group gathered round a bundle too small for the history it
carried. Quenril was sat up, groggy and sickly pale, riding on
Bartholemew as Tasnar paced beside him, the siege beasts following
behind, eyes confused but following their masters.
They had laid Sabal back down in the grove of ground ivy under the
trees where Tasnar had laid him while the battle had still been going
on.
“We usually burn our dead, if they have earned that honour instead
of being left for the kerveads,” Lady Zilvra said and glanced to
where the fire glow was fading from the sky around the Wizard’s
Tower, “But fire in this ‘surface world’ seems to grow without
limits unless it has been carefully contained and we have no time for
containment.”
“Humans mostly bury our dead,” Ulrich explained, “But it has to
be a certain depth down or wild animals can… well, they don’t
stay buried let’s put it that way.”
Lady Zilvra took a long, jagged breath and bent. The stem of ground
ivy turned in her fingers.
“Little things,” she murmured, “Such little things and yet they
bring such joy just by being seen.” She knelt amongst the stems,
their earthy, bitter sweet scent rising on the damp night air. She
breathed it in. A tear trailed silver and bright down her face.
Ulrich reached down and laid a hand on her shoulder. She reached up
and clasped it, her hand soft and warm over his rough knuckles. She
breathed out.
“Something to try,” she murmured and lifted her hand away after a
moment, digging her fingers deep into the loam. The words she
muttered were whispering and sibilant but they contained a comfort, a
calmness that hadn’t been there before, even as she held her own
pain.
The ground ivy rustled, moved in patterns that had nothing to do with
the breeze of the stars. Green stems moved, roots pulled free of the
ground. Ulrich stared and hung on to Lady Zilvra’s shoulder as the
ground ivy parted, moved, crawled up, over the winding sheets,
closing over Sabal’s mortal remains, shifted and creaked with a
sudden rustle of vegetative growth. It almost seemed to shimmer as
its root grew, bound, coiled tight, seemed to embrace the poor,
ruined thing that had once been a friend. None of them had noticed
the tiny rose plant that had been hiding among the ground ivy until
it fountained up into the starlight glen. It reached into the air,
green fingers covered in thorns, its branches spreading wide and then
bending down, sheltering the mound beneath it, covering it with its
tangle of wooden claws. Buds swelled at the bases of the branching
leaves and burst open, revealing hearts of bright gold lipped in
white in the centre of circle of bright magenta petals, soft and
delicate and yet so very, very strong.
Tasnar gasped a smile.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, the tears flowing, “It’s…”
He sank to his knees and cried.
Ulrich moved, reaching out a hand, holding them both steady against
the pain neither of them properly understood. In the dark it was
almost peaceful, almost… Until the roar shattered the night.
Jeremiah snapped the book shut and stuffed it back into his pocket,
walking over the scorched road and passed the tumbled stones of the
burnt out houses.
“I take it that you want me to give my report directly to the
king,” he smiled at Hartseer’s back, ignoring the flames that
still fluttered and danced around them.
Hartseer jerked and froze for a moment before he turned to face the
priest.
“That was the idea,” his voice was grim, “Seeing as your
redemption has been less than.. satisfactory.”
He expected Jeremiah to protest, to argue, maybe even to run. He did
not expect Jeremiah to smile, to smile like he’d just been given
the best gift ever.
“You know, Hartseer,” Jeremiah’s fingers twitched, “You
really are one of a kind. Just. Like. Me!”
He flung his arms out wide and all of a sudden there were three other
Jeremiah’s stood around Hartseer. The King’s Blade actually took
a step backwards as the Jeremiahs, all the Jeremiahs started
laughing. They laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed.
Hartseer’s glass eyes sparked with sudden fear as all of them
started warping, twisting, stretching in ways that the human body
were not supposed to be able to manage. They light up from the inside
as skin bubbled and cracked, nails lengthened into claws, as dragon
skin robes became not clothes but skin itself, as beard and hair
twisted into horns and jaw ridges.
Hartseer turned his head again and again, stunned as the four dragons
that shone with poisonous light ceased their hideous cackling and
smiled down at him, smiles of fangs and glares and burning hunger.
Their mouths gaped and the roar shattered the night.
Peter stumbled to a halt, Estella clinging to his shell as she stared
in horror at the towering quartet of dragons that had suddenly
shouldered their way above the houses that still stood. They weren’t
as big as Nanny Tatters had been but they were still giant and there
was something so unnaturally wrong about them, something off about
their proportions, their scales, the way the light moved within them.
Her mind screamed as it recognised the uncanny valley effect that had
marked the Shadow creatures that Jeremiah usually summoned to put
terror in his foes.
“Oh gods,” she gasped, “Oh gods help us!”
Thorian, on the other hand, grinned from where he could see the new
beasties. His broad sword sang from its scabbard.
“It’s Thorian time!” he bellowed.
He smacked his siege beast with his other hand and it lurched down
from the wall, snorting and growling as it thundered towards these
new challengers. Thorian beamed as it roared its defiance. Jerry had
said he, Thorian, needed to slay the dragon so he was going to slay
the dragon, just not the dragon Jerry had wanted him to slay.
The crash as the siege beast and the closest dragon clone came
together was a crunch of ribs and a smack of muscle hitting the
butcher’s slab. Hartseer dived out of the way as the dragon
stumbled back several paces.
Still sat on Peter’s shell Estella raised her arms and started
turning her hands, her talismans singing their hearts out to help her
channel the power. She held the spell longer than she had ever tried
to before, sweat making her shirt cling to her, layering it up, over
and over, holding it there until the entire spectrum of light and a
few colours unnamed glowed within the circle, the edges fizing as the
power fought her control.
With a yell of effort she punched through the circle, belting it
through the sky, razor edged and snarling.
The Jeremiah-as-Dragon copy closest to her turned and the light
within it blazed up, making the eyes ache with its bitter
impossibility. Estella threw up her arms before her face and saw her
arms bones through her flesh, saw the spell of sprite given power
unmade, unravelled, devoured by that toxin light.
Blinking streaming eyes, she saw the thing’s grin through the blue
purple glow distorting her vision. With a yell she did a double punch
up and the water below responded, smacking the dragon in the face and
soaking the still burning wreckage. She didn’t bother listening to
the hiss of the dying fire, she was more concerned with the snarl
that was now being directed her way.
“Oh shite!” she said and Peter whistled his agreement. The maw
opened, the light within swirling as it clenched, promising to flay
her every last atom clean.
Valodrael roared, the roar that ended the world, the roar of the
destruction that thundered as the ice dam was breached and
disintegrated, scouring the valley clear of life, soil and even rock.
The Chill of the Void slammed into being as he leapt and this time it
wasn’t the wall of cold, visible only by how the moisture froze out
of the air, it was a solid mass of black, the raw stuff of the abyss
between the stars where light ended and matter went to die.
It engulfed the Jeremiah-as-dragon copy as Valodrael crashed to the
road surface, head low, wings high, mouth stretched wide as the air
screamed and shrieked , collapsing into the freezing blast with a
noise that screamed like avian things in agony. The scolding, caustic
light flickered, faded, vanished within that frigid flood.
Then Valodrael ran out of breath, panting and heaving, eyes glaring
as the Jeremiah-as-dragon copy was revealed, grinning and laughing,
completely unharmed, the sick light within undimmed. The laughter was
not the laughter of a dragon, it was the laughter of a man, the
laughter of Jeremiah, taunting his one time companions from within
the lips of a dragon.
“What does it feel like, little one,” the Jeremiah-as-dragon copy
asked, “To realise that you are nothing!”
Valodrael lifted his head and growled, lips rippling back from his
teeth, eyes slitted, wings arched, tail out stiffly behind him. The
growl vibrated through the feet as much as through the ear bones. The
Jeremiah-as-dragon copy laughed.
Jeremiah-as-dragon, the real Jeremiah-as-dragon was also laughing,
absolutely howling with it as Hartseer rolled through the fire to
evade the front foot stomp that nearly crushed him into the pavement.
Hartseer scrambled, scrabbled as thumb claws of wings nearly impaled
him, a tail blow smacked him across the street, as a clawed hand
ripped own the front of a house, trying to bury him. Hartseer did a
very undignified, six limbed crab flip to get out of the way of that
one and didn’t bother to stand, skittering across rubble piles like
a metallic spider.
“I’m going to kill you, you pathetic stick insect!”
Jeremiah-as-dragon promised Hartseer, “I’m going to crush you
like the bug you are! You dare to think you have the right to judge
me!?! I am the Avatar of Klu’ga’nath!” The world shuddered and
the fires flares purple as everyone organic felt like their brains
were being rung out through their ears. “I am his most favoured
servant! You dare to think you have the right to decide slime like
those goblins where worthy of life? They are no more worthy of life
than you are, you corroded freak! If they were worth anything at all
they would have ripped you apart for daring to question the Will of
Klu’ga’nath!”
Hartseer’s joints groaned, the closest he could come to feeling
sick and he flipped himself on to his feet, the better to run. He
ducked behind a half ruined wall.
“For someone who says that he’s going to kill me, you do seem to
be wasting an awful lot of time puffing and blowing,” he called,
“What’s the matter? Still too fat to do the job properly?”
Jeremiah-as-dragon roared and demolished the wall with a single blow.
Hartseer leapt.
The light undid the world, or perhaps the world became the light, it
was hard to tell. It was soundless, it was scorching and fire died in
its wake, the wood it had been feeding on turned to perfect replicas
in salt.
Hartseer stumbled, the right side of his body and his right arms
blackened and pitted.
“You sir,” he grunted, “Are not nice.”
“And you are a pathetic insect,” Jeremiah gloated, “A freak, a
failure. You failed to save your people, you failed to save your
family, you failed to stop the Domilii and the Lost Continent burned
because of that failure. You failed. Everything you do fails.
Everything you touch rots. Everyone you care about dies because of
you!”
“Price of immortality,” Hartseer grunted one jump ahead of the
blows, “You are always the one left behind.”
The toxin, boiling light scoured across the road, the walls, the
wreckage. Damned souls fell back from the pyre of light that blinded
but never illuminated, of heat that burned but never comforted,
throwing themselves through house windows to find hard cover within.
Hartseer slide down the far side of one of the rubble piles on his
back.
“Ha!” one of the Jeremiah-as-dragon copies barked, I wonder if
you will be so cocky when I have reduced your king and his whey faced
brats to salt. In fact, I think I’ll start with the daughter. The
little princess would be so pretty made out of salt, don’t you
think?”
Hartseer roared, launching himself at the Jeremiah-as-dragon copy. It
lifted a foot to squash him and reared back with a howl, blood, think
and dark running from a slash across its palm. Hartseer was a
whirlwind, slashing and hacking, driving the Jeremiah-as-dragon copy
before him back, littering its thick hide with a hundred rips and
tears. The other two Jeremiah-as-dragon copies closed in, boxing him,
grinning as they started pulsing with the growing power of the
venomous light. Jeremiah-as-dragon started to laugh again.
“Dodge this, metal man!” he crowed.
Kaelin pushed higher into the sky, the crossbow she’d snatched from
a house cocked and loaded, her eyes narrowed as she locked on to her
target. Jeremiah-as-dragon was too busy tormenting Hartseer to double
check that the rest of them were going to let this happen. As far as
he was concerned he was the biggest, baddest killer of them all, what
need did he have of looking up? He was still a coward though, hanging
back and letting his magically created copied take the risk of being
sliced to pieces by the King’s Blade. Jeremiah did always like
being at the back of the action.
She didn’t dive, she lined up the sight of accursed sigil in its
cage of antlers between her feet and just closed her wings. The bolt
rattled in its groove as she dropped, her stomach pressing up into
her ribs. She held her breath as the wind roared in her ears,
squinting her eyes as they streamed, staying locked on target.
A second, a second before she had to flare her wings, before her feet
smacked into that cage of twisted antlers, she pulled the trigger, he
bolt slamming through that poisonous sigil.
Jeremiah-as-dragon stumbled to a halt, his eyes glazing, his mouth
hanging open, tongue flicking back to feel along the roof of his
mouth, slicing itself on the head of the bolt that jutted through his
pallet.
“Down boy!” Kaelin snapped.
The look of shook on his face was remarkably similar to the one
Ratcliff had worn when Marmaduke’s bronze sword had slammed into
his chest. Jeremiah-as-dragon tilted and then fell face down,
shattering the road surface in a spider web pattern, a last rattling
breath fading from his lungs, forced by the impact.
With a howl all three of the Jeremiah-as-dragon copies threw back
their heads, stuttered like lightning bolts staggering over the hills
and snapped out of existence with a trio of thunderclaps that shook
what glass was left whole in the town of the Wizard’s Tower.
“I’ve…” Kaelin started as she stepped off of Jeremiah’s
antlers. She was cut off as a roaring wailing geyser of green fire
laced with shrieking faces burst into the sky as Jeremiah’s puppet
drake burst n a welter of emerald flame and charred skin.
“Ew,” Estella said quietly even as a skein of bright blue power
came flowing and curling through the darkened streets. It reached for
Jeremiah’s body and some hoe it had the look of Jeremiah’s brow
beaten vigor puppet.
Thorian’s siege east snapped its jaws on the light, somehow sinking
its teeth into the impossibility of its substance and shaking it
apart.
“That. Was. Awesome!” Thorian beamed at Kaelin.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a really, really, REALLY
long time,” Kelin beamed.
Estella laughed even as the damned souls came scurrying out of their
hiding spots to force the fire back once more. Valodrael inclined his
head to Kaelin. With a rattle and a slither Hartseer folded away his
blades and bowed to her. He turned his head to focus on something
fluttering out of the gloom.
Gerald, Jeremiah’s bat winged moth came clattering and lurching
through the streets, leaving behind a trail of bright blue shedding
fur that faded even as they watched. The moth crash landed on the
road and crawled unsteadily to his master’s shrunken side,
tottering as his wings crumpled and his antennae shed branches.
Kaelin started as she realised Jeremiah had shrunk back to just being
Jeremiah rather than Jeremiah-as-dragon, the blood running from
between his lips matting his beard, the twisted crown of antlers
empty now save for the fletching of the bolt that had shattered his
skull. Gerald reached out one leg to his master and stilled, the blue
fading entirely from his patterns. With a quiet pop, his exoskeleton
cracked. He shattered like a wine glass breaking in slow motion, the
wind from the dying fire and the night breeze blowing his dust away,
spiralling it into eddies as it was born back towards the Dead Swamp.
“I feel sorry for the moth,” Kaelin noted and turned away. She
turned back, double checking that what she thought she had seen, she
had actually seen.
Jeremiah ad landed face down in the dirt of the road and the back of
his robe was bulging, rippling and writhing as if something in there
was fighting to force its way out.
“What the ever loving mothers is that?” Thorian stated peering
down from his siege beast.
“Kill it!” Kaelin barked, all
her hackles rising, “Kill it with fire!” She backed away, looking
round wildly for something to match actions to words as the soft
dragon hide robes bulged and strained in ways the human body should
not be able to manage, particularly
a human body that was fleshly dead. Something in her mind screamed as
she remembered the squirming, worming flesh of Nanny Tatters after
the Domilii had possessed her.
Hartseer was more direct. He strode forward, blades clicking free and
slashed down.
Hartseer smashed into the upper storey of one of the still standing
houses fifty feet away, the wall bursting under his weight, the
wooden upper floor and ground floor giving way and dumping him into
the cellar, his whole body ringing like a bell.
The three books Jeremiah had so carefully collected and so lovingly
fed burst. Their locks shattered, their spines ruptured, the pages
fountained into the night sky, staining it with a light that should
not have been as the text on their pages flared with a blue-purple
glow that made the mind shudder and the eyes bleed.
Thorian bellowed, his siege beast reeled back, Estella screamed,
Peter shrieked like steam through a burst rivet while Kaelin rolled
and scrambled across the still warm ashes and cinders, mind a white
bleach noise of thought destroyed while her stomach rebelled.
“Oh dear god!” Ulrich cried in
the grove where Sabal’s rose now grew, eyes locked on the towering,
growing, flaring column of
light, the form within that radiance pulling itself together as the
pages of the books dissolved around it, their words becoming the
threads stitching its form whole, “I know that dragon!”
Lady Zilvra went dead white as she stared.
“Aieeeee! Aieeeeee!” Tasnar screamed, “It’s the Betrayer!
Aieeeeeeeee!”
The dragon, the impossibility made of flesh and light, was taller
than the Wizard’s Tower, its wings casting not shadows but light, a
burning, shearing, blinding light that attached the minds of all who
could see it, filling the mouth with a bitter metallic taste while
the skin itched from the inside and the stomach heaved. Kaelin
crawling near its feet, spat blood from bleeding gums.
“FINALLY! I can cleanse
this perdition MYSELF!”
The voice wasn’t heard, it
was too damn vast to simply be heard. It struck the chest like hammer
blows, slamming into the body over and over again, shaking the teeth
in the skull and rattling internal organs.
Kaelin dragged herself upright
and pushed off, powering low until she could pull up just in time to
clear the outer wall and land on it, which she prayed was out of the
things immediate strike range.
“Like you did last time,
freak?” she cupped her hands around her mouth, “Sorry if I don’t
hold my breath, seeing as last time you tried you wound up trapped in
a dusty old book. You….”
She fell silent, voice drying
up as eyes the size of table tops swung in her direction. The sheer
raw, unfettered disgust for her existence hammered into her skull.
“INSECT!”
the voice barked, slamming her lungs again.
“It’s Thorian time!” the
orc child’s roar was echoed by the thunder of his siege beast. The
siege beast was part werewolf and werewolves didn’t run from what
they feared, they attacked. The siege beast roared again as it
charged, mouth wide, teeth gleaming, eyes glaring, Thorian riding its
neck, sword levelled as he bellowed his challenge at the massive
monster before him.
The blade bit deep, light
rather than blood, spilling from the gash. Thorian stood on the back
of his siege beast’s neck, hacking and howling as he swung over and
over again. The siege beast ripped and tore, ignoring the burning in
its mouth as it bite and wrenched.
The
over pressure wave of the Dragon God’s roar shattered not only what
glass was left in windows but also the few pieces of rich crystal
heir looms that were hidden away inside the houses. Thorian’s
ears bled, his vision turning green as blood vessels rupture. Even
then his sight, built to see movements in near pitch black
environments caught the motion. He leapt before he thought.
The crunch as the Dragon God’s
tail smashed into Thorian’s siege beast was the sound of an organic
thing breaking. Kaelin flung herself out of the way as the siege
beast’s dead weight shattered the stones she’d been standing on a
second before. It crashed through that section of the wall as if it
was a child’s sand castle, blocks the size of packing crates
exploding across the countryside beyond, punching holes as deep as a
man’s leg into the turf, the siege beast’s broken body tumbling
among them. It’s entire rib cage had been staved in like a
defective barrel. When it came to a stop it didn’t even twitch,
eyes already dull.
Amelia rolled over, shrugging
her way out of the wreckage of the house she’s fallen in. She
looked up in time to see Klu’ga’nath’s tail lash over head. She
frowned. Mixed with the creak of a flesh whip large enough to block
out the sun and the groan of the air fighting to contain something
that impossibly large there was something else, something that
sounded like…
Her eyes went wide and she
thundered into the air, shoving aside the ache in her ribs, ignoring
the pain in her back. If Thorian Vandervast could stand to cling on
to that scorching hide then she could stand forcing her wings to
respond. She set her jaw and hammered at the air, building hieght
building speed, trying to pull as much air into her lungs as
possible, her muscles shuddering as she forced the last possible
dregs of salt from her system.
She reached the level of the
top of the Wizard’s Tower and opened her jaws. The grey gloop hit
true and ran down the scales of light and being. Amelia didn’t wait
to see the ignition. Her eyes drooped shut as she banks away, her
mind drifting free of its tethers. All she could remember to do was
lock her wings into the glide and allow the air currents to carry
her, all systems utterly depleted, the muscle shaking shuddering
through her. Part of her realised that it was a strange notion to
know the shape of your own skeleton by the way your muscles twitched
and tugged against it but that was a small and shrinking voice in the
darkness that filled her skull.
Behind her the night bloomed
with the chemical fire and the great dragon howled with outrage at
having been struck by the worthless and irredeemable.
“Oh you like them apples?”
Valodrael managed to grin his serial killers smile despite the
flashing, stuttering bursting of super nova dancing over his hide,
“Try this on for size!”
He reared on to his back legs
and his wings boomed wide. He drew a deep breath and concentrated.
The air crackled as he suddenly towered over the houses. He drew
another breath and the world creaked as it made way for him. He
breathed again and damned souls, wreckage and fire scattered before
him, his feet clearing hole courtyards, building pushed aside as he
expanded.
Ulrich gapped as Valodrael
shouldered aside the sky aside. He’d always sensed that the lives
of the world had bent around Valodrael, reality being forced to
contain a much bigger creature in a space that was much too small for
it. Now? Now Valodrael dropped all pretence. Now the world held him
at his true size and he matched the Wizard’s Tower for scale.
“Stand and face me!”
Valodrael thundered and then gulped breaths, stars whirling and dying
more rapidly on his hide.
“Who
are you?”
Klu’ga’nath demanded, bending down to peer more closely at the
dragon who had suddenly appeared before him. He sniffed. Something
about a dragon his little human dupe had despised as said dragon had
slowed down his efforts to spread chaos, destruction and despair ran
through his mind. He had enjoyed watching that despicable evil little
worm squirm with impatience, even if it had meant longer before his
freedom was finally complete. Perhaps this little dragon was worthy
of being allowed to live. Perhaps it had no faults. Perhaps it was
prefect, as all things should be, as he demanded all things to be.
Valodrael opened his mw and
Klu’ga’nath reeled back, screaming, the icy touch of the smaller
dragon’s elemental weapon freezing his tissues, solidifying his
light, ripping across nerve ends and esoteric senses, violating his
sense of self, driving him back, stealing breath and blinding sight.
Even after its touch had finished clawing over him it still cut with
crystalline agony.
Klu’ga’nath screamed again
and lashed out blindly, clawing for his enemy but Valodrael had
already shunk down below the attacks, making reality bend once more
to fit him.
Klu’ga’nath shrieked, hide
of unreality splitting along lines and fractals of ice. He had felt
this pain once before, in the final days before his imprisonment and
the memories burned him. Screeching, he launched himself into the
sky, clawing and gasping, light falling from him like blood from open
wounds. The air heaved to take his weight. He screamed again, clawing
at the air, half blind, pieces sloughing off as they thawed.
Something bit, part way up his tail.
“You don’t get away so
easy,” Thorian bellowed, digging his fingers in and readying
another swing with his other hand.
Klu’ga’nath
hammered the sky with his wings and writhed, whip cracking the sky
with his sinuous length. Thorian’s
hand was torn from its grip and he tumbled through the air will a
yell. He snatched out and grunted as his chest smacked into the
surface of a scale. He burrowed his blunt strong fingers into the gap
between the scales, that lip where the sheets of keratin over lapped
and made sure of his grip. His fingers tingled in a strange way as he
did so and his skin seemed to be taking on a darker shade of green,
almost as if he’d been out in the sun too long. He sniffed as he
pulled himself higher against the wind. He didn’t care about the
tingles, he just wished that fowl taste got out of his mouth and
pushed off.
He swung his sword again, the
blade crashing off the scale with a lot of noise but no real effect.
Klu’ga’nath roared and
twisted.
“Whoa!” Thorian gasped as
his body lifted away from the wall of dragon before him and then he
slammed back into it, breath driving fro his lugs and leaving him
dizzy with it.
“You’ll
have… to do better… than that,” he gasped.
Klu’ga’nath snarled and
corkscrewed through the air, the clouds streaming away from him as
his wings thrashed the sky.
Thorian felt his fingers peel
away from the scale and he fell, tumbling through the air.
Klu’ga’nath kicked out like a swimmer pushing off and Thorian
shouted as his ribs bent under the impacted but he wrapped both arms
around the digit that hit him. He couldn’t get his arms all the way
around but it was enough. Klu’ga’nath snarled with frustration,
his body threatening to tumble every tie he tried to coil up enough
to swap this annoying little tic off his foot.
Thorian gasped, the air thin
and cold up this high but he could not see the stars for the light
shining inside this dragon. He wish it would turn it off, for some
reason it was making him feel sick.
Screaming with frustration,
Klu’ga’nath spiralled, wings booming, tail lashing across the sky
with the sound of thunder. The putrid little insect stuck like a
burr, like a thorn in his foot.
“So,” he rumbled, the
sound thundering across the sky, “You like to fly? Let us see how
you like this!”
The
air groaned as Klu’ga’nath rolled, flipped and dropped like
stone. The air was not the only thing groaning. Thorian pulled a
face, fighting to hold back his dinner as his stomach pressed up and
his lungs pressed down. The wind howled and roared in his ears, the
cold clawing tears from his eyes. The clouds were ripped away in
tight spirals as they plunged. Thorian realised the big beasty wasn’t
trying to slow down and he gamely forced his eyes open against the
snarling wind.
“Oh
squit!” he bellowed as he realised what the big old beasty was
aiming for with its wide open back foot, the lights rushing up to
meet them.
Thorian
shuffled round the toe until he was on the knuckle rather than the
cease side.
“That
will not help you, insect!”
The voice shook Thorian’s bones. He didn’t reply. He let go,
flinging himself out into the air stream, splaying his limbs wide.
“No!”
the voice roared with frustration as Thorian caught the edge of the
knee spine but Klu’ga’nath didn’t bother to try and brake,
fully committed to the dive.
Hartseer pulled himself up to
the edge of the door, crawling out of the cellar on hands and knees,
gazing up in amazement at the sky boiling with the passage of the
Dragon God, the clouds writhing like a creature in agony. The howl of
tortured air warned him a second before some of the blackness and
writhing light resolves into a form tearing through the underside of
the clouds, a form that seemed too big for the sky to hold.
Klu’ga’nath struck the
Tower, a noise that shook Hartseer all the way through, the power of
an entire super storm released in a single blast, rock shattering
free, blocks the size of houses tumbling through the air.
“Go! Go!” Valodrael
roared, charging through the streets at the size he regularly held.
Estella siezed Peter’s antennae, dragged him round and slapped him
into a rippling gallop, Valodrael at her side in an instant, wing out
spread to take the falling debris, hide rippling as it struck.
In the streets, south of the
Tower, damned souls scurried and leaped, rock exploding around them
as houses imploded, struck by pieces of the falling tower. On the top
of the inner wall Cyril threw himself over Elisha, crying out as
lumps the size of fists pummelled his broken wing and injured back,
their hurry to reach the quarter still affected by fire becoming a
death trap in an instant. Cyril screamed.
Rubbled showered through the
air, timber became flying shrapnel, glass a thousand knives that
ripped and tore. And above it all the thunder of vast and unforgiving
wings beating for height as it left behind ruin on the gale force
down draft.
Hartseer scrambled from the
doorway, seized a beam that pinned down a long, serpentine damned
soul and heaved it aside.
“Can you move?” he
shouted, even though the first thunder of the Tower’s shattering
had passed.
“I think so,” the thing
lisped, stirring faintly, shaking its head, slightly deafened.
“Good,” Hartseer snapped,
hauling it up and pulling one of its arms over his metal shoulders,
“People! We have to move!” The damned souls pulling themselves up
from the rubble stared at him blankly, dust and small debris
pattering around them. Above them light spilled from the Tower’s
ruined south side, the wards crackling as they strove to hold the
tower together.
“Move people!” Hartseer
roared, “We have to move before…”
High above them there was the
bang of tearing rock. Hartseer looked up.
“Oh no,” he whispered.
Groaning, cracking the top of
the Wizard’s Tower moved, the light of the wards faltering,
flickering, dying.
“Run!”
Hartseer screamed.
In the grove to the north west
Ulrich dropped to his knees as slowly, almost impossibly slowly, the
Wizard’s Tower heeled over, bending at its wound, twisting as the
centre of gravity changed. Bang after bang rang out as smaller towers
broke away from central column, tumbling through the air, smashing
into the gardens and town below.
“Trakanhini!” he pressed
the first two fingers of his right hand against the inside of his
left wrist, “Trakanhini hear us now! Help!”
The clouds boiled away to
reveal the just waning moon glowing down.
Elisha scrambled to his feet
and heaved Cyril upright, pulling him, almost dragging him back along
the wall.
Damned souls ran and leapt and
scrambled through the wreckage, chunks and lumps of the Tower
slamming down around them, on them, dust billowing, shrapnel racking
through them.
The scream of ripping rock was
the death cry of something alive being torn apart.
Hartseer stumbled, staggered
through the dark as the Tower’s shadow fell upon him. His eyes
snarled as he fixed them upon the light beyond the edge of the
darkness, ignoring the screaming howl of shatter stone. He was not
going to die tonight! He hauled on the damned soul at his side and
somehow it broke in to a slither as fast as a run. Together they
raced for the gap.
Kaelin dived and snatched one
of the smaller damned souls up and whip turned as the squirrel like
thing clung to her. She pummelled the air, other winged damned souls
following her lead, taking the same risk to save their comrades.
An avian thing o her right,
carrying a cat faced damned soul was smashed out of the air by a
chunk of masonry the size of a siege beast, Kaelin didn’t flinch,
didn’t drop her cargo, jinking and dodging the tumbling ruins.
Elisha and Crowface ran along
the battlements of the inner wall until Cyril suddenly snatched out
and yanked his master back. The blow of the small tower smashing
across the wall knocked them off their feet. Coated in stone dust,
they rolled over and scrabbled back up. They pelted down the small
access steps two at a time, heedless of the risk of slipping. They
charged through the gardens at the very foot of the Tower, leaping
vegetable beds, vaulting hedgerows.
Peter began to slow, stone
dust clogging his breathing pores. Valodrael snarled and snapped at
him, forcing him on, Estella clinging to him, screaming as the howl
of the dying Tower echoed across the Dead Swamp.
Hartseer threw the Damned Soul
beside him forward and leapt after, hands clawing at the air, legs
peddling as if he could force the air to take him further.
The
ground jumped up to meet him and then the over pressure wave smashed
him through the air, something that felt like a sledgehammer smacking
into the small of his back. He struck the ground again and rolled
across the gravel, rock, brick, stone and shattered cob walls blasted
around him, nearly seven hundred feet of the top of the Wizard’s
Tower exploding
on impact, bursting out as it meet the ground with the force of the
heel of a god.
Hartseer rolled over ad picked
himself up, lifting a hand to the dent in his back, knowing that if
he had still been a mortal elf, he would have had a snapped spine.
Dust settled over his glass eyes and he lifted a hand to wipe it away
only it wouldn’t come away and he realised that the dust wasn’t
in his eyes, it was in the air. It billowed and pattered down, ash,
rock dust, powdered glass, wood mashed to sand and stone turned to
dust.
Damned
Souls picked their way through the destruction, eyes wide in inhuman
faces, dust turning them all the same shade.
A gentle, deer faced damned
soul with four long ears and split hooves for feet, crashed to her
knees and wailed come shrieked in the ruin.
A arm, so coated in dust it
looked like it belonged to a statue pocked out from beneath the
rubble. It was not made of stone.
The deer faced damned soul
wailed again, head back. She wailed a third time and then dropped her
face to her palms, sobbing and moaning. Another voice cried, others
wailed, a few even laughed, laughed because nothing in the world
would ever be funny again.
Hartseer just stood, stood
hands clenched, trembling as pebbles and grit shifted and rattled as
it settled.
Wings whumped behind him and
he turned to see Kaelin land on a block of stone that had shattered
the house it had crashed down upon.
“Where’s Thorian?” she
demanded.
Thorian was hanging on to the
knee spine of a titan sized dragon made up of flesh and light that
was seriously ticked off that he was still there. Thorian set his jaw
and gripped tighter with his left hands as his body waved from side
to side in the slip stream, wings that could over shadow whole cites
creaking and crackling in the air. His skin was beginning to blister
and peel, the bad taste in his mouth now joined by the taste of
blood. He felt sick. He also felt sure that the big old dragon had
done something real bad back at the Tower. He didn’t like that, he
didn’t like that this big, shouty dragon had hurt his friends. And
he also didn’t like the way all its snarling and growling was
making his chest and his ears and his head hurt.
Growling, Klu’ga’nath
rolled in midair and brought his knee up, a hand bigger than the
floor plan of some human houses Thorian had seen came down to scratch
the irritating flea off.
With a roar of his own Thorian
swung out wildly with his right hand, his broad sword shining as it
cut deep into the dragon’s palm. Light flowed like the Valkari
trails that sometimes shone in the sky in winter and Thorian thought
he saw something like a thick black rope in that light. He swung
again. The rope parted and slithered back into the surrounding flesh
like a cut tendon because that was exactly what it was.
Klu’ga’nath bellowed and
the sky rang like a struck bell.
He rolled, folded his wings
and dived.
Thorian nearly lost his sword
as the wind tore at him. He gritted the blade in his teeth, wincing
at the taste and clung on with both hands. He didn’t see the
surface of the lake rushing up to meet them in the dark but he sure
felt it.
It was like an all over hammer
blow, every muscle struck at once. His lungs burned, his ears ached,
his vision blurred as his eyes were pressed back into his skull. He
scrunched his face up, closing down his nostrils even as his face
bones and his teeth ached.
The water about them turned
black as Klu’ga’nath dived deeper, the only light coming from the
sickly aura that emanated from the dragon’s bulk. Thorian’s lungs
burned but he didn’t let go, narrowing his eyes as he peered into
the slip stream, trails of light billowing around him. He wasn’t
sure but it seemed that the light pouring from the dragon’s palm
was slowing, not so much of it washing into the water as the dragon’s
body undulated through the current.
Thorian worked his fingers
along, digging into the crack between two scales, gripping his sword
with his teeth, dragging his body through the water that tugged and
pulled at him, threatening to yank him off. He frowned as he thought
he felt a shudder run through the big, old beasty. He worked his way
a little further round the knee joint, a cold band of iron closing
around his head and another tightening on his chest. The dragon
shuddered again and suddenly the angle flow of water changed. Thorian
could tell they were heading upwards all of a sudden, the ache in his
ears and his eyes lessening. He almost smiled as he saw moonlight
shining down through the rippled surface of the water, a pattern of
shifting, dancing light that broke in a crazed cross chop that spun
and raced away from a central point.
Then he frowned, his vision
beginning to blur. The selfish dragon was having a good old breather
at the surface and wasn’t letting Thorian have a sniffty. Thorian
took his sword out of his mouth and slammed it against the scale in
front of him. He grunted a bubble escaping his mouth, racing away to
the surface. He swung again. It was difficult to get any really power
behind the blow, the water slowing his arm and the darkness crowding
in at the edges of his sight. Then the dragon moved. Thorian felt
himself being dragged through the water but now he couldn’t tell in
which true direction. He could only grunt again as he was mashed up
against the scale, the cold bands of iron crushing is chest, the
bubbles lost in the maelstrom of rushing water.
When it stilled he managed to
peel his cheek away from the scale’s rough surface and looked up.
Two eyes, eyes the size of the
small round houses of the short swords in his village glared down at
him through the water. Eyes that shone with a colour that oozed into
reality from somewhere else, eyes that boiled with raw, unhinged
disgust for Thorian’s existence.
Thorian went to swing again
and the cold raced from his fingers and toes as he realised that in
the confusion of the last blast of water he’d lost his sword. Then
the world slammed into his ribcage, mashing him against the scaly
knee. Pain bloomed, first fire hot and then freezing cold, in his
back, in his ribs, in his belly. Blood, real honest to gods blood,
bloomed in the water around him and the dark finished closing over
his head as the last of his air rushed away in a fountain of bubbles
and the coiling trails of his blood swirling to the surface.
Klu’ga’nath flicked the
scrap from his claws and hunched in the water.
The surface of the lake
exploded as the dragon the size of the mountain erupted from the
deeps. The first down sweep broke the surface into a thousand
ripples, fanning out as droplets the size of barns were, shaken loose
from the membrane. The second hammered the water’s surface, forcing
the water out in a racing ring that was followed by a second, then a
third. Klu’ga’nath roared with the frustration of it, back legs
peddling against the surface tension cling.
Powering her way along the
direction of the Dragon God’s last known flight path Kaelin saw the
scolding light tower into the night, even as the roar battered her
and nearly shook the damned souls flanking her from the air.
“Keep going!” she shouted,
hearing the thump of their wings falter, “Thorian needs us!” She
adjusted her flight direction with a bank, the massive, thundering
dragon acting as her beacon even as she had to narrow her eyes
against the pressure waves its wings were producing. Where ver that
thing was there Thorian would most likely be.
Klu’ga’nath pulled up into
the night, his tail dragging and coiling through the air as it came
free of the lake. It seemed to go on for miles then he was free of
the lakes clinging grasp and banking into the rising turn. With a
roar of triumph that silenced the whole world, he rose and sliced up
into the clouds. They writhed in tight spirals and then he was gone,
only a deformity of the cloud layer tracking where he went.
Kaelin was not interested in
the cloud layer, she was busy scanning below, trying to see where
Thorian was.
The chirruping cries of the
damned souls let her know they had seen him at the same time she had
done. Locked in formation they closed their wings and dove towards
the lake’s surface. Something that looked like a cross between a
cobra, a lizard and a dragon fly swooped in lower and faster than any
of the others, skimming the water far out from Thorian’s bobbing
form, flicking open its neck and torso hoods as it did so to provide
as big a platform as possible. It settled in the water with hardly a
splash, closer now to Thorian but taking care not to jolt him.
Kaelin was secretly impressed
with the damned souls sheer level of co-ordination. The smaller
fliers that had survived the werewolf attacks landed on their living
pontoon and spread out along its side while a slightly larger one
landed on its other side to keep it balanced. The moment it had
paddled along side Thorian they were reaching out, pulling him
closer, squeaking to one another. One even ducked its head under the
water to check him for injures. It came up squeaking frantically. The
little fliers at once started turning him round in the water so they
could pull him up face first onto the pontoon. Kaelin frowned and
then saw why.
Jeremiah’s god had opened
Thorian up from back to front, water was sloshing in places that no
outside contact should happen in.
“Is he even alive?” Kaelin
muttered as she circled above. A bug faced thing beside her called
down to the ones below. Te one acting as counter balance called back
up.
“He is,” it translated
with a clatter of its mouth parts, “For the moment.” Kaelin
nodded after a moment.
“Get him up people!” she
yelled, “We’re on a time limit!” She knew the sand grains were
falling. They had an hour, maybe less in which to get Thorian any
help that might work and they still had to get him back to the Tower.
The small ones clustered
around Thorian and leapt as one for the heavens. As they rose, larger
fliers moved in, taking over hand holds as the little ones started to
struggle. Kaelin moved in and took hold of Thorian’s right arm with
her left hand, trying not to look at the mess that had been made of
his back. Part of her wondered if they flipped him upside down by
accident would he just fall apart like a badly made toy. A flier
barked at her.
“He says to fly lower,”
her bug faced translator chittered, “Match the one on the left.”
Kaelin frowned, worried that
the damned souls didn’t realise that flipping him could do even
more damaged and then she dropped half a foot lower, matching height
with the damned soul on the left, while the ones holding his feet
flew slightly higher. At once she saw why, between having his head
down and his feet up the water came pouring out of his lungs at every
jolt of every wing beat.
They flew hard, the little
ones and their now air born pontoon left behind in the race to get
Thorian to help. Kaelin clenched her teeth and flew on, willing
Thorian to keep breathing as he coughed and spasmed between them.
As they approached the
shattered Wizard’s Tower they saw a lantern being waved back and
forth in the forest on the West side. They skimmed lower and
gradually the figure resolved itself out of the night until they
could clearly see Ulrich standing at the mouth of a large tent that
had been put up in their absence, the ground dwelling damned soul
busy around it, erecting more tents and helping the humans of the
Tower settlement being lead out of the Tower’s doors.
They landed as carefully as
they could and lowered Thorian to a stretcher as gently as they could
manage.
“Bring him in here,”
Ulrich’s face was tight with worry, turning to lead them into the
tent. Inside was hung with lanterns and Lady Zilvra, her hair tied
back tight and her sleeves rolled up was scrubbing her hands with
harsh lyre soap. She turned without a word and started examining
Thorian.
“How bad is it?” Ulrich
asked as he set the lantern down and started scrubbing up.
“Not good,” Lady Zilvra
stated as the damned souls stepped back outside, “He.. he has some
magic. I’ve not seen this in an orc child before. They are tough
but not this tough. His body is trying to build itself back together,
rapidly, but there is just so much damage. I’m not sure…”
“Hydra tail fries,” Ulrich
explained, coming to Thorian’s other side, “He took on some of
the regenerative properties, same way Kaelin gained her griffin
wings.”
“That explains it,” Lady
Zilvra took a deep breath and reached for her tools, “I will try.
It will hurt. Ash Elf healing magic always hurts, we know no other
way, yet. It was always that everything must be paid for in pain,
even healing.”
“Do what you must,” Ulrich
nodded. Lady Zilvra set to work. It was painful. She had to correct
where the healing was going awry, trying to wield two incompatible
tissues together, guided them back into the right path of healing,
Ulrich acting as her second pair of hands, doing whatever she said
without question, speaking quiet words of encouragement whenever she
faltered.
Kaelin turned away. She could
handle battle and the needs of cleaning meat but not this slow
cutting of flesh while it still breathed. It made her want to scream
or throw up or pass out or all of the above just thinking about it.
She turned, gave a nod to Tasnar where he watched over Quenril at the
side of the tent and stepped outside.
In the fading night, damned
souls and townsfolk where putting up tents, Elisha and Crowface
directing the work.
“Where’s Hartseer?”
Kaelin stepped up to Elisha and asked without preamble.
“He is trying to discover if
the remains of the Tower is structually sound,” Elisha informed
her, “My people spoke of great creakings and groanings after the
earthquake.”
“Earthquake?” Kaelin
frowned.
“When the Tower fell?”
Elisha did not condemn her ignorance, they were all running on shock
and adrenaline drop, “We need to organise the recovery camp, tents,
latrines, hidden fire pits. I want as few signs as possible that we
survived this night, especially from the air. Many, many are the
dead. I want no more to join them.”
“Gotta yah,” Kaelin nodded
and joined the damned souls efforts to camouflage the tents, her ears
flicking as she thought she heard the rumble of distant thunder. She
hoped it was thunder. Dawn was rising when a shout came from Elisha’s
attention. Kaelin turned her head as well as she heard a whirring,
creaking whistle she had half recognised.
“We found it in the ruins of
Old Jim’s workshop,” a peasant with a mouth crabbed with age was
explaining, “Don’t think it belongs to either those pointy eared
burgers or the werewolves that came after them but it seemed to be
looking for something so we thought it best to let you see to it,
mi’lord.”
“It’s Ulrich’s
automaton,” Kaelin said, stepping forward, “He’ll be glad to
know you are still in one piece Marmaduke. Mostly.”
Marmaduke whistled
sorrowfully, carrying the lower half of his arm in his other hand.
“Ah, there you are old boy,”
Ulrich emerged from the tent, drying his hands as he did so, “Good
to be seeing you.”
“How is Sir Thorian?”
Elisha asked quickly.
“he’ll live,” Ulrich
grinned, “You have to say it, he’s a tough old boot. Zilvra
doesn’t think that there are any others that seriously injured so
I’ll have a look at what I can do here. Come on Marmaduke, let’s
get you patched up.” The automaton whistled and limped forward on
his twisted ankle.
“Cyril,” Elisha said
quietly, “See if you can find Old Jim to help with this. I believe
he survived our struggle against the werewolves.”
“Sir,” Crowface nodded and
hastened away as carefully as he could so as to not jolt his injured
and battered wing.
By full morning, the pace had
slowed, from exhaustion if nothing else. Kaelin found herself sat
beside Thorian’s stretcher, where it had been put on a table just
outside the door of the tent, both Zilvra and Ulrich believing that
honest to god normal sunlight would speed up the healing process,
helping to purge the last of the light of Jeremiah’s god from his
system. Kaelin did have to admit that the hideous blackening of
Thorian’s skin was fading as its natural green blush crept back.
She closed her eyes herself, letting the warmth soak through her
feathers.
“Hey,” Thorian’s voice
made her start. She looked down to see him smiling up weakly at her,
his head on one side as he had to lie on his front.
“Did we win?” he asked,
teeth still blood stained from his bleeding gums.
“Not sure,” she admitted.
“Oh, that’s a problem
then,” Thorian closed his eyes again.
“Yeah,” Kaelin agreed
weakly, “ ‘Cause we now have no idea where the big burger’s
gone.”
“Not what I meant,”
Thorian yawned, “Meant that there’s another dragon coming.”
Kaelin looked up at the sky.
“Ulrich!” she yelled, “In
coming!”
Ulrich dashed out of the tent,
sword in hand, Lady Zilvra a step behind him, wrackingher hand bow.
Old Jim followed them to the tent flap. Kaelin had been surprised to
discover that Old Jim was a damned soul nearly seven feet tall and
massively broad with four arms and six eyes in his rabbit like face,
six eyes over which he wore glasses as said eyes were milky and
squinted without their lenses.
Amelia, laying near the
hospital tent looked up from slowly lapping at a bowl of brine so
thick it was more a salt soup than water. She didn’t not meet the
eyes of the damned souls and flinched away from them, tears
regulating trailing down her muzzle and she tried to shrink herself
and her shame as small as possible. She peered at the approaching
shape, hide still rippling with the muscle tremors of a nervous
system deplete to the edges.
“It is my nephew,” she
said quietly.
“Your nephew?” Ulrich
asked but Amelia looked away, going back to her bowl of brine, unable
to meet his eye. Ulrich’s mouth thinned. If Jeremiah hadn’t been
buried beneath several thousand tons of masonry, Ulrich would have
seen if he could find a necromancer to resurrect him just so that he,
Ulrich, could kill him again. He had worried about Jeremiah’s
interest in Kaelin, it had never crossed his mind that the heretic
would dare to muck about with the mind of a dragon. Now here they
were, Amelia hollowed out by a guilt that was not hers to carry and
yet she had too. If Jeremiah was still alive Ulrich would have
strangled him. He looked back at the fast approaching dragon.
“Someone should find
Hartseer,” he noted. With a yip one of the small and scurrying
damned souls dashed off, happy that it could be of use.
The approaching dragon was at
least smaller than Jeremiah’s god so they could relax on that score
but as it drew closer they could see that it was the most unusual
colour they had ever seen. Mostly it was purple, a striking royal
purple that artists and dyers the world over spent lifetimes trying
to replicate, but it was also tiger striped with bands and streaks
and splotches of bright orange, its wings particularly blazing with
the pattern as the early morning sunlight shone through them.
It back winged and landed
careful on the road that had lead out of the worth west gate of Tower
Town. As it turned towards the refugee camp, it shank, its for
becoming liquid as, with silent grace, it reformed into the black
coated form of Prince Relian. And he did not look happy.
“Your Highness,” Ulrich
bowed, “We…”
Prince Relian held up a hand
for silence and then pressed his palms together, closing his eyes as
he strove for calm.
“Just. What. The. Actual
HELL! Did you do?” he demanded.
“Er, I’m not sure myself,”
Thorian admitted from where he lay, “But I did try to give that bid
beasty a right good kicking.”
“It was my fault sir,”
Hartseer admitted, not meeting his prince’s eye, “When they
returned to Nether Wallop I thought he had finally learnt to control
his need to hurt and kill. I thought he had learnt to be more
discerning about who he was allowed to kill. I was wrong. I decided
to bring him back to the Capital as of this morning but he…”
Hartseer waved an arm at the ruin of the Wizard’s Tower.”
Prince Relian rubbed his face.
“Your lack of judgement is
deplorable,” he stated, “But you cannot take the full blame.
Those books were never supposed to be in a single person’s
possession ever again.” He ran his fingers into his hair.
“Books?” Ulrich asked, “I
thought he only had the one.”
“That’s what I thought,”
Kaelin agreed, not admitting that she had helped him steal the first
one. Prince Relian pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Ten thousand years old,”
he explained, “We brought an end to the God War by imprisoning that
Thing in a trio of books. They were supposed to be scattered across
Hestia so that they could never be brought together and fed. They
were both prison, lock and key. They were supposed to keep that Thing
contained for all eternity, to keep its fanatic fundamental
perfectionism imprisoned. That’s why we allowed the Ash Elves of
the ancient days to steal one of those books. We thought that it
would remain locked away in the Underworld.”
“Well that didn’t work,”
Kaelin stated, “And neither did the books. There was always going
to be some idiot who thought they could strike a deal with it.”
“Why do you suppose we have
been breeding ourselves for the last ten millennia?” Prince Relian
snapped, “All the hybrid dragons, all of us, we were all breed to
act as the back up plan, to try and have something powerful enough to
face it down. We’re spent ten thousand years trying to breed
something powerful enough to take it out of the equation.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Kaelin asked.
“We might not be enough!”
Prince Relian shouted, royal composure cracking up.
Amelia stood and limped over.
“Nephew,” she said
quietly, concern swimming in her eyes, “What has happened? Is your
father…?”
“Father’s fine,” Prince
Relian clenched his fists, digging his nails into the palm of his
hand, “Grandfather… It attacked the Capital last night.
Grandfather… he took the full blast. Straight to the chest. He…
He just…”
Amelia stepped forward, reared
and enveloped the Prince in arms and wings, becoming a mound of
warmth that shut the rest of the world out. Kaelin sniffed,
remembering what that had felt like. Ulrich turned away from the
sounds of harsh pain. He beckoned the others over to gather round
Thorian’s stretched, noting confusion on the faces of many.
“Alright, here’s the low
down,” he explained quietly, “Royal or Night Dragons, sometimes
known as Amethyst Dragons, are one of the only dragon species to have
strong family bounds. Most dragons can’t care less for their
families, some even view their own children as competition or even
outright food. My guess would be that the orange dragons have a
similar mind set, hence why there has been a marriage between the two
clans.”
“Er, he’s a dragon,”
Thorian stated.
“Yes,” Ulrich nodded,
“Some dragons have that ability, they can ‘go human’ for a
time. Night dragons are known to do it for years at a time. It’s
where dragonkin come from. The other thing about Night Dragons is
that they don’t care much for gold and gems, certainly not enough
to hoard them. What they love is hoarding societies. Now it certainly
explains some of Portasia’s history if we have a family of Night
Dragons as the royal family, just trust me on that Thorian okay? They
will have been leap frogging in their human forms down the
‘generations’ to keep up the disguise but if they have just lost
the patriarch then that is a massive blow for the family. Usually
they start preparing for the hand over of power centuries in advance.
This is going to upset the dynamics in the family. Think of them as a
tribe with out a chief right now Thorian.”
“Ah,” Thorian’s look of
confusion disappeared, “So they is going to want to fight it out to
see who the next chief. That’s not going to be a good time for us
with Jerry’s big, ugly beasty flying around.”
“Exactly,” Ulrich agreed,
“We are going to have to walk very careful right about now.”
“Perhaps we should listen to
what the Prince has to say before we decide,” Elisha counselled,
“If this family of Night Dragons is as old as the Prince’s words
suggest then they have lost family members unexpectedly before now.
Though this has undoubtedly been a huge shock, especially considering
the manner in which it has happened, they seem to have a strong
system for the succession already in place. We do not need to add
foundation less worry on top of the justified fears we already face.”
“Good point,” Ulrich
nodded and turned in time to see Prince Relian coming close, one hand
on Amelia’s shoulder but standing taller.
“Where is the priest now?”
he asked Hartseer.
“Flat sir,” Hartseer
reported, “Reassuringly so. Flat and buried some where under that
lot.” He pointed at the fallen tower.
“I suppose that is as good a
method of disposal as any,” Relian noted after a moment, “What
about the werewolves?”
“Dealt with,” Ulrich
replied, “My mechanical servant struck the last blow to the Alpha,
in fact…” Tasnar came out of the tent and spread the hide of
Kaelin’s grandfather at Prince Relian’s feet, “Proof that
Ratcliff will no longer be infection the world with his presence.”
Prince Relian gave the skin
and its still attached head a long look.
“Good,” he said at last,
“Lady Kaelin? Can you confirm that this was your grandfather?”
“Aye,” her mouth pinched,
“That was my old man and I’ll say thank you to Ulrich for saving
me the bother of kin killing.”
“Very good,” Prince Relian
nodded, “In that case I need a word with Lady Charlotte Darling.”
Kaelin frowned but clicked
open the locket.
“Lady Charlotte Susan
Darling,” Prince Relian addressed her formally, “Can you confirm
that this being was your cousin Don van Ranchiff?”
“I can and I will, Your
Highness,” she curtseyed, “I testify that was my cousin Donvan
Ranchiff of the family Ranchiff and sole heir to the estate there
in.”
Prince Relian took a breath
and then pulled something from his sleeve.
“These were supposed to be
granted at a proper awards ceremony,” he admitted, “To mark us
being able to stand most of the team down but under these
circumstances we are going to have to keep you on the active rosta.
Your Grace, Lady Kaelin Ranchiff and Darling, I here by present to
you your inheritance – the Barony of Darling and the Earldom of
Ranchiff. It is a joy to have them out from under direct Crown
Control.”
Ulrich made a noise of
complete surprise. Kaelin stood frozen in shock.
“Well take them then,”
Lady Charlotte prompted. Kaelin didn’t move.
Lady Zilvra and Estella
stepped forward and helped her lift her hands so Prince Relian could
deposit the scrolls in them.
“Take good care of those,”
Prince Relian instructed, “We don’t want to have to do another
confirmed copy, not in these times.”
Kaelin managed a noise that
could have been a yes. Estella kicked her ankle.
“Am I supposed to say thank
you?” Kaelin squeaked.
“At this time, I’ll let it
slide,” Prince Relian admitted, “Because unfortunately we need
you to stay in active service.” What was left of the King’s
Special and their allies looked at him.
“Father is in the north
organising the evacuation to the dwarf Holds,” he explained,
“Mother is heading south with Princess Amara to spread the word
among the Tropic Dragons and try and make contact with the Swamp
Dragons. We may even be able to rope in a couple of Tomb Dragon’s
to our cause through that is always a risk. Hartseer, we need you on
the ground helping father keep things organized. I will be heading to
the elf lands to try and take them warning that the Destroyer has
returned. I can only pray that I can get ahead of it. Lady Zilvra, if
you and your people are willing, we need you to show us the secret
entrances of the Underworld and help us get as many people
underground and kept alive as we can.”
“Why?” Thorian asked,
levering himself up so he was sitting with flinch, “Why
underground?”
“For the same reason I must
ask you, Elisha, to ascertain whether the Tower is stable enough for
the cellars to be used and if they are, to get your people down there
as quickly as possible,” Prince Relian explained, “Solid rock is
the only protection we have against this thing. Anything organic,
flesh, wood, timber, cloth, bone, all of it, it will all turn to salt
under the touch of that thing’s light. Solid stone is your only
defense.”
“What about cob or earth?”
Estella asked, “If the walls were thick enough?”
“Maybe?” Prince Relian
hazarded, “I am not sure I would want to try it. Why do you ask?”
“Houses dug into hill
sides,” she explained, “Without disturbing the trees. They would
be small, cramped even, but hidden from this thing. If it cannot see
the towns, why try and blast them off the map?”
“It is something to
consider,” Prince Relian noted after a moment, “Lady Kaelin, the
castle of the Countess of Ranchiff has an extensive underground
network of cellars and sublevels. If you could open it up to the
surrounding populace it would be appreciated.”
Kaelin nodded.
“Guess we should be thankful
this thing has attacked at the start of winter,” she noted, “At
least we are not trying to work the fields.”
“Indeed,” Prince Relian
noted, “Of yourself and the rest of the King’s Special, we need
you to start hunting for anything, anything at all that might help us
re-imprison this thing. In ten thousand years we have lost the
knowledge of how it was done. We need you to hunt out anyone, or
anything that might have that knowledge or be able to come up with a
different solution and convince them to help.”
“I can help there,”
Estella interrupted again. They looked round at her.
“I am the friend of a
Gealach Dragon,” she admitted, “We have been away for a long time
but particularly in the areas where Amelia has encouraged growth, I
believe I can open a door to her fae territory. She will want to help
with this and it will enable you to move faster on your journey.”
“So be it,” Prince Relian
nodded, “Aunt Amelia? We need you to track the coasts. Try and
rally as many of the Coral Dragons as possible. We all know out
tasks, let’s get to them. Good luck to us all.”
He turned and walked to the
road, shifting back to dragon as he went. He barely broke stride as
he lifted away from the ground, angling away east.
“Oh well,” Thorian
grunted, standing up, “Guess I’ll have a sleep later. That’s
point, how’s you going to run a big, old place like a castle,
Kaelin?”
She thought about it as she
tucked the scrolls away in her sleeve.
“I think I’ll have you as
the chief of my guards,” she said to Thorian, “And Ulrich? Ulrich
can be my butter.”
Despite everything Amelia
laughed as they turned away to the camp to gather up supplies for the
journey ahead.
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