by Sain Artwell
Disconnected from reality, Alron hunkered down and protected his vitals. Pain still registered through the blackness. Spears stabbed at his torso from five directions, momentarily lifting the block on his sense of touch. That moment was all he needed.
Alron grabbed the haft of a spear embedded in his shoulder, and swung his blade along its length. He felt the tip of the sword scrape armor. Alron stopped the slash there, reversed his grip, and stabbed. Metal resisted for an instant before giving in. A heart pumped its last beat against the flat of the blade.
Following the kill, Alron lunged blindly for where a second spearman had been. His blade cleaved through a shaft and two arms. Fei screamed “Left!” in his ear. Sounds were returning to him now. Without questioning it, Alron dashed left, twirling his stolen blade in arcs and spinning his wings like a whirling dervish. Six times he felt flesh being cut. On the sixth, his senses began to return in full.
Emerging from the world of black mist, Alron again tasted the coppery tang on his tongue. Cries and commands of his foes emerged from the silence.
Not wasting a beat, he executed the oracles writhing on the ground, and sprinted for Commodore Lenjora. Warriors sought to stop him. Half a mind in trance, he danced through the halberdiers and walls of shields and freezing blasts of icy dragonfire.
Where his guard laxed, Fei’s soulfire compensated for him. Where he forgot to finish a foe, Fei reached a tendril of soulfire into their lungs. They perished strangely fast to have been killed by soulfire. Indeed, Alron’s suspicions were confirmed when he glimpsed blood dripping from her half-materialized claws.
Five rows of obstacles turned to three, three to two, two to one, and one to none.
Alron stood before Lenjora. Her steely gaze flinched. Alron dispatched a final heavily armored wyrmkin trying to jump him from the side, and swept his blade sidelong to decapitate the Commodore. Instead, his blade shattered into scarlet shards as the sword finally gave in to the abuse of combat. Alron parried the woman’s retaliatory swing with his wounded wing, jammed the broken sword through her eye, and twisted.
Blood dyed her remaining eye amber as it glazed over. Commodore Lenjora sloughed backwards, and thudded on the floor.
“Well fought,” said Alron.
The remaining enemies hesitated. No one dared to die next. Their morale was a sand-castle before the tide, awaiting the final blow. Alron smelt victory in the bloodsoaked air.
A simple victory, however, was not enough, not if he intended to demand obedience from this crew. What Alron needed was to establish absolute domination. To make the very idea of opposing him as unthinkable as sunset at noon.
First, Alron eliminated every remaining oracle. Their sending and sensory collapse were risks beyond his control. Since none of the bridge’s survivors challenged him, Alron proceeded outside and killed the remaining pockets of resistance: A few straggler cannoneers, flying beasts loyal to their fallen masters, as well as a handful of winged warriors foolish enough not to have fled the ship.
By the end of the grim duty, Alron dragged himself back to the command bridge, and let out a long, relishing sigh.
For the first time in decades, he felt as if he’d fought.
His limbs weighed like bags of stone. He was light-headed. Wounded all over. His dragonsoul and vestiges screamed against his willpower, attempting to seize control. Truthfully, he was a mess.
A blissful mess.
“Wheeee… Mmm, now that’s a date and a half,” Fei said.
Sweat, grime, and blood clung to her slender figure, and looked more fetching on her in that moment than any luxurious gown could have. She stank like slaughter and her salt-white hair was a matted mess. To Alron, she was glorious, her beauty beyond measure.
An urge came to him to kiss and make love to her right then there. Instead, he merely returned her smile. “No. I won’t count battles as dates with you. The time we spend together shall be for that purpose alone.”
“Aww. Darling you… Is it weird to call you my darling yet? It’s not, is it? Or, perhaps it is. I called you that before. You liked it.”
“No? You had many names for me, but never ‘darling’.”
“Didn’t I? Huh.” Fei blinked, pausing. “Must’ve been my imagination. I did imagine the past a lot. Over and over and over and over and over and over, until some bits grew… fuzzy.”
“I know that all too well. Now, let us assume command.” Alron leaned his mouth to a bronze voicepipe on the captain’s console. “I am Alron, and I claim command of this vessel, and of the lives on it. Those wishing to demonstrate their loyalty to the Ascendancy may step forth, and accept their place in the eternal slumber. Same fate shall befall those who attempt to flee. The rest of you, those wishing to live, I order to set course towards the Blackmetal City. You will soon receive more in-depth orders from your new captain.”
Alron covered the voicepipe and looked at the five survivors of the command bridge. He spoke to them, “I urge one of you to volunteer.”
“Lesser Quartermaster Jugolav Bronzebeard at your most humble service!” replied a sing-songy voice.
The man saluting with a fist over his heart was a lanky youth defined by a spiraling sea-shell beard, spiral horns, and light gray skin covered in tattoos of naked women, maps, bawdy curses—all symbols of good luck.
An older man seized Bronzebeard’s shoulder. “No. Jugolav! You cannot trust a monster claimed by the dragon madness, he’ll—”
Alron tore a pipe, dragonized it, and executed the other man with it.
“Congratulations on your promotion, Captain Bronzebeard,” he said.
Bronzebeard curtsied nervously. “Why, a Captain? I am beyond honored. Thank you, o’ mighty Lord Alron.”
“Alron,” Alron corrected.
Bronzebeard nodded. “Alron. Just Alron. Very good. Shows humility. Very good. Ha-ha-ha…”
“Take the helm. Plot a course for the Burning Shores, and do so with haste. Should the other ships, or any other vessel, obstruct us, you are to open fire immediately.”
“Do you have fleshmenders on board?” asked Fei.
“At once, Alron.” Bronzebeard hurried to the helm, hurriedly wiping gore from a board of switches and levers. “Fleshmenders… Possibly, unless you killed them, in which case, we won’t. I’ll ask for one at once. Now, if I may offer a bold suggestion. For the time being, please resist the urge to tear off pipes and other parts of the ship.”
“Hrm.” Alron nodded.
“Yes, of course, Alron. At once. Juuuust a moment.” Bronzebeard cleared his voice, and spoke into the voicepipe. A metallic echo of his voice sounded from outside the command-bridge. He soon looked up. “Fleshmenders should be on their way up from the infirmary. Um, Alron, if I may ask?”
“You may.”
“What of the dead?”
Alron scanned over the carnage covering the bridge and the deck. Teal, purple, orange, green as well as rarer colors of gore merged into a muddled brown goop. Drains on the main deck were clogged by the oozing trickle from hundreds of slain.
Part of Alron expected a pang of guilt. After all, he’d never before ended a life for his own benefit, let alone for the sake of selfish satisfaction. But what guilt was there to wallow in? These were soldiers, trained killers, not innocent hatchlings. A man prepared to kill was in turn prepared to die. Instead of guilt, a dangerous warmth flooded his core, a whiff of righteousness more intoxicating than the most maddening drug or passionate sex.
Allowing himself to exercise his instincts of violence felt just. Indulging in vengeance felt right. Alron felt proud of his strength. Proud of prevailing. Proud of living, when his foes did not. The blissful euphoria of bleeding wounds mixed with that pleasant sense of pride.
He was glad.
Glad for the isolation.
Glad for his solemn duty estranging his soul from reality and reason. If not for that century of isolation, could he even have had the stomach for this?
If this is a dragonsoul’s
madness talking, then so be it. Let madness be my guide.
“Alron?” Bronzebeard cleared his voice several times.
“Do with the corpses as you wish, but gather their vestiges and bring them to me. We shall wait for the fleshmenders and food atop the bridge,” Alron said, and headed for the ladder up.
Fei followed him onto the gently curved platform of rust-kissed metal. A hair whipping sea-breeze cleansed the stench of death, and Alron allowed himself to relax, releasing his dragonizations. The cloak was so torn that the moment he did so, the wind tore it apart.
“Tired?” Fei asked, her tender voice like salve to his wounds. “Do you need a quick after-murder nap? I could be a pillow for you, if you do.”
“Ha. No. I’ve slumbered long enough.” Alron flashed a brief wry smile. He placed his hand over hers and squeezed it gently.
Fei leaned her forehead to his shoulder, and closed her eyes. “‘Thank you, Fei. You needn’t act as my pillow, but please rest against me if you feel weary’,” she said, imitating his voice. “Why yes, thank you for the invitation my dar— Alron.”
“If you don’t mind the gore…”
“No. I don’t mind it. A century underground did not turn me into a dainty oldblood afraid to get dirty. Sit. Let me rest against you. Please?”
“Come here.” Alron settled down on the grainy surface of rust, and began to feel his wounds.
Thankfully, Fei was careful to avoid them, when leaning against his shoulder. Most of the gashes would close on their own within hours. Those cut by starsteel would take longer, unless the fleshmenders had Oqhizt’s talents. Unlikely, but stranger things had happened.
Never before had Alron seen the likes of those homing missiles, powdered starsteel, shoulder-cannons, or those dragonfire powered armors. He’d clearly missed much in his isolation. Perhaps Oqhizt’s talents would be the new norm for fleshbenders?
Alron gazed at the sea, allowing his thoughts to come to an idle lull.
Three and a half miles out, one of the two remaining battleships turned to chase them. The cannons of Alron’s battleship pointed their blackened barrels at the pursuer, and fired. The crew seemed to have wisely accepted their new fate beneath his rule.
“We should start working on our bond problem,” said Fei.
The ship chasing them returned fire. Moments later, water splashed hundreds of feet off of them.
Alron murmured in agreement. “Then let no time be wasted.”
“I… Heh…” Grinning, Fei pushed hair from her face. “How did we do this in the past? I’ll admit, some of the rust on my chains rubbed on me. You are so different from what I imagined. It’s strange.”
“We can talk,” Alron said, gazing lovingly at his old lover.
Fei nodded eagerly. “Yes, talking sounds pleasant. How was it? The island you lived on, was it what we’d dreamt of? Tell me a fun story.”
Alron had a few. He picked a tale of when a horny seasloth mistook one of the seatree skeletons for its mate, only to be caught in the act by a group of seasloth females. Despite everything—the betrayal of his beloved nation, his heroes and idols, the deaths, the wounds, a battleship attempting to sink them for hours after the commodore had died—that night of chatting with Fei under the stars was the best day of Alron’s life in a century.
Chapter 5 - The Finger Bearer
“Do you think we’ll ever find them?”
“Fret not.” Alron placed a blackmetal missile back on the rack of the crammed munition storage. Its oily surface left his fingers stained. “Only one remains, if Bronzebeard is to be trusted. With the fragmentation shells he stole, he will strike soon.”
“I wasn’t talking about the rat,” said Fei, leaning on the door as she gnawed on a square of seabread.
“Ah. Them.” Alron wiped his fingers on his new cloak of greatray hide.
Fei studied the pool of blood on the floor, and continued, “Wouldn’t have a rat problem at all if Yvie was here. Stars, to think it was possible to miss the uppity know-it-all-princess this dearly. But Q! I knew I’d miss Q. Is fun! Was fun…”
“You were a touch too eager to step on her tail, as I recall.”
“She was a tease, wasn’t she. I couldn’t help it, could I? You hardly could keep your hands off her either.”
Alron blew half a snort through his nose, and hoisted the mangled corpse of a missile thief on his shoulder. He gestured to Fei to step aside from the doorway.
“I can carry it for you if you’d like,” she offered quickly.
“No need.” The majority of Alron’s wounds had made a complete recovery over the two days at sea. The captured fleshmenders had been wise not to test whether their speed at flesh manipulation exceeded Alron’s reflexes. His dragonsoul was healing too, though slower than expected—almost as slowly as his bond with Fei.
She seemed still to be absolutely madly in love with him, more madly than ever. But was he? He pitied her, yes. Lusted for her body, of course. Beyond anything, he admired her tenacity. And yet, on a fundamental level, their connection felt more distant than it ever had. Fei was a different person, and though she meant well, her eagerness to dwell on nostalgia ultimately led them no closer to each other.
“Oh, did I ask this yet? How was our funeral?” She followed Alron into the hallway outside the munitions storage.
Alron found the closest hole in the hull and threw the thief’s corpse out. It hurtled through the blue mists, and splashed between the pink coral reefs—canopies of healthy submerged sea-trees. An undersea forest grew beneath the surface, with the tallest breaching the surface to emit a cool mist in the air. The body disappeared, soon to be devoured by reef-beasts. Alron returned to the storage and dragonized the lock, before turning to Fei.
“Fei…” He paused to search for a sentence.
She nodded, smiling. “Mm-hm?”
“Though I do appreciate your keenness for my stories, are they truly what you wish us to speak of? Three days it’s been since our reunion. Every day it seems we return to my past, never yours. I have not yet even heard of your escape, let alone of your years down below.”
Fei looked away, her voice taking a sharp, almost dismissive tone. “What is there to say? I was… I did not move. I sat chained in the dark. Nothing happened. Nothing real anyway. My body marinated in my blood and feces and my soul in madness and rage. My resentment grew, and I…”
She pressed her claws into her arm, as her lips twitched in a bitter snarl. “Stars’ sake, I thought about the baby we should’ve had by now. The babies. I imagined…” Her claws pierced skin, and as Fei drew shuddering breaths, she became visibly angry.
Alron allowed sympathy to show in his frown.
Somewhere on the bow of the ship, a cannon fired, likely to fend off a reef-beast or perhaps a deepkin corsair. After a few seconds, another cannon fired, and Alron spoke, “Go on.”
“Hah? No.” Fei stepped back. “It was… I babbled by myself. It was not… It wasn’t real. You’ll think me truly insane.”
“Didn’t you already declare yourself mad?”
“That was in jest! Though, granted, yes. I did say so, but you didn’t know, not yet. I like this…”
Alron was becoming confused.
Fei twirled her hair, continuing to look everywhere except directly at him. “I like being able to reminisce with you. I don’t want you to think me mad.”
“Hm. Understandable.”
“See? Best I focus on leaving that darkness behind. Best we talk of you, of killing, of our future killings. Anything! Anything other than the pit. We must focus on the now, not my yesterday.”
“Agreed. Rarely does it pay to gaze in the past too long.”
Fei smiled. “See? Let’s go find that rat. I’ll help you.”
“Only in the eternal now can a wyrmkin truly be himself and let his soul soar. On that, I agree. But Fei, if you don’t allow me to break the chains tethering you to that past, then who will do so?”
“It’s not—�
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“Listen to me, woman. We have ruthlessly massacred hundreds of our former countrymen together, what judgement can you possibly fear from me?” He seized her by the shoulder.
Fei slapped his hand. “I can’t be a weak bitch who needs your pity to live! To be some wet hatchling in need of nursing… I refuse! I need to fix myself. Fix the unnecessary thoughts… silence the gibbering dark things… and… and…” She pointed a finger at him. “I refuse to become a useless burden! I will make myself yours again, like I used to, and be perfect like you.”
“Perfect like me?” Alron scoffed. “That part, that is true madness talking.”
Her brows scrunched from his provocation.
Alron let jest fall from his face. “Fei. Do you truly think we’ll prevail, if you’re afraid to bear your past to me?”
“But—”
He cut off her attempt to interrupt with a finger to her lips. “Every day, I gazed into the vestiges of Carrion Scourge, and rummaged through the twisted nightmares of his memories, all for a blurred glimpse of you. Half the reason I clung to that foolish duty was to hear your voices one more time, to remember your faces again even if it was through the eyes of my cursed father. Fei, whatever madness you’re ashamed to share, I accept it all.”
“You’ll laugh.” She looked away, ashamed.
“Never, unless it is a joke.”
“Might as well be, it’s…” Fei wiped her face. Several emotions playing across her expression: shame, fear, and lastly, an almost girlish anxiety. Heat turned her ears red. Her voice grew bitter when she spoke.
“I spent my days—both lucid and non—daydreaming. It started out as a continuation of a dream I had. I’d dreamt of giving birth to your egg, your firstborn, then continued from that, playing the ‘what ifs’ in my head on and on towards their conclusion and then some. I imagined all of us bearing your eggs, and were all happy together like that. I liked to imagine how we would’ve named the hatchlings. Nvei, Mnemoraz, Ikvir, Tolron, Hellyana were the first five, just mine. The others had more. Those five were already adults when I left, though they hadn’t yet dared to leave home. We lived on a farmstead by a waterfall, instead of the island. The island, you see, had grown too small after Mlev’s twentieth whelp. Heh! Can you imagine that? Mlev with twenty hatchlings? She was a surprisingly gentle mother, guiding, but a little manipulative in the way she raised them. You were there too of course, you were our perfect darling, strong and kind, but also firm when you had to be. It was wonderful. They actually held a farewell party for me, before I began my escape. I did cry then. I thought, maybe if you’re not alive after all, and the bond I sensed was an illusion, or you had changed, or didn’t want me back, and I’d be leaving my real darling behind, and never see the little ones again and…” Fei buried her face in her hands, shuddering.
