Dragontiarna: Thieves

by Moeller, Jonathan

  The Anathgrimm had arrived.

  Blue fire swirled next to Accolon, and Queen Mara stepped out of it. She wore armor of blue dark elven steel, a diadem of the same metal set on her pale hair. In her right hand, she held a dark elven short sword, and in her right a bronze-colored dwarven dagger.

  “Prince Accolon,” said Mara. “We came as fast as we could. I am very glad to see that you’re still alive.”

  Accolon smiled and offered her a bow. “I am always glad to see you, Queen Mara, but today especially.”

  “I imagine so,” said Mara. Her smile faded. “Who are these red orcs?”

  “I don’t know,” said Accolon, his mind calculating the odds. “But your Anathgrimm are more than a match for them. The men of Cintarra need aid. If we push hard, we can drive the red orcs right back into the sea.”

  But where had they come from? Did they have more ships elsewhere in the southern sea?

  That was a question for another day.

  The Anathgrimm shouted, advanced in good order, and methodically began butchering the red orcs. Accolon pointed Hopesinger, and his bodyguard rushed into the fray, aiding the beleaguered men-at-arms and militiamen.

  ***

  Chapter 27: Frost & Fire

  “Tyrcamber,” said Rilmael. “It’s time.”

  Tyrcamber nodded and watched the great black dragon that Merovech had become. The Dragonmaeloch loosed a furious booming roar. To the ears of most men, that would have sounded like a simple battle cry. But Tyrcamber had spent thousands of years as an enslaved dragon, at least in his mind, and he knew what that cry meant. It was a challenge.

  Merovech was urging Tyrcamber to come forth and do battle.

  “I will hold the Theophract’s attention,” said Rilmael, and golden fire began to dance up his staff while lightning snarled around his free hand. “I can keep him occupied. But it will be up to you to stop Merovech from destroying our army. If we cannot defeat Merovech and keep him from passing through the gate of the Great Eye, then not only will the Empire be destroyed, but worlds beyond count.”

  “I know,” said Tyrcamber, though such high matters were beyond him. A cold, calm certainty settled over his mind. No matter what he had suffered, no matter what he had become, he still had his duty. He was a knight of the Empire, and even becoming a Dragontiarna had not changed that duty. It was his task to defend the Empire and its people from their foes.

  It was his duty to stop Merovech Valdraxis.

  “God go with you, my friend,” said Rilmael.

  “And you,” said Tyrcamber, and Rilmael put spurs to his horse and galloped towards Prince Everard’s banner, the fire around his staff shining brighter. Tyrcamber reached for his own fire, the hot fury of the Malison that filled him, and once more he changed, leaving behind his human guise and taking the shape of a dragon.

  With a mighty leap and a flap of his wings, he shot into the sky and soared towards the Dragonmaeloch. A hunting cry of his own burst from his jaws, a challenge for Merovech to come and face him. Merovech banked hard, flying so fast that his burning talons seemed to write lines of fire in the air, and shot towards Tyrcamber. The Dragonmaeloch loosed another roar, and this time Tyrcamber heard the madness in it, the joy in ruin and death that enslaved all the Dragonmaeloch and drove them to destroy everything around them.

  A similar dark joy filled Tyrcamber, but it was the exultation of the warrior lifting his blade in a righteous cause, of a man finding his purpose.

  Fire erupted from his jaws, and for the first time since the fall of the Dragon Imperator, a Dragontiarna Knight of the Empire and a Dragonmaeloch of the Cult met in battle.

  Tyrcamber’s fire lanced across the sky, hot and deadly. Merovech’s fire was the color of shadow, of famine, of blight, of withering and entropy. The twin columns of flame met over the battlefield, and the noise was colossal, the gale wind so powerful that some of the warriors battling for their lives on the ground were thrown to the earth. Their fires canceled each other out, and then Tyrcamber and Merovech sprang upon each other, raking and snapping. Tyrcamber sank his fangs into Merovech’s shoulder. The Dragonmaeloch snarled and raked his talons across Tyrcamber’s side, ripping through the scales to find the flesh beneath.

  The two dragons ripped apart, both wounded. Tyrcamber felt glowing golden blood dripping from the gashes in his side. The pain was considerable, but pain meant nothing to him, and already the power of the Malison was healing his wounds. He had yanked a chunk out of Merovech’s shoulder, but the wound was likewise healing. The Dragonmaeloch roared again, and Tyrcamber heard the rage and the glee and the madness in Merovech’s cry.

  They hurtled together again, lashing and clawing, and then tore apart. The two dragons circled over the battlefield, blasts of fire ripping at each other, each circling higher over the other, trying to gain an aerial advantage for a decisive, deadly pounce. Tyrcamber and Merovech each could have destroyed the other’s army unaided, but they were too equally matched to overcome the other easily. Merovech was stronger and fought with wild, mad ferocity. But Tyrcamber kept his head and fought with control and cold, deadly precision enough to counter Merovech’s strength and fury.

  They were too evenly balanced. The first to make a serious mistake would die.

  Both Tyrcamber and Merovech were a thousand feet above the battlefield now, so high that the soldiers looked almost like lines upon a map. Tyrcamber lashed his fire at Merovech, and again it ripped along the Dragonmaeloch’s flank, melting through the armored scales to sear the flesh beneath. Merovech screamed and flew higher, dancing around the flames, and Tyrcamber prepared himself to dodge the Dragonmaeloch’s shadow fire.

  Instead, Merovech transformed. The dragon shrank back into the armored figure of the human Duke. For an instant, Tyrcamber could not make sense of the sight. They were a thousand feet above the ground. Merovech would plummet to his death. But Merovech held a red sword in his hands, a sword that burned with crimson flames, a shadow-filled crystal set into the tang of the blade.

  Even as Tyrcamber realized what was about to happen, Merovech landed on his back and plunged the howling sword deep into him.

  Tyrcamber screamed, fire erupting from his jaws with his agony. For a dragon of his bulk, a single sword wound was a pinprick. But the wound burned with pain out of all proportion to its size. The weapon was magical, and Tyrcamber felt his limbs and his wings go limp, and he plummeted towards the earth.

  With a convulsive spasm, he shook his entire body, and the jolt dislodged Merovech and ripped the dark sword from Tyrcamber’s back. Merovech tumbled away, still in human form, and Tyrcamber lost sight of him. But the pain from the sword vanished, and strength began to return to Tyrcamber’s limbs.

  He flapped his wings, and just barely stopped himself from crashing into the ground and shattering every bone in his body. Nevertheless, it was a hard landing, his claws digging furrows into the earth, and Tyrcamber skidded to a halt east of the battle proper. The fire of the Malison flowed through him, and Tyrcamber shrank back into human form with a shuddering breath. The transformation healed any wounds he had taken in dragon form, but it did nothing about his fatigue, which was growing.

  A dark shadow fell over him, and Tyrcamber saw Merovech swooping towards him, wearing dragon form once more. Tyrcamber started to summon power for the Shield spell, anticipating that Merovech would breathe fire, but the great black dragon landed twenty yards away. Golden fire washed over Merovech, and took human form again, the red sword burning in his fist.

  That sword…there was something familiar about it, something that tugged at Tyrcamber’s memory. It reminded him of the soulblades that Lord Ridmark and Prince Accolon had carried at Castarium. Yet there seemed something wrong with Merovech’s sword, something off. The soulstone set in the tang of the blade bled shadows, and Tyrcamber felt the sword’s malevolent aura like it was a living predator that desired to feast on the flesh of the innocent.

  “You should have joined me, Tyrcamber!” said Merove
ch, pointing the burning sword as he walked closer. “You and I, we are what humanity should be, what humanity must become! The cosmos is going to be remade. The old order will be torn down, and a new one brought up in its place. But first, the old way must be thrown down in ruin.”

  “Ruin?” said Tyrcamber, and the knowledge blazed through him in a flash. “You’re a Herald of Ruin. One of the Warden’s five Heralds of Ruin.”

  Merovech came to an abrupt stop, his burning eyes drawing to narrow slits.

  “You should not know about us,” said Merovech. “How? Ah, yes, of course. Rilmael. Your teacher, just as the Theophract is mine. But you have chosen the wrong side. The Warden will throw down the pillars of heaven and cast down the throne of God. The errors of creation shall be corrected, and disorder and chaos will be banished forever. You have but to join us, Dragontiarna, and rich rewards shall be yours.”

  Tyrcamber drew Kyathar, the sword’s crystalline blade bursting into flames. “Come closer and say that.”

  Merovech grinned a mad, feral smile. “With the greatest of pleasure.”

  He howled and charged, the corrupted soulblade leading. The shadows set within the sword’s crystal swirled, and erupted forth in a haze of shadows. The haze rolled over Tyrcamber, and he felt the chill stab deep into him. It was another aspect of the sword’s power, similar to the pain he had felt when Merovech had stabbed the weapon into him.

  But this time Tyrcamber cast a spell, and he worked the Ward spell, one of the Seven Spells that every man, woman, and child in the Empire learned, a spell designed to defend against the corruptions of dark magic. A flickering light surrounded Tyrcamber, and the chill faded and then vanished.

  Merovech snarled again. “You resist the power of Stormruin?” The sword had a name? “Then perish!”

  He charged, and Tyrcamber cast the Lance spell in rapid succession, throwing four blasts of magical flame at Merovech, hot enough to burn through flesh and bone. The first time Merovech worked a Shield spell, deflecting the Lance. The second time he blocked the Lance with Stormruin, which drank the spell with ease, and the corrupted soulblade blocked the third and the fourth blasts.

  Tyrcamber cast his own Shield spell, the blazing disc appearing on his left bracer, and worked the Armor spell. The second spell sheathed him in shining elemental flames, hot enough and strong enough to push back the shadows of the corrupted soulblade, and Tyrcamber flung himself at Merovech, Kyathar leading in a thrust.

  Their swords rang together, elemental flame and blood-colored fire howling against each other. Stormruin did not disintegrate against Tyrcamber’s Shield as lesser weapons did, but Tyrcamber’s magic was enough to block the corrupted soulblade. But the shadowy haze kept pouring from the sword, eroding Tyrcamber’s Armor and Ward spell. For that matter, Merovech fought with ferocious power and skill, Stormruin striking from every direction in a blaze of crimson fire.

  Tyrcamber met his attack without flinching, without slowing. He had spent thousands of years trapped within the visions of the Chamber of the Sight, and he knew violence and killing as intimately as he knew anything. Tyrcamber deflected the Dragonmaeloch’s sword strikes and spells and advanced with grim, implacable focus. Kyathar seemed to sing in his hand, and Tyrcamber’s world shrank until nothing remained in it but Merovech Valdraxis and the overwhelming urge to strike down his enemy.

  Merovech leaped back and screamed, and he pointed Stormruin. A torrent of crimson fire hurled from the blade and stabbed towards Tyrcamber. It was a variant of the Fire Stream spell, one of the secret spells of the Order of Embers, but empowered by dark magic instead of elemental flame. Tyrcamber twisted, raising his left arm, and the shaft of crimson fire struck his Shield spell. The mighty impact knocked him back, and Tyrcamber snarled, calling more magical power through his weary mind and body. The power of the Malison was infinite, or close enough to it that the distinction was meaningless. But Tyrcamber was finite and mortal, and even as a Dragontiarna, he only had so much stamina. The weariness kept closing around him, and he fought it off with an effort of will.

  He had not fought and slain the Valedictor only to fall at the hand of a traitor and apostate like Merovech!

  Again, Merovech screamed, and the stream of dark fire vanished. Tyrcamber stumbled, catching his balance, feeling almost giddy from the sudden lack of pressure. Merovech leaped into the air, golden fire engulfing him, and he transformed, becoming the great black dragon once more.

  Tyrcamber jumped and let the Malison flow through him, and he became the golden dragon.

  This time they slammed into each other only thirty feet above the earth, and the violence of their impact hurled them back to the ground. They raked and clawed at each other, rolling over and over like two drunks fighting in the mud, though bursts of fire ripped from their jaws and turned to earth to smoking glass. Merovech’s jaws closed around the base of Tyrcamber’s neck, but Tyrcamber’s talons dug deeper and deeper into Merovech’s flanks. They tore apart from one another and took to the air, spiraling upward, bursts of fire stabbing back and forth.

  Then Merovech soared higher, and Tyrcamber knew what to expect. He did not change his flight, and golden fire swallowed Merovech as he shifted back to human form, Stormruin raised over his head to stab. At the last minute, Tyrcamber jerked to the side, swinging his left wing. The broad length of his wing slammed into Merovech and sent him tumbling head over heels, and again the Dragonmaeloch blazed with golden fire as he shifted from his human form.

  But the dark soulblade wounded Tyrcamber’s wing in the impact, and he found that it would no longer support his weight. He bobbed in a drunken spiral and hit the ground much harder than he would have liked, so hard he felt some of the bones shatter in his side and forelimbs. Tyrcamber had no choice but to take human form once more. The transformation healed him, but he was tired, so damned tired, and he bobbed in a drunken weave before he caught his balance.

  He was…he wasn’t sure where he was. Maybe about a mile north of the battle? He had lost his bearings during their furious duel. Tyrcamber could not tell who was winning, though he saw golden fire blaze against tentacles of shadow in the sky, so Rilmael and the Theophract were battling each other. Tyrcamber looked to the south and saw Merovech flying in his dragon form about a half mile to the south, turning for an attack.

  Tyrcamber sucked in a few deep breaths, preparing to take dragon form yet again and meet his foe.

  Then he heard hoofbeats drumming and turned to see a woman in a blue dress galloping a horse towards him, pale hair billowing behind her, her face set in grim resolution and fear.

  “Ruari?” said Tyrcamber.

  She jumped from her saddle and looked at him, drawing her tablet from her belt. She had already written something there.

  I CANNOT LET YOU FIGHT ALONE.

  “What?” said Tyrcamber. “No, no, you can’t be here. This…”

  She shoved a rolled piece of paper at him, stepped back, and began taking off her clothes.

  The sheer strangeness of it – his wife taking off her clothes in the middle of a battlefield while a Dragonmaeloch dove towards them – froze Tyrcamber’s mind for a moment. Then she saw that there was writing on the paper.

  Ruari had written him a letter with a clear, firm hand.

  “Husband,” she had written. “I must tell you the truth of myself, the truth I have never told anyone else. When I was a girl, soon after I recovered from the withering plague, I quarreled with my mother. She said I was useless and ugly, and that no man would want me now. I became angry, so angry, and I cast a Lance spell of ice and pierced her through the chest. It was a mortal wound, and I was horrified. In desperation, I cast the Heal spell on her, but I could not repair the wound. I cast the Heal spell again with as much power as I could summon, and I knew I would bring the Dragon Curse upon myself, but I did not care. I drew so much magical power that I healed her wound, but the Malison came upon me. I knew what that meant, but in shame and guilt, I vowed never to kill, never wound, ne
ver fight, never to destroy. Only to heal. The Malison burned inside me, but I kept to my vow. I gained great magical power, but I used it only to heal, never to destroy. Husband, when my mother and brother gave me to you, I thought you would be cruel and arrogant, and rule my life with a fist of iron. I knew you were a Dragontiarna Knight, and I was afraid of you. Yet you were nothing but kind. You helped the villagers of Grundorf. You used your great power only to defend the Empire. Then I understood what I learned from you. There is a time to heal, but there is also a time to fight. There is a time when the healer must lay aside her medicines and take up the sword, for else destroyers will ruin everything she has worked to mend. That time is now, and my conscience will not let you fight alone.”

  Tyrcamber’s first thought was that he had never imagined that Ruari had such a poetical bent.

  He looked up and saw that Ruari was naked, her body pale and stark against the grass of the battlefield and the blaze of the sky fire. He looked at her face, at the brilliant blue eyes, and he suddenly understood. Her eyes hadn’t originally been that color.

  They had changed.

  Just as his eyes had changed when he had transformed.

  “You’re,” said Tyrcamber, the realization coming to him. “You’re…”

  She was like him.

  Merovech roared as he hurtled towards them.

  Ruari’s gaze snapped towards the Dragonmaeloch, and then her eyes and body began to burn with golden fire.

  She swelled into immensity, and when the golden fire faded a heartbeat later, she had become a dragon with icy blue scales, perhaps thirty-five feet from snout to tail. Wings like leather were folded against her back, and her claws and talons were like white ice. Ruari made no sound as she leaped into the sky, mute even in her dragon form.