When Claws and Swords Collide

by N M Zoltack

  The horse seemed to feed on her anxiety, traveling swiftly. She had opted not to have her destrier, Swiftfire, for the battle, having learned far more attacks and strikes and moves while both feet were on the ground rather than from mounted on a horse. She missed Swiftfire, to be sure, but this horse was a fine beast in his own right.

  Onward they went with Vivian only having to change directions ever so slightly. The dragon had left a path of small blazes here and there for her to follow.

  Was she more terrified or furious? It was hard to say, to be sure, as she knew more about the dragons than most living did. They had been loving guardians over the humans, trying to teach them compassion and mercy. They had judged the humans, yes, but with justice above all us.

  That on the battlefield had been anything but justice. Not all those gathered on the field deserved to have been killed.

  Yet, not all of them had been killed, so perhaps Vivian was judging the dragons too harshly in return, but why was this one she was tracking burning parts of the countryside? What possible motive could he have for such improvident destruction?

  The fact of the matter remained that the dragons seemed to be utterly bent on sheer vengeance, and perhaps they had every right to be burning mad as they had been executed by the very ones they sought to help better.

  Throughout history, humans had proven to be violent, self-serving, ambitious, and cruel. The ones who rose to the top were the ones who took what they wished. Even Vivian had to admit that her father might not have been in the right to have done what he had.

  No, most certainly he had not. He had been far too ambitious. What he had done he had tried to explain away as just, but it had been about power. Had the people of Dragoona truly been that poorly off with the Lis? They had ruled for a long time, hadn't they? Maybe not the longest rulers ever, or had they? She really should have listened to her history tutors more, but then again, would her tutors have told her the truth concerning the Lis? Could she have believed any of the words they told her about the history of their world?

  History was told by those in charge, and history could change just as rulers could. The actual truth had once been held by the dragons but no more.

  Feeling rather lost by the weight on her shoulders, Vivian came to a steep hill. The horse struggled for the first time but finally reached the pinnacle, and she halted him.

  The village in the near distance was entirely ablaze.

  She was too late. Even if she rode the rest of the way there now, the chances she would be able to save anyone was slim.

  No. It was an impossibility. As she watched, the dragon swooped down and ate a figure trying to flee the town. If the dragon wasn’t allowing anyone to leave…

  Tears burned Vivian’s eyes. How was any of this real? She prayed to the Fate of Life that she was merely dreaming all of this, that she would wake and the battle had not yet commenced, but if any Fate was ruling over Dragoona now, surely it was the Fate of Chaos.

  Or perhaps only the Fate of Death.

  13

  Queen Sabine Grantham

  The mad dash back to the castle left Sabine breathless. The stench of the burning flesh and hair was enough to make her gag, and the smoke irritated her eyes, but the smoke was not the reason for her tears.

  She never should have left the castle.

  How many more times would she make an erroneous decision?

  Sabine rode her horse almost inside the keep before sliding down. Perhaps one of the guards could escort the horse to the stable, or the horse could run free and possibly be collected later. The queen had far more pressing matters to attend to.

  Lifting her skirts, she hurried inside the keep and noticed Advisor Aldus Perez speaking with Vicar Albert Leeson down the hall. Neither man looked her way, and she ignored them, heading for her room as swiftly as her trembling legs could carry her.

  Once there, Sabine opened up the grimoire she had secured from the alchemist Tatum Hill. Sabine wasn’t entirely an alchemist herself, not quite yet. To become one in her own right, she would have to create a new potion that did exactly as she wished, and she had endeavored to do just that. While her potion did force people to speak the truth, it also killed them. Regrettable, yes, but the prisoners had been their enemies. It could have been worse.

  The grimoire was leather-bound and worn, a cherished but well-used keepsake, one Sabine was to have returned to Tatum at some point. Tatum erroneously believed that there was a male within the castle who had an affinity for alchemy. If Tatum knew Sabine wished it for herself, the alchemist never would have handed it over, even if Sabine was the ruling queen.

  Female alchemists were said to be cursed, that they were far too ambitious, that their ambitions, without fail, caused their own deaths and sometimes the deaths of others as well.

  So far, it seemed Tatum was avoiding the curse, and for now, Sabine merely sought to use one of Tatum’s father’s recipes. This would not cause Sabine to be at risk of becoming an alchemist, not yet at least.

  “Let’s see,” she murmured to herself as she flipped through the pages, trying to ignore the shouts and cries of those outside being attacked by the dragon. “Where is—Here.”

  A potion for healing burns.

  A regular healing potion might not work quite so well on burns, and while she could not be certain that the only injuries suffered were from burns, this would make for a good start.

  “Raven’s blood,” she muttered, “blaze powder, firegrass, light of a wisp, and mercy’s blossom.”

  During her studies of alchemy, Sabine had acquired a great variety of ingredients, and as luck would have it, she had a bit of each one of them. As quickly as she could, she gathered them all, and working swiftly but efficiently, she created as many potions as she could. Firegrass and mercy’s blossom were the ingredients she ran out of first, and she tucked the vials all into a basket. Holding the basket in one hand and clutching the list of ingredients in another hand, Sabine made her way back to the front of the keep.

  “You.” She pointed to the nearest guard. “Go and fetch Tiberius Davis.”

  “Ah, I don’t—”

  “Go,” she snapped.

  He nodded and raced off.

  Her gaze shifted to the guard that had been beside the first. “You must send word to Tatum Hill that I have need of her, that her kingdom has need of her. Do you know where she might be?”

  “Ah, no, My Queen.”

  “She owns a shop, Mermaid’s Tears. Otherwise, she might be at her house. You, ah, would have to ask where she lives. Now, go!"

  Many were stumbling into the keep, and Rosalynne and Sabine both guided them to chairs or onto blankets. The two queens said not a word to one another, and Sabine began to hand out her potions when Tiberius Davis approached.

  Tiberius was a tall, pox-faced guard. He wasn’t the most handsome of fellows, and he had spied for Greta until he had stabbed her in the back and admitted that she had paid and released two Vincana prisoners so they would kill the queens.

  Sabine would never forgive her mother for this, but she did forgive Tiberius Davis. Her mother could talk most anyone into doing her bidding.

  “What is it you need of me, My Queen?” Tiberius asked. As ever, his eyes were watery.

  “I need you to fetch me as much as you can of all of these ingredients.” After handing him the list, she rummaged through her basket for the vials he would use for collection. “Go and hurry back.”

  “If you think it necessary,” he said dubiously.

  “Why would it not be?” she asked haltingly. “Do you honestly think I would send you out into danger for no good reason? These people are suffering burns. They need these ingredients. Stop standing there like a buffoon and go!”

  He backed up a few spaces, bowed, and hurried off, but Sabine did not breathe easier. If anything, she felt lost yet.

  The number of people rushing inside the keep was slowing down, and Sabine moved to follow Tiberius. Through the open door of the ke
ep, she could not see where precisely the dragon was. Maybe it had flown off. Fates willing, that was the case, but how had the dragons returned? If that was the will of the Fates, then maybe there wasn’t much of anything they could do for themselves or for their futures.

  The dragons might burn them all to ashes.

  14

  Prince Marcellus Gallus

  The sheer number of those injured, burned, or killed in the battle and the dragon carnage after left Marcellus devastated. Thankfully, the dragons had all fled, who knew where to, but that did not mean Marcellus was anywhere close to being done helping the wounded.

  “Those burned are not going to last long, I fear,” Horatia murmured.

  Marcellus shook his head and ran a hand through his dark curly hair. “That’s unacceptable,” he announced. “There has to be some herb, some plant that can help.”

  “There might be here, yes,” Liviana Papius says, “but we don’t know what plants do what here. Back on Vincana—”

  “Some of the plants that grow down there have to grow up here too,” Marcellus insisted.

  “I will go and find some,” Cassia Junius volunteered.

  The Valkyrie hurried away, toward some of the trees and underbrush nearby.

  Horatia and the others continued to work with Marcellus in silence. There were others across the field, those from Tenoch, tended to their wounded, and when Marcellus located a pair of wounded soldiers, one from either side, both alive yet, he knelt beside them. One had his torso cut nearly clean through, and the other was holding the first innards in place. To move either would be to kill that one. As it was, ‘twas a wonder that the sliced one still lived as it was.

  Marcellus had no words to offer. The one dying was from Vincana. The Tenoch soldier was saving him. Would a Valkyrie have done the same had the positions been reversed? He did not like that the answer eluded him.

  Perhaps he was right, that the matter had gone on too far. Vivian was young. She was too naïve, thinking that peace could be had simply because another threat could devastate them all.

  She was perhaps ten-and-six. He was nearly twenty. They were not that far apart in age, truth be told, but he felt much older than his years. Actually, it would not surprise him if Vivian felt the same, but the princess had that innocent gullibility that youths clung to. Once she shed that, she would be a true force to be reckoned with, and he almost wished that would never be the case.

  As long as she remained gullible, there was a chance she would maintain hope and optimism. While he could not feel either of those emotions, he wished for all the world that someone else might.

  Valeria Bellius, another Valkyrie, approached. “My Prince…” She trailed off once she saw what had stopped him.

  “There are others for you to help,” Marcellus said perhaps a bit too sharply.

  Without a word, she nodded and walked off.

  Marcellus waited until no one else was paying him any attention. Then, he touched the forehead of the dying Vincanan warrior.

  "You will not die alone," he said softly. "Can you speak? Do you have a family you wish to know… Any last words you wish to impart to them?"

  The Vincanan warrior, one Marcellus recognized as Clarus Claudius, opened his mouth. A red line snaked from the corner, and his eyes rolled back slightly before clearing. “No… no family.” He breathed heavily to get out the words.

  Instead of pressing further, Marcellus stayed there with the two of them. Only after the Vincanan passed did Marcellus realize the same had happened for the Tenoch warrior.

  Despair threatened to overwhelm the Vincanan royal, but he forced back his patience. He disentangled the pair, and he eased his arms to hook under the shoulders of the Tenoch warrior, dragging him over closer to where his brothers-in-arms could claim him. None of the Tenoch warriors tending to their own said a word to acknowledge what he had done, but it hadn’t been for them.

  It had been for Marcellus himself.

  He should have asked the soldier from Tenoch if he had any family, if he had any last words to offer, but Marcellus hadn’t realized the extent of his own injuries. How the pair wounded up together, Marcellus didn’t know. Had one injured the other? Had one attempted to save the other from a dragon and been injured as a result so he felt responsible? Marcellus would never know the truth, but at least two had been able to put aside their differences.

  But two meant nothing compared to thousands, to hundreds of thousands.

  With a heavy heart but a lifted chin, Marcellus returned to the Vincanan soldier and brought him over to their side.

  Flavius Calvus, the thirty-one-year-old commander of the Vincanan army, was whispering to Horatia. The two stood quite close together, and if it weren’t for the battlefield and death all about them, Marcellus might’ve mistaken the moment as a stolen second for lovers. Horatia, though, was far too strict to ever allow herself to do such a thing on the battlefield, even stricter than Flavius.

  The commander cleared his throat and eyed Marcellus. “We’re almost done here—”

  “We aren’t,” Marcellus said flatly. “We need to tend to the injured, and then we must bury—”

  “Should we maybe…” For once, words failed Horatia.

  Where was Cassia? Had she found nothing at all to help with the burns? Maybe he should see if one of the Tenoch warriors would be willing to tell him.

  As if they wouldn’t relish the chance to kill him. They might be keeping to themselves at the moment. There was almost always a hazy semblance of peace after a battle when both sides tended to those who had fallen, but Marcellus was the largest threat from Vincana opposing those from Tenoch. He wasn’t about to send anyone else in his stead, however, as the Tenoch warriors might kill anyone he would consider.

  Not even handing over one of their dead with grace and mercy would cause them to help. No, they were on their own.

  “If you mean to suggest that we should burn our dead,” Marcellus murmured quietly, “never. That would destroy any morale those burned might have. We will spare them the heat of the flames, the agony of the smoke, and the stench of the burning. We will bury our dead and tend to those injured. Only after will we decide what our next course of action should be.”

  Those tasks took many long hours, and Marcellus would not even allow his people to construct a small fire for them to roast game for a meal. Instead, they nibbled on berries and bits of stale bread.

  "Flavius, go and tally a count of the dead and the injured and the burned as well as those of us prepared to march," Marcellus demanded.

  The commander nodded. “Horatia, would you care to join me?”

  “Can you not count that high?” she asked with a snort.

  The two sparred verbally, almost flirting, and in the end, Horatia did tag along.

  But when they returned, they bore numbers that Marcellus feared would be the case. Some of the soldiers were unaccounted for. The question remained—had they been captured? Or had they gone off somewhere? To follow a dragon, perhaps, or to go after someone else entirely?

  Under Valkyrie Liviana Papius’ watchful eye, Marcellus instructed a troop of soldiers to locate the missing fighters. If the Fates were kind, the soldiers lived yet.

  If the Fates were kind…

  15

  Princess Vivian Rivera

  The town burned and burned and burned as Vivian watched. She felt paralyzed, almost, and her horse was anxious, trying to back away even though they weren’t too close at all to the town or the fire.

  The dragon, as majestic of a creature as it was, continued to breathe fire down on the place, sparks raining from the sky. Was it trying to ensure that every inch of the place went up in flames?

  For an agonizing hour, Vivian remained on horseback, uncertain what to do. Every time she started forward with her horse, the dragon would unleash another fiery blast, prompting Vivian to wait longer. She hated herself for being so cowardly. The villagers were dying, and she was doing what? Watching. That was all.
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  At one point, Vivian was certain the dragon spied her. He looked, stared even, in her direction. Then he blasted the village twice more and flew off, heading westward.

  As if she was being chased by a horde of Vincanan Valkyries, Vivian urged her horse to gallop forward, and they raced to the burning town. Well, as close as the horse would dare take her. She wasted precious minutes tethering the horse to a tree near the outskirts of the town before racing inside.

  Smoke burned her lungs and eyes, and she covered her mouth as she lowered her head and headed inside the first building. It creaked and groaned, the flames licking the walls, but she found no one inside.

  On and on, Vivian went, checking each and every building. At one point, she thought she heard a faint cry, and she walked around a house that had partially collapsed to see a young girl holding a cloth doll. The girl was all covered in ashes and soot. Her lips parted, and a puff of black smoke emitted from her lips before she sank to her knees and fell face-first onto the ground.

  Vivian raced over, her heart in her chest, but the little blond-haired girl, her dirty locks twisted into two uneven braids, was already deceased. Still, Vivian cried and beat at her chest, trying to shake her awake, but the girl did not slumber, or if she did, it was the slumber of the slain.

  Vivian felt as if the layers had been stripped away from her person. She was no longer a warrior, no longer a princess. She was just a terrified soul trapped in a nightmarish landscape with no means of escape.

  Fury was no longer her companion but only fear, but despite that, she forced herself to leave the girl behind after tenderly tucking the cloth doll under the girl's frail arm. Each step drew her closer to where the girl had come from, and she found a shack of a house. The roof had sunk inside already, but Vivian forced herself to, step by step, approach. Through the broken window, Vivian could make out the bodies of a woman and two young boys. The girl's family, perhaps, all dead.