She had been getting better at hiding her facial expressions after a glare had slipped out in front of her mother, the queen, and the king had forbidden Laine from spending time with her, claiming her to be a bad influence.
“Young daughter,” King Kissick spoke in his eerie voice, “a use for you as the court’s caller has finally come.”
She wasn’t his daughter, but the king liked to think of her as such. As his heir, she could be married off to anyone he chose, making her a useful tool in choosing his true successor. After all, he could not conceive a child of his own.
“Do you know why I have summoned you?” King Kissick asked.
Her lips twitched ever so slightly, hiding her disgust of the man. Her hatred didn’t just spawn from how he treated her and her mother, nor how his decisions affected the country—although both would have been more than adequate reasons—but because of how politically weak he was.
If he hadn’t been such a pushover for the wealthier nobles in the belief that he needed their soldiers, he wouldn’t have connived against and usurped the previous king in the first place. If he didn’t listen to Lords Ronund and Wilkow, he wouldn’t let their men get away with every crime they committed and he wouldn’t be taxing the land into an impoverished state.
“Answer me!” he shouted.
Laine raised her head to him, neither frowning nor smiling. “Why?”
“The necklace you have is the key to great power. However, it is only half of what you need to gain. It is known that the other half is owned by someone high up in the kingdom of Terratheist.” He fingered his long, crooked nose and smiled. “You are to find him, kill him, and bring both keys back to me before the moon turns red, understand?”
The speech sounded recited, and Laine assumed he’d had one of his chancellors write up the commands for him. With the amount of heated political arguments they had shared and how easily she made him resort to threatening her with violence to shut her up, it made sense for him to not want to drag out their conversation. However, his desire to keep his instructions brief and to the point gave her adequate reason to request clarification.
“And you know how to use it?” she asked, exaggerating the skepticism in her voice.
King Kissick waved a hand in front of his face. “Of course I do. Any Kairen can—” His eyes grew wide and he stopped himself, smirking. “Very clever, daughter, but beside the point. So long as both key halves are in our possession, the boon of strength it will give us will be substantial enough to achieve all I have desired since gaining the throne.”
No! This would put the lands under the power of an incompetent, sock puppet tyrant.
“What is this power?” Laine pushed further.
“You little . . .” King Kissick spat, but seeing that his reaction to the question had no effect on her, he quickly changed his tone. “When the moon turns completely red, all Melkai without a pact to a caller will be released from their prison, and whosoever wields this key will have the power to control them. With the power of a Melkai army, it will be possible to end this farce of a treaty and finally take hold of Terratheist.”
Laine nodded and hid her smile. Ideas blazed to life as she realized that such a power would be in her possession first. Not taking her key first was a major flaw in the king’s plan, even for someone as foolish and as arrogant as him. If she gained possession of something that could control Melkai, she had no intention of handing it over to the person she hated. With an army of Melkai loyal to her, she could overthrow him and take charge.
“I understand,” she replied.
“You think you do.” The king chuckled. “To make sure of your loyalty, these two will be accompanying you.”
From the shadows at either side of the dais appeared two of the king’s knights, two of the largest she had seen in his army, Kinson and Bronus. They were actually Lord Ronund’s men, the worst of the worst. She had heard they burned down peasants’ houses for fun and did worse to their daughters. They moved to her side, broad and intimating, towering over her. She didn’t look at them but just nodded and turned toward the entrance. She did not leave.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“The other person with the key may be a caller as well, but you must bring it to me at any cost, and these two will make sure of it.” King Kissick smiled as she began to stride to the throne room doors. “Bring it to me and I will permanently put an end to this war.”
“As you desire, Your Majesty,” she murmured as she walked from the throne room, the two knights hurrying to keep pace with her.
The doors closed loudly behind her.
Laine kept a snappy pace, forcing the knights to catch up with her, not unveiling her smile until she left the throne room. She wasn’t just thankful for the excuse to leave, she was eager; she couldn’t have left soon enough. As soon as the clanking suits caught up, she hid it again, wanting to appear disappointed by them tagging along, but she knew ways to deal with them . . . or rid herself of them.
As for now, she had to keep up the act.
“Princess Laine,” Bronus bellowed, “you must understand that the king only wishes for peace.”
Laine sneered as they walked down a set of stairs to the castle entrance. “Only if it ends up with him on top. All he cares about is power, but then, what man is any different?”
Kinson sniggered. “What they say about the princess hating men is true after all.”
Laine shook her head. “Only those who feel that their power makes them superior. But why am I telling you this? Like you would listen to a little girl like me.”
Kinson stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged in agreement. He and Bronus opened the main doors that led out into the castle courtyard.
The sky was dull with gray clouds, and sheets of light rain streaked toward the horizon. This made Laine feel justified in wearing her hooded cloak. The three of them made their way through the gardens to the stairs leading down into the outer-settlements.
The city was an incredibly morbid place, even by her standards. The only people who didn’t appear to be starving were the soldiers stalking the shops. It had been this way ever since King Kissick had taken the throne from his older brother. He dedicated most of his power to the expansion of his land while not improving the quality of life for those living within it. Every day farmers would come to the king, begging for him to relent in his heavy taxation, and every day they were shown the door.
They walked through the wet hardpan of the city. Wooden cabins and shacks were spread out around them. Laine hated what the city had become. It once thrived, but was now neglected. Its people and animals were wasting away. As they came to the edge of the city, they passed the muddy farmlands that led up the mountains into the Kydian Wood.
It was said that long ago the legendary warrior race of the Senadonians crossed the Jile Mountains. The people believed that one day they would come back to help return the kingdom to its former glory. However, it was only hearsay among the peasants that kept these rumors alive, and Laine for one didn’t buy them.
Life isn’t that easy.
“Remember, Princess, we’re here to guard you so you should try showing us some gratitude.” Bronus sneered suggestively. “After all, we know your true relationship with the king. As far as we’re concerned, this journey he sent you on is just to get rid of you and now we’re your only protection against any who might . . . try to take advantage of you.”
He laughed and Kinson leered at her, appearing to agree with Bronus’s unspoken suggestion.
“You’re not serious,” Laine said in disgust.
“Why not? We could make you our slave on this journey. What do you think, Kinson?” Bronus asked. “Am I serious?”
Laine hid another smile, amused that they thought they could. How long would she have to keep up the act of being weak around them? She wasn’t sure if they even knew what callers could do. After the new king had taken over, he had executed many of th
em, suspicious that one of them could claim to be of the Kairen royal bloodline. With no male heir, it wouldn’t have been difficult to claim the right of succession.
King Kissick had kept her alive, claiming her as his daughter to marry her off to someone loyal to him. She doubted even he knew that she, being a caller, would have other uses for him until now. With reports of Melkai roaming the land, only callers and well-guarded journeymen were safe beyond the walls. Yet, even if her guards had seen a caller in action before, no one expected someone of her age to be able to summon a Melkai of the second circle.
“I don’t know,” Kinson teased. “Depends if she beha-ha—” His eyes drifted up, mouth agape.
They were just reaching the borders of the forest, but the knight’s reaction caused them to stop. Laine followed his eyes up, and Bronus halted in front of her. High up in the distant blue-gray sky was something big enough that it was clearly visible, even at a distance. It appeared to be a thick red S of muscle and scales with large hind and front legs and two flapping wings.
“I-I don’t believe it,” Bronus said in awe, gripping the hilt of his sword in horror. “I-It’s a dr-dragon!”
The dragon swooped down over the forest trees. In less than three powerful flaps of his mighty wings, it flew toward them. Laine could hear her knights shaking as it landed with a thump before spreading its wings wide and letting loose a shaking roar.
Kinson’s eyes bulged, petrified where he stood.
“Oh no! Please don’t let it eat me!” Laine cried out in feigned horror.
Bronus drew his sword with shaking fingers. “Dr-dragon . . . stay back, Princess!”
The dragon bared its fangs at them. “I recognize that magic. Are you Armalon?”
The knights showed no sign of being surprised that the dragon could talk. Bronus’s terror got the best of him, and he charged toward it, screaming with his sword raised to strike. The dragon swiftly swatted him away with one claw, and he flew backward, landing with a heavy splat in the mud.
Not learning from his comrade’s mistake, Kinson rushed at the Melkai also, not even drawing his blade. The dragon spun, and Laine found it hard to believe such a massive thing could move so fast. Its heavy tail hit the man hard enough that he skidded ten meters on the grass before finally coming to a stop.
Groaning and amazingly still alive, Bronus rose up onto his hands and knees, but the dragon’s hind foot came down upon him, crushing him to death with a short scream.
Laine frowned, but then stuck out her lower lip and nodded, impressed by how easily the dragon had killed the knights. Of course, she had planned to get rid of them herself eventually, but thanks to a fortunate Melkai appearance, now she didn’t need to.
The dragon’s foot lifted, and Laine’s lips drew back from her teeth in disgust as she saw Bronus’s mangled body. However, she then smiled at the dragon, realizing she no longer had to keep up her act anymore.
After Kinson had gone silent as well, the dragon finally turned its gaze on her. Laine raised her hands up as the dragon moved toward her and she once again heard the voice in her head: “Tell me now. Are you Armalon?”
Laine stepped back and grabbed the collar of her long, hooded cloak. She might have been just another victim of the dragon if not for what she was wearing.
“You don’t scare me. Not while I have this. This cloak is my pact item,” she said. “Would you like to meet my Melkai? Its name is Terachiro.”
The dragon took another step forward, but before it could attack, Laine gripped her cloak and pulled, ripping it from around her shoulders and throwing it at the dragon. As it flew, the cloak quickly transformed.
The ragged tail became the wings, the hood became the head, and the space between grew the claws of a giant Melkaiic bat. It toppled headlong into the dragon, claws reaching. As it collided, the two rolled over one another before separating and taking to the air. They circled each other and flew together again. Laine watched as the two Melkai clawed it out in an aerial duel.
On the ground, Laine was summoning her magic power into the blade of her hand as it began to glow a bright blue. It was an Advanced Summoning ability, and she had taught it to herself vigorously when she had seen another caller do it, but even he hadn’t perfected it as she had.
The two Melkai continued their fight, equally matched in their struggle. From what she knew of dragons, its ultimate attack would be its flame. For some reason she couldn’t comprehend, it hadn’t used it yet. The two Melkai drew together once more. The bat’s claws raked the dragon’s armored scales as the dragon attempted to snap at its head before they both pulled back.
Laine’s spell had completed, and she raised the blade of her hand. Then she swung it in the direction of the dragon. As the dragon sailed back, it was caught unaware as the glow from Laine’s hand shot up toward it in a line of light, and with a yelp, it hit the dragon’s left wing. However, the force of the strike also flung it backward, and with the combined momentum of its movement, it flew over the horizon of the forest. With a dull thump, it vanished into the trees.
As soon as the dragon was gone, the light drizzle became a downpour. She sighed, knowing that tracking it would be impossible in this weather. Her jaw clenched in agitation. Dragons weren’t just big lizards. They could have long memories, and she dreaded one holding a grudge against her. A breath of fire could be a devastating surprise attack when caught out in a forest. She had been careless to let it get away alive.
“Terachiro, to me!”
Swiftly, her Melkai changed direction and headed back to her. In a couple of flaps, it flew down and transformed back into her cloak to settle itself around her shoulders. The glow from Laine’s hand faded as she returned it behind the cloak tail, using her other hand to replace the hood back over her short brunette hair.
“Did you have fun?” she asked her cloak to no reply. “It was definitely interesting to watch. This journey might be more interesting than I’d first thought.”
Heaving out a sigh at finally being on her own again, she entered the deep shadows of the Kydian Wood, trying to ease herself out of the excitement the battle had left her.
She had cared nothing for the two knights. After hearing all the horror stories of what they had done to the peasants, she was glad there were two fewer murderers in the world. Although free to be herself now that they were dead, Laine reminded herself that there were potentially worse things than knights and dragons in the woods.
Chapter 4: The Man at the Lake
Nathan gagged into his sleeve as he pulled his dagger from the Melkai’s eye. Keeping the dripping blade out of eyesight, he wiped it on the long grass until it came back clean, and then he returned it to its holster in his rucksack.
Michael showed no signs of waking. Nathan checked him and found no injury, so he was perplexed that he would fall unconscious like that, even after fighting a Melkai—one which still lay dead on the grass right next to them. Seeing them lying so close together had been unsettling, but Nathan couldn’t move Michael in his heavy armor.
After what they had just been through, Nathan wanted to collapse as well, but one of them had to keep watch. What worried him more was how long Michael slept and that he wouldn’t come to even after Nathan tried shaking him awake. So Nathan spent the time studying the Melkai they had just killed.
He was getting a closer look at such a monster than he could have ever hoped. The creature was fascinating: its fangs a bloodred, its red hair mane-like, and its skin leather smooth. Taiba watched the monster intently to make sure it didn’t move, and Nathan stroked him absentmindedly in an attempt to calm him down.
Nathan had wished to observe Melkai on this journey, but thought he would only get to do so from a distance. Granted, he would have preferred that this prize wasn’t at the cost of being in a life-risking situation, but that didn’t stop him from making the most of it while Michael was unconscious.
Michael finally awoke in the late afternoon.
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As his eyes flung open, Nathan’s shoulders relaxed and he rushed over to his friend. The prince followed him to his feet.
“You had me worried.”
Michael looked at his hand for a moment, opening and closing it with a baffled expression. Ignoring Nathan, he studied the giant corpse of the Melkai he had killed with a wide, victorious smile.
“Hello? Michael, are you okay?” Nathan asked.
Michael glanced at him, his smile fading. “I feel fine.” He strode over to where his sword lay next to the Melkai’s body. He slid it into the scabbard on his back.
Nathan frowned.
“Come on,” Michael called as he began walking.
Nathan nodded, confused by his friend’s sudden change in demeanor. Then he shook his head and ran to catch up. “Wait, Michael . . . ah!” He winced as he pulled at the bruises on his sides, but gritted his teeth and tried to ignore them. “Listen, I fully acknowledge you’ve fought Melkai before, but please don’t tell me you pass out after every encounter.”
Taiba leapt onto his boot and climbed up his pant leg so he wasn’t left behind.
“What can I say?” Michael called back. “This one took a bit of effort.”
“I’d say! Dragon’s breath, you managed to defeat a second-circle Melkai in a power struggle!” Nathan exclaimed. “But it doesn’t make sense that it started coughing up blood all of a sudden, does it?”
“I guess I should thank your little friend for that,” Michael replied. “After all, it was he who saved us in the end.”
Nathan’s brow furrowed. “What . . . Taiba?”
The little creature climbed silently onto his shoulders.
“That’s right. It was not my strength that overpowered the Melkai but that thing’s poison.”
Nathan remembered then how, when the Melkai had hold of him, Taiba had run out from his hood and had bit its finger.
“I didn’t know.” He shook his head. “Taiba has bitten me before, and I was never affected by it!”
War of Kings and Monsters Page 3
