Chapter 25
An Expert in Death
The best heroes are ordinary people with a strength that often goes unrecognized. -Kolram
--
Alaina’s knife cut through both his physical bonds and the mental one known as hopelessness. Blood surged through his frozen body, as his hated hempen enemy fell away from the angry red grooves the rope had dug into his wrists. The fresh air of freedom touched his raw skin, and his spirit, invigorating him.
“I’m free!”
“Almost,” Kolram said. “Still the slight problem of Isel.”
The one-eared arsonist did seem a difficult obstacle. The Sky Raider was behind Alaina, so no way to reach him from the front of the skywolf.
Alaina leaned towards Wayden and whispered, “When I tug your cloak, use your Beast Tongue magic to get the wolf to flip around. I’ll cut Isel’s leg straps.”
Wayden shivered. This would be the first time Wayden would kill a person. He’d seen much, and had become somewhat of an expert in the cold permanence of death, but to witness was not to partake in the killing.
Murder is a sin, all the religions agreed, but his would be no murder. It was both self-defense and justice. Isel had set fire to Wayden’s house, whipped slaves in the camps, and who knows what else. And this was war. Wayden had to do it. Yet still, with this act, he was saying goodbye to his last shreds of innocence.
Just as he thought she would never signal, he felt a subtle yank on the fabric of his cloak. Wayden stroked the sides of Isel’s skywolf. He reached into the beast’s mind and chanted, “With wings that can turn the world around, turn us upside down.”
The wolf flipped over. For a moment, the leg straps gave, and Wayden felt himself and Alaina move a hair’s breadth. The blood rushed to Wayden’s head and his skin sagged downwards, but their bonds held. Isel’s didn't. His scream stretched on and on as his body plummeted onto the icy tundra.
In his dreams of revenge, the Sky Raider’s blood always formed a rose, similar to the one that Mavik had painted all those years ago in the watercolors, similar to the one that had formed on his mother’s dress. In reality, it was more of a splattered mess. Wayden wondered why he wasn’t feeling anything. Shouldn’t he be happy?
“Tis men like Isel who are happy when they kill,” Kolram said. “It is good to feel remorse, even for one’s enemies.”
For Wayden, killing was something that had to be done only when there was no other recourse, for inaction could lead to more innocent deaths. That differed from the Dracon’s power games or the Sky Raider’s lust for gold and blood.
The wind buried Isel in snow. He’d not be missed.
--
The cold wind bit Alaina’s face. She guided the skywolf towards the dragon’s pit. I’m a traitor. I helped murder Isel. True, he’d been a horrid man who had bragged of his cruelty and violence. She had in one stroke proven herself a Sky Raider, capable of killing, and betrayed that very cause. She had murdered one of her own subjects.
In Laeko’s religion, one was only supposed to take life if there was no alternative. This certainly qualified in that regard. Laeko said the Weaver’s Way was to cut a slash on your own shoulder for every man or woman you killed. She admired Laeko's concept that life was precious.
"You're thinking weak thoughts, when you should be preparing for war. More than one will have to die before this day ends," Nadra said. "For example, the men guarding the dragon pit."
Two large Sky Raiders clutched spears and were staring upwards. They’d be the next to die. These two were mere guards she scarcely knew. She’d no reason to want them dead, other than the fact that they were in her father’s army. But when her father had sentenced her to death, he’d declared himself and all his men her enemies. Her father had taught her too well how one deals with one’s enemies.
She summoned the fires, tasting the tangy taste of the Source upon her tongue. Then she chanted and gestured with her hands. “Let the fires of war take their toll, for a war we fight for our very souls.”
She let out a cone of flame blanketing the men. They died screaming horribly, for none ever called fire gentle. The smell of roasted flesh filled the air. Alaina felt bile building in her mouth. The wolf landed a dozen feet from the smoldering corpses. Alaina fell on her knees retching and crying.
She heard someone’s footsteps running towards her. The burnt boy. She could recognize his reek.
“Alaina? Are you alright?” Wayden asked. “I know that was hard, but you had to do it. They were going to murder you. You had no choice.”
Alaina pulled up the cloak to bare her arm and placed the knife tip against it.
"What in the name of the Source are you doing?" Wayden asked.
Alaina cut a streak across her arm. "A cut for a death.”
Wayden tore off a strip of cloth and bound Alaina’s arm. “Save it for the end of the day. This might not be our last fight. You might need to use that arm.”
Alaina steeled herself. Wayden was right. She had to be strong now. She could let herself mourn later.
Wayden prodded the smoking corpse with a stick until he found a set of what used to be keys. "These are melted. How are we going to open up the grate?"
"Keys aren’t the only things that melt." Alaina chanted and summoned another coil of flame that twisted around and through the iron grating, turning the metal red hot. She then kicked it in with her booted heel. The metal fell into the dragon pit, sliding off the dragon’s wings. The dragon didn’t even react. It looked half dead.
She recalled her father's plan. ‘We’ll let her starve a bit,’ he’d said. ‘Let her learn to be less feisty. Then she’ll be my mount.’
On a winged wolf Gar was a force to be reckoned with, but on a full grown dragon, he’d be death itself.
"Can you take control of the dragon?” Alaina asked.
“I...I can't break his spell. Your father's too strong a Beast Tongue. The pearl necklace amplifies your father's ability. I can't break his hold. I think we should use the winged wolf to escape.”
“A dragon flies thrice the speed of a wolf. My father will use the dragon and Goat to trace us. If we have the dragon, they’ll be hard pressed to capture us."
"I tried to break his hold before. It was useless.”
Wayden’s bandage had slipped, and Alaina felt the blood running down her arm. Perhaps she’d gone in too deep.
--
Wayden glance darted back and forth from the pit to the horizon, the pit to the horizon. The sun was setting and the Third Moon would be rising soon- time was running out.
A mixture of sulfur and excrement wafted from the pit, a nauseating perfume. The dragon lay defeated, whimpering, like a beaten dog at the bottom of a dank grave. Her snakelike neck coiled like a rope, her eyes dull-gray stones.
Wayden frowned. “The Skymaster hasn't broken her in completely, how do you expect me to?”
“I don’t expect anything. I’m just saying if you can’t do this, we can try to run for it on a wolf, but Gar has a dragon and will catch us.”
“So I do this or they capture us. No worries then.”
Alaina flicked her tongue. “Nay, what are a few fingers, anyway? You don’t need all ten.”
Wayden gave her a thin smile. “And they look so fetching on your father’s neck. They bring out the color in his eye.”
"Watch it. Only I get to make the Cyclops jokes."
“Cyclops! You know about the myths of the Ancients?”
“Perhaps we better focus on getting out of here alive.”
Wayden studied the dragon. When he last tried to control her, Gar had been there. Perhaps now that he wasn’t present, it would be easier? It was worth a try.
"Scale, wing, claw, and tail, you are mine, let me prevail," Wayden chanted.
Wayden could feel the power of his spell against Gar’s, like a snowball against a glacier. It was hopeless.
“During your training duels with Gar,” Wayden tho
ught, “did you ever beat Gar in a Beast Tongue fight?”
“No, Gar was undefeated by me or any of the others,” Kolram said. “However, now I have something I didn’t have before- you.”
"A lot of good that'll do." Wayden lowered himself down the slick walls of the mud pit.
"Yes indeed, a lot of good it will do,” Kolram said. “You must believe in yourself, Wayden."
"I'm not a Grandmaster. I’m not an Immortal. I’m just a bloke."
"The best heroes are ordinary people with a strength that often goes unrecognized."
Wayden placed his burnt forehead against Harth's scaly one. The dragon barely moved, just let out a groan. He half-expected the dragon to bite his head off, but she just let out a pathetic snort and jerked her head a little. Her scales were warm to the touch. A cold wind whistled across the tundra, kicking up a cloud of icy mist. The heat emanating from the dragon felt even more extreme in contrast.
None of the prophets Wayden had run into told him he would face this. None gave him a single piece of advice that would actually help him survive.
Or had they?
Mistress Night had told him of a tug-o’-war over a fiery cat. Wayden could have hit himself, why hadn’t he made the connection sooner?
"Benol and the Warlock." Wayden’s words emerged as clouds of breath.
Alaina squinted at him from above. "The story? Look, I like books too, but what does that have to do with this?"
“No one was more humble than Benol. People laughed when he said he would fight the Glimpser,” Wayden said, his mind half in a trance. He placed his head against the dragon again. The taste of the Source was strong upon his tongue. "Harth, I cannot control you. But, you can control me. Take my power and make it yours. Use it to set yourself free.”
"Why would you do this?” Harth wondered, “What is the bargain that the man-child would strike?"
"In the temple Dark Fist, bad things are happening,” Wayden thought, “If I free you, would you help me stop them?"
“So you do this for yourself, for the plans of the man-child.”
“You’re right. I’m doing this for myself, but for others as well. I do this for me, you, and others like us, who are chained against our will.”
The dragon shot out a blast of fire from her nostrils. "By claw and Fang, let it be so. In fire we are free. Wayden help Harth, Harth help Wayden. It is the way of the scale."
"In my heart, what power I find, give it to the dragon's mind." Suddenly, a wave of pain tore through Wayden. He sank to his knees, as he felt his mind being split open. The dragon’s mind wriggled into him, wearing him like a new coat of scales. He forced himself to hold onto the Connection with Harth, but it was excruciating.
Then the pain disappeared. Wayden felt as if he was floating above the world, as if he was a bird, watching from above. He could sense the dragon's power growing. Her eyes glowed, as if they held burning candles. Gar’s magic was straining, on the verge of breaking, so close...yet...it didn’t.
“No! It’s not fair!” Wayden thought, “I did what Night asked me. I gave you my power. Why isn’t it working?”
"I am weak, like a man child,” Harth said, “Harth is starved, weakened."
"Harth says she’s too weak," Wayden relayed to Alaina.
Alaina drummed on her cleaved chin with her suction-cups. "They'll probably feed the dragon and catch up with us."
Feed the dragon…how do you feed a dragon? Volkanus got his sustenance from the lava in the Red Palace. Wayden smacked himself.
"Alaina, you're a Fire-Whisperer. Can you let her drink your flame?”
Alaina extended an arm to help Wayden clamber up out of the pit. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Dragons drink and bathe in fire,” Wayden said, pulling himself over the icy lip of the pit.
Alaina gestured with her hands, spinning circles in the air, fingers extended in ways no other Fire-Whisperer’s could extend. “Magma inside, churn, blood fires, burn.”
Alaina’s flames came from the tips of suction-cupped fingers. Sparks spiraled outwards, like burning dandelion seeds wafting on a breeze. The dragon was hard to see, as the flames bathed her, but Wayden felt her strengthening and the iron shackles of Gar’s hold buckling- and then with a silent snap, breaking. Wayden could feel the dragon’s exuberance at its freedom, but at the same time, felt his own energy draining. He felt a hollowness, as if he were just a shadow of himself.
The dragon flapped her wings and flew out of the pit. Her eyes swirled blood red, with flecks of black and gold.
Harth let out a wonderful roar, a growl of freedom. "The debt is owed to Wayden, speaker of the tongue. The debt is owed to Alaina, sister giver of flame."
“You wear your honor like a scaly armor," Wayden thought.
“Are you alright?” Alaina asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Yes, just a bit drained.”
“So what now? Where are we going?" Alaina asked.
Wayden looked at the horizon. The moon silhouetted in lime, the temple Dark Fist. Mavik’s pull emanated from there. There were others he’d never felt before as well. It was as if the Source were directing him: there- you must fly there, into the maw of his enemy.
Wayden grabbed at his chest, wincing.
“You feel the Connection Spell too, don’t you?” Alaina asked. “They have some of the other soul hosts in Dark Fist. They’re in trouble.”
"My brother and others. I have to try and help them.”
Alaina tugged at her lip. “My friend Laeko is probably there too. I betrayed her.”
“I almost forgot. I spoke with her in the slave camps. She said she never lost faith in you.”
Wayden hadn’t believed her at the time. He just thought it was more Splasher nonsense, but Laeko and Night had been correct, the Source’s prophecies had been true.
Alaina squeezed his upper arm. "Fly into Dark Fist? Have you taken leave of your senses? There are a couple of armies in there and worse. Your brother and Laeko wouldn’t have wanted us to fly to our deaths."
"I have to try.”
"This isn't some story. In the stories one boy can overcome a giant, but in real life the giant crushes the boy.”
Wayden ran a hand across Harth’s scales. Heat emanated from beneath them. "The dragon is on our side this time and so is the Source." Wayden put his hands on Alaina’s shoulders. They were surprisingly muscular, beneath a thin layer of rubbery skin. "Alaina, listen, you don’t need to go, but I do. My whole life has led to this. This is what is right and I won't run from it."
"What's right? Dying?"
"Trying. Trusting my heart. If I die now, so be it. I won't live my life regretting that I never tried." Wayden squeezed her hand. It was leathery, yet soft. "But you... you have something to live for. You should go. Fly away from here and be free."
Alaina let go of his hand and turned away, facing the distant Fist. Her golden eyes were two miniature suns. “No. No, I don't. Well... the future. I can live for the future where maybe I'll be happy someday. Where maybe I'll have friends and family that care about me."
“You deserve those.”
“So do you. So does Laeko and your brother and all the rest. I've tried to deny that it was wrong to keep slaves. We lived high up in the clouds and despised those laboring beneath us, but I see now that was wrong.” Alaina stepped so close to Wayden, he could feel her breath. Tears were running down her scaly cheeks. "I'm not going to find forgiveness running away from the people who need me. I made a promise to try and save Laeko. So, if you are heading to your death, I'm coming too. Just come closer for a moment."
Wayden had never been this near a girl before. Her golden eyes seemed to be pulling him in. She grabbed the back of his head with her reed-like fingers, drawing his lips to hers. Her lips were soft and wonderful. Her mouth was a warm haven in a cold world, till the ice dam in his heart became a waterfall of swirling emotions.
�
��What are you doing?” Kolram asked. “Solita―”
“Shut thy breath, Kolram.”
Kolram had jarred him from the moment. Kissing the Skymaster's daughter was a bad idea. Gar would make the worst father-in-law ever. Still. If Wayden was heading to his death, he'd let himself enjoy the kiss and to the wraiths with the consequences. So he just concentrated on the sensation, the warmth of her touch. It made him feel whole again, in a way he hadn't felt for eight years.
When she finally released him, she said, "I've never kissed a boy. I wanted to before I die."
"Do you think I’m going to let us die after that? You just gave me something to live for. Gar had better look out," Wayden said, clambering aboard the dragon.
Soul Hosts Page 25
