Talon the Black

by Melissa Mitchell

  He smiled in spite of his circumstances. How the Lady Saffra would rejoice to know of his discovery! What would she say? Certainly, there was no denying it. The face that the young Seer had often seen was unmistakable—a face not easily forgotten. He’d seen it too, during their trainings when he delved into Saffra’s mind. The face belonged to none other than Claire.

  6

  Kastali Dun

  The King of Dragonwall assiduously studied his reflection in the mirror. It was a form of self-punishment he often subjected himself to. This was the only looking glass kept within his tower. The others had long since been destroyed. This one remained to remind him of his ugliness.

  It wasn’t always this way. He had been exceedingly handsome once, but that was hundreds of years ago—two hundred and eighty-two to be exact. He was the prince of Dragonwall then. Those were the days when cares of the world weighed little, the days when he could do as he pleased.

  Good things that have not been earned never last. Verek—the god of judgement—saw fit to smite him for his cavalier ways. Thenceforth, everything changed. His scars were evidence of that. So were many other things, like his title, his responsibility to the kingdom, his loneliness, his ever-present rage, and his obsessive need for control. Yet, none of these stood out the way his mauled face did. His was the face he was forced to present to the public each day. His was the face they were subjected to. And so, he administered the same punishment to himself, forcing his eyes to trace the heavy lines. If a king could not do that which was required of his people, then he was no king at all.

  Still, he hated the self-imposed rule. He loathed the face that looked back at him. Moreover, he despised the memory accompanying his disfigurement. He cursed Válkar—the god of war—for his desire for bloodshed.

  During those days, Válkar was thirsty; long it had been since Dragonwall’s last great battle. That day was fateful for many, but him most of all, for he bore the brunt of Válkar’s victory price.

  In his mind’s eye, he beheld the incident that changed him: the Great Ice Battle of Vestur. The room around him disappeared, replaced by a snowy landscape. Now he was a prince instead of a king. His feet no longer stood on solid ground, for he no longer had feet. Rather, he was a dragon, with scales of black iridescence, claws as sharp as knives, and wings larger than ship’s sails.

  All around him, chaos ruled. With effortless grace, he dodged the icy grasp of his foe, diving and swooping low. His lungs filled, causing his scales to pull apart as his chest expanded. Then, his breath was released as a flaming-orange blaze, which he aimed at his enemy’s blocky legs. The ice giant expelled another deep bellow, its cry rent the cold air, but a successful hit meant nothing. It would take much more fire to bring this nemesis to the ground.

  Driven by determination, he displayed his strength. Who dared oppose him? The mighty Prince of Dragonwall would not be defeated.

  Others fought with the same relentlessness, for in terms of strength, they were vastly outnumbered. The sky was filled with hundreds of dragon forms. Their movements—like those of angry bees—were aggressive as they swarmed, hurling flame upon their adversaries. On the ground, numerous ice giants swatted at them.

  Válkar was not one easily satisfied with minor bloodshed; he called for something far greater to endow the monarchy with a victory over the Kalds. And so, in the midst of the battle, through the thunder of noise, he heard an unmistakable cry. The sound of his father’s anguish would haunt him until the end of his days.

  He turned in time to see his mother, eyes wide with shock, mouth aghast, ripped from the back of his father’s scaly, red hide. Terror seized him and he, who had never felt fear, became frozen in the moment. Paralyzed by horror, he may as well have been captured by the same icy hand gripping his mother. There he hovered midair, watching—as if in slow motion—the unbearable scene before him.

  His mother was lost to the darkness of Black Rock Ice. Yet, his father forsook all caution. In an effort to secure her from the enemy’s grasp, King Tallek went after Queen Ahlessa in a death-defying dive. This was what the enemy wanted and even expected. With its free hand, the ice giant snatched his father from the sky.

  Before King Tallek could defend himself, the ice giant lifted the red dragon to its mouth, taking hold of his father’s spiked head within its enormous, cubed teeth. King Tallek’s head was violently ripped from his body, both of which were tossed away like a broken play thing.

  At that moment, as he watched, something inside of him snapped. Fear forgotten, his mind erupted into a frenzy of rage, rage that would stay with him for an eternity. He no longer knew himself. In this madness, he had only one desire: destruction.

  “The leader of the Kalds is mine!” His telepathic command rang through the minds of his Drengr. Already on a direct route, having forgotten the foe he’d been fighting, he shot through the sky.

  The leader, still holding his mother’s limp body, roared its challenge. He bellowed in return. Those who considered avenging their rulers knew to retreat. This ice giant’s death belonged to the prince.

  Filling his lungs, he came down upon the monster unleashing torrents of fire. Plumes of black smoke and ash swirled around the giant as the flame began to melt its body. Perhaps these icy fiends felt pain—he did not know—for in that moment the giant released his mother from its clutches.

  A nearby Drengr swooped in to catch her fall, whisking her away within its talons far from the great battle. She would be dead already, killed by the dark magic of Black Rock Ice. But he could not afford such thoughts, for within his mind there was only fury. Nothing else existed except he and his adversary.

  For hours they battled, flame against ice. Even as the other giants began to disappear, melting away into puddles of blackness, he fought his enemy. But he could not fight forever. As the day stretched forth, he grew tired.

  Minor injuries covered his body from places where icy hands grazed his beautiful scales. The Drengr were impervious to fire, having been wrought from lava rock. Yet, they were not resistant to the Black Rock Ice of giants. It scorched their scales like lightning to dry earth. Despite this, he refused assistance. Vengeance would be his.

  When darkness fell, he grew sloppy. The ice giant knew this. It cackled with glee. If only he could keep at it a bit longer, he would succeed. Already the ice giant had shrunk noticeably in girth, its body merely half its original thickness. Black gooey puddles were forming upon the ground.

  In a desperate attempt to burn away the legs of his foe, he made a deadly mistake diving too close. He came within the giant’s reach. His face erupted into pain as the giant swatted him. He felt the icy fingers rake across his scales, from the eye ridges of his forehead, down to his jaw. He was seared by white-hot agony. Uncontrollably, a perilous roar escaped his chest, the power of its reverberations nearly splitting him in two.

  Alas, his flame had done its job! The legs of the ice giant were fracturing and breaking away like glacial calving. Thunderous sounds echoed into the stillness. Heartened, a number of jubilant bugles erupted from his onlookers, Drengr who had already defeated their enemies. Yet he paid no mind to his expensive success. The excruciating burns upon his face did not allow for it. Instead, he was consumed with anguish. It distracted him just enough, for right as the giant began to tumble towards the ground, it reached for him. An icy hand wrapped around his body like a cloak of misery. His demise was bearing down upon him as if Daudagher—the god of death—was reaching for him through the clouds.

  Time seemed to last an eternity, as did his torment. A cold burn came over him, threatening to extinguish his life. His scales began melting beneath the grasp of the ice giant’s hand. Darkness took him into its black pit, devoid of all but despair…

  When he next woke, he lay in human form upon a soft bed inside a tent. A camp had been erected at the site of the battle. None wished to move him in his weakened state.

  Thereafter, the first time he beheld his face he desperately wished for death. �
��You cannot die,” his dear friend Reyr told him. “You are our king now.”

  That statement triggered the memories of his parents’ death like the quickening of an avalanche. In his pain and grief, in his disgust for his new appearance, he smashed every mirror from that day forth, ashamed to see the face he was condemned to wear.

  The Magoi were summoned. Every effort was made to heal him of his injuries. But no magic heals the scars inflicted by dark magic. He had always known that.

  In the mirror, he studied the pattern of the heaviest three scars. They stretched diagonally from his left brow bone to his right jawbone. Each time he beheld them, he recalled the fierce pain felt upon that tragic day. Would that he could forget it, but such a thing was impossible.

  A growl brewed deep within his chest as a familiar rage came upon him. With a flourish of his hand, he smashed his palm into the looking glass. It shattered, fragments of mirror flying everywhere. Most of the pieces crumbled to the floor. The shards remaining in the frame replicated his reflection over and again, such that numerous scarred faces identical to his looked back at him.

  Curse the gods! What was worse than a single reflection? Many.

  Of a sudden, there was a knock on the door, rescuing him from his loathing. He glanced about before returning his gaze to the broken mirror. “Malí gler ahlasem.” He muttered words of the old language that were used to create the world around him. He told the glass pieces to come back together. The fragments of reflective glass covering the floor reassembled themselves. Their cracks fused, and once more he saw a single, whole reflection of his tormented face. This mirror would always remain; he’d fixed it countless times already.

  “You may enter.” His ominous voice echoed the dark thoughts still dwelling within his mind.

  A guard stood in the doorway. “Pardon, Your Grace.” He bowed his head in respect for his king. “I apologize for disturbing you, but she says it is urgent.”

  “Who says?”

  “The Lady Saffra, Your Grace. She would not be turned away. I tried to tell—”

  “Never mind. Show her in.” He moved over to his desk and took a seat. The guard exited.

  Lady Saffra was a needle in his neck, though she was hardly to blame. Her visions came of their own accord. Yet, for all the good they did, just as much trouble followed.

  While he waited, he continued working on a document he had been writing earlier. It was a letter to Lord Avraean, the fort leader of Northedge. Avraean had once been a member of his father’s six Drengr Fairtheoir, a title more commonly referred to as King’s Shield. In the old language, Drengr Fairtheoir meant, noble dragon warrior, but commoners knew very little of the old language. Over time, King’s Shield became the title that stuck. Like the true meaning suggested, Avraean was noble, but his father’s death released him from his oath, as it did for all King’s Shields. Lord Avraean had since taken up leadership at Northedge, a most prestigious position.

  The door opened a few minutes later and Saffra was ushered in. The first thing his observant eyes noticed, was that she was holding a roll of parchment with shaking hands. Her agitation was obvious. He took note of her nervous glances. Her eyes darted to and fro, looking everywhere other than his scarred face. He was used to it. The only people capable of looking at him, truly looking at him, were his six.

  He invited her to take a seat. She did as she was bid before speaking, “Forgive my intrusion, Your Grace. I had to come at once.”

  “Another vision I presume?” He already knew the answer. Her dark skin, the color of toffee, was far paler than usual.

  “Yes,” she whispered. Her free hand firmly grasped the chair arm. The other was gripping her roll of parchment so tightly, it crinkled beneath her palm.

  He tensed, knowing that she would only come to him if the need was great. His mind jumped to Cyrus. Would she confirm his worst fears? If Cyrus died, he would never forgive himself.

  “What did you see?” he said at last. “Not Cyrus I hope?” Her visions never brought good tidings.

  For the first time, her eyes met his. They were haunted like one who sees death. It was then that his nostrils picked up the scent of vomit. She was sick recently.

  “Which city is this, Your Grace?” Her voice shook as she unrolled the parchment and handed it to him.

  Upon it was a sketch of an iconic bell tower. He knew it well, though he had only visited the city once, due to its distant location from the capital. It sat at the base of the Northern Barrier Range. There were many stories of it in history books.

  “That bell tower resides in the city of Belnesse,” he said, returning her sketch.

  The city of Belnesse got its name when the tower was first constructed. It was meant to act as a warning beacon for the city’s inhabitants when wild dragons from the Ice Clan came down from the mountains. But the wild dragons disappeared at the dawn of the Third Age, nearly fifty thousand years ago.

  When their cousins—the Drengr—came to be, the Drengr monarchy was built. Most of the evil dragons were killed or driven away. After all, they were not like the Drengr. They did not possess the ability to shift into human form. Thus, their lack of humanity made them what they were—beasts. Not all wild dragons were bad, but those of a kind-hearted nature disappeared as well. Not a single wild dragon had been seen since the first several generations of the monarchy. By now they were long extinct. The world was better for it. Yet, the bell tower remained, as a monument to the days of old.

  “Tell me of your vision, Lady Saffra.”

  Her eyes grew unfocused. She was reliving the sight of it. “I saw them come from the mountains,” she whispered. “They swept down upon the city like a moving rainbow of colors. The bell never tolled—never cried out in alarm. The city was taken unawares. I watched as they burned its many white-washed buildings. I watched as the city’s inhabitants died within the inferno. I heard their screams. I smelled their scorched flesh. I choked on the ash. They will have their vengeance, and they do not care how many lives it will take.”

  A tear slid down her cheek and she shuddered.

  “I am afraid I do not understand. Who will have vengeance?”

  “Wrath, Your Grace. His name is Wrath. He is the new leader of the Ice Clan. Wild dragons have returned to Dragonwall.”

  7

  Battle Ground, Indiana

  Claire spent a great deal of time laying in bed the following morning. It was hard to believe only a single day had passed in Cyrus’s company. The events of the last twenty-four hours blurred together in her mind like soggy soup, leaving her exhausted.

  When she finally got up, she cooked Cyrus breakfast as she had the day before; he didn’t eat nearly as much. Afterward, she insisted he show her his wound. He needed fresh bandages and she told him so. “I do not wish for you to see it,” he said, backing away from her.

  “It doesn’t matter what you wish,” she said. “I am your caregiver, and I say it must be done.”

  At last he sighed, frowning deeply before lifting his shirt. She set to work. When she removed the bandages, she stifled a gasp. The blackness staining his skin was spreading at an alarming rate.

  “Now you understand...”

  She looked up at him, trying to disguise her shock. He clenched his jaw, keeping his gaze locked upon the wall. Once more she set about evaluating the wound, checking that the stitches held. As she touched the surrounding skin, he began to pant. He even winced when she gently pushed against an inflamed section; the last thing she wanted was to hurt him further. As quickly as she could, she gathered up fresh bandages and began applying them.

  She had never seen a wound behave this way. “When you told me that Vodar swords were infused with poison…” The realization suddenly dawned on her: The blackened skin was a result of the poison, killing everything it touched.

  “Yes, the wound is full of poison. Even now I can feel it attacking my body.”

  Her eyes were wide with fear. “What are we going to do?”

  �
��We aren’t going to do anything.” He backed away from her just as she secured the final bandage.

  “But Cyrus, you need help. You need some kind of medicine—antibiotics to ward off possible infection—and probably the hospital. I…I can’t treat poison.”

  “Antibides? Hospidal? I know not of the things you speak, nor will I have any part in them.” He pursed his lips.

  She scowled, eyeing him, hoping he might change his mind. When he said nothing she responded, “At least let me give you something for the pain. My dad has some pretty powerful stuff. I’ll go get it.” She was about to dash off, when his hand latched onto her arm. Cyrus was holding her firmly, his grip strong enough to bruise. But he released her almost immediately.

  “Claire, no. Only magic can help me now.”

  She opened her mouth to protest.

  “You must trust me, Claire. Nothing you possess can help me now. This poison is powerful beyond belief—more powerful than anything our own Magoi can brew. Every bit of magic I possess is holding back its darkness. Were I human, I would have died the night you rescued me. Alas, I must suffer a slow death.”

  “But, you can’t simply give up!” she insisted, angered by his acceptance of death. “There’s got to be something we can—”

  “Wake up, girl!” he growled. “Only the strongest magic can heal me now. Even the Society’s best would struggle with a wound like this. And still, I might not awake once they purge the blackness from my body.”

  His insulting tone stung. But it didn’t keep her from arguing. “Cyrus, if there is a small chance they can heal you, you’ve got to take it.”

  “And how do you suppose I do that?”

  “I...” She had no answer.

  “The Society resides within Kastali Dun. I have to get there first, before they can help me.”

  “Then go! Go to them and take a chance at ridding your body of the poison.”