That’s what the song was for. But I was too far away to entice them with the sweet strains of the Song of the Dead. I needed to use what I had.
“Here’s our chance!” Stef said and then Gran was shoving me forward and we were running from the boulders out onto the hillside.
Chaos reigned over the hills. Magikas flung their magenta and green fireballs – why was it always just those two colors? – while Tachril flamed them from above. He was okay!
Beside him, Isitdor roared, snatching a fleeing Magika from the ground and flinging him with a mighty shake of his massive head. The Magika’s scream disappeared as he flew past the boulders to the fields beyond.
But the people who had been tied up were in trouble. My golems stood around them, motionless, but the soldiers and Magikas who had imprisoned them ran between the golems, seeking the people bound to those dragons. The looks on their faces weren’t looks of fear. I moved one of the golems suddenly, crushing a soldier between him and the wolf golem beside him. I didn’t know if he lived or died, but I left the golem there as I grabbed another golem and charged him at a second soldier as he raised his sword to kill one of the humans trussed on the ground. The wolf golem leapt forward, snatching the soldier up in his jaws and leaping past into the hills beyond.
In the chaos, it was hard to count heads or see specifics. Every time I thought I might see Saboraak, someone moved in front of my view. I counted four dragons in the air. One appeared to be hurt. I counted four humans trussed on the ground and three standing. I counted two oosquer, dead. Their throats slit where they lay trussed in chains.
But there was so much I wasn’t seeing. Frustrated, I ran on, moving golems as I could to block the Magikas and soldiers from attacking the tiny band of humans as they tried to free their fellows. One Magika raised his hands, fireballs leaping from them to smash into my golem’s chest, but fire didn’t stop golems. The wolf golem swept him up as easily as a dog scoops up a bone, running down the hill like he was playing with his prize.
I didn’t have the time to direct them after I used them to clear the path. I had to trust that they would stop eventually.
“They probably won’t. There will be wild golems running around with the bones of dead Magikas in their mouths for years to come,” my mimic said wryly. He seemed to think his grisly joke was funny. There was nothing funny about death.
And then we were finally in among the humans.
“Tor!” Nostar said, looking up from where he fought the chains around Letina. They were locked with heartstone. I laid a hand on them and the lock fell away.
“What happened?” I asked, hurrying to where Janes was also locked in place. Lenora, streaked in mud, was trying to free him.
“One of the Kav’ai was a traitor,” Lenora said, leaning back with a look of relief as I broke the heartstone lock holding Janes. “He betrayed us into the hands of the enemy. We had warned Questan and were on our way to Dominion City when we were set upon by dragons and Magikas. They pulled us from the sky and bound us and delivered us over to the army here. The other Kav’ai said he had also betrayed his people at a place called Kav’ru.”
So that was how Shabren had known to look for us there!
I moved to help Devind and Jordil, breaking their locks as Lenora pulled them free of the chains.
“Thanks, Tor,” Devind said quietly.
“Where is Karillion?” I asked Nostar. The man beside him was dressed in Estabis colors – one of the soldiers who had fled with Lenora.
“Dead,” Nostar said, his face wooden as he used the chain he’d been tied with to deflect the attack of a soldier who darted toward us.
“The Kav’ai?” I asked, waking one of the golems up to attack the four men who were racing toward us from behind the first soldier. My golem batted the first one away like an annoyance and rushed after a second.
“Dead,” Nostar said, ducking a sword swipe. Stef smacked his attacker in the temple with her staff and he fell to the ground. Jordil snatched up his sword, but the threat was past. My golem had run down or chased off the other attackers.
“The other soldiers who fled with Lenora?”
“Killed when we were ambushed.”
I nodded, my own expression hardening. I needed to find Saboraak. The soldiers attacking us right now were just ragged groups from the army’s flanks, but they were already pulling together an organized counter-attack and unless we could group up, we’d all be taken captive again.
“I need to get to Saboraak,” I said, rushing forward, shoving past the immobile forms of the golems. I’d set them in a ring around the humans to help keep the humans safe, but now they stood between me and my dragon. I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of her through their heavy bodies and thick legs. I could ride one, perhaps. But I didn’t want to stop and mount it. I needed to get to Saboraak, and I needed to get to her now.
I ignored the protests and cries from the people behind me, as I rushed past the golems. I needed to find her – to even just catch a glimpse. It worried me that she hadn’t spoken to me yet.
Chapter Four
Isitdor and Tachril fought from the skies, flaming wildly at the human Magikas rushing toward the dragons on the ground. Guarding their flank were Nazscal and Hyoogan.
Now I could see why we’d only had ragged assaults on the human captives – most of the army’s efforts were focused on the dragons. A flood of soldiers plunged toward the dragons still bound on the ground, Magikas in their midst flinging fireballs as the dragons in the air dodged and rolled to avoid the sticking fire.
But the dragons were anchored to this spot. They didn’t dare leave it to use their advantage of mobility – not when three dragons lay on the hillside, immobile. I picked out Izhoedi’s form first. He was still chained in place, his head fighting wildly at the chain keeping him in place. At least he was still alive! If I could get to him, I could unchain him.
I heard breathing behind me and then Devind overtook me, rushing toward his trussed dragon like an arrow from a bow. The shouts behind me told me that the others were following, too, but I needed to keep running. If anyone could get Izhoedi free, it would be me.
“Just do it from here!” my mimic urged. “You keep forgetting everything that you can do. You’re wasting time!”
He was right. I reached out to the lock on the chains through the ring around my neck and snapped it free. The chains fell off Izhoedi like cut vines as he thrashed them away, his wings unfurling. Devind barely had time to leap on his bare back before he was in the air, scouring the earth before him with streams of flame.
The attempted theft of the dragons’ souls clearly hadn’t weakened all of them.
But Izhoedi’s leap into the air revealed the two Green dragons lying still on the ground behind him. They didn’t lie tense like they were trapped and waiting to be freed. They lay limp, wings deflated, heads lolling.
And one of them wasn’t a Green at all.
“Saboraak!” the cry ripped from my lips and I ran, stumbling, rolling across the dirt, getting up again and then barreling forward with no thought to what was behind me or under me or above me. Had they succeeded? Was she dead?
I reached her side, my vision a blur as my heart beat too fast.
My hands reached her muzzle first, running over it. She was hot – burning hot. Her eyes were closed – but she was breathing. Her breath was weak and thready for a dragon, but it still puffed out her wide nostrils.
“Saboraak.” My tears splashed on her hot face leaving little puffs of steam where they hit. “Hold on. I’m here. We’ll get you out of this.”
But how was I going to help her? I released the lock on her chains, letting them fall away, but the long tube that ran from her neck was still there. I followed it with my eyes to a metal rod on the ground. The tube seemed to be jammed between her scales. I reached for it to pull it out.
“I wouldn’t,” the mimic warned.
Why not? It was what had done this to her! It had sucked the life o
ut of her!
Beside us, I saw Lenora fall to the ground, skidding across the mud to get to her dragon.
“Lypukrm!” she wailed. But there was no warmth rising off Lypukrm. And the rod on the end of his tube glowed with an unearthly light.
“I think they were sucking her soul out,” the mimic said.
“Got it in one guess, genius.” His words stirred a fury in me. I reached again for the tube. It shouldn’t be in her. She shouldn’t be disgraced like that!
“Stop!” my mimic screamed at me. “Listen!”
What?
“You have power over souls. You suck them here and shove them there. Just pull it out of the rod and put it back in her!”
I froze. It couldn’t be that easy.
“Easy? What are you, divine? Moving a soul from one place to another is not what anyone else would call easy!”
True.
“If you don’t try, you’ll lose her forever. Look at Lenora. Do you want that to be you?”
I glanced at Lenora, draped over her dragon bawling. On either side of her Nostar and Letina stood, fighting off any soldiers who pushed past the flames of the dragons above. There weren’t many, but those who came had bloodlust in their eyes.
My hands shook as I held the tube, not pulling it away this time, but instead concentrating, focusing, forcing my will upon it.
“Come on!” the mimic encouraged.
I tried to be gentle. I tried to be enticing. I tried to ease the energy from the rod back into the tube and move it toward my dragon. Instead, it flashed through the tube like lightning, blowing me back with the force of it.
I fell backward, hitting my head on the dried mud ground. Stars danced across my vision but when I opened my eyes my dragon was pulling herself up onto her feet, shaking like a dog out of a pond.
Tor? What took you so long.
I stood, shaking, joy filling me like a sunbeam in my heart. She lived! She was fine.
“Oh, you know me,” I said. “Always like to make an entrance.”
Her dragon smile made the world right again.
We seem to be under attack. Mount up!
But I had something to do first. Could she take my friends? I motioned to Gran and Stef, standing back a little, their eyes large as saucers as they watched Saboraak’s transformation.
Of course. But hurry. Isitdor says we need to move.
I nodded. But I wanted to make sure that all of us could move. I ran to where Lypukrm lay in the mud. Gently, I shook Lenora.
“Lenora? You need to stand up.”
“I can’t leave him like this,” she said, her eyes red and puffy.
“Just let me look, okay?” I tried to keep my tone kind as I bent over her dragon.
It might not work. After all, Saboraak had not been completely drained when I got to her.
I put my hand on the tube and called to the life in the rod.
Nothing.
I tugged a little harder, asking it to come.
Nothing.
Skies and Stars! What was with stubborn souls? Irritated, I yanked at the soul in the rod, demanding it return to the dragon it belonged to.
I should have expected some blowback after what happened with Saboraak, but I was too focused on the task.
The world went dark.
Chapter Five
I woke to hands shoving me down against something hard and hot. The ground trembled and wavered under me.
I’m not the ground.
Saboraak! Are you okay?
Your friends dragged you onto my back after whatever you did to Lypukrm knocked you two dragon-lengths backward.
No wonder I felt like I was covered in bruises. And Lypukrm?
He lives! Oh, Tor, you wouldn’t believe how happy I am to see that you’re okay! I thought you were dead!
She thought I was dead?
When we left you in Estabis, I thought you’d never survive. I was so worried!
She was worried?
Is there something wrong with your brain? You keep repeating me.
No. Nothing wrong. It’s just that I was worried about you.
My stomach lurched as we dropped in the air and a bright flash crossed my vision.
Ummm... Saboraak? Are we having this cheerful little conversation during a battle by any chance?
Yes. We’re flying toward Questan to join up with the Dominion Dragon Riders over the city. They just launched an attack on the flying golems. I guess the City Council finally made up their minds what to do. They’ve been fighting about it since we left them.
Oh.
Too little too late.
I fought against whatever was pinning me to Saboraak.
“Tor?” Stef asked. “Are you okay?”
“Would you let me up?” I said, pushing harder against the restraint. Hands grabbed me, pulling me up and I realized that it hadn’t been Stef holding me down but Gran.
“Only if you don’t run off like a hound after a hare,” Gran said. “I swear you don’t have the sense you were born with. You should be thanking the Skies and Stars every day that someone saw that and gave you that Eye pendant. You’d never have survived this long without the added favor that thing gives you.”
“Luck, you mean?” I asked, arranging myself in front of her on Saboraak’s shoulder blades.
We’d passed whatever enemy she’d been fighting and were racing over the heads of the Ko’Torenth army. I glanced around counting dragons. There was Lenora riding Lypukrm. He looked like he’d never been dead at all. My efforts had worked!
There was Tachril with Nostar and the other soldier from Estabis. There was Isitdor and Nazscal and Hyoogan and Izhoedi. We were alive. We had survived.
“Yes,” Gran said. “In a way. It channels power from the World of Legends to tip the weaving of the future just slightly in your favor.”
Oh.
Somehow, that made sense.
How many times in the last weeks had I survived things that should have killed me – survived by just a hair? How many times had I taken a crazy gamble only to see it pay off – or at least not go as wrong as it could have? And all this time it had been this gift from Ephretti making things just a shade more survivable. I should find her and thank her. I’d do it if I survived this battle.
Is it true that Bataar is making an empire for you and that you asked for a place for our Drazenloft?
How did she already know that?
Stef is telling me that she wants to live in my dragon city.
Of course. I couldn’t keep a secret from Saboraak if I tried. Other dragons kept their thoughts to themselves, but not Saboraak. She was a Chatty Catty. But now wasn’t the time to worry about secrets.
Right now, we were about to help a second city under siege and this time we had less time and more enemies. I could already feel my skin crawling at the prospect. We’d barely lived through the last siege. What would we do to save the people in this city? Was there any way that we even could?
Ahead of us, the dragons of the city met the flying golems in the air. This force of golems was larger than the force that had come at us in Estabis. Three or four times as large. Worse, with so many Magikas in the ground – and some riding the flying golems – they tore into the dragons like a tiger through a nest of chicks.
My breath caught in my throat.
Two hundred dragons – maybe more – flew into twice their number in flying golems. The clash was like the clash of storm fronts. The sound filled the air and winds buffeted us. Dragons, torn to pieces and golems crumpled and broken – were already raining from the sky. It took a heartbeat before I shook myself and realized what I needed to do.
I found the first Magika riding a flying golem – his hand outstretched with a lightning rod at the end of it, spewing bolts of lightning into the fray. I sucked that golem’s soul from his body with a single snatching motion. I didn’t wait to watch him fall from the sky – couldn’t bear to watch.
I was already hunting for the next one.
There!
I pulled that golem’s soul free, too, sending it spinning toward the World of Legends.
Again, and again I repeated the motion.
Locate, pull.
Locate, pull.
Locate, pull.
It was fast as thought, fast as heartbeats. Before I had even felt the passing of time, I’d run out of Magikas riding golems.
I switched my attention to golems in groups ripping dragons to pieces.
Snatch. Snatch Snatch.
I stole them quick as thought.
Was it stealing to take something that was already stolen and set it free?
I could hear Stef and Gran yelling about something, but I didn’t dare spare any thought to it.
Snatch. Snatch. Snatch.
Below, under the city and sometimes over it, dragons fell like rain and flying golem shells fell with them. I blocked myself from feeling.
Snatch. Snatch.
I didn’t dare feel the horror of the loss of dragon and human life as dragons and their riders plunged screaming in terror from the sky, falling to land on the ground among the wolf golems. Even if they survived the fall, they didn’t survive long in the flurry of metal jaws and feet below.
I didn’t dare think of family and friends who would never see them again.
Snatch.
Why was I crying if I wasn’t thinking of that? I wiped my eyes harshly.
Snatch.
I didn’t dare let myself imagine what it would be like to die that way. Or what it meant for all of us to have lost so many brothers to the madness of Apeq A’kona.
Snatch.
He was out there somewhere. Out there and doing this to humanity. Fury boiled within me, fueling me.
Snatch. Snatch. Snatch.
And then the screaming was coming from Saboraak, too.
Snatch.
Tor! Oh, Skies and Stars! Tachril! Hyoogan! Help!
A metal body swooped so close that I had to duck. I heard Gran screaming and Stef cursing behind me but as soon as I could lift my head, I snatched the soul from the golem who had just grazed our heads.
Dragon Chameleon: Episodes 9-12 Page 21
