by Sam Farren
“You both seem to be doing well,” I said. “I'm really glad.”
“After you helped us, I was able to find work. Our luck started when we met you. I doubt either of us would've lasted much longer, had you not been here that day. And now... now James and I have a home of our own, thanks to you,” the woman said, squeezing my hands in her own. One of the soldiers cleared his throat, signalling for her to keep the line moving. I didn't get the chance to tell her that it was alright, that I was only doing what I had to; that seeing her do so well was all I'd ever needed. “I'll need to take your name, if you're to cross the border.”
“Um...” I said, almost tripping into the truth. “Varn. Varn Southsea.”
Committing the name to memory, the woman wrote it down, and a soldier directed me to the gate leading into Kastelir, along with the other volunteers. I'd been distracted by the woman and Akela had gone through first, and I jogged to catch up with her. Hands on her hips, she looked around, scowling. We'd taken that first step into Kastelir, yet nothing felt different.
“Hm. It is not as dramatic as I am imagining it,” Akela hummed. “The sun, there is too much of it. The storm clouds, where are they?”
Laughing, I hooked my fingers around her elbow and tugged her along. We'd intended to break away from the group as quickly as we could, but beyond the wall, there was nothing but open space, and the soldiers had horses. Akela could sprint like a pane, but I couldn't outrun them indefinitely.
The two-dozen of us on Kastelir's side of the wall were led down to a cart and packed into it like cargo. Those already in the cart coughed like they were trying to be rid of their lungs, and as the cart rattled and groaned, I decided the least I could do was draw sickness into the air and banish it to I knew not where. Akela guessed at what I was doing and squinted playfully at me, but the moment Riverhurst came into view, there were no good feelings left within either of us.
It was what we'd been waiting for, what we'd expected to see, but we still weren't ready.
Riverhurst was but a collection of crumbled walls.
Its foundations remained, but there was hardly any rubble to speak of. I remembered its silhouette, and the memory crumbled as the town had, turning to ash in the wind. The stone roads were smooth, melted and warped by dragon's breath, and I knew this was only the beginning. Riverhurst was half a mile from the border; I didn't dare to think what the cities further from Felheim had been reduced to.
Jaw set, Akela looked at me, then at the soldiers stationed in the ruins of Riverhurst. Those who'd brought us down had returned to Benkor, and the ones tasked with looking over us went to lengths to be distracted by anything at all. In all likeliness, we were going to be there until a sizeable amount of people had been brought over.
The soldiers leant against what had once been the wall of a house, sharing a flask of what most likely wasn't water between them.
“I don't get it,” one of them remarked. “When did Kastelir ever help us out? Hundreds of years dragons have been plaguing Felheim, and not once did they send supplies or help our way. And now we're rebuilding the damn country!”
His companion grunted, took the flask, and said, “Just be grateful you're not fighting the rebels. Heard they wiped out another squad last week.”
Without a word, Akela pointed to one of the remaining walls. Following her lead, I darted behind it, pressing my back to bricks I half-expected to still hold heat. She stood next to me, counting down from ten on her fingers. She had two fists and no one had come looking for us, had called out for us to rejoin the group, and she decided it'd be best to break away now, before anyone could make the effort to remember what we looked like.
Pointing towards the edge of a forest leading away from Felheim, Akela pushed off the wall, and together, we sprinted out of Riverhurst, down the side of a hill and towards the row of trees that seemed to pull further from us with every stomp of my feet against the grass.
I caught my foot on a protruding root and very nearly cracked my head open on a tree trunk. Hands splayed across the bark, I gulped down a few lungfuls of air, and dared to glance behind me. Riverhurst was still. It'd be hours before they realised we were gone, and by then, they wouldn't care that we were lost to them.
“We did it!” I said, slapping my palm against Akela's when she held a hand out. “We're in Kastelir. We're really here, and... and what do we do now?”
“Ah, Northwood, you are worrying too much, yes!” Akela said, slumping against a tree. “I am knowing my homeland well enough, of course. This forest, it is thick, but perhaps we are passing through in a day. No more, if we are not wasting time. Many settlements have been built up on the other side, and I am thinking... I am certain that some of those, they are still standing. We are finding them, and we are buying horses. How is that sounding?”
“Much better than my plan of picking a random direction and hoping we reach Orinhal in less than a month,” I told her, stepping carefully over the next root reaching out of the dry ground.
The forest was as Akela had said; it felt too dense to spread out endlessly, as though a whole Kingdom's worth of trees had been confined to a small scrap of the country. It was nothing like the jungles of Canth. The birds sung to a different tune and the shade of oak trees kept any potential heat at bay. It was, however, just as difficult to navigate. Every so often Akela would stop, place her hand on her chin and hum, and abruptly change direction.
I'd no idea what she was basing her decisions on, but I knew it had to be something other than her whims.
Other than being a little hungrier than I cared for, I couldn't have felt better about the way things were going. From the moment we'd stepped off the boat, things had gone our way. We'd made it back to my village and found my father – all without having to deal with the villagers – and we'd made it into Kastelir without using an ounce of force. Not only that, but the soldiers spoke of how the resistance was taking down entire squads of Felheimish soldiers. At this rate, we'd arrive in Orinhal, find the resistance thriving, and be there just in time to see them reclaim their Kingdom.
Akela and I moved noisily, snapping fallen branches underfoot, causing deer and rabbits to flee, illustrating all the paths we could take. There were no wolves within the forest, nothing any more vicious than sleeping owls, but an hour into our trek, our surroundings shifted around me.
It was so subtle that I couldn't tell what had unnerved me. It was almost as though the sun was setting, causing the gaps between shadows to darken, but it was barely midday, and I didn't think it could get much brighter out. Birds continued to chirp at one another, but there was something in their song that could've been mistaken for a warning.
“Akela—do you feel that? It's strange. It's almost like...” I mumbled, blinking hard. “There's something in here with us.”
“This is a forest, and we are passing through it. Of course we are not the only ones here! What is wrong, are you becoming afraid of rabbits?”
“No, I just...” I tried to grasp at words that wouldn't come to me. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Glancing back at me, she said, “Perhaps you are getting a headache, yes? Do not be fretting. Soon, I will be finding us something to eat.”
I didn't have time to hope she was right. I came to a halt in the same moment she did, staring at the wreckage ahead of us. Trees had been knocked over – some torn from the ground, others snapped in two – and deep ruts were scored into the earth. Akela held out a hand, trying to stop me from walking into some trap or danger, but I stepped around her, knowing what it was that I felt.
Death and rot swarmed the forest, clinging to the air like a thousand circling flies.
The ruts in the dirt were deep enough for me to step into, reaching halfway up my shins, and I followed them as Akela said, “Northwood, what you are doing, I do not think...”
The rest of her words went unspoken when she saw what I did. At the end of the forest's scar, beneath torn foliage and snapped branches, was a dragon.
It was a fhord, but the creature was so young it couldn't have ever come to know its place amongst its tribe. Its body was no bigger than the cart we'd been brought in, and its wings stretched out, worn thin in places. The scales had turned from purple to a murky, festering brown-green, and time had softened its skin. Birds had pecked at it, and holes were torn into the side of the cheek turned up towards us.
A dragon-bone spear dug deep into its side.
Perhaps the Felheimish had still been raising this dragon when they lost control of it and had to put it down; perhaps it had flown as far as it could with a blade dug deep in its chest, before crashing here.
Or maybe the Felheimish were so desperate they were sending young dragons into Kastelir, and the resistance were fighting back.
Either way, none of it was fair. I knelt by the head that was bigger than I was and Akela hissed, “Northwood. That is a dragon. You are stepping away from it right now!”
“It's dead, Akela,” I pointed out, but she wasn't given the chance to reply.
All at once, we had more things to worry about than a decaying dragon.
Cheerful whistling rushed between the trees and branches snapped underfoot. Akela grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me out of the clearing, and backs pressed flat to oak trees, we listened as a group of soldiers approached. The sound of their armour clattering together gave away that much.
“At bloody last!” a woman declared. “A week it's taken us to find this bastard.”
“And look at it. Barely worth the effort,” another soldier added. “What do you think we'll get out of this one? Half a dozen swords? It's already rotting. Anyone know if they're supposed to do that?”
I glanced at Akela. She was staring at the path ahead of us, trying to discern how far we could get without making a sound. No more than a few feet, I thought, and then the soldiers would be on us.
“Makes it easier to get the scales off,” a third soldier chimed in.
There was a great deal of fussing as bags were dropped to the ground and the soldiers hummed out loud as they decided how best to approach the task they'd been handed. I would've had to fight to remain hidden, if not for the dragon itself sating my curiosity; I had no urge to turn and look.
What I felt from it was new. Different to anything I'd experienced before, whether I was using my powers to kill, or to bring someone back. It was as though the fear it had been forced to endure in its last moments resonated around it, seeping into dirt, tangling itself in the leaves.
The dragon had been hunted down and murdered, and now these people wanted to skin it. To hack away at its scales and flesh, and all so that they could make weapons from its bones. Weapons to kill more of its kind. It wasn't fair. The dragon had been young; Felheim probably hadn't even had the chance to corrupt it, not fully.
It'd been scared, it'd been confused, and now someone was standing over it, saying, “Wanna do the honours? You're the only one with a dragon-bone blade between us.”
My skull throbbed with anger on the dragon's behalf, and I splayed a hand against my chest, knowing too well how it felt to have blades driven in between my ribs. My shoulders shook and my breath came too loudly, and it was hot, hotter than any jungle. Without making a sound or moving into sight, Akela waved a hand, stealing my attention for a brief moment.
She pointed to her eyes, fingers flicking up to mirror the light bleeding from my own.
I was shaking, but my powers weren't out of my control. They were going exactly where they were needed, before the soldier could swing their blade and take away any pieces.
Inside, the dragon was as damaged as its rotting scales suggested. Its organs had atrophied within its chest, but that wasn't enough to hinder me. I reformed the creature from the inside, hearts growing, filling with blood, but what was within its head gave me pause. I could restore almost everything, its thoughts and its vision, but too much of its mind had decayed. There were gaps I couldn't patch over, seams I couldn't pull back together, and so I did what came naturally to me.
I let my thoughts flow into it. I let it know that I ached for what had happened to it and why. What I was flooded the dragon's mind, allowing everything to weave its way back together.
With a rumble, the dragon began to move.
Akela was staring at me in horror, not wanting to believe her ears. Neither of us had watched it unfold, but the low, echoing rumble painted a clear enough picture of had happened.
“What the—it's moving!” a soldier said, swearing under their breath.
“Shit. Your blade, give me your blade!”
“You really think you can kill a dragon? There's no time for that, just...”
The soldiers weren't going to notice us now. I allowed myself to glance around the tree, watching as the dragon swung out its – his – paw, claws tearing a tree trunk straight through. With a swing of his fist, he knocked the tree clean out of the ground, sending it flying after the fleeing soldiers.
Wings spread out, the dragon pressed himself close to the ground, opening his mouth and drawing in a deep breath he didn't need. With a whine, he tried to exhale something other than air, but nothing rushed past his fangs. Perhaps I hadn't been able to fix everything, not straight away. He couldn't spit out so much as a spark, and snarling in frustration, the dragon roared between the trees, ensuring the soldiers didn't dare to turn back.
With the forest free of fire and no one to give chase, Akela took my arm and charged off, heading away from the clearing, where the dragon couldn't follow. I stumbled after her for a handful of steps and tore my arm free, racing back the way we'd come as she bellowed, “Northwood! Northwood!” after me.
I didn't stop, not until I came to the last line of trees between me and the clearing.
The dragon was waiting for me, body low to the ground, nostrils flaring as he tried to remember the taste of fire.
CHAPTER XIII
The dragon wasn't dead, but he wasn't alive, either.
He was caught between two opposing forces, and when he moved, he did so of his own will. It wasn't like the time I'd compelled corpses to move; whatever I'd done to the dragon, whatever I'd pushed into him, didn't counter the fact that he was still himself, still a dragon.
I'd never known fear to silence Akela before, but she'd stopped shouting at me, stopped urging me to back away and disappear into the forest. She stood behind me, either unwilling or unable to leave me facing a dragon alone, and I held out a hand as the dragon stepped closer. No matter how young he was, he could've finished me off in a few bites, and he was skittish, liable to snap his jaws at me.
Fear had yet to leave him, and his death probably felt as though it had occurred minutes ago. The spear was still embedded between his ribs, and he let out a low, rumbled warning when I took a single step forward.
“It's alright,” I whispered, holding both hands in front of me. “I'm just going to...”
The dragon growled louder and louder, claws sinking into the dirt and cracking the ground open, but I kept my eyes on his as I moved closer, hoping he understood that I only wanted to help. His whole body tensed as I placed a hand against his side, inches above the wound, wings fanning out as I wrapped my fingers around the spear.
The handle was caked in dark, dried orange blood, and I gripped it tight, not giving the dragon time to get used to the idea of me removing it. I wrenched it free, taking the dragon's pain along with it, but he still roared out, slamming a paw against the ground. It wasn't until I dropped the spear into the dirt and held my hands out in front of me that he stopped lashing out with his tail.
Falling flat against the ground, the dragon grumbled more than he growled.
“See? That's much better,” I said, carefully stepping back in front of him. “We're not going to hurt you. Are we, Akela?”
“Ah...” was all she managed.
The dragon watched me with giant, glassy
eyes, and I tentatively placed a hand on the end of his snout. His eyes widened and his nostrils flared, and my heart hammered in my chest as his lips curled back, fangs sliding apart. I didn't move my hand, and the dragon's long tongue lolled out of his mouth, tasting the air and wrapping around my wrist.
I laughed shakily, sound rattling around my chest, and the dragon tilted his head to the side, tongue slipping back into his mouth.
“It's nice to meet you too,” I said, crouching in front of him. “I'm Rowan. Do you have a name?”
The dragon tilted his head to the other side, nose twitching.
“Would you like one?” I asked, and the dragon swung his tail across the clearing, letting out a growl of a purr. I'd named plenty of sheep but never a dragon, and my eyes darted around the clearing. “Let's see... Oak? What do you think of Oak?”
The dragon shot to his feet, knocked me back, and beat his tail against the floor. He looked as delighted as a half-dead, permanently-decaying creature could.
“Oak it is,” I said, getting to my feet with the help of Akela.
She'd finally torn herself off the spot, but her unblinking eyes remained fixed on Oak as he stretched out. I grinned and Akela looked at me as though I was mad, which I took to be a personal achievement.
“Are you going to be alright? Do you know where the other dragons are?” I asked, and Oak blinked. “Akela and I are going to Orinhal, but you should head for Kyrindval. They'll look after you there.”
Strangely, those few words seemed to mean something to Oak. He straightened out, rocked back on his hind legs and stared up at the sky, growling thoughtfully. Slamming back against the ground, he stretched his wings out, placed his head at my feet, and stared up at me expectantly.
“Um. Do you want us to... ?”
Oak's tail swished to and fro, and I didn't allow myself to put any more thought into it. Moving around to his side, I carefully placed a foot against his elbow and climbed onto his back. I hooked my fingertips around the more pronounced scales protruding from his back, settling just beneath the base of his neck, and he didn't shake me off; I'd done the right thing.
