“A useful army,” Erik commented.
Drake drummed his fingers on the stone. “There were others, of course, teeth gained in similar manner by Jason, who slayed a viper with the aid of Medea’s spell. That company, though, destroyed themselves without remorse. Not a one survived.”
“So those who awaken from the spell are volatile.”
“And why not? They have lived in the hearing of a malicious song for a long time, trapped so that they cannot escape its poison yet fired by its call to do damage. I understand their rage well, for I have felt it. To be freed from the spell gives one a tremendous desire for vengeance and violence.”
Erik nodded again. “Yours was turned against Magnus and his hidden Academy,” he said, evidently recalling the night the spell had been broken.
“It is a fleeting strength,” Drake noted. “For it is soon replaced by despondency.”
“How so?”
“Because life and love have become as dust while one slept.”
Erik flicked a glance over the company of men, his gaze assessing and sympathetic.
Drake cleared his throat to continue. “Cadmus, though, was no mere soldier. He began to hunt vipers, for material reward. He also kept the teeth for himself. And in order to do so more effectively, he gathered a force of Pyr like himself.”
“Because you could approach the vipers.”
Drake nodded. “It worked most well, and many vipers were destroyed in the world due to our efforts.”
“But?”
Drake’s brow lifted an increment. “But ultimately, one viper snared us within his spell.”
“How?”
“Cadmus turned. He became what he had destroyed. He was plagued by bad luck throughout his life and came to believe it was a punishment for the death of the first viper, for slaughtering one of his own kind. He believed the vengeance of Ares to be upon him. I believe that he remained too long in dragon form, that he studied the power to enchant, perhaps initially out of curiosity, but that ultimately the power seduced him utterly.”
“I will assume that you hunted him,” Erik said quietly.
“You would guess correctly.” Drake eyed the leader of the Pyr, wondering how much more he had guessed. “But you might also guess that he, of all foes, knew how best to enchant even Pyr. He took his spell beyond the range of human hearing, he slid it into old-speak, and so it was that he snared us all.”
“But someone cut you free?”
“Not precisely.” Drake shook his head. “Cadmus aged and grew more feeble. He had had his firestorm and could not slow the aging process as much as might have been possible otherwise. Over time, all that remained was his ability to enchant. He lost his teeth. He lost his talons. His scales softened and grew pale, and he dragged himself deeper into the earth. He remained a viper but a toothless one, more of a worm.”
“He was weaker?”
“So weak that he could not physically defend his hoard of teeth when another hunted him.” Drake frowned, knowing that this next piece of the tale would be of import to Erik. “He did, however, manage to cast some spell over that company of Pyr, even in his dotage.”
“Who were they?”
“Magnus Montmorency and his minions. First of those you call Slayers. They managed to leave the lair of Cadmus, but the residue of his spell clung to their thoughts.”
Erik caught his breath.
“His song was potent.” Drake watched the leader of the Pyr steadily. “That is why I would lead my men home. I believe that they need to know for certain that Cadmus has died. I believe that looking upon his remains, such as they are, is the only thing that will give them hope for the future.”
“It is not a foregone conclusion,” Erik said softly.
Drake inclined his head in acknowledgment of that truth. “But the alternative is that I lead my men into battle, without their hearts engaged. The alternative is that I lead them to certain death.”
“I do not like it.” Erik’s eyes narrowed. “Their spirits might be broken by seeing that their homes are lost forever.”
“Indeed, they might. Unfortunately, I see no real alternative.”
Erik considered the leader of the Dragon’s Teeth Warriors. “You will go, regardless of what I say,” he guessed.
Drake shook his head. “I make my argument, and await your decision. You are leader of the Pyr, and the closest being to the oracles upon whom we once relied.”
“You invite me to learn from your counsel,” Erik suggested.
“I invite you to cast a prophecy,” Drake corrected. “To guide both of us in this choice.”
The pair eyed each other for a moment. “It is not like that,” Erik said abruptly. “I cannot command my visions of the future, nor can I direct them…”
“Can you not?” Drake asked quietly. It was unthinkable to him that such a power should rely upon luck. Indeed, he did not believe in luck. He believed in fate, and destiny, and the insatiable desire of the divine to meddle in earthly matters. The Great Wyvern might play with any of them. She might challenge them or break them, but she always had a purpose.
Even if it was her own entertainment.
Erik heaved a sigh. He cast a glance over the company of warriors, who stood silent and attentive. He pulled a coin from his pocket, one that gleamed silver in the moonlight. “An Olaf Tryggvason penny,” he said at Drake’s enquiring glance. “I have carried it for longer than I can recall. I shall try to scry with it.”
It was, Drake realized, Erik’s challenge coin. He knew the coin would be embued with the power of the leader of the Pyr and his prophetic abilities. This would offer a glimpse of the future, of the will of the divine.
Whatever that might be.
He bowed his head in deference to his leader’s choice.
Erik placed the coin on his left palm and held it out, letting the moonlight illuminate it. He narrowed his eyes and focused upon the coin, the slowing of his breath telling Drake that he was trying to summon a vision. He murmured softly, the way his nostrils abruptly flared telling Drake that he saw something in the radiant silver of the coin.
Drake stepped closer, eager to know but not wanting to disturb Erik from his trance.
Erik closed his hand abruptly over the coin and shoved it into his pocket, his gaze locking upon Drake. “You must go. You are right in that there is no choice. May the Great Wyvern smile upon your quest.”
“Will you tell me what you have seen?”
Erik shook his head tersely. “It is not my place to do so. But if there is anything else you need of me, you have only to ask.”
“I ask only for your goodwill.”
“You have it. You have always had it.”
Drake nodded, then backed away, unable to deny the shadow that had touched his heart. What had Erik seen? He cast only the slightest glance toward his men, and they shimmered on the cusp of change in unison.
As he shifted shape himself and took the lead, Drake stifled his dread. One way or the other, all would be resolved shortly. He could only hope that he was not leading his men into torment.
He’d done that once before.
Far behind him, Erik Sorensson gripped the coin in his pocket. Drake was right in that his men had to confront the past to find their future. The course was not without risk, however.
For the viper who had charmed them still drew breath.
They could be enchanted again. They could be destroyed. They could turn Slayer, against their own will. Or they could return to Erik to add their force to his fight, their resolve bolstered.
Erik knew which answer he liked best.
Just as he knew the choice was not his to make.
II
Dust. All dust.
Drake sat in a café in a modern Middle Eastern city and faced the truth. Everything he had known, everything he had loved, was lost to time. He had known it would not be easy for him and his men to revisit the lands they had known so well, so many centuries before. But the experience of co
ming home was far worse than expected.
Home. That was a cruel joke. The cities they remembered were ruins, if they survived at all. The homes they had built were lost to the hills. The verdant valleys they had known were barren. The people they had loved, the children and wives, brothers and parents and neighbors, were lost without a trace. The past was dust and ash, desolation that hung a weight on Drake’s heart.
He had seen each of his men survey what had once been familiar without recognition. He had watched hope die, over and over again. Theirs was an irrational hope, they all knew it, but they each sought some crumb of what they had lost. They had marched off to war thousands of years before, and never returned. While they had been trapped in enchantment, lives had ended, borders had shifted, the world had changed.
They were perennially homeless now. All the money in the world, all the traveling possible, couldn’t take them back to where they longed to be.
Ever.
First Lidio had confronted his truth. Then Aeson, then Cletus, Milo and Alexander. Disappointment had roiled through the ranks like a plague, but instead of bolstering the men, it had devastated them.
Drake had been wrong.
He had felt the full weight of that disappointment himself on this day. Once he had known this region as well as the back of his hand. Once he had known every face, every building, every elderly man anxious to chat. Once this area had been his refuge and his home.
But there was no longer any trace of his village or his modest house. The olive trees were dead and gone, the vineyards had been torn up, the laughter of children was silenced. The harbor was paved and there were concrete buildings at every corner. The human enemies they had marched off to fight were not just gone, but forgotten.
The truth of it utterly destroyed Drake’s own morale. He could not lead his men onward in good conscience. There was no future. Life had no meaning for them. The only experience before them was death.
Drake ordered another round of drinks. To what other purpose would he use the coins in his pocket? There was no point in battle, no point in love, no point in life.
Not anymore.
It seemed like yesterday that he had seen Cassandra meet an invading army at the town’s gate, her feet bare and her hair unfurled. That hadn’t been a hundred feet from this very spot. She’d been armed only with her defiance and her wits, with her sense of injustice. He had lost his heart with one glance.
He had felt the simmer of the firestorm’s burn that day, and had known she was his destined mate even before he knew the color of her eyes. He would have loved her even without the firestorm’s heat. It wasn’t impressive for a man with an army at his back to be confident. It had awed him as a warrior to see Cassandra, though, so sure of her own power that she had been unafraid.
She had been a marvel.
And the memory of her passion and her love, the recollection of her kiss and the sweet hope of reunion, had driven him on and on.
But she was gone.
Dust.
Drake would never see her again. Her smile, her laugh, her bravado, all gone forever. His son, too, lived only in his own memory.
Had they believed that he had deserted them? There had been no one to send word of the enchanted company, no human who had known their fate. The prospect sickened Drake, made him drain his glass.
He felt the tingle of a distant firestorm but could not summon the interest in defending it. Let the new Pyr have their firestorms. Let the new Pyr fight for justice and truth and survival of the earth herself.
He wanted only to die.
This place would suit well enough.
Drake and his men sat in silence and drank red wine in a café in the sun. Drake didn’t care what happened to them next and his men shared his view. He was a leader without direction, a leader of men who were rudderless, and he didn’t care about that either. The wine’s tart taste was just another reminder of the past.
He was barely aware of the young boy who came into the café, scanned the men, and headed directly for him.
“Do you know my father?” the boy demanded, his words startling Drake. He would have been six or seven years old, this earnest boy, with his dark hair and dark eyes.
Just like Theo.
Drake’s throat tightened.
“Do you?” he demanded again, just as Theo would have done. Cassandra’s persistence had found expression in their son.
Drake would have liked to have ignored the child, to have gone back to his drinking, but he couldn’t do it. He was too full of the awareness of what he’d lost and this child was too similar to his own son.
He put down his glass. “Who is your father?”
The boy recited the name and rank of a serviceman, his pride in his father more than clear.
Drake shook his head. “I do not know him.”
The boy studied him for a long moment, looking so intently into his face that the commander wondered what he saw. Then he pulled out the chair beside Drake, inviting himself to the table. He pointed to the glass. “What is that?”
“It is wine. You should not drink of it.” It was easy to speak to the boy as he had once spoken to his own son, albeit in a different language and a place that was centuries away.
The boy picked up the glass and sniffed it, then wrinkled his nose. “I don’t want any.” He pushed it away from both of them. Then he turned that sharp gaze on his older companion again. “Do you know who killed my father then?”
Drake was startled. “Are you certain that he was killed?”
“He’s missing.” The boy’s lips set. “It’s been two months, and it only took us two days to come here. He would come home if he could, wouldn’t he?” He looked to Drake for confirmation.
Drake felt a lump in his throat, for he knew that all fighting men would return home if they had the power to do so. He would have traded everything in this moment to return home. “I am certain he would. A man of honor does not abandon his family.”
“I know he would come home.”
The child’s conviction tore at Drake’s heart. Had Theo believed the same of him? Had Cassandra?
The child looked around the café, studying the Dragon’s Teeth Warriors. “I have to find him. I thought you would know where.”
“Why?”
“Because you are like him. You are soldiers, and soldiers know where to find other soldiers, even if they’re secret soldiers.” The boy looked up suddenly. “And they kill other soldiers, too.”
“I did not kill your father.”
The boy nodded, apparently confident of this fact, and eyed the others. Before he could begin an interrogation, a woman raced into the café, her eyes wide with fear.
She was lovely, with dark hair and blue eyes, slender but not boyish. The sight of her made something spark within Drake, made him sit even straighter.
“Timmy!” Her expression changed to relief at the sight of the boy. She was dressed in western clothing and her accent was American. “You’re not supposed to go out without me. You know that.” She came to the boy’s side and took his hand, chiding him gently. “I’m so sorry that he interrupted you,” she said, offering a shy smile to the commander.
Drake saw more than she likely wanted him to see. He saw that this alluring woman had lost weight recently, for the gold ring on her left hand was very loose. There were shadows beneath her eyes, which were reddened from tears. He guessed that she was struggling to be strong in the face of adversity, but she hugged the boy a little more tightly than was deserved.
Her fear touched him, touched him where he would have preferred to remain untouched.
Before Drake realized what he was doing, he had gotten to his feet and inclined his head. “I assure you that he was no trouble.”
“Well, I apologize.” Her gaze swept over him and he wondered what she saw. “We have to go to the embassy, Timmy, in case there’s news.”
When she would have turned away, Drake wasn’t quite ready to see her leave. “He says h
is father is missing.”
She froze, her heart in her eyes when she looked back at him. She swallowed, then nodded, her lips tight.
“For long?”
“Almost two months!” She made a gesture of futility with one hand, and the words spilled from her lips. “It was crazy to come here, everyone said so, and I guess it’s not going to make any difference to anything, after all.” She sighed. “I thought that if I was here, I could find out the truth, but that was stupid.”
Drake heard her anguish and it made his heart clench.
It cracked his armor.
He could help this woman.
All the same, he was cautious—many asked for truth when they actually wanted a palatable lie. The world was a harder place than it should be. That, at least, had not changed.
“Do you want to know the truth, no matter what it is?”
She looked at him then, really looked at him. He saw the intelligence in her eyes and the strength she had not yet realized was hers. She knew what he was asking, and she straightened before she nodded curtly. “I need to know for sure. I have to know.”
The commander saw the way she held her son protectively close, and understood that she would do anything to defend the memory of her lost husband. He recognized that gesture, and that feminine strength. The sight made a lump rise in his throat.
The stranger didn’t look at all like Cassandra. She didn’t speak like Cassandra or carry herself the same way. She wasn’t quiet and mysterious, as Cassandra had been—she was forthright, honest, perhaps too trusting. But her conviction that she could change a situation that appeared to be beyond retrieval reminded him of his lost wife, of the woman who had stolen his heart away, all those centuries before.
This woman’s determination reminded him of Cassandra’s conviction that she could accomplish deeds that no one else had managed. That extraordinary faith in her ability to make a difference, against all odds, lived on in this stubborn foreigner, who had brought her son a third of the way around the world in a desperate bid for the truth.
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