She closed her eyes and tried to believe she was in her own room, that everything was normal, like just a day ago. Fraya was her mother and she must soon go to work at the smithy. Later she would see Tarry. She smiled, but the pain in her back from where she’d hit the door throbbed, and a desperate need for water picked through her illusion. Her smile faded. She opened her eyes and the illusion shattered. Without the rage she felt empty.
She was desperately thirsty. There was a stream further down the hill, it made a tinkling noise luring her to it. She made her way down the bank to where it ran clearest. Her hands shook as she cupped the water and lifted it to her lips. The water was crisp and cold and helped ease the pounding in her head. Her back ached sorely, and she flopped back upon the grass, her mind spinning with everything that had happened.
‘There had been lightning…’ she whispered and held up her hands, ‘…from my fingers.’ Was that magic? Where had it come from, and what did it mean?
She grasped a tree branch and inched herself up. She’d heard of magic but never seen it, it was something the wizards, witches, and seers did. She glanced down at her shaking hands and held them away from her. What if it happened again? She was afraid of her own body and loathed what she’d done.
I am not the person I thought I was. I don’t know who I am. She swallowed a lump. Ma was gone. She could not even gift her ashes to the winds. She turned away from the cave, and in a daze stumbled away from the remains of the home she had grown up in. The hours ticked by as she made her way along the dusty road northeast to the village where she worked at the smithy. Though only a few miles, it took a long time on unwilling feet.
She came to the first cottage at the edge of the village, or what was left of it. Like her home, it too had been incinerated - a black scar left on an otherwise untouched green hillside. It still smoked and she thought she saw a blackened body in the ashes. She turned away before she could be sure.
The next house had belonged to Tarry’s aunt, but that too was a smoking ruin. Their rose garden, once filled with Sunset Reds, was nothing but grey and black ash, even the stonewall was gone. Other destroyed houses came and went as she walked, the same black scars scraped across the landscape. Dread Dragons, breathing fire. She was so numb the thought did little to scare her.
She passed by so many incinerated houses, that she no longer noticed them and no emotion stirred. Even when she saw the vast black hole where once the village had been, she didn’t flinch, but stared on dumbly, numb to everything.
To the east she could make out the crumbled building of the smithy, the indestructible anvil standing defiantly amongst the rubble. Directly north from the smithy was Tarry’s house, and though once visible from where she stood, it was now indistinguishable. Nothing stirred, all was silent.
Not wanting to see the charred forms of the dead, she turned left due north to avoid going through the town, and followed a path she had only taken once before. She remembered it led to the sea, and there would be no towns or villages along the way, no more black scars to see, blessedly.
Issa did not know where to go, only that it seemed she should keep moving rather than remaining still, and so she walked. She could not remember when she had last eaten, but the thought of swallowing anything was abhorrent, so she ignored the light-headedness. Ma had been strong. She would be strong for her mother, even though she was gone.
The path would eventually become the northern coastal path, and though it was the long way round, and least travelled path, she could follow it all the way into Kammam, the main port town on Little Kammy’s eastern coast. Kammam was where the merchant ships, fishermen and passenger ferries docked. There they had huge underground storehouses filled with food and cider, tools and clothing, everything really, all coming from the other islands and the mainland.
Even if the port had been burned, and she tried not to think about that, there was a chance the underground storehouses would be untouched. Perhaps it was still vibrant and bustling with people, and her coins could buy a filling meal and a bed for the night. Her spirits lifted at the thought. Though she didn’t really know anybody in Kammam, they might know her Ma, and would definitely know Farmer Ged and Tarry’s father. Besides, they would know she was a local, and everybody on Little Kammy helped each other, especially if they were in need.
Maybe she could find some shoes and clothes since hers had been incinerated, and the ones she wore were ripped. Yes, even if the Dread Dragons had come there, the underground storage would have escaped any fire and remained hidden from marauding hordes. There could even be people there in hiding, or still coming from other islands not knowing of the hordes. Get to the mainland, Ma had said. Well, she would try, and the only way to do that was to take a boat from Kammam. A glimmer of hope sparked within her. She set a faster pace.
Though she would encounter no more burnt out villages, it would be a long hard walk over rocky ground and could take more than a day. There was no accessible coast until the port, only tall black cliffs and white foaming sea far below them. But she had a good eye, and was certain to find wild salicorn and sea buckthorn, and perhaps even fuchsia berries if she was lucky. She focused her thoughts on hunting for food as she walked, it helped shut out all else.
The dirt road swiftly became a rocky, little-used path that barely cut through the thorny gorse and wind-swept hawthorn. Here and there a rock oak stood, their twisted limbs defying the relentless wind as they thrust upwards. She reached the jagged coastline, the salty smell of the sea lay heavy in the wind.
To the left of the path, the land fell away. She peered over the cliff edge, following the drop down black rocks to a surging sea that hammered below. On the horizon dark clouds massed, and the smell of rain and thunder drifted on the breeze. Storms were unusual in summer, but the weather was changeable upon the islands. It might miss Little Kammy, she thought, but hastened her step anyway.
She spied the luminous green stems of wild salicorn with a cry of delight. Her stomach growled as she plucked a good handful of them, making sure to leave enough of the plant behind so it would not wither and die. She set about chewing on the crunchy, slightly sweet stems as she walked, finding them delicious in her famished state.
She spotted the orange berries of sea buckthorn, but when she got there she could not reach the branches, and the few berries seemed rather small. Either it was a young bush or stunted. Still, she tried to reach them, angling a broken stick over the lowest branch and pulling hard to scrape off the berries. It was a mushy mess, but she licked the sour-sweet pulp off her fingers.
Rather than picking up, the wind dropped. Which was odd because the clouds were moving fast and closing in. They were not the colour of rain clouds, but muddy brown and streaks of lightning cracked within them. She hurried along. Being drenched in a storm on a cliff was the last thing she wanted. The raven landed on the path in front of her, she jumped with a yelp. Where had he come from? Why had he come back?
‘You. Were it not for you, I would be dead.’ She wasn’t sure if she was thanking the raven or admonishing him. He cawed and jumped about. She sighed.
‘What now? As if enough hasn’t happened already. I’m too tired to care anyway, and it looks like bad weather is coming,’ she pointed to the clouds. ‘I’m heading to Kammam, come or not as you please, but that’s where I’m heading,’ she said and stalked past him.
She looked back and grinned. The raven followed her this time, hopping from rock to rock, always glancing up at the clouds. Something had the bird spooked, but she was beyond caring. The only safe place to be found was in Kammam, and she had to fend for herself now.
The clouds clustered above them and a blustery wind picked up. A sudden wet gust knocked her off balance. She fell to the right, scrabbling and clinging to the rocks. The raven huddled against the ground beside her. After a moment she pushed herself back up and continued, careful to keep as far away as possible from the sheer drop. There was nothing to stop her rolling all the way to the ocea
n should she fall. Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea, she thought, not with the weather closing in.
The wind gusted again, lashing her hair against her face. She looked up the bank, it would be a treacherous climb to find shelter, and perhaps there wasn’t any. There was only backwards where the weather was coming from and where there definitely wasn’t shelter, or forwards where there might be.
‘Forwards, then,’ she said to the raven.
She rounded a bend, but if anything the path became narrower, and the cliffs both up and down sloped steeper. She stared at the clouds. They clustered and billowed. Something moved within them. She squinted and saw it again, a black speck disappearing and reappearing amongst them. It was growing larger.
A sea bird trapped in the storm, she thought, but that was odd because sea birds found shelter long before bad weather hit, and they were not that large. She took a few more paces and squinted up again. The speck looked like a long thin black line, but as it came closer she could see flapping wings.
Her heart leapt in her chest and her legs trembled. Her body’s reaction to whatever headed her way made her even more frightened. The raven began cawing and jumping about. She tore her eyes away from the thing in the sky. The raven took off along the path, and she fell into a run behind him. It wasn’t easy, there were rocks strewn all over the path, and she stumbled so many times she was sure her feet were covered in bruises. She prayed the raven was leading her somewhere safe.
She rounded another corner and almost cried for joy. The path widened to the right and the cliff flattened out. A short climb up there was an outcrop of rocks and a shallow dip surrounded by bushes. She scrambled up to it. The raven was there first and she fell in after him, pulling gorse around them as best she could. Her initial excitement soon faded. The coverage was sparse at best. She curled up to make herself as small as possible.
The beat of massive wings came closer until they billowed gusts of air and earth around her hiding place. She dared to peer through a gap in the branches and stuffed a hand into her mouth before she could scream.
The wings belonged to a monster - a great black dragon like the ones she’d heard about in fairy tales, only this one was ugly and not majestic at all. It had many horns sticking out of its head, the colour and texture of onyx. Its mouth was lined with hundreds of grey fangs, and all-black lidless eyes flashed in the dull light. Metallic green-black scales gleamed and its breath gusting around her was rotten.
Upon its back sat an armoured rider, its triangular eyes set deep within a tripartite helmet. Those eyes glowed green then blue, and back again. The rider was enormous, twice the size of a tall man, and upon its chest swung a red amulet glowing so bright she could not look at it, but when she closed her eyes it was all she could see. She trembled all over and her heart thudded so hard she thought it would break her body apart. Was this what her mother had spoken of? She had never seen a Dread Dragon and its Dromoorai rider before.
‘Come out,’ the rider said, its voice was too deep and airy to be human. It reminded her of a gale blowing down a chimney. Her legs tried to stand of their own accord, controlled by that commanding voice. She clung to the rocks to stop her body obeying.
‘Come out, magic wielder.’
She remembered the destruction she had wrought in the cavern. Was that magic she had used? Could she do it again? She tried to reason, but the dragon fear pushed all thoughts aside. A tremble in her belly shuddered all her organs, and her brain spun up and down. There was nothing she could do to fight it, and she learned then that dragon fear could only be endured.
Wings beat closer, sending earth, rocks, and leaves into the air. The dragon’s massive snout snaked around from behind the rock and an eye bigger than her head peered through the gorse. She hid her face, her whole body shook.
There was rustling above her and then the thunderous sound of cracking rock. She clung to the gorse, thorns cutting deep into hands as the rocky outcrop behind her fell away. She clawed away from the destruction and lay stricken on her back. It had pulled the whole thing from the cliff as easily as plucking an apple from a tree. She heard it crash down the cliff into the sea far below.
The dragon loomed above her. All she could do was stare up at the Dread Dragon and its rider. She felt her bladder empty itself, but too terrified to care. In the distance two more black shapes appeared out of the clouds. But for all her fear a fury stirred within her. These monsters killed Ma and destroyed her home.
‘You killed her, you killed them all, you bastards!’ She screamed up at the Dromoorai.
‘The Immortal Lord will have all magic wielders,’ the rider said, its voice was thunder rumbling through her body.
The dragon reached a gigantic claw towards her, but as it did so the raven shot forwards from the gorse straight into the rider’s face. Claws and beak raked into the eyes of the Dromoorai. The rider fell back, trying to swat the raven with a gauntleted fist whilst its other hand instinctively yanked back on the Dread Dragon’s reins. Obeying its master, the dragon lurched sharply upwards. The rider grappled for the iron claymore on its back, struggling to fight the raven and control its mount. The red amulet swung wildly upon its chest.
Seeing the fearless bird attack the massive beast broke through her dragon fear. She was up and running before she knew what she was doing. She would not be captured, she would die fighting. I will die here next to Ma, or by my own hand if I must.
She dared a glance behind. The Dromoorai had regained control of its mount and was turning in her direction. The raven was nowhere to be seen. She could not outrun it, but she would not be taken alive. A black claw swooped above and she ducked. It missed her and raked the rock where she had been, cracking stone and leaving a jagged scar.
She ducked again as the dragon struck. It missed her by inches and its whole body slammed into the cliff, shuddering the ground and sending boulders the size of cattle into the sea below. A glance behind confirmed the entire path was gone. There was no way back. She hurtled forwards. The dragon could not fly and try to catch her at the same time without battering its wings on the ground or killing her. And it could have killed her by now if it had wanted.
In a change of tactic, the Dread Dragon surged ahead of her and turned swiftly so that she was running straight towards it. She skidded on the path. The raven darted above her again. She cried out in relief and turned back, but the path was gone. She was trapped.
‘Hah,’ she cried, feeling at once hopeless and wild with life. ‘You won’t take me alive.’ She licked her lips, her heart pounded, and yet she felt more alive than ever she had.
The raven was injured, one leg hung down and a wing was crooked, but he still fought, pecking and clawing at his enemy even as his black feathers tumbled around them. He was buying her time, but time to do what? The raven couldn’t last much longer, and after he was gone she would be the beast’s prisoner.
‘I will not be taken by them, Ma.’ She stared at the ocean below. Her reason had run dry. Whatever magic she had used in the cave was gone, and she had no idea how to call it back, or how to use it even if she could. If she leapt far enough out, she would miss the rocks at the base of the cliff. At least she hoped. She might survive the fall, but she certainly would not survive the Dread Dragon. If I don’t survive… wait for me, Ma.
She looked from the crashing sea below to the horizon. The sky was still blue but tinged with orange as the day moved into evening. Sun glittered on the ocean. It seemed like a path of gold leading her spirit onwards. She clenched her fists, her breath came so fast she was giddy. With every ounce of will, she forced her legs into a run and jumped.
Air rushed around her, tugging at her clothes and hair and roaring in her ears. Her eyes flickered open and shut of their own accord, and in the glimpses the world spun from sea to rock to sky and back again. There came a boom, a surge of cold, and the world shuddered and turned dark.
There was no pain, only vast nothingness. Issa felt as if her whole being had been sha
ttered into a thousand pieces and scattered across the universe. Time seemed irrelevant, an eternity might have passed in that dark nothingness.
Then things began to change. The scattered parts of her began to unite, reaching out like to like, until a glimmer of who she was began to form as pure consciousness in a place that seemed beyond time. All around her were tiny specks of light. She wondered if they were stars.
Voices echoed, sometimes sounding like her own, and at other times unrecognisable. They seemed to come close and then fade away as if she were dropping in and out of somebody else’s conversation. Purple lights flashed in the dark, and she wondered if the voices belonged to them.
‘She is the one,’ a whisper breathed.
‘Heal the Rift before it is too late…’ a voice echoed.
‘All must be given, or all is lost,’ a deeper voice rolled over her. She was floating on the words as they vibrated around her.
‘Don’t give in to anger. Love will set you free.’ The voice pulsated through her and rolled away. To and fro she moved on the tide of voices. The voices faded and there came nothing but a whooshing scraping noise.
Chapter 5
Last Of The Ancients
YISUFALNI’S eyes flew open.
‘The prophecy is set in motion,’ she breathed, staring at the pastel swirls of blue, pink and silver energy that formed the sky in her world. ‘Zanufey is here. A Child of the Raven has been found.’
She looked down at her lap and smoothed her gossamer-soft silver robe, a dress-like robe she’d been given a long time ago upon Maioria. ‘But will she be the Raven Queen…?’
Yisufalni stood up, her form moving easily in the ethereal planes, one of the few things she enjoyed about the place. Here her form held less density, here gravity was a mild force, and if she wanted she could float rather than walk. She walked, preferring to be reminded that she still existed as a real solid person, even if she could not walk upon the physical realm of Maioria for more than an hour at a time.
Night Goddess (The Goddess Prophecies Book 1) Page 4
