He clung to the reins as Sleipnir dashed madly across the sands, leaping over the overturned pillars, jumping left and right to avoid the dragon’s aerial attacks. Ennaki looked back: Selamiel followed him at a close distance, raising hurricane winds with every slow beat of its mighty wings. In the centre of the fallen city, the Master was standing with his arms raised — now barely a dot — and around him rose from the ground some kind of grey mist; an army of wisps and clouds.
Unguided by Ennaki, following his master’s unspoken orders, Sleipnir turned a great arc and was now running back. The grey clouds kept on growing all around him, and he began to recognize the shapes. They were ogres and giants, trolls and lizardmen, griffins and wyverns… and among them, lithe and tall, the Children of Sand. White and translucent, mere ghosts, all were heading in the same direction as the horse — to the centre of the city, to the beckoning Master.
Selamiel noticed it too, and turned her attention from Ennaki to the Master, but she was too late. The ghostly army gathered around the silver knight in layered circles; a wall of spirits. The outermost layer bore the brunt of the dragon’s furious attack. The ghosts absorbed the flames and grew even greater, as if the fire was feeding them.
Sleipnir leapt over the last of the ghostly circles and landed by the Master.
“Well done, boy,” said the Master. His arms, and the blade of his sword, were glowing with a bright golden light.
He waved the sword, shouting ancient words of power, and pointed the thrust of his weapon at the charging Selamiel. All the ghosts of the fallen city launched into the air, clinging to the dragon the way sea-foam clings to driftwood. The beast tried to shake them off, but still more came, adding to the already thick coat of ghosts, amassing chiefly on its wings and head.
Ennaki turned his eyes away from the struggling dragon and gazed admiringly at the Master. So much power! But the knight’s outstretched arms were trembling from the effort, his face contorted in a grimace of pain, and the silver skin was stained and blemished with sweat. The confrontation, the sheer amount of energy needed to sustain the spirit army, was eating him from inside — and there was nothing Ennaki could do to help…
The dragon let out an angry howl and fell down to the ground with a terrible crash. A cloud of dust hid it from sight. Ennaki shouted a cry of victory, but when the mist cleared, he saw that the Master was still locked in the fight.
The monster writhed about in the sand, crushing the ghosts against the broken pillars, reminding Ennaki of a whale scratching the parasites off its back against a rock. A whale in the sea… Another life, another time, when he was still just a fisherman in the village that clung to the edge of the ice.
He drew his own sword — a nameless, single-bladed weapon he had obtained on some war-torn planet a long time ago — and prodded Sleipnir to one last charge at the dragon. He didn’t know what he was doing; only that he had to do something…
An eye popped open in the dragon’s head, revealed, momentarily, by the dispersed ghost of a centaur. Ennaki stood in stirrups with a harpoon and, like he had so many times in his previous life, he propelled the weapon with a powerful throw.
The blade pierced the dragon’s eye, and lodged in its socked, where it stuck out like a splinter. It was too small to hurt the beast, and Ennaki’s toss did not penetrate deep, but it was enough. Selamiel was distracted by the sudden nuisance. She was thrown off balance for a few precious seconds. The Master grasped the opportunity. The spirit army struck at the dragon’s head, filling its nose and mouth, smothering and suffocating her in a tight embrace. The beast fought for a while yet, but it was no use.
The Master did not wait until the dragon’s body stopped twisting in its death throes. He walked — slogged, rather, tired and worn — past Ennaki, and approached the dragon avoiding its thrashing tail, and slashed through the marble-white scales.
Ennaki knew the ritual. He had seen it before. The dragon’s heart lay open, still beating. The Master’s sword pierced it, and the blood, dirt-yellow mud, washed over the knight in a mighty stream. But this time, there was a change in the ritual. The Master beckoned Ennaki to come closer and dismount.
“You deserve it,” he said, scooping up some of the blood in his hand. He smeared it over Ennaki’s face and shoulders. The boy felt a surge of energy through him. In an instant, all his exhaustion was gone.
“What is this…?”
“The power of a dragon’s heart. The dragon’s heart. Selamiel’s.”
The beast stopped moving at last, and the wind quietened down. In the morbid, heavy silence, Ennaki heard his own heart beating fast and strong.
The Master, his skin now golden like the sand around him, jumped on Sleipnir effortlessly, and took one last glance at the dead dragon.
“Do all dragon hearts have such power?” asked Ennaki.
The Master smiled.
“Only the Great Ones. Only the Gods.”
He raised a hand and cut through the air, opening the lightning-bound portal to another world.
The Grand Master looked down from the dragon-back and scowled. From the east, a column of fire-wyrms approached; twenty slithering beasts spewing flames as hot as the inside of the sun. The warriors fled from the monsters in waves, unable to withstand the dragon breath.
He turned west. In the centre of the battlefield the hastily-built dwarven fortress stood like a rock against which pounced countless ranks of the enemy infantry; cannon fodder of all the dark races. The Grand Master was calm about the dwarves — they would stand their ground to the end, as always, until the battle was well and truly lost.
The left flank was still holding against the onslaught from both air and ground. It didn’t matter how many trolls and wyverns the general of the Abyss threw at them, the Dragon Knights, supported by elven archers, were able to repulse all the attacks. But if the right flank fell, their valour would all be to naught…
“Grand Marshall, where are our reserves?”
The Marshall raised the visor of his dragon helm and smoothed his moustache.
“There are no more reserves, Sire.”
“What about the Eilill Regiment?”
“We haven’t heard anything from that sector for days.”
The Grand Master looked at the left flank again. It was falling apart; each of the wyrms cleaving a path of its own in the mass of troops, like worms through dirt.
“Then unless some miracle happens, this world is lost. Prepare to sound the retreat.” He shook his head. “We’ll have to regroup and try again later. Dihivaram is too important.”
“Wait,” the Grand Marshall pointed to a low hill on the edge of the battlefield, still controlled by the Dragon Knights, barely. “Something is happening …”
A small, single-person portal opened near the summit.
“A messenger?” the Grand Master guessed.
A cloaked rider, with a long, flaming sword in his hand, darted on a black horse from the portal, and charged at the nearest of the fire-wyrms. Far behind him, on a small pony, rode someone who looked like a squire.
“Some poor suicidal…” said the Grand Marshall, turning his gaze to another sector of the battle.
“No, hold on — I think I recognize that knight.”
The Grand Master tugged on the reins, flying closer to the action.
“What can one man — ” the Grand Marshall scoffed, but derision stuck in his throat.
The lone Dragon Knight rode straight through the flood of fire spewed by the beast. For a moment, he disappeared among the flames. A flash and a lightning strike later, the fire-wyrm burst open, showering blood and guts down upon the battlefield. The Dragon Knight stood triumphant on its entrails, gleaming silver and defiant. He jumped back on the black horse and charged another beast.
“I think we have our miracle, Grand Marshall,” the Grand Master said with a satisfied smirk. “Order the dwarves to sally forth. Time to win this battle.”
The mechanical servants rolled into the Leafy Hall
, carrying silver trays filled with roasted venison, bowls of luscious fruit, baskets of golden honey-bread, and pitchers of blood-red wine. The feast began in earnest.
Queen Espe stood up, and the hall fell silent. She raised a glass carved out of a single, giant sapphire.
“Rejoice, my people!” she began, “the war is over.”
There were subdued cheers and whoops from all around the table.
“No longer will our soldiers die on the battlefield. No longer will their husbands mourn, their children grow orphaned. We will trade coal and ore with our neighbours, not bullets and cannonballs. And all this thanks to our esteemed guest — Lord Ennaki.”
She turned to the man sitting to her left; a short, stout, pale-skinned human — and she bowed.
The table murmured. No Queen of the Elves had ever bowed down to a human before. But then, Lord Ennaki was not an ordinary human.
He had appeared in the human kingdom two years earlier, seemingly out of nowhere. It was a time of chaos in the neighbouring nation. The war with the elves — only the most recent one in the long history of conflicts — continued unabated for a third decade. The two nations were on the brink of a disaster. The rulers were being toppled one after another, splinter factions formed on the borders, bandits and plagues roamed the countryside… By the end, nobody was even sure what the war was being fought over. But there was no end to it in sight. There were too many intermingled interests, too many grievances...
Lord Ennaki had not been involved in any of it. He had no relatives who died on the front, no land on the border, no business trafficking weapons to the combatants. He worked patiently in his position in the court, avoiding all the pitfalls of politics and jumping over the obstacles of diplomacy; a shining beacon of hope and honour in the overwhelming ocean of mud and blood.
The Elves noticed him, too. The Queen threw all her diplomatic support behind Lord Ennaki, hoping he would become the ruler of the human kingdom. But he was too saintly for that — he stopped just short of taking the crown, handing it over instead to the grand-daughter of the last legitimate king.
“Peace is all I strive for. I don’t need rewards or titles,” he’d said, and indeed, he never received any. He was called “Lord” out of courtesy, but refused to accept anything grander than a state pension and a few medals.
And now here he was, in the Leafy Hall of the Queen’s palace — the first human to visit the Elven capital for a generation — having negotiated the ceasefire everyone had dreamt about but none dared speak of. It wasn’t quite the full peace — it was far too early for that. For one thing, there were still hundreds of prisoners of war in the Elven dungeons, waiting for their release. This was what Lord Ennaki had come to the capital to negotiate.
But that was to come after the feast. And it was going to be a long and happy one.
The dungeon door opened with a loud grind. Queen Espe gestured to the guard, who flicked the switch, turning on the chain of firefly lanterns illuminating the corridor.
“Lord Ennaki?”
She nodded at the human and motioned him to enter the dungeon.
“We hold two hundred of your prisoners here,” she explained as they walked down the corridor. “And there are fifty facilities like this around the country. As you can see, the prisoners are kept in good conditions.” The guard opened one of the cell doors. A human soldier, well fed and clean, dropped to his knees before the Queen.
“Are your needs taken care of?” she asked him.
“They are, Your Majesty,” he said. “Thank you for your kindness.”
The doors closed. Lord Ennaki smirked.
“We are not barbarians, Lord Ennaki,” said the Queen.
“And I am not a fool, Majesty,” he replied. “These prisoners were prepared for my visit. But it doesn’t matter. I’m here to see they are no longer your prisoners, not that they are treated fairly — the Gods know we haven’t exactly been fair to your soldiers.” A grimace of shame twisted his noble face. “However…”
“Yes?”
“I have heard… rumours of another prison. One that you’d be unwilling to show to any guest — even less so a human.”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“Come now, Your Majesty. I wouldn’t mention it if I didn’t have certain knowledge. I am here to negotiate the end of this terrible war. We must be frank with each other. I assure you, once your representatives come to Transelle, we will — ”
“Fine.” The Queen raised her hand. “Follow me. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The secret Elven prison was not a dungeon. It was hidden in the trees of the Deadman’s Grove, a mile beyond the edge of the Elven capital. The Queen and her entourage, along with Lord Ennaki, arrived, skimming swiftly among the trees on the backs of their forest wyrms; slender green-skinned beasts..
It was not much of a prison. Rather, it was a series of cages hanging from the branches of the oaks, like morbid chandeliers, bigger than gibbets, but far smaller than the cells in the dungeon. The men were all emaciated, naked or in rags, covered in muck with seeping pustules.
“We only hold the criminals here,” the Queen explained, visibly uncomfortable. “Those who incite to violence, or get caught escaping…”
“I see,” Lord Ennaki nodded. “You realize these will have to be released first.”
“Aren’t you concerned about the reaction of your people when they see them? There will be cries for vengeance again…”
“It’s up to you to make sure this won’t happen. Feed them, clothe them…”
They walked in silence under the trees, the Queen’s shame growing with every step. Lord Ennaki stopped abruptly under a lonely oak.
“What about this one?” he asked, pointing upwards.
The man in the hanging cage above them was different to the other prisoners. His skin was golden, metallic and gleaming. He was muscular and athletic, his eyes were sharp and lively.
The Queen’s eyes narrowed.
“He arrived here some two years ago, riding a black horse and waving his sword, blabbing something about dragons and magic. He wounded some guards and killed one before we managed to subdue him.”
“Interesting. Why did you let him live?”
“Curiosity, mostly.” The Queen said, shrugging slightly. “At first we thought he was a spy from the human kingdom… but then we realized he was something else. We’re keeping him here until we figure out who he is and what he wants.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“We don’t believe him. Ramblings of a mad man. Dragon Knights, other worlds, a war with something he calls the Abyss?” She shook her head. “The poor man must have gone insane.”
“Pity. Maybe he is one of ours, after all. The war does strange things to a man.”
“We can release him with the others, if you so wish. There’s nothing we gain from keeping him here.”
“I’ll ask around. That skin of his… somebody in the kingdom must surely know something.”
A raindrop fell on Lord Ennaki’s nose. It tasted of moss.
“It’s best we go back to the palace, Lord Ennaki,” said the Queen.
“Of course, Majesty.” He looked up one last time. “Poor wretches, staying here in the cold and rain.”
“At least they’re alive,” remarked one of the Queen’s guards quietly. Lord Ennaki scowled. The humans rarely bothered to take prisoners.
Ennaki stood before a long cabinet of rock crystal, inside of which, lay a great broadsword, with a battered hilt carved in the shape of a dragon’s head, and rubies for eyes.
“So that’s the mad man’s sword, eh?” he asked.
The Queen smiled. She was relaxed now — the prisoner treaty had been signed, and the future looked bright for her kingdom and its people. They were alone; the guards were no longer needed. It was the last day of Ennaki’s visit, and he asked to be shown around the famed palace treasury. They had agreed, naturally. It was the least they coul
d do for him.
“It is a wondrous piece of craftsmanship, you’ll agree,” she said. “Obviously, if it turns out to be some important human treasure, we are willing to exchange it for some of our stolen art…”
“I’ll ask about it when I’m back. This is really most curious. Did you say there was also a horse?”
“Yes, big and black. It ran off into the mountains, I think. Probably long dead by now.”
“I see. Well, I suppose that will be all, Your Majesty. Tomorrow I depart for home. There is still much work to be done,” he said, smiling sadly.
“We all appreciate what you’re doing, Lord Ennaki.”
He heard a change in her voice. He turned. Shewas nude; the dark robe lay at her feet. She was confident and proud in her nakedness, perhaps even more so than while clothed. Her body was an instrument of perfection, without a blemish and ideally proportioned, like a statue carved by some divine sculptor out of glistening mahogany.
There would be nothing more, he was aware of that. No kiss, no touch, certainly no love-making. This was his only reward; a view restricted to all but the Queen’s most faithful and loyal servants, and the few royal lovers. But it was more than enough; she knew it all too well. Her body was the greatest treasure in this room; finer than any work of art of craftsmanship.
“I must attend to my duties,” she said, turning around and, this way, giving him a complete view of her nakedness. “I will send for someone to take you to your chambers.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary, I know the way,” he blabbered. “Besides, I might yet take an evening stroll in your beautiful gardens.”
The sight of her body was the final seal on their contract —and on Ennaki’s mind. He knew the sight of her breasts, stomach, mound, and thighs would be burned into the back of his eyes forever, vanquishing the image of any other woman he had, or would ever meet. His will wavered for a moment. The thought of what he had to do next sickened him. He took a deep breath and marched off towards the wyrm stables.
Dragons' Fall_Tales from the Mirror Worlds Page 14
