Ennaki dismounted the forest-wyrm on the edge of the Deadman’s Grove, and looked behind one last time, to make sure he wasn’t followed. There was nobody there — there couldn’t have been. Most of the Elves — guards, soldiers, townsfolk — were drunk on the heady wine at the end of the three-day-long festivities.
The prison forest was even more disturbing by night. A heavy mist rose from the parched grass. The moans and cries of the sick and wounded prisoners carried far through the night air, disrupted by the creaking of chains and crowing of ravens.
Ennaki sneaked through the grove by the faint light of an Elven mechanical torch. Some of the prisoners noticed him and tried to draw his attention, but he ignored them all until he got to where he remembered the golden-skinned man was locked in the hanging cage.
“I’m here, Master,” he said.
“Do you have the sword?”
“I know where it is. I will get it as soon as everything starts.”
“And when will that happen?”
“The Elven border checkpoints are being dismantled as we speak. The human army is amassed along the Firefly River. It will be a massacre.”
“Well done, boy.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Master, I…” Ennaki began, his voice breaking.
The knight laughed quietly.
“You hesitate,” he said. “For the first time. I finally broke your resolve. Was it Espe?”
“I just don’t understand, that’s all.” Ennaki ignored the mention of the Queen’s name, though he knew the Master was right. If it wasn’t for the elven woman, his reluctance would grow nowhere near strong enough to cause him to openly question his orders — for the first time since they departed the ice world...
“Why must we go through all this, all this death, just to kill a dragon that may not even be there?”
“Oh, she’s there, Ennaki, she’s there. Can’t you feel her?”
“But nobody here even knows what you’re talking about!”
“Why do you think I’m trapped here?” The Master stood up in anger and shook the bars of his cage. “I’ve made a mistake, Ennaki,” he continued, dejected. “I didn’t think Antariel’s power would work on me, too. Oh, how I hate those technical worlds. What’s that you’re holding? Is that mechanical?”
“Yes, it’s some kind of device made of metal wires and glow-worms.”
“See, that’s why we have to go through all this. It’s sad, but inevitable. I can only gain enough power to kill the dragon through blood sacrifice.”
“That’s just it… do we really need to kill her? Aren’t there other dragons on other worlds…?”
The Master sat down.
“You think I’m doing this for fun? That I roam the worlds killing dragons for my own private amusement?”
Ennaki did not know how to answer his questions. He realized he never asked himself why the Master was slaying all those dragons.
“You do…” The knight slumped to the floor and waved his hand with resignation. “I can’t blame you. I never explained anything to you.”
“I never doubted you.”
“No, you haven’t. Not until now. You were but a child; following a father all this time.” Ennaki grew indignant, but said nothing.
He’s right, he realized. My real father died at sea… and I wanted him to be my father instead.
“You’ve grown enough to ask questions,” the Master continued, “and there’s no shame in that. Look, boy — how much time do we have?”
“An hour, at best.”
“That will suffice. Let me ask you a few questions, first.”
“I’m listening.”
“How many Elves do you think will die in this conflict?”
Ennaki ran through the numbers in his head. He knew the Master expected a massive bloodshed to fulfil the sacrifice. The orders given to the human soldiers were clear — not that they needed any, given their tradition of slaughtering all prisoners. They had been provided with new, secret, off-world weapons — though they did not know that — with firepower unmatched by anything known to the elves. The massacre would have been thorough.
“Eighty… no, hundred thousand,” he said, stuttering. Spoken out loud like that, the number made his head spin.
“And how many Mirror Worlds do you think are out there?”
“Countless,” he answered without thinking. “You told me so. And I’ve seen dozens myself.”
Where is this going…?
“With millions of people on each. More on others,” the Master said, waiting for it to sink in. “And all of them could be swallowed by the Abyss at any moment if the War goes wrong.”
The War again. It was a shadow on all their journeys. The eternal conflict between the forces of Light and Shadow, Order and Chaos. Not long ago, Ennaki himself took part in one of its battles, following the path of destruction his Master carved through the forces of the Shadow. There was a dragon there to slay, too, of course; otherwise, they wouldn’t have bothered…
“So is that’s what it’s all about?” asked Ennaki. “Saving the Mirror Worlds? Winning the war with the Abyss? On your own?”
Surely that’s an ambition too great even for a God…
The Master chuckled. “You don’t believe me. You think I’m mad.”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
The Dragon Knight stood up again. “Trust me one more time, Ennaki. I don’t have time to explain it all now. He’s coming.”
“What? I don’t hear any — ”
A sound of hooves on damp grass and a long whinnying interrupted Ennaki. Sleipnir, black against the black night, appeared out of the mist and halted just below the Master’s cage.
“Get me out of here, Ennaki. It has begun.”
A thud of a distant explosions rumbled through the forest, followed by the staccato of gunshots. Ennaki reached to open the cage with a key he’d stolen from one of the sleeping guards.
The Master jumped on the horse.
“Meet me at the palace gates,” he said and galloped away into the darkness.
On the rubble-strewn square amid the smouldering ruins of the Elven capital, a thousand Elven amazons were kneeling down, surrounded by human guards. Two weeks after the initial assault, pockets of resistance still defended on the outskirts of town and in the countryside, but the country and its people were as much as vanquished by now.
“We still haven’t found the Queen and her bodyguards, Lord Ennaki,” the Captain said, “but it’s just a matter of time. We’re sweeping through the villages.”
“Thank you, Captain. Are these the women I asked for?”
“The last thousand of the prisoners, Lord Ennaki,” the Captain said. “I have to say, some of the men are a little… disturbed by your orders.”
“My dear Captain… I have given your race the greatest victory in history. The least you could do is to indulge me one last time.”
Ennaki tried to sound flippant — and ever so slightly insane; inside, he felt nauseous. The prisoners were each led over a shallow trough cut through the cobblestones of the square, and each had her throat slit. They all accepted their fate in silence, each uttering only a single “traitor” hiss at Ennaki. The blood trickled down the trough, until a stream of it flowed to the six-foot tall orb of black steel in the centre of the square. Few of the human guards were able to even watch the spectacle, and fewer still take part in it. But they had no choice. This was Lord Ennaki’s will, and they owed him everything they had achieved.
You will explain yourself, Ennaki told himself, thinking of the Master’s cold, emotionless voice with which he had given the mortifying orders. You will explain, or I will no longer do your bidding.
After the thousandth prisoner’s blood poured down the trough, and the thousandth body was thrown on the pile on the edge of the square, the mysterious orb shivered and glowed from the inside. It cracked along the riveted seams and burst open, revealing a golden-skinned man h
olding a great broad-sword, laughing, as the halo of lightning surrounded his body.
The ground beneath Ennaki’s feet began to shake violently. Fissures ran through the pavement. Rubble fell from the ruined buildings around the square.
“It’s an earthquake!” cried the Captain. The soldiers dispersed in search of cover. The ground continued to crackle and break, as the fissures slowly formed some kind of a pattern, a pattern that Ennaki was finding all too familiar… Reptilian scales…
The Master waved his sword and a stream of lightning whipped the earth.
“She’s coming, Ennaki! She’s woken up!”
The rumble grew louder. It was no longer just the noise of moving and breaking earth. It modulated and vibrated, and Ennaki heard a voice in it, deep and angry.
“Who dares do this to my children?” said Antariel, the Broodmother.
The Master finished washing himself in the green, sap-thick blood of the dragon, and encouraged Ennaki to do the same.
The fight was a long one, but ultimately one-sided. Antariel was taken by surprise by somebody using magic in her domain, though it took the Master over an hour to finally lay her to rest. Destroying each segment of her long body separately, at long last, he managed to carve her chest open and begin his gruesome ablutions.
“What does this one do?” Ennaki asked, watching his hands turn green.
“Can’t you tell? It dampens magic. The best defence a dragon could have.”
Most of the Great Dragons, Ennaki knew, were invulnerable to any physical weapons. The Master’s sword could only penetrate their scales because it was heavily imbued with enchantments.
“How do you know all this? About the dragon hearts and their powers, and where to find them?”
The Master wiped his face off the green blood and looked into the distance.
“I’ve always known.”
“Always? Even as a child?”
“I don’t know anything about my childhood. My memory of the early life is hazy…. I don’t know my name or family. As far as I know I’ve always been a dragon hunter.”
A dragon butcher, more like, thought Ennaki. So that’s why he never talked about himself… and here I thought he was just being mysterious, like all Gods are.
“For some reason I had all this knowledge in my head. Ever since I remember,” the Master continued, “and there could only be one explanation for this, I thought. I was the man of the Prophecy. He Who Does Not Bear the Helmet.”
“What is that?”
The Dragon Knight wiped and then sheathed his sword. He gazed around. They were standing in the middle of a field of rubble that was once the Elven capital. Few witnesses survived the battle with the green dragon, and they were now slowly emerging from the ruin, curiosity taking over from fear. The Master ignored them.
“One day, a Dragon Knight would come,” he said, turning to Ennaki, “who would have the power of a dozen dragons. He would be so strong and powerful that he could stop the Abyss in its tracks.”
Is that all? Your entire explanation?
“Some prophecy can’t justify…”
“Not just a prophecy,” the knight shook his head. “The Prophecy. The oldest, and the most important. All Dragon Knights know it. Believe me, it is true.”
The Prophecy may be true enough, thought Ennaki, but how can you be so sure…
It was a gamble. If the Master was right, Ennaki was helping to save all races from the Shadow. If he was wrong…
“A dozen dragons…” He tried to count all the beasts they’d hunted.
“Antariel was the eighth Great Dragon I slew,” the Master added, helpfully.
“There’s not many left, then.”
“No,” the knight replied with a gleaming smile, “and with each I am closer to fulfilling my destiny… Soon I will no longer need your help, but for now — will you follow me these few last times, boy?”
“I don’t know if I can face another slaughter of innocents like this,” Ennaki said, eyeing the pile of elven bodies. Bile rose in his throat. “Even for the sake of winning the War.”
Is Espe safe…?
The Master nodded with a smirk. “I’ll see what can be done about it.”
The blue and green crystals turned in the air, spelling out the messages in three-dimensional runes of light. The Grand Master studied the report with a growing frown.
“We won’t be able to sweep that under the carpet,” he said at last.
The Grand Marshall nodded. “Too many saw what happened and lived to tell the tale.”
“The Elves of Dihlantar were our allies.”
The Grand Master leaned back and scratched the top of his head. He needed to give the helm to a blacksmith; it had become uncomfortable after the bump he’d received in a recent battle with the Frost Giants.
“They have given him a name,” said the Grand Marshall. “The Dragonsbane.”
“They? Who are they?”
The Grand Marshal shrugged. “You know, people. The bards. The mummers. The scribes.”
“They write songs about him?” The Grand Master jerked up. “He must be stopped,” he said. “Songs are dangerous.”
What if other young knights decide to follow in his footsteps?
The Prophecy was the scourge of every Grand Master. The Dragon Knights had lost some of the best and most promising of their new recruits to it Siren call. They couldn’t help it: delusions of grandeur came with the job; after all, they were the only warriors in the Mirror Worlds who rode real dragons into battle… He tried to remember the name of the last warrior to fall under its spell and perish in a duel with a Great Dragon, but the Grand Marshall interrupted him with a smile.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
He clapped twice. The door shimmered open. A woman entered; tall and lithe, raven-haired, dressed in tight combat clothes of dark green leather. Twin daggers of dragon tooth glinted at her side. Her eyes beamed with wounded pride.
The Grand Master stood up and bowed. “Your Majesty.”
The Queen nodded, and gazed with disgust around the opulent hall, its windows of solid mist, its arched walls dripping with truegold and purest star crystals.
“You fare well when my people die,” she said.
“We are sorry for your loss, Queen,” the Grand Master replied. “Let me assure you, we will assist you in any way we can in your quest for vengeance.”
She scoffed. “He’s one of you. Why don’t you take him out yourself?”
The Master and the Marshall looked at each other. The Grand Master cleared his throat.
“He has sworn the Oath of a Dragon Knight,” he said, avoiding the elven Queen’s accusing stare. “No knight can bring harm to another.”
The Queen’s grip tightened on one of her daggers. “Even when he’s committing genocide? What kind of absurd rule is this?”
The Grand Marshall stepped forward. “It is a rule that has allowed the Knights to survive for countless aeons.”
“And to what end?” the Queen asked bitterly.
“To defend the Mirror Worlds from the Shadow!” The Grand Master raised his hands in a dramatic gesture.
The Queen rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Fine. I don’t really care. If it’s up to me to strike the final blow, all the better. I will find him on my own, and avenge my people my own way.”
She turned away.
“You will need our help,” said the Grand Marshall, glancing at the Grand Master. The bait was in the trap.
“Why are you so sure?” she asked, halting in the doorway.
“Because where he’s going next, you cannot follow without our magic.”
Four immense pillars of pitch-black onyx rose into the sky, their ends disappearing into the clouds. Ennaki passed between them, having climbed what had seemed an infinitely long flight of stairs, and approached the entrance to an enormous cube hewn from a single, mountain-sized block of dark grey marble, cut through with silver veins.
A dozen men
could walk abreast through the doorway, but only two did — Ennaki and his Master. They walked down the isle of this strange cathedral for a minute, before reaching the altar. Looking at the altarpiece was giving Ennaki a headache; whatever substance it was made of, it shimmered and rippled randomly, black like night, but flashing bright, though cold, colours, forming into images that exuded evil and dread despite being, as far as he could tell, just abstract shapes.
A tall being, in a long, hooded cloak, woven of cloth that shimmered the same cold shades of blue, purple, and misty grey as the altar, turned towards them. It wore a mask made from rotten skin torn off a troll’s head on its long, dog-like face. Ennaki held back, retching.
“Do you have the payment?” the creature croaked, extending two of its four hands to them.
The Master raised his hand and whispered a spell word. An orb of bright purple light appeared in his palm.
The creature snarled and covered its eyes. “Hide it!” it cried. “Put it away!”
The Master closed his palm. “Will that be enough?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s more than sufficient,” the creature replied, snorting. “For both of you.”
“You will get the other half when we come back.”
“Yes, yes, I understand. Follow me, everything is ready.”
The creature led them through a small door to the side of the altar, down a corridor and into a pyramid-shaped hall, in the middle of which stood what looked like a large baptismal font, filled with a thick, silver liquid. It smelled of metal.
“Disrobe,” the creature croaked.
Ennaki took off his clothes and stood naked next to the Master, beside the font. The creature pressed two panels on the side of the font, and the edge lit up with blue, purple, and pale-yellow runes. The floor began to tremble under Ennaki’s feet.
“I cannot be here when the gate opens,” the creature said.
“I know,” the Master replied.
The creature left them alone with the brightly lit, vibrating font, and trembling floor and walls.
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