“Wow…”
“Yea. I needed a lot of healing after that. I was out for about a weak.”
“It’s a miracle that you made it,” Wylan said.
“We’ve lost a lot of good soldiers to the dragons,” Josef said. “But I hope this helps.” He placed his hand on the fractured sword she’d found. “The power it holds…I hope it works against the dragons the way my wyvern seems to think it does.”
“Your wyvern soul thinks it will work against dragons?”
“He hasn’t said as much, but given the way he recoils at the touch? Yea.”
Wylan stared at the sword for several moments.
“Well,” Josef said, standing, “I need to go eat before I fall asleep.”
By the time Wylan tore her eyes from the blade, Josef was gone.
Soon Millie and Geffrey returned. The yellow wyvern landed beside Wylan and deposited a librak that she was surprised Geffrey could kill. The librak was nearly the size of the small yellow wyvern. He stepped back and nosed the kill to her. His toothy maw was spread in the closest thing Wylan could equate to a smile.
She laughed and patted his nearly bald head. He chuffed a couple giggles and shifted back to his human shape. He was laughing at her.
“You should have seen him try to kill it,” Millie said, donning her clothes. There was a slight smile on her face. “I nearly had to intervene. It looked like they were playing.”
“Thank you, Geffrey,” Wylan said.
“You’re welcome,” he said, his pride clear in his voice.
She didn’t insist on roasting the librak and instead let Lissandra take over. When she came back to herself after the feast, Josef had returned.
After she finished eating and cleaned up, Millie sat down beside her with the orange fire fruit. Leaghan sat near the fire. She was no longer mumbling or rocking, and Wylan wondered if she was asleep…or gathering her powers for something. Maybe an onslaught that would crumble Geffrey’s wards?
“Geffrey, come here,” Millie said. Geffrey, who had previously been wrestling with Josef, scooted closer to Millie. Josef sat down across the fire from them. “Legend says that the fire fruit was able to harness some of the power of dragons. When a person ate it, the fruit gave them a little bit of the power the dragon infused it with.”
“Is that why it doesn’t exist any longer?” Wylan wondered.
“Well, that’s where things get a bit strange. See, the fruit tree is impervious to all dragon powers. A white can freeze it, and the fruit will absorb the power. A red can try to burn it, but it won’t burn and a person who eats from that tree is able to control fire to an extent.”
Josef spoke up, “what’s even stranger is that some people used to believe that the person who ate from the tree was also able to control the power a dragon tried to use on them.”
“No way!” Wylan said.
Millie nodded. “Old texts tell us there was a man who ate from a fire fruit tree and later came up against a purple dragon. The dragon took a great breath and expelled the might of its thunderous storm at the man.”
“But it didn’t work,” Josef said. “The man held up his arms in fright, as if that would stop the lightning. But this time it did. The man gathered the storm around him and directed it back at the purple dragon. The dragon was surrounded in a storm of its own making.”
“What happened to the dragon?” Geffrey asked.
“Well,” Millie said with a shrug, “the dragon didn’t do anything. It turned away and left the man alone.”
“That’s it?” Wylan asked. “That can’t be it.”
“There’s a lot of speculation,” Josef said. “Some people wrote that the dragon thought the man was a powerful wizard and left him alone, afraid that he was too great a match. Another report says the dragon was found dead days later.”
“Still, one more script says that when the man turned the dragon’s power back on it, the storm that followed snuffed out all of the dragon’s power.” Millie held the fruit as if she believed this report the most, as if the fruit was imbued with some dragon power that would allow them to completely erase the magic of a dragon.
“That’s the one,” Geffrey said. “That’s the right story.”
Millie raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that something you feel with your wyvern soul?”
“No,” the boy said, “that’s the best story!”
Millie chuckled at him and ruffled his dark hair.
“I would be surprised if you knew that to be true from your power,” Josef told him. “No yellow has been able to divine the truth of the story. Maybe all of them are true.”
It was too great a thought to be true. Wylan could only hope that the fruit was some special fruit that would help defend against the dragons.
“So why is it called fire fruit and not dragon fruit?” Wylan wondered.
“Well, because it grows at the urging of fire,” Millie said. She tore into the hide and peeled the fruit. Underneath the orange skin was a white substance, like a more fragile skin. She broke the fruit open and it glistened orange in the light of the fire. The smell that rose from the fruit was intoxicating. Millie worked away at the sections of the fruit, her fingers shimmering with juice. Wylan’s mouth watered as Millie pulled out white seeds and sat them on her leg.
She handed out sections of fruit to each of them, and Wylan tore into hers. Juice erupted into her mouth. It was sweet with a bit of an acidic bite. She couldn’t stop the moan of pleasure that escaped.
“Wow,” she said, licking her fingers clean of the juice. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
Millie nodded, her mouth full of her own section of fruit.
“But that’s all there is left in the long desert?” Geffrey asked.
“No,” Josef said.
“There will be more,” Millie motioned to the multitude of seeds on her leg. She gathered them up and handed them to Wylan. “Dry them.”
“What?” Wylan asked. “I can’t do that. What if I burn them? What if I destroy all there is left of the seeds?”
Millie shook her head. “You can’t destroy it with fire. It thrives on fire. If you don’t dry them with fire, the seeds will never take root.”
“Oh,” Wylan said. She gathered the sticky seeds in her palms, cupped her hands over them, and called to the fire. She felt it answer in a rush of heat up her spine and down her arms. As her hands warmed, the seeds seemed to dance in her palms, slipping and sliding over her skin like worms, or slugs. It was disgusting and she wanted nothing more than to drop them, but she persisted. Soon they stopped moving and lay still. When Wylan opened her hands again, they were shriveled and dry.
“I thought you said that wouldn’t destroy them.”
Millie smiled and took the seeds from her. “It won’t. Here, let’s split them up in case something happens to any of us.” She handed out a bunch of seeds to each of them. Wylan took hers and stared at the gray seeds for a moment before tucking them safely away in her pocket.
“They will grow in sand?” Geffrey asked.
Josef nodded. “Yep, they are resilient.”
“Then how did they die off?” Wylan wondered.
“No one knows for sure,” Millie told her. “I think it’s a really great thing that Geffrey led us here. But now it’s time to sleep.”
Wylan woke to an inhuman giggling laugh resounding through the camp. She’d heard this kind of laugh before, when she’d hunted the dragons…but this was different. There was a sound to the laughter, an edge that reminded her of tortured screams. It was faint, ebbing and flowing through the chortles, whispering away to nothing when the laughter trailed off to yips that echoed through the ruin of buildings.
More chuckles—more quiet, harrowed screams—followed from the other side, raising a shiver from her. She lay wedged between Josef and Geffrey, frozen as the ripple of laughter wavered around her.
“What is that?” Geffrey shivered next to her.
“Barghest,” Millie br
eathed.
“What do we do?” Wylan wondered.
“Lie still, they might pass by.”
“But they belong to Baba Yaya,” Wylan hissed. She’d found her. The giant hag had torn her way free from whatever level of the Dark Below the bone wand had sent her too. Wylan’s hands began to shake, and it wasn’t long before every nerve inside of her was dancing on a knife’s edge. She wanted to flee, to change then and there and take wing. She was sure Lissandra would grant her this change, but there were dragons nearby…
“It might not be anything,” Josef whispered.
“Right, it might just be that they’re roaming free now like so many other powers we’ve seen recently,” Millie agreed.
“Or they could be here seeking my flesh and redemption for their fallen mistress.”
No one replied and their lack of replying was more of an agreement than any argument they could have made to the contrary.
Wylan didn’t think the hounds were going to pass by. They had surrounded the town; they knew humans lurked within. The barghest were large dogs, black as night, with razor sharp teeth, and eyes that glowed with green power. Some thought they were evil, and Wylan had to agree laying there in the dark and listening to their yips and chortles rebounding around her. It hadn’t helped that she’d seen them with Baba Yaga. Now she knew their allegiance and knew what this could mean.
“We should have kept the fire going,” Millie said. “They’re scared of fire.”
“But are we more scared of them than we are dragons?” Wylan asked. It had been the decision that made them put out the fire. They hadn’t slept with a fire before, why draw attention from the skies to where they were now?
Millie’s silence chilled Wylan.
Green eyes glowed in the darkness around them as the barghest inched closer. Wylan was certain they were the target. She’d spent a lot of time eating meat that had been hunted down by her wyvern companions. She never considered that she could be hunted just as easily.
“Be ready for an attack,” Josef said. “They’re on to us.”
Wylan reached for the fire burning within her and felt its heat infuse her body.
A barghest bounded out of the darkness, its slobbering mouth opened wide, its eyes trained on the weakest of them—Geffrey.
The wyverns struck swift and sure. Green smoke streamed out of Millie’s hands just as a geyser of water shot up from the ground, launching the barghest straight into the air. Wylan felt the fire blaze out of her hand in a ball that lit the night. It struck the barghest in the face, flipping it end over end into the darkness. It plummeted to the sand, wet fur smoking, dry fur ablaze with her fury.
Leaghan began to mumble in her alien tongue. Though she couldn’t understand what the wizard was saying, she understood all too well the note of fear and panic in her voice.
It was a show of strength that the pack of barghest couldn’t ignore. The green eyes began to fade, but Wylan wanted to make sure they wouldn’t come back. She tore herself free of the tangle of bodies and streaked after the dogs. Fire came to her hands as easy as breathing. Ball after ball of flame shot through the night but most of them missed their marks.
Soon she was far enough away from camp that the sounds of her companions calling to her sounded more distant than what she’d thought possible. She stopped and looked around her, wondering where she’d gotten herself too when green eyes surrounded her.
Wylan’s breath was ragged from the run, and her nerves shivered down her spine in a rush of fear. She had been sure of herself when her companions were around to help her, but now she wasn’t sure she could watch in every direction she needed to.
The barghests circled, closer and closer.
“Fool,” a voice spoke from everywhere and nowhere at once. “Don’t be stupid, give them the bone wand and all will be safe.”
“Still going on about that wand,” Wylan breathed. “And still you’re not going to get it. Show yourself and be done with it already.”
But Baba Yaga didn’t show herself. Wylan wasn’t sure she could show herself. Why would she send the dogs of the Dark Below instead of coming herself? Why wouldn’t she have come and killed them all while they slept, as was in her power?
The only answer she could think of was that Baba Yaga couldn’t show herself.
“Or is your power so diminished that you can’t?” Had she sent her far enough into the Dark Below that the hag hadn’t been able to drag herself out yet? Had the damage, caused by the wand been more than she could repair? Wylan thought about what the wand had done to her, and wondered if it had worked the same way on Baba Yaga.
The hag didn’t respond, but the barghests circled closer.
Lissandra was awake now, urging her to shift. They were in danger, and the wyvern wanted to live. Wylan pushed her away. She didn’t think she could strip just then and not get attacked, and she didn’t have any other clothes to travel in. It was lucky they’d found a belt for her weapons, she was sure they wouldn’t find more clothes for her.
She called the fire and it answered in a stream of flames Wylan shot from her hands. Three of the barghest ignited and streaked off into the darkness, their bodies like bobbing torches until finally they fell dead, their bodies burned like bonfires in the distance.
The dogs turned and reversed their circling. They closed the gap and drew in on her. She was growing tired, and she honestly wasn’t sure how much longer she could fight. Another thing she hadn’t considered—the fire might have an end, or her reserves of energy might deplete.
She couldn’t let the dogs see she was weakening. She knew predators, and that’s what they were looking for. She attacked first, the fire flashed from her hands behind her, taking a barghest that came too close. The fire was strong and the dog blasted backwards, igniting two more of the beasts. She couldn’t count how many were left—their fur made them all but invisible in the night. All she could see by firelight were the shifting, stirring outlines glimpsed here and there, but it seemed like a sea of eyes greeted her wherever she turned.
Just as she thought she couldn’t hold it any longer, help arrived in the forms of a green and blue wyvern. Geffrey crouched low on Josef’s back, and within minutes the wyverns had the dogs yipping and fleeing.
Millie alighted on the sand before her, ignoring the smoldering body of a barghest beside her. She glared at Wylan and huffed. There was a buzz in Wylan’s mind, like Millie was trying to commune with her, but she was too worked up to send the thought properly. She seemed irritated.
“I wanted to show a strong front,” Wylan said.
Millie grumbled and looked to the bodies of the hounds.
“I know they’d already fled, but they would have been back when they thought we were too tired or when we were sleeping.”
Millie huffed again.
“Whatever, it’s done,” Wylan said.
But it wasn’t. No sooner had the words left her mouth than the ground trembled so violently that Wylan was knocked to the side and tumbled into the debris of what used to be a home. The sand vibrated around her, dancing in the air as if an invisible hand was lifting thousands of individual grains and holding them in midair to dance in the faint light of their campfire.
“What’s that?” Geffrey called, his voice thin with fear.
There was no need to answer. The ground buckled before Wylan, and then split apart. Sand spilled in a waterfall through the cracks in the ground, into a chasm unfathomably deep. Her eyes were level with the gash. Deep in the darkness, she saw hundreds of glowing green eyes staring back at her.
“I may be too weak to come to you, but I’m not too weak to bring you to me!”
Wylan back peddled away from the chasm, but the opening in the ground snaked toward her, splitting the sand like fingers of death reaching for her.
“Drop the wand inside the hole, and I will leave you in peace.”
Wylan reached into the pocket of her trousers. The bone wand was still there, cold, clawing toward her
hand with a grave-like void of power. She could feel it whispering over her skin—the amount of energy the wand contained was impossible. To consider giving it back to Baba Yaga, where she could do anything with it, even claw her way out of the Dark Below and wreak devastation on the long desert, wasn’t something Wylan was prepared to do. She couldn’t give the wand back, but what other choice did she have?
“Wylan, what’s going on?” Geffrey asked.
She pointed to the chasm that yawned before her. “Don’t you hear her?” she wondered.
“Who?” he asked.
“Baba Yaga!” Wylan cried out, pulling the wand forth. The chasm seemed to draw in on itself, impossibly deep and waiting for her sacrifice. The ground dissolved further, reaching out seeking tendrils of smoke toward her, as if it might catch her ankle and pull her in just to get the wand.
She gripped the bone tighter, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She felt as though the entire void might open and swallow the world, plunging the long desert into the waking spirit realm that she’d walked before.
There was a concussion of air and a feeling as though hundreds of unseen eyes turned their focus on Wylan. Once spotted, she couldn’t be unseen.
There was a flash of light before her, and the chasm was gone, as if it had never existed. She couldn’t believe her eyes, there was nothing there. Wylan dropped to her knees, her hands slipping through the sand, combing for the chasm that had opened the ground before her only moments before.
“She’s gone?” Wylan asked.
“There wasn’t anything there,” Geffrey said.
Before Wylan could answer, the wind howled through the town gathering the shadows of the deep places of the ruins, and coalescing them into a towering form before her. The shadows screamed on the wind, a giant vortex of blackness shaping feet away, dragging debris and sand toward its epicenter.
“But that’s happening,” Geffrey breathed, gripping Wylan’s trousers in shivering hands. Wylan held the bone wand before her, pointing at the gathering shadows. With her other hand, she pushed Geffrey further behind her.
In a thundering of wings, Josef and Millie took to the air.
Dragon Plagued: Chronicles of Dragon Aerie Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (Plague Born Book 2) Page 16
