The Last Lies of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  Timberhide’s once-grand cry had been reduced to an awful gurgling from deep within, his huge body limp on the mountainside.

  “We need to recover,” Mohdek said. “Once we bind our wounds, we can—”

  A new cry pealed through the trees, long grasses bending at the flap of giant wings. Nemery turned, leaning on Mohdek’s arm for support.

  Cochorin, the father of all dragons, descended upon the clearing with a breath of air hot enough to peel the bark off a tree. He landed, angry and proud, a father responding to the cry of his progeny.

  Two of the Glassminds were instantly trapped under his mighty forelegs, and he snapped at a third, severing her arm in a gush of golden blood.

  “No,” Nemery whispered. “Get out of here.” The fact that she wasn’t cheering for the dragon’s arrival only proved how much she feared the Glassminds. And how much she had learned not to underestimate them.

  One of them threw a spear with tremendous force, but the wooden tip was not enough to pierce the bull’s scales. The impact reduced the weapon to splinters. Cochorin shifted his weight to snap at another enemy. The moment he did, Nemery saw one of the pinned Glassminds wriggle out from beneath his long talons, stabbing a knife into the dragon’s foot.

  Cochorin snarled. His tail whipped around, leveling three more enemies and impaling a forth with one of the spikes at the tip. Of all the fights Nemery had witnessed, this one was perhaps the most evenly matched.

  The Glassminds suddenly withdrew a little, taking turns leaping forward to taunt the dragon, calling to him in a language Nemery had never heard before. It sounded elegant and flowing even as they barked at their outnumbered foe.

  “What are they doing?” Mohdek whispered.

  “Stalling,” Nemery answered. “They’re trying to keep him here.”

  “They must be calling for reinforcements.”

  Just then, something passed in front of the sun, a flickering shadow that Nemery had only ever known to be a dragon. But as she turned her gaze skyward, she realized it was something different.

  A Glassmind woman. Nemery recognized her from the original group that had transformed with Garifus Floc. Raek had called her Alumay.

  And she was flying.

  Nemery felt a tangible despair. It would seem not all of them were out of Grit. Hands down to her sides, the woman pushed columns of Void Grit, propelling herself off the ground as the grasses splayed beneath her. She dropped, landing in a crouch just uphill from Cochorin.

  Instantly, and without any verbal command, all of the Glassminds made a hasty retreat, moving past the dragon to stand at Alumay’s side.

  Instead of taking his one chance to flee, the angry bull whirled around. Alumay raised her hand, a twirling ribbon of detonated Grit streaming from her sparking fingertips. The moment it touched Cochorin’s head, he collapsed in a heap, his form as still as a statue.

  “Stasis Grit,” Nemery hissed. It was the exact same tactic Gloristar had used to capture Motherwatch. Except this time Nemery had a feeling that these Glassminds weren’t going to take Cochorin peacefully.

  Alumay dropped her hand, the Grit cloud detaching and instantly taking a spherical shape around the dragon’s head. With a nod, Alumay granted permission to the rest of the Glassminds. They raced forward, weapons drawn. They fell upon Cochorin’s helpless form, stabbing and hacking with a deranged frenzy.

  Her eyes full of tears, Nemery reached out and found Mohdek’s bloody hand. She pressed her palm against his, and she suddenly thought of the first time they had measured hands like this.

  Namsum had been dead three cycles, and though Mohdek had practiced steadily with his brother’s bow, Nemery had quickly proven to be the more skilled archer. Mohdek had said it was because of her thin fingers, so they had measured one evening at their isolated campsite in the Dronodanian wilderness.

  She had melted into his arms that night, and their lips had touched for the first time in a forbidden kiss, the pop and crackle of their low fire carrying them away into the night.

  She longed to lie against him now, to pretend like everything would be all right. Mohdek looked over at her, his battered face as steady and constant as ever.

  “We have to do something,” she whispered.

  “What can we do, Nem?”

  “I don’t know. We have to try. Something. Anything. Please. It’s Cochorin…” She saw him soften under her pleading gaze. His vibrating eyes were always so anxious to please her. Nemery didn’t know what she expected him to do, but she could see that he wanted nothing more than to try. For her.

  Mohdek held out his other hand and Nemery saw a piece of Slagstone roughed into a point, the beginnings of another arrowhead he was making for her. “You know I love you, Salafan.”

  Then he stepped away, suddenly gripping the Blast Grit pouch at her belt and tugging it free. She reached out to stop him, but her side gushed in protest. He moved into the open at a labored sprint, Alumay’s head turning as she saw him come. But he wasn’t headed for the Glassmind.

  Some sixty feet away from Cochorin, Mohdek hurled the parcel of Blast Grit. He must have slipped his Slagstone arrowhead into the pouch because the moment it hit the ground, it detonated into a gush of flames and smoke.

  The force knocked Mohdek back, and it took a second for the smoke to clear before Nemery saw what he had done. The explosion had pushed Cochorin’s head sideways, just far enough to exit the stationary Stasis cloud.

  The great dragon reared up, shrieking against the sudden pain of his injuries. He took flight, but made it no more than twenty feet off the ground before Alumay reacted, manipulating another Grit cloud. This one seemed to catch the dragon by the underbelly, holding him in place despite the frantic flapping of his tremendous wings.

  Mohdek rose, an effort that seemed to expend all his energy. With his back turned, Nemery didn’t think he saw it coming. And it happened so quickly, she didn’t even have a chance to shout.

  Alumay slammed the hovering dragon directly down onto Mohdek, more than ten thousand panweights crushing him instantly.

  Nemery felt a spear of grief, more acute than any feeling she’d ever experienced, stab through her heart. It passed through her with a violent shock, and then her senses suddenly numbed, and she was sprinting toward Alumay.

  Nemery passed the still form of Timberhide, her eye catching the glint of metal in the grass. Without breaking stride, she reached down, scooping up the axe that had injured the yearling. A dozen more steps and she was there, springing off a rock and bringing the axe down with everything she had.

  The blade cleaved into the back of Alumay’s skull. It shattered the glass, but didn’t stop there, slicing down into her neck. Nemery’s momentum carried her into the dead woman, toppling them both to the gold blood–stained soil.

  Nemery felt no satisfaction in her accomplishment. Just a hollow emptiness.

  With the Grit cloud released, Cochorin tried to rise again. Nemery glimpsed Mohdek’s lifeless body pressed into the flattened grass. She knelt there, feeling the first sob rise within her as the dragon staggered across the draw, too injured now to take flight. She knelt there, her entire world falling apart around her.

  Mohdek was gone. The dragons were dying. Moonsickness would spread across the Greater Chain. She felt detached from her surroundings, like an outsider gazing upon the ruins of her own life. Watching with a numb disconnection as the Glassminds brought Cochorin lower and lower until his mighty chin lay upon the ground.

  The world spun around her, whether from her own loss of blood or her overwhelming sorrow. It was time to get up. If she couldn’t save Cochorin, she would save the next one. Or the next one. She couldn’t stop. Not while she had breath to give and blood to bleed.

  Nemery heard a shout from across the field. She looked up as one of the Glassminds hurled his spear. The long shaft of wood sailed toward her as if time itself had slowed to a crawl. She should have been able to move. To roll aside. But her head was spinning and her heart w
as broken.

  The spear took her in the stomach, lodging itself halfway through her body. She looked down at it, stunned, and yet somehow unsurprised.

  It was all right. She didn’t want to live in a world where a singular mindset ruled supreme. A world without the majestic creatures that had called to her from such a young age.

  A world without Mohdek.

  She rolled forward, reaching out for him. Wayfarist doctrine claimed that the soul of a body who died on Pekal would never reach the Homeland, but the Agrodites believed something far more beautiful—that those who perished here were taken up by the Moon, their souls kept bright to shine down every thirty days.

  How would she find Mohdek in the Moon? She tried to crawl toward him, her fingers clawing in the soft dirt.

  It is the name of a bird that digs in the sand of the Trothian islets.

  She felt herself dying, vision darkening. The weight of the spear through her middle was too heavy.

  To hear one sing is a good omen. It means that your enemy can look you in the eye and you’ll feel no remorse about the way you treated them.

  She closed her eyes, unsure if she had actually reached Mohdek, or if it was happening only in her head. She felt no remorse. She had done enough.

  Nemery Baggish, the Terror of Wilder Far.

  Salafan.

  Could there be anything more powerful than a man’s final words?

  CHAPTER

  33

  Quarrah stood rooted in place at the sight of Raekon Dorrel. She’d glimpsed the transformed man from a distance, Ardor Benn struggling to keep up as the duo crossed the Pale Tors. But standing face-to-face with him as a Glassmind was downright shocking.

  “Raek…” Quarrah recognized his face only if she blocked out the glowing red eyes. He smiled at her, probably hoping it would ease the shock of his appearance. Then he reached out with one sky-blue hand and pressed a metal Ashlit into her palm.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “You overpaid me on a delivery of liquid Grit seven cycles, one week, and two days ago,” he answered.

  Seven cycles ago? “What, so becoming a Glassmind suddenly made you honest?”

  “Not at all,” he replied. “I just didn’t realize the error until the hike up. And it’s bad form to take advantage of a repeat customer.”

  She passed the Ashlit back to Raek. “Consider it a tip.” The least she could do for the risks he’d taken to hide liquid Grit for her around the city.

  “Quarrah!” Ard’s voice was winded as he crested the landing behind his overgrown partner. “Thank the Homeland you’re all right.” He looked at the dragon, whose long body was still spilling out of the cave mouth in her days-old attempt to escape. “Everything go all right here?”

  “Fine,” she answered. “Running low on Stasis Grit, so it’s a blazing good thing you got here when you did. By my calculations we wouldn’t have made it through the night.”

  “But how are you?” Ard said. “Nearly a week alone in the Pale Tors would take a toll on anyone.”

  But waiting with a purpose was something Quarrah Khai excelled at. “You know I don’t mind the silence.”

  “Ha,” Ard said. “Something I can’t seem to offer.”

  She hadn’t meant for that to be a jab at him, but it had been rather peaceful. Tajis and Basgid had even taken the night shifts, so she felt plenty rested.

  “Any change in Motherwatch?” Ard asked, stepping closer to where her head rested, still as a statue without the natural breathing of slumber.

  “She’s Moonsick,” answered Raek, squinting his glowing eyes at the beast. “I can see the energy coming off her.”

  “That’s what Tajis said, too,” replied Quarrah. But Raek’s Glassmind eyes had to be superior, even to those of a Trothian. After all, the latter was a corrupt descendant of the former, having lost the most powerful Glassmind traits.

  “The question is how Moonsick?” Quarrah turned to Ard. “The Bloodeye I kept in Stasis seemed to progress slower than normal. And your entire hypothesis was based on Grotenisk, but he lived in Beripent peacefully for three years before he snapped.”

  Quarrah felt like it was a rare opportunity for her to point out something that Ard hadn’t already thought of—or at least claimed to have thought of. But this was one of those moments. She could see it on his face.

  “What are you saying?” Ard quietly asked.

  “It takes a person between five and seven days to reach the final phase of Moonsickness, right?” she checked. “Well, what if it takes cycles, or even years, for a dragon to get there?”

  Ard pondered it for a moment before shaking his head. “It doesn’t really matter how Moonsick she is, as long as it’s started. In fact, the last thing we want is for Motherwatch to be too sick and past the point of transformation. I say we detonate the Grit immediately.”

  “You found more?” Quarrah asked.

  Ard glanced at Raek. “He salvaged enough pulverized dragon tooth from the mess in the Be’Igoth to concoct a couple of vials. And we convinced San to stay behind and get the place looking shipshape. Between us, I think the kid’s had his fill of dragons.”

  Quarrah glanced back at the hourglass under the canopy. “That Stasis Grit is going to wear off in about six minutes. We should probably hit her with the Transformation before she wakes up.”

  “On the contrary,” Ard said, his tone leaning toward the annoying side. “Just because the Moon rays penetrate a Stasis cloud doesn’t mean the Transformation will.”

  “Oh, you want to wake her up?” Quarrah said. “Like last time? She’s not even chained down anymore.”

  “Not that those chains did much,” Ard admitted.

  “Even if this does work,” continued Quarrah, “you’ll be transforming her into something potentially even more powerful. How do we know she’ll be on our side?”

  “Flames, Quarrah. You’ve had too much time to sit and worry out here.” Ard pulled something from his pocket. It was a glass Grit vial tucked into a hardened leather sleeve to keep it safe.

  “Maybe there are some unknowns,” he said, “but the idea is solid, and that’s what I’m good for.” Reaching out, he handed the vial to Raek. “I’ll leave the actual procedure up to our Grit expert.”

  “I see that nothing has changed between us,” Raek said flatly. It was strange to hear him talk, his new voice both familiar and yet foreign.

  Raek slipped the vial from the sleeve and dashed it against the rocks between his bare feet. What was he doing? Had that been an accident? But as quickly as the detonation could form, it was sucked into his outstretched hand.

  “I suggest you both stand back.” Raek stepped up to the still dragon’s nose.

  Quarrah didn’t need to be told twice. She retreated, sheltering under the canvas awning next to their dwindling supply of Stasis Grit. But Ardor Benn… The man remained at Raek’s elbow like an annoying tagalong child.

  The big Glassmind reached out his pale blue hand, fingertips touching the hazy detonation that surrounded Motherwatch’s muzzle. He absorbed the Stasis Grit in a single draw and the dragon’s eyes popped open. Quarrah gasped. She’d been expecting the clear glassiness of those emerald orbs, but now they looked coated in a milky substance, raw pink edging in from the sides.

  The creature raised her head slowly, nostrils flaring with twin trails of vapor. She didn’t make a sound, but opened her mouth as if drawing a massive breath. Raek reacted with a new detonation from his sparking fingertips. The cloud instantly enclosed the dragon’s head, and Motherwatch went still. It wasn’t the same kind of stillness induced by the Stasis Grit that Quarrah had been using all week. This seemed to freeze the dragon in place, sickly eyes wide and mouth half open.

  Then without warning, her scaly face ripped right down the middle, a split forming from the tip of her nose to the first spine on her elegant neck. Quarrah flinched at the dry tearing sound, but nothing happened.

  Silent seconds passed, Quarrah not dari
ng to breathe. “Come on,” she heard Ard mutter.

  Anticipation.

  Quarrah Khai usually thrived on it. That moment when she heard footsteps idly drawing toward her hiding place. That first glimpse of a locked box begging to be opened. But in that moment, with the fate of the world hanging in the silence, Quarrah realized she had never truly experienced anticipation at all.

  Something burst out of Motherwatch’s torn face, streaming straight up into the afternoon sky. Quarrah staggered in surprise, eyes turning upward only to find that she’d lost it in the sun. Then there was a dark blur—something coming down with as much speed as it had gone up. It landed on the stone platform between Ard and Quarrah, breaking rocks with the force of arrival.

  It was a woman, easily standing the height of a Glassmind. She was unclothed, but her entire body was covered in shimmering green scales. Not the rough, separable scales of a dragon, but something smooth and interconnected unlike anything Quarrah had ever seen. Her hands were somehow graceful and bestial at the same time, each of her fingers ending in an inch-long talon of deepest black.

  From between her shoulder blades, a pair of wings extended, spanning at least twenty feet in breathtaking plumage. The feathers looked to be dipped in liquid gold, but they rustled in the breeze with the delicacy of a gosling’s down.

  Her face was at once both human and dragon, the blend striking Quarrah as more beautiful than frightful. Her hair was a weave of gold and blue, flowing freely as it spilled nearly to her waist. But those eyes…

  They glowed with the same terrifying red light as the Glassminds.

  She opened her mouth to speak and the words rolled out in a language so beautiful that Quarrah found herself transfixed, wishing it would go on forever. The creature’s voice was melancholy and indescribably rich. As her sentence ended, the unknown words hung over the cave’s opening like the final notes of a song.