Dawning Ceremony (Sexcraft Chronicles Book 3)

by Edmund Hughes

  “Heart Holder,” spoke the dragon. “Your death is inevitable.”

  It was a massive creature, easily the size of a house. Its scales were dark grey and overlapped each other slightly. Small spikes jutted out from just behind its mouth, angled down toward its neck, something Hal hadn’t seen on any other dragons before.

  It moved to attack him, snapping forward with its jaws. Hal was fast enough to get out of the way, and even managed a feeble counter with his sword. The slash glanced off one of the monster’s teeth. Its breath had a smoky, metallic scent to it, but Hal only experienced it for an instant before the dragon inhaled, preparing to unleash a burst of flame into his face.

  Cadrian threw herself in between them. Hal watched as she reentered a Ruby Trance just as the dragon unleashed its attack. She cast Flame Shield, diverting the fire off to either side of them. Sweat beaded on Hal’s forehead from the residual heat of the attack. He felt powerless, and could see no paths forward for either him or Cadrian that didn’t end in death.

  The dragon swiped at them with a claw, knocking them both to the ground. It wasn’t like the fight against Aangavar had been, with the dragon already suffering from wounds from a previous fight. This was more like the attack on his family’s estate. This was overwhelming power, an unwinnable encounter against a nightmare incarnate.

  “Halrin!” shouted Cadrian. “Go!”

  She pointed toward a thin path through the flames leading in the direction away from the dragon. Hal made no move to retreat, instead coming to stand at her side. It wouldn’t have mattered, either way.

  The dragon flapped its wings again, knocking him off balance with a powerful wind and causing the flames to surge brighter and hotter. It slapped Cadrian off her feet with a lazy strike of its tail, and then grabbed Hal, lifting him up into the air in its powerful, clawed grip.

  “Pathetic,” intoned the dragon. “Know your place, Heart Holder.”

  With an almost casual movement, the monster hurled Hal through the air. He let out a shout of surprise, twisting and trying to spot the ground below him to minimize the eventual impact. It was dark, and it took him a second to spot where they’d been fighting and the edge of the Upper Realm.

  The dragon had thrown him over the wall.

  CHAPTER 43

  Hal felt the cold wind against his face, the roar of it intensifying as he picked up speed. He turned around, trying to pull the cloud catch on his back loose. Gardius had stabbed it with her trident, but he hoped that it might still help him slow down.

  He felt a small tug as the fabric released, shredding instantly as the wind tore through it, exacerbating the rips and reducing it to useless bits of cloth. Hal flailed his arms uselessly, feeling slow acceptance take hold.

  The hour was nearing dawn, and it looked to be a beautiful morning. There was enough light for him to make out the details in the landscape below. The Upper Realm was over Krestia’s Cradle, just as Zoria had said, though far to the north.

  He glanced back up at the floating province. It was hidden from view now, the crystal magic keeping it airborne also serving to create illusionary clouds and obscure its visage from the ground. The smudge of clouds that signified where it was grew smaller by the second.

  This is it. I came close, but pulled up short, in the end.

  He’d used his heartgem to save himself from similar circumstances, once before. Using a panicked sapphire spell, he’d managed to catch himself on a plume of water. Unfortunately, he wasn’t over the water, and even if he had been, his gem was empty.

  Hal looked up again and frowned at something out of place. There was a shape falling toward him, too large to be a bird, and too small to be the dragon. It was a person, and as another few seconds passed, they drew close enough for him to recognize.

  Cadrian! She still has a working cloud catch!

  Hal extended his arms and legs outward, trying desperately to slow his fall as much as he could. It seemed to work, but it might have just been Cadrian reducing her own drag to speed up. He reached out as she came within reach, trying to keep his desperation from pushing him to panic.

  Cadrian shouted something and grabbed his hand. Hal couldn’t hear her. He gripped her arm and body as tightly as he could. She twisted in midair, trying to orient him into place as they hurtled to the ground. Cadrian shouted something else, and the cloud catch released.

  She came to what seemed like a stop in midair, and the movement was too much for Hal’s grip to survive. His hand pulled loose from hers, and he felt her fingernails gouge against his wrist as they separated. Hal kept falling, watching as what little hope he’d held onto shrank into the distance. Cadrian was still reaching her arm out toward him, and for a moment, he was able to appreciate the lengths she’d gone to in her attempt to save him without thinking of her betrayal.

  “Hally!”

  The voice came from beneath, barely audible over the rushing wind. Hal watched in disbelief as a black, winged shape flew up past him, and then curved back into descent, pulling level underneath his body. For an instant, Hal felt his terror redouble in intensity. Had the dragon decided to give pursuit after all?

  His eyes confirmed that it was, indeed, a dragon he was looking at, but not the one who’d attacked them. This dragon was smaller, still juvenile in form. Its scales were black, and the small details in the way it flew and the attention it paid him erased all doubt.

  “Karnas!” screamed Hal. He didn’t care how the dragon was there, or where he’d come from. He reached out and clung to his back, praying that the dragon had grown large enough to support a rider.

  Karnas flapped his wings once, twice, and then steadied, catching a wind current and leveling out. Hal was riding just above Karnas’s wings, his arms looped around the dragon’s neck. He pulled a hand back to reposition himself, and saw that it was covered with fresh, red blood.

  From me? Or from Gardius?

  It was fresher than that. Fresh enough to draw Hal’s attention to the long, jagged wounds crisscrossing Karnas’s neck and back. He shook his head in horror as he took a closer look at the dragon and realized what bad shape he was in.

  “Karnas,” he said. “You can’t fly like this. You have to land!”

  As if to prove Hal’s point, Karnas let out a groan and wavered on the air. One of his wings bent at an odd angle, and he rolled upside down. Hal clung on desperately with his arms and legs, hoping that the added pressure wouldn’t be too much for his injured friend.

  Karnas righted himself, but he was still descending at too fast of a speed. It was carrying them away from the Upper Realm, and away from where Cadrian had opened her cloud catch. Hal would have to deal with her later, once more important issues were first addressed.

  “Keep your wings out!” he said, his voice urgent. “Just glide us down to the ground. You can do it.”

  “Waited… for you…” said Karnas, his voice tired and gravelly. “Hally...”

  “You shouldn’t have,” Hal shouted. The increasing speed of their descent was making it hard for him to hear and be heard.

  The ground became visible in more detail as they hurtled downward. Hal could see Lake Krestia, along with the dense forests to the east of it, which they were headed for. His clothes flapped at a frantic, rhythmic pace in the wind. Karnas struggled to keep his wings extended. If he pulled them in, they would hit the ground at full speed and, at least in Hal’s case, die instantly.

  They were a hundred feet above the ground, and then fifty, and then Karnas was crashing through tree branches. Hal was thrown off his mount before they’d completely touched down, a heavy branch catching him across the chest and knocking him loose. He landed in a sprawl, his head pounding, and at least one of his ribs screaming out in pain.

  Karnas was in worse shape than he was. Whatever had happened to the dragon before he’d come to Hal’s rescue had only been made worse by their uncoordinated landing. Karnas was lying at the base of a thick tree, which was partially splintered from where he’d c
ollided into it.

  One wing was folded under the dragon’s body. He was missing two digits from his front left claw, bleeding stumps left in their place. Cuts ran the length of his stomach, along with a few vicious gouge wounds that were inflamed and leaking pus.

  Some of these injuries are more than a day old. What happened to him?

  “Hally…” murmured Karnas. Hearing his new nickname reminded Hal of the fact that his dragon had made incredible gains with speech since he’d been whisked off to the Upper Realm.

  “Karnas,” said Hal. “What happened to you? Did someone attack you?”

  “Strangers…” said Karnas. It seemed like it was taking great effort for him to form the words. “Captured…”

  “It’s okay,” said Hal. “You’re okay now.”

  He held a hand against one of the wounds on Karnas’s back that was still bleeding and prayed that his words would bode true. Karnas weighed at least as much as Hal did, now. He’d be too heavy for him to move, and Hal doubted that there was anywhere he could bring him for help nearby. And even if there had been, Karnas was a dragon. He couldn’t exactly show up on the doorstep of a village healer and expect all to go smoothly.

  Karnas groaned as he shifted position, flopping onto his side. Some of the bleeding wounds were caked with dirt, and Hal really didn’t like the look of them.

  “Hang on,” he said. “I’m going to get a look around the area.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Hal took survey of what was nearby. The forest was dense and relatively uniform, without any hills or slopes to interrupt the trees. Vegetation and foliage grew wherever it could find purchase under the leafy canopy.

  Hal was forced to venture further out, finally finding a large clearing with a lake at the center. He needed a way to either bring Karnas to the water, or the water to Karnas.

  He found a tree near the lake with large, gourd like fruit, and used the dagger that Cadrian had given him to break one open. The meat of the fruit was bland and uninspiring, like a banana with less sweetness, but the gourd’s exterior shell was waterproof and large enough to carry a few cups of water.

  He tested the lake water by taking a couple of blind sips. Nothing tasted off about it, not that he’d be able to really tell. He filled the gourd up, carried it back to Karnas, and began cleaning the dragon’s wounds.

  “This might hurt a little,” said Hal. “But it’s going to hurt a lot more if I leave your wounds untreated.”

  The dragon let out small groans as Hal worked. In truth, he would have preferred for him to make even more noise. Karnas looked bad, and he didn’t sound like he had much strength left in him.

  “Please, Karnas,” whispered Hal. “Just hang in there.”

  He spent most of the day making trips back and forth between their landing site and the lake, first for water, and then for food. Karnas didn’t seem to like the gourd fruit, but Hal fed it to him anyway, mashing it up with a bit of water to make it easier to eat.

  The lake was thick with fish, and Hal spent several hours plotting out strategies to catch them. None of them panned out, and the fish proved to be both too fast and too wily for him. He settled for bringing Karnas more water and a gourd full of plump, red berries that had passed Hal’s taste test.

  The dragon was getting worse. Hal built a fire as night arrived, but kept it a distance away from Karnas, who was running a high fever. He kept hauling water, forcing Karnas to drink as much as he could and keeping extra filled gourds nearby, for the night.

  “Just rest,” said Hal. “You’ll get better. You will.”

  “Better…?” groaned Karnas.

  “Better,” said Hal. He moved to sit next to the dragon, running a hand across one of his uninjured shoulders. “I named you, you know. Laurel gave me permission right after you hatched. I don’t know if I… or if she… ever told you that.”

  “My… name,” said Karnas.

  “Yeah,” said Hal. “I named you after my father. He was a tough man. A fighter until the end. Just you like you.”

  Karnas didn’t say anything.

  Hel slept next to the dragon. He was uncomfortable when he woke up the next morning. The fire had gone out at some point during the night, and a thick, humid fog cloud had dampened his clothing.

  He reached over to feel Karnas and almost pulled his hand back in surprise. His skin and scales were hot, hotter than any fever in a human that he’d ever felt.

  “Karnas?” said Hal. “Hey! Are you okay?”

  Karnas didn’t respond. Hal shook the dragon slightly, but knew that it was pointless. He took the water from the gourds and gently poured it onto his friend. Karnas gave no reaction whatsoever, but his body cooled slightly where the water touched.

  Hal made another trip to the lake, coming back with gourds of water and immediately pouring them onto Karnas. He made two more trips after that, each time pouring as much water he could onto Karnas in a desperate bid to counter his fever.

  When he arrived back after his fourth trip, he stopped in his tracks. Karnas had gone totally still, his chest no longer heaving up and down with each breath. Hal felt his heart sink into the depths of despair. He rushed over and put a hand on his friend. His body had finally started to cool down.

  No, not cool down. His body’s gone cold.

  “No…” muttered Hal. “No!”

  He managed to coax the coals of what was left of their fire back to life, running his hands along the uninjured portions of Karnas’s body as though trying to work heat back into a frozen limb. Had he done it? Had he gone too far trying to cool Karnas off with the water? Was it his fault?

  “I’m so sorry,” muttered Hal. “I should have made it more clear that you weren’t supposed to come back. I should have sent you back to Laurel, out of danger. Karnas… what happened to you?”

  He felt a surge of anger as he stood next to Karnas’s motionless body. Someone had done this to his friend, to the majestic creature that he and Laurel had raised and cared for. Whoever it was, Hal would find out. He’d find them, and he’d punish them for what they’d done.

  Is that all my life is anymore? Just the endless seeking of revenge?

  “Hal…ly…” muttered Karnas. Hal went to his side, sitting next to the dragon’s head and gently hugging one arm around his neck.

  “I’m here, Karnas,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Hal stayed by the dragon’s side for the rest of the day, trying to get him to eat and drink, to no avail. Karnas still took the occasional breath, but they were fewer and farther apart as the hours went by. Evening arrived without fanfare, and the sunset held a greater meaning than it should have. Hal eventually fell asleep, and he was afraid of what the morning would hold for him.

  ***

  He was pressed up against Karnas’s side when he woke up. He flinched a little as he remembered the previous night’s events and stuck a hand to Karnas’s hide. He was warm. The right kind of warm. And more importantly, his chest was moving, taking slow, if a touch shallow, breaths.

  Hal brought water and foraged fruit, as much as he could provide. For once, Karnas seemed capable of eating without needing to be coaxed into it. He devoured everything Hal brought.

  “Hungry,” said Karnas.

  “You’re hungry,” said Hal, grinning like a fool. “That’s good. That’s really good.”

  He brought more food, including a large fish that he’d found flapping in the mud on the shore of the lake. He gave the entire fish to Karnas, who ate it raw with the bones still in.

  The next two days passed in a similar rhythm, with Hal caring for his friend more than himself. As Karnas recovered further, Hal let his thoughts stray to other matters. He was in the northern forest in Krestia’s Cradle, but he wasn’t sure which part of it, or how far from civilization he was.

  On the fourth day after their landing, Karnas was well enough to move, and apparently, fish in the lake on his own. Hal woke up to the sound of the dragon noisily stomping his way back through th
e forest with a large trout hanging from his mouth.

  On the fifth day, Karnas was well enough to fly again. He made a show of circling overhead before carefully landing back down in the forest. Hal frowned as Karnas drew in close, nudging him with his snout and gesturing for Hal to climb on.

  “Are you sure you’re well enough, Karnas?” asked Hal. “Flying on your own is one thing. But with my added weight… it might be too much. I can always just travel on foot. It’s not a bother.”

  “Won’t leave you…” said Karnas. He gave Hal an affectionate headbutt that almost knocked him off his feet. Hal sighed, and carefully pulled himself onto Karnas’s back.

  The sensation was incredible. Hal could feel Karnas’s powerful wings flapping through the air, lifting them up. They rose up a hundred feet, giving Hal a view of the expansive forest he’d been trapped in. He felt a surge of appreciation for the dragon as he considered how difficult it really would have been for him to find his way out of the wilderness.

  Karnas flew south, finding an air current and gliding, rather than flapping his wings actively. Each of Hal’s previous dragon flights had been harrowing experiences, and it was comforting to be on Karnas’s back, knowing he didn’t have to worry about being bucked loosed or intentionally dropped.

  As they continued their flight, Hal could make out the shores of Lake Krestia, to the east. It looked almost like an inland ocean, too large for them to see across, even from the sky. They passed over a smaller village on the edge of the forest, which Hal couldn’t remember the name of.

  Karnas didn’t hurry, but they still made good time. The grasslands were expansive, and it took them several hours to cross. Hal could make out the details of roads, houses, and larger carriages, but they were up too high for him to make out people as anything more than vague dots.