by Scott King
"Can we wait a bit longer?" Gideon asked.
"You know what to do?"
"I have it covered." Gideon grunted. For as long as they had known each other, Owen should have realized that things were under control, or at least as under control as they could be.
"This isn't easy," Owen said. "It will take time. Better to have it up early than late."
"Be safe."
"I always am."
"That's not true."
"No, I guess it isn't." Owen's lips curved into a smile.
No other words were needed. Gideon watched as Owen muttered a mix of Etriä with Alderish.
The mirror black walls of the chamber sprung to life, displaying the vista of Elene. The sky was cloudy, and heavy rain fell upon the city.
Gideon left.
There was nothing more he could do in the chamber.
It took some searching, but Gideon found Edgar standing on the city ramparts. The sun was setting. Not in a beautiful way. There were too many clouds in the sky, so the transition from day to twilight was more like a greying that shifted to darkness.
"It's begun." Edgar pointed to a starburst of light floating far above them. It was bright and steady.
The longer Gideon stared at the light, the more he could tell that it was expanding, forming the top of the dome that would protect the city. "How long before it's fully up?"
"Half a day," Gideon said. "That should give us enough time for the barrier to be in place before the dragons arrive."
"He mention Alex or Carter?" Worry hung in Edgar's voice.
"No, only that the dragons were on their way."
"It's so much for her shoulders to bear."
"For the light, do you not remember when we met?"
"The thing with kryrkonal. I remember."
"You were two years younger than Alex when that happened."
"But I had you and Owen by my side, and both of you made up for lack of experience."
"And Owen and I were useless for that fight. It was all you."
Edgar let out a long sigh and then put his back to the stone so that he could look Gideon directly in the face. "Can Owen handle this?"
"I don't know."
"He's not what he used to be."
"No," Gideon said. "Not since he came back from Flint with Carter."
"What can we do, anything?"
"Keep his body hydrated and nourished. This will be as much about physical endurance as it will be about magic."
"I'll oversee that, personally," Edgar said.
"I was going to handle it."
"I want you to handle the men. We have a grace period, but it won't last. You put them where you see fit and have them do whatever you think best."
There was no point in being strategic with the placement of the soldiers, but Gideon couldn't tell Edgar that. The stress of his daughter missing, his brother returning, and his kingdom under attack, it would be too much. Best to let Edgar hold on to his hope, so at least one of them had some.
41
Dragon Lotus
Ulesday, 22nd of Winewen, 1162.111
The patch of Dragon Lotus burned. The blossoms curled inward. Their tips browned, blackened, and then turned to ash. They were gone and so was Doug's last chance of ever being a dragon again.
"I will kill you!" Doug felt fire in his cheeks. A raw anger unlike anything he had ever felt as a human surged through his body.
Kane pranced to the edge of the deep pit and took a bow.
Doug knew then that he would kill her. He didn't like death. He didn't like the idea of killing, even in defense, but there was nothing in the world that would make him happier than killing Kane.
"You've tried. I doubt it will go any better this time." Kane's facial features where hidden in shadows and her tone plain. He couldn't tell if she was mocking him or meant it sincerely.
Not since their walk across the Crimson Plains had he focused on their mutual bond. At that point, she had been in the east, far behind them. He felt like a fool for not reaching out to test it before now. He should have known she was this close.
"I'm feeling rage." Kane tilted her head from side to side as if cracking the joints in her neck. She bent over, and then pops rippled down her back. "That's new. Didn't know you had it in you."
Doug charged her. With every step around the edge of the pit, he slammed his heels into the ground, pushing harder and moving faster. He hurled himself into the air, bringing up his fist. The aim was perfect, and Kane didn't have time to move out of the way.
She did have time to shape shift.
Instead of his knuckles breaking her nose, her face separated, leaving a gaping hole in its center. His momentum drove him elbow deep in her face. Her black gooey innards collapsed around him, and the two tumbled backward into the cavern wall.
"Doug!" Alex yelled. " Wait up. We're coming."
Kane formed a mouth in her stomach. "This is between mommy and daddy. Besides you two have your own problems to deal with."
From above, Doug heard a scratching sound and saw a slew of Greker soldiers enter from a side tunnel. There were too many for him to count, at least with his view obscured by Kane's twisting flesh. He could do nothing about them. Carter and Alex were on their own, just as he was.
"We've done this dance. You know who will win it," Kane said. "Why not be the better man and bow out gracefully?"
"Every time we've met, I've fought for my life. I've fought to protect others. This time I don't care about anyone else. I don't care about myself. I only want you dead." Like grabbing a ball of dough, Doug gripped the tendrils crawling across his face and squeezed them together. Using all his strength, he pulled. Kane's flesh stretched thin. She screamed, and he pulled harder.
Her skin snapped, whipping apart so that he held a black ball. The rest of her retracted and returned to human form.
"That was not nice." Her voice staggered, as if she were having trouble breathing. "Give me back to me.”
"Then you won't like this." Doug flicked his wrist, and the ball soared into the air.
"No!"
The ball passed into the abyss in the center of room and dropped out of sight.
Through their bond, Doug felt a mix of emotions, including anger and frustration, but for the first time, he also felt sorrow. He had managed to hurt her. Something he didn't know was possible.
He needed to do it again.
Doug cleared the several-head distance between them. With one hand, he grabbed her neck. In the front of his mind and through the link, he focused on the idea of strangling her. She sensed it, and moved to defend herself, but with his free hand, he snatched at her side, plucking off a chunk of her abdomen. Where the skin broke, her flesh became black and blob-like. He did it again and again, a flurry of movement, ripping her to literal pieces.
The ground became littered with Kane. Some flecks were no bigger than a pebble, and others were as large as an apple. She tried to fight back, but every time she attempted to shift her form, he ripped out another chunk, which reset her shape and slowed her down.
Kane countered by shrinking so small that she slipped from his grip. A heartbeat later, she popped back to her full size, on the other side of the pit. Her usually gorgeous hair was matted, and her skin looked feverish. Bags swelled under her eyes. "This is a whole new side of you."
Through the bond, he didn't feel hatred or repulsion. He felt something worse: attraction. She liked the fact that he was proving to be a challenge.
"It doesn't have to go down like this," she said. "Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should have never tried to kill you, but instead should have recruited you."
"You are sick."
"Possibly." She shrugged. "But I see something in you I can respect. I see a drive and passion you've never shown. We both know you don't care about the dragons. Me and Medrayt are not the bad guys here. It's the Sisters that need to be stopped."
If there was anyone Doug disliked more than Kane it was them.
/> "You know how it goes?" She stood, her breathing returning to normal. The sweat on her brow sinking back into her. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I could help you get revenge on the Sisters."
"Maybe if you had offered a day ago, when I still had hope of being a dragon again, but not now. Now you and Medrayt have stolen the last bit of my identity."
"I can see why you'd say that." She straightened. Her chest split open to reveal a cavity. A single Dragon Lotus perched on a black pedestal inside. "But you're wrong. There is still one more lotus. It could be yours."
"What's to stop me from killing you and taking it?"
"I am the Arg'Natz."
"Half of the Arg'Natz."
"Half is enough. Already I can feel my body mass returning to normal. Once it would have taken days to recover fully from that."
She was telling the truth. The Dragon Lotus was real and not a trick. He could feel it through their bond. With her ability to heal herself, killing her could be impossible. Though if he severely hurt her again, he might be able to steal the lotus.
"Do you think you can disable me before I can destroy this one?" Her chest closed, sealing the blossom inside. "Your only chance of ever becoming a dragon again is by joining me."
This was it. This was what he wanted. All he had to do was say yes. It would mean turning his back on Carter and Alex and the dragons. If it was truly the last blossom left, they would need it.
He toyed with the idea of saying yes and killing her anyway. He needed to convince her to give him the blossom, but she would sense that through their link. There could be no lying. He could eat the blossom and then turn on her, but again she might sense that too.
He could agree to it.
What did the dragons mean to him? He felt horrible that they were slaves to a monster. It made him feel sick seeing them move in that mindless way, mere drones without the grace and beauty a dragon truly possesses when flying. Yet he left the dragons a long time ago. Their problems were not his.
Or were they? Carter and Alex, though, he cared for them. Something he had not done for anyone in a long time. Not only that, he cared what they thought of him. If being a dragon meant betraying them, then he didn't want to be a dragon again.
"That's a shame," Kane said. "I thought we could work together on this."
"I want to be a dragon. I do. I want to tell the Sisters that they can shove an entire ollip up their asses, but..." he trailed off looking to the teens. Alex held one of the Greker's spears and was using its butt to knock a Greker off Carter's chest.
"I get it. I had a family once too." She whipped her arms outward and everything from her elbows to hand become gleaming blades. "Let's finish this."
She didn't say it as a threat or in a melodramatic way. She said it with a hint of disappointment. She had hoped he would betray his friends and join her. It was odd, but at the same time, there was no one who understood better than him what it was like to be lonely.
Kane formed wings and crossed the abyss.
Like titans, they collided.
He didn't try to defend her attack. He had been there and seen that. Doing so was an endless loop. His only hope was to go on the offensive himself.
Her arms drove into his shoulders. He felt pain and the warmth of his blood running not only down his front, but down his back.
He drove his fingers into her face. Stretching and pulling her skin apart. She fought back, reshaping her head into a single mouth with jagged teeth. He pulled back, but wasn't fast enough. His left pinky got caught, and she bit through it.
He screamed.
Blood ran down Kane's neck
The pain was so sharp that he couldn't think. He saw flashes of white, and the sides of his vision quivered. Through the bond, he saw Kane stagger, stunned by the pain.
Reforming her human head, Kane swished her tongue around the inside of her cheeks and spit. Doug's finger landed on the ground between them. The cut was clean, straight through the skin and bone. "Doesn't feel good to have a bit of yourself torn away, does it?"
Doug's mouth felt cottony, unable to form words.
"It's ok. You don't need to say a thing." She raised a blade arm and stepped closer. "Now is when the last free dragon dies."
The ground shook, and Doug looked toward the teens. They were no longer fighting the Grekers. Instead the Grekers and kids stood shoulder to shoulder facing the pit.
The rumbling grew so loud that Kane looked away from Doug and toward the Grekers. "What is it?"
A Greker said something to her, and her eyes narrowed.
"We cleared out those slugs," she said.
He responded.
Kane's brows curled upward. "What do you mean there are more and that they are bigger?"
A mass of sludge spooled out of the pit. It was larger than a Greker, but smaller than Alex. Where the small shoel had squishy flesh, this thing had a jointed shell covering it from tip to end. With every wiggle, the armor plating grinded.
A Greker threw a spear at the thing. The weapon struck the shell and fell to the ground. The movement did draw the shoel's attention, however. Tentacles unraveled from its front and reached out to wrap around the Greker. Carter and Alex backed away, but the other Grekers fought, trying to cut their comrade free.
The trapped Greker's head popped. Blood and brain matter spattered the cavern floor. The remaing Grekers fled, shrieking.
The shoel forced all its tentacles into the dead Greker's dangling esophagus. There was a wet, pouring sound, followed by slurping.
The tentacles detached itself from the shoel. They flipped and flopped, spinning around the neck hole.
Alex turned away, as did Carter, but Doug didn't.
Neither did Kane. He could feel through the bond that she was intrigued. This was new to her.
The silky tentacles wound together, congealing into a single mass. When done, the dead Greker had a baby shoel for a head.
Like a fish out of water, the Greker, twitched uncontrollably. Doug heard a buzzing in his head. It was like the screams from earlier, only not as vibrant or painful.
The shoel slinked to its feet, shuffling toward the Grekers with its arms outstretched, as if wanting to give a hug.
Kane ran, getting in front of the shelled shoel. She shifted to three times her size. Using a roundhouse kick, she knocked it and the shambling Greker back into the pit.
With blade arms ready, Kane waited on the pit's edge.
Nothing happened.
Through their bond, Doug could feel Kane shift from panic to easement. Whatever the shoel were, they were enough of a threat that even Kane was worried about them.
With a sigh of what could only be relief, Kane looked back at Doug. "Should we finish what we started before we were so rudely interrupted?"
The ground shook again, this time far worse than before. A moment later, a swarm of shoel exploded from the pit. There were dozens of the worm creatures as well as the big, shelled things.
Fear screamed through their bond and Kane retreated to Doug’s side. "We are all going to die here,” she said.
42
The Blackness
Ulesday, 22nd of Winewen, 1162.111
The sight of the shoel caused the hair on the back of Alex's neck to stand on end. A horrible chill ran down her spine.
The shoels' moist bodies slunk across the cavern floor. Their pulpy forms radiated a noxious smell that turned Alex's stomach sour. Primal terror set in. She didn't want to run. She needed to run. She needed to run and keep running for the rest of her life, never looking back.
Alex forced her eyes away, and the second she did, she was able to think again. Her pulse reverted to normal, a bit too quickly. She dared another glance at one of the shelled shoel, and the moment it entered her vision, she had trouble thinking.
"Move it!" Carter pushed her to the ground.
A worm flicked past her head, landing on a Greker. Razor teeth shredded the Greker's nose. It screamed, and the shadow thing ate
the rest of its face.
"Fire." Alex kept her gaze down, and by doing so, her brain took control again. There couldn't be any doubt. The sight of the larger shoel caused an irresistible terror. Neither Carter nor Doug seemed to be as hit as hard as she was, and she wondered if magic might be at play. "We need fire!"
Alex pulled the sparker out of her pouch and struck it, sprinkling sparks onto the nearest shoel worm. The creature ignited, bellowing in her mind.
"We need to regroup,” Carter said as jerked her away from the mob and toward Doug.
The pair slid under the tentacles of a shelled shoel and broke free of the chaos. Behind them they heard more screaming Grekers.
"How you doing, big guy?" Carter bent down, examining the nub where Doug's pinky used to be.
"What do you think?" Doug said.
"Keep pressure on it." Carter mimed how to hold the thumb to stop the bleeding. "If we are lucky, it will clot fast."
"What about the beasties?" Doug asked.
"Don't know," Carter said. "Alex?"
"We don't have a choice." Alex winced. The walls of the cave, the floor, all were devolving into a blood-soaked mess. "We need to run."
The Grekers had seen Alex use fire on a worm and were lighting torches, but the flames were useless against the shelled shoel, and the monstrosities tore through the Grekers' lines. Limp bodies were torn to bits, others thrown against the cavern wall.
"We can't run," Doug said. "Kane has one more Dragon Lotus. We need it."
Kane struggled to hold her own. She had shifted into an Ollip so big that her back scraped against the ceiling. Wormlings clung to her calves. Their tails wiggled like black flames.
The size advantage meant Kane had no problem tossing the shelled shoels back into the pit, but it was a stall tactic at best because, a few seconds later, they would crawl back out.
"We get the Dragon Lotus from Kane and then somehow get out of here alive, agreed?" Alex said. She looked them over. Carter was bruised and bleeding down the side of his abdomen from his run-in with the Grekers. Doug, who was extra pale, breathed heavily as if worn out.
