by Greg Curtis
Alan couldn’t actually see anything at all except that glorious sea of sky blue in front of him, and the little flash of white that was the unicorn ahead of them, streaking for safety, but he could hear the necromancer behind him, and he knew a moment of transcendent joy as he heard him scream with rage. Despite all his power, despite all his hatred as he chased them to the very end with his last few breaths, he was falling behind, and the rage that he felt at seeing his prey escape was beyond mortal.
The necromancer screamed his undying hatred, and it was as though the entire world was trembling with fury, but none of that mattered as Alan finally burst free of the tunnel and launched himself out into the beautiful blue.
“Yes!” He would have screamed his joy had he had any breath at all to do it with, but he didn’t. So instead, remembering those terrible fingers of rock that had once before reached out for him, he concentrated on getting as far away and as high as he could, and shortly the ground was disappearing far below them. When the Goddess had granted him this shape, she had made certain it was fast and he had to thank her for that.
It was only then, when he could see that the ground was so far below them that the necromancer could surely never reach them, that he dared to look back, whipping his head around on its long sinuous neck, to see what lay behind them. But there was nothing. No fingers of rock reaching for them, no necromancer screaming, nothing at all. Just a plateau of rock in the midst of a ring of mountains.
“Praise be, I think we’re safe.” It took a while before he could find the breath to speak, and his lungs were burning, but still he had to let Ashiel know as she clung on for dear life.
“Little one! Priestess!” Han’gre’s booming voice came out of nowhere, and Alan looked up to see the mighty black dragon soaring gracefully above them. After the time in the tunnels the sight of him soaring in the beautiful blue sky was a joy in itself, but he had to wonder how he’d known where they were or when to come. Still that didn’t bother him too much as Alan started the long climb to reach him. With his wing muscles burning from the panicked escape and the extra weight he was carrying, he knew it would take a while, but he really didn’t care. A friend was a blessing just then.
Meanwhile far below he could see the unicorn already streaking towards the distant mountains, a smudge of brilliant white, and he realised that the creature had actually been holding back in the tunnels as it led them to safety. Behind them though, that was where the important story lay, and though he didn’t really want to, somehow he took his eyes of the flash of beautiful speeding white in front of them, to look back again at the underground fortress.
It wasn’t a fortress any longer.
As he stared in disbelief, he watched the entire fortress, a circular area of the stone plateau surely several leagues across, start to collapse in on itself. At first it was just a slight depression that formed, a shallow bowl in the vast plateau, but as it continued the bowl started to deepen, until in time it was like an upside down mountain, the base of the depression so deep it was hidden in shadow.
And then, just when he thought things could become no more impossible, there came a scream that rent the air. A piercing, high pitched scream such as a man might make just as he was being torn apart. It was the necromancer he knew, or whatever he actually was, finally dying. The last traces of him vanishing forever from the world.
“Was that?”
“I think so.”
“Bless her!” Ashiel he noticed, was sounding somewhat spiritual all of a sudden, as she gave thanks for the end of their enemy, though he couldn’t exactly disagree. What did surprise him was that she seemed to have regained her powers or at least some of them, and just at the perfect time. He wanted to ask, maybe he should have, but just then as they approached Han’gre and made ready for the long flight home, he couldn’t find it within him to care.
All that mattered now was getting home and then sleeping for a year or two.
“Han’gre, it’s over?” He knew it was but he had to make certain, he had to hear it from the dragon’s mouth.
“The world is cured again.” The dragon just laughed at him, a booming sound of pure joy as he celebrated the end of a nightmare, and Alan laughed with him.
“Then let us head home and sleep.” Dragons were always partial to their sleep, and he had no doubt that Han’gre had more than a little nap in mind. But Alan could understand that. Two more days of flying south, a bowl of thick hot stew perhaps, and then maybe he could sleep for a week or two himself.
Chapter Thirty Four.
“The lair!” Alan called out the good news as he soared towards the mountain, and beside him Han’gre let out a roar of happiness, announcing to the world that they were coming home. Though all the dragons did that when they returned after a long journey, Alan fancied that Han’gre’s was a little louder and happier than normal. He could understand that himself. And in fact had he the ability, he would have done the same. Then, guided by something he didn’t quite understand, he did. Letting out a solid roar of happiness, and a small belch of fire with it. It felt good.
“Alan?” On his back he could feel Ashiel waking up, she’d slept for much of the journey back, exhausted, and also he suspected, changed. He’d had time over the previous couple of days to wonder about her, and he knew that something had happened within her. Something deep.
Gone he suspected was the Huron, always seeking more and more magic, and always respecting strength above all. And in her place he thought, a priestess might be emerging. She could call upon the Goddess for aid, something that very few could do, and she used her name and her blessings without thought. Could that be true? Could she have somehow changed her calling? Maybe even her nature?
He hadn’t asked, he didn’t know how to, and in any case he suspected it was something for her to tell in her own time. Maybe to her mother first. Whatever the truth though, gone was the broken, heartsick victim of her betrothed’s evil, and in her place was a new and vibrant woman. Who seemed to like her sleep. It had made for a quiet flight.
“We’re here.”
“Thank the Goddess!” She was using that phrase a lot he noticed.
Of course there was still one more challenge ahead, and they only realised it as the lair finally came into sight and they could see the east terrace in front of them. Understandably enough Ashiel was the one to realise it first.
“By the Goddess!” Ashiel sounded worried and he wasn’t quite sure why. Not now that the danger was over. “Have you actually ever managed anything even close to a dignified landing?”
Of course she had a point Alan suddenly realised, and sadly the answer was no. Usually he ended up upside down staring at the sky, or smashed into one of the far walls nursing his bruises. Months and months of being stuck in this form, many more months of training and practice, and none of it had helped at all. There was just something about landing, about coordinating his arms and legs and wings, that seemed to be eternally beyond him. And he’d never landed before with someone on his back. The chances were that it was going to be rough. But he had an answer.
“I’ll do a belly landing.” As techniques went it wasn’t a great one, but it was the best he’d found. Simply lift up his legs as high as he could and try to slide in gracefully on his belly. Gracefully was of course an overly pretty word for what actually happened, but at least that way he hardly ever ended up upside down with his head smashed into the side of a mountain.
“Oh great!” He gathered she wasn’t completely impressed by his decision, probably with good reason.
“Hold on tight!” He didn’t really need to tell her, and as they descended and the terrace grew larger, he felt her arms gripping him tighter and tighter around the neck and wondered if she was actually strong enough to strangle him. To make matters worse he could see people on the terrace, and not just the usual couple of sentries. It seemed they had a reception committee. More people to watch him embarrass himself. But it was too late to complain.
A
s the terrace finally grew to life size in front of him, he extended his wings to break his headlong rush, and banked hard. Ashiel naturally enough screamed into his back as he did so, feeling herself beginning to slip off as she started hanging by her arms around his neck. But that was only for a heartbeat and she was never in any real danger as the terrace was already underneath them.
Then his tail touched the stone and everything went wrong as usual. First his tail, which he’d planned on using to gently straighten out his flight snagged momentarily on something and his gentle levelling off became a sudden slam as he was smashed chest first into the ground, Ashiel’s weight adding to the impact, driving him into the stone.
“Oh scat!” Of course he bounced, his draglet body was quite good that way and the scales protected him from most of the hurt, but it also slid quite well, and as he began his usual slide across the terrace, he heard a scream and felt Ashiel being flung off his back, but by then he was too busy spinning around like a top as he slid to do anything about it. Then he smashed into the side of the mountain much faster than he’d expected and somehow managed to flip over once more on to his back before finally ending up lying spread eagled staring at the sky, and the sea of heads that quickly appeared above him.
“You pillock!” He gathered Ashiel had survived the landing from the cursing, and more so when he saw her head bob into view among the others while he lay there, recovering. Her hair was a mess and she was busy straightening out her robe, and not looking particularly impressed. It seemed a little unfair he thought, when he’d saved her life, but such was life.
“You clumsy oaf!” She carried on like that for a while, slipping into Huron at some point for which he was grateful as he still didn’t speak the tongue, though not so much when the rest of the people began laughing at her tirade, laughing at him. Still he concentrated on rolling over and trying to get to his feet. It was best he figured to face such abuse standing up rather than just lying there, taking it.
Unexpectedly there were worse problems to face as when he’d made it to his feet he instinctively did what he normally did and tried to change back into his normal form, and this time it actually worked.
The transition was fast and smooth, easier than it ever had been before, and in only a very few heart beats he found himself standing there on the terrace on his own two feet, just before he discovered he’d forgotten how to balance on only two legs, and promptly fell over again.
After that things became confusing. All of a sudden he felt terribly weak, completely unbalanced, and there were people all around him, picking him up, throwing a cloak around his shoulders, speaking far too loudly as they asked him all sorts of questions in a language he didn’t quite understand any longer, and he couldn’t seem to concentrate on any of them. Never before had he spent so long in another form, and the transition back to normal was surprisingly confusing. So much so that at some point the people began to realise that he wasn’t his normal self.
They started carrying him into the lair like a sick child, still gabbling away at him in their strange tongue.
But he didn’t care too much about that when they finally brought him to his quarters and he could see his oversized mattress lying there on the floor, and knew what he wanted to do; sleep. They seemed to understand that too as they set him down gently on the mattress, and then someone threw a thick blanket over the top of him, before they left.
He would have thanked them, he should have, but somehow, the warmth of the blanket and the softness of the mattress took away his ability to do such things, and by the time his head found the pillow, he couldn’t even think about them. He couldn’t think about anything at all, except how tired he was, and his eyes closed by themselves.
Soon after, he knew nothing at all except the welcoming embrace of darkness.
Chapter Thirty Five.
The sun was beating down on him, an unseasonably warm day, not that he was complaining, and the smell of fresh grass and scented flowers was in the air as Alan spent his time working happily on the garden. The house was more or less back together once more, and it was really only the gardens that needed weeding and re-sowing, tasks he was content to do. More than content.
It had been a long year, a very long year, and just the chance to sit in his gardens and work free from distractions was a joy. More than that it was a relief. A chance to simply sit and let his troubles sail away. Somehow against all expectations, he had survived his year, and returned home. Not so long ago he remembered sitting on his balcony and thinking he might never be able to return. That he might never see his home again.
This was his blessing, his well-earned reward for a long, hard year. And it was far better than the banquets and festivities that had been planned for them all. In fact, by the time they’d arrived at the lair the celebrations had been raging for two long days, and not just at the lair. All across the world as the news had gone out, and the remaining undead armies had simply collapsed where they stood, people had gone crazy with happiness.
Of course he had missed all that, not that he minded. Sleeping for five long days before he finally found the strength to wake up and take some food, and then sleeping for several more days after that. It had taken a long time for him to find his strength, and even to find his balance again as he learned to stand on two legs once more. But that was all good.
The people were happy, and all across the world they were returning to their homes, great wagon trains of refugees coming home. What they would come home to was another matter as many towns and cities had been destroyed, burnt to the ground. But in time they would be rebuilt, and the people would move on. Life as they said carries on. That was its nature.
In time too, this entire year would be consigned to the history tomes and the tales of the bards. That too was inevitable and for the best. Too many knew his name as far as he was concerned, and though it was good that through it his family was also honoured, he didn’t need such renown.
What he needed was time in the garden.
Still there were more changes ahead for him. For a start he had only four more days before he had to return to the mountain for his next three month training stint. Ant had been very clear on that the day he’d caught him saddling up a horse, loading it down with supplies and preparing to leave the new lair. It was almost as though he’d been waiting for him to go, and maybe he had. On the other hand he didn’t particularly mind seeing him as he left, though he could have done without the heavy tomes on mathematics and trade relations he’d dropped in his saddle bags as he’d prepared to leave. Or the others he was promising to drop off for him in a couple of days. Thirty years old, and suddenly he was a student again. There was something just wrong in that.
There was something even more wrong about the stable hands who’d readied his horse for him. A former king and a former assassin reduced to acting as stable hands in the new lair. Why? He still didn’t understand that. Why had the dragons gone and rescued them? They could have still been quite happily sitting on their rocks in the middle of the ocean, practising their fishing. Why bring them back? But that hadn’t been his decision, and he had to admit they were quick to obey their new masters. But then who would dare argue with a dragon?
And that was another matter. Why did he have a house guest? Not that he minded particularly, but the black mountain known as Han’gre did tend to snore as he slept through the day under the bright sunshine, and a dragon’s snores were more than a little noisy, and just occasionally came with a little fire to singe the grass, which was why he had a couple of water elementals on permanent patrol. At least he was well enough behaved to stay out of the garden itself as he stretched out over the grass just beyond, and if anyone did think to come a calling, they’d think twice when they saw a living black mountain calling his front yard home.
“Need some help?” Alan started as Verial’s soft warm voice came from just behind him, and almost fell over into the very plant bed he was weeding. But he saved himself from that indignity, j
ust, and managed to stand up and face her, before he discovered a whole new world of shock.
“Verial?” It was her, he knew that, but somehow he’d never quite imagined her as she was, and the woman was dressed for sin as the people said. Her leather and leaf armour had gone and instead she wore a skin tight dress made of shimmering green cotton, which covered her demurely from neck to ankles, and yet somehow hid nothing at all. He could see every bump and curve of her stunningly attractive body, so close that he could almost have reached out and touched her, if he could have moved at all.
“Of course silly.” She somehow managed to giggle like a school girl and shake her head so that her long dark hair flew around like a waterfall, and he lost the power to even think. “Who did you think it was?”
For the longest time after that he just stood there, mouth open, staring, wondering if there was a special place in the underworld reserved for men whose thoughts travelled the same lands his did.
