by N. M. Howell
“We are great! And we’ll be even greater once we throw your corpses back into the portal. It seems you came back only to die. Fools. You could’ve died relatively easily by staying in there, but you came out here to our waiting hands, for a death so exacting and so brutal that even the secret histories will not be able to bear the telling of it. Such courage and stupidity you show, facing us. I sincerely hope you’ve said your goodbyes because I’m coming now to rip your tongue out.”
“You threaten us?” Saeryn asked, perfectly calmly. “You want to test yourself against dragonborn?”
“We defeated you before.”
“No, your ancestors did. Sorcerers and sorceresses much more powerful and terrifying than you. And they only succeeded because they spent decades instilling fear into the dragonborn. Decades of propaganda circulated by brilliant, if wicked, wizards who were themselves hundreds of years old. But you don’t have decades. You have only minutes. If we couldn’t be killed then, all those centuries ago, what makes you think you can kill us now? You’re a pale approximation of the men who defeated us. Don’t you know who we are? What we can do? What power we hold?”
Myamar Mharú became visibly frightened. It seemed to finally dawn on him who he was looking at and how foolish he sounded. He glanced up to see the dragons clinging to the pillars above, warriors armed with swords and no doubt trained in the most arduous and potent magic. He looked over all the dragonborn and turned pale. He didn’t back down, obviously too scared of what would happen if he showed weakness, but every eye that could see him saw his fear.
“Look around you,” Saeryn said, this time addressing all the professors, monitors, and Searchers. “We are not some common street nuisance. We are born of dragons. Look at our numbers, our armor, our ferocity. You would stand against us? Against all of us? And for what, so you can fulfill some age-old vendetta that even your father’s father’s father cannot recall? Is your hatred so strong that it has blinded you? Are you so willing to die?”
Their enemies began to look regretful, some even squeamish. Saeryn looked like a queen: beautiful, proud, and pure, as poised as the great dragons themselves.
“This one girl could dispatch you,” Saeryn said, indicating Andie. “And you would pit yourselves against all our people? Think again. This may be your time, your place. But we are ancients, born of a time long past with more magic than you can know. I breathe in your diluted air and can tell that after these long centuries, even your sorcerer’s magic has likewise diluted. The sorcerers nearly won in our time, nearly succeeded in eradicating us for good. We have hated and raged and feared, but now we are saved and we are strong. So now, descendants of sorcerers long past, our sworn enemy who forced us from our lands and nearly stripped us of our people, we offer you not friendship—for we could never forget those crimes of yore—but peace. Shaeyara is a vast land and there must be a place where our people can live without harm. Will you accept this offer?”
Everyone was silent. Andie watched the professors and their servants. Everyone on her side seemed to be waiting for what surely seemed inevitable: who in their right minds would challenge so many angry ancient warriors who have magic so much stronger than any we have had in our world for centuries? Dragon warriors were the fiercest fighters of ancient times and not only that, but there were dragons as well. Andie counted at least twenty and a single one would have been more than enough. Andie’s allies all looked hopeful, some even lowered their hands and moved out of their stance, certain the fighting would end there. But Andie knew better; she’d lived among these people. She’d read their histories, attended their University, remembered the legends and the murals she’d seen in the secret corridors beneath them. She’d watched them drag her mother away. These people had lived in hate so long, that it had overcome them, made them numb to any other sentiment. They would never accept the dragonborn into the world again and despite their obvious apprehension, not a single one of them had lowered their hand. Not one Searcher had put away their weapon. Saeryn turned to her.
“Andryne, would you care to say anything?”
Andie paused at being called that name, but quickly held her ground and gazed fiercely out at those around her. “That won’t do any good,” Andie said, her feet finally on the ground again. “Look at them. All they know is destruction.”
“Then what do you propose?” Saeryn asked, her hands already turning into glowing fists as she anticipated the response, the only possible answer.
Andie moved forward until she was standing between Saeryn and Carmen. Yara, Raesh, and Marvo walked up to join the line as well. They had no misconceptions. Andie surveyed the enemy: Mharú cowering silently, Tarven hidden out of sight, professors and monitors and Searchers frightened, but determined. Andie faced Saeryn.
“Redemption. War.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
It began in a kind of slow haze. The dragons moved first, at the bequest of their riders, and began to soar lowly, threateningly over the enemy. The dragon warriors on the ground began to glow, unsheathing their swords as if the ancient times were not behind them but right before—a world where iron and rock still ruled the earth. The children were herded out of harm’s way, but even they seemed to have some minor training in defense. The dragonborn moved like one body—men, women, old, young—driving themselves into highly coordinated ranks, impenetrable. Raesh, Marvo, and the newcomers backed up and were absorbed into the dragonborn formation. Andie, Carmen, and Yara joined the front lines. The Searchers had advanced training and formed a rather intricate phalanx designed primarily for attack. The monitors, too, engaged in a sort of crude flanking technique. The professors, who were powerful magicians but also first and foremost scholars, tried forming up, but the result was pitiable. The dragons began to move in more ferocious patterns, roaring and spitting fire at the walls; they were limited in what they could do because they were so large and had to share the space in a small corner of the room, but they were far from being set at a disadvantage.
The first spell was cast by a monitor, frightened into attack by a dragon gliding low overhead. His spell rebounded off the dragon’s scales without hurting it at all. And it began.
The entire University group attacked as if they’d all been counting down the moment in their heads. The dragonborn seemed most surprised by the Searchers’ guns, but even that could not intimidate them. The dragonborn shields came up like a cosmic blast of light; the enemy was still ten feet away and still they were sent back by the expulsion of wind. The dragon riders were the first to retaliate. Down they dived, spreading fire and hexes like the thickest rain, and the dragons snapped up the enemy in their great jaws and ravaged them. Some riders dismounted, dropping sword first from thirty feet in the air.
As University security, the monitors had been given two weapons. The first of these was the white fire, which could be shaped and controlled much the same as spellglass. It was a fearsome weapon and had had success against the newcomers, but the dragonborn didn’t even flinch. There was no fire on earth, magical or otherwise, that could hurt them.
When the monitors saw this, they tried to use their second weapon. It was called deighilt, a very old weapon made of light and wind. The weapon was designed to tear, separate, and divide the body; it touched a person’s skin and began to divide the body, first at the joints, then the waist, and finally the head. If you survived long enough to be breathing when it got to your head, you would’ve suffered an unimaginably painful death. It was the size of a large marble and they had pouches that contained perhaps a hundred of them. They began throwing them.
But none were so terrible and decisive as the dragonborn. They moved and fought with the honor and viciousness of another time. They struck with flashing swords and cast room-shaking spells at the same time. Their agility, strength, and instincts were flawless. They were the most lethal force Andie had ever seen. Legend told of the skill and might of the dragonborn, in war and peace times, but this was greater than all of that. They were u
nstoppable. Not only were they skilled on foot and on dragons, but some of the warriors could leap ten or even twenty feet in a single bound. Saeryn herself—ever calm, ever focused—was like a nightmare or a terror in the dark, lethal and swift as a storm. Even the newcomers gave the dragonborn a wide berth.
The Searchers were the most skilled on the enemy side, by far. They could cast and shoot in rapid succession, and were highly skilled in evasion. Andie saw immediately that the cruelty of their guns had not been exaggerated: the most frightening and bloody spells shot amplified from their barrels and many newcomers fell. The professors, hardly in control of themselves now that they were full of fear, advanced behind the Searchers, casting and ducking like the cowards they were.
Raesh’s devastating magic was something to behold. He cast wildly and without hesitation, furious, exacting, and strong. His father fought beside him, shooting with an aim that was a wonder all its own. Carmen and Yara fought side-by-side, more clever and more precisely than even they could believe. They erected a joint shield and cast in tandem, Yara decaying the enemy shields and Carmen whipping them with lighting and smoke. The newcomers quickly learned to fight within the dragonborn formation and the side of the allies was advancing steadily.
Andie fought like a deity. After having tapped into the magic of her blood, she became a limitless force. Her feet left the ground again and she threw spells across the enemy without mercy or restraint. She lifted them, crushed them, made ash and void of them. Following Saeryn’s lead, she unleashed the purple fire of the dragons on the hooded monitors, blasting them off their feet and igniting the deighilt, which burst in their pouches and did monstrous work. Neither Andie, nor her people, relished the taking of lives, but this fight was not for individual morals or untenable peace. It was not for virtue or for honor or even for pride. It was for survival. They had to wage war and to win decisively, else-wise they would be wiped out. For good.
The fight was one-sided from the beginning and even the Searchers couldn’t make way against the dragonborn. This ancient race moved with a lethal and methodological confidence. But Andie’s heart broke when she heard it. His scream. She turned and saw Raesh colliding with a pillar, his chest cut from shoulder to pelvis and deep enough to see bone. She flew over to him, cascading unquenchable fire on the professor who’d cast the spell. She kneeled down beside him and took him up.
“Raesh! Raesh!”
He was unresponsive and now that she was closer, Andie could see that the wound was much worse than she’d thought. She kept shaking him and calling his name, but he wouldn’t wake up. She pressed her hand on the wound and began to heal it, though it would need closer attention by someone more trained than herself. She set him up against the pillar where he would be safe and called Marvo over.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“He’s been hit and it’s bad. It’s really bad. I can do some superficial healing now, but he needs real medical attention. I don’t know enough about healing spells.”
“Listen, you can’t worry about that now. This is good, you did fine. Go help your people end this. We’ve almost got them beat and I can watch Raesh until this is over. Go be dragonborn.”
Marvo gave her an encouraging smile and Andie nodded back. She looked down at Raesh again: he’d been so brave, so fierce, so unimaginable. He’d hidden his magic for so long and then he’d gone there that night and fought with the strength of ten sorcerers. He was incredible. She kissed his cheek and shifted him over to his father. She rose and headed back to the fight.
Floating above her enemies, with her shield encompassing her completely, Andie was a force that could not be reckoned with. She was not as strong or as practiced as the rest of her people, but she was a mean opposition. She rained the fire of her ancestors down on the professors relentlessly and when they erected shields above themselves, she burned right through them.
The dragonborn were making short work of their foes and even though more forces from the University had streamed in, the fight was nearly over. At that point it had become a mere formality for the professors and Searchers to resist; they could not have stood against the dragons or the dragonborn, and certainly not the two together. Their screams were pitiable to hear and there was a grotesque carnage where men and women once stood, but they had been offered the chance of peace and denied it.
Spells, hexes, swords, fire, deighilts, bullets, and dragons filled the air. There were screams and grunts and the dull sound of bodies collapsing on the black marble. Pillars were lifted, split, or vaporized. There was carnage and destruction like the worst nightmare. The next wave of professors and monitors ran in, saw the havoc, and immediately retreated. That was the moment everyone knew which way the battle would turn. There was a certain feel in the air as the tide turned, as centuries of bloodshed, fear, and persecution met its end. The world sat then in a new condition where might was no longer the way of the executors.
Then a dragonborn warrior was struck in the chest with something small and dark; as it hit her, it grew and tangled itself around her. It bound her arms, her neck, her head, and grew so thick she could not be seen beneath it. It was some sort of magical plant. The rider couldn’t manage to stay on her dragon and she fell—it must have been close to forty feet. She fell head first and just before she hit the ground, the vines rolled back to expose her skull.
Andie would never forget the gut-wrenching sound it made as the rider hit. The dragon reared its head in the air; it had dived to catch her but hadn’t moved fast enough. It gesticulated and roared in the air, turning and coughing smoke in terrifying display of ancient fury. It opened its great jaws and Andie saw the bright glow of the flames rising from its chest. She looked to see the dragon’s target. It was Tarven. He was standing stock still in his fright, a tiny ball of vines in his hand like the one that had bound the rider. The dragon’s fire rose quickly. For some reason—perhaps for the good times, however false they were, or perhaps because her heart was so much purer than even she knew—Andie couldn’t stop herself for reaching for him.
“Tarven, look out!”
Her scream seemed to jolt him out of his horrified stupor and he dove out of the room. Saeryn moved swift as the wind and cast a shield over all the newcomers and dragonborn, a great and luminous shield that was the strongest Andie had ever seen. The dragon’s attack was unlike the small bursts it and the other dragons had used so far; this was a blast born of true hurt.
The fire filled the front of the room and then spread as far as the sides. It leapt high into the air and flooded over the shield like a flickering manifestation of death itself. Even through the shield they could feel the heat. Hundreds of cracks broke the marble as it was superheated by the flames and most of the professors and Searchers lost their lives when their shields were burned away. The only reason the rest managed to survive was because they escaped the room just in time.
Andie watched in horror at the scene of burning, death, and destruction that lay in front of her. This isn’t what she had wanted. This isn’t what she had wanted at all.
Chapter Thirty-Three
By the time the fire settled down, the professors and their bevy had escaped. Andie could hear them shouting as they ran out through the hallway and into Leabherlann. They were crazed, frightened. They were screaming at the top of their lungs, telling everyone near that the dragonborn had returned.
Saeryn exhaled in a way that Andie had not known before and not just Saeryn, but each of the dragonborn, warriors and folk alike. Even the dragons snapped shut their jaws and lay down on the floor. Strangely, without reason or logic, Andie felt it, too. The relief, the sheer ecstasy pouring into them from the undercurrents of the last centuries. Peace. Breath, life. Possibility.
Safety.
Andie also experienced the emotion of her friends and the newcomers: utter shock. For centuries, the legends of the dragonborn had been in circulation—mostly as bywords or cautionary tales to scare children and delight evening parties—but n
ever had they understood even a piece of the majesty and power that the forgotten race possessed. Before them stood warriors, priests, artists, tradesmen, and children from another time, herded from all around Shaeyara and captured at their weakest. But now they had returned more fearsome and shining than ever before. Andie and her friends were shocked to see the immensity of the dragons, the sheen of the armor, the scope and color of the spells, and the incalculable will of these fine and glorious people. Saeryn walked to Andie and took her hands.
“I was not born a warrior,” she began. “I was made one through many years of hard training and persistence. I had no natural talent or appetite for war or the strength it required, but it was necessary. You, however, are a born warrior. Perhaps a scholar and priestess as well. I cannot say what single gift I see, but there is potential in you which I have not seen since that time from which I came. Thank you, on behalf of my people and their families. And on behalf of our dragons. But I also thank you for myself, for it was no mean feat to retrieve us from such peril. I owe you the very air I breathe.”
And much to Andie’s surprise, Saeryn kneeled before her, still holding both of her hands.
“You don’t need to do that,” she said, nervous, flattered, and embarrassed. “I’m no queen.”
“Of course not. I am.”
Andie drained of color; it seemed unreal, unfair that a queen knelt to her. But before she could absorb the shock of Saeryn’s gesture, the rest of her people began to kneel as well. Elderly, children, warriors, everyone bent the knee to the nervous girl who’d finally accepted herself and her place in time. The entire dragonborn race kneeled before Andie Rogers.
