“Will he be all right?”
Bulvang’s voice cowed not just me and Mako, but Maher also. Both dragons bowed low as the king approached. I dropped into a deep curtsey, shooting a half-glimpse of Ananaya drowsing in her nest. Jhet still hovered over her, his sword-like talon measuring her breathing. Two other dragons murmured to him as they listened to her heartbeat, fresh bloody meat ready at hand to stuff down her throat the moment she woke.
Oblivious to the ongoing drama, Kel’Ratan still knelt beside Rygel’s inert body wiping his hands. The attending dragon healer fussed over Rygel’s wounds, inspecting and muttering, perhaps critiquing Kel’Ratan’s efforts. Rygel lay, comfortably wrapped in Kel’Ratan’s cloak, with his head pillowed on Little Bull’s flank. After washing the dried blood from Rygel’s brow, Little Bull sighed deeply and rested his head on his paws.
Beside me, both Silverruff and Thunder bent forelegs under them, bowing before the King. I didn’t rise from my curtsey, but kept my eyes and face lowered. I didn’t need eyes to see Bulvang wasn’t a happy dragon. And when Bulvang wasn’t happy . . . .
“Mako,” Bulvang asked, his muzzle low, but his tone bright, “don’t you have pressing duties?”
“My King.”
Though I willed my face to remain earth-bound, I watched from the candle of my eye as Mako back-stepped several paces before leaping into the air. As she winged her way up and around, the red dragon lost herself amid the many dragons who winged in happy contentment over and around their king and their new shaman.
Bulvang’s astute gaze lingered on her departure, his green-gold eyes blank and uninformative. “Will he be all right?”
I nodded to the stone beneath me. “I think so, Your Majesty.”
Not very far away, Kel’Ratan sighed and rose from Rygel’s inert body, his right hand on his neck. Scrubbing away his aches, he turned and also bowed to Bulvang. Whether he heard the discussion or not, I’ll never know. But his silver dragon attendant flew off on Mako’s tail before Bulvang noticed her.
Bulvang dropped his greyed muzzle, his twin horns back against his long neck. Smoke curled from his nostrils. “He needs rest–”
“He does, Your Majesty,” Kel’Ratan said, slipping to my side and enfolding my hand within his own. “They’ve both served you faithfully and well.”
The dragon king eyed Kel’Ratan ruefully. “Do you reprimand me, little man?”
Kel’Ratan dropped instantly to his knee. “Of course not, Your Majesty.”
“You should,” Bulvang said heavily. “I failed to protect her. The Mother entrusted me with her safety and I dropped the ball.”
“Majesty–” I began.
“No worries, dear girl,” he said. “I am just thankful She provided us with this wolf and his brother. For without them, all would be lost.”
Bulvang’s talon touched Raine’s chest in an absent salute.
“Be well, gai-tan,” Bulvang said, his voice low. “For you are mighty indeed.”
The Fight for Darius
Chapter 17
Bulvang, Jhet, Maher, Nabila, Gadron, and a full squadron of dragons escorted us to the edge of their territory.
Ananaya, too young to understand what all had transpired remained behind, and attended by devoted dragons. I knew she missed me, for I felt her longing deep within my soul. Mentally, emotionally, I sent back to her what reassurance I could. I knew I’d be dead within the next forty-eight hours. What would happen to her then? Would she feel my death and despair? Would she, like Ly’Tana will, grieve my loss then move on?
The latter I prayed for as we, as wolves, wagged tails in farewell to our hosts. The deep, abiding cold of the great northern range prevented us from standing and speaking as humans. With full bellies, provided by the gracious dragons, we stood warm within our pelts, new nourishment and hope within our bodies.
I stood forth, the leader of my pack, my head up and jaws wide as Bulvang lowered his great, horned head toward me. His wings furled over his back, he shifted his feet under him, his colossal spade tail swinging around to wrap around his legs.
“What you seek is a day’s run from here,” he said, his green-gold eyes down-turned in sadness. His muzzle jerked left, straight north. “Find a deep cave at the base of sheer cliff, a thousand rods high. Inside you’ll find the barrier.”
“The barrier?” I asked, forgetting he spoke no wolf.
He understood me. “Yes, the wall between this world and the next. Loth as I am to admit it, a few dragons over the centuries have found themselves consigned to hell for their crimes. We’ve lived on its doorstep for eons, never violating its border, yet always aware of its existence. We live, we fly, we hunt, we sing, yet the damned travel through our territory and pass through to the great gates. Only you, I am thinking, and your companions, can pass through as living, breathing, sentient beings. For you are the chosen.”
The Chosen.
I blinked as his words, like echoes in my soul, resounded throughout my blood.
The Chosen.
All of us, selected to champion the gods against the Lords of the Universe. The gods hand-picked my companions, and me, to free one of their own against an unjust imprisonment. They couldn’t act on the behalf of their brother god, but they could choose their defenders. Ly’Tana, Kel’Ratan, Silverruff, Little Bull and Thunder. And Rygel: whom the gods selected as my brother.
“Good luck,” Bulvang said, as his right talon rose in blessing. “May our Mother grant you victory. If you should succeed in killing your monster and free your god, come back and see some old friends. Happily we’ll share our food and home. If you fail–”
His reptilian lips skinned back in a dreadful draconic grin. “Then we’ll meet again in a better place. Farewell, my friends. Be well.”
Bulvang stretched forth his wings, casting us from bright sunlight into deep shadow. He leaped into the air, his wings forcing a hurricane of snow, ice and arctic air into our faces. Though my companions shielded their eyes and muzzles from the onslaught, I blinked the annoyance, and my own fur, away from my eyes. The dark king led his people, sweeping wings wide, his front legs tucked beneath his shoulders. His hind legs and spade tail trailed behind his awesomely beautiful form.
Behind his dark majesty, the dragons rose and followed, great wings forcing icy cold air into submission. Jhet snorted flame as he circled low over my head, his grin wide without apology. His muzzle dipped twice before he soared upward into the pale blue sky before trailing upon the tails of the horde flying home to their great mountain.
Bulvang circled back, flames pouring from his nostrils. He didn’t speak, yet his head on his virile neck twisted out and down, keeping us in sight for as long as possible. The thought crossed my mind he wished to add more advice, then perhaps decided against it. He, too, swept up and banked high overhead, following his people, his huge wings dark against the pristine snow. Then, he too, vanished into the distance and cloudless sky.
“That’s it then,” I said, sighing, turning to lead my companions over the deep snow of the mountain-top. “Daylight’s wasting, I expect.”
The morning sun, devoid of all animosity, shone down bright and clear. Shards of sun-reflected ice burned my eyes and made me squint. So frigid, the air froze any moisture at all into tiny crystals of ice, swirling about our bodies like diamond dust.
“There it is,” Rygel said, nodding toward the distant cliff. “Hell on earth.
“What are we waiting for?” Kel’Ratan growled. “An engraved invitation?”
“I’d like one, yes,” Silverruff replied. “I’d rather be a welcome guest than one not.”
“Of course,” Kel’Ratan snapped. “A few fools think they can live forever.”
“I don’t–”
“Precious little time for any of it,” I said, trudging through hip-deep snow. “Myself, I prefer a full frontal attack to all this mystery, but in Ja’Teel’s immortal words: ‘we don’t always get what we want’.”
“Amen.”
>
Ly’Tana plodded in my wake. “Are you sure you feel all right?”
Being the largest, I broke through the heavy snow first, making the travelling slightly easier for my companions. “As all right as I can be,” I answered honestly.
Lack of adequate sleep and only sporadic healing left Rygel and I still battle-weary and in pain. Unfortunately, there was no time to fully recover. We’d less than thirty hours to get past the barrier and meet the Guardian. Or the wolves lost their god for all time.
“Time to step out,” I said, breaking into a heavy trot. “We’ve too much ground to cover to lollygag.”
“How far to the cliff?” Ly’Tana asked. “Rygel?”
“Twenty leagues, perhaps, Princess.”
“A very long way in this muck,” Kel’Ratan added.
Like a draft horse, I broke trail through much of the morning before Thunder offered to spell me for a while. By midday, Silverruff took his turn. Kel’Ratan and Rygel, not as big as the rest of us, offered but we declined. Ly’Tana, the smallest among us, only floundered in the deep snow. To her utter disgust, the slush trapped her before she leaped a piddling few strides.
I licked her frost-riddled muzzle. “It’s your warrior’s skills that make you invaluable, my love. Not your strength as a wolf.”
“I should hope so,” she growled. “As a wolf, I’m useless.”
“You’re beautiful.”
Her emerald eyes danced with love and laughter. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
As the moon rose, shining almost as bright as day on the crystal white snow, we’d only traveled several leagues toward that strange cliff. Despite its incandescent glow, the horizon shimmered and dipped with a multitude of colors. Never still, the reds, oranges, yellows, purples, greens, and the occasional golds, danced and bowed. As though spirits in the heavens played games, laughed and leaped in joyous abandon, the distance bodies cast their vibrant colors across the frozen waste.
“What is that?” Silverruff asked, his tone low and filled with awe.
Rygel, the most educated and smartest among us, cringed, his tail between his legs. “I don’t know.”
“Mark that for the record books,” Kel’Ratan said, his tongue lolling and his breath freezing the instant it left his lungs. “Rygel doesn’t know something.”
While we gaped in dreadful fascination, the aerial colors in the sky danced and leaped, bounced and laughed, alive and surreal. We leaped into the high snow banks, cleft through their soft mounds, struggled across the mighty, forsaken landscape with the dancing lights calling us ever onward.
Darius’s presence deep in my mind called me further north, overpowering. Even when his voice spoke to me, commenting on this or that or answering my few questions, that fire burned bright and hot. Soon, I saw it with my wide-awake eyes, a red-yellow flame burning . . . a torch lit upon the horizon.
The desolate northern mountains held little in features, attractive or otherwise. A few rocky crags poked up through the sea of snow, here and there, yet no trees grew. All we had to entertain us in our journey was endless snow, the weirdly shining lights, and a steady climb upward. We never heard, scented, or sighted any living creature save ourselves. I felt as though life ended at the dragon’s mountain and we’d already entered the realm of the dead.
The high peaks of the Great Northern Range also slowly dropped behind us, growing dim with distance. Above us, only the silver-white, trackless snow sloped up and up as the dark cliff Bulvang spoke of drew steadily nearer. Beyond it lay the other side of the world, the only place free of mankind, his cities, and his evil. Beyond it lay a treasure of land, of creatures, of life, unspoiled by time and greed.
I studied the cliff as we travelled and the more I studied it the more weird it seemed. There was no mountain behind the cliff to support it. Not even a hill, so to speak. Unlike the escarpment rearing above the Jefe Monastery, so very far away in time and distance, it served no purpose I determined. As though built by hands rather than nature, it stood bold and black against the snow, a sheer cliff face resting on the ground and rising leagues upon leagues into the night sky. The dark hole of the cave, the entrance to hell, waited at its base.
“I’m not liking the looks of that,” Kel’Ratan commented, at my side.
I glanced sideways. “You’re not supposed to. It’s the entrance into the world of the damned.”
“I hope I haven’t been damned,” he muttered. “Maybe they won’t let me out.”
“You’re still here, aren’t you?” Little Bull commented, his tongue lolling. “Big Dog, I think we should rest a bit. Tackle the cave in a few hours. What do you say?”
I glanced over my shoulder. “Rygel?”
Rygel sat down, his breath steaming the crystal air. “I agree. It’s past midnight and we’re almost there. “Pity we don’t have anything to eat. I for one am starving.’
“I think I can cover that,” I said, turning around.
Ly’Tana dropped in her tracks, panting heavily. Thunder hovered anxiously over her, licking her ears and offered quick whines of encouragement.
“How do you mean?” Kel’Ratan growled, flopping, dispirited, into the snow.
I sat down, tired almost to exhaustion, feeling my own strength waning rapidly. “I’ve been thinking most of the day. Without more food, we’re not strong enough to fight tomorrow. I can create enough meat to satisfy us tonight.”
“Magic meat?” Thunder asked, his eyes wide. “Is that even, like, edible?”
“Uh, my prince,” Rygel began, his tone slow, careful. “Creating something from nothing is extremely difficult, even for a wizard of my powers. It drains your body faster than healing magic. We can’t have you seriously weakened. Not now.”
“I’ve been talking with Darius,” I replied. “I won’t be using your blood, but his.”
“Divine powers?” Kel’Ratan asked, his tongue lolling and his dark eyes skeptical. “You can do that?”
“Let’s find out.”
“Remember what I taught you,” Darius said. “In my full strength, I can create something from nothing. It’s different than Rygel’s powers. It’s white magic.”
“All I need do is find the source of the white magic within me?”
“Exactly. It’s there, waiting for you to tap into it.”
Taking a deep breath, I slowed my thoughts and my breathing, centering into a light trance. My heartbeat decreased, and I shut out the lights sounds of my companions, the bitter wind soughing across the snow. Deeper and deeper I dropped, spiraling down into the dark pit that yawned before me. Soon, all that remained to me was the faint gurgle of my blood flowing through my veins and the slow thudding of my heart.
I opened my inner eyes. Like a soft glow from a fire seen on a distant horizon, the white magic beckoned me. I reached for it, only to have it, as it had before, slip from my grasp. The more I tried to hold, the more slippery it became. I grew frustrated, and closed my fists around that glow. It vanished from my hands to appear further away, dancing, bowing like the sky nymphs above us.
“Easy,” Darius whispered. “Let it come to you.”
Thus, I waited. Closing my eyes, I called to it, my silent voice enticing it, my hands outstretched, palms up. Urging myself to patience, I forced the frustration from me and invited peace and tranquility into my mind, my will. Long moments passed, defeat licking at my heart. I breathed it out and tranquility in, finding much joy in the inner rooms I created within myself. A shy maid, the white magic danced closer, a flicker jumping from one hand to the next. I didn’t try to seize hold this time. Rather, as though I held a tiny butterfly on my fingers, I gently closed my hand. The tiny essence remained with me, became a part of me. Though temptation to seize it all grew, I forced that aside, also. Darius advised that trying to take it all it was a great mistake. Learn from it, use it, practice it. Tapping into it will become easier and easier, he’d said.
“Good. Now try it.”
Holding onto the tiny
flame, I woke from my trance. Picturing a great pile of raw, warm, still bloody beef in the flattened snow, I surged my will. The warm, tantalizing scent wafted to my nostrils as more meat than we could eat in a day rose like a small mountain within the small circle of us. My salivary glands went immediately into overdrive, and I drooled.
“Well done, lad.”
“What do I do with it?”
I still held onto the white magic, it’s light warming my spirit, its flame in my soul. I felt it there, squirming as though begging for release.
“Let it go now,” Darius answered. “It will be easier to call next time.”
I obeyed him, and released the white power of the divine. I felt it rise, joyous, and vanish into the aether. My heart wept.
“Big Dog?”
Coming back to myself, I glanced around at the hungry eyes staring at me, awaiting my permission to eat. I quelled my instincts to take first choice as the alpha male. Instead, I dropped my foreleg in a wolfish bow.
“Ly’Tana,” I offered, grinning. “Ladies first.”
She needed no other urging. Seizing a chunk the size of a small dog, she dragged it away with her, growling under her breath. As she bolted down the necessary sustenance, I refused the pack leader’s prerogative and urged the others to take their fill before me. True wolves, Silverruff, Thunder and Little Bull hesitated, unwilling to take precedence, while Rygel and Kel’Ratan chewed and swallowed in great gulps.
“Eat, my brothers,” I growled softly. “I’ll need your strength.”
Their bodies low to the ground, ears flat, they crept upon the meat as though I might change my mind and take it from them, as per my right as their pack leader. Seizing great chunks they swung away, tails tucked. Quicker than Ly’Tana, the three wolfed down the fresh meat like those starved for days.
“Uh, hadn’t they been?”
“Is it edible?” I asked.
Thunder sighed happily.
Despite allowing the others to eat their fill first, there was plenty for me and more besides. As I gulped down raw, bloody meat, first Ly’Tana, then Silverruff came back for more. Kel’Ratan, Little Bull and Thunder diminished the pile by a large margin. When Rygel returned, he found only a sizeable chunk remaining.
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