Sword of Fire (Through the Ashes Book 1)

by J. A. Culican

  As her stomach settled, she looked up into the night sky and gazed at the bright, full moon and the twinkling stars above; they looked amazingly close and crystal clear from this height. She felt Jaekob shifting speed and banking a little to their left and looked around. Below, she spotted a herd of elk or deer. Her mount must be hungry by now, she realized.

  I am, Jaekob's voice echoed in her head. Just a quick bite and then we'll get back to Philadelphia.

  "Okay," she replied. "I can't ask you to fly into the city hungry. We don't know what we'll find." She frowned as thoughts of their problems came back, replacing the thrill of flying, barrel rolls, and the moon and stars above. "I wouldn't ask you to walk into that without being at top strength."

  Jaekob banked harder as they spiraled downward. She grabbed onto him as tightly as she could just before he pounced on an elk with big horns. It was no match for a dragon, though, and barely had time to shriek before it died. The other elks fled as Jaekob began tearing hunks of meat from his prey.

  Bells decided to stretch her legs for a bit and slid off his back. She hung off one wing where it connected to his back and then dropped to the ground. She walked away toward nearby trees as she put her hands on the small of her back, leaning backward to stretch. When she got about ten feet from Jaekob, though, her connection to him vanished. When she'd gone another few feet, her senses reached the tree line itself. Suddenly, she felt something else—raw seething anger and an insatiable hunger. The sensation struck her like a hammer, stopping her in her tracks. She somehow knew those feelings were being directed at her. Some sort of sixth sense made a shiver run up her spine.

  She focused harder, looking more carefully to identify the possible threat. She felt a dozen creatures in the tree line. Not people, not animals, but something in between. She could practically taste their magic on the back of her tongue as she breathed. She'd felt that before, she realized. They were werewolves on the hunt.

  Her hands shook with adrenaline. Desperately, she tried to back up toward Jaekob but her body wouldn't obey. She was so terrified that she couldn't move, couldn't scream. She could only stare at the tree line as a dozen dark shapes came shooting from the trees in a V-formation. They were moving so fast, loping along on two legs, standing upright. They had impossibly long arms and used them to run even faster, like gorillas. They were even bulky like gorillas, but they were definitely wolf-like. Their eyes glowed red, and all dozen pairs stayed locked onto her.

  Run, dammit! She couldn't move. All she could do was pray to Creation that Jaekob saw them before they ripped her limb from limb. She had no doubt they were coming to devour her but she had a sense they were looking for something else, too. Perhaps they recognized Jaekob, even in his dragon form.

  A blur of movement blew by her on the right and came to a stop six feet in front of her. It was Jaekob in his human form and he was poised to strike with the new sword in his right hand. It glowed brightly in the darkness from the runes etched into the blade, flickering between yellow, orange, and red.

  For just a second, Bells stared in awe at Jaekob, crouched and ready for battle, the scimitar he'd carried during flight now held over his head with its point toward the oncoming werewolves. He cut a striking figure, reminding her of a hero in the old tales or human storybooks. He stumbled and she got the distinct impression the sword had been frozen in place for a split second, but once he recovered his footing, the blade seemed to move just fine in his expert warrior's hands.

  The first werewolf leaped through the air at him, but Jaekob made the sword dance as he dodged the attack, the werewolf landing behind him. In that instant, the were had three new, deep cuts on his leg, arm, and side.

  For a moment, everyone froze and looked at the wounded were, surprised. The cuts... They glowed, and Bells would have sworn she saw sparkles along the edges of the parted flesh. The sparkles increased, more and more of them flashing brighter still. The smell of burned meat hit Bells’ nose. The wounded were threw his head back and howled the most agonized, sad, frightened sound Bells ever heard. As his howl went on and on, the sparkles spread outward from the cut, burning fur and flesh, and seconds later, they consumed the were from the inside. All that remained was a statue of glowing-hot ashes that broke apart and scattered in the wind.

  Jaekob was the first to break through the total shock and surprise. He held the sword with both hands, sweat trickling down his forehead. His voice was heavy with exertion, roaring at the weres, "Hold or die. Harm her and I will hunt you to the ends of the Earth and beyond."

  One of the weres, a huge male with black fur, stood upright. He shifted to his human form in only seconds. It looked terribly painful the way his six-inch claws retracted into his hands, arms shrinking with a wet, crunching noise, muzzle drawing back and changing shape amid crackling bones, until he was just a man again. The other weres then did the same as the black-furred man knelt in front of Jaekob and bowed his head.

  "You have slain the pack leader, Dragon Prince. By the law of the pack, I am now our leader, but you have earned more than your lives. We swear our loyalty to you, Jaekob son of Mikah, and as long as you live, we will not leave your side. This I swear by Creation's will."

  The others knelt, too, and Jaekob straightened up from his combat crouch, wary and confused.

  Bells felt something in the air but couldn't put her finger on it. Something magical. Something of the old magic, powerful but wild.

  Jaekob backed up to where she stood, never taking his eyes off the weres or lowering the ancient sword, and whispered, "Something isn't right."

  "I know. I feel it, too."

  "No," he said, shaking his head, "not that. The sword. It... It's like it is resisting me. It doesn't want me to move it, and it would have been happy if I'd died fighting the weres. I don't know why or how, but this is more than just some magic sword."

  The lead were stood and the others rose with him. "My lord, we are yours to command."

  "Fine!” Jaekob shouted. “If you won't leave me, then you can try to keep up. I'm going back to Philadelphia and I'll be flying. Leave us now and see if you can make it there alive."

  The were bowed, turned, and ran east. The remaining ten weres ran after him, forming a single line and overtaking the pack leader until he was in the rear, where he could see his whole pack.

  "Just like real wolves," Bells muttered.

  Jaekob looked over at her, startled. "Yes. Very observant. Few people ever see a pack and live. But they are real wolves, you know. Half wolf, anyway. I don't think they'll make it to Philadelphia alive. They'll either run off into the woods again or get killed by the terrible things said to now wander the wilderness."

  "What terrible things?" Bells had heard no such rumors.

  "In lands where neither Pure nor human live, there are things coming to this world through the rift created by the Veil. Things not from our lands beyond the Veil, whatever they are. We find only skeletons, picked clean even when we come to rescue them only an hour later. We don't know who or what is eating the Pures, but thank Creation there aren't many. Not yet."

  Bells shrugged. As scary as that sounded, she wouldn't have to deal with them when she traveled by dragon. "Did you see the wounds that sword made? There was no chance to even clean them up. I wonder if even a scratch would kill someone."

  He frowned, which was not at all the reaction she expected from a warrior with a new and deadly weapon. His voice dropped low almost to a whisper despite being alone with her, and he said, "There's something wrong with this sword. It scares me. I'm telling you, this is not the answer we need for our problems. I don't think you should take it to the city, or anywhere else. We should have dumped it into the lava at Mount Hood. It's not too late—"

  "No!" she cried. "The infection is spreading, and the world could die. The whole world, Jaekob. Not just the humans you abandoned to the Pures, but all of us. The only people with any idea how to stop the infection said we need this sword. Until you have a better idea, don't
toss it away. Please! I don't want my little sister to die from that fungus the way your Guardian did. It's too horrible to even think about."

  He paused, but then nodded and looked away.

  Bells said, "Truly, thank you. We should hurry, though. We're running out of time. Are you fed?"

  Jaekob nodded but he didn't smile the way he had the last time he hunted with her. She didn't blame him; despite what she said to him, the truth was that the sword had given her a strange and unsettling feeling, too, when the runes glowed as it was pulled in battle. There was more to the sword than they knew.

  Bells poked the small fire, lost in thought. Jaekob had insisted on stopping to rest, so they’d taken shelter in an abandoned parking garage along an old human highway. It was exhausting, he said, trying not to throw the sword away mid-flight, and he didn't want to return to the city weakened in any way. He didn't trust the sword, she could tell, but he also wasn't going to throw away a possible solution just because he didn't like it. Not yet. But, oh, how he didn't like it!

  Bells couldn't blame him, though. She sensed the sword was unhappy with Jaekob carrying it, but if not him, then who? Assuming the old legends were right, the sword was destined to be with someone mighty enough to save the world. She couldn't get rid of it for no good reason, especially after all they'd gone through to get it in the first place. If Jaekob had actually thrown it, she told him after they landed, then she would have done everything in her limited power to force him to go back and let her get it. When he'd pointed out it would do a fae very little good, she hadn't cared. She would have carried it to the Sword Society who sent them, at the very least.

  "Someone's destiny is with that sword," she muttered, not meaning to say it aloud.

  "So you've said. Are you trying to convince me or yourself? I'm telling you, this isn't the solution to our problem. I wish you'd believe me."

  Actually, she didn't believe him at all. She had the opposite feeling. She felt deep inside that this sword would solve their problems. She felt it strongly enough that she would have jumped off his back to get the sword back if he had thrown it mid-air. She'd have had to trust him not to let her fall to her death.

  The next morning, they rose early and flew to the city, stopping just outside the city line because the number of flying dragon squads on air patrol was even greater than when they'd left. They had to walk in. Secretly, she was happy to do it. Dragons must have magically reinforced the Wards even more while she and Jaekob had been gone, and without knowing just what they'd done to it, flying across that threshold seemed like a very bad idea.

  They walked the last quarter-mile into the city. Everything was eerily quiet, but they were in the city less than ten minutes when that silence was shattered. East of them, her extended senses heard what sounded like a fight.

  "Jaekob," she said, pointing to the east. "I hear a battle ahead. The city is so quiet, who could be fighting?"

  "Follow me and stay close,” Jaekob growled. He ran toward the sounds of battle with Bells right behind him. A couple of minutes later, he skidded to a halt and said, "I see them ahead."

  Bells could already hear the terrible sounds of fighting, even without casting her senses ahead of them. When she nodded, he bolted away and she ran after him. They went a block west, and when they crossed a major intersection, the sounds shifted to just north of them. The city buildings played tricks on loud noises, she realized, sounds bouncing around in the artificial canyons.

  They rounded the corner and once again froze in place, this time spotting it at the same time—two packs of weres were fighting each other, and Bells recognized the big one who had declared his loyalty to Jaekob. She hissed at Jaekob, "You sent them here. This is our responsibility. We have to split them up before more get hurt."

  Jaekob nodded, his face grim. Bells got the impression that he would have let them be if she hadn't been there insisting he help. He drew the sword and said under his breath, "A dragon takes care of his responsibilities."

  He charged forward toward the massive melee, and Bells felt a kind of concern for him she hadn't felt before.

  Bells chased after Jaekob as he ran toward the fray. Two werewolves had tussled but were separating to circle one another. Both packs stood in two parallel lines only ten feet apart, growling at each other and barking. Some shouted threats in wolfish, growling voices. Both the Alphas facing each other bled from deep scratches, but the wounds were light enough that both healed quickly, despite being caused by werewolf claws and fangs. Everyone knew those healed slowly—if at all.

  Bells shouted, "Stop, stop fighting! What is going on here?"

  Neither Alpha nor their packmembers paid her any attention. The two Alphas crashed into each other again, then separated. New slashes in both bled a little but were healing before Bells' eyes.

  Jaekob said, "Who dares fight a battle in my city? The dragons rule here, not weres." He had the sword drawn, and again, the runes glowed brightly.

  The Alpha who had sworn his pack to Jaekob glanced at him but kept at the ready. He shifted from an offensive stance to one that looked to Bells to be defensive, though she couldn't be sure. He growled, "My prince, we didn't mean to offend you. The Bloody Fangs are here, where I knew you would be traveling. I won't allow a threat to your life."

  Bells noticed Jaekob didn't get between the two lines and breathed a sigh of relief. Still, twenty-four weres could rip even a dragon apart, despite his scales and dragonfire.

  The other Alpha spat blood. "What do I care if a dragon passes through his own city? You've lost your mind. All of you Throat Ripper pups are crazy. What makes you think you can tell a free were they can't go where they want, do what they want? Are you my pack's leader?"

  "I will be if you keep talking," the black-furred Alpha roared.

  "Stop! Now!” Jaekob roared. “We have enough problems without Werewolves marking each other's trees."

  Bells' eyes went wide as she watched the weres relax, men and women alike. Claws retracted, and some sat on their haunches, panting. That was not the behavior she expected from weres facing off over territory. They weren't evil, but they were violent and bloody by nature. And when two packs met, everyone knew they didn't stop until one surrendered to the other. Werewolves were pack animals in their souls. "Jaekob—"

  "I see it," he replied. He didn't take his eyes off the two Alphas, who now stood only feet apart, neither showing any sign of aggression.

  The first Alpha said, "We're sorry, Prince of Dragons. I took it upon myself to make sure your territory was safe for you to pass through."

  The new Alpha nodded. "That makes sense, but we're no threat to you."

  Bells couldn't believe her ears. None of it made sense.

  Jaekob said, "You're in my city, and you'll obey me. There will be no fighting here, today. We need people fighting the infection, not other Pures."

  The new Alpha summoned his human form and Bells again felt revulsion at the wet, tearing sounds it made as he transformed. Then he sank to one knee, head lowered. "Prince of Dragons, my pack and I serve your will. I swear my loyalty to you, now and always."

  Jaekob did a double-take, then stood up straighter and let the sword's tip droop low. He glanced at Bells, eyebrow raised.

  She shrugged, having no idea why they were acting so strangely. "Any idea what's going on?" she whispered.

  Jaekob pursed his lips and nodded. "I have an idea, yeah. This sword is a menace, that's what."

  "Maybe that's how it is supposed to save the world. By keeping people from wanting to fight."

  His eyes narrowed for a moment. Softly, he said, "By taking away their will? Never. We have to find a way to hide this cursed sword before someone dangerous gets their hands on it."

  Bells stared at him with her mouth open in shock. How could he still think that after stopping two packs from ripping into each other? How could it be bad to make people peaceful like the fae?

  He raised his eyebrow. "You don't like the idea?” he whispered. �
��I get it. I don't, either, but I like it better than bringing peace by enchanting everyone and making them into willing slaves. You're almost a slave, Bells, so I don't understand how you could want that for everyone on Earth... I don't think you do, though."

  She tried to think of something to change his mind but couldn't. Taking people's free will was beyond wrong, as fae knew better than most. She glanced at the two werewolf packs, now Jaekob's loyal, passive troops, and shuddered. Weres weren't passive, and they didn't give their loyalty to someone outside the pack without even a fight.

  Suddenly, she was as afraid of that sword as Jaekob was. Enslaving people wasn't much better than killing them. "Well, you're the Dragon Prince. Maybe you're right and we should hide it so no one else can use it."

  The two werewolf packs lounged together several yards away as Bells and Jaekob discussed what to do with the sword. "No," she said, "we can't just dump it in the harbor. The mermaids would find it eventually, and you know how they are."

  Jaekob's lip curled back into a snarl. Everyone knew how mermaids were. "Fine, then what about taking it to Mount Rainier? All that lava and the destroyed Warrens make it a good place to hide something."

  "Except that people will figure out where you hid it. We figured out which one it was in, and they could, too. I'm not certain this sword would even burn up in lava, and someone could figure out how to retrieve it."

  Jaekob growled, a rumble from deep in his chest. Then he took a deep breath and forced a smile. "Okay. So, do you have any ideas where to hide this Pandora's Box of a sword?"

  She blinked rapidly. He was asking her? A mere fae. Surprised and uncomfortable, her cheeks flushed red and hot. "Well, yes, actually. I only know of one place this side of the Veil where only dragons can enter, and it's a place dragons aren't going back to anytime soon. The Warrens. Safeholme, actually."