Harbinger

by Nicole Conway

  As he dropped his arms to his sides, I limped forward toward the opening in the door as fast as I could on my injured ankle. Each step was agony, but I would see him—no matter the pain or risk.

  “Phillip!” I screamed his name into the total darkness of the cage. The air reeked of blood, and my bare feet stepped in something wet and warm. Gods, where was he? “Phillip, you answer me right this second!”

  A strong hand fell on my shoulder. I jumped and almost fell, but Jaevid held me steady. “Straight ahead,” he said softly.

  Aedan came to the doorway carrying a torch that filled the cell with revealing light, but he refused to take a single step further. His face had gone pale and his knuckles were white as he gripped the shaft of his halberd.

  The light was enough, though.

  Directly in front of me, I could make out the shape of a table. It looked like one of the long, heavy wooden ones they used in the dining hall. But this one had been modified, made into some sort of experimentation table. Holes had been cut for restraints to keep a subject contained.

  Stretched out on it, lying on his back, was a figure I didn’t recognize. He was shackled down by his wrists, neck, arms, knees, and ankles, the metal of the chains clamped down so that they bit into his flesh. There was blood everywhere, splattering the table and dripping from the corners onto the floor. It was too dark to see the man’s features clearly, but this person couldn’t have been Phillip. He was too tall. He must have been seven feet because he spanned the entire length of the dining table.

  Then Aedan lifted the torch higher. More light came in.

  I screamed.

  The man on the table was not human. His bare skin was an unnatural shade of slate gray that slowly transitioned to black at his hands and feet. A hundred tiny white spots peppered along his corded arms, legs, and strangely-shaped chest reflected the light and glinted like diamonds, making odd patterns. His frame was strange, with shoulders that seemed too wide and a torso that was longer and narrower than a normal man’s.

  His chest rose and fell with frantic, shallow breaths—but otherwise, he lay perfectly still. I dared to move closer. I searched his face for what felt like an eternity. It was all wrong. His cheeks were never so sharp. His jawline had never been that rigid.

  My hand trembled as I touched some of his jet-black hair to brush it away from his face. His hard, fierce brow was locked into a scowl so that his eyes were pinched shut. The longer I looked, the more of those shining spots that flecked his forehead and cheeks I noticed. My fingertips grazed the elongated point of his ear. It wasn’t like an elf’s. It was longer, sharper, angled more like the edges of a knife.

  Tears blurred my vision.

  Somewhere, under all that deformity—it was Phillip.

  “What have they done to you?” My voice shook. I covered my mouth to stifle a sob.

  One of his hands twitched.

  My breath caught. Hope made my heartbeat stutter. Was he … ?

  A flash of silver was my only warning.

  Phillip’s eyes flew open, his feline pupils narrowing to hair-thin slits. He lunged against the bonds holding him to the table, snapping the thick chains as though they were nothing. A hand shot forward. He grabbed my throat with crushing force, the sharp black claws where his fingernails used to be digging into my skin.

  I couldn’t scream. My air was cut off. I pulled desperately at his wrist and fingers, trying to get a breath. I fought and flailed. But he didn’t let go. My vision tunneled. I could just barely see his eyes glowing like two sterling moons in the dark.

  Aedan cried out.

  Jaevid lunged.

  A burst of green light blinded me, and I felt Phillip’s grip suddenly release. Dropping to the floor, I wheezed and gasped. My neck burned like it was on fire. It hurt so badly, I couldn’t bear to touch it.

  “Jenna!” Jaevid came to his knees in front of me, invading my space to examine my neck. “It’s all right. Let me look. Can you breathe? Where does it hurt?”

  I couldn’t answer. My chest constricted, and my throat closed. I wanted to cry, but even swallowing was agony.

  “You need to listen to me,” Jaevid whispered. “Look at me, Jenna. You need to calm down. Try to take a breath.”

  I forced my lungs to work. Cold air filled my body. My mind started to clear.

  “Very good. Now do it again.”

  Aedan was standing over us, brandishing his halberd and torch. His eyes never left the table where Phillip was lying motionless again. “Is he dead?”

  “No. Just unconscious.” Jaevid’s expression darkened. “He’ll have to stay that way until I can examine him. But this isn’t the place. Our time is almost up.”

  “You want to take him with us?” Aedan balked. “Are you mad? What if he wakes up again?”

  “He won’t. Not until I allow it.” He put an arm around my middle and hoisted me to my feet. “You’ll have to carry Jenna. I’ll get Phillip. Hurry up. Let’s move.”

  NINETEEN

  We were too late.

  As Aedan and Jaevid stepped back out into the corridor beyond Phillip’s cage, the air rang with the sound of bowstrings going taut, swords being drawn, and shields clanging as they formed a phalanx before us. Clinging to Aedan’s back, I counted twenty-five strong. The archers were a problem, but if I could just get my hands on a sword …

  Then it no longer mattered.

  Argonox stepped from the midst of his soldiers, the lengths of his crimson cloak billowing at his boot heels. The torchlight gleamed off the snarling lion’s head engraved upon his bronze breastplate. His cold eyes examined us, and I could only imagine what he must have thought of our scruffy company.

  When our eyes met, his mouth twisted into a smirk. “What interesting friends you have, princess. And here I thought your father would send the best of his cavalry to your rescue. But this is just shameful.” He drew the short sword from his belt and gestured to Aedan with the point. “Hand her over now, slave, and I’ll consider welcoming you back into my ranks rather than letting my dogs feast on your flesh.”

  With my arms around his shoulders, I could feel Aedan’s breathing hitch. His eyes darted wildly at the soldiers before us. He took a step back, bowing his nearly-shaved head slightly.

  “Miss Jenna … can you run?” he asked in a whisper so soft, I barely heard it.

  I squeezed my arms around him tighter. I was a dragonrider. We did not run.

  “You’ve got to try. We won’t be able to hold them for long.”

  “No,” Jaevid said suddenly as he put Phillip’s limp body down. When he stood, he squared his broad shoulders and faced Argonox with a steely-eyed glare.

  “Hah!” Argonox sneered. “You think you can save her? Some miserable wretch plucked from the Maldobarian gutter? I’ve had more impressive warriors licking the bottom of my boots while they begged for mercy. What chance do you think you stand?”

  Jaevid dipped his head slightly, but his eyes never left Argonox. The cold fire in them made my blood run like icy slush as he drew his scimitar. “You want to know who I am?”

  Argo’s expression twitched. His eyes scrunched thoughtfully. And I saw it, dawning on his face as plain as day. Suspicion. Hesitation and concern followed swiftly.

  “I am no gray elf, nor am I human. I am both and neither. I am a hand-chosen Dragonrider of Maldobar. I am a brother adopted by kings,” Jaevid declared as he prowled forward. “I am descended from those who speak for the gods. I am the one who delivered my people from the hands of deception and horror. I am he who has walked with the ancients. I hear the voices of the earth and weave the strands of life. I have shaken hands with death and kindled the fires of destiny. I am Jaevid Broadfeather, and you will fear my name.”

  Argonox’s lips peeled back into a snarl of wild delight. He gave a command, and chaos erupted into the corridor. Arrows flew. Men shouted. The Tibran phalanx line advanced. Over it all I could hear him shouting, “Take
him! Now! I want him alive!”

  The volley of arrows zipped toward us. Aedan shrank back, angling himself between the incoming threat and me. I hugged him tighter, fighting the urge to shut my eyes in the face of death. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want Aedan to sacrifice himself for me, either.

  Jaevid moved like a phantom of divine fury. One wave of his hand made all the wooden shafts of the arrows freeze in midair. With a flourish of his wrist they spun, suddenly unleashed back upon the Tibrans who had fired them. Jaevid dropped into a crouch, the blade of his scimitar glowing with the same raw power that thrummed from his body. He drove it down into the solid stone floor like a knife through warm butter.

  The tower quaked. All the wooden cages up and down the corridor burst into splinters.

  “G-Gods,” Aedan breathed in awe.

  “No,” I rasped. “Just one.”

  With his gaze blazing like green starlight in the gloom, Jaevid yanked his blade free and advanced. More than a dozen creatures came prowling from the cages he’d opened, their silver eyes glinting with primal hunger. They looked feline, almost like panthers with sleek, muscular bodies as black as pitch. Their dark hides were flecked in the same sparkling dots that dappled Phillip’s skin. Each one was easily six hundred pounds, bearing jagged fangs and bristling the long black spines that ran from their snouts all the way down their backs to the tips of their whip-like tails.

  The Tibran line broke at the sight of them. The men screamed in terror as the switchbeasts surged past Jaevid to attack with blitzing speed. They easily bounded over the barrier of interlocking shields, pouncing and dragging their shrieking victims down like panicked goats.

  It was complete slaughter.

  And amongst it, Argonox fought like a bronze-plated fiend. He was no less skilled in combat than any dragonrider I’d ever seen. He cut through his own ranks and monsters to carve an escape path in their blood—but not before looking back to lock gazes with Jaevid. Wrath like fire made his face go red. His nose wrinkled, his nostrils flared, and his mouth bent into a bitter scowl.

  This wasn’t over.

  It had only just begun.

  Aedan, like most gray elves, was on the shorter side of average when it came to stature. Not that he was puny. In fact, he didn’t seem to have any trouble at all carrying me. And as soon as Jaevid gave us the signal to go, he ran as fast as a startled doe—even with my added weight on his back.

  Gripping the shoulder straps of his Tibran-styled breastplate, I hung on with my legs wrapped around his waist. Every step jostled me, sending a shock of pain from my broken ribs. But there was no other choice. I’d never be able to keep up on my own, not in this condition.

  Behind us, Jaevid wasn’t fairing much better. He carried Phillip again and struggled to keep pace. Every time I dared to look back, he was fighting to manage Phillip’s big, bulky form.

  We darted through the tower, winding a path I knew all too well from my time here as a newly-graduated dragonrider—headed upward to the top level of Northwatch. There was an exit there hidden on the roof and closed off by iron bars. It was only a small hatch used for a single-post lookout, like the crow’s nest on a ship. You could scarcely fit a grown man in armor through it, let alone a dragon or any sort of war machine. But it was a way out, and that was all we needed.

  Clambering through the winding stairwells, we climbed up farther and farther toward the sky. There was no time to stop and catch our breath, but Aedan grew slower with each step. He was breathing hard, sweat beading on his brow and running down the sharp angle of his cheeks. My stomach swam with guilt that he had to carry me like this. I was a dragonrider; I should have been an asset, not a burden.

  “Almost there!” Jaevid called up to us. I looked back as we rounded the last staircase, just in time to see him come to an abrupt halt. His body stiffened as he stood straighter, his eyes suddenly going wide as he stared all around at the near-dark of the stairwell. I tried following his gaze—to see whatever had startled him—but there was nothing.

  “What’s wrong?” Aedan asked in a panting whisper. “Tibrans?”

  “N-No.” Jaevid’s face flushed across the nose. He blinked owlishly, panning his awestruck gaze slowly back to us. “I know this place.”

  “You were stationed here during the Gray War,” I verified. “You don’t remember that?”

  “No.” His expression dimmed, features falling into despair. “My memories from before are scrambled. It’s like trying to piece together a nearly-forgotten dream. Sometimes they come so clearly, and other times … ” His voice faded to shattered silence.

  Aedan and I exchanged a glance. Jaevid Broadfeather didn’t remember who he was? That was a problem.

  “But this place,” he continued. “I’ve been here, right in this spot, before. There was someone else. A girl, I think.”

  “Beckah Derrick,” I reminded him.

  His gaze darted back up to mine, realization dawning in his face. “I love her.”

  My throat ached from Phillip’s chokehold as I swallowed hard. “Yes. You did.”

  Jaevid opened his mouth again, as though he was about to ask something, but out of nowhere the tower rumbled and quaked violently. It shook Aedan from his footing. He staggered back, barely catching himself against the wall before we both went tumbling backward. I gripped his shoulders harder and hung on for dear life. “Jaevid, please tell me that was you.”

  His mouth hardened, face locking into a somber scowl. “No,” he growled deeply. “We have to go. Now.”

  It took them both to pry the hatch open. A bitter cold wind howled in through the narrow exit. Freezing rain stung my eyes and made my cheeks and nose go numb. Overhead, I could see nothing but a dark, churning sky.

  Until he landed.

  Amidst the wail of the battle horn, cracks of thunder, and the distant roar of combat, the concussive thump of wing beats drew closer. A dragon’s trumpeting cry blasted through the air. The king drake dropped from the clouds like a mighty demon. Lightning snapped in the air behind him, illuminating deep blue scales, curved black horns, and eyes of piercing yellow.

  The dragon landed and immediately poked its huge snout down through the opening, nostrils puffing in deep breaths of our scent.

  Aedan gasped back, once again putting himself between any possible danger and me.

  Jaevid, however, surged forward and let out a yell—a shout of wild relief. “Mavrik!”

  He lugged Phillip up the last few steps, his eyes never leaving the beast. At the last second, he let Phillip’s unconscious body slide off his back, so he could throw his arms around the monster’s head. The drake purred and chattered, his yellow eyes closing as he nuzzled Jaevid’s chest.

  “I have missed you, too, my friend.” Jaevid’s voice came in a rasping murmur as he rested his forehead against the dragon’s. “I am … so sorry to have left you for so long.”

  The dragon puffed a snorting blast of air at his face.

  “All right, fair enough. We’ll work it out later.” He smirked as he leaned back and scratched the beast’s scaly chin. “Thank you for coming to our aid. Are the others here?”

  Mavrik chirped and his big yellow eyes flicked to where Aedan and I watched. Behind him, a glimmer of green scales caught my eye as a slender dragon zoomed past. Vexi had come with them. But I didn’t see my dragon, Phevos, anywhere. Was he all right? Had he fallen at Barrowton?

  Jaevid’s broad shoulders sagged. “No, Reigh isn’t with us. He went to find Aubren. I can still sense his presence, but we can’t wait. Argonox already knows we’re here. Phillip is in dire shape and Jenna is wounded. It’s now or never.”

  The king drake gave another snort and made a long series of clicking, chattering sounds before he pulled his head out of the passageway. It made Jaevid sigh. “If Vexi wants to stay behind, then I understand. That’s her choice.” He motioned to us. “They’re ready.”

  “They?” I assumed he meant more
wild dragons. Perhaps they were going to carry us to safety like they had my brother. But as Aedan helped me hobble up the last few steps, out into the fierce bitter wind atop Northwatch tower, my heart stopped.

  The shape of a white dragon soaring like a pale ghost against the stormy sky made my breath catch. Behind her, another dragon of light blue flew in perfect synchronization. Perish and Turq spiraled in an emergency descent straight for us.

  My brothers had come back for me.

  Agony tore through my body as I ran out to meet them. I hurled myself through the air, jumping the last few feet to catch Calem’s hand. He seized my palm and hauled me up and into the saddle in front of him in one smooth motion. With one of Calem’s strong arms wrapped around my waist to keep me firmly grounded in the saddle, Perish spread her white wings and leapt into the turbulent sky. We were up in seconds, flying higher to avoid the onslaught of Tibran ground fire.

  The others couldn’t be so quick. With Phillip still unconscious, Aedan had to help drape him over Haldor’s saddle and strap him down before they could take off. Behind them, I saw movement beyond the hatch. Tibran soldiers stormed through one at a time, forced into a funnel by the narrow passage.

  Jaevid spun, scimitar drawn to hold them back while Aedan scurried onto Mavrik’s bare back. It was a mad race. Every second was torture to watch. More and more soldiers poured out onto the platform atop the tower, encircling him with blades and shields. The wind howled at his back, spitting frigid rain and whipping his shaggy hair around his face.

  From his saddle, Haldor began to pick off a few of the soldiers with his bow. The wild winds and sheeting rain of the storm made shooting difficult, though. He lost more shots than I’d ever seen him miss before. Meanwhile, the Tibran soldiers advanced, attempting to pin Jaevid in their middle and cut off any possible threat.