by Dan Allen
Again, he primed his awakening, feeling the world come into a slowness of motion. Beside him, Bergulo flared, summoning bear-like strength.
Terith sidestepped the giant and knocked him askew with a swipe of his sword. Then he plunged into the mass of attackers whose faces were still half hidden by the dawn shadows. His knife drew blood as quickly as his sword in a mass of felled limbs and punctured guts.
Terith was large for a Montazi, but not for an Outlander. His advantage came down to his armor, his courage, and speed, terrifying speed. Blood sprayed the air from the edges of his of whirling blades. Impact after impact landed in a blazing battery of foot, fist, and steel.
Beside him, Bergulo’s heavy sword crashed down and across with unstoppable fury. The man laid down a dozen or more warriors, his awakening rolling back the age of his body. With primal strength, his legs kicked warriors onto their backs. His sword cleaved bones; his awakened power was matched only by animals the size of dragons.
Sunlight spilled onto the megalith ahead of them as they reached the far side of the bridge. A second band of warriors charged.
Terith hurled his knife, cutting down the leader, and then charged forward. Bergulo summoned a bloodcurdling war cry and knocked a warrior into the abyss. Terith felled another with his sword, in time to recover his thrown knife.
A blow to his shoulder plate forced Terith to one knee. He dodged the second blow and thrust his sword into his attacker. He kicked the Outlander’s corpse back and whirled to parry a sword strike with his knife. The short blade of the knife shattered from the impact, but Terith’s sword was already hilt-deep in the Outlander’s abdomen.
The impaled warrior, screaming in warrish devilment, grasped Terith’s blade by the cross handle in a death grip, as another massive warrior with a tattooed face and blood-painted arms rushed to attack Terith before he could free his sword.
Terith snapped the man’s head back with a jaw-crushing uppercut and turned to block the deathblow with his armored forearms, but the strike never came.
The fletching of a Montazi arrow sprouted in the surprised Outlander’s neck as he collapsed.
Terith had no time to wonder where the arrow had come from. He seized the slain warrior’s curved sword and freed his own, whirling both blades to cut a warrior down, desperate to close the distance that had come between him and Bergulo.
He was three paces away when a pike thrust between two of the warriors attacking Bergulo. It caught the great man in the stomach. In the light of his awakening Terith saw it all happen in terrifyingly slow action.
Bergulo fell. Warriors raced past him onto the bridge.
As Terith fought toward Bergulo’s body, the passing light of his awakening caught on Terith.
With new vigor, the chief of champions pursued the warriors with vengeance and downed two. He ducked two arrows and turned a pike back on its bearer, sweeping several savages into the deep with the long pole, but a handful of warriors had escaped over the bridge, heading for the catapult.
Another red-tipped arrow dropped an attacker, whose upraised sword fell harmlessly against Terith’s armor. The lone Montazi chief knocked him aside, ducked a heavy ax, and threw his shoulder into the back of the man. He toppled into his fellows. The three clung to each other as their feet left the bridge.
Standing on the bridge, Terith whirled again and again, his two swords lashed out, marking foes as quickly as they came, unaware that his arm was red with his own blood, the stain deepening in spurts.
An arrow ripped into his thigh and lodged against the bone.
Terith snapped the shaft as pain surged through his body and his leg collapsed. His awakening had passed.
A voice from the crossroads megalith drove him to his feet, a female voice.
“Get off the bridge!”
Enala?
But his enemies had closed the way. He was trapped on the bridge.
“No!”
Terith gave a mighty cry and charged desperately at the four warriors blocking his path back across the bridge. Attacking with his two swords, the two wooden shields splintered before the curved Outlander blade shattered against an ax.
Terith left the sharp stump of it in a warrior as he leapt onto the falling man’s back and sailed over two more, landing at the corner of the stone bridge. A great stone ripped down through the air, denting the earth just beyond Terith where it bounced and crushed a pair of Outlander braves.
The foundation on the east side was cracked, but Werm had missed the critical keystone. He would have to reload. That meant Terith had to hold the bridge for another two minutes.
Seizing the lapse, fresh warriors rushed at the intact bridge, with Terith as their only obstacle.
As Terith lifted his lone sword to defend himself from an Outlander who beat at him with heavy blows, a whistle sounded from back across the bridge.
Terith knew the sound well. It was his dragon call.
Mya was calling for Akara. But Akara was gone. He had freed her.
The perfect imitation of his dragon whistle came again. He parried another swipe and knocked the Outlander’s jaw askew with his gauntlet, only to catch a return hook in his ribs.
Terith head-butted the warrior as their hands locked on each other’s swords. He drove a knee forward and then dropped in a sweeping turn, trading swords with the foe and taking out his knees with his own blade. Terith took back his own sword as again the whistle sound came from behind him.
Mya hadn’t left.
“Get back!” Terith shouted. “Run!”
Terith whirled his swords desperately and to his surprise the clutch of warriors attacking him retreated backward.
A golden dragon soared over Terith’s head and charred a dozen warriors with a gust of blue and yellow flame.
Landing beside Terith on the defended side of the bridge, Akara beat her wings forward heavily. The force of the gust threw charging Outlanders on their back. Akara wheeled about, leveling foes with her tail, spouting more fire and then leveling three warriors with a crushing swipe of her clawed wing. The men were simply too slow to match the speed and power of a dragon attack.
Beyond her reach, an Outlander archer on the bridge pulled a red-tipped poison arrow from his downed compatriot and raised his bow.
But the warrior was shaken as a second catapult stone crashed into the side of the bridge. His arrow went harmlessly high.
Stones crumbled and dropped into the deep, but the keystone held.
“Akara!” Terith shouted. He whistled the call to knock down the stone battlements the Outlanders often built for cover against archer assaults.
The queen dragon turned her back, ducked a thrown spear, and hopped through the air toward the only stone object in the area—the bridge. The dragon thrashed the remaining Outlanders off the structure with her clawed wing-arms.
Her weight shifted the bridge and a stone separated from the edge and fell, exposing a keystone. Akara bent her head over the edge of the bridge grappling weak stones loose, widening the gap as she clawed with her strong hind legs, making frantic cries.
She’d destroyed a stone bridge once before near Erden, three summers previous, but this was a much larger bridge, manufactured by the greatest engineer the Montas had ever seen.
She needs more time. Terith dropped one of his swords and picked up a spear. He charged onto the center span of the bridge and heaved it at another archer. The spear, hurled by his wounded right arm, missed. But it set the archer off-balance and his arrow slipped off the bowstring.
Akara ripped the loose broken stones off the bridge with her feet and jaws until her hind claws closed around a keystone. Arrows flew and pierced her twice. Terith raced to Akara. He dropped an ax handle into a crack and levered weight off the keystone.
The mortar cracked once and then again. Akara beat furiously and at last, the granite keyston
e broke free and twisted downward out of her grasp and into the deep. Terith turned and ran back over the ruined bridge as the stones crumbled behind him into the abyss.
He leapt to safety on the Montazi side. Diving into the cover of the trees, Terith rolled and looked back.
Akara beat her wings once, turning in the air toward Terith. Blood gushed where the shaft of an arrow was buried deep in her chest. Her strokes stopped abruptly and she dropped into the deep, her golden scales glinting one last time in the dawn light.
“Akara!”
Terith rolled onto his back, heart and body torn. He struggled to remove the gauntlet on his wounded arm, but couldn’t grip the slick leather straps. He seemed to be swimming in blood he hadn’t felt moments before.
Ropes and grappling hooks sailed overhead.
Shouts of “Cut the ropes!” rang out as the few remaining foot soldiers rallied to defend the point of attack.
There were crashing sounds through the underbrush.
Someone was coming.
A moment later a familiar set of legs stood beside him.
Enala knocked an arrow, yanked hard on the string to pull it flush with her cheek, sighted without blinking and loosed the arrow with cool precision.
Satisfied by a scream from the opposite megalith, Enala ducked down and leaned over Terith protectively. “Mya,” she called quietly. “Come quickly.”
Mya stepped around a tree trunk, ducking behind a borrowed shield that two of her could have hid behind and wearing an oversized helmet.
“Guardians!” Mya gasped at the sight of the blood.
“What are you doing—” Terith started, before Enala interrupted.
“Saving your life.” Her voice determined.
Terith began to think beyond the hopeless moment of his last stand.
“So don’t get any ideas about dying on me now,” she said firmly.
Terith couldn’t see the extent of his injuries, but his waning strength promised a good deal of lost blood. An instant and terrible thirst came over him as he descended into shock. “Water.”
“Here,” Mya said. “Use my headband to tie that off.” She handed over a lacy headband and then scurried off. “I’ll get some water.”
Something cinched hard on Terith’s forearm. Then he was dragged face-first under a broad fern and rolled onto his back in the bottom half of a wide hollow log.
“Enala, why did you come?” Terith grunted.
“Must you talk?” Enala said desperately. She opened a small purse she had tied around her waist and pulled out a needle and thread. “Or would you rather I sew your lips shut?”
“A battlefield is no place for a woman. People get killed.”
“You were doing a pretty good job of that on your own,” Enala interrupted, “until I showed up.”
A needle dug into his arm, tugged, and then dug in again repeatedly, sewing the gaping wound shut.
Terith considered the incredible accuracy required to hit a moving warrior in the neck with an arrow. “Probably . . . just . . . got lucky,” he managed as a shot of pain caused him to clench his teeth.
“I could teach you a thing or two about getting lucky,” Enala offered, her tone becoming playful, “if you’re interested.”
Blackness gathered around the edges of his vision.
“Busy not dying just now,” Terith said, through clenched teeth. Crazed pangs of thirst seized him. “I just need . . . water,” he said, hearing the echo of his petition, wondering if he had said it. Terith felt as though the world were rolling over on top of him. He rolled his head from side to side, unable to shake off the vertigo.
Then it seemed like nothing mattered. There was nothing to worry about. The pain would soon be gone.
Breathing was a bother. The scene dissolved into bits of dream and lost words.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Enala said. She leaned forward and whispered. “I’ve been waiting for this.” She hovered with her lips an inch from Terith’s. “Haven’t you?”
She planted her lips on Terith’s in a deep kiss.
Terith’s waning awareness jolted in mix of pain and passion.
“Stop.” Terith fought for a breath, but the kissing continued.
His pulse beat with a new tempo as Enala’s lips pulled slowly away from his. He could feel her breath on his face, the smell of the orange blossom oil on her skin. “Enala, I’m engaged!” he protested as she moved to kiss his ear and neck.
“But you love it,” she said tantalizingly. “I know you do.”
Of course he did. He loved every second of it—which is precisely why he hated it. Terith tried to move but Enala had his arm pinned.
“Sit still. I don’t want these stitches pulling. Or maybe if I lay on top of you . . .” Enala said.
“Ribs cracked,” Terith protested.
“Oh, you just made that up,” she dismissed. “Now let’s get out of here.” She reached back and unclasped the dragon-wing cloak, letting it fall to the forest floor.
She was beautiful against the morning sky. But Terith’s vision went blurry. He shook his head as the effects of lost blood mounted.
“We have to go,” Enala asked.
“They have ropes. And I’m out of arrows. Everyone else seems to have evacuated.”
“You shouldn’t have come,” Terith said.
“But I did,” Enala said. Her voice was tight with emotion, as if she would cry. “Terith, I saved your life. I won’t let you die. I don’t care if you’re engaged or running into battle. I want you. I want you forever.”
Terith had much he wanted to say, and yet he couldn’t speak. She was wrong to take advantage of him, wrong to follow him into battle.
But she was right to love him. Terith was guilty of that friendship that had played with affection.
But it was innocent. Wasn’t it?
Clouds of doubt mixed with lingering feelings of pleasure at her touch.
Was it any different with Lilleth? He couldn’t imagine her face anymore. Enala’s blue eyes blocked out all else.
Enala’s foot shifted as she leaned closer and Terith’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. His mouth formed a gaping “Ow.”
Enala moved back. “What did I do?” She looked at his thigh and gasped. “Good granite, you’ve broken an arrow off inside your leg!” She opened a pouch tied around her waist that and drew out a pair of small scissors. She cut the ties to his thigh plate.
“You brought scissors?”
“You didn’t? Hmm. I’m going to have to take off your trousers.”
“No!” Terith gasped. “Just cut them.”
“Or . . . that,” Enala admitted with audible disappointment. She cut back the leather of his breaches. “There’s a fragment still in there—I can’t reach it.”
Mya returned with a familiar patter of feet. “They’re coming across on ropes. We have to leave.”
“Mya, quickly. Reach here. Your fingers are smaller. Can you get that piece?” Enala said hopefully.
“That wasn’t one of your arrows was it?” Terith grunted.
“If it was, you’d be dead like all the rest I shot,” Enala said indignantly.
Mya leaned over his thigh and grimaced. “Oh, this is really gross. I’m going to be sick.”
“Can you reach it?” Enala asked as she plied back Terith’s muscles.
“I can see it . . .” She reached into the wound, searching out the arrowhead.
Terith grunted, wishing a scorpion had bitten his leg so that it wouldn’t shake from the pain. His muscles hammered in protest as waves of pain raked up his body.
“It’s stuck—too slippery.”
“Wiggle it,” Terith groaned, eyes streaming with uncontrolled tears.
“All right, it’s loose. That’s it. It’s out. Thank the Guardians.”
/> Warmth and wetness spilled over his leg with fresh bouts of blood, followed by stinging as Enala poured cleansing water over the wound. Her sewing needle stabbed his skin again, stitching up the wound, a scarcely noticeable pain by comparison.
Mya opened the tie of a second water skin and poured it into his mouth slowly, patiently.
Terith tried to swallow, then lost awareness. He drifted.
Chapter 23
Montazi Realm. The Crossroads.
The ethereal tones of a soft song stirred in Terith’s ears, pulling him back. Returning to his senses, he saw Enala leaning over him, just as she had been. It had only been a momentary lapse of consciousness as far as he could tell, but it was still terrifying.
“Mya?” Terith asked weakly.
“Gone, with Werm. She said he was going to launch a rope pulley across to evacuate the last soldiers.”
That meant there were no dragons left to carry them across.
Dazed memories flashed images of the horror of Akara’s last fight. She was the only dragon he had ever known to return after being set free. It had been Akara’s four summers of battle experience that had led her to destroy the cannon with a stone, save Terith, and pull the keystone from the bridge. The loyal dragon had found the crux of the battle on her own, somehow knowing that Terith would be at the heart of it.
Akara was the last of the fighting dragons, and that meant Terith was the last dragon rider.
The chant of warriors heaving to a rhythm filtered through the trees. Outlanders must have already gotten across on a grappling line and were drawing a rope bridge across the narrow chasm.
“We have to get away from—” Terith began, but he closed his eyes as another wave of nausea rolled through him. His stomach tightened and his broken ribs burned anew. The anxiety of being on a soon-to-be occupied megalith was eclipsed by the jolt of pain.
“Terith, I have to tell you something,” Enala said. “It’s important. We only have a few moments.”
Terith opened his eyes and looked into hers. They shimmered with tears of emotion.
“Your mother is not from the Montas,” Enala said. “She was an Outlander.”
