by Watson Davis
The creature said something and darted forward, but then in pulled back, howling in pain, lifting its head up and shaking it from side to side, rising up on its back legs as its wings flew out. A harpoon had stuck into the creature’s skull, between its mighty horns. Tethan grabbed ahold of the creature’s spikes to steady himself. The dragon moved and Tethan’s hands slid to the tip of one of the spikes, his legs flying out into the air, his grip tightening.
Below him, on the roof of a building, Gartan stood staring up, a second harpoon in his hands, more at his feet, laughing and shouting, “Come on then, you pitiful excuse for a wyrm!” Dyuh Mon crouched on the roof tiles behind him, hugging another harpoon, eyes wide with fear.
The dragon rumbled, “Dyuh Mon,” and a series of words Tethan couldn’t understand.
Dyuh Mon dropped his harpoon and fled down a wooden ladder into the courtyard of a building. Gartan reared back with the harpoon, searching for a place to put it. Tethan climbed up the spikes, up the creature’s sinuous neck, to the top of its head, finding a place between the spikes and slipping his legs around that neck, squinting his own eyes against his mother’s spray of lights.
His hand grasping the spike before him, he pulled his axe from his belt and raised it over his head. Down below, Mitta stared up at Tethan, her mouth agape, an arrow nocked. Next to her, Davina’s arms churned.
The dragon drove downward, roaring, its claws poised to strike. Tethan squeezed his legs to maintain his seat and brought his axe down in a mighty chop on the rear of the beast’s skull, shattering the scales there, revealing pale green flesh beneath, with red blood oozing out from the wound.
The dragon whipped its neck around, shaking its head, rearing up and howling in pain and rage. Slung right, left, up, and then down, Tethan slid from his perch. He dropped his axe, and reached out with both hands to grab onto a long horn protruding from the creature’s head.
The dragon swiped with its claw at the place where he’d been sitting, scratching at the wound where Tethan had struck its skull, the creature’s claws pulling away more of the scales, exposing more of the tender flesh beneath.
“Inare!” Mitta screamed, launching more arrows into the creature’s head.
Tethan climbed down the horn, back to the rear of the creature’s great head and grabbed the shaft of the harpoon Gartan had thrown at the creature that was still embedded in its skull. He ripped the harpoon out with his right hand, his left still gripping the horn, his legs hugging the neck, and he drove the harpoon down into that delicate green flesh, down through the thing’s skull into its brain.
The dragon shuddered, swinging its great body around toward the sea, leaping into the air, its great wings beating once, twice. Tethan lost his grip and tumbled down the dragon’s neck, the scales tattering his clothes, ripping his skin. The dragon plummeted down into the harbor’s waters, and a huge wave washed up onto the docks.
# # #
Yaj Yath grimaced, squinting his eyes against the play of lights and explosions sparkling before him, reaching out with his hands to where he’d seen Dyuh Mon go. A flick of his wrist crushed a wall, revealing his objective: the old Librarian, the traitor, the fool, huddling with a spear of some sort beside a single Onei barbarian.
The dragon, who called herself Sunbami’istyi, squirmed under Yaj Yath’s mental control, the creature craving to shake the human from its back, to kill the archer shooting her tiny arrows in its eye, each one a pinprick of pain, wanting to spread its wings and take to the skies, to explore this new world to which the Eternal Council had summoned it, to find lesser dragons and wyrms on which to feast, to find treasure to hoard.
Yaj Yath denied the creature any free will, refused to allow it so much as to twitch an eyelid without his approval, believing above all else mastery and control must be imposed by pure force of will over inferior creatures at every turn, or they would begin to test the bounds of their freedom, much like Dyuh Mon had done, reading scrolls meant only for the eyes of the Eternal Council, communing with devils and demons.
“Dyuh Mon, you are a fool.” Yaj Yath struck at Dyuh Mon, the dragon’s neck stretching out, the dragon’s jaws opening, preparing to snatch Dyuh Mon from the ground. The dragon’s mouth watered at the thought of the taste of another human morsel. But a sharp pain exploded at the top of the dragon’s head, almost between its eyes, and the thing jerked back, fighting against Yaj Yath’s control, shaking its massive head to try to dislodge the pain, to throw it away.
The pain stayed, following every movement. The dragon intended to raise its claw to sweep the spear away, but Yaj Yath regained his control, forbidding the dragon that bit of satisfaction. The dragon’s eye began to hurt even more, the broken arrows in its eye scraping against its eyelid, causing it to try to close that eye and keep it closed; the lights hurt its head, confusing it.
That damned Onei, he hit me with one of those damned spears.
The Onei laughed, hoisting another one of the puny weapons, speaking in some barbarian tongue Yaj Yath didn’t understand although Sunbami’istyi recognized hints of words from an ancient tongue, the barbarian taunting, challenging, daring Sunbami’istyi to try again.
Yaj Yath growled, his words issuing from the dragon’s throat, “Dyuh Mon, you will now pay for your betrayal and your weakness.”
Dyuh Mon, his fear radiating from him like a beacon to the dragon, dropped his useless spear to the green roof tiles so prevalent in this quaint little city. He no longer tried to conceal himself, his pitiful magic swirling around him in a confused chaos. He scurried down a ladder leading down from the roof to a garden in the interior of the rectangular courtyard of flowers and delicate statues, the flowers shimmering in the dragon’s sight with colors humans could never perceive.
The dragon tensed her body, preparing to pounce down on that damned little white-skinned creature with both her fore claws, but Yaj Yath denied her that pleasure, forcing her to concentrate on the little Nayen fool sprinting across the courtyard on his tiny human legs.
Sunbami’istyi tightened the muscles in her mighty haunches, her wings flicking out to help guide her trajectory, her eyes focusing on the Nayen, disregarding the irritating lights, wishing it was another Nayen, and launched herself toward Dyuh Mon.
Another stab of pain, this time something smashing down on the back of the dragon’s head. The dragon whipped its head around, scratching at the back of its head with its claws, wanting to flee, to fly away, its head seeming to weigh more on one side than the other, but Yaj Yath forced the dragon to stay, forced it toward Dyuh Mon, despite the lights, despite the pain.
Pain.
Yaj Yath, sitting at the heart of a pentacle of sands and minerals from the nine infernal realms, candles burning at each point, reeled backward, tumbling out of the spell circle, his hands flailing, his legs kicking. The candles’ flames flared up. Yaj Yath rolled onto his hands and knees, his world a much smaller place, his senses a shadow of the dragon’s, the inexplicable range of the dragon’s vision lost to just what humans can see. The Shrian port city with the ships and buildings stretching across the delta was replaced by a cold room of stone, and he lost the comfort of the warm air on her scales, the wind filling her wings.
“Yaj Yath, what has happened?” Gal-nya’s voice whispered in his ear. “Is the deed done?”
“I—” Yaj Yath gulped, staring down at his pitiful hands. “I lost the connection.”
“The spell appeared strong,” Gal-nya said, her cold eyes studying him as she leaned forward on her throne.
“Yes,” Yaj Yath said, “I had complete control of the beast.”
Lord Nof-ki asked, “If you had such control, how was it that you lost your connection?”
“Did you kill him?” Lord Sissola demanded, his mighty spear leaning against his knee, the blade burning with blue flame—the same blue flame that emanated from the eyes of his helmet—his gleaming blue and silver plate mail creaking as he shifted his position.
Yaj Yath eased back, f
lattening his shins onto the dank stone, sitting his hind end on his heels, and folding his shaking hands together and settling them on his lap—remembering when they were claws and dangerous, but now just hands. “I found him in Shria, on a ship in the bay.”
“And the dragon?” Mistress Gal-nya stood from her throne along the far wall, one of five thrones deep in the shadows, far from the light of Yaj Yath’s candles, her outline faint in the darkness.
Yaj Yath hesitated, afraid to speak.
“Is the traitor dead?” Lord Sissola asked, his voice rumbling, overriding Gal-nya’s question, dripping with disdain.
Gal-nya turned toward Lord Sissola, her bitterest rival, her sometime lover. “The spell ended badly. If you wish to leave a dragon of Disadyi free to wreak destruction in the northern lands, I would not be against it, but if it comes seeking revenge, I shall refer it to you.”
Lord Sissola sneered. “I do not fear a dragon.”
“That’s only because you didn’t have to tame yours,” Gal-nya said, glaring at him.
Lady Yut-hosa raised her clawlike hands for silence, her hair shifting toward Lord Sissola, to Lady Gal-nya, toward Yaj Yath, as though the strands had a life, a sentience, of their own. She said, “Speak, Yaj Yath. Tell us of your ordeal.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.” Yaj Yath nodded, lowering his forehead to the cold stone floor, raising it to speak. “Dyuh Mon had hidden himself with his spellcraft. But with the dragon’s superior senses, I tracked him and found the ship on which he was hiding. I destroyed it, but he survived.”
“We should have killed him when we learned he’d read even a word of Vellin’s rantings,” Lord Yakiyun said. “Once they lose concentration, it’s over.”
Yaj Yath fell silent, inclining his head, not daring to speak over one of the Eternal Council.
“Tell me you destroyed him,” Lord Sissola said, slamming his palm on the arm of his stone throne, the entire room reverberating from the impact. Bits of dust drifted down from the shifting vaulted roof above, the dust hanging in the air. “That is all I wish to hear.”
“No,” Yaj Yath said, shaking his head. “I commanded the dragon to attack, but the Onei fought back.”
“I fail to see the relationship between ordering the dragon to kill Dyuh Mon and a few witless savages,” Lord Yakiyun said.
Yaj Yath considered the consequence of failing his lords, and his intestines spasmed, sweat breaking out on his forehead, bile rising up in the back of his throat. He licked his dry lips. “I believe an Onei slew the dragon.”
“How is such a thing possible?” Gal-nya asked. “They are not so powerful, these little barbarians.”
“Dyuh Mon is not dead,” Lord Sissola said, his voice rising in volume. “We must summon another dragon.”
“Be calm for once in your fool life, my dear,” Gal-nya said, her voice silky smooth, her image lowering back into its throne.
“He is not dead!” Lord Sissola yelled, lurching to his feet. He stomped down the steps from the thrones to the room’s floor, crossing the intervening distance with heavy steps, each step crushing the bones of the people sacrificed to summon the dragon, to control the dragon.
Behind Yaj Yath, robes shifted, rustling as the other summoners and clerics backed away from Yaj Yath, who forced himself to be perfectly still, focusing his gaze on the upended candle still burning before him, a black mark growing on the stone.
“How did they kill the dragon?” Lord Nof-ki asked. “Magic? An army? What manner of strength do they have?”
Lord Sissola stopped at the edge of the summoning circle, glaring down at Yaj Yath, his massive fists on his hips, his helmet hiding all trace of his face save for his glowing eyes. His silver and blue mail glistened in the candlelight, and his boots were splattered with blood.
Gal-nya darted in between them, hissing like a serpent, and placed her thin fingers on Lord Sissola’s chest. She pushed him back. “Control yourself.”
“My question,” Lord Nof-ki said, his voice louder.
Yaj Yath gulped. “I believe an Onei warrior climbed the back of the dragon and drove a spear into its brain.”
“These Onei vex me,” Gal-nya said.
Tethan's Speech
Gartan propped himself up on his elbows, staring across the hall of the king’s palace, which was now lined with cots and hammocks. Peira and Makal lay on cots across from him, Peira grumbling as a Brightfox shaman worked on her foot, Makal snoring. Simthil reclined against the wall with two jugs beside him.
“Lie back down,” Davina said, her hand pressing on Gartan’s chest. “I’ve a lot to patch up, and not much of you left healthy enough to use in the patching.”
“Psssh.” Gartan turned his head from her, snaking his arm around her waist, drawing her closer to him as he peered out the window, across the courtyard and into a large room with cots set up not unlike those in his room, but instead of Onei, or even Shrian warriors, it held children. Gartan nodded toward them. “What is that over there?”
“Orphans,” Davina said, her voice distracted.
“King’s Bane!” a woman’s voice said from out in the hall outside the door to Gartan’s room.
Gartan arched his back, peering past Davina to the room across the hall, the room where a Greathouse healer tended to Tethan.
An uninjured Onei squeezed into the doorway, bending and craning her neck to look in at Tethan’s cot across the hall. Two more Onei, bandages around their arms and heads, leaned around into the doorway, raising their fists in salute to Tethan, chanting, “Dragonslayer! King’s Bane!”
Tethan shook his head, a weary smile on his bruised lips. The harpoon he’d used to kill the dragon leaned against the wall in the corner by his cot, the same harpoon Gartan had thrown at the beast, trying to strike its eye, trying to drive the point home to the creature’s brain, but failing.
“Our boy is a great hero,” Gartan said, a grin growing on his face.
“Hmm.” Davina applied a salve to Gartan’s burned skin. “I almost lost both of you.”
The salve was colder than the northernmost waste, the cold seeping through him into his bones, and Gartan grimaced and pulled away from her. “That’s cold.”
Davina put her palm on his chest, her face looming up before his, her ice-blue eyes locking onto his. “Lay your hardheaded arse down. Now.”
Gartan sighed, sliding back down, each of the cuts on his back pressing down on the linen sheets from some noble’s closet as he stared up at the golden florid designs raised from the pure white background of the ceiling.
“Even the Brightfoxes and Icefangs love him,” she whispered, her fingers pressing against the wound in his shoulder. Magic radiated through his shoulder, warm magic with the scent of the wild flowers blooming in the lowland valleys in the spring, and the wound closed up, the tissue repairing. “Perhaps that can be of use.”
“Yes.” Gartan nodded, his eyelids heavy, exhausted, his indomitable energy directed by Davina into the healing of his wounds. “I must think on that. But what of the Nayen?”
Davina’s face hardened. She squinted, and withdrew her hands from Gartan’s shoulder. “Speak of the devils and they shall appear before you.”
Kalo appeared at Gartan’s left side, across from Davina.
Davina nodded to her and, caressing Gartan’s cheek, said, “I’m going to check on Tethan. He has too many admirers now.”
She marched away, her back ramrod straight.
Kalo wore a blood-soaked bandage around her head that covered her left eye, with an arm in a sling. Her hair—pulled back into a ponytail—revealed not only the scar on her cheek but also another jagged scar peeking up from underneath her loosened collar; her clothes were a simple Shrian tunic and pants.
“No silk?” Gartan asked, forcing the Shrian from his mouth, stumbling over the words.
She smiled and shrugged, moving one hand gracefully like a boat bobbing on the surface of the waves. She lifted her hand up and let it flop down again, making a sad
face. “Those not in the harbor are all torn and dirty.”
“Aw, poor girl.” Gartan pursed his lips and then fought back a yawn.
She turned, gesturing, and Dyuh Mon strode up, his face pinched and serious. He bowed. Kalo peered at Dyuh Mon, nodding, waving her hand for him to continue.
“Thank you,” Dyuh Mon said, speaking each word carefully, precisely, like an incantation, glancing over at Kalo. “You save my life.”
Kalo patted the man on the back. She looked down at Gartan expectantly, and said some Shrian words he couldn’t follow, tilting her head and ending with, “Understand?”
Gartan grinned, lifting himself up on his right elbow. He reached out with his left hand and grabbed Dyuh Mon behind his neck, pulling him forward. With their faces inches apart, Gartan said, “Welcome.”
“You save my life.” Dyuh Mon placed his palm on Gartan’s chest, patting it. “Come to Nayengim. More treasure than you imagine.”
# # #
Tethan propped himself up on the cot, turning himself to sit with his back against the wall and his feet on the ground. He shook his head. “You look worse than I feel, and that’s not good.”
“That’s what I get for following your father,” Nohel said, his words slurred by his bloated lips. He shook his head. His eyes were swollen shut, and he had dried blood smeared on his face, chest, and hands. “Should have stayed on the docks with you and been a huge hero.”
“I don’t know,” Mitta said from her seat by the window, her foot raised and sitting on a table before her, still glowing from the healing magic applied to it, her arms and torso wrapped tight with bandages. “I was on those docks fighting those big, pig-headed monsters, and the only hero anyone’s going to be talking about is Tethan.”
“A Shrian said they’re called orcs, and that they’re summoned from one hell or another,” Tethan said.
Tayna jogged through the door with a cut on her chin and bandages on her hands, her eyes wide, her gaze meeting Tethan’s. Tethan’s heart skipped; he sat a bit straighter, easing himself off to the edge of the cot, preparing to stand, but Tayna turned to Nohel, throwing herself down next to him, wrapping her arms around him.
