Secret of the Dragon

by Margaret Weis

  They rode out of the bowl of the arena. Once they reached the top of the hill, all they could see was rain and smoke, fire and death. They rode on.

  Raegar ran through the city streets toward the shrine of Aelon, where the warrior-priests were gathered. He prayed as he ran. “Aelon, I can help you fight this battle, but you must help me! You must keep me alive!”

  He said the prayer over and over, and either the god granted his prayer or Raegar was blessed by being far taller and stronger than most men. He waded through flood waters that carried others away. He shoved aside heaps of rubble that impeded his path. Hit by flying debris, he shrugged off the pain and kept going.

  The streets had turned into rivers. Bodies floated past him, bumped up against his legs. Here and there, some wretched survivor floundered in the water, searching for loved ones, crying out for help. Many of the buildings had collapsed or were collapsing.

  Raegar ran on. Xydis was dead. Probably the Empress was dead, as well, as were many of the nobles who had been with her in the grandstand. Raegar was wounded, but he was alive. Sinaria was wounded, but she, too, would survive. Sinaria would need a leader, someone to take charge in this time of crisis, someone to stand defiant, someone to fight back.

  When Raegar reached the Shrine, he saw, with fast-beating heart, that it was still standing. He found men and women gathered outside, pounding on the doors, which were bolted fast, keeping the unworthy from entering.

  Raegar shoved people aside and beat on the doors, shouting, “I bring word from Xydis!”

  They opened the door to him and he plunged through it. The wretched people outside tried to cram their way in. The warrior-priests pushed them out and slammed the door shut.

  The Shrine was filled with Temple guards and warrior-priests. They had gone out to man the barricades and do battle, but when the dragon struck, they gave up the fight to seek refuge with the god.

  Raegar was astonished at the relative quiet inside the Shrine. His ears rang with the din of the chaos outside, and for a moment the ringing drowned out the voices of those who gathered around him demanding news.

  Raegar needed everyone to hear him, and he began to shoulder his way through the crowd. Mounting the podium, Raegar assessed the situation. He could not have asked for better. No one was in charge. No one had taken command. No one knew for certain what was going on. Rumors were flying; the latest being that the ogres were on their way to slaughter everyone.

  He raised his hands and a hush fell. His imposing height and impressive appearance served him well. He was accustomed to the acoustics of the building, knew where to pitch his voice to gain the maximum effect.

  “It is my sad duty to report that Priest-General Xydis is dead,” Raegar announced. “He died in my arms of wounds suffered battling the dragon.”

  Gasps and cries rippled through the crowd.

  “We commend his soul to Aelon,” Raegar continued, his voice strengthening, “but now is not the time to grieve. Now is the time for action. The ogres set fire to our city. Their evil gods flooded our streets. The dragon summoned by Aelon did battle with them, and our god has been victorious! Our enemies are defeated. Even now, the ogre warriors are fleeing our city in panic.”

  Raegar was lying, of course. He looked down at the faces gazing up at him, faces that had been pale with fear but were now flushed with hope. They needed to believe Aelon was still in control, still watching over them.

  His voice boomed and thundered around the hall. “It is true that countless numbers of our people have been killed. It is true that much of Sinaria lies in ruins. I have heard that our beloved Empress may be among the dead. My faith wavered. I doubted in Aelon. Yes, I admit it!”

  His gaze swept those in the Temple. No one spoke. No one dared to breathe.

  “I was given to know the truth. My faith is being tested. Aelon is asking me if I am strong enough to go forward in faith, carrying his banner, to complete the destruction of our foes!”

  The crowd cheered. No more sneers, no more insults. These fine people were ready to follow him, the slave, the barbarian.

  “Our enemies are now escaping Sinaria with a great treasure in their possession! A treasure they stole from us when their gods murdered the Priest-General. I say we go after them and take it back! Who is with me?”

  The cheering was thunderous. Raegar had a difficult time forcing people to quiet down long enough to listen to his plan.

  “Our path will not be easy,” he told them. “We will have to leave this place of safety and endure the flood and the fire. But be assured, as I am, that Aelon is with us, that his hand will guide us.”

  He issued commands and men hastened to obey him. As for Raegar, his faith was restored. He had no doubts. Somewhere in heaven, Aelon vowed revenge.

  CHAPTER

  18

  * * *

  BOOK THREE

  The dragon, trailing fire from its wings and hurling bolts of lightning, swept over the city, the flames burning so hot that the deluge of rainwater could not put out the fires. The wind-whipped inferno leaped from building to building. Those trapped inside rushed out, only to drown in the flash floods that had turned streets into rivers. The barricades caught fire and were swept away. Burning wreckage swirling on top of blazing water surged down the streets setting fire to everything it touched.

  Skylan saw at once that riding into the city was to ride into certain death. Acronis realized the same and turned his horse’s head. Without a word, they followed the Legate. They galloped across grasslands, rode through olive groves, trampled vineyards. They saw farm houses in flames, cattle and sheep and pigs running wild or lying dead in the fields. They found bridges washed out and had to ford raging streams.

  Skylan immediately lost all sense of direction and he wondered how Acronis knew where he was. His way lit by the flaring lightning and the lurid glow of blazing pine trees, Acronis rode on unerringly, pausing at the tops of hills and rises to get his bearings, then leading them on. When the fire-streaming wings and hideous roar came close, Skylan and his comrades sought shelter in ravines, hunkering down, enduring the terror until the dragon had flown on to wreak havoc somewhere else.

  They rode and rode until they came upon one of the man-made sluices that carried waste from the city. Skylan saw objects bobbing in the water. At first he thought they were logs and then a sheet of lightning swept across the sky. He saw faces and he realized that the logs were corpses, hundreds of corpses. He sat on his horse gazing into the murky water, into the staring eyes and gaping mouths, the straggling hair and cold flesh, and he knew he would see this terrible sight until his own eyes closed in death.

  The bridge across the sluice was gone. They would have to ride through the dreadful river of carnage. Acronis led the way, urging his horse to keep going even when the bodies bumped into the beast, causing it to shudder.

  “Don’t look, Treia,” Aylaen said, urging her horse forward.

  “Look, Treia!” Skylan wanted to shout. He wanted to seize her and force her to look at what she’d done. Treia rode slumped over, her head pressed against Aylaen’s back. Her eyes were tightly shut.

  Aylaen made it as far as the bank of the sluice and then her horse stopped, shaking its head and shivering. Keeper took the reins from her hand and pulled the terrified horse through the water.

  Skylan waited until the rest were safely across before he entered the horror-filled stream. A glint of metal caught his eye. He looked down to see a body wearing armor. The dead man’s eyes stared straight into his and Skylan recognized Zahakis.

  Skylan checked his horse. He didn’t know what to do. He could call Acronis, perhaps carry the body out of the water. But even as the thought crossed his mind, he had to let it go. The dead were with the gods. This was a night when the living had to look after themselves. “We will meet in Torval’s Hall,” Skylan told Zahakis.

  The body collided with another body and slowly turned in the water and drifted on down the stream.

  Sk
ylan urged his horse on.

  They rode so long that he was afraid they were lost, and then he recognized, in a lightning flash, the practice field at the villa. Skylan took heart; they were not far now from the river where, hopefully, Sigurd was still waiting for them.

  Acronis, eager to reach home, pushed his tired horse and galloped ahead of them. Then he jerked on the reins so sharply that his horse twisted and nearly foundered. Acronis sat in the saddle staring straight ahead, his face gray and set as a granite cliff in the rain.

  His villa was on fire. Flames were eating through the roof and flaming from the windows. The outbuildings constructed of timber were all ablaze. The trees, the roses, the atrium that Chloe loved, were piles of ashes. As they watched, part of the roof collapsed, sending up an immense cloud of cinders and sparks.

  “I remember you told me once that you send your warriors to meet their god in ships of fire,” said Acronis. His voice was toneless, held no emotion. Skylan could see the flames reflected in the man’s dark eyes.

  Around them, the wind had lessened, the rain plummeted straight down, the lightning spread across the sky in sheets of blue-white.

  “My daughter’s funeral pyre,” said Acronis, and a bleak smile touched his lips. He sighed and his voice quivered. “She would like this much better than being entombed in the catacombs. She wouldn’t have liked the dark.”

  A bolt of lightning sizzled through the air, striking a nearby tree. They were so used to the noise that none of them flinched.

  Acronis stirred. “Where is your ship?”

  “My men carried it to the river.”

  “You plan to sail downriver to the sea?”

  Skylan nodded. He was keeping a wary eye out for the dragon.

  “Navigating the river is tricky, especially now that the waters are rising. I have sailed it since I was a child,” said Acronis. “You will need my help.” He glanced at Skylan. “If you will have me.”

  Skylan was astonished. He didn’t know what to say. He could imagine Sigurd’s reaction, that of the others. They might well kill Acronis the moment he set foot on the ship, and Skylan didn’t know that he would much blame them.

  “Poor Zahakis,” said Acronis. “This is not much of an inheritance. Still, he will have the land. He can build his own villa.”

  “What are you doing?” Keeper roared, riding up to them. The rain was increasing. Hailstones began to fall again, rattling on Skylan’s helm and his armor. “Waiting for the world to end?”

  They kicked their weary horses to a trot and rode down the steeply sloping hills toward the slave compound. Skylan had been worried that something might have happened to prevent his men from hauling the Venjekar to the river, but the ship was gone and Skylan breathed easier.

  He rode around the back of the compound and bent down over his horse’s neck, searching for signs of his ship’s passage. He found the trench the keel had cut into the ground, the flattened grass on either side. The trail was easy to follow and gave all of them renewed hope.

  The dragon was still marauding, still raining down destruction from the heavens. One lightning bolt would turn the Venjekar into a fire ship. He would sail down a flooding river out to sea where the ogre fleet was between him and home.

  Still, Skylan clung to the belief that if he could reach the Venjekar, all would be well. The Torgun had their freedom and they had their ship and they had their dragon. The Torgun stood together. Nothing could stop them. In his mind, he was already setting his foot upon the soil of his homeland.

  Which made it all the more shocking to reach the bank of the river and find the Venjekar gone.

  CHAPTER

  19

  * * *

  BOOK THREE

  Skylan roamed the riverbank, cursing Sigurd for a fool and a coward for sailing off and abandoning his friends. But Skylan did Sigurd an injustice. Sigurd might be many things, but he was neither a fool nor a coward. The Dragon Kahg had made the decision to run.

  The Torgun were elated with their freedom. They lifted up the Venjekar, and though their numbers were far fewer than would have normally been needed, they were able to haul the ship over the wall and drag the ship, singing, down to the river.

  They were about halfway there when Wulfe appeared. Sigurd scowled to see the boy and told him to get lost. Instead of obeying, Wulfe handed him the spiritbone.

  “Skylan said you would like me now,” said Wulfe.

  Sigurd stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Where did you get that?” He snatched the spiritbone from Wulfe.

  “The dragon gave it to me,” said Wulfe. “I gave it to Aylaen and she gave it to Skylan and he said I was to bring it to you.”

  “Where is Skylan?” Sigurd asked.

  Wulfe shrugged. He had no idea.

  Mystified, Sigurd looked at the dragon. Kahg’s eyes gleamed red in the darkness. Sigurd shrugged and ordered the men to keep going.

  They launched the ship in the river at about the time Treia was pouring water on the fire in the fire pit. The Torgun boarded and were breaking out the oars, Wulfe was scampering down into the hold, and Sigurd was hanging the spiritbone on the nail on the prow when the Vektan dragon spread its wings and blotted out the stars.

  The Dragon Kahg looked into the heavens, and although he had never before seen one of the Five, he recognized it immediately.

  The Five Vektan dragons. All dragons honored and revered these wondrous creatures that were godlike, wise and powerful, all-seeing and all-knowing.

  Ilyrion, the great dragon who had created the world and fought Torval for a thousand years, had not been defeated by Torval, as the Vindrasi believed. Dragons believed that Ilyrion, seeing that their battle was having devastating effects on the world she loved, had sacrificed herself. The Five Vektan dragons sprang from her bony crest as her blood rained down from the heavens.

  The world belonged to the Vektan Five. Torval and the other gods were viewed by the dragons as the world’s caretakers. Vindrash, born of the blood of Ilyrion, served the Five, giving each of five gods one of the Five spiritbones to keep safe.

  Eons passed and other strange gods found the world and sought to dislodge the old gods. These interlopers could not find the power of creation; they had no idea it had been embodied in the Five Vektan dragons. Thus Kahg had been furious to discover that Horg had given one of the spiritbones of the Vektia to the ogres and the Gods of Raj. The dragons had been appalled to discover Sund’s betrayal, that he had given yet another spiritbone to Aelon.

  The dragons did not blame Vindrash for the losses. Their dragon goddess had been driven to the extreme of taking on human form in order to hide from her foes, who were growing in strength. The dragons were starting to fear that the old gods might be too weak to survive.

  Now would come the time of the Vektia. Now the Five would return in triumph. Dragons, true dragons, would save the world.

  “I will fly with him, the greatest of our kind,” Kahg vowed, and his being began to coalesce around his spiritbone.

  To fly with the Vektia! What dragon did not dream of that? Kahg would be nothing, of course. A grain of sand amidst glittering diamonds. The Vektan dragon would not even deign to notice him. But to see with his own eyes such magnificence, such awful beauty. To be able to live the rest of his life knowing he had flown in the shadow of the wings of gods.

  But the shadow was dark and bloated. It blotted out the stars and swallowed the moon. It looked like death given wings, a tail, a head, and a crest. Death made to look like a dragon. Death made in mockery of dragons.

  The Dragon Kahg was baffled. What was this hideous monster? Where was the Vektia?

  Lightning crackled from the dragon’s claws. The beast opened its hideous maw and a roaring wind swept down from the heavens, flattening the willow trees on the distant side of the bank, tearing the roots from the ground with rending, snapping sounds, and hurling them into the river. The wind struck the Venjekar a blow that seemed to Kahg to be personal, malevolent, aime
d at him. The ship heeled and nearly went under.

  It was then Kahg knew the truth as the gods had always known. Creation is destruction. Destruct to create. Create to destroy.

  The Dragon Kahg struggled to right the ship in the lashing rain, to keep it afloat. The Venjekar left the shore and began to sail away.

  “Sigurd! Stop!” Bjorn cried. “What are you doing? We have to wait for Skylan and Aylaen!”

  “I’m not the one sailing the goddam ship!” Sigurd roared. He pointed at the dragon.

  Shaken to the soul, Kahg wanted only to flee the hideous thing in the sky. He roared out the name of Vindrash. The goddess either could not or would not answer.

  Hailstones thudded on the deck and the heads of the Torgun, driving them to seek shelter in the hold. Lightning smeared the sky. The smoke of the burning city lay on the banks like a hideous fog. The Venjekar crept along, hugging the shore, hiding among the rushes and the trailing branches of the ruined willows.

  Kahg could hear the Vektia rampaging through the heavens, hear its howling. Its fury was mindless. The Vektia, wise and all-knowing. Kahg could have wept if he hadn’t been so enraged. He hid the ship beneath the trees, not because he feared the Vektia might see him, but because he did not want to see it. He loathed the sight of it, made to look like a dragon.

  Something hard and sharp struck him on his carved wooden snout. At first Kahg thought he’d been hit by a bit of windblown debris, but then the object struck him again, this time harder, chipping off a chunk of wood. He looked to see a hammer fall back to the deck, narrowly missing the boy who had thrown it.

  Kahg glared. The faery child. The boy was a sodden mess; he seemed oblivious to the rain. He picked up the hammer by its wooden handle, careful not to touch the iron head, and brandished it threateningly.

  “You have to go back for Skylan!” Wulfe cried.

  Skylan, Kahg thought. Which one was Skylan? The dragon could not keep all these humans straight. The ship kept moving.