Dragon Rise (The Dragonwalker Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “What should we—”

  Her eyes widened, and Fes spun, turning to see a pair of Dragon Guards approaching. Both men eyed the dragonglass blade Fes carried. He didn’t give them a chance and lunged forward, already trying to reach that source of anger that seethed within him.

  He reached the first guard before he’d managed to unsheathe his own sword, and jabbed him in the shoulder, spinning around and catching him on the other arm. The man grunted, and one of Jayell’s spells struck him in the chest, knocking him back.

  Turning to the other man, Fes noted that he carried a simple steel blade. Not all of the Dragon Guard were armed with dragonglass. That was important somehow, though he didn’t quite know why.

  This man was skilled, and he darted toward Fes, sweeping his sword in a short arc that was almost more than what Fes could defend. He stepped back, holding up the sword to deflect the next attack and trying to calculate what he needed to do to avoid the soldier.

  While he was contemplating, Jayell slammed a spell into him, and he went flying back to land in a heap along the side of the street.

  “Now that you have a supply of relics, you’re useful.”

  She frowned at him. “Now I’m useful?”

  “Before you were mostly a burden.”

  She pointed the dragon claw at him and a spell built.

  It exploded, streaking over him.

  Fes turned and saw a third Dragon Guard that he hadn’t observed lying crumpled on the street.

  He’d missed that one, though Jayell hadn’t. He needed to be careful.

  “Will they have detected your use of magic?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Then we should keep going,” Fes said.

  They made their way along the side streets, with Jayell leading. She seemed to know generally where she was going, though every so often she would pause and look along intersecting streets, almost as if trying to determine which way she needed to go. When they continued forward, she frowned.

  “You don’t know how to find it from here?” he asked.

  “I can find it,” she said. “It’s just…”

  They turned a corner and came face-to-face with a fire mage. Dressed in a dark robe, she was carrying a length of dragon bone, holding it down at her side, heat building from it. The fact that he had noticed countless spells slamming against his awareness had prevented Fes from detecting her before now.

  Maybe that was their intent as much as anything. Maybe they wanted to overwhelm his ability to pick up on individual fire mages by distracting him.

  Jayell pointed her dragon claw at the fire mage and sent an explosion at her.

  The other mage caught the explosion with the length of bone, holding on to it, and a dark smile crossed her face. “You haven’t learned much in your time away.”

  She started to form a fireball and Fes jumped in front of Jayell, preventing the fire mage from striking her. As the fireball formed in her hand, he slashed at it with the sword, cutting through the spell and crashing into the fire mage. She stumbled back, falling to the stones and dropping the length of bone.

  “You won’t escape,” she said.

  “I’ll take my chance,” Fes said and pulled his foot back as if to kick her, but Jayell got there first and sent an explosion under her, knocking the fire mage back.

  “I’ve never liked her,” she said.

  “You knew her?”

  “We were embers together. She was promoted quickly. She liked to make sure that I knew it.”

  Jayell began to sort through the woman’s belongings, and Fes watched, frowning. The fire mage carried a large leather satchel strapped to her waist. Jayell dipped her hand in, pulling out one item after another.

  “I didn’t expect her to be so well stocked,” she said.

  As he watched, she continued to search through the other woman’s belongings and removed a few dragon artifacts. Most of them were smaller. Several dragon claws. What appeared to be a tooth. A length of bone—though this was longer than the others. Lastly, she pulled out a small dragon pearl.

  Her eyes widened as she looked at it. Like the one Fes had taken off the fire mage in the temple, this was large, nearly the size of the palm of her hand, and it had streaks of yellow running through it, dark enough that Fes could see them even at night.

  “Go ahead, put in your pocket.”

  Jayell looked over at him. “She shouldn’t have something like this,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “The dragon pearls have been restricted.”

  “The fire mage we encountered earlier had one.”

  “He would have had to have been a second degree or higher.”

  “You don’t think that she’s a second degree?”

  Jayell stared at the fallen fire mage. Her chest rose and fell, but she didn’t stir. “Progressing from first degree to the second degree is difficult. It’s even more difficult than passing from an ember to the first degree.”

  She continued to search through the other woman’s belongings, pocketing any dragon artifacts that she found. When she was done, she started to stand before hesitating and reaching her hand back into the satchel.

  “What’s that?” Fes asked, eyeing the book that Jayell had grabbed.

  “It would be her ledger,” she said.

  “Ledger?”

  Jayell nodded, quickly flipping through the pages. “This… This will be helpful.”

  “Because she’s higher ranking than you?”

  Jayell looked over. “Because she’s continued to study here. She has instruction that I never received. With this, I might be able to figure out some of the things that have eluded me.”

  “You seem to be doing pretty well.”

  “Most of the things that I’ve been able to do have involved explosive type of spells,” she said. She grabbed Fes by the arm and started off down the street. “Anything with more intricacies has been beyond me. Think about the barrier that held you when we first came across you.”

  “I remember it.” Elizabeth had confined him, trapping him with a spell, making it so that he couldn’t move at all. If nothing else, he wanted to get stronger with his connection to his Deshazl side so that didn’t happen to him again.

  “I can’t do anything quite like that. Maybe in time, I’ll be able to, but right now my power is restricted to explosive types of magic.”

  That made sense. Fes had seen other fire mages performing their magic, and those with more power and experience had been able to do things that he hadn’t seen from Jayell. Some of those mages could create fireballs, destructive forces that Fes was lucky he was able to overcome. Others had different abilities, such as Elizabeth and her capacity to hold a barrier spell.

  They raced along the streets, thankfully not seeing any more fire mages or members of the Dragon Guard, though Fes didn’t stop searching for signs of them. With each new intersecting street, he worried they would come across someone else, and he remained ready, prepared for the possibility that someone might surprise them. Thankfully there hadn’t been anyone.

  Heat continued to press upon him, the power of the fire mages pulsing around him. It was an impressive amount of spell work and more than he’d ever detected in any one place, even more than what he’d faced when in the dragon plains. There it had only been a single fire mage, though powerful. Here, he worried there would be countless others like Reina, each of them equally powerful.

  The edge of the city loomed into view, and gentle hills rose up behind. Jayell picked up her pace, walking with a hurried and determined step as they made their way to the edge of the city. Not much further, and he thought that they might finally be able to get to safety. Could this crazy plan actually succeed?

  It had been dangerous from the beginning, and it was one that he had hesitated attempting, but they needed more artifacts. Without trying, they ran the risk of being overpowered by other fire mages, the rebellion, or even the Dragon Guard. Even with their attempt,
it was still possible that they would not have enough strength.

  “Fes,” Jayell said, tapping his arm.

  He turned and noticed a pair of fire mages approaching from the shadows of a building. They carried something together, a length of bone that was much larger than any Fes had seen before.

  “What is that?” he whispered.

  “Oh. No. We need to—”

  The heat and power that built from the massive bone were more than Fes expected. It built rapidly, growing so quickly that he barely had time to react. He positioned himself in front of Jayell, one sword unsheathed, and slashed at the spell as it exploded toward them.

  He’d wondered how the fire mages had managed such powerful spells and how they had been able to continually use power, thinking that they would eventually run out of dragon relics to do so. Seeing this demonstration, the way the fire mages were able to use an enormous length of bone, answered that question.

  The spell exploded around him, splitting on either side of the sword, but it was much more potent than any other spell he had attempted to divert, and even though he managed to avoid getting caught by its power, Jayell’s gasp told him that she had not been.

  Fes didn’t have an opportunity to look down to see what had happened to her. He didn’t trust himself to do so, not with these two fire mages stalking toward him, both of them still holding onto the enormous bone.

  He charged forward, keeping an eye on the fire mages who worked together to point the length of bone at him. Power began to build, almost more than he could fathom. The spell they would unleash would be nearly rival what Reina had managed when he had faced her out on the dragon plain.

  Fes reached for the other sword.

  The spell exploded.

  He crossed the blades, doing the same as he once had done with his daggers. Managing it with two dragonglass swords wasn’t nearly as easy, but he’d used the sword enough that he had experience controlling it.

  The spell slammed into the crossed swords and Fes was nearly thrown back. He anchored himself, planting his feet so that he didn’t get driven away, and pushed against the effect of the spell. For a moment, he feared he wouldn’t be strong enough, even anchored as he now was, but the power from the spell began to fade, his ability to withstand it improving as he kept the swords crossed in front of him. He slashed out with them and forced the spell back upon the fire mages.

  The look of surprise on the nearest fire mage’s face would have been rewarding had Fes not feared that he still hadn’t been fast enough.

  Both men collapsed, and he turned back to Jayell.

  But she was gone.

  He swore under his breath.

  She wouldn’t disappear. She was strong enough that she didn’t run from a fight.

  That left a more dangerous possibility: Capture.

  He looked around, searching for signs of whoever else might have gotten to her, but there wasn’t anyone. He saw no sign of Dragon Guards, and he saw no sign of any other fire mages. The street was empty.

  Something slammed into his back, and he spun, realizing that he’d lingered too long. The fire mage they’d disarmed and confiscated items from pointed a small dragon bone at him, and her eyes widened when Fes didn’t fall. He slashed at her, thinking that he could swipe away the magic she demonstrated, but his slashing did nothing.

  There were other fire mages.

  Almost too late, he realized that he was surrounded. He spun, looking for the easiest way out, and found only a single fire mage—and two Dragon Guards—blocking one of the streets. The other ways out had far more mages preventing his movement.

  He raced toward the fire mage, ignoring the Dragon Guards for now. He needed to cut down any attempt at a spell before they attacked him again. When he reached this fire mage, he stabbed her in the belly and spun, swatting at one of the other Dragon Guards with one sword, flinging his arm out to catch the other. They tumbled back, and he raced forward.

  The road led out of the city. It was the direction that he and Jayell had intended to go, but he didn’t know where to find the priests that she sought. Fes hazarded a glance back, wanting nothing more than to see what might’ve befallen Jayell, but the line of fire mages behind him forced his attention in front of him.

  Escape first, then he could focus on figuring out what had happened to her.

  Fes ran. Every so often, he would feel the effect of a spell exploding behind him, but he ignored it as he continued to race onward, needing to get out of the city and beyond the fire mages’ reach.

  He reached the rolling hills and continued running, making it to the peak of the nearest hill, looking back to see nearly one hundred people following him. How many of them would be fire mages? How many would be Dragon Guards?

  Attempting this had been a mistake. And because of it, he’d lost Jayell. He’d lost the one person who had helped him so far. And they’d lost the artifacts that they had stolen from the fire mages.

  He dropped low, studying the scene before him. As he did, he tried to take stock of what he saw down below. Dozens of powerful people. Enough that he had been lucky to escape.

  In the midst of it, he saw Jayell. She stared up into the darkness, searching for him. Five fire mages surrounded her, and Jaken stood near her.

  Fes gritted his teeth. Rage boiled up within him, almost enough to send him forward, consequences be damned.

  No. He couldn’t help her if he were dead.

  Could the rebellion help? He didn’t want to have to go to them, not with something like this, and not after what he’d done. If he reached Alison, it was possible that she would help regardless, though it was equally possible that she would be angry with him over his deception.

  The priests. That was the better possibility, and it was one that would be less likely to end with a fight. He didn’t want to battle with Alison as he wasn’t sure whether she would even be willing to help.

  Fes crept backward, fading behind the line of the hills, retreating, hating that he had to leave Jayell behind but knowing there wasn’t any other choice.

  Chapter Four

  How long had he been wandering?

  It had to have been hours, but he still hadn’t seen any sign of the priests that Jayell was convinced would be out here. Perhaps they weren’t, and it was a mistake to believe they would be.

  He couldn’t lose hope. The moment he did was the moment that Jayell was lost, and with everything that she’d gone through, he didn’t want to be the reason that she was.

  Worse, he could easily imagine the type of questions they would be asking her. They would want to know about him and how much he had learned about Deshazl magic. There was only so much that a person could resist, and Fes didn’t harbor any illusions about her ability to withstand torment from fire mages or Dragon Guards.

  Would they even let her live?

  That had been the question he tried to ignore, but it would be possible that they would kill her simply because of what they had done.

  No. Jaken wouldn’t kill her, would he? He would leave her alive, wanting to use her to get to Fes. It was what he would have done.

  To the west, the sky began to lighten. He rubbed his eyes. It couldn’t be that early yet, could it?

  He had yet to come across anything suggesting the priests were even out here. Finding priests seemed beyond what he would expect, regardless of what Jayell had claimed. If there were priests anywhere here, he should have found them by now.

  He continued to the west, moving quickly. There hadn’t been any sign of fire mages riding behind him, and no Dragon Guards, but they would come. Fes was certain that eventually they would come after him.

  As he neared the light in the distance, he crept over the next hilltop more slowly. Crouching low, shifting the sword strapped to his back along with the one he was forced to carry, he kept himself low. Jayell had been right. Having an extra sword was nothing more than a burden. It might’ve helped him in the city, but it hadn’t made a difference. She’d st
ill been lost.

  Fes had expected to see people camping. With the hills, anyone camping here would be reasonably well concealed, so he wasn’t surprised when he came across people out here, but he was surprised by the number of people.

  There had to be nearly a hundred, maybe more than that.

  He stayed in place, watching. There didn’t appear to be a scout, something that any military camp would likely have, though from what he could tell, none of the people camped down in the valley had weapons, either. Had he come across the priests?

  It seemed an odd place to find them, and what Jayell had suggested seemed something more permanent rather than a roving band of travelers, so he doubted that was what this was. None of them wore the colors of the Empire, either. He was thankful for that.

  Fes rested his head on his hands as he watched, willing to wait. It was possible that whoever these people were could help him, but he needed to know more before he risked exposing himself.

  It gave him a chance to reflect.

  Only a short while ago, he had essentially served the empire. Searching for items on behalf of Azithan had made him a servant of the empire, and it was his choice to have gone off and helped the rebellion. Fes told himself it was about money and the dragon heart, but it was just as much about Alison and her needs. Had it been anyone else with him, he likely would’ve turned back the first time they encountered a fire mage.

  And then when he had come across her again, he had betrayed her.

  Fes hated that he had, but there hadn’t been much of a choice. He disagreed with what the rebellion was trying to do. Alison was just a part of it, though she had been a part of it by choice.

  And now? Now he was somehow a traitor to the empire as well as to the rebellion.

  It left him isolated, but maybe that wasn’t so bad. Hadn’t he always done well alone? Then again, he had enjoyed feeling as if he had a place—a home. His home in the city was gone, lost to him the moment that he had gone against the Dragon Guard. Attacking one of the Dragon Guard was akin to attacking the emperor himself.