Dragon Rise (The Dragonwalker Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “It’s always more than that,” he said with a whisper.

  “You need allies,” she said.

  “Do I? I’m beginning to think that perhaps I’m better off alone.”

  “No Deshazl is better off alone.”

  “I don’t know anything about being a Deshazl, so I don’t know if what you’re saying is true or not.”

  She looked at him for a long moment, and finally, she nodded. “Perhaps you are right. You don’t know. None of us know what it was like for those ancient Deshazl when the dragons still lived. Many think that when they still lived, the dragons and the Deshazl were bonded, that they shared a connection, a friendship—almost a kinship—that made it so that they never were alone.”

  “I like my solitude,” he said.

  “Everyone deserves some quiet, but no one likes it all the time.”

  “See? That’s where you’re wrong. I do like my solitude. I do like being alone. And I do want nothing more than to leave so that I can go and help my friend.”

  “Then leave,” she said.

  Fes watched her for a moment. “If I leave, you aren’t going to try and hold me?”

  “Why would I? You have already told me that you intend to go, and I have already told you that we have no interest in holding you here.”

  Fes hesitated. “Why are you here?” He looked around the village spread out behind him. The buildings were well-maintained, and many of them seemed relatively new, so this wasn’t necessarily a bad place to be. And situated over a bunker as it was, with the interconnected tunnels far below, it would be relatively defensible, something that he recognized was valuable. But why here?

  “You have seen why we are here. I showed you.”

  “You showed me the area beneath the village, and you showed me your dragon relics, but why are you here? The traditional home of the Deshazl is far to the north. Why here?”

  Fes continued to look back at the village and work through what he had seen in his time here. So far, what he had seen would indicate that they hadn’t been here long. They couldn’t have been, could they?

  “You came here recently, didn’t you? What brought you here? Is it because of the same attack I heard about along the coast?”

  Arudis watched him for a moment. “What attack did you hear about along the coast?”

  Fes shrugged. “I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I encountered the remains of a village, what appeared to be a fishing village. They were heading for safety.” What safety they would get from the fire mages was debatable, but since they had been attacked, perhaps it would be more than what they had before.

  “What village?”

  Had the man mentioned the village name to him? He racked his brain, trying to think back to that conversation, and struggled. As much as he wanted to remember what the man had said, he had been so focused on Jayell and what had happened to her that he didn’t recall it.

  “I don’t remember,” he said. “Why is it important?”

  “How often do you leave the capital?”

  “Lately I leave it quite a bit.”

  “And how often have you headed south?”

  Fes shook his head. “Most of my tasks have involved me heading north, though I did go west recently.”

  “West? Toward Toulen?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  She watched Fes for a moment, her face unreadable. “In the days of the Deshazl, many were jealous of the connection the Deshazl shared with the dragons. Some allow that jealousy to taint them.”

  “The empire and Toulen have a peace accord,” Fes said.

  “They have an accord now, but that wasn’t always the case,” she said.

  “They told me that dragon relics were scattered into Toulen.”

  “Stolen. Not scattered. If it were up to the empire, those relics would have all remained here.”

  Fes thought of the dragon skull and the power that he’d seen from it. The people of Toulen had other magic though. They were blessed—at least Indra was. With that kind of magic, they would be protected.

  “I’ve met people from Toulen. They are good people. Honorable.”

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  “Why are you worried about the village? What is it that concerns you?”

  “Nothing other than the fact that the empire has maintained the sanctity of its borders for hundreds of years. If those borders have been breached, that means that the emperor’s attention has been diverted.”

  “And you’re worried that if they are diverted, these others will have a chance to attack.”

  “It’s undoubtedly the case,” she said.

  As Fes watched her, he continued to feel that strange pressure building on him. As he did, he realized that it wasn’t from fire magic, not as what he was accustomed to feeling. This was a different sense, not the heat that pushed on him when a fire mage was active. This was a subtle sense, a soft simmering within him, almost as if it were calling to him.

  Was Arudis doing something? She wanted him to accept that Deshazl part of himself, but it seemed to Fes that she wanted to use it, too, regardless of her denial of her intentions.

  He watched her, but she seemed distracted, staring out toward the east… and south.

  “You’re worried about them?”

  “I’m worried about protecting my people,” she said.

  “I thought you said you were safe here. I thought that the dragon bunker would keep you safe from attack. I thought that—”

  “We are safe from those within the empire who might cause us harm. And we’re safe from the rebellion. As far as they know, we aren’t here. We have aligned ourselves with the priests, concealing within the Path of the Flame so that we can learn what they know. In that way, we are safe, too. But we are unsafe when it comes to an attack from outside. There is only so much that we can do to defend ourselves from that power.”

  “What worked to defend against them?”

  “Dragon relics,” she said.

  “Relics? That’s it?

  “Those relics allow fire mages with enough power to push them back.”

  “I’ve seen what you can do. With that kind of magic, I find it hard to believe that you would struggle to avoid an attack.”

  “Deshazl magic doesn’t work quite as well against these others,” she said with a whisper.

  “Why not?”

  “The same reason they were able to control the dragons.”

  “Are you saying that they can control the Deshazl?”

  She looked at him, her eyes narrowed, and he could see the struggle within them. She was haunted by whatever had happened before.

  “You’ve experienced it, haven’t you?”

  “Many of these people have experienced it. At least enough to know that we should fear the return of them.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The Deshazl are not all in these lands, not as we once were. Many of our people—those who remember their power—remain trapped. Captured. They are the ones we must help.”

  “Help from what?”

  She didn’t get a chance to answer.

  An explosion rocked the growing night. Fes spun, reaching for his sword as he did, and saw flames crawling along the outline of one of the buildings in the village. The woman’s eyes went wide as she looked, her breath catching, and she took off, running toward the flames.

  “Where are you going?” Fes asked.

  He ran to catch up to her, swords unsheathed, but she ignored him.

  Another explosion thundered the night, heat building. This was nothing like the heat from fire magic. This was an explosion of power, the kind that thrummed within him. It was that power that he felt. It was that power that he had been aware of building, steadily increasing as he had been chatting with her. It was that power that told him that something more—something dangerous—was about to take place.

  Fes continued to race after her, and she slowed as they neared the nearest buildings. Dozens of people appeared o
ut of the buildings, and she shook her head. As one, they spun, heading back inside.

  “Where are they going?”

  Arudis looked over at Fes. “We can’t outrun this.”

  “You intend to fight?” He squeezed the hilt of his sword. He didn’t know what he was about to face and didn’t know whether this was his fight or not, but he wasn’t about to be attacked and overpowered.

  “Fight?” She shook her head. “This isn’t a fight that we can make and win.”

  Fes looked back toward the nearest building. His eyes widened as he thought that he understood. “You’re hiding?”

  “We can hide beneath the village.”

  Before he had a chance to ask her to explain, she hurried into one of the buildings. It was someone’s home, and a fire still glowed in the hearth. Food rested on a table, the smells savory. There would be no hiding the fact that people had been here and that the village was occupied. Fes suspected that other homes would be just like this one, equally alive. If each home had food on the table, and if each home had the smells of breads and meats and life, then whoever was behind whatever attack was coming, and whatever it was this woman feared, they would know that there had been people here.

  Another explosion thundered.

  Heat seeped up from within him. Was he doing this intentionally?

  He followed Arudis to the back of the home, and from there he darted through a door, heading down the stairs, disappearing into the darkness, following her beneath the village. How safe could they be hiding here? If there were too many attackers, they would be trapped, held here without any way of escape. It might have been easier to run.

  And then he was within the main part of the tunnel. Fes looked around and was surprised to see that there had to be at least fifty or sixty people, all of them with looks of fear written on their faces.

  “Get behind the door,” Arudis said calmly.

  Everyone followed her instruction and moved behind the door, taking a place and blocking it. The man he’d seen when he’d first come to the village had his sword, and he gripped it, though he didn’t carry the same intimidating expression he’d worn when Fes had arrived. He looked scared.

  As Fes scanned the people in the room, he realized that everyone looked scared.

  A thought occurred to him: With all of these people in this room, where were the children? There didn’t appear to be any children.

  Another explosion came from somewhere overhead. Fes could feel it, and could feel the way that heat seemed to pound against him. It called to him, a strangely seductive sense.

  “Everyone stay quiet,” Arudis said. “Stand ready.”

  Fes made his way over to her, watching her for a moment. “Why hide?”

  Arudis looked over at him. “You don’t understand, Fezarn. I have tried to explain what we’ve faced, but you have no interest in that.”

  “Because I don’t understand. Why hide?”

  “Can you feel it?” she asked.

  “Feel what?”

  She studied his face for a moment. “I can see that you do. That is the Calling.”

  “The Calling?”

  “It’s how they work. It’s their power against those like us. Against those of us who have the dragon ancestry. It’s their way of dragging us out. Once they get us there, they will control us, the same way that they once controlled the dragons. We fight it, and we hide.”

  “How do you fight it?”

  She looked over at him, her flat gray eyes wrinkled, and he suddenly realized that he couldn’t move.

  His entire body was frozen in place, restricted from walking, the same way he had been when he first came to the village. Fes tried to fight, much as he had when he’d first come, but there was no way to overpower her. Arudis’s magic was far too much for him.

  “I fight it,” she said.

  Fes relaxed, no longer straining against Arudis’s magic. There was nothing in it that he could overpower anyway. As he relaxed, he became aware of another sense, and it was the same heat that he’d been feeling, that simmering sense that rose up within him, practically calling him forward.

  The call seemed to change, and he felt compelled, drawn forward, as if all he had to do was take a step. All he needed to do was reveal himself, to step forward, to announce his presence…

  Why should he feel that way?

  “What is this?” Fes asked through clenched teeth.

  “This is the Calling.”

  It continued to build, an overwhelming sense. Fes’s entire body screamed with the sense of it, and he wanted nothing more than to let it drag him out. The door was there right in front of him.

  Groans around him told him that others struggled the same way as he did.

  How could Arudis fight it?

  She struggled. He could see it in the tension on her face, though maybe that was tension that came from her attempting to hold everyone in this room in place. Fes didn’t doubt that she was responsible for confining everyone, that her magic was what held them here.

  Having the magic to do that was amazing. How could she hold everyone in place?

  His ability to focus faded. The call within him, that strange burning, continued to build, demanding that he answer, but how could he? Arudis blocked him. Any attempt for him to move, to break free of her magic, was met with failure.

  “Let me go,” he screamed.

  “Fezarn.”

  She said his name as a whisper, and it hung with power, even more compelling than the strange Calling that demanded he answer. The effect lasted for a moment—maybe a heartbeat or two—before fading, leaving him feeling the pressure, the overwhelming urge to step out of this chamber, to reveal himself, to join whoever it was that called to him.

  His hand began to twitch.

  It was the most movement that he’d had since coming here. With that twitching, he felt a surge of excitement, a sense of victory at the fact that he might be able to get himself freed.

  Arudis turned toward him, watching him. “Fezarn.” She whispered his name, and once more he felt the power within the word, and once more he failed to escape, to break free of the power she held him with. He shook, his entire being trembling, everything within him demanding that he take a step, and then another, and then throw the door open.

  His foot moved, barely more than anything, and Arudis watched him, fear in her eyes.

  It wouldn’t take much, barely more than a relaxing of the power holding his hand, and he could get himself freed. Why was she holding him like this? Why wouldn’t she let him go and answer the Calling?

  Fes grunted, straining against her.

  His other hand moved.

  It was more than what he had managed against her attempt to confine him before and he almost cried out, but something seemed to suppress that desire, as if she knew that he wanted to release a cry of victory.

  “Fezarn.”

  There wasn’t as much power in her words this time, but enough that he couldn’t take a step. He was held, and as he looked around, he realized that others were moving. It was more than that.

  His head was freed.

  The sense of burning within him, that which compelled him, continued to rise, growing stronger and stronger, and as much as Fes recognized that it was an outside influence, that it was unnatural, he was powerless to ignore it.

  “Let. Me. Go!”

  “Fezarn.”

  It was barely more than a whisper. Barely more than the wisp of the wind.

  It held him, keeping him in place, and latching onto him long enough that he couldn’t move.

  Slowly, the desire to break free began to ease and the power that called to him, that which sang within his blood, began to fade.

  Fes began to fight it. Ignoring that sense that wanted him to step outside the hidden bunker. He was able to fight it in a way that he hadn’t been before. He took a deep breath, steadying himself, and realized that all around him everyone seemed to be breaking out of the stupor.

  An
d then the sense faded.

  Fes staggered, suddenly freed. Several people near him stumbled to the ground, collapsing.

  Fes took a shaky breath, looking over at Arudis. “What was that?”

  “That… was the Calling,” she said. And then she collapsed.

  Chapter Nine

  Fes drummed his fingers on his leg, staring at the door to one of the few homes still standing. Most of the buildings in the village had been destroyed, left with little more than flames crackling through them. Fes, Arudis, and the others had remained below ground for hours, long enough that Fes began to wonder whether or not anyone was still up in the village, but the man who had greeted him in the village the first time had denied Fes’s request to leave.

  Arudis had collapsed, and she had been seemingly unable to get up following the Calling. The others within the village had been concerned by that, concerned enough that Fes worried that this wasn’t the typical type of Calling.

  A dark-eyed younger woman approached, dressed in a cotton gown. She glanced at Fes before knocking on the door and pulling it open. The two men blocking entrance nodded to her before their gaze drifted to Fes, slamming the door closed in his face.

  “They blame you,” a voice from behind him said.

  Fes turned to see a younger boy watching him. He couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen, and he was lanky, all arms and legs, with a crop of brown hair standing wildly on his head. Flat gray eyes watched Fes.

  “Why do they blame me?”

  “We’d been safe here before you came,” he said.

  “You blame me for the attack?”

  The boy shrugged. “I said they blame you. Not me.”

  The boy approached carefully, stepping away from the wall. He watched Fes, curiosity on his face more than anything else. “So, is it your fault?”

  “No,” Fes said.

  The boy shrugged again. “I didn’t think so. You don’t look like much.”

  Fes frowned, tilting his head as he studied the boy. Was he Deshazl? From what he had seen, everyone here was, but could the boy have the same connection as the others?