by James Maxey
“Kanati, I assure you, has long since been digested. Sorry to make your trip here a pointless one. Why don’t I give your men a round of cider for your troubles, then you head off to wherever it is you’re going?”
“My men may not partake of alcohol.”
“I see. Well then, Ragnar, I’m not sure there’s much more I can do for you.”
“Ah!” the naked man said, his eyes brightening. “You know my name! Can it be you remember me from long ago?”
“Were you this hairy when you were eight?” asked Burke. “I know your name because I’ve been hearing rumors about a prophet named Ragnar who’s vowed not to cut his hair or wear clothes until the last dragon has been slain. You seem to fit that description.”
Ragnar drew back his shoulders. “I am that prophet. I have been the tongue by which the Lord speaks of the final days of the dragons. Now, I am the sword that will cut them from this earth!”
“Everyone needs something to do with their time,” Burke said with a gentle smile. “I confess, I’m not sure I grasp the strategic value of fighting a dragon buck naked.”
“The prophet Samuel wandered the desert clad only by prayers,” said Ragnar.
“Interesting,” said Burke, nodding slowly, as if appreciating the logic behind Ragnar’s words. “Did this Samuel fellow also swear off soap? Because, I gotta tell you, Ragnar, you’re making my eyes water.”
Ragnar slammed the hilt of his scimitar onto the bar, causing the mugs that sat upon it to jump. Spittle flew from his lips as he shouted, “Do not mock me! I am the Lord’s chosen! With a word, my army will destroy this town. Stone will be knocked from stone. Your barns will be burnt and your livestock slaughtered. Your women will weep as we behead the men of this village one by one for treason!”
Dealon cringed a little lower behind the bar in the face of Ragnar’s rage. Burke was no longer smiling.
“You make a compelling argument,” Burke said, in a cool tone. “Still, I can be a little thick. Why, exactly, are we accused of treason?”
“Albekizan, king of the dragons, is dead, as I prophesied. The dragons are in disarray. All men must now stand together to strike the accused serpents. Those who refuse are traitors. I march from village to village, bringing all men the divine message: Join or die!”
Burke smirked. “At least we get a choice.”
“No, Kanati,” said Ragnar. “Your only choice is to join. The Lord has told me the legendary machinist will fight by my side.”
Burke reached up and scratched the pale scars above lip as he thought. He said, “Why would you even want Kanati? The machinist didn’t do much good the last time he stood up to dragons. He spent months preparing Conyers for battle. The dragons overran the town in hours. All this Kanati fellow managed to do was spread false hope and get a lot of people killed.”
“You lacked divine guidance,” said Ragnar. “The holy scriptures state that the great dragon will hold dominion over the earth for a millennium before perishing in a final battle. The thousand years have passed. I now wage the last war. You will build me the weapons I need to fight it. Should you refuse, my men will find your lovely daughter—Anza, I believe she’s called. Terrible things will be done to her before your eyes.”
Burke lowered his hands to the bar. His voice was cold as the breeze outside as he said, “Leave here, Ragnar. You no longer amuse me.”
“I’m not here to amuse you,” said Ragnar.
“I’ll give you until the count of ten,” said Burke. His hand fell below the bar. Dealon noticed a long iron rod that Burke pulled back. From beneath the floor came the clatter of cogs and clockwork, like the sounds the chess-monkey made, but on a grand scale. “After that, I’m going to start killing your men.”
“Do it,” said Ragnar. “Kill them.”
Burke frowned, his eyes darting about the room as if he were counting the number of forces arrayed against him. Most of the time, Dealon thought of Burke as the same youthful man who’d wandered into town those long years ago. Now, Burke looked as if he’d aged twenty years since Dealon had last seen him. Light gray hairs streaked his braid and deep wrinkles lined his eyes. The expression upon Burke’s face as he surveyed the mob wasn’t so much a look of anger as one of weariness.
“This one,” said Ragnar, grabbing the guard to his left. “His name’s Ugnan. Start with him.”
“Sir,” Ugnan said, looking startled. He was a big, lumpy man, with thick arms and a thicker belly. His pumpkin-shaped head sat upon his shoulders without the intervention of a neck. Plates of rusted armor hung over his dirty brown shirt and trousers.
“Your faith will protect you,” said Ragnar.
Ugnan didn’t look confident in this, but he stood still, obedient to the holy man.
“If your power is as great as you wish me to believe, prove it now,” Ragnar said to Burke.
“Don’t make me do this,” said Burke.
“Think of Anza,” said Ragnar.
Burke grimaced, his eyes locked onto those of the prophet. Suddenly, he barked out, “A-seven!”
A powerful spring in the cellar uncoiled with a twang. The bar stool next to Ugnan splintered as a long, sharp iron rod sprang six feet into the air. Ugnan looked over at the rod, only inches away, his eyes wide. “It missed,” he whispered. “It’s true… my faith saved me.”
Burke sighed. “Sorry Ugnan. It’s not divine will, just bad memory. It’s been, what, twelve years since I built the grid?”
Ugnan looked confused.
Burke looked down at his feet, cupped his hands to make a fleshy megaphone, and shouted, “A-six!”
Dealon turn away as a pained shriek tore from Ugnan’s lips. His twitching body lifted into the air and his sword hit the floor with a clatter. Blood splattered the ceiling. Ugnan's eyes remained open as he lifelessly slid down the spike.
“Alas,” said Ragnar. “Ugnan’s faith was weak. But my faith is strengthened. Perhaps Kanati the machinist is long dead. The Lord has delivered us a man who matches his talents. Join me, Burke. Together, we cannot fail.”
“What I did to Ugnan I can do to every man in this room,” said Burke. “Even you.”
“You didn’t kill me, though you could have. You know that should I die, the men outside this tavern will run wild.”
“True,” said Burke with a sigh. “The only thing worse than an army led by a fanatic is an army led by no one at all.”
Burke stared into the eyes of the naked prophet. His hand rested on a second lever beneath the bar. Dealon wondered what intricate machinery that lever would set in motion. Yet the look on Burke’s face was one familiar to him. It was the same expression Dealon often saw in the glass eyes of the chess-monkey, the look his own face wore when he was in check and any move he made was going to cost him dearly.
Burke’s fingers slipped from the handle.
“No one else,” he said. “I’ll join you if no one else from the town is taken.”
Now it was Ragnar’s turn to stare as he silently contemplated his opponent’s offer. He studied the twisted form of Ugnan, standing like a fleshy scarecrow, supported by the steel rod. Ugnan’s blood pooled around the prophet’s bare feet. With a look of satisfaction in his eyes, Ragnar turned to Burke. “Agreed.”
Burke relaxed. He crossed his arms and said, “You’ve picked up a fair little army with this 'join or die' tactic. Do you have any other plans up your sleeve? If you had sleeves, that is?”
The prophet smiled, his yellow teeth gleaming amid the dark tangle of his beard. “It’s not by chance we travel the Forge Road.”
Burke nodded, as if Ragnar had just explained everything.
Chapter Nine:
Fever Dreams
Bitterwood dreamed of fire. He fled down corridors of flame-wreathed stone in Chakthalla’s castle, holding his breath to avoid the deadly smoke. He emerged into a courtyard to find his home village, Christdale, ablaze. All the wooden buildings glowed apple red, yet were still intact; the black cinder bodies of wom
en and children stood in doorways, beckoning to him. He stumbled through the inferno of the village, his lungs aching, blisters rising on face, to arrive at the church he’d built board by board with his own hands. The structure collapsed in a spray of bright sparks. As the burning walls fell away, stands of living trees were revealed. It was the temple that had stood in this village long ago, the temple of the goddess.
He peered through the smoke into the heart of the temple, toward the statue of the goddess. In Bitterwood’s youth, the goddess had been a wooden carving, immobile, but in this dream she was walking toward him, a voluptuous female form with skin of rich mahogany. Where her hair should have been there were gouts of flame, slithering together like glowing snakes, flicking their tongues in evil hisses.
The fire spread across her polished skin as she drew closer. The goddess stumbled, her glowing arms stretched toward Bitterwood, as if begging him to catch her. He tried to run, but couldn’t move as the goddess fell against him and his own skin caught fire. In his panic, he jerked his eyes open.
He was lying under a stone outcropping. A small, pathetic campfire sputtered at his side. White smoke drifted from the coals and wrapped around his head like a cloud. With every breath the acrid stench filled his lungs. He was under a heavy wool blanket that smelled like manure. He was awash with sweat. The breath that passed between his shivering lips was hot and dry as a summer wind. He tried to wipe the sweat from his eyes. The hand he lifted was barely recognizable as his own; it was a yellowish gray streaked with purple. Bitterwood tried to wiggle the swollen fingers and they didn’t move. He dropped the limb limply to his chest.
Glancing around the shelter, he couldn’t see Zeeky or Poocher, but the boy he’d saved was near, leaning up against Killer’s massive body. Both were sleeping. Killer’s legs were covered with brown bandages. Bitterwood tried to speak, but wound up coughing. The intended effect was the same. Killer and the boy opened their eyes.
Bitterwood licked his dry lips and whispered, “W-where’s Z-Zeeky?”
The boy shrugged. “Gone,” he said.
“G-gone where?”
“Dead Skunk Hole,” the boy said.
Bitterwood nodded, as if the boy’s words made sense. Then he closed his eyes and slipped back into dream.
The first dragon Bitterwood had ever killed had been a sky-dragon. The beast had been flying overhead, little higher than the tree tops. Bitterwood had been practicing with a bow since the fall of Christdale, never wanting to again be unprepared to defend himself. Bitterwood hadn’t needed to defend himself from this dragon. The sky-dragon never even glanced down as it passed. Bitterwood had been, quite literally, beneath its notice. Bitterwood could have ignored it and continued his training. Instead, he’d made a lucky guess as to how far ahead of the beast he needed to aim and loosed the shot. The beast had yelped a single word—”What?”—when the arrow caught in its breast, then spiraled through the air as its damaged chest muscles tried to maintain its flight. It crashed at neck-snapping speed.
Bitterwood had stood over the dead dragon a long time, trying to feel something. Guilt, perhaps, for killing a creature that had nothing to do with the deaths of his family. Or, satisfaction, at least some small flicker, that his shot had found its target and the population of dragons was now reduced by one.
He’d felt nothing. Intellectually, he was aware he’d just killed a fellow intelligent being, capable of thought and speech. Until this moment, the only large thing he’d ever killed had been a deer when he’d hunted with his brother Jomath. He’d felt some small twinge of remorse looking down at the deer, though that emotion had changed to satisfaction when he’d later dined upon a steak cut from his kill.
Remembering that meal, he’d cut the dragon’s thigh free from the body and left the rest to be picked over by buzzards. That evening, he’d roasted the thigh over a fire. He could still smell the aroma of dragon fat as it dripped from the leg and sizzled on the coals below. He remembered the way the tough, chewy meat played upon his tongue, the gushes of smoky grease. He could still be warmed by the glow that filled him after that meal as he stretched out under the stars, his belly full.
To this day, there was no sound more satisfying to his ears than a startled dragon yelping, “What?”
Deep inside his dream, Bitterwood was aware of his nostrils twitching. He was keenly tuned to the smell of dragons, the way their hides stank of fish, the way their breath smelled of dead things. His nose served as an extra eye, alerting him when dragons waited in the dark, unseen. His lids cracked open the barest sliver.
A dark red shape loomed at the mouth of the cave. Then it was blotted out by a second shape, scaly like a dragon, but shaped like a woman. The woman’s face drew closer. Did he know her?
“Recanna?” he mumbled before his eyes closed again.
“He’s burning up,” the woman said, pulling the blanket and taking away a fair number of scabs with it. The smell of rotting meat wafted through the air. The woman audibly gagged. “By the bones,” she said softly, strange words from a human’s lips. It was normally an expression of dragons.
“That’s a lot of pus,” said a deep voice. Bitterwood recognized the timbre of the sound, the bass formed by a belly wide enough to digest a man. A sun-dragon. Was he still dreaming?
He opened his eyes once more. A sun-dragon peered into the small cave, his eyes glowing green in the firelight. Bitterwood was certain that he was looking at a ghost: Albekizan, coming to claim his revenge. Yet, despite the similarity, this dragon was younger than the king. Bodiel? No, Albekizan’s youngest son was dead too. Who was this?
This dragon didn’t seem to be watching him. His eyes were focused above Bitterwood. Bitterwood tilted his head to find the woman he’d glimpsed kneeling over him. He flinched as her fingers probed his wounds. Yellow fluid oozed beneath her fingertips as she applied pressure. She closed her eyes. Bant struggled to recall where he’d seen her before. Her helmet was familiar… it looked like the one the wizard-dragon Vendevorex had worn.
“J-Jandra?” he asked. It had to be her. She looked different since their time together in the Free City. Older, somehow, though only weeks had passed.
“I’m here,” she said. “What the hell did this to you, Bant?”
“Dragon,” he mumbled. “N-never seen one like it.”
“I can’t believe you’re still alive.” Her voice sounded distant and distracted. Her eyes were closed, flickering back and forth under the lids. “I’ve never seen so much infection.”
“I-I’ve felt w-worse,” he said.
“You’d lose your left leg if I weren’t here,” Jandra said. “Still might. This is going to take some work.”
She said something else a moment later, but her voice seemed far away, lost beneath some hiss, like the fall of a hard rain. Was it raining? He couldn’t see anything beyond the veil of black mist that slid across his vision, blotting out Jandra, the dragon, and the fire beside him.
All pain left his body as he slipped into cold, unending darkness.
He woke sitting in the peach orchard of his youth. It was springtime. Everything was blooming, the world was pink and fresh. Recanna was lying at his side, her head in his lap. It was a warm day, and the only sound in the world was the faint hum of bees working through the blossoms overhead.
He was young again, eighteen perhaps. His hands were calloused from labor, but unscarred by battle. He looked at them, wondering why he’d expected them to be any different.
He nudged Recanna. She stirred, sitting up, brushing her long dark hair from her face.
“Did I fall asleep?” she asked.
Bant started to say yes. He stopped as he remembered why his hands should be scarred.
“You died,” he said. “Dragons killed you. Dragons killed you because of what I’d done.”
She nodded, looking as if she, too, were searching her memories. “Yes,” she said. “I remember now.”
The breeze that washed over them was warm and scent
ed by the clover of the nearby fields. Bitterwood swallowed hard. Nothing hurt inside him for the first time in memory. “Is this… is this heaven?” he asked, softly.
“Do you believe in heaven?” she asked.
“No,” he whispered. “I haven’t believed in anything for a long time.”
“Then where will you find me?”
“I don’t… I don’t know.”
He raised his hands to wipe the tear that trickled down his cheek. As the back of his hand touched his face, he woke.
“Recanna?” he said, sitting up, looking across the dark room toward the female form that sat near the fire.
“It’s me,” the woman answered. “Jandra. Can you see me?”
He rubbed his eyes, then blinked several times. Suddenly, Jandra popped into focus. “I see you,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “I was worried your fever might have damaged your vision. I tried to repair some of the fine blood vessel damage I found there, but I’m still new at this. I worried I might do more harm than good. But I thought I was doing it right because I discovered something strange about you.”
“What?” he asked.
“You already had nanites inside you. They were dormant, like they were left over from repairing you before, but they already contained programming for restoring tissue. I just had to reactivate them. Did Vendevorex ever heal you?”
“No,” said Bitterwood. “I don’t know what a nanite is.”
“And no one has ever cured your injuries before?”
“I didn’t say that,” Bitterwood said. “A long time ago, after the fall of Conyers, I was healed by a green-skinned woman. She caused my hands to grow back after they’d been bitten off by a dragon. To this day, I don’t know if she was an angel or a devil. Since she worked her magic, I’ve been faster and stronger. My vision is as sharp as a sky-dragon’s.”
