The Dragonswarm

by Aaron Pogue

  We'll burn it down.

  Obliterate the bonds that hold!

  And tear apart the lives that thrive.

  I threw my arms out wide and screamed in primal fury, and around me the pillar of fire unfolded into a shape like a man. I smiled at that and swung an arm as long as a dragon's tail, and three dozen of the rebels were turned to ash. The sudden rush of power dropped me to my knees.

  Destroy the world!

  We'll burn it down.

  Obliterate the bonds that hold!

  And tear apart the lives that thrive.

  The world. The whole world was within my reach. I could feel it. I could see the shape of it. The Chaos power spoke to me again as it had before, showed me the structure, and I trembled as I pulled down the pillar of fire. I pulled it into me again, energy untold. Darkness fell once more. I heard whimpers and tears and scurrying feet, but in my mind I could see all the bodies. Fighting desperately for escape, but still close enough for me to touch.

  I trembled again. I rattled like a reed within a gale, but the black spirit that drove me was resolute. It stretched the threads of fire as thin as gossamer and laid them out like a spider's web. It borrowed the Chaos, too, and twined its inky black among the burning red, laying out a dancing pattern that glowed against the face of the earth.

  It shone like timber coals and molten tar, a hair-fine lace that stretched for miles. As far as the army's camp, as far as the very last rebel among them. The monster in my heart strained to push it farther, threading more and more black power into the web, and reached another hundred paces beyond the last of the fleeing rebels. My breath rattled in my throat and my forehead dropped against the cracked, blackened earth as the web's outermost line fell into a perfect circle.

  And then it flared. I couldn't see it, more than a mile away among the rolling hills, but in my mind's eye it was clear as day. A wall of Chaos fire taller than a man, blazing roar, and hanging like a curtain in a perfect circle nearly a league across.

  In the same instant it appeared, one of the panicked rebels ran into it, unable to stop his momentum. I felt it happen. From a mile away, I felt the little ecstatic tremor in my soul as he died. And then another, another, perhaps two dozen in the space of two heartbeats, all around the circle, and the new power poured into it.

  They came back then. I could feel their footsteps along the web of power, I could taste their maddened panic, I could watch them shrink away from the fire and come reluctantly back toward me. The fire and the midnight raged, and that voice whispered in my mind again. It showed me the shape of the thing I'd wrought. It showed me a web stretching to the horizon, but that was just the beginning.

  It showed me how I could touch the web here, and here, and here. How I could unfold it with my will, and let it loose upon the world. Let it run across the plains and sear the mountains down to coal. Let it boil in the seas and set fire to the skies. It was power, pure power, absolute destruction in my grasp.

  I panted at the memory of the power I'd gained from two dozen deaths, and the darkness whispered to me that I could kill them all. I could kill them all, and have power enough to make whatever world I wanted.

  Destroy the world!

  We'll burn it down.

  Obliterate the bonds that hold!

  And tear apart the lives that thrive.

  They were coming. The whole vast array of men, not in a panicked rush, not in an angry charge, but like sheep before the shepherd's hound. They'd seen the fiery corral, and they'd seen the pillar at its heart. They came to me now, to be judged and destroyed. The darkness offered them to me like a gift. It showed me how to bend the web, how to flex its threads like breathing in and out, and consume three hundred men with just a thought.

  I pushed my hands against the earth and tried to rise. The Chaos rang in my arms and legs until they trembled, but I made them hold. I coughed and fell back on my heels, then with a grunt of effort I heaved myself upright.

  Shadows swayed around me, dark but for the soul-bright shadow of Chaos fire beneath their feet, silent but for the weary, wounded sound of their beating hearts. They were not men; they had no faces for me. They were power ready to be tapped. I could consume them all as easily swallowing some tender morsel. Unsummoned fire blazed behind my eyes.

  And then the earth crunched beneath a footfall, near at hand. Behind me. I did not turn but looked out through the thread of flames, and they showed me a shadow near as dark as night but bright with power. Living power. Human power. And he was mine.

  My mouth twisted in a grin. "Caleb," I said, and fire crackled in my voice. "You have survived."

  "You've embraced your power," he said. There was a note of admiration. It made me tremble.

  "Not...yet," I said, and the darkness whispered once again.

  So easy. So very easy. Like catching my breath, and hundreds of lives of power could be mine. And then the world.

  "These men are yours," he said.

  I trembled again, but I kept my feet. "One way or another," I said.

  He nodded. He took another step toward me, then asked with a voice like frightened secrets, "What's in Teelevon?"

  My knees buckled, then crashed to the ground. Fire flared around me, shapeless and wild, but I pressed it down with my will, and it bled back into the web. I shook my head. "Not now!"

  He cleared his throat, and still at half a whisper asked again, "What's in Teelevon?"

  Eyes. Within the darkness in my head, I caught a glimpse of a memory. Eyes of blue and gray like autumn storms, and a scent like summer sunsets. The monster within me growled a warning, and fire erupted around Caleb.

  I found my strength and heaved myself to my feet, turning. I stretched a hand and the fire fell away, leaving Caleb singed and slick with sweat, but he never tore his eyes from me. He set his jaw and caught his breath and gave me a sad smile. "What's in Teelevon?"

  "Home," I said. It rolled out like a growl, and I could feel the flare of fury from the monster once more, but I was ready for it now. I caught it up, diverted the raw power back down into the earth, then forced that wretched spirit from my will. I walled it off and drove it back. I thought of Isabelle and fought for hope.

  It might have taken moments—it felt like days—but I won my spirit back from the Chaos I had used. Not Pazyarev, not Vechernyvetr, but the Chaos in my heart every bit as black and blinding as the beasts I'd had to battle.

  I fought until I could breathe again. I fought until I could smell the acrid soot on the winter wind and see the distant sparkle of southern stars. I fought until I felt the horrified weight of the murders I'd just done. Then I hung my head and sighed.

  "Every man with power is half a monster," Caleb said. "You must remember what it's for."

  I opened my eyes and looked. Beneath the silver stars I stood at the center of the web I had created, and I remembered the nightmare song. It had been so tempting to set them free. It would have taken only a thought, and I could have released all the fires of Chaos on this world. In the fever of a hallucination, I had almost done the dragons' work for them.

  Then I heard the voice again, a little louder this time. Insisting, begging, pleading to be released. The web still waited around me, ready to unfold.

  Disgusted and afraid, I gathered the threads of my terrible creation and bound them into the ground, contracting and containing them into a single point, right at the heart of the circle. I pulled down the curtains of flame and gathered up the web of oily Chaos.

  When all the power was bound I stepped away, backing slowly, and then released the wild fire. It burst into the heavens, a single pillar of flame that seared the sky and lit the night like day. The heat blasted outward, and a burning wind tossed me back like a doll. I crashed against Caleb, but he did not yield at all. He caught me, steadied me, then let me go.

  And then the fire was gone. The shadows remained.

  I ran my eyes along the line of men, still stunned, still waiting, still afraid. They wilted wherever I turned
my gaze, fighting to hide from me but unwilling to try to run. Their clothes were singed and their faces and hands red from the heat, but all their attention was on me. Here was the army I had come hunting, all standing silent and afraid.

  I stepped forward slowly, slapping at the oily soot that covered me from head to toe, and when I did the men nearest me drew back. At the heart of the ruined earth I turned slowly, taking in all the men around me, and then I spoke with a solemn voice, loud in the unnatural silence.

  "I am Daven of Teelevon, and I have come to take command of this army. Who is your leader?"

  For a moment no one spoke, and then a hesitant voice said, "It was the wizard, but he is dead."

  I hesitated only a moment, then said, "Will any of you stand against me, then? Is there a man among you who dares challenge me?"

  There was no answer, only fear in their eyes, and I nodded. "I am a power greater than any wizard or lord you yet have served. My will is burning flame." I shuddered at the memory and had to catch my breath. "But I have come to burn a fire against the darkness. I would make peace, and I would make it with the swords and arrows that you carry. I have heard about your crimes," I turned again, meeting as many eyes as I could, "and I hold you accountable. Now you will make amends in service to me."

  I waited for some argument, some objection, but none came. They only stood, transfixed, watching me like I was a rabid dog. Finally I sighed. "If none dares challenge me, I call you conquered. Come before me, one by one, and I will accept your fealty."

  Behind me, Caleb raised his voice. "None leaves until all have sworn."

  There was a note in it of authority. Not a high demand, not a heavy threat, but the easy command of an officer, and even these rebels had some amount of soldiers' training. I saw it in their eyes, in the sudden change of stance.

  Then Caleb stepped past me and fell to one knee. In a voice that carried to the others, he said as he had before, "I pledge to be your man—to serve you with my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength, as long as you have need of me. I bind my honor to your honor. I bind my life to your life. I bind my sword to your sword. I live for you, and take you as my lord."

  Some among the circle muttered surprise at the depth of the oath, but I did not wait for them to wonder. As Caleb rose and stepped behind me, I raised a hand, manifesting a Chaos blade within the gesture, and pointed it at the man directly across from me. "You! You're next."

  His eyes went wide, but he didn't dare refuse. He crossed the circle and fell on both knees before me, haltingly repeating the oath Caleb had sworn. When he finished he rose, meeting my gaze with fear in his eyes.

  New power thrummed into me, but it wasn't the angry black pop of murder done. It was the strength of a man. It was the honest weight of weary muscle.

  I smiled at my new vassal. "You have seen my power. I will punish oath-breakers."

  He nodded, mute, then moved to stand next to Caleb. Another came unbidden, and then another. They crossed the circle one by one, and every man swore oath to me. Some were dressed in shoddy leather armor or tattered clothes, but I also saw the suits of chain, the shining plate, the equipment they had won.

  Every man among them had the bearing of a soldier, and they wore their weapons with old familiarity. Dawn came before the last of them had knelt, and when he went to take his place among the ranks, I turned and felt my heart leap at the sight. A whole column stood in file, a small army sworn to serve me. And in the first row, victory glowing in his eyes, stood Caleb.

  I nodded to him, and he stepped forward. "My lord?"

  I looked out over the rest of the men, then back to Caleb. "Can you organize them?" He nodded. "Good. Then I must ask you to be a leader once again." I raised my voice so those near enough could hear, and said, "If you have any trouble with them, I will settle it." Fear paled the faces of those who heard, and I trusted rumor to carry the word.

  But Caleb shrugged and answered with a voice for me alone. "I shouldn't have much trouble. They are soldiers—they're accustomed to authority. And you've put the fear of Haven into them." He saluted, then turned to face the men.

  "Deal with it, then. I'm exhausted." I turned my back on him and headed uphill toward the spreading oak. It would make as good a place as any to rest. I couldn't sleep. I didn't need to sleep. My mind and body both hummed with the new oaths of fealty. I could have run miles or wrestled a bull to the earth.

  But I needed silence and a place to clear my head. I needed a moment to sort through the chaotic maelstrom I'd survived and adjust to the idea of having followers. Of having an army. I was perhaps a hundred paces off, halfway up the hillside, when I cast a glance back over my shoulder and shook my head in awe at the sight. Three hundred men in rank and file, hungry for blood, and Caleb prowled among them like a lion.

  From my vantage I could see his towering figure. The one column I had left behind was now broken into a dozen smaller squares, and Caleb walked a grid between them, stopping here and there to speak with someone inside a formation. I watched as he finished one of these conversations and moved on, and the man he had spoken with left his place and moved to stand in front of his square.

  Officers. He'd known these men for no more than hours, and started as an enemy, but already he was handing out promotions, creating order among them, making them his own. And I saw no man out of place, no uneven lines among my ragtag warriors. They had their training, and Caleb had his, and the two fit together like pieces of some gruesome puzzle.

  He was making me an army. I shook my head, amazed—hundreds of men at my command, and a Green Eagle for my general. Then I turned back toward the hilltop and heaved a weary sigh. There had been more yesterday. The blood was on my hands. They were not good men, but it had been a monster that destroyed them. I would have to answer for that, but I'd answer for it with a pile of dragon corpses.

  My next breath came more easily. I could not make myself clean, but I could fight the dragonswarm. With an army, I could do real good.

  And there was a mercy in the monstrous things I'd done. I'd left no wounded victims. I'd left no reminders, no messes that needed cleaning up. Only soot on the trampled grasses and a memory dulled by madness.

  Except...except just there ahead. Two boots, once fine but tattered now. I frowned as I came closer. A cane lay fallen in the grass, polished mahogany with an ivory handle. The wind had tugged a long cloak's folds out over the fallen figure. Its hem danced and rustled on the breeze, old suede rubbed down to smooth leather.

  I understood when I saw his head, caked thick with blood from a blunt injury. The scalp had broken but it didn't look to have been a killing blow. The figure still twitched with shallow, even breath. One shot, one strike before the fight had truly engaged, and I'd knocked him out cold. It was the wizard who had nearly ripped us from the sky, the once-leader of these rebels. I summoned a Chaos blade before I knelt over him, then reached out carefully with its tip to push the blood-caked, dirty blond hair back from a face stretched thin and hollow over its skull.

  The whole body was frail, shriveled and bone-thin, but the staring face was worse. His eyes and cheeks were sunken and marred with permanent bruises. His lips were pencil-thin and split with cracks like fissures. The cleft in his jaw poked prominently past the thin stubble of a nomad life.

  He was sickly and broken, made all the more nightmarish by the dried and flaking blood. Worse was the char-black scars that covered half his face. One eye was gone, one ear, and what remained of that half of his mouth dragged down at the corner and gapped over black-seared teeth.

  The worst was that I knew him. I'd killed him once already.

  11. The Wizard

  The figure on the earth before me was Lareth Undinane—the rebel wizard who had started every darkness in my life. I rose, and gently lifted back his flapping cloak with the tip of my Chaos blade. He wore a frayed old silken doublet underneath it. I stared at the faded fabric, but I don't dknow what I expected to see: oozing blood, perhaps, or the bulge of t
hick bandages. I'd stabbed three feet of flawless steel clean through his chest. But that had been a hundred days ago.

  He had not recovered well, but he had recovered. My teeth ground together in anger, and my hand ached from its grip on the sword's hilt. I felt the frantic thrashing of the monstrous rage in the back of my head, but I gave it no rein. Not even for this one. I took a slow, calming breath instead and focused on the lingering thrill of my new authority.

  Still I could not tear my eyes from him. I shook my head in slow disbelief and breathed his name. "Lareth Undinane." It sounded like a curse in the still morning, and as I spoke the corpse stirred. I growled low in my throat, and his good eye snapped up and fixed on my face. He lay perfectly still, his breath wheezing through the scarred gap at the corner of his mouth. The eye flicked to the sword in my hand, gleaming black and smooth as silk, and then back to my head. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips. Sweat stood on his forehead.

  I said, "You lived."

  He did not offer me a pithy response. He didn't grovel or beg. He didn't draw a deep breath or fling up his hand dramatically. He just narrowed his eye and spoke a word of power.

  It caught me entirely unprepared. Too much had happened too quickly, but more than that he did not look a threat. He looked pathetic. He looked weak and small and helpless, but he had nearly obliterated me and Vechernyvetr together the last time I'd faced him. He lashed out at me, a complicated working entirely of his own design, and I felt the shape of his will settle like a handkerchief over my mind.

  I remembered the working. I remembered reaching for my wizard's sight and falling to my knees in agony. I remembered the utter helplessness under his power. Sudden fear spiked hard and hot beneath my heart, and I fought down the desperate panic that screamed for me to reach to the Chaos power. Instead I kept my eyes fixed firmly in reality and raised the tip of my sword until it hung just above his good eye.

  "Release this spell," I said, more steadily than I felt. "Or I will do a more thorough job of killing you this time."

  Half of his mouth curled toward a smile. "With a sword?" he said. "By strength of arms?" He closed his eye, and unseen chains latched tight around my wrist and jerked it back. More bonds constricted around my legs, slamming my knees together so I crashed to earth before him.