The Dragonswarm

by Aaron Pogue

  Now I was left in darkness, the cavern of his mouth nearly as large as my chambers in the tower. He ground those massive teeth and tried to crush me with his tongue, but I slashed desperately up and carved a narrow gash in the roof of his mouth with my Chaos blade.

  He roared, a deafening bellow that tore at my flesh. I turned and dove toward the narrow gap between his teeth, but they snapped shut. I barely caught myself before I lost an arm. The tongue stabbed at me again and I slashed back. Where I cut it, ugly, acid blood poured out.

  Pazyarev gulped air, not to roar this time. I already felt the fire broiling in his belly. He would burn me down to ash. His jaw was open now again, almost room enough to jump, to get away. I stared at the fangs' sharp points. If I tried to dive through, if that double-row of razor teeth snapped shut.....

  I could too easily imagine the pain of tearing flesh. I had felt it before. When I met Vechernyvetr.

  Only minutes ago, he'd told me he remembered. Now I remembered. I remembered when we met, what I did to him. Had this been his intention all along? I saw the distant dance of firelight deep in the monster's gullet and had less than a heartbeat to decide.

  I dove. Not out past the razor fangs, but back toward the monster's tongue. I stretched a hand out as I went and let it tear against a tooth. Blood gushed across my palm. I twisted, grabbed Pazyarev's tongue, and slammed my injured hand against the bleeding gash I'd given him.

  Blistering pain shot up my arm and throbbed into my veins. It was twice familiar. I'd experienced this once before, when I first bonded with Vechernyvetr. I'd expected the pain itself. What surprised me was the shape of it, the feel of it. I knew that as well.

  It was the Chaos power, the same hammering, bloodthirsty thrum that burned inside like madness. But now I felt it magnified, a hundred thousand times magnified, until it tore my mind apart and buried me beneath its writhing blackness.

  This time, though, there was a light. It was a glow far off, gold and red, the shade of friendly hearthfires. There was a hint of perfect white as well, thin, restrained, and cool. A rich and earthy brown, barely seen against the blackness, but it seemed to stretch for miles around me. And even in the darkness itself there was texture.

  I had no body there. I could not feel my human frame. But in that other place, I felt like a living part of the endless night. I could flex my will and watch the midnight shadows wash and roll. There was a me within the blackness, and it was something far more powerful, far more vast than I might ever have imagined. Even my territory sense could not compare to this.

  There were other shapes within the dark, other living wills, and I could feel them vague and distant and hostile. But most of my sensation came from the mingled points of light. I felt human fear and desperate need and perfect, sweet devotion. I felt anger, too. A wild thirst for vengeance and blood.

  And I felt words. I tasted the shape of them before they could resolve within my mind, but they were sharp and hot and heavy. They cut at me and made me struggle within the darkness. I strained to pull my will together, to manifest a man from depthless nothing. If I'd had a voice, I would have screamed in primal need, and all around me the fires flared, gold and red and blue and brown. They burned against the night.

  Then I heard the words. Wake up. Pathetic little human. Wake up. Please.

  I opened my eyes.

  I was caught within the monster's mouth, soaked in blood that burned the skin. I was awake, and Vechernyvetr shouted frantic noise within the corner of my mind, but I still felt numb. My head still seemed stuffed with that heavy, untamed night. But then a new sensation broke the veil, brought my attention to a sharply focused point.

  I was falling. We were falling. Fast.

  Reality came crashing back to me, but still the other sense remained. I understood it now, of course. The lifeblood of my brood burned gold and red. The wizard's will was white. I'd seen the colors of my might within the darkness, but the dark itself had been pure Chaos. All of Chaos. And I had been a point within it.

  That sense began to slip away now, suppressed by my sanity, but while it yet remained I felt the ocean of ink-black power in all directions around me. I felt myself a bubble on its surface. I felt Vechernyvetr near to hand, a smaller spot. And I felt Pazyarev as well. I saw the shape of him, the scope of him, and it was not as large as I'd expected.

  Within my will, inside my head, I reached toward that spot. I felt the body around me spasm, and the huge maw rolled. At the same time I saw that point of darkness roil within my head as the elder legend regained its consciousness.

  Before he could act, before he could move, I reached out with a dreamlike lethargy and touched my will against his power. I felt him then, a presence in my head made up of raw emotion and animal intent. It was the presence I had often felt from Vechernyvetr, and even Pazyarev before, but those had always started from outside. When I had walled them off, when I had forced them back, it was always to an outer edge.

  Now Pazyarev was a spot within. I was as well, and not a larger spot, but for a moment in my mind I saw the whole vast plains of Chaos. My thoughts stretched far and wide, and I could do more than wall him off. I could do more than push him away. I reached with my will, wrapped it around that small black bubble, and squeezed.

  I felt one flash of haughty disbelief, one flash of timeless terror, and then I felt a pop. And he was gone.

  No. Not gone. He was everywhere. He was all around me. He was part of me. He was me. I looked out through his eyes and saw the world spread out below us, rushing up to meet us. I spread his wings and banked against the wind without a thought. I soared above the earth and felt the human in my mouth. I crouched within his maw and felt the rough, wet flesh beneath my hand.

  This was the Chaos bond, the one the dragons knew. It was not the limited connection Vechernyvetr and I shared. There was no Pazyarev left. There was no will to fight me off, no words and no emotion from the beast. There was only power, physical and raw, at my command.

  I screamed my victory into the night with two voices, and one of them shook mountains.

  Vechernyvetr answered back with just one word. Help.

  My territory sense still boiled with the cold, black stain of dragons. Pazyarev's eyes showed me a sky dancing with their fire. Vechernyvetr struggled among them, and I could feel his pain. He was exhausted, torn, and surrounded on all sides by flying death. Talons slashed and fangs ripped. I stretched my will to call them down, but they were not mine.

  They were not unified, either. They fought without apparent purpose. I saw Vechernyvetr catch a cruel blow, but I saw as well one of Pazyarev's reds disembowel one of his greens. I saw pairs of them locked in battle. I watched in disbelief for several seconds before Vechernyvetr cried again.

  Aid me, Daven. If you let me die at this late hour, I'll make certain you regret it.

  I laughed, then wrapped myself in air and dove headfirst from the elder legend's maw. I left my little human body hanging there, safely outside the fray, then turned the mighty monster to the fight. He swallowed a pair of fighting blues, then crushed a victorious red within one talon and swept two more from the sky with his great tail. A blast of fire rose up on its own, and my human body roared at the thrill of it, as forge-hot flame consumed my enemies. The taste was salty bliss.

  Vechernyvetr left the fight, fleeing low over the earth, and even when the rest were dealt with, I saw the golden dame skimming after him. I shouted a warning in my mind and rolled the massive body of the elder legend, striking with his heavy tail toward the dame.

  But Vechernyvetr intervened. The dame darted easily aside, and at the same instant Vechernyvetr turned and threw his body toward the striking tail. I tried to turn the blow, and slowed it enough to spare the dragon's life, but I felt the shock of angry pain through that distant bond before he crashed to earth.

  The gold settled down beside him. She didn't strike. She only waited, patient, until Vechernyvetr heaved himself up. He bled from many wounds and shared with me t
he pain of his broken bones, but there was victory as well. I felt his wild exhilaration. I felt his joy and quiet pride.

  "You conquered her?" I asked.

  I have long admired this one, Vechernyvetr said. I consider her a fair reward, and a fine start to my new brood.

  "She is indeed," I thought. "But she was his. They all were his. Shouldn't they be mine?"

  No more than I am, the dragon said. Your Order breaks the Chaos bond. That's how you set me free before. I remember how it felt. Disorienting. Unreal. This time I was ready.

  "I am pleased for you," I thought, but my attention was already far away. I shook my head. "Heal your wounds, Vechernyvetr. Enjoy this victory. But I must go."

  Then go, he said. We'll settle debts some other time.

  I laughed and left him there. I took Pazyarev. I wrapped the blinding darkness of his power up with the bonfire light of mine, and reached south to my lair, and tugged.

  We landed on the earth outside the walls, virtually the same place from which I'd left. Nothing remained but char and blood where the distant siege had been, and now the massive gate was raised, its wood scorched and scarred with talon marks, but still unbroken.

  Beyond that gate, Palmagnes still stood. Its dancing bands of air were cracked and broken, sizzling here and there with living fire, but what remained still spun in lazy circles around the massive central tower. The outer walls, though damaged, still stood high over the cracked earth, and through the stone I felt them swarming with the hot lifeblood of men. Defenders ranged along its lines, all in motion, all at war.

  Fires burned inside the walls and out, and dragons raged against the keep's defenders, but the men fought back, and the ground was littered with the corpses of the fallen beasts. There had to be three hundred dragons dead, felled outside the walls or in the broken courtyards. There might have been a thousand yet in the empty air, but they fought without control, without direction, and fought each other as much now as they fought my defenders.

  They were unprepared for me. I sent Pazyarev on the wing, and he tore a hundred dragons from the sky in just one pass. But while he struck, I stretched my will and stepped past gate and walls into the throne room of my tower.

  Isabelle was there, at the back wall, moving frantically among the lines of the fallen. Caleb was at the front, shouting orders to a crew led by Garrett Dain just before Dain led them out into the fray. Soldiers in shining armor filled the hall, frenzied as they tried to prepare a desperate defense.

  I sank into my throne while Pazyarev snapped his jaws around a dragon on the wing. I gathered all the raging fires outside the tower and piled them together into a pyre. I opened up the earth and swallowed dragon corpses whole. Then I caught Pazyarev in my will. I unleashed one final column of flame, then pushed him miles away into the mountains. I set him on the hill outside our outpost and left him there.

  Perhaps by then there were still a thousand dragons in the sky. There must have been half of that at least. I closed my eyes and tapped the boundless power in my soul, then with it carved a moat outside my walls. I raised the earth straight up, and for a moment it hung in a ring outside my walls. Then I flexed and flung it high into the sky.

  Six hundred paces up, the tons of earth split, tore apart, and fashioned into javelins. I stabbed them down, a rain of lancing spears, and pinned every last dragon to the earth. They fell like heavy hailstones, inside the walls and out, and their power washed like blood across the stones and seeped through to me. Pazyarev's brood was all destroyed.

  On the walls outside, a thousand frightened men suddenly cried out in unexpected victory.

  We could not hear them in the tower. Too many voices raised in their distress. But from across the room, I heard one joyous shout above the noise. "Daven? Daven's back!"

  The great hall was thronged with people—dirty, bruised and bleeding, but alive. I climbed to my feet and watched them part as Isabelle sprinted across the floor. She threw herself against me and held on tight, her face pressed hard against my chest. After a moment I realized she was shaking. Her whole body shook beneath the tremors, but I could feel her heart's relief.

  Caleb's, too. I looked up to meet his eyes, and from across the room he nodded once. He didn't even smile. Then he caught an idle soldier by the tabard and shouted orders until the Guard threw a desperate salute and fled at a run.

  It was a Guard. I recognized the uniform. And there were Green Eagles as well. I could feel them, now that I spared the attention. Most of the men within the tower—the uninjured, anyway—were the king's men. They'd crowded up into my barracks, up into the civilians' sleeping quarters above. My men were outside on the walls. My men were stretched out dying in the back of the hall, or quietly cooling on the paving stones outside. But here, inside the tower, the king had brought his army.

  There were wizards, too. More than a dozen. Claighan knelt among the wounded, his face a ghastly sheet of drying blood from a split high on his scalp, but he was tending to the others. I spotted Themmichus, his black cloaks clinging wet with blood, but he wore a stunned grin when I met his eyes. I saw the Chancellor of the Academy and a handful of wizards who might have been just students when I was there. And Seriphenes as well, a narrow shadow just behind the king.

  There was the king. In my great hall. He sat behind a long, heavy table spread with papers, and his thief-taker Othin stood half a step behind the other shoulder. All three of them watched me, and I felt the flare of Chaos rage within my soul.

  I stepped down off my dais, eyes never leaving the king, and a quiet hush fell on the crowd. Isabelle followed close behind, whispering urgently, but I ignored them all. Ten slow paces carried me to loom above the king. He leaned back in his chair, and I saw fear in his eyes.

  He was right to fear. I felt the song of Chaos in my soul. I felt the call to burn down the world, and who in all the world deserved it more than this man? My gaze drifted to Master Seriphenes. It touched on loyal Othin, fearless and heartless. But always it returned to that wretched little king.

  "You brought your men within my walls?" I asked.

  He raised his chin. "It is my right anywhere in this land."

  Seriphenes closed his eyes and pressed his lips together. Othin slowly drew his blade. I ignored them both.

  "You brought your men within my walls?" I asked again.

  The king scowled. "You saw the dragons, boy. Your people let us in."

  "And you sought refuge," I growled. "You didn't fight against the dragons. You left my men to die while yours cowered beneath my roof." My voice rose in an outraged roar. "You brought your men within my walls?"

  Isabelle caught my hand and pressed close against my back. "We invited them inside," she said. "You would have wanted it." She tilted her cool forehead against the back of my neck, and said almost in a whisper, "You would have wanted it."

  The king held my gaze and shrugged. "My wizards helped in the defense. Were it not for us—"

  "Were it not for you, we might have killed the dragons while they slept. Were it not for you, we might have trained many more men. Were it not for you—" The fury shook my voice until I could not give it words.

  But something else, some treacherous little voice, whispered in my head that, were it not for him and all his petty, childish pride, I never would have gained this power. Were it not for him, I never could have rallied these wicked men. Were it not for him, we'd all have burned.

  I closed my eyes. Power hot as hatred roared around my veins, the thrill of recent battle inebriating. And I could still almost sense the Chaos sea that flooded around us all. It buried all reality beneath its waves. Nothing mattered, compared to that.

  Still...in the midst of all that darkness, I could recall a tiny, distant light. No other eye could see it; it was mine. Yet it was mine. It was me. I smiled a cold smile, looked down on three men who had wronged me so greatly, and for one exquisite heartbeat I considered all the many ways I could wreak my vengeance.

  "Timmon, High King of
the Sarianne and Lord of the Isle." My voice echoed in the cavernous room. It sounded like a doom.

  Isabelle squeezed my hand and let it go. I raised it before me and built a Chaos blade that drew a gasp from many in the watching crowd. Othin shifted, ready to parry if I swung, but nothing in his power could stop my strike. Seriphenes watched me, glowing with the gathered force of his will, but he had seen what I could do against his spells.

  I focused on the king. I shook my head. "This isn't right," I breathed, my voice quiet. I couldn't hear the words over the pounding Chaos song. "This is not how it should be. But if I'm to fight this war...if man is going to shine a light within that sea of destruction..."

  The king scowled up at me, confused, but I wasn't speaking to him. I was speaking to myself. The monster and the man in full communion. I felt the wild thrill of all the Chaos I had used this night. I felt the thrilling power of all the mighty lives I'd ended by my hand. I felt Pazyarev's power, boundless and mine. I thought of what I'd do with all that strength.

  "Timmon, High King of the Sarianne and Lord of the Isle," I cried again. I raised the sword before me, gripped within both hands, and reversed. I took a slow, deep breath, then drove the point down to the floor.

  I sank to my knees behind it. "I swear my oath of fealty to you. Before these witnesses, and in the eyes of God, I pledge to be your man. I bind my life to your life. I bind my sword to your sword. I live for you, and take you as my lord."

  Isabelle's relief washed over me like a cool rain. She rested her hands lightly on my shoulders. From across the room I felt Caleb's disapproving doubt. He fought the crowd to cross the floor, and I reached out and brought him to me. I found Lareth, hurrying across the courtyard strewn with the dragons I'd destroyed, and brought him too.

  Othin leveled his sword as they arrived, menacing us all across the narrow width of the table. "The rebel wizard Lareth," he said. He pitched his voice low, for the king, but we all heard. "And one of your Eagles who deserted, now disgraced. And the baron's daughter who led the traitors past our lines." He met my eyes where I still knelt. "You surround yourself with greatness."