I'd gotten one of its blood-red eyes.
I could see Alex just to my right, but every time he tried running toward me, a tail or a claw blocked his path. And Vera fought her own battle for her life. We were tired and weakened, and we were never going to make it.
A loud horn blared in the distance. It hadn't come from the wall; it had come from somewhere behind us. I couldn't see anything else in the rain, but I began to sense the warm presence of life. Human life.
I heard the sudden whiz of flight, and a volley of arrows split through the air, landing in the gargon towering over me. Enraged, it shook its head, arrows bouncing from its scaled armor, and I ducked, covering my head as the arrows landed in the grasses all around me.
The horn blared again, this time much closer, followed by a chorus of human battle cries. A beast exploded from the grasses—some combination of a bull and a dog—and seated on top of it was a man. His hair was long and black and dreaded, and his face and broad torso were covered in black and red paint, and he reared back on his beast with an arrow nocked on his longbow. He let go; there was a sharp snap, and the arrow shot straight and true, lodging somewhere into the gargon's underbelly. A bestial wail filled the sky, and the gargon used its claws to try to dislodge the arrow, while its wings beat frantically at the wind. One of its wings cut fast and would have pummeled right through me if a firm grip hadn't jerked me out of the way.
Tarzan had pulled me atop his beast with him.
I looked around; there were at least a handful of others decorated similarly, all seated on the strange bull-dog creatures. All the men had arrows drawn, releasing them as best they could, but with the wind and rain, only a few penetrated the gargons' soft underbellies.
I glanced up just in time to see the wounded gargon bringing its unhinged jaws down on top of us. "Look out!" I screamed.
Tarzan jerked our beast aside. Enormous jaws snapped beside us, again and again, trying to bite but having difficulty with only one eye. "Stay right!" I yelled, pointing to the gargon's damaged eye. "It's missing that eye!"
Tarzan steered as I directed, and then he yelled over his shoulder in a deep rumbling voice. I didn't know what he said, though, because it was in another language. Alex and Vera had scrambled on beasts with other men, and once everyone was somewhat secured, we all took off at an incredible pace toward the watchtower. But it wasn't fast enough.
The gargons kept attacking, trying to pick us off one by one. One dropped beside Tarzan and me and shoved. Our beast lost its footing, but with a quick scramble, it managed to right itself again. I would've fallen off if Tarzan hadn't secured a thick arm around my waist. I heard a cry and turned back to see one of the men flying through the air. Vera's rider. Another gargon dove in, clamping powerful jaws around the man's torso. His agony ripped through my body and I gasped, struggling to hold on, and then the pain abruptly ceased.
He was dead.
Bile rose in my throat. He had been flung aside as though he were nothing more than a piece of wood. His reward for trying to save us on this stupid expedition. My anger bubbled hot, melting my horror, melting my fear and grinding my rage into something so sharp and so malleable I felt as though I could jump from my beast and wrestle the gargon to the ground with my bare hands.
I held tight to the creature's mane, fists white-knuckled as I breathed in and out with unnatural calm while forgetting the pain burning through my body. The wind howled in my ears, new bursts ripping through the plains with so much force that Tarzan and our creature were knocked off course. I grew distantly aware of his astonishment, though the wind sped faster and faster.
And then I was the wind.
I was the cold.
I was the rain.
I was free.
Twisting and exploding and pushing defiantly, an infinite power unbounded by gravity and life and law. The world made subject to my force, invisible.
Invincible.
I was one; I was many.
Wings fought against me, but I did not feel. Teeth gnashed in anger, but I had no substance.
They could not fight an enemy they could not see, only the destruction it left behind.
They screamed in fury as my rage howled. As I pushed them back, farther and farther, until they could not reach us.
And then all went quiet, and I was me again.
Tired and weakened and gasping for breath, barely holding on. I would've slid from the beast, too, if it weren't for Tarzan, who still held me in place as I slumped forward. He yelled something in that same language, and someone—Alex? —yelled something back.
The beast beneath me reared; why had we stopped running? I squinted my eyes open, and a great and terrible cry filled the sky. A cry of a thousand years, a cry of might and of dominion. I looked up; the white mountaintop had unfolded and was rising into the black sky.
I blinked. Was I hallucinating?
No, that wasn't a mountaintop; it was a dragon.
A magnificent, terrible, white dragon.
Higher and higher it rose, stark white against the clouds, like a slice on a canvas without color. The rain stopped and the wind stilled as though cowering before this untamed power of centuries. Its enormous wings beat percussively at the air as it hovered in place, its colossal white body bent in the shape of a crescent as another vociferous cry trembled through the skies.
This is the end. I've sent us to our deaths.
Like a white arrow, the dragon shot through the sky, sleek with terrible grace. It didn't fly toward us, however; it flew straight toward the gargons that were now clustered a few miles away, preparing to attack again. At sight of the dragon, the gargons shrieked in terror, but the mighty cry of the white dragon drowned out all else. When the white dragon reached the gargons, the air became a symphony of discordant, bestial sound.
The gargons tried attacking the white dragon from all sides, but the dragon shook them off like a horse shaking off flies. The dragon was easily the size of the three gargons combined, and it was not long before one of the gargons fell from the sky—dead.
One of the gargons snorted a stream of blazing orange fire at the white dragon. The fire streaked through the sky and was met with a stream of white. The dragon's breath froze the fire and the gargon, and it too dropped from the sky like a block of ice.
The last gargon let out a keening wail and took off flying in the opposite direction, but it couldn't out-pace the dragon. The dragon grabbed the gargon in its claws, shook it violently and then let it go. The last gargon pummeled into the side of the mountain and disappeared behind a ridge.
But the dragon was not finished.
It flapped its enormous white wings and then hovered there, directly over my head. Wind beat percussively at my ears, blowing my hair out of my face. Tarzan's pure terror racked my body as we sat frozen beneath the hulking body of the white dragon.
And it watched me. The slits in its yellow eyes constricted as it focused, wings beating. Fear saturated my awareness, but it wasn't my fear; it was the fear of the others. For some reason, I didn't feel fear. I felt only awe and a certain curiosity that I couldn't understand. A certain connection that I couldn't understand.
The white dragon opened its jaws, but instead of unleashing a cloud of frost, it shrieked, a bellowing and triumphant shriek, and with a few beats of its wings, it rose higher and higher into the air and disappeared into the clouds.
Before I had a moment to consider what had just happened, pain exploded in my shoulder. Scorching, searing, sharp pain. There was the sudden sensation that something had burst inside of it, and then the heat began spreading from my shoulder down into my chest. My chest squeezed and I gasped. Dots suddenly swam before my eyes, and my body swayed and I was falling…
Part Two:
Gesh
"The dead do not always rest;
The past is not always forgotten.
Few yet remain can attest,
Of ill man has long since begotten.
The mountains will trem
ble in fear,
When creatures of old do arise.
All those will flee who are near,
But one who wields might with the skies."
~ From the Verses of Gesh
Stefan
I waited at the bridge on the Rendin where it crossed the Road Centrale. It was the halfway point between Valdon and Orindor, and it was a heavily traveled road, though there were no travelers this day.
There was something in the air, something that tainted both earth and sky, a great dark spirit presiding over all. I'd brought along a handful of my best men, though even they shifted in their saddles with unease and their usually steady gazes flickered about with apprehension. The horses whinnied, restless, while we waited.
The Rendin was swollen—more so than I'd seen it in a very long time. It had rained incessantly over the past few days, which was what had postponed this gathering until now.
There was a part of me that wished the rain hadn't stopped and that I could've postponed it a few days more. My words would not be received well. No, they would not be received very well at all.
The wind clawed cold fingers through my hair, and I flexed my grip around the reins. It had never seemed fair that one man could hold the fates of so many. That one small conversation could change the course of the world. Though I'd grown to realize that "fair" is a word only mankind recognizes, for the world knows nothing of it.
A splash of red fluttered up ahead. I exhaled slowly; he was here.
Aegis Cicero Del Conte sat tall in his saddle beside me, just like he'd always sat beside my father. My father had been fortunate to have the loyalty of a man like Cicero Del Conte, and I hoped I could learn to be so deserving. A handful of men emerged from the cover of the trees. One carried the flag of Orindor—the splash of red I'd seen in the forest with the black sword sigil. It whipped in the wind as they rode to meet us, red as blood. But it was not Lord Commodus Pontefract that led them; it was his son, Danton.
I was struck with a sudden sadness.
It did not matter that I'd known Danton all my life. It did not matter that we'd jousted and fought and played pranks on one another, for we'd grown and found ourselves with inherited responsibility. He was Lord Danton Pontefract, Orindor's heir, and I was Prince Stefan Regius, heir to the throne. We were titles now, not friends.
Daria might have been the only person in this world who truly understood the pain of it.
Oh, how I miss you, Daria. I pray the spirits are keeping you and Alexander safe.
Danton stood on the other side of the bridge, erect and regal. I had always thought Danton differed from his father, for Lord Commodus had always frightened me as a child. Lord Commodus didn't possess the smile lines that gave one a kindly and inviting face, and his eyes lacked the warmth of humanity, but right then, his son Danton was a spitting image of him. I'd never minded Danton myself, but I suddenly saw why Alexander had never liked him.
Danton said something to his men, then led his horse over the bridge and stopped a few yards before me. He slid from the saddle and dropped to his knee in a bow. "Your grace."
The pang of a childhood lost struck my chest.
I dismounted. "Please stand, Lord Danton. We've known each other since we thought knives were chew toys. You don't need to bow to me."
He stood and smiled at me, but it did not touch his eyes.
"How are things in Bristol?" I asked, leading Danton away from Aegis Cicero Del Conte and my men so that we could chat in private. Perhaps as friends, if he'd allow it.
"Well, thank you, your grace." Danton spoke formally, his expression showing none of the joy and ease I'd grown up with. "I hope your journey was uneventful?"
He would not allow it, then. How much had changed and in such a small amount of time! How could sudden responsibility steal an entire lifetime of badinage and innocence? I did not let my disappointment show. "It was rather uneventful, thank you. Though I was beginning to wonder if the rain would ever stop."
Danton said nothing.
"I must admit: I was expecting your father," I said.
Danton squinted at the river as the wind ruffled his blond hair. "He's preoccupied with other matters that demand his immediate attention. He bid me to send his regards. He didn't feel his absence would be of consequence since our meeting here involves my future directly."
I stared out at the raging river. My men had stayed where I'd left them and Danton's had remained on the other side of the bridge. Only a few moments ago, I had dreaded the words I had planned to say, but now—seeing the man Danton had become—I suddenly felt emboldened. "I'm not giving her to you, Danton," I said.
His jaw clenched.
I waited, silent, allowing him a moment to process my words.
"Will you give me a reason, your grace?" he asked. Finally there was emotion in his voice, but it was not friendly emotion.
"She does not love you."
His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. Yes, he looked so very much like his father, Lord Commodus. Aside from the hair, the resemblance in facial expression was uncanny.
"You know you are outnumbered," Danton said through clenched teeth. "The shadowguard will penetrate the ninth gate any day, now, and once they defeat Lord Tosca—which they will—they will march directly to Valdon."
I knew this; the guild and my council had not ceased reminding me.
"You are willing to sacrifice the safety of your entire kingdom because of this?" Danton's anger was barely controlled.
If I'd learned one thing about Danton over the years, it was that he did not deal very well with the word "no."
"I am not sacrificing the safety of this kingdom, Danton," I replied. "Your father is bound as lord of Orindor to serve me and this realm, and his refusal to assist in these matters is treason."
Danton's eyes bore into mine. "My father is not a traitor, nor has he refused you. He asks only for your sister. It is a small request after a lifetime of servitude to King Darius, who has only used and exploited his service. He will not spare any more of his men, otherwise. He's spared more than his share over the years—you know he has."
I leveled my gaze with his. "I am not my grandfather, Danton. I am grateful for everything your father has given to this realm, but I cannot and will not grant your request. If the proposal is accepted, it will be because she has accepted it."
Danton's eyes slid back to the river. His expression remained cool, though the rigidity in his posture professed that an inferno blazed inside of him.
"I should inform you that Lord Vega has offered me the hand of his niece, Lady Isla Justine," he said evenly.
I had heard of this offer and I knew very well what it meant. If Danton accepted, Orindor would be united with Campagna and we would get no help from either side. Valdon would be completely and utterly isolated. "Will you accept?" I asked, careful not to give away my growing despair.
Danton's lips tightened. A gust of wind blew and ruffled his hair.
Seconds passed in heavy silence, and then Danton said, "Your sister would love me." His voice was quiet. "She may not at first, but I would be good to her. You know that I am a lot of things, but I would be good to her."
I inhaled, staring absently at the river. "I know."
After another few, quiet moments, Danton looked back at me. His expression was distant, his gaze resolved. "Your decision is final, then?"
"Danton, it was never my decision in the first place."
Chapter 9
Mercedes of Mosaque
Voices.
Soft and fluid. Quiet. Whispers in the dark. Fading in and out like a gentle breeze. A scent, sweet as honey. A touch of warmth. Drawing me back. Beckoning and guiding.
And then I became aware of myself, that I was a conscious, living being. I couldn't move, however, though my mind told me I should be able to. There was some kind of connection my brain had to an external body, but that connection had been severed, somehow. Try as I might, I simply couldn't open my lids to see.
More…
The gentlest touch brought me back. There was a spot on my forehead that felt particularly warm, and with great effort, I opened my eyelids.
A face loomed over me. I didn't recognize this face; it was round with small features, and it belonged to a young woman, probably just a few years younger than me. She'd started in surprise when I'd opened my eyes, and then she pulled her hands back from my face. She muttered something that I didn't understand, her thin brow knit together, and she said, "Preen-ciss, drink thees." There was a cup in her hands.
I tried to sit up, to do as instructed, but my body wouldn't cooperate. It felt heavy and sluggish, like my veins were filled with lead.
The girl misinterpreted my struggle as protest. "Eet is nit poison, preen-ciss," she urged. "Eet will help." And then she noticed my physical battle with an, "Oh!" set the cup down, and helped me sit up.
"Thank you." My voice scratched and my tongue felt like sandpaper.
She handed me the cup. It smelled of lemongrass and ginger and something else, and when I took a sip, a tingling sensation spread through my body. Whatever it was, it infused my veins with strength and lifted the fog from my mind.
I sighed and leaned my head back on a…headboard. I was in a very lavish bed, buried beneath a pile of white silks, and gossamer draped from four large, mahogany posts. Bolts of bright sunlight beamed through a pair of pellucid glass doors, and a warm and sticky summer breeze ruffled the diaphanous draperies that framed the door, falling from ceiling to wooden floor. It was the kind of room one admired in travel magazines featuring exotic abodes in tropical locations—particularly for romantic retreats. "Where am I?" I asked.
"Mosaque," the girl replied with the same accent.
Everything slowly came back to me: the plains, the sabres, the gargons. The white dragon. I didn't remember anything after that, but somehow I'd ended up right where I'd intended to be: in Mosaque, the capital of Gesh. Except… "You haven't by chance seen a young man—"
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