How long she had been tracking the ancient and injured dragon, she did not know. Days, weeks, through sunlight and moonlight both she had followed her prey. South through the Misathi Mountains, southeast into the Hallowmoors, she had found her there many days back. Trolls were trying to scavenge what they had thought was a dead dragon, and Katrina had waited to strike. The battle had been bloody, the trolls by the dozens had burned to ash, but she had cleaved deep into a wingbone before Rynnth took flight. When she crashed again to the swamp, the queen of Willborne took part of her tail, three claws, and severed the useless wing from the dragon’s body before the wyrm swam deep into the swamps.
Finding her way out, living off of moss, snakes, and cranes, Katrina now had a flightless adversary. Still, the trek due east had taken its toll on her. Hot harvest humidity plagued her with bugs and lice. The foul moisture of the swamps left her consumed with trying to make fire so that she could boil water and not die of thirst. Trolls hunted her while she followed bloody signs of the dragon eastward. The swamps gave way to higher ground, fogs and mist rose in the mornings and evenings, and she knew now that she had passed the borders of her kingdom. Why Rynnth would lead her back to Willborne, she had not a clue. Yet, determination and cause would not see her falter, and Katrina continued her stalking steps closer to the dragon she had vowed to kill.
Her attempt to stand and look from the hilltop was excrutiatingly painful. She looked below her armored plates, moved her shield to the side, and saw that a clawmark on her calf was dripping green and yellow puss. Red lines went in three different directions across her swollen leg. She saw the tip of a maggot worming around what was only a scratch from days past. She bent over, plucked it out, and winced as four more poured out with the release of warm white liquid down to her ankle inside her boot. Katrina wiped her hand in the small pool of still moist dragonblood, and smeared it across the infected wound. She grit her teeth as it burned and soothed at the same time. Her eyes flared red, not that she could see it, but she felt it in her vision. Her hand went for the wineskin, the one she had lifted from Veuric after she had killed him. Cupping her hand, Katrina scooped and poured the blood into the skin container, filling it halfway. She shook it and swirled it in her hand, then drank, just a swallow.
Her body felt less fatigue, her aches and pains were lessened, and her hunger died away. A trick she had learned in the Misathi when she was a bound slave to Rynnth. It protected her from the flames, and now with her will strong and resistant, and the dragon’s weak and injured, she was a dangerous predator indeed. Katrina limped down the hill, picked up her helm and crown, and continued east.
The sun was burning her face every day as she marched alone after the dragon that had ruined her. Rynnth had made her queen, gave her power, but had also led to the deaths of eighty knights and captains from every noble house in Willborne, from the nobility that had survived her coronation that is. Faldrune, her minotaur bodyguard and mercenary enforcer, the one that dehorned Heathen the red of Valhirst, was dead as well. The selfish wrath the wyrm had forced upon her had left her and the dragon defeated.
Now, Katrina feared being in the very kingdom she supposedly ruled. Willborne would have vengeance upon her, dragon to blame or no, and that revenge would be painful and fatal for certain. She recognized her surroundings, though it had been some years since she had been this far west. The keep and council of her forefathers of Willborne was due east, Claumoore was north several days, and Fort Tyl was perhaps only a day to the south. The hills held valleys of marsh between them, scattered with streams and groves of willow trees, and cattails sprung by the thousands with every turn or descent.
She stopped, she felt it and heard it in the same instant. Katrina turned behind a tree and slowly drew her longsword, her shield hidden as best she could, and she listened. Garbled and muffled moans, then the crunching of bones, and the pitter pat of blood onto the ground hinted that something large was eating. Wait for her to chew louder, make a move, then charge in Katrina. You can do this, she deserves death, and only you will have the chance to end it. The queen spoke to herself in her mind, over and over, biting her lip to hide the chance Rynnth could still read her thoughts. The pain seemed to preside over conscious thought, another trick she had learned while captive.
The chewing was louder now, another body of another something, just down a stream and through some trees, she felt the blood tell her. Her eyes opened red, her head and body turned in a flash, and Katrina raised her shield and charged in.
“Aaaarrrhhh!!!” She screamed a battle cry into the grove by the bubbling tributary, hoping to startle the unsuspecting wyrm.
“Hhhhhsssssshh!!!” Rynnth returned with a hissing warning, protecting her meal of charred victims from the merchant roads. Though still massive, the dragon had more fresh scars than an army of men combined. Her one eye was but a rotted socket now, her tongue was little more than half a blackened strip of flesh, and the fangs on the left side of both jaws were gone. One wing was but a stump of bone protruding from her shoulder, her hind legs scraped uselessly behind, and her tail was missing at least twenty feet of the tip. Regardless of her weakened state, black scaled Rynnth’s mouth shot out flame for over a hundred feet, incinerating everything in sight, and she kept billowing until her breath gave out. When she stopped, all was black smoke and ash.
Stomp, stomp, stomp
Katrina had no hair left below her helmet line, her long braids burned off many times over now. Her armor smoldered, glowing hot in places, just like her shield and sword. Yet, her flesh felt not the bite of the flames, and she marched through the cinders and smoke, straight at the massive dragon. Her steps quickened into a rush again, staring through the billowing black as the injured wyrm had turned around once more to flee.
The queen of Willborne screamed another cry of hate, leapt up and dove off of a fallen tree, then plunged her hot blade into the spine of Rynnth. Her gauntlet grabbed the loosened and bloody scales, she pulled her blade free, and drove it down again into the back of her draconic foe.
The wyrm hissed and screamed, thrashing from side to side as she clawed and scrambled ahead with her front legs. Her tail swished now like a snake, and even her good wing was assisting in motion. A third piercing strike stung like nothing she had ever felt before, and then her lower half felt no more. Her legs, tail, and abdomen went numb, the queen she once controlled had cleaved her spine. She lowered her head and slowed, hoping she could lure her huntress close and whip her horned skull around and end this torturous battle.
Katrina felt it, the dragon was slowing and dying, so she climbed up toward the head. Over the broken bone stump of a wing, across the hardened black scale ridges, and she stopped right at the base of the neck. Her blade raised up for a finishing thrust, and then all went dark and sparks of pain forced her eyes closed. Her last moments saw only black horns snap back, then it was over.She was falling, then her legs went end over end as she hit a tree, and her body was rolling down a hill. Her armor scattered and the straps tore loose, her helmet and crown rolled off again, and her shield was gone.
She opened her eyes, gripped her sword, and looked at her leg. Broken, the bone piercing through above the ankle, leaving her with two bad legs. She heard the dragon shamble, try to crawl, and then she heard a long hiss as Rynnth’s breath let out and her body crashed to the stream. Katrina dared not breath, helpless as she now was. Her air went in slow, through her nostrils as she listened. An agonizing hour passed, and the wyrm had not inhaled, though she could not see over the hill to where she lay. Another hour, she knew Rynnth had not breathed nor moved, she knew her foe was dead in the stream.
Rynnth must be dead, must be, but I need to see it with my eyes. Katrina looked over fifty feet away, seeing the wineskin full of draconic blood she needed to heal and survive, and she slowly began to crawl from her broken position. Her fingers pulled her to her elbows, then she shuffled up the hill on the moist grass, determined to get the wineskin. Her pain was intolerable
as she now felt much more than a leg broken in her body, and her mind swam with flashes of intense weariness and shock. She tried to see over the hill, to see the rotting corpse of Rynnth, but her head fell to the earth. As Katrina, queen of Willborne, faded into darkness, she heard horses and men. She heard yelling and boots and armor coming her direction as the sun burned bright above. She smiled, knowing that either way, she was unable to move and would surely be killed once recognized. She smiled, accepting at least she had taken her revenge on the dragon. Justice had been done.
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It was another world, another time it seemed, a place trapped in a storm and under gray skies for thousands of years. Nothing had changed, it appeared the ravages of war were still fresh scars upon the city of Mooncrest. It was quiet, far too quiet for a city that must have held half a million or more people during its time. There was no movement, no leaves on the trees, no grass to walk upon. They expected animals, birds, some life to have at least found a way in to nest and hide. Nothing was here. Though full of golden structures and sandstone grandeur, a skeleton of an ancient civilization was before them, just a shell of lost greatness to see and welcome.
First steps were taken, finally after an hour of stares and awe had passed. The five walked hesitantly into the empty remains of a once holy city, a place of temples and hope, a short lived kingdom of dreams and myth. Past the outer walls, then they went by the inner walls, all in crumbling decay. Shinayne strode alongside Zen, palms on her sacred blades of the white moon, Saberrak Agrannar was close behind with his axes in hand. James Andellis and Gwenneth stayed close to one another, still looking beyond the high rising metropolis and the mountains, taking it all in.
“Where to now, King Thalanaxe?” Shinayne grinned, not wanting to blink, as she toyed with her dwarven friend.
“Baah, don’t start that yet now, we have to get to Kakisteele first. Me guess is following that there central road, the one with the white markers of stone that leads up.” He thought of all the horrors he had heard over the years of this place. His mind recalled six-legged demons, devil women, ghosts of the dwarves, men, and soldiers of Altestan that still haunted this place. Zen saw none of that, though an ominous presence was here, somewhere. He thought of the dust, remembering his vow.
“I like the direct approach, no hiding or sneaking.” The gray minotaur huffed.
“Passes right by the tower and the temples, surely the best route for us.” Gwenneth smiled, looked to James, and then quickened her pace to match his.
“For us? You mean all of us, or you and James?” Shinayne shot the question back over her shoulder with a wide smile, one that was equally matched by Zen.
“Hhrrmmmph! Good question.” Saberrak snorted low and grinned.
“For all… of us, and…me and James…that…Shinayne what are…?” Gwenne turned a shade of red as she stumbled over her retort.
“I believe your chosen main road is fine, for all of us.” James, just as red beneath his beard and brown locks, spoke up over his raven haired companion.
“Splendid save there brave knight, already rescuin’ yer’ maiden and such, well done lad.”
“I am no ones maiden, I will have you all know right---“
Gwenneth was cut off as both Shinayne and Saberrak raised their hands, crouched, and stopped not ten feet onto the road. Zen knelt down to the white bricks, James drew his griffon hilted blade and surveyed for a reason for the sudden halt, and Gwenneth focused on the staff and stretched out her senses of the arcane.
“Platinum. Tis not white bricks at all, they lined the very road to Kakisteele with precious platinum they did. Vundren’s blessed boots!” The dwarven priest rubbed his hand over the invaluable metal that dotted every ten bricks of the lining to the main road. He looked up to a bronze sign on a stone building and read it. “Vulanri Road. It’s in dwarven, part o’ it anyway.”
“And what does Vulanri denote?” Shinayne sensed motion ahead, so she asked without looking to Zen. Just as he touched and spoke, the elven swordswoman felt things change, many things, all across the ruins.
“It is the dwarven word for hope.” Gwenneth responded before the dwarf could, yet her senses were overwhelmed with things near and far that were radiating arcane glow in her eyes, mostly from the tower.
“Aye, Gwenne is right, in Agarian it’s hope. Cross street here is…odd…Gimmor Way, in Agarian this time, named for the green moon or the month I s’pose.” Zen looked out to the dozens of main streets, none as grand as Vulanri Road or Temple Way, yet they all went north to south, and were crossed by just as many from east to west. “Hells, we are gonna need a guide to find everything, ha!”
“One approaches, ask her then.” Saberrak pointed with an axe and lowered his horns as an old woman shambled toward them. He had watched her come out of a ruined home, silently, and she was walking very slow.
“There is nothing there, what are you talking about?” Gwenneth looked with both her normal sight and the arcane, she saw just an empty street, one of hundreds in every direction.
“I sense her, she is sad and wicked, but I can only make out a glowing shadow, nothing more.” Shinayne drew her blades and watched the strange spirit float toward them.
“I see her as well, Zen can you?” James waited, watching the old woman limp with her head facing the road, it looked as though her crooked neck could not lift up had she wanted to.
“I see nothin’, ye’ all be seein’ illusions or visions or somethin’.” The dwarven priest looked ahead, nothing moved, not anywhere. He pulled out his hammer and moons of finely crafted silver, and his eyes went wide. The old woman was right in front of him now, and he fell over onto his rump as he pulled his warhammer from his hip. She was not alone, he could see her plain as gray, and hundreds more behind her in the distance, just watching them.
The streets were suddenly filled with people, people dragging bodies and burying other people, none of them were there moments before. They looked real, though their colors were dark and dampened, and they cast not so much as shadow nor sound. Walking the sunless streets, wailing over their dead brethren, thousands mourned thousands in silence. Some hung from trees, others were nailed to crossed beams of wood, several hundred were in burning piles, many more lay impaled by spears. Dwarves there were, and elves, men, women, and children. Even infants were carried by their elders, all mouths open in terrible pain and suffering.
The fires cast no smoke nor smell, the wailing was not heard by their ears, only thier eyes took in the horror of the aftermath of war. Buildings fell without the expected crash to follow. Priests with symbols they had never seen, and some they had, presided over masses of graying figures that wept and held one another. Flags rippled from the temples, ones that could not be seen by Gwenneth nor Shinayne, but by the men for certain. Flags of white with a golden triangle behind three long identical dragons of black, and none of the ghostly citizens dared take them down.
“By Vundren, look at the clouds.” Zen pointed a half mile up, directly at three black spheres like eyes that looked through the gray at the temple district. They were immense, two on the bottom and one above and centered, and as they glared down the people fled out the temples, gray folk long dead.
“Altestan, I see the three dragoned flags and triangle of Altestan. Same flags that were on the Headhunter warship in Harlaheim. They did this.” James looked past the old woman in ragged dresses to the forgotten carnage reenacting before him.
“The men may see for they are touched, they see what I remember, they do. What she makes us see, forever. For why have thou come to our graves eternal then, treasures or answers?” The old woman of gray hair amess and wrinkles uncounted looked with hollow black eyes to the five visitors, her voice a strange whispering song that all could hear, yet Gwenne and Shinayne could not see her.
“What goes on here, old ghost?” Saberrak huffed, now seeing the massive three black eyes from the sky widen, shadows pouring from their gaze into the temples.
Black winged beings glided from the air, and landed behind the holy towers, and more people screamed. Many more.
“It is the judgement of Gimmor, of God, and kept for all eternity by Arabashiel. You see, and so you must be blessed by the fallen ones.” The old gray spectre snapped her bony fingers and the vision was gone, all of it disappeared. She turned her neck toward the again empty ruins, then back to the five in front of her and smiled. “No more, you should be here not, the Knights of the Crescent must be told.”
“We come to end it, to give ye’ freedom old spirit. This Arabashiel, she got six legs then I s’pose? Where she be then?” Azenairk stood, seeing only the lost city and this ancient ghost of a woman before him.
Her laughter was as if a thousand elderly women and men cackled through her. “Ha ha ha ha, he he he, ho ha oh oooh…a warrior, a slayer of immortals, is it the cursed archmage of the ember tower, the warlock of night I see before me? No, nay, tis not he. You be but a dwarf that follows a lesser being and seeks the mines. You will die.”
She passed through Zen, giving him raised hairs on his arms, and walked to Shinayne. “Blessed blades of the conquered moon, but survive you will not, elf. You will die.”
After passing through Shinayne, she hovered now to Gwenneth. “You can see me not, faithless one. I see you though, old archmage in the emerald, and you will not save her. You will die.”
The old ghost hovered before Saberrak. Two axes cut right through her as if she were air, and her grin met that of the gray minotaur. “Just checking.” He snorted.
“Foolish one, I know what you are and what you were. It matters not, your brothers have abandoned you to exile. You will die, spirit of Annar.” She hovered through him, and floated up to James.
James Andellis saw the empty stares from his friends, as if hope had been taken from them when the ghost spoke and passed them by. They moved little, as if a black cloud was over them that none could see. No one argued the spirit, no one asked her anything, they just stared. Something was happening.
The Exodus Sagas: Book IV - Of Moons and Myth Page 16
