A half circle of men gathered on the deck of the big, deep-keeled boat. They held something that glowed a malevolent, pulsating black with red flashes of lightning within it.
He’d found the eye. Not the eye of the storm, the eye of magic.
Five men. Five masters by the colors that formed around them. Masters by their black robes trimmed in blood red. Three journeymen positioned between them, they wore red robes trimmed in streaks of black lightning. And two apprentices in gray trimmed with black and red.
None of them held a staff.
Instead they cradled a bone. A long bone, or series of bones that looked like a spine.
Shayla gasped in shock. Baamin echoed her. They tried to flee the circle.
Jaylor yanked the two dragons back before their children could flee in fright as well. He held them as firmly with his mind as he held his own staff and the massive magical spell created by his circle.
(Krakatrice!) Baamin gasped, as if he found breathing difficult.
We have fought the live beasts before and killed them. We can do it again, Jaylor proclaimed to one and all assembled.
(You do not understand the power of death and the bone,) Shayla said weakly. (A bone turned to stone by time. Ancient beyond ancient. It holds all the power of the centuries.)
Jaylor understood her need to disconnect from that formidable bone.
I understand. I know the power within the gift of a bone from one of your own kind that you gave to my son Glenndon. I know what we fight. But we are more. We are together in numbers and will. We are more than that circle and the artifact they wield without thought.
As he watched, the men on that flimsy boat at the edge of the storm juggled the bone as if it burned their hands. He watched as their control slipped away from their minds into the bone. Watched as the bone began to throb and writhe within the confines of their feeble, frightened grasp. It shed the matrix of stone that bound it. Bits of glaring white bone began to show through.
He knew the moment it wrenched free and dropped toward the ocean depths.
Time slowed. He observed in finest detail each inch of its plunge toward the water.
Steam rose in massive clouds as the bone approached the living water. Fish fled. The boat rocked from the gush of waves seeking the shore, nearly capsizing.
(Wait for it,) Baamin cautioned.
“Wait,” Jaylor commanded his troops.
(Wait!)
“Now!” Jaylor commanded all within his hearing.
The first tip of the bone touched water. Steam hissed and rose in a cloud, obscuring clear sight of the artifact.
The arrow of dragon magic dove fast and deep from its observation point into the center of the long spine.
Red light exploded. Sparks and streaks of lightning shot in every direction. The very air screeched in pain and insult at the invasion.
A shock wave of energy rocked the magic circle, driving them all to their knees.
Jaylor fought the backlash with everything in his power, desperately holding the lattice together, forbidding another ungrounded backlash.
His heart pounded loudly in his ears, his peripheral vision grew dark. And still he pulled his own magic, strand by strand, back into his staff and thence back into the Kardia.
Lukan backed Jaylor with his own power, untangling the strands so that his Da could handle them. Good lad, Jaylor whispered.
His breath caught in his throat. His heart threatened to beat through his chest. His arms grew weak and numb. One more strand and the others could take over. One more strand and he’d quit.
Just one more strand . . .
CHAPTER 31
“NOW LOOKS LIKE a good time to get out of here.”
Valeria blinked rapidly several times, trying to make sense of Ariiell’s words and the way she placed her hands under Val’s armpits and hoisted her upward.
“What . . . ?”
“The wind is easing. We’ve got to move before those . . . those black things decide they want fresh blood,” Ariiell commanded, bracing Val’s back until she stopped swaying.
“Blood. Black things. Blood and black things!” Val’s brain cleared and she looked south, beyond the little vale where the caravan had hunkered down. In the dim twilight—made darker by the receding clouds and the amount of dust in the air—she needed a moment to figure out what her eyes were telling her. Sure enough, the top of the little hill, streaked with crimson from the setting sun, writhed with a mass of black things swarming over dead flusterhens, goats, and cows. A steed with a broken leg struggled to stand and limp away from them.
The smell of sulfur and skunk made her gag.
All around her the caravan people began to come to life, struggling up from wherever they’d taken refuge. They too placed hands over their mouths and noses, scrunched up their eyes and turned away from the carnage.
“I think the eggs were in one of the crates beneath the litter,” Ariiell whispered. “Father ordered a bunch of stuff from the Big Continent, wine and crockery. He smuggled the eggs in with them.”
“The unwitting tool of someone from Amazonia,” Val stated flatly. Someone like Skeller?
Val turned to look at the collapsed litter. Swaths of shredded fabric lay strewn over a half mile, all in the direction of the tangle of Krakatrice. Mixed in with the pastel draperies were shards of vivid red and black eggs.
“They’ll bloat soon and need to sleep off the meal,” Val whispered to Ariiell. “They’re diurnal, awake with the sun, and sleep at full dark. But the males will take turns circling the tangle all night so that none may attack them while asleep. We’ve got to be elsewhere before they hunt again. The more they eat, the bigger they grow. Last spring Lucjemm only controlled his tangle by limiting the amount of fresh blood he fed them. They’ll eat meat, but they grow with blood.”
The drover captain seemed to come to the same conclusion as he jerked his attention away from the mass of black. “Move, move, move!” he yelled at anyone and everyone. “Gather what you can carry and move. Orderly, double file along the creek bed. Keep as close to the water as you can. Catch any steed you find wandering—them that’s not insane or so spooked they’re grazing in SeLenicca about now. Get a move on. You don’t want to be dinner for them snakes.”
“The one with the broken leg!” Val called to him.
He looked across the rolling hills. Sadness nearly crumpled his face. Resolutely he marched over to it, caressed the nose and murmured a few words to the hapless beast. Then, without warning, he whipped out a sleek knife and slit the steed’s throat. It dropped to its knees with a brief scream, then rolled to its side, barely breathing.
No one met the drover captain’s eyes as he returned to the scattered camp and ordered everyone to prepare for a nightlong march.
Val turned away, tears streaming down her face. The animal’s spirit flowed back into the Kardia along with the blood. She knew its death was necessary, accepted that the drover had shown it mercy rather than leaving it to the ravenous and savage Krakatrice. Knew it. And hated it.
Though she ate meat, she resolutely stayed away during the butchering.
She turned her back on the scene and looked for something useful to gather up. Something like a cook pot or waterskin they might need on the long march west.
Ariiell shook her head. “We need to return to the other caravan and warn them.”
Val looked at her in surprise: coherence and compassion from Lady Ariiell, the mad sorceress? What had happened to the woman during the course of the storm?
“Don’t look at me like that. I have something to focus on so I’m thinking straight,” Ariiell said, turning her attention to gathering her comb, a spare gown, shoes, and a bottle of wine.
“What is your focus?” Val replied as she stuffed dried tubers into a pot and slung a waterskin over her shoulder. She ignored the stash of dried meat, unable to think about eating any of it, ever again. The steed . . .
“Getting away from my father. Rejoining your
sister seems the wisest course of action. Besides, we need to warn them about that.” She jerked her head toward the writhing tangle of snakes that seemed to grow by the minute as they covered the fallen steed.
Val tried not to gag as she sought to pick out details, looking for telltale wings along the spines. Krakatrice followed a female—like their distant cousins the dragons. Females were the most bloodthirsty and dangerous of the pack.
If they could kill the female . . .
No time, they’d not get close to her, had no ensorcelled obsidian spear tips to penetrate the magic bubble of protection around the monsters.
“I’ve got to tell Da,” she whispered, feeling for her shard of glass in her pocket.
“Last time you tried that you passed out.”
Val raised the tiny circle and held it toward the dying sun, letting the sluggish water of the creek merge with her vision. Not a true or proper summons spell, but journeymen needed to improvise sometimes. Da had said so. He’d related some of his own bright ideas when he told tall tales of his own journey.
Just then the glass vibrated and glowed with blue and brown, an unformed swath of color swirling in agitation and urgency.
“Lukan?” she called into the whirlpool of emotion, focusing her magic into making the colors more coherent than the tangle of Krakatrice on the hill.
“Da’s dying,” her older brother wailed and vanished.
The sky exploded beyond Coronnan City, in the center of the Bay, infecting the wall of clouds with shards of crimson light.
Thunder crackled right on top of the forks of glaring light that chased each other all around the clouds. The high-pitched anger of clashing magics broke apart. Sparks glanced off the rivers of water within the gray pall of clouds. Thunder took on deeper, disgruntled tones, rolling and echoing from treetop to hilltop and back again.
Glenndon fell backward into his companions. They lay together breathing hard, sweating, and dazed. They still held the staff. It stopped vibrating, ceased pulling him outward, dropped to the ground, an inert stick once more.
The slash of bone embedded in the top faded to bleached white. Deep striations ran its full length. Rose gold and green tinged the grooves. His color with something added.
(The colors of the dragon who once lived around that bone.)
“You’re back?”
Emptiness in the back of his head. Was that his thought or a dragon’s? He didn’t know at the moment. The wail of the wind lessened. His ears rang in the unnatural silence.
Too silent.
What was happening outside? He needed to find out and make the next decision for their safety.
He looked to where his hands and those of his companions were joined over the base of the staff, wondering if their skin was melted together and inseparable, as he felt molded to the staff.
Frank withdrew his grip first, easing back against the wall of their foxhole. He sighed and closed his eyes.
Keerkin had to jerk his hands loose. Slick sweat from his palms had become a sort of glue. He too leaned away, giving Glenndon room to maneuver the staff. Make a decision.
“I can’t hear the river,” Frank murmured.
“How can you hear or not hear anything?” Keerkin replied, shaking his head and slapping his ears. “The thunder makes my ears ring.”
Glenndon’s hearing popped at the same time. He swallowed and heard the displacement inside his head. Sort of like when a person emerged from a transport spell. The air in the place where he landed had to go somewhere, just as air had to rush in to fill the vacancy of where he’d been.
A change in air pressure. A big one.
“Stargods! What are we in for now?” He crawled forward on his elbows, toward the top of his staff. It remained silent and still. Unlike his heart, which felt like it had climbed into his throat and would spit itself out. Either that, or tear his vocal cords to shreds with its fierce pounding.
He took a deep breath, held it, and let it go. And another. And a third. Simple, routine. The Kardia beneath his hands, the tree around him, and the air he breathed became one, woven together into a pattern of life that included him, his companions, and the fox that had once lived here.
But not the storm. The storm remained outside of him; a separate entity. Unnatural.
He breathed again and focused his eyes on the quiet auras around every drenched and lashed plant outside. They’d all hunkered down, drawing their energy deep within, giving the storm nothing to latch onto. Just as Glenndon, Frank, and Keerkin had.
With his head finally outside the tree, and his staff next to his cheek, he looked at the broader landscape.
That unnatural stillness chafed at his skin, his thoughts, and his magic. The magnetic pole tugged at his feet. His connection to the planet completed and grounded, he tucked his knees under him, ready to emerge and stand straight and tall and sure of his place once more.
Mud seeped into his boots. The sky still leaked and dripped down the back of his tunic. He was wet, cold, and miserable, but he knew where he was, who he was, and what he was.
His magic still scratched at something inside him. It was back, no longer drained out of him.
He brought a small flame to his palm. It glowed bright and true in the rapidly darkening twilight. He still had that itch in the back of his mind.
“I have my magic back. But not all is returned to normal.”
“I can’t hear the river!” Frank reminded him.
“The river is the least of our worries . . .”
“No, it is the biggest of our worries. If all of the river is out there, in the Bay . . .” Frank pointed east, knowing the direction more than Glenndon did. “Where is all that water going to go when the storm releases it?”
Aiyyeeee! The magic contained within the Krakatrice spine is too much. Too much. I relied on it too much. I released it too late. The moment it touched the water—bane to the Krakatrice—all the magic trapped within the fossilized bone broke forth in a single shower of deep red flames. They shot upward and outward, burning all within reach, boiling the water, adding steam to the thick cloud layer I had built.
The waves backlashing against my control toss our sturdy boat as if a splinter of flotsam. They swamp our decks and cabins. We roll sideways and dip fore and aft. I fear we must sink, or be washed overboard.
Instinctively I throw a magic shield around myself, a shield like the ones the Krakatrice possess naturally. The memory of the dead snake embedded in the bone taught me how to do that.
In releasing the bone, I released the storm as well. My heart tells me this all came too soon. Too soon to exact my revenge upon an ungrateful king and a vicious Senior Magician. Too soon. But my head tells me that I sent the storm back into the Bay just in time. If I allowed the wind and waves to gather any more power all of Coronnan would have been destroyed. This way, they will be devastated. But they will survive and rebuild.
I shall rebuild Coronnan as it should be. As it was long ago. That was the core of my storm spell. A restoration: to put back what magic has distorted, to right what has gone wrong. The destruction is a temporary side effect. I must wash away the new corruption to restore the rightful order.
My followers cringe and hide from the steam and boiling water. They hunker down, hoping the boat will shelter them. But already their exposed skin cooks and sloughs off. Their clothing comes close to igniting, melting into their bodies. The boat cannot protect them.
It will succumb. The deep keel gives the rampaging water something to bite into.
Now I must seize a tiny rowboat that I can make skim over the top of the waves and escape the dangers of this bigger boat and the keening panic of my associates. I must flee quickly, before the steam scorches my lungs. Alone I can persevere for a time. For I must survive. If I succumb to the storm of my own creation, I cannot rebuild Coronnan and bring my country back to its preeminent and rightful place on Kardia Hodos. My colleagues and the ship’s crew must fend for themselves. They have served me well.
If their sacrifice is the cost of this magnificent magic, so be it. The Stargods or the Great Mother must decide their fate. That is no longer in my hands.
I must see to my own survival. I send a thought to my waiting apprentice in his own boat. He escaped the city before the storm could brutalize all of the Bay. He will fetch me to safety near the headlands to the South. I will be safe there, ready to rebuild from the ancient citadel of Saria.
CHAPTER 32
“KEERKIN, COME. NOW. We have to get out of here,” Glenndon ordered.
“Is it safe?” Keerkin asked, not quite daring to stick his head all of the way outside the tree’s shelter.
“Not for long.” Frank grabbed Keerkin’s hand and dragged him upright.
Glenndon sought an image. Someplace safe, warm, and dry. A clear spot in the palace cellar, a storeroom next to the kitchen. It was where both he and Da transported to and from when they needed privacy. Slowly he built the image in his mind, layer by layer, dust mote by dust mote, the way he’d seen it last . . .
“Make sure you land us someplace high. The entire city will be flooding, any minute.” Frank grabbed his arm, disrupting Glenndon’s trance.
“The palace will be packed with refugees, all above the second floor,” Keerkin added.
“A parapet or roof would be best,” Frank agreed.
“Your rooms, sir?” Keerkin asked.
“Probably seething with people. I can’t risk materializing inside someone else.” Glenndon shifted memories. The semisecret room above the archives. Too difficult to find and get to for just anyone to wander in or seek refuge there.
“Hold tight, my friends. Don’t let go of me no matter what you see or think you see. Just hang on to me and try not to think of anything.”
With a destination image firmly in his mind, he checked the light angles and shadows. Then he reached out with his mind to find a ley line. The place was riddled with them, all thin and spidery. But he didn’t need much. Just enough energy to boost him from here . . .
The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 Page 25
