“Oh. Well, thank you for telling me.”
“I’m not done, Keither. He thought you were lazy and stubborn beyond reason. He didn’t like you because you are throwing your life away, a life that he would have liked to have. You make no attempt to hone your skills, barring trying to prove people wrong. You also refuse to grow as a person.”
There was a lump in Keither’s throat at this. He wasn’t ready for this news. Keither knew it was hurting Legon to say this. The man had taken his pain for a short time; there was no way causing more would feel good.
“Is there more?” Keither asked
Legon started again. “Yes. He was convinced that you hated him. That was what he thought at the end, but he was willing to do what it took to give you a shot. Keither, I’m sorry, I know this was not what you wanted to hear, but remember he and I both think that you are capable of great things if you try.”
Legon gestured with his head at where Sara slept. “And she does as well.”
Legon was telling the truth, and that’s what stung the most. Keither’s brother was a hero, but he was… “A lump of lard,” he thought.
Legon spoke, not needing to read his mind. “But it is a choice, know that. You choose what you are. Make sure it’s a choice that you will not regret on your death bed.”
“Ok, I will,” was the only response he had.
“Now,” Legon said flatly.
“What? Why now? Can’t I think about what I want to be?”
“I’m not talking about a trade or where to live. Decide who you are to be now so when presented with obstacles in life you have already chosen what to do. Not choosing is a choice. You have thought long enough. I will support you in whatever choice you make.”
Keither knew that was a true statement. Legon would take the mantle of older brother, but unlike Kovos, he would not make decisions for him. Keither looked down, thinking. He wasn’t unhappy with his life; he was content. He looked over at Sara. To him she was the embodiment of a different future whether she chose him or not. That path would have lots of pain in it, and sorrow; his current path would not.
“My current path is easier and will mean less suffering in this life…”
“But it will also mean less happiness as well. Life is a balance. Your capacity to do good is only as strong as your ability to do evil, remember that.”
He had a point. Keither was content with life but that was it. He wasn’t all that happy or sad. This little adventure of theirs made him feel more alive than he ever had. Still, he didn’t want the suffering. He looked at the sleeping form of Sara almost as if it would tell him what to do, and in a way it did. This was going to be wonderfully horrible, he thought. It was his choice of what he did with this life. He may have the potential to do bad things, but he didn’t have to choose them. He could still choose the good. A shiver ran down his spine as the thought of what his true potential might be and, more important, the road that it would take him down.
“I will be a real person. I will be what I was meant to be.” It sounded odd for him to say, it sounded pompous and arrogant, but at least he was trying.
* * * * *
Legon was looking intently at the boy, wondering if he would choose to be a man or remain a boy. It tore at him to hurt Keither, but he was to take Kovos’ place, a job he took very seriously. It was cruel of him to tell Keither the truth of Kovos’ and his thoughts; you were supposed to say that someone loved and cared for you and that they were proud, yet this was a lie. But if Keither chose to be something then this night would be a reminder for him in dark times, a defining moment. Conversely, if he chose not to move then this would haunt him for life and there might be no chance at convincing him again.
Was this his place? He purpose was to restore, right? But what was he to restore Keither to? A voice in his mind said he was also to destroy, but was destruction all bad? He would have to destroy the Iumenta to restore order, wouldn’t he? This was just another function of the Everser Vald. This was the risk that was taken; it would be up to Keither to decide the outcome. Either way, Legon would live with it and do his best for the boy or man, depending on what he decided.
Keither was now looking at Sara, and he could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He was standing on a path now, but which one was it? When Keither turned his attention back to Legon there was a look that could have been hate or determination, Legon wasn’t sure. With Keither they often came together. After his pronouncement, though, he knew it was the latter, and he smiled inwardly.
“Good, Keither, now sleep. Tomorrow we will reach the Precipice, if there is trouble you will be the lead rider so the rest of us may fight with magic.”
“What’s the Precipice? Sorry, I wasn’t listening to Arkin earlier.”
“It is the outpost for the Elves and Humans in this part of the land. It is said to be the only one for the humans. The rest of their lands are blocked by the Cornis mountain range to the northwest and then Elven lands to the east.”
“Is there no way by the sea? We’re close to that now, aren’t we?”
“Yes, I think we are, and the city that feeds and takes care of the Precipice is called Manton and it is a coastal city, but the Iumenta won’t do anything via the sea.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Legon thought this might be a good time to let Keither do what he was good at. Making a new life didn’t mean that he wasn’t to think any more.
“Well, why would you avoid attacking by sea if you were the Queen?”
He saw Keither thinking it over. “Well, the Queen has more resources, but…”
He would get it, Legon told himself, just give it time.
“But the humans have Elves for allies.”
“And why would that help?” Legon asked, knowing the answer.
“The Elven navy is unrivaled. It would be expensive and extremely difficult to do. You could harass them a bit, but a full-on attack would mean going head to head with an undefeated navy.”
This was true. Legon didn’t know much about his people’s military, but he did know the tales about their Navy. It was unsurpassed and to attack it was suicide. The Iumenta came from landlocked areas, whereas the Elves had an obsession with the sea, according to stories. Keither was right; it would be a bad idea to try and take Manton by sea, and by land you had to hit the Precipice. He wasn’t sure what advantage taking the city would hold anyway. It was at the edge of their territory and therefore not a hub for trade. He guessed that must be why it had never been attacked. There is a certain security in being an unimportant city, he thought; this was the case for Salmont as well.
“Very good, Keither.”
“Thanks, I really apprec-”
Legon held up his hand, stopping Keither.
“It’s time for you to lead, get up!”
He started rousing the others. The intruders were coming fast; they would be there within the hour. Everyone was moving slowly, not wanting to get up.
“We have company! We need to move now!”
With this they woke up and frantically began to gather their things. Within ten minutes they were on their way. Sasha had the network up and running and Legon was giving the horses just a little help. As the sun rose they saw a plume of dirt rising in the distance behind them. Their pursuers were gaining fast—too fast in fact. Then it hit him.
“Venefica! They’re helping the horses! Arkin, we need help.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Arkin responded.
Arkin needed to separate from the network to make his connection. One of the rules for connecting to the Precipice was to not have anyone else who wasn’t known and trusted with them. Legon looked back at the incoming force; there was no using the animals now. They were gaining fast, but he was hesitant to do too much with their horses. They could drop if more chemicals entered their blood stream, and he couldn’t work for them for long. As they closed in he saw around thirty or so men on horses. It was time to raise their defenses. Ar
kin activated the wards. As he did he saw flickers of purple and green around them. On the enemy’s horses he saw orange, yellow, and blue flickers. There were at least three Venefica with them.
As the gap between the two racing groups closed, Legon sent Keither a message to lead the group. All he had to do was keep them going in their current direction. Off in the distance, the peaks of the Cornis mountains were coming into view, their best hope for safety. The gap between the forces was closing rapidly and soon their pursuers would be in range. Legon faded back, placing himself at the rear of the group. Undoubtedly they knew more magic than him, but he was stronger and he had the assistance of Arkin, Sasha, and Sara, so not all was lost—just mostly lost.
Arkin had instructed them in the basics of magical combat, so it was no surprise when Legon saw a bolt of blue fly from the horsemen. It was a large ball of energy. It hit a wall of purple about five feet away from him with a deafening crack. This spell was not attacking them directly; it was designed to hit wards and weaken them.
Legon felt a small tug on his energy at this, and countered with a spell of his own. He only knew of a few breaking spells, as they were called, but he sent one their way. It smacked into a wall of yellow, causing a crack like thunder to rent the air, and at once a flash of orange came at him, this time hitting him directly. He felt his fire ward activate, stopping the flame curse. He knew what they were doing now. The Venefica with the yellow magic was protecting the group as a whole. There would be wards by the others as well, but this person would take the brunt of the attack, then the blue would try and take out their shield and the orange would take shots at holes in their armor. As if to enforce this point he saw another bolt of blue collide with his wards, and this time he felt the mind and energy behind it. The first had been a test. Now the Venefica was attempting to break the wards. He pushed with magic and his mind, reinforcing the shield. Legon felt it begin to buckle and he poured more into it, but he couldn’t hold them too long. He wasn’t good with wards yet and, powerful or not, it didn’t matter.
He sent commands to Sasha and Sara, telling them to attack only when he ordered. He wasn’t about to have them waste what little energy they had. He sent another breaking spell their way, and this time when it made contact he held it, changing it, working it around as if he were trying to extract a splinter. He felt a hole open in their shield and sent the command to Sara and Sasha.
They sent simple spells at the enemy. Red and silver bolts shot by, hitting their intended targets, one hitting blue, the other orange. He told them to focus on the blue, and again he hit the yellow ward and again they sent spells at one of the men covered by the blue Venefica. The man looked terrified, and as the two spells hit, the ward around him failed and his head wrenched back, breaking his neck.
There was now magic flying back and forth between the groups at an incredible speed, but they were winning, Legon was too strong, and even when the blue Venefica broke his initial wards the orange spells were stopped by Arkin’s and his others.
“Help is on the way,” Arkin said across the network.
“Good, you take command.”
Arkin acknowledged this with commands. “Legon, attack with everything you have. Don’t worry about their wards, simply overpower them. Sasha, go for random people but don’t use much power. Sara, use yours sparingly and only target those whose wards flicker and fade. Legon, when I tell you, hit their lead horse’s brain.”
Legon started to send spell after spell at them. With every hit one or two men went down; his attacks were too strong for the other Venefica to counter. He sent a fire spell at a rider in the lead, causing the man’s head to burst into flames. The rider immediately rolled on his horse, disrupting the others. Sasha took advantage of the situation by sending a burst of pure light at them; it wouldn’t hurt anyone but it continued to sow mayhem, causing two more men to fall off their horses.
Then suddenly the message from Arkin came and he sent his spell at the lead horse, ceasing its brain activity. The animal dropped. The other horses running close behind tripped, sending riders and horses all over the place and a gap began to open between them.
That’s when he heard it. He looked up to the gray sky and heard it again, a soft thud. No. Not another Dragon, they couldn’t take the twenty or so men left and a Dragon. THUD. It was overhead now, almost as if it were going to drop on them. THUD. Or behind them?
In the distance a figure dropped from the clouds and his heart skipped as the long body fell, a thin line in the sky with its wings folded close to its body. He squinted ahead, trying to ascertain the appearance of their foe. He knew that Dragons came in every shade and color but he was having a hard time believing his eyes. He felt Sasha’s confusion and then her question.
“Is that Dragon pink?”
It was a vivid shade of pink, but there was more to it than that; its horns were white and its scales glittered in the sun, but there was no direct light hitting it. The Dragon seemed to be producing the light and he felt his heart leap again; it was an Elf! The pink Dragon’s wings snapped open just before the ground and it rushed at them. The men pursuing them scrambled to get out of the way, but too late. It was on them all now.
Legon saw the flicker of pink indicating wards that the other Venefica would not be able to break. He wondered what type of magic it was going to use. He did feel a little apprehension when he saw the huge mouth opening to revel white teeth, then he closed his eyes right before a torrent of pink flames erupted from the mouth.
The fire swept around them; any amusement or doubt caused by the Dragon’s bright color disappeared at the sound of screaming from behind, but he only felt a warm tickling sensation. He opened his eyes, to see a world of total pink. He couldn’t see anything in front of him; he was in the fire, but his wards were not being tested. Why not? Then he remembered what Arkin had said about magical fire: the brighter the color, the more magic is in it. This Dragon was using pure magic, so the flame would burn only what it wanted.
* * * * *
Keither looked frantically at the pink flame that surrounded him, trying to figure how long it would be until he was burned to death, but then it passed and he heard a great whoosh from above and looked up to see a giant pink Dragon. He didn’t feel the regular fear he would with other Dragons. This was in part due to the whoops and yells coming from the others, but also when it passed overhead he saw white claws, not black. This Dragon was producing light around itself as well. The Iumenta dragons seemed to leach light out of the sky and their scales refused to sparkle in the sun. This was not the case for this Dragon; there was a slight glow around it and its scales twinkled even with no direct light.
As it passed, the Dragon turned its head, and for the second time in a few days Keither locked eyes with one of these creatures. The Iumenta Dragon’s eyes were the same color as their scales, with yellow instead of white surrounding the colored part of the eye. With this Elven Dragon the eye was pink but the sounding area was white as snow. It blinked at him… or was it a wink? He felt a rush of air as the Dragon’s large, powerful wings swept it away and off into the distance.
He chanced a look behind him to see the look of awe on all but Arkin’s face, which had a wide smile on it. He waved to him, which was an odd sort of thing to do, but he waved back. They weren’t being pursued any more, or rather there weren’t people on the horses behind them, who looked to be relevantly unharmed. There were, however, blackened and charred corpses on the horses, burned to the bone. He shuddered at the sight. It had been a display of power when the Iumenta Dragon had burned a town in a breath, and that display would stay with him forever. So would this one. They had all been covered in fire, but only their pursuers had been killed, not their animals, not those they pursued, and not even the grass of the field. It was a targeted attack, executed with terrifying surgical precision.
Ahead, the large rocky peaks of the Cornis Mountains were fast approaching. They were incredibly intimidating mountains, bar
ren except for scrub brush and goats. Because the main road was two days away, they were taking the hard way into the Precipice, a narrow goat trail bordered by large cliffs and canyons. No force would be able to go through it as it was a single track most of the time. Keither hated heights, but he hated getting beat up and attacked by the militia more, so the treacherous land it was.
* * * * *
Arkin rode, smiling at the land of his birth. He had been raised in this area and was looking forward to seeing people and places he knew again. There was a tug at his mind. She was leaving, and he just saw her as a dot on the horizon. Why did they send her? “She probably asked for it,” he thought. He was happy it was her in a way, the same part of him that was happy about not being dead or hurt by a misplaced spell, burning them to ashes and not the enemy. He was going to get it when they arrived, there was no doubt about it, and he could already hear the taunts about having to bail him out of babysitting duty. She respected him greatly, but even as kids she had given him a hard time. He smiled. Legon would like her, and he thought that she would like him as well.
He could feel Sasha in all their minds, checking pain centers for injury. He smiled again. For sure she would like Sasha.
Chapter Nineteen
The Precipice
“History repeats itself, or so I’ve been told. One could then ask the question, ‘If I have a perfect understanding of the past, can I see what lies ahead?’ I would be inclined to say yes, yet after all this time the future never fails to surprise me.”
-Conversations in the Garden
Sasha looked disquietedly at the looming mountains before them. There was a reason the Cornis Mountains had held back the Empire for years. They were known to be dangerous and easy to get lost in. At their base was brown grass and sage dotted with large rocks and yucca plants. The mountains rose steeply then, forced upwards by millennia of pressure. The land looked tortured as it gave way to the razor-like gray stone peaks. It would have been fitting to see vultures and ravens in the air, but there were none. There were, however, white figures dotting the side of the mountains. She stretched her neck to get a better view. Legon flashed the image from his eyes to her mind and she saw mountain goats as if they were no more than fifty yards away. They spoke to each other in their heads.
Legon Awakening: Book One in the Legon Series Page 28
