The Dragon's Redemption

by Martha Woods

  He smashed through the earth with a sonic intensity, dust flying from the spot where his broken body hit the ground. I held there on top of him for moments on end, heart racing, eyes fixed on his to try and determine whether he was still alive. He wasn't moving, though I still wasn't sure. I was just about to sink my teeth in even deeper and finish the job, when I heard a roar of pain across the length of the clearing.

  In a panic, I left the fallen Prince where he lay, and zoomed over to where Fri was struggling with the two goons, clearly on his last leg. Not even bothering to strategize, I plunged headlong into the fray, summoning what I had to guess was the same strength that lets mothers lift the weight of automobiles up off of their endangered children. With a single, sharp bite I sank my fangs into the neck of one of the Dark Ones. His throat popped and sizzled, and I felt him choking in my embrace, blood spurting from his mouth.

  There was no mistaking it this time.

  The lights in his eyes went out, and his head hung limp in my jaws, flopping over onto the ground in front of us, in a pool of his own blood.

  Outnumbered, the second goon drew away from Fri, and hovered back several feet through the air, as though to make an assessment of the situation. Fri and I regrouped, cornering the son of a bitch, whose red eyes darted back and forth between the two of us. And then, suddenly, his mouth was open. His emerald flames bellowed forth, and at once both Fri and myself opened our mouths wide, and poured fire right back at him.

  The pain of breathing flame through an injured throat was still excruciating, but it was thrilling to double-team the bastard with Fri by my side. The flames pushed further and further back, finally enveloping the Dark One, and I thought that if we managed to keep this up we might just end this fight after all.

  But that was when I heard the sound of a vicious, miserable roar behind me. My blood ran cold, and I stopped spitting fire, terrified at what I was about to see. I turned my head, and I looked back at the spot where I'd left Madro lying.

  He was still alive, though weak. From the spot where he lay, the same emerald flame as before was raging from his throat, pouring out over the cabin, engulfing it in flames.

  Horror flooded over me, as thoughts of Alicia raced through my brain.

  Instantly I abandoned Fri, and the flaming Dark One tackled him as I surged toward the building, praying that I wasn't already too late. Madro stopped attacking the moment I arrived at the door, and I had to fight the deep, satisfying impulse to tear straight through the center of the cabin, and hope that I managed to grab Alicia on the first go. I knew that that wasn't possible, however– that any attempt to rescue her in my dragon would send flaming debris toppling all around her, killing her instantly.

  I had no other choice but to go in on foot.

  Shifting back down, I surged into the building, and was immediately greeted with a lungful of thick white smoke as the timbers burned all around me. I started coughing, my throat aching violently from my injuries, the smoke and the heat disorienting as I struggled to locate my bearings.

  I couldn't see a damn thing in the entire cabin.

  Everywhere I looked it was just more of the same. Billowing grey clouds, tinted green by the rapidly spreading flames, obscuring the path in every direction.

  I began to panic, not even sure where Alicia might have gone, and growing more and more afraid with every second that passed that she may not have survived.

  And that was when I heard the sound of screaming.

  My eyes widened– it was coming from upstairs, from inside of her room.

  I pounded up the steps two at a time, relying on intuition to steer me in the right direction. I pounced onto the landing and whipped through a curtain of smoke into her room, spotting her immediately. The fire hadn't yet spread up here, and I saw her peering out the window, trying to figure out a way to survive the fall if she jumped out.

  “Alicia!” I called to her, relieved, though perhaps prematurely.

  She turned to me and screamed, pointing a finger behind my back. “Nol, look out!”

  THWACK!

  I hadn't even got turned around when I felt the unmistakable smack of wood against the back of my skull, and the creeping of flames along the back of my neck. Madro, shifted down into his human form, had ambushed me with a chunk of burning firewood, and now stood over me, gloating madly. He sneered down at the spot where I lay, his wicked red eyes glowing through the smoke, blood draining profusely from the wounds on his neck and chest.

  Snarling in pain, I forced myself up off the ground, and hurled a fist in his direction as hard as I could. It made contact with the side of his face and sent his already delicate neck flailing backwards. No sooner had I drawn back than he was throwing himself back at me, hurling his entire weight in my direction, nearly tackling me to the ground.

  He slammed my fist into his jaw and tried to hurl my foot at his groin. He sank his teeth into my arm as though forgetting he was no longer in his dragon form, and managed to ram his free knuckles into my right eye, practically giving me a concussion.

  Drawing back, I punched him as hard as I could in the gut and he flew back, crashing to the floor, the battle, at last seeming over.

  I started over toward him, ready to finish this.

  Madro, however had other plans.

  The moment I made it up to him I caught him sneering at me, his horrible jagged teeth bared. I tried to figure out what he could possibly have up his sleeve– and then realized instantly, the moment his body began to expand.

  The Dark Prince exploded through his human form, transforming back into a dragon again, his unwieldy body tearing straight through the burning timbers, and causing the entire room to collapse around us. The floors, the walls, the ceiling– everything was caving in like a house of cards, and not a single surface could be taken for granted as the building buckled and swayed toward sheer collapse.

  I rushed toward Alicia, certain she would be crushed to death in a matter of seconds. I leapt at her, shifting in midair, and pulled her into my arms. We crashed through the window just as the entire cabin tumbled to the ground around us. Splinters of wood and clouds of dust pelted us as we glided down toward the ground, and I aimed toward a spot in the clearing to which I might deliver her to safety.

  Not if Madro could help it...

  I felt a sudden sharp pull on my tail.

  Alicia screamed, as my body was jerked from the air, pulled back in the opposite direction. I threw my arms up from off of her, thinking that she would be better off falling the few remaining feet to the ground than she would be having me land on top of her. I heard the chilling thud of her falling to the undergrowth, then was instantly flung back over the smoldering wreckage of the cabin, onto the opposite side of the clearing.

  I smashed into the ground, the fall knocking the breath from my lungs, and causing the dim stars overhead to go spinning around in my field of vision. No sooner was I down than Madro had soared over to me, and slammed his whole weight into me once again, eliminating any possibility of escape.

  He began raining blows down upon me. Fangs sinking into my neck and chest. Claws tearing across my hide, belting against the side of my face. I snapped back at him, raging as fiercely as I could, trying just to maintain my defenses as the strength drained out of me.

  But it was just no use.

  Madro flew just a few feet up into the air, hovered there for a moment, and threw himself down as hard as he could against my skull.

  A sharp, horrible bell rang out inside my head, the whole world seeming to crack open, and my entire being paralyzed as the pain shot through my body. I coughed up blood, and saw nothing but yellow for several seconds, not even sure I would be able to open up my eyes again.

  But then, very slowly, the world faded back into view again.

  I was lying on my back on the ground. Fully human once more. Unable to move. Unable to do anything. Madro was standing over me, looming with that putrid look of hate across his face, his eyes practically on fire a
s he gazed down at the spot where I lay so helplessly.

  I tried to speak, but I couldn't even do that. I let out a feeble moan, and Madro laughed. I closed my eyes for a moment, then looked over as far as my field of vision would allow. In the distance I could see a smoldering body, still burning in a glow of golden flames. Next to it lay Fri, still intact, but not moving– simply unconscious, I hoped, though I had no way of knowing.

  Not that it mattered now anyway.

  The moment he got through killing me, Madro would finish off Fri as well. And barring some miraculous epiphany on the part of our eldest brother after we were gone, that would be the end of the Protectors forever.

  Madro was still laughing, shaking his head, clearly relishing in my defeat.

  Very slowly, he lifted his leg up, savoring the time it took to bring his foot all the way to my windpipe, and press down gently against my Adam's apple. It was already difficult to breathe through my injuries, but now it became next to impossible. I could feel my face turning rapidly blue.

  “You should have listened to me,” Madro said calmly, staring down into my eyes unblinking, as though to watch as the light faded away. “I told you– no one gets away with betraying the Dark Ones. You really should have known that, with a pig father like yours... But I guess some things just run in the family. This all could have gone so much more easily for you, and for all of us. If only you'd had the fucking brains to cooperate. But now? Now I'm going to kill you. And your brother. And that bitch human of yours who's got your head all in a mess. As violently and as painfully as possible... All because you wouldn't. Fucking. Listen. Do you understand me, you worthless goddamn Wrecker?”

  The pain grew more and more severe. Tears streamed from my eyes, and I felt certain he would crush my throat at any moment, putting an end to me instantaneously. My last thought as the oxygen faded from my brain was how horribly I'd let Alicia down. How I'd left her to die an excruciating death, to suffer because of me. All because I couldn't let go of the past, exactly like she'd said.

  But then, just as all the lights were about to go out, I heard a sound. A sudden, hard THWACK!, coming from where I didn't know.

  What I did know that the world was suddenly back. I could breathe again. I gasped, and coughed, and felt dizzy as the air flooded back through my lungs. I struggled to figure out what was happening.

  Madro was still standing there, but his expression had changed. His eyes were wide and vacant, though the smile he'd worn just moments ago still lingered across his face. I watched him for several long seconds, utterly bewildered. And then his body tumbled forward, and I saw it– the axe I used to split firewood, jutting profusely from the base of his skull.

  He toppled to the ground beside me, and in his place stood Alicia. Her hands shook, and Madro's blood dripped along her pale white skin.

  She quickly stooped down to me, and scooped me up in her arms, still coughing. I pulled her close into me, holding her tight, never wanting to let her go.

  “Oh God! Oh Alicia! I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!” I cried to her. “I'm so, so sorry Alicia! Are you hurt? Are you alright? Did he hurt you?”

  “It's okay! It's okay!” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “I'm fine! I'm okay! I think Fri is too! He's just passed out!”

  I shivered, unable to believe that all three of us had survived that encounter, and not at all convinced that we would be so lucky should reinforcements arrive.

  I was still hurting like crazy. Still totally weak, and barely able to stand. But I needed to push through the pain. What happened over the course of these next several minutes was far too important to be left to chance.

  I held Alicia's face in my hands, and I stared into her eyes, giving her a look of utmost serious.

  “Alicia. Listen to me. We need to get you out of here. Right now. We need to get you somewhere far away. Somewhere that they can't find you. They'll be looking for you now. They'll be wanting you dead, as much as they want me and Fri. You just killed the most powerful Dark One in the entire kingdom, next to King Ryl himself. And they aren't going to let you get away with that. Do you understand me?”

  She looked at me for a very long time. Then she closed her eyes, and gave me a single nod.

  “I'll go,” she said. “I'll go anywhere you want me to go. As far as you tell me to. But only if you're there with me. Only if I get to stay by your side. We need each other, Nol. Neither of us would have survived just now if we weren't looking out for one another. You and I both know that.”

  My heart raced. I knew that she was right. And even more than that, I knew that I didn't have a hope in hell of changing her mind about the matter. I squeezed both of her hands in mine. I stared at her for a long time, to make sure she wasn't about to have second thoughts about this. But she was unflinching. Her mind was totally made up, and there was nothing I could say to change it.

  “I know,” I finally admitted. “And Alicia... I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I truly do. But I need to know that you understand. You understand that if you come with me, there can be no turning back. There can be no going our separate ways, or returning to your old life ever again. The Dark Ones will know who you are. And they will find you. And if you stay with me, that will only make finding you a hundred times easier for them.”

  “I don't care,” she said. “Let them come. Let them send an army after us. I don't care anymore about any of that. My old life ended the day I met you, Nol. And as far as I'm concerned this– the light in your eyes, the touch of your hand, the space between us– this is my entire world now.”

  Finally, at long last, I was convinced that she knew exactly what she was doing, and exactly what she wanted. The tears poured from my eyes, and I had to choke back my emotions, my throat burning as I did so. For some reason, I couldn't even kiss her at that moment, as badly as I wanted to. Instead I simply threw my arms around her, and pulled her in close. Swearing to myself that I would never let her go. I would never let them get to her. I would give her the life that she deserved, the future she so clearly saw in me.

  A few minutes later, after rousing Fri to alertness, and hoisting Alicia up onto my back, the three of us were off. Soaring across the night sky, moving swiftly toward an uncertain horizon. We headed west, wholly uncertain of what future, if any might await us there, but eager to leave the past and its trappings as far behind as possible, as fast as we could possibly manage.

  I prayed to God that Alicia's trust in me hadn't been displaced. And yet somehow I had to believe, as long as the two of us stayed together, things really would turn out alright for us in the end.

  Epilogue

  Alicia

  * * *

  I sat on the edge of the bed, one hand nervously cradled against my belly. The room was dank and dingy, lacking any of the coziness of the cabin back east. Shafts of golden light streamed in through the windows, dust particles dancing serenely in the sunlight. It wasn't the Ritz-Carlton, but we would at least be safe here. Away from prying eyes, and any Dark shifters that happened to be out there, who may wish to do us harm.

  I bit my lip nervously, feeling vulnerable. As a rule, I felt secure anywhere and everywhere that Nol was by my side. We'd been on the road together with Fri for the past several weeks now, traveling west across the country, and not a hair on my head had been harmed in the time I'd been in his company. At least, not since Madro and his stooges had ambushed us back at the cabin...

  Still, though. I found myself growing nervous these days whenever the two of us were apart for too long. Even if it was just for a minute or two, as he was getting things sorted out with the motel clerk or whatever. I actually had legitimate reasons to be anxious– I knew something that Nol didn't know, and I didn't know when might be the best time to tell him. I knew that no matter how he reacted to it, it would almost certainly change things between us. And though now was far from the ideal time to deliver such a shock to him, I knew it would be better to tell him sooner rather than later, so we cou
ld figure out how best to handle the situation.

  I sat there nervously on the bed, counting the seconds down backwards in my head from a hundred. Then, right as I was down to around forty-five, I heard the key in the door, and drew immediately to attention. I held my breath, and watched the light shining through the crack of the door shifting with his movements.

  And there he was. His beautiful face. His glowing eyes. His reassuring presence.

  The room seemed to spill over with an abundance of him. Becoming so full of life again. My worries receding into such a small and distant corner of my mind that it was difficult to remember what, exactly, I had gotten myself so worked up about.

  “Okay, I got us all paid up for the week,” he said, “And Fri's right next door. We might stay longer than that, I'm not sure yet. This just seemed like a good place to lie low for a bit, at least until we get our bearings. Tomorrow Fri and I are going to check out the town, see if there are any good opportunities for work. Alicia? Alicia, what's the matter?”

  Apparently, I still had the same dazed look on my face that I had a moment ago, though I didn't even realize it. My hand returned to my belly, and I opened my mouth to speak, but was silent.

  “Alicia?” he asked again, clearly getting worried.

  “Nol, I– I'm pregnant...”

  It was like the confounded look on my face was suddenly transplanted onto his. His jaw fell open. He blinked at me.

  “What?” he asked point-blank.

  I felt suddenly like crying, and I didn't know why.

  “I know, I know... I should have told you earlier!” I said, starting to panic. “I hadn't been feeling well, and my period had been off for a few days. I didn't want to tell you until I was sure, and I snuck over to buy a pregnancy test at that last convenience store. I'm so, so sorry, Nol... I know this messes everything up for us...”