by L. D. Dailey
my fight.” Purposeful, he met the stranger in the room’s center. The duo whispered, and Krastyo dared to inch closer to hear their words, for history.
“The elders were right,” Vacek growled through clenched teeth. “You were the hero in all those old stories, before the empire, when the Endless Night descended upon the land.” An axe pointed to the ark festooned with resting dragons at each corner. “You had a chance to end it for true, but your greed dishonored you and -”
The stranger interrupted with a cheerless laugh. “Is that what they say? So that’s why you betrayed me so easily, little broth-”
“I asked you not to call me that,” Krhys interjected with icy calm.
“The passage of time can corrupt a legend. You think me evil out of foolish ignorance. I saved this world, and I protect it still. Yes, the days are dark, but they are not hopeless. I gave you hope, weapons that kill the denizens of the Endless Night.” He stood taller, more authoritative, “Take what has been given and go. Carve your own stories.”
Vacek denied with a headshake. “Weapons? Swords that kill the swordsman? You call this salvation?”
“I gave you dragons!” the nameless king roared. “They fight for you, for life, for this false god you abandoned your knighthood and brotherhood for.”
“You gave us tyranny, slavery. The time for parlay is over. I will kill you and finish what you abandoned, for my wife you murdered, for my brothers still bound to you.”
“Your honor is impressive, little brother. But you are a slug beneath the rocks, fearing the sun’s rays.” The room grew darker as the king unsheathed a curved katana, its midnight blade sharp along the edge, serrated along the guard, with a small opening near the hilt. Gold braids tipped with ruby dragonheads swung along the pommel as he spun the blade in circular arcs. “I will not allow your ignorance to threaten this world.”
The unarmored king charged Vacek with blade high overhead. Onyx blade clashed against good steel as Vacek parried with shortsword and countered with the axe, hitting only air as the swordsman danced aside. Krastyo marveled at Vecek’s powerful fighting style, but winced as the enemy danced about and made Vacek seem incompetent as vicious strokes met air. The dragon king spun with blade high, scoring a glancing cut above the eye before retreating with a backflip that sliced his brother’s leg and ending the attack with a lunge that almost impaled Vacek’s heart.
As they danced, Krastyo realized his brother’s disadvantage, and pondered breaking the order against interfering. If the fate of world is uncertain, he will forgive me. Feet of stone disobeyed his logic. Eyes enraptured by the moment refused to blink.
Vacek charged sword aiming for the king’s chest, but the agile swordsman trapped the blade within the hole near his blade’s hilt. With an expert twist, the young king snapped the shortsword in two before gyrating outside Vacek’s reach. “You know that you will die here, yet you continue to fight.” The king parried a thrown knife with indifference. “Try as it might, the slug can never touch the sun.”
Rage mottled Vecek’s face as he charged, pulling the mace from its clip. Wild swings of rod and hatchet hit only air as the dragon lord pirouetted and twirled around each strike, not bothering to raise his own blade. Back and forth, they danced, Vacek seethed, the nameless one mocked and taunted with a haughty tone that angered his brother more.
The king feigned a yawn, “This bores me, little brother. Time to end it.” A reverse slash with the serrated guard tore flesh from Vecek’s shoulder. As he howled in pain, the swordsman plunged his inly blade into Vecek’s chest. Weapons clanged as Vecek’s lifeless arms dangled.
Krastyo raced toward his brother, but a murderous gaze from the dragon king immobilized his feet. No, move your feet. Step. He’s your brother. Step. Don’t run away this time. A fearful step evolved into a stumbling trot as the bard reached across the distance. “Brother!”
Vacek howled as a thick hand strangled the king. “Stop! Running!” He plunged a dagger into the enemy’s heart. The nameless lord groaned as the opponents leaned against each other. The combatants kneeled, supporting each other, lifeblood mingling as twin streams formed a lake beneath. A bloodstone hilt protruded from the king’s chest, an onyx blade from Vecek’s back. They chuckled amid their death throes, the king mirthless, and his brother triumphant. Laughs morphed into spasms of pain as they wordlessly helped each other lie on their sides.
Vacek patted his adversary’s shoulder. “You wanted to lose, didn’t you?”
“And yet, I could not relent, little brother.” The unknown lord coughed up blood. “The last Age chose me. I have cared for this world as best I could. Now it is your turn.” He sighed and closed weary, bloodshot eyes.
Vacek shook his head, beckoning the bard closer. Krastyo approached and placed an ear near his brother’s lips. “Not me either. You must do-”
Krastyo denied the reality with childish headshakes. “No, I came to you help you. Not watch you die.” Trembling hands covered the wound around his brother’s wound as each heartbeat unleashed a fountain of blood through his fingers. Flashbacks sent him to that inn, stolen kisses with the local lord’s twin daughters, a bottle of wine and a song- then word of the disaster back home, a raid, his family dead. Despair became his lover and deceit his brother, until Kovinth the Pale Dragon found him stealing from his treasure horde. I have my family back, only to lose them again.
Vacek gripped his brother’s arm, an insistent gleam in eyes fighting the coming darkness. “You will. You must!”
Despair. Loneliness. Weariness. The bard wanted to lie down and die with his kin, but a silent voice within him broke through the lassitude. Fulfill your brother’s wish. Then you can rest. Krastyo nodded, resolute, but uncertain as he spied the treasure chest adorned with dragons. “But what am I to do?”
Vacek fell back, a satisfied smile on his face as the Mother took him. “Let the acorns grow.”
“Wha-” The query died, unformed. He knew. Deep down, he knew, and dreaded the answer. Power always demanded a price, balance, as thoughts returned to that dark forest from what seemed a lifetime ago. His sister, pale and powerful chided. The forest burns yet acorns survive to grow it anew. The visage of the unknown king taunted. You are a slug beneath the rocks, fearing the sun’s rays! The ghost of Vacek frowned. This has happened before- and will again- unless we stop it.
Unsteady legs straightened. Leaden feet rambled toward the demonic throne. Fear rattled supple fingers that traced the contours of a golden handle. He lifted and moaned as the fanciful box resisted. Was it too heavy? Krastyo lifted the ark from its high place with ease and settled it on the chair. Interesting. He tried to open it, and failed again. Every attempt to move the ark succeeded, but each time he opened it, the item resisted. An old lesson from the Pale Dragon came to mind. Our power stems from emotion. Love allows our kind to persevere. Hate gives us the strength to kill. Uncertainty- uncertainty can lead to confusion, betrayal. Krastyo nodded, admitting to himself that some part of him did not want to unleash apocalyptic destruction on the world, even if it obliterated the Veil and its denizens.
“Ruminating, Krastyo?” A voice from afar chided.
Frantic, Krastyo spun to warn his dark sister, “Sister, power has a price. Always there is a price to-” He gasped at the gory ruin striding across the great hall on burned feet black as soot, a tattooed stump dripping blood for a left arm, a right eye dangling out of the socket by a precarious tendon, a jagged gash from a blade across her neck. “What happened?”
Torn robes exposed soft legs, beautiful in the firelight, which tripped over Vecek’s dead body. “Hmm?” She pressed on toward the dais, toward Krastyo’s voice, blind eyes oblivious to her dead sibling. Her stump pushed Krastyo aside as Bakarne studied the gem-encrusted chest with a blood soaked hand. “I won. That is what happened. I am now the last of my kind. My revenge is almost complete. Is this the weapon?”
“Bakarne,” he tried to give comfort and touched her shoulder. She shied from his touch. That hurt
, more than anything the singer endured thus far. She hated him for abandoning their family, and always would.
“Is this the weapon Vacek died for?”
So she did know. “Yes, but the price-”
A ghastly countenance faced him. “Does it appear that I fear the cost?”
Krastyo turned away, horrified. “Not for you, for all of us. Open that and we all suffer.”
“No more than you deserve.”
Krastyo withheld the crate’s secret, and gasped as she cracked the lid with ease. He slammed the chest shut as the planet groaned. She is a monster. How can this be the right choice? A tattoo of a knife with a boar’s head for a hilt along her left arm glowed. Something strong grabbed him from behind. It roared in his ear, filling the air with its stench.
“Record my triumph, Krastyo. If you survive.” The enchantress opened the ark. A dark inferno raced to the cathedral’s ceiling. Bakarne laughed, tears streaming from her lone eye as hellish shades, remarkably similar to Veilspawn, consumed her.
A ghastly shriek filled Krastyo’s ears, piercing his skull with white-hot pincers. His brother’s voice eased the pain. The Mother brought us all together for a reason. I feel it. Discernment flooded his being, perhaps from the dark tide enveloping the world, perhaps from a chorus of memories
