Born of Fire: The Dawn of Legend (112 page)

“Oh, but I do. You see, to you I’m some relic that was once a monster, but the truth is I don’t remember anything from that life or about who I was. Like the war, that creature came to an end ten thousand years ago. Who I am now, who we all are now, started when we came into this world fifteen years ago, and was forged over the course of that time.” Rex walked towards him directly. “That may seem like just the blink of an eye to one as old as you, but to us it’s our past, our history, our lives. And when I look at you, I don’t see some manifest destiny.” Rex now stopped directly in front of DayKar, who lowered his head to look him in the eye. “All I see is just another fool in love with the sound of his own voice, who doesn’t have the good sense to get the fuck out of my way!” Without warning, Rex lunged forward just as DayKar tried to move out of the way, but ended up with Rex grabbing hold of his lower jaw and biting clean through. DayKar groaned as he desperately grasped for what should have been his chin, but was immediately mortified by the feeling of his hands touching only air. With a cock of his head, Rex swallowed it whole and bared his now blood-soaked teeth.

Gripped by panic, DayKar spread his wings and pushed himself off the ground, but felt his body jolt to a halt as pain shot up his tail. Looking down, he saw DiNiya latched onto it, keeping him from escaping, her eyes burning with furious satisfaction.

“What’s wrong, DayKar?” she asked. “You don’t like being the victim? Well, don’t worry, I’m not going to hold you captive for days and toy with your mind.”

“Don’t sound so pleased with yourself, DiNiya,” he replied angrily in a voice that was now barely comprehendible. “Someone as simple as you could never penetrate my mind!”

“Then I suppose I’ll just have to settle for tearing it out through your skull instead,” she said, releasing her grip on his tail and lunging up at his face.

With a powerful push from his flame, DayKar managed to take to the air, escaping the tower’s confines, but not before Rex latched onto his arm. The two sailed wildly through the air as the DraGon did everything he could to try to shake the unwanted passenger off. They crashed into canyon walls and through mountain peaks, leveling parts of the canyon itself. Rex dug the claws on his feet into DayKar’s side and spun up onto his back, where he began pulling pieces of armor off and exposing vulnerable flesh beneath. Without hesitation, he once again plunged his jaws into the DraGon, who began spiraling through the air at incredible speeds. Rex, however, was not blindly mauling his enemy, but rather looking for what he knew would bring the mighty DraGon down once and for all. He shifted his mouth to the right and at last felt his teeth hit it: DayKar’s spine. Reaching over with his mouth, he repositioned it around the backbone, but not without his foe realizing just in time what he was up to and with another powerful pulse, ignited his flame to such a scathing heat that Rex let go and cried out in pain as his mouth went numb from the searing heat. Not wasting his opportunity, DayKar dove straight down towards the tower.

Below, the others looked up in horror as the burning mass of DayKar came rushing down towards them. “Look out!” EeNox shouted as they all dove out of the way, just as the DraGon hit with such force that it sent a shockwave outward, shattering a hundred meters of the platform in every direction. For a time, there was no movement atop of the tower, then slowly, DayKar rose up out of the dust on shaky legs before pushing himself up on his hind legs with great effort. He stood there breathing heavily as the numbness he was feeling began to fade and the pain returned. He could feel the warm sensation of blood running down the front of his neck from his lower jaw. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on cauterizing the injury, but found that he was too weak to ignite it. “Damn it,” he growled weakly. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his side, and looked down to see a chunk missing. Reeling from shock, he whipped his head around in time to see DiNiya clamp down on his thigh with her teeth sinking effortlessly into his scaly hide. DayKar felt a surge of adrenaline rip through him from the pain as he reached down for her.

DiNiya felt the DraGon’s powerful grip around her and instinctively emitted a powerful surge of fire from her body. Feeling his grip loosening, despite his best efforts to hold onto her, she now smelled burning flesh.

DayKar shrieked and let go as the flame burned through his hand. Clutching it tenderly, he looked just in time to see her fire a blast, scoring a direct hit in his already wounded eye.

The Dragon now felt as if the entire right side of his head was burning off, and to his great horror, discovered that it had, in fact, when he placed a hand on it and felt naked bone. Fear now took hold as he realized he was losing parts of himself every time one of them attacked. Memories he had long since tried to suppress now reached out with wicked talons from the furthest and darkest recesses of his mind and dug into the forefront of his thoughts, filling him with images of nightmarish predators with burning red eyes and furious crimson flames that destroyed everything they touched. After all this time, the monsters from his past who had haunted ten thousand years’ worth of nightmares had returned to kill him the way they had done others he had known long ago. It was right around that moment he realized he only saw DiNiya. Before the realization had a chance to fully dawn on him, he felt a crushing force just below his right knee and immediately fell off balance, like the ground had been pulled out from underneath him. His lower body collapsing to its right as he glanced back and saw that the ground was still very much intact, but the entire lower half of his right leg was gone, leaving behind a gruesome bloody stump. He could now feel what remained of his strength begin to flow as he lost blood at a dangerous rate. Unable to ignite his flame, he would surely bleed out in minutes. Desperation sinking in, he dug deep and managed to muster the last bit of energy he had and at last ignited his flame. It was faint, a mere glow of its former brilliance. With a heavy heave he pushed himself off the ground and began slowly rising into the sky. “Don’t leave me behind,” he whispered as he fixed his gaze to where the rift had been, to where his whole world had vanished.

AnaSaya, ShinGaru, LyCora, EeNox, DiNiya, and Rex now stood together for the first time in five days. The six of them, who initially seemed worlds apart, now found themselves united as the first of their kind: warriors of the ancient world back from the gates of oblivion. Their lives had taken so many unexpected turns since the day they all found themselves standing beside one another for the first time. Most notably when they learned of their pasts, and their ability to retake the forms of their former selves from a bygone life. However, their transformation was not just a physical one, for awakening their DyVorian side had also ignited old instincts, those of a warrior race that had pushed them forward along their journey. Now as they watched their enemy, wounded and dying, fleeing for his life, they were reminded of all the lives that were lost because of his actions. Lives that perished in the flames of hatred. Each one of them knew that it was good to be merciful, to know when enough blood had been shed. But this was not that moment, for in EeNara came moments where confusion born of morality had to be set aside for decisions born of logistical certainty. Fortunately for them, today was a day where they got to do both, for they knew they could not let this DraGon escape, or the cycle of death and destruction would begin again. As the day came to an end in a crimson hue in the western sky, so would DayKar at long last.

DayKar could see what was left of the rift, a thin, wispy red line in the sky. Reaching up with an outstretched hand and a tear in his remaining good eye, he felt for the first time truly abandoned and forsaken. He was almost ten meters in the air when he felt something bite down on his left ankle. His trance broken, he looked down and saw ShinGaru stretched to his full length, teeth imbedded in his leg as he used the last of his strength to pull him back down. DayKar could feel himself slowly descending. Not wishing to give up on his dream, he gave another small push of his flame and managed to resume his slow ascension.

AnaSaya felt as if her body would give out at any moment, and yet somehow she felt a deeper, hidden pool of strength within the depths of her own flame and dove in. Feeling her flame spark then surge around her, she forced her legs into motion, ran up along ShinGaru’s back, and dug her sickle claws into his back, then around to his chest, where she tore into the gaping wound that had been made to save her life.

DayKar had no more energy to cry out in pain, instead he released a strained gasp of air. Again he began to fall back down, only this time his body began to tremble and convulse. However, he was not yet devoid of any sense of fight. Reaching down, he placed a hand over AnaSaya and began pumping short, erratic burst of electricity into her, causing her to shriek in pain, yet still she refused to yield herself. It was at that moment that they had drifted back down far enough for EeNox to leap up and lock on to what he had already viciously mauled of the DraGon’s throat, feeling a sense of satisfaction as he felt his foe lose further altitude.

The DraGon’s mind was now drowning in the madness, and the fury that he had been fighting to keep at bay for so long. It was a madness born of a broken will; now having lost everything, he welcomed death with open arms and strained the whole of his being skyward to where his faith had promised him he would be reunited with his mate and all those who had fought alongside him and perished.
Yes
, he thought.
Paradise is so close. It’s right in front of me
…The pain of tooth and claw tearing into him began to fade away as he was overcome by a warm sensation, gently enveloping him.
So close…

His euphoria was suddenly cut short by yet another set of teeth sinking into him, and with incredible strength, pulling him all the way back down to the tower and reality. Looking down he saw DiNiya, a once scared and lost girl, now a mighty TyRanx in all her terrifying glory, clamped down on his tail. The two locked eyes and it was in that moment he heard his own warning relayed back to him.
Be careful what you wish for…

He felt one last pair of claws running up his back. Racing up to the only goal he knew the creature they belonged to would be after. Closing his eyes in his final moments, his mind found that of the one who had killed him thousands of times in his nightmares.
Rex
. Time now seemed to slow to a crawl, and his voice flowed through their minds like a river.
Once again you embrace and embody the name we have given you. The title we bestowed upon you ten thousand years ago. But know this, Doom Bringer. Your return to this world brings with it a fate worse than ours ever could. Remember this, those standing in the blood of the defeated write history. But for those left standing, victory comes with its own price, the descent of truth into legend. Once this occurs, history’s mistakes are doomed to be repeated. So what will your legacy ultimately be: history or legend?

A world without you
, came Rex’s reply out of the darkness that was the fading world of DayKar’s mind.

The DraGon managed to curve what remained of his mouth into a faint smile as Rex alone, who scaled the last bit of the once mighty Templar knight’s neck, stopped at the base of his head, heard his last words. Then thrusting his jaws forward, he found the ridge encasing the spine, and with a bite force born out of sixty-five million years of evolution, bit clean through skin, flesh, and bone. With a mighty pull, Rex savagely ripped the top of DayKar’s spine out of his neck, showering blood down upon the platform like crimson rain.

One by one, they each let go, until only Rex remained on top of his dead foe, who fell onto the remnants of the altar, his killer standing atop victoriously. The full extent of the moment did not immediately set in for Rex, who, after standing motionless for several minutes, feathers soaked in blood, looked down at his kill, then to his friends. With a flash of flame in his eyes, he bit the piece of vertebra still in his teeth in two, letting them fall to either side. Slowly, he walked down the DraGon’s body to where the other five stood. For a moment they regarded one another in silence, staring long and hard into each other’s eyes. It was then that Rex heard a voice in his head unlike any he had heard before. A voice made of all the chaos swirling inside of him, and compressed into a single sound that was shaped into words.
In footsteps past, you now walk
…

Suddenly feeling as if his body was detaching itself from his mind, he felt his last conscious thought being pulled into darkness.

The others watched as the TyRanx vanished in a flash of fading flame into the form of a SaVarian, which materialized at the same time. Outstretched clawed hands caught him as he collapsed. There he lay, still and quiet, his naked frame surrounded closely by five warm bodies, which now stood watch over him. The sun was practically down and the celestial kaleidoscope of twilight was shining brightly almost as if to signal that the battle was over and the day was theirs. They could hear the approaching forces of their people not far below now, fighting off the remaining few DraGons that had been trapped within the tower during the attack. They knew it would not be long now.

BaRone could feel his children close by. He had always known when they were near, their flames unmistakable to him. However, now he sensed a flame he had not felt in many years. His mind whirled with hope that his daughter was still alive, and that his son and the others had succeeded in rescuing her. Logic prevented him from allowing his optimism to govern rational thought, however. The truth of the matter was that it took an army to make it through the tower, all the while facing opposition at every level. He could not be sure what awaited them at the top, what they would see when they would cross the final leg of their journey. Looking over, he saw the friends he had known his whole life: TarFor, VyKia, NyRo, VoRenna, and of course, VayRonx. All of them in his eyes pillars of strength, who had each served as inspiration for his own more than once, but perhaps no more than over the course of these past five days. Now, just as always, they stood at his side, moving forward. He took great comfort that no matter what awaited him at the top, he would not have to face it alone, something he knew might be the only thing that saved him, depending on what might be waiting for him.