Earth's Hope (14 page)

“So you’ve seen snippets of what’s coming?”

He nodded. “Of course. The dragons will be a great help, but there is a darkness there too that I canna interpret.”

“Is there anything we can do to prepare?”

“Nothing beyond what we’re already doing. We will continue to field attacks. If we’re strong enough, we may prevail.”

“Fionn said he had an idea.”

“Did he now?” Bran’s deep voice kindled with interest. “What was it?”

“I have no idea. He wouldn’t tell me beyond describing it as risky.”

“Och aye, and what isna risky in these times?” He splayed his hands on the table top and levered himself upright.

She gazed up at him. “Could you at least tell me about Fionn and me?”

His eyes twinkled. “Follow your heart. If that doesna work, Arawn or I would make more than adequate substitutes.”

Aislinn made shooing motions with both hands. “Get out of here.”

“Now she wants me to leave.” Bran rolled his gaze skyward, laughing, and vanished. His laughter hung in the air after he’d disappeared.

Chapter Eleven

“The next one of you who tries to fly out of here will have to do some serious cave time,” Dewi bellowed.

Nidhogg chuckled through steam and smoke.

“I fail to see what’s so funny,” Dewi snapped.

He turned his green gaze her way, and she could have sworn he winked, but it was tough to tell through the clouds of steam surrounding him. “This is why we raise them in caves, my dear. We can close off the entrance and they’re not strong enough to escape for a while.”

“We can return to your cave with them,” Berra offered.

A cacophony of nos rose around Dewi.

“We just got back here,” the black youngling announced. “We are not going back.”

Dewi blasted him with flames, but they rolled off his scales. “You do not call the shots, youngling.”

He sidled in front of her. His bravado would have been laughable, since he was less than a quarter her size, if it weren’t so dangerous for him to make his own decisions.

“Soon, you won’t be able to tell us anything.”

Dewi didn’t like the sound of that, but before she could ask for clarification, Nidhogg lumbered between her and their black offspring.

He bent and snatched the young dragon by the scruff of his neck and lifted him to eye level. “What did you mean by that?”

“N-Nothing.” Face to face with Nidhogg, the youngster wasn’t so bold.

Dewi joined her mate. “You can tell us,” she said, her voice poisonously sweet, “or we can drag it out of your mind.”

The dragon writhed in Nidhogg’s grasp, but it didn’t do him any good. He spit fire, and Nidhogg shook him hard.

“Stop that!” the Norse dragon growled.

Kra gasped; air and fire whooshed from him.

Dewi stared at the copper dragon. “What? Don’t we have enough problems?”

“Apparently not,” Kra muttered. He drew himself up to his full height, scales clanking together. “Since the two of you were dancing around the point, I looked inside his mind.”

“And?” Nidhogg’s tone could have branded a warning in plate steel.

“I’ll talk,” the black youngling piped up. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“We’ll be the judge of that,” Dewi said. “What did Kra see in your mind?”

A long, hissing snarl came from Kra, and then he said, “I’m counting to three. If you haven’t told them, I will.”

“Old Ones,” the black youngling said. “They come into my dreams.”

Dewi’s heart plummeted into her feet. “Why haven’t you pushed them out?” she demanded. “You’re strong enough. Or you could have called one of us—”

“But they’re in trouble,” he broke in. “They hate the dark gods too. They want us to fight together. They said they’d come for me and my eggmates and give us everything we want if we’d just fight for them. We’re almost old enough.”

Dewi didn’t know whether to laugh, slap her child, or lock him behind stone walls. “You believed them?” She shook her head, incredulous.

“Why wouldn’t I?” her youngster asked. “After all, they were just doing the dark ones’ bidding when they kidnapped our brother and sister.” He hesitated a beat. “They were very sad about our sister dying.”

“Let me tell you something.” Dewi bent close and grasped the black dragon’s head with a taloned foreleg. “I spent hundreds of years in a tunnel beneath Taltos spying on them. They invited the dark gods to Earth.”

The black youngling nodded vigorously. “Yes, I know. They told me all about how they were dying and desperate for anything to help them survive. They said we come from common stock, that we have to stick together. Against everyone.”

Berra had gathered the other six young dragons. “Have any of the rest of you been a part of this?” she demanded, her red scales vibrating with outrage.

“All of us,” the black youngster said. “I already told you the Old Ones need all of us to help them fight the dark gods.”

Dewi let go of her child and turned to Nidhogg. “I’m almost beyond words. What do you think?”

He narrowed his eyes. “No thinking to be done here. They must go to our borderworld and remain there until the fighting is done.”

“But I don’t want to—” the black dragon began.

“What you want doesn’t matter,” Nidhogg spoke over him.

“They need us,” the youngster insisted.

“You’ve been duped,” Dewi said. “Do you know what that word means?”

“Tricked.” He sounded sulky.

She blew fire in frustration. “You’re too young to know better, and you have a good heart, but what would have happened is once they had you, they would have tried to use you as a bargaining chip to get us to capitulate.”

Royce clanked his jaws together. “Vaughna and I can see them safely to the borderworld and will remain with them until one of you tells us it is safe to return.”

Fionn and Gwydion hurried around a corner of the manor and ground to a halt. “What’s going on?” Gwydion asked, glancing from dragon to dragon.

Fionn muttered, “I fear we willna like the answer.”

Arawn trotted after them and stood by Fionn’s side, surveying the tableau. Dewi had always respected the god of the dead, and today was no exception.

He made his way to Nidhogg, laid a hand on the young dragon’s head, and his face darkened. “Fuck!”

“What is it?” Fionn and Gwydion surged forward.

“Lemurians have done quite a thorough job corrupting this one.” He slanted his gaze at Dewi. “Did the damage stop here?”

“No,” Dewi said, her voice flat. “It’s all of them.”

“The Old Ones need us,” the black dragon said in a wheedling tone, but he didn’t sound quite as self-assured as he had before.

Maybe the fact that no one shared his worldview was sinking in. Dewi hoped so.

Fionn focused on Dewi. “What are we going to do?”

“We have it under control,” she said. “They’re going to our borderworld with Royce and Vaughna. And they’ll remain there until the danger has passed.”

“Or until there’s no one left here,” Nidhogg rumbled, “in which case, they’ll live out their lives on our borderworld.”

“That sounds horrible,” a green youngster piped up.

“Yes,” a red female chimed in. “Nothing but dirt and fire.”

“How would you know anything about it?” Dewi eyed her brood. “You’ve never been there. The fire world has been good enough for dragons since the beginning of time. It’s where we were forged.”

“Old Ones said—” the green youngling began.

Nidhogg blasted him with fire. “Lies,” he shouted, spraying everything within a fifty foot radius with fire. “They filled your heads with lies.”

“How could all of you have been so stupid?” Dewi demanded, not really expecting an answer. They were young, naïve to the ways of the world. Of course they’d be an easy mark…

“We canna leave them here,” Gwydion said, breaking into her thoughts. “They’re a weak link in our defenses.” He shook his staff at the dragon horde. “Why dinna any of you say aught?”

“I instructed them to remain silent,” the brood’s alpha said. “The Old Ones told us we couldn’t tell anyone. They said you wouldn’t understand.”

“No shit,” Fionn grunted. “They bought your silence because they knew we’d understand all too well.”

“It doesna matter,” Arawn cut in and focused on Nidhogg. “How will ye transport them?”

“It won’t take long,” Nidhogg said. “We’ll teleport to a point where we’re close, and then we’ll power through the barrier separating Earth from our borderworld. He swept his gaze through his brood. “I expect absolute compliance from each of you,” he said. “Dewi and I will be mind-linked to you, and if we sense so much as a stray thought we don’t like, you won’t make it to the borderworld. Do I make myself clear?”

Dewi winced at his tone. She wouldn’t have been quite so harsh, yet she understood the necessity.

“Yes, sir,” the brood’s alpha dropped his head in deference to his father, and Dewi breathed a little easier. She wasn’t sure if she could shoot one of her own children out of the skies.

Royce furled his black wings. “Vaughna and I are ready anytime.”

Magic boiled around Nidhogg until the air was thick with the stink of ozone and dragons’ fiery breath. He still held his son in an unbreakable grasp. Dewi laced magic in with her mate’s casting and sent spells to tether each of her other six children.

“We’ll be back within the hour,” she told Fionn.

“Aye, and once we return,” Nidhogg added, “we will convene a war council. This waiting around for them to strike next isn’t working for me.”

* * * *

Fionn watched as the four adult dragons and seven youngsters teleported away from his manor house.

Kra lumbered forward, followed by Berra. “What a goddess-damned shame,” he said.

“We were counting on their help once they got a bit older,” Berra seconded. She turned her golden gaze on her mate. “Do you suppose this happened while we had them in the caves?”

“Where else?” Kra replied.

Berra hung her head. In between steam and smoke, garbled words emerged. “I never left them alone for a moment, yet somehow this is my fault.”

“’Tisn’t.” Gwydion raised his voice for emphasis. “The Old Ones are sly. Unless ye’d thought to establish a mind link to each youngling—and monitored it constantly—ye’d never have noticed the Lemurians’ incursion. Or their cheap, empty promises.”

Fionn sifted his hands through his hair, feeling inexplicably weary. “This isna good on many fronts. We needed the dragons’ energy to help oust the dark gods. It has a healing aspect that would have helped Earth repel the dark ones.”

“Do ye suppose the dark gods put the Lemurians up to trying to corrupt the dragons?” Arawn asked.

“Humph.” Gwydion pounded the end of his staff into the grass. “I hadna considered that, but ’tis a strong possibility.”

“What’s a strong possibility?” Bran shimmered into being.

“Nice you could join us,” Gwydion cast a sidelong gaze his way.

“I was in the house. What’s a strong possibility?” Bran repeated, sounding annoyed.

“Listen for a bit and ye’ll get the gist,” Fionn told him, and then turned back to Gwydion and added, “Och aye, and we’ll never know the answer to that one. I do agree with Nidhogg, though. I’ve been turning a plan about in my mind.” He blew out a tense breath, and then another. “’Twill either be the death of us, or ’twill send the dark ones back to the hell they came from.”

Arawn furled his brows. “Are ye going to say more?”

“It almost doesn’t matter how risky it is,” Kra broke in, puffing steam. “The time has come for bold and decisive action. I’m furious those spineless bastards would try to corrupt our young, and they did it with a perversion of the truth. If they’d lied outright, any dragon, no matter how young, would have dismissed them out of hand.”

“Well then, there’s the darkness I saw around the dragons,” Brann muttered under his breath. He clamped his jaw into a tight line and moved closer to Fionn.

“What do you mean?” Gwydion asked Kra.

“One thing the Old Ones said was true. Dragons are, indeed, descendants of the Third Race, right along with the Lemurians.”

Fionn caught his breath as surprise blew through him. “Dewi never told me that.”

“Likely, she was ashamed,” Berra cut in. “None of us wish to claim kinship with the Lemurians—for many reasons.”

“We weren’t the same species,” Kra said, “but in truth the Third Race encompassed both dragons and Lemurians. Dragons breathed a collective sigh of relief when the histories didn’t include us, likely because we left Mu before it blasted to bits.”

“We have time.” Gwydion leaned on his staff. “I would hear more of this, since ’tisn’t a tale I’m familiar with, either.”

“I know parts of it,” Bran said, “but I’d be verra interested to hear it direct from a dragon’s mouth.”

The dragons exchanged glances, and Kra nodded once, sharply, his dark eyes whirling faster than usual. “We told Nidhogg and Dewi’s brood that we were forged on our borderworld, but in truth, we are much older than that. Before Earth and the borderworlds formed out of the void, we shared the planet of Mu with the Lemurians. They built grand cities, and we excavated extensive cave systems. Though we both had reptilian characteristics, they always chose to hide theirs behind illusion. Over time, their wings became vestigial, and then disappeared entirely.” He stopped to suck in a breath, and Berra picked up the tale.

“The Lemurians plundered Mu. We warned them time and time again, but they didn’t listen to us. By the time they realized they were in danger of running out of clean water and had nowhere else to plant food because they’d burned up the soil’s goodness, it was late in the game to launch countermeasures.”

“Were either of you there?” Gwydion asked.

Berra shook her head. “No, but this is part of the oral tradition passed to every dragon, and we know it to be true.”

“The Old Ones tried to enslave us,” Kra said. “They needed our magic to save Mu, but we’d had a bellyful of them and had already decided to leave. When we didn’t cooperate, they captured three dragons and would have killed them were it not for a valiant rescue. We killed ten of them, and didn’t lose a dragon.”

“Once that happened,” Berra said, “we knew we had to find a different home, so we sent scouts through the universe and discovered Earth, a newly formed planet with a phalanx of borderworlds around it. At first, we moved to Earth, and shortly thereafter found a fiery borderworld that suited us perfectly.”