Rise of the Dragons (11 page)

Staring back up at her was not her own
reflection—but the reflection of a dragon. It had fierce, glowing yellow eyes
and ancient red scales, and she felt her blood run cold as it opened its mouth
and roared at her.

Kyra, startled, wheeled, expecting to
see a dragon standing over her. She looked everywhere, but saw nothing. It was
only her, and Leo, who whined softly.

Kyra turned and looked down at the
waters again, and this time, she saw only her face staring back.

Her heart slammed in her chest. Had it
been some trick of the light? Of her own imagination? Of course, it could not
have been possible—dragons had not visited Escalon in thousands of years. Was
she losing her mind? What could this all mean?

Kyra jumped as she suddenly heard a
terrifying noise coming from far off in the woods, something like a howl
crossed with a cackle. Leo heard it, too, snarling, hair rising. Kyra searched
the woods, and in the distance she saw a faint glow from behind the tree line.
Like a fire—but there was no fire. Only an eerie, white glow.

Kyra felt the hair rise on the back of
her neck, felt as if another world were beckoning her, as if she had opened
some sort of portal to the spirit world. As much as every part of her screamed
to turn and run, she found herself mesmerized, found her body acting for her as
she got up and began to walk into the woods, making her way inextricably toward
the light.

She hiked up the hill with Leo, the glow
getting brighter as she weaved her way between the trees. Finally, she reached
the ridge, and she stopped short, aghast. Before her, in a small clearing, was
a sight she could have never expected—and one she would never forget.

An old woman, face whiter than the snow,
grotesque, covered in warts and scars, stared down at what appeared to be a
fire below her, holding her wrinkled hands to it. But the fire burned a bright
white, and there were no logs beneath it. She looked up at Kyra with ice-blue
eyes, eyes with no whites, all color, and no pupils. It was the scariest thing
Kyra had ever seen, and her heart froze within her at the sight. Everything
within her told her to turn and run, but she could not help herself as she stepped
forward, closer.

“The Winter Moon,” the old lady said,
her voice unnaturally deep, as if a bullfrog had spoken. “When the dead are not
quite alive and the alive are not quite dead.”

“And which are you?” Kyra asked,
stepping forward.

The woman cackled, a horrific sound that
sent a chill up her spine. Beside her, Leo snarled.

“The question is,” the woman said,
“which are
you
?”

Kyra frowned.

“I am alive,” she insisted.

“Are you? In my eyes, you are more dead
than me.”

Kyra wondered what she meant, and she sensed
it was a rebuke, a rebuke for not going forth boldly and following her own
heart.

“What is it you seek, brave warrior?”
the woman asked

Kyra’s heart quickened at the term, and
she felt emboldened.

“I want a bigger life,” she said. “I
want to be a warrior. Like my father.”

The old woman looked back down into the
light, Kyra relieved to have her eyes off of her. A long silence fell over them
as Kyra waited, wondering.

Finally, as the silence stretched
forever, Kyra’s heart fell in disappointment. Perhaps it was not possible.

“Can you help me?” Kyra asked. “Can you
change my destiny?”

The women looked back up, her eyes
aglow, intense, scary.

“This is the night when all things are
possible,” she replied slowly. “If you want something badly enough, you can have
it. The question is: what are you willing to sacrifice?”

Kyra thought, her heart pounding with
the possibilities.

“I will give anything,” she said.
“Anything.”

There came another long silence as the
light crackled and the wind howled. Leo began to whine.

“We are each born with a destiny,” the
old woman finally said. “Yet we must also choose it for ourselves. Fate and
free will do a dance, and they will do that dance your whole life long. It is a
tug of war between the two. Who will win—that depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Your strength. Your discipline. Your
force of will. How badly you want something—and how graced you are by God. And
perhaps most of all, what you are willing to sacrifice.”

“I will sacrifice,” Kyra said, feeling
the strength rising up within her. “I will sacrifice anything.
Everything
.”

The woman stared into her eyes so long,
Kyra nearly had to turn away.

“Vow to me,” the old woman said. “On
this night, vow to me. Vow that you will pay the price.”

Kyra stepped forward solemnly, her heart
pounding, feeling her life was about to change.

“I
vow
,” she proclaimed, meaning
it, meaning it more than any words she had uttered in her life.

The certainty of her tone cut through
the air, her voice carrying an authority, a finality, which surprised even her.

The old woman looked at her, and for the
first time, she nodded, as her face morphed into what appeared to be a look of
respect. She looked as if she were satisfied, as if she had come to a decision.

“You will be a warrior, and more,” the
woman said. “You will be the greatest of all warriors. Greater than your father
ever was. You will be a great ruler, too. You will achieve power beyond what
you could dream, and entire nations will look to you.”

Kyra’s heart slammed, her hands
trembling, as she pondered the words.

“Yet you will also be drawn to
darkness,” the woman continued. “There will be a great struggle within you. If
you can defeat yourself, the world will be yours.”

Kyra stood there, reeling, hardly
believing it all. How was it possible? Surely, she must have the wrong girl. No
one had ever told her she would be important, would be anything special, her
entire life. It all seemed so foreign to her, so unattainable.

“How?” Kyra asked. “How is this
possible? I am but a girl.”

The woman smiled, an awful, evil smile
that Kyra would remember for the rest of her life, as she stepped in close, so
close that Kyra shook with fear.

“Sometimes,” the old woman grinned,
“your fate lies just around the corner.”

Suddenly there came an intense flash of
light, and Kyra shielded her eyes as Leo snarled and snapped, pouncing at the
old woman.

But when Kyra opened them, the light was
gone. The woman was gone. The clearing was nothing but blackness, lit by the
black moon, Leo leaping at air.

Kyra looked everywhere, baffled. Had she
imagined the whole thing?

Suddenly, as if in answer to her
thoughts, there came a horrific, primordial shriek, as if the very heavens
themselves had opened up and cried out. Kyra stood there, frozen in place, and
thought of the lake.

Because, although she had never set eyes
upon one, she knew, she just knew that it was the shriek of a dragon. And that
it lay, waiting for her, just beyond the clearing.

Standing there alone, the old woman
gone, Kyra felt herself reeling as she tried to process what just happened, the
woman’s prophecy, what it all could mean. Most of all, she tried to understand
that noise. It was a screech, a roar, a sound unlike any she had ever heard, so
primal, as if the very earth were being born. She wondered what it could mean,
on the heels of that prophecy. It at once terrified her and drew her to it, so
that she knew there was nowhere else she could possibly go. In a strange way,
she felt as if it were summoning her, and it resonated through her in a way she
could not understand. It was so foreign and yet so familiar, as if it were a
sound she had been hearing somewhere in the back of her mind her entire life.

Kyra tore through the woods, Leo beside
her, stumbling knee-deep in the snow, branches snapping her in the face and she
not caring, feeling an urgency to reach the sound. For as it screeched again,
Kyra could not help but feel that it was also a sound of distress. Whatever it
was, she sensed in her bones that it desperately needed her help. That it was
dying.

And that it was summoning her.

Merk stood there in the forest clearing,
one man dead at his feet, and stared back at the seven other thieves, who gaped
back. They now gave him a look of respect—and fear—it was clear that they had
mistook him for another sojourner, another person they could take advantage of.
They had vastly underestimated him. Even though they outnumbered him seven to
one, as they looked down at their leader lying dead at his feet, killed so
quickly, they seemed to realize that the odds might not be in their favor.

“I’m tired of killing,” Merk said, “so
this is your lucky day. I’ll give you one chance to turn and run.”

A long, tense silence fell over the
wood, as they all stood there, looking to each other, clearly debating what to
do.

“That’s our friend you killed,” one
seethed.

“That’s right,” Merk said. “Your
ex
-friend.
And if you keep talking, it will be you, too.”

The thief scowled.

“You little wench,” he snapped, raising
his club. “There are still seven of us and one of you. Now lay that knife down
slowly and raise your hands, before we cut you to pieces.”

Merk smiled; he was so tired of
resisting the urge to kill, resisting who he was. It was so much easier, he
realized, just to give in, to become the old killer he was.

He shook his head.

“Well, you had your warning,” he said.
“There’s no cure for stupid.”

The thief shouted and charged, raising
his club high overhead and swinging at him wildly.

Merk was surprised. For a big man, he
brought the club down quicker than he would have thought; yet still, he was
clumsy, and Merk merely sidestepped, leaned back, and kicked the man in the
ribs, sending him flying face-first into the dirt.

Another charged, raising his dagger,
aiming for Merk’s shoulder, and Merk grabbed his wrist, re-directed it, and
plunged the man’s own dagger into his heart.

Merk spotted a thief raise a bow and
take aim, and he quickly stepped up, grabbed another thief who was charging
him, spun him around, and used him as a human shield. The thief cried out as
the arrow pierced his chest instead of Merk’s.

Merk then shoved the dying man forward,
right into the man with the bow, blocking his shot, then raised his dagger and
threw it. It spun end over end, crossing the clearing, until it impaled the man
in the neck, killing him.

That left three of them, and they now
looked at Merk with uncertain faces, filled with fear, as if debating whether
to charge or run.

“There are three us and one of him!” one
called out to the others. “Let’s charge together!”

They all charged him at once, and Merk
stood there, waiting patiently, relaxed. He was unarmed, and that was how he
wanted it; often, he found, the best way to defeat foes, especially when
outnumbered, was to use their weapons against them.

Merk waited for the first one to slash
at him, an oaf of a boy who charged clumsily with a sword, all power and no
technique. Merk stepped aside, grabbed the boy’s wrist, snapped it, then
disarmed him and sliced his throat. As the second attacker came, Merk spun
backwards and slashed him across the chest. He then turned and faced the third
thief and threw the sword—a move the man did not expect. It spun end over end
and entered the man’s chest, sending him flat on his back.

Merk stood there, looking around at the
eight dead men, taking stock with a professional assassin’s eye and as he did,
he saw one of them—the one with the club—was still alive, squirming on the
ground, on his stomach. The old Merk took over, and he could not help himself
as he walked over to the man, still unsatisfied.
Leave no enemies alive.
Never let them recall your face.

Merk walked casually over to the thief,
reached out with his boot, and kicked him over, until he lay on his back. The
thief looked up, bleeding from his mouth, eyes filled with fear.

“Please…don’t do it,” he begged. “I was
not going to kill you. I would have let you go.”

Merk smiled.

“Would you?” he asked. “Was that before
you tortured me, or after?”

“Please!” the man called out, starting
to cry. “You said you had renounced violence!”

Merk leaned back and thought about that.

“You’re right,” he said.

The man looked at him, hope in his eyes.

“I have. The thing is, you have stirred
something up in me today, something I would have rather suppressed.”

“Please!” the man shrieked, sobbing.

“I wonder,” Merk said, reflective, “how
many innocent women, children, you have killed on this road?”

The man continued to sob.

“ANSWER ME!” Merk yelled.

“What does it matter?” the man called
back, between sobs.

Merk lowered the tip of his sword to the
man’s throat.

“It matters to me,” Merk said, “a great
deal.”

“Okay, okay!” he called out. “I don’t
know. Dozens? Hundreds? It is what I have been doing my whole life.”

Merk thought about that; at least it was
an honest response.

“I myself have killed many men in my
lifetime,” Merk said. “Not all I am proud of. But all for a cause, a purpose.
Sometimes I was duped into killing an innocent—but in that case, I always
killed the person who hired me. I never killed women, and I never killed
children. I never preyed on the innocent, or the defenseless. I never robbed
and I never cheated. I guess that makes me something of a saint,” Merk said,
smiling at his own humor.

He sighed.

“But
you
,” he continued, “you are
scum, you who kill the innocent.”

“Please!” he shouted. “You can’t kill an
unarmed man!”

Merk thought about that.

“You’re right,” he said, and looked
about. “See that sword lying next to you on the ground? Grab it.”

The man looked over, fear in his eyes.

“No,” he cried, trembling.

“Grab it,” Merk said, putting the tip of
his sword to the man’s throat, “or I will kill you.”

The thief finally reached over, grabbed
the hilt of the sword, and held it with trembling hands.

“You can’t kill me!” the man shouted
again. “You vowed to never kill again!”

Merk smiled wide, and in one quick
motion, he plunged his sword into the man’s chest, killing him.

“The funny thing about starting over,”
Merk said, “is that there’s always tomorrow.”