The Dragonswarm (14 page)

But Isabelle had brought me back. Even as I felt the Chaos madness in my soul, I focused on the memory of her touch. It ached to think of her, it made me weak and small and frightened. But when I thought of her, I knew what I had to do.

"It doesn't matter how hard I train, or how much power I gain, it gains me nothing if I can't save the ones I love
—"

That's simple human foolishness
, he said.
You are better than that now. You are nearly a dragon. Leave that world behind.

"
I do not have a choice in this. You understand? I have to go.
" I glanced past him, at the harsh terrain outside. I tried to guess how many hundred miles it was to Teelevon. "
It would be far easier with you.
"

Impossible without me. I will not let you go.

I smiled sadly at him.
"You cannot stop me.
"

His head sank lower still, his muscles bunched beneath his scales.
Cannot kill you
, he said.

"
Vechernyvetr, let us at least part as friends.
"

We were never friends
, he said.
You were a trinket on my hoard, and that is all.

I sighed and shook my head, then started past him. His tail lashed forward, and at the last instant turned the deadly tip aside. Still it struck me hard in the chest and flung me back to crash against the wall.

This hurts me near as much as it hurts you
, he growled, and I could feel his anger in my soul.
But I will do what I must. You will not go.

I wrapped myself in threads of air, but he rolled his eyes and swiped the space where I had been with his massive, plated snout. I almost slipped aside, but he caught me on the hip and spilled me into the pile of stolen clothes. He saw the disturbance, and the tail slashed around again. It caught my shoulder as I dodged and threw me to the ground.

And he was not alone. He was a beast with many bodies. The drakes came swarming across the lair, rushing to surround the spot where I had been. But now I did as Vechernyvetr had done through me in Pazyarev's lair. Wrapped up in energy, I ran on pads of air, and unlike then, I raised the steps up higher and higher as I went, so I sprinted soundlessly above the closing ring of drakes, and dove past Vechernyvetr's spine toward the outer ledge.

As I passed above him, I felt the panic in his heart. The huge head swung this way and that, but he could catch no glimpse of me. He was not hateful; he felt fearful and betrayed. Compassion touched my heart as I stepped out onto the ledge. I turned back to him, and thought, "
I'm sorry, Vechernyvetr. I leave you stronger than I met you, but I must leave you.
"

Suspicion flared and he turned my way, though he did not focus on me.
No! You are more than a man here! You are strong. You are fearsome. Why would you leave that behind?

"
For love. It is a human thing and nothing to do with Chaos. I have tasted Chaos power and it is sweet.
" Behind my eyes, I saw Isabelle's smile. I nodded to myself. "
But it is nothing against love.
"

He stalked in my direction, but he didn't strike. He only lowered his head like a hurt dog.
Then go as a friend, human. Perhaps something of humanity has touched my heart. I cannot understand your choice, but I would not have you for an enemy. Show yourself to me, and teach me to say goodbye.

I hesitated only a moment, then let the robe of wind wash off me. I didn't go to meet him but waited there at the cliff's edge. I spread my hands. "I'm sorry, Vech—"

There were no words, only an animal snarl as he sprang at me. I felt no shock at his deception. The Chaos power still roared within me. It lashed earth around me—not the delicate elemental coat of air I'd worn before, but half a turret of pace-thick stone. The dragon's talons screamed against it, and the long neck snaked above. Sharp fangs flashed and he snapped down at me, but I was already moving.

I waved a hand, and a doorway opened at the base of the strange stone wall. I stepped through, under the beast's belly, and the power raging beneath the thin veneer of my humanity screamed at me to strike. There was a blade already in my hand, of Chaos more than earth and flame, and I could have carved Vechernyvetr down to bone.

But he had been a friend, and he had saved my life. I darted out from under him and wrapped myself in air and darted down the mountainside as fast as I could run. He roared behind me, bellowing his rage, and threw his will against me.

It was not a blind attack on my consciousness as he and Pazyarev had tried before. Now it was an order to his brood to take me down. Somewhere deep inside I felt it, felt a compulsion to obey even to my own destruction, but the power in me drowned it out.

The others came, though. My brothers and sisters, now. Limbs of my own body. They came to overwhelm me. I drifted down the mountainside, but the broodlings were hard on my heels. I could feel Vechernyvetr's rage like a physical thing in the air around me, feel his animal hatred overwhelming any shred of reason in his head.

He sprang from the ledge above me and spewed flames in a torrent, but they never came within a pace of me. I felt the shape of his compulsion, sensed the drakes slipping soundlessly among the trees beneath me. He rose up high above and sent the dame along behind me.

I shook my head. "
You do not have to do this. We were friends.
"

You ache,
he said, and it was snarling accusation.
From the very first, you ache. No matter how long you rest, no matter how well you heal, no matter how strong you grow. Your body always aches.

"
And you will fix that by destroying me?
"

I cannot destroy you. But yes, I would have fixed you. You are broken. Your power's flawed.

"
I am a man.
" I thought. "
It is not enough to be strong. We will always ache for those we love.
"

A roar split the air, high above, and I felt the fury of it clawing at the back of my mind. I shrank away from it.

I gave you all the power of Chaos
, he said.
And you have given me this.

I saw him circling above, and I remembered the day he first came looking for me in the sky above. He couldn't see me, but he could sense my location through his connection to the lair. He'd missed with wild fire, but he had many weapons.

I remembered her just in time. The dame came in fast from my left, and I flung myself forward, out, up away from the hillside. I hurled the Chaos blade toward her and drove it with my will, but Vechernyvetr hit me, striking from inside my head. He battered at my mind and I held him off, but it cost me concentration. The blade only glanced along the dame's ribcage, but worse, the web of air around me tattered. I hit the boughs of winter pines like a catapult shot.

Tree limbs cracked and crashed and tore beneath me, and instead of grabbing for some purchase I turned my attention to the ground below. I plunged straight to the uneven slope, but I grasped the strength of stone and wrapped it around me like a shell. I let myself fall to the earth, into the earth, and it swallowed me like a still pool. I sank down, dragging a great bubble of air with me, and the earth closed over me as though I had never passed.

For a long time I crouched in my strange little sanctuary, catching my breath, and Vechernyvetr searched for me above. I could feel him in my mind prodding, feel all the other broodlings prowling, but I contained him now, and he could not find me. I could feel him in the world above, sweeping out in wider and wider circles as he searched for me, his rage a flame in the depths of my mind.

Then he spoke, and his words sounded dull, as though I were hearing them through a long tunnel.
This is a foolish thing you do, Daven. You are only wasting your life. You cannot save them.

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, but for the first time in a month I felt sure. I had a purpose.
"I can, and I will. I am the only one alive who can save them.
"

You believe that? Man cannot stand up to Pazyarev, Daven, much less the dragonswarm. They will be washed under, and if you go out there, you will be washed under with them.

Cautiously, I looked out with my second sight, searching the world above me for Vechernyvetr, and once again he'd heard my thoughts. He was coming for me, but he was far off. I found the drakes, living shadows among the glowing life of the forest, and they were nowhere near. The dame was injured now, her strength used up, and she was circling back to the lair. I felt the pull of it myself—an urge to return to the comfort of its confines—but my stomach turned at the thought. I shook it off.

Before he could reach me, I began to fold the earth back, slowly rising to the surface. It was harder to do now, more complicated than I'd realized, but I forced my way up. When I broke the surface, he was just a speck on the horizon, but he was coming back as fast as he could fly. I was already moving, though. I wrapped myself in air again, and ran down the mountain, away from the lair. I went in great leaping steps, never quite touching the ground and without making a sound. As he came close, he brought with him an inferno of emotion that bloomed in the back of my mind. I could feel his frustration—his pain, his loss—and it felt devastatingly familiar. I had given him a human heart, or enough of one to ache.

You will not leave, Daven!
His voice thundered in my head, but I could hear the desperate fear behind it.
You must not leave! Stay here.
He landed behind me, crashing down where I had been, and I glanced back to see his great head swinging back and forth as he tried to find me. His voice brimmed with desperation.
Please don't leave me. You are the only friend I have ever known.

I never expected that plea, and it rocked me. I remembered his deception on the ledge above, and dared not give myself away with any answer. But I could feel his true emotion. He would have crippled me to keep me, but he truly wanted me.

A tear stole down my face, but I steadied my thoughts, aware that he must still sense some of my emotions. I gripped the web of air around me, breathed a heavy sigh, and pulled myself quietly, carefully away from where he waited.

I watched him as I went. He circled for a while, searching. He called into my mind. But I gave no answer, and at last he went back to his lair. I hung for a moment near the top of a pine and watched the drakes scurry home as well.

Then I turned away. I looked out over the world of men, gathered a breath, and prepared myself to return home. I flung myself on threads of air as hard as my will would let me and soared out high over the forested hills. I flew like an arrow, arcing up until I could see the black smoke boiling out of a burning city miles and miles away. I could see dragons flying in loose formations, scudding over empty fields like the shadows of clouds.

The mountainside fell away beneath me, replaced with rolling hills and thinner forest. I looked down and saw the fringes of humanity. I saw towns on the horizon and villages just beyond the hills, and even a farmhouse here and there.

While I watched, I felt the thrilling song of the Chaos power fade within my soul. The hammering force of it lessened, and with it went the comforting buffer that protected me from reason. I saw, in a glance, the world that I'd forgotten. I'd abandoned it—I'd nearly agreed to raid against it—and though it wasn't burning yet, the dragons would be coming.

My arc curved down. I began to fall toward the earth, but I had crossed a dozen miles with a thought, and at that rate I could make my way to Teelevon before midday. I reached out with my will and shaped anew the net around me. I flung it with a thought to launch myself out over the plains.

It didn't work. I felt a wrenching jerk that barely slowed my plummet. The fragile fabric of air tore apart around me, and I fell. Panic stabbed at me. I reached down deep to the core of blackness, borrowing Chaos again as I had done before. But it was thin. It was too far away. Even as I reached for it I felt the darkness slipping from my grasp. Down, deeper inside. But at the same time...up and behind me. In the direction of the lair.

I thought of the map Vechernyvetr had shown me before, of the limits of his domain. I thought of the hoard we had acquired, of the broodlings we'd overpowered, and I thought how my power had grown. I reached out desperately now, falling faster and faster, and strained with all my might to summon a thread of air to slow my fall. It shivered and broke beneath my will.

Trees and hills and stones grew huge beneath me. They flashed toward me, and I fought against a panic every bit as black and blinding as the dragon's glamour. I flailed for some plan, remembering the magic I'd known before I ever borrowed Chaos. I touched the air—the natural air, the inconvenient reality so thin compared with Chaos—but it lacked the strength to hold me up.

I looked to the earth instead. I remembered the trick I'd used to escape Vechernyvetr before, falling like a bubble through the earth. But I remembered the price I had to pay for bending the energy of actual reality. It cost in bodily strength. Perhaps I had the will enough to make the earth swallow me up, but I would have to climb back out again by the strength of my own arms.

The trees reached up for me, and I spun in place and touched what wind there was to throw me at a high-branched fir. I caught a limb and bloodied my hands and nearly ripped one arm from its socket, then I was falling again. Another heavy branch caught my hip and spilled me over, and I folded double over a wrist-thick limb. I hooked an elbow and a knee before I could slip off, and spent ten slamming heartbeats trying to catch my breath.

The limb creaked. It started to crack, but I reached out desperately to the threads of earth and water that gave it shape and reinforced them with my will. The branch held. My grasp didn't. Suddenly weak arms gave out, and I flopped upside down. Then loose. It was twenty paces down to the ground, and there were ten limbs along the way. I landed on my back gasping desperately and aching top to toe.

For ages I lay still, breathing slow and thinking fast, and three more times I tried to borrow Chaos. I couldn't reach the inky power. It was there, but it was very far away. I could turn my head toward the distant sensation and stare across the miles at the tiny cavern upon the mountainside. I couldn't see it, but I had no doubt that it was there.