The Dragonswarm (39 page)

The shadow here was nothing like the one I'd left behind. He dropped down through the heavy, choking ash, his beating wings raising cooler whorls within the smoke, then settled just before me. Still he towered. Still he dwarfed me with his size, but he looked like just a shadow to my other sight. He was alone, and small, and weak.

The massive maw snapped down, striking like a snake, but stopped just short of harming me. It huffed a blast of broiling air and rolled its head to watch me.
I wish you'd brought your hunters with you
, he said.
I thought you'd bring them all to deal with me.

"
And why would I do that?
"

To save your wretched dame. This is her home
.

I looked around, straining through the smoke to see the stricken manor. I wondered what had become of the baron. What of Themmichus? What of the helpful stable boy and the steward? What of the Kind Father and Thomas Wheelwright who had stood as witnesses to my knighthood?

I met the dragon's gaze and swallowed hard. "
You killed them all just to get me here. You were trying to kill her.
"

Oh, not alone
, he said, almost resentful.
I only played a little part. But they left me to wait.

Behind his words I felt a dreadful satisfaction. Not joy. There was no thrill of joy within that heart. But I could feel anticipation hot as a furnace. I didn't fully grasp the meaning in his words, but I didn't need to. There was threat enough in "they left me to wait."

I turned back toward my stronghold, still unafraid of the monster bonded to me, and stretched my will toward the safety of my lair. But there was something in between, something waiting on the threads of earth, something dense enough to bend reality around it.

Dragons. Even as I looked I saw them settling all around me. Thousands of them, black as ink, spilled across the world. And from the west I felt Pazyarev coming. He washed over the earth like the sunset's shadow, the vastness of his power blacking out reality for miles.

I reached for home. I pulled, and the world shifted around me. But I didn't make it back to the tower—the ring of dragon black welled up before me, and my will slammed against it hard as a wall of stone. I stumbled, stunned, and looked up to find myself upon the road less than a mile south of Teelevon.

A piercing shriek clawed at my mind, but I walled the pain away and called two blades into my hands. I didn't even have to look; I felt the monster's presence through the land. I dove aside and twisted as I flew and lashed out at the dragon's form as it swooped low. I felt the sword bite through the brown and orange scales, tasted the stink of its blood in the air, and grinned as the beast roared.

Its head snapped around toward me, teeth flashing in the night, but I stepped lightly to the side and slashed upward, carving a long gash up the dragon's plated shoulder. It screamed in pain and leaped away, hanging in the air above me. I saw it draw a breath to hurl fire.

But I did not pursue. I turned on my heel and sprinted south, away from the thing, and cast ahead already with my will. But there was no way clear. I saw the wide ring of dragons that had circled Teelvon now washing past me to the south.

And more. For miles to the south, there was a raging flood of dragon shadows touching down. The whole of the plains seemed to be filled with them. My tower. The walls. The king's encampment. Distantly, I felt the clamoring panic of my stronghold under direct assault.

Too many hearts, too many fears, but I could see shades in them: the careful, measured worry of the hunters who'd been trained; the cold, pathetic helplessness of soldiers ready to fight an army but useless against a swarm of dragons; the heavy weight of responsibility among the officers, Caleb and Lareth chief among them. And Isabelle. I could feel her like a balm. Concerned for me and waiting full of hope for my return. I reached for her, but there was no clear path. I tugged anyway and found myself face-to-face with another brown dragon.

I'd barely gained a hundred paces, and the beast I'd injured came up hard upon my heels. I hit a sprint straight toward the newer one, wrapped myself in threads of air, and fashioned steps of earth no larger than my feet that hung in empty air.

I sprinted up the steps and sprang with all my might. I twisted in the air, both arms slashing down, across, and with one swipe of rage I took the creature's head off. I hit the ground and rolled, and as I found my feet, the wash of viscous Chaos power flooded into me.

The first dragon had lost sight of me, but now it crouched, blocking any escape to the north. It shook its great head in impatient rage, scattering heavy black drops of blood. I stood motionless and silent for a moment, catching my breath, and as I did I saw a new shadow drift in from the north. The mottled orange turned its head and hissed a threat, but then looked back to me.

My thoughts were far away. I felt the battle raging in my stronghold. There was worse than fear within the walls now. I felt my soldiers' pain. I felt them fall. A dozen men at once turned into cinders. A Captain of the Hunt disemboweled by a dragon's tail. A carpenter who tried to stand and fight was torn to pieces by half a dozen hungry drakes. I sought desperately for some way through, but the world swarmed with dragons now.

And still Pazyarev came, rolling like a storm down from the north. He was miles off yet, still not visible on the horizon, but he was coming.

I turned back to the dragons right before me. The mottled one was stalking forward now, head held low and tasting at the air with its long forked tongue. I flung one of my Chaos blades almost casually toward it, too high, soaring in an arc above the beast. Just as it passed overhead, I caught it with my will and slammed it down, point-first, driving through the dragon's skull to pin it to the earth. Then I took a step toward the other, black as night.

"
Vechernyvetr. Help me. They're slaughtering my brood.
"

He laughed within my mind, dark and cruel.
Your family? Your friends? You may use the words. I've learned their treacherous meanings.

Pain like heartache, pain like human loss welled up in the back of my head. I felt it from him, the same emotion he had shared when I'd left, but that was just the first of it. I felt the crushing weight of grief, as well, the devastating helplessness of love.

I hit my knees. This was raw emotion—his emotion—but nothing native to the dragons' animal desires. "
What happened to you?
" I gasped. Even through the walls of my defenses there was pain enough to overwhelm me. "
How? How could you feel....
"

My brood
, he answered, bitter.
My dame. Were torn to shreds.
He showed me. The same lair I'd helped him win, and some of the same drakes. But there were more. There was a dame the shade of moonlight and a dozen drakes that looked newborn.

Dead. The cooling pool was thick with blood, the modest hoard stained black and red. And as I looked on the devastation, I could feel an echoing grief within my soul. I saw Vechernyvetr's lair despoiled even as mine was under attack.

"
Help me
," I begged again. "
They're doing that to mine. You brought me away just in time—
"

I know
, he said.
That was the plan.

"
But why? I didn't do this thing to you. I've never let my hunters near your lair.
"

It wasn't you. It was Pazyarev's brood. They found me in my lair.

"
And now they're raiding mine!
" I screamed, frantic. "
Take me to the fight! For violence and blood."

He shook his huge head slowly back and forth, a very human gesture.
There is nothing left of me to love the taste of blood. There is nothing but this pain in all my soul.

"
For vengeance, then
," I tried, stomping toward him. I reached inside myself, for the wild ferocious hunger of the Chaos heart, and pressed its thunder at his mind. "
That is your language. Destroy the ones that did this thing to you.
"

You did this thing to me
. And dreadful though the words were, there was no sense of rage. Only weary resignation.
You poisoned me with your human heart. My kind should not feel pain like this. The moonlight only makes it worse.

"
Then blood
," I tried again, but once again he shook his head. "
Why would you help them? Why would you give me up to them after what they've done? Why won't you fight?
"

Instead of answering, he bent his neck to look back lazily toward the north.
Pazyarev comes. He hates what you have made here.

"
I hate him too,
" I growled. I turned south and began to run. I cast ahead, but still the shadows boiled around my tower. I caught myself in threads of air and flung myself like a shot. It wasn't enough, but it was faster than I could run. Lashes of air hurled me south across the miles while my people died.

Vechernyvetr came up on the wing. He made no move to strike at me. He only drifted idly along. "
Carry me
," I said. "
If you will come with me, at least carry me.
"

No. No, I can't do that. It would cost me my reward.

"
Reward?
" I asked. And then a moment later, "
Ah. Yes. For bringing me away.
"

He has been waiting weeks. For weeks he has not raided, he has not hunted, he has only watched and waited for a chance to strike at you. Two thousand bodies in his brood and every one committed to this assault.

"
How can you know this?
"

I have been with him. All this time. Begging my reward.

"
What can that monster possibly give you? Power? Wealth? I'll give you both if you but get me to my tower.
"

No. None of that. He will take away what you have given me. He will take my human heart.

It took a moment before I understood, then I spun to stare at him. "
You will allow him to subsume you? To destroy your will?
"

I have begged it of him. He has refused. But for this night's work
—

"
That will destroy you! Why not fight him? Why not die, if that's all you desire?
"

He will not kill me. He can see my torment. He enjoys my torment.

"
No. Do not give yourself to that. Fight him.
"

There is nothing to be gained.

"
There is victory to be gained. Just look at me. Just look at what I've done. Look at the power I have gathered.
"

I see how easily it gutters
—

"
But it need not go out. Stand with me. Help me fight.
"

He gave no response to that. After some time I stopped my desperate flight. The pain and fear still seared throughout my tower, clawing at my mind, and it wrenched my heart to abandon them. But it would take most of an hour still to fly myself that far, and then what would I do?

I could kill them easily enough, even on the wild wing, but I could not save my brood. Two thousand dragons in the sky? I could not kill them all. And even as I tried, that terrible shadow would be constantly approaching from the north.

I turned in place. Vechernyvetr registered surprise, then curiosity. I showed him my resolve and felt his astonishment. "
I will fight him instead
," I said.

You will die
.

"
And what if I win?
" I asked, my heart beginning to hammer in my chest. I watched the storm of Chaos power roll across the earth toward me. "
What becomes of his vast brood if I kill him?
"

You are a fool to even hope. For all that you have grown, your power does not match his
.

"
I am nothing like him
," I said. "
He is just a monster. I am a man.
" I gathered up my will, caught the threads of air, and sent myself skimming back north. "
He may destroy me. Or I may win. What would happen then?
"

If you killed him? He would die. Every part of him would die.

I looked south, where every part of him swarmed against my fortress. I breathed a silent prayer.

You have no cause for hope
, Vechernyvetr said.
You will die this night.

"Or I will save my brood and end Pazyarev forever. Either way, you should be at my side.
"

I am not one of your broodlings, little dragon prince of men. You do not control my will.

"
That is not the way of men
," I said. "
Every soldier in my brood fights by his own will.
"

Against the dragonswarm? That is impossible.

"
That is the human heart
," I told him. "
It is not entirely a wretched thing.
"

And then, despite myself, I forgot about him. I forgot about my people in the tower. I forgot everything except the shadow in the sky, crimson stain against the sunset, and large as a mountain.

Pazyarev came for me, and he did not come alone.

I hung suspended in the air, a hundred paces above the earth, while the northern sky filled with the terrible bulk of an elder legend. Around him buzzed a handful of retainers, perhaps a dozen winged adults, and among them the sleek gold dame that had watched me so closely in his lair. I watched with narrowed eyes as they approached.

But through my territory sense I felt the others come. Across the land to east and west, whatever broodlings he had set to pin me in now rose up and flew toward me. Another dozen? Two? I cast one last, desperate glance south, but there was no way to my tower. Those did not break off their attack.

It mattered little anyway. I would have to kill this one to win. Even if I tore his every broodling from the sky, I'd have to fight him when he came for me. Far wiser, then, to fight him here.

But I would not idly wait. I summoned stone as I had done fleeing his lair, shaped it into javelins, and flung them with my will. I focused on the reinforcements coming from the ground and tore one dragon's wing to shreds, then speared another through the eye. Seventeen in all approached, and I accounted for six of them with that first volley.