The Last Druid (31 page)

She smiled, amused by the boy’s question.  “No, my young one,” she replied.

“Then why do you have your sword?”

“Because it may be needed again someday.”  She reached over to take the sheath from where it lay behind him.

“But Nishtan is not coming—the Council said there will be no peace treaty if he does.”

“The Council does not understand him.”  Entha sheathed the blade and set it on the ground next to her, placing the whetstone next to it.  She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.  “They are foolish if they think he will heed the warnings they give him.  They are empty and he will eventually decide to ignore them once he realizes he stands to gain nothing from this so-call ‘peace’.  The Dark One will see that he continues what he started.”

Hiran whimpered in fear and pushed up against his mother’s side so hard he almost knocked her over.  He looked up at her.  “Will he kill us, entha?” he asked.

Entha put one arm around his shoulders.  “If he finds us, but we must make sure that does not happen so easily.”  She pulled him up into her lap.  “Keep this in your mind, my son: plan for any and every possible future.  When it comes, then you will be ready for it.”

Someone in the distance started shouting.  The two of them straightened up to listen, scanning the horizon with their eyes.  They saw no one, but the yells were getting louder.  Another voice—a girl’s voice—cried out right next to them.

“
Hiran!” she shouted.  She sounded close but distant at the same time.

Hiran
looked up at his mother.  “Entha?” he asked.

Entha didn’t respond; she didn’t even seem to hear him.

“Hiran!” cried the voice again, louder this time.  “Hiran wake up!”

He was vaguely aware of the hard ground beneath him…

“Hiran! 
Hiran wake up!
”

His eyes flew open and he sat up with a gasp.  Cal
la was kneeling next to him with both her hands on his shoulder, shaking him awake.  There was a look of panic on her face.  Shouts rose up from outside, men snapping orders to each other.  Hiran first thought that the army was about to march when he stopped himself to really listen.  He had heard the same sound in his dream, and now he felt something in his gut drop.

It was the sound of battle he had been hearing.

Without a word he sprang to his feet and charged outside, Calla right behind him.  Throwing the piece of canvas aside he stood staring at the scene around them.  Metal clanged on metal as weapons clashed together.  Several men already lay dead on the ground nearby, others seriously wounded.  The deafening roars that filled the air announced the presence of Dranl’s Brilken soldiers.  There was a loud snarling from right next to them.  Hiran turned and almost brought his fist down on Lina’s head; the Tri-tail wolf stood next to him with feet planted firmly apart, her fur bristling and her three tails held straight up in the air.

Dranl
had made a surprise-attack on the camp.

Hiran
felt the earth beneath his feet shaking.  He turned to see three Brilken charging straight towards them.  He didn’t wait for them to come any closer; he rushed forward and pounced on the closest one, clamping one hand on its upper jaw and one on the lower and worked to pull them apart.  The creature screeched and tried to throw him off but to no avail.  Pulling on the jaws as hard as he could he eventually ripped off the top half of the massive reptile’s head and threw it to the ground.  The rest of the beast just dropped into a heap at his feet.

He straightened up again to meet the next one but it had already moved past him.  He turned and found that Cal
la had already taken care of it: it had been impaled on a massive spike of rock.  The third creature was still running at her but she wasn’t waiting for it to get any closer.  The earth shook and groaned underneath them until it suddenly split apart.  The tear grew until it had caught up with the Brilken, the fissure growing wider under the beast’s feet until it lost its balance and was sent flailing into the dark chasm below.  With another loud groan the earth closed again over its head.

Hiran
ran back to where Calla stood.  She had to go, now—he saw it in her eye.  She looked away from him quickly, giving her attention to the Tri-tail still at her side.  “Stay with him,” she said.  Lina gave a snarl and flicked her tails aggressively in response.

Cal
la looked back at him.  “Watch out for yourself Hiran.”

He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her in close and kissed her hard on the mouth, holding her like that for as long as he could.  He finally pulled away from her.  “For luck,” he said.

The girl smiled slightly and gave him one in return.  “I’ll look for you,” she said. She broke free of his hold and ran off towards the trees; Hiran didn’t take his eyes off her until she had disappeared in their shadow.

He
turned back to the battle.  “Hold them here!” he hollered.

XXXVIII

Calla

Calla paid little attention to her surroundings as she ran, subconsciously avoiding the obstacles that appeared in her path.  The battle waged on behind her; she could still hear it as she went, but with every step the sound grew less and less until the sound had faded out completely.  The silence that took its place was broken only by the sound of her labored breathing and her feet as they hit the ground.  The muscles in her legs ached from the running, but she forced herself to keep going.

Dranl was hiding around here somewhere; she just had to find
him.

Ca
lla felt a tug of guilt in her gut and almost started wishing Hiran had come with her.  She gritted her teeth and hissed at herself for the thought; it was better for her that he hadn’t.  His abilities with magic were limited, and Dranl would find him an easy target.  It was better that Hiran stayed in the battle behind her.  But she couldn’t help but fear that he faced a worse fate there than with her.  Dranl’s army was composed mostly of his Brilken soldiers, and they weren’t easy to even hit.  It had taken Hiran a lot of effort to stop that one, and she hated the thought of him taking on several of them at once.  It would undoubtedly be worse for Lina; she may protect him to the best of her abilities, but her teeth and claws wouldn’t be able to penetrate the Brilken’s thick scales.

Maybe Ca
lla should have stayed with them…

“Enough of that, Cal
la!” she snapped at herself aloud.  “You’re only distracting yourself like this when you need to focus.  They can take care of themselves.  They’ll be fine—you’ll see.”  She ran even harder despite her tired legs, focusing her magic on finding the threads of energy in the faint air currents that might lead her to her foe.

A vicious snarl sounded through the woods, echoing off the trees.  Ca
lla slid to a halt, dropping one knee into the dirt she kicked up to help slow her momentum.  She tilted her head to one side and listened.  The sound had turned into loud roaring but she still couldn’t tell how far away it was, nor what exactly it belonged to.  It didn’t sound like any woodland predator that might belong here, of that she was sure; it could be one of the Brilken.  As quietly as she could she crept across the carpet of fallen leaves and twigs in the direction she thought the sound came from.  The trees ahead of her began to thin out until they gave way to a small grassy meadow, broken only by a line of water—the river Khine.  Crouching behind the trunk of one large pine tree she scanned the meadow with her eyes.

A sudden movement off to her left caught her attention.  She turned to look and her body
went rigid immediately.

Standing several yards away from her were three figures.  Two of them were Brilken with
large metal plates strapped along their arms and across their chests, a crude form of armor.  They obscured the third figure from view with their bodies; she had a hunch about who they could be but she wasn’t completely sure.  Calla was about to move when one of them stepped off to one side, revealing the third person sitting on the ground.  Even from this distance she recognized Dranl, his black hair slicked back along his head and his skin as pale as ever.  He wore no armor of any kind but was dressed in long black robes; the cloak hanging from his left shoulder was lined along one edge with what looked like dark hair.  She saw the tarnished hilt of a sword at his hip.  He looked completely at ease, lounging on a boulder half-buried in the ground.

Ca
lla gulped as she watched them, debating over what to do.  It was three against one this time.  She knew she couldn’t just sit there and do nothing forever; the longer she sat around like this, the easier she would make it for Dranl—and more importantly Bralon—to obliterate everything.  She did have a couple of advantages over them: Dranl had no idea of what she was now capable of, she was better prepared to deal with whatever he might throw at her, and she had the added element of surprise.  They had no idea she was there—yet.

Mustering her courage, Cal
la stood up and stepped out from her hiding place into the clearing.

She
was no longer unnoticed; three sets of eyes instantly turned to lock onto her.  The very air fell still as they all stared at each other.  Calla saw the look of shock on Dranl’s face as he just sat there processing the scene before him.  The Brilken stood rigid on either side of him looking at each other before looking to him for further instructions.  She had managed to catch them all off-guard.  The space between them seemed to grow heavier with the tension.

Dranl blinked, and at last
understood what he was looking at.  “Do not just stand there, you fools!” he screamed at the massive reptiles.  “
Get her!!
”  When they still didn’t move he started shouting in words Calla couldn’t understand, but must have been the same order in their language for the monsters immediately charged towards her.

Cal
la was ready for them.  Before either of them could twitch a claw she sent a wall of rock straight into the larger of the two beasts with such force that it was sent soaring through the air and into the river; it disappeared beneath the water with a large splash.  The second rushed at her, waving its clawed hands over its head and baring its teeth at her.  Calla ran to meet it.  As the Brilken brought one arm down towards her she jumped up to plant one foot on its chest then swung her other leg around into its lower jaw as she back flipped away from it again, gathering earth energy around the lower part of her leg.  The Brilken staggered back, its mouth hanging open—somehow Calla had managed to break the jawbone.  While it was still dazed Calla blasted a large mass of air towards it; the beast sailed headfirst into the trunk of a large willow tree growing on the riverbank behind it, its skull splitting open on impact.

Two down, o
ne to go
, she thought as she turned to face Dranl, only to find he wasn’t by the rock anymore.

A breeze started to pick up around her but not at her command.  Faint, whispery voices rose up with it, their words clear—the trees were crying out in warning.

Look out from behind!

Cal
la immediately leaped off to one side, twisting around in midair in time to see Dranl’s fist hit air where her head had been.  When her feet touched the ground again she backed up several more paces, thinking that the added distance would give her at least a little time to come up with some kind of plan.

Dranl scowled at her as he straightened back up.  “You have gotten faster since we last met,” he said coldly.

Calla stiffened but held her ground.  “That isn’t all that’s changed,” she replied, forcing herself to remain calm.

Dranl rushed at her again, balling up his right hand into a fist and raising it up over his head.  Ca
lla could sense its trajectory was towards her left shoulder, possibly to try breaking her collar bone.  She braced herself, waiting until he was almost right on top of her before spinning around to one side; now positioned behind him she dug one foot into his back, shoving him forward hard.  Unable to stop in time Dranl landed on his front and slid several yards along the grass.  As he got back on his feet Calla could see the darker stain from the grass on his chest.

He staggered back towards her.  “You dare lay hands on me?” he hissed through gritted teeth.  “You, who are nothing but a blot so easily wiped from this world?”

“Oh, so sorry dearest,” she said mockingly, feeling bolder.  “Let me make it up to you.”  She leaped towards him, blending her physical self slightly with the wind to gain a little more momentum until only a foot of space separated them.  She rematerialized in full and lashed out at his face with one hand while he continued to stare at some spot behind her, his eyes slightly unfocused until he felt the contact.  He recoiled sharply, one hand held to the side of his face.  Dancing out of his reach, she saw two long, thin scratches where her fingernails had cut his cheek.  The glare he gave her was murderous.

“How dare you!” he hissed. 
“You are mine!”

“Get over it.  I told you once and I’ll say it again: you are a fool to assume I would just follow you.  You are completely thick in the head.”