The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (16 page)

Like other such teams, theirs had been assigned to a fixed location, where, for the most part, they had remained behind the army’s defensive earthworks, too busy with the wounded returned to them by friendly soldiers to venture out in search of more. Even so, Allion and his fellow bowmen had not stood idle sentry, but had busied themselves by carrying out ranged attacks against pockets of the enemy.

“My archers can take no further offensive action here, my lady,” Janus answered.

Marisha, arms wet with the blood of her charges, came to stand beside them. Allion heard the slightest gasp as her eyes fixed upon the group their squad commander referred to: a cluster of what appeared to be Parthans fighting among themselves.

“What are they doing? They cannot—”

She stopped abruptly, and Allion knew that she had realized the truth. There were elves and other Illysp-driven creatures among the warring troop. It only
looked
like Parthans battling one another because so many of the Illychar were in fact former comrades-in-arms.

“They came streaming down off that northern ridge,” Allion added softly.

“Our men did not seem to know what hit them. The flank crumpled almost instantly.”

“We can no longer tell theirs from ours,” the corporal lamented. “And at this range, I dare not fire blindly into their midst.”

Marisha swallowed bravely. “It will have happened elsewhere, too.”

Allion turned to his commander. She was right. They could see but a small portion of the overall battlefield, but what happened here was surely a sample of the greater conflict unfolding around them.

“Just in case, I must notify my platoon commander,” Janus declared. “To give warning and learn how he would have us respond.”

Marisha glanced back to where the last of the wounded under their immediate care was being carted off. Were it not so, Allion thought, she might never have noticed this new dilemma, so absorbed was she in her work.

“Our entire team may as well move on,” she determined.

“Ours was a stationary assignment,” Janus reminded her. “There will be plenty of wounded streaming in when this skirmish is over.”

“There are wounded everywhere,” Marisha argued. “And skirmishes in which your men’s bows might yet make a difference. Why should we wait for either to come to us?”

Though he, too, felt utterly helpless, Allion knew that abandoning their assigned position was not that simple. Not in the eyes of a mere corporal,
anyway, who was accustomed to following orders until given new ones.

“I’ll not willingly abandon our checkpoint,” Janus replied.

“Leave a runner,” Marisha pressed. “We’ll head south along the line. He can call for us when we are needed.”

“My lady—”

“Remain, then. But Allion and I are moving on to where we can better serve.”

She looked to the hunter for confirmation. He gave it with a swift nod.

“I cannot force either of you to stay,” Janus observed. “I only wish I could join you.” He bowed curtly, then turned to the rest of their team, those under his command. “Stand down, all of you. Take what rest you can. Runner, urgent word for Sergeant Caresh…”

Already forgotten, Allion nodded a quick farewell to the squad members, then hastened after Marisha. He might have been content to take a measure of rest himself, but knew better than to suggest as much to the determined healer. Nor did he dare chide her for pushing herself so hard. That strength was just one of the traits he loved in her.

He only hoped that when they reached the next checkpoint, or the one after, his talents weren’t rendered as useless as they had been at this one.

“S
IRE,
I
HAVE THE NUMBERS
you requested.”

Galdric started to turn from the parapet wall, but could not pry his eyes from the fighting below. “Report,” he replied automatically.

“I was asked to stress, sire, that these are estimates only, compiled—”

“The numbers, Corporal.” He felt a rash of irritation that the ministers had not come themselves to deliver the figures they had been asked to gather. Perhaps they remained hesitant to join him atop the battlement. Or perhaps they merely felt they had better things to do.

“Unofficial counts put the enemy’s number at twenty thousand, sire. With three full divisions, the chief general arrived with thirty thousand.”

“And now?”

The messenger cleared his throat. “If our various spotters are not grossly mistaken, and if all has been accounted correctly—”

“Corporal!” Galdric snapped, wheeling away from the crenellated wall to face him at last. “Figures alone will suffice.”

“Five thousand dead, sire, on either side. Ten thousand total.”

“And of the ten?”

“Between three and four now fight against us.”

The soldier gave a bow, likely a result of the shock Galdric suddenly realized had registered upon his face. A third of their initial advantage had already been lost. After just four days. The morrow would make it worse, as those killed on the second day of the conflict rose again. Even if the spotters were wrong, even if the legion were able to destroy a greater portion of the fallen than they had in the beginning, it seemed obvious where this battle was headed.

“Assemble the council,” the king commanded, his voice as heavy as his heart. “Tell the ministers that I will meet with them at the close of the hour.”

“As you will, sire.”

After seeing him off, Galdric turned back to the wall, feeling adrift in his own body. A bloody sunset painted the eastern sky, like a velvet curtain being drawn across his world. The decision they had all been dreading had come. They could not wait until the enemy’s numbers surpassed their own. If any were to survive this unholy slaughter, they had to act swiftly.

“Are you all right, sire?” the leader of his ever-present guardsmen inquired.

“We shall see, Captain,” he replied, continuing to gaze upon a landscape of crags and valleys teeming with death and bloodshed. “We shall see.”

“S
IR, THEY’VE LOWERED THE FLAGS.”

Corathel blanched, his ashen hue matching that of the despondent runner. All activity within the command tent came to a sudden halt. Even Marisha, Allion noticed, seemed paralyzed, her needle frozen in the chief general’s side.

Jasyn scoffed. “Impossible.”

“I beg forgiveness, sir, but I confirmed the signal myself.”

“Check again,” Jasyn said coldly, then turned to Corathel. “Sir, it must be a mistake.”

To Allion’s eyes, the chief general wasn’t so sure. The man’s gaze had fallen into his lap. When Marisha resumed her work, he no longer seemed aware of her needle threading its way through another gash in his skin. Too stunned to make his own denial, perhaps, though Allion would have wagered differently. To him, Corathel’s look was one of heavyhearted resignation.

“What does it mean?” the hunter asked.

No one answered.

“Marisha?”

She paused again, as if to gather herself, then faced him squarely. “They mean to evacuate the city.”

“Never,” Jasyn insisted stubbornly. “The king would sooner die than abandon Atharvan.”

“So I would have believed,” Corathel admitted, staring at his boots in obvious dismay. “Then again,” he added, his gaze finding Jasyn’s, “he may not be so willing to sacrifice an entire populace.”

“We might yet recapture her outer grounds,” the Second General argued.

“It is too soon.”

Allion wondered if Jasyn’s remarks were born of valor or sheer stubbornness. By all reports, the lieutenant general had nearly perished that day—along with Corathel, for that matter. Despite a valiant effort, their midday incursion had failed. They had claimed the desired plateau, but had been unable to hold it against a resurgent crush of Illychar. Were it not for a battalion led by Jasyn punching through at last, none would have escaped the heights. As it stood,
they had suffered the heaviest number of casualties of any single day since this conflict had begun.

There was no reason to believe that tomorrow or the next day would bring better results. Surely, the lieutenant general was as weary and heartsick as the rest of them. Yet the fire still raged within him.

“It is not our position to judge such an order,” Corathel admonished his friend.

Jasyn burned, but did not speak.

“We might send a division upriver,” Maltyk suggested hopefully, “to help shore up the city from within. Perhaps that would affect His Majesty’s decision.”

Corathel seemed to consider. “Had we attempted that course in the beginning, when Lar first suggested it, we might have managed. But it could take days to construct the required barges, and a day or more to fight the currents running through those canyons.” The chief general shook his head. “I will go myself to verify this report. If confirmed, our new strategy will be to cover the exodus of those within. I want initial plans drawn up accordingly, ready for approval upon my return. See to it, gentlemen, that preparations are made for us to hold for as long as it takes.”

He stared at each of his lieutenant generals, first Maltyk and then Jasyn, until he had received their reluctant nods.

“Runner, report to General Lar at once, apprising him of the situation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“With any luck,” Corathel muttered, “we’ll see our people away without destroying ourselves utterly in the process.”

T
HRAKKON WORKED CAREFULLY TO CARVE
away the dried lava rock that still filled the gaps between one of Killangrathor’s mighty foreclaws. Such detail was all that remained. The once-churning pool of lava had become a massive crater in the cavern floor. Within, the dead dragon lay all but fully exposed, crouched upon the bedrock like an onyx sculpture mounted atop a granite pedestal.

Though the darkness had revealed only segments at a time, Thrakkon could see it all in his mind’s eye—and found it magnificent. More than a hundred paces from head to tail, with a wingspan to match. Armed with horns and ridges, and riddled with spines. Most importantly, the beast was intact. Disfigured, yes, especially around its hindquarters. Wherever the dragon’s magical wastes had touched, iron flesh hung in tatters, the muscles beneath horribly scarred. In some areas, the acids had burned holes clear to the bone. But nothing had been severed, nothing melted away entirely. Thrakkon had seen corpses in worse condition resurrected by his kind before.

Of course, none of those had been dragons. The possibility remained that a being of Killangrathor’s fathomless nature would prove uninhabitable by an Illysp spirit. For all his hopes and efforts, this entire endeavor might yet amount to nothing.

He should know soon enough. In the engulfing blackness of Krakken’s core, it was impossible to measure precisely how much time had passed. But he and his team of giants had been toiling without pause for what seemed like days now—time enough, he thought, for the incubation to have taken place.

Since it hadn’t, they continued to labor, chopping away at the stony materials that kept the dead dragon rooted in place. With boundless stamina and concentrated focus, Thrakkon himself had used the Sword to remove tons of rock without once harming the treasured remains beneath. His giants, meanwhile, had helped to chisel and sculpt away much of the rest with their picks and hammers—weapons that nicked and scraped but caused Killangrathor no significant damage. The surrounding floor was piled high with excavated chunks of debris, and a dusty haze filled the air, lit in patches by the torches of the other teams.

Again the Sword flared and pulled free. Thrakkon motioned to the giant at his side to clear the rubble from between the dragon’s fingers, and slipped around to the adjacent gap.

He had taken just a few swipes toward clearing this next trench when a tremendous crack filled his ears, and the ground shifted beneath his feet. Upon
regaining his balance, he found that the monstrous fingers had clenched, shattering the stone between them.

Thrakkon and his giant glanced at each other before springing away.

The Boundless One looked to his right as he clambered up the crater’s edge. Killangrathor’s lips were curled, his black teeth bared. His jaw remained sealed to the floor on which it rested, as did the rest of his body along a sloping, serpentine line. But only for a moment. Even as Thrakkon watched, the dragon’s head wrenched free of the binding stone, arching backward as if in terrible pain.

The creature drew breath and roared. The walls of the cavern shook. Giants within the crater dropped their tools
and
torches and scrambled for safety, trying to slip away unnoticed. Many were too slow. For with a single, earth-splitting heave, Killangrathor propelled his ravaged torso upward, pushing himself upright to lean back on his haunches.

Before going berserk.

Darkness prevailed, but the Sword enabled Thrakkon to sense what he could not fully see. A gargantuan elbow flew back, and a giant went hurtling. The other clawed hand tore free, then smashed down again upon a fleeing trio, grinding them swiftly into pulp. Another giant reached the crater’s rim, only to be crushed by a mound of boulders dislodged by Killangrathor’s frenzy.

These and other fragments bounced and skittered, shaken from piles, raining from the dragon’s flesh. A thunderous cacophony arose as they rolled and scraped and grated across the cavern. Killangrathor seemed not to notice, though their jagged edges battered him, filling the crater as if to bury him anew. His wings, still braced and cemented at their tips, snapped skyward. With a single flap and another roar, the dragon climbed into the air, ripping both knees from the earth at once and tucking them close against his chest. Perfectly balanced above the balls of his feet, he crashed again to the floor.

As the fury of his movements continued to ripple through the earth, Killangrathor, now fully liberated, reared back and spewed a geyser of flames toward a ceiling lost in darkness. Its light filled the chamber, casting all in a flickering glow. Before that light had faded, the dragon stepped forward, neck swaying, claws flexing, teeth gnashing at the suffocating air.

Then its gaze fell upon the Sword.

Its aura shone through a thick cloud of dust as chunks of rock continued to tumble about the cavern floor. Killangrathor froze, eyes burning with inner fire. He then settled back into a protective crouch. Hunkering like a cornered animal, Thrakkon thought, poised to either fight or flee. A snarl like grinding boulders escaped the creature’s lips.

Thrakkon had done all he could to prepare for this moment. He had known before ever reaching the Skullmars that he would have to face the undead dragon down before he could ever make use of its might. Now that the moment had come, he wondered if he had made a mistake.

Killangrathor leaned forward, an obsidian hulk in that well of darkness. Thrakkon raised the Sword higher, his roiling anxiety strengthening its glow.

“You have chosen a fine vessel,” he said, voice choking on the gritty air.

“The greatest, perhaps, our kind has ever known.”

The dragon huffed. A decay that smelled centuries old washed over Thrakkon, but he steeled himself against its warm, fetid brush. Should he waver now, he might never get another chance to establish his dominance.

The surviving giants had finally escaped the dragon’s crater. Several were wounded, clutching or limping along on bruised and broken limbs. All were covered in a dusty grit. None, Thrakkon noticed, came to form up around him, choosing instead to keep to the farthest edges of the Sword’s light.

“But let us not forget,” Thrakkon said, “who brought you here, who made possible this rebirth.”

A growl, deep and guttural. The massive head leaned closer, eyes narrowing.

Several of the giants shuffled backward, deeper into the concealing darkness. As if they could ever run far or fast enough to escape Killangrathor’s fury, Thrakkon sneered silently. Flush with the Sword’s power, he stood his ground, reminding himself of the rewards he would soon reap.

“Defy me, and I shall rid you of that mighty coil, and give it over to another.”

The dragon snorted and drew back like a serpent readying to strike. Thrakkon wondered if he had gone too far. He was relying on Killangrathor’s innate fear of the Sword to keep the dragon in check. But the Illychar before him had not yet had a chance to devour its host’s mind, and that disorientation made it doubly dangerous. For while its Illysp knowledge was enough to recognize the Sword as a threat, Killangrathor’s deeper fears remained buried yet beneath an Illysp’s wanton, untamed savagery.

As the moments lengthened, however, Thrakkon’s confidence grew. Killangrathor did not need to reveal his thoughts; the Boundless One knew them as surely as he knew his own. The dragon would kill him, would feel the taste of his blood upon its tongue and the splinters of his bones between its teeth. But not yet. As much as it would relish the act, the Illysp that had claimed the beast surely recalled by now the greater goals at hand.

“Our enemies await,” Thrakkon soothed. “Is it not time for them to taste our vengeance?”

Another grumble, like the crackle of falling trees. But Killangrathor seemed to relax and settle back, as his sense of awareness increased. Thrakkon smiled. If the beast accepted his rule now, it was only because it believed it would get a better chance to turn the tables in the future. But that was all the Illysp lord required.

The dragon reared suddenly. Thrakkon’s smile vanished, and he took a reflexive step in retreat. Killangrathor’s entire body shuddered and thrashed violently, shaking off a rocky crust that still clung to his acid-eaten flesh, flinging shattered bits of stone in all directions. Thrakkon sidestepped the larger chunks that flew his way, and weathered the rest. When the storm had ceased, the dragon hunkered down again in a nonthreatening posture.

Thrakkon’s smile returned.

Killangrathor stepped from the crater then, looming ever larger as he emerged from that pool of darkness. Boulders crunched and shattered beneath his monstrous feet. Thrakkon refused to move, and wondered if the dragon meant to confront him after all.

But at the last moment, Killangrathor shifted his head with an arrogant twist. His great bulk followed, brushing past with that scent of age-old rot. Without a stray glance, the dragon turned its attention toward the gaping exit tunnel and the promise of glories beyond.

Thrakkon, smirking boldly into the fiery depths of his gleaming weapon, signaled for the others to follow.

T
HE JAGGED CORRIDOR STRETCHED ONWARD,
and Torin hoped that it would never end.

A feeble notion, but he had tried everything else. With every ounce of willpower he could muster, he had struggled for days now to regain control of his body, if only for a moment. Long enough to hurl himself from one of the many precipices they had edged along during the northern hike to Mount Krakken. Long enough, while exhuming Killangrathor’s remains, to direct a strike through the prone dragon’s neck. Long enough, once the beast had been raised, to attack, hoping that a fight between the two of them would leave one or both destroyed utterly.

He had failed. At every critical juncture, and at all times in between, he had gained not the slightest sway over his Illysp captor. Soon, the entire world would suffer for his weakness.

The mere possibility of Killangrathor’s resurrection had been dreadful enough. The reality, far worse. Ahead, the beast wormed its way through the darkness. Even crouched and coiled, with wings and spines pressed flat, the dragon’s form raked the sides of the corridor, chipping and scraping at the many random outcroppings. Torin could scarcely imagine the desperation that had driven the creature through this passage and into Krakken’s heart all those centuries ago. All he sensed now was strength and fury and a mind-numbing capacity for destruction.

The desperation was entirely his.

He marched behind at a safe distance, eyeing carefully the red-tinged path ahead. At his heels were four of the five surviving giants. The fifth had been hobbled by a shattered leg bone and unable to keep pace. Doubtless, he, too, would emerge, crawling if he had to over the sharp terrain, and over the many leagues of broken trail yet to come. No Illychar was going to simply lie down in defeat.

Torin might have taken consolation in Killangrathor’s swift annihilation of the others—few of whom were likely to be raised up again. But what were five giants compared to a single dragon? What were fifty? If the legends he’d been told of the ancient Dragon Wars held even a hint of truth, Killangrathor
might well slaughter every other Illychar around him and still prove unassailable by the hosts of mankind.

Again Torin cursed his inability to put a stop to it. All of his fervent denials had won him nothing. He remained as helpless now as he had in the moment of his awakening. There was nothing for him but to bemoan his fate.

Yet he refused to do that—to accept the unacceptable. He was not entirely powerless, he reminded himself. There were still pieces of his past—memories and experiences—that Itz lar Thrakkon had not taken from him. And if he could withhold these, then he had to believe that he would find a way to exert his will over that of the other.

The sooner the better. For confronting the dragon would be easier in these cramped quarters than out in the open, where it might wing away at the slightest provocation.

Either way, chances seemed better that the tunnel itself would never end.

T
HAT WISH, LIKE ALL OTHERS,
proved vain.

With startling abruptness, seven thousand years of self-imposed banishment came to an end. After hours of being trapped in that tunneling passage, choking on the beast’s stench, ears ringing with the huffing and crunching of its movements, Torin might have been relieved. Instead, he knew only horror as Killangrathor burst like a child from the womb, into the open air.

Torin slowed his pace, squinting in the shadowed half-light that rimmed the inner edges of the cave mouth. The dragon, however, strutted full and clear into the valley beyond, swelling and stretching to full size. Wings extended, spines bristled, and its serpentine neck arched skyward, emitting a bone-rattling roar like an infant’s first wail.

The sound shook stones from the valley heights and chilled Torin to his core. Yet he found himself smiling at the display. His horror, it seemed, was Thrakkon’s ecstasy.

High overhead, the noonday sun ducked behind a thin, passing cloud before reemerging in all its blinding splendor. Killangrathor hissed at its rays and continued to stretch wide. His acid-eaten flesh, Torin thought, looked much worse in the full light, raw and patchy and blistered. He wondered if the wounds hurt, and hoped they did—for all the good that might do him.

At last he stepped from Krakken’s dark threshold and felt the warmth of the sun upon his own flesh. Nearby, a knot of ropes and belts lay beside a flat boulder. Torin had wondered why he had ordered his giants to bring along the materials, only to leave them behind at the cave entrance. Now he knew.

Treading carefully upon a loose carpet of obsidian shards, he climbed atop the boulder with a pair of belts in one hand and the Sword in the other.

“Our feast grows cold,” he shouted.

The dragon’s neck whipped around with alarming velocity. Had he been able to control his own body, Torin surely would have toppled from his perch. But Thrakkon stood tall, uncowed, even as the dragon’s fetid stench washed over him in nauseating waves.