The Wings of Dragons: Book One of the Dragoon Saga (11 page)

Amroth shrugged. “Frankly, Balear, I can’t
imagine a better situation. With two companions who can fight like
that, we should have no trouble defeating the Quodivar. If we can
find them, that is. I’d counted on getting information here, but
Veliaf is deserted.”

Iren turned his gaze to the crumpled person
the Quodivar had been beating before Rondel intervened. Kneeling
down, he felt for a pulse. The man was still alive. “Maybe this guy
knows.”

The captain leapt to Iren’s side, clapping
him on the back. “You may be right, Iren! If he survives all these
wounds.” Amroth gingerly ran his fingers over the man’s body. The
captain’s expression grew grimmer with each passing inch. The man,
who looked about the same age as Amroth, had bruises covering every
exposed patch of skin, and blood matted his black hair. His
tattered clothes bore testament to his beating. At last Amroth
said, “He has multiple broken ribs, and his right arm and leg are
shattered. The gash on his head goes clear to the bone. More than
likely, he’s bleeding internally. If we move him, he’ll die
immediately. If we leave him here, he’ll perhaps last another hour.
Either way, he’s lost consciousness and will never wake up again.
We won’t get any information from him unless, by some miracle, we
can heal him.”

As he spoke those last four words, Amroth
met Iren’s eyes, and the young Maantec guessed the captain’s
thoughts. Amroth hadn’t accepted Rondel’s claim that Iren had
avoided injury during the battle on the hill. He’d guessed that
Iren had somehow reversed his own fatal wounds. The boy gulped,
knowing that Amroth expected him to cure this man the same way. He
didn’t know how he would do it though. Thanks to Rondel, he knew
that he was the “Holy Dragon Knight,” but he had no clue what that
even meant. All he knew for sure about it was that holding the
Muryozaki caused his injuries to heal.

That gave him an idea. He had to try it. If
he did nothing, the man would die anyway. Iren drew his father’s
katana. Balear reached for his own sword, calling Iren a demon and
arguing that killing the man was not proper. A withering glare from
Amroth made the sergeant fall silent.

Iren placed the Muryozaki’s hilt in the
wounded man’s palm. He watched and waited for the weapon’s healing
power to take effect. Seconds, then minutes, passed.

Nothing.

“
Why?” Iren shouted,
becoming horribly frustrated. “Why doesn’t it work? Why can’t I
save him?” He clutched the man’s hand along with the katana’s hilt,
his eyes winced shut as he pleaded, “Please, Muryozaki, or
Divinion, or whatever you are, I don’t know anything about you, or
Maantecs, or dragons, but whatever you did for me, do it for this
man too! He doesn’t deserve to die like this!”

It made no sense to him why he cared so much
for this guy. He’d never known the man before today. In all
likelihood, even if he had, the man would simply have hated him. He
probably would have stared at Iren with the same empty eyes as
everyone in Haldessa. Iren would have teased him, or carried out
some awful prank in retaliation on the jerk. He certainly wouldn’t
have helped him. And yet, kneeling over the dying man, Iren felt
compelled to act. Maybe it was the injustice of the situation.
Maybe it was watching Rondel avenge the fallen villagers. Or maybe
it was just that, for the first time in his life, someone had
regarded him as something other than a monster.

Whatever the reason, he couldn’t just sit
here and let this poor man die!

A moment later, Balear, Amroth, and Rondel
all gasped. Opening his eyes, Iren saw the Muryozaki glow a
brilliant white. Its light spread over the man’s body, bathing the
entire area in its glow. It did not blind or cause pain. On the
contrary, it left Iren with a warm, calming sensation. Even Balear
smiled when it washed over him.

Slowly, the light faded away. The wounded
villager still lay on the ground, unmoving. Amroth felt over the
man’s body as he had the first time, but now his morose expression
shifted. After a breathless pause, he looked at Iren and
beamed.

Iren, meanwhile, had gone deaf. He could see
Amroth’s mouth move and his arms gesture excitedly, but no sound
came from him. The injured man stirred and fluttered his eyes. As
he did, gray rings formed around Iren’s field of vision. He just
barely saw the villager sit up before his world went black.

He was flying.

No, that didn’t make sense, because Iren
could feel solid ground beneath his feet. Darkness surrounded him;
he fluttered his hand in front of his face but couldn’t see it at
all. The floor, if one existed, felt like flat stone. He took a few
steps. The hollow ring of each footfall unnerved him. With
trepidation he called, “Hello?” but only his nervous breathing
replied. He reached for the Muryozaki, but it had disappeared from
his hip. Fear took hold. Somehow, he had become lost in an infinite
void without even a weapon to protect him.

Just as his desperation grew too great, a
faint light appeared in the distance. At first Iren took it for a
star, but it grew bigger the longer he stared. It soon took the
form of a great undulating serpent with majestic wings, bursts of
light erupting in every direction with each wingbeat. The vast
majority of the dragon, for it could be nothing else, was of the
purest white, with a few sky blue streaks accentuating the lines of
its massive yet elegant body. Most impressive of all, however, were
its eyes. Even from far away, they shone with a blue that bore
through the blackness.

As the dragon flew closer, its light
swallowed the shadows so that Iren nearly forgot they had ever
engulfed him in the first place. The creature’s glow did not act
like a beacon in the night, guiding ships to shore like the
lighthouse at Ceere. Rather, it simply made the darkness go away,
so that there was no need for such a lantern.

Iren gulped as the beast’s size truly came
into perspective. Its eyes alone measured over five feet in
diameter. The dragon’s teeth offered no comfort; each was longer
than Iren’s entire body and had an edge that made the Muryozaki
look like a worn butter knife.

The creature landed on four legs, each with
three claws longer and sharper still than its fangs, and came into
striking range. Iren expected it to devour him, but instead the
dragon lowered its head in a deep bow of respect. The gesture so
astonished Iren that he could do nothing but stare and take in the
strange beauty of the awe-inspiring reptile. Long blue hair grew
all along its spine, and two gigantic blue whiskers, each as thick
as Iren’s thigh, adorned its face.

At last the dragon rose and, giving Iren a
curious expression, loosed a low grumble, which sounded more like a
sigh than anything threatening. Then, with a booming voice that
shook the very fabric of the universe, the creature said, “So you
are my knight. You are Iren Saitosan.”

Iren tried stammering a few syllables but
couldn’t. It was like meeting Juusa the Creator face to face.

The dragon watched him with its huge eyes,
and Iren knew it could see past him into his mind and heart. He
didn’t have to say anything, because the dragon already knew
everything about him.

When Iren remained silent, the dragon
blinked slowly, and then its whole body began shaking. Light
streamed off of it, and as Iren watched, the mighty beast shrunk.
It grew smaller and smaller, disappearing at such a pace that Iren
thought it would vanish. He didn’t know whether to feel relief or
despair at the possibility. As it neared his height, however, the
shrinking slowed. Gradually, the dragon changed. Its wings
disappeared into its back, and it stood up on its hind legs. As its
scales melted into smooth skin, it took the form of an old man with
long, pure white hair. An equally white moustache adorned his face.
The man wore white robes, flecked with blue, and matching sandals.
The transformation amazed Iren. He never would have guessed this
man could be a dragon in disguise. The only clue lay in his eyes;
they retained their original piercing blue. Though he looked like
an ordinary old man, Iren knew he still couldn’t hide anything from
him.

The transformed dragon gave Iren a genuinely
warmhearted smile, then said, “Well, Iren. I believe you already
have some idea of who I am.” His words sounded soft and kindly, not
at all like the booming voice the dragon had spoken with
earlier.

Though still nervous, the creature’s
transformation set Iren marginally more at ease.
“You . . . you’re Divinion,” he managed, “the
Holy Dragon.”

Divinion nodded his approval. “Until now,
the Holy Diamond has trapped my will inside it, keeping me hidden
from you. However, today you released enough magic to breach that
barrier.”

Iren’s face grew hot. He felt he’d made a
terrible error. According to Rondel, the dragons were so dangerous
they’d wiped out a continent.

If Divinion had any such plans in mind,
however, they didn’t show on the old man’s face. Instead, he put an
arm around Iren’s shoulder and said, “This is the first time you
and I have had a chance to speak. I first met you over seventeen
years ago, and I’ve waited desperately to see you again, to see how
you had grown. I know you walk a difficult path, and you have
walked it well.”

Iren didn’t know what he had expected the
dragon to say, but that definitely wasn’t it. The people of Lodia
always berated him, calling him “Left” or “freak” or any number of
other derogatory terms. To hear such praise from the Holy Dragon
himself was something he never believed possible.

The old man looked to the heavens, cocking
his head as though studying something far beyond Iren’s sight. A
warm but sad smile filled his face. Forlornly, he said, “It seems
our time together has run its course. The part of my will that
entered you when you cast that spell is dissipating back into the
Holy Diamond. Soon you’ll return to the physical world, and I’ll
return to my gemstone prison.”

Divinion once more took the form of the
serpentine dragon, and as he took flight, he called with a hint of
dry humor, “Until next we meet. Perhaps you’ll have more to say
then?” With a shower of light, Divinion vanished, but the glow he
had created lingered, illuminating that strange world for a few
more brief seconds before it became dark once again.

Iren awoke with a start, heart pounding as
he questioned what he’d seen. He wondered if he’d really met
Divinion, or if it had just happened in his head. It felt so
real.

Taking in his surroundings, Iren found
himself in a small bedroom. The only illumination came from
moonlight through the single broken window, remnants of shattered
glass untended around it. He lay on a bed, though he considered the
term generous. It was little more than a flap of canvas stretched
between four boards. The Muryozaki leaned against the bed. An
involuntary sigh of relief exited him. After his encounter with
Divinion, he’d feared he might never see the sword again.

His weapon’s presence was the only thing
comforting about the room. The rest of it looked like a storm had
blown through. All the furniture was strewn about, and much of it
was broken. Dresser drawers lay smashed on the floor. Someone had
thoroughly rooted through everything in here.

The only other person in the room sat in a
plain, hard wooden chair not three feet from him. Despite the
darkness, Iren had traveled with this man long enough to recognize
his profile and white blonde hair that almost glowed in the
dark.

“
Bedside vigil, Balear?”
Iren asked.

Balear rose and walked to a door on the far
side of the bedroom. Placing a hand on the latch, he replied
curtly, “It was my turn.” He opened the door a crack, hesitated a
moment, then looked back at Iren. To the young Maantec’s shock, the
soldier wore a tiny grin. “By the way,” Balear said, “I still don’t
understand who or what you are. I can’t explain how you can do the
things you do. Maybe you do have devil magic. All the same, what
you did today was impressive.” Then the sergeant departed, leaving
Iren more confused than when he’d first awoken.

As he sat on the stretched-canvas bed, he
noticed Balear had left a small plate on his chair with half a loaf
of bread and a small cup of water. It was far from appetizing, yet
the moment Iren saw it, a strong hunger attacked him. He hadn’t
eaten since before they’d arrived in Veliaf. Grabbing the bread
with both hands, he plowed into it. It was hard, stale, and
tasteless, but his stomach didn’t mind.

He’d only taken a few bites when Balear
returned, this time with Rondel, Amroth, and another man. Rondel
tripped in the darkness, cursing in her high-pitched whine. The
bottom of a glass bottle stuck out from her right sleeve. Iren
shook his head. Leave it to the old hag to find alcohol even in a
village overrun by bandits.

“
I still don’t get why we
can’t light a candle,” Rondel prattled on. “I’m likely to fall and
snap my wrist, or worse.”

A sharp, low hiss came from the unknown man,
“I’ve explained it perfectly well before, but if you’re so senile
you’ve forgotten already, then just go to bed and stop bothering
us.”

“
Really, is that any way to
treat your rescuer?” Rondel teased.

“
Knock it off, both of
you,” Amroth sounded tense. He turned to Iren. “From what Dirio’s
told us, the Quodivar have issued a curfew for the village. Any
lights on after dark, and the house becomes a target.”

His mouth full of bread, Iren asked,
“Diwwio?”

The unknown man stepped forward. “Ah, yes,
that would be me. I’m the lucky soul you and your comrades rescued
this afternoon. I owe all of you my life, but it seems I owe you
more than any of them.”