The Wings of Dragons: Book One of the Dragoon Saga (35 page)

Aletas must have made the same
determination, because she said, “I believe the battle is over.”
Relief poured from her voice. “If the fires are extinguished,
Rondel must have won. I didn’t expect her to prevail.”

“
That’s proof you don’t
understand Rondel at all,” Iren replied, though in truth he hadn’t
anticipated Rondel’s victory either.

To his surprise, Aletas gave him a
warmhearted smile. “Perhaps. Perhaps I misjudged both of you. You
are like Iren Saito in many ways, but not in those that matter
most. You fought valiantly to defend Ziorsecth, despite having
nothing to gain by doing so.”

Iren’s cheeks reddened from a mixture of
embarrassment and elation not just of victory, but of having Aletas
accept him. Mostly so the queen wouldn’t see him in such a state,
he pointed his face away from her and toward the Lodian plain. A
few enemy troops had escaped, but Iren doubted they’d attack again.
Amroth himself couldn’t make them reenter Ziorsecth, not after
they’d witnessed ordinary weeds butcher their countrymen.

The ease of the Kodamas’ victory amazed
Iren. Just a few short hours ago, he’d huddled with his companions
around a campfire, certain of failure. Now they’d achieved a
miracle, and he barely felt tired. He’d hardly used any magic at
all.

At that moment, without warning, a red glow
bathed the landscape. Iren and Aletas turned to the north, the
source of the radiance, and their jaws dropped. A mushroom cloud
expanded from the field, rising over a mile into the air. Even from
so far away, the heat striking the pair was so intense they both
shielded their faces. Through his fingers, Iren saw the
detonation’s flames coalesce into a sight even more horrible. The
base formed two legs with long, clutching talons. A pair of wings
sprouted from the fire’s midsection, stretching for hundreds of
feet. Finally, at the top, a long, slender neck emerged, and atop
it rested a head that narrowed to a single point, giving the entity
the look of a giant, burning bird.

Aletas collapsed, her hands gripping the
soil. She gasped, “Feng!”

Iren stared at the dragon too, a single word
filling his brain. Ignoring Aletas, ignoring the promise of death
that confronting such a foe represented, he shot toward Feng, that
word howling from his lips.

“
Rondel!”

Pain.

That was Rondel’s world. Burns covered her,
and try as she might, she couldn’t move. She lay face down, just
inside the forest. When the explosion struck, the shockwave sent
her flying through the air until she collided with a tree. Bones in
her back shattered under the force of the impact, and she knew the
blow had paralyzed her.

Just as bad, when she opened her eyes, she
couldn’t see. Even with Lightning Sight, her vision returned only
white. The detonation’s intense light had burned her retinas.
Dimly, she could feel trickles of blood running from both ears down
the sides of her face. Amroth’s explosion must have deafened her as
well.

No, she realized as fear took hold, not
Amroth’s. Feng’s.

A slow sigh escaped Rondel as she resigned
herself to death. No technique she possessed, magical or otherwise,
could help her. Already she could sense Feng approaching, the
withering heat of his flames increasing by the second. The
temperature around her became unbearable, and she knew the Fire
Dragon readied his deathblow.

It never came. The agony wracking her body
proved that well enough. Instead, a soothing sensation ran through
her head. A familiar voice whispered, “Don’t try to move. I’m
healing your wounds.”

Her blind eyes futilely tried to catch a
glimpse of her rescuer, the one who had restored her hearing. “Hey,
slacker,” she managed.

“
Stay quiet, you stupid old
hag; talking makes you die.” The young man’s tone was insistent but
not panicked.

Rondel had no intention of obeying. With all
her remaining strength she said, “Iren, listen to me! Your foe
isn’t Amroth anymore. I thought I could defeat him by making him
exhaust his magic, but I fell right into Feng’s trap. Without the
third kanji circle to restrain him, he took advantage of Amroth’s
weakness to conquer the king’s mind and force the transformation.
Now Amroth is gone, and Feng has taken his place. We do not face a
Dragon Knight, but a dragon! Feng must have planned this from the
moment he tested Amroth. Hezna had the mental strength to resist
wielding the Karyozaki unless absolutely necessary, but Amroth
lacked the Oni’s willpower. Feng knew he could take advantage of
Amroth’s desire for strength and control him. Now that he’s free,
the dragon will rampage until he destroys Raa. Do you understand?
Don’t waste your magic on me! You’ve got to save what energy you
have to fight that thing.”

A brief silence followed before Iren
replied, “If you speak the truth, then all the more reason to heal
you. I’d much prefer attacking him as a team.”

Rondel felt tears on her cheeks, and she
reached a hand up instinctively to wipe at them. She stopped short.
A few seconds ago she couldn’t move at all. Blinking several times,
Iren’s shape came into focus, and beyond him, a white, shimmering
light.

The Storm Dragon Knight stood, fully healed.
She marveled at her restored body, but Iren amazed her even more.
Back in Veliaf, the child had passed out for hours after healing
Dirio. Rondel’s injuries made the foreman’s seem minor by
comparison, yet Iren remained on his feet, awake and unaffected by
his use of magic.

In addition to healing her, the boy had also
constructed a barrier of light that encircled them. Rondel reached
out and touched it. It felt as solid as the firmest stone wall, yet
it was barely an inch thick and easy to see through.

“
I never taught you to
create a shield,” Rondel pointed out, stroking the barrier in
awe.

Iren looked sheepish. “I didn’t know I could
do that until just now. Feng lunged for you, and I knew I had to
stop him somehow. The light shot from the Muryozaki and surrounded
us. Feng’s been pounding on it ever since, but he can’t get at us.
I don’t understand it, but I’m certain of that much.”

The mention of Feng pulled Rondel from her
fascination with Iren’s new ability. Looking past the light, Rondel
saw the Fire Dragon’s birdlike form. The monster stretched high
into the sky, a beast of flame. Jets of fire spurted from him at
random, and he directed more than a few right at them. Each time,
the shield’s smooth contours easily deflected the flames.

“
So, how do you want to
fight this thing?” Iren asked.

Activating Lightning Sight, Rondel observed
Feng’s every detail. Dismay filled her, and she returned her vision
to normal. “It’s worse than I thought,” she sighed. “On the rare
occasions when a Dragon Knight has lost control in the past, the
dragon transforms their body. We see that here with Feng. However,
in every other case, the physical body has remained, so stopping
the dragon simply requires knocking the body unconscious. That
allows time for the dragon’s will to recede into its Ryokaiten as
the third kanji circle’s spell takes effect. Unfortunately, the
Karyozaki has no third circle to pull Feng’s will back into the
sword. To make matters more hopeless, the transformation completely
obliterated Amroth’s body. This monster is pure flame, so we can’t
hurt it. The only way to defeat it is to put it out.”

Iren gulped, and Rondel understood why. They
couldn’t possibly extinguish such a massive inferno.

“
Fires need three things to
burn,” Rondel continued, thinking out loud in hopes that a plan
would come to her, “fuel, heat, and air. Remove any one, and the
fire dies. In this case, the sky provides plenty of air, so that
option’s out.”

“
Then remove the heat!”
Iren shouted. “Create a storm, just as you did in Serona! The rain
will drench even that mighty flame.”

She rolled her eyes. The boy may have come
far, but he still had a lot to learn about listening. “Don’t you
pay the slightest attention? That spell nearly killed me, and I was
in my prime then. I also had the Water Dragon Knight to help, and
the spell did kill him. Alone, on a clear night like this, I
couldn’t make it storm enough to fill a bucket, much less drown
that thing.”

“
Then how do we defeat
it?”

Rondel grinned. An idea, a risky, desperate,
totally absurd idea had finally occurred to her. “We remove its
fuel.”

Iren swept his gaze across the burning
Lodian fields, his expression one of incredulity. The fires had
already spread into the outer reaches of the forest as well.
Between the dry plains grasses and the nearly infinite expanse of
Ziorsecth, plenty of tinder existed.

In this case, however, that vegetation
mattered little. “The fuel for that beast doesn’t come from the
plants,” Rondel explained. “Look up there, at the place where the
bird’s heart would be. Can you see it?”

Iren strained his eyes, shielding them as he
attempted to look into the core of the terrible flame hundreds of
feet in the air. After a moment he shook his head and turned
away.

Rondel activated Lightning Sight. “I feared
as much. Unaided eyes can’t pierce such distance, but mine can. At
the creature’s heart, the Karyozaki pulses. The portion of Feng
that escaped into this world remains linked to the sword. That
blade provides the true fuel, magical energy, needed to maintain
the firebird. Separate the two, and the beast will lose its
sustenance. It will burn through its magic in a second and destroy
itself.”

Iren gritted his teeth, apparently trying to
think of some plan. “I know what to do,” he said at last. “I’ll use
the same light beam I used when I lost control in the forest. If it
could make miles of trees vanish, then it easily has the strength
to dislodge that sword.”

The boy had hit upon the same idea she’d
come up with, albeit with one minor difference. “You could do
that,” she contended, “if you could see the Karyozaki. It will take
precise aim to hit the sword from so great a distance. No, only
someone with enhanced vision can see the blade and strike it
reliably.” She loosed a wild smile, more because she couldn’t
believe what she was about to say. “I’ll do it. I might just have
enough magic left for one full-sized lightning bolt. I’ll need time
to focus that much energy though, and Feng must not suspect our
plan. He could easily dodge or block the attack if he anticipates
it. Can you distract him long enough?”

Her request made Iren white-faced. She
didn’t blame him. Outside, the seemingly invincible Feng still
pounded mercilessly upon Iren’s barrier. Unlike before, however,
the shield now flickered with each blow. Despite the child’s
progress, Rondel knew the shield’s change indicated he couldn’t
maintain it much longer. “How much time do you need?” Iren asked
faintly.

Her expression turned dour. “As much as you
can give me.”

Iren looked through the shield at the
firebird towering thousands of feet above them. Rondel was
thoroughly impressed when he replied with only the slightest waver
in his voice, “You got it.”

* * *

A final blast from Feng shattered Iren’s
barrier into a thousand shards of light. In that instant, the young
Maantec leapt into action. Meanwhile, Rondel crept deeper into the
forest and, Iren hoped, out of Feng’s sight.

Stuffing his fear, Iren rushed headlong into
battle. He charged across the plain, his Muryozaki awash with white
light. Though he came barely past Feng’s toes, he attacked with
reckless abandon, slashing repeatedly at the flames. He thought he
would cut right through them, but instead they resisted his
presence. In response to each sword stroke, a blaze erupted from
the impact site and chased after him. Soon his shirt smoldered. The
Muryozaki kept him healed, but his strikes proved useless. He stood
more chance of harming the ground.

His efforts did succeed in one way, however,
and the one that Rondel had intended. Feng craned his head down and
looked at the bug at his feet called Iren Saitosan. The monster
crowed with laughter and then boomed in a crackling voice, “What is
this? A second Dragon Knight comes to die?” He raised his enormous
foot and stomped down on Iren, who just barely dodged out of the
way. Even so, the waves of heat emanating from the firebird as his
claws impacted the dirt sent the Maantec sprawling.

Feng laughed. “Not bad! How about this?” The
dragon reared up, and from his chest two lanky arms sprouted, each
tipped with giant hands and long, grasping fingers. The arms
reached to the ground, and soon the battle devolved into a
desperate struggle just to avoid getting crushed by Feng’s feet or
clenched in his fists.

Iren’s movements gradually slowed. His arms
and legs felt as though he’d chained one of Ziorsecth’s trees to
each limb. He couldn’t last much longer. If Rondel didn’t attack
soon, they’d lose their chance. Feng would kill him, and then the
beast would wipe out the forest.

In his exhaustion Iren tripped, and Feng
seized the opportunity. Wrapping him in one hand, the creature
lifted him into the air, cackling all the while. Even though Feng
had no physical form, the fire exuded tremendous pressure, keeping
Iren pinned. Burns covered him, and the intense heat quickly
incinerated his clothing and wooden armor, leaving him naked. The
Muryozaki tried to heal him, but it couldn’t keep pace with Feng’s
magic.

Feng stared at him with hollow eyes on his
birdlike head. “Iren Saitosan, how worthless your life has
been.”

Despite his pain, Iren glared at the beast,
not wanting to give Feng satisfaction. His defiance only made the
dragon angrier. “That won’t do!” Feng cried, squeezing Iren until
his ribs snapped. Iren howled, and the corners of his vision grayed
as he flirted with unconsciousness.