Chapter 48: Draysky
“This is not the way,” Balean spoke, and Mynar’s head whipped upward, searching for the sound within the carriage. Draysky blinked, angling his eyes up toward the rooftop where Balean still lay and away from the window. Though it was only the size of his forearm, he drew in information through the opening like a straw, ogling at the sheer size and bustle of the city. The feeling was similar to when he had seen the Grinder first, but instead of shale there was now people, and instead of gnashing the chatter of crowds, the shouting of vendors, and the clatter of other carriages like their own making their way down the street.
A quarter mile before the city, Oliver departed from them, directing his carriage along another path to a separate gate. But not before dismounting and walking to the window outside of Draysky’s carriage.
“You may have had the roar of a lion at the outpost, but here you have the squeak of a mouse,” Oliver had said, his voice low. “And I have been a cat declawed. Never forget who you are, Draysky. You can’t escape it. And if you dare challenge me in front of the other Keepers, you will know true wrath.”
“I’ll never forget who I am,” Draysky answered, keeping his voice low and level. “And know this—neither will I forget who you are.”
Oliver narrowed his eyes, then turned to leave, but not without a final word.
“I warn you, ridger, you have entered a new world. It will spit you out harder than the Grinder.”
“Yet I stopped the Grinder,” Draysky murmured as Oliver departed. “So too, shall I stop your world.”
Only moments after Oliver’s carriage parted, Draysky’s attention was drawn back to the city and its surroundings. Flat ground surrounded it, cleared and cut away, the grass sticking up like whiskers on a face that had forgotten to shave. Trees dotted the expanse, shorter ones than had been in the forest, several with bright flowers or fruit upon their branches. To Draysky, the concept seemed revolutionary. Nowhere in the north could he simply walk up to a source of food and consume it. Up there, everything knew how to run, and even the edible plants developed hard shells or deep roots to prevent their immediate consumption.
The first wonder before his eyes was the city wall. It rose far higher than any of the buildings in the outpost, so high that it would challenge the Kreskian Foothills. And it wasn’t made from haphazard shale glued together with resin; no, there were square stone blocks, each the size of his home, imposing in their straight edges and uniformity. At the top, the dotted forms of guards patrolled, and the gate itself seemed another wonder. It swung open to admit them of its own accord, the Silver Keeper declaring their way. None of the guards here spared him more than a second glance, and he came not with his usual fireworks and candy.
Curiosity and caution warred within Draysky as they entered the city. Never before had he seen this many people in one place. No, never before had he seen this many people cumulatively. In one glance, there were more than he had ever met in his life, some of the streets so packed that the crowd moved like a wave, their shoulders pressed close together and moving as a single being. He’d assumed the city would be like the town had been to his outpost—maybe five times as large, ten at most. Nestled next to a forest, or a lakeside, with nature still a dominant force in their surroundings.
But here, man had taken hold, and nowhere Draysky looked had nature prevailed. There was carved stone, roads and packed dirt, all shaped, all with purpose, all contained. Even the gardens here were orderly, as if pressed under a whip, warned against misbehaving strands of leaves. At least the outer buildings bore some comfort, their sidings often older and bearing mistakes in their construction. The occasional weed fought for purchase in their cracks, small birds roosted in their rooftops, and the rain slowly carved rivulets back into their stone.
Then there was the Tower, something he would have discussed as an impossibility a mere two hours before based simply upon its sheer height. Just as the city seemed an affront to nature, the Tower bore the same alienation to the city—among the stone and people, it didn’t belong. It was another step away from the reality, another level of departure from the natural world.
“This is not the way,” Balean repeated, and Mynar searched Draysky’s face.
“You hear him too, you liar!” he accused as they bumped along. They were in the inner circle of the city now, and riding in a slow arc around the Tower, but not closer to it. The streets were growing more and more empty, though the buildings here were far more opulent, shining with color, decorated with well tended gardens and marble sculptures, and seeming to exist more as a statement than a functionality.
“We should be moving toward the Needle,” said Balean’s voice above. “And yet, we are moving farther away. Much has changed since I have last been here—more than you would imagine. The Keepers have exercised their hold. Where are the golems? The phoenixes and the centaurs? The Dragongaurd and the Mortuary? So much different, yet the structure the same, as if they were too lazy to change it.”
“What are you talking about?” shouted Mynar to above, hitting the top of the carriage with his hand and startling the carriage driver up front.
“Enough of that!” the Silver Keeper shouted back, and they drew to a stop in the middle of the street. The Silver Keeper walked to their door carrying a strained canvas bag and, before Draysky could react, pulled a heavy iron bar from within and dropped it over the outside of the door. What Draysky had mistaken for iron coat hooks were instead the holders for it, and the bar settled in place with a heavy thud.
“Draysky, the situation has changed,” Balean said, a note of concern entering his voice. “Mynar, it might be time to work together. There are bigger problems at hand.”
But Mynar was no longer listening; instead, he had thrown his shoulder against the door, the wood quivering but refusing to yield as the bar rattled outside. Nyla joined, but the small interior of the carriage proved too constrained to generate any useful momentum. Then Mynar braced his back against the door, planting his feet on the opposite wall, and strained with all his might- but even that was no match for a solid steel bar.
As their attention was diverted, a square of wood slammed over the window, accompanied by rapid hammering. Shutting them away in darkness as the carriage began to move once more.
“Those bastards, we should neve have trusted them,” growled Mynar, and he pulled out the ice aurel from his pocket. Shimmering blue-white light filled the interior as he started a rune, and Draysky scrambled away just as a torrent of freezing air blasted the door. But that door had survived the far north winters, and though Mynar’s muscles were far larger than Draysky’s, his internal kernel lacked experience. Frost and ice coated the inside of the door, and the air turned frigid, but the trap failed to budge.
“We’re entering a tunnel. Looks like it’s moving down. This used to be the dragon’s den, but now, now I don’t know what it’s used for,” said Balean as they bumped along in darkness, and Mynar threw an accusatory finger at Draysky.
“You!” he shouted, as the air dropped further degrees. “You were in on this, weren’t you?”
“If I were, do you think I’d be locked in here with you?” demanded Draysky, then he connected to his fire aurel in his mind, letting sparks fall from his finger. “And if I were, what are you going to do about it? That voice you hear is my companion—one we’ve preferred to keep quiet from the Keepers. So yes, I lied, because you almost blew his cover.”
“Tainted water never makes clear ice,” spat Mynar. “If I can’t trust you once, I can’t trust you now.”
“I don’t think you have a choice,” said Draysky. “Now, let me see if I can blast away that door.”
“Do it,” said Mynar.
“Great idea,” chimed in Balean from above, the sarcasm so thick that his voice practically oozed into the carriage. “Nothing like an open fire in a closed space. Draysky would probably survive, sure, you’re to have a bit of resistance to heat by now. But them? Not unless they prefe
r to be extra crispy.”
“Don’t do it,” revised Mynar, his eye still suspiciously flicking upward.
“We’re moving downward now,” said Balean as Nyla’s face grew even more confused from the encounter. “It’s getting dark. These walls once were made to contain dragons, so they’re about as solid as they can get. Even if you broke out of the carriage, you’d be no better off than with a coordinated ambush at the end of the tunnel.”
“An ambush,” agreed Mynar with a nod. He flexed his arms. “When they let us out, all three, no, four of us attack. They won’t be able to hold us all back at once.”
“Doors ahead,” announced Balean. “And they’re opening. We’re moving in: It’s some sort of cavern. The Silver Keeper is waiting outside—oh, the assistant is running out now! Get ready, he’s got a rope on that iron bar locking you in, once he pulls then you’ll be set free. Must be scared of your attack, or–”
Balean’s voice died suddenly, then there was the sound of a slamming door, followed by the clanking as the iron bar fell to the earth. Then there was silence, and Mynar pushed open the door with a roar, his massive body launching from the carriage.
“Or scared of something else entirely,” finished Balean, as Draysky and Nyla jumped after Mynar, searching for the cavern door that had slammed shut. But that was already locked, and instead their eyes traveled over the cavern itself, a roughly hewn hole in the ground, dark and dank like a cave. Draysky covered his nose, nearly vomiting at a smell that intruded upon them, a putridness that invaded his nostrils. The smell of carrion. Of rot. Of betrayal.
Scant sources of light illuminated the rock walls. There were two torches affixed to the carriage, and there were two candles perched on a desk as tall as Draysky’s shoulder and littered with papers. A figure sat there upon a chair, if it could be called a chair. Rather, it was a massive stone bench, with arms that arched as high as Draysky’s head, and an arc that nearly grazed across the ceiling. The stone of it was as pitch black as the Tower, shrouding the massive figure who sat upon it in shadow, except for two brown eyes that glowed out of the darkness.
“We demand freedom!” shouted Mynar, challenging the figure, one hand upon the ice pick at his side and the other already drawing a rune, the air around it fogging with cold. He finished rise, and frost burst forth, propelling small needlelike lances of ice. Enough to cut and to blind, to maim but not kill, a warning for the opposition to stand down as he brandished his ice pick.
But the figure in the chair did not stir as the ice slammed into him. Instead, he released a growl—a low rumble all too familiar to Draysky’s ears, that sent chills up his spine and caused sweat to form on his palms as his breathing accelerated. Unable to place it immediately, his thoughts slowed as the figure spoke.
“Frost,” the beast said, his voice low, the words barely decipherable from a snarl. “Long has it been since frost and I met. I thank you for that.”
The figure stood, his bare feet grating on the floor in a frequency that pained the ear, and Mynar stepped backward into a defensive posture as the figure towered far above him. But still, the creature grew, its joints grinding as they unfurled, its armored chest bared before them, its neck the size of Draysky’s torso.
“No,” whispered Draysky, his breath sharp as the memories came flooding back. Memories of blood and broken doors, and of a creature running off into the mountains.
Of the ritebald.
“But that shall not spare you,” the ritebald growled, gnashing teeth of shale. It roared—a roar that shook the cavern, originating with anger and ferocity but changing as it continued. As the creature’s eyes turned from an earthen brown to the deepest of blacks, a darkness so heavy it seemed to burn, and new qualities entered the sound: notes of despair, of anguish.
Of hunger.
In that instant, Draysky wondered if he had heard the creature speak at all. What stood before him now was a husk, a shell, lower than an animal. A wildness as unforgiving as a winter wind, as uncaring as an earthquake, as merciless as a flood.
“Back, Draysky, back! You’ll kill us both if you don’t move!” shouted Balean, but the words no longer held meaning to Draysky as he watched the battle erupt before him.
Mynar had time to raise both his ice picks and threw the first with all his strength—enough to kill a man, to pierce through armor straight into the heart and steal his last breaths. The pick sparked as it glanced off of the creature’s chest just as Draysky’s pickaxe had done before and skittered into the back of the cavern. The creature rushed forward while Mynar attacked with his second ice pick, the blows like a child fighting an avalanche, each striking true but none effective. The ritebald’s hands moved to Mynar’s torso and his neck, each gripping tight and with ease, then pulling with a twist.
Mynar came apart at the chest, the shriek that sounded belonging to Nyla as Mynar had no time or breath to utter such a cry. The ritebald’s face disappeared into his heart, the teeth gnashing and returning bloody, the slightest of a glint clutched between them as it dropped the lifeless corpse to the ground. Mynar’s body was separated, the eyes open and lifeless, just as Draysky’s mother had been.
The ritebald did not see Nyla coming, nor did it care as her fists struck at its back and neck. Instead, it tilted its head back and swallowed, then turned its eyes upon her. She never had a chance to dance back, and her scream joined the ritebald’s in anguish as he ripped her apart, his face burying into her opened chest and emerging triumphant with her kernel between its teeth.
“Draysky, back now! To the door, we may be able to open it! Or the carriage, perhaps we can seal you in a cocoon of flame!” demanded Balean, his voice urgent as he danced in front of Draysky, waving and trying to distract him. But Draysky’s legs had already begun to quiver, his eyes locked upon the beast in front of him. The kin of that which had killed his mother and father, who had fled last time Draysky had attacked.
And in his fingertip, the ember whispered to him.
Burn, it said gleefully, its power calling to him. Burn it all.
Draysky remembered the pebbles at his parents’ empty grave.
To protect our family.
To remind the Keepers of their promise.
To claim the life of the ritebald that stole yours.
Here, at long last, a ritebald waited before him, lost in bloodlust. A different monster, yet the same in Draysky’s rage-filled eyes.
The rune formed in front of Draysky in an instant as he screamed with rage, the sparks burning in the air as his anger fueled them. The ritebald’s gaze turned, almost lazily as the flames rushed forward, engulfing it in angry red. The hunger of flame, meeting the hunger of the ritebald.
“Draysky, no!” shouted Balean. “You cannot win this battle, you fool! Do you understand how many advanced Keepers would run from that monstrosity?”
But Draysky was no Keeper, and his hand found the ice pick that had fallen from Mynar’s lifeless grip. The tool was foreign to him, but it was close enough to a pickaxe when swinging. He targeted the ritebald’s stone chest plate with all his strength. The handle of the ice pick snapped as Draysky’s shoulder smashed into the creature, the impact like attacking an immovable brick wall, throwing him backward into blood and stone. His nostrils filled with the scent of the creature’s breath, thick with iron, and the stone still hot from the flame blast, like a rock that had absorbed sunshine for an entire day. In an instant he was back on his feet, the broken ice pick still clutched in his fingers. The blade was now red hot under his fingers, though the heat felt more a pleasant warmness than a blistering burn. He attacked again, and the metal melted against the ritebald’s skin, slag trickling down the monster’s chest and cooling in rivers of red.
The second rune formed just as fast as the first, and Draysky forced power through it, holding nothing back like he had in his training exercises, instead emptying himself, slamming energy into the torrent of fire that twisted out of it and onto the creature. The ritebald took a step back
, grunting as red tinged Draysky’s vision, cocking its head as if curious more than vicious. Dizziness threatened to claim Draysky from the exertion, and he fell to his knees.
Yet the fire beckoned.
Burn, it urged, and he felt warmth spreading from his fingertip and over his palm. His eyes flicked sideways in time to catch his fist turning into a glove of flame, of embers forming where his fingernails had been, his knuckles flaring into white hot coals.
“No, Draysky!” shouted Balean, but Draysky was already soaking the flame into him, the fire starting to inch up his forearm, the ashes reaching his elbow as he turned his attention back to the ritebald. An energy burned from his fingertip up his arm—an energy he knew would defeat this creature as his runes and ice pick had not. Something a full order more powerful. A hunger like that which he had never felt, a single focus that consumed his entire being.
So focused was he upon the ritebald and the strength of the fire, he never sensed his own left hand moving of its own accord. Snatching up the ice aurel that Mynar had left behind on the floor and drawing a rune directly in front of his face, though backward.
The final trickles of Draysky’s inner kernel activated it, and a blast of cold caught him directly in the face, ice digging into his cheeks, the essence of ice calling out to him as it froze his lips and dried his eyes. Warring against the fire that consumed his mind and driving it away like a sleeping man doused in cold water.
“Do you want to end up like him?” shouted Balean, standing over Draysky and still gripping his left wrist which he had used to draw the rune. “That’s how you end up like him, you fool! That’s how you become a monster of fire, how you undo yourself! You fool!”
Draysky blinked, reality slowly returning, his arm no longer on fire but angry streaks of red still pulsing along the forearm and receding back to his finger, where the ember accepted them home. Retreating, as if chastised, their burning rage suddenly quelled. He tried to call them back, but it was like calling an emotion—involuntary, exhausted, and not subject to his commands.
Heaven Fall Page 44