Light My Fire

by G. A. Aiken

  “Do it!” Seva ordered in a harsh whisper.

  Arlais raised the blade high, but Dagmar shoved Arlais aside and dropped to her knees. Taking her eating dagger in both hands, Dagmar brought it down and buried it to the hilt in Mabsant’s chest.

  Now, with the threat gone, the fangs and strange eyes disappeared and, suddenly Dagmar was staring at her children. Her babies.

  Crying, they ran to her, wrapping their arms around her waist, her legs, the youngest trying to get her to pick her up, which Dagmar did.

  That’s when she realized that Frederik, Éibhear, and Izzy were in the room. They had been for a bit, the door now sitting against the far wall, its hinges torn away.

  They’d seen everything. Dagmar could tell by the look of horror on their faces.

  Dagmar faced them. “You will say nothing of what you’ve seen here today. Not a word. Do you understand me? This can never get out. This can never be known.”

  After all three agreed, Dagmar swallowed and held her daughters closer. “Now . . . go get my son.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Elina turned and shot, her arrow ramming directly into the nostril of the dragon who was chasing them. He fell back with a roar as Elina pulled another arrow and nocked it.

  That’s when Var yelled out.

  “In front of us!”

  Elina faced forward in time to see a dragon land directly ahead of them, the ground shaking beneath the horse’s hooves.

  “Give us the Abomination, female,” he ordered as Elina’s horse reared up and backward. “And I’ll let you live.”

  “I give you nothing.”

  “Then you both die.”

  “Do not let go of me, little Var,” she warned him.

  “Why? What are you going to do?”

  “I—”

  Elina’s words were cut off by dragon’s blood splattering across her face and body. She looked up and saw a dragon-sized sword that had been shoved through the dragon’s chest.

  When the dragon slumped forward, dead, the sword was yanked out and the body dropped.

  At first, Elina saw nothing but trees swaying in the cold winter wind, but then, born out of nothing, it seemed . . . like a chameleon lizard who’d camouflaged himself against a rock . . . the golden dragon, Gwenvael, appeared.

  Var sat up straight in the saddle. “Dad!”

  Gwenvael, golden in the sunlight, smiled down at his son. “Thank the gods,” he said on a relieved sigh. “I was afraid I’d have to spend my long life listening to your mother complain about how wrong I was to let you go to your uncle Bram’s.”

  The boy laughed, but Elina could hear the tears he was trying to hold back. “And she would have, too. But what are you doing here?”

  The dragon rolled his eyes, clearly embarrassed. “What can I say? I lied to your mother.”

  “Shocking,” the boy muttered drily.

  “I told her I wouldn’t be checking on you while you were at Bram’s but . . . well . . .” He shrugged, helpless. “You’re too important to me to just let you go off on your own. There, I said it. But if you repeat it, I’ll flatly deny I care about anyone that much, especially my own son.”

  “Take your boy, dragon,” Elina said, helping Var dismount from the horse. “Bring him back to his mother.”

  “Come with us, Elina,” Var pleaded.

  “I cannot. I have to go to my sister.”

  “The Cadwaladrs are flying to Bram’s as we speak,” Gwenvael explained. “I’m sure—”

  “No, beautiful golden one—”

  “Why, thank you, Elina.”

  “Dad! ”

  “—but I must get my sister and you must take this boy back to his mother. I would hate to see what she will do to world if he is no longer in it.”

  Gwenvael picked his son up with his tail and placed the boy on his back. “Thank you for protecting him, Elina.”

  Elina nodded at his words, turned her horse, and headed back to Bram’s castle.

  Celyn saw the battle from above and dove in. He uncurled his fists, making sure his talons were out.

  He tackled one of the last remaining dragons, a Gold who was making a wild swing at Brannie’s back.

  Ramming his claws into the dragon’s side, Celyn dug them in deep, then moved them up and down, back and forth, rending valuable organs in the process.

  The Gold screamed out in pain, his flames decimating nearby trees.

  Celyn yanked his claws from the Gold’s body and quickly gripped his head. He turned it one way, then the other, breaking the neck.

  He dropped the body and stood. Brannie had gotten some dragon’s axe and was chopping away. Someone must have pissed her off.

  “I think he’s dead enough, sister.”

  At Celyn’s words, Brannie spun around with an angry snarl, the axe raised, her tail taking down a tree in the process.

  Blood and brains covered her from head to claw. Her black eyes were wild—the Cadwaladr bloodlust having taken over.

  “We have to go,” he told his sister.

  “Go?”

  “We have to help Da.”

  “What makes you think we’re done here?”

  Celyn looked over the dragon pieces scattered around his sister. But when he looked up, Brannie was pointing her blood-covered axe at him.

  He turned and saw ten dragons standing behind him, their weapons drawn.

  “Well then,” Celyn said on a sigh, “let’s get this over with.”

  Then he and Brannie charged forward—and killed everything in their way.

  Kachka dismounted from her horse and pulled her sword. “Stay behind me, Bram the Merciful,” she ordered him.

  “I think you need to get behind me now, Kachka Shestakova.”

  Kachka felt heat on her back and turned to see her horse galloping off and Bram in his dragon form.

  His scales were silver, like his hair. And he was large. But, sadly, not as large as the protective unit that had been sent along with these Dragon Elders.

  “Run, Kachka.”

  “I am Daughter of Steppes. I will not run. I will not yield.”

  “Then you will die,” one of the dragons said, laughing.

  “Not before you, imperialist scaled scum!” She glanced back at the Southland dragon standing behind her. “No offense to you, Bram the Merciful.”

  “None taken, considering the circumstances.”

  “Kill them both,” the enemy dragon ordered.

  “Wait!” Bram called out, stepping around Kachka.

  She winced, worried that the dragon was about to beg for either his or her life.

  But, thankfully, he did neither. Instead, he simply asked a question.

  “Is this god of yours worth the betrayal of your people?”

  “More than worth it,” one of the Elder dragons said as they walked out of Bram’s castle and casually shifted from human to dragon. “Our god will wash the world of these Abominations created by your godless queen and her brood of despicable offspring.”

  “But Chramnesind”—and as soon as Bram said the name, the other dragons all closed their eyes, lowered their heads, and wrote a rune in the air with their talons . . . it was stupid—“is not a dragon god. If he comes into full power, you, old friends, will be the first that he wipes from this planet.”

  “You will never understand, Bram. You’ve been tainted. And your talking isn’t going to extend your life by another second.”

  “Oh, I know. I was just killing time until the ol’ ball and chain got home.”

  The Elder dragon blinked, then spun around, forcing Kachka to drop into a crouch to avoid his wildly swinging tail.

  The She-dragon called Ghleanna had been standing behind him. She grabbed his hair and yanked the old dragon forward while ramming the blade of her sword into his snout.

  Bram glanced down at Kachka and smiled. “Isn’t she glorious?”

  Ghleanna pulled the old dragon off her sword and focused on the soldiers. “Kill all of th
em!” she screamed, and dragons dropped from the skies, landing hard on the soldier dragons.

  “The royals always forget,” Bram murmured. “Cadwaladrs never fight alone.”

  Elina was riding hard through the trees, nearing Bram’s castle, when her horse suddenly reared back, nearly flipping them both over.

  Using her thighs to grip the saddle, Elina managed to keep her seat, but her horse turned in mid-run and bounded forward.

  Elina was about to turn him around again when the trees began to shake . . . then fall. Crashing to the ground, they nearly crushed the pair in the process.

  Thankfully she was on a Steppes horse and the animal moved with the grace that eons of good horse breeding managed to create, dancing around falling trees until they reached a clearing.

  They’d just leaped to safety when the ground beneath them moved again and the horse jumped to the side several times, allowing two battling dragons to roll past them.

  Elina let out a breath and sent a silent prayer of thanks to the horse gods that protected her for gifting her with such an outstanding horse companion. Then she lifted her head and realized that one of the fighting dragons was Celyn.

  Another dragon burst onto the clearing, his sword raised. Elina didn’t recognize the dragon so she decided not to concern herself with whether it was friend or foe. Instead, she simply nocked an arrow, aimed, and released.

  The arrow’s route stayed true, ramming right between the seams of his scaled neck. The dragon jerked to the side, his claw immediately going to the arrow and his eyes searching for where it had come from.

  He locked on Elina in seconds.

  “You.”

  She nocked another arrow and raised her bow, this time aiming for the eyes, but a speeding burst of black scales slammed into the dragon, taking him to the ground.

  Brannie caught hold of the dragon’s back leg and dragged him close with one front claw while the other pulled out an axe so large Elina knew it would crush her human body in seconds if it ever landed on her.

  Without pause, Brannie hacked at the dragon’s spine, splitting it into two, ignoring the screams of pain coming from her victim. She then moved up and hacked at the back of the dragon’s head until the screaming stopped altogether. She started toward a still-fighting Celyn when she glanced over and stopped.

  “Elina?”

  Celyn, who had his opponent pinned to the ground and his sword about to plunge into the dragon’s heart, looked up abruptly.

  The relief on his scaled face at seeing her made Elina smile. But that smile quickly turned into a wince when Celyn’s opponent was able to toss Celyn off and get back to his claws. He yanked out his own sword and dove toward Celyn.

  But Celyn’s sister was there, grabbing the dragon by his hair and yanking him back. She used the handle of her axe against his throat to hold the dragon tight while Celyn got up and came at him again. He buried his blade into the dragon’s gut, tearing from left to right and back again. The dragon’s insides poured out onto the ground and he reached for them, as if he’d be able to tuck them all in again and be fine.

  Brannie released the dragon and stepped back, watching as he used his last few seconds of life to scoop up his guts.

  Celyn, however, came to Elina.

  “Are you all right?”

  “My sister?” she immediately asked.

  “With my father and mother. She’s more than safe. Now answer me. Are you all right?”

  “I am fine. My mighty horse of the Steppes did a good job. Unlike your useless travel-cow, which would have been crushed by the weight of two rolling dragons.”

  “You’re really not letting that travel-cow thing go, are you?”

  “He is worthless!”

  They both jumped when Brannie suddenly lifted her axe and brought it down hard, taking off the head of Celyn’s opponent.

  When she turned to find both of them staring at her, she shrugged. “He wasn’t dying fast enough, and he just kept picking up his guts. . . . It was vile.”

  Celyn shook his head before smiling at Elina.

  “I am glad you are not dead,” she told him honestly. “Now I must go and see my sister.”

  “You’re just going to leave me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You care more about your sister than me?”

  “Yes.”

  When Celyn just stared at Elina while his sister rolled on the ground behind him, knocking over trees and gasping between her laughter that, “I love her! I love her so gods-damn much!” Elina turned her horse toward Bram’s castle and urged the animal into a gallop.

  Ghleanna pressed her snout against her mate’s and tangled her tail with his. They stood together for several seconds, just comforted by the presence of each other.

  “How did you know?” Bram asked.

  “Your son guessed. They even tried to kill Bercelak.”

  “Bercelak? Are they mad?”

  “Not in the slightest. They knew exactly what they were doing. They went after Dagmar, too—but,” she quickly put in when he tensed, “she’s safe. There are others who may not be so lucky. But I’ll worry about all that later.”

  “This is going to change things.”

  “I know, but we’ll worry about that later, too. Just let me be happy you’re here with me.”

  Over the massacre of zealot soldiers by the Cadwaladr Clan, Ghleanna heard the sound of a galloping horse.

  Elina Shestakova rode around the battling dragons toward her sister, who sat mounted on her own horse by Bram’s side.

  The strange thing was that Ghleanna felt Kachka Shestakova, in her own Rider way, was still standing by Bram to protect him.

  This human female was protecting a dragon from other dragons, probably because her sister had asked her to. And that delighted Ghleanna more than she could say.

  Elina rode up to Kachka until their horses were right next to each other, the sisters’ knees nearly touching as they sat proud in their saddles.

  The pair stared at each other until Elina nodded at her sister. Kachka nodded back. Then Elina led her horse all the way behind Bram until she was positioned at Ghleanna’s side. There she sat, her gaze looking out over the lessening battle as the Cadwaladrs did what they always do so well . . . kill things.

  Aye. Ghleanna the Decimator and her mate, with their lethal offspring and kin no more than a hundred feet away, were now being protected by the Shestakova sisters.

  Ghleanna leaned in and whispered to Bram, “This is the most adorable thing ever.”

  “Stop.”

  “Ever.”

  Celyn finally dragged his sister up by her wings and placed her on her feet. Anything to stop the bloody laughing.

  They headed back to their father’s castle.

  “I don’t think she cares about me nearly as much as I care about her,” he complained. And the gods knew, he’d only ever have this conversation with Brannie. “It’s going to be the Izzy situation all over again.”

  “Horse shit. You knew what you were getting into with Izzy from the beginning. The only idiot who didn’t know how Izzy felt about Éibhear was bloody Éibhear.”

  “Then why—”

  Brannie stopped, held up her claws. “Before I’m forced to beat you because you sound like a pathetic child, I’m just going to say, in the short time I’ve known those two women, they are not demonstrative females. You want a lovey-dovey female, then get some vapid royal who only knows how to present herself to the queen. But if you want a female with a strong enough vagina to tell you to your face that she’s more concerned about her sister than you . . . then you get yourself a Rider.”

  “You do have a point.”

  “Of course I do. Now come on. We’re missing out on the rest of the killing.”

  Together, the siblings walked on until Brannie stopped again and gazed off.

  “What’s wrong?” Celyn asked.

  “I feel like we’ve forgotten something. . . .”

  Annwyl’s body was fl
ung across the tent, and she hit the ground face-first.

  And Brigida had to admit . . . she was disappointed.

  True, Annwyl the Bloody had taken her beating like a champion, as Brigida’s dear mum used to say. But it seemed as if the edge she’d once had might have been tamped down by that Dagmar Reinholdt and those royal Cadwaladrs—two words that never should have gone together—to the point where Annwyl was now nothing more than just a queen. A boring, old queen.

  What could Brigida do with that?

  The royal was picked up by the waist and lifted over Glebovicha Shestakova’s head. Blood poured from Annwyl’s nose, mouth, and eyes, and her face was swelling. And Brigida was sure she’d heard the distinctive crush of bone on more than one occasion when Glebovicha’s giant, bearlike fists had collided with the queen’s body.

  Brigida sighed. It was too bad really. She’d had such hope for the human. But that had been her mistake really . . . trusting in a human. Even a female one.

  Glebovicha Shestakova slammed the queen down onto the frozen earth beneath the tent, making sure her spine took the brunt of the unyielding Steppes lands.

  Annwyl coughed up blood and groaned in abject misery.

  “Glebovicha Shestakova,” Magdalina Fyodorov called out in the language of the Steppes. “That is enough. Finish her and let’s be done with this. Quickly.”

  Glebovicha nodded and walked over to one of her kinswomen, who tossed her a flint axe. A weapon that looked crudely made but also was powerful enough to quickly hack thick oxen bone into pieces.

  Brigida let out another sigh, so very disappointed. But then she realized that the thought of oxen had made her a bit hungry. And she had seen some oxen on a nearby ridge. . . .

  Slowly turning away, Annwyl already forgotten, Brigida heard Glebovicha say in the common tongue—so that Annwyl would be sure to understand it—“You, imperialist dog, think to tell me about being a mother when you brought demon spawn into this world? Well, now you can go to hell and meet your Abominations there when the world wipes those worthless cunt stains from existence. Yes? Then you will know what great sin you have committed.”