Intelligence kept coming in daily from the Luminari’s network of spies. The human towns and villages were being attacked; men were being dragged from their homes; women and children were being killed.
It made him sick to his stomach. A roiling, twisting feeling clawed its way inside of him the more he thought about it, and the more he thought about what he might face on his way to El`ness Nahrral.
He camped beneath the thick forest that night, rolling his bed out and lying down with a sigh. The constant drip of the rain on the canopy above was a soothing sound. He folded his arms behind his head and looked up at the dense green above him. His mind kept turning in circles.
He thought of Cerralys and The Hall, now behind him half a day’s journey. He thought of the war and the reasons for it. He thought of Obsidian. He thought of the Luminari. He thought of his future. He thought of Auri.
His stomach clenched, and the dream—only one dream, over and over—hit him suddenly like a sheet of ice in his chest. He brought his hands to his chest and twisted to huddle on his side, gasping. Within seconds his skin was cold and clammy.
Tears leaked from the sides of his eyes. He ignored them and got up shakily to gather wood. All of it was dry; the dense canopy of trees above him let in no rain from above. He made a roaring fire from the flint and stone in his bag and sat down numbly in front of it, one hand still absently clutching his chest, rubbing it.
He had wanted no part of this at first, but the dreams were relentless. They came night after night. Always the same. Never changing. In the dream he felt so powerless . . . so powerless to save her, to stop her, to prevent what he knew was coming. He hated feeling powerless.
In the dream he was always with her, sharing her mind and body. Sharing her thoughts and fears. To be within a person’s mind, to feel the feelings and emotions that they felt. . . It was an intimacy that he had never experienced before.
And the more he dreamed of her the clearer she became.
She was pure. She fought only to save. She ran because she was brave. She ran because she loved. It was easy to see those things inside of her, night after night in his dreams; it was easy for him to love her.
He felt so tired, so old, so weary from all of this, and he feared that he would be too late anyway.
Obsidian wanted Auri, wanted her badly. He wanted her so much that he had come out of hiding to begin amassing a human army. Whatever his hatred toward her—it was personal.
Nachal scooted closer to the fire, trying to absorb its warmth and banish the coldness inside of him. His skin glowed with the flickering orange of the flames. He stared at the flickers against his pale skin as he struggled to make sense of everything.
There was so much that he didn’t understand about this situation. In fact, it was easier for him to categorize the things that he did know.
He knew for sure that she was elven-kind. In the dreams, she moved with a speed unlike any human. She was fast. The fastest he had ever seen. And because in the dream he saw from her eyes and heard from her ears, it was easy for him to recognize the superiority of both of those over his own.
She was elven-kind, and she was about to die.
He wondered if she suspected it. Or was she blithely going on her way, never knowing what was coming for her? He wondered also where she was on the isle, for surely that was the only place where she could be.
There were no elven-kind on Terradin’s mainland anymore. They had all moved en masse to El`ness Nahrral a score of years past.
The dwarves mostly stayed enclosed within Bremgar’s massive gates and vast lands. And most of the humans stayed within the borders of Torar-Araldyn, although there was a small amount of them within Eldaria. The land where The Hall sat. The land where dragons dwelled.
He thought of his journey then and where it would take him. He had to cross Eldaria, which shouldn’t take more than twenty days if he slept little. From there he had to cross Torar-Araldyn and continue down to Bremgar.
Thinking about Bremgar made him think of Dhurmic. He smiled slightly and scooted away from the fire a few feet.
Dhurmic was one of the few dwarves that had come to The Hall for training. He had found the school—a feat that few had ever accomplished—and pestered the king until Cerralys had finally given in and agreed to teach him. Nachal smiled again, remembering Cerralys’s harassed expression when he finally relented. From there, it was an easy thing to become friends with the dwarf.
Dhurmic was as most dwarves are, fiery and stout, with a beard that hung down to his chest and black fire in his eyes. He was the only dwarf that The Hall had ever seen, aside from those that had at first constructed it, and he had practically set the whole place on its ear. He had a way about him that annoyed most people.
Dhurmic often found himself in trouble of his own making, without quite understanding how he came to be there. He was brash, easily given to anger, easily riled, and very quick with his opinions on nearly everything. But underneath all of his gruff exterior beat the heart of a true and loyal friend. Nachal wanted no one else at his back in this mess with Auri than Dhurmic.
He drifted to sleep with the light sound of the rain hitting the boughs far above him, and the warmth of friendship within his soul.
He woke before the dawn, stiff and sore all over. He groaned as he rolled over, and then sat up, rubbing his face along his jaw. His eyes, when he could pry them open, were bleary and unfocused. He was having problems seeing clearly. He shivered violently then sneezed. “Oh perfect,” he said acidly. “Just perfect.”
He groaned again as he got to his feet unsteadily. Whatever he had, it was bad, and it had hit with a furious and swift vengeance. He sneezed again as he rolled up his blanket and attached it to the bottom of his pack. He brought out some hard tack, and chewed it without really tasting it. His nose dripped.
He squinted above him to the tree line, just now seeing little bits of sunlight stream through the sparse patches of the canopy. The sun was rising and, sick or not, he needed to get moving. He finished the biscuit, drank some water from his water skin, and then loaded everything up on his back again, setting off at a pace barely above a crawl.
After traveling only an hour, he was breathing heavily and sweating all over. Sweat ran down his face and neck, pooling at the small of his back. His thighs burned, and he was so cold that his teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.
He finally fell to his knees, unable to take another step, and gasped as the pain hit him. Everything within him burned like a cold fire. Like a fire that would sear with splinters of ice. He thought of the elf again—Auri—and struggled to his feet determinedly. He had to keep going.
When he reached the Strathelm, the river that ran from the Alpine mountains far to the north, he collapsed. He didn’t bother unstrapping his sword or removing his bow. The only thing that he dropped was his bag, and only so he could lay his head down on it. He was asleep within minutes.
His violent shivering woke him. The sound of his teeth chattering had even invaded his dreams. He gasped as he sat up. The world ran in dripping, spinning color. He groaned and clutched his head, clenching his eyes shut against the spinning trees.
When he opened them again, he looked around slowly. He dimly remembered making it to the Strathelm the day before, and there it was in front of him, overflowing its banks and running dangerously fast. His heart sank. He wouldn’t be able to cross it, and there was no safe crossing for many miles to the north, and many more at a different crossing to the south.
He didn’t have the strength to go either distance, but he knew that he needed to get across before it got any more swollen. Already it was probably too late. He stood, holding on to a tree to steady him, and gathered his things. As he looked around, he chewed on more tasteless food, contemplating his options.
He could cross here, where it wasn’t as wide as perhaps other spots, or he could hike north or south and find the safe crossings. That would probably be the smartest option, but the delay
made him shake inside. He could barely stand, Auri was in mortal danger, and he didn’t think he could hike either distance right now. The impotent feeling from the dream washed over him.
Standing in frustrated silence, he heard the leaves blow gently through the trees above, like children whispering secrets to one another. He looked up and was mesmerized by the gentle swaying of the leaves as they danced in the wind. Then he saw the branches, and a crazy idea began to form in his head. He might not be able to hike for several miles, but maybe he had strength enough to climb one tree.
Before giving himself any more time to think about it, he began to climb the tree directly ahead of him. As he got further up, he saw that many of the branches met across the river, nearly tip to tip. Though the river was wide and deep, the trees were ancient, tall, and very thick. He got near the top and had to pause. He dropped his head and closed his eyes, just trying to breathe without being sick.
He was uncomfortable with heights and always had been. This illness on top of it just made everything worse. His head hadn’t stopped spinning since he had first opened his eyes, and it looked to him like he was climbing a thin mountain amidst a very bad earthquake. Everything shook and swirled around him, until finally he had to close his eyes and breathe slowly through his mouth and nose again.
When he opened them a second time, things had steadied a little. A thick branch ran the width of half the river, and another tree on the other side met it at almost the exact middle, embracing it like a long-lost friend. They twisted and twined together, creating one long bridge above the ground.
He knew that he couldn’t stand. Instead, he scooted across, inch by lurching inch. When he got halfway out, the branch beneath him cracked ominously. Panic didn’t hit him then, but only because he forced it down. He ignored the splinter that was becoming more visible in the bark, and tried to move his sluggish body faster. He made it another quarter of the trunk before another crack, this one louder, made him freeze in place.
He held his breath. It didn’t help.
Another loud crack echoed. He looked back. The branch was shearing off! Any minute it would fall, and he with it. He said some things then that Cerralys would surely never approve of as he felt his gaze being pulled down to the dizzying drop below.
It was a long way down.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then rose unsteadily to his feet, gasping again as his eyes automatically went downward. The river below was swirling around and around, like a crazy waterfall that couldn’t decide where it should stay. The water tilted almost vertically before he realized that he was underneath the branch and looking down on the river below him from upside down. He closed his eyes again before his sight and roiling stomach could make things worse then used his arms and legs to claw back up to the topside of the branch.
A crack broke the silence again, the sound ricocheting loudly over the noise of the river. He glanced back quickly, the panic beginning to sweep across his senses against his will. With no more options, he tried to stand again. He only had one chance at this.
The branch began to give way completely as he ran flat out and jumped hard. He sailed through the air and slammed into the other branch with such force that all of the air was knocked from his lungs. They spasmed in vain, trying desperately to find breath but finding none. Mists of darkness started to dim his eyes. He held them back through sheer force of will.
Gasping loudly, air finally returned to him. He breathed deeply for a minute then tried to pull himself up on top of the branch. He couldn’t. His fingers were numb and fumbled uncooperatively. The muscles in his arms trembled from strain. Dizziness made the black edges of unconsciousness hover closer. His fingers slipped as the dark mist surged forward to claim him. He lost consciousness before he hit the bottom.
Chapter Four- The Cost
Nachal groaned as he came to again. His head was pulsing with pain, and he felt as if he’d taken on the whole garrison at The Hall . . . and lost. He moved his legs gingerly and winced. His ankle was swollen, but as he rotated it slowly around, he found it to be unbroken. He took quick stock of the rest of him. His hands and knees were torn up pretty badly, as were his arms, but nothing that would slow him down much. He sighed in relief and then winced, putting a hand to his head. Even that slight sound and movement made the pounding in his head pulse all the way down to his toes.
He lurched to his feet again, strapped all of his fallen weapons to his back, grabbed his bag, and stumbled away.
He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but the light above was nearly the same, so it couldn’t have been that long.
He saw the smoke just as he cleared the last of the Du`lna forest. Column after column of it rose high in the air, polluting the blue skies above Tristan. He looked at the columns in confusion at first then dawning horror.
He started to run.
Fire was everywhere. Most of the buildings were lit a sick, crackly orange. Smoke was billowing and choking the streets and alleyways. It was quiet. Too quiet. There should have been people running for the rivers and the wells. There should have been fire brigades and people shouting for help. But there was no one. It was desolate but for the sound of the buildings burning to the ground.
His body was shaking so hard that it was difficult for him to walk. He was sweating hard again, breathing rough and uneven from the run and the smoke and from being ill. He stood in the middle of a wide street and looked around. Turning in a slow circle, he shook his head in bewilderment. What had happened here? Where was everyone?
He limped past buildings that were caved in on themselves like a deck of cards. He limped past silent streets and back alleyways. He limped past flaming embers that slowly fluttered down from the sky and buildings above, burning tiny holes in his torn up clothes. He limped until he came to the town square. And then he stopped.
They were all here—and all of them were dead.
His body started shaking so badly that his legs wouldn’t support him anymore. He crawled to them on his hands and knees. Everyone was here, scattered like broken children’s playthings. Women and children. Older men who were many years past their prime. All of them dead.
He reached over and held the hand of a little girl with long, blonde hair. Tears streamed down his sooty face, tracking rivulets down his chin and neck, dripping onto his shirt. Fire crackled. Containers exploded. Buildings crumbled into ash and burning timber. But for Nachal nothing else mattered in that moment. Nothing but the little girl’s hand that he held and the sightless, blue eyes staring up at him. Nothing but the death and destruction that Obsidian always left in his wake. He held her hand, bowed his head, and sobbed.
After what could have been hours, he looked up. Something had moved out of the corner of his eye. A streak of bleached white on the periphery of his vision. He held himself very still as he quickly scanned the rest of the bodies in the square. He couldn’t see much from his position because his vision was partially obstructed by the demolished buildings.
He looked down at the little girl’s hand, and kissed her forehead with a whisper of warm lips on cold skin. Then he gently closed her eyes, as if she were merely sleeping, and released his grip on her hand, setting it gently on the ground. He struggled to a standing position, fighting the shakiness of his legs.
He walked around the fallen building in front of him, and then slowly through the dead, searching carefully for any sign of movement.
About halfway through, he saw him.
The man was young, maybe only a score and ten, and he was dragging himself, hand over fist, toward a little girl lying on the periphery of the square. Her body was half in and half out of a smashed doorway. She was absolutely still.
The man was moaning, crying. His legs were dragging uselessly on the ground behind him. Nachal’s heart seized, skipping a beat. Then he stumbled over to the man, and went down onto his knees beside him. The man didn’t even glance up; he just kept dragging himself over to the little girl. “I
can bring her to you,” Nachal said gently.
The man turned toward him furiously. “Don’t touch her!” he growled then he turned away from him as if he didn’t exist, and continued dragging himself over to the child.
“Fine,” Nachal said as he slowly stood again. “Just don’t swing at me.” Then, without giving the man a chance to protest, he picked him up, staggered under the extra weight, and carried him to the demolished doorway. He set him down as gently as he could, and then collapsed to his knees next to him, coughing and shaking.
The man groaned in anguish as he reached for the child. “Amee,” he whispered. “My sweet Amee.” He tried to pull her to him but didn’t have any strength left. He turned back to Nachal with a plea in his eyes. Nachal nodded, tears of smoke and pain rolling down his face. He clutched the child’s arms and gently pulled, freeing her from the rubble and fallen beams, then he put her carefully into her father’s arms. He knew as soon as he touched her that she was gone, and the father knew it too. The man groaned again, resting his forehead against his daughter’s. He wept uncontrollably for a long time.
Nachal’s whole body sunk down to the dirt. He laid flat on his back and stared at the rising columns of smoke. Cherry red embers rained down on them from above, floating on the breeze.
After a long while, the man stopped sobbing, and merely lay with his daughter on his lap, brushing her hair away from her face with tender, badly broken fingers. His eyes were glazed, almost vacant.
“It was a black dragon, wasn’t it?” Nachal said.
The broken fingers slowly stopped their brushing. He kissed his daughter’s eyelids. “Yes,” the man whispered. “It was Obsidian.”
The flames licked the bodies, rising high above the fires that were still crumbling the rest of the town into ash. The massive wall of heat scorched his skin, making his already high body temperature climb even higher. He would rest later. When there was nothing left.
Dragon Dreams (The Chronicles of Shadow and Light) Book 1 Page 3