To my right, a flash of red stole my concentration as it always did. It was Ash. It was like my eyes were trained to seek him out. A group of Goblins was firing arrows at him and as I looked more closely, I could see that some had already hit their mark, their shafts sticking out from between his scales. He was in pain. He wasn’t making any noise, but I could see it in his face. He blew a gust of fire at his attackers but was way off the mark. He needed my help. I raced around the mountain to where the Goblins stood. They were right on the very edge of the precipice where I’d been at the first avalanche, when I’d gone over only to be rescued by Ash. It was fitting I’d be able to return the favor.
Standing on the edge of a cliff with their backs to me, they were easy targets, or they would be if I was quick. I didn’t need my sword for this, I just needed speed. I sheathed my sword and pelted at them with full force. All it took was a quick shove and the first was screaming down the cliff face. Without pausing, I moved on to the second and then the third, pushing each one to their deaths. The last one saw me, but it was too late; before he’d even had the chance to aim his bow at me, he was already hurtling to his death.
“Ash!” I called out loudly. He followed the sound of my voice and came in to land beside me. As gently as I could, I removed the arrows that pierced his body. When he turned back into his human form, he’d be covered in the scars of war, just as I was. We’d both been through so much in such a short time and now it was nearly over. As I turned to look behind me, I felt Ash’s long tail curl around my body and his head rest on my shoulder.
The Goblins were dead. All of them. We’d won the war. There were so many injured and dead from our side, too, but many were still standing. Morganna, Jasper, and Xander were checking the mountainside for our wounded. Up in the air, Spear and the other dragons flew around in circles, checking that everything was clear before they landed. The silence was deafening. After a couple of hours of listening to the sounds of war, all that was left for us was the clean-up. I stroked Ash’s head, glad to have him by my side. Our scars would fade in time, but the psychological scars would remain forever. I knew we had a long road of healing ahead of us, but I knew with him at my side, I’d get through it.
I took a step forward, planning to help the others tend to the injured, when something passed quickly in front of me. Whatever it was, it was almost invisible, but the way the light bent told me that magic was in play. Without thinking, I ran toward it and leaped into the air. As I suspected, I connected with something before knocking us both to the ground. I heard an “umph” below me as I landed on it.
“Show yourself!” I demanded, holding my sword to where I suspected his neck to be.
In front of my eyes, a Goblin appeared. It was Krikor.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Krikor! I should have known you’d be cowardly enough to leave.” I dragged him to his feet, my sword still at his neck. “I have the souls of many Goblins in this sword,” I said to him as menacingly as I could. “We need to talk, and I don’t want any more tricks, not unless you want there to be another Goblin soul in here. I have to say it would be quite fitting.”
He looked scared. With his people dead and his magic almost completely gone, there was nothing left for him to do and he knew it. He gazed at me with sorrow in his eyes, which unnerved me. I was expecting anger or defiance. “What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“The souls of the dragons.”
“Yes. I want them back and I don’t want to spill any more blood.”
“Your blood would be useless now, anyway. You are no longer innocent. You are a murderer just like the rest of the people in your village.”
“I killed to save my people,” I spat at him. “Something I wouldn’t have had to do if you hadn’t trapped them.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Your people? How interesting that you call the dragons your people, when in fact your people are the ones that slayed them.”
“The dragons are my people Krikor, but I don’t expect you to understand that. You’ve manipulated us all for too long and today, it’s going to stop. I know you can free the dragon souls without my blood. You would need to be able to in order to turn their souls into magic.”
“So, you know?”
“No, it was only a theory, but I know now. How much magic do you have left? I know it can’t be a lot.”
“It isn’t. Why do you think we were taking the swords back? We needed the dragon souls to generate more.”
“Do you have enough to bring my father back to life?” It was a long shot, but I had to ask.
He regarded me curiously. “You father died at the hands of a Goblin?”
“Yes.”
“If he died on a sword, the sword would trap his soul, just as your sword has trapped my fellow goblins. You only need to free him.”
Hope rose within me. I could save him. “He was speared through the brain.”
“Ah, well, in that case, there is no hope. The brain is the one part of a person that can’t be fixed by returning a soul. There is only one way to fix this, and that is to use magic. A lot of magic.”
“So, do it!” I insisted.
Krikor looked at me, a sly smile on his face as though he knew something I didn’t.
“What?” I asked, holding the sword right up against his neck.
“There is only one way to get all the magic we need and you know what that is.” His grin widened as I realized what he meant. To get enough magic to bring my father back to life, I’d have to sacrifice the souls of the dragons still trapped in the swords. I heard footsteps to my right and left. A war was raging in my head. I couldn’t let my father stay dead and yet, could I really give all those dragons to save him?
Tears sprang to my eyes. Tears of frustration. A loud, guttural scream escaped my lips at the injustice of it all.
“The dragon souls left in the swords might have been there so long that no one remembers them,” said a voice. It was Ash. He’d turned back into a human. “You can save him.”
He was right. Dragons like Mary had been captured so long ago that they no longer had living family. No one would care if they just disappeared. No one really knew them. That is, of course, if they were all captured a long, long time ago.
I turned to Ash. He was wearing one of the spare sets of clothes we’d brought up and already there were patches of blood from the arrow wounds. I loved him so much right then. “My father died to save them,” I murmured. “He wouldn’t want me to choose him over them. Saving the dragons was what all this was about, what it’s always been about.”
I turned back to Krikor. His grin was gone. “My father died the way he would have wanted to. Making amends. Saving the dragons.”
Krikor grimaced, but he knew he had no choice. My sword was at his throat. “So be it,” he said. “Follow me.”
With one of my hands holding onto the scruff of his neck and the other with my sword to his throat, I had to walk slowly while Krikor led us to the entrance of his village. It was still partly submerged, but Ash and Morganna managed to dig enough of a hole for us all to fit through.
“Over here!” I yelled to everyone else. It took a while, but eventually, they all converged around the entrance. “Is that everyone?” I asked, not wanting to leave anyone behind. They’d fought for this, and they needed to see it. The dragons and the wolves had all changed back into their human forms and gotten dressed.
“It’s everyone that’s still alive,” Spear grunted.
My heart fell as I took in how few there was left of us. A couple of the Wolvren were injured with various wounds. Xander had a nasty cut on his head and blood dripping from his arm. Most of the dragons looked uninjured, thankfully. Ash seemed to have come off the worst.
The tunnel was darker than I remembered it, but before now, it had been lit by magic. Now, we only had the faint light from the entrance to guide us. In the main chamber, holes in the ceiling let in enough light for us to see.
> “This way,” Krikor said, leading us to the far end of the cavern and into a tunnel I’d not seen before. It was almost pitch black, but Krikor knew his way without the light. I held on to him tightly, knowing if I let go, he’d be gone in a flash.
The tunnel seemed to go on for miles downhill. I was beginning to think it was some kind of trick to escape when we came into another cavern. This one was a lot smaller than the one I’d seen so many times up near the top of the mountain, but the beauty of it took my breath away. Intricate patterns carved into the walls surrounded us, and each one was decorated with precious jewels just like the ones the Goblins used in our swords. The artistry was magnificent and awe-inspiring, but it was not this that took my attention.
There, in the middle of the floor were swords. Not just our swords, but the swords of others too. Other Slayers’ swords, just like the ones from the abandoned village downriver. They were not piled up as they had been at Spear’s house. Instead, each one was mounted in a placeholder that held them so the sword blade pointed upward and inward. They were in layers of circles, rising higher and higher around a central spire. My eyes followed the line of the swords to the very top, where there was a crystal, larger than any precious stone I’d ever seen before. Light emerged from it and it was this that enabled us to see.
“What’s that?” asked Ash, taking a step towards it.
“Don’t!” Morganna held him back. “There’s very powerful magic in this room.”
“Not enough of it,” remarked Krikor dryly.
I pulled the sword away from his neck but kept a firm hold of him. “What now?” I asked wearily, desperate for all this to be over. I was exhausted and losing blood at such a rate, I didn’t dare look.
“I have to climb up and touch the crystal,” Krikor replied.
I didn’t want to let him go, but at the same time, I wanted to finish this. “Circle the room,” I said to the others. “Morganna, can you stand by the exit in case he tries to escape?” Morganna nodded and moved into position. The others circled the wall and joined hands. If I let go of him now, there was no place for him to escape to. “No tricks,” I hissed in his ear.
I let him go, but held my sword up to his back should he try and run. He didn’t, though. He walked forward and began to climb. Each foothold and handhold was between the blades of two swords. He was risking hurting himself with each step, and if he fell, he’d be extremely lucky not to skewer himself. Still, I held the sword to his back, lifting it higher and higher until he was beyond my reach. The crystal was about twenty feet up and so it took him a while to climb, picking out his route between the swords. I wouldn’t have been able to find my way up there. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before reaching out to touch the crystal. I wondered why he didn’t try to escape. As soon as he freed the dragon souls, everything was over for him. Not that I’d left him much choice in the matter.
“Wait!” yelled Spear. “The dragons we already freed are dying. If we release the rest, won’t they fall prey to the same illness?”
Krikor looked down at him. “Your dragons are not dying. They are being reborn.”
“Reborn?” asked Ash. “What do you mean?”
“The illness is not an illness at all. It is part of the magic. When someone stabs you, even with a magic sword, damage is done to your body. When the dragons’ souls went back to their bodies, the internal damage was still there. Healing requires a lot of energy. Right now your sick dragons are literally rebuilding themselves. Within a month, they will begin to wake, newer and fresher and younger than they were even before their souls were taken. Their outer skin will shed, leaving them with a beautiful new complexion. They will be reborn.”
“But some of the dragons whose souls were not taken have fallen ill, too,” I remembered.
“The magic works in the same way as a disease. It is contagious. They will be reborn, too. You’ll have a village of young, vibrant dragons. You should be pleased. It won’t work if you stay as humans though, so I suggest you all go home and stay in your dragon forms until the day you can rise again, free of illness, free of old age and free of any injuries you have sustained.” He eyed Ash as he said this. Blood was still dripping from him and he looked so pale. Was this another trick? I had no idea, but if we didn’t let him free the trapped dragons, they may as well be dead anyway.
“Do it!” I shouted up at him.
He held his hand out once again and this time touched the crystal.
A bright flash of light caused me to close my eyes. With everything else going on, I’d completely forgotten about the intense heat that blasted out of the swords when the dragons were freed, and this time there were so many of them. I braced myself for the fire and flames, but they didn’t come. Instead, a powerful wind wailed around the room, knocking us all over. I curled into a ball as the wind roared. The noise was intense, like being in the center of a hurricane.
When it was all over, I opened my eyes. The others were laid on the ground as I had been, and the light from the crystal was out.
I blinked a few times, wondering how I could see everyone, even dimly, when I saw there was a small shaft of light coming from behind a part of the carved wall. I’d not seen it before because the light from the crystal had been so bright.
“Daylight!” I shouted, running toward the crack. My voice echoed through the cavern.
“I think this was the way the dragon souls went,” said Spear who’d been right next to it. Between us, we pulled on the wall making the crack wide enough to get through.
I turned back to get Krikor but he wasn’t there.
“Where’s Krikor?” I asked, desperately searching the room. “He couldn’t have come this way. The crack was too small until we pulled it open.”
“I’m sorry,” said Morganna, “I think he escaped back up the tunnel. The wind knocked me over. I felt something jump over me, but I thought it was the dragon souls.”
He’d escaped, but as I looked down the tunnel through the wall and saw bright daylight flooding in, I knew that so had the dragon souls, and so would we.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The exit led to a dirt road at the base of the mountain. I knew this road. If we followed it, we’d end up in Dronias. It was a road I knew I’d have to take, even if Ash and the others decided to fly back over the mountain to Frokontas.
On the way out of the tunnel, I’d told Jasper what had happened to our father. He’d nodded, resigned, and told me he’d seen his body as we were fighting.
Ash dawdled behind our group as we walked the path home.
“I’m going home,” I said and he nodded.
“I was hoping you’d want to come back to Frokontas and stay...permanently.”
I gave him a small smile. He looked so sad at the thought of me leaving. “I meant I have to go home and tell my mother about father. Then I’m going to bring her home. To our home, in Frokontas.”
He smiled widely then and kissed me on the cheek. He looked so pale. We all did. Just getting everyone up the mountain was going to be an effort, but before that, I had to go back to Dronias and tell them what had happened. My father wasn’t the only Slayer killed up there. Jasper, Xander, Morganna and I survived, as did one or two more, but we would be going home in smaller numbers. I also had to make sure the last of the dragons escaped the dragon keep in the forest. I’d hate to think of leaving any behind.
When we were far enough down the road, Spear announced that the dragons were taking anyone who wanted to go back to Frokontas.
Morganna came to me and kissed me on the cheek. “I know you are going back to Dronias. Alpha and I have decided to go back with Spear, just until we are all healed. Many of the Wolvren were injured and Spear has promised us all medical aid. Once we are better, we will return to our own home. I hope you’ll come and see us before we go.”
I hugged her hard. My idol had become my friend. “Ash is going to bring me back tomorrow,” I explained. “I’m just going to do what I have to do in
Dronias first.”
“What about Jasper?” she asked, seeing him walking slightly further ahead, deep in his own thoughts.
“Jasper’s a grown man. He’s been living in my father’s shadow for too long. Maybe now he’ll be able to live life the way he wants to.”
“Do you think he’ll come to Frokontas?”
I shook my head. “No. Dronias is his home, and now that my father is dead, he will be the leader. I have a feeling that will please him. He always did like to be the best.”
Hours later, when everyone else had flown back to Frokontas, we arrived in Dronias.
My mother took the news of my father’s passing better than I thought she would. She insisted on coming to the dragon keep with us to help any left behind dragons, but there were none there. They’d all been matched to their souls.
“We’ve done it,” I said wearily to Ash. He held my hand tightly. They were free, but this was just the beginning. If what Krikor had said was true, they had a month or two of illness to look forward to.
That night, after doing her best to patch us all up with her limited first aid knowledge, Xander’s wife, Louisa, made us all dinner. My mother had been staying there since my father had come to Dronias with me, but she wasn’t happy. Her home had long since burned down and now that Xander was back, she was eager to move out. Jasper offered to build her a home, but she chose instead to live in Frokontas with Ash and me.
“Rocco did a great many things in his lifetime,” she began over dinner. “Not least of which was to impose a lot of pain on the people of Frokontas. Now here I am, being invited to live among those very people. It is humbling to be asked. As for Rocco, he was a good man deep down. He only ever wanted the best for Jasper and Julianna. He was, above all, a family man. It seems like he did everything he could to make up for his mistakes in the last weeks of his life, and it is that for which I will remember him.”
“Hear, hear,” cried Xander, raising a glass. “To Rocco!”
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