“Bring Uncle Atty home!” Fernwalker said, tightening her arms around her mother’s waist.
Aradma walked outside with Odoune. She spread her arms, and then the two of them were flying through the cold evening air side by side as falcon and owl.
* * *
“It’s no use,” Keira told Attaris. “I told them I would leave if they do this, but Mother said she would rather I live in exile than die here.”
“This is madness,” Attaris shook his head sadly.
“I cannot believe the people here agreed to this,” she said. But they had, for the most part. During the day, word had spread, and the idea of peaceful surrender was a welcome one.
“Aye,” Attaris sighed. “I can. They trade freedom for safety. The alternative is to leave their homes and run… where?”
It was dark now as they watched the town square from one of the central townhouses. They didn’t want to be in the mayor’s house, but Attaris had insisted he witness the event.
“To Windbowl,” Keira answered. “It’s safe there.”
“It was presumed safe here, too,” he replied.
The count had given Magda instructions. The town stayed hidden in the first hours of the night while the count’s servants hunted the hungerbound. Then at midnight, all those in favor joined Jorey, Magda, and Arlen in the town square. They walked bravely out from their homes, and Attaris watched sadly as hundreds assembled.
“More than half of what’s left,” he commented.
“If what Magda said is true,” Keira said, “we’ll not be challenged when we leave tomorrow.”
“Aye. We’ll see.”
The count emerged from the shadows with twenty other vampires behind him. He stopped before Jorey and Magda.
“You choose to join the Covenant?” he asked.
They nodded.
The count turned to the crowd. “All of you! You freely choose to become Bloodsworn in the Covenant? You will give of your blood to the Liberated and in turn be protected and given the freedom to live your own lives, you and your children?”
The crowd rustled, but the voices murmured assent.
The count nodded, seemingly satisfied.
“Then let it be known that you are Bloodsworn.” He shouted louder for the benefit of those who watched from their homes, like Attaris and Keira, and did not support this decision. “Those of you who do not give of your blood will be free to live here as long as you submit to Covenant Law. Cause violence, and you will be cast out. If you cannot accept this, you are free to peacefully leave.
“Who of you, then, will surrender your own lives and become the Liberated of your town?”
Magda and Jorey stepped forward. “We will.”
The count nodded. “Leaders among your people. This is good. We will turn the two of you, and once you have mastered yourselves, you will turn ten more to be your ministers. Then it will stop.”
Jorey’s and Magda’s hands were locked together, fingers clenched tightly.
“First, do you forsake your liege, King Donogan, and swear by your blood to pledge your loyalty to Astia and Queen Iristene?”
A hush fell over the crowd. Keira sucked in a gasp of air. Attaris closed his eyes. The count had lied in the negotiation. He didn’t want to leave Hammerfold under its own throne. It was about power and expanding Astia’s borders. A cold chill ran over him, and he again suspected that the hungerbound had not been from Count Pavlin in Roenti, but that somehow Markus had gotten them into the town himself. “Don’t do it,” he whispered.
Jorey was the first to kneel. “I pledge my loyalty to the Throne of Astia and Queen Iristine. By my blood, I swear it.”
Magda followed his example, kneeling beside him and repeating the words.
Count Markus took Magda’s hands and bid her rise to her feet. “It is time then,” he said. He gently embraced her and lowered his lips to her neck. Attaris heard her sudden intake of breath, and then a contented sigh. The count was neat in his feeding. No blood trickled down her neck. He laid her to the ground as if she slept, and then did the same with Jorey.
When both her parents lay dead, Keira closed the window.
“I can’t watch any more,” she said. “My parents are dead.” She sank back against the wall and let the tears flow.
Attaris was still awake when dawn broke. He woke Keira, and the two of them slipped out. There was no one to say goodbye to. There was no reason to stop and speak to anyone. They retrieved two horses and quietly left the town of Kriegsholm behind as the sun rose over silent streets.
Kriegsholm was lost to the Enemy.
PART 3: ATHRA’S JEWEL
24 - Waves Upon the Rocks
Sidhna stood at the top of God Spire in the middle of Artalon. At its pinnacle, it rose a half-mile high, made from gnomish zorium. Moonlight spilled down from above over the fog-laden city. Fingers of mists crawled over the city’s windows and balconies. Artalon was empty of life. Years ago, the food supply had been exhausted, and most of the tens of thousands of vampires had spread out over the land in search of blood. Still, hundreds remained. Those who lingered spent most of their time in mist form, for then the bloodlust was dulled.
The mists had taken most of the larger cities in Roenti, Aradheim, and Galadheim. She had made a special effort to find and destroy any of royal heritages before they could reclaim the NineThrones, and she had been successful in these three realms. By all accounts, Astia should have been hers as well.
“You haven’t fed,” she remarked. Pavlin appeared from mist beside her. He looked old—decades older than he had been when she turned him. Only she seemed physically unaffected by not feeding, always appearing youthful. Malahkma’s blood was stronger in Sidhna than anyone else.
“Food is hard to come by in Roenti these days,” he said. “I much prefer to remain as mist. Why did you summon me?”
She stared at his withered face for a moment. His hair was as white as his skin. He was right. The hunger gnawed at her as well—just because her appearance didn’t show it, that didn’t mean she didn’t feel it—but she felt its pangs less acutely than her progeny.
“Astia’s borders are closed to me,” she said. “How did this happen?”
Pavlin’s dry laugh rasped in his throat. “Only now do you notice?”
“I drank the last vessel of the Astian king’s bloodline dry,” she said.
“Oh, but he had a daughter,” Pavlin remarked. “She attained the throne after you left him. Astiana has a queen.”
“He should have eaten her!” she said. “He was young in the blood.”
“They have learned to master their hunger,” Pavlin remarked. “Something we are unable to do.”
Again, he was right. In his state, if any of the living came into his presence, he would frenzy with bloodlust and lose all rational thought.
“I would meet with this Markus,” she said. “Hammerfold separates our lands, and we are too far from each other to speak and then return to home soil before dawn. I cannot remain in his land, nor he rest in ours. We must find a place in between close enough that we might talk. I must discover why his lands are closed. All he need do is turn his daughter.”
“There is a small island south of Astiana, halfway between Astia and Dragonholm in the Dragon Channel,” Pavlin said. “We can offer to meet there.”
“I must make him see reason,” she said. “Otherwise, we are all doomed to the mists.”
Ten days later, Sidhna stood on a barren rock island that was small enough to be hidden from any cartographer’s eye. A mist gathered around her, and then solidified into the form of Count Markus.
“I remember your taste,” she said.
“My lady,” he bowed. “In a certain light, my mother.”
“How did you learn to control your hunger?”
“A man appeared to me and told me this secret: if I submitted to you willingly, I would not be overwhelmed by your blood.”
She pondered this for a moment. “I see. A woman
appeared to me once. It was she who gave me the power of the blood.” She regarded him in silence for a few moments. Something felt different about him. It was more than just his ability to control himself. His blood was different. “There is something more,” she finally said. “Malahkma’s presence within you is not alone. There is someone else.”
Markus shrugged. “I know not who this stranger was.”
“He is the root of your Covenant,” she concluded. “We are pawns in the gods’ games.”
“Perhaps. But it is a game I choose not to play. He has not reappeared to me.”
“Nor has Malahkma come back to me. She lives in my blood, and I love her for it.”
“I can feel her serpents in my blood, too.”
“But they are not alone,” she said again. “You have something else. I can sense your blood from here.”
Sidhna stepped forward, moving with preternatural swiftness. She took Markus’ shoulders and gazed deeply into his eyes. “I want to be sure,” she said.
Markus smiled and turned his head to the side, exposing his neck.
She opened her mouth and extended her fangs, biting into his skin. His blood flowed through her veins, filling Malahkma’s presence with a rich, dark undercurrent of something else.
Markus opened his mouth and extended his own fangs, moving to pierce her neck. She allowed him to bite her, and they held each other, drinking, completing a single circuit of blood in shared intercourse more intimate than any sexual union. She knew the name for the other presence in his blood. The serpent essence of Malahkma in her own gave her the goddess’s confirmation. Malahkma’s spirit was strong inside Sidhna, and her blood consumed the lingering taint of the foreign god, becoming pure again.
“Enough,” she pushed away from him first. Her mouth and chin were covered red in his blood, as was his face in hers. “You have been tricked by Yamosh. You must kill your daughter.”
“I cannot,” he stated. “She is my blood.”
“That means nothing now. We must have freedom of movement, and as long as noble blood sits upon the thrones it binds us. You must not hinder Malahkma’s purpose for me. I will spread over the land and undo all the works of the Dragons. Do not block my way. You must kill your daughter.”
“I will not,” he said. “I have already attained freedom with my Covenant.”
She hissed. “You allow Yamosh to use you in his game against my goddess.”
“And she doesn’t care about dragons,” he said. “She only wants to consume all peoples to become strong enough to rule the gods. She has confused you. You cannot cross borders because you don’t have the self-control to stop and think. You have no living servants that can bring boxes of your home soil into foreign lands. You have no forethought to twist their minds to surrendering to your rule. Kriegsholm has already shifted allegiance to my queen and expanded her borders, thereby expanding my home soil. Bring my Covenant to your lands, and we will both be stronger still.”
Her voice lowered to a deadly quiet. “You exist because of me. You will do my will.”
He stood back. “I am sorry,” he said. “You are Malahkma’s creature. I will not serve you or any god.”
She seized his neck in her right hand and pushed him to his knees. He grabbed her wrist with both his hands, but his strength was insignificant next to hers.
“Little worm,” she hissed. His eyes shown with sudden fear. “Malahkma raised me up, higher than you can ever know. Your freedom from Yamosh is a lie. You are nothing more than his creature, and Yamosh is as weak before Malahkma as you are to me. I do not question my goddess, but if she desires to consume the last of the dragon blood in this world, I will see it done. Your Covenant is in the way. I will tear you apart one by one.”
He dissolved away into mist, out of her grasp.
“No!” she screamed. “You will not escape me so easily!”
His mist receded across the ocean.
She let him go. She could not stop fog from flowing.
Count Markus was right. She had to find a way to cross borders if she were to find the seelie woman she had encountered at the top of Taer Iriliandrel. She rolled as a mist over the waters back onto the shores of Dragonholm.
25 - A Slip Into Shadow
The four companions travelled by foot, following the road on the west bank of Gods’ River south towards the Palanteen Mountains. The long river ensured a steady water supply against the dry air. Even though it was winter and the sun was pleasantly warm, its stare was unrelenting, and the dry sky continued to leach moisture from their bodies. At least the road was solid and made walking easy, and they weren’t trudging through the sand dunes that rose up beyond swaths of grass on either side of the river.
Kaldor didn’t know what awaited them on the way to Valkrage’s Vault, so he loaded a camel with supplies and trade goods for their journey. They bartered silks for money and provisions along the way, stopping overnight in small towns or joining merchant caravan camps for a meal.
“How are you doing?” Kaldor asked Oriand one day. Arda and Anuit walked behind a little ways, lost in their own private silences.
“I hear her voice less now,” she said. “I no longer pray and I feel alone.”
“So you no longer wish me dead?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m not convinced it is a good thing. I… I hate myself.”
Kaldor nodded sadly. He reached out and squeezed her hand. “It’s not me you’re thinking of killing, is it?” he asked.
She blinked and wiped moisture from her eyes. “No.”
“Oriand,” he said softly. “The same bargain applies. Give me a chance to show you there’s something to live for. Please give me some time before you give up on your own life.”
She sighed. “Of course.”
He had found her begging in the streets of Surafel, an exile from her jungle homeland. She had lost everything. When he saw her, a troll, out of place in this land, something prompted him to stop and help her.
He had always been a man of faith. When he was young, before awakening to the Dragon within him, he was almost fervent in his devotion to the gods of the Archurionite Church. After he opened to the Dragon’s memories, his understanding shifted, but he never lost his faith. Now he believed in the Light. Through Archurion he had been able to touch the Light directly, but that was gone now. He still had his magic. And his trust in the universe.
So when something had prompted him to speak to the lost woman, he did so. When their eyes met the first time, her face had lit with recognition and fury. She pulled a dagger and came at him. He was so caught off guard that she would have succeeded, but at the last moment, she dropped the blade, fell to his feet, and wept. He had pulled her back to her feet and taken her home with him, feeding and clothing her.
She had a goddess whispering lies into her ears, and it had been the goddess who recognized him. Oriand’s goddess wanted him dead, but he could not ascertain why. Oriand herself was closed on the matter, but she was clearly at war with her own convictions. Kaldor was surprised—he had never been the object of a god’s wrath before. Archurion had taken pains to ensure all the dragons fit into the mythos so as to explicitly avoid such a thing.
For some reason, Oriand blamed him, or at least the Archdragons, for the misery in her life. He had shown her compassion, and once he understood the source of her turmoil, he asked for a chance to prove that she didn’t want to follow her gods—that they were not who they claimed to be. Now her self-awareness had deepened, and he knew she finally realized it wasn’t him she wanted to kill. Understanding was progress, but he still had to get her to not want to end her own life.
Life…
A twinge of emotion pulsed through his heart. Graelyn had been Archurion’s mate. He remembered the pull towards Sidhna he had felt when they were young, discovering their destinies for the first time. Now he felt a great desire to meet this Aradma. She wasn’t Graelyn, and he wasn’t Archurion, at least not anymore. Nevertheless, he
was the last remnant of the Dragon of Light, and she the heart of the Dragon of Life.
“What made you so special?” Oriand suddenly asked. “Why you? Why did the Archdragons pick all of you? And why Aaron?”
Kaldor smiled softly. “It was an accident of birth, I suppose,” he said. “There are two paths to magical power in the world. There are those like me—wizards—who take the hard way of learning to construct and cast spells. Not everyone can do that—”
“You were chosen because you’re a wizard? There are other wizards in the world.”
“No,” he shook his head. “I’m getting to that. The other path to power is to channel one of the mystical elements—Dark, Light, Life, or Time. For you runewardens, the gods channel power for you, on your behalf, in response to your prayers. Then there are those like the two of them,” he thumbed over his shoulder towards Arda and Anuit. “They’re both channelers, able to directly tap into their respective elements. The twist is, you can’t learn to channel. You have to be given a link to the element. For Anuit, her link to the Dark comes from the first pact she made with a demon. For Arda, the paladin who initiated her into the Order established her link to the Light. Without that, they couldn’t touch those powers.
“There are few—very few—who are born with the natural ability to channel. It is rare in all races, except dragons. Even with a link, you need someone to teach you. Most natural channelers have weak links. Dragons are also natural wizards, and the Archdragons were the greatest of their kind. They forged direct links to the elements, becoming the first channelers in Ahmbren. Over time, their links grew so strong they became inseparable from the elements. The elements subsumed their beings and made them into something new. In a sense, they became avatars of the elements themselves.
“So Klrain created within himself a link to the Dark.” Kaldor shot a glance back over his shoulder towards Anuit. “The Dark isn’t evil in and of itself. Klrain wasn’t evil at first. All the elements contain both good and evil within them, even the Light. If I—I mean, Archurion—had been the one to fall, the Light would have consumed the world. If Graelyn had, Life would have strangled the world. If Eldrikura, Time might have unraveled the world…”
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 66