by Toni Cox
“I did not expect your sister to be like this,” Maia mused as they made their way over to Midnight, who had landed once the other dragons had taken off.
“Like what?”
“She was so cold, so aggressive, when we first met. Totally shut off, I could not read her. She must get that from you. I expected us to fight along this journey.”
“You are both strong women. I would have been surprised if she simply accepted you in the beginning. As I am now surprised she has accepted you this quickly. Yet, I am not surprised at all, for you are alike in many ways. Siana also lives for her people. She is a great warrior, sworn to protect them, and she will rule over Elbendal one day, protecting them for the rest of her days. She can see that you want the same for your people.”
Talk too much. Dragons in the sky. Bad weather ahead.
They ran up Midnight’s leg and settled on the part that usually held his saddle. The space between the spikes wasn’t wide and, although Maia and Blaid could sit comfortably behind one another, the constant body contact during the long hours of flight started to wear on Maia.
As Midnight took to the air, thoughts of Siana were quickly forgotten as Maia concentrated on not letting Blaid feel her emotions. Instead, they discussed what they had heard the forest whisper.
It is difficult to decipher the language of the Rivens, Maia said, but from what I understood, there was an attack on a large habitation within a forest of Elder Trees.
Yes, that is what I understood, too. Do you think that meant the attack you witnessed when you shared your brother’s thoughts?
I am almost sure of it. I know of no other city within a forest of Elder Trees, although I have not heard the term used in a long time. In Grildor, we are so used to our trees, we do not see them as different. The trees in your mountains, standing hardly forty to fifty strides high, look stunted compared to ours.
Blaid chuckled. They are hardly small by any measure, but, yes, I know what you are saying. And, the trees along the Grildor-Bron Mountain Range are the largest Elder Trees I have ever seen. Especially those in Shadow Hall.
You have seen other Elder Trees? Maia asked, surprised.
You forget, I am a Death Elemental. Blaid reminded her. I went through similar training as you and I have seen all the Gates on our planet. Elder Trees grow in every country that is home to a Gate.
Maia laughed, the sound snatched away by the wind as soon as it left her lips.
You are right, of course. Like I said, I have not heard the term mentioned in a long time and I did not connect it with the Gates for a moment. But, we digress. What I meant to say was, from what I gathered, the habitation won the battle and killed the Vampyres. That means my brother must have succeeded. I only wish I knew how Silas was doing.
Have you tried to mind-link with your brother again?
Yes, several times. I know he is all right, but that is as far as it goes. I don’t think he is in any mental distress, otherwise I might be able to connect again.
And Silas? Do you not have a connection with him?
It is more tenuous. If we both concentrate on it at the same time, we are sometimes able to establish a link. I get nothing from him at the moment.
How about your children? You are blood related. There might be something there.
Strange feelings flooded through Maia at Blaid’s mention of her children. At once she knew they were safe, but that was not the reason for her discomfort. It suddenly dawned on her that Blaid was willing to marry her, even though she had children with another man, out of wedlock as per law on Elveron. Quickly, she hid the thought.
They are safe, she said, instead. Unfortunately, that is all I can tell.
It sounds like Shadow Hall has weathered the attack and the city is safe. Once we get back, we should concentrate on keeping the villages safe. If Midnight can communicate the plan to the wild dragons, then each of Siana’s warriors can lead a group of wild dragons into the country to root out the marauding Vampyres, until the armies have assembled and the Vampyres are ready to attack the Gate.
The dragons will comply, Midnight confirmed.
On they flew through the day. The mist dissolved under the morning sun and they could see the snowy landscape below. In the distance, storm clouds gathered. Maia and Blaid made the most of the clearer weather, discussing their thoughts, but by midday they reached the towering stack of dark clouds, roiling with thunder and lightning.
Maia felt Midnight tighten his hold on the hive mind and he guided the scale of Fire Dragons into the swirling mass of darkness before them. The temperature plummeted and Maia protected them by wrapping them in her bubble of air. She wished she could do the same for Siana and her men.
Although this time they did not have to contend with the air currents of the mountains, this blizzard was by far the worst they had encountered.
Battling winds of over two hundred miles an hour, the Fire Dragons eventually conceded defeat and Midnight guided them to earth, where they all huddled together - Midnight and the people in the middle - and rode out the storm until morning.
It took them longer to cross Serengate than expected. Bad weather plagued them and two days soon turned into four. Willing as the dragons were, they became restless and fighting broke out.
As they came in to land on the fourth day, close to a granite cliff surrounded by tall pines, two males squabbled over a roosting place along the cliff. It set of a chain reaction amongst the rest of the wild dragons and chaos ensued.
Once Midnight had dropped Maia and Blaid safely on the ground, he rose to restore order amongst the scale. Siana’s dragon riders managed to keep control over their dragons, but with difficulty.
“It is the weather,” Maia said to Siana. “Midnight explained that the Fire Dragons do not usually fly through lightning storms. They can, if they get caught in one, but rather avoid it. Because they have sworn allegiance to Midnight, they will not abandon him on his quest, but tensions are running high.”
“I can feel Vulkan quiver in fear every time we fly through one of those blizzards,” Siana agreed. “They are brave to carry on despite their fear.”
“It is not just fear. There is a real chance of danger; not just for them, but for us. Midnight told me that dragons do not get struck by lightning often, but with all our metal armour and weapons, the chances are much higher.”
“Let us hope, then, these storms end soon.”
“Unlikely,” Blaid added. “I have spent winters in Grildor and the Moon of Storms is yet upon us.”
“If the weather is to get worse, then maybe the rest of the Vampyres will leave the country. Or,” Siana hesitated, thinking, “maybe the reason they are still here is because they are stuck. Did you not say they did something to Greystone when they came through during the last war? Did they not topple the stones? What if the mechanism is faulty and those that are now attacking the cities are the ones that got left behind?”
“I was not there during the final hour of the battle when our warrior cleaned up the battlefield,” Maia said. “Neither was Blaid. My father never mentioned anything about Vampyres retreating through the Gate, only talked about the ones that escaped into the country. You may have a point. Shadow Hall, with assistance from the cities within Grildor, has been guarding the Greystone ever since and, as far as I know, none have come through there. Maybe we have been looking at this the wrong way. What if we are diverting all our forces towards a Gate that no longer needs protecting?”
“This becomes more complicated every time we speak of it,” Blaid said, running a hand through his thick, black hair. He looked tired.
“I cannot believe that your father and his Commanders have not asked these same questions,” Siana said. “I doubt Lord Longshadow would embark on a large scale campaign without knowing all the facts first.”
“You are probably right, Siana. It is only that he never discussed this with me.”
“Maia, from what you have told me, it was you who isolated yourself from m
ost of the war councils and any discussions with your father. Can you really say what he knows or doesn’t? Besides, who knows what he has learned after you left to find me.”
Maia clenched her jaw and took a deep breath. “You are right. We are assuming and speculating and it will lead to nothing but worry. Let us get home and find out what is happening before we make judgement.”
“Aye,” Blaid agreed.
Bright-Shining-Silver-Star! Your magic is required.
All three of them turned as the distress call sounded in their minds. During their discussion, the men had set up camp. Midnight had brought order to the dragons, now clinging peacefully to the cliffs above, painting the grey rock red.
To their left, however, some distance away, Midnight’s dark form rested close to the ground, one wing spread protectively over something they could not see. Cold washed over Maia from head to toe, before being replaced by a surge of adrenaline, which pumped her blood through her veins, heating her body. Her Life Elemental senses activated as she ran towards her dragon and his charge of a gravely injured Fire Dragon.
“So close to death,” Blaid whispered beside her.
For the first time, Maia felt his Death Elemental senses and she knew this was a race between life and death. Either of them could claim this dragon. They glanced at each other as they ran - not seeing the other, but only the Elemental beneath.
Midnight lifted his wing for them to pass. Siana slipped in with them, but stayed back, letting them work. The Fire Dragon lay broken near Midnight’s foreleg. One glance told Maia all she needed to know.
Two dragons had fought. Aerial assault. Bite marks, scratch marks, and lacerations from the tail. In the chaos from the scale coming in to roost along the cliffs, they must have struggled to find enough space to fly. This dragon had slammed into the cliff, broken a wing, and tumbled to the ground. Smacking the frozen earth after a fall from a hundred strides, the dragon had broken several more bones.
As Maia knelt beside him, she put her hands on his purplish hide and, concentrating, she felt for injuries she could not see.
“He is in so much pain,” Blaid said, agony in his voice. “He wants it to stop.”
“I can fix him.”
“It will only cause him more pain and his wing is beyond repair. He will never fly again. It would be a death sentence, anyway.”
“I can fix him!”
Let her work.
Focused on her task as she was, Maia did not think about the fact that Blaid had never seen her like this this before. He had not seen her heal Wolf after the Vampyre attack, had not seen her heal Midnight after the fight with the Ice Dragon. He only knew what was possible when working alone and, in his mind, there was nothing that could be done for this dragon.
Maia, however, knew differently and now, without thinking about it twice, asked Midnight for his assistance. The moment his energy mingled with hers, she knew the extent he had grown; especially during the last Moon. She shook as the energy vibrated through her and did not waste a moment of it.
Walking around the downed dragon, she set to work. Ignoring the strange, purplish glow all around her, she laid her hands on the dragon’s hide in all the places where he needed mending. She saw to the most life-threatening ones first, like the gushing gash across his chest. Then she moved on to the painful ones, mostly the various broken bones within his body.
All the while, Midnight held his soul connection with the Fire Dragon, easing his pain and calming him.
Lastly, Maia looked at the wing. It concerned her that the dragon felt no pain in this wing. Upon closer inspection, she found the humerus, the radius, and two phalanges broken, as well as a severed nerve within the wing joint.
A tear rolled down Maia’s cheek and a groan of frustration escaped her. Midnight growled, low and loud. The purple glow around them intensified to a blinding light contained only by Midnight’s black wings.
Shaking, Maia now took all the energy Midnight could give. She did not care what it did to her body. It could tear her apart as long as it would heal the dragon. Channelling the vast amount on energy took effort, however, and the sweat dripped off her as she worked, despite the freezing temperature.
In the back of her mind, she felt the four bones knit together as she sent some of the energy their way, but her main focus remained the wing joint. A small fracture had caused a bone splinter to break off, severing the nerve. Maia shuddered at the thought of the kind of impact it must have taken for something so sheltered to break. Hidden behind layers of muscle and plate armour, the wing joint lay protected within the scapula.
Delicately, she directed the energy towards the bone splinter and set it back into the fracture. It fused, harder than before. Then, closing her eyes tightly, she concentrated on finding the two loose ends of the nerve.
One had shot up towards the fracture of the humerus; the other had coiled up within the wing joint. Maia wished she could get her hands in there to pull them together, but cutting the dragon open would take too long and would probably cause him more harm than good.
Midnight did not let up on his energy, for she needed it all. Bones were easy to mend. Porous, simple material. Nerves, however, were the fibers that connected the brain to the body. Their structure was a complicated network of information pathways that needed to be connected in exactly the right way for them to function again.
Maia had done it before, just not with a nerve this large, or complicated. Only with Midnight’s assistance could she decipher the code of flight information the nerve transmitted to the wing and reconnect it the right way.
Pulling it, strand by strand, and with painstaking slowness, Maia bound the fibers back together. The purple glow around her intensified; she could now see it through her closed eyes. In her mind, the nerve glowed purple, too, as it knitted together.
Finally, with a shuddering sigh, Maia let go of Midnight’s energy. Midnight freed the dragon from his mind hold on him and Maia saw, just before she fell unconscious, the purple dragon stagger to his feet.
“I have never seen anything like it.” Maia heard Siana say as if from far away.
“To be honest, neither have I. But I have heard them speak about it; I just never imagined it to be anything like this.”
This voice belonged to Blaid and it stirred something within Maia. Her eyes fluttered.
“Maia.” Blaid cupped her face. “Maia, are you awake?”
She coughed.
“I am surprised she is even alive after that.”
“Shh, Siana, give her a moment.” Blaid took her hand. “Maia, wake up.”
“I’m a’ right,” Maia mumbled. “What happened?”
“You fainted. After you healed the dragon.”
Maia nodded. “I remember. How is he?”
Siana laughed and Maia looked beyond Blaid to find her.
“You may have made a new admirer,” Blaid’s sister said. “And so has Blaid. After the blinding glow faded and the dragon found his feet, the first thing he did was look for you. By then, you had already fainted and Blaid was trying to revive you. He stood watch over the two of you and would not let me or my men anywhere near you. Midnight only looked down on him with what I would call an indulgent look on his face. It was incredible.”
Maia frowned at her words, still a little foggy. She wasn’t sure if she understood correctly.
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Blaid confirmed. “He is right outside the tent. Only I can get near him. I had to sneak Siana in here while Midnight distracted the purple.”
“The purple?”
“As Fire Dragon’s go, this one’s hide has always had a purplish tinge to it, but after what you did to him, he now radiates the colour; much like Vulkan carries his red.”
Maia closed her eyes, mentally took Blaid’s hand, and then searched for the purple dragon, as unbelievable as that sounded. She gasped, for she did not have to search. The dragon’s mind hovered within the immediate space surrounding her own, as well as Blaid’
s, tethered to them by a connection akin to that between her and Midnight.
Maia staggered back, felt Siana’s strong arms steady her, but the dragon and Blaid remained right there with her. Deepest gratitude flooded her mind - a life-debt - and she knew the dragon would always remain a part of her life. She saw another bond, too. One between Blaid and the dragon. This bond was built out of respect, for in those moments when Maia had fainted and the dragon had wanted to protect her, Blaid had stood his ground.
Opening her eyes, she said, “He does, indeed, have a red-violet skin, and mind. Born of violence, a warrior, strong of heart, loyal and fierce. Over two hundred summers he has seen and his body is lithe and strong. I was going to name him Violence, but he seems to prefer Fury. As I already have a dragon of my own, Fury shall be yours, Blaid. Bonded as he is, he cannot go back to the wild dragons. It will be up to you now to look after him.”
Outside the tent, Fury screeched triumphantly. The wild dragons picked up the call and soon the cliff face reverberated with the calls of the dragons. Only Midnight’s mighty roar eventually stilled them.
Jagaer rated leaving Oberon as one of the most satisfying things he had ever done. That puffed-up, spineless Lord of the city did not deserve the loyalty of his people. Jagaer did not wish them any ill, but he wished never to return there.
News had reached Elders Hope just before their departure that there had been an attack on Shadow Hall. Their plan had been to return to Thala Yll, drop off the dragons, and ride back to Shadow Hall with their horses. Now, armed with the news of the attack, they were flying at full speed straight for home.
Knowing the speed of a pigeon, as well as the various delays a message could encounter, Jagaer knew that the fight was long over. Shadow Hall had either fallen to the enemy, or come out victorious. Yet, the nagging thought that they may be under siege never left his mind.
A blizzard forced them to make camp near the foothills of the most northern point of the Grildor-Bron Mountains within an hour’s flight of the Grildor border. Sheltering under a cliff, they did not make camp, but only used their dragons for warmth.