The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  The dragon lunged for the trio at the Slagstone mound, teeth stained red from Lence’s blood, her jaws spreading wider than Quarrah thought possible. Wide enough to hook all three big men at once.

  Quarrah flinched as the jaws came together, Raek and the Kranfels not even attempting to flee. But the dragon whipped her head back, growling some sound that Quarrah thought indicated pain. A hazy Barrier cloud arched over the men at the Slagstone mound like a protective dome. Raek must have detonated a pot as the dragon lunged for them.

  Angered, the sow recoiled before attempting another bite with her incredible jaws. This time, Quarrah saw the teeth strike the invisible perimeter and stop fast. A dragon could chew through rock and bone, but a cloud of Barrier Grit was its match for strength.

  The dragon withdrew, grunting once more. This time she swatted at the three Harvesters with a mighty foreleg. But even the huge sideways impact on the detonation cloud couldn’t cause it to budge. Despite the seemingly tangible perimeter, the Barrier Grit dome would stay exactly where it had been ignited.

  Suddenly, from the top of the hill, the hatchling Call pealed out again. Quarrah whirled in surprise as the grating shriek sounded. Ard had paused in the rocks just above her, but Quarrah didn’t see Nemery anywhere.

  Sparks! The girl was in the hut!

  Quarrah and Ard both began a desperate sprint to the small disguised stand. Now closer to the temporary structure, Quarrah could see the wide bell of the horn protruding out the front of the hut.

  The dragon, keying into the sound once again, spun a wide circle on the hillside, her tail spreading rocks in a massive spiral. The sow seemed confused, hearing the sound of the hatchling’s distress, but unable to locate the offspring.

  In a rage, the dragon leapt up the hill, bypassing Ard and Quarrah, and smashed into the nearest trees. The dragon’s guess was to the left of Nemery’s hut, but the space was cleared with startling speed. Entire trees came up by the roots, branches and timbers flying.

  The sow carried on her frenzied search, as Nemery continued to Call with barely a breath between blasts. Quarrah and Ard were both ignored by the angry beast at the moment, and advancing on Nemery’s location would only draw attention to her hidden instrument.

  “We have to get her out of there,” Ard said. “I want you to take Nemery and run down the valley as far as you can.”

  Before Quarrah could respond, the sow turned sharply, her tail swinging around like a hammer’s blow and striking into the disguised hut. Nemery’s hatchling Call was instantly silenced. As the tail swept away, Quarrah saw only rubble where the camouflaged structure had been.

  Ard cursed, lunging through the slippery rocks. But something new drew Quarrah’s attention skyward. A rush of wind, and a darkening above the trees.

  By the Homeland. It was another dragon!

  The new arrival was a close match in size to the first. The airborne beast immediately acknowledged the dragon demolishing the tree line, and she dove with a shriek.

  The physical impact of the two giant creatures sent Quarrah tumbling backward in a gust of hot wind. A scaly tail slammed the earth beside her, sending a shock wave through the stones.

  Quarrah gasped, crawling upward behind Ard, the feuding beasts each mistaking the other for the reason the hatchling had cried for help. What Nemery had just done would either save their lives or get them all eaten twice as fast.

  Ard reached the ruined hut, desperately flinging branches and boughs aside in search of the young girl. Quarrah helped him push aside the trunk of a fallen tree, noticing bits of bent metal that had surely belonged to the instrument.

  “Ardor!” The girl’s voice was faint, and Ard frantically pulled back a few thatched boughs to find Nemery lying on her back. “It hurts.” Quarrah saw blood all over her hands.

  “You’re going to be all right.” Ard dropped to his knees in the wet soil. He pushed away another branch, and Quarrah saw the wound. A stick had been pushed into Nemery’s leg, just above the knee. It was roughly the size of Quarrah’s index finger, and protruded like a broken spear, passing clean through.

  “You’re going to have to leave me behind.” Nemery was shaking terribly, her chin quivering as though she were freezing cold. “Like they did to Ulusal.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Ard said. “I’m getting you out of here if I have to carry you on my back.” He began tearing the fabric away from the injury. “I’m here for you, Nemery. ‘Two souls aligned in this journey. One to help the other. The other to help the one.’”

  Quarrah leaned forward, sure she had misheard him. Was Ard quoting Wayfarist scripture now?

  The girl smiled, but her eyes rolled back, her body finally still from the shaking. Ard glanced over his shoulder at Quarrah. “She’s going to make it home,” he said. “I’ve got to get her out of here, but that doesn’t make me much use in loading the Slagstone.”

  “I can do that,” Quarrah said. Outside the trees, the grating sounds of the sparring dragons raged on. Raek’s Barrier cloud would close in a few minutes. Quarrah wanted to be in position as soon as it did.

  “That was a brave thing she did.” Quarrah gestured to Nemery. Then she turned and sprinted back onto the exposed hillside.

  By the time she reached the Drift crate, it was raining again. Her dirty hair was matted and the rocks were treacherous underfoot. Quarrah found the latch on the crate and pulled open the door.

  “I’ve got a pot of Drift Grit we can use to load this,” Raek said as the Barrier cloud burned out. The three men had successfully removed the Dross, but it was now piled at their feet like a deadly mine. Could the force of a raindrop cause the Dross to explode?

  “Here.” Raek carefully stepped around the Slagstone and tossed a pot against the rocks. There was a quick spark, and Quarrah felt the sensation of weightlessness ripple past her.

  The Kranfel brothers seized the huge black Slagstone and tipped it up, trying to guide it as it drifted through the detonation cloud. The open side of the Drift crate was inside the cloud, but the back of the wooden box was grounded firmly outside the perimeter.

  Raek hopped over to the brothers as Quarrah held on to the edge of the crate. Bits of Dross were now afloat in the cloud, making it dangerous to maneuver without bumping them. Quarrah hoped she and the others were long gone by the time gravity returned and the highly explosive flakes fell earthward.

  Lining up the hovering Slagstone, the Kranfel brothers tried to load it into the Drift crate. It bumped once, twice, jarring the crate backward and nearly knocking it out of the cloud.

  “It’s too big,” Jip Kranfel said. “Gotta split it.”

  Raek cursed, but Quarrah could see that Jip was right. The Slagstone mound was slightly too long to fit into the crate.

  Lan floated out of the detonation cloud and jogged a few steps to where the tools had been dropped. He reentered the cloud a second later, with a hammer and slag pick in each hand.

  “Brace the crate from the outside,” Lan instructed.

  Quarrah followed Raek to the back of the crate, getting her feet under her as gravity returned outside the cloud. Side by side, Quarrah and Raek braced their shoulders against the wooden structure.

  The Kranfel brothers felt the ends of the Slagstone mound, running their hands along natural cracks and crevasses in the stone to find a weak spot. In a moment, they found what they were looking for.

  Wedging the heads of their slag picks into a fissure, Lan pulled one way, and Jip the other. They wrangled the picks back and forth, sparks showering with every movement. Using the hammer, they pounded the picks deeper, the tooth material of the points holding up well against the Slagstone. At last, Quarrah heard a resounding crack.

  The Kranfel brothers made some crude expression of victory, letting the splintered piece drift away. It wasn’t a very big fragment, maybe a foot wide and twice as tall. But it was just enough to allow Lan and Jip to slip the rest of the large lump into the Drift crate. The broken chunk followed, clatt
ering into the top of the box. Quarrah and Raek stopped bracing the backside, and the whole crate slipped out of the cloud.

  Quarrah sealed and latched the door while Raek loaded the hopper, using the ignition key to detonate a new cloud of Drift Grit inside the airtight crate.

  Quarrah glanced up to the tree line. There was no sign of Ard or Nemery. The dragons were still locked in combat, and their skirmish had led them downhill from the loaded Drift crate.

  “Let’s go!” Raek hoisted the front poles. Quarrah grabbed the back end, finding it no heavier than when it was empty. She heard the Slagstone mound rattling around inside the damp wooden box, throwing sparks with each little collision.

  They hadn’t gone ten steps when Quarrah heard Jip Kranfel shout for help. “Brother!”

  She turned to see the younger sibling still adrift in the detonation cloud, his arms and legs flailing uselessly with nothing to propel him. Lan had just touched down outside the Drift perimeter. But Quarrah saw the problem and realized there was nothing he could do.

  Two large flakes of Dross were drifting slowly toward one another, just out of Jip’s reach. He pointed to them, his eyes wide. And then the crusty pieces of explosive met.

  Quarrah felt a rush of air pummel her back, the exploding Dross reverberating like cannon fire. Lan was thrown uphill, but his younger brother was tossed with tremendous force down the rocky slope.

  Jip slid down the scree, into the direct path of the fighting dragons. One of the sows broke away, her foreleg coming down to pin Jip before he could rise. She threw him as the second dragon moved in. Jip’s body hurtled through the air, smashing into the cliff face with bone-shattering force.

  Lan belted a scream of rage, sprinting down the hill toward his younger brother. He slipped on the wet rocks, tumbling as the enraged dragons snapped at him. The first sow missed, her jaws picking up loose stones.

  Lan righted himself, clutching the slag pick with both hands, and thrust upward as the second dragon struck. The pick’s head, fashioned from a dragon’s tooth, pierced the scales of the beast’s neck and drove into the flesh with a spray of black blood. The handle of the pick snapped from the force, and the dragon’s head slammed down on Lan Kranfel. He crumpled, and the first dragon knocked aside the second, scooping his broken body into her jaws and swallowing him whole.

  It all happened so fast. Quarrah stood stunned until Raek pulled the Drift crate forward again. Her feet seemed numb. Lence, Jip, Lan, Moroy. Was everyone going to die here? How would any of them escape this valley of terror?

  Behind her, the dragons were fighting again, the injured one clearly unable to match her previous fury. Their battle was inseparable from a hot wind racing across the slope. Quarrah was sweating. They had almost reached the bottom. From there it would be an easy sprint on level ground along the base of the cliff until they reached the trees.

  A gunshot sounded across the scree. It was followed immediately by a thundering boom. The ground seemed to lift beneath Quarrah’s feet as stones pelted into her back. She was thrown away from the Drift crate, skittering down the last bit of the slope to rest against a smooth boulder.

  Her vision was spinning, stars circling in her peripheral vision. What kind of explosion was that? Her ears felt like they were bleeding. And who was shooting? Quarrah looked up and saw Ard sprinting toward her, a look of panic on his face.

  Something hit the ground beside Quarrah, and the familiar haziness of a Barrier cloud sprang up around her. Ard faltered for a moment. He said something that she couldn’t hear. Their eyes locked.

  Then he broke away, picking up the rear of the toppled Drift crate. Ard and Raek ran, the crate rattling with its weightless payload. He was leaving her there!

  Quarrah heard voices through the ringing in her ears. Urgent shouting. The king’s Harvesters were coming.

  In that moment, Quarrah knew there would be no rescue. She wasn’t worth the risk. Tanalin was here.

  Of course Ard was running.

  I can only imagine the kind of devastation those jaws could wreak. Homeland see that I stay downwind long enough to complete my task.

  CHAPTER

  31

  It was dawn, but Ardor Benn had not even lain down. The first six hours of the night had been spent running. His hands were blistered and raw from the poles of the Drift crate he and Raek had been carrying, and Ard’s head was pounding.

  Nemery was alive, but her condition was worsening. Ard regretted having used his Health Grit at the crash site when the girl could obviously benefit from the detonation. And Raek’s allotment had been left behind in his pack.

  Ard had removed the stick from Nemery’s leg and used his shirt and belt to make a tight bandage to staunch the bleeding. There was no way the girl could walk, so Ard lashed her to the top of the Drift crate and they carried her through the forest. She was small, but her added weight to their load was painfully noticeable.

  They had to stop every ten minutes or so and reload the Drift crate hopper. Raek had tried using Prolonging Grit, but its effect gradually decreased the potency of the Drift. As a result, the weight of the Slagstone increased, coupled with the natural weight of Nemery and the crate, becoming simply too heavy to maneuver at any significant speed.

  As a result, they were nearly out of Drift Grit when they finally arrived at North Pointe in the dark hours just before dawn. Surprisingly, Moroy Peng was waiting for them. Apparently, the man had survived the dragon’s attack and fled during the chaos of the second dragon’s arrival. He barely had a scratch, and his trained running legs had carried him to the rendezvous point much faster than Ard and Raek.

  But Quarrah was gone. Taken by the king’s Harvesters.

  They had opened fire, a Fielder ball striking a pile of discarded Dross. The explosion had been huge, blasting a crater in the hillside and showering bits of stone like hail.

  Quarrah had been thrown by the explosion, and before Ard could reach her, a crossbow bolt loaded with Barrier Grit struck the stones, trapping Quarrah at the base of the cliff. Ard told himself that the Harvesters needed Quarrah alive for questioning. Otherwise they would have used a Roller.

  Ard felt a swell of anxiety. Tanalin questioning Quarrah. There was no favorable ending to that scenario.

  “Ardor!” Nemery suddenly called. Ard raced to her side, dropping to his knees in the soft gathering of vegetation he had pulled together for her bed. He had placed her very near the shoreline cliff to allow the ocean breeze to wash over her.

  The girl’s face was sweaty and her dark skin looked pale. Sparks, she needed Health Grit and a legitimate healer. Still, it was good that she was awake. Nemery hadn’t stirred since he laid her down nearly three hours ago.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Thirsty,” she mumbled. Ard retrieved his water skin and uncorked it. Nemery took it from his hands, tipping it back and nearly draining the vessel.

  “Are they coming?” she whispered.

  “The king’s Harvesters?” Ard took the skin back and replaced the cork.

  Nemery shook her head. “The pirates.”

  Ard looked over the vast horizon of water. From here, it seemed like it went on forever. Like Pekal was the only island in the archipelago.

  “They’re on their way to get us now.” Ard hadn’t spotted the escape vessel yet, but Raek had lit the flare. If the pirates had been waiting at the ten-mile line, then they were probably already making their way to North Pointe.

  Nemery closed her eyes. “I don’t think I’ll be leaving with you.”

  Ard touched her hand. “Why would you say that?”

  She shrugged. “Just an Urging from the Homeland, I guess.”

  “The Homeland would never Urge you to stay on Pekal,” replied Ard. “It’s too dangerous. Even for someone with your talents.” This made Nemery smile, so Ard continued to bolster her with praise. “I’m serious. You saved us back there. If you hadn’t thought to Call in that second dragon, the first one would have killed us all.�
�� He squinted at her in mock suspicion. “I thought your master told you not to bother learning that Call. The hatchling in distress.”

  “He did,” Nemery admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I listened to him.”

  “Get some rest,” Ard said. “I’ll wake you when the ship arrives.” Nemery didn’t protest, lying her head back against Ard’s bundled coat.

  Ard turned his attention to the tip of North Pointe, where Raek crouched, tinkering with the flare. Ard sighed heavily and then strode out to meet him, watching his step on the dangerous ascent.

  North Pointe was a craggy peninsula of rock, jutting out from the northeast corner of Pekal like a pointing finger. It was at most thirty feet wide but extended some fifty yards. The rocks were naturally chiseled like a rugged staircase, reaching upward as it stretched away from the island.

  North Pointe was an excellent place to display a signal, its tip standing more than a hundred feet above the InterIsland Waters. As Ard drew closer, Raek stood, striking his ignitor and sending a fresh streamer of light blaring off the tip of the narrow peninsula.

  They’d been burning the flare since they’d arrived, getting a few hours of glow before the sun came peeking up. The flare was usually fueled by a mix of Light Grit and Prolonging Grit. Now that the sunrise was competing for brightness, it looked like Raek had replaced the Prolonging Grit with Compounding. The signal now burned so brightly that Ard couldn’t stand to look directly at it. But without the Prolonging effect, Raek would have to reload every ten minutes or so. They’d burn up their remaining Light Grit in a hurry.

  “Think they’ll see it?” Ard asked, coming up behind Raek.

  The big man didn’t turn from where he stood looking out over the ocean. “They already have.” He held out a spyglass.

  Ard stepped up to the highest rock, taking the magnifier from his friend’s hand. Raek pointed and Ard peered through the lens, slowly strafing the horizon. He saw the ship, its prow turned directly toward Pekal.