by GARY DARBY
I slash at the creature with all my might, hoping to land a death-blow, but at the last instant, it jerks up and away, leaving my sword to whistle through empty air.
My swing carries me around and I slip and slide in the ooze. Before I can regain my footing and right myself, the thing is at me again, darting downward with its barbed legs outstretched as if to grip and pin me to its body.
Frantic, I stumble back, swinging my blade at the monster. By luck, a sword edge catches the tips of the beast’s legs, severing several but not before two of its leg pincers from the other side slam into my body.
The barbs punch through my thin tunic and into flesh. Blistering pain stabs at me and I try to spin away, but the hooks are set into my skin, just as a fishhook pierces a fish’s jaw and it can’t get away.
Desperate, I hack away with Galondraig as the creature tries to get more of its leg barbs into me. Its jaws open wide, and its blade-sharp fangs spring out toward my face.
I swing Galondraig around, but instead of the blade edge slicing into the thing’s carapace, the flat of my sword slams into its head.
It jerks backward from my blow and with a downward cut I manage to slice off another leg. However, my frantic, wild blows set me off-balance and in the slippery mud, I go down with the monster on top of me.
The creature’s sheathed mouth is just above me, the maw opens and the scimitar-shaped fangs shoot out and down. I thrust upward with my blade just in time to block the deadly daggers.
The monster brings more of its legs into play until I’m pinned down by the hideous terror, unable to even raise my sword.
It rears back and curves its body as if to gather itself before it slams its fangs full-force into my body. The fiend’s eyes are cold, heartless, and I know I’m staring into death’s eyes.
Then, from one side, I hear a stomping, thudding sound as if giant feet are pounding through the mud. All of a sudden, the head of a huge dragon appears, its jaws wide open.
It chomps down on the centipede creature and tears it away.
The monstrosity’s barbs rip out of my body and clothing, taking flesh with them as the dragon flings the thing to one side. I roll away, afraid that the dragon will step on me as it rushes after the centipede.
The dragon growls and snarls as it picks up the creature between its jaws and with one bite crunches it in half. The two mangled and shredded pieces fall to the muddy ground where they quiver for several moments before going lifeless and still.
I stagger to my feet, somehow still holding onto Galondraig, and bring the blade up. The dragon turns its head to peer at me and I swallow.
I’m facing the most enormous scarlet dragon I’ve ever seen, even larger than Wind Boomer back in Draconstead.
The dragon twists around until it's facing me, and all I can think is that I’ve gone from one manner of dying to another.
With ponderous steps, it moves toward me and as it does, I realize that there is something very different with this dragon.
Where there should have been four horns protruding from his skull, there are only broken, jagged stubs as if they’d been cracked off at their base.
One of his eyes is missing, gouged out, leaving him blind in that eye, while a thick, pale yellow goo drains down one scaled cheek from the other.
His wings are mere shreds, ripped and torn, and hang from his body. One wing droops so low that it scrapes along in the black mud, creating a deep furrow in the muck.
Crimson scales that should have covered his body evenly are scarred and torn; some even look as though they’ve been burned clean off, if that’s even possible for a dragon, leaving his milky-white skin underneath exposed.
Instead of four, thick, stout legs ending in fierce talons, his legs are not much more than uneven stumps and only two have even one claw left.
Instead of a long, sinewy tail with spikes sharp and long enough to rip a Drach apart, his tail ends in a ragged, dirty stub as if it’s been severed in half.
The dragon keeps moving toward me, limping as it comes closer. I hold Galondraig out though I have serious doubts that it would do any good against even a battered crimson dragon such as the one that stands before me.
The brute stops, turns its good eye on me and stares.
I stare back, knowing that I should run, but also realizing that in the swamp’s sticky goo, I wouldn’t get far before the dragon would chase me down and do to me what it did to the now dead centipede thing.
Then, from one side, I hear the thudding footfalls of another dragon moving toward us through the haze. I’m caught between two dragons, and now, without doubt, I have no place to run.
While keeping Galondraig pointed at the battered scarlet, I turn my head toward the oncoming dragon.
Moments later, I see a huge, dark shape moving through the shadows, straight for me. My sword hand trembles a bit and I swallow hard, knowing that one or the other of these two dragons is going to kill me.
I thrust my hand into my tunic and my fingers clutch the gemstones. Frantic, I look around, trying to find anything green, anything resembling a living plant or bush, even a twig that I might be able to use the emerald on, and against these dragons.
The crimson dragon is between me and the one drooping, sad plant where Twinkle disappeared and where I stand there is nothing but bare, goopy mud.
My fingers wrap around the sapphire and I tug at it to bring it into the open. Just then, from the shadows, a gray shape moves into the small glade and I almost drop Galondraig in exuberant relief.
“Golden Wind!” I shout.
As fast as I can, I hobble over to her and throw my arms around her neck as far as I can. “Am I glad to see you,” I gush.
“And I you,” she returns.
From atop her head, Scamper chitters in anger at me. I hold up a hand to stop him. “Yes, I know I went away, but, believe me, it wasn’t of my choosing.”
I point a finger at him and order, “You stay up there, trust me when I say you don’t want to go snooping around here. Too many dangerous things lurk in this swamp, for sure.”
Turning, I point at the crimson dragon. “And there’s one of them, for starters.”
I peer around, but don’t see the rest of the company. “Where’s Cara, Phigby, the others?”
“They’ll be along in a bit,” she replies. “Wind Song and Glory will bring them to us, but first, there is a grave matter that we must address before they arrive.”
She walks forward until she’s a few paces from the crimson. The two eye each other for a moment, before the red bends down on his forelegs and bows its head so low to the golden that his muzzle scrapes mud.
“Hooper,” the golden calls over her shoulder, “please join us. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
I trudge forward until I’m next to the golden and turn a puzzled face up to her. “Hooper,” she says, “in the Gaelian tongue, this one’s name is Balgramr. In your language, it means Fire King.”
She turns and lowers her head until we’re eye to eye. “However, his Wilder name is Wind Raider.”
Drawing in a deep breath, she lets it out in a long sigh. “He is the Wilder crimson that destroyed your home, and killed your family.”
35
Stunned, dazed, in mind-numbing shock and disbelief, I stumble backward, the point of my blade dragging through the mud, leaving a deep gouge in the swamp ooze.
I try to breathe, but I can’t, as if some giant has his fingers around my throat and is squeezing so tight that no air can go in or out.
Then the agony and the suffering of that horrible night, of seeing the being responsible for the terror, the horrific deaths of my family, flood heart and mind, and I fully understand the meaning of, “the swamp of tormented souls,” for I’ve just become one of them.
Golden Wind swivels her head toward the crimson. “Balgramr has something to say to you. Because of the importance of this matter, it is permitted that you shall understand him in the same manner as you and I.”
The golden moves aside and the red takes a step towards me, lowers his head, and opens its mouth as if to speak.
“No!” I shout, but my yell is closer to a scream. “That murderer has nothing, absolutely nothing, to say to me, and there is nothing that I could ever possibly want to hear from him.”
I backpedal a few steps, my feet slipping in the mud, Galondraig up and pointed at the crimson. “Golden Wind, get that thing away from me, or so help me—”
“Hooper, stop!” The golden’s sharp outburst stops me in my tracks.
Standing with my blade wavering in front of me, my heart races and rage fills me from head to toe. My grip is so tight on my sword hilt that I can feel my arm trembling. “Is this why we’re here?” I sputter at the golden. “To find him? A murderer of innocents!”
“Not just to find him, Hooper,” the golden replies, “but also to help you find yourself, and Balgramr is part of that.”
“Help me find myself,” I snort. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m right here, facing my family’s killer, wondering why I haven’t taken my sword and slain the filthy thing.”
The golden swings around until she’s between me and the scarlet. “That you may do if that is your desire, but not until you’ve heard him speak.”
I breathe like a dog panting in the hot sun, but my eyes are cold like hard ice. It’s all I can do not to charge around Golden Wind and drive Galondraig over and over into the slayer of my loved ones.
The golden moves aside again. “Hear him speak, and then do what you will.”
The red raises its drooping head from the slimy mud. His voice is raspy, mournful, but he doesn’t look at me. Instead, his one good eye stares at the ground.
“There are no words that I can utter,” he begins, “no deeds that I can perform that will undo my actions of that night. All I can offer is for you to take my life, if in so doing, it will bring some semblance of comfort and closure to your own—and free me from this cursed existence.”
Balgramr takes several plodding, limping steps forward until he stands just in front of me. He bows his head low, offering to me the vulnerable soft spot that all dragons have in the top of their skulls.
The one place where a well-aimed arrow point, lance, or sword driven deep kills almost in an instant.
It’s all I can do to contain my rage, my fury. My pain is so deep it feels as if my very bones will crack and splinter from the anguish.
Snapping Galondraig up, I cock my arm back, ready to thrust forward with all my might to deliver the lethal blow when Golden Wind orders, “Hooper, stop!”
“But he—” I bawl, my lips and chin quivering in furious anger, the hot tears forming in my eyes as the horrific, scalding memories flood back into mind and soul. I hold my blade less than a hand’s length away from the crimson’s skull, the point aimed square at the death spot.
“I know who and what he is,” she returns, “but before you slay him, I said you must hear what he has to say. You must listen to the rest of the story of that night.”
“The rest?” I demand. “What more is there to tell? He killed my whole family in front of me, left me writhing in agony and afterward, a lifetime of pain and misery.”
She doesn’t answer me but turns to Balgramr and commands, “Tell him. All of it.”
The crimson dragon hesitates as if unwilling to obey the golden’s decree before the brute slumps down on all fours.
“I was once a Free Dragon,” he begins. “I roamed the skies, sailed above the clouds to bask in the sun’s rays. I let the wind carry me whither it would, and I was the master of my fate.”
He pauses and cringes as if his next words are painful. “Then one day that all came to an end when a Wilder party captured me.
“I fought, I battled, I raged against their chains, their ropes, and dragon lances. In the end, though I killed a whole phalanx, they lashed me down until I was unable to move.
“They starved me, kept water from me, tortured me, until I succumbed to their will and I became one of them, no longer a Free Dragon, but a Wilder dragon, a slave to their will and whim.”
He bowed his head even further. “It was Vay,” he all but whispers, “that ordered the slaying of your family. I don’t know how she came to know of them or where they hid, but she sent me and six others to carry out the task.”
He stopped speaking for so long that I thought his story was done before he rasped out, “She promised that if I did all that she ordered, she would give me my freedom, and I would no longer be a Wilder dragon.
“I would be free again, free to roam the skies, to set my talons whither I would, to greet the dawn on my own terms, and to live my life as I chose.
“All but myself carried riders, and the others were used to lure Pengillstorr and his sentinels away from the forest glen where your family cottage stood. Once they were away, I swept in and unleashed my dragon fire.”
If it were possible, his head drops even lower. He won’t, he can’t, bring his eyes up to meet mine.
“I saw your mother carry you to the window and push you out into the glade, away from the burning hut. I heard her scream for you to run. Then I saw her go back inside.”
My eyes are burning from tears of rage and anger. It takes every bit of willpower that I have not to drive Galondraig into the beast’s skull and be done with the foul creature.
Hesitating, he draws in a breath. “As I turned and unleashed the last of my fire, I saw you stumble away from the cottage. Your clothing was on fire, your flesh seared and your screams filled the night.”
He stops as if he can’t go on but then he lifts his eyes to gaze right at me. “For a while, I circled over you, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to kill you, to finish the task that Vay gave to me and to me alone.
“I’m not sure why, perhaps because my kind are meant to be warrior dragons and to fight others of my kind in combat, not to slay a small, helpless Drach child.
“After a bit, I saw Pengillstorr and the others returning and I flew away, leaving you to whatever fate was to be yours from that time forward. When I returned, I reported to Vay that I had done all that she had commanded.”
I swallow and let my sword point drop. “Wait, you told Vay that I was dead?”
The crimson nods in answer. “For many years, she believed my lie and thought that you were dead.”
His voice turns hard, bitter. “My lie was met by her lie. She didn’t free me. Instead, I went back to being a Wilder dragon.”
Growling, he says, “For my deed, she proclaimed me the Scarlet King of all Wilder dragons.”
His shoulders slump and his voice becomes little more than a whisper. “As if being the king of Wilder dragons would suffice for my freedom. Seasons passed, and somehow she found out that you still lived. How, I do not know.
“But when she discovered that you were alive and that I had deceived her . . .” his voice trails off before going on in a sad and dismal tone, “she did this to me and afterward cast me into the swamp, here to live out my miserable days. But now you’ve come, and by your blade, I shall be able to leave this place.”
I glance up at the golden, who returns my gaze with an impassive stare, and without a touch of emotion in her voice declares, “Now you are free to do what you think right, Hooper Menvoran. Nevertheless, before you do, remember that even in this place of darkness and misery, there can be sincere repentance, where hearts and minds can change—for the better, no matter their crime.”
I stare at the red dragon, who once again has let his head loll forward, exposing the death point.
As he told his story, the nightmare thoughts of that hellfire night flamed through my mind, searing my soul, my spirit, my very essence, again. Bringing my blade up, I let the hatred and fury engulf mind and body.
I cock my arm back to deliver the lethal blow but just as I do, Twinkle comes zipping from the gloom and places herself between my blade and the red dragon.
“Twinkle! Move!” I
snap.
Part of me is relieved to see that she is alive, the other part angry that she’s placed herself between this soulless creature and me just as I’m about to deliver the justice the brute deserves: death.
“Twinkle,” I growl, “go away.”
Instead of obeying me and joining the golden, she places herself at the very tip of my sword, its point against her little body. “Twinkle!” I bawl. “I said to get away.”
Just then, I hear the flapping of familiar wings. I don’t have to turn to know that Wind Song and Wind Glory have landed just beyond the golden.
At another time, I would have run for joy to greet my companions, but not this time. I don’t look back, but keep my eyes narrowed and hard, and my blade level, ready to thrust into the crimson dragon the instant Twinkle moves away.
Footsteps hurrying through the mud come to my ears and then Cara’s voice rings out, “Hooper! What are you doing? You’re going to hurt Twinkle.”
“Stay away,” I roar, “this is the crimson dragon that destroyed my family and left me looking like—like this and I’m going to kill it here and now.”
Cara’s gasp is quick and sharp at my outburst, but then she demands, standing close to my side, “All right, I understand, this is the dragon that did this to you, but why do you have your sword point against little Twinkle?”
“Because,” I yelp, “the stupid thing won’t get out of the way and let me kill this beast.”
“Hooper,” Cara pleads, “stop. Think about what you’re doing before you hurt Twinkle.”
“I have thought about it!” I bellow. “You get her away because she won’t listen to me.”
I feel a hand pressing down on my shoulder. “Hooper,” Phigby says, “I strongly suspect that Twinkle is indeed listening to every word you’re saying, it’s just that she’s not agreeing with your sentiments.”
His hand squeezes my shoulder. “Moreover, I have the feeling that you don’t really like or agree with what you’re considering either.”
“But Phigby,” I gurgle, my tears as hot as my anger, “this is the dragon that slew my family, killed everyone that I loved and left me scarred and ugly. How can I not kill it?”