by ML Spencer
In the back of Aram’s mind, he felt a familiar stirring, one he remembered from his tortured dreams. Here again was the comforting presence, the guardian who had stood between him and his nightmares day after day. It was this dragon’s presence in his mind that had brought him back from the hell that had imprisoned him.
“I can feel her,” he said wonderingly, knowing that the stirring he felt was Zandril’s soul touching his.
Immediately, he felt the dragon’s surprise, and he got the impression that she recognized in him a strength that surpassed anything she had ever sensed before in a human. Suddenly self-conscious, Aram pulled his mind back from the dragon’s touch, an action that left him feeling dizzy. He closed his eyes and stood quietly for a moment with his hand on his brow, collecting himself. When he opened them again, he realized that every dragon in the eyrie was looking at him, every great, golden eye staring at him with a mixture of respect and curiosity.
Looking bewildered by the dragons’ behavior, Vandra contemplated Aram with a thoughtful frown. She stood for a moment staring at him, at last nodding slightly, as though in answer to an unspoken question.
“Let’s get you in the air,” she said.
Aram felt a moment of panic. “I don’t know how to ride a dragon.”
Calise took his arm, guiding him toward Zandril’s back. “She won’t let you fall. All you need to do is trust her.”
Once again, Aram could feel Zandril’s presence in his mind, seeking to reassure him. Aram paused before her, hesitant. She crouched, lowering her body to the ground in an effort to make her back more accessible to mount. Her chest and belly were encircled by leather straps that formed some kind of harness, though there was no saddle.
“You need this,” Calise said, and unbuckled the belt she wore, which was dripping with other straps attached to it. She buckled it around his waist then helped him with the other straps that girthed his thighs. “This keeps you on her back. When you get up there, just buckle yourself to her harness straps.” She smiled, stepping back.
“Let’s go.” Vandra motioned him forward. “We’re wasting time.”
Aram started toward Zandril but paused, quickly realizing that mounting a dragon was a lot different from mounting a horse. Zandril offered her leg, which he used to help pull himself over her back, gritting his teeth as the motion jostled his bruised rib. Once up, he sat for a moment, feeling somewhat light-headed, before searching for the straps to buckle himself into her harness. Zandril lurched as she rose, a motion that send Aram’s stomach into a plunge.
“Hang on to her spine,” Calise suggested.
Heart pounding, Aram caught a hold of one of the stiff brown spines on the crest of the dragon’s neck, tightening his legs around her body the way he would if riding a horse. He could feel her muscles rippling beneath him, the even tide of her breath, and the warmth of her internal fire. The moment he was stable, Zandril moved forward, stalking like a panther toward the mouth of the eyrie.
Vandra turned and jogged across the cavern to where a large brown dragon waited. Without pause, she climbed onto its back, and the dragon rose and sprang forward, bounding toward the mouth of the cave.
Zandril halted, letting the brown dragon surge past them and take a running leap off the end of the terrace. Aram gasped as the dragon unfolded its wings and caught the air, soaring upward above the cliffs.
As soon as Vandra’s dragon took flight, Zandril sprang after it. Aram panicked, not ready to be cast off the edge of the cliff, terrified he would fall from the dragon’s back. But then he felt a calming presence in his mind as Zandril sensed his fear and tried to reassure him, filling him with the certitude that she would never let him fall.
Reaching the end of the terrace, she cast herself off and dropped downward into the gorge. Aram felt his stomach plunge, icy wind whipping his face and clawing tears from his eyes. Reflexively, he gripped the dragon’s back with his legs, hands locked on Zandril’s spine. But his terror lasted only a second, for Zandril unfolded her graceful wings and caught the air, breaking from the dive and soaring upward. Within seconds, all of Aram’s fear had melted away, leaving him breathless.
He was flying.
Aram smiled in thrilled wonder as they sailed out over the abyss of the gorge, a great fissure between the mountains that ran for miles, opening into a dark crack that looked to have no bottom. Ahead, Vandra’s brown dragon soared with neck and wings outstretched, riding the updrafts of air above the canyon. Vandra rode with her body leaned forward, pressed against her dragon’s neck. Aram imitated her posture, crouching low. Fear forgotten, he closed his eyes and reveled in the exhilaration of dragonflight.
Dipping a wing, Zandril banked, following the rolling foothills of the mountains and soaring out over a verdant grassland beyond. Below, their shadows raced over the ground beneath them, perfect silhouettes against the waves of tall grass. They followed Vandra’s dragon as it dipped lower, until they skimmed the ground, Zandril’s wingtips almost parting the grass.
Startled, a flock of large white birds took wing beneath them, flushed by the shadows of the dragons, which must have looked like two great eagles stooping upon them from above. They continued for miles, soaring over the prairie, which unfolded before them like a great, rolling expanse of ocean.
Vandra’s dragon slowed its flight, angling toward the ground. Right before they collided with the grass, it reared in the air with a mighty backstroke of its wings, Zandril following suit. Together, the two dragons alighted on the ground in the middle of the open grassland.
As soon as they landed, people gathered around them, seeming to appear right out of the grass. It took Aram a moment to realize that what he had thought were rolling hills were actually sod houses, their walls and roofs green with new sprouts. The sight made him think of his old home in the fishing village of Anai, with its sod roof and the goat that was always getting up there, the one he had to catch practically every day and bring back down.
Sliding off Zandril’s back, Aram paused to stroke her neck, silently thanking her for the exhilarating flight, an experience he knew he would treasure amongst his most precious memories. Seeing that Vandra was already on the ground, greeting the small group of villagers, he hurried to catch up with her.
The people who came out of the huts to gather around them appeared to be in mourning. More than a few stood off to the side, clutching each other with consoling hugs. The two men who approached them first had faces set with lines of rage, their eyes red with emotion. Vandra brought her hand up to her brow in greeting, the others returning the gesture.
“Wingmaster Vandra,” said the taller of the two, a man with a red scar on his face and long, unbound hair. “Thank you for coming. It’s awful.”
“Who would do such a thing?” demanded an old woman who stood behind him, her voice cracking with sorrow.
“Find them!” said another man who clutched a tall spear. “No matter what you have to do. Find the sick bastards who did this!”
“We’ll do everything in our power,” Vandra assured them, her voice somehow firm and consoling at the same time. She glanced around at the small crowd that had gathered around them, raising her hands in reassurance. “Such a crime will not be tolerated. Whoever did this will be brought to justice.”
To Aram, the magnitude of grief the people of this village displayed seemed disproportionate, as though their own children had been slain. He sympathized with them, for he’d been very attached to a few of the horses about town, especially the old gray carthorse that had belonged to Mister Hanary. But yet, these were still horses that had been slain, not people. He did not understand the depths of grief in the eyes of the villagers, and he wondered if there was something he was missing.
He felt Vandra’s hand come to rest on his shoulder.
When he glanced up, Vandra nodded in the direction of something behind him, and Aram turned to look.
And froze, his breath hitching in his throat.
Behind him stood
two large horses the color of truest gold, their manes and tails impossibly long and lush, the color of spun platinum. A silvery aura shone from their bodies, and in their eyes, Aram saw something truly arresting to behold:
Majesty.
These were not mere horses.
They were Elesium.
Chapter Forty
The two Elesium stood a distance away and simply regarded them. At the sight of the great horses, the people of the village stopped and stood still, bowing their heads in deference. Even Vandra inclined her head and brought a hand to her chest, her face sad and solemn. Aram followed suit, for he saw how the Elesium transcended the mundane. They were not mere animals, but creatures of purest spirit, just as Esmir had said.
The larger of the two horses, a mighty stallion, tossed its head and started forward, approaching them at a stately pace. The stallion was roughly the size of a destrier, though far more striking. Its graceful neck was proudly arched, and its dark eyes were somber and sorrowful. The Elesium stopped before Vandra and Aram, regarding them intensely through thick strands of its long forelock, which spilled between its ears and fell forward over its face. The stallion stood before them for a long moment, then lowered its head and pressed its forehead against Aram’s chest.
Awestruck, Aram stroked the stallion’s silken head. As he did, he felt a profound stirring deep within his soul. As with the dragon, he felt an immediate connection with this great animal, and he could feel the magnitude of the Elesium’s anger and grief as though they were his own. An image came to his mind, one of dark, sinister creatures swooping out of the night with riders that leapt from their backs. The vision faded, leaving Aram with a choking sadness. The stallion pulled away, turning to stride back toward its companion.
Aram whispered, “They came on dragons. They came from the north.”
Exclamations of anger and surprise rose from the people surrounding them. The man who had spoken to Vandra frowned deeply, staring at Aram in dismay. “Who is he?”
The Wingmaster set a hand on Aram shoulder. “Dedicant Mandrel, I would like you to meet Aram. I brought him with me to read the strands. Aram is a True Savant.”
There was a collective cry from the people surrounding them.
Mandrel exclaimed, “Father of Horses! Will he be a Champion?”
“Only time will tell.” Vandra removed her hand from Aram shoulder, gazing down at him thoughtfully. In her eyes, Aram thought he detected a heavy weight of doubt.
Mandrel came toward him and took Aram by the shoulders. His eyes burned fierce, and his face contained the feverish intensity of a zealot. His strong fingers gripped Aram with all the ferocity of grief, and he rasped, “Find them! Find who did this!”
Aram swallowed, not sure how to respond. He glanced at Vandra for direction. When none came, he whispered, “I’ll try, sir.”
Mandrel nodded, letting go of him. “Come. They will lead us there.”
Aram followed Vandra and the old man to the far side of the village, where a small herd of rugged brown horses stood grazing. These looked the same as any other horses Aram had ever seen, though all had long white blazes on their faces and four white socks on their feet. They looked exceptionally well cared for, their manes braided and tied with ribbons, their coats clean and glossy, as though curried regularly.
Without pause, Mandrel leapt onto the back of a stallion that stood bareback and bridleless. Vandra pulled herself onto the back of a grazing horse whose only reaction to its new rider was an irritated swish of its tail. Aram picked out a small mare that seemed gentle enough. Even so, it took him several attempts and much embarrassment to climb onto her back.
Without prompting, their mounts raised their heads and started forward in a single line, trotting past the sod huts of the village, toward where the golden Elesium awaited, silver manes and tails rippling in the wind. As they approached, the two great horses turned and waded into the tall prairie grass. Aram’s horse fell in behind Vandra’s, while Mandrel’s stallion brought up the rear. Aram thought that odd. He would have expected Mandrel to lead, for he knew the way and seemed to have great status among his people. But, apparently, a Wingmaster of the Eyries had more.
They rode for a few leagues out into the open prairie, the breeze waving the tides of grass around them like the swells of an ocean. Large eagles with enormous wingspans wheeled overhead, and every once in a while, a grazing antelope would shoot its head up and freeze at the sight of them.
Eventually, their mounts slowed and lowered their heads. Their gait became laborious, as though some great weight bore down upon them. Ahead, Aram made out the golden forms of six Elesium, all standing together in a circle, each facing the center of the ring.
Vandra’s horse stopped well back from them, and she dismounted and stood waiting for Aram and Mandrel. Aram slid off his horse and approached Vandra cautiously. The two great horses who had led them to this place walked forward, heads lowered, to join the others of their kind. Only then did Aram notice that the breeze had stopped and even the sounds of birds had ceased. The air around them was still, suffused with a profound sense of solemnity.
As he walked at Vandra’s side toward the circle of Elesium, Aram found himself holding his breath in fearful anticipation of what they would find. When they neared, Vandra drew up with a gasp, her body stiffening. Aram’s heart froze, stunned by the horror of the sight that confronted them.
Three Elesium lay slaughtered upon the grass: two adults and a foal. Their brown blood drenched the ground, their bodies ravaged and dismembered. All three had been gutted and the meat stripped from their bones—not by animals, but by the knives of men.
Aram gazed upon the scene with a tremendous sense of loss and dismay, for he understood the terrible significance of what had occurred here. This was far more than the slaying of a few horses; a grave insult had been dealt to the wonder and dignity of the world. This was far more than just murder. This was a travesty, a crime against nature itself.
He sank to the ground and knelt there, head bowed, hands sunken into the blood-wet grass. A desperate impulse came over him, the need to understand what had happened here. It spurred him forward, and he could do nothing but obey. On hands and knees, he crawled forward through the filth and the blood, until he knelt beside the body of the slain stallion. Eyes moist with tears, he leaned forward and hugged the stallion’s great, muscular neck. As he did, something deep within him stirred awake.
All around him, the strands of the world came alive and filled his vision like the vibrant threads of a tapestry. He was used to feeling the subtle vibrations in the strands, the kind made by every creature in the world and every circumstance, so elusive that they usually passed beneath his notice. But what had happened here had been like punching a hole through the pattern of the web, ripping the strands right out of it. The magnitude of horror dealt here had left an indelible mark upon the warp and weft of the world.
As Aram stroked the stallion’s blood-matted hair, bits of visions started coming to him. Closing his eyes, he looked out upon the moon-fed prairie as though through the eyes of another. What he saw made him cry out in grief and dismay. He clenched his hands into fists around the stallion’s mane, forcing himself to suffer the visions without pulling away. For a moment, it was as though he saw through the eyes of the dead stallion, experiencing the last brutal moments of its life as it lay bleeding out in the grass, watching the two creatures it loved more than life murdered before its eyes. Overcome with anguish, Aram threw back his head and let out a wailing moan.
He didn’t hear Vandra coming up behind him, but suddenly the Wingmaster was there, crouching at his side. In a trembling voice, he told her, “There were two men. And something else—I don’t know what to call it. They came on dragons. They captured one of the foals…”
His voice faltered as a part of him that had slept all his life came fiercely, violently awake. “‘Their name is Betrayal!’” he gasped. “They did this! The Disavowed!”
W
ith a sob, he bowed forward over the neck of the stallion, weeping like a child. He barely felt Vandra’s hand on his back, the gesture giving him little comfort.
“Thank you, Aram,” she said softly. “That’s what we needed to know.” Standing, she turned to Mandrel. “Ask the Elesium if they would move into the mouth of the gorge for now, where our Wings can watch over them.”
Cheeks moistened by grief, Mandrel looked around at the circle of mourning horses. “They will not go. They are proud.”
“Try to convince them,” Vandra said.
Taking Aram by the arm, she drew him upright. Aram stood with his head bowed, feeling hollow and broken. He wished he could say some words of condolence to the Elesium surrounding them, but he knew that any expression of sympathy would be grossly inadequate. There was only one thing he could say that would make any difference to the great souls gathered there in mourning.
“If I survive the Trials, I’ll find them,” he swore, though he didn’t know how he could fulfill such a promise. He was weak and unskilled, and he knew very little of the world he found himself in. Nevertheless, he was profoundly moved, and he knew he had to do something.
Mandrel came forward and took Aram into his arms, embracing him tightly. “Thank you,” he whispered. “You have the heart and spirit of a Champion. I can only pray that you have the strength to match.”
Wiping his eyes, Aram muttered, “I hope so too.”
The man kissed him on the cheek, then drew away. As Aram stood collecting himself, one of the great horses came forward and pressed its head up against him. He could feel its gratitude and its faith in him, a faith he knew he didn’t deserve. When the stallion withdrew, the entire herd turned and walked away, wading back into the tall grass of the prairie.
Aram stared after them, stricken by wonder and horror and quivering in trepidation over the commitment he had just made.