by ML Spencer
But it didn’t. In the end, the Eyana Eman was just a beautiful tapestry, and a beautiful story woven in a language that no amount of staring at would help him understand. Sighing, Aram turned away from his creation, disappointed that he had wasted precious hours for nothing.
He ate then went down to the infirmary, looking for Calise. When he didn’t find her there, he took the stairs to the Southern Eyrie, where the fighting Wing was preparing to depart for battle. He looked around the eyrie with an intense feeling of dread, fearing the risks of such a flight. Once again, his intuition was shrieking at him.
Distraught, he found Calise in the alcove she shared with Zandril, fixing bags of supplies to her dragon’s riding harness. When she saw him, Calise broke into a smile that quickly capsized to a frown.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“You’re coming with us?”
Tightening the strap she was working on, Calise straightened, rubbing the redness out of her hands. “Of course. I’m a healer. If there’s going to be a battle, that’s where I belong.”
Aram squeezed his lips together, despising that answer. He glanced nervously at Zandril, silently pleading with the dragon to talk some sense into her rider. But Zandril just answered with a purring rumble, chastising him for his interference. Aram scrubbed a hand roughly through his hair.
“They have sorcerers,” he said. “You can’t take Zandril down there.”
“You’re going down there.”
“Yes, well I’m—”
“Going to be in far more danger than I am.” Calise planted her hands on her hips.
There was a growing irritation in her eyes, and Aram knew his concern was making her upset. He didn’t want to make her mad, but he also didn’t want her to go. He glanced up at the ceiling, searching for a way he could convince her to stay.
In the end, he decided she was right. If there was going to be a battle, then that’s where they both belonged. He couldn’t ask her to stay behind and wait for him to return, because he knew that was her greatest fear, and he couldn’t do that to her.
His shoulders sagged in defeat. “Just promise me you’ll stay out of the battle.”
“Will you?”
Calise chortled a laugh, turning her back on him and moving to the other side of the alcove to grab her gear. She was wearing her riding leathers, the only outfit she owned that actually matched. Because of that, they didn’t look right on her.
She shouldered a large pack and, straightening, walked toward him with annoyance in her eyes. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about you.”
Aram licked his lips. “All right.” Backing out of her alcove, he stabbed a glance at Zandril. “Fly above the clouds.”
“Aram!”
He raised his hands. As he left, he shot a glare back at Zandril and pointed upward, shaking his finger. Then he turned and strode across the floor the eyrie, hurrying away. In the back of his mind, he felt somewhat comforted, for he knew the golden dragon would take heed.
By the time he returned to their eyrie, Markus was already there and geared up.
“Where have you been?” his Warden demanded, rushing forward. “People have been looking for you!”
“I had something I had to do.”
Aram cast a frustrated glance at the new tapestry on the wall, wondering if Markus had noticed it. He had wasted most of the day chasing a fancy. Even Agaroth was glowering at him, staring at him with accusing golden eyes.
“Well, hurry and get your gear on,” Markus said. “Bring it here. I’ll help you into it.”
Aram went and gathered the various components of his armor then stood still as Markus tightened all the buckles and straps that held it together.
“They want us to fly ahead of the Wings,” Markus informed him, cinching the final strap. “That way, if we run into a sorcerer, they’ll strike us first, and hopefully the rest will have a chance to scatter.”
“Hopefully?” Aram scowled in disdain. Scooping his sword up, he headed toward the terrace. “What then?”
Markus shrugged. “I don’t know.”
That was the problem. Aram didn’t know either. If there was a sorcerer anywhere between Skyhome and the Hills of Eranor, scattering the Wings wouldn’t do much to deter them, since all a sorcerer needed was line of sight.
He climbed onto Agaroth’s back, mulling over the problem. As the great dragon walked to the edge of the terrace and gathered its muscles, Aram took one last glance back at the tapestry he had braided.
Agaroth leapt from the terrace, unfurling his wings and catching the air. All throughout the length of the canyon, dragons rose from their terraces, taking flight like great flocks of birds. Aram stared at the breathtaking sight, having never seen the combined might of all the eyries together at once. There were hundreds of dragons of every color, many more than he would have ever believed.
Agaroth pumped his mighty wings, gaining speed to fly ahead of the rest, then soared low over the abyss, banking slightly as he followed the meandering path of the gorge. So great was his wingspan that it practically stretched the width of the canyon in some places. Markus and Siroth flew at his side, the others spread out behind them in a great wedge that filled the sky.
They followed the ridges of the mountains north and then turned west, chasing the sunset. The shadows lengthened as they flew over the high passes of the Kemeri Mountains, and by the time they reach the foothills of the plains, the sky had darkened, the sunset only a blood-colored streak on the horizon. As they leveled off over the grasslands, Aram glanced back, taking in the sight of the rising moon whose light would work against them.
He frowned, for the moonlight reflected off the wings of their dragons, making them very visible to anyone who might be in the air. Fortunately, he knew what to do about it. Reaching out with his mind, Aram wove a blanket of shadow that he cast above them, blocking the moon’s light. From the ground, the passage of the Wings would look like nothing more than a large patch of solid night unadorned by stars.
Below on the plains, he saw no signs of campfires. With luck, Kathrax’s armies were still a day behind, which would give them a chance to get ahead and dig in. All he saw between their position and the hills to the north-west was a vast tract of prairie unmarred by the presence of man.
A streak of light strobed the sky, followed by a crackle of thunder.
It hit the shadow-net first, tearing through the gossamer filaments. Before Aram could bind another, the lightning struck again. Behind them, a dragon let out a shriek as its wingmate dropped like a stone from the sky.
“Bank!” Aram cried, and Agaroth obeyed, turning on wing to fly back in the direction they’d come. But even as Aram scrambled to thicken his web of shadow, he knew it was useless, for he had to cast it too thin to be any real kind of barrier.
In front of him, a dragon exploded.
“NO!” he cried.
There had been no lightning. No thunder. Just blood, shock, and gore.
Aram’s stomach heaved, and he clamped his hand over his mouth to keep from vomiting.
This wasn’t working. He had to do something. The next dragon to fall might be Zandril. He brought Agaroth around, flying parallel to the Wings, his eyes searching the sky and ground for the source of the attacks. But the enemy sorcerers could be hidden anywhere, and he saw no sign of them.
Aram growled in frustration.
How had Raginor done it? How had he kept his dragons in the sky against the forces of the Archons? His mind groped through the panels of knotted cords he had tied and hung on his wall, desperate for an answer.
The strains of the ballad kept running through his mind. Suddenly, his eyes went wide, and he quoted a verse: “‘And he led the host in glorious raiment…’”
Glorious raiment…
That was the solution. All along, he’d been wrong. It wasn’t shadow they should be hiding behind, and he needn’t waste his energy covering up an enormous swath of sky.
“Fly back!” he ga
sped, and Agaroth wheeled again in the air, nearly dislodging him from his seat.
As they neared the vanguard of the Wing, Aram lifted his hands and started weaving. A golden light bloomed around Ansul Stroud’s dragon, brilliant and glimmering, a shroud of light that would reflect any energy thrown its way. As he flew down the length of their formation, one by one, dragons flickered ablaze with streaming rays of golden light.
Lightning struck, streaking up from the ground.
And yet, it accomplished nothing. The gleaming armor of the dragon it struck merely flared for a moment.
Exuberant, Aram turned Agaroth back toward the front of the Wing. They were halfway across the grassland by now, and it would be almost time to descend toward the rolling hills of Eranor. As Agaroth pulled abreast of Siroth, Markus turned and gave him a congratulatory smile. For just a moment, Aram closed his eyes and savored a euphoric feeling he had never experienced before:
Pride.
All his life, he’d considered himself a failure. A weakling. Different. Plagued with odd quirks and bewildered by simple life skills that seemed to come naturally to everyone but him. But he’d been wrong about all that. In the end, many of the things he’d always thought of as weaknesses had ended up being his strengths.
But his moment of validation didn’t last long.
Looking ahead, he saw why the prairie behind them had been empty. On the horizon came a scattered glow, the lights of thousands of campfires amassed before the rise of the Hills of Eranor.
The army of Kathrax was not behind them. It was ahead.
But hope was not lost, for the allied forces the Dedicants had promised them had arrived in the hills above them and held the higher ground. Though it was hard to determine their numbers from the sky, there seemed to be far fewer campfires in the hills than there were on the plain, which was worrisome.
They flew a wide circle around the enemy army and approached the Hills of Eranor from the north. Around him, wave after wave of dragons descended from the sky, alighting on the ridges of the treeless hills. Agaroth circled, looking for a place to land, and as he did, Aram got a good look at the Wellspring that was called the Heart of the Mother, a lake in the shape of a heart filled with blood-red water. Erupting from the center of the lake was the colossal statue of a woman. Red water wept down the statue’s surface in a way that made the woman appear to be bleeding from a thousand cuts. The statue was an Anchor—the Keystone Anchor—and he could feel the tension of the raw power it radiated.
They landed in a cleared area at the forward edge of the camp, where they were met by people who rushed forward to greet them, drawn by the spectacle of the great crimson dragon. To Aram’s surprise, the men and women who surrounded them looked to be of various ethnicities and cultures, as though they had come from all parts of the land. They probably had, he realized, thinking of all the Dedicants from the various nations he had met. The sight of so many people was uplifting, and yet he couldn’t help but wonder if their numbers would be enough.
Dismounting, he walked with Markus into the crowd. They had to fight their way through the throng as people clamored to get a better view, reaching out their hands toward Aram as he walked by, as though the mere touch of a Champion could bring them luck or fortitude.
It took them several minutes of struggling through the crowd to reach the command pavilions that had been erected on the edge of the hill, surrounded by pickets. The soldiers guarding the enclosure glared at them fiercely, until they recognized their uniforms. Then they stepped aside and went to their knees. Aram just nodded acknowledgement as he passed, for he knew of no appropriate response—or if there even was one.
When they arrived at the entrance to the command pavilion, they were met by a large group of officers gathered from the collected nations. They were joined by Stroud and Lorine, as well as Kedren Devarus, the Wingmaster of the Northern Eyrie.
“Welcome, Ansul,” said a woman clad in leathers, coming forward to give Wingmaster Stroud an affectionate hug before turning toward Aram and Markus. “Who do you bring with you?”
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Stroud said, raising his voice to address all the officers gathered in the pavilion. “May I introduce Champion Aramon Raythe and his Warden, Markus Galliar.”
Aram bowed to the assembled officers as he had seen Stroud do, Markus following suit. Names and ranks and affiliations were exchanged, though Aram paid them little mind. His attention was commanded by the view visible through the rear opening of the tent, which looked down upon the enemy encampment below on the plain.
A direct line of sight.
Aram felt his mouth go dry, the hairs on the back of his neck standing upright as all of his intuition screamed in alarm.
“We’re not safe here,” he said.
But nobody heard him, or at least no one listened, for the conversation around him didn’t falter.
There was a flash of light from far below.
“Get out!” Aram shouted.
Chapter Ninety-Four
He sensed it coming before he saw it: a dazzling wash of light that spread across the fabric of the tent, making the harsh, slanted shadows burn away in a torrent of brilliance. Aram threw his hands up in a desperate attempt to weave a barrier between them and whatever was coming, but something slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. A heavy body landed on top of him, driving the air from his lungs.
WHOOSH!
The world exploded.
The air turned to flame, filling his ears with the roar of fire and screams of agony. Though dazed, Aram got the sense that he was being smothered and then dragged, and no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t force his chest to move air. But then a weight shifted off him, and he heaved in a great, choking breath.
Shouts and screams came from every direction. Aram heard someone nearby shout, “Get back! Give him room!”
He tried to lift his head to look around, but all he could do was cough. Dark smoke thickened the air, moving over him like a storm cloud. He lay on his side with his knees drawn up to his chest. The screams around him faded, and the smell of cooking meat pervaded his awareness.
“Are you all right?” Markus asked. He was crouched over him, clutching Aram’s shoulders.
Aram nodded, drawing in a deep, wheezing breath. Trembling, he pushed himself upright and took in the scene of destruction around him. The command pavilion was gone, reduced to a smoldering pile. Bodies were strewn across the ground around it, most terribly burned. From what he could see, only he and Markus had escaped the interior relatively unscathed.
Spreading his arms, he saw that his dragon scale armor was undamaged—not even singed. “How…?”
“It was pure magic,” Markus said. “I Shielded you. But I couldn’t Shield anyone else.”
Aram’s eyes fell on the bodies nearest him, and he realized that one of them was Ansul Stroud. A terrible fear and sadness fell over him, for the eyries had lost yet another great leader. His eyes wandered the surrounding dead, wondering how many others had been slain.
Aram pushed himself to his feet and asked in a flat voice, “Who’s next in the chain of command?”
“You are,” said a gnarled man clad in flight leathers whom Aram didn’t recognize.
He froze as those words sank in. For a moment, all he could do was stare at the billowing smoke. He wasn’t a commander. He was young, and all of his training hadn’t prepared him for this level of responsibility. He knew how to tie knots and swing a sword, but he knew nothing of the logistics of maintaining an entire encampment or preparing for battle. His throat went dry, and at first, he couldn’t find his voice.
“Gather a detail to care for the dead,” he said at last, his eyes lingering on the body of Ansul Stroud. “Then find another place for us to meet further back. Out of sight of the plain.”
Men moved to carry out his orders. Markus walked with him toward the rim of the hill, drawn toward the sight of the enemy encampment far below. Somewhere down there was the sorc
erer who had flung that devastating projectile, and Aram didn’t doubt there were others. He scanned the enemy tents for minutes, wondering who and where they were. It could have been Sergan, for all he knew.
The sound of running footsteps made him turn just in time as Calise collided with him, hugging him fiercely. She stepped back just as quickly, looking over every inch of him. Her face was red and glimmering with sweat, her eyes wide and frantic.
“I’m fine,” Aram said, trying to reassure her, but for some reason, his words seemed to just make her angry.
“I’ll tell you if you’re fine,” she snapped. Her eyes narrowed, and she peered at him harder. After moments, she finally stepped back and let him go. Turning to Markus, she said, “Thank you for saving him.”
Under normal circumstances, Markus would have probably answered her with a joking dig at Aram, but now all he did was shrug wearily, his eyes dim and remote. Aram noticed that Markus’s face and armor were coated with soot, so much so that it was hard to see his features. Reaching up, he felt at his own face. If he was as grimy as Markus was, no wonder Calise looked so worried.
Reassured, she left him and ran to where the rest of the healers were caring for the wounded. She knelt first beside a charred form that Aram thought might have been Kedren Devarus, though it was impossible to tell. The man lay in a patch of trampled grass, moaning and twisting in agony. Calise pressed her fingers against his chest, and his thrashing stopped almost immediately.
Aram walked forward, watching in awe as the woman he loved wielded a powerful magic he couldn’t begin to understand. Instead of frantically groping at the air, she merely closed her eyes, her features softening, and let her aura flow into the ruined body beneath her hands. Aram moved closer, watching in fascination as the worst of the charring sloughed away from the man, revealing red, raw tissue underneath. The healing continued, the redness fading a bit, until the skin looked more scalded than burnt.
When Calise removed her hands, she was panting, her face bloodless. Aram started toward her, but Markus caught his arm. “She’s fine,” he said quietly into his ear. “Let her do her job.”