“The celestial powers are failing,” Udug assures her.
Out of spite, Asag heaves a stone the size of my head at the moon, as though to knock it from its velvet curtain. His throw falls short, and he grumbles. I am less than ten paces from the cover of the forest when Edimmu tastes the air with her tongues.
“What’sss thisssss?” she asks.
Lilu sniffs, her neck gills flaring like nostrils. Her fish eyes roam to me. “It smells like . . . like us. Only is rotten.”
“She’s an offspring of Enlil,” Udug explains. “Kur wants her preserved.”
Asag answers, his voice a cavernous rumble. “You were supposed to bleed the light out of her before master arrives.”
Blue flames ignite in Udug’s hands. “We have time.”
Asag picks up a hefty rock along the shore and hurls it at me. I leap out of its way and blast a heatwave at him. It feels good to have my abilities back. My fire strikes his chest and disperses. He sustains a small scorch mark.
I rise from my crouch. Uh-oh.
Edimmu unrolls her long tongues and flicks the air between us like a whip. A powerful gust throws me backward into the trees. I hit a log hard. When I look up, unblinking fish eyes stare down at me. Lilu grabs me with slimy hands. My veins lurch, tangling and knotting painfully.
“I’ll leech the rotten light out of you,” Lilu says, her voice a watery gurgle.
I buck in agony as she coaxes out my blood. Droplets bead from my pores, draining my strength. I suffered this once. Never again.
I scorch my fire at her, through her scaly skin. Lilu shrieks and scuffles away. I lob another heatwave after her, but Asag blocks it with a huge rock.
Udug flies into me, slamming me into the ground. I try to burn the demon with my hands, but my fire does not harm him. “I will cleanse you of your conscience, dear sister.”
He starts to pour his cold-fire powers into me, but mighty gusts rip him off. Lying on my back, I clutch at the pain ebbing from my chest. Two Lestarian Navy vessels hover above, their multiplied ivory sails brimming in the high winds. I urge my mind to comprehend what I am seeing. The sea ship is flying.
Udug and his demon siblings retreat to the lakeshore. The vessels land near the road, and armed sailors shimmy down rope ladders. Several run to meet me. Deven and Ashwin lead the charge, Natesa and Yatin after them. Brac and Gemi take up the rear.
What in the skies . . . ? Captain Loc is a passenger of one of the vessels lowering itself to the ground. His crew of raiders, Opal, and Lestarian sailors navigates the navy ship, suspending it on their winds.
Udug and his demon siblings guard the lake, surveying the array of forces. They will not surrender their post unless we compel them.
“You brought the raiders?” I ask my friends, watching the ships land.
Deven looks me over with a troubled frown. I have stopped bleeding from every pore, but I must look a mess. He, however, is imposing in the strict lines of his navy-blue general’s jacket. “We needed Galers, so His Majesty bought their loyalty.”
“Temporarily,” Ashwin adds.
Admiral Rimba joins us, leading his trident-wielding men. Captain Loc and his raiders, a mishmash of rogue bhutas, also boost our ranks.
“Kalinda, what are those hideous things?” Natesa asks, as though the demons’ unsightliness were the worst side effect of their release.
“They’re Udug’s kin, here to guard the gate—the lake,” I emphasize and then explain what they are, in haste. “We have to vanquish them before the celestial lights go out.”
Deven eyes the failing moon. “Take your positions!” And then to Ashwin: “Your Majesty, stay at my right.”
Ashwin grips his sword too low on the hilt. He has little practice or skill with a khanda. The world has never been drearier, but my loved ones remind me the gods are on our side.
Deven raises his sword. “All forward!”
We have marched halfway to the lakeshore when visibility reduces to graininess and our enemies wane to murky shadows. The ground shakes, an ongoing quake that rattles my knees, and the center of the lake boils.
Udug and his siblings howl gleefully at the darkening sky. The lake simmers faster, sending rippling waves that spill onto the shore. I grip the sleeve of Deven’s wool jacket, fastening us together, as the moon and stars go under, drowned by the evernight.
32
DEVEN
My breath snags on nettles of terror. Every soldier experiences setbacks in battle, but never have I felt more vulnerable. Surrounded by my family, I have more to lose than my life. I could lose the people who make my life worth living.
Udug’s and his siblings’ jubilant screeches abruptly stop. Splashing fills the darkness, and then deep, resonant thuds vibrate up from the ground.
Something has risen out of the water. And it is big.
“Gods, Deven.” Kali strangles my forearm, but I am grateful for our connection. More whispers of shock and horror resound around us in the impenetrable dark.
“What . . . what’s out there?” Natesa whispers.
Booms approach our front line. The trembling ground knocks Kali and me back a step.
“I don’t think you want to know,” replies Opal. Her amplified hearing can detect what is coming our way through the obsidian night.
Brac tosses a heatwave at the forest across the way. His fire ignites the stubby alpine evergreens and strips back the darkness.
The biggest dragon mankind has ever beheld towers over us. Taller than what was once the north tower of the temple, the dragon’s blue-black serpentine body glistens and drips icy water. His front feet and talons curl into the wet lakeshore. He drags his thick shape out of the water and roars, a gut-shaking bellow. Kali covers her ears, and I shrink down in my general’s jacket. The dragon twists his neck, turning his long snout with pointed, wiry whiskers away from the firelight.
Kali lowers her hands and whispers, “I saw this war once in a mural in Ki’s ancient underground temple. Kur was battling an army of men in the mountaintops.”
“How did it look for us?” I ask.
“He burned the army to ashy silhouettes with his fiery breath.”
Brac’s fire gradually extinguishes. The snowy trees are poor kindling, so Opal feeds the flames with her winds. Fire brightens the area once more.
Kur hisses and narrows his gold eyes at the blaze. “I do not like the light.” His guttural voice rumbles through me. I lock down my courage before it wriggles away.
“Kur!” Kali shouts. The dragon turns his head toward our troops. “Return to the Void and take your underlings with you!”
“Do you know what happened to the last mortal who threatened the First-Ever Dragon?” His talons claw ditches into the wet dirt. “I disemboweled him, splattered his entrails all over his friends, and picked my teeth with his spine.” The god of the demons leans down so we can see our reflections in his gold eye. “I existed before these mountains were a pile of pebbles, before mankind was a grouping of stars Anu pilfered from the heavens for his gain. I am born of Tiamat, the saltwater-goddess, filled with fiery venom to avenge her and destroy all who worship her traitorous son Anu.”
“Anu left this world to mankind and bhutas,” Ashwin calls out.
Kur blinks at him. “You reek of fear, boy.”
Ashwin raises his sword. Of all the times he could exhibit courage, this is not it. I edge in front of him, garnering Kur’s notice.
He sniffs the air and his throaty voice hardens. “You . . . you smell of sacrifice. Your saccharine scent curdles my stomach.” Kur sniffs again, and his glowing eye focuses on Kali. “You are mine. And another,” he says of Brac. “Why do you stand with weaklings, children of the evernight?”
“My fate is my own,” Kali says, boosting her chin.
Brac points to Udug and the other demons. “And who wants to look like them?”
The demon Kur hisses a breath that smells of decaying bodies. “I could drag you into the Void and teach you the
way of the shadows.” Kali hoists her dagger to him, gripping it crosswise in front of her, and Brac readies his axes. “No? Then you are finished.”
Kur lifts his massive head, stretching until his whole height looms over us. Smoke billows from his nostrils.
“General,” Admiral Rimba says, “your order?”
“Hold to the plan. Keep your ranks tight and push them back toward the gate.”
“Delightful.” Brac widens his stance and grips his axes.
Kur crooks one of his talons, and his underlings charge. The demons run at us, but Kur crouches like a snow leopard, opens his jaw wide, and blows a ribbon of fire at our ranks. I dive away from the heat, and Kali goes the opposite direction. She lands with Brac on the other side of the inferno. Ashwin lies beside me, his shirt on fire. He bats at it helplessly. I strip off my jacket and use it to beat out the flames.
Ashwin droops in relief. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
I haul him up. Across the way, Kali dashes into the fray, headed for Kur. I try to keep sight of her, but she disappears behind a line of Aquifiers, who draw water from the lake and shoot it at Lilu. The fishlike demon duels back, spraying her own streams of frigid water at them. Yatin and Natesa intercept Edimmu, the reptilian one, and Princess Gemi and Captain Loc go after the lumbering rock demon, Asag.
Suddenly I see Opal, opposing Udug on her own. Her brother’s killer has trapped her against a high embankment over the ice-riddled lake.
I run to help her, dragging Ashwin after me, and push him behind a boulder. “Stay here!”
Opal is backed over the edge of the embankment, her heels meeting the drop-off. Udug gathers blue fire in his clawed hands. I sprint, khanda raised over my shoulder, and slice through his wing.
Udug yowls high and loud. Opal slides between his legs and jams her machete up through his thin-skinned belly. Black sludge oozes out. He retaliates with a burning sphere of cold-fire, blasting her.
She wrenches back and crumples.
Udug flies off with one fully functioning wing, cradling his injury.
The stench of charred flesh and seared muscle accosts me as I lean over the Galer. Burns cover more than half of her body, her skin completely gone along one arm and part of her neck.
I hold her unwounded hand. Her return grip loosens, her breaths wrenching gasps. Her suffering drags up my sorrow over Rohan’s death. Once again, I can do nothing.
“Opal,” I scratch out. “I’m sorry.”
Her pained whimpers lessen, and her focus turns inward with startling intensity. The battlefield drifts off to another world. “I can hear them calling.”
“Who?”
“My mother and Rohan. They’re waiting for me.”
I press her hand over my heart. “You should go to them.”
“Yes . . .” Opal’s torso jolts wildly, one final protest of her physical anguish, and her gaze empties of life.
My chin drops to my chest. Anu, let her family receive her. I grant myself a moment of grief and let her go.
The battle continues at my back, but my hearing still rings with Opal’s final breaths. I will not leave her out in the open for our enemies to revel over. I carry her to Ashwin and set her behind the boulder. He lays my jacket over her middle, covering her wound.
Flashing flames draw my attention to the front line. Kali and Brac exchange fire blasts with Kur. The First-Ever Dragon will wear them out. Bhuta powers are limited. His are eternal.
A rock crashes into our boulder. I crouch over Ashwin as rubble pelts our backs. Asag pummels us with more splintering rocks. The boulder shielding us cracks from his repeated hits.
“Can you swim?” I ask Ashwin.
“Yes. Why?”
I grab a stone and toss it at Asag. It pings off the brute’s chest. He extends his huge chest and growls.
“I don’t think he likes that,” Ashwin says.
“Run for the lake!”
We take off for the shore. I stay right behind the prince as a buffer between him and the demon. We pull ahead of the lumbering Asag, and I am knocked off my feet by a flying rock.
I fall forward, my bones jarring, and roll onto my back. Asag stomps on my chest and leaves his foot there. Something snaps inside me and releases pain. My spine presses into the ground and seals off my breath.
Ashwin runs into my side vision and swings his khanda at Asag. The blade clangs against the rock giant. Asag shoves the prince away, then removes his foot from my chest, only to aim his next stomp at my head.
A hand shoots through the demon’s thick middle.
Princess Gemi yanks out a fistful of rocks. Asag tips backward in a slow-motion fall. Gemi sweeps him up in a wave of summoned dirt and heaves him into the lake. He smacks the surface and sinks underwater.
“So that’s how you vanquish a demon,” Princess Gemi pants, hands on her hips.
“Evidently,” I croak, clutching my torso. Asag broke at least one of my ribs.
Gemi lifts Ashwin and hangs on to him. He will be safe with her. We need to vanquish three more demons, and I am not losing another soldier tonight.
“Stay together,” I tell them as I fetch my sword and take off for the main battleground.
33
KALINDA
Kur will not be moved. No matter where Brac and I throw our fire, the demon god steps farther from the lake. The evernight will prevail if he gains more ground. I feel it in my gut.
Brac discharges another heatwave at the serpentine dragon, his unique orangey flame weaker than his last. Our powers do not penetrate Kur’s scaly shell. We will soon lose the convenience of our soul-fire with this useless strategy.
Nature-fire feeds off the trees, lighting the battlefield. Serpents dance in the flames, swirling and twirling happily. Their flickering eyes trail me, worshipful and adoring in our mutual love of the light. I stretch my fingers to them.
My friends, I have missed you.
Fiery tendrils shoot out and encircle my body, hot and heady. I call them to action.
Create me a helpmate.
The nature-fire hisses, and more flames zip from the wildfire. They whirl and fasten together, combining ferocity. A monster forms between Kur and me, a serpentine beast that rises to the demon god’s great height. The nature-fire mimics the First-Ever Dragon’s proportions and builds a blazing dragon of his girth and stature with short legs; a sleek, proud neck; and a snappish snout. The fire dragon glows every color of Burners’ powers—vivid white, sun yellow, scarlet—and inside the sweltering beast flickers a heart of sapphire.
I marvel at how rapidly and seamlessly the nature-fire melds into a tangible creature of one mind and purpose—to obey my command.
Brac lists back on his heels. “When did you learn to . . . ?”
“Guard my flank.” My dragon lowers, and I mount it, absorbing the heat without suffering any injury. For I am fire, and fire is me.
Riding atop the immense dragon, I am eye to eye with Kur. His gaze flashes. “You think you can use fire against me? I am born of fire and venom.”
I lean into my dragon, preparing to ride. “I am born of the stars, and I will see them shine again.”
Push him to the lake. Let’s take back the heavens.
My fire dragon drives its head into Kur’s chest and muscles him back. Kur sidesteps and breathes flames. I duck behind my mount’s head. The column blows past me, but his venomous fire rips small holes through my dragon.
Brac throws heatwaves at Kur’s front feet. He bats Brac away with his talons, flinging him into the dark.
Fly!
My dragon launches into the sky. Kur chases us with a blast of white-blue cold-fire. We evade him by flying higher.
Kur lunges at my dragon’s neck, clamps down with his jaws, and throws us to the ground. Everything jostles and trembles as we roll. I struggle to hang on until we are upright again. My dragon crouches, the path we rolled over scorched. Kur ejects more cold-fire at us, tearing new gaps in my drag
on. The solidity of the flames beneath me begins to disperse.
As Kur gathers a finishing blast, an astounding sight appears.
Elephants? In the Alpanas?
Green-clad Janardanian warriors ride them, boasting their green-and-white dragon cobra flag. Mathura and Chitt ride together atop an elephant with ivory tusks. The herd stampedes onto the battleground. Land barges—large slabs of stone over rock wheels—roll to a halt. More elephant warriors charge off the barges into the front line, machetes raised.
They shake the ground, loosing the dirt at Kur’s feet and hauling him toward the gate. Kur’s tail crests the cold water. He vents a gut-rolling roar and blows fire at the forward row of elephant warriors. I watch in horror as his venomous cold-fire consumes rider and beast alike.
I hunch into my mount, fury boiling through me. Get him!
We take off. Kur releases a stream of flames. We swerve, but it hits the center of my dragon. The solid fire beneath me dissolves to spindles of smoke and steam. The world washes to red—orange—yellow—blue. I am falling. Fire tunnels around me in a whirlwind of shrieks and snaps.
I smack into the ground, my fire dragon fading above me, just like stars. The quakes continue with the stampeding elephants, the Tremblers relentless. They force Udug and his sister demons to the lake, but Kur is too big and heavy for tremors to topple him.
The First-Ever Dragon slams his front claw over me, locking me down. He pushes one pointed talon into my thigh. Something pops and tears. He digs in farther, puncturing through skin, meat, bone. My ears echo with screams. Only until I find my breath do I realize I am the one screaming.
Trembles carry off from the elephant warriors—distant booms in the ground. Kur’s snout comes over me. One breath and he will burn me to a heap of ash.
“It’s not too late to send you to the Void, my child. You will never suffer pain or regret again.”
I push up against his talons. Nothing but venom burns within him to parch, cold and unyielding. Falling back on my powers, I send my scorching soul-fire into him.
Kur’s brimstone breath cascades over me. “Your powers are insignificant. But another power dwells within you that can never fade. Come into the evernight.” He squeezes, crushing my sides. His whiskers brush over my face, stinging like tentacles. “I can free you from your weak mortal chains. I can make you magnificent.”
The Rogue Queen (The Hundredth Queen Series Book 3) Page 27