“Why do you say it like that?”
“Only because I’ve seen what you are capable of doing,” he said. “There have been several times when you were outnumbered, and you managed to survive.”
Fes looked around him. With the steam still rising from the field, he couldn’t imagine engaging in any sort of battle out here. Anything they might do would put them in danger and expose all of the rebellion to violence. How many would be lost?
Would anything come of Indra?
He felt that she was his responsibility, somehow. Until he managed to find her father, he owed it to her to keep her safe.
“How do you propose we stop her?”
“Reina can be defeated, the same as any fire mage can be defeated. The key is removing their power.”
“You mean the dragon relics.”
Talmund nodded. “Someone like Reina has acquired many artifacts over the years, and it makes her incredibly powerful. She probably draws upon all of those constantly, keeping her radiating power.”
“Does it weaken her to use any power to allow the others to cross the dragon field?”
“By necessity, it would take more and more strength from her to maintain the ability to resist the effects of the dragon plains.”
“And because the Draconis Pass is a place of great power?”
“It should weaken her even more.”
“Has this always been your plan?”
“Not until I learned of Reina’s involvement.”
“And you’re not worried about her?” The easy way he’d dismissed her as a threat surprised Fes.
“She’s not the fire mage I fear.”
“And who is that?”
“The Emperor. With his hoard of artifacts, he has become incredibly powerful. Why else do you think he’s called the dragon?”
“And if the rebellion intends to overthrow the emperor, how do they think they can manage against such a powerful fire mage?”
“It will take a dragon to unseat a dragon.”
Fes stared at him and realized that the priest still wasn’t joking. “That is why you want to resurrect the dragons? You need them to face the emperor?”
“It’s about much more than that, but as far as you are concerned, that is all that matters. If we can resurrect the dragons, we can combat the emperor, and we can finally restore the order that has been disrupted for over a thousand years.”
They fell into a silence. The priest continued to lead them, heading with a steady gait across the rock. Surprisingly, the priest managed to keep a firm footing, even when Fes slipped from time to time.
“How much longer do we have until we reach the pass?”
“Not much longer,” the priest said.
“And when we do? Are you prepared for fighting?”
“I won’t be the one doing any fighting.”
“What if I refuse to fight?”
“In that, I’m afraid, you might not have much choice.”
“Why is that?”
“Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
“She’s coming.”
Fes focused on the surrounding air, thinking back to the way it had felt when he had been aware of her power before. There was a heat to it, and it seemed to sear his throat, burning his skin. Could he feel that now?
What he detected was faint, subtle, and nothing more than what he had already detected from the dragon plains. “I don’t detect anything.”
“You will.”
They continued walking, and as they did, Fes began to have the same unpleasant sensation as he had before. At first, it was little more than an irritation. A steady increase in warmth, a heat that nagged at him, gnawing at the back of his throat. It began to intensify, growing stronger. As it did, he wasn’t sure whether it was real or imagined until it became impossible to ignore.
Reina.
Fes could feel her presence. He slashed at the air with his daggers and felt a moment of reprieve. The priest glanced over, watching him for a moment.
“Why did you do that?” he asked.
“It seems to make it easier,” Fes said.
“It makes what easier?”
“The pressure from her magic,” Fes said.
The priest waved his hands in the air, performing a strange pattern. When he was done, he regarded Fes with a bright interest. “How is it that you discovered that you could do this?”
“I didn’t have much choice. When I first encountered Reina, she was attempting to kill some of the people with us. I wasn’t given a whole lot of choice in what I did. I thought that if nothing else, I would throw one of my daggers at her.”
“I doubt that would be effective,” the priest said.
“I don’t know that it would be, either,” Fes said. “All I know is that it seems to help me ease the heat I feel from her magic.”
“And yet you still question whether you are Deshazl.”
“I thought it was the daggers.”
“It is you and not the daggers. The daggers are an extension, but nothing else. I imagine that with enough understanding of yourself, you would be able to deflect her power even without the daggers.”
“The same way that you did,” Fes asked.
“What I did was different, and it came from my connection to the Settlers. I suspect the way I use that connection is quite a bit different than what you use when you use your daggers. How is it that you accomplish it?”
Fes shrugged. “I don’t have a good explanation. I simply swipe at the heat in the air. Nothing else.”
“You simply swipe at the air and you managed to cut through a fire mage’s spell?”
“It’s not as if I knew what I was doing.”
“Obviously. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have thought that it would work.”
Fes chuckled. That was the kind of logic he could get behind. “How will you know when we reach the pass?”
“The pass is unmistakable.”
They continued making their way, and as they did, the haze around them began to thicken. At first, Fes wondered whether it was real or whether it had to do with Reina and her magic. The longer he experienced it, the more he realized that it wasn’t Reina or anything that she did. It came from everywhere, pushing up from the ground, as if the dragon plains had intensified. Attempts to swipe at the air, trying to cleave away the magic, did nothing.
“Even you can’t do anything here.” The priest clasped his hands together as he walked, making his way across the ground, and he took deep breaths. A sheen of sweat coated his brow, and Fes realized that he didn’t suffer from the heat the same way as the priest.
“Is this the pass?”
“We begin to near it,” Talmund said.
Fes fell into a silence. If they were nearing the pass, they would slow and have to look for signs of the mercenaries. He would have to stay vigilant, knowing that it would be difficult to see anything through the haze. Anyone could spring upon them before he had a chance to react, but they needed to draw them into the pass.
“How do you intend to fight through this?”
“I’m hopeful that we won’t have to,” the priest said.
“Why is that?”
“For the mercenaries to see anything, it will require Reina to expend a great amount of energy. I’m hopeful that she will decide that it is simply not worth it and will turn away.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then, unfortunately, we will have to fight.”
The longer they walked, the more the heat began to build around them. It was more than unpleasant, and he swiped at the air, despite Talmund telling him that it would make no difference, feeling as if he had no choice but to attempt it. Each time he did, he had a brief respite from the heat, barely enough to make a difference.
“She’s close,” Fes said.
“I feel it,” Talmund said.
“And if she’s here?”
“Then we will have to fight,” the priest said.
&nbs
p; They walked deeper into the haze, the fog surrounding them, and it seemed as if despite the haziness all around them, the priest knew precisely where he was going. Somehow, he was able to either see through it, or he managed to navigate without seeing where he was going.
And then he stopped.
“What are you doing?” Fes asked. He could barely see the priest in front of him. He could scarcely see more than his hand in front of him.
“Now we wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For her to make the first move.”
Fes looked around. As he did, he felt the heat continuing to build. He understood what the priest was getting at and knew that whatever was going to happen would be soon. Reina was working her magic, and it would have to be something to allow the mercenaries the ability to see through the haze of the dragon plains. In order to do that, she would have to do something, but what?
Fes made a small circle, walking around the priest, looking for anything that would provide him any answers, but the priest remained silent. He merely stood in place, his hands clasped together.
The air began to sizzle.
Fes sliced at it, slashing his daggers through the air, and the dragon glass practically crackled.
Why should it do that?
Bluish light sizzled along the edge of the dragon glass. He had never seen that before. Could Reina’s magic be enough that it would overwhelm anything that he—or the priest—could do to counter her?
If she had enough dragon relics, it was possible—and probable—that she could. With enough relics, she would be unstoppable.
He looked over at Talmund. Fes hoped that his plan would work. He hoped that Talmund knew what he was doing when it came to Reina, but what if he didn’t? What if she was more powerful than he knew?
He had opened his mouth to ask when the air exploded with power.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Fes’s ears rang. The sizzling energy in the air had disappeared sand the haze lifted, practically sucked into the sky. It was almost as if a wind pulled upward, drawing with it the heat and the fog that had obscured everything. The land around him was just as bleak as it had been, but the rock was different here, smooth, and there were strange spikes that jutted out of the ground that reminded him of…
No.
Could there be dragon bones here?
All of them had been picked over. The stories all said that. But what else could they be?
“Be ready,” Talmund said.
“For what?”
He didn’t need to answer. Movement caught Fes’s attention, and he spun around, unsheathing his daggers to see a line of mercenaries streaming toward them.
There had to be at least a hundred. Too many for him and Talmund to withstand.
Fes debated lowering his hands and accepting his fate. It was possible that the mercenaries would capture him, nothing more, but there was also the possibility that they would kill him and retake the priest.
Fes wouldn’t go down without a fight. He crossed his daggers, preparing for battle. As he did, he summoned every angry thought that he could come up with, anything that he could bring to the forefront of his mind that would allow him to call upon the rage boiling within him. If this was the Deshazl part of him, he needed to embrace it.
He thought of his parents, and he thought of the slaughtered merchants, and he thought of Indra, looking so helpless when he had come across her. Surprisingly, that affected him almost as much as anything else.
Anger burned within him, and Fes practically snarled as he jumped forward, meeting the first of the mercenaries.
He didn’t see the man fall, and barely felt his daggers slice through them. He spun, slashing from man to man, spinning as quickly as he could. Heat began to steam up around him, obscuring the landscape, yet Fes could see the mercenaries. These were the men who had killed the merchants. These were the men who would have tormented Indra. This kind of man had been responsible for what happened to his parents.
He continued to carve through them, and then… he was caught in the middle.
There had to be ten mercenaries surrounding him.
Fes ducked down, slicing with his dagger, but one of the men blocked it with his sword. He rolled, flipping, and stabbed, but wasn’t fast enough. He didn’t know if he could be fast enough.
He heard the twang of a crossbow firing at the same time as something struck him in the shoulder. He screamed but continued to squeeze his daggers, refusing to let them go. Pain surged through him, agony searing in his bones.
One of the men tried to stab him with his sword, but Fes leaped away, swinging his bad arm around to jab the man in the eye. He fell back with a spray of blood.
Two men came in, but Fes swiped with his dagger, still managing to keep his arms up, but how much longer? How much longer would he be able to maintain his posture?
It didn’t matter. He would hold out for as long as he could.
Screams echoed toward him.
They were muted, and there was something strange about them.
The attack hesitated.
Fes used that hesitation to streak toward them, stabbing two men before they could react.
The scream came again. There was something odd about it.
This time, even Fes hesitated.
He took a moment, but he registered the source.
The rebellion.
If they were here, it meant Alison had brought them. Which meant he wouldn’t have to fight all these mercenaries alone.
The air exploded, and the haze that had grown around him began to lift again, sucked out with a strange wind that drew it upward.
A dozen men littered the ground around him. The rage boiling within him called for more, a bloodlust that he appreciated given what he would have to face.
The mercenaries crashed into the rebellion.
Fes stumbled back, away from the attackers.
He felt someone moving near him and spun around, coming face to face with Talmund.
The man grabbed at the crossbow bolt in Fes’s shoulder and gently pried it free. He pressed his hand on Fes’s shoulder and warmth flooded through him. When it was done, the pain had disappeared, leaving Fes with the ability to use his arm again.
“You planned this,” Fes said.
“If only I had. The rebellion would have known about the pass. I’m only glad they came. We must still deal with Reina. She is the most dangerous one here.”
“I’m dangerous.”
Talmund tipped his head to the side. “Yes. You are, Fezarn.”
Fes stared at the battle. Men were crashing against other men, fighting unlike anything that he’d seen before.
The air began to sizzle again, and he looked around, searching for signs of Reina. “We have to stop her. Otherwise, the mercenaries are going to succeed.”
“I need to have her expend the remaining energy she has, and then we can defeat her.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” Fes turned his attention to the dragon bones. “What if she uses one of those other artifacts?”
The priest turned where Fes was looking. His eyes widened. “Oh.”
“You didn’t know those were here, did you?”
“The pass has been obscured. We haven’t been able to see anything. Most have assumed the dragonwalkers picked it over.”
The haze began to build again. It covered the dragon bones, but if Fes could see them, he suspected that Reina could see them, too. And if she could see them, she would be able to reach them and access the power stored within them. “Not so picked over after all,” Fes said.
“We have to find her,” the priest said.
Fes tested his shoulder. When he was confident that he had enough movement in it, he started back into the battle.
Talmund followed him, and Fes glanced back, surprised to see the priest keeping pace with him. In each hand, he held a short knife that was similar to Fes’s daggers.
“Dragonglass?”
The p
riest nodded. “Mine aren’t quite as impressive as yours, but they will do if needed.”
“Why aren’t they as impressive?”
“That is for another time. Let’s survive this first.”
“Any suggestions on how to reach Reina?”
“She will be well protected.”
“I’m not surprised by that, but do you have any other suggestions?”
“I have none,” the priest said. “Only that we must not allow her to reach any additional relics. If she succeeds in that, she will have incredible power, and we might not be able to counter what she can do.”
The dragon bones he’d seen were too large for him to move, and with that size of bone, Reina might have limitless power. Fes looked along the line of mercenaries. Most of them had their attention focused on the rebels fighting them, and he suspected that the moment he attacked, they would turn toward him.
There had to be a different way of searching for Reina.
Could he pick up on the change in heat?
It seemed unlikely, but maybe he could use the steady buildup of energy that caused the dissipation of the haze rising off the dragon plains to help.
“She won’t be there,” Talmund said.
“Where will she be?”
“Near the relics. When the haze lifted, I bet she saw them the same as we did. If so, she’ll get close to them and draw on them.”
It made sense, but it meant leaving the rebellion and people who might need his help. Fes made his way toward the dragon relics. The haze still obscured them, making it difficult for him to see, but he remembered where they were, and as he approached, there was a shifting to the heat around him. The power building up from what Reina did changed, replaced by the steady energy that seemed to come from the dragon bones.
“How can I detect this heat?”
Talmund shook his head. “One of the Deshazl would be sensitive to them. It was this sensitivity that once made the dragonwalkers so effective. They were the only ones who could enter the dragon plains and successfully find relics.”
“There are others with that ability, though.”
“Not with the same ability. Once enough relics were obtained, the fire mages managed to find ways of withdrawing the haze around the dragon plains, at least enough for them to see where to find other relics. It required a significant expenditure of energy, and often they burned out everything that they brought with them to do so. After a while, it became too risky for them to continue to do it. What was the point, especially when everything had been picked over?”
Dragon Bones (The Dragonwalker Book 1) Page 27