Ivy's Dragon: Dragons of Telera (Book 7)

by Lisa Daniels

  Silently, ghoulishly, they clustered, never displaying purpose beyond the mindless hunting of flesh, no matter how outnumbered they might be, or well protected said flesh was.

  Raine grabbed a branch from the fire with the tip of it ablaze, and scoured the clearing, seeing around four, five Shadows. Groups were unusual. Shadows traditionally hunted alone, sometimes merging together by convenience. Groups, however, suggested intelligence. Organization.

  Where was Linther? She got her answer in the form of a spitting werewolf, lunging past the encirclement to join Raine. His muzzle dripped with black blood, and the tip of his ear seemed missing. He morphed back.

  “Went hunting. Deer. Not alone.”

  Raine hugged him, stroking his hair hurriedly, before pulling apart to gauge the threat. She aimed her crossbow, swallowing her anxiety, remembering that her barrier would hold. That she had nothing to fear with such a powerful protector by her side. Plus, there was the fact she was a wastelands witch.

  That had to count for something. Right?

  The first Shadow collapsed with a hiss from her bolt, and she clicked the next round into place. The Shadows instantly recoiled, and sunk into the ground, becoming near insubstantial, making it hard for her to aim. However, their black patches still rimmed her protection, making it impossible to leave without stepping on one.

  “That’s not good.”

  For good measure, she fired off a bolt into the black mass, but nothing happened.

  “They can’t hurt us in that form, either,” Linther pointed out. “So we can take comfort in that fact.” His nostrils flared as more Shadows seemed to form in the ground, joining their brethren, until the entire perimeter of Raine’s spell was edged by blackness.

  Her anxiety spiked. “Any chance you can just, you know, vault over all that?”

  Linther wrinkled his nose, baring his teeth in a grimace. “We can try. I cannot jump as far and agilely with you stuck on my back, though. Know any good spells?”

  “Like the lightning? Nah.” Raine scoured her repertoire of magic. She knew a repulsion spell, but that required skin contact with whoever she planned to repulse. Living barriers took all of her energy to form on just one person, and they didn’t last for long.

  A stray thought reached her. “Maybe I could try enchanting the snow into a weapon.”

  Linther raised eyebrows in her in surprise. “You can do that?”

  “I have no idea. Never tried with snow or water.”

  Linther chuckled nervously, before morphing back into the werewolf form. He began to prowl around Raine. The black mass past her magical protection, and the charcoal line, seemed to be pressing themselves against it, like water sloshing behind a dam.

  “I don’t think I want to die here…” Raine took a deep breath, taking out her vial of black blood. She couldn’t see the idea being effective past a small patch of snow, but she needed to do something. Even if it meant using up the last of the Shadow’s essence.

  “Don’t you?” The voice hissed out of the gloom. Raine froze, inches from pouring the blood into the snow, and she saw it.

  The Shadow that talked, wearing the corpse of her mother. It stepped into the light, enough for her to see the emaciated, near naked form, smiling with yellowed teeth and stretched, papery skin. “I have a connection to you, little child. As long as you use things with my blood, I’ll always be able to find you.”

  This thing can break barriers. Oh, curses! She scrabbled to Linther, whispering into his ear that they would need to make a risky sprint for it. He growled agreement, and she clutched at his fur.

  “There are more of us, you know,” the creature said in a musing voice, carelessly trailing a finger above the magical protection. Her blackened feet had Shadows squirming around. “And we just want what is rightfully ours.”

  Smoke seemed to fizzle around the Shadow’s finger, which she ignored, smirking as the smoke intensified. In spite, Raine aimed at the Shadow and let loose with the crossbolt. It grabbed the bolt disdainfully in mid-flight, hissed slightly at the wisps of smoke that emanated from the hand that stopped the attack, before discarding it.

  The barrier vanished. Raine let out a scream and scrambled onto Linther’s back, and he sprinted off, snarling viciously as the Shadows inked across the ground. He took a huge bound, soaring above them, but abruptly jerked in mid-air. Raine saw in time the Shadow that talked raising her hand, aiming towards the werewolf – and the action caused Raine to fly off into the snow, skidding along it with a gasp. Linther jerked horribly in the air, his huge, powerful form reduced to helplessness as the Shadow grinned with her mother’s mouth.

  It had access to her mother’s magic.

  The thought electrified Raine. Free of its bonds, it held Linther prisoner, as he flailed and snapped in mid-air. She saw the Shadows forming, shambling towards her. Terror pierced every nerve – with trembling hands, she poured the whole black vial into the snowbank around her, and let the magic slip out of her throat. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and the magic fizzled out of her, igniting the headache which accumulated in strength.

  The black blood enchantment seeped across the snow bank, turning the mound she was buried in ashen gray. A brief notion caused her heart to stutter further – what if the Shadows could just merge with it? It was made of their blood, after all.

  The first by her bank twitched, and crumbled into nothing. The others reacted instinctively, dissolving into their ground forms again, pressing against the barrier, only to also evaporate.

  Linther howled as he flailed, snapping in a frenzy at his invisible bonds. The Shadow that talked appeared less than impressed at his attempts to escape. Pure evil emanated from her form, something ancient and cold and dark. A scope of evil Raine hadn’t anticipated, as the Shadow had been neatly sealed behind Raine’s bindings.

  So many things she should have done. Could have. Should have. Didn’t.

  Linther howled with fear, rage and desperation when the Shadows clawed at his hind legs, and the claws there kicked back. He looked so savage, so beautiful, even as he wriggled and scratched and snapped for his life, twisting and writhing, trying to get a good hold upon them. He stiffened when the Shadow that talked tightened her hold.

  Moon curse it! Raine squeezed her eyes shut, plumbing the depths of her soul for the magic, the headache vibrating against her skull. Without the knowledge behind the magic, it was like wrestling with a storm.

  Shouts entered the clearing, and her eyes snapped open. Rescue? Did the werewolves heed Linther’s howl?

  She blinked as she saw someone, encased in full black armor, clang through the clearing and hack at the Shadows beneath Linther’s dangling body. Two werewolves emerged from the darkness behind the armored man, and they looked nothing like any werewolves Raine had seen. Their forms were warped, distorted, the skin pinched over their bones, and their eyes glowing an ominous yellow, leaving trails behind them.

  The knight in black seemed to damage the Shadows just with the armor touching – the sword appeared as a happy addition. The emaciated werewolves tore into the other, squirming Shadows, with a mindless ferocity that sent ripples of fear through Raine.

  The Shadow that talked smiled widely at the knight, though there was also barely concealed rage.

  “Oh dear. It appears there must be a change of plan. Hup!” The Shadow held up her arms, and black tendrils of energy spewed out of her. The magic slapped against the knight’s armor, its path diverting from the others.

  The Shadow that talked hissed. A little slice of alarm went into her dead eyes, before she dissolved, barely avoiding the snap of one of the corpse-like werewolves, disappearing into the night.

  Raine watched the whole event unfold, uncomprehending of what had just happened. Linther padded over to her, stepping in front of her as if to shield her from the newcomers. Raine glared at the knight in black.

  “Wait,” she said, suddenly realizing. “Is your armor made of Shadow blood?”

&nb
sp; The knight in black tucked his sword into his belt, and took off his helm for the first time. Blue southerner eyes stared at her. A mop of lank, dirty blonde hair grew past his ears. There was something gaunt and soulless in the way he examined her. The emaciated werewolves stood on either side of him, silent as ghosts.

  “How do you know?” His voice came out surprisingly soft, with a melodic air to it.

  Raine clung to Linther’s neck scruff, and kissed him there. “Let’s just say I might have had access to Shadow blood for a while. I can see the lick of magic on your armor. On the wolves.” She narrowed her eyes at the black, skeletal werewolves.

  “I see. I’m glad to know I’ve not been the only one working on a solution.” He strapped his helmet to his belt as well, clanking closer to them. Linther growled warningly.

  “Relax, werewolf. Are you two heading towards Lunehill? That’s where I’m going for as well. My sense of direction is not quite so good.”

  “Why not ask the wolves?” Raine said, indicating the silent guardians.

  “Because they are not living. They are vessels of magic, after their bodies have expired. Shadow magic,” the man said, even as Linther’s growling intensified, and his fur stiffened on end.

  “Who are you?” Raine shook her head. “And you’re a man. This is your magic? Men don’t have magic.”

  The man smiled coldly. “I’ll explain later. And my name is Erlandur. I have news for Lunehill. News that is a long time in the waiting.”

  Erlandur… why did that name sound so familiar? Raine scrunched her face, trying to remember where she had heard the name before.

  Now Linther morphed, and his handsome face bulged in utter shock. “Erlander,” he said hoarsely. His throat sounded as if his windpipe had been suffocated thoroughly. “By the moon, you’re actually alive.”

  Erlandur nodded.

  “I know why your name’s familiar!” Raine barked suddenly. “You have a sister. Alyssa Malgrave. She dropped at my inn a while back.” Raine’s face fell. “She was trying to find you at the Fractured City. I don’t know of course if she made it.”

  “I know,” Linther said, which instantly grabbed both Raine and Erlandur’s attention. “She’s in Lunehill now, actually. She wants to be part of the expedition that will scour the Fractured City.”

  Erlandur heaved a sigh of relief. “I knew it. Not that she’d end up on Lunehill, but that she’d cursing well go after me at some point.”

  Raine smiled. Linther’s hand slipped into hers, reassuring her with his warmth.

  “Guess we’re going to have a lot to talk about, when we reach Lunehill, then.”

  “Definitely.”

  Madness, this whole thing. Absolute madness. Raine continued holding Linther’s hand for a moment, before they gathered up the pieces of their camp. No one would be sleeping again tonight. Erlandur nodded and slotted the helmet back on, before mounting on one of the undead wolves.

  Raine bit her lip. Her new future lay in Lunehill, now. With the wolves. Fighting the Shadows by whatever means they could. Including the secret she had kept for years, now worn upon a man’s body.

  “I’ll protect you,” Linther said. “Whatever happens, I’ll protect you.”

  Raine kissed him upon the lips, before he transformed. She then mounted onto his back, and he loped off into the night, follow by Erlandur, as they headed towards their future.

  The End

  Vrin’s Rescue

  Guardians of Lunar Wasteland

  (Book 3)

  Chapter One

  Yarrow prowled through the darkness. The humungous tree that towered above all others in the Dreadwoods cast a wave of gloom, like a giant hand reaching up from a grave. It seemed to follow her with its branches, which grasped with spindly fingers, and groaned as the air filtered through the jagged, mould green pine needles. The sound reminded her of the sigh of wind blowing through the crevices of a mossy skull. She shivered her delight and fear, the members of her clan stalking alongside in their sacred grounds of their home.

  The Dreadwood feared no evil, and bathed in the demise of their hated enemies, the Shadows that blighted the frozen land. Her werewolf father raised her up with the loathing instilled in her from an early age. Her witch mother taught Yarrow the ways of the old ones, of the madness of magic that etched at your soul, until one day, you went too far, and lost everything.

  Her mother strode up to her now, her husband following behind in his black wolf form.

  “I do not trust the Lunehill wolves,” her mother said, her voice a low rustle in the hiss of wind around them, the breath of cold that left their lungs with every heave. “Our ancestors have had conflict in the past.”

  “But they offer answers,” Yarrow replied, ducking under the scratching arms of a twisted branch. “They offer an end to the ways of the Shadows. An answer to why so many appear in the sacred snows.”

  “We can only hope,” Priya answered, as her husband growled in savage agreement, his hackles rising. Yarrow smiled at her father, huge and scarred and beta to the Dreadwood wolves. Hragun’s sharp, dagger like teeth had ripped through countless Shadows, and the milky blind eye on one side showed the price he paid for his life’s work.

  Every step they made was one step closer to death. Whether from the Shadows squirming out from the permafrost, or the threat of the cold against their embattled bodies.

  When Lunehill finally edged into sight, with a lemon slice of moon hung above as if upon puppet strings, Yarrow bared her teeth, and rubbed her cold hands together, before tucking them into her thick bear furs. Sentries stood at the archways, carved with complex protection runes, and rings of charcoal protected the premises. The Lunehill wolves spotted the black Dreadwood wolves, and stood diligently to attention, ready to accept the new delegation in.

  “Looks like they’ve summoned everyone,” her mother, Priya, murmured. Her hazel eyes scoured the parameters, already searching for weaknesses in the defenses. Yarrow’s instant distrust for the Lunehill came from years of conditioning, from mocking and hatred for the Dreadwood way of life. They were wrong to mock. The cold had shaped them. They were winterborn, made of the ice the Lunar Wastes coated itself with.

  Hragun morphed back into his human form, displaying a pockmarked, scarred form, his left eye milky.

  “We have quarters ready for you, Dreadwoods,” one of the Lunehill guards said, gesturing for them to follow him to the other side of town. They followed, of course, eager for warmth and food, and a safer place to sleep, and Yarrow took her time to observe the rest of the clans that had gathered here. She saw the white wolves of the Spine, the red of the Scarlet Caves, and the gold of Ice Lake, mixed with the iron gray furs of Lunehill. Not as many clans as she’d hoped, but perhaps they might arrive in time, stumbling through the swirling blizzard that clogged the atmosphere. Yarrow’s boots crunched into snow, compacting it, joining the thousands of other prints that mixed in the white froth.

  “Look at them,” her father sniffed, upturning his nose upon the Lunehill residents. “Weaklings. They could barely defend themselves against human infants, let alone a flock of Shadows.” He growled at one teenager werewolf, who flinched at his intimidating, heavily scarred appearance.

  “Papa. Don’t scare everyone you come into contact with,” Yarrow said. “We are their guests, and they our hosts.”

  “Bah.” Hragun waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I’m only here to kill Shadows. These pups claim they’re taking the war to them, with new magic. So full of their own self-importance. I bet they have nothing new, but I’m not about to sneeze at a chance to slaughter.”

  “They are one of the oldest werewolf tribes around,” Priya pointed out, though her lips curled in amusement of her husband’s rant. “And are based upon the site of the Cursed Queen. And have currently one of the most powerful witches in the Lunar Wastes. You know. The Snow Witch.”

  “I’m well aware of the fact. And how every Lunehill whelp seems to think being born in this
place automatically makes them special. We Dreadwood have killed more than all of them put together!”

  He snapped then at a pudgy seven-year-old, who squeaked and rolled out of sight. Their guide looked back upon them disapprovingly, even as they made it to their new lodge. Settling down, Yarrow took off her backpack but kept her sword belted on, intending to explore the town and find out more of the knowledge they claim to possess in the oncoming expedition against the Shadows.

  She wouldn’t mind seeing the Snow Witch first hand, either, if that cranky old woman was still kicking. She must be ancient by now. She’d probably look like a bag of bones.

  Stepping outside into the town, her attention settled upon a man who oversaw some of the escorts. His yellow eyes appeared golden in the faint light, and she examined his features in great interest.

  Tall, with a notable bulge of muscle in his arms, and a neat, combed look to his dark beard and mustache. Sensing her gaze, he stopped mid-conversation and spotted her. Their eyes met, and something clicked.

  A smile lit up his face. He said something to his companion, then strode over to Yarrow.

  “Hello, Dreadwood witch. It’s good to see you here, ready to join the fight.”

  “I’m Yarrow. You are?” She smiled at him, inhaling the musky scent of his body as she bit her bottom lip. His eyes flickered to the motion.

  “Vrin. I’m part of the main council here.”

  “Hmm…” She idly played with one strand of her dark hair, allowing the tip of her boot to dig a hole in the snow beneath. “You wouldn’t happen to be a single werewolf, would you?”

  His answering grin was wicked. “You don’t dance around things, it seems.”

  “No. I find you attractive. Maybe we can go someplace quiet later and… explore some things,” she said, allowing her tongue to wet her lips.

  He blinked, inhaling sharply. “I’d love to. But there’s a few things I need to sort out first.”