Fallen Warrior (Fallen Trilogy book 3)

by Williams, Tess

  But I'd planned for this as well.

  Ellia took a great huff, looking over the board, the figures pouring in from the east and south, the chimera in the skies, the Tortoises catapulting out the south—the only place where the land was higher than the city walls, that place where we Shaundakulians had first been carted in, where I'd come in on my wagon.

  "So from there and there," she said. "I suppose that's it."

  I watched her, just watching her, just appreciating this time of being alone with her, and seeing her well lit with white light, and not thinking about the battle at all. Not until, at least, her brows dipped and her lips as well, to a frown.

  "Well, except for Kraehe," she added.

  I had my own frown now.

  "We don't, we won't, know where she'll be."

  Ellia picked up a wyvern marker, a black dragon. The one I'd been playing with, maybe?

  "We don't know what she'll do," Ellia went on.

  She took the dragon up, then set it down, on the war room, Lox's war room.

  "Or who she'll serve."

  What could I say? What should I say? I knew what they'd talked about. Everyone had been warned of the dragon. Everyone knew it might be good, it might be evil. Everyone knew it all depended on Ellia, or at least, that it would react to her, or that maybe it wouldn't, and if it didn't, it might serve Lox. And if it served Lox, if it was clear that it was killing our people—then like the Wyverns, the Vermillion Birds, along with the chimera both, they were going to kill it.

  "You don't know that, or anything, for sure," I said, scooping up the black dragon from the war-room, moving around to stand by Ellia, holding it between us, being taller than her—even as I thought of Kraehe standing there before me. Lox behind her. Her neck craning back, its jerking side to side, her pounding forward, towards me, instead of backwards—by no driving force that I could tell besides her own will. Had she recognized me? Had she really hated me that much? Or had it really been Lox controlling her? Was that even possible.

  "I went closer to the city," Ellia said.

  This, this brought me back to the present in full force, watching down at her, seeing that her braid was messed from sleeping, and breathing in sharp for myself, at the idea that she'd put herself in danger.

  "Not very close," she amended, looking up at me quick. And with concern.

  "You can't go near Akadia, Ellia. They have too many soldiers; there's no telling when they could be patrolling."

  "I was on Luffie," she said. Then, "Don't worry. I was still within sight of Karatel. I was just west of Junce I only wanted to see if I could feel her at all."

  "That's not close enough, Ellia. That wouldn't be close enough—even between you and Luffie."

  "Yes, but dragons are different," she replied. "You don't know about it. When I was bonded with Kraehe..." Ellia's tone trailed off. So did her gaze, I watched it switch to that black ocean behind me, keeping fierce turquoise, "You don't see a dragon's mind so well as a chimera's. It's not with that vision, and those images; I could never communicate to Kraehe the way I do with Luffie."

  "Maybe, because she was so young," I offered.

  Ellia was shaking her head. "No. No, I heard it from Scholar Padril as well. A dragon's bond, it's different than a chimera's bond, more with a sense, about it, of being a part of one another, truly knowing, even without understanding. As the Echrians tell it, and the Genbuans, the Selkians, the Byakoans—all of them; it would seem that it's different for all sorts of granted animals. The Chimera, their images are perfect, but the Selkians, they say the Scorpio's can show things in brighter hues, like a sharper vision, with farther sight, and the Byakoans say they grow a fiercer bloodlust within themselves when they're closer to their Tiger's, as they fight—as if their skills themselves increase."

  I thought of two things, hearing this. I thought of Scholar Padril, and the other dragon riders back in Shaundakul, and what they'd told us, in my years there, with Ellia, about the dragons. She was right, and I should have known as much. Dragons were silent things—nothing like the way the Warriors talked about chimera. I'd owned it up to differences in personalities of the people, simply telling about the feeling in a different way—but Ellia was the same person, wasn't she? If she said it was different, then it was.

  Second, I thought about Tosch. It was strange, but since that day on the granted mountain, ever since I'd tried to tell him to go to Ellia; after I did, it had been like I'd... well, not had a "sense" of him, as Ellia put it about dragons. It was more of a "feeling" to be honest. Truly, as if I felt, sometimes, things that weren't my own to feel. Fear, or distaste, most often, which made sense considering Tosch. But then there was love too. Ack, it was too much a bit of the time; he really adored me, yeah? If I really was, feeling him. Then sometimes the feelings were so pointed, that they made a picture.

  Before I'd gone to greet Ellia so many months ago, I'd been saying goodbye to Tosch in the forest, telling him how he absolutely couldn't come along to Yanartas, and I'd gotten the strongest urge—truly, a feeling—to go off and buy coal, and come back, and cover him with it. Then to buy him armor, then to march him off to Ellia, introducing him as my "normal" black horse, blacky. It had been especially weird, since, at that point, I hadn't even been sure about how I would greet Ellia myself. I'd known then, there was something wrong, and I'd suspected that Ellia might have been right those months ago when she'd said Tosch must have been a granted animal. But still, I'd doubted it, and not gone on to really believe it until I'd ridden him to Karatel. Having him there waiting for me, just outside the docks, nearly on the shore, feeling so much of what must have been his feelings, I'd known there was something magic to it.

  Now, I'd thought of him a lot since leaving Genbu, then Yanartas, then coming here. I wanted him to come. I willed him to, sometimes, but I wasn't sure, whether he would. We'd only been here a couple days. He probably wouldn't.

  "You need to be careful, Ellia, above all things," I told her. "I've heard it before, from a specialist on Granted Animals. It's dangerous, what can happen once a bond's been severed once."

  "Do you think that's truly what's happened Cole? I thought... before... I thought, how, if Lox took Kraehe to Akadia ever since Uldin Keep was attacked, how she must have been there, the whole time, even while I was there, twice over. I never felt her. But then, I didn't feel it when she died either."

  I didn't feel it, I heard repeated, as Ellia stared out at the Akadian sun, as she laid beside me on my new Akadian bed, But Tobias was certain.

  I'd dreamt this scene many times, over; always with the pounding door afterwards. Ellia was right. She'd been there all along. After Ellia had told me that, then, she'd laid her head against my chest, into my neck, saying how she still had me at least.

  Was that what I should say to reassure her? Well, Ellia, your dragon, probably is gone, probably the granted animals are going to have to kill her, but: at least you have me!

  "Don't worry about it now," I comforted. "Just think of Luffie. Try to stay connected to her. It would be better, not to be connected to Kraehe, than to be bonded to her, and feel something evil inside of her, or something mad."

  This was the wrong thing to say, I realized, even as I thought it was the advice she needed; just what Silos had told me. But Ellia shuddered. And then she spoke, watching the dragon in my hand. "No. I think that not to sense her at all would be the worst thing. That would mean I truly did abandon her. But even if she were evil, or mad,... I would still love her.

  "I would still want to be a part of her."

  And that had been the last thing we'd said about Kraehe. It had been the last thing we'd said that night, and I probably should have been able to tell then, even through all those days afterwards training the chimera to use lightning, that something was wrong with her. Something bad. Something to make her shatter the jewel of her crown to bits—so now it was just a silver band, wrapped around my shoulder. But then, it always was a silver band, when she wasn't near. A
nd she wasn't near.

  I was killing Akadians. I was surrounded by those figures, we'd shifted about the map—all in life-size form. A Tiger bounding down the street, to my left. A tortoise, breaking closer from the gate, the battering ram still attached to its side, but now being used for cover. Warriors from all throughout the lands. Yanartian soldiers, even, those one that didn't have chimera—that weren't Cirali.

  I was fighting, and there was lightning, and fire flashing through the skies, and sounds of explosions, and striking from the catapults, and weapons of the Akadians, everywhere, but it wasn't as real to me as that throne room with Ellia had been, shifting about the figurines. And it wasn't as real as standing across from her in that room, while she shouted that she hated me, that I ruined everything, and that she'd never loved, not even Cyric, to begin with.

  But it didn't matter. I didn't need to be near Ellia now. I could stop scanning the skies for Luffie. I had a job to do that didn't require being close to her—in fact, it required that I be apart from her. I had a job to do, that didn't require killing anymore—which I gave up gladly. I even tossed my sword away, confident that I could find another, when it was time to begin again.

  Instead (gold dust kicked up all around, and cries and locked swords throughout the street, Akadians positioned in their high towers, and on the tops of buildings, and inside of them) I slipped into a side street. I took account of myself, of Akadia, very shortly. I remembered the soldiers that had come thus far; I remembered their direction; recognized which way it had been from.

  I was all in shadow, here in the alley, and it was abandoned, even though I could hear soldiers above, and when I came past it, over a barricade of crates (climbing over them), then on to another, it was empty. I thought of advising the soldiers behind me to utilize it... but there was really no point. It led nowhere, either way. Two dead ends. I backed up, remounting that barricade of crates clogged in the alley. At the top, I was ten or so feet from the roofs of the buildings. I saw soldier's helmets passing over them. I saw two chimera, in the sky, striking lightning at a wyvern, another striking lightning down—so close on top one of the roofs, likely into a crowd of Akadian archers, that I felt my skin buzz.

  But it only propelled me, as I ran up the wall, kicked off, turned and jumped— so that I just reached the top edge of the roof. A clear stone ledge. I didn't mount it. I shimmied along it. Only once I was to the end of the ledge, back towards that empty part of the alley, did I brave peeking my head over, feeling the strain of it in my chest, which wasn't yet nearly sore from mere hours of fighting; I'd gone full days of fighting.

  It was for naught, being careful about mounting the roof; the chimera's lightning bolt had been closer than I'd thought; and it had taken out the lot of the soldiers on this stretch. I could see the sparks of blue, tracing through the metal armor, even as I pulled myself over the edge. I could smell the burning flesh. I could see, beyond this roof, a hundred others, plus the towers, and granted animals, flying about them. My eyes worked, for a moment, on their own, to search out Luffie, but then the smell, the sounds, the dead Akadians which I recognized— I reminded myself of my mission. I took a view now, of the roofs clear across. Besides them, down in the street, it was clogged with red soldiers, even most the roofs were still clogged with soldiers. But at that end of it— I saw a Sergeant all in red and grey. His name was Marx; he was old. He'd been one of mine. He was under Lox. I needed to reach him first, then I could find out where his Lieutenant was.

  I took a short jump now, just to help with momentum, then I dashed forward. The first alley, wasn't far to clear—even though there were Akadians on it, they were focused below, so I thought they wouldn't notice me, and I was moving fast anyways (anyways, who cared about a single soldier in cloth? One you couldn't even tell whose side he was on? It was true, there were more Kanthians in Akadia, then anywhere else besides Kanth; I banked that I might be counted as a wayward citizen, albeit, a strange wayward citizen, that had decided to leap across roofs).

  But it didn't matter. As soon as I'd jumped mid-air, for the next roof, a chimera shot its lightning bolt to the stone, striking through to the Akadian's armor, charging between them. I heard the crackling, and screaming, and still seeing blue beneath me, running through the stone, I willed my body to stay up a beat longer. I pulled my feet tighter. I didn't want to get fried, really I didn't. I landed into to a roll, and if I'd missed the shock (I had, I wasn't electrocuted!) I missed it only by a split second. I took more care, with the next roof, then the one after that.

  The next thing, I knew I was ducking, to avoid an arrow, then seeing Marx off the edge of the building, down the street, all clustered with Akadians—that's how deep into enemy territory I was, he wasn't even fighting, just shouting orders, mostly to take aim at the skies above. I readied myself to leap at him; I figured just jumping was best, then I'd ask him where Slark was, then I'd convince Slark to stop all of this, of his battalion at least.

  But first, even as I scooped up a smoking sword I decided I needed just to make Marx tell me where Slark was, I saw a flash of gold, not in the skies, but on the ground, not far past Marx. The gold of a Lieutenant's armor. There were two, but one was running off with fresh soldiers trailing behind him, shouting something to the other. The second was standing there, far back, black hair, blue eyes that put the chimera's lightning bolts to shame. He was all surrounded by soldiers, as if he'd ordered them there. He looked terrified. I could tell that, even from where I was. It made me smile, really smile, for that short second I had before I raced off the edge of the building, past Marx now, and jumped, landing down right on top of Slark, even with his soldiers all around him, dropping him into a roll, then putting my sword up against his neck, all at once. But whispering quick—before someone could stab me, before Slark could shout for them to—just for Slark's ear, just what my name was, and don't kill me buddy... or something like that.

  He jerked with a start. The soldiers hadn't stabbed me; I suspected, because I had my lightning-smoked sword to their Lieutenant's neck. How many of them weren't even Akadians? how many of them were confused about what they should be doing —really? Or who they should be fighting —really?

  As I had been.

  "It's really me," I repeated fiercely. "It's really me."

  I heard an explosions above. I felt Slark's chest drop. "You're dead."

  "No. Silos saved me." This was all I got out, then one of the soldiers shouted, and I was going to be skewered.

  "No. No, wait!" Slark ordered. His hand went up to block it. I let him block it, stopping the soldier in his tracks. I heard locking swords, not far off; the invading force was coming closer.

  "Let me up," Slark ordered.

  It was a moment; it took a moment to realize he was talking to me. Maybe because, I really had thought, yeah, I'd thought in part, great part, that he wouldn't believe me, that I would be killed after all, trying this.

  "I said, let me up!" he repeated. But I'd already begun to do so. Shaking, hopeful, but not enough to move my blade from his neck, or my grip from around him. I got behind him, as he stood. Those soldiers were all around me. It was almost, nearly like something we'd done at a party once, when Slark had gotten me to drink really too much more than I ever wanted to.

  "Prove it!" I heard shouted.

  "You love beating me up. You were always jealous of me. You're a right idiot for that— and you make a horrid Lieutenant."

  "Kill him," someone shouted from the crowd of soldiers.

  "Where's Carklay?" another said, referring to another Lieutenant.

  But Slark, he swung his arms, back, pushing me off him and I let him. I let him turn to face me. I let him shout at his soldiers not to kill me when they meant to.

  "Don't, don't," he demanded. "He's on our side. He's one of ours. Stop it."

  Not quite right, Slark, I thought to myself. But his swinging arms, and pushing off, had gotten his men to look more towards the battle and the chimera swirling above and le
ss to me. There was an explosion of lightning just off to our side. It sent half the nearby soldiers scattering, just to avoid drawing fire with a crowd. But Slark's attention was all for me— like I had a better chance of saving him than ducking did.

  "Of all the things to bring up to prove yourself," he shouted. "Jealous? Beating you up. How about you tell how good a sergeant I was? How I watched out for you?"

  "You mean, how I got you the job."

  "Hey!" But his voice was cut short—by a catapult, this time launching a stone just beside us, crashing down half a wall. He swore, and I pulled him off, closer to a building.

  "Why are you wearing that?" he demanded of me. "Get it off.'

  "No. I need it. You can't tell anyone I'm here. You need to stop this, Slark. You're on the wrong side."

  He let out a sharp scoff. He waved away a soldier who came to him, on to the street, to the battle. "You think I can't tell that? We're going to bloody, die."

  "You don't have to," I corrected him. "You're a lieutenant. Order them off. Order off your soldiers. Tell them to put down their swords."

  "What!? Have you gone mad?"

  "No—You just said it yourself. Lox is the mad one. You'll die if you stay fighting."

  There was a second, just a second, of Slark staring panicked at me. One of my hands was on his shoulder; it had just stayed there. I didn't know whether he were thinking of Lox being evil (that argument). Or of my standing on the granted mountain being killed, of the way he'd grimaced—obviously not liking it. Or if he was thinking of the dying bit. It was true; we'd planned well, better than I could have hoped, that was obvious from the make of the battle. Akadia was going to fall; I didn't expect it would last till sundown. And all that, even if Lodan didn't manage to get to Garagos and bribe him off.

  That second, then Slark shouted, shoving his sword at me, "You do it! You tell them! You order them to stop!"