Iron Will

by James Maxwell

  Sudden thunder pealed. A circle of light with the horn at the epicenter rolled out, a multicolored ripple that moved with incredible speed. The blast wave grew until it was over the sea, into the sky, and past the surrounding cliffs. Dion saw it traveling over the surface of the water faster than his eyes could follow. In the space of a few breaths, the light vanished over the horizon.

  The sound slowly faded. Dion clenched his fists at his sides. He glanced at Chloe, who was kneeling in front of the orb on its wooden stand. Like everyone, she was watching the sky, searching in all directions.

  Thousands of people of all nations and races stood ready to fight. Every hoplite had raised his shield and positioned his spear in his right hand. The archers behind stood ready with bows in hand. The ballistae were loaded. The eldren waited, silent and apprehensive. Dion prayed to the gods that the dragons hadn’t flown so far away that they wouldn’t hear. He was terrified of facing them, but he also knew that if he failed today, this chance wouldn’t come again: people would soon decide that hiding was the better strategy, and civilization as he knew it would end. He told himself to have faith. The bloodren would hear.

  Water streamed past Kyphos’s eyes, forcing him to keep them tightly closed. He was beneath the sea, and the serpent was moving so swiftly that it took all of his strength to hold onto the axe buried in its skull. He had no idea how deep he was, or where he was in relation to the fleet. All he knew for certain was that by causing the serpent to dive he had saved his people – for the time being.

  His lungs screamed at him, telling him he should open his mouth. His chest heaved, making big gasping lurches. He couldn’t see at all. It would be so easy to let go of the axe, and maybe he would rise to the surface in time to take a breath. But if he gave up, the fleet would be sharing the sea with a raging leviathan. No one would ever make it back to Malakai.

  He had to hold on. He concentrated on that one thought, even when his ears popped, and he felt a terrible squeezing on his temples. A furtive part of his mind wondered if serpents had gills. He was sure he hadn’t seen any when the eldren came to Kargan’s aid at the Chasm. Surely the monster beneath him had to take a breath? His thoughts became sluggish. His grip on the axe became weaker. It would be so easy to let go . . .

  The pressure on his temples lessened. His ears popped again. The water became less viscous, more like foam. Suddenly he burst into the air.

  Kyphos opened his eyes and gasped for breath. He was on the surface, and the serpent now cleaved the waves with far more speed than it had shown before. It had been sluggish when it first woke. Now the leviathan had shaken off the weight of its slumber and exercised its rippling body. The crust of filth was almost all gone, with only the occasional streak remaining like white war paint.

  Kyphos shook water from his head. The serpent was writhing and wriggling, with just part of its body above the surface, but it was a far easier position for him to maintain than when it was underwater. He was lying on his stomach and still gripped the wooden haft of the axe with both hands. The ocean spread out in all directions. The sun beat down from a clear blue sky.

  Directly ahead he saw twelve sets of masts and puffed white sails. The great serpent, supreme enemy of Aleuthea, was again heading toward the fleet.

  The ships’ sails were raised, and their oars were working furiously, but there was no way that they could evade the relentless pursuit. Each vessel held hundreds of people: warriors and trackers, sailors and oarsmen, but most of all families. If Marrix struck even one ship, it would splinter into fragments, and the very people Kyphos had tried to rescue would die.

  His jaw set with determination, Kyphos climbed to his feet. He stretched to his full height, which wasn’t tall given his bent shoulders, and then brought his fists down onto the haft of the axe. Stuck in bone, it was wedged tightly and wouldn’t budge. He took a deep breath and tried again, grunting as he pounded at the haft to lever the sharp head free.

  On his third attempt, the axe moved.

  He finally yanked it free and glanced once more at the fleet. The serpent had halved the distance to the defenseless ships. The immense creature hadn’t changed its approach. It definitely wanted to destroy them.

  Kyphos lifted the axe over his head and gazed down into the gaping wound in Marrix’s head. Blood and pink flesh filled the opening, but flowing water continually washed it away, and he could see the smooth surface of white bone, and the gouge his previous blow had left in it.

  He swung down, making a cry of effort. The axe struck the bone and chiseled out a fragment. He raised the axe and struck again, breaking off still more. The next blow cut deeper still, and helped to open up a groove in the serpent’s skull. If he could strike through to the brain, he might be able to kill it.

  With each blow the serpent shuddered, but this time it didn’t dive. It opened its jaws, lifting its head above the surface, and roared. If anything, it increased its speed; the creature seemed to be blaming its pain on the wooden vessels. In moments it would be upon them.

  The fleet sailed in a ragged formation, and the leviathan thrust its tail back and forth to propel its body forward. Kyphos heard the screams of terror. He swiftly looked up to see the nearest ship. A girl of ten or eleven and a boy a few years younger watched their doom with wide, horrified eyes and faces drained of all color.

  Kyphos swung the axe again. Blood now welled from below the bone, which told him he was close. But he knew he wouldn’t kill the monster in time.

  The sky pealed.

  Kyphos nearly dropped the axe in shock. It wasn’t thunder he had heard, it was a sonorous boom, a powerful sound that shook the heavens.

  He looked up just in time to see a wave coming toward him.

  Rather than a wall of water, it was wave of light, colored like a rainbow. It came from the east. Kyphos had no idea what he was seeing. It swept past the ships at the front and continued without any change in its speed. He barely had time to brace himself, axe still in the air, before the light rolled over the ship he was heading toward, and then it was passing over him.

  Nothing happened.

  Kyphos felt no different. He wondered if he had imagined what he’d seen.

  Then everything underneath him moved.

  The serpent’s powerful tail gave a great kick, twisting its immense body in the water. Kyphos was knocked to his knees. The serpent turned away from the fleet, performing a tight rotation. As if obeying a command, it headed directly east, toward where the light had come from.

  The creature was traveling with speed. Kyphos looked helplessly over his shoulder, knowing that a multitude of eyes were watching him depart. The serpent’s tail swept at the sea with long, regular movements, pushing the body in front of it to some unknown destination.

  On his knees, riding the serpent’s skull, Kyphos looked at the axe in his hands. He didn’t know how long the creature would stay distracted.

  There was only one thing to do. He climbed to his feet and braced himself.

  Kyphos raised the axe over his head once more.

  51

  The final echoes of the horn blast faded until the sound was gone altogether. Dion scoured the sky. The soldiers on the beach held their breath. Chloe’s chest rose and fell as she knelt on the sand beside the golden orb from the Lighthouse of Aleuthea.

  ‘They’re here!’ Liana cried.

  Dion saw them at the same time. A group of pinpricks appeared, like tiny dark holes in the curtain of blue sky. One after the other, the specks changed color, shifting toward red. Soon each dot grew a set of curved wings. Dion counted ten of them, and then doubled the estimate. He kept doubling as more and more winged creatures filled his vision; they were distant, flying high above the sea. He soon stopped counting when he approached two hundred. Dozens of bloodren had been killed, but they were only a fraction of the total.

  He swallowed. Despite all the soldiers, he felt vulnerable. This wasn’t like a normal battle. The approaching enemy wouldn’t advance and then s
top to prepare for the initial clash. As soon as they arrived, the fighting and death would begin.

  His eyes swept across the sky; dragons now filled his entire vision. They flew in clusters, but something held them all together in a broad group. He heard shrieks, piercing sounds that set his teeth on edge. Each sinuous neck and triangular head was clear to see. Their jaws were parted to reveal sharp incisors.

  Fear trickled along Dion’s spine. This time there were no walls to hide behind. To work, this plan required everyone to fight in the open. To combat his terror, he reminded himself what these creatures had done. Xanthos and Phalesia would never be the same again. Amos was gone, and Dion’s uncle, and likely the dragons had killed Zachary too.

  The red dragons screeched with triumph when they saw the great army on Sindara’s shore. The Horn of Marrix had summoned them, and now the sight of the people they despised would spur them on.

  Dion looked at Chloe. There was moisture on her forehead, and her entire body was tensed. She was placing her trust in him, ready and waiting for him to give the word.

  Now the bloodren were swooping down from the sky. Their wings crackled, flattened to their lean bodies as they descended. Still Dion waited.

  A snap came from somewhere in the army and a solitary projectile shot out from a ballista. It traveled for a few hundred paces before it lost height and then splashed into the deeper water.

  The shot had fallen short, but in moments the dragons would be in range. They passed the place where the dark water shifted to a paler shade. Dion’s jaw was clenched so tightly that veins stood out in his neck and forehead.

  It was time.

  He lifted his arm, holding it out for an instant before dropping it. Captain Dimitros opened his mouth and bellowed, ‘Avert your eyes!’

  The call was taken up time and time again, echoed by the officers and the men. ‘Avert!’

  There was a loud clatter of movement as everyone put their backs to the sea. They shut their eyes tightly and waited.

  Chloe was focused on Dion, which meant that the only person still watching the dragons was him.

  ‘Now, Chloe!’ he cried.

  The words were barely out of his mouth before she slapped her palm on top of the golden orb. He saw her fierce expression as she held her hand against the sphere. He reminded himself that she had told him that gold wouldn’t cause her any harm. The thought distracted him, so that he almost forgot to close his eyes.

  He shut them just as everything became washed with white.

  Chloe activated the artifact that once powered the Lighthouse of Aleuthea in one single, terrible burst. Even with his eyes closed, sparkles exploded in Dion’s vision. The flare came and went in a split second.

  As soon as the light faded, he opened his eyes and whirled.

  He took in a scene of chaos.

  The bloodren were stunned. Some dragons hovered in the sky, their necks craning as they screeched plaintively. Others darted in one direction or another, seemingly at random. A few even struck the sea, and their wings became bogged in the water.

  Dion didn’t know if they were truly blinded. But he knew what he needed to do next.

  He shouted as loud as he could. ‘Fire!’

  Across the line ballistae jumped on the sand. A series of sharp cracks merged to create a cacophonous clatter. Archers drew their strings to their cheeks and fired. Projectiles filled the air. Holes appeared in dragons’ wings and shafts sprouted from their bellies. The creatures jerked when the heavier iron spears from the ballistae slammed into them. One by one they fell from the sky to plunge into the water. A red-scaled monster with glazed eyes flew down toward Dion, but the archers concentrated their fire and a hail of arrows peppered its chest. It slammed into the sand, and a dozen hoplites ran forward to finish the creature off.

  At the same time, Dion saw that too many shots from the ballistae had missed their mark. And Sophia’s poison couldn’t take effect when the vast majority of arrows failed to penetrate the dragons’ hides. The ballistae were reloading while the archers fired at will. The creatures were still dazed, but that might not remain the case.

  Dion looked back and met Eiric’s eyes. He heard Eiric’s voice inside his mind as Eiric communicated to his people.

  Come. This is our time.

  The eldren went to battle.

  Dion recognized their most powerful warriors: Caleb, Dalton, Liana, and Eiric himself. They ran forward and leaped into the air, changing their shapes faster than a man could take a breath. Gray mist shrouded their figures and then was swiftly swept away by pounding wings. Twelve . . . thirteen . . . fourteen silver dragons launched themselves at their enemies. Scores of furies – lean creatures with wings behind their shoulder blades – flew behind them.

  Larger by far than any of the others, Eiric swiftly outdistanced the silver dragons around him. His huge wings swept up and down as he set his sights on a red dragon. His forelimbs gripped its shoulders; his jaws bit down. He ripped the creature’s throat open, releasing a spray of blood. He let go, and the scarlet dragon fell like a stone into the sea.

  Liana climbed the sky, gaining height, and then descended on top of the dragon she’d selected. She wrapped her limbs around it, and for a time the pair rolled over and over. Dion struggled to see what was happening, but then a shriek split the air. A moment later Liana released and flew away, leaving the dragon’s corpse plummeting.

  The archers stopped firing while the eldren tore through the creatures stunned by the golden orb. Meanwhile the ballistae continued to reload. Everywhere eldren were battling the bloodren, but it wasn’t always an even match. Despite six or seven furies working together to kill a single dragon, they couldn’t find an opening. One silver-haired fury fell from the sky, then another. The rest decided to retreat.

  Dion’s hope that the red dragons were blinded began to fade; it was clear that they were only dazed. Many had flown away and were now regrouping. They were preparing to fight back.

  He watched Eiric coming to Liana’s aid while two dragons snapped at her soft belly. Eiric, get out of there.

  Just . . . a . . . moment . . .

  Now!

  Dion’s gaze was on a region of sky farther back, where the mass of winged creatures was steadily drawing together. The eldren finally broke away and flew toward the beach. They left behind red corpses that floated in the sea, knocked back and forth by the waves. There were furies and at least two silver-scaled dragons floating among them.

  The hope that had begun to stir changed to sinking dread. Dion’s bold plan to use the golden orb to blind the dragons and kill them in the sky had already been executed. After seeing what happened to Chloe when she used her abilities, he knew better than to expect her to do it again.

  He glanced back, hoping that Chloe had already done the sensible thing and left the area.

  Dion took in a sharp intake of breath.

  She still knelt on the sand beside the orb on its stand. What was left of the orb had dissolved into a misshapen lump of gold. She had her hands pressed over her eyes. Her face was twisted in a grimace of pain; she was screaming without sound.

  ‘Chloe!’ Dion shouted.

  He rushed to her side. He called her name again, but even as he reached her she collapsed backward, forcing him to catch her and lower her to the ground. He looked up to see Liana running toward them. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said helplessly. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  He cast a swift look over his shoulder at the sky. The last of the bloodren were flying back to assemble with the rest. The next attack would come in moments.

  ‘Chloe?’ Dion called as he knelt beside her. ‘Can you hear me?’

  She screwed up her face and with obvious effort pulled her hands away from her eyes. Dion swallowed. Liana gasped. Chloe’s irises were milky.

  ‘I’m blind . . .’ she gasped.

  She barely finished speaking before her eyes closed and her head lolled to the side.

  ‘Chloe?’ Dion cal
led down at her. ‘Chloe! By the gods, Chloe, you told me this wouldn’t happen.’

  ‘It’s Chloe,’ Liana said. ‘She lied.’

  Dion blinked away tears of frustration. Everything around him shrank to just this one place. Nothing mattered except the woman in his arms. He no longer heard the bellows of the officers calling on the men to stand ready. The screeches of dragons barely registered. The figures rushing around him were blurred.

  Chloe suddenly sucked in a lungful of air. Dion called her name again and again. She began mumbling, but Dion couldn’t understand what it was she was saying. ‘Ah . . . At . . . Ath . . .’

  He knew he had to get her away. She couldn’t stay here. She was blind. Her lips stopped moving and she went completely limp.

  Dion was terrified as he pressed his fingers to Chloe’s neck. There was a heartbeat, but it was faint – and it was definitely slowing down.

  He tried to remember everything Chloe had told him. Thoughts spun through his mind. She had eventually recovered after saving his life at Fort Liberty, but he knew that this time was different. He had to do something before her heart stopped altogether.

  An idea struck him with force. He knew immediately what to do. And he knew what she had been trying to tell him.

  He lifted his head to meet Liana’s eyes. ‘She collapsed in Sindara. The magi said she almost died. They took her to Athos.’

  Liana cast Dion a bemused look. He realized he was speaking so quickly she could barely understand him.

  ‘Liana, you have to help. She needs to go to Athos. Being there might heal her. Do you understand?’

  People started calling out to them. Dion realized the dragons’ shrieks were almost drowning out their shouts.

  Liana bit her lip, but nodded. ‘Of course I’ll take her.’

  Mist clouded around Liana’s body. It billowed and elongated, before shimmering. Liana once more became a silver-scaled dragon, and Dion lifted Chloe in his arms and settled her onto Liana’s back.