Still, she had made a connection, and though she could draw no energy from them, she felt she could send energy to them. For a moment, she considered flooding them with energy and attempting to overwhelm Thorakis. Perhaps he would burst into flames from the excess, but she knew that she would destroy the staff and Koe in the process, and she looked for another way. She would have to find another solution fast; time was running out. Power gathered within Thorakis, wrenched free from every source available.
Without another thought, Catrin lashed out at the staff, not to destroy it, but using her energy to form a connection between the staff and the base of Seethe's massive skull. Lightning flashed between them, startling Thorakis, who then released the energy he'd accumulated, but it did not obey his intention. Instead, his energy followed the path of least resistance through the staff, which glowed from within. The massive charge was diverted through the staff, along Catrin's tendril of energy, and into Seethe.
The feral's wings twitched violently, and he veered to the right, spiraling toward the water below. Catrin watched him fall, knowing the staff and Koe would be lost. The wounded dragon seemed to be trying to get back over land, to have some chance of landing and surviving, but Catrin knew he would die.
In the end, the mighty feral dragon struck solid ground with fatal force.
* * *
Black smoke curled up from the many fires burning within Wolfhold. At the height where Sinjin stood, it all seemed to congeal into a continuous noxious haze. Still he watched the pair of distant dragons as they struggled. A bright light flashed between the two, and Seethe veered off.
"The whole lower keep is aflame, sir, and they're going to make a run at us with ladders." Sinjin wasn't certain who had spoken, but he didn't turn his head; his mother's fate mattered more than anything at that moment. Even as the cries of "Dragon!" rang through the hold, still he watched, and even after it appeared that Seethe had landed or fallen from the sky, unable to be certain, he watched. Squinting, he ignored the command from Jharmin, telling him to get back inside. Still he watched as a giant shape rose from the waters of the Inland Sea and engulfed the distant silhouette that was Kyrien and his mother.
Sinjin would have continued to watch if rough hands hadn't grabbed him from behind and pulled him away.
"Put me down!" he cried out and struggled against the man who carried him away. He could no longer see what was happening to his mother. He could feel only primal fear after what he'd seen. Nothing could be that big, his brain screamed, but he'd seen it, and there was no other explanation he could come up with. He considered for an instant that it might have been a dragon closer to them, but he'd clearly seen it leave the water, and he knew a monster was attacking his mother. He would have continued to struggle if not for the giant black claws that reached for him amid the flapping of massive wings and the huge jaws closing around them as the man ran for the entrance to Jharmin's chambers. The teeth snapped shut on nothing but air. Though closed, those jaws showed they were far from harmless when they slammed into the entranceway with force that shook the room. Chunks of stone flew across the rooms and demolished whatever was in their path.
In the bustle, the man carrying him stumbled and pushed Sinjin forward. Finally showing his good sense, Sinjin tucked his head and ran, trying to catch up to Jharmin and Kendra and his guards. They were only a few steps ahead of him when the dragon struck again, or perhaps it was another dragon; Sinjin had no way of knowing. Again chunks of stone launched into the air, and one of Jharmin's guards was struck; he went down in a heap. Sinjin paused for a moment in shock, but then he pushed after Jharmin as fast as he could.
The remaining guard urged Jharmin and Kendra to reckless speed, and they were pulling away from Sinjin, but at least he, too, was now beyond the reach of the dragons--he hoped. Somehow he knew the dragons would tear the place apart to root them out if that was what it took. The ferocity of their attacks conveyed such hatred that there could be no other outcome. The ferals would find every last one of them until they were gone from Godsland. Perhaps he should just go back and enjoy a quick end. Why prolong the misery?
It took some time to realize that he was not beyond the reach of the feral. Dark thoughts continued to assert themselves, but Sinjin knew them for what they were, and that made them at least a little easier to resist. It seemed such an insidious and evil power to control the mind of another, to impose the will of one on the many, to remove the ability for an individual to make his own decisions. It was this knowing that bolstered Sinjin's will, and the distance he continued to put between himself and the outside world also seemed to be helping.
Ahead of him, Jharmin and the guard turned, and Sinjin raced along behind them. He thought he heard his uncle's voice shouting his name and saying something else, but he couldn't make out the words over the sound of his feet hitting the stone and the pounding of blood in his ears.
When he made the turn, he found a tight spiral stair that had been cut into the stone. The cylinder was narrow and close, and Sinjin felt confined by the encroaching stone as he climbed. Twice he passed equally narrow landings that opened into larger tunnels that led to only darkness and the unknown. Above him, he could see a dim light and hear the sounds of shuffling boots. Hoping there were no enemies within the hold, Sinjin climbed. When at last he found the dimly lit chamber, he saw Jharmin and his guard struggling to turn an apparatus with long, wooden spokes poking out of it.
"Help us," Jharmin barked as soon as Sinjin entered, and Kendra gave him an exasperated look from another of the spokes. Together they pushed; toward what purpose, Sinjin had no guess, but he wasn't fool enough to stand around, asking questions at a time such as this. Slowly the stone pedestal began to move, and they had it. Movement continued to be slow, but it was steady. As it turned, Sinjin saw for the first time what surrounded them. Giant spheres of stone, as big around as greatoaks, looked as if they were suspended in air. Sinjin could not tell how many there were, but there looked to be many.
With a bone-jarring thunk, the wooden shaft in Sinjin's hands vibrated and stopped. It felt as if the entire keep responded to whatever command it was that turning this device had given.
A creaking sound filled the hall, and Jharmin waited with an expectant look on his face. The creaking grew higher in pitch, and there was another bone-rattling thunk just before the huge spheres began dropping from sight. The chamber that held the spheres was revealed as more stones dropped, and Sinjin could see that there must be hundreds of them. The keep vibrated and hummed.
Running to where the light streamed in, Jharmin climbed so he could look through a natural break in the stone. Sinjin followed, and no one tried to stop him. When he reached the place where Jharmin now waited in tense anticipation, Sinjin saw what a commanding view the height provided, and he watched in silent awe as the lands around Wolfhold exploded. Some of the spheres erupted from hillsides nearly whole, blasting away whatever had stood there, then rolling and crushing whatever was in their paths; others erupted from under roadways and bridges.
Almost no homes lay in the paths of the crushing, monolithic spheres, and Sinjin knew this must have been by design, though he'd never have guessed it prior to this moment. From the view he'd had when they approached Wolfhold, everything had seemed perfectly normal, not that looking out from under that infernal blanket had given him much of a view.
A cloud of dust clogged the air, and it became difficult to see what was taking place down below. What Sinjin did notice was that many of the demons, giants, and soldiers were crowding onto bits of land that had not been disturbed, only to be annihilated when a stone burst out from underneath them. Some were clever and ran to places where a sphere had already erupted. As the stones continued to drop, Sinjin saw that some followed the same path as stones before, and the black army found that those places weren't safe either.
Dragons continued to fill the air, and Sinjin still had the sense they would tear the stone down around him to get to him, and he suddenly wa
nted to get away from the opening, remembering how devastating the dragons' attacks had been. But another part of him needed to see this, needed to understand the circumstances in which he found himself. He'd been trained all his life to understand his situation and act accordingly, and all of his training said he needed to find a way out.
* * *
The blackness rose up before them so suddenly that Catrin nearly bit her tongue when Kyrien climbed, thrusting her down into the saddle so hard that her arms were glued to her sides from the force. With a wingspan larger than any dragon Catrin had ever seen, a feral queen rose from the depths and gained the skies. This was a foe like nothing she or Kyrien had ever faced, and she could feel the power of the beast; the air practically crackled with it, and a musky smell that Catrin couldn't identify assaulted her senses. A tingling sensation washed over her, and it took her a moment to realize the feeling was coming from Kyrien. She could not imagine how he could cope with a feral queen after losing his own queen to the ferals; it was cruel irony.
The two dragons flew in near synchronicity, one following wherever the other would choose to flee, so they twisted and spiraled through the air. Catrin knew this battle was one they could not win, especially not in their current condition, and her only thought was to launch a massive attack to buy time for them to take evasive action.
No.
Raw compulsion reeked from Kyrien. His command held her suspended, and she stopped her preparations, trying to understand what it was he wanted from her.
Still they soared higher in the air, and still the feral queen mirrored Kyrien's movements like a deadly dance. Catrin's jaws slammed together from the jarring impact when the two collided. She watched in horror as Kyrien wrapped his neck around that of the feral queen, and she looked back to see their tails twined as well. Kyrien's consciousness was flooded with a red haze of primal need, and locked together, the two dragons dropped from the sky like stones. Watching the water approach with such undeniable certainty, Catrin accepted her fate. After only three more breaths came the darkness.
Epilogue
In shock, Sinjin Volker walked along the corridors of Wolfhold. The news that his mother had been killed by the giant feral dragon did not seem real. He wanted to believe that somehow she would come back, that in some way, all of this was wrong and for naught, but there was a knot in his guts that would not loosen, and his mouth was dry, tasting of ashes. His uncle did not question him, and for once Kendra was silent, which left Sinjin to his own thoughts.
Behind him, men carried the accursed lodestone blanket that would conceal him from the dragons when the time came. He would wait until he had no choice but to go under the blanket before he did so. Memories of his trip to Wolfhold played through his mind; the only good part had been being so close to Kendra. Of course, that was also one of the bad parts.
Sinjin had thought the dark forces might retreat after the deaths of Thorakis and Seethe and the feral queen, but the attacks had only intensified. Wolfhold would fall. Escape seemed the only choice, and Jharmin assured them he could get them out of the hold undetected. But first, they would return to the atrium.
"What kind of diplomat would I be if I had only one spy within Ohmahold?" Jharmin had said, and Sinjin reconsidered everything he knew about politics. "I may be able to get some news from there."
When they reached the grove, Jharmin wasted no time. "Are you there?"
"Yes," came a breathy response. "I'm here, m'lord, but I don't have much time. Things are unfriendly here, and I fear discovery. But I wanted you to know that a ship named the Dragon's Wing was seen off the shores of Endland and can be reached by message."
"That's Benjin and Fasha's ship!" Sinjin blurted. At the same instant, he thought he heard something else as well, but whatever it was got lost in a jumble.
Jharmin just gave him a look. "Send a message that a package is on its way to them."
"Yes, sir. Is there anything else, sir? I really must go."
"I want you to be very careful. Let's make it twice the regular interval before our next meeting."
"Yes, m'lord, thank you," the breathy voice said; then she was gone.
Sinjin and the others turned to leave, but then another voice rose from the stillness.
"Sinjin, is that you?" Durin asked, and Sinjin felt tears spring to his eyes.
"Yes, it's me."
"I'm so glad to know you're alive; we've been waiting here for days. I'm sorry for eavesdropping. It was just that the lady said she was in a hurry, and it sounded important, and I didn't want to interrupt."
"It's all right," Sinjin said, “but we don't have much time. How are things under the rule of Queen Trinda?"
A long silence followed.
"I don't think he wants to answer that question right now," Trinda responded.
* * *
Halmsa of the Wind clan was a fool; he just knew it. He'd believed his dreams were real and would lead him to glory. He'd believed that following his dreams would lead him to his destiny. But here he sat, at the top of a mountain, waiting for a dragon that would probably just eat him. He'd been rained on and windblown, and he was bruised and scraped from the climb. No person in his right mind would have climbed to this spot, but it was where his gut had told him to wait. His gut, bah! He was a fool.
Wind gusts grew stronger and threatened to knock him from where he sat on this rocky plain without even the slightest cover available. Waiting for what? The wind made his fingers hurt, and he rubbed them against the chill. Fumbling in the folds of his tribal garb, he pulled out a piece of dried meat, a rare commodity these days.
When he looked back up, however, an enormous feral dragon rested on the rocky plain before him and covered most of it with its bulk. Eyes like vats of ice burned into Halmsa's soul. Part of him wanted to scream, part of him wanted to run, but a bigger part of him wanted to find his destiny, and it was that determination that kept him standing upright in the face of the most frightening creature he'd ever witnessed. This beast could consume him in a single bite with no problem, and he had to cope with that fear.
His legs trembled but he remained standing. The dragon stayed where she was for some time, her gaze never wandering far from Halmsa. There was something new there now. Was it grudging respect? It seemed too much to accept, and Halmsa needed all his concentration to wait where he was. Waves of fear washed over him, and the dragon rose to dominate his vision.
He could feel the beast's breath on his face as that gruesome head drew closer. Though he remained standing, Halmsa closed his eyes. That only made things worse. When he opened them again, the feral queen looked him level in the eye and snorted at him. The force of the air nearly sent him tumbling, and he took a step back to steady himself, but still he did not flee in the face of terror. Halmsa of the Wind clan stood his ground and earned every bit of the respect he would get. In the next instant, the feral queen launched herself into the skies, pummeling him with air and debris, but still he remained upright. Then she was gone, wheeling away and riding the air over the sea, headed somewhere Halmsa could not even imagine.
When his eyes lowered, he saw them, resting on the rocky plain: a clutch of coppery eggs whose surface was crisscrossed with patterns more beautiful than anything else he'd seen in nature. It was only then that he realized his destiny had arrived, and songs would be sung of him.
Regal
Book Three of The Balance of Power trilogy
Brian Rathbone
Chapter 1
The word of a fool is only as good as his luck.
--Brother Vaughn, Cathuran monk
* * *
Allette Kilbor didn't fit in. No matter how she tried, she stuck out like a cornstalk in a pasture. It wasn't just her complexion or accent that made her conspicuous; it was the way she moved, the clothes she wore, it was everything about her. In this place, she was an outsider, foreigner, other. That reality kept her on edge at all times, and it was exhausting. There was nowhere for her to go. No place was sa
fe.
Only days before, she'd been swabbing decks, casting lines, and enjoying the camaraderie her father's crew had always shared. Those good people knew that helping each other was also the best way to stay alive. Each of the permanent crew had saved the life of another at some point; it was the way her father selected his crewman. The fact that their lives were often enough in danger to provide a full permanent crew spoke to her father's other side. A cold sweat broke on Allette's brow. It was that other side that had quite possibly gotten him killed, but she tried not to think about that. He'd survived things in the past that had seemed impossible, and she concentrated on saving her own skin. That was what he would have told her to do, and she did her best not to let him down.
The coming sunrise meant scrutiny, and that meant being ready to flee at any moment. There was no way for her to know exactly why her father had been taken, but the vision of him crumbling under the attacks of far larger men and being dragged into a pull cart was etched in stark and painful memory. Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes, and she wiped them away with resentment. This was when the strong got stronger. Her father's words got her moving and she walked toward the shadows beneath the stone archways supporting the spiraling roadway. These places, while patrolled heavily at night, offered some modicum of safety during the daylight. Allette had already seen, though, that it was easy to become trapped here; a single guard could pen her in and call for help. Only the knowledge that she could probably fight her way past a solitary guard kept her moving toward the deepening shadows.
The Balance of Power (Godsland Series: Books Four, Five, and Six) Page 47