Dragon Rise

by D. K. Holmberg

  He held onto the sense of seething rage within himself. It was a burning sort of energy, and it built, rising in time with the Calling. He didn’t fight it. What was the point in fighting that which would protect him?

  “Fes?”

  He looked over to see a pained look on Nick’s face. He stared at Fes and froze.

  “You have to resist,” he said to Nick.

  “What is it?” Elorayne asked.

  “It’s the Damhur. They’re attempting to control him.”

  She pointed her dragon claw at Nick, and Fes shook his head. “No. Give him a chance. Nick is strong.” He turned his attention to Nick, grabbing his shoulders. “You can work through it. You can resist. It’s in you.”

  “How can I resist if they can control dragons?”

  “We have to be able to resist.”

  For a moment, Nick’s eyes went blank. They took on the glassy appearance of Deshazl who had been controlled, and he worried that he wouldn’t be able to bring Nick back. If it came to it, he had to be willing to let Elorayne knock him out.

  He looked around as a cluster of people approached. None looked as if they belonged in the city, and none had the appearance of a fire mage.

  The others.

  “Keep an eye on him. If it comes to it…”

  Elorayne nodded.

  Fes threw himself forward, barely controlled anger filling him. Power built within him unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. Was it a matter of his anger? Or was there something else that caused that power to rise within him?

  Two soldiers met his blade.

  Fes was thrown back. They carried dragonglass blades.

  How?

  The only people he’d seen the dragonglass blades had been his parents and Jaken.

  Deshazl.

  They were controlled. They were Deshazl.

  Fes couldn’t hurt them, could he?

  His hesitation gave them a chance to dart forward, and as much as he wanted not to hurt them, he didn’t know that he would have a chance. Fes didn’t have enough control over his abilities to be able to fight them without harming them. All he wanted to do was find some way of cutting through their attack. If they were Deshazl, there might be something he could learn from them. There might be some way that Arudis could help, if he could find her.

  The other person behind them watched.

  Golden blonde hair was twisted into a thick braid, and it hung down to the middle of her back. She was dressed in navy and green, bold colors that seemed almost as if they intended to announce her as something other than a member of the empire.

  She was the one controlling them.

  Could she be the one attempting the Calling on Nick?

  Anger filled him, and he jumped.

  There had been times before when Fes had managed to explode with power that he hadn’t known he possessed. The first time he had used his anger, letting it fill him, had been one such time. He shouldn’t have survived when confronted with that many mercenaries, and yet he had.

  This was another.

  The jump carried him up and over, and he twisted in the air, coming to land behind this woman. She turned slowly, seemingly unconcerned about his presence.

  Fes couldn’t move.

  “You have been most troublesome.”

  He trembled. Every part of his being wanted nothing more than to break free of what she was doing to him, but he couldn’t. It felt as if he were held in place, locked. The two men turned to him, both holding swords made of the same unbreakable dragonglass as his.

  They would destroy him.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “How is it that you have managed to evade us as long as you have?”

  He attempted to fight, but it wouldn’t make a difference. As much as he wanted to escape, as much as he wanted to counter the magic that she was using on him, he didn’t think that he could.

  His body quivered.

  The desire to please her began to build. It was almost as if he had no choice but to comply, to find some way to answer her summons, to do anything that would bring her joy, but how?

  A nagging part deep within him told him that pleasing her would betray himself.

  And who was he?

  An animal. He was nothing more than a servant to her. He would be a soldier. He would fight on her side. He would help bring down this empire.

  In that moment, Fes wanted nothing more than to do that, to help satisfy that urge, to bring about the end of the empire, and to control the dragon.

  The dragon.

  He didn’t need to look up to know that it still circled in the sky. The dragon had power. He had seen it in his dreams. It should not be chained and controlled. It should be allowed to fly free.

  Even as she placed the thought in his head, the belief that he should succumb to her wishes, he knew as clearly as he knew anything that the dragon did not deserve that fate. It should be allowed the freedom to soar in the sky. Return to the dragon plains. Perhaps head north, beyond the mountains.

  Like a whisper, he heard something in the back of his mind.

  Fezarn.

  What was it that he heard? Why should he hear it?

  It came again, this time louder, practically demanding that he pay attention to it.

  Fezarn.

  That word. He knew it.

  That was a name. His name.

  “Fezarn!” He screamed the word, his name.

  Distantly, he heard the dragon roar. As it did, he was freed. The effect of the binding, that of the Calling, released from him.

  Fes lunged forward with his sword and slipped it into the woman’s belly.

  Her eyes went wide.

  He darted back, half expecting the two men to follow and attack, but they collapsed, dropping to the ground without so much as a sound.

  He blinked, looking up. The dragon still circled, but the circle was growing wider.

  That troubled him. At some point, he feared that the dragon would continue to sweep around, and when it did, the Damhur would gain control of it.

  He had to prevent that, but how?

  He glanced back. Somewhere along the street, he would find Elorayne, and she could work with him, helping him.

  Racing toward where he left her, he found the fire mage near Nick. “Is Nick hurt?” he asked as he reached Elorayne.

  She stood with her hands pressed out in front of her, the dragon claws glowing. Nick was motionless, but his eyes had begun to return to normal and color had returned to his face.

  “Fes?”

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  “It seems as if you weren’t able to avoid the effect of the Calling.”

  “How… How am I here?”

  “Because I stopped the woman performing the Calling.”

  He glanced up at the sky. The dragon screeched again, the roar splitting the night. Flames followed, streaking out from it. Heat billowed with it.

  “If they control the dragon and it attacks the city…” He started, and Elorayne nodded. “We need to end this.”

  They continued along the street. He came across more of the other soldiers and hesitated long enough to determine they weren’t his Deshazl who had been controlled before he leaped into the fray, cutting them down. The soldiers were easy enough, and he feared coming across more of the people who could perform the Calling.

  They swept along the streets, and Fes came face to face with another woman.

  A dozen people appeared behind her.

  “You have avoided us so far,” she said.

  Elorayne sent fire magic sweeping at the woman, but two of the men intervened and sliced down with their swords, cutting away the fire magic.

  The woman smiled. “You will see that there is very little that you can do that will stop us,” she said.

  Fes lunged and was blocked.

  He turned. Nick looked at him, his eyes blank.

  A woman like this, able to control a dozen or more men, wo
uld be incredibly powerful. She would be a threat to the dragon.

  But a dozen soldiers?

  And if they were Deshazl, Fes wouldn’t want to risk harming them.

  With this, there might not be a choice. Nick was the only person he would have to be especially careful with.

  Fes focused on the heat within him, letting the power of the dragons swell within him. It came slowly, more slowly than he would have liked, especially considering how necessary it was to somehow find a way to escape. The woman watched him, and she smiled as she seemed to know his struggle.

  Deep within him, he felt a stirring. He held onto that sense, maintaining that connection, the sense of the power. That stirring was somehow tied to reaching power.

  What had he done before?

  If he could do that again? If he could somehow reach for the same power that he had managed to use on the soldiers the last time, he would be able to stop them. Wouldn’t he?

  How had he done it?

  It had poured out of him, and he remembered how he had used the sword, somehow focusing that.

  Fes let the sense of the Deshazl part of him continue to build, rising up, and he focused on it, calling to it, and it joined with the strange stirring within him.

  Fes raised the sword in front of himself.

  When it had happened before, he had called out his name, hadn’t he?

  No. That had only been for the Calling.

  Somehow, he would find a way to release that power.

  He held his hand up and tried to push it out.

  The soldiers moved toward him.

  Fes had to act and couldn’t let them to attack him. But if she did anything now, it would disrupt whatever it was that he might be able to do.

  Heat built behind him, Elorayne working on her fire mage spell, but it dissipated, evaporating as the Deshazl captured by this other managed to destroy the spell. She was a powerful fire mage, and despite that, her magic faded as if it were nothing.

  Fes resisted the urge to fight. He resisted the urge to succumb to the fire and rage within him, controlling it. He held on to it as the men approached. He didn’t want to kill them, and if he unleashed that part of himself, that was what was going to happen. There was no question in Fes’s mind that he would.

  Was this what Arudis had in mind when she told him that he needed to master all parts of himself?

  The soldiers twitched.

  In another moment, Fes had little doubt that they would attack. He was ready.

  The woman smiled, almost a condescending look that she gave to Fes. “Perhaps I was wrong, and you won’t be nearly as helpful as I had hoped,” she said.

  Fes pushed out, letting the rage and anger explode.

  The power flowed from him and slammed into everyone around him.

  Even Fes staggered from it.

  He caught himself and lunged forward, ignoring the Deshazl that he had attacked who were now lying scattered around him on the street. The woman had fallen, and he stood over her.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  Fes smiled and rammed his sword into her chest. “I am Fezarn.”

  Power exploded from his sword, and Fes did nothing to restrain it. He wanted that power to erupt, and it tore through the woman, ripping her apart. Her control over the Deshazl hopefully shattered.

  Withdrawing the blade from her chest, he looked around for Elorayne. She watched him from where she had been thrown toward the side of the street. Nick lay unconscious on the street. He still breathed, and Fes was thankful for that. “Are you hurt?” he asked Elorayne.

  “I’ve not seen anything like that before,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Did you do that intentionally?”

  “This time, I tried to. The last time it happened wasn’t intentional.”

  Her eyes narrowed for a moment. “It seems there is much we need to learn about the Deshazl.”

  “I think you need to focus your energy on these others.”

  There would be more in the city. Stopping the one would only be part of it. If they were going to attack, there was very little that would delay them. He might have encountered one of these others who had an ability to perform a powerful Calling, but she wasn’t alone. Fes could still feel it, and when he looked up at the sky, noticing the way the dragon continued its ever-widening circle, he feared for it.

  “What is it?” Elorayne asked.

  He nodded toward the sky. “Look at its circle. It keeps getting wider.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “How much longer will it be before the dragon circles out toward where these others are, and they manage to take control of it?”

  Elorayne frowned. “We need to disrupt it.”

  “There’s something about your fire magic that helps. I don’t understand it, but you need to gather the fire mages—all of them—and use it to counteract the Calling.”

  Elorayne watched him, concern on her face. “How do we do that?

  “Use the same type of spell as you had been using on the city. Push outward with it, and use that connection to see if you can force away the effect of the Calling.”

  Would it even work? It was possible that it wouldn’t, regardless of the power of the fire mages. These others could be more powerful than them. Fes hated that they might not be enough to save the dragon.

  Had this been what the ancient Deshazl had gone through?

  It would have been worse—much worse. From the look of the dragon bones that he’d seen in the dragon plains, the torment of the dragons had been much more significant. He thought that he understood why they had retreated toward the northern mountains. Could it be that the dragons and the Deshazl thought that retreating to the mountains would have protected them from the Damhur?

  And it hadn’t. The dragons still had been attacked, the Deshazl had still been attacked, and they had both been destroyed.

  At least Fes thought that he understood why the Deshazl would have been willing to help collect relics for the empire. If the empire had fought these others, using the fire mages, the Deshazl would have partnered with them. Even after the dragons were gone, there would have been value in partnering with the empire, especially as the empire would have been much less likely to use the Deshazl.

  Elorayne stared at Fes. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to stop as many of them as I can.”

  “What happens if they, you know, perform this Calling on you, and control you in their way of doing it?”

  Fes looked up at the sky. “I have to do whatever I can.”

  Elorayne offered a half smile. “You are not what I was led to believe you would be.”

  “And what were you led to believe that I would be?”

  “Selfish.” She held his gaze for a long moment. “That is the story on you, Fezarn. You have wanted nothing more than to serve yourself. When you came to the temple, I thought that was more of the same. I believed you were here to acquire relics you could sell and make even more money.”

  “That’s not why I was here,” Fes said.

  “I see that. Jayell was trying to convince us otherwise, but…” She glanced over at the tower of the temple. The top of it had been destroyed, exploded outward from the dragon’s arrival. “I wish you strength, but it seems that you don’t need that from me. Instead, I will wish you well.”

  She turned and started back toward the temple. Fes looked around, wondering whether he could do as he had suggested. Would he be strong enough?

  Could he be strong enough?

  The sound of violence in the street propelled him forward, almost as much as the occasional screech of the dragon overhead. What choice did he have but to fight?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Fes encountered another pack of soldiers. None of them carried dragonglass swords. Did that mean they weren’t Deshazl? They swarmed him, not giving him a chance to question.

  Fes held back at first, afraid to attack to vig
orously. If he allowed that part of himself to come out, he would end up killing these people, and he didn’t want to harm them, not without knowing who they were.

  One of them got close, and there was a dark smile on their face. “We were supposed to bring you in, but I think it would be better if we leave your body here.”

  Fes punched the man in the face, splitting his lips. Two others surged forward, and Fes swept through their swords, leaving nothing but shattered blades behind. He wouldn’t be able to withstand their attack without allowing himself a deeper connection.

  He focused on his memories, that of losing his brother, and Indra, and finally, new memories that left him thinking of the Deshazl, chained in the back of wagons, strangers intending to cart them off to some other land to be used like animals.

  And lastly, he thought of the dragon. Even in the middle of his fight, he was vaguely aware of it circling overhead. There was a constant pressure, a presence that came from the dragon, and it reminded him of what he felt when confronted with fire mage magic. This had many of the same qualities, the heat and the power, but mixed within it was something different.

  Fes allowed that power to explode from him.

  He carved through three men before they even knew that he’d started toward them.

  Fes jabbed, catching the man he punched in the belly, disemboweling him. Spinning, he confronted three more and barely focused as he slid the sword through them. The dragonglass blade met everything, not struggling at all with what Fes asked the blade to do, carving through every attacker.

  There was more movement along the street, and he looked up to see nearly two dozen of the Damhur coming at him.

  A memory of his time in the capital came to him, and he faltered. He had destroyed all of them, but those men hadn’t been soldiers, at least not most of them. These men would be. Some of them might be Deshazl who had been captured and forced to serve, and others might be those who came from the Damhur homeland.

  They fell upon him before he had a chance to think about his reaction. And what was there for him to think about? He needed to fight.

  Could it all fall on him? He had seen hundreds of the Damhur surrounding the city and suspected there would be hundreds more that he hadn’t seen. It was an army, and they were powerful, equipped with fire magic that even the empire’s fire mages struggled against.