by Adam Blade
As he leaped up, he saw Firepos descend onto Varlot, raking at his armor, piercing it with her sharp talons. The Beast flailed, but Firepos bravely clung on.
Varlot’s eyes glitter with hunger for my blood, but he shall face a fight like no other. He swipes his claws at me, just missing my beak. Enough! I dart around his body, arching my wings to catch the slightest eddy of air that lifts me above his head, just out of reach. Varlot’s mind is closed to me; I cannot read his thoughts. Whoever tamed him has given him the ability to close his mind to other Beasts.
The sun momentarily blinds Varlot, and I take my chance, darting in with my beak to slice at his eyes. Varlot cries out, his chest heaving, and he staggers. My enemy falls to the ground. He hasn’t the heart to face Firepos the Flame Bird!
Firepos hovered above Varlot. The Dragon Warrior’s Beast reared up onto his hind legs and drew his head back, his chest widening as he roared with fury. Claws swiped out at Firepos, but she ducked and swerved in the air, her feathered coat shimmering. The army was marching toward the village, brandishing their glinting weapons.
“Firepos!” Tanner shouted. “Go to the village. Protect them!”
The flame bird screeched and banked away, flying toward Forton. She clutched a fireball in her talons, ready to attack.
Tanner sprinted down the track toward his grandmother’s cottage. He had to get there before the soldiers. He took a shortcut between the trees, leaping over fallen logs and hidden ditches. Why did the Dragon Warrior come this way? And what will he do when he finds Grandmother? Branches and leaves lashed his face as he charged between the trees.
A scream cut through the air and Tanner’s heart skipped a beat.
As Tanner raced toward the cottage, he spotted his grandmother. She stood in the doorway, gripping the ax he used for chopping wood. At her feet a soldier was curled up in the dirt, clutching a hand to his neck. Blood poured out between his fingers as he gazed up at Esme, horrified.
A snarling varkule loomed over her, its rider keeping a firm grip on the reins. The hair along the animal’s spine stood erect and his ears were flattened back against his huge head as he snapped his jaws at Esme. Tanner saw her lip curl with disgust at the smell. Beside the animal stood the Dragon Warrior, flanked by three more enemy soldiers, all armed with curved blades.
“Give in, you old witch,” one of them taunted.
She glanced down at the bleeding man who was crawling away from her. “Give in?” she said incredulously. “Come here and say that! I’ll split your skull open, too.”
The soldier lunged at her angrily.
“Leave her alone!” shouted Tanner, drawing his sword. He ran to his grandmother’s side, leaping over the injured soldier, who tried to grab his ankles.
“Ah, more peasants to sport with,” smirked the varkule rider.
Esme glared at him. “Tanner, get behind me,” she snapped, raising her ax.
Rage boiled inside Tanner, and he stepped forward, slashing at the varkule’s chest. The animal reared up and threw off his rider, who cried out as he fell to the ground. Leaping to his feet, the soldier pointed his spear at Tanner.
But the soldier didn’t have time to attack — the bleeding varkule lunged, ferocious jaws tearing at Tanner’s tunic. Tanner darted to the right, avoiding a second fierce snap of those deadly teeth. The varkule’s fur bristled with hostility. His rider called out an order and the varkule hesitated, spit dripping over Tanner. The animal backed away, licking his gums. Tanner could feel his hands trembling as he held his sword out before him.
The soldier held his cloak against his mount’s wound. “You’ll pay for this, boy!”
“Enough!” said a gravelly voice. The Dragon Warrior approached. Tanner saw swirling grooves cut into the surface of the warrior’s armor, lined with gold. His face was still covered by the heavy dragon helmet, but now Tanner could see bright eyes staring through the visor.
The Dragon Warrior drew a deep breath into his nostrils, the distorted sound snorting through the visor. “She’s hiding something. The Mask of Death is close. I can smell it.” He took off his helmet and looked at Tanner’s grandmother, who still stood in the doorway with the ax. His voice softened. “Come out, old woman. I want to talk to you.” Esme hesitantly took a step forward.
With lightning speed, the Dragon Warrior grabbed her ax in one hand and her throat in the other, pulling her face close to his. “You know where it is,” he said. “I see it in your eyes.”
Esme’s eyes blazed defiantly at the soldiers surrounding her. “Your breath is worse than the varkule’s,” she said.
“Tell us,” said the Dragon Warrior. “Or die.”
“She doesn’t know where —” Tanner began.
“I’ll never tell you,” Esme spat.
The soldiers reach the village. The gate proves no obstacle to the charging varkules. The soldiers run down the roads and alleys to the center. The defenders of Forton, under the command of Simon, are assembled in the square. Carts have been overturned and the villagers stand behind them, archers and crossbowmen with their weapons leveled, spears and swords gripped.
A volley of arrows cuts down the first enemy wave, but other soldiers storm the square, jumping over their fallen comrades and clambering over the barricades with bloodthirsty cries. Brutal hand-to-hand combat begins, and the villagers fall back under the disciplined fury of the raiders. I cannot use my fireballs — innocent people will be hurt. I swoop down, grasp a soldier in my talons, and fling him into his comrades.
More villagers run out of doorways, striking with whatever weapons they can find. A boy shoots his hunting bow, the arrow bursting through an enemy’s thigh. As blood pours down the soldier’s leg, he slashes out angrily with his sword. The cobbles are already slick with blood.
The ground seems to shake and everyone looks up. Varlot strides into the square, and the timber walls of the buildings shudder. The villagers are shocked and afraid. I screech, trying to tell them to run away. They can’t face a creature of this size. But Simon waves his arm to keep them in line.
“As I thought,” said the Dragon Warrior to Tanner’s grandmother, letting her go. “Then I will have to make you tell me.”
“You’ll be rotting in your grave before I tell you anything,” shouted Esme.
The Dragon Warrior gave a small nod, and the soldiers advanced. Tanner swung his sword, but the blow was parried by a spear, and the blade was thrown from his hand. A soldier gripped Tanner’s throat and tripped him backward. White light filled his eyes as his head slammed into the hard ground. He felt cold iron across his throat. A knife.
“You will tell us,” the Dragon Warrior said. “Or it’s the boy’s blood we’ll spill.”
“All right,” Esme said despairingly. “Don’t hurt him!”
Tanner twisted his neck and saw his grandmother wringing her hands.
“Well?” said the Dragon Warrior.
“Promise you won’t harm my grandson.”
“You have my word,” the Dragon Warrior said. “Give me the mask, and he will live.”
“Don’t do it!” shouted Tanner.
His grandmother was pale, breathing heavily. “It’s under the floorboards,” she said. “Behind the chest in the kitchen.”
The Dragon Warrior nodded to one of his men, who ran inside the cottage. Tanner heard him throwing the chest aside. Where was Firepos?
I need you now. He sent a message out to his Beast, closing his eyes in concentration.
I sweep down, hurling a fireball at Varlot’s head. He lifts his armored arm and the flames smash across it, making him roar. He stumbles backward in pain. I pound him again, and the fireball breaks over his back, knocking him to his knees. I can hold him off for a time, but not for long.
Screams rise up from the square. The enemy is being held, but brave men and women are lying wounded or dead. The invaders are relentless in their ferocity. The owner rushes out from the bakery where Tanner works.
“Cowards!” he sho
uts at the soldiers. He grasps a long wooden pole ending in a metal shovel and thrusts it into the neck of an enemy soldier. The man collapses, clutching at his throat. But two soldiers leap on the baker, and he falls against a wall. They stab him, and he groans his last breath.
Pain shoots up my wing. I drop, almost hitting a thatched roof, but pull clear, despite the agony. Another arrow thuds into my belly. I see a soldier with a long-bow, aiming another arrow at me. He shoots.
I dip my wing and dodge the shaft. I am wounded, but not enough to stop me. Gathering a fireball, I fling it toward the soldier. The thatch blazes and he falls through into the cottage below with a scream.
Tanner needs me! I feel it like the pain of the arrows, but deeper.
The soldier came running out of the house. In his hands, he held a piece of sackcloth.
“I’ve found it, General Gor!” he said. “But —”
So that’s his name, thought Tanner.
“Give it to me!” General Gor said. He snatched the object from the soldier’s hand, and crouched down. He tipped out the contents onto the ground.
“What’s this?” he bellowed.
“I tried to tell you, sir ….”
Tanner managed to catch a glimpse of what had been in the sack. It was only a piece of the mask — an eye socket, part of the upper brow with a twisted horn, and a loose piece of jowl. He remembered it well.
Gor thrust the fragment into Esme’s face. “Where is the rest of it?” he barked, spittle flying from his lips.
Esme paused, and her eyes met Tanner’s. The look lasted only a heartbeat, but it spoke more than words. She shook her head. “That’s all I have.”
Gor turned and looked at Tanner with narrowed eyes. His lips curled into a thin smile.
“Then you are no more use to me,” he muttered. He swiveled around, driving his sword through Esme’s midriff. The point, dripping gore, burst from her back. Grandmother Esme let out a choking cry and crumpled to the ground. Tanner writhed beneath the dagger blade, tears misting his eyes, until he found his voice.
“No!” he cried, and the word turned into a howl of despair.
Gor turned to his men as he tugged his sword free. “The fun’s over. We have what we need.”
A soldier swung his foot hard into Tanner’s ribs. He grunted and rolled into a ball. With his face in the dirt, he watched the boots of the enemy soldiers march away.
Coughing and clutching his side, Tanner crawled across the ground. “Grandmother?” he whimpered.
She was half sitting against the steps, her lips pulled back in a grimace of pain and her hands trying to stanch the flow of blood from her stomach.
He pressed a fold of her shawl over the wound, but blood darkened it at once. He could feel her pulse pumping blood from her body. Tanner gently brushed the hair from his grandmother’s eyes and supported her head with his arm.
“I’ll bind your wound,” he said, trying to reassure her, trying not to let his own fear frighten her. “You’ll have to tell me the right herbs to use.”
“Too late for herbs, boy.” His grandmother’s face twisted with pain. Blood pulsed faster from her wound, soaking the shawl. She held up one knotty hand to stroke Tanner’s cheek. “The messages I saw in the bones are clear to me now,” she went on, every word an effort. “A creature of great evil is directing Gor. It wants the Mask of Death. It must not find it! Death and ruin will befall the land ….” Blood stained her teeth, and coughing racked her body.
Overwhelmed with grief, Tanner could find no words to comfort her. All he could do was gaze helplessly as her face drained of color, his hand clasping her fragile fingers.
He heard a rustle from behind some nearby bushes. Has Firepos come? he wondered. But the Beast didn’t show herself.
Esme gathered the last of her strength. “You must fight.” Her voice was so weak that Tanner had to bend close to hear. “Go to Colweir.”
“Colweir?” It was a town to the east. He knew nobody there.
She fumbled for Tanner’s hand and gripped it with surprising strength. Her blood felt sticky against his fingers.
“Find … the Mapmaker,” she hissed.
Tanner felt as if his limbs were on fire, and darkness swirled over his eyes. It was as though the past was repeating itself: first his father, now his grandmother. Her grip loosened and her hand fell away from him. Her head was suddenly heavy in his hand.
Esme was dead.
A breeze blew across the front of the cottage, carrying distant shouts from the village. The sounds of battle faded and stopped. Their work done, the raiders had departed.
Wiping the tears from his eyes, Tanner lifted his grandmother’s body — she was little more than skin and bones — and carried her indoors, carefully arranging her in front of the fire.
His grandmother’s box of oracle bones was lying near the table. Tanner lashed a foot toward it, scattering the pieces of bone across the floor.
So much for reading the future!
Gathering himself, he fetched a blanket from his grandmother’s bedroom and draped it over her body. He sank onto the floor beside her, reaching out for his grandmother’s hand, holding it in his lap. The flesh was already cooling. Her fingernails were yellow and ragged from a lifetime’s hard work.
For eight years she’s been like a mother to me, and this is how I repay her: by letting her die!
Through the haze of grief, he heard her last words again. “Go to Colweir. Find the Mapmaker.” But who was the Mapmaker? What did he have to do with the mask?
There was a screeching sound from outside, and a flurry of feathers. Firepos thrust open the door with her beak. Her gaze fell on Esme’s body.
Rage flooded through Tanner again. He snatched up a copper pan and hurled it at Firepos. It ricocheted off the Beast’s neck.
“Where were you when I needed you?” he yelled.
Firepos sank down onto her haunches, her shimmering gaze never leaving Tanner’s face. He felt suddenly ashamed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Firepos was holding one wing away from her body. Tanner saw the shaft of an arrow and leaking trails of blood across her feathers. She twisted her head, but couldn’t reach it. Tanner’s shame deepened. “Here,” he said. “Let me.”
Firepos lay down flat, extending her wing. The vicious barb had burst right through. Tanner snapped off the arrowhead and tossed it away, then stroked Firepos’s neck to calm her. Gripping the bloody end of the wood in one hand and steadying her wing with the other, he pulled firmly. Firepos shrieked as the shaft came loose. Flames spread over her wings, sealing the wound.
Tanner looked back at the house. He couldn’t leave his grandmother’s body in the front room.
He fetched a shovel from the outbuilding.
Tanner kissed Grandmother Esme’s brow for the last time; he would never feel her embrace again. Passing a hand down her face, he closed her eyes. He took the piece of red linen she used to tie back her dreadlocks and wrapped it around his wrist. Then he drew the blanket shroud over her face.
“Farewell, Grandmother,” he muttered. “Thank you for everything.”
After he had filled in her grave, he went back to the cottage. He didn’t need much for his journey, but there were two items that would be useful — his father’s possessions that Esme had kept. In her chest, he found the silver compass, polished to a shine. There was the Looking Crystal, too. It was an oblong of milky white stone. When Tanner held it to his eye, the swirling white would disappear and he could see across huge distances clearly. As a child, Tanner had marveled as he stared at distant mountains: The Looking Crystal made them look only a few paces away.
Firepos waited for him in front of the cottage. Tanner retrieved his sword, cleaned the blade, and sheathed it in his scabbard. Its weight against his side made him feel stronger.
Tanner looked back to the cottage for the last time. Without his grandmother, it could never be home again. He trudged toward the village, wondering if he could do anything t
o help. Firepos took to the air, watching him from above.
A choking canopy of smoke hung over the village. The gates lay on the ground where the varkules had battered them from their hinges. Crumpled bodies lay still, their limbs tangled and torn. The shouting and screaming had died away; the only sounds now were the crackling of flames that leaped from every cottage, and the moans and sobs of the few survivors. Tanner fought down a sickness that made him dizzy.
He saw a man rushing from the well with a pail of water to treat the grievous wounds of a boy on the ground. It was Ben, his face sheeted with blood.
A woman, stomach smeared in gore, stared up at him from the ground with unseeing eyes. A few paces away, a child’s body lay twisted in the dirt, golden curls matted with mud.
“Why has this happened?” a woman said, gazing at her dead child. She glanced up at Tanner. “Tell me!” she insisted, anger flooding her cheeks. “Why?”
Tanner shook his head. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I don’t know why.”
He turned on the spot, taking one last look at his shattered village. The fires were starting to burn out, leaving blackened shells where snug houses had stood such a short time before. Today’s attack on the villagers was surely linked with the death of his father all those years ago. His grandmother had hidden a fragment of the mask that had brought these men here today. Why hadn’t she destroyed it? Now Esme was dead — and others, too. Tanner felt guilty to still be alive.
“Firepos,” he said, turning to his Beast. “Take me away from here.”
My Chosen Rider does not know where to go. Grief has clouded his heart. He needs time. I take him to a place we both know well — a mountainside far from anywhere. The hours pass. Tanner grieves for his village and his last remaining relative: brave Esme, who protected him and taught him so much.