by Taylor Leigh
‘No,’ Tollin said tonelessly. ‘It takes something special to kill a dragon.’ He pulled a tiny pouch out from his pocked and opened it. Tipping the pouch over, Victoria noticed a tiny, yellow, glowing pebble float out onto his palm. The small rock bobbed gently just above his skin.
‘What’s that?’ Victoria breathed, coming closer.
‘It’s a dragonstone,’ Tollin told her. ‘Careful, don’t touch it. It will destroy you.’
‘A dragonstone?’
‘Yes, comes from the belly of a dragon. It’s what makes them breathe fire.’ He smiled up at her in wonderment.
‘How come it’s not harming you?’ She leaned in closer, yellow glow making her dark skin shine like polished bronze.
‘Well,’ Tollin shrugged. ‘I’m kind of…built to handle these.’
Tollin leant back over the gully and gazed down at the beast. It shook heavily, breathing hard and stared up at him with steady eyes. It gave a slight growl.
Tollin sighed. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again, and then gently tipped his hand.
The dragonstone fell gently from his hand and floated downwards, like a pebble dropped in water. The beast reached its nose up to the stone and it landed lightly on the creature’s warty skin.
A fiery glow started at the point of impact and branched outward from the dragon’s nose, racing across his face with incredible speed. The beast’s skin seemed to burn away, nose, mouth, skull, neck and body turning to burning embers. The fire spread quickly and in less than thirty seconds the entire creature was nothing but a frozen effigy of embers in the shape of the beast. The image trembled for a moment, and then collapsed into glowing black ashes.
Andrew stared in fascination. ‘That was incredible!’ he breathed. ‘Imagine a weapon with those capabilities!’ He lurched to the ladder. Tollin grabbed his arm.
‘Whoa, hey! Where are you going?’
Andrew stared at him, eyes gleaming feverishly. ‘To find the stone. A weapon like that…’
‘No.’ Tollin shook his head. ‘No. A weapon like that among men would be disastrous. Besides, it’s already long gone, working its way through Scottorr’s core. It’ll eventually break its way free to the other side of the planet and out into space.’
Andrew shook his head. ‘I understand much, Traveller, but you, I feel I never will.’
Tollin grinned at him broadly. ‘Well, that’s half the fun right there! A little bit of mystery never hurt anyone!’
Victoria turned to look back at the Blaiden. They looked on in awe at Tollin, the Destroyer of the Monster. The Traveller. They seemed meeker, smaller, now that they didn’t have a leader….no leader. Victoria felt a chill go through her.
‘Andrew,’ she said slowly.
Andrew turned round and saw her looking towards the Blaiden. ‘Oh,’ he groaned.
‘What?’ Thedric asked, growing uncomfortable.
‘Where’s Drugai?’ Andrew asked quietly.
Victoria looked round and felt an even deeper chill crawl through her. ‘Where’s Flynn?’ she gasped.
Andrew pushed through the Druids and Tartans towards the edge of the clearing. He looked down at the grass along the edge of the forest, eyes darting quickly. It took him about ten seconds to spot what he was looking for.
‘There.’ He pointed. ‘Grass pressed down, moccasin footprint, small male about Flynn’s height, moving quickly and quietly in that direction.’
Victoria didn’t wait for the rest of the explanation. She broke into a run through the open forest, dashing through the tall, silent beech trees. She heard shouts behind her and knew that others were following. She didn’t care. She had a horrible, gnawing sense of dread that whatever she found when she reached Flynn would not be good.
Noises through the trees reached her ears and Victoria pulled up, breathing hard. She wiped sweat from her brow and swallowed heavily. Ahead was a small clearing and she miserably noted the towering form of Drugai, standing over the much smaller form of which could only be Flynn.
She was about to race towards him when someone grabbed her arm. She turned to see Tollin. Farther behind him were Andrew and Thedric.
‘Might as well bring the whole village,’ she hissed.
‘Couldn’t just leave them there,’ Tollin explained. ‘Besides, they need to see this.’
‘What?’
‘Trust me,’ Tollin said gently. He grabbed her hand and hauled her forward.
Victoria and Tollin hurried to the clearing. She didn’t like what she saw. Drugai, bleeding and drooling, was circling Flynn on all fours; great antlers were strapped to his wrists which supported his thick body and dug deep into the earth. His yellow eyes locked on Flynn, blackened mouth pulled back into a horrible snarl. Flynn did not look so good. A gash from his forehead was pouring blood into his face. Though weak and exhausted, he was still standing. His eyes darted to Victoria and Tollin and gave them a curt nod.
Drugai chuckled, leering at Victoria. ‘Good,’ he growled. ‘An audience. I’m glad someone will be here to watch me destroy you!’
Drugai lurched forward in a wild run. Flynn staggered to the side, swiping his axe at the man as he spun away. Drugai avoided the axe and swiped his antlers out, striking Flynn in the back. He stumbled away with a grunt.
Victoria grabbed Tollin’s arm. ‘Can’t we help him?’
‘No,’ Tollin muttered grimly. ‘He has to do this himself.’
Andrew arrived then, followed closely by Thedric. ‘So, this is what decides it then.’
‘Decides what?’ Thedric asked.
‘Who’s in charge.’
Flynn looked round at his new audience with a tight expression, then gripped his axe tighter and charged Drugai. Drugai didn’t seem ready for the attack and stumbled backwards a couple steps before kicking Flynn onto his back. He slammed his antlered arms into the ground on either side of Flynn, effectively trapping him. Flynn jerked to his side to grab is axe and tried to bring it up over and down upon Drugai’s head. Drugai smashed his antler guard down on Flynn’s arm and ducked low, sinking his sharp teeth into his neck.
Flynn gasped as Drugai stood; mouth still clamped on Flynn’s neck, and flung him across the clearing. Flynn lost his weapon and went skidding to a stop in the snowy ground. Blood bubbled from the wound, but Andrew stated it didn’t look that deep. Drugai had missed any vitals. Still, Flynn wasn’t quick on getting up. When he finally staggered to his feet, he was doubled over, hand clamped against his ribs.
‘His ribs are broken,’ Andrew reported. ‘Lowest floating ribs, left side.’
‘We can’t just let him die!’ Thedric ran hands through his long hair.
Victoria gawked at him. ‘Since when do you care?’
‘Well,’ Thedric glanced at the clearing, where Drugai was circling Flynn, obviously making a show of how ready he was to go in for the kill. ‘The choice between the two.’
‘We can’t do anything,’ Tollin told him. He seemed to Victoria strangely detached after his adamant insisting that they spare the Blaiden.
Drugai started to run towards Flynn. Victoria braced herself, shrinking towards Tollin. She didn’t want to see the killing blow.
‘Well that’s a load of rubbish,’ Thedric griped. He pulled his sword from his belt. ‘Oi! Druid!’
Flynn turned to look at Thedric. He threw the sword. The blade hummed through the air and Flynn reached out in surprise, catching the blade by the handle. Drugai charged down on him just as Flynn turned, a bit awkwardly, with the long sword. There was a wet, sliding noise and Victoria watched in amazement as the silver blade burst through Drugai’s back. He fell backwards, sliding off the metal, yellow eyes wide in shock and flopped, unmoving, into the wet grass.
Dead silence fell.
Flynn looked down at the blade in his hand, then at his opponent, and nodded slightly. He stooped, cut off Drugai’s knot of hair, then he marched, head held high, to Thedric and presented him with the blade. ‘I never thought I would owe my life to a
Tartan. Or use one of their weapons.’ He shook his head ruefully.
Thedric pushed it back. ‘How about you keep it? It’s a good, kingly sword.’
‘Thank you,’ Flynn said. He looked at Thedric quizzically. ‘You have shown me a side of the Tartans I did not expect to see.’
Thedric turned embarrassed. ‘Yeah, well, I couldn’t just let him run you through.’
Flynn’s lips pulled further upwards. ‘Perhaps…perhaps this can be the beginning of a new relationship between our tribes.’
Thedric grinned. ‘That doesn’t sound too bad.’
Flynn smiled at Victoria weakly and left the clearing—and Drugai’s body—without another glance. Silently, the rest of them followed him, walking back to the gorge. When Flynn arrived he raised Drugai’s hair high in the air.
‘You have seen what happened here!’ he addressed the Blaiden. ‘As the rules of your pack state, anyone who bests your leader in combat becomes the new alpha. I declare myself head of the Blaiden! You will obey my orders, you will learn how to work with the forest and not destroy it and you will abandon the spores to which you are addicted!’
Victoria was surprised by how few of the Blaiden were left. The fight had been devastating for them. They didn’t have an option, except to agree with Flynn.
She didn’t know it then, but it was the last time she would see Flynn, surrounded by his new pack, tall and purposeful.
Tollin wrapped his skinny arm round Victoria’s shoulders and guided her back towards the village, away from the Druids and Blaiden. Thedric and Andrew trailed behind them, talking quietly.
Tollin let out a deep, contented breath. ‘I’m proud of you, Victoria. You’ve come a long way from the haughty princess I met at the top of the ridge.’
Victoria smiled, resting her head against Tollin’s shoulder as they walked. ‘It’s all thanks to you. I don’t like to think about what might have happened to me if you hadn’t come along.’
He offered her a warm, charming smile that transformed his odd face into something beautiful.
‘So, the pods in the river are gone, but what about the rest of them?’
‘Oh,’ Tollin said languidly. ‘I don’t think we’ll have to worry about those. Like you said, the Guardian was addicted to them. Why do you think he’s only been seen walking through the forest these past few years? He’s probably been snapping them all up, unbeknownst to the rest of us!’
‘Tollin?’
He looked down at her, brown eyes unfathomable.
‘What was that, that noise that the…Guardian made? Like it was in my head. Forcing its way into my mind, like it wanted me to hear… It almost sounded like…’
‘It was language,’ Tollin finished. ‘Dragoonian. Language of the Dragons.’
‘It—he was talking?’
‘Oh yes…somewhere in that broken, hurting mind, somewhere in there the Guardian had that still locked in his mind.’
‘Dragoonian… I would have never known.’
‘No,’ Tollin said simply. ‘You wouldn’t. No-one would. No human knows the language; it can’t be learned. You have to be born with it.’
Victoria studied Tollin’s ponderous face. ‘But—but you spoke to him,’ she said a bit shakily. ‘You understood him.’
He offered her a sad smile, but no answer.
Victoria bit her lip. ‘I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for the way I acted with you earlier. I was angry about the idea of leaving Andrew and I didn’t want to assume responsibility. It was selfish of me. I know now that I have to go back home. As hard as it will be to leave here, I can’t let Scrabia turn into what happened here. I have to help cure them.’
Tollin squeezed her shoulders tighter as they walked. ‘You’ll be doing the right thing by it, and you’ll make me so proud.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘But you know, no-one ever said anything about you having to go alone.’ He gave her a wink.
‘And what about you, Traveller? Where will you go?’
Tollin’s gaze grew distant, locked on something beyond them. ‘Oh, wherever the wind takes me,’ he said wistfully. Victoria couldn’t have been certain, but she could have sworn she saw a twinkle of light the direction Tollin was staring, glimmering in the shape of a golden woman.
He released her with another gentle smile, casting a glance behind him, to where Andrew and Thedric were following, and then traipsed off towards the city, hands in his pockets, whistling a merry tune.
She reached out and grabbed Andrew’s hand as he and Thedric came beside her, trying to ignore the feverish colour tinging his sallow cheeks. They talked about how brilliant they had been and about the work ahead of them. Mostly, it seemed, they were all happy to be alive and happy that their friends were as well. Victoria couldn’t help but feel a rush of strange joy as she walked between the men whom had become her friends over the past months. They were all still together, all still friends and alive and well.
When they reached the village, Thedric and Andrew branched away in different directions. They all had plenty of work to do.
A sleety rain began falling again and she saw the village through fresh eyes. Much more was destroyed than she realised. Smoke and fire and bodies were everywhere she looked. She walked deeper into the village, feeling lost.
A cold chill ran through her from her damp clothing, but seeing the miserable state of everyone around her, she didn’t feel an urge to do anything about it. At the centre of town she finally stopped. Victoria turned round on the spot, hardly knowing where to look in the subdued haze of the aftermath of the battle.
Through the smoke and sleet she saw a lone figure, standing still, hands deep in his dark coat’s pockets. His pale face was lifted, though his cold eyes didn’t seem to rest on any particular scene. Taking in everything in the clearest detail in the quickest of glances.
Andrew’s eyes slid over her without stopping, but for the briefest second in time they locked with hers. She felt something there, something she had never sensed from Andrew before. It was a faint pull of need. As if he wasn’t comfortable standing alone anymore. As if he felt lost.
Victoria shouldered her way through the crowd and found herself next to him, feet gently sinking in the snow. He didn’t acknowledge her. He kept his face turned away, surveying the scene. He was muddy, his hair dishevelled. Streaks of soot and blood marred his face, making his pale skin even whiter in the grey light of dawn. His right coat arm had been ripped open to reveal a deep bleeding gash, but besides that, he was still Andrew.
She moved to stand closer to him, not sure if she was drawing comfort from him or the other way round. Still, out of everywhere in the village, it seemed to be the only appropriate place for them both to stand. Together.
‘I’ve never really doubted myself before,’ he said, breaking the silence at last. ‘Not until today.’
Victoria sucked in a deep breath. ‘Well, it’s been hard on all of us. Lots of tough decisions. From what it looks like though, you were right. Those bombs you made worked after all. Brilliant.’
Andrew turned round in the mud and looked down at her. ‘I wasn’t talking about that,’ he said peevishly.
Victoria tilted her head. ‘Oh? About what then?’
He glanced away again, mouth working slightly, like he was chewing words over he wasn’t quite sure how to say. ‘Letting you go. I thought I could trust you.’
‘I’m sorry. I hated to lie to you; it was awful,’ Victoria shuffled. ‘But I couldn’t just sit back.’
‘I know that.’ He clenched his teeth, irritated. ‘I know. I just need you to be safe and when you were gone I didn’t know.’
She fought down a sad smile. ‘Andrew, are you okay?’ The look on his face worried her.
‘Fine.’
‘You don’t have to lie to me.’
‘Victoria, anything I say is going to come off as incredibly selfish.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, no different than normal.’
He frowned, giving her a s
trange look. ‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter.’ He started to walk towards the lodge.
Victoria crossed her arms across her chest. ‘Oi!’ she cried. ‘What were you going to say?’
He looked over his shoulder, features defined even more so in the morning light. ‘Perhaps another time. When it’s more appropriate.’
And with that he walked away, leaving Victoria frustrated in the falling sleet. She turned her back on his retreating figure, irritated. There were better things, she decided, than feeling frustrated over him.
Victoria started working her way through the village, helping where she could. She had never been good at getting her hands dirty or helping those in need but after the past few months she couldn’t see herself doing anything but that.
The hours bled onward and the rain became a gentle snowfall as the sky grew lighter and afternoon became evening. By the time most of the fires had been put out and the wounded had been helped it was twilight. She was exhausted and hadn’t seen her friends for several long hours, so she started the trudge back up the hill towards the lodge.
The sun at her back cast her shadow long on the snow. In the sky, the growing shape of Scrabia shone amidst a curtain of light. With the darkness falling, Victoria wondered what the new day dawning would bring.
* * * * *
Reginald stood in the light of the rising sun on the terrace of the palace, overlooking the lower layers. The night had been a long one. Full of blood, fear and exhaustion, but in the end it had all been worth it. Reginald watched scattering shapes of Denizen priests as they fled the city, already far away in the desert.
The Red Scorpions, soldiers, citizens, free Denizens and plunderers were flooding the layers of the city, some celebrating, and some helping with the big job of cleaning up and rooting out straggling priests. Teams were being organised to venture into the water caverns to destroy the shrooms. The temples were being raided and Reginald could see fires being lit, fuelled by any daemonic artefacts and, of course, the spores.
The Queen, his father, and the other humans in the palace were in such a bad state they were of no use to anyone. Most were still high on the spores because there was not enough dilution for the entire court so they would have to return to normalcy on their own. Arkron had told him that the process would be messy and miserable for everyone involved, but she estimated it should only take a week of people going without to finally get it out of their system. And though there were still spores in the water supply, Arkron assured him it was such a diluted amount it wouldn’t do much harm.