Dragons of Destiny

by Jeffrey Waddilove

  Leldric tapped the rim of his mug and pushed it towards the Lurk, who emptied it promptly. He placed both elbows on the table entwining his fingers together in front of him, staring unblinking at the Lurk. After a moment of silence, the Lurk wilted under the intensity of his glare.

  “The man I assassinated was a Dantronian scout. There are two in Mayora and who knows how many more in the rest of the Seven Cities for that matter. Tryss has fallen. I don’t know if you knew that?”

  Lint looked to Leldric, seeking a reaction perhaps. He received none.

  “Anyways, just like Lord Rathe promised ten years ago, he said he would conquer the rest of the world before he turned his attention to Gaelaria. Well, now that the last true test to his army besides Gaelaria is out of the way, he’s keeping his word. The invasion will begin before the month is out, I suspect. The Circle has me and the rest of my race hunting scouts to make sure they get as little intelligence as possible before they strike. From here, I’m to go to Axion.

  “The Circle wanted me to eventually reveal myself to your Kaul’Celum, but you got wise to me before I could finish my job. That’s it, Caster. That’s the whole story. Funny you should sit me at this table, though,” Lint said, nodding to the drunk sitting next to it. “He was my final target.”

  As smoothly as butter on a hot knife, the Lurk jumped out of his chair and planted a knife into the patron’s temple. A cloud of smoke burst forth where Lint had been, and Kable lunged to grab a hold of him, but found only an empty seat. Leldric banished the smoke, and the Lurk was nowhere to be seen.

  “Master, where did he go? How did he escape you?” Kable asked, spinning around and trying to look in every direction at once. He was completely dumbfounded. No one had ever escaped his master before.

  Leldric stood, placed his hood back over his head, and walked to the door and out of the tavern without a word. Kable hurried after him, worried that his master would leave these poor people forever frozen in a shithole called Cod Guts. As the door shut behind him, he heard the band pick up right where they had left off. Kable smiled to himself. His master had shown those people mercy after being slighted. That was a rarity when it came to Leldric Veus.

  Chapter 10

  Xavian floated along the cusp of oblivion. Half formed memories and visions coalesced in his mind. At the moment, he was an orphan boy again. That familiar sense of living everyday frightened and abandoned while roaming the streets of Mayora was like a second skin he had never been able to shed. He was half starved, looking for shelter and begging for food. That, or he was hiding from the predatory gangs and bullies that stalked the districts. As he did so often as a child, he fled from the horrible memories.

  The next moment, he was a sell-sword captain again. Some said he was the youngest in the history of the world. He led mercenary bands to victory and riches in a hundred different campaigns. He had endlessly warred among the nobles in their Succession Wars. Xavian recalled being in the service of countless houses such as Bloodlance, Knightedge, Trueforce, Griffineye, Amberthorn, Swiftfox, and Stormhawk. He had fought for and against every single noble house over that five year span, it seemed. Their alliances with each other changed even more than the mercenary bands they employed.

  That faded as well, and all of a sudden he was on a knee, fist to heart taking the oath with thousands of others in Jenukai Square in the heart of mighty Jenukai City. He sweared allegiance to the Circle of Seven and pledged his life away to protect the Seven Cities and serve the Gaelarian Alliance unquestioningly.

  Countless other moments of his life came and went. The time he Linked with Rotu, his Blue dragon for the first time at Jenukai Keep, atop Jenukai Fortress flashed before his eyes… Taking to the air astride Rotu alongside his brothers in arms, Arius, Miles and Landran played across his vision… Learning the art of Elemancy from his mentor Razmuson in his enchanted chambers.... Studying with Arius…

  Words that he couldn’t quite comprehend floated along the outside of his visions.

  “They were here... He is gravely hurt. He looks to have lost an alarming amount of blood… Look, he is burning with fever… Dare we move him?… We can construct a litter from the tall grass… The Wanderers we saw are close. They can do more than we can… Then we must hurry, his time is short…”

  Stark terror filled Xavian as he was surrounded by a pack of beasts. He was unarmed, and he had nowhere to run or hide. He knew that death was eminent. Suddenly, two silhouetted figures appeared in front of him between the monsters. The mysterious entities spoke together in a commanding voice.

  “You cannot dwell here in your past. If you stay here in this state, you will not survive. We will show you the way out.”

  A doorway appeared from out of nowhere behind the figures, and they strode through it as the pack drew nearer. Hastily Xavian followed suit.

  The two apparitions began to frequent his dreamscape. With every delusion, they would suddenly appear and implore him to leave behind the past and follow them towards salvation. The mysterious doorway always swallowed them, and Xavian was compelled to pursue. The shifts of memory eventually ceased altogether, and he lost track of the amount of portals that his two cloaked companions had escorted him through. At times, he wondered if this abyss was one of the hells. Wherever it was, he somehow knew he couldn’t escape it without their aid.

  The omnipresent darkness stretched on in an everlasting onslaught until Xavian was convinced that the world had lost all its light and only he and his guides existed. He strained to see their faces as they shepherded him through nothingness, but they never turned back to regard him. They just kept moving relentlessly onward. He stumbled blindly along in their wake, yet he somehow trusted that they were his beacon and deliverance from an eternity in this place.

  “Where are we going?” Xavian finally asked after what seemed a lifetime.

  “A sanctuary.” His guides echoed each other, still refusing to turn and acknowledge him.

  Xavian began to grow increasingly weary with each step he took, and racking pain began to envelop his entire being. Excruciating jolts of agony threatened to send him back into delirium.

  For the first time, he looked down to inspect himself and was aghast at what he saw. Dozens of deep lacerations covered his torso, arms, and legs. Blood flowed from his wounds like a grotesque river, and he was swallowed up by the blackness. Gasping for breath, his lungs refused to draw in any more air, and the two strangers were growing further and further away. He could no longer keep pace with them. His strength had failed him. He tried to call out for help, but all that came out was a muted and strangled cry. Collapsing finally, he fell through infinite amounts of darkness.

  Plummeting through the blackness, Xavian began to hear a beautiful, yet haunting voice singing ever so softly.

  Surely the voice must belong to a goddess.

  The ballad that the goddess sang was wordless, but Xavian did not care. It was the most beautiful sound he had heard in all his life. Everything but that melody was driven from his thoughts. Contentedly listening to the singer for a few moments, he realized he was no longer falling. In fact, he seemed to be lying on a soft mattress.

  He opened his eyes and regretted it immediately. Wherever he was, it was pitch black, but not like the starkness of the place he had just escaped. His head was roaring at him, and he felt like his eyes would explode as a result. Despite all that, he felt unabashed relief to be free of that world of shadow.

  He was indeed laid out on a very soft mattress, and a cool washcloth was strung over his eyes. His memories came back to him in a dizzying torrent. He remembered how he went to the Machi Graveyard after the Ryuken tournament to test his arrows and the vile creatures that had attacked him there. Xavian shuddered at the very memory of the pack of living nightmares.

  “So, you’re finally awake,” came that melodic voice belonging to the singer from somewhere nearby.

  A gentle hand pulled the washcloth from his eyes, and Xavian blinked a few times. At firs
t his vision was blurry, and he couldn’t make out his surroundings very well. After a moment, everything cleared, and he got his first glimpse of the choralist. Clad in a snowy white shift, she was achingly beautiful.

  She had golden curls that tumbled to her shoulders, and her face held slightly tilted eyes that were the color of the sea. Her skin was milk colored, and she was short of average height. Though her shift covered her from her neckline to her bare feet, it did not hide her taut slenderness. He noticed that she wasn’t quite looking directly at him but was staring off at a place just over his head.

  Looking down at himself, he realized under his blanket he was completely nude. Lifting the sheets and peeking under the covers, he saw that all that clothed him were a considerable amount of bandages and wrappings.

  Beyond her, the room was like that of a cabin on a ship, narrow and compact. The room was sparsely furnished and plainly decorated. Much like a ship, it also looked as though everything was bolted, or strapped down. A fire blazed in a small fireplace, yet Xavian shivered despite the obvious heat in the room’s tight confines.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, worry evident in her tone.

  She stared unblinkingly just past his face at the nightstand, revealing a murky whiteness to her irises he hadn’t noticed prior. He felt a pain flare that had nothing to do with his wounds. This stunning creature was blind.

  “Like I was ravaged by wild animals,” Xavian intoned in an anemic voice, remembering his frightening encounter again. “Who are you? Where am I?”

  “You are among the Solrei,” was her only response. She turned away from his sick bed and walked with a sure foot to a nearby rocking chair where she sat facing him.

  “The Wanderers? How did I come to one of the Nomad Fortresses?”

  Wanderers was an unaffectionate term used for the Solrei. The Solrei were a society of people that had left the protection of the Seven Cities for what they deemed freedom. They believed that the people in the cities were little more than prisoners to the Circle of Seven and that everyone had a right to live as they saw fit. Most people from the cities viewed the Solrei as anarchists who were too ignorant to accept help. Xavian privately agreed with the Solrei, though.

  There were several different bands of Solrei that had constructed the Nomad Fortresses. Xavian had once heard them described as mobile castles. They were said to be pulled along by living Machi, which was something that he was very eager to see.

  “Two Joran found you and brought you here,” she replied.

  “The Joran?” Xavian asked incredulously, straining to prop himself on an elbow. He grunted as his ribs and sternum flared into pain at his outburst. It earned him a creased frown and furrowed brow from the woman.

  “That’s impossible,” he continued in a calmer voice, settling himself gingerly back on the mattress. “The Joran are pledged to guard the Duncar Core and are bound to it for life.”

  “Exceptions can be made in regards to their boundaries, sir… Speaking of which, do you know the story of the Duncar Core?” she asked.

  “I know the basics, I suppose,” Xavian replied, reciting text from a history book he remembered. “Everyone does, even the smallest of children do. The Duncar Core is what everyone now calls the impact zone of the Duncar Moon. The Duncar Moon is the source of Duncar Magic, whose power has been amplified a hundred fold in its users because of the proximity in which it can now be tapped by those that can conjure its power. Ten years ago the moon crashed into where Petra once stood, and The Core tainted the land around it, from what I hear. The air itself is supposed to be poisonous and the vegetation, too. That’s why the Joran wear those strange masks, so they can breathe near the moon. Outlandish plants and monstrous creatures dwell there now, so Jenukai created the Joran to keep watch over it. They keep people out and the monsters in.”

  “The basics indeed.” She took on a lecturing tone as she began. “Gaelaria had been at the height of its power when the moon came crashing down. The then-capital Petra was widely regarded as the most grandiose and prosperous city in all the world.

  “What few knew before the disaster was that prophecy was about to be actualized. Throughout history, prophecy has been viewed by the masses as fanciful fiction from stories. The Maji fought their civil war over Jenukai’s premonition, yet the Dragon God’s words meant nothing to the rest of the world because centuries had gone by without it coming to fruition. Nobody heeded the Maji, and that was our downfall.

  “It all began with a Duncar Shadow Priest. Verscei was the very first of his kind. He was unimaginably powerful in the occult magic, and he had taken a keen interest in the Jenukai Prophecy while everyone else ignored it. What few know is that he was so strong that he was able to capture Jenukai’s Emperor dragons.”

  “Wait, what?” Xavian cut in. “The Emperor dragons are hundreds of feet tall and are supposed to be as powerful as the Circle of Seven combined.”

  “That’s right. So it gives you some perspective into the strength that Verscei was able to wield. The two were taken and kept prisoner while Verscei plotted and schemed for over three years. Using torture and treacherous Duncar tricks, he coaxed forth everything he could from them about Jenukai‘s vision.

  “While the Shadow Priest schemed, he also quietly amassed a small army of followers before he finally struck at Petra. His plan had been to bring the Duncar Moon to hover over the capital of Gaelaria as a symbol of his ultimate victory over those who he viewed had oppressed him and his zealots since the dawn of time. Had Rathe, who was his apprentice at the time, not betrayed him, the plan would have succeeded. Instead we are left with something worse: the Duncar Core.

  “Since that disastrous day, the power of the moon has corrupted the land around it. Even the portion of the sea where it lies is infected. At first the taint spread only a few miles from the Duncar Core. Now it has expanded so far that the monstrosities born from its defiled ground roam almost completely unchecked. When these abominations were first discovered, it was a relief when we found that they could not stray from the Core because they could not breathe the untainted air. That is no longer the case. My brother and I had been tracking a Slayer pack that escaped from the Core to where it had stalked you out on the plains.”

  “You are a Joran?” Xavian asked quirking an eye at her disbelievingly. “All Joran are men, everyone knows th--”

  “My mother used to tell me, ‘You can fill an entirely new world with the things that you do not know, or understand,’” she said flatly, interrupting him. “You would do well to heed that advice in this instance, I think.”

  “Fair enough,” Xavian replied, nodding slowly. He had managed to prop himself onto his elbow facing her without too much difficulty while she recited her tale. “You and your brother, you said?”

  She nodded in response.

  “Well, you both saved my life, so I’m inclined to trust you. You also said that you and your brother were tracking this pack of… Slayers?”

  “Yes, the largest pack I have ever seen. Usually they hunt in groups of five, six at the most, but they are savage and brutal to even their own kind. An alpha Slayer is impatient, and if prey cannot be found easily, it will slaughter its own pack mates as often as not. The pack my brother and I sought had roughly twenty or so Slayers in it.”

  “Eighteen. There were eighteen of them,” Xavian said softly.

  “After we found you, we discovered no trace of their tracks leaving the bone yard, and yet we found not a hint of their remains either. It was as if they had simply vanished. Can you recall what happened? I must admit that I am beyond curious.”

  “I do remember, but I will only tell you under one condition,” Xavian said in response.

  “And what would you ask of me?” she replied, a small smile was there and gone so fast Xavian wasn’t sure whether or not he had imagined it.

  “When I’m done ,you give me your name. Mine is Xavian.”

  It took the better part of an hour for him to recount all the det
ails. He left nothing out. For reasons he could not explain, Xavian trusted this woman implicitly.

  It must be the shock of my encounter. Nobody gains my trust this quickly.

  Once he was done with the gory details, she sat there silently rocking back and forth in the chair staring fixedly at her lap.

  “That is quite remarkable, Xavian. You are quite remarkable. And very lucky might I add… My name is Spector.”

  Chapter 11

  “And how do you propose we move him from the chambers?” Kutala asked in a strained voice.

  He looked like he was about to be sick as he helped Arius carry King Regius onto the sofa. Mere minutes had passed since Arius’ attack had rocked the palace on its foundation.

  “I suppose we could chop him up into tiny little pieces and hide him in some luggage,” Gretidor said facetiously.

  Arius, who was dragging the unconscious king by his underarms while Kutala carried his legs, opened his mouth to tell Gretidor to shut up and got a mouthful of golden feathers for his efforts. Perturbed, he spat them out and shot a glare at the prince.

  “You’re not helping,” Arius muttered as he and the Trueborn captain finally succeeded in laying the king down. He knuckled his back as he straightened and shot a wary glance at the door to the king’s sitting room.

  “We have to get him out of here before he wakes up…”

  If he wakes up! Shit, there’s a lot of blood coming from that gash on his head, and his face is a mass of bruises and bumps. A fine mess you've gotten yourself into this time!

  “… Is there a back way out of here?”