The Scarlet Dragon (The Witching World Book 5)

by Lucia Ashta

  Brave scanned our options if we were to diverge from the road. There were no good ones. We’d have to confront the riders and hope to plow through the wall they were forming.

  I had to give Brave credit. He was no more than one man—without his magic—to defy what appeared to be, without counting, approximately thirty men. Count Washur wasn’t taking any chances that we might escape. Yet it was I—still possessed of my magic—and not he who was panicking.

  “Is there. Nothing. You can do?” Brave asked with admirable calm. “If you are. To do something. You must. Do it now.”

  “I can do plenty,” I said, in a succinct yet inefficient expression of what was going through my mind. I could certainly do something. Even if my magic wasn’t yet predictable or easy to control, I’d experienced it enough times to know that the five-petal knot of the elements within my heart could show up to effect the miraculous. The elements themselves could conspire to save me, and those I wanted to save along with me.

  What concerned me were the collateral effects of my magic. Danger closed in on us from all directions. What would happen if I urged the elements to engage our enemies all at once? Would the earth crumble beneath our feet as well as our pursuers? Would the fire of righteous vengeance consume our attackers, but also us, and everything that lay in its path? I’d seen what happened when I set the elements loose: Fire consumed Marcelo’s study at Irele and a torrent of air attempted to destroy Mordecai and Albacus’ study.

  Would I be able to rein in water or air if I set them free to claim their power? The power of the elements—all five of them—was without limit. They bowed only to each other and the necessary balance that destructive—and life-giving—forces must maintain to coexist.

  The elements didn’t bow to me, even though I was the only magician that could sense the fifth element. In spite of the five-petal knot that pulsed within me, branding me as special, I knew that my relationship with the elements relied on my respect for them. The elements didn’t bow to any human. If anything, humans bowed to the elements, as they had done for eons. Long before Mother’s Church convinced the people of Norland that the gods were not many but one, and that He was housed in buildings, people worshiped the power they saw at work in Nature. People worshiped the elements, whether or not they labeled them as such.

  “It’s now. Or never, Clara,” Brave said, his voice still calm though echoing with the force of his horse’s gait. It was the steadiness of a man who hadn’t had control over his life at any point since birth. Always, he was at the mercy of others. Brave was resigned to his fate, even if that fate was delivered at the hands of violence and wrongful vengeance.

  But I wouldn’t resign myself to any fate other than the one I chose for myself. No longer would I let any man dictate the path I took, especially not these armed men that aimed to kill us, or worse.

  “It’s now then,” I said under my breath. Brave didn’t hear me. Only my heart did. I was powerful enough to do something about our circumstances. And I would. I could no longer fear the consequences of my actions when they were born from a place of well-meaning. The source of my power was my heart, and the heart, in truth, could do no great wrong.

  “Are they gaining. On us?” I asked. I didn’t want to risk turning to look when my balance was already precarious. It was a challenge to keep my co-riders safe and myself stable on the saddle at this pace.

  “No. If they are. It’s barely.”

  I tilted my eyes up ahead without moving my head. The specks had materialized into nine full-grown soldiers astride horses. The warriors charged at us at a pace equal to the one at which we raced toward them. We’d reach them in minutes. Our will to survive would clash and collide with their intent to follow through with their orders.

  As I’d done before, I closed my eyes to the threat that approached as forcefully as a typhoon. If I was to access the full power of my magic, I’d have to find it within me. It was nowhere else but there.

  I crouched even further into my saddle, careful to spare Gertrude from being crushed, secure in the tight hold Sir Lancelot had on my shoulder. My horse didn’t need my guidance. He sped with an admirable tenacity toward danger.

  I blocked out thoughts of the men that aimed at us. I listened to the pounding of hooves, proof of the remarkable agility of the horse. I focused until all I heard was a sound like thunder and I had forgotten the cause of the sound. It was then that I separated myself from the terms of the reality that attempted to engulf me. It was then that I tumbled into the space of my heart to discover a soft landing.

  I didn’t think any longer. I didn’t seek to communicate with Brave, or with Sir Lancelot or Gertrude. I let go of ideas of military strategy and defense. I held onto those abstract ideals that had names, but names that didn’t do them justice—love, faith, belief, and magic.

  The thunder grew louder, vibrating beneath me. It grew so loud as to promise lightning, that blinding flash of undeniable power that proved that there were gods, or a God, or something that was so much greater than any one of us.

  We sped up, even though I couldn’t imagine our horses moving any faster than they already were. When I felt as if I were tipping—something that made no sense—I opened my eyes.

  I found myself looking almost directly into the eyes of a soldier. He was still at some distance, and it was only because of my keen eyesight that I could see the murderous expression on his face at all. I realized, startled, that I hadn’t done magic. I’d managed nothing that would impede the attack. If nothing else changed, we would collide face-to-face with our attackers with enough force to kill us all.

  Each bound of our horses brought us several feet closer to that end.

  Brave, who’d noticed me alert, called above the stampede, “Do what you. Did to the men. Behind us. To those in front.”

  I wanted to turn to look, but didn’t wish to risk the stability of Gertrude or Sir Lancelot.

  I deliberated for a heartbeat, but it was too long.

  “Now Clara.”

  I forced my gaze ahead again. I didn’t wish to close my eyes as I always did. I sought out the gaze of that murderous warrior. Once I found it, I held it with a grip as solid as copper, certain that the force of my will alone could cause the copper to oxidize and to seize the soldier in the green of passing years, draining the vitality from him.

  Although I held my stare steady ahead, I was the only one not to see what happened. I had yet to witness the full power of my magic unleashed, and it seemed that today wasn’t the time for that particular first.

  The element of air stirred. Quickly, it gathered enough strength to delay the approach of our enemies. Our four horses continued to speed forward, but our opponents’ didn’t. Their horses continued to charge with the same exertion as before, yet their progress was a shadow of what it had been. Eventually, Brave and I would smack straight into them, but it would be us reaching them in an expression of false victory.

  The force of the gale picked up. Our attackers were now practically paralyzed. Their horses continued to move but no longer made any progress at all.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Still connected to a soldier’s fate by the brown of his eyes, rich like the dirt in the heart of the forest, I sensed the earth beneath his horse’s feet. The earth, forever the nurturing mother that gave life—and also took it—began to tremble. As when Winston first ambushed Marcelo and me on the run from Lake Creston, the earth belied its solid nature to reveal itself as fluid and flexible as any of the other elements. Like a wave of the sea, the earth began to swell. I knew this through the alarm that registered across eyes the color of fertile soil. The soldier flicked his gaze downward and gripped the horn of his saddle.

  By now, the soldiers were nearly upon us. Even with the help of the earth and air elements, collision appeared unavoidable. Still, neither Brave nor I slowed. If we were to face our death, we would do so in full strength.

  I stood in my stirrups, preparing either for our salvation through t
he elements, or for impact. Deviating to either side would make no difference. The nine soldiers were spread out so as to funnel us onto the road.

  Brave moved one hand from the horn of his saddle to the hilt of his sword. I tightened my hold on Gertrude.

  “Sir Lancelot. Fly off. Before we crash.”

  “When will. That be?” came the shaky, erudite voice. Sir Lancelot’s wide owl eyes were catching every step that brought the collision of opposing forces together. He’d lived long enough to predict the explosion that ensued when love and hate, light and darkness, connected with one another. Each originated from the same source, but was so different from the other as to repel and attract in equal measure.

  Collision would be in eleven counts. I willed the elements within me to do what I couldn’t achieve with my conscious mind. If we were to be saved, it was the five-petal knot that had to save us.

  Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven.

  A sea of horses swelled toward each other, ready to crash with the full force of an ocean.

  Five. Four. “Prepare yourself. Sir Lancelot.”

  Two. “Now,” I said, and Sir Lancelot released his death grip on my shoulder. I wouldn’t have time to experience the relief.

  The impact arrived. It was as exquisitely awful as you might imagine the force of an army colliding with a young man and woman. Every bit of me hurt, immediately and intensely, with a blinding light that clouded all thought and vision. In falling, all I reached for was the furry form of my little sister.

  What I didn’t see spared us. The element of air encapsulated the soldiers and their warrior horses so that they froze in mid-fall, sparing us the impact of their bodies falling on top of us.

  I fell to the ground, knocked free of my horse. But that was the extent of my injury. I lay on the ground with eyes closed to the world. I missed the magnificence of Grand-mère and her dragon swooping in to rescue us.

  If Count Washur’s soldiers had been shaken to find themselves riding a sea instead of solid ground and suspended by something invisible, then they were truly stunned to witness a monstrous dragon in the skies above them, pointed straight toward them. Hardened soldiers, who’d done evil deeds because it was part of their jobs, cowered, unable to move even though movement would have done nothing to save them.

  The body of a giant, supported in flight by impossibly wide wings, blotted out the sunlight. In their suspended state of colliding and falling, the soldiers turned their gazes up as if their heads traveled through a mire. The gargantuan creature moved too fast for its size. Before they decided what it was—and not one of these secular soldiers considered that the giant was a dragon; it was something unexplainable, yes, without a doubt, but it couldn’t be a mythical creature because they all knew magic wasn’t real—it was upon them.

  The dragon yanked each man, one by one, from his mount with terrifying claws. Back and forth the dragon flew, taking each new man over the neighboring hill before releasing him at the bottom of a canyon with no easy way out. Water had carved out the ravine eons ago, when it had been a deep, bottomless lake. There was no water in it anymore, but now there were nine frightened men, who were already trying to explain away the inexplicable in terms they could accept.

  Once their riders were gone, the element of air released the horses. At first, they neighed and reared, frenzied by the attack in which they’d been forced to take part. But by the time the bright light was receding from the front of my mind and I was about to wake, the horses of our enemy had calmed. They remained where they were, bunched together next to our four horses, even when Grand-mère set the dragon down and Mathieu touched ground immediately next to the horses.

  Brave wasn’t thrown from his horse as I was, and he was the first to dismount and reach my side. “Clara,” he said, shaking me gently. “Clara,” he repeated.

  I groaned and blinked my eyes several times before I could hold them open, and then it was only to groan again at the pain that flashed through the back of my skull.

  “Are you all right?” Brave asked.

  I tried to nod, but it hurt too much. “Yes. Is Gertrude all right?”

  Brave smiled. He looked so much like Marcelo then that I knew everything would be all right, if it wasn’t already.

  I closed my eyes once more, and when I woke I was in the most unlikely of places. Yet it felt like the one place I’d been working my way toward all my life, without ever realizing it.

  Chapter 14

  I woke before I opened my eyes. First, I tried to make sense of the sensations I hadn’t previously experienced. I was moving, of that I was fairly certain. A whole world spun within my head, yet I moved more than that. How was I moving? My body was prone and I could make out none of the telltale signs of travel by animal.

  Beyond the rush of a constant wind, everything was silent, almost eerily so. My hair matted to my face and my cloak clung to the curves of my body. And I was cold. A breeze snaked into my ears and chilled me. The skin of my face stung.

  I attempted to tilt my head up, but a wave of dizziness forced it back down so quickly that nausea swelled within my stomach. I waited it out. I breathed air that was so cold that I could taste it in the back of my throat, crisp and pure.

  I tried to sit. This time, I took it slower, and the dizziness and nausea remained at bay. Still, I couldn’t sit far. Flustered, I moved my arms and legs. They only moved an inch to each side.

  I flailed. I flung my head left and right. I thrashed my body wildly. To the outside observer, I was barely moving.

  I panicked. Had Count Washur’s men taken me after I lost consciousness? Was I bound in some way, unable to move physically? Was the Count even now preparing to exact some kind of terrible price from me for daring to oppose him?

  My eyelids were heavy, but I willed them forcefully to open.

  Rapidly, I shut them again, intending to reset whatever setting within me that wasn’t seeing things properly.

  Cautiously, I reopened my eyes, but nothing had reset. I was still seeing a bright, expansive blue marred by nothing more than the occasional cloud.

  I was staring up at the sky. And I was in motion.

  I watched, enraptured, my mind still groggy from the impact of collision. A cloud shaped like a serpent floated by. Then a bear. A rabbit. A flower.

  My hands, like my arms, possessed a limited range of motion. Still, it was sufficient. I rubbed my fingertips, nearly numb from cold, along my source of support. The surface beneath my body was cool and supple, yielding yet solid. I’d touched it before.

  I lay still, resigned to my limited range of motion, pondering this unusual circumstance in which I found myself, waiting for my intellect to regain its usual vitality. Another cloud passed that didn’t look like much of anything, perhaps the tail on a cotton-tail rabbit. A stretch of clear blue sky. Then another serpent, this one smaller. Then a firedrake. And suddenly, everything clicked into place, and I knew where I must be.

  It all made sense: my immobility; the cold; the smooth, satiny surface beneath me; the firedrake that flew across my scope of vision, very much alive and real.

  Mathieu noticed me awake and sped up, presumably to inform Grand-mère. But now that I understood where I was, I didn’t want it to end right away.

  I rode on the dragon’s back. I, Lady Clara of the House of Norland, raised by Mother and Father to be subservient to the laws of men, rode on the back of a mythical creature. It didn’t matter just then that I was stuck to the dragon’s back and couldn’t move much to make the most of this flight.

  In that instant, most of the events of my life struck me as particularly laughable. I was so very far away from the point at which I thought I’d be as a young woman of twenty years of age. Mother would have had me married and a mother in my own right to several children, preferably boys able to inherit the family’s wealth and titles.

  Instead, I flew on a dragon, a witch, who was finally content to be one, cognizant of the power that came with that fearful title.

&nbs
p; Abruptly, the air seemed to warm. My face relaxed and the sting left my skin. My trepidation about my future evaporated amid clouds of fluff. Even when I remembered Gertrude in a panic, the panic fled almost immediately. If I was on the back of a dragon unable to move, Mordecai must have placed me there. He and Grand-mère would have taken care of Gertrude too. Sir Lancelot and Brave would be safe as well.

  With nothing left to worry about and nothing at all that I could do, I relaxed into the dragon’s back. I caressed soft, smooth scales and smiled up at the clouds that continued to trail by, on their way to nowhere in particular. This moment was for me. No one, save perhaps Mathieu, could see me. I had no responsibility to which I could presently tend.

  When the dragon began to bank left and turn, I didn’t even bother to wonder why we were circling around, though I could have figured it out if I’d tried. It was easier not to.

  There were moments in life when the best thing—the most important thing—you could do was to enjoy them to their fullest. These moments didn’t come as often as I could have wished. At least wisdom had taught me to seize them when they flung themselves upon me.

  I surrendered to what was joyfully and watched a fish float by in the river of the sky.

  Chapter 15

  The voyage to Bundry followed a regular pattern composed of forward movement and occasional long, swooping turns that faced us in the opposite direction. By the time we finally arrived in Bundry, the novelty of riding a dragon’s back in my paralyzed state had worn off. I was ready to welcome shelter from the wind and the cold.

  Perhaps for the first time in the long history of the Castle of Bundry, a dragon landed on the roof. The same roof that witnessed my first attempts at flight stood strong in its support of a monstrous creature that weighed as much as several elephants. For such a large animal, his descent was smooth. When he touched down, he did so gently at Grand-mère’s direction. On the dragon’s back, I didn’t feel the building rumble all the way down to its fortified foundations. But the staff within did.