“Girl, do not be afraid,” he said.
Pine was ducking away from the mist as she would to avoid an angry buzzer.
Ty reached slowly behind him, to the long knife sheathed in his belt. “When this is done, you will be more alive than you could ever imagine.”
In one swift move he drew the knife.
And plunged it into Pine’s unsuspecting heart.
Rolan bit one side of his tongue, tasting his blood, the shock was so great. Despite his growing dislike of Pine, it was all he could do not to cry out, “MURDER!” Somehow he stayed his torment yet again, reducing his pain to the quietest of whimpers and swallowing the bile still rising in his throat. He watched Ty catch the girl’s body as she fell in a loose heap from Shade’s back.
The villain laid her flat to the ground, withdrew the knife, and cleaned it.
Pine’s head lolled to one side, the life fast ebbing out of her.
Her faraway eyes drifted shut.
As if it knew it must be swift, the pink mist gathered itself into an arrow shape and went into her through the wound that Ty had made.
And then came the greatest horror of all.
Pine’s body went through a series of spasms. Five, maybe six strong tremors, one of which lifted her feet off the ground. Her fingers clawed at the ground with such strength they made furrows of mud from the hardened erth. A fountain of spit shot out of her mouth. And then her eyes reopened.
Bigger.
Rounder.
Black.
A few silent moments passed.
Then, to Rolan’s astonishment, Ty pulled the girl to her feet.
She swayed, but did not otherwise falter.
“No,” Rolan breathed, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. Pine slain and now standing? What manner of evil was this? He watched her stretch her limbs as though she’d done nothing more than put on a robe. She put a finger to the blood and tasted it. “Am I Hom?” It was her voice still, but wrapped around a note of something darker.
“No more than I,” said Ty.
Pine shuddered again. “I feel the girl’s memories. Her pleasures. Her desires.” She bent down and snapped a flower off its stalk.
“Search deeper,” said Ty. “The Hom know more about dragons than they think, but this is not the moment to discuss it.”
“Are they mindful of Graven?”
“I can find no trace to suggest it—other than their fascination for the birds.”
These words intrigued Rolan greatly. For it seemed that Ty was speaking of some knowledge long suppressed in the Kaal. But how was that possible when the beasts had been on Erth for barely two seasons? And who or what was Graven? He looked again at Pine and saw her examining her fingers, a look of deep repugnance clouding her face.
Ty noticed it also and said, “We need these bodies for now. The Hom form is weak and imperfect, but it has adapted favorably to parts of this world. Further transformation will be possible in time. I changed the appearance of the man they called Waylen so I might move freely among the Kaal. It will serve us well if you continue as the child they call Pine. The girl’s voice and manner will come to you.”
“And what do you continue as, ‘Tywyll’?”
Rolan’s eyebrows twitched when he heard this. There was more than a grain of disapproval in Pine, as if Ty had committed a treacherous sin. Rolan listened intently as she went on.
“You dare to call yourself ‘the darkness’? Some might say you take the name of our master in vain.”
Master. Again.
Ty replied, “I mean no slight against Graven. When I changed my appearance, the name seemed fitting. And if the dragons should ever learn of it, it will cause fear and confusion among them.”
“If they do not slay you first,” Pine said. She spread her arms as though she wished for wings. “I do not feel whole.”
“That is because your auma is divided.”
“Divided? How?”
Now Rolan detected a growl in her voice. Here were seeds of hope, he thought. Where there was animosity, there could also be a rift.
Ty explained, “When the Hom first found us, your stasis was interrupted. I had completed my regeneration and was wakened by the call of a dragon that entered the cave. But you were a day behind me. A rock was thrown at your outer husk. The husk was damaged and a small amount of your auma escaped. I saved it in the only way I could.” He gestured at Shade. “I found the horse beaten, its spirit clinging to a grain of life. A leg was broken, its skull part crushed. I transformed it using your auma loss. It was lying on a dragon stig, which fused with the injury to its head. The beast regenerated strongly. It has zest and unexpected gifts.”
“I am split between forms and you talk of gifts?”
“There is a dragon heart in these mountains,” growled Ty. “When we have it, and Graven is restored, we will both regenerate fully.”
He turned to see a caarker flutter down onto a stone.
Arrar-arrk! it reported.
Ty peered at the skies. “The Wearle is coming. We must leave.” He strode toward the horse.
“What news of the boy?”
The starkness of the question stayed Ty’s mounting. “It matters to you?”
Pine stroked Shade’s mane. “It matters to the horse.”
Ty frowned and spoke with the bird again. “They have moved the boy to an isolated place. The bird is unsure why. The horse asked of him?”
“I feel a strong connection to its rider, Ned Whitehair.”
“Then drive it out,” said Ty. He tapped his chest. “This is a vessel, nothing more. The host influence must be crushed. The Hom and their ways are inferior to us. Interference from their memories is damaging.”
And he climbed onto Shade’s back with Pine, and together they rode away over the hill.
Pursuit was Rolan’s immediate thought. But that, he knew, was a hopeless ambition from the moment he squeezed his body out of hiding. A bone was unhinged, somewhere by his hip. That whole leg raged with pain. He would be lucky to hobble, let alone ride. Yet hobble he did, back to a point where he could look down the other side of the hill. The whinneys were gone. From the pattern of their tracks it looked like Ty had seized one whinney and set the others loose. There was no way back to the settlement for Rolan, and nowhere to hide from imminent doom. It would surely not be long before the skaler came back, bringing at least one other with it.
No escape.
And so he sat on the hill and awaited his fate, enjoying the glowing sun on his face for what he assumed would be the last time.
Soon, the skalers did appear. Not a pair, but a host of them. A starburst of greens and purples, snorting their smoke and sweat. One had shining yellow eyes that almost burned him with their glare. The beasts surrounded Rolan, baring their glistening, stench-heavy fangs, all the while growling in what appeared to be urgent conversation. Quaking, he raised his hands in surrender, only to have them almost snapped off by a swipe from a pointed tail.
The largest skalers set to work on the stones, tossing them aside as if they were no heavier than the cones that fell from the spiker trees in the Whispering Forest. Within a few beats they had opened a passage into the cave. One of the bright green monsters poked its slender head inside. Now comes the test of the tale, thought Rolan. For if a skaler lay dead in there, slain through the eye by a Kaal arrow, the beasts would turn on the tribe as Ty had said and burn every man, woman, and child they could find, beginning with him.
The skaler withdrew its head. Its savage eyes tightened. It has seen what it has seen, thought Rolan. My time is done. He began to mutter another prayer. The skaler duly lunged at him, roaring so loudly that he felt as if his chest had been plugged with sand. Rolan covered his eyes and gave a cry of despair, but his spirit did not go up in flames. An unlikely savior came to his rescue. The peculiar yellow-eyed skaler stepped across the green one’s path and began an angry exchange with it. For several ear-throbbing moments their argument raged, a quarrel the
yellow-eye eventually won. The green beast swept away, angrily calling others to follow. The yellow-eye puffed with relief and nodded at a purple skaler beside it. The purple one ranged up to Rolan and spread its enormous claws. Rolan lowered his head, fearing he would end his days as pulp. Instead, the beast clamped him with just enough force to lift him off the hill. It took him high into the air and made no sign of dropping him. It turned smoothly away from the cave, setting a course for the distant mountains. Whatever had been said, Rolan’s life had been spared. They would not burn him this day.
He was their prisoner instead.
Prime Grynt’s eyrie, earlier that day
The rain had begun to fall again. Yet the wind that often swept in tireless eddies around the mountains was mercifully absent on the morning of the Naming, and the interior of Prime Grynt’s eyrie was dry.
Gabrial landed on the wide, shallow ledge, remembering not to shake the water off his wings. To shower the Prime dragon at the outset of a summoning would not have been the most appropriate of greetings. Lifting his bright blue scales a little, he allowed some body warmth to escape. The raindrops quickly turned to steam. His partner, Grendel, landed beside him, adopting the same approach. She was a gloriously beautiful dragon. As the steam pearled and fizzed around her neck, the golden braids that ran along her snout lit up as sweetly as a cluster of stars. Although they had not been together long, Gabrial still felt proud (and a little amazed) to be her mate.
“You’re late,” said Grynt, inhaling deeply. His silver breast scales clattered as his chest expanded.
Grendel bowed. “Forgive us, Prime. The wearlings were restless.”
“Who tends them?” said a dragon to Gabrial’s right. This was Gossana, the only other adult female in the colony. She was considerably older than Grendel and had twice given birth to wearlings, earning her the right to the title “matrial.” She jutted her ferocious dark green head, fanning the sawfin scales around her neck. Her eyes, famously capable of changing color, slanted back to their narrowest position.
“Ren has care of them,” Gabrial said.
“Ren? You mean the boy?” Gossana’s lips rolled back. Saliva glinted on a broken fang. “You left a Hom guarding our precious young?”
“They don’t need to be guarded,” Grendel said dismissively. “The wearlings are happy and relaxed in Ren’s company. And you know as well as we do that since the war with the goyles, one cry would bring a flurry of roamers to our cave. They were playing seek when we left; I believe Ren was winning.”
“I don’t approve of this,” Gossana said, turning to Grynt. “This closeness with the Hom boy is disgusting and unnatural. It should not be encouraged.”
Prime Grynt raised a claw. He turned to a male dragon standing at his right. He was plain green, as many adult males were, with some lighter flurries sweeping out across his shoulders making bleached and staggered patterns on his wings. What made this dragon stand out, however, were his huge yellow eyes. They sat like colored stones well back on his snout. Even half-lidded, they lit the area around the ledge in a pool of light the Erth sun would have envied. “This is De:allus Garodor,” said the Prime. “He arrived through the fire star last night, from Ki:mera. He is here to assess the situation with the boy.”
“What situation?” The short stigs around Gabrial’s ears began to bristle. “Ren is our friend and ally. There is no situation. He’s—”
“Be quiet,” said Grynt, stopping him with a growl. “In my presence, you speak when I ask you to, or order you to—particularly if you have an opinion on anything.”
De:allus Garodor said quietly, “This ‘Ren’ is the Hom you spoke to me about?”
“Yes,” said Grynt. “A recent trail of events brought the boy into our midst. He was bitten by the male wearling he rescued, but the wound did not kill him. Instead, the drake’s blood appears to have infused the boy with our auma. There is also a suggestion that the drake’s mother, Grystina, invested the boy with some of her knowledge before she died. He claims he has a link to her spirit and that she aids him in times of need.”
“Faah,” said Gossana.
“As a result the boy now has certain … abilities, one of which is the power to speak a weak form of dragontongue.”
“He speaks it well,” Gabrial cut in. “He learns more of our words every day.”
Grendel brought her tail around and stroked his back with her isoscele. Shush, she said, with just a blink of her eyes.
Grynt continued, “This is how Gabrial learned the boy’s Erth name. The Hom has bonded with the wearlings, notably the drake. I notified the Elders on Ki:mera because nothing like this has ever happened before. I sought their wisdom on how to proceed.”
“And they sent us a head-scratcher,” Gossana snorted, “when what we need is greater security! More fighting dragons! More Veng!”
Her outburst made Gabrial flinch. Head-scratcher was a derogatory term for the De:allus class, whose primary interest was to understand the workings of the universe and its Creator, Godith. And while he too was surprised that more Veng hadn’t been sent to Erth, the arrival of Garodor was no great surprise. Every Wearle had at least one De:allus. But until this talk about Ren had begun, Gabrial had supposed that Garodor had simply been posted here because both his predecessors had died in the struggle against the goyles. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“Bite your tongue, Matrial,” Prime Grynt warned her. “I raised you to Elder status believing it would instill in you a little more tolerance, an advancement I can easily retract. De:allus Garodor is the most senior dragon of his class. You will treat him with all the respect he deserves. The Elders have decreed that the boy will be given into his care, whence we will decide what is to be done with him.”
“Done with him?”
“Gabrial, be calm,” Grendel advised. She used her tail to prevent him from stepping forward. She had seen Grynt’s brawny eye ridges narrow, a sign that his patience was wearing thin. Gabrial was young and had proved himself more than once in battle, but Grynt was the supreme commander of the Veng, the most ferocious of all dragon classes; he did not have armored breast scales for nothing.
But Gabrial would not be contained. “Fewer than seven days ago,” he blustered, steam blowing out of the lines of tiny spiracles that stabilized the air pressure in his throat, “Ren exposed a traitor among us and saved the life of one of our young. The Elders acknowledged his worth to the Wearle. He can be of help to us. If the Hom are made to understand we mean them no harm, we can live in harmony with them and roam the planet without interference.”
Gossana gave another halfhearted snort.
Gabrial ignored her, saying, “I pledged my life to the boy for all he did. With respect to De:allus Garodor, I cannot stand aside and see Ren turned over for … examination.”
“You will ‘stand’ where I order you to stand,” Grynt said, twisting his lean snout forward. He held Gabrial’s troubled gaze for a moment. “I understand why your loyalties are divided. This course of action does not run easily with me, either. The boy showed courage during our conflict with the goyles, but you are deluded if you think he is not a threat to us.”
“But why would he attack us?”
“Him, probably not,” the De:allus broke in, “but if he breeds, whatever dragon auma he possesses will be passed on through his generations. As I understand it, the Hom are exceedingly cunning creatures. Surely you can see the dangers they would pose if we gave them more resources? Imagine a whole host of Hom with the ability to i:mage or phase through time. Do you want to be the dragon who brings that menace upon us?”
Gabrial sank back on his haunches. He looked for support from Grendel, who said, “Will De:allus Garodor guarantee that Ren will not be harmed?”
“You need to remember your place,” Gossana snapped, her amber eye darkening more toward red. “Your role is to rear the young in your keeping, not to poke about in matters that concern your superiors.”
“How suddenly inflated you’ve
become,” Grendel hissed, “if indeed you could rise any higher.”
“Enough!” Grynt thundered, before either dragon could bare their teeth. “Elder Gossana speaks well on this matter. After the misfortune that befell Grystina, her wearlings were entrusted to you, Grendel. A decision that was not without its measure of controversy. You swore to nurture and protect your cousin’s young. Anything less would dishonor her memory. Is that what you would wish?”
Grendel bowed her head, the scales around her neck flushing green for a moment. “No, of course not. But—”
“But nothing,” Grynt said. “We came to this planet to explore it with a view to colonization. Very soon we will push out beyond these mountains to expand our domayne. If, as we suspect, the terrain is suitable, more dragons will come to Erth. To achieve these ends, we must subjugate all other life-forms—that includes the Hom. Are we clear about this?”
He looked hard at Gabrial, who tightened his claws.
“I said, are we clear about this?”
Gabrial forced himself to nod.
“Good,” Grynt said, making sure he had Gabrial’s eye. “Forget about the boy. There will be greater challenges for you this day.”
Gabrial looked up, his blue eyes blinking. “I don’t understand.”
“He’s talking about the Naming,” said Grendel. “Today the whole Wearle comes to learn that we intend to call the wearmyss ‘Gayl’ and her brother ‘Gariffred.’”
“Gariffred?” The cave light dulled as Garodor’s eyelids shuttered down. He turned to Prime Grynt. “Did I hear that correctly?”
Grynt’s solemn expression suggested he had. He said to Grendel, “You will not reconsider? You know it is your right as the wearlings’ adoptive mother to give them any name of your choosing?”
Grendel raised her snout. “According to Ren, Grystina chose the name ‘Gariffred’ just before she died. I cannot dishonor her or the drake.”
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