Gabrial felt his mouth turn dry.
The stone tells how Grendisar caught some crows and commingled with them. Individually, though mildly intelligent, they showed little potential. But if he commingled with several at once, he noted a deeply disturbing development: The communing of the birds seemed to generate a speck of auma that was closely related to, if not the same as, ours. This prompted him to form a bold theory. He bravely suggested to the Higher that he’d found Godith’s hiding place, that here was Graven’s shattered heart, spread among a sinister genus of birds.
What? Gabrial snorted a shower of raindrops.
Garodor slackened his jaw—a movement as close as a dragon ever came to a wry smile. I suspect your response would not be dissimilar to the reaction of the Elders to whom Grendisar reported. Initially, the De:allus was ridiculed. The story of Graven’s downfall had long passed into the realms of myth. But that link to the crows must have worried the Higher, for they ordered Grendisar to continue his research. The planet was isolated and the Hom monitored for signs of conspiracy with the birds, but no threat ever materialized. And though Grendisar’s work was passed on to other De:allus after his death, his theory gradually lost its import. Wearles like yours were still sent to Erth, but at longer and longer intervals, and only the Prime and some trusted Elders knew the real reason the colonies were there. Everything changed the day your father’s Wearle disappeared. You know that story—the fhosforent, the goyles. This flight is the ongoing legacy of it.
Then you believe it? You think Grendisar was right?
Garodor twisted through the air again, gathering up his feet as he banked toward the northern end of the forest. I don’t want to believe the black dragon exists, any more than you do. But the signs are there and I am bound by my breeding to investigate them. When Ty boasted that Graven’s heart was in the air, I believe he was talking about crows in flight.
What about the blood in the mountains?
Fhosforent. I analyzed a sample when I first arrived. It appears to be crystallized blood.
Graven’s blood?
I fear so, yes.
But …
For a moment, Gabrial was lost for words. He had to open every spiracle along his neck to relieve the plug of air trying to gag his throat. The blood of the Tywyll? Here? On Erth? The thought left him hollow inside, fearful for the lives of Grendel and the wearlings. He tilted his body against the rain and beat his wings to keep up with Garodor. Why has this only been discovered now? Why not in Grendisar’s time?
Garodor banked again, his powerful eyes scanning the first cluster of trees. I haven’t had a chance to check the mapping sites yet, but I would say those early colonies simply settled in a different location. Like I said to Prime Grynt: It’s a large planet.
So my father’s Wearle was just … unlucky?
Desperately so.
But these mountains are huge. Perfect for dragons. I find it hard to believe that Grendisar’s mappers didn’t locate them.
I agree that is odd, said Garodor. But at the moment, I can’t think of a better explanation than the one I’ve just given you.
And neither could Gabrial. So all this time, Graven’s auma has been … surrounding us—in the fhosforent and the crows?
Yes. It’s hard to detect because it’s widely scattered, though Grendisar was sensitive enough to feel it. Over the years, it must have been further diluted as the crows died off, though it would still be carried within their descendants. Godith did Her job well. Her fallen son was effectively stranded with very little chance of being found or recovered. The situation changed when dragons arrived in these mountains and began to ingest large quantities of fhosforent. Those who did mutated quickly. I’m certain that was Graven, fighting to take control of their auma, forcing them to regenerate in his i:mage, all the while clutching at the fire within them, but never quite being able to claim it: the “dark eye” Ren speaks of is proof of that.
Gabrial nodded. He had seen the goyle eye. Dull. Lifeless. Yet radiating bitterness. Graven’s bitterness. Even in flight, it made him shudder.
And now they have changed again, said Garodor, into a much more dangerous form.
The mist?
The De:allus nodded. How or why that happened I cannot say, but the Hom are the perfect host for it. We know how cunning men are. With Graven’s assistance, doubly so. He awakened himself in Ty and Pine, enough to make them do his bidding.
And steal Grogan’s heart?
Yes. He wants fire in its purest form, Gabrial. Even cast in stone, a dragon’s spark is a powerful source of life. Perhaps Ren was right and there is a way to free it. If so, we must assume that the goyle we’re tracking can use the spark to draw the remaining fragments of Graven from the crows. Restoring his heart would be the first step to raising him.
On that note, Garodor turned his head sharply. His nostrils flared. Do you smell that?
The scent of dampened, burning wood, clinging to the sweeping rain. Gabrial had it now too. He looked down, adjusting his optical triggers. They were crossing a stretch of open land, a variegated mash of greens and browns, dotted with streaks of crude gray rock. But in the near distance, only a matter of wingbeats away, was the staggered edge of the forest. Deep within it was a winding trail of smoke. That’s dragon fire. It must be Gallen.
Garodor pointed his battle stigs. I’ll go to it; you circle and cover me.
You’re not a fighting dragon. I’ll go. You cover.
The De:allus flattened his chest scales. The hardened layers that terraced his eyelids slid into their protective positions. This is my chance to avenge my son. I want that goyle. Now, do as I command and—
A sudden screech made both dragons look up. In the region of trees from where the smoke was rising, a dark creature had appeared above the forest. Gabrial raced ahead, roaring into full attack mode. Behind him, Garodor was urging caution. But here was an alien creature, dragon-shaped, black, struggling violently into the sky, limbs kicking, claws slashing, tail whipping, hissing nonstop battle tones. Gabrial rolled and immediately engaged it, for surely this was the true Tywyll, the source of so many wearling nightmares.
Whoosh! From the blue’s jaws came a funnel of flame, so hot it made his airways squeal. Fire ripped along one side of the creature, fully igniting a wing. Flesh blistered, popped, and flared, the devastating scent of it plugging the gaps between the bulbous raindrops. The creature wailed, writhed, and fell back, scattering flakes of black in its wake. As Gabrial blasted a pathway through them, he realized the flakes were incinerated feathers, turning to dust as they landed on his scales. Puzzled, he banked around and looked again at the falling creature. To his horror, he saw green beneath its black exterior, the unmistakable gloss of Veng-class scales. Only then did he realize what he’d done. He’d brought down a dragon obscured by crows.
He’d killed the Veng commander, Gallen.
No time for guilt, inquiry, or reason. As Gallen’s body dropped, a catch of wind took him onto his back and he plummeted fast toward the trees. What remained of his wings flapped open—to one side a full sheet repeatedly holed; a blackened skeletal frame on the other. The surviving crows broke clear of the body as the forest loomed up. Gallen hit the trees with a mighty crack, sending ripples far across the bright green canopy. Scales flew in all directions. Spots of green blood mingled with the rain. The body sank, sprang back, and then came to rest as the trees buoyed its spreading weight. Only the tail slid out of sight. The claws clutched at empty space. The slanted eye was a dead slit, closed.
For a few windswept seconds it seemed as if Gallen would remain like this, swaying on the treetops in the rain, pinned through the throat and twice through the chest by what the Hom called spiker branches. Then the crows descended once more, to tear at the bleeding lacerations.
Deeply distressed, and driven by a fury he hardly recognized, Gabrial turned and swooped on them, crunching several in his monstrous jaws while he frantically rekindled his fire sacs. By then, they w
ere on him too. More birds, it seemed, than the trees could hold. They rose like leaves that had forgotten which way they were supposed to fall. The air shuddered to their calls, a din so loud that Gabrial had to fold his ears into his head to prevent them bursting. He slashed and whipped and sprayed arcs of fire. Every flying thing in his onward path was immediately reduced to ash. On he flew, dipping through a cloud of cinders and rage. But there were just too many crows to kill. And soon they had him surrounded. They were everywhere, pecking at his tail, his stigs, his wing tips. He even felt them poking in the horny dips at the backs of his knees. So many talons, all over his body. They came for his eyes, of course, initially to block his optical triggers and disorient him, then to dig at the supple joints between the glinting facets that together made up the jewel of the eye. Never had he suffered a feeling so disturbing as the relentless tapping of a beak in those spots.
Phase!
Suddenly, Garodor was back in his mind, the one place the sharp beaks couldn’t reach.
Phase! Now! the De:allus called. Go high, Gabrial! As high as you can i:mage!
Burn them!
I can’t! They’re on me also. Phase, Gabrial. It’s your only hope!
And so the blue dragon tensed his muscles and i:maged himself among the clouds. In a flash he was high, high, high above the forest. Those crows with talons hooked under his scales were taken up with him. For a moment it seemed to be a pointless maneuver; the birds pecked on as if nothing had happened. But it wasn’t long before their ireful chirrs turned to suffocating squawks. And now Gabrial saw the wisdom in the move. There was no air for the crows up here—certainly not enough to sustain their lungs and prevent their tiny brains from dizzying. And while it was a fact that dragons were susceptible to blacking out at altitude, they had the advantage of a built-in reservoir of air, which took the form of a flexible sac that sat just under the bronchial web. It inflated at takeoff and deflated at landing, unless the lungs drew from it during flight.
One by one the crows fell away, until Gabrial was easily shaking them off. He immediately prepared to attack them again, only to be steered off course by Garodor, who had phased to a similar height.
Don’t waste your fire! Look at them. They’re dead.
The De:allus was right. The crows were dropping like large black hailstones.
The smoke; we must go to its source, said Gabrial. The girl has to be there. She’s commanding the birds. If we fly together—
No, we must withdraw, said Garodor.
Gabrial swept underneath him. That was Gallen I brought down!
I know that. And I know what you must be feeling now. But he was almost certainly beyond our help at the point you flamed him. We need to regather. We must go to Grynt and organize the Wearle.
You go to Grynt.
Gabrial—
I’m not leaving, Garodor. I KILLED a Veng commander. I have to avenge him.
And you will. But not like this. Go to the trees and the birds will simply come for you again. You can’t phase forever. Eventually, they’ll bring you down. Think about this.
I could phase into the forest and surprise the girl.
There isn’t space enough. You’ll just be trapped. And the forest is huge. We don’t know where she is.
Then we should burn it. Burn the whole thing down.
No. Destroying the trees is not the answer. The girl would just vanish, and so would our chances of defeating her.
Then what should we do?
I don’t know. But we need to get to Grynt and warn the whole Wearle—starting with them. He gestured toward a patch of sky. In the distance, three dragons were approaching, flying side by side. Gus will have given his report by now. Grynt will have sent them to aid us. Go to them. Turn them back to Skytouch. That’s an order.
Gabrial circled again, his frustration as evident as the air rushing out of his spiracles. What if she does it? What if she opens the heart while we’re gone?
That’s a chance we’ll have to take. Now fly. I’m going to make one more sweep of the forest for any detail that might help us.
But—?
Don’t worry, I’ll fly high. My eyesight is better than yours. Go. I won’t be far behind you.
Reluctantly, Gabrial swept away.
Garodor was right about the three dragons. They were two roamers, led by Gus, who’d been sent back to the forest as a punishment for being inept. Gus was even more reluctant than Gabrial to go back and face the Prime again, but was easily persuaded when he learned that Gallen had perished (though Gabrial didn’t speak of his part in it).
And so they turned and Gabrial fell in behind them, glumly bringing up the rear. Before long they were closing on the mountains again, skirting the snaking cluster of peaks that would bring them to Skytouch and the great ice lake.
It was as they turned to make their final approach that Gabrial looked down and realized they were passing Grymric’s cave. He saw Ren near to the cave mouth. The boy looked up when he heard the sound of wings.
Gus and the roamers sailed past, but Gabrial let the wind slow him. He glided through one full circle, looked at Ren again, and had an idea.
Moments later, he landed at the cave mouth.
“Get on,” he said to the boy.
Ren looked puzzled, but only took the time to glance over his shoulder before clambering onto Gabrial’s back. “Where are we going?”
“Gabrial, is that you?” Grymric’s voice floated out of the darkness deep within the cave.
Gabrial didn’t reply. He took off and immediately, powerfully, gained height.
“Where are we going?” Ren asked again. He had to shout to make himself heard.
“The forest,” said the blue, leveling out.
Ren looked down. “You’re going the wrong way.” Gabrial had just banked south, toward the ocean.
“I’m taking a long way around. Garodor mustn’t see me. He won’t like what I’m planning, but I don’t have time to persuade him. I need you to do something, Ren. Something no dragon can. It will be dangerous. And it may be too late, anyway.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go into the forest and find the girl.”
“You want me to kill her?”
“If you have to. Whatever it takes to fulfill your promise.”
“Promise?”
“You made a bond with Grogan. Steal back the heart and return it to his spirit. That’s what I want you to do.”
Gabrial set Ren down on a grassy rise where the forest thinned out, as close to the trees as he dared to land. The storm had been short and had blown itself out, leaving the ground sodden but the landscape clear. From where they stood, they could see the entire span of woodland, stretching its weave of greens and browns over the interlocking hills. No crows had challenged them on the approach, but Gabrial had been clever and flown through a patch of light hill fog, almost skimming the ground in places, a tactic that wasn’t lost on Ren. “You flew low. Do you fear that Pine will see you?”
The blue folded his wings and studied the nearest cluster of trees. “Not Pine.”
He told Ren about the crows and the battle with them.
The boy’s jaw dropped. “Gallen is dead?”
The dragon’s neck stigs bristled uncomfortably. “I was to blame. No matter what Garodor says in my support, Grynt will condemn me for the death of his commander.”
“You think this plan will settle his ire?”
“No. It will infuriate him. But I need to act, to avenge Gallen’s spirit. I would enter the forest if my size permitted and seek out Pine myself. Instead, I call on your pledge by the crag. You said you knew the girl better than any Hom. You can track her.”
Ren squinted at the trees. Trying to measure their number was a daunting task. “My pa used to say the forest is as big as the sky, this close. My teeth might rot before I find her.”
“Not if you let Grystina help you. You’ve felt the auma of Grogan’s heart. Grystina can use that energy to
phase you somewhere close to it. Do you see that twist of smoke in the distance?”
Ren cupped his eyes. He could just make out a gray trail rising where the tree mass hollowed.
“That’s where Gallen came down. Let that be your physical mark.”
“If I find the heart, what then?”
“Bring it here. I’ll be waiting. Phasing back to a start point is easy; Grystina will guide you.”
“Then we fly to the quarry and raise Grogan’s spirit?”
Gabrial nodded. “If the heart is returned, the danger will hopefully pass.”
“Hopefully?”
The blue dragon took a long breath. “There’s more you need to know.”
He told Ren, in brief, the story of Graven, making sure Ren understood why dragons sometimes called him “Tywyll.”
Ren crouched down and brushed his hand over the wet blades of grass. “If this beast were to rise, what will it mean—for you, for the Wearle?”
Gabrial shook his head. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to risk the lives of Grendel and the wearlings finding out. Act now, Ren—or leave in peace. I won’t stop you. I cannot make you do this.”
Ren stood up slowly, drying his hand on the sleeve of his robe. “Can Pine be saved? Can the goyle be driven out and the girl brought back?”
Gabrial blinked, remembering what Garodor had said. “It may be too late for that. Do you care for the girl? Do you forgive her allegiance to Ty?”
Ren sniffed. “I care for her as much as you care for Gossana—but she is Kaal. I say she was bewitched by Ty.”
“Then save her if you can. And I will help—if I can.”
“Crows,” Ren said suddenly. He stepped back and slapped the blue’s side.
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