The Dragonswarm

by Aaron Pogue

  For a long time I crouched in my strange little sanctuary, catching my breath, and Vechernyvetr searched for me above. I could feel him in my mind prodding, feel all the other broodlings prowling, but I contained him now, and he could not find me. I could feel him in the world above, sweeping out in wider and wider circles as he searched for me, his rage a flame in the depths of my mind.

  Then he spoke, and his words sounded dull, as though I were hearing them through a long tunnel. This is a foolish thing you do, Daven. You are only wasting your life. You cannot save them.

  I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, but for the first time in a month I felt sure. I had a purpose. "I can, and I will. I am the only one alive who can save them."

  You believe that? Man cannot stand up to Pazyarev, Daven, much less the dragonswarm. They will be washed under, and if you go out there, you will be washed under with them.

  Cautiously, I looked out with my second sight, searching the world above me for Vechernyvetr, and once again he'd heard my thoughts. He was coming for me, but he was far off. I found the drakes, living shadows among the glowing life of the forest, and they were nowhere near. The dame was injured now, her strength used up, and she was circling back to the lair. I felt the pull of it myself—an urge to return to the comfort of its confines—but my stomach turned at the thought. I shook it off.

  Before he could reach me, I began to fold the earth back, slowly rising to the surface. It was harder to do now, more complicated than I'd realized, but I forced my way up. When I broke the surface, he was just a speck on the horizon, but he was coming back as fast as he could fly. I was already moving, though. I wrapped myself in air again, and ran down the mountain, away from the lair. I went in great leaping steps, never quite touching the ground and without making a sound. As he came close, he brought with him an inferno of emotion that bloomed in the back of my mind. I could feel his frustration—his pain, his loss—and it felt devastatingly familiar. I had given him a human heart, or enough of one to ache.

  You will not leave, Daven! His voice thundered in my head, but I could hear the desperate fear behind it. You must not leave! Stay here. He landed behind me, crashing down where I had been, and I glanced back to see his great head swinging back and forth as he tried to find me. His voice brimmed with desperation. Please don't leave me. You are the only friend I have ever known.

  I never expected that plea, and it rocked me. I remembered his deception on the ledge above, and dared not give myself away with any answer. But I could feel his true emotion. He would have crippled me to keep me, but he truly wanted me.

  A tear stole down my face, but I steadied my thoughts, aware that he must still sense some of my emotions. I gripped the web of air around me, breathed a heavy sigh, and pulled myself quietly, carefully away from where he waited.

  I watched him as I went. He circled for a while, searching. He called into my mind. But I gave no answer, and at last he went back to his lair. I hung for a moment near the top of a pine and watched the drakes scurry home as well.

  Then I turned away. I looked out over the world of men, gathered a breath, and prepared myself to return home. I flung myself on threads of air as hard as my will would let me and soared out high over the forested hills. I flew like an arrow, arcing up until I could see the black smoke boiling out of a burning city miles and miles away. I could see dragons flying in loose formations, scudding over empty fields like the shadows of clouds.

  The mountainside fell away beneath me, replaced with rolling hills and thinner forest. I looked down and saw the fringes of humanity. I saw towns on the horizon and villages just beyond the hills, and even a farmhouse here and there.

  While I watched, I felt the thrilling song of the Chaos power fade within my soul. The hammering force of it lessened, and with it went the comforting buffer that protected me from reason. I saw, in a glance, the world that I'd forgotten. I'd abandoned it—I'd nearly agreed to raid against it—and though it wasn't burning yet, the dragons would be coming.

  My arc curved down. I began to fall toward the earth, but I had crossed a dozen miles with a thought, and at that rate I could make my way to Teelevon before midday. I reached out with my will and shaped anew the net around me. I flung it with a thought to launch myself out over the plains.

  It didn't work. I felt a wrenching jerk that barely slowed my plummet. The fragile fabric of air tore apart around me, and I fell. Panic stabbed at me. I reached down deep to the core of blackness, borrowing Chaos again as I had done before. But it was thin. It was too far away. Even as I reached for it I felt the darkness slipping from my grasp. Down, deeper inside. But at the same time...up and behind me. In the direction of the lair.

  I thought of the map Vechernyvetr had shown me before, of the limits of his domain. I thought of the hoard we had acquired, of the broodlings we'd overpowered, and I thought how my power had grown. I reached out desperately now, falling faster and faster, and strained with all my might to summon a thread of air to slow my fall. It shivered and broke beneath my will.

  Trees and hills and stones grew huge beneath me. They flashed toward me, and I fought against a panic every bit as black and blinding as the dragon's glamour. I flailed for some plan, remembering the magic I'd known before I ever borrowed Chaos. I touched the air—the natural air, the inconvenient reality so thin compared with Chaos—but it lacked the strength to hold me up.

  I looked to the earth instead. I remembered the trick I'd used to escape Vechernyvetr before, falling like a bubble through the earth. But I remembered the price I had to pay for bending the energy of actual reality. It cost in bodily strength. Perhaps I had the will enough to make the earth swallow me up, but I would have to climb back out again by the strength of my own arms.

  The trees reached up for me, and I spun in place and touched what wind there was to throw me at a high-branched fir. I caught a limb and bloodied my hands and nearly ripped one arm from its socket, then I was falling again. Another heavy branch caught my hip and spilled me over, and I folded double over a wrist-thick limb. I hooked an elbow and a knee before I could slip off, and spent ten slamming heartbeats trying to catch my breath.

  The limb creaked. It started to crack, but I reached out desperately to the threads of earth and water that gave it shape and reinforced them with my will. The branch held. My grasp didn't. Suddenly weak arms gave out, and I flopped upside down. Then loose. It was twenty paces down to the ground, and there were ten limbs along the way. I landed on my back gasping desperately and aching top to toe.

  For ages I lay still, breathing slow and thinking fast, and three more times I tried to borrow Chaos. I couldn't reach the inky power. It was there, but it was very far away. I could turn my head toward the distant sensation and stare across the miles at the tiny cavern upon the mountainside. I couldn't see it, but I had no doubt that it was there.

  I craved the power. I needed it, to heal, to fly, to fight. I'd fought to gain my freedom, and it had cost me everything I was. I almost headed back. Every pace would make me stronger, and I could meet Vechernyvetr with open eyes this time. What choice was there? I couldn't fight Pazyarev, I couldn't help Teelevon without the dragon's power....

  I thought of Isabelle. I thought of the home I'd known before the dragon's lair. I'd been a warrior and wizard-trained. I'd saved the town before. I'd made myself a hero before I ever borrowed Chaos, and if my people needed me at all now, they needed me as a man. Not as another dragon. I dragged myself to my feet, threw one last look toward the distant mountain peaks, then turned and stumbled down the hillside.

  8. Forward and Down, into the Darkness

  It was the tantalizing song of water that finally stopped me. A mountain stream burbled across my path, crystal water dancing across a shallow bed of stone. I fell into the water, gulping it as quickly as I could. I splashed the icy water on my face, dipped my whole head into it, and then shook out my long, wet hair. Then I leaned my back against a tree and breathed in the air around me, drinking in the
odors of the forest and at last beginning to relax.

  I was on a moderate slope, somewhere in the foothills near the base of the mountain. Pines and evergreens grew all around me, and I was stretched out on a soft bed of needles and moss. The canopy of limbs and leaves blocked out much of the sun, but a tiny shaft of light fell across my face, a dazzling gold that I had almost forgotten.

  "Get up!" A man's voice suddenly shattered the forest silence, full of such command that I found myself instantly on my feet. There was a pause, and then, "Good. Now turn around. Slowly."

  I did as he directed, but I fought to keep contempt from my expression. I had faced dragons today; what terror was there in a man?

  He stood three paces away. On a bed of dry leaves and dead branches, he had come within three paces, and I never heard. He was a monster of a man, tall and heavily muscled, and his skin was black as night—an Islander. He was dressed in a shepherd's simple clothes, but over them was draped a once-fine tabard, threadbare and faded with age. The hilt of a great two-handed sword rose over his left shoulder, and lighter broadswords hung on both hips. He had a crossbow in his hands, the iron-shod tip of a bolt trained on my heart.

  "Who are you? What are you doing here?" His voice was deep, commanding, and it held only a trace of the Islanders' accent.

  "I am Daven."

  He waited for more, and when I didn't offer it he growled. "Bad times to be a stranger, Daven. Tell me your business in my mountains, or I'll drop you where you stand."

  He did not blink as he waited for my answer.

  "I am no threat," I said. The shape of the words felt strange in my mouth. I grimaced. "I am lost and alone, and my only business here is to leave these mountains."

  "Bound for where?"

  "Tirah,"

  "Tirah?" He snorted and jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the plains. "Tirah." Then he pointed up the slope. "And you come from that way. There's no man for a thousand miles in that direction. To come here, you must come from Tirah."

  My mouth fell open to answer, but after a moment I shook my head."I couldn't even begin to explain." I started to turn away, but as soon as I moved he fired. The bolt flashed toward me, but I touched it with my mind, unleashing little threads of water within the wood—last echo of life in a crafted thing. They expanded at my touch, and the bolt shattered to a thousand slivers midair. The heavy iron head fell to the ground at my feet. The soldier showed no sign of surprise. Slowly, eyes locked on me, he reached to his belt for another bolt.

  I sighed. "Please don't do that. It's a waste of good craftsmanship." I tried hard to look bored and prayed he didn't reach for any of those swords.

  Still watching me warily, he drew the crossbow's heavy cord with a smooth motion and placed the bolt in its cradle. He half raised the weapon, then seemed to change his mind and dropped his arms to hold it casually at waist height. I noticed it was still aimed at my heart.

  "Very well," I said. "My name is Daven Carrickson, and I come from Terrailles. I have been prisoner in a dragon's lair, and I wish to return to the world of man." I watched his eyes for some sign of surprise or doubt, but he only nodded.

  "Daven Carrickson. I am Caleb—they call me Caleb Drake, now—and I grew up in the Bateiyn Keys." He looked at me for a moment, measuring, and then added, "I am hunting a dragon."

  My heart went cold. "In these mountains? How can you know where to look?"

  He narrowed his eyes and considered me for a moment, "Dragons are everywhere. I must only look up. But the beast I hunt keeps a lair in these hills."

  I fought a desperate urge to glance back and up toward Vechvernyvetr's lair. "Are you sure of that?"

  "I know it well. She and her drakes have long haunted our village."

  "Your village?"

  He jerked his thumb back toward the plains again. "Below the mountains."

  I felt a flash of relief. "Please, take me there. Is it far?"

  "It is not far."

  "Show me the way. It may cost you a few hours in your hunt, but it could well save my life."

  He ground his teeth tight until the muscles bunched on his jaw, and his nostrils flared with a little huff of anger. "There is nowhere to take you. The village is gone."

  "Gone? How?"

  "This dragon burned it down. Slaughtered man, woman, and child. I alone survived."

  The breath went out of me. I hung my head. "I'm sorry."

  "As am I. You must be weary, but these is no refuge while the beast yet lives. Come with me to kill it—"

  "I cannot."

  "You face a crossbow like a warrior. You turn a bolt to splinters. You have escaped a dragon's den. You will be a powerful ally."

  I shook my head. "I cannot help you. I'm sorry for your loss."

  He considered me a for a long time. Then he dropped the crossbow to his side. "Today I woke with a home. An hour ago, it was taken from me. I will not sleep again until it has been set right."

  "I'm truly sorry," I said again. And then I stopped. I frowned. "An hour ago?"

  "If that," he said. "I have come from there—"

  "Just now?" Despite myself I turned and glanced toward the dame's lair I'd visited, then quickly back to Caleb. There couldn't have been time. "Where is this lair?"

  He pointed just where I had looked, along the slope to the south. "Perhaps a mile up. Among the low hills."

  "How many are there?"

  "Just the dame," he said, his voice a dirge. "Her seven drakes are dead."

  I felt the hunger surge up in my gut, rage and regret that we hadn't made them ours. So much power to be had, so close, but this man had killed her seven drakes. We'd killed two more, and Pazyarev the dame.

  It didn't matter. I was not a dragon anymore. I shook my head. "She's gone. The dame is dead this afternoon."

  "She isn't dead. I've seen her shadow in the sky above this place. She's on the hunt."

  I shook my head. "Dragons don't hunt by day."

  His teeth flashed in something like a smile. "This one does. And she led me straight to you."

  My jaw fell open. I threw my gaze to the sky, looking out with the wizard's sight, and searched for the Chaos shadow. I saw it, coming low and fast over the trees. Not straight at us—we must have been hidden by the canopy—but it had the right direction. I pointed wordlessly, tracking the shadow with my hand, and Caleb only nodded, still and silent as a stone.

  But as the dragon passed overhead, he raised his crossbow in a smooth motion, sighted down my tracking arm, and fired a bolt that struck the beast dead center. It screamed in rage and fell out of the sky, crashing over treetops before it settled into a small dell some way down.

  Caleb didn't run. He sprinted straight toward the sound of the downed dragon, but that bolt could not have done serious injury. It had surprised the beast at best. Caleb didn't seem to care. He stopped by a towering tree three paces thick, hiding behind one of its exposed roots. Very slowly he raised his head to peek over, then sank back quickly. He waved me over, and I tried to move as silently as he had while I crossed the little space.

  When I dropped down beside him his eyes were closed, his breathing slow and steady. He was preparing himself for battle. The tree stood atop a small cliff, holding together a wall of earth with its ancient roots. Between them, a great hollow in the hillside stood protected from the elements. Pazyarev's red sat upon its haunches in the gully, snapping with its razor teeth at the bloodied fletchings just protruding from its breast.

  Caleb raised the crossbow to his shoulder and fired again. I watched in two worlds as the heavy bolt tore the evening sky, missed the dragon's throat by a hand's breadth, and drove home just in front of its hind leg. Blood spilled, dull and gray to my wizard's eyes, and the beast roared in hate and anger. In an instant it was in the air and flying straight toward us.

  Caleb was already readying another bolt, and before the dragon reached us the warrior fired again, but this bolt glanced harmlessly off the monster's plated shoulder. In an instant m
ore the beast would be upon us.

  Fury clawed at the back of my mind. Even without the Chaos power to draw upon, days of bloodthirsty madness had left their scar on me. The fight called to me, and without thinking I rose in answer. I stepped up onto the heavy root, grabbed the hilt of the sword on Caleb's right hip, and leaped high into the air, all in one fluid motion.

  I tore a fistful of earth energy free with my mind, stretched it into a beam perhaps three paces long and as wide across as my heel. It lasted just long enough to hold me. I sprinted to the end of it and sprang.

  The beast was coming fast. I saw the flash of recognition in its eyes, felt the sneering contempt that would be words of challenge, but I had no time for banter. I cut a short arc through the sky, bending flimsy threads of air to guide my path, and landed on its head while it was still five paces from Caleb's hiding place. I held his sword reversed, and as soon as I landed I gripped the hilt in both hands and struck. The sharp point came down with all my might, driving through scale and bone and clear through the dragon's head. There was no splash of blood, no cry of pain or anger, only the crack of bone, the sigh of steel, and then a last beat of dragon's wings. I slew it in an instant, but its velocity still carried us forward and I only just leaped clear before the heavy body smashed into the ledge.

  The ancient tree trembled, but it did not fall. I landed hard, but in an instant I was up, eyes darting. There was no threat. The beast was dead. I knew it before I even looked. I could feel it. And as I turned my attention to the corpse, I saw it. I saw the darkness, the black void of dragon power overlaid on reality. It shimmered like silk and flowed like water. It drained across the uneven earth and poured toward me.