by Ben Wolf
Axel’s fist slammed into Calum’s mouth, and Calum went down with the taste of copper behind his tingling lips.
Chapter Twenty-One
Calum could hardly believe it. Axel had punched him. He’d outright punched him.
Now Axel stood over Calum, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “You wanna call me out? You’re an ungrateful, miserable excuse for a friend. I spent years looking after you, watching over you, slipping you extra food. Then, when we went on the road, I saved your life more times than I can count, and I can count pretty high.
“I’ve bled for you and your cause. I’ve killed for you, too. I helped you find Lumen. I helped you survive every imaginable threat along the way. I kept you alive because you’re my friend,” Axel asserted. “And this is the thanks I get? You compare me to when you were enslaved?”
Calum shook his head and scoffed. He wiped the blood from his mouth and spat some of it onto the street. It spattered red on the cobblestones, and he stood to his feet.
“Once again, you’re proving my point. You think it’s all about you.”
“You said it was all about me!” Axel almost shouted. “That was pretty much your leading statement.”
“I said you were a jerk because of how you treat people,” Calum corrected. “Do you really not see the pattern? How you’re like this with everyone, including me?”
“Everything I do, I do to protect you and me.” Axel clapped his hand on his breastplate. “I couldn’t care less about anyone else. It’s you and me.”
Calum shook his head. “So you just punched me because you were protecting me?”
If Axel tried to justify that one, Calum was going to—
“Absolutely,” Axel said. “If you get out of line, someone’s gotta put you back into your place.”
That was it. Calum raised his left hand and summoned Lumen’s light. The familiar burn raked from his palm through his fingers and crept up his wrist into his forearm. Then a bright flash emitted from his hand, and Axel recoiled, clutching at his eyes.
Calum lunged forward, driving his shoulder into Axel’s gut. He wrapped both arms around the back of Axel’s knees, lifted up, and angled to the left, taking him off his feet and to the ground. His armor clanked against the cobblestone street.
A litany of curses spilled from Axel’s mouth, but curses alone wouldn’t stop Calum from repaying Axel for the punch and much more. Calum got on top of Axel’s chest and rained punch after punch down at Axel’s head.
Axel blocked most of them with his forearms and hands, still cursing up a storm, but a few landed. One in particular smashed clean into Axel’s nose, eliciting a yelp and igniting the first of many desperate thrashes to unseat Calum from his position.
Try as he might, Calum couldn’t hold on, and Axel actually did manage to force him off. The two of them ended up on their sides, scrambling for the dominant position in the street.
Axel must’ve been able to see again because he started throwing more punches of his own. He managed to gain the upper hand and got on top of Calum, primed to repay him for the onslaught he’d just received.
But before Axel could land even a single blow, Calum flared Lumen’s light again. The old burn returned, and Calum gritted his teeth from the pain, but the flash worked a second time. Axel flinched, again clutching at his eyes and crying out, and Calum managed to get free.
Now Axel was on his hands and knees, rubbing his eyes with one hand and feeling around for Calum with the other.
Calum wasn’t ever going to be stronger than Axel. That was a reality he’d accepted long ago. But since they’d started training together, Magnus had taught Calum enough hand-to-hand combat that Calum knew how to win without the disparity in their strength levels being as much of a factor.
It was devious, but it would work, so Calum went for it.
While Axel was still on his knees, Calum faced him, reached down, and wrapped his arms around Axel’s neck, careful to keep his head pinned under his chest. If Axel managed to get his head to pop free, the move wouldn’t work, so Calum sprawled out his legs and used his weight to keep Axel in place.
Then he began to lift his forearms up, gradually choking Axel, who sputtered and tried to protest, but to no avail. He clawed at Calum’s armored forearms and tried to shake him off, but it was too late. The choke was already too deep and too far progressed.
Calum kept squeezing. The choke wouldn’t kill Axel, but if Calum held on long enough, it would send Axel on a nice little trip through the stars, and he’d wake up not long afterward confused and uncertain. It wouldn’t do any lasting harm unless Calum held it for way too long, and no matter how horrible Axel had been, he didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.
In seconds, Axel’s arms went limp, and the sputtering stopped. Calum held on for another second, just for good measure. When he finally let go, Axel slumped to the street on his belly, unconscious.
Two times during his training with Magnus, Calum had been put to sleep as well. When he’d awakened, he’d seen Magnus standing over him, holding his ankles up, and gently shaking his legs. Calum didn’t know exactly how it worked, but apparently it helped the blood get back to his brain faster.
With great difficulty, Calum flipped Axel onto his back, grabbed his ankles, and began to shake his friend’s legs. Sure enough, Axel’s eyes opened, and he began to blink and stare at the sky as fresh air filled his lungs anew. He convulsed a few times, but even that was normal, Magnus had said.
Once Calum was sure Axel had crossed over from the land of dreams, he let his legs drop and leaned over his face. Thanks to Calum’s one really good punch, blood trickled from Axel’s nose and down to his lips.
Calum wanted to say a lot of things to Axel in that moment, but none of them felt right. This moment, triumphant as it was for Calum, was bittersweet at best. Yes, he’d finally beaten Axel in a fight, but at what cost to their friendship?
What friendship? Calum’s inner voice challenged him.
With nothing better to say, Calum looked down at Axel and said, “When you’re ready to stop being unconscious, come back and join us.”
Axel blinked and tried to speak, but his words slurred.
Close enough, Calum decided. Then he turned and left Axel in the street.
Calum had cheated.
In a fair fight, straight up, there was no way Axel would’ve lost. That flashing palm-thing gave Calum an unfair advantage. How was Axel supposed to fight if he couldn’t see?
No, he and Calum had not been created equally. Axel was strong, had great reflexes, and a natural sense of aggression that helped make him a better fighter.
And he was the better fighter—there was no doubt in his mind about it. Take away that stupid light in Calum’s palm, and the outcome would’ve been very different.
Axel wiped another drip of blood from his nose as he stood to his feet. He gingerly dabbed at his nose. At least it wasn’t broken.
Calum had gotten off easy. He could hide a bloody mouth just by keeping his lips sealed.
Axel cursed him for that and so many other reasons. What an ungrateful twit.
For the last year—longer than that, now—Axel had done nothing but have Calum’s back throughout all of the madness that had entered their lives. It had resulted in a sprawling adventure, and if he’d had the chance to do it over again, he would’ve. The alternative was staying back at his family farm, living out the boring life that had been planned for him.
But hearing Calum say those things grated on Axel’s very core. It wasn’t that Calum was right—it’s that he was so far off base that he’d stopped making sense, and Axel had given up on listening.
More importantly, after that fight, Axel had given up on Calum, too.
Axel tilted his head back and pinched his nose shut, trying to get it to stop dripping blood. He felt the coppery tang of the warm liquid oozing down the back of his throat, but he didn’t care. As long as it stopped bleeding, he’d be content with that.
&
nbsp; Faces peered at him from within the surrounding buildings, most of which still had dead vines from the rose golems draped over their sides. Whether or not they’d seen the fight didn’t matter. It was too late now, and these people weren’t a threat to him.
Although he kind of wished someone would come out and try something. It would give him a chance to vent some excess fury at what had happened with Calum.
In the aftermath of this fight, though, Axel had to ask himself if he’d actually gotten weaker, or if Calum had finally gotten stronger than him.
Yes, Calum had cheated, but Axel still should’ve been able to pull through and beat him. Yet he hadn’t.
Axel cursed, cleared his throat, and spat a dark-red glob of blood and mucus onto the street. He was too weak. Worse yet, Calum had been granted power he didn’t deserve.
Why should the weakest person be granted some great power? Or even a boring one like Calum’s? Shouldn’t it have gone to Axel instead? Someone already strong and capable?
It wasn’t fair. If Lumen had given him the power he’d promised, this all would’ve been different.
By that point, the bleeding seemed to have tapered off. Axel sniffed hard a few times, collected another wad in his throat, and hacked it out. Another few sniffs told him he’d gotten the blood under control, and he huffed as he started walking back toward the army.
But he’d already made a decision about his future.
If they reunited with Lumen and he didn’t grant Axel some real power, Axel was done. He’d collect his few belongings and go. Where to, he didn’t know. He couldn’t go back to the farm, but he’d visited plenty of interesting places along the way. Any of them would do for him to start over, away from all of this needless drama.
For now, that was the only reason he was sticking around. Calum had made it clear how the others felt about him—Lilly included… that one stung, if he were honest—so he might as well get out of there if he couldn’t gain anything by staying.
This was Calum’s fight. It always had been.
Either Lumen would grant Axel the power he desired, or he would leave, and none of them would ever see him again.
When he reached the army again, he exhaled a ragged breath, cracked his neck, and quickly disappeared among their ranks.
The next morning, Calum awoke earlier than anyone else. It was still dark out, and aside from the few dozen guards posted around the army’s haphazard campsite near the melted wall, he had the morning to himself.
He glanced over at Axel’s bedroll, which lay a few dozen yards away, separated by a row of other bedrolls and the Saurians and Windgales sleeping in them. They hadn’t talked to each other since the fight. He’d hardly even seen Axel in camp outside of the one time their eyes met around dinnertime, but even that was fleeting as neither of them saw fit to maintain eye contact.
Part of Calum wondered if he’d been too hard on Axel. He’d said some pretty awful things to the man he’d once called his best friend.
But they’d been true things as well.
Still… Calum had unloaded all of it on Axel out of anger. Even if he’d told the truth, he’d done it with the wrong motivation. That still made it wrong.
And that meant Calum needed to try to make it right.
As if on cue, Axel stirred in his bedroll and sat up, blinking in the low light of predawn. He distinctly looked over at Calum, and though it was mostly dark, Calum had no doubt that their eyes met, for only the second time in nearly half a day.
Then Axel looked away, laid back down, and went back to sleep.
Calum sighed. Why did Axel have to make everything so difficult?
Well, he wouldn’t fall back asleep now. He might as well get up and start making preparations for the army’s exit from Kanarah City.
But first, some breakfast. He’d think better with a full belly.
Calum packed up his bedroll, stood to his feet, and headed toward the building they’d commandeered as a mess hall.
Later that day, Lilly flew overhead as Calum led their army through Kanarah City and toward the south gate. She couldn’t help but think the journey would’ve gone faster if they’d led the army back through the destroyed wall and around the city instead. It certainly would’ve been simpler.
It took a concerted effort on behalf of the ranking officers among both the Wolves and the Saurians to keep their numbers in order. The Wolves wanted to loot the entire city, the Saurians wanted to raze it to the ground, and both groups had no qualms about attacking the citizens hiding within their homes while no doubt praying the invading army would pass them by.
Part of Lilly wished the Wolves and Saurians could be more disciplined like her fellow Windgales, but that type of thinking was akin to wishing the stars would rearrange themselves in the sky. Neither race could change their inherent natures, and hoping otherwise amounted to nothing but foolishness.
In the end, the army reached the city’s south gate with only minimal pilfering and damage along the way. Once there, a pair of large Sobeks hefted the huge crossbeam out of the brackets mounted to the doors and tossed it aside. Then the massive metal doors yawned open, and the southern road beckoned the army forth.
Rather than leaving Captain Anigo and his surviving soldiers behind, Calum had decided to bring them along, so he had them shackled and chained and escorted along with the army. Given the overwhelming numbers surrounding them, Lilly doubted any of them would be foolish enough to try to escape.
If any of them might’ve been a problem, it would’ve been Captain Anigo himself, but Calum had wisely separated him from the rest of the group and placed him under the charge of two Sobeks and two Werewolves whose only task was to see to it that Captain Anigo didn’t try to escape.
Half the day later, the Golden Plains gleamed at them, aglow with amber under the afternoon sunlight. But no matter how beautiful it looked, Lilly could only think of one thing as she flew toward it. Phantom pain jabbed at her shoulder from the arrow wound, now long since healed thanks to Magnus’s veromine.
“It really is a marvelous sight to behold, don’t you think?” Condor’s voice broke into Lilly’s memories but didn’t cut them off entirely. “All that grain waving up at us like an endless rippling pool of golden light.”
Lilly glanced at him. She didn’t really want to explain her feelings or share the memories of her escape from Roderick with him, so she simply replied, “It certainly is.”
Though Condor’s eyes scrutinized her, his words didn’t dig any deeper. For that, she was grateful.
Unlike the last time she’d visited these plains, a dark island of timber and stone and the colorful fabric of tents punctuated the expansive ocean of grain. It had to be at least half the size of Kanarah City, which alone gave Lilly pause.
She didn’t know for sure what the population of Kanarah City was, but a rough guess at how many men occupied the camp set up in the center of the Golden Plains told her that Lumen’s army dwarfed theirs. Evidently, he’d managed to recruit far more humans than Lilly had imagined.
Then again, he was Lumen, after all. Even the mere sight of him had ignited a new fire within her, the likes of which she’d never known. She’d believed in him from the moment she first laid eyes on him, and afterward, he’d proven himself every bit as powerful as the legends had claimed.
Now it made sense that he’d sent her, Calum, and the others to muster a force from Western Kanarah; he’d done exactly what he’d promised and raised an army of his own during that time.
At the sight of Magnus’s approach and his enormous form blotting out the sun, the camp buzzed with a mixture of excitement and fear. Shouts went up from the men standing watch, and before long, every soldier, whether they be man or woman, took up arms as if to fend him off with mere steel.
Several of the archers nocked arrows, but before anyone could loose even a single shot, Lumen materialized in the sky between his camp and Magnus’s incoming form.
Even from far away, Lilly could hear his voic
e booming across the plains.
“Stand down,” he ordered his men. “This Dragon leads one third of my Western Army. He is on our side, and he is a valuable ally in our endeavor to liberate Kanarah.”
As Magnus’s wings flapped faster to slow his descent, kicking up dirt and loose stalks of grain, the soldiers lowered their weapons and instead shielded their faces. Magnus landed with a heavy thud that elicited more than several surprised yelps and gasps, but they all soon quieted when he rose to his full height.
Magnus lowered his head, and Calum slid off and stood next to him. Lilly, Condor, and General Balena landed nearby, and Riley appeared from within the shadow of one of Magnus’s wings to join them.
The throngs of soldiers marveled at their presence with wide eyes and open mouths—or perhaps they were still marveling at Lumen’s glory as he descended to meet his generals.
As before, Lumen’s brilliant appearance struck something deep within Lilly, filling her with hope and comfort as she looked upon him. The sensations replaced the negative feelings she’d associated with this place, and she hoped they would disappear forever from that point on.
Lumen’s boots touched the bare dirt on which the camp had been erected, and he extended his arms out to his sides. “Come forward, you who are faithful and true, so that we can celebrate the union of our two armies.”
Lilly caught Calum glancing at her and the others, but then they all stepped forward, except for General Balena and Magnus, the latter of whom was so big that he didn’t need to. As if taking General Balena’s place, Axel stepped out from among the army behind them and approached.
Lilly’s brow furrowed at the sight of him. Naturally, he’d shown up when it was time to take credit.
But even though she’d had her fair share of disagreements and spats with Axel, he had been with Calum from almost the very beginning. For that reason, she supposed he deserved to stand among them.