The War of Embers

by James Duvall

  ~Invitation to the Feast of Returning

  The third night of celebratory feasting found Brammodar's place at the table empty. While those closest to him reveled in his daughter's rescue, the dragon king had not yet found comfort. Alone in his study, he awaited news of his daughter's health. For her safety he stayed away. Eyes were always on him, even in his palace at Hal'Durrath. As far as anyone knew, someone still sought the princess's life.

  The timepiece on the mantle reminded him he was already nearly an hour late. He straightened his cloak, giving it a good look in the mirror. A tall man with graying hair smiled back at him. Like most of his kind, Brammodar had taken it upon himself to learn to become something else. Once, alters had been a rare tool to help bridge political gaps between the dragons and their much smaller neighbors. Other benefits were quickly realized. Grand halls were that much grander, and the human palette much more diverse. Now, shapeshifting was as commonplace as flight in a young dragon's education.

  Brammodar checked the clock again. Still no news. He left the window open just a crack, hoping a letter might be waiting on the dusty sill when he returned.

  Out in the banquet hall his guests patiently waiting, talking and sipping at steaming dishes of rich tomato soup prepared by Harissma, one of the finest chefs the dragonlands had clutched. The air was warm with the scent of Harissma's fresh baked bread and pork marinated in honey. Brammodar took his place at the head of the table beneath the great banner of Hal'Durrath. He raised his hands for silence. As the noise of conversation dropped away, he nodded at familiar faces of men and woman, mostly humans dressed in the fashions that had reached popularity with the noble men and women of Arcamyn. There were a few Calderrian styles as well, but the faces of these alters still bore more semblance to Arcamynians than the Calderrians. Dragons did not have much use for the nation under the shell. There were a smattering of fendians as well, mostly from Hal'Farreth. Along the banquet hall's arches, banners of silver and gold bore the crests of those gathered at the table beneath them, hung for the joyous occasion.

  “Good evening,” Brammodar announced. All eyes turned to the dragon king. “I see lords and ladies from all nine of the Great Halls gathered at my table. It warms my heart to see you all here in celebration of my daughter's safe return. I am glad to report that she grows stronger by the day. Soon her bright countenance will once again shine in the halls of Hal'Durrath.” Applause broke out. Brammodar waited for a moment to see who had genuine enthusiasm and who seemed to be going through the motions. No one stuck out. Again, he raised his hands for silence.

  “Know this,” he said, taking on a darker tone. “Those responsible will be brought before me to face justice by my own claws before the first thaw of spring.”

  The banquet hall fell quiet as the threat landed. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that someone present was responsible in one way or another. For a moment everyone's eyes darted back and forth, considering who it might be. At last a young drake from Hal'Morrun raised his glass and cheered.

  “To justice!” he said, drunkenly. Everyone joined in the cheer. Threats at dinner were practically a tradition, dating back as long as Brammodar himself, and were certainly not enough to put off the voracious appetite of dragons, even the guilty ones.

  A servant came to the head of the table, walking briskly toward Brammodar as the king finished his second glass of wine. The king held his empty glass out for the young drake, expecting another serving, but the young man had no carafe.

  “There's someone here to see you, sire,” the servant said frantically, bowing his head. “He insists it is quite urgent.”

  “Whoever it is can wait. Send them away 'til morning,” Brammodar said, shooing the boy away.

  “But your grace, he-”

  The servant found himself with much more of the king's attention than he had bargained for and cowered away from Brammodar's searing glare. The dragon king opened his mouth to speak, but did not get the chance. The massive doors swung open with a loud bang, stifling conversations mid-sentence. In strode a large royal, golden scaled and with his head held high and proud. He bore a great scar across his chest. He proceeded to the center of the room without saying anything and stood there, looking back at the shocked faces in stoic approbation.

  “What is the meaning of this? Who do you think you are?” Brammodar demanded, slamming his goblet against the table.

  “Just look at you,” the golden dragon said, turning his gaze toward the head of the table. His voice dripped with venom and disgust. “How old you've become. So soft and weak...”

  A collective gasp rose from the crowd, every head turned at once to the throne.

  Brammodar stood and leaned out over the high table, fists clenched tight. “Perhaps you have not noticed, I am your king.”

  “You are no king!” the golden royal snarled. “No king of mine. How far you've fallen, dear brother. We were as gods once. Now look at you, at them! Gathered together as soft-skinned mortals, so easily pierced. You most of all, dear brother, pandering to the humans in that facade, accepting the scraps from their tables as though you were a dog. Oh how you sully yourselves!”

  “Venarthiss!” Brammodar spat.

  “Ah, recognition at last.” Venarthiss grinned a predatory smile. He puffed out his chest, proudly emphasizing the jagged scar running nearly from shoulder to belly. “It has been so long, I do not blame you for not recognizing me without that bloody tear. I should thank you, it was the one thing I could still feel when you abandoned me in that numbing prison of yours. But like the great dragons of old I am reborn in fire. To the marrow and heart, I am cauterized. How exhilarating to draw breath once more!”

  A little commotion at his feet drew his gaze down. “Who are you to speak to the king like that!”

  A man came toward him shaking his fist and dressed in fine leather. He wore a blue velvet cape marked with the crest of Hal'Galma. The ancient dragon lifted his paw, pointing a single dark talon toward him. He seemed to think better of it at the last moment and stopped, setting his paw back down. He stared at the dissident noble, snarling his disgust.

  “I said, who are you to speak to the king like that!” the man demanded.

  “You dare to face me as a man?” Venarthiss asked. With a single, swift strike he slashed the man's chest open and sent him rolling.

  “H-help...” the young man said, reaching out from where he lay. A pool of blood began to spread thinly beneath him, his fine coat and shirt hanging off of him in bloody ribbons.

  “I will grant you this last dignity,” Venarthiss said, extending a single talon toward him again. Magic crackled through the air, gripping the mortally wounded man. He writhed, screaming. Lightning crawled obscenely along his twisting frame. His clothes reduced to shreds as his true form was revealed; a dark red slayer.

  The slayer lifted his head, hissing feebly at his attacker. Venarthiss placed a heavy paw on the dragon's bleeding chest, then struck with lightning speed, ripping the struggling slayer's throat open. The little drake squirmed feebly, blood gurgling from the gaping hole in his neck like a sickly crimson fountain. He did not live long after that and made a quiet sound as his strength left him. A hollow thud echoed as Venarthiss let the body drop back to the ground, lifeless.

  “There is no place for humans in the kingdom of dragons,” Venarthiss proclaimed, standing over his kill. He turned back to face his brother in enmity.

  “Venarthiss!” Brammodar shouted. “I do not know how you escaped from the Cold, and I do not care how, but I will not repeat my mistake.”

  “Weakness Brammodar, your weakness, when in your self-righteous mercy you trapped me in that frozen hell. Like a disease it's festered in you, and spread to our people. Fear not, I will put you out of your misery. I wonder, dear brother, do you still have claws and flame? Or will you defame yourself with a sword and shield? Will you bring to bear a horse and lance like the dragonslayers of old?”

  With a roar, Brammodar shed his human form.
He charged Venarthiss, but the golden royal stood his ground, grinning devilishly. He raised his paw and lightning crackled from everywhere, lashing across Brammodar's back. Stunned, the dragon king stumbled forward and crashed onto his chest. With bated breath Brammodar's guests looked on as Venarthiss slowly advanced on their struggling king. He placed a paw gently over his brother's eyes and leaned down close.

  “No more weakness, dear brother,” Venarthiss said, smiling cruelly. “No more mercy.”

  Brammodar exploded into a fine mist of dark purple energy. It hung suspended in the air like drifting embers, then settled over the feasting tables like volcanic ash from the sky. The deed done, Venarthiss lifted his head and surveyed his new kingdom. He licked the blood from his maw before addressing his captive audience. In these hearts he would start anew the pride of all dragonkind.

  “Today begins a new era for our kind. There will be no more disguises. No longer will we bow down before the sons and daughters of men. No longer will our great halls pay homage to their kingdoms. Hold your heads up high, brothers and sisters, as the noble creatures you were born, as true dragons!”

  Hushed whispers murmured through the stunned crowd as they looked on at the dragon who had just murdered their king. But one face amongst the horror had lit up, his eyes shimmering with zeal.

  “Hear me,” a man shouted near the front. He stepped out of the crowd and turned to address the masses. “I am Unthern, of Hal'Morrun! You look upon this drake, and you whisper that he is a murderer and a traitor, but like cowards you only whisper! Your magic lies dormant, used for little more than cheap tricks. Your tongue is sharper than your claws, you praise your civility with human lips. It is a frail excuse for cowardice, for weakness. No, you are not dragons, you parade about as lesser beings and so you have become they that you idolize, but I, I will not!”

  For a moment Unthern was wreathed in dancing cobalt flames. He emerged, a sleek-bodied royal, with scales blue as sapphires. His fine clothing lay in shredded ruin at his feet. He took a deep breath and sprayed them with flame, reducing them to smoldering ashes.

  “Hal'Morrun pledges fealty to Venarthiss, King of Hal'Durrath!” Unthern announced. He lowered his head and spread his wings in a bow before his new king.

  The effect was a chain reaction of dragons bursting free of their alters until Venarthiss found himself surrounded by a colorful multitude of great winged beasts, dragons all, standing amongst the tattered remains of the finest clothing Arcamyn could offer.

  The window in Brammodar's chamber was left open until the morning, and no letter ever came.

  Chapter 13

  First Flame

  Sangor's Refuge, Arcamyn

  While the ceremonies of death proceeded, the candle was lit and raised and would not be blown out.

  “Is he... dead? He doesn't look like he's breathing... Is he breathing?” Someone asked. He was not. Joshua's first breath burned like fire in virgin lungs and the second did little to ease the pain. He lifted his head, panting for air, and gazed into the murky blue water around his feet. Through the ripples he could see the piercing blue eyes of a night seeker looking back at him, bright with fear and wonderment.

  “He doesn't look so good...” Rickthicket's voice.

  Joshua could barely keep his head up as he clawed and scraped his way out of the vessel of his rebirth. He grimaced at every strange sensation as his new wings and tail moved in a fashion all their own, keeping him balanced as he struggled up the muddy embankment where several blurry figures stood watching. Like a fist clenched tightly on his guts, nausea brought him to his knees. Frozen in place he stared at the ground between his paws and tried to will his stomach to calm down. He heaved violently, choking up murky blue elixir until his stomach was emptied of the foul-smelling stuff. A chorus of groans rose from the top of the hill.

  “I'm... I'm fine,” Joshua called weakly, but the words came as gruff, unintelligible growls. On impulse he reached up to his throat, and A chill ran up and down his considerable spine accompanying the distinctively unpleasant sensation of icy claws against the most vulnerable of his scales.

  “He's trying to talk,” Rickthicket said to Grimlohr.

  “I see that,” Grimlohr said, sounding unconcerned. The event seemed to have captured his scholarly side and he looked on in fascination, leaning forward a little with his hands clasped behind his back. A silver chain was coiled around his wrist with a sapphire pendant dangling from the thick links.

  “He needs the amulet.”

  “I know,” Grimlohr repeated. “First, he needs to walk.”

  Grimlohr's voice. He blinked his eye again, this time restoring sharpness to the world. The raven-haired man stood at the top of the little hill, regarding him with scholarly detachment.

  Joshua scrambled up the hillside, his body in dissonance with itself. He knew exactly how to work the alien limbs as though a lifetime of muscle memory accompanied his strange transformation. At the same time every action felt alien, as though the dragon's muscles acted and then a portion of a second later his human mind felt the alien sensation of muscles bunching and relaxing that a human mind should never have encountered: wings, a tail, a body much longer than his own had been tall. A bad step. He tumbled, slipping in the mud, growing in frustration.

  “The amulet!” Rickthicket barked. Grimlohr held it up for Joshua to see.

  Something caught fire in Joshua's heart. He started up the hill again, nausea forgotten, each stride purposeful and direct, eyes locked on Grimlohr with cold intensity. Cold air puffed misty from the muzzle that now protruded into his field of vision. A growl rumbled up from somewhere primal. Vision narrowed. A new feeling. It smouldered in his eyes like embers threatening to snap into open flames. It was a cold heat, vengeful and dispassionate.

  Rickthicket, being the smallest of those gathered on the hill, seemed to sense something was wrong and gave the night seeker a wide berth. Grimlohr stood his ground even as the air grew cold from the new dragon's presence and they looked each other in the eye.

  “Lower your head, Joshua,” Grimlohr said in his characteristic calm fashion. He held a sapphire amulet up for the new dragon, offering it to him.

  Joshua did so with baleful eyes still swimming with wrath toward the man draping the silver chain around his neck.

  “Better?” Grimlohr asked.

  Joshua only growled.

  Without further warning, the night seeker lunged forward, catching Grimlohr in the chest. By the time they reached the ground Joshua found himself considerably outmatched, landing on the belly of a much larger dragon, awash in onyx and gold and snarling his ferocity. In the distant backdrop, Joshua could hear a woman shouting Grimlohr's name.

  Grimlohr surged to his feet, effortlessly shrugging off the smaller dragon. Joshua landed on his back with his wings pinned beneath him. Panic alarms sounded in his head as inhuman instinct saw the vulnerability of his situation. The feral part of his mind urged him to get off his back, to protect his wings, to stand, to fight!

  A glimpse of black and gold rushed by him as he scrambled to get upright, followed by a stunning impact as the club of Grimlohr's tail crashed into his soft nose like a homerun derby bat.

  “Stay back, Syrrus,” Grimlohr commanded. “I can handle this.”

  Cruel spikes bristled through Joshua's flowing cobalt mane as he retreated from the slayer's reach. Pacing back and forth he bared his teeth and growled, searching for an opening that would not come.

  Grimlohr lifted his head, eyes brimming with confidence as though to ask, 'Care to try again?' The challenge stoked Joshua's rage, but every approach at the problem of how to attack this creature died in infancy. That was it, he was beaten. He hated it.

  “Feeling better?” Grimlohr asked wryly. Joshua felt his temper cooling, wind brushing through his mane and tugging gently at his wing sails.

  “Alive,” Joshua sneered.

  Grimlohr grinned devilishly. “That you are.”

  The new dragon shot G
rimlohr a scornful look and then swiveled his head back and forth, taking in his surroundings until the one called Syrrus caught his eye. The gem crowning the sadean girl's weapon buzzed with power, prompting Joshua to take a step back. She had his undivided attention.

  “Syrrus, he is fine,” Grimlohr said. “Aren't you, Joshua?”

  “If he takes even one step closer with that look in his eye...” the sadean girl threatened. Joshua did not like her tone and felt another growl rise in his throat.

  “Syrrus!” Grimlohr barked.

  Still feeling edgy, Joshua stared at the feline centaur even after she had lowered her weapon.

  Rickthicket shifted uncomfortably. “So, Joshua, we were expecting something a little more, uhm...”

  “Human?” Joshua asked, holding up one of his new paws. Eyes aglow with curiosity, he wriggled the lethal digits experimentally, watching the icy claws shine in the morning sun.

  “Civil,” Rickthicket corrected, and the night seeker's face darkened. Joshua's eyes locked on Grimlohr.

  “He got me killed!” he accused, slapping his slender tail against the ground. He curled it around to get a better look. The seeker's tail ended in flexible fins, much more suited to flight than weaponry. His nose still throbbed in memory of Grimlohr's tail strike.

  Grimlohr mulled it over for a moment.

  “I did,” he admitted. “A regrettable miscalculation, I assure you.”

  “I died!” declared a seething Joshua.

  Grimlohr nodded sympathetically and gestured an upturned claw at Joshua as though presenting a priceless gift to him. “And then I brought you back. Though that surely does not balance the ledger between you and I, I hoped it would go a long way. I'm sure you have many questions.” Grimlohr exchanged curious glances with Syrrus and Rickthicket. “As do we,” he added.

  Joshua slapped his tail against the ground again. He could feel his claws digging into the dirt, shredding the unbroken soil with ease. “Why? Why did you send that thing with us?!”