by Sever Bronny
They were an even match. Augum, whose reflexes had improved since they last fought, bobbed, weaved and dodged the mind spells, catching only one, which finally obliterated all his mind protection. When that happened, Augum snatched Gavinius’s throat with Telekinesis and squeezed, only for the tall demon to twirl about and snatch Augum’s throat with his own telekinetic grip, surprising Augum with its strength.
A choking Augum saw the raw fury on the demonic Gavinius’s face and decided to use it against him, and so made to unsheathe Burden’s Edge. Gavinius countered by releasing his neck and moving to slap his wrists together, only for Augum to change tack and shove at his stomach, shouting, “Baka!” The force blew through Gavinius’s demon hands just before they connected and sent him flying right toward Tyranecron, forcing the elder to cancel his spell casting to telekinetically halt Gavinius’s flight lest he fall over the edge.
Even as Gavinius flew, Augum made the elaborate gestures of the Summon Minor Wall spell, incanting, “Summano valla minimus girata barricada.” A thick wall of lightning flared across the space he had drawn in time for a bunch of the demons to slam into it.
As the enemy attacked his crackling lightning wall with First and Second Offensives, Augum looked to Edwin. The young man was shaking in the bushes, breath coming in short gasps. He could have attacked at any time, yet for whatever reason had refrained.
“I’m not a murderer,” Edwin blubbered. “This life isn’t for me.” He glanced to the wall. “Please, knock me out or they’ll kill me on the spot. I won’t resist.”
Augum nodded. “I hope you see your mother again, and may she return to health,” and made a motion like petting a cat. “Senna dormo coma torpos.”
Edwin slumped into sleep where he lay.
Augum, seeing the wall was about to fall, took a breath to prepare the Teleport spell, focusing on the exact spot he wanted to return to. “Impetus peragro,” he incanted, and teleported off.
The Slap of the Knee
The first thing Augum did when he reappeared beside his friends—when they had recovered from the jubilant shock that he was alive, that is—was get everyone to move camp in case the Canterrans sniffed out his teleportation direction. And so they moved as fast as possible in the rapidly descending darkness up the mountain for about two leagues, with Mrs. Stone occasionally stopping to sweep her hand about and mutter an incantation, as if obscuring their tendril tracks.
They settled for a spot behind a huge boulder perched upon a mesa-like ledge amid a small forest of pink trees with crowns as flat as plates. In the midst of these bizarre trees stood what Mrs. Stone referred to as a monkey tree, for its branches were rather furry and brown and curled skyward, drawing everyone’s attention, with people even stroking the strange hairs that grew on its trunk.
The mountains loomed above, jagged behemoths imposing themselves against a starry sky. Higher up, the trees thinned to shrubbery and then to rocky moraine and then to snow, with no sign of life above the ice line.
Augum at last faced his inquiring friends. It turned out they had all been watching from afar, passing the spyglass back and forth. From their vantage point, they hadn’t seen the dragon after it retreated over the edge—nor had they seen any sign of Augum hidden behind the bush. But they had witnessed a bit of the fight.
“Yes, but spill it already!” Leera prodded.
“We demand the juicy details,” Olaf added.
Augum wanted to smile victoriously but his heart was troubled by what he had seen, heard, and done. Even though it was necromantic, killing that dragon felt awful. It was a creature of this realm, in its natural habitat and lord of the jungle—and he had slaughtered it with little remorse.
So instead of words, he flared his shield, revealing it in its untarnished glory.
The friends gasped, many slamming hands over their mouths. But Augum could not look them in the eyes, so troubled was he by the slaying—and so surprised that he was troubled! Instead, he disappeared his shield and dug out his shoes from his rucksack.
“And that is why a great leader thou shall be, Dragoon Stone,” Myrymydion said, watching him. “For thou feels even for the foulest of beasts thou hast slain. Worthy thou art of the blade upon thy hip, Arcaner.”
Augum glanced down at Burden’s Edge, the words acting like a cool balm. He raised his chin and nodded his thanks. But there were other matters to discuss, and so he turned to Mrs. Stone, who looked upon him with a hint of quiet pride.
“Tyranecron wants something from Gavinius,” he said. “But I don’t know what. And I think he wants to capture you personally, Nana.”
“Hmm. There is something Gavinius can grant him as future emperor and Head of The Path—the status of an Unnameable. If that is so, then he seeks the knowledge that rests secure in the highest tiers of our library.”
“I don’t understand, Nana, what does becoming an Unnameable have to do with that?”
“By being ordained as an Unnameable and then worshipped by enough mortals, he would invoke dominus immorta, earning himself the Leyan privilege of being allowed to step into certain library rooms to read sacred knowledge only available to Unnameables.”
“Unnameables like Krakatos,” Augum murmured.
“But Tyranecron is a fool if he thinks himself ready to interpret the texts, for history is riddled with ambitious Leyans doing the very same thing—and going stark-raving mad.”
“And it is no ordinary madness,” Myrymydion interjected, “but a loathsome and dreary and harrowing madness, the sort that doth torment the mind and soul with knowledge that makes it feel like an ant would contemplating its size against the moon. Hundreds of years of meditation it would thus take for the feeble mind to grasp such knowledge.”
Mrs. Stone gave a nod. “And he certainly knows that, which makes me suspicious.”
This condemned them all to frowning thought until Leera made a scrubbing motion with her hand.
“No, no, no, you don’t get to brush what happened under the carpet, mister. How? How?”
“How did I kill it?”
She flashed him an Obviously look.
He swallowed, unsure of how to tell them that the gift they had worked so hard to craft for him, the most clever of gifts, had been used to slay a dragon … and that it rested deep in its brain now, or perhaps even deep in the earth, lost for good.
“What’s the matter?” Leera asked in a soft voice.
“I …” He opened his palm, trying to form the words. “I …”
“You what?”
“I killed it with the cube,” he blurted.
Their faces were paintings of surprise.
Leera gaped. “You what?”
Augum stuck out his arm, overturned his fist, and opened it.
“You dropped the cube on it?” Olaf said. “You killed a dragon with nothing more than a piece of … training equipment?”
“Er … yeah. I, uh, I set it to Sword and Sorcery class weight and, uh, gave it a little telekinetic nudge.” He shrugged. “So, uh, in a sense, all of you killed it along with me.”
They gaped at him incredulously.
Olaf was the first to snort in laughter, prompting the others to follow. Soon they were slapping their knees and laughing as if they had just heard the greatest jest of all time—and it was a forgiving laughter too, one he even joined in with a snicker, even though his heart was heavy that he had lost yet another precious artifact, and even though he was still a little haunted by those black-and-crimson eyes … and by Edwin. And on that front, once they calmed down, he explained what he had overheard the Canterrans say, including the part about Tyranecron training them on seeking their teleport direction, as well as sacrificing themselves to the dragons if they couldn’t catch the friends.
“Better them than us,” Leera muttered. “Fools.”
“So Edwin does have a heart,” Haylee whispered to herself.
Mrs. Stone, meanwhile, exchanged a brief look with Myrymydion, one that made Augum wonder what
they knew—or worried about. But then, Mrs. Stone was not the type to reveal things “one need not know,” as she oft liked to say. In that, she had something in common with The Grizzly.
“Let us prepare camp,” she said.
The group sprang into action. The trio set arcane traps as they were the only ones trained on the 9th degree spell, while Haylee, Olaf and Jengo cast Object Alarms and readied camp. Mrs. Stone and Myrymydion additionally cast their own protective enchantments in wider arcs.
A soothing cool wind sprang up as they sat to eat a late evening snack of linen-wrapped salted Leyan fish and beef and journey bread, but they weren’t allowed a fire for fear of drawing predators. They discussed what had happened, what they wished to accomplish on the morrow, and reviewed a few spells and received a few more lectures on various arcane concepts. The friends then settled into their bedrolls underneath a naked starry sky, for no one wanted to sleep in their stuffy tents.
Even though Leera lay feet away, Augum withdrew her portrait and stuck it in a pocket, feeling safer knowing it was with him rather than in the rucksack, as if he could protect her soul that way. He contemplated doing the same with his mother’s locket, but absurdly feared he might lose it.
Overnight watch would be taken by Myrymydion and Mrs. Stone, neither of whom needed to sleep, as Leyans mostly meditated at night. Augum watched Mrs. Stone sit cross-legged on a small nearby boulder, giving her a wide view of the pillars and jungle. Myrymydion took up an opposite post, choosing to stand near a tree. Both fell silent in their observance. For a time the only sound was the wind and the occasional distant echo of a predatory roar or mating call.
Augum, who had spent a lot of one-on-one time with Myrymydion but little time with his great-grandmother, wanted to ask her a slew of questions like how was she feeling these days and what did it honestly feel like mentoring under an Unnameable—if she’d even let him ask that one. He wanted to ask her how he could make better quality decisions, as well as what to do if the kingdom again demanded that he take the throne. He wanted her advice on how to regain his castle, on how to handle The Path, and on how to vanquish the Canterrans. He also wanted to apologize for messing things up by not choosing a proper king in the first place. She was his only living blood family, and yet she was also so much more.
But seeing the now-young-again woman serenely staring into the darkness of this foreign plane made him not want to disturb her thoughts, thoughts that were no doubt far more precious than his bumbling teenage questions. And so he settled into sleep, knowing that for at least one evening, they would be safe sleeping in this cursed realm.
Alas, it was not to be.
Fury
Augum bolted awake to an enormous bang, followed by multiple crashes and explosions from multiple traps going off. The cacophonous noise was followed by frantic shouts of alarm and surprise. It was still pitch-black so all he could see as he scrambled to free himself from his bedroll were flashes of lightning accented by mighty claps of thunder so loud they shook the ground and deafened him.
One of those flashes lit up a sight that seared itself into his brain and remained engraved there in afterglow—three enormous black-and-crimson shapes, wings outstretched.
And Mrs. Stone was dwarfed before them, hands splayed before her in a staying manner.
There was a pitiful moan and a terrified, “What’s happening?” followed by a girlish yelp.
But there was no time to respond, only react. “Shyneo,” Augum spat, and his palm flared to life. He only had a moment to look for his beloved, spotting her directly before him fighting with her bedroll, when there came a rumbling growl followed by a hair-raising wave he felt snuff his soul like a candle, a claustrophobic wave he had only felt once before, when his father had used a scion to snuff all arcanery within his vicinity.
His palm instantly went dark.
“No—!” shouted a frantic voice, one that Augum refused to believe was Mrs. Stone’s.
He shot forward to find his girl, but there was a predatory roar so loud he thought his ears would rupture, knocking him off his feet and making him cover his ears.
When it ceased, he heard multiple vicious swipes that sounded like giant scythes slicing flesh into bits, followed by a feminine blood-curdling scream. Chaos broke out as people scrambled to get away in the pitch-darkness.
Ears ringing, Augum groped about for his beloved, found a cold arm, and grabbed it, yanking and practically dragging Leera along. She stumbled in what Augum presumed was a half daze, and yet he persisted in dragging her away.
Something enormous slapped the ground beside him—perhaps a dragon tail—causing the earth to bounce, flinging both of them into the air like rag dolls. Augum dug his fingers into his girl’s arm, refusing to let go. They slammed onto steep rock and began rolling downhill, and yet Augum held on with all his might, grunting from pain and effort. After countless vicious tumbles, he slammed into a tree. The force of the blow ripped Leera from his grip. As he tried to catch his breath and fight through the pain, he realized that the stifling anti-arcanery wave had receded and he could cast again—except that he was winded and couldn’t utter a sound.
In the mean, shouts rang out about a hundred feet above, followed by concussive thumps of lightning. A monstrous thunderstorm appeared over the fight area, the clouds spidering with countless waves of lightning that lashed at three gigantic black dragons. Each bolt that struck the dragons let off a deafening crack of thunder that shook the ground and kept them writhing in midair under a rapid and unceasing onslaught. It was so loud he could barely hear Leera pleading below him for the pair of them to run.
He rolled off the tree and scrambled down to her in the darkness, for she was in a thicket of bushes. The pair found each other amongst the chaos and ran. One of her legs was injured and so he helped her along, blood racing and mind too frantic to think clearly, only for him to trip over a stone. The pair once more fell and rolled along the sloping ground, coming to a stop when they slammed into another thicket.
The thunderstorm abruptly ceased and was replaced by a hair-raising silence. The pitch-darkness returned, swallowing them like a great hole of nothing.
“Lee?” he whispered. A pained moan answered from nearby.
A series of low rumblings came from above, followed by the swish of flapping wings. And then came a whoosh that got louder as it neared—one of the dragons was flying in their direction.
“Don’t move,” Augum whispered, and went still. He soon felt an enormously powerful Fear aura crash through his Mind Armor like a spear through parchment. He envisioned his beloved lying in bits, weakly whispering his name before her lips went still. The fear was so tangible his guts squirmed in anguish and he battled between wanting to reach out to Leera and crying out in utter despair.
Like a raging tsunami, the wave of horror swept through him, along with the quiet whoosh of wings, replaced by a terrified whimpering.
“I’m coming, my love,” he whispered, and crawled his way to his girl, not daring to light his palm and draw the beasts’ attention. He grabbed her, untangled her from the thicket, and dragged her out. She was weak—very weak.
“I got you, my love,” he whispered. “Where are you injured?”
She moaned. He reached for his rucksack out of habit only to realize he hadn’t grabbed it in the melee.
He heard the quiet whoosh of wings again and instinctively covered her, whispering, “Shh, it’s coming back.” For a moment the pair lay absolutely still in the pitch-darkness. But the patrolling dragon swooped off in another direction.
“We’ve got to teleport out of here,” Augum said. His girl did not reply. “Love? Do you hear me? We’ve got to teleport away.”
He did not dare light his palm for fear of attracting the dragons. Instead, he picked her up, carefully slung her over his shoulder, and walked downhill, trying to gain as much ground as possible so that he could tend to her wounds in safety. He kept one arm searching before him, stopping frequently to list
en to the vicious darkness. But that darkness was dead silent, as if every predator for leagues around knew not to make a single peep, for the lords of the jungle were about … and they were enraged.
Gods, I must have woken up its kin, Augum thought. This had to be the slain dragon’s family, or perhaps its pack—who knew how they worked.
He plodded on in the darkness until his nerves calmed a little, allowing room for the cold realization that he had left everyone else behind.
But something felt off with the girl in his arms. Her hair felt different and she smelled different too.
He stopped walking. “Who is this?” he whispered. “Bridget?” He lay her down onto a bed of moss.
Oh, gods, please let it be my beloved, please! He did not dare to ponder her fate otherwise. He could barely breathe as he extended his sleeve over his hand and whispered, “Shyneo,” lighting his palm as dimly as possible. He brought his hand close to her face … and saw an unconscious Haylee.
He slapped a hand over his mouth and muffled a horrified scream. The sickening sounds of those wings slicing through flesh kept tearing through his mind, kept making him envision horrible things. A part of him—a selfish, cold and enraged part—wanted to leave Haylee where she lay and sprint for his beloved. But he squelched that loathsome thought and forced calm to triumph over terror.
“Where are you hurt, Hayles?” he whispered instead, searching her body with his dimly lit palm. “Hmm?” And then his hand came across a sticky warmness underneath her. He flipped her over and saw that an enormous gash ran across one side of her lower back. He froze only a moment before tearing off his robe and undershirt—for he had nothing else to bandage her with. Then he used his hands to widen the tear in her robe and undershirt and began tightly wrapping her midriff. After tying off the shirt with a strong knot, he got dressed and sat beside her, rocking back and forth, waiting to see if the bandage bled through. All the while, the scythe noises he had heard above kept slicing through his mind, paired with that scream of cold terror.