Asher: Dragon's Savior (14 page)

“It’s not that bad, but I had to ask the lady of the earth to help me.” She got a little brighter. “Long ago he had a cherry tree on his back. I guess it wasn’t really his back but the top of him. Anyway, this tree lived there and dropped her pretty blooms on his back for a long time. The fruit would bring him birds that would pick up the seeds and plant them all along the other mountains. Then one day it was killed. Someone cut it down and…. You know, I did him a favor and he’s done one for us.”

Kiaran laughed. It felt good, and he got up to hug her. His brothers wanted her to finish the story, but he wanted the entire complete story once they were done. And he thought that it would be a good one. As they left the house, he tried to reach for Asher again.

She wants me to summon you
. He was surprised to touch Asher’s mind and that he spoke to him so clearly.
Don’t come here as a human. But show this bitch what happens when she fucks with our family
.

Gladly
. He told Essie that he had made contact with Asher, and she nodded.
Asher, she is one scary woman, your wife. And I will gladly pledge to her if they still do that nowadays
.

I don’t know what they do, but I have a feeling if you try that kind of shit with her, you might find yourself tied up next to me
. He thought so too. She wasn’t much on ceremony.
Keep her safe for me, Kiaran. I love her with all my heart
.

We all do, Asher. She’s as much our sister as you and the others are my brothers
. He told Asher to rest up, they were on their way, and he said that he would. Kiaran knew that he was still in pain because he shared it with him, but he knew that once they were together, he’d be able to heal. And Kiaran wasn’t really surprised to see Elbert coming with them as a big dog.

As soon as they were in the yard, they all shifted to their dragons. He felt different than he had before; his body felt heavier, stronger even. As he took to the skies, he noticed that his wings were slightly different as well. There were horns on the tips, and his horn at his head was longer. Battle mode, he thought as he clutched Essie in his feet. He felt ready to do just about anything.

When they were at the cave entrance, he waited for the rest of them. Essie moved up to him and put her hand on his forearm. He’d not been touched by another human but Essie in this form, other than Asher, in longer than he could remember. When she pulled her hand back, he saw the mark on her own arm.

“You will be my dragon, Kiaran?” He nodded and bowed to her. “I need you to keep him safe. I know that he told you to do that for me, but I can’t stand the thought of him being hurt. Watch him. You know how he’ll be when the fighting starts.”

“Yes. But you mustn’t get hurt either.” She grinned at him. “Why do I have the feeling you know just what is going to happen?”

“I do. We’re going to go in there and show my mother what a force of dragons is about. And you and I are going to be…we’re going to be dragon saviors.” He liked that and told her so. “Good. We’ll have shirts made with that on it when we’re done. And pens. We’ll need pens to hand out. I can see it now. People will be naming their stuffed dragons after you guys. All fluffy and stuffed, you’ll sit on the end of a bed and be all nasty like.”

He laughed and so did the others. He knew that she was trying to loosen their tension, and it had worked. But as soon as she turned to the mouth of the cave, he saw her draw a sword, one he’d not seen in many years. Kiaran nodded. It was fitting that she have Asher’s mother’s sword that had hung over the fireplace since he’d been a boy.

The cave pathway to the chamber was indeed well lit. Kiaran had no idea how the mountain was doing it, but every so often Essie would stop and put her hand on the wall. She was leaving a part of herself, giving strength to what was helping them. Kiaran had no idea how he knew this, but it seemed to click in his head. As the path widened and the ground started to level out, he realized just how deep they were. When Essie stopped at what appeared to him a solid wall, she turned to them.

“Beyond here is the chamber.” Her fingers danced in the fur of Elbert, and he wondered briefly if she even knew what she was doing. “When we go in, I want you guys to surround us and make it look like you’re protecting me. But when I step out in front of you, let me work. I know what I’m doing.”

Kiaran had no doubt she did. They agreed that they’d do it her way to a point. Jed said that if it looked like it was going badly, all bets were off.

“Thank you, but I swear to you, I got this bitch.”

Jed stood to her left, Elbert as his dog to her right. Simeon and Shane stood in front of her. Elam and Gideon stood right behind her. Kiaran and his brothers surrounded all of them. They came to the chamber wall that they needed to walk through, and Kiaran wondered how they were going to get through it, when the huge stone in front of them moved the extra few feet to accommodate them. Christ, Kiaran thought, this is going to be one hell of a showdown. And he was thrilled to be a part of it.

Chapter 13

“Chain him down. I don’t want him getting up halfway through the ceremony.” She looked at the wall when it began to shake. “What the hell is that?”

The stone beneath her feet shifted, and she knew that the entire wall was going to come down on top of her. As she moved back, trying to find a place to hide, if there even was one, she saw them coming into her chamber.

“Christ.”

She had to agree with whomever had whispered the word, but she was too busy trying to look over her prize. Helena hadn’t thought of the man calling them to him to help escape, yet here they were. All of them in their glory.

The front dragon was magnificent. He looked like he’d been carved from the very walls that held him and then covered in the finest armor. His wings when he opened them, she knew, were going to be wide, full of color, and perfectly matched to his body. She started for him, just to touch him, when he hissed at her and blew his hot breath at her feet.

“There is no need for that.” She tried to sound stern, but she was in awe of them. “You’ll settle down once I have you where I want you. Kneel before me, dragon beast, and pledge yourself to me.”

He hissed again, his flaming breath nearly touching the hem of her robe. Fear, just a little, ran up her spine, but she stiffened herself, knowing that she was far superior to anything he had within his body.

The dragon to his left moved to stand beside the first one. He too was large, his body hard as stone, but he was a different color than the first one. He was darker with his browns and greens, fading more as it settled to his feet. Whereas the first one was standing on his hind legs, his body exposed for her to see, this one stood with his wings around him, his body compact but no less dangerous. As they moved around, forming a straight line that stood in front of her, she had a thought that she might be in trouble. They were bigger than she’d imagined them to be. And there were six of them. Taking a step back, she heard the man chained to her dais laugh.

“What’s the matter, Helena the Black? Are you thinking that you might be in over your head?” He laughed again, and she looked at him. “You should know that they are going to kill you. Tear you limb from limb while you still live.”

“You think I’m afraid of them?” She laughed, and even to her it sounded slightly fearful. “I have killed bigger than them with only myself against them.”

She hadn’t. Not even a smallish dragon that she’d found injured once. She had no idea where it had come from, but she’d convinced some of the men in the village to find it and kill it before it had taken away their children. Helena had left the village before the thing was found, fearful that it would remember her and try to kill her.

The dragons, as a whole, took a step forward, then parted in the middle. She watched as a dog—a large one without a doubt, but a dog all the same—came toward her from the opening. Helena only stared at it as he shifted and stood before her. The face, while familiar, did nothing to quell her fear.

“Helena the Black?” Helena nodded at his question. His back was ramrod straight, the sword at his side huge even considering how big he was. When he stepped forward and knelt down, stabbing his blade into the stone an inch, she thought that finally things were going her way. Then she saw her.

“Hello, Helena the Black.” The way she’d said it, her voice cultured and full of hate, made Helena want to go over and slap her. But she didn’t move. She wasn’t even sure that she could; her feet seemed to be frozen in place. “I’ve come to get my husband and to kill you.”

Laughter bubbled from her mouth. Even with the fear that she had, this was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. The woman only cocked a brow at her, something that nagged at her memory but was gone before she could capture it.

“You think to come into my chambers, ones that I built with my own magic, and say something like that?” The girl nodded. “And how do you plan to do that? You’re nothing more…nothing more than a pampered chit that has to be waited on hand and foot.”

“Really?” Helena nodded, feeling better all the time. “And what makes you think you have any claim over this chamber, as you call it? You’ve no power here. You have no magic so long as I have my dragons. And they are mine, in the event you didn’t realize that. I can command them to do whatever I wish. You can’t even get them to bow before you.”

“You will see my magic.” Helena reached her hands into the air to bring some of the black magic that she’d put here over the years. She pulled harder on the walls, commanding it to come to her, when she heard the girl laugh again.

“You broke your bond here.” Helena started to tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about when she continued. “You did well for so many years. Not taking the jewels and gems that did not belong to you. Centuries and centuries of stealing from others and leaving the coin alone. But then you got greedy and bought this.”

The blue candle appeared on the dais. The man that had been there, he was simply gone. But Helena was too focused on the candle and it’s meaning to think that she should be worried. There was something about it, something that she should know, but it was just lost to her. Then after several minutes, one of her coven stood beside her and spoke.

“You broke the bond by using the money to buy something for yourself.” She stared at him. “I learned that from my grand mammy all those years at her knees. Never take from the table that feeds you without using it to give back. It’s why she used to put pretty things on the table, like you did, so that none of the spirits would come back to get her. Then you took something for yourself, didn’t you?”

Helena nodded and stared at the candle. The man who had jogged her memory tossed his robe at her and said that he was done. As soon as the words left his mouth, he disappeared in a cloud of dust. The woman tisked at her.

“You are down to nine.” Looking around, she realized that three of her coven had taken off their robes. It was the only thing, full of magic from when she’d been stronger, that held them to her. The older ones, the ones from the tomb, would go to dust. The two that she’d brought to keep her number at thirteen would simply fall to the ground.

“You can’t do this to me. I’m a witch of great power.” The woman laughed. “Who do you think you are, coming here and destroying everything I’ve worked so hard to put together? Leave here now before I kill you and leave you here to rot.”

“Why, Mother dear, I’m so disappointed that you don’t remember me.” She lifted her hands up and Helena watched as water seemed to stream from the stone and swirl around her head. The man behind the girl, the man she’d had in her chains, held her. Helena realized too late that he was adding to her power.

“My daughter would never do this to me.” But she would and Helena knew it. “She was a loving daughter that worshipped me.”

“Worshipped you? You have got to be kidding.” Still the water moved around her, gaining not only speed but more water as she moved it. When the girl lowered her hands the water followed, shooting into the dining room as if it came from a mountain top.

Helena knew that the magic in the room was being taken apart. The table leg came rolling in the room she was in with a trail of the same water. Food—food that she’d made herself—came next; flowers, long dead and fresh, as well. She saw bones then, along with the gems and jewels that had rested on the dead for more years than the child had lived. And then she heard the screams of the coven members, their magic leaving their bodies as the magic from the room disappeared as well.

As her feet cooled with the wash of water and blackness, so did her confidence that she would come out on top. Helena looked at her daughter and tried to remember her name.

“Elsie, you can’t destroy me like this. What will the other witches think when they hear what you have done?” Most of them, Helena thought, would more than likely congratulate her. “I am your mother, after all.”

“It’s Essie, not Elsie.”

The blast of heat tore at her face. She staggered back as the big dragon blew at her again. His wings were spread out, his horns tipped, she could see now, in the finest silver. As he bent his head, she had the overwhelming urge to touch the largest horn, run her finger over the tip to see if it was as sharp as it looked. But the pain in her belly took her breath way.

He’d rammed her. Lifting her up, he shook his great head, and she knew that her belly was spilling out even as he tossed her to the wall behind her. Helena tried again for the magic that was hers, and cried out when the dragon put his clawed foot at her chest and pressed down.

“You killed my father.” She tried to shake her head, to tell him she’d had no part of it, when he pressed harder into her breaking ribs and her arms. “My father was a great king. He did no one harm and you killed him.”

“Ruben?” He roared then, his hot breath burning deeply into her face and body. Screaming around the pain, she begged for him to stop, telling him she was sorry for whatever he thought she’d done.

“My father was King Anthony. My mother Queen Eve.” She knew it then, could see the dragon of his father in this younger one. But she knew that there had been no children from the dragons…she would have noticed. She would have made it her job to know if a child had been born of the long dead queen. “She had us a few days before you brewed the storm that destroyed so many lives. She protected us, like our father did when you sent men with swords and blades to kill him. But he won. They both won, because I will destroy you and you’ll never harm another dragon as long as I live.”

The claw pierced her chest. Her magic fled her then, her death as imminent as her next breath. And more than likely her last. As she lay there, her entire body burnt and blistered, some of her flesh gone to the bone, she watched as her daughter came to stand near her and wanted to beg for her life again. But nothing was working. Then the foot was lifted, but the pain, instead of going away, doubled, nay tripled, before Essie took the point of the blade and slammed it into her chest. Helena put her hand on the blade, and even though her body was dead her eyes saw what Essie did next.

Her daughter turned her back on her and walked away.

~~~

Asher held Essie as she crumbled. He held her to him as he turned them away from the burning body on the floor. There was no doubt that Helena was dead, but he wasn’t taking any chances with Essie now.

When the walls began to shake again, he told the others to get out. But Kiaran told him they had to finish, it was a promise he’d made to Caroline. He told him it had to be destroyed for all time

The six dragons formed a circle. Each of them, by order of birth, stood with their backs to each other and spread their wings. When Kiaran stepped out of the circle, Elbert ran to be in the middle with his brothers and barked at him to do the same. As soon as Asher was there with Essie and his brothers, the circle closed around them.

Nothing will happen to you so long as you remain where you are.
He nodded and told the rest of them what Kiaran had said.
When we finish here, you’ll have to wake Essie and let her finish the rest.

“She’s hurt too.” Kiaran told him he knew. “I need to get her out of here, Kiaran. She’s done enough.”

The two of you have to complete this, Asher. If the two of you don’t do your part, what we’ve done here will be for naught.
Asher told him he’d wake her.
Thank you. Now, don’t move.

The six of them reared up on their hind legs. When they spread their wings again, touching each to the dragon next to them, Asher knew that nothing would harm them. Then they began to spray the room with their volcanic heat, their breath burning through everything that was left of the witch and her coven.

It only took seconds for them to destroy it all. He wanted to get out of there, but they didn’t move to allow them to be free. Then it occurred to him. Everything would be molten hot, and they’d be killed if they touched anything. Essie stirring in his arms brought his attention back to her. She smiled at him, and Asher felt everything was right with the world.

“Are you ready?” He nodded, then shook his head. “We have to cool it down for the mountain. I promised him we’d take care of him.”

Nodding, he put her on the floor when she asked. Asher held her, wrapping his arms tightly around her as she began to reach above her head. As he watched, rain began to pour down from the chamber ceiling, hot steam hissing as it fell to the floor.

When the water began to cover his ankles, he knew what they were doing. Flooding the chamber would be the only way to keep others from coming down here. Adding his own strength to hers, the water began to flow at a faster rate, the water now up to their knees. And just when he began to worry that they’d all drown, the chamber ceiling cracked and opened, and sunlight poured in with the water. Asher knew that it would be their escape.

Kiaran picked him up and was soaring out of the chamber before Asher realized that he’d left Essie. As soon as he was on his feet, he sent the dragon back for her even as his brothers came out with their dragons. Even Elbert came out, riding on the back of Onimia and looking like he simply belonged there.

When she was lifted out, her body lowered into his arms, Kiaran shifted, as did the rest, as the opening closed around the water. Asher watched as the earth moved around the now closed opening in a way that made it look as if nothing had disrupted the area for millions of years. Just as he was going to suggest that they go home, he looked up at the cherry tree, in full bloom just beside them.