Born of Fire: The Dawn of Legend (84 page)

“Precisely,” said the Ridgeback.

“Well, you’ve got your proof now,” Rex said begrudgingly, looking back at his missing tail feathers.

“Which raises the next question, and be warned, for this will be the last time I ask,” the bull continued. “What and who are you, and what are you doing so far from a tribe?”

The five all exchanged quick glances before Rex spoke up. “We’re from KaNar,” he said in a neutral tone. “Seven days ago we were attacked…caught off guard. Because of that, many people were hurt, and a lot of others were killed…people we knew. In any case, our friend was taken hostage, and we’re on our way to rescue her.”

The two adults looked at one another. “Who perpetrated this attack?” the Ridgeback asked.

“That’s not important,” EeNox said.

“I disagree,” Rex replied. “Everyone needs to know what happened so they can be ready if it happens again. As long as they’re out there, no one is really safe.”

“Be my guest then,” EeNox said, giving him a sarcastic look as he stepped aside.

Rex turned his gaze back on the large predator and said, “DraGons.”

“Come again?” she replied.

“Did you say…DraGons?” asked the bull.

“That’s right,” Rex replied. “A small army of them. They came in the night and slaughtered several dozen of our people!”

“Aren’t DraGons extinct?” the bull asked.

“I have been alive for over three hundred years, and the only giant creatures I’ve ever seen flying over my head are the Highwings.”

“Listen,” LyCora spoke up. “We realize what this sounds like. If we were in your position, we probably wouldn’t believe us, either, but I saw them with my very own eyes. I even killed one.”

“You?” the Ridgeback said in surprise, pulling her head back and blinking quickly. “But you’re so…small.”

“Unlike my power,” LyCora replied venomously, blue flame beginning to rise off her.

“All right, all right,” ShinGaru said, gently nudging her with his snout, which seemed to calm her down enough to make her flame subside and everyone breathe a little easier. “All we ask is that we be allowed to pass. We have no interest in getting in the affairs of any of the wild tribes.”

“A little late for that, snake,” said the bull, eyeing him menacingly.

“I’m not a snake.”

“Whatever, the point is that you have unknowingly led a dangerous predator straight to my herd, and now I have to deal with that.”

“Oh, come on,” Rex roared, startling everyone. “She was already here when she jumped out of the ground and scared the hell out of us!”

The scene was one of absolute surrealism as the five of them, now shifted, argued against one who could bite each of them in half, and another that could gore them into the ground. Yet despite this, their resolve remained steadfast, for they knew that to be stopped now, or at any point on their journey, could spell doom for DiNiya.

Rex led the charge, ranting and raving at how they were wasting their time and getting in his way. The other four also began to speak up more aggressively, shouting complaints of their own, filled with an unprecedented surge of aggression that unknowingly stripped them of any fear or apprehension of picking a fight with two adults who regarded them with what could have been described as either amusement or astonishment. Suddenly, the bull broke out into deep laughter, causing the onslaught of complaints to cease.

“Did I miss something?” Rex asked.

“Maybe in all that yelling you slipped in a joke without realizing,” EeNox replied sarcastically while staring at the bull, which was still bellowing with amusement.

After what seemed like an eternity, the three-horned brute regained his composure and snorted loudly. “Well, now! I certainly did not expect to come across such a motley crew when I awoke this morning.”

“I beg your pardon?” said ShinGaru. “Motley?”

“Easy, boy, I meant no disrespect. It’s just that…well, look at all of you! Such an eclectic-looking bunch, especially you,” he said, looking at ShinGaru before turning and focusing on Rex. “Then there’s you.”

The Ridgeback lowered her head and drew in close to Rex, who recoiled back uneasily as her huge green eyes came unnervingly close to his face. He watched as they traveled up and down the length of his body, as if scanning him for some clue or trait unseen. At last her eyes locked on to his and the two stared back at one another for a moment before Rex saw a glint of surprise flash in hers. Rearing back, she said, “You’re a TyRanx!”

“What?” asked the bull in surprise.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it!”

“See it? No one has seen one of those in thousands of years!”

“Well, you’re looking at one now,” she said excitedly as she paced back and forth.

“How can you be so sure?” he asked, bringing his head over to Rex for yet another close inspection.

“He is of the red flame! Name any other creature alive or dead of such power.”

“I suppose,” the bull said, rearing back up. “But then why are you even alive?”

“I have no idea, and frankly could not care less right now,” Rex said, tired of yelling in protest. “Someone important to me is in trouble, and now you two are in my way.” His flame began to burn wildly around him, causing the two of them to take several tentative steps back. “The only fight I came out here to fight is with the DraGons, but I will not hesitate to go through anyone who tries to slow me down.”

The proverbial line in the sand had now been drawn, and everyone knew the next move would be the Ridgeback and the bull’s. What exactly that would be was now the source of high tension amongst the five. Time seemed to drag on for an eternity, as seconds felt like minutes, minutes like hours. The bull stared deep into the red eyes of the young TyRanx. So deep did they run that he felt his mind’s eye traveling deeper than it ever had before when communing with another’s flame. In fact, there almost seemed to be no bottom, but then he saw, or rather sensed, something lurking in the black depths of this boy’s flame. Something immense. At last he brought his focus back to the moment and saw the fierce look on his face.

The Ridgeback too had sensed something else from the boy, from all of them. It was as if they carried within them something older than their own years, like vessels for something untouched by time. It was only when she took another look at the golden serpent that she was suddenly gripped with a deeper understanding that passed over her conscious mind and spoke directly to her flame. Turning back to Rex, she asked, “What is your name, TyRanx?”

“Rex,” he replied without unlocking his gaze.

“Very well then, Rex. I shall not stand in your way. You and your friends are free to pass.”

“The herd will not block your passage, either,” the bull declared. “But take care, for we may hardly be the worst you encounter on the path ahead of you.”

Rex gave him a nod of thanks, then glanced back to the Ridgeback, who also seemed to have adopted a more rigid stance. She looked down at him for only a fraction of the time that the bull did, but spoke in a tone of reverence. “The TyRanx were said to be the most terrifying of all DyVorians to ever live—ruthless with immeasurable power, and the first of our race to match the DraGons in battle. Even the first to surpass them. If you really are one of them, then it could mean the DraGons have indeed returned. Where did they take your friend?”

“To the tower in the west,” EeNox replied.

“Then you still have a great journey ahead of you, young warriors. Across the plains, through the lowland forests and the Bloodstone Canyons beyond.”

“It’s an arduous trek to be sure,” the bull agreed. “Are you up for it?” The inflection behind his words was clear. It was a call to battle, a warning that a great challenge lay ahead of him.

“I’ll have to be,” Rex replied.

“You make it sound like he’s alone,” said EeNox.

“We’re all in this together to the end,” AnaSaya said, stepping up next to Rex.

“To the end,” reiterated ShinGaru.

“For better or worse,” LyCora said, rounding off the group.

“Then be off,” the bull said, motioning ahead of them with his great frilled head. “And good luck.”

The five of them gave thanks and returned to the journey that still loomed ahead of them like a nemesis that had yet further unseen obstacles lying in wait. The bull and Ridgeback stood side by side as they watched them shrink into the distance.

“So after centuries of peace, war is upon us once more,” the bull said.

“Not necessarily,” the Ridgeback replied.

“No? You heard what they said. Our greatest enemy has returned.”

“Yes,” she said with glowing pride in her voice, “but with villains always come heroes.”

VayRonx ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch as he and the others moved through the heart of the forest. The alpha was unaccustomed to moving his large bulk through the dense temperate lowland forests. He growled under his breath every few meters as thin branches scratched at the edges of his eyes. At times he would clear headspace for himself by removing sections of branches with his huge jaws. “How is everyone doing back there?” he called back, risking taking another branch to the eye by taking them off the path in front of him even for a moment.

“Still keeping pace,” called up VyKia, who was riding on VoRenna’s back.

“I’m rather surprised we haven’t run into any Ridgebacks,” VoRenna added.

“And we’re better off for it,” VayRonx said. “I doubt they would take kindly to other big predators moving through their territory.”

“Indeed,” replied TarFor. “Those Ridgebacks are a motley bunch. Always biting first and asking questions later. We’d have a real fight on our hands should we run into a pack of them out here.”

“All the more reason to get through the lowlands as fast as possible,” VayRonx said, returning his attention to what lay ahead. “NyRo, keep an eye on our backs.”

“Oh, trust me, I have been since we left,” he replied. “I still think we should have stuck close to the river. That’s obviously what they used to slip out from under us.”

“True, but they couldn’t have taken it all the way. Traveling through the forest will give us a better chance of running into someone who has seen them or even stumbling on them ourselves.” VayRonx doubted the words he spoke but saw no harm in trying to reassure the others, and possibly even himself. His senses were sharper than any other’s in the group; he was able to hear and see up to eight kilometers away and smell twice as far in every direction. He knew he stood the best chance of picking up any trace of the teenagers before anyone else; however, it was this fact that also worried him, for he had yet to pick up any trace of their presence, meaning they had traveled much farther using the river than he had originally suspected.
How could I have let them run away
? Despite having told BaRone that he shared in his guilt for what happened to his daughter, it was the weight of what happened to the whole tribe that weighed most heavily on his conscience and dominated his thoughts the majority of the time. He knew he had to get DiNiya and the others back at any cost, but worried if he would have the power to do so. No one alive today had ever faced a DraGon before the night of the attack, and while it was true EeNara won the war thousands of years ago, victory was not without its price. Several dozen species were wiped out entirely, and the planet itself was ravaged so badly in some places that they had only been repopulated within the past five to six thousand years. The war had also apparently stranded the first aliens on EeNara who would become the SaVarians of today. It was strange to think of what life would have been like back in those days with their entire species being new to EeNara; how strange it would now seem to not share this world with them and the bond both races possessed with one another.

VayRonx shook his head and came back to the present.
I will not allow the atrocities of the past to happen again
, he told himself. Still, would he and the others really be enough to stop the DraGons this time? So far they had numbered in the dozens, a far cry from the once vast and destructive armies of the days of old he had grown up hearing about in stories. Still, he was not complaining, and would strike down every last one that reared its cruel head in KaNar.

His thoughts drifted over to ShinGaru, and a feeling of guilt and uncertainty began to twinge inside of him. He had watched the boy grow up in KaNar, belonging to no single family but raised by the tribe as a whole. VayRonx had always seen to it that he be treated as much a member of the tribe as any other child it bore. However, despite coming into his own earlier than any of the other children of his generation, and proving to be one of the sharpest minds in all of the Northern Continent, he never seemed fully comfortable opening himself up entirely to others, and thus kept them at a distance. Perhaps now he knew why. All people of EeNara had a deep sense of identity and how they fit within the grander scheme of the world. While it was strange that they all somehow shifted into entirely different beings, to not even know what it is you have become, he could only imagine what it would be like to look in the mirror and see not only a face that had never been your own, but one that was also completely foreign in nature.
How difficult it must have been for that boy,
he thought, feeling a great sense of failure for not having done a better job of making him truly feel at home within the tribe. To have sensed that there was something so very different about him but never knowing what or why, or even why it kept him from truly connecting with others.

A familiar scent now seized his attention, interrupting his thoughts and bringing him to a sudden stop. “We’ve got company,” he said, raising his nose into the air and breathing in deeply.

“Where?” BaRone asked.

“Ahead of us, and moving quickly.”

“How close?” VyKia asked, trying to peer through the foliage ahead for any sign of movement.

“About eight kilometers…give or take.”

“Dare I ask the nature of our friend?” NyRo inquired, cracking his neck and looking uneasy.

“It would appear that our luck has run out.”