Divided (#1 Divided Destiny) (25 page)

“I have never known such a creature,” Mathis exclaimed. “I have heard tales of many fearsome beasts, but none such as that. We have made a fine tale of our own today, friends.”

“That island is not that big. How do you think so many of those damn things survive?” Nick thought aloud.

“I do not know, but we must be grateful that they do, and that we were not forced to slay any of them,” Mathis pointed out. “It would mean an end to the silk; it is already rare enough.”

“Would have done the world a service, though,” Don muttered.

Leo kept his silence. They had completed the mission. They had gone to the island, retrieved the silk, and gotten out alive, and that was what was important. Repercussions for the silk trade did not concern him, beyond the potential fury of would-be allies if they had killed the ‘golden goose,’ as it were.

“Up next, one magic ritual. You know, after killer spiders the size of mopeds, I’m thinking that’s going to be a bit of a letdown,” Don joked, doing what he did best and lightening the mood.

“To free my land from the menace of the dragon, I would undertake a hundred magical rituals,” Mathis vowed.

Despite his disbelief in magic, Leo nodded in agreement. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to save Earth from the menace of the aliens currently invading. If it took a hundred magical rituals, then so be it, just so long as it worked.

People often wished for a magical solution to their problems; he certainly wouldn’t complain if they finally got one.

Chapter Nineteen

The ritual site was deep into the forest, southwest of Termont. By the time they had made landfall, back from their adventure with the giant spiders, it was mid-afternoon. Even with horses, the ritual site was a day’s trek. They were forced to make camp halfway to their destination.

It had rained for half the night, so they were not in the best of moods by mid-morning when they reached the ritual site. It was a crumbling stone monolith, set in a small clearing and surrounded by dense woodland. Leo thought it could be the remains of a church, if only because it was too small to be a castle and yet was important enough to have been made out of stone.

That was, if it had been a building at all. The roof had long since disappeared; only the walls partially remained, great sections of which were no bigger than knee height. Whatever had once stood here was lost to the mystery of time.

Nick was still carrying the spindle of silk. Mathis pointed to a particular point of the crumbling wall. There was an indistinct marking engraved on the side. A flat piece of stone lay beneath it, raising the area below by a few inches. That was where the offering was to be laid. With care, Nick knelt down and brushed off the leaves and other loose debris from the shrine. He then placed the spindle down. Step one was complete.

The next stage was the ritual itself. To the side of the crumbling ruins was a courtyard. The weathered carvings on the stone slabs were that of a compass. Four points, requiring four heroes to stand in place. Cyrus’s instructions had been clear; the process was straightforward enough. They stood there, said some ceremonial words, spilled some blood for a sacrifice, said some more words, and that was the ritual.

It wasn’t overly complicated, even if it did sound ridiculous. However, Cyrus’s description of what would happen should the ritual be successful had caught Leo’s attention. A successful ritual would cause light to stream from the four points and the platform would glow, signifying that their offering had been accepted and that Kaslea would now be protected.

The streaming light sounded a little like the transport platform that had brought them here. It didn’t sound exactly the same; it didn’t match the tale of the legend of light in the darkness that Cyrus had mentioned. Leo felt in his gut that the truth behind the legend was their way home. However, if this was similar technology, it might provide information that would help them in their search. A fool’s hope, perhaps, but foolish hopes were all they had right now.

“I shall take north,” Mathis declared. He strode over to the marked point and stood at attention, pride clear in his posture.

Leo shrugged and took south, facing Mathis. Don took east and Nick west, but really Leo didn’t think it mattered. Cyrus had not been specific about who should stand where, and Leo doubted whether it made a difference. He shifted his foot on the stone, but the marked circle didn’t appear to have moved even slightly with the application of his weight. If there was a pressure plate of some kind, it was below the surface.

Mathis raised his arms skywards. “I call upon the power of four to protect my kingdom. The compass; North, South, East, and West. The elements; Earth, Wind, Water and Fire. I call upon the spirits to accept the sacrifice of four heroes, as deemed by the Kaslea sovereign, Prince Edmund.”

He lowered his arms and withdrew a dagger from his belt. Mathis held out his left palm and brandished the dagger high with his right hand.

“I am a knight of the realm. I swore my service to the kingdom of Kaslea a score of years ago. I fought in the Battle of Nivell. I would die for Kaslea, I have bled for Kaslea, and I would so again. May my blood bring safety to my kingdom.”

Mathis brought the dagger down and bit deeply, cruelly into his palm. He didn’t even wince, squeezing his hand and letting the blood pool, slip between his fingers, and drip onto the weathered stone in front of him.

Leo watched the blood splatter on the ground. It didn’t appear to run anywhere, and the stone could not absorb it. He didn’t see how this was accomplishing anything. However, him not being able to understand it only meant the technology was beyond his comprehension. The small voice in the back of his head pointed out that that was only true if it was technology they were dealing with. He still didn’t believe in magic. He just couldn’t make that leap of faith. Leo pulled his combat knife and held his palm ready, copying Mathis’s movements.

“I’m Staff Sergeant Leo Frasier, US marines,” Leo began. “By my actions, and the actions of my team, we saved a village on the border of Kaslea from being destroyed.”

Leo hesitated. Cyrus had been clear that they had to be honest in their declarations and that there had to be sacrifice. However, Leo couldn’t repeat Mathis’s bold statement. Really, if they wanted heroes of Kaslea, they should have picked four natives, people who would willingly die for this kingdom. The only world Leo would die for was his own.

“I will bleed for Kaslea. May my blood bring safety to this kingdom,” Leo said, finally settling on a reasonable compromise.

He did wish for these people to be safe, after all, even if it was only because of normal human compassion for those suffering. No one deserved to be roasted by an out of control dragon. The image of Gunnery Sergeant Rogers crossed his mind. No, no one deserved to die like that. He brought the knife down and sliced his palm. Leo winced at the sting, but dripped blood onto the stone. He’d spread some of Cyrus’s miracle ointment on it when they were done.

Don went next, repeating Leo’s words and actions exactly. Nick was last and did the same. Mathis then picked up the ritual once more.

“The offering has been made. The blood has been spilled. I call upon the spirits to hear our plea, to protect Kaslea from the dragon which has been terrorizing the kingdom for many months. I call upon the spirits to end the suffering of Kaslea.” Mathis bowed his head. “So mote it be.”

They waited. Nothing happened. Blood continued to drip, and the wind whistled in the trees. Several minutes passed. Leo shifted awkwardly and looked over at Don, who rolled his eyes. Nick shrugged in answer to the unspoken question. They waited. This was Mathis’s kingdom; this was the ritual his prince had sent them on. They would stand here until he ended it, until he acknowledged that it hadn’t worked, that nothing had happened.

The ritual had failed.

Although saying that it had failed implied that it had had a chance of working in the first place. Leo couldn’t help but wonder whether it was just a matter of faith. People in the past had done this, and then the kingdom had recovered from whatever had ailed it. They had similar superstitions on Earth; people remembered the times it worked and forgot all the times it didn’t.

Five minutes after the ritual had concluded and still nothing had happened, Mathis raised his head. He looked troubled but resolute. “Let us repeat the ritual. Kaslea depends on its success.”

“Sure thing,” Leo agreed. They were already bleeding; trying it again once more wouldn’t hurt. He doubted the outcome would be any different a second time. However, for Mathis’s sake if nothing else, he wouldn’t mind being proven wrong.

Unfortunately, Leo wasn’t wrong. Repeating the ritual a second time produced as much result as the first time—nothing. There was no light, no glow, no sign that anything had happened at all beyond the drying blood on the stone, which time and the weather would soon wash away.

Mathis stepped back, despair etched on his face. “Thank you for your forbearance, my friends,” he managed. Mathis staggered over to a low crumbling wall and perched on it, his armor clanking against the stone. He couldn’t remain standing any longer. It was all over.

“It is useless; the ritual has failed. It is a dark omen; the light has forsaken this land. We are all doomed,” Mathis muttered brokenly. All the hope, all the fight had been taken out of him. The stones hadn’t glowed; the promise of the sorcerer Cyrus had come to nothing.

“We’re not doomed,” Leo argued automatically, but his words sounded hollow even to his ears. The despair over their own fruitless quest was getting to him. It was hard to offer hope when his heart felt just as crushed.

The timing could not have been more coincidentally perfect. A roar cut through the air, the dragon making its presence known, as if it was shouting its defiance. It would not be vanquished; it would not be banished. The roar was muted; the dragon was not close. They would likely not be its victims today.

Instead, its destruction would be visited on innocents, on those ill-equipped to fight back. It could be a village much like the one they had ‘saved’ on the border. It could even
be
that village. The dragon was somewhat discriminate in its targets; it hadn’t torched the forest, but aside from not having hit Termont, it didn’t seem to care what village it burned.

This could not stand. Leo felt sick, remembering the destroyed village he had passed through the first day he had arrived in Kaslea. The thick smoke that had spiraled into the air, the ash of the simple dwellings and the burned bodies, twisted by the heat and their terror. He didn’t need to think hard to conjure up the image of the dead gunnery sergeant, one of their own.

Leo thought of the vibrant village of people who had looked to them as saviors, all because their rifles made unfamiliar noises. All those people alive, going about their business, suddenly turned to barbeque—and for what reason? The dragon didn’t seem to gorge itself on its victims; so many more died than was necessary. The bodies lay where they fell, a testament to the dragon’s power, its dominance, and little else. It was such a waste. A wild animal marking its territory. It had to stop.

“We’re not doomed,” Leo repeated, a little more sure of himself this time. “We just need to handle this ourselves.”

Don looked at Leo in surprise. Nick just nodded in agreement. His mind had traveled back to that border village too, and the image of the woman and her baby, so like his own family back on Earth. This wasn’t their fight. It wasn’t their problem; this wasn’t their world. They could argue that these people weren’t real, and weren’t worth their help. However, they were real, and they did need help.

There were two arguments for forging on and taking care of the dragon themselves, one logical and one sentimental. The sentimental argument was simple. As desperate as their own situation was, Earth may already be lost. They had to at least save some lives, at least accomplish something, or they might lose their sanity. A man could only take so much loss and repeated failure.

The logical argument was that their mission ultimately had to come first. They had made a deal with Kaslea, and yes, they had done what had been asked of them. However, the ritual had failed and the dragon still plagued Kaslea. Prince Edmund might be a man of his word and honor their deal anyway, or he might say with Kaslea still under threat that he was more limited in what his kingdom could offer. He might be less enthusiastic in supporting their quest with the other kingdoms.

Whatever way Nick looked at the situation, dealing with the dragon directly made sense.

“Every knight who has tried has died,” Mathis pointed out in warning. However, while his tone was thick with caution, it was also tinged with hope.

“Well, I haven’t met anything yet that can stand up to automatic weapons fire and a chunk of C4,” Leo stated, finally saying out loud what he had thought more than once since learning of the dragon. He only hoped that he was right. After all, he’d never crossed paths with a dragon before, either.

“Don?” Leo looked at his best friend. Don’s expression was inscrutable. Nick’s approval of the plan was obvious, and Mathis’s agreement wasn’t in question. However, they could only do this as a team.

Don nodded slowly, then cracked a wry grin. “Slaying a dragon is very cliché,” he joked. “Don’t think we can exactly give it a pass. I mean, come on, a dragon? It’s got to be done.”

“It’s decided, then,” Leo stated. “Mathis, do you know where the dragon’s lair is?”

“Dragon’s lair,” Don muttered, laughing.

Leo shot him a grin. It was a weird thing to say, but then, the world hadn’t made sense since the Roswell Greys had invaded Earth. If they could fight aliens in New York—in reality, and not a summer blockbuster movie—a dragon’s lair wasn’t exactly much of a stretch.

“The dragon has a home in the mountains.” Mathis pointed at the snowcapped peaks in the distance, north of their position.