Dragonheart (29 page)

“Unchain my claw!” Draco demanded. “Let me tear the hated thing from my breast!”

“There must be another way!”

“None!” Draco nodded toward the mountain crest beyond the castle. “Once, upon that mountaintop, you swore your sword and service were mine. To call when I had need of you. To ask what I would of you. I ask now! I need now! I hold you to your vow, Knight!” The dragon suddenly winced in pain. His eyes darted wildly. “He’s coming! Coming to stop you!”

Bowen turned to the cistern. Kara was already cautiously checking it. She shook her head at Bowen. Nothing . . .

“Strike before it is too late!” Draco begged.

Bowen turned back to him, torn by his plea. “You are the last . . .”

“My time is over. Strike!”

“You are my friend.”

“Then as my friend, strike! . . . Please!”

“I cannot!” Bowen’s voice shook. A blinding rush of tears stung his eyes. “I cannot send you soulless into hell!”

“Then I will make you!” snarled Draco. With a roar, he lunged at Bowen with snapping fangs. Bowen spun back, evading the blow. Again, the dragon lashed out, trying to provoke him, but the knight merely leapt out of his shackled range. Draco rattled his chains wildly, growling.

“Fight back, dragonslayer!” Draco tried insulting him. “Kill me or I’ll kill you!” He shot a bolt of flame at Bowen. It struck at his feet. Kara screamed, but Bowen held his ground.

“Defend yourself!” the dragon bellowed, but there was more desperation than anger in the cry.

Bowen flung the ax behind him. It skittered across the courtyard stones. Draco loosed another streak of fire. Closer this time. Bowen recoiled back.

“Pick up the ax!” Another flash of flame skimmed past Bowen, exploding on the wall behind him. Suddenly Draco jolted in pain and moaned in despair.

“No!” exclaimed Kara, in tears. “I will do it. Draco!”

She ran for the ax, Bowen spun and ran to stop her.

But someone else stopped her first.

Einon shot up out of the cistern in a spray of water and wreckage. Bloody and battered but very much alive! Cold depravity gleamed out of his pale eyes. Draco wailed in misery.

Leaping from the debris, the king descended on the petrified Kara, grabbing her arm and whirling her to him. Bowen’s sword blade was in the king’s hand and at her throat. Bowen snatched up the ax.

“Yes!” Draco urged him.

“No!” Einon commanded. “Or she dies.”

Stalemate.

Hewe came barging into the courtyard with an advance party of rebels. He and Trev supported a wounded Gilbert between them. When they saw Kara and Einon, they froze. Einon laughed.

And Draco viciously sank his fangs into his own crippled claw.

Einon’s laughter shrieked to a scream and he dropped the sword, his right hand clutching convulsively in pain.

In that instant Bowen accepted the truth he already knew. And he accepted his fate as well. Lunging forward, he yanked Kara from Einon’s grasp and, shoving her to safety, spun around, his back to the king, and raised the ax—aiming for Draco!

Draco lifted his breast as much as he could to receive the blow; his scales fell back, revealing his red scar.

“Only expose your back to a corpse!” Einon hissed behind Bowen, and the knight heard a knife slither from a scabbard.

The ax left his hand and, twirling in the air, buried itself in Draco’s chest, which flashed a brilliant crimson.

Kara stifled a scream as Draco reeled to the ground, his grateful eyes gazing on Bowen as his lids fluttered down. Bowen’s own eyes flooded with tears as he felt Einon’s dagger slide harmlessly down his back. He turned.

The blade had fallen from Einon’s hand. The king clutched at his chest. His eyes filled with stunned disbelief, his mouth agape in a silent scream. He reached out to Bowen, grasping his shoulder. The knight brushed the hand aside, sneering at him through his tear-dimmed eyes. “You
are
a corpse.”

And he was, collapsing to the ground. Dead. Bowen felt dead himself.

As he shambled toward the still form of the dragon, he heard his rebels pour into the courtyard. He heard Hewe shout to them, “The tyrant’s dead. We’re free.” He heard the shout echo and more rebels crowd in and the triumphant rejoicing. It all sounded distant and unreal.

He knelt by the dragon’s body and gently stroked his head.

“Your victory, Draco,” said the knight softly. “Only you cannot hear it. And they already begin to forget its bitter cost. Soon it will fade, like your lost soul, to nothingness . . . And only I will remember.”

But others remembered. Kara and Gilbert joined Bowen in his vigil, oblivious to the celebration about them. Bracing himself on his bow, the wounded priest quietly intoned some Latin and crossed himself. Kara knelt beside Bowen as he buried his face against Draco’s cold cheek.

“What now, dragon?” he cried bitterly. “You abandon us alone in our freedom! Without you, what do we do? Where do we turn?”

“To the stars, Bowen. To the stars . . .”

The voice was a whisper, warm and reassuring. It was Draco’s voice. Bowen lifted his head. Kara and Gilbert had not heard it. He could tell by the bewildered way they regarded him. Did he look that strange? Had he heard it or just sensed it? Or merely gone mad?

No . . . The sudden light on his face was no delusion. It came out of Draco’s wound . . . an eerie, ethereal glow of translucent red iridescence, oozing out like a mist, covering the body and spreading out over the ground.

Bowen and Kara rose and stood back. Draco’s body dissolved in the mist, became one with it, as the strange glow began to float upward. Past Bowen and Kara and Gilbert. Past the rebels, who became hushed, their faces awash in the glittering scarlet radiance as it rose above the castle walls and ascended into the sky. The light swiftly swirled behind the mountains and suddenly the night became alive with celestial color, flashing across the black horizon.

Then sound filled the air. This time Bowen knew he heard it. Kara and Gilbert heard it too. So did the rebels.
Trilling. Draco’s dragon song!
But not his melancholy lament. This was his happy song; the one he had sung for Kara that day at the waterfall. It echoed clear and sweet. It was a joyful noise.

Bowen gazed heavenward. Expectant. Waiting.

The light behind the mountains spun and congealed into a shimmering streak. The stars suddenly dimmed, fading from the sky as the light, like a ruby comet, shot through the darkness toward the constellation Draco. There, the flashing glow erupted into a blazing star, whirling with dazzling splendor into the formation, becoming the eye of the constellation.

Bowen thought the whole cluster was shining brighter than he had ever seen it shine before. But just for an instant. Then it faded along with Draco’s song as the other stars returned to the heavens.

Kara wept and hugged him. Gilbert crossed himself and the rebels cheered once more. Bowen could only gaze at the stars. The new star still shone brightly . . . more vivid, more lustrous than the others, its gleaming rays beaming down upon them. He could feel its light upon his face. Kara and Gilbert’s upturned faces were bathed in its glow. Its brilliance seemed to shut out the noise. It was as though they were in a pool of shining peace. A trio of stillness amidst the raucous celebration of their fellows.

How small they must look, seen from above, he thought. As all things must look from heaven. All that kept them from blending into the surging mass was the beam of Draco’s starshine as it fell upon them. Smiled upon them. It felt warm and safe and seemed to gleam ever brighter. And brighter. Until the dark was swept away and all was . . .

. . .
exquisite light!

Acknowledgments

Dragonheart
, both as a film and a novel, has been a dream project for me. And there are a lot of people to thank: Patrick Read Johnson, without whom there would be no
Dragonheart;
to Raffaella De Laurentiis, who, for four years, stood shoulder to shoulder with me in the trenches, believing in my script and my talent; to Hal Lieberman, who stood up for me when it counted; to Steve Rabineau, who indulges my economically imprudent whimsy (and calls me the Howard Roark of screenwriters, an accolade I don’t really deserve but which flatters me nonetheless); to Nancy Cushing-Jones, who thought my writing the novel was a good idea and had the patience of Job to wait for it while I cleared my desk of other obligations; to Paul Weston, John Lees, Gerry Crampton, Giorgio Desideri, Alberto Tosto, Michael Menzies, Pete Postlethwaite, Wolf Christian, Lee Oakes, Jason Isaacs, Dan “The Shadow” Hadl, and Hester Hargett, who all kept me sane in Slovakia during filming; and to Adeena Karsseboom and Steve O’Corr, who held down the fort at home. And a special thanks and all my love to my wife, Julieanne, who put up with five long years of angst and read and edited more drafts of script and book than anyone should have to, but still always cried in all the right parts.

—Charles Edward Pogue