The Dragonswarm (40 page)

Then Pazyarev was close enough to strike, and he struck with many limbs. The gold dame hung back, but all the others rushed toward me. Not in a perfect circle. Not all at once. A dragon on the wing is too versatile a foe to crowd them all together. Instead one came forward faster, mottled green and brown, and belched a lance of fire at my position. The beast could not have seen me clearly, wrapped in elemental air, but I disturbed the world around me enough that it could make a guess.

A good guess, it turned out. I had to fling myself downward and barely dropped a pace below the searing flame. But I carried the motion on, swinging up and under toward the creature's jaw. I wrenched my shoulder as I passed beneath it, stabbing up behind its fangs. My sword parted scales and flesh and cut deep into the dragon's head. Yet even as I struck I saw the forward talons reaching for me. I left the blade inside its skull and whipped the bands of air around me, darting off to safety.

But straight into another dragon's strike. It snapped at me. I tried to stop, to swing myself away, but still its razor fang bit into my left shoulder. It traced a painful line down and over to my spine before I could pull myself away. I spun around in time to see the spike-tipped tail coming around toward me.

I speared my remaining Chaos blade bone-deep in the monster's passing shoulder and let my weight hang on it for a moment. That left me free to whip the threads of air out with my will, wrapping them around the dragon's eyes. They should have left the dragon blind, should have drawn a scream of rage and sent it tumbling from the sky. But this beast was Pazyarev. It was just one little part of a mind that watched me through dozens of eyes. And now it saw me clearly.

The tail struck, shearing with expert precision above the dragon's scales, straight at me. I planted feet on the shoulder and kicked desperately away. A heartbeat later, the tail tore the abandoned Chaos blade out of its flesh.

Then a roar of triumph shook the night around me. I was revealed. A dozen blasts of fire shot toward me. I wrapped myself in air and again dove away.

But I could not survive this fight. There wasn't time enough to look ahead, to stop and think. It took my whole attention to face one dragon, and here two dozen hung around me. My blood-soaked shirt clung cold against my back, and the injury put pain in every motion.

I'd felled the first, I thought, with that jab up through the jaw. The second I had barely hurt. I glanced back now and saw it dropping from the fight, but night was coming soon. In half an hour it would be made whole.

I snapped my eyes back ahead in time to see sharp talons stretching toward me. I jerked myself upward, planted a foot on the top of one plated knee, and sprang higher still. From above, I made a rain of fist-sized stones and sent them slamming hard into the creature's skull.

It fell away, another beast already flapping up behind it. I summoned just one stone for that one. It was a paving stone four paces wide, four paces long, manifested half a pace above the dragon's shoulders. The long, strong bones that held its wings snapped like twigs, and that one, too, went down.

More waited. A pair this time, coming fast from opposite directions. I sprang away and dodged a bite and sprang again. I crashed against a scaled hide hard enough to drive the breath from my lungs. I skidded, tried to catch a grip, and then began to fall. Talons long as sickle blades snapped around me, but they did not pierce. They didn't crush. They held me almost tenderly.

The scales were black. I made two Chaos blades again, but before I struck, I looked up. Then I reached out with my mind. "
Vechernyvetr? What do you intend?
"

The great wings slammed against the air as he climbed up through the fray, toward the waiting elder legend. His nervous indecision rattled in the back of my mind.

They should call you dragonbane
, he said.
I've never seen a man do anything like that
.

"
I could do more
," I thought. "
I mean to kill them all.
"

But that's impossible,
he said, without any real emotion.
Even you know it. I can see it in your heart. You fight, and you grow tired. You cannot kill them all.

"
If I could get to Pazyarev
—"

Be still
, he said with force enough to shut me up. He flew up through the crowd of dragons, and I saw them washing around him, following in his wake, until we all went as one before the massive elder legend. He scudded through the air like some solid thunderhead. As we grew closer, I could feel his hatred like a fire beneath my skin.

You've brought the boy to me
, Pazyarev crowed. I heard the words, but with them came the monster's bloody satisfaction, his overwhelming rage, so vast, so strong they threatened to wash away my own emotions. I gasped for air, fought to hold some shred of my defiance, and walled Pazyarev away.

I'd had much practice. I forced the elder legend's thoughts out of my head, but still I felt the hammer of his rage.

Vechernyvetr's thoughts yet rang out clearly.
We had an understanding.

I felt the pressure of the elder legend's answer, but not the words. Whatever he had to say, it calmed the indecision in Vechernyvetr's head. I felt his heart grow hard, felt his intentions narrow to a point. He was decided.

I shifted awkwardly within the talon's grip and hefted the two sleek blades within my hand. I wouldn't go without a fight.

Then Vechernyvetr spoke to me.
I remember when we met
, he said.
I remember what you did to me. You were just a tiny man, and I was a monster, but still you brought me low. In spite of all my power, you broke me.

Vechernyvetr couldn't kill me on his own. But now he brought me up before Pazyarev's massive maw. The golden dame came drifting over, shining like sunlight on a pool, but I saw murder in her eyes. For one terrifying moment we both flew in place ahead of Pazyarev.

The talons opened. I was ready with threads of air. I caught myself and snapped them to get away. I had one astonished moment to see Vechernyvetr turn mid-air and strike the golden dame. He tangled his body around her, fangs and talons tearing. The taste of blood seared bright within his mind, and the dame screamed as she fell away.

And then my world was darkness. Hot and rank and crushing. I'd had the barest hint of warning, the bright white flash of teeth as thick as tree trunks, then the monster's maw had slammed shut around me. It was so fast. Nothing as large as that should be so fast. But it had struck even as I tried to fly away, and it had caught me, severing the threads of air.

Now I was left in darkness, the cavern of his mouth nearly as large as my chambers in the tower. He ground those massive teeth and tried to crush me with his tongue, but I slashed desperately up and carved a narrow gash in the roof of his mouth with my Chaos blade.

He roared, a deafening bellow that tore at my flesh. I turned and dove toward the narrow gap between his teeth, but they snapped shut. I barely caught myself before I lost an arm. The tongue stabbed at me again and I slashed back. Where I cut it, ugly, acid blood poured out.

Pazyarev gulped air, not to roar this time. I already felt the fire broiling in his belly. He would burn me down to ash. His jaw was open now again, almost room enough to jump, to get away. I stared at the fangs' sharp points. If I tried to dive through, if that double-row of razor teeth snapped shut.....

I could too easily imagine the pain of tearing flesh. I had felt it before. When I met Vechernyvetr.

Only minutes ago, he'd told me he remembered. Now I remembered. I remembered when we met, what I did to him. Had this been his intention all along? I saw the distant dance of firelight deep in the monster's gullet and had less than a heartbeat to decide.

I dove. Not out past the razor fangs, but back toward the monster's tongue. I stretched a hand out as I went and let it tear against a tooth. Blood gushed across my palm. I twisted, grabbed Pazyarev's tongue, and slammed my injured hand against the bleeding gash I'd given him.

Blistering pain shot up my arm and throbbed into my veins. It was twice familiar. I'd experienced this once before, when I first bonded with Vechernyvetr. I'd expected the pain itself. What surprised me was the shape of it, the feel of it. I knew that as well.

It was the Chaos power, the same hammering, bloodthirsty thrum that burned inside like madness. But now I felt it magnified, a hundred thousand times magnified, until it tore my mind apart and buried me beneath its writhing blackness.

This time, though, there was a light. It was a glow far off, gold and red, the shade of friendly hearthfires. There was a hint of perfect white as well, thin, restrained, and cool. A rich and earthy brown, barely seen against the blackness, but it seemed to stretch for miles around me. And even in the darkness itself there was texture.

I had no body there. I could not feel my human frame. But in that other place, I felt like a living part of the endless night. I could flex my will and watch the midnight shadows wash and roll. There was a
me
within the blackness, and it was something far more powerful, far more vast than I might ever have imagined. Even my territory sense could not compare to this.

There were other shapes within the dark, other living wills, and I could feel them vague and distant and hostile. But most of my sensation came from the mingled points of light. I felt human fear and desperate need and perfect, sweet devotion. I felt anger, too. A wild thirst for vengeance and blood.

And I felt words. I tasted the shape of them before they could resolve within my mind, but they were sharp and hot and heavy. They cut at me and made me struggle within the darkness. I strained to pull my will together, to manifest a man from depthless nothing. If I'd had a voice, I would have screamed in primal need, and all around me the fires flared, gold and red and blue and brown. They burned against the night.

Then I heard the words.
Wake up. Pathetic little human. Wake up. Please.

I opened my eyes.

I was caught within the monster's mouth, soaked in blood that burned the skin. I was awake, and Vechernyvetr shouted frantic noise within the corner of my mind, but I still felt numb. My head still seemed stuffed with that heavy, untamed night. But then a new sensation broke the veil, brought my attention to a sharply focused point.

I was falling. We were falling. Fast.

Reality came crashing back to me, but still the other sense remained. I understood it now, of course. The lifeblood of my brood burned gold and red. The wizard's will was white. I'd seen the colors of my might within the darkness, but the dark itself had been pure Chaos.
All
of Chaos. And I had been a point within it.

That sense began to slip away now, suppressed by my sanity, but while it yet remained I felt the ocean of ink-black power in all directions around me. I felt myself a bubble on its surface. I felt Vechernyvetr near to hand, a smaller spot. And I felt Pazyarev as well. I saw the shape of him, the scope of him, and it was not as large as I'd expected.

Within my will, inside my head, I reached toward that spot. I felt the body around me spasm, and the huge maw rolled. At the same time I saw that point of darkness roil within my head as the elder legend regained its consciousness.

Before he could act, before he could move, I reached out with a dreamlike lethargy and touched my will against his power. I felt him then, a presence in my head made up of raw emotion and animal intent. It was the presence I had often felt from Vechernyvetr, and even Pazyarev before, but those had always started from outside. When I had walled them off, when I had forced them back, it was always to an outer edge.

Now Pazyarev was a spot within. I was as well, and not a larger spot, but for a moment in my mind I saw the whole vast plains of Chaos. My thoughts stretched far and wide, and I could do more than wall him off. I could do more than push him away. I reached with my will, wrapped it around that small black bubble, and squeezed.

I felt one flash of haughty disbelief, one flash of timeless terror, and then I felt a
pop
. And he was gone.

No. Not gone. He was everywhere. He was all around me. He was part of me. He
was
me. I looked out through his eyes and saw the world spread out below us, rushing up to meet us. I spread his wings and banked against the wind without a thought. I soared above the earth and felt the human in my mouth. I crouched within his maw and felt the rough, wet flesh beneath my hand.

This was the Chaos bond, the one the dragons knew. It was not the limited connection Vechernyvetr and I shared. There was no Pazyarev left. There was no will to fight me off, no words and no emotion from the beast. There was only power, physical and raw, at my command.

I screamed my victory into the night with two voices, and one of them shook mountains.

Vechernyvetr answered back with just one word.
Help
.

My territory sense still boiled with the cold, black stain of dragons. Pazyarev's eyes showed me a sky dancing with their fire. Vechernyvetr struggled among them, and I could feel his pain. He was exhausted, torn, and surrounded on all sides by flying death. Talons slashed and fangs ripped. I stretched my will to call them down, but they were not mine.

They were not unified, either. They fought without apparent purpose. I saw Vechernyvetr catch a cruel blow, but I saw as well one of Pazyarev's reds disembowel one of his greens. I saw pairs of them locked in battle. I watched in disbelief for several seconds before Vechernyvetr cried again.

Aid me, Daven. If you let me die at this late hour, I'll make certain you regret it.

I laughed, then wrapped myself in air and dove headfirst from the elder legend's maw. I left my little human body hanging there, safely outside the fray, then turned the mighty monster to the fight. He swallowed a pair of fighting blues, then crushed a victorious red within one talon and swept two more from the sky with his great tail. A blast of fire rose up on its own, and my human body roared at the thrill of it, as forge-hot flame consumed my enemies. The taste was salty bliss.