The Dragonswarm (41 page)

Vechernyvetr left the fight, fleeing low over the earth, and even when the rest were dealt with, I saw the golden dame skimming after him. I shouted a warning in my mind and rolled the massive body of the elder legend, striking with his heavy tail toward the dame.

But Vechernyvetr intervened. The dame darted easily aside, and at the same instant Vechernyvetr turned and threw his body toward the striking tail. I tried to turn the blow, and slowed it enough to spare the dragon's life, but I felt the shock of angry pain through that distant bond before he crashed to earth.

The gold settled down beside him. She didn't strike. She only waited, patient, until Vechernyvetr heaved himself up. He bled from many wounds and shared with me the pain of his broken bones, but there was victory as well. I felt his wild exhilaration. I felt his joy and quiet pride.

"
You conquered her?
" I asked.

I have long admired this one
, Vechernyvetr said.
I consider her a fair reward, and a fine start to my new brood.

"
She is indeed
," I thought. "
But she was his. They all were his. Shouldn't they be mine?
"

No more than I am
, the dragon said.
Your Order breaks the Chaos bond. That's how you set me free before. I remember how it felt. Disorienting. Unreal. This time I was ready.

"
I am pleased for you
," I thought, but my attention was already far away. I shook my head. "
Heal your wounds, Vechernyvetr. Enjoy this victory. But I must go.
"

Then go
, he said.
We'll settle debts some other time.

I laughed and left him there. I took Pazyarev. I wrapped the blinding darkness of his power up with the bonfire light of mine, and reached south to my lair, and tugged.

We landed on the earth outside the walls, virtually the same place from which I'd left. Nothing remained but char and blood where the distant siege had been, and now the massive gate was raised, its wood scorched and scarred with talon marks, but still unbroken.

Beyond that gate, Palmagnes still stood. Its dancing bands of air were cracked and broken, sizzling here and there with living fire, but what remained still spun in lazy circles around the massive central tower. The outer walls, though damaged, still stood high over the cracked earth, and through the stone I felt them swarming with the hot lifeblood of men. Defenders ranged along its lines, all in motion, all at war.

Fires burned inside the walls and out, and dragons raged against the keep's defenders, but the men fought back, and the ground was littered with the corpses of the fallen beasts. There had to be three hundred dragons dead, felled outside the walls or in the broken courtyards. There might have been a thousand yet in the empty air, but they fought without control, without direction, and fought each other as much now as they fought my defenders.

They were unprepared for me. I sent Pazyarev on the wing, and he tore a hundred dragons from the sky in just one pass. But while he struck, I stretched my will and stepped past gate and walls into the throne room of my tower.

Isabelle was there, at the back wall, moving frantically among the lines of the fallen. Caleb was at the front, shouting orders to a crew led by Garrett Dain just before Dain led them out into the fray. Soldiers in shining armor filled the hall, frenzied as they tried to prepare a desperate defense.

I sank into my throne while Pazyarev snapped his jaws around a dragon on the wing. I gathered all the raging fires outside the tower and piled them together into a pyre. I opened up the earth and swallowed dragon corpses whole. Then I caught Pazyarev in my will. I unleashed one final column of flame, then pushed him miles away into the mountains. I set him on the hill outside our outpost and left him there.

Perhaps by then there were still a thousand dragons in the sky. There must have been half of that at least. I closed my eyes and tapped the boundless power in my soul, then with it carved a moat outside my walls. I raised the earth straight up, and for a moment it hung in a ring outside my walls. Then I flexed and flung it high into the sky.

Six hundred paces up, the tons of earth split, tore apart, and fashioned into javelins. I stabbed them down, a rain of lancing spears, and pinned every last dragon to the earth. They fell like heavy hailstones, inside the walls and out, and their power washed like blood across the stones and seeped through to me. Pazyarev's brood was all destroyed.

On the walls outside, a thousand frightened men suddenly cried out in unexpected victory.

We could not hear them in the tower. Too many voices raised in their distress. But from across the room, I heard one joyous shout above the noise. "Daven? Daven's back!"

The great hall was thronged with people—dirty, bruised and bleeding, but alive. I climbed to my feet and watched them part as Isabelle sprinted across the floor. She threw herself against me and held on tight, her face pressed hard against my chest. After a moment I realized she was shaking. Her whole body shook beneath the tremors, but I could feel her heart's relief.

Caleb's, too. I looked up to meet his eyes, and from across the room he nodded once. He didn't even smile. Then he caught an idle soldier by the tabard and shouted orders until the Guard threw a desperate salute and fled at a run.

It was a Guard. I recognized the uniform. And there were Green Eagles as well. I could feel them, now that I spared the attention. Most of the men within the tower—the uninjured, anyway—were the king's men. They'd crowded up into my barracks, up into the civilians' sleeping quarters above. My men were outside on the walls. My men were stretched out dying in the back of the hall, or quietly cooling on the paving stones outside. But here, inside the tower, the king had brought his army.

There were wizards, too. More than a dozen. Claighan knelt among the wounded, his face a ghastly sheet of drying blood from a split high on his scalp, but he was tending to the others. I spotted Themmichus, his black cloaks clinging wet with blood, but he wore a stunned grin when I met his eyes. I saw the Chancellor of the Academy and a handful of wizards who might have been just students when I was there. And Seriphenes as well, a narrow shadow just behind the king.

There was the king. In my great hall. He sat behind a long, heavy table spread with papers, and his thief-taker Othin stood half a step behind the other shoulder. All three of them watched me, and I felt the flare of Chaos rage within my soul.

I stepped down off my dais, eyes never leaving the king, and a quiet hush fell on the crowd. Isabelle followed close behind, whispering urgently, but I ignored them all. Ten slow paces carried me to loom above the king. He leaned back in his chair, and I saw fear in his eyes.

He was right to fear. I felt the song of Chaos in my soul. I felt the call to burn down the world, and who in all the world deserved it more than this man? My gaze drifted to Master Seriphenes. It touched on loyal Othin, fearless and heartless. But always it returned to that wretched little king.

"You brought your men within my walls?" I asked.

He raised his chin. "It is my right anywhere in this land."

Seriphenes closed his eyes and pressed his lips together. Othin slowly drew his blade. I ignored them both.

"You brought your men within my walls?" I asked again.

The king scowled. "You saw the dragons, boy. Your people let us in."

"And you sought refuge," I growled. "You didn't fight against the dragons. You left my men to die while yours cowered beneath my roof." My voice rose in an outraged roar. "You brought your men within my walls?"

Isabelle caught my hand and pressed close against my back. "We invited them inside," she said. "You would have wanted it." She tilted her cool forehead against the back of my neck, and said almost in a whisper, "You would have wanted it."

The king held my gaze and shrugged. "My wizards helped in the defense. Were it not for us—"

"Were it not for you, we might have killed the dragons while they slept. Were it not for you, we might have trained many more men. Were it not for you—" The fury shook my voice until I could not give it words.

But something else, some treacherous little voice, whispered in my head that, were it not for him and all his petty, childish pride, I never would have gained this power. Were it not for him, I never could have rallied these wicked men. Were it not for him, we'd all have burned.

I closed my eyes. Power hot as hatred roared around my veins, the thrill of recent battle inebriating. And I could still almost sense the Chaos sea that flooded around us all. It buried all reality beneath its waves. Nothing mattered, compared to that.

Still...in the midst of all that darkness, I could recall a tiny, distant light. No other eye could see it; it was mine. Yet it was mine. It was me. I smiled a cold smile, looked down on three men who had wronged me so greatly, and for one exquisite heartbeat I considered all the many ways I could wreak my vengeance.

"Timmon, High King of the Sarianne and Lord of the Isle." My voice echoed in the cavernous room. It sounded like a doom.

Isabelle squeezed my hand and let it go. I raised it before me and built a Chaos blade that drew a gasp from many in the watching crowd. Othin shifted, ready to parry if I swung, but nothing in his power could stop my strike. Seriphenes watched me, glowing with the gathered force of his will, but he had seen what I could do against his spells.

I focused on the king. I shook my head. "This isn't right," I breathed, my voice quiet. I couldn't hear the words over the pounding Chaos song. "This is not how it should be. But if I'm to fight this war...if man is going to shine a light within that sea of destruction..."

The king scowled up at me, confused, but I wasn't speaking to him. I was speaking to myself. The monster and the man in full communion. I felt the wild thrill of all the Chaos I had used this night. I felt the thrilling power of all the mighty lives I'd ended by my hand. I felt Pazyarev's power, boundless and mine. I thought of what I'd do with all that strength.

"Timmon, High King of the Sarianne and Lord of the Isle," I cried again. I raised the sword before me, gripped within both hands, and reversed. I took a slow, deep breath, then drove the point down to the floor.

I sank to my knees behind it. "I swear my oath of fealty to you. Before these witnesses, and in the eyes of God, I pledge to be your man. I bind my life to your life. I bind my sword to your sword. I live for you, and take you as my lord."

Isabelle's relief washed over me like a cool rain. She rested her hands lightly on my shoulders. From across the room I felt Caleb's disapproving doubt. He fought the crowd to cross the floor, and I reached out and brought him to me. I found Lareth, hurrying across the courtyard strewn with the dragons I'd destroyed, and brought him too.

Othin leveled his sword as they arrived, menacing us all across the narrow width of the table. "The rebel wizard Lareth," he said. He pitched his voice low, for the king, but we all heard. "And one of your Eagles who deserted, now disgraced. And the baron's daughter who led the traitors past our lines." He met my eyes where I still knelt. "You surround yourself with greatness."

"Enough," the king barked, his eyes still fixed on mine. He nodded at me. "That's some romantic show, swearing an oath that was already owed. But you have no right to gather these men. You have no right to raise these walls. This is an insurrection."

"Humanity's an insurrection," I said. I started to say more, then shook my head and climbed back to my feet. I would kneel to him no more. "All of civilization is just willful rebellion against the reigning night. But I have no desire to be a king. I want to fight the dragonswarm. That's all."

He shook his head. "Have you not seen the dragons in the sky? You can't fight that."

"Have you not heard the cheers outside?" I asked. "I've killed them all." I drummed my fingers lightly on the Chaos blade's grip. "And I'll kill many more. I will not let you stand between me and that."

He narrowed his eyes. "Then why swear oath?"

"For you. For your petty pride." I glanced over my shoulder to the crowd, then back to him. "For politics. I will have none of it. I have a war to wage."

The king measured me for some time. Then he dipped his head in a fraction of a nod. He rose and raised his voice. "I find it well with you, Daven, Son of Carrick. I grant my grace for all you've done in defense of this kingdom."

"So kind of him," Lareth mumbled, but Isabelle silenced him with a glare.

The king pretended not to have heard. "I ratify you Sir Daven of Teelevon, and name you Chief Defender against the Dragonswarm. I grant you the land, the men, and the resources necessary to wage that war. Serve us well."

A cheer went up at that. His men knew when to cheer their king. I didn't smile.

The king spoke beneath the roar of their applause. "That was done well," he said with grudging admiration. "Now you should offer me a feast within your halls. To show that we are friends. Three days would be best, but a banquet will do. My steward can assist you—"

I raised the blade still in my hand, and he fell silent. "I have no more time to spend on you. I fight a war to save mankind. Now take your men and leave this place forever." Chaos thrummed in my ears. "Quickly, sire, while I still believe the dragons are the greater threat."

A Consortium of Worlds
is a quarterly speculative fiction magazine showcasing the talents of Consortium Books’s array of authors. In the first issue you’ll find stories by:

• Jessie Sanders
  
• Joshua Unruh
  
• Thomas Beard
  
• Rebecca J. Campbell
  
• Courtney Cantrell
  
• Bailey Thomas
  
• Aaron Pogue
  

A Consortium of Worlds
 is your window into Consortium Books’s outstanding stable of speculative fiction authors. 
A Consortium of Worlds
 is a showcase of new and innovative voices in all types of fiction from a publisher dedicated to allowing every writer his or her own voice. There are no slaves to trends or what’s-hot lists here, only writers imagining newer and brighter vistas of unseen tomorrows, untold yesterdays, unknown todays, and untouched worlds of pure imagination.