The Wings of Dragons: Book One of the Dragoon Saga (32 page)

“
So you don’t have to wind
up like Iren Saito,” Minawë concluded. “If anything, I’d say you’ll
surpass him.”

Iren threw up his hands. “I’ve already done
that,” he said. “Iren Saito wanted to conquer the Kodamas. Thanks
to me, he’ll finally accomplish his mission. When Amroth gets here,
it will mean the end of Ziorsecth.”

Minawë folded her arms. “What on Raa are you
talking about? Didn’t you spend all this time training so you could
stop Amroth?”

“
Yes, but he’s only coming
here in the first place because of me. Don’t you see, Minawë?
Everything that’s happened has been my fault. Because of me, Amroth
obtained the Karyozaki. Because of me, Haldessa burned to the
ground, and Amroth became king of Lodia. And now, because I came
here, Amroth will chase me and wipe out you, the Kodamas, and this
entire forest.” He sighed and whispered, “I should have jumped out
that window in Haldessa. Then none of this ever would have
happened.”

Minawë stood and glared at him. “How did
Divinion pick such a moron to be Holy Dragon Knight?”

He leapt to his feet. Rounding on her, he
shouted, “How dare you!”

The Kodaman princess didn’t flinch. Instead,
she replied, “What if you had killed yourself in Haldessa? Then you
never would have rescued me from the Quodivar. I’d be dead
too.”

Iren took a step back. He stared at her,
wide-eyed.

“
Amroth would have come for
the Kodamas eventually anyway,” she pointed out. “You might have
given him the excuse he needed, but he always belonged to Nadav. He
would pursue our extinction until his last breath. We could not
avoid this confrontation. Even if it is our destiny to lose this
fight, though,” she smiled warmly, “I’m glad you didn’t kill
yourself, so that at least I got to meet you.”

“
Minawë,” he said her name
with some surprise, but then he closed his eyes and returned her
expression. “I’m glad I didn’t kill myself either, so that I got to
meet you too.”

“
Besides,” the Kodama
continued, adopting a wry look, “we’re not as doomed as you think.
We still have the Heart of Ziorsecth.”

“
The Heart of Ziorsecth?”
Iren remembered Aletas mentioning it before, and how it had given
her a vision. “What is it?”

“
You walked through this
forest. What did you see?”

Iren blinked a couple times. He was pretty
sure this was a trick question. “Trees?” he asked.

“
No, moron, you didn’t see
trees. You saw a tree. One. All of Ziorsecth has but one
tree.”

He scoffed. “I may have grown up in a
castle, but I know enough about trees to know that I saw a lot more
than one of them while that senile slave-driver was hauling me all
over the place.”

“
And had you paid the
slightest attention in those wanderings,” Minawë chastised, “you
might have noticed that every tree belonged to the same species,
the Ziorsecth Maple. West of here, along the coast of the Yuushin
Sea, sits the Heart of Ziorsecth, the largest tree in the world.
Our sacred place and the burial ground of our people, we’ve never
allowed a non-Kodama to visit it, not even Rondel. Its stems fill
Ziorsecth, almost twenty thousand square miles. You see, unlike
other maples, the Ziorsecth Maple can produce root suckers, new
stems that sprout from its root system. Because of that feature,
every tree in Ziorsecth is connected. They all share the same
roots, and they grow so closely together that a nimble Kodama can
cross from one end of the forest to the other without touching the
ground.”

Iren had to admit that the Heart sounded
impressive, but he still didn’t understand how some overgrown weed
could help them defeat Amroth.

Just then, shouting from the forest reached
their ears. Minawë scowled. She stormed off the beach toward the
ruckus, with Iren rushing to follow her.

As he reached the tree line, Iren beheld
Rondel, a longbow strapped to her back, swinging her arms and
screaming. Beside her, Aletas acted in much the same manner. Iren
sighed, wondering if they were still arguing about his loss of
control.

“
Absolutely not!” Aletas
yelled.

“
You know you have no
choice!” Rondel responded. “Do you want Lodia to butcher your
people?”

The queen’s face strongly resembled an
over-ripened tomato. “Whose fault is that in the first place?”

Rondel looked like she might burst a blood
vessel. “Coward!”

“
Interloper!”

“
Children!” Minawë suddenly
roared, her voice shearing the cool night air and cowing the two
elder women into silence.

“
What’s going on here?”
Iren asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.

Aletas gave a haughty flick of her hair but
otherwise refused to acknowledge Iren’s presence. With an
exasperated groan, Rondel said, “We cannot defeat Amroth and his
army as we are. At first I thought we could avoid getting the
Kodamas involved if Iren and I went to Lodia alone, but now I
realize that’s impossible. The two of us can’t overcome five
thousand soldiers, let alone them plus the Fire Dragon Knight. They
would kill us and continue their march, wiping out Ziorsecth. If we
fight separately, we’ll all die. However, even together, we still
can’t overcome the odds. We have but one chance of victory.”

Iren and Minawë both looked at her
hopefully. Meanwhile, Aletas stared at a nearby rock as, with utter
seriousness, Rondel said, “We need a third Dragon Knight.”

“
Brilliant!” Iren shouted,
throwing up his hands. “Except we don’t have another Ryokaiten.
Even if we did, how would you train its knight in time?”

He thought he’d deflated the old hag for
once, but she grinned and replied, “Actually, we have both a third
Ryokaiten and Dragon Knight standing right here with us.” She
gestured at Aletas. “My dear queen, may I show them?”

The normally regal Aletas had veins popping
out of her forehead. “You dare . . .”

Rondel simply stared innocently back, saying
nothing. At last the queen pressed her fingers into the bridge of
her nose and said, “So be it. You’ll do it regardless. You never
would listen to me.”

The diminutive Maantec reached behind her
and pulled out the bow she carried. It was unlike any Iren had ever
seen. Though made of wood, it didn’t look brown but rather
yellow-green, like a recently cut branch. Living vines laced around
the center, forming a grip both firm and comfortable. They raced
out to either end of the bow, and near the handhold they twisted
together to form three concentric circles of Maantec kanji
identical to that on Iren’s sword.

“
Behold the Forest Dragon
Bow, the Chloryoblaka,” Rondel said. “A thousand years ago, I
recovered it from the battlefield on Serona after King Otunë’s
death. I returned it to the Kodamas and gave it to Aletas. She’s
left it unused ever since.”

Minawë’s eyes widened. “Then Mother, that
means you control Dendryl! You’re the Forest Dragon Knight!”

Aletas folded her arms. “No. At least, not
anymore. That weapon belongs to a former life. I’ll have nothing to
do with it.”

Minawë looked on the verge of tears as her
mother spoke. “Why?” she cried. “Facing the might of Lodia, why
would you deny the magic of Dendryl? Why would you deny the magic
of . . . of . . .” she barely
managed to mumble, “of Father?”

The queen flared, “Have none of you seen
Serona? Have none of you gazed upon its fires that still scar the
earth a thousand years after their summoning? That is what the
dragons bring to Raa. I watched everyone I cared about march off to
war a thousand years ago, and not one of them returned. Why did
they die? Because of a dragon, and not just any dragon,” she jabbed
a finger at Iren, “because of the Holy Dragon!” Aletas was
screaming now. “The being that supposedly embodies all that is good
in this world slaughtered my husband and nearly extinguished my
entire species! Now, another Dragon Knight comes to complete the
task. Heaven may have created the dragons, but they are no
blessing. They are a curse, a plague that will ruin us all!”

Iren listened to the queen’s tirade with
pity. In many ways, she was right. She was wrong on one critical
point, however. Unsure where his courage came from, he said, “Queen
Aletas, you cannot fault the dragons for the Kodamas’ suffering.
The blame lies with people, like Iren Saito and Amroth, who let
their desire for power consume them. But that has nothing to do
with dragons or Heaven. Heavenly hands don’t shape this world;
people’s hands, our hands, do. Our hands can heal others or wound
them. Our hands can pick up the outcasts and help them live better
lives, or they can swing swords and cast deadly spells. We, not
dragons, make these choices. The dragons are neither curses nor
plagues; they are gifts. How we use such gifts, though, isn’t
fixed. We decide. We decide whether to use Heaven’s gifts for
salvation or destruction. Amroth chose the latter, but I for one
will choose salvation!”

As Iren spoke, he became more and more
passionate, his voice rising and his excitement growing until he
shouted as loud as he could. When he finished, he blinked several
times. He felt like he had momentarily departed reality.
Immediately, he realized how rude he must have sounded, criticizing
this queen who had lived far longer and seen much more of life than
he had. Still, he knew in his heart he’d spoken the truth.

For a long time nobody moved, tensely
awaiting Aletas’s reaction to Iren’s outburst. She worked her lips,
biting her lower one nervously. Finally, the queen said, “Evil will
triumph if we do nothing.” She sighed, gazed up at the forest
canopy, and, after a pause, smiled broadly as she whispered, “Yes,
I too will choose salvation.”

Rondel gave Iren a knowing smirk. “Take your
bow, Queen Aletas, and may it defend your people as it did in
ancient times.”

The Kodaman queen wrapped her hand around
the Chloryoblaka and lifted it. She drew a long breath, and then
slowly exhaled through her teeth. “We have much to prepare and
little time to do so. Rondel, I will gather the Kodamas and head
for the forest edge. Meet us there in five days. Minawë, let’s
go.”

Minawë joined the queen, and the pair began
to leave. As they stepped away, Aletas turned to Iren and said,
“For the moment, Maantec, it seems I need you. I won’t force you
out of Ziorsecth. Can you keep your emotions in check and avoid
another disaster?”

Iren gave her the same wry expression Minawë
had used on him earlier that evening when describing the Heart of
Ziorsecth. “I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

Aletas didn’t look at all thrilled with his
answer, but Minawë laughed and nodded approvingly. The two Kodamas
departed, leaving Iren and Rondel alone on the beach’s edge.

Rondel clapped the young man on the back.
“You know, slacker, you give quite a speech when you have to.”

Iren chortled. “I wish I knew where it came
from. I think Divinion gave me a helping hand.”

“
Did he now?” She didn’t
seem convinced.

They stood together quietly for a few
seconds, but then Rondel asked, “By the way, what’s that rock
you’re carrying?”

Iren glanced down. His left hand still
clutched his sea stone. He tossed it gently a few times,
considering. Finally, he shrugged and replied, “What, this? I don’t
think it matters anymore.”

With a mighty throw, he hurled it across the
beach and into the sea, forever lost amid the endless waves.

A week later at sunset, Iren stood on the
eastern edge of Ziorsecth, beholding the land he once cast aside.
Shadows fell thick on Lodia as the sun dipped below the tree line.
Balear, Minawë, and Rondel rested beside him, preparing, each in
his or her own way, to face the unthinkable.

Balear looked worst off of all of them. He
trembled constantly, and he kept fingering his blade, then looking
at it with disgust. Iren could guess what was going through the
man’s mind. He had betrayed Amroth, a man he’d admired more than
any other. He had betrayed Lodia, the country he’d devoted his life
to protecting. How many men would die because of him? How many
would he himself have to strike down?

Only Rondel seemed calm. Seated on a rock,
she stared at the empty expanse of Lodia, waiting for fires on the
horizon that would herald the enemy’s arrival. Alone of all of
them, she knew about war. She had witnessed Serona. She had seen
the land rent asunder and the Kodamas slaughtered. Tonight, that
history that might well repeat itself.

Iren rolled his shoulders, trying to make
his wooden armor more comfortable. He wore a breastplate, bracers,
greaves, a helmet, and a round shield large enough to protect him
but small enough to leave him room to swing the Muryozaki with one
hand. Minawë had given him the armor, and both she and Balear also
wore sets of it. She’d offered Rondel some as well, but the old
Maantec had declined, preferring not to inhibit her movement.

Though made of light tan wood, the armor was
no thicker than normal plate. When Minawë had first shown it to
him, Iren had possessed little confidence in it until she’d
explained, “Our smiths use spells to condense the wood. Pound for
pound, wood is stronger than steel. This armor will match any in
Lodia, yet it weighs much less.”

It was indeed lightweight, but Iren did find
it itchy. Then again, it might just be nerves. At last report, a
mere six hundred Kodamas had reached the forest’s edge. Lodia’s
army outnumbered theirs nearly ten to one.

From atop her rock, Rondel shifted to look
probingly at Balear. “Describe Amroth’s sword for me. I only saw it
briefly during my fight with Hezna.”