The Wings of Dragons: Book One of the Dragoon Saga (36 page)

“
Better,” the dragon said,
his cruel beak twisting into a smile. “In return, let me tell you
something as you die. Do you remember the night before your mission
with Amroth, how he told you of your parents’ murders? He hinted
that the Quodivar leader killed them. You know better, though,
don’t you? You killed Zuberi, but he sated neither your bloodlust
nor your desire for vengeance. Isn’t that correct?”

Through the torture of his injuries, Iren
spat, “What do you know? You weren’t even there!”

The horrid smile filled with savage glee.
“Amroth was my Dragon Knight, as was Hezna before him. I know what
they knew. I know Zuberi was not the murderer, and I know that
Amroth lied to you. He said he rescued you, but he did no such
thing. He only decided to spare you at the last second because he
realized he could use you to get revenge on Hezna. Do you
understand now? Zuberi didn’t kill your parents; Amroth did. He
slew them both alongside Ortromp so he could get the credit for
killing the Left and take over leadership in the Castle Guard.”

“
You’re lying!”

Feng crowed. “It’s why I accepted Amroth as
my Dragon Knight! I looked into his heart and saw his hunger for
power. He willingly killed others and tormented a member of his own
species, you, for years just to increase his dominance. I could
hardly ask for a finer knight.”

Iren sobbed as Feng’s words burned him
harsher than any flame, but his tears evaporated as soon as they
formed. Even after learning that Amroth had used him, Iren had
still acknowledged him as the man who had saved him as an infant.
That wasn’t the case at all though. Instead, Amroth had manipulated
him from the beginning, convincing him of a false revenge so that
he would become the captain’s weapon. Iren had accepted Amroth’s
lie wholeheartedly, even killing for the sake of it. The faces of
those he’d slain floated past Iren’s vision. All those battles, all
those dead, had gained him nothing. At long last he knew his
parents’ killer, but he couldn’t get revenge. Feng had already
taken care of that.

The dragon tossed him down hard, and Iren
smashed into the ground, bones breaking on impact. The landing
jarred the Muryozaki from his hand, and it skidded several feet
away. Iren tried to reach for it, but his limbs wouldn’t respond.
Desperately, he tried to think of a plan, but he came up with
nothing. He could only watch as Feng’s giant foot approached, ready
to squash the last vestiges of life from him.

“
Keep away from
him!”

The female voice roared from just inside the
forest, and suddenly a barrage of arrows pelted Feng’s chest. Most
fell uselessly to the ground or ignited the instant they touched
him, but the distraction changed the beast’s attention. Feng sent a
jet of flame to halt the attack. The projectiles ceased for a
moment, but then resumed from another part of the forest.

At the edges of his vision, Iren saw two
people kneeling next to him. “Rest easy, Iren,” one said, the
familiar voice gentle like one of Ziorsecth’s streams. “We’ll take
it from here.”

“
Minawë,” he managed, but
he could say no more.

She smiled, raised her bow, and began firing
rapidly, running to make herself harder to hit.

The other person, Balear, knelt and wrapped
Iren’s charred form in a green cloak. “Your clothes got burned by
that monster,” the man explained. “The Kodamas gave me that cloak
while we hid in the trees, but I think you’ve more use for it than
I do. No offense, but your charred posterior won’t make a great
impression on your girlfriend. Oh, and by the way, you did great,
Iren. I’m proud to call you a friend.”

With that, the Lodian stood and fired on his
former king.

The arrows continued to fly for nearly
thirty seconds longer before Feng shouted, “Enough!” so loudly the
tree leaves shook. Blazes erupted from him in every direction, and
the screams of dying Kodamas reached Iren’s ears.

Iren feared for Minawë and Balear, but he
had little time to dwell on them. The red light from Feng’s body
suddenly vanished, replaced by a blue-purple flash that changed the
landscape momentarily into brightest day. Iren smiled. Minawë’s
distraction had given Rondel enough time.

With a sharp crack that echoed across both
field and forest, a bolt of lightning arced from just inside the
woods and hit Feng. Iren knew right away that it had struck its
target, because Feng roared a genuine cry of pain. The bolt knocked
the glowing Karyozaki free from the dragon, casting it into the
open air with a thin trail of flame following it. Joy filled Iren’s
heart as he waited for the fire to die.

As the seconds passed, however, Feng
remained. Iren cursed silently. Even as Rondel’s strike knocked the
sword loose, the dragon had sent out a tiny burning tendril to
follow it, maintaining the connection between the sword and his
body.

Iren despaired as Feng simultaneously
extended two great hands, the first to retrieve the fallen
Karyozaki, and the second to annihilate the person who had dared to
harm him. Iren’s only relief was that he couldn’t see Feng strike
his teacher dead.

“
Now,” the Fire Dragon
growled as flames licked Iren’s body, “for you.” With each word,
the earth vibrated.

Iren closed his eyes, accepting his fate,
but then something odd happened. Feng had stopped speaking, yet the
land beneath Iren continued to tremble. Deep booms echoed across
the forest. Confused, he looked around as best he could. The trees
themselves were moving. Their leaves shook as if in a storm,
despite the windless night. The ground’s tremors grew more intense,
and Iren sensed that they came not from Feng, but from within
Ziorsecth.

With a harsh grinding sound, the trees just
north of Iren gave a great heave and pulled free of their roots,
rising and moving of their own accord. Aletas, Queen of the Kodamas
and Forest Dragon Knight, stepped into view. “Didn’t I tell you,
Iren?” she asked, though she kept her gaze fixed on Feng.
“Ziorsecth will defend itself when threatened. While I draw breath,
Feng will not step foot inside this land!”

The queen’s level of magic amazed Iren.
She’d looked exhausted after controlling the vines and shrubs to
attack Lodia’s army, yet she could still control these mighty trees
as well. At first he couldn’t explain it, but then he noticed how
the queen stood. She held the Chloryoblaka in her right hand and
had her left palm pressed against one of the nearby trees. At last,
Iren understood. Back in Yuushingaral, Aletas had explained that
Kodamas could replenish their biological magic by siphoning off
other life forms. The queen wasn’t using her own magic. Instead,
she was channeling the tree’s energy, and thanks to its shared root
system, all of Ziorsecth’s as well. In spite of his throbbing body,
Iren felt relief. Feng couldn’t defeat an entire forest.

Four broad maples charged the dragon, each
over a hundred feet tall. Feng still dwarfed them, although they at
least came farther up on him than Iren had. They struck at his
legs, battering him with thick limbs like clubs.

Feng’s new foes didn’t bother him. “Wood?”
he mocked, his voice reeking of contempt. “You send wood against
the Fire Dragon?” With a casual raise of one arm, he set the four
trees alight. They continued to smash at him valiantly as they
dissolved into ashes.

More maples attacked the dragon, but his
flames destroyed each one.

Aletas next sent vines tunneling through the
ground, having them rise up and wrap around Feng’s legs in an
attempt to immobilize him. The plants withered and died the moment
they touched his scalding surface.

Still Aletas did not relent, and Iren began
to question the queen’s strategy. She had to know those plants
stood no chance against Feng, yet she persisted anyway.

A few minutes later, Iren got his answer.
The booming and tremors from earlier grew greater and greater, and
they came far more rapidly. A strange sloughing sound joined them
as well, and Iren had the impression that something enormous
approached them. Aletas smiled mirthlessly. “You lose, Feng.”

With a final wrenching screech, the
monstrosity within the forest burst onto the plain. Iren gaped.
Standing toe to toe with Feng was the largest tree he’d ever seen.
It stood at least as tall as the monstrous dragon, and its limbs
stretched farther than Feng’s wings. Iren couldn’t believe a plant
could grow so large, but then he remembered Minawë telling him of
Ziorsecth and how it was really a single tree with many trunks. The
Heart of Ziorsecth, the central pillar from which the forest
originated, was the greatest tree ever to sprout.

Looking at it standing firm against Feng,
Iren believed it.

The Heart of Ziorsecth swung one mighty limb
and smashed Feng in the head. For the first time, Iren saw the
dragon stumble. Flames licked at the Heart’s branches, but their
thick bark refused to burn.

“
Aim for the sword!” Iren
choked out. “That’s his power source!”

Aletas nodded her affirmation, and the Heart
focused all its effort on Feng’s chest. It bashed and battered, and
finally the dragon fell. The tree swung its largest branch straight
down on the Karyozaki, but at the last moment, Feng twisted away.
The monster screamed his aggravation. Apparently, he hadn’t
expected a plant to outclass him. He closed his wings around
himself and tucked his head in, seemingly trying to protect his
sole vulnerable spot.

All at once, Feng erupted in a giant
mushroom cloud. The explosion knocked Aletas, standing over a mile
from its epicenter, to the ground. The Heart of Ziorsecth
evaporated.

Iren had a recollection of Minawë’s room.
Aletas had spoken of her vision about a firebird and the Heart of
Ziorsecth engulfed in flames. It had come to pass.

Before Aletas could rise again, the dragon
lunged forward and seized her, lifting her high into the air and
beyond the forest. Removed from her source of power and overcome by
the exhaustion of using so much magic, Saito’s curse afflicted her
in seconds. Through Feng’s grim red light, Iren saw the queen’s
hair turn from green to shining white. When the last hair changed,
Feng casually tossed her limp body back beside Iren. She fell to
the ground without the slightest resistance, her face so withered
she made Rondel look youthful. Emptiness and terror filled Aletas’s
unblinking eyes. Iren had no doubt.

The queen was dead.

Feng had defeated them. The Kodamas’ bows no
longer fired, and first Iren, then Rondel, and even Aletas, with
all the might of Ziorsecth behind her, had fallen.

He wanted revenge. He wanted to make Feng
suffer. Try as he might, though, Iren couldn’t make his body move.
His vision faltered, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

From somewhere in the shadows, he heard a
voice call, “Slacker!” He groaned. Rondel had decided to haunt him
from beyond the grave. Wonderful.

“
If you want to defeat
him,” she cried, her words echoing from the past, “then put forth
some real effort! You can’t win if you constantly hold yourself
back and give up when you find a problem difficult!”

“
What do you expect me to
do, you brainless old hag?” Iren cried inside his mind. “I can’t
move!”

“
Remember!” Divinion’s
voice, gentle yet with a force to shake all of Raa, boomed from the
darkness. “Commit to what’s most important. You did it for Minawë
when you brought her to Ziorsecth. You can do it here,
too.”

Iren’s anger swelled. “But what’s most
important? What good would knowing that even do? I’m about to die,
and so are my friends. I can’t do anything—”

He stopped. His friends? Throughout his
eighteen-year life, he’d never befriended anyone. He’d lived alone
in the Tower of Divinion. People had called him a monster, a Left,
and he’d taken out his frustration and sorrow on them until he
became the very devil the bigoted Lodians claimed he was.

Divinion, though, had looked at Iren and not
seen a monster. He’d seen the lonely boy Iren himself refused to
recognize. He’d rescued Iren from the depths of his self-made
prison, and thanks to Divinion’s help, Iren had found friends.
Flashes of faces came to him. Dirio. Balear. Aletas. Rondel.

Minawë.

“
What’s most important?”
he’d asked the Holy Dragon.

Now he knew.

His eyes snapped open, and with a surge of
effort, he reached out his hand and clasped the Muryozaki. Its
healing power washed over him, and he stood and marched onto the
plain.

Feng beheld his final enemy and chuckled.
“Not dead yet, Iren Saitosan? I’m impressed you can still move.
You’ve come for revenge, no doubt.”

Iren met the abomination’s gaze without a
trace of fear. “No,” he replied calmly. Though he did not speak
loudly, his voice carried across the landscape so that all heard
it. The forest itself shook under the weight of his words as he
said, “I don’t care if Amroth used me, or if he killed my parents.
I don’t care about revenge. Right now, I only care that I have
friends depending on me. I swear that I’ll protect them!”

All at once, blinding light erupted from him
in a great tempest, engulfing him. It condensed around his body,
solidifying into a gleaming full suit of armor, white with blue
streaks and made of the same material as the Muryozaki. The
brightness then focused on his back, and as Iren yelled defiantly,
two radiant wings of light sprouted from either side of his
spine.

Rondel tried to stand, but even breathing
hurt. She supposed she should feel grateful she could breathe at
all. Her three cracked ribs and shattered right arm and leg,
however, made it hard to see the bright side of her situation.