A Realm of Shadows (17 page)

Merk braced
himself as he stood on the edge of the isle of Knossos and looked up in horror
at the flock of dragons diving down right for him. Waves from the Bay of Death
crashed at his feet, men were dying all around him from the trolls’ invasion,
and behind him Lorna and her scores of Watchers summoned these ancient
creatures to their rescue. Whether these dragons would rescue them or kill them
was unclear—and now it seemed they were out of her control.

A terrible roar shook
the air as scores of dragons dove for the waters, talons extended, their
terrible teeth showing as they opened their jaws wide. Merk glanced back to the
fort and saw the Watchers leaning out the windows, palms raised to the sky,
while Lorna stood before them, light radiating from their palms up into the
clouds. He looked down at the thousands of trolls covering the rocky cliffs of Knossos, overpowering the warriors—indeed, a group of them rushed for him even now. It was
a dire scene for the men of Knossos.

Yet, in a moment,
everything changed. The dragons swooped down and, with their long talons,
targeted the trolls, slicing them to pieces before they could reach him.

Awful cries rang
out as body parts went flying, the long claws cutting through the trolls like
butter, sending them falling off the rock, down to the sea. Some of the dragons
grabbed the trolls—two, three, four at a time—carried them up into the skies
and dropped them down into the rocks, watching them splat. Other dragons
scooped up trolls and ate them alive.

The dragons circled
around again, and this time, they pulled back their wings, opened their great
mouths, and a terrible hissing noise followed as they breathed down a wall of flame.

Merk braced
himself, taking cover behind his shield, feeling the heat even from here, as the
dragons took aim at the thousands of trolls still covering the cliffs. The
trolls’ cries of agony rose even above the sound of the flames. Those who weren’t
lucky enough to be killed on the spot turned and jumped off the cliffs, preferring
a death by water than one by fire.

Some trolls,
though, survived, and these, still on fire, raced for cover on the isle of Knossos. A few ran for Merk, aflame, desperate, following a primal instinct of survival, not
ready to jump over the edge. It appeared to be a death charge; they clearly wanted
to grab Merk, and the other soldiers, and set them aflame, too. Misery wanted
company.

Merk braced
himself. He was not prepared to die, and certainly not this way.

As they neared,
he leaned back and kicked back the trolls, his boot catching fire, then leaned
forward and stabbed them through the chest. He kicked at them again and again, keeping
them at bay, then finally stamped out the fire on his foot. Other trolls he
smashed with his shield, fighting frantically to keep them away and keep
himself from catching fire.

Merk heard cries
all around him and looked over to see that some of the other warriors of Knossos were not so lucky. A troll, aflame, managing to grab one, squeezed him in a hug,
and carried him with him as he leapt over the edge into the water. Their
shrieks could be heard even out of sight, a terrible sound that made Merk want
to forget it.

Merk saw their
leader, Vesuvius, on the isle of Knossos, encircled by flames, look over the
cliffs, desperate, clearly afraid to fall. He opportunistically grabbed two of
his trolls and in one quick motion, shoved them over the edge. He jumped over
with them.

Merk rushed to
the edge and watched as they all fell. Vesuvius spun his trolls around in the
air and used them as cushions, making sure to land atop them, breaking his fall
with their bodies as they landed in the waters. His trolls were dead, crushed
beneath his weight, but Vesuvius swam away, untouched. Merk could hardly
believe what a cruel and heartless leader he was, as easily prepared to kill
his own men as he was the enemy. A formidable foe, Merk realized, one without
any morals.

The dragons
circled wider, broadening their reach, and dove for the water. They dove down
close, fearless, the trolls’ spears merely bouncing off their hardened scales.
They set the troll ships aflame, fire meeting water in a great hiss of steam.

It was a chaotic,
brutal scene. One chaos had been replaced with another.

As the ranks of
trolls attacking the island thinned, Merk saw a look of horror spread across Lorna’s
face. Despite the intense flashes of light emanating from their palms, the
dragons, done with the trolls, turned and, with blood in their eyes, set their
sights back on the isle of Knossos. Merk felt a sense of dread as he realized they
had lost control of the dragons.

“Take cover!” Merk
called out.

It was too late.
The dragons opened their mouths, flew at them impossibly fast, and a moment
later a wall of flame slowly filled the ocean, creating a wall of steam, hissing,
spreading right for the isle of Knossos. It wound its way up the mountain face,
and right through the stony isle.

Within moments
most of the warriors of Knossos were dead, shrieking, aflame, nowhere to take
cover. Merk watched in panic as a dragon singled him out and dove for him. Out
of some primal reflex, he ducked, and the dragon’s claw knocked the helmet off
his head, sending it clanging down, bouncing off the rocks, down to the water.
Yet somehow, miraculously, Merk survived, the flames parting ways around his
massive shield as he crouched below it.

Merk saw dozens
more dragons turning for them, and he knew that death was coming, that, within
moments, whoever survived on this rocky isle would be dead. Their strategy had
failed. They had been spared from the trolls only to be killed by the dragons.

Without thinking,
Merk turned and ran. He saw Lorna standing there, frozen in panic, sheltered
behind a stone ledge from the flames, most of her Watchers dead. At her side
stood Thurn, still fighting off trolls valiantly, despite his multiple wounds.

Merk grabbed Lorna,
yanked her, and forced her to run with him.

She turned and
looked at Thurn.

He nodded back.

“Run!” he said.
“It is your only chance.”

“Only if you
come!” she yelled.

She grabbed his
wrist, and he turned and ran with them, covering their backs from any attack.

With the dragons
closing in, the isle aflame, men dead all around them, they ran for their lives.
Merk’s heart slammed as he sensed the dragons closing in behind him and as he
saw, in the distance, the far end of the isle. If they could just make it to the
edge, to the far side of the fort, Merk knew, they could reach the cliffs on
the far side of the isle, those that had real ocean beneath them, and not the
sharp rocks and treacherous tides of the Bay of Death. From there they could
leap safely.

A dragon dove
down and set dozens of running warriors aflame beside them, the heat searing
Merk’s side, barely missing them. He gasped, sweating, realizing what a close
call it was.

Merk turned and
looked back over his shoulder, saw another dragon coming right for them, and
knew that this time, the dragon would not miss. He and Lorna were about to die.

They reached the
far side of the fort, and as they ducked behind its stone walls, the column of flame
rolled past them, just missing by inches.

“There!” Merk
cried.

They ran to the
edge of the cliffs, and stopped short as they looked below. Merk’s heart
fell—it was a huge drop, perhaps a hundred feet, into the massive rolling waves
of the ocean. There were no rocks, true, but the fall hardly seemed welcoming.

He stood there,
hesitating. He hated heights. And he hated water. Thurn ran up behind them,
turned and faced off against several trolls who were giving chase, swinging his
chain and ball and killing them all before they could get close.

Merk turned and
looked back and saw the dragons coming back again, he knew that staying here
would mean a certain death. Already one singled them out, breathed its fire,
and Merk, watched, in horror, as a wall of flame came right for them. Thurn,
the bravest warrior he had ever seen, stood there proudly and made a stand,
shielding them from the oncoming dragon.

“JUMP!” Thurn
urged. “Go now, while you have a chance!”

Lorna squeezed
his hand, and he saw the look of assurance in her eyes and it gave him
strength. She prodded him, and they leapt together, holding hands.

The fire just
missed them as they plummeted over the edge of the cliff. Merk found himself
yelling as they fell and flailed through the air, all the way down until they
hit the water. They had watched the waves, and had prayed that Lorna had timed
it right so that they landed when a huge wave rolled in. Otherwise, the water
would be too shallow and the fall would surely kill them.

They landed
smack in the center of a big wave as it rolled in. The water was freezing, the
tides unbelievably strong, and as Merk plunged below the surface, he wondered
if every bone in his body was breaking.

He squeezed Lorna’s
hand beneath the surface, and as she fought the plunge and began kicking her
way back up towards the surface, so did he. They kicked together, Merk’s ears
bursting, strange creatures brushing against him beneath the water, his lungs
feeling as if they were crushed.

Then, finally,
just when he thought he would drown, they surfaced.

Merk gasped for
breath. He turned and looked in every direction, wiping water from his eyes.
Corpses, of trolls, of men, floated in the water all around him, some still
aflame. He looked up and saw the dragons descending for the isle of Knossos again, criss-crossing it, until it was one huge cauldron of flame. A few more
seconds up there, and they would have been dead.

He saw Thurn,
standing nobly up there, swinging his sword at the dragon even while he was
aflame. Then, finally, he watched in horror as Thurn, aflame, fell backwards
off the cliff, plummeting for the sea. He landed in a great hiss of steam, and
Merk could not tell if he were dead or alive. He did not know how any human
could have survived that.

Merk heard the
awful sound of hundreds of good men dying up there, and he watched in horror as
the dragons swept down, talons extended, and smashed the fort of Knossos into pieces. This sacred and proud place, which had stood for thousands of years,
was no more.

As they bobbed in
the waves, the undertow taking them out to sea, Merk looked out at the black,
ominous waters and wondered if this ocean were even more dangerous than where
they had left. He felt the undertow sucking everything down, saw the fins of
the strange creatures out at sea, and he had a sinking feeling.

And then, just
when he thought it could not get any worse, he looked up and saw several
dragons had spotted them. They broke from the pack and dove down, right for
them.

They roared, and
a column of flame rolled down for them. Merk could already feel the heat. Paradoxically,
they would be burned alive while in these freezing waters.

They squeezed
hands and braced themselves, and Merk could not help but think:
What an
awful way to die, where flame meets water.

Kyle sprinted
beside Andor and Leo through the ravaged countryside of Escalon, heading north,
determined to reach Kyra before she could fly to Marda. He could not shake the
image from his mind of her flying overhead on the dragon, could not shake the
feeling that she was flying to a place from which she would never return.

Kyle ran with
all he had, running so fast that the countryside around him was a blur, running
faster even than Andor, than Leo, faster than any human could. He was determined
to stop her from entering Marda, a land where, he knew, her kind could not
survive. Even with her skills, Kyra, he knew, was not prepared to face that
kind of evil.

Yet he had to
admit he had another, deeper reason for racing to find her. He could not deny
what he had felt from the moment he had laid eyes on her. He was in love with her.
He knew it in every ounce of his being. She was the girl he had been seeing in
his mind’s eye ever since he had been born, for hundreds of years, the girl he knew
he was destined to be with. She was the one, he knew, that would change
everything.

Kyle would not
hesitate to give up his life to be with her. Ever since he had seen her, he
could not explain it, but he knew his destiny was intertwined with hers. She
was the one he had been waiting for, for thousands of years. The thought of
losing her tore him to pieces. He would do whatever he had to do, even if it
meant heading into the darkest depths of Marda, even if he had to walk through the
Flames himself, to bring her back.

Kyle reflected
on how lucky he had been to rescue her from that massive battle against the Pandesians,
the trolls, how lucky he had been to survive that himself, due only to the dragons’
intervention. He felt something monumental shifting in the universe, that they
were on the brink of history, of the world being either saved or destroyed for
good. And he could not help but feel as if he and Kyra were in the crossroads. After
all these centuries, the Final Coming was here. It was the time he had learned
of as a child, the time he had thought would never arrive. These were the days
the sky would turn black with dragons, the oceans would spit fire, and the
rivers would run with blood. He remembered the prophecies and remembered
wondering if they were but myths. Yet now, as he looked around and saw the
destruction in Escalon, he knew these were no myths.

Kyle continued
to sprint, passing entire charred villages, piles of corpses, a land once so beautiful
now torn to shreds. He leapt over gaping fissures in the earth, pits left where
the dragons had sliced open the land with their talons; he ran through forests
twisted and black, burned to ashes. He passed through a land he barely
recognized, crossing it at nearly the speed of light. Marda, he knew, lay just
ahead, and he redoubled his efforts.

Yet as he neared
the Flames, something tugged at him, and he felt himself tremble with a premonition.
It was like a pulse, or a vibration, and it was pulling him in another
direction. As he ran it became stronger, so strong he could not ignore it, like
a bell tolling that he could not ignore.

Baffled, Kyle turned
and looked west, wondering what it could be. In that direction, somewhere over
the horizon, lay the Tower of Ur. As he looked, he felt it again, racing through
his veins. It was a call of distress. An urgent call for help.

Kyle stopped, at
a crossroads, no longer sure what to do. He looked north, knowing the Flames
lay just over the horizon, and somewhere beyond them, Kyra. Yet everything
inside of him was also screaming at him to turn west. One of his brothers was
in grave danger, a danger he could not ignore.

It made no sense
to Kyle. The tower had been destroyed. Who could possibly be west, in the Tower of Ur? What danger could they be in?

As agonizing as it
was, it did not give Kyle a choice. He turned away from running toward Marda,
and instead allowed turned west. Someone beyond those hills needed him—someone
who was connected to Kyra—and he could not abandon them.

*

Kyle finished sprinting
up a series of rolling hills and as he crested the last one, he stopped short
at what he saw before him, stunned at the sight: there, against the setting
sun, a nation of trolls was flooding the countryside. Kyle’s heart stopped in
his throat. That could only mean one thing: The Flames were lowered. Vesuvius must
have crossed the Devil’s Finger. He must have beaten Merk and reached the Tower of Kos before him. And he must have stolen the Sword of Fire.

Even worse, there,
down in the valley, Kyle spotted a small group of people standing before the destroyed
tower. He blinked, confused, wondering who it could be, and then he recognized one
of them: Kolva. Kyra’s uncle. A fellow Watcher, one of the legendary Watchers
of all time, facing off against the trolls—and entirely surrounded. Standing beside
him were two people whom Kyle did not recognize, and the three of them were
about to die. Now Kyle understood why he had been summoned here.

Without
thinking, Kyle sprinted down the hill, Andor and Leo at his side. He burst into
the trolls, running faster than he’d ever had, raised his staff, and as he
reached the army, he turned the staff sideways and smashed into the lines of
trolls.

Sparks
flew from his
staff as dozens of trolls went flying back. He swung again and again, the blows
so powerful they sent dozens more trolls flying through the air, hundreds of
feet. Beside him, Leo and Andor leapt into the air, snarling, sinking fangs
into the trolls all around them, tearing them to pieces and watching Kyle’s
back.

Kyle smashed his
way through the stunned nation of trolls until finally he cleared room and
fought his way all the way to Kolva and his two companions. He leapt forward
and jabbed a troll right before it could stab Kolva, while Leo and Andor jumped
on two trolls from behind before they could smash the two others with their
halberds, saving them just in time.

Kyle had no
chance, though, to catch his breath. He turned to see another wave of trolls
pouring in. He swung his staff again and again, smashing one troll, then another,
then another. He leapt into the air over three of them, kicked a dozen more to
the ground, then spun and struck a dozen more. He fought like a man on fire,
determined to save his friends’ lives, to fend off these beasts, to protect his
homeland, and all around him, trolls fell. The perimeter widened with each
blow.

Soon he had
felled hundreds of them.

Beside him, Kolva
caught a second wind and fought boldly, too, as did his two companions. Kolva wielded
his staff, expertly taking out dozens of trolls, while the man and woman with
him grabbed flails off the ground and swung them wildly, killing dozens more.
They all seemed liberated to have been rescued, to have a second chance at life,
and Kyle felt elated that he had trusted his instincts and come here.

Kyle felt
himself gaining momentum. They created a wider perimeter around the Tower of Ur, and he was feeling optimistic that maybe he would be able to drive this army back
to Marda, to make a stand on behalf of all of Escalon. This, after all, was the
real front line for his homeland, where the real war was being fought.

Yet as he
fought, an ominous horn sounded, rising over the shouts of dying trolls, and as
Kyle looked out, he was aghast at what he saw: hundreds of trees fell with a
great whooshing noise as the forest opened up all around him. Tens of thousands
more trolls poured forward.

Kyle felt a
chill of dread; there was no way they could defend against this many trolls.

Kyle swung his
staff again and again, dropping trolls by the dozens, but even as he did, he knew
it was futile. This was no mere army—this was an entire nation. He had thrown
himself to Kolva’s defense—only to walk into a death for himself.

As he fought, Kyle
found himself growing weaker. His blows had less power, and the trolls were getting
closer. He was increasingly surrounded from all sides, and to his shock, he
felt an awful pain in his shoulder and realized a troll had gotten close enough
to slice his arm with his halberd. Kyle killed the troll at once, jabbing it in
the forehead with his staff, yet it did not change the fact that Kyle had
become vulnerable. His aura of invincibility was quickly disappearing.

As thousands
more trolls broke through the forest, stampeding each other, Kyle saw his death
looming before him. He heard a cry and he looked over in horror to see Kolva drop
to his knees, a troll’s halberd in his stomach. He watched, helpless, as Kolva began
to die.

The man and
woman beside him fell, too, each knocked down by the handle of a troll’s
halberd, each prone on the ground, helpless to do anything but await their
deaths. Even Leo and Andor were surrounded now, the crowd too thick for them to
fight back, their whines audible as they were injured.

Kyle, gasping
for air, knew that he was staring death in the face. After all these centuries,
his time had come. And his final thought was not that he regretted dying—only
that he regretted not seeing Kyra’s face again.