EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (208 page)

Jade struggled to her feet and fumbled for another arrow, but the force had torn them all away. She raised her gaze to the wizard. Her eyes darted upward briefly before opening wide as saucers. In a sprawling motion, she dropped to the ground, hands covering her head.

“That’s a good girl. Just hold--”

Had the thunder not left her near deaf, she might have heard the crackle of broken trees being forced aside. Instead, Damona’s first warning was a flare of light. Her second was a rush of heat. There was no time for a third.

Flames rushed about her form before a word of magic could be spoken. A half-dozen spells designed to protect her shattered beneath the might of a direct blast of dragon’s fire. In an instant, without so much as a gasp of pain, Damona was no more.

Jade raised her head to see a smoldering crater where once the sorceress had been. There was no trace of humanity left in the blackened, steaming ground. As her eyes crept upward, she saw Halfax. She felt as though someone had torn the heart from her body. The lightning had fairly split him in two, a jagged red slice running from snout to tail along his right side and across his eye. Blood poured along the length of the sizzling wound. Both wings were shredded tatters, and his jaw and one foreleg were horribly crooked. Whatever strength had allowed him to haul himself free for this final attack was draining away. Finally, he collapsed on his left side.

Jade rushed to him, tears in her eyes. Every fiber of her being wanted her to cradle Halfax’s head in her arms. She wanted to beg him to be all right, to pray that he could be saved. Had she been any other girl, perhaps she would have. But Halfax had spent as much time raising her as her own parents, and she had learned much from him. She’d learned that if you needed something, you learned how to get it. If you couldn’t afford to lose something, you did what it took to keep it safe.

“Hal! Halfax, listen to me!” she cried out, tears in her eyes. “I need you to open your eyes! Listen to me!”

The beast’s eyelid wavered slightly.

“Listen!” she cried, slapping the dragon and very nearly gashing her hand in the process.

His one healthy eye pulled slowly open and focused weakly upon her.

“Halfax, focus on me! Stay focused! I can help you! I am going to the tower to get some things and I am going to fix you right up, okay!?” she shouted as the tears ran down her cheeks. “I just need you to keep your eyes open, do you understand? Just keep breathing. I’ll do the rest!”

With that, Jade sprinted back to the tower and grabbed as much as she could carry, lugging bulging bags and clanking tools back to the dragon’s side. The beast was still breathing, but only just. There was no time to lose, so she set immediately about her task.

There were only a handful of humans in the world who knew anything about how to treat a dragon’s wounds, and none had written any of the books in the tower. Jade knew a great deal about healing humans, though, and other animals as well. Many of the books had been devoted to those subjects. What’s more, having spent most of her life beside Halfax had brought her a great deal of knowledge about his kind. She had all of the pieces, then. She just had to hope that she could find the right way to put them together before it was too late.

Blankets and rope became makeshift bandages on a dragon’s scale. She’d seen him sear minor cuts closed with a burst of flame. The edge of a kitchen knife heated over a hastily built fire did the same job. For wounds too wide to be similarly sealed, strips of sinew and techniques learned from a book about leather armor repair did for a dragon what needle and thread would do for a person. Long, stout branches became splints, and all of the strength she could muster managed to set broken bones. Mixtures of herbs and extracts were poured down his throat in doses dozens of times stronger than the recipes recommended. It was an ordeal, lasting hours, but Jade worked tirelessly. Not until her resources were completely depleted did she relent, well into the night.

She placed her weary head on the beast’s chest. A weak but steady heartbeat greeted her. Jade took a step back. Halfax’s potent blood stung at her hands and stained every inch of her clothes. Without her purpose to sustain her, all of the exhaustion she’d managed to push aside came down upon her at once. She lowered herself to the icy ground, leaned against her deeply sleeping protector, and made ready to close her eyes.

Motion at the edge of the fire’s light jarred her eyes open again. She knew the forest was a place of struggle, a place of predators and prey. For the woodland hunters, the scent of blood was like an alarm bell. If it was the blood of small creature, it meant an easy meal; the blood of a larger predator meant much more. Wild creatures understood competition, and she knew that they all would know that a fallen dragon, if it could be kept from rising, meant more meat for all.

It was not one form but many; several sets of fiery yellow eyes gleamed in the flickering light. Wolves, eager to take Halfax’s place for themselves, were gathering. Jade crept to the flames, pulled free a burning branch, and planted herself beside her friend. The dragon had pushed himself beyond the limit to keep her safe. She owed it to him to do the same.

Chapter VII

“H
AL
? H
AL
?” J
ADE
’
S
WAVERING
VOICE
was pleading.

The dragon’s good eye opened. He was wracked by sharp, constant pain, but he was alive. Inches in front of his face was Jade. She looked dead on her feet, and she was shivering violently from the cold, but seeing her friend awake brought a brief spark of joy.

“Don’t try to talk. Your jaw was broken, so I had to tie it shut. I think . . . I think two of your legs are broken, too, but . . . can you stand? We need to get back to the tower.”

Halfax painfully raised his head. The light of the rising sun revealed the remnants of Jade’s hellish night. All around them, the snow was littered with paw prints. Here and there, charred branches lay discarded. The dragon could only imagine what sort of experience the girl had been through, but he could learn of it later. For now, Jade was right. They needed shelter.

Amid growls and groans of pain, Halfax struggled to his feet. Wooden splints creaked, bandaged wounds trickled blood, and ropes strained, but he managed to stand. Together, the dragon limped and the girl trudged back to the tower. Once there, each collapsed into a long, necessary slumber.

The time that followed was difficult. Halfax could barely walk, and received a stern reprimand from Jade whenever he tried. That left her to provide all of the food for both of them. The young girl fortunately became an able hunter in very short order, having seen him do it so often, but even with her well-stocked garden to supplement her own meals, there were times when food had to be rationed. Without Halfax to ride to and from town, and with neither willing to consider leaving the other for long enough for her to make the journey on foot, certain supplies began to run low.

Soon, all her waking moments were filled with hunting, gardening, fashioning arrows, and preparing traps for the next day’s hunt. What little time was left to spare was spent scrutinizing the books of the tower. Many of them were dedicated to healing, and she hungrily devoured every hint of a treatment that might lead Halfax to a swifter and more complete recovery. Unfortunately she had exhausted all that the impressive library had to say on the subject of conventional remedies. There were volumes more to read, but all dealt with “white magic.”

Jade was dedicated to doing all she could to help her friend, but the thought of even attempting to cast a spell was terrifying to her. Halfax had warned over and over again that magic was for those trained to use it. It wasn’t evil or good, but it could do terrible things if used improperly. That didn’t change the fact the Halfax’s wings would never heal on their own, and no amount of time would give him the sight back in his right eye. In defending her, he had paid a terrible price. She had to repay him somehow.

A rattle shook the whole of the tower. Jade was jarred awake--first startled, then disappointed. By the time she’d reached the door of Halfax’s stable, he was only just getting to his feet again.

“What are you doing?” Jade scolded.

“It will be dawn soon. I need to hunt,” he said without looking, limping painfully toward the forest.

“It sounded like a herd of elephants when you tried to stand up. I hope you don’t expect to sneak up on anything,” she said, walking alongside him, “and I don’t think you’ll be chasing anything down either. Go lie down. If you want food, I’ll get you something.”

Halfax continued walking.

“You’ll never lose that limp if you don’t give your bones some rest. You shouldn’t even be talking. That jaw still looks horribly swollen.”

“It is fine,” he grunted.

In response, Jade prodded it with a finger. The beast jerked away with a hiss of pain.

“Clearly,” she said. “You know, Halfax, I can remember a time when the idea of you telling a lie would have been unthinkable. What is this all about?”

The dragon sat heavily.

“If you were not here, I would have to do this alone. I need to be able to fend for myself.”

“Hal, if I wasn’t here, this never would have happened to you. And if you weren’t here, I wouldn’t even be alive. You’ve saved my life so many times, and you’ve taken care of me for so long, it is only right that I return the favor.”

“You shouldn’t have to do this. It isn’t the way it is supposed to be.”

“I don’t have to do this, Hal. I’m doing it because I want to. Look at me, Halfax. Do you understand?”

Halfax merely stared at her.

“That’s not what’s wrong, is it?” she said, slowly realizing. “It isn’t that I need to do it for you. It is that you
need me
to do it for you. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“For hundreds and hundreds of years it has been the same. I am the protector. Generation after generation. Choose the strongest, or the youngest, or the only child. Keep it safe. It is what I
am.
It was all I was ever meant to be. I stand between you and your enemies. That is how it had always been before you. Then I found you, and I had to feed you. Comfort you. I had to protect your feelings. It was not enough to make you safe, I had to make you
feel
safe. And now . . . now you feed me? You protect me? That is not how it is supposed to be!”

He stomped a healthy leg with enough force to shake snow from trees at the edge of the clearing.

“Maybe not for dragons, but that is exactly how it works for humans. First parents take care of children, then children take care of the parents. That’s family.”

“I am not family.”

Jade smiled and pulled the dragon’s head close, kissing him lightly on the snout.

“You are to me, Hal,” she said softly. Then, with a slap to the head and a point to the stable, she added, “Now go lay down and I’ll catch you some breakfast!”

Jade put down the day’s kill. It had taken more time than usual to bring it back. The sun was still high in the sky, but there was much to do. As she gathered her tools to prepare the food, her eyes turned to Halfax. The beast was anything but emotional, and what little he felt seldom showed on his face. To the trained eye, though, it was just as simple to determine his disposition as that of anyone else. Right now he looked defeated, forlorn. It wasn’t until his injury that it had become clear how important it was to Halfax that he be useful. His purpose defined him, it was what drove him. Until his strength returned, though, as far as he was concerned, he was little more than a burden. The sense of worthlessness had robbed him of his appetite. He barely even moved, save one attempt early each morning to see if his bones would allow him either the stealth or speed to hunt and defend once more.