Sunset of Lantonne (103 page)

“Do not hit young girls,” warned the gypsy, shoving Raeln off-balance. “We hit back. Worry not, fuzzy man, I will make sure I tear your friend apart before you die so you can watch. Maybe I make him stand back up after he is dead and dance for me, yes?”

Raeln gasped and struggled to keep the knife’s tip from punching any deeper into his side, but he knew the girl could force it at any moment. Small or not, she was far stronger than he was.

“Varra, is it? One of your brothers spoke of you being here before he went to pieces over in Lantonne,” came a gravelly voice from the doorway. “Let the wildlings go, or you will face me.”

The girl’s grin faded, and she eased off the knife, looking past Raeln. “My master said the orcs from Turessi were all dead,” she whispered, abruptly letting go of the knife. She instead grabbed Raeln by the shoulder and neck, spinning him around and using him as a shield between herself and the newcomer. “You have the markings…you are him, the betrayer.”

Raeln clenched his teeth as he pulled the knife free of his side, keeping one hand firmly against the wound to slow the bleeding in both his chest and hand. Looking up, he saw On’esquin stood in the open door, though he held no weapons and did not even appear to be working on a spell. Instead, he stood there calmly, arms crossed in front of him.

“I want a message sent to Dorralt,” On’esquin told Varra, advancing into the room with heavy pounding of his boots on the plank floor. “Tell him he has caused the prophecy to begin after all these years. Tell him I will stand by my oath, even if he will not. Tell him this, and I will not use you as an example of what will be done to the Turessians standing in my way.”

Varra glanced nervously between Raeln and On’esquin, twirling the knife in her offhand. She backed up until her foot reached the outer wall, then looked over at the four zombies that remained still nearby. “Is not even worth making them try,” she mused softly, shaking her head. “My orders are clear, betrayer. I am to run. I wish we could fight now, but I must go deliver the messages.”

Varra shoved Raeln at On’esquin and then ran for a window near her. Before she reached the window, she flung her hand at On’esquin. A flash of lightning shook the room and blew out the windows, but when Raeln opened his eyes, On’esquin stood exactly where he had been, though he frowned more deeply, if that were possible.

“Are you finished, child?” he demanded, taking another step.

Blinking, Varra nodded vigorously, turning part-way before blowing Raeln a mocking kiss. She then hop onto the broken window’s sill and disappeared into the night.

“Get her,” Raeln begged, crawling toward Greth. “Before she gets away.”

On’esquin hurried to Raeln’s side and helped him stand, putting Raeln’s arm around his shoulders to support his weight. “Couldn’t if I wanted to,” the orc admitted, glancing at the window the girl had gone through. “The sparks you saw me put on a sword wouldn’t do anything to her. She can’t hurt me and I can’t hurt her, but she doesn’t need to know. I doubt even Dorralt does, in all honesty. If he does, he won’t want his underlings to know specifics, unless they have a chance of winning.”

They moved across the room slowly, Raeln’s legs barely supporting him. Finally, they arrived at Greth’s side, and On’esquin let Raeln kneel there, stepping back to give him room.

Greth was a mass of burned fur and blood, but when Raeln reached for him, he cracked open one eye. Coughing, he reached up and tore the leash off of his muzzle and weakly threw it several feet across the room.

“Greth,” Raeln said, unsure what he really needed to say as he looked over the cuts and burns everywhere, “what can I do?”

Shaking his head slowly, Greth reached over and grabbed Raeln’s hand. “Unless you or the orc can heal, not much,” he told Raeln, then began coughing. Before the fit ended, blood covered all of Greth’s muzzle. “Too much…bleeding.”

From behind him, Raeln heard On’esquin say, “The girl and the dragon have already left, I’m afraid. I saw them take flight the moment you walked away. It’s just us, and I am no help in this matter. There is no healer here to help.”

Raeln screamed in frustration and tore at his shirt, thinking to use it to stifle the flow of blood, but stopped as his eyes darted from one wound to another, unsure where to apply pressure. There was dark blood everywhere. A pool had begun to form around Greth, soaking through the floorboards from more injuries to his back. It looked like a lot of blood, but Raeln had seen men survive worse with proper care.

“I can’t feel my legs and everything else hurts,” Greth admitted, pushing away the cloth Raeln held. “The little girl beat me up good. Ribs…are broken, I think. Back, too. Can’t feel…below ribcage.”

Raeln clasped Greth’s hand with both of his, thinking furiously for anything that might help. “There’s a healing circle in Lantonne,” he said excitedly. “It won’t take much of a healer to fix this if we can get you there. The good ones can even raise the dead. We just need…”

“We need to…not chase stupid ideas. The circle…was in the tower,” Greth said, smiling despite the frequent pauses to stifle coughs. “You are not…taking me through an army…of undead. The tower is…smashed. Plus, we have…no healer.”

Glancing back to where On’esquin had been standing, Raeln saw movement on the porch as the man departed, leaving him and Greth alone. Somehow, he had even taken the four zombies away without Raeln noticing.

“What do I do?” asked Raeln, sitting down hard. Tears welled up, but he fought to keep them under control. “How do we fix this?”

Greth let out a strangled chuckle and shrugged. “You can’t fix…everything, Raeln.”

“If I had magic…”

“The healers are…all dead, so that’s…not really an answer. She’d have…killed you, too.”

“Then we do this the old-fashioned way and patch you up and hope for the best.”

Greth rolled his eye and then glared at Raeln. “My back…is broken,” he pointed out, then struggled to stop another coughing fit. “If that isn’t enough…lungs are filling…with blood. I’m going to drown…in a damned…human house.”

The next cough left a stream of very fresh blood running down Greth’s lower jaw, confirming what he had said. Greth looked up at Raeln and sadly smiled. “An hour or two…is what you wanted…to ask. Maybe less. All of it…in misery.”

“Stop telling me this, Greth.”

“No,” Greth replied, clenching his jaw tight as more coughs shook him. When they passed, he added, “I’m a warrior. Let me die…as one.”

Raeln buried his face against Greth’s shoulder, trying to ignore the situation by blocking out the sight of it.

“Let me…die how…I want,” he told Raeln firmly and looked pointedly down at Raeln’s dagger, still in its sheath. With his free hand, Greth tapped the hilt but said nothing else.

Weeping, Raeln drew the dagger and clutched it to his chest with one hand, squeezing Greth’s hand with his other, and prayed for a miracle. The old gods walked the world again, the greatest city in the land had fallen, and legions of the dead marched the plains…would it really take so much to ask for one life to be spared?

On’esquin has returned to me and watches as I dictate the visions that now appear to me. He is not what I thought and has shown me who our real enemies might be.

I only hope it is not too late to stop the coming destruction.

Two must stop the world from being torn apart, while others must stop someone I once held dear to my heart. This I have seen.

-
Scribbled note in the lost prophecies of Turess.

“He does not believe us,” Ilarra told Nenophar as Raeln stalked away to the northern part of the encampment.

Does it matter?
the dragon asked as reply, his voice confined to her head to ensure he was not heard by Raeln.
You wished it hidden from him, so I assume you were prepared for him to be upset.

Ilarra nodded and leaned her head against Nenophar’s flank, thankful for his support. Watching Raeln leave had nearly broken her heart, but it was unavoidable. She dearly wanted to say good-bye before they left, in case they did not return.

“You were saying, before he came, why it is we are on such a short schedule?” she asked, brushing her hair back from her eyes after a gust of wind blew it there. The rain continued to fall out past Nenophar’s sheltering wing. “Explain what you did that has you this tired.”

The dragon’s nearest eye narrowed as he glared at her, but Ilarra met his stare with one of her own. Finally, he backed down.
You needed magic. Throwing spells at you would have destroyed you, as weakened as you were.

“Then how did you remedy that?”

You do not need to know.

“I want to know. Tell me.”

I recreated the bond you had with Raeln…with myself.

Ilarra stood straight up, wishing Nenophar was in his elven form so she could slap him. “What were you thinking?” she demanded, forcing herself to keep her voice lower than she wished in case Raeln was still within hearing range. “Dorralt wants a dragon. If he gets one, he’s effectively a real god, not some tattooed idiot playing at being a god. Binding yourself to me means…”

It means if I lose control of the shield on your mind, he will at least have a chance of gaining some degree of control over me as well. Trust I understand the risk,
he answered hurriedly.
Between funneling this much magic into you and fighting Dorralt off, I am nearly ready to slumber for a hundred years or so, but doing so will ensure he has control over us both. I cannot sleep again until Dorralt is destroyed.

Ilarra stared off toward where Raeln had left, making doubly sure he was gone. “You said I was still dying,” she said after a minute. “What does that mean for you? What does not sleeping do to a dragon?”

Nenophar’s reptilian grin looked more like a snarl.
That is not my fate, to be controlled by a human. I finally realized the riddle of the prophecy even Turess did not. You dying first causes one disaster; me dying first causes the other. By using that foolish bond you made with your brother, I ensure we die at the same time. I found how to cheat the predictions.

“Good. That’s something at least.” Ilarra could not help but laugh at the simple answer to something as complicated as a prophecy. “You said you could find a way to slow or stop the cloud and maybe the elementals?”

Nenophar nodded.
Do you understand what we face out there, Ilarra?

“Not a clue. The last thing I remember is your brother being grabbed by the cloud, my healing Raeln, and then everything’s a blur. I think I saw the tower fall and crush part of the wall.”

That was the arm of the earth elemental lord, not the tower,
corrected the dragon.
Most of the city was decimated by the lords doing battle, though I can feel some of them moving away in different directions.

“Some good news.”

Not in the slightest,
he replied. Slowly, Nenophar sat up like a dog, though he kept his long neck arched to bring his head near her.
The cloud is a weakening of the barrier between our world and of the source of all magic. It craves to touch only magic, and where it can reach through into this world, it will consume anything it can find, destroying anything it does not find acceptable.

“Your brother…”

Dragons live off of the magic that courses through us like the blood that flows through mortals,
he went on quickly when she mentioned his brother.
It sustains us and keeps us alive for as long as we choose to go on. To that cloud, my brother was familiar, a being of nearly pure magic to be consumed and brought home. Now that it has found magic in this world, it will push harder against the barrier until it collapses and magic itself turns on us. It will tear this entire world apart, seeking magic to consume.