Wind Rider (15 page)

Anders, there are too many of them still, and
many of the forgotten city have been touched…

I reached out to all the friendly sorcerers of the
city. I reached out to the tree mother, to all the dragons around me, to all my
friends, and to the wizards down on the ground below. In my mind I connected
all the friendly wizards, all the dragons. I took control, and said a spell,
sucked all the energy from the sun as I spoke. My word was purifying heat, and
clean, out to all the
frujen
that surrounded us:
brennen
.

Never before had I felt so much power flow through
me. The air burned, and my voice was fire; I was no longer a human — I was a
dragon, spitting fire. I wanted to bite and snap but I knew that I must not
touch the burning
frujen
, that their very touch was
poison, that they were polluting the air that we breathed. Knew that only in
burning them with clean fire could we eliminate the poison that clouded over
the city.

And on they burned.

And when the last of the
frujen
was burned away and nothing remained but polluted ash over the city, then I
slumped on my mount and felt limp and powerless, as if I too had burned away to
ash.
Relax little one. I will protect you until you get your strength back.

I felt her glide down towards the city below.

We must get rid of some of these ladders. But
then I will take you down and they will feed you. Great magic requires food and
rest. There is nothing left inside you that you have not burned up. Such great
magic I have not seen since the last riders rode our kind.

I looked down and saw ladders on the walls again,
with kobolds and trolls climbing up the walls. From below came arrows raining
up to hit us. I was too weak to put up a shield. I ducked, and hid myself
behind the dragon, and the arrows broke against
Yesenia’s
hide.

Then she was diving, and spouting flame, and three
ladders caught fire, and broke, and there were sonic booms around us as the
sound dragons blew holes in the enemy, and the fire breathers burned the
ladders and the rams.

The battle must have raged on for some time after
that, but I did not rage with it. I could do no more.

Yesenia
flew me over to
the other side of the wall, and I lost consciousness.

BACK IN THE WHITE ROOM

When I awoke in the white room I
wondered for a moment if everything I had experienced in the last few days had
been a dream; it felt like nothing had changed; but the feeling of calm and
sameness was momentary. My senses came back to me, slowly, and I realized I was
not alone in the hospital wing; I heard and felt the pain from the rooms around
mine, and slowly, I got to my feet.

I still felt numb.

Not only were my hands and feet lacking in
sensation, but my hearing was dull and my vision blurry. I sat back down on the
bed. On the table next to the bed was a plate of food and drink.

The pain that throbbed in my head was not my pain,
it was another’s, it was from Elias, and the others. Pain from the living. From
the dead, I felt nothing but an empty ache. I felt small and weak, but realized
I needed to eat now, before I walked out of the room.

I filled my mouth with a roll, chewed mechanically
and swallowed, then drank a gulp of juice. I tried to think of nothing, to hear
and feel nothing with my already dulled senses.

I ate. I drank. And I ate once again.

Slowly, warmth flowed back to my members. I felt
tingling in what had been numb, and felt blood flowing throughout my body as
warmth radiated out from my stomach.

I realized I was parched as well as hungry, and
drank the juice in great swills.

We had won the battle. Had it been worth it? It
was too early to see if we would win the war.

I wanted to get up and see my fallen friends.
Karsten
was gone. I could feel his absence, an ache in my
stomach. He had been a better baker than a warrior, and would he have even ever
been a warrior at all if it were not for me? Now it would be my turn to plant a
seed in the forest.

There would be many seeds planted. I didn’t want
to think how many.

Elias too was slipping. All the power he had in
him, all the power around him in the city still didn’t seem enough. I wanted to
put my hands on him and try to suck the poison out of him. To suck it out of
all those who still lived and suffered next to me.

But I was too weak to even get out of bed. From
somewhere far overhead, dragon song came into my mind then, soothing, and
drowned out some of the pain from those still suffering all around me.
Yesenia
and I were one now, I knew, she loved me
unconditionally, no matter how many people I had caused to die. We would never
be separate for as long as I would live. She sang me a song I knew, a song I
remembered from long ago, from my grandmother, or maybe my great-grandmother. A
song I had sung with
Kalle
, one day that seemed so
long ago, when we had trained on the packed dirt of the practice field. A song
that I had forgotten then, but somehow my blood had remembered, and
Yesenia
had pulled out of my head now, or from my blood. A
song that brought back memories of long ago, of pleasures long forgotten, of my
childhood in the far north.

Sometime later I slept. And dreamed of a world
without bloodshed, without evil lords, without battles and pollution and hate.
But even as I slept, part of me knew it was just a dream.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Teddy Jacobs writes epic and urban fantasy for
all ages from his home in New England. Learn more about his books at
www.teddyjacobs.com
.

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