Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3) (17 page)

I guess small was a relative term. The legs were small compared to the rest of it, but they were bigger than I was and each one had three serrated claws with a long spike sticking out the heel.

The dragon slid down from the tree and walked up to me. It was then that I really got a sense of the size of this creature. The Havocs were big, but this thing was enormous. Its head was as wide as my house, and its body was wider than my bedroom. Each of the teeth in its fang-filled mouth were as long as I was tall.

It was kind of intimidating, even to a Berserker.

The dragon planted its front set of claws on the ground and reared its head up. It vaguely reminded me of a dog sitting down – only this dog blotted out half the sky with its bulk. It unfurled its wings and they stretched out hundreds of feet. The sheer size of this dragon and the tree made me feel very small and insignificant.

Finally the dragon opened its mouth and spoke to me.

"You did well, Madison," it said in a familiar voice. It was the voice from my last dream. The one that became the man with dark hair and the mischievous eyes.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "I didn't rebind Thuanar. He got away."

"You did as well as could be expected," the dragon said and opened his huge mouth in yawn wide enough to swallow a semi truck. "The important thing is that you kept the bond from breaking on its own. That would have been... unfortunate."

"So you told me," I said. "And not much else."

The dragon's mouth moved in what I guessed was supposed to be a smile.

"Patience," he said. "In time I will tell you all. But for now I give you milk until you are ready for meat."

"Ok," I said. "Let's start milking."

The dragon laughed – a loud grinding noise that made the ground around me shake. The motion was so strong that I lost my balance and almost fell down.

"Oh, Madison," he said. "I am so glad that you are the one fate has put in this position. This will be so much more fun with someone feisty like you." The dragon stuck out an enormous tongue and licked its own face. "What I am here to tell you is simple: all the bindings are breaking."

A cold lump of dread settled into my chest. "What do you mean 'all'?"

The dragon lowered his head and looked at me with its enormous eyes. "I mean all," he said. "Every single one of the bonds is breaking."

"But we haven't heard anything," I said. "Wouldn't there be massive storms and earthquakes like with Thuanar's bond?"

"Eventually," the dragon said. "When they are closer to breaking. Thuanar's binding was especially weak and the energy was already releasing. The others are at various stages of decay."

"How much time do we have?"

The dragon cocked its massive head to the side and considered the question. "It's hard to say, precisely. Weeks, maybe months for some."

The cold lump of fear in my chest rapidly spread throughout my body, making my limbs feel cold and bloodless. There were only weeks left before all the bonds broke on their own? What was going on?

"But why?" I asked. "Why is this happening?"

"Because of you," the dragon said.

"Because of me?" That wasn't the answer I had expected to hear. "How can this be happening because of me?"

"It's pretty simple, really. By being both a Berserker and a Binder you broke the balance and disrupted the binding power. Your very existence has corrupted the magic."

"So, this is all my fault?"

"In a way," the dragon said. "After all, this is happening because you exist. But you didn't really have a choice on how you would be born. I would place more of the blame on your parents for breaking the Berserker-Binder taboo."

"But they didn't know," I said. "No one knew."

"Of course they didn't know," said the dragon. "But that doesn't change the outcome."

"Is there a way to fix it?"

"This isn't something fixable," the dragon said. "This event was prophesied from the foundation when the first Havoc was bound. You saw the note that Mallika left. The powers are consolidating in you. Whether that happens because the Berserkers die first or because the bond snaps and then the Berserker dies, is up to you. But the corruption has started and it will not end until all the bonds have broken and you have all their powers. And then you will have to face the most important choice in the history of the world.  

"Which is what?"

The dragon shook its head. "That is something you are not yet ready to know. But when the time is right, you will know everything you need to make a decision."

Before I could protest and yell at the dragon for giving me incomplete and cryptic answers to all my questions, he turned around, wrapped himself around the massive tree, and slithered out of sight.

When I opened my eyes, I was still on the airplane. From the sound of the engines and the increasing pressure in my ears, I guessed we must be starting our descent.

Rhys sat next to me, his hand holding mine, while my head rested on his shoulder. It was my standard airplane position of choice. I straightened up and turned to face Rhys.

Something in my expression must have given away my fear because Rhys asked, "What's wrong?" 

I told him all about my dream – the tree, the animals, and the dragon who spoke to me. When I was finished, Rhys' expression had hardened. Could I blame him? I just had a dream where I was told that he, and all the other Berserkers and Binders besides me were all going to die.

"I don't want you to die," I said. I could feel tears waiting to come out, but I managed to blink them back.

Rhys’ hard expression melted. "I don't want to die either," he said. "Listen, we don't know who this person is, how they’re communicating with you, or even if what they are telling you is the truth. So, until we know more, let's not start digging any graves. I'm planning on living a long, happy life with you. Believe me, I will not give up that dream without fighting with every last ounce of strength I have."

***

Upon arriving at Tierra Del Fuego, we received the news that the weather in Antarctica was too bad to allow us to fly there directly. We would have to go with plan B and travel by boat. It would take us several days rather than a few hours, but it was our only option at this point.

We had already chartered a small yacht as a backup plan, so we wasted no time purchasing our supplies and getting onto the ship.

The captain and three-man crew only spoke Spanish, but it was clear they thought we were absolutely crazy to make a trip to Antarctica during this time of year. I couldn't really blame them. If we had been normal people, they would have been absolutely right. We were inexperienced and completely unprepared. Well, I was anyway. Rhys had actually been here before, but that had been almost a half a century ago.

The world had changed a bit since then.

The plan was for the yacht to get as close to the Ronne Ice Shelf as possible and then Rhys and I would take a small launch craft to get to land – well ice anyway. At that point, we would use our Berserker powers to run inland to the Pensacola Mountains where the creature we were looking for lived.

Not exactly the most hospitable spot, but it appeared the isolation had kept the creature alive so I couldn't really blame it.

On the boat ride over, Rhys told me about the creature we were looking for – an albino ice worm. When he told me the name, I held my thumb and forefinger a few inches apart. "Ice worm?"

Rhys shook his head and held his arms out, the tips of his fingers touching and his arms making a circle about two feet in diameter. "Ice worm," he said. "A bit of a misnomer as 'giant ice serpent' might be more appropriate, but I didn't pick the name."

I sighed, and mentally prepared for the worst. Of course this wouldn't be easy. Nothing as a Berserker ever was.

The journey across the waters of the Drake Passage was rough to say the least. The yacht captain and his crew were very good, but some of the waves were much, much larger than I would have liked. Obviously I didn't have much to fear, but it was one thing to know that intellectually, and quite another to feel it emotionally. I wasn't quite there yet.

Rhys, however, seemed completely at ease on the ship. He even had a wistful look in his eyes as he peered over the railing and into the dark ocean. Having grown up the son of a Welsh fisherman, he still retained a fondness for boats and practically bottomless bodies of water.

"Do you know what I want?" he asked.

I wrapped my arms around him and held on tightly as the ship rocked to and fro. "What?"

"When this is all over, and you and I have time to be together, I want to sail around the world with you." As he said this, a huge grin lit up his face. "We could stop and explore wherever we wanted and just enjoy being together."

Circumnavigating the globe was a bit out of my comfort zone, but if I could do it with Rhys, I would feel safe enough to try.

Getting Dad's permission would be another story.

Either he would insist on coming along, or this would need to wait until Rhys and I were married.

Of course, if we didn't succeed here, Dad would never give his permission about anything again.

When we were within sight of our destination, the yacht captain lowered the anchor, and Rhys and I loaded our supplies onto a small inflatable boat with an outboard motor. It looked a lot like the Zodiacs the military used to bring soldiers to land.

The sky was still dark, and the sun wouldn't rise for a few more hours. Even then we would only have a couple of hours of daylight at the most. I promised myself I would never again complain about the winter days being short in Washington.

We loaded our packs with several sources of light, food, and an emergency shelter just in case it took us longer to find these ice worms than we anticipated.

The yacht Captain made one final plea for us to forget the trip and travel back with him. Given the seriousness of my dad’s situation, going back without the venom wasn't even an option. The Captain agreed to wait for three days. If we weren't back by then, he would have to return to Tierra Del Fuego to resupply. That would mean it would be another week before he could come back to pick us up. Which in the Captain’s mind was a death sentence.

If I thought the waves were rough on the yacht, it was nothing compared to the smaller landing boat. We bounced and jumped across the waves, jarring every bone in my body. Berserker powers or not, this was not the most comfortable way to travel.

We pulled the boat inland and hid it from sight. Given the location and almost complete lack of a population, we didn't really need to worry about people stealing it, but we both felt better knowing it was not viewable from the water.

I took a moment and looked around. Now that I stopped to think about it, aside from the crappy circumstances, this was kind of amazing. I was pretty sure none of my friends at school had ever been here.

It was pitch black around us. Our flashlights lit up the ground twenty feet away from us, but beyond that it was dark. The ground was covered in ice – or more accurately, it
was
ice. We were on a sheet of ice that was over a mile thick and never thawed out.

Given the current temperature of negative 95 degrees Fahrenheit, I could understand why.

Fortunately Rhys and I were both bundled up in multiple layers of the most high-tech fabrics money could buy. It was amazing how warm you could stay with the right equipment. Well, that and Berserker powers.

Once we were out of sight of the yacht, we both 'zerked and started running. We turned off our flashlights since the glow surrounding us was much brighter than their beams and our enhanced vision let us see in near-dark conditions.

We ran for several hours, going slower than we would have liked because of the uneven ice-covered ground, but we were still traveling much faster than anything short of an airplane.

The ice shelf ended, giving way to actual ground, but that was mostly covered in ice with various rocks jutting out, so it really wasn't all that different.

We crested a large hill, and I came to a sudden and complete stop. This hill overlooked a large ice-covered valley extending for miles before ending at a wall of mountains jutting out of the ground. As amazing as that was, it wasn't the mountains that made me stop.

It was the lights.

Off in the distance the sky was lit up in green, red, and blue. The southern lights.

I had heard about them, and even seen pictures, but all of that paled to the reality of seeing them in person. They weren't static as I had always assumed they would be – like a twisted rainbow. They danced and moved, undulating through the night sky.

I watched them in awe, keenly aware of what an amazing sight this was. Rhys stopped beside me and also took in the view. We stood there together for several minutes, neither of us saying a word, enjoying a brief respite from all the stress, pressure, and worry of recent events.

And then the moment was over.

We began running again, down the hill and into the valley. We crossed the miles in a blur of speed and motion, until Rhys held up a hand to signal a stop.

He pointed to a hole in the ice, almost perfectly round and about two feet in diameter. Just the right size for an ice worm. We shined our flashlights in, but saw nothing in the large hole.

"Well, we're in the right general area," Rhys said.

And then I had an idea. "Let me try something," I said. I formed a snare tendril and pushed my consciousness so that I could see through it. I then threaded the tendril down the hole.

The tendril followed the twists and turns of the hole for almost a hundred feet. This wasn't just a quick hole or tunnel, there was an entire labyrinth of passages down there. The creature probably lived down here, which would explain how it could survive in such a harsh environment and be completely unknown by modern science.

I dropped the snare and let it dissolve into vapor. I turned my attention to Rhys and saw him drop to his hands and knees, gritting his teeth in agony.

"Rhys!" I dropped down beside him, and lay him flat on the ground. His eyes rolled back in his head, and his breathing was harsh and ragged.