Golden Tide (Song of the Aura, Book Four) (19 page)

The red eyes of the draik blazed.
“YOU ARE PLAYING WITH FATE, SMALL ONE. BE CAREFUL YOU DO NOT STRAY TOO FAR, OR YOU WILL SUFFER FOR IT.”

“
Suffer?” Lauro laughed bitterly. “Fate has already made me suffer. It has taken my
kingdom
away from me, Draik! But I’ve defeated it, now. Everything the threads of the Aura have thrown at me, I’ve beaten!”

“
ALMOST.”

That one word, coming from a throat not meant to speak language, froze Lauro in his tracks. All at once he became aware of Mudlo’s horrified silence behind him, and of the pride-drunk things he had just said. It was true, too, the blasted draik… he
wasn’t
done yet. There was still time to fail, as Wanderwillow’s book had shown him he would. But that vision… It hadn’t been like this. He
had
beaten fate… hadn’t he?

“
I…” Lauro felt lost, all of a sudden. His control was fading too rapidly to save. Why did this… this
beast
unnerve him so?

“
ADMIT IT, HUMAN. YOU OWE ME A DEBT. DO YOU SEE THIS CARNAGE? THERE IS WAR IN YOUR LITTLE LAND, AND YOU CANNOT STOP IT ALONE.”

“
Aura’s Light, Lauro,” Mudlo whispered behind him, “He’s right. There’ve been rumors among the rangers for weeks now, but this confirms it. Vastion’s at war with the Golden Nation!”

Lauro spun. “The Golden Nation? What in the Blazes is
that?
What do you rangers keep from us?” He was shocked to realize that by
us
, he somehow meant himself and his father. The rulers of Vastion.

Mudlo grew defensive. “We aren’t beholden to your kingdom, Lauro. But I’d wager your… that King Larion’s been told. The rangers on the inside of Vastion have been trying to hold off this war for years.”

Lauro’s mouth felt dry and his limbs weak in a way that had nothing to do with his fight with the Pit Strider. His world was being twisted inside out what seemed like every day.

“
DO YOU SEE, LAURO VALE? YOUR TEMPTING FATE HAS UNLEASHED APOCALYPSE… EARLY. YOU MUST MAKE HASTE IF YOU ARE TO REACH THE RED AURA IN TIME.”

“
But the Giant’s Isle is still some days away,” Mudlo interjected.

Lauro snarled. “And if war had reached this far north, we may be… too late.”

Steamclaw roared, then, shaking the ruins with his fury.
“FOOLS! I SERVE THE RED AURA NOW!
HE
IS MY MASTER, AND HE HAS SENT ME TO BRING YOU!”

“
How?” Lauro snapped, a tremulous hope beginning to form in his chest. Steamclaw spoke but one word more.

“
RIDE.”

~

Captain Bernarl kept many secrets. It was a tremendous weight off his shoulders to let one of the deepest go.

“
What is this all-saving idea you have for catching up to a three-days-gone steamship?” King Gram had asked him, and Gribly had echoed the question. So Berne had showed them his Talent, and they had been as astonished as he had known they would be.

So now he stood in the front of the ship, wind whipping the misty tendrils of his Mist Nymph form, guiding the ship through the currents of the Great Channel with his mind.

Coldness on his left, heat on his right.

“
Steer us North, Karmidigan!”
The Sea Strider’s powers were growing almost hourly, as were those of his companion Reethe. They were chasing demons, but they were
catching up
.

Gribly’s voice came hesitantly from behind. “Are you sure this will work?” His tone was incredulous. Berne didn’t blame him… he had kept knowledge of his Second Form hidden so long, after all.

“
It will work,”
he said confidently, the smooth, airy effect of his Ghost Form blurring the words he spoke. And it would. It
had
to.

~

The draik slowed to a halt hours later, as night fell once more and the clouds covering most of Vast’s sky grew a darker shade of gray. Lauro and Mudlo tumbled off the beast to land heavily in the grass, sprawled out limply, gasping as if it had been they who had traversed so much of the Greyfeld. Steamclaw looked the worse for wear, too, Lauro had to admit; his red eyes were duller and his fur, where he had any, was matted with sweat.

“
So… bloody… fast…” the prince moaned. “Felt like… flying…”

“…
Could barely hold on…” Mudlo was whispering hoarsely.

“
GET… GET UP, HUMANS! THE RACE IS NOT FINISHED! LOOK!”
Steamclaw sounded as close to frantic as Lauro thought he’d ever get. Rolling over and prying himself up off the ground, Lauro looked where the draik was facing, gouging the ground with one patchwork metal paw.

“
I don’t see…” he began. But then he
did
see it, and he swore so violently that Mudlo was up beside him in a second.

“
What? Oh… oh, no…”

Fires burned in the distance, illuminating the night with bloody brilliance. So many fires…

“
The war is coming,” Lauro said grimly, hand instinctively reaching for the halfswords on his back.

“
No,” Mudlo almost whimpered, “It’s already here…”

“
TURN AND SEE, HUMAN,”
Steamclaw growled. Lauro turned in the opposite direction as the draik ambled slowly away, approaching something large and white that glowed orange in the fire-lit night. It was a bridge… a blasted
big
one.

“
Wait…” Lauro felt as if he was missing something. Something that-

-
pop!
All of a sudden, it was as if all the sights and sounds of the world rushed in upon him. After the blistering speed and numbing pain of riding a draik down the Greyfeld, Lauro felt alive again; a life that burned and seared, but washed him in cold healing at its touch.

The wind was carrying him news again. The enormous, ivory-sheen bridge in front of him stretched off into the dark oblivion beyond his line of vision, but he knew from what he felt in the skies that it ran on across the water for miles more, until it reached the wind-swept slopes of the Giant’s Isle, a titanic mountain thrusting up out of the sea.

And the
sea
. He could hear it foaming and washing and spitting defiance at the wind, hundreds of feet below him. Here, past the line that split Vast North from South, the land rose ever higher above the water. They stood almost on the very edge of the longest, highest cliffs he had ever encountered, save past the Rain Caves in the lands where he had fought the pirates in a bygone life.

“
This… this is it, then?” he said quietly, feeling small. He felt more than saw the landscape around him, and knew in his heart that the last stage of his quest was near.

“
The Giant’s Bridge,” Mudlo said solemnly, joining him. “This is it, all right.”

“
COME,”
Steamclaw ordered, crouching wearily at the beginning of the bridge now, some twenty paces ahead.

The dark shape of the draik against the far larger shape of the white bridge only made Lauro feel fainter, but he knew there was no turning back now. One foot in front of the other, he took step after step until he and Mudlo had joined the draik. One last look behind, where Vastion burned from a mysterious and deadly attack…

…
and then Lauro Vale, Prince of Vastion, turned away. He strode into the darkness shrouding the Giant’s Isle, intent on nothing but the journey he was bound to finish.

Circles. That was how fate ran. In circles. And it hurt.

The Giant’s Bridge was crossed in the night, Steamclaw trotting along raggedly while Lauro and Mudlo dragged on behind, panting and gasping with the exertion. Their unearthly guide did not slow or pause, tired as it was, and the two warriors were obliged to keep up the pace no matter what.

Morning came, and the circle turned. The bridge ended, and when Lauro collapsed with exhaustion on the shore of the Giant’s Isle, he was shocked to look back and find that they had crossed nearly a third of the Great Channel. The Giant’s Isle was so huge, it made up another third, and the bridgeless waters on the far side completed the distance. The wind told him, and he knew it was true. It whispered all kinds of sensations and messages in his ear, now. Every one of them true. The wind did not lie.

Their rest was short; then the ranger, the prince, and the draik were climbing the jagged slopes of the mountainous isle, walking when they could not run, crawling when they could no longer force themselves to stand. If there had ever been a road to meet the bridge, it had vanished in time out of mind.

The morning light came, and the sun leaped into the sky; here, at least, in the domain of the Red Aura, the clouds of war could not obscure the sky. That extra encouragement, that small bit of strength that poured into Lauro from his native element in its full, uncovered glory, was just enough to push him onward. Much as he would not have liked to admit it, he was not as resilient as a draik or as rugged as a ranger. But the Power of Sky filled him until he thought his heart might stop from the intensity… and he continued on, far past his normal stamina and will would allow.

Then, at long, long last, when the late afternoon was blocked by the peak of the Giant’s Mount, casting a titan’s shadow across the Isle… the climb ended.

“
WE… ARE HERE… HUMAN PRINCE… LOOK UP…”

Lauro lifted his face groggily up from where he had dropped the minute before, exhausted beyond belief and barely able even to feel the pain of his aching body and bruised, scarred hands and feet. The climb had not been gentle, even after he had bundled his coat and shirt and swords at his back. Sweat that had glistened on his chest and arms was now caked and dry, sticky and unpleasant. But he forced his eyelids to open, and his muscles to lift him up. The sight would have taken his breath away, if he had had any left.

“
The… Giant’s… Mount…” Mudlo gasped, half lying across his own pack of gear and weapons where he had dropped them.

In the voluminous shadow that bathed the near side of the mountain’s peak, they had come to a sort of small valley, as if the rock had been ripped out of the mountainside in the shape of a deep rectangular alley. At their end, a flight of steps more than double the size of a humans’ began, sloping steeply upward for hundreds upon hundreds of yards until they stopped at a tall, blank rock face. Lauro stared for several long moments, eyes adjusting to the shadow, before he realized that there was a dark line running down the middle of the cliff.

It was a door, and it was just the smallest part open.

“
We’re on a giant’s doorstep,” Mudlo breathed, open awe in his voice. Bit by slow bit, Lauro and he picked themselves up and faced Steamclaw.

“
GIANTS DID NOT BUILD THIS. THIS IS THE WORK OF THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE.”

“
Well, what do we do now?” Lauro tried not to let his voice shake from sheer exhaustion.

“
We, ah… go in, it looks like.” Mudlo seemed to be slightly recovered, at least enough to start talking like a loony again. Lauro tried, and failed, to smile confidently.

“
Right.”

Steamclaw suddenly stiffened, a low growl emanating from its jaws. Then its eyes blazed crimson and it reared up on its hind legs, clawing the air and roaring until Lauro clapped hands over his ears in pain. Mudlo did the same, but the look he gave the creature was something closer to pity than anger or fear.
Can he understand the speech of animals, too?
Lauro wondered.

The draik tossed its head and bounded forward, racing up the steps faster than it should have been able to without resting. In moments it had vanished between the two doors.

“
Blast!” Lauro spat, and began to laboriously climb the steps after the draik, his pack pulling awkwardly at his shoulder, unbalancing him. Mudlo followed, puffing and blowing, but saying nothing. Sweat began to drip freely again on both their faces, despite the cold air and chilling shadows, as they pushed themselves harder and harder, trying desperately to reach the doors.