Resurgent Shadows (Successive Harmony Book 1) (35 page)

“This is impossible!” Jarome yelled over the roars of the dragons battling on the other side of the massive chamber.

The figure that had dropped from the White Dragon’s back took a step forward into the sunlight as Caleb grabbed Faeranir and pulled an arrow from his quiver. The light revealed white-blond hair pulled back in a braid over pale pointed ears. Almond shaped blue eyes flashed from the depths of her perfect face. The woman was garbed in dark blue leggings and a tight leather blouse that accented her features alluringly. She moved with an inhuman grace and, when she spoke, her voice radiated a vibrancy and color that brought a measure of happiness to the room.

“It is your day to die, Dragonlord,” she said quietly. She darted towards him, the speed at which she ran stunning Caleb and the Dragonlord alike.

Jarome barely had his sword out before the woman was upon him. Her slender blade darted through his guard and cut a long line down the side of his face. He cried out and swung at her with a powerful side stroke, but she was no longer there, having darted around and cut him along the back of his leg. It was clear that she would win the contest.

Caleb turned away from the fight and surveyed the monolithic battle of the two dragons behind him, an arrow already on Faeranir’s string. Lando still stood resolutely between the two battles, the staff raised above his head and his eyes shut in concentration.

The dragons were locked in each other’s embrace, claws raking at underbellies and teeth sinking into scaly flesh as often as they could get a hold. The White Dragon was bigger, his legs and body more thickly muscled and covered with a thick plating of raised scales on his back and belly, which protected him from the frenzied slashing of his opponent’s feet. The Red, for its credit, was much more agile, twisting out of the White’s grip and sinking its fangs into the White’s shoulder.

The White bellowed in rage as a drop of thick red blood slipped from the wound down the side of his perfect white scales. He opened his mouth and breathed a cone of frost into the Red’s face.

The Red Dragon snorted and shot out an answering mouthful of flame. The two forces met and dissipated against one another instantly. The White Dragon, its rear-facing spiral horns gleaming in the sunlight, shot its neck forward and seized the Red along the throat under its jaw. With a powerful jerk of its neck, the White Dragon tore away a large chunk of scales, dropping a shower of hissing blood onto the ground. The Red Dragon screamed in agony and reared back, pulling out of the White Dragon’s grip.

Caleb seized the moment, seeing the gaping wound exposed on the Red Dragon’s neck. He drew and fired, sending a silver shaft deep into the raw flesh. The dragon’s scream’s cut off instantly as the shaft glowed white and the flesh around it began to freeze at a rapid rate. The patch of frozen flesh expanded outward quickly until, with a sudden alarming crack, the dragon’s head split from its neck and toppled lifelessly to the ground with a resounding crash. Both the body and the head continued to freeze until all that remained was a frozen, broken statue.

The White Dragon took a few steps away from the body and turned to regard Caleb with a twist of its long white neck. Deep blue eyes that shone like stars regarded him, and Caleb suddenly felt as if the dragon could see right through him. Blood dripped from a half a dozen wounds on the dragon’s body and there was a tear in one of his wings, but he stood strong, radiating power and strength despite the wounds.

“Rolaen says that you must come with us now,” the woman’s voice said at Caleb’s side.

Caleb turned to regard her, Faeranir still held at the ready. She too had piercing blue eyes that regarded him coolly with more than a little curiosity. Caleb looked beyond her to where the Dragonlord Jarome had been, seeing only a pile of armor and robes stained with blood in the doorway.

Caleb whirled, turning back to face the dragon, “Where have you been since the Breaking? You abandoned us to fend for ourselves when you’ve been here all this time. Why did you desert us?”

The White Dragon growled softly.

The woman’s face hardened, muscles tightening in her jaw. “Now is not the time to fight. Rolaen instructs me to tell you that if you want to find the answers to your dreams, you must come with us. There isn’t any time left for wasting.” She spoke as if she did not understand herself the message she was relaying.

Fighting indignation, Caleb felt himself nodding and shouldering Faeranir, his heart at peace, but his mind still racing.

“Wait!” Sigvid yelled, running forward and skittering across the loose coins and almost falling. “I’m coming with you! I have more than a few words to be saying to these aylfin myself.”

The aylfin woman shook her head. “There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already tried,” she said.

“I won’t let Caleb go alone,” Sigvid snapped, dropping a hand onto his axe.

“Enough!” a soft voice hissed, causing them all to turn and look at Nepja who was slowly getting to his feet with the aid of Lando and his staff. “Sigvid, you can’t go. It is
his
destiny, not yours.”

Sigvid opened his mouth to protest, but quailed under the looked Nepja leveled at him. The wizard, already an intimidating and somewhat unnerving figure, looked all the more wraithlike and vengeful with dried blood around his mouth and streaked from his ears.

The aylfin woman examined Nepja with as much curiosity as she had scrutinized Caleb. “I did not expect to see one of your Order here,” she said simply.

Nepja inclined his head but said nothing. Behind them, the White Dragon growled again and the aylfin maiden whirled back around to face him.

“Come,” she said, taking Caleb by the arm with surprising strength. “We must go.”

She led him to the dragon’s side. Rolaen crouched so they could climb up his limb and onto the thick saddle on his back. Caleb slid into the groove in the saddle just behind the thin aylfin maiden and wrapped his arms around her waist. She shifted uncomfortably against him, but he did not release his hold. His mind was processing information slowly, in an almost ethereal manner.

He looked down at Sigvid as the white dragon got to its feet and bunched itself up to launch into flight. The dverger snapped a fist to his chest in salute and Caleb was surprised to see a tear escape the corner of the dverger’s eye and disappear into his beard.

Caleb nodded a brief farewell and then the dragon leapt into the air.

*              *              *              *

Eric sat against the leeward side of a large boulder, hidden by its bulk and the lip of an overhang that jutted out from the canyon wall. They had fled into the Canyonlands, those of the dverger army who had survived. The Dragonhosts had not pursued them. They were caught up in their internal battle for supremacy and power. Their inner fighting had given the dvergers the chance to escape. For now they were safe. How long that would last was another question.

Valundnir thrummed at Eric’s belt, eager for battle. The energy, the power, the hunger of the weapon screamed at him to take it up and run back to the fighting alone. It urged him to fight, to kill, to die.

He ignored it. The amulet Torsten had pressed upon him with his dying breath allowed him the calmness of mind to recognize the calls for what they were now—and gave him the strength to ignore them when he chose. It did not, however, erase the memory of the beast that he had very nearly become. Torsten’s death was his to bear—his cross to carry. The beast had allowed it. The beast had
caused
it.

The sound of someone clearing their throat pulled Eric from his blackened musings. He looked up at the dvergers huddled in the sheltered hollow with him. The remaining four thousand dvergers were hidden further down the canyon, but the leaders had gathered here. None of the clan chiefs lived, but representatives from each of the clans were present.

Pedryn was there on behalf of the Midgarth. The brutal death of his son had changed the dverger, if only to the degree that stone could change. He was quieter and more reserved, spending most of his time either assisting the clan in restoring their lost confidence or with the clerics amongst the wounded. He had begun wearing an amulet like the one Torsten had given Eric, only smaller and made of a silvery white gold instead of bronze. It made a strange counterpoint to his constantly bare feet.

“So what do we do now, Eric?” Varin asked. As the highest ranked warrior still alive, Eric had suddenly found himself in command of the entire army.

“Now we wait. Let them fight it out while we heal and figure out what our next move is. We need the respite.”

Several of the dvergers shouted their agreement and threw their meaty arms up into the air as if to rally support from those around them who were not so enthusiastic. Others, including Pedryn and Varin, frowned or gazed off into the distance, fixing on a point just out of focus.

“And what if they decide to ally themselves and come after us in even greater numbers than before?”

“We will cross that bridge if we come to it. For now we have other things we need to focus on, like how are we going to survive? We lost all our supplies when we retreated. There’s too many of us to live off the land effectively.”

“And we need to hold the council of stones in each clan,” Pedryn said. “We need to find new clan chiefs and then elect a Warleader. Eric is our leader for now, but it is not the dverger way to serve under one who is not a dverger, not even a Guerreiro as well respected as he. Even now we grate under his orders, even if we would never say it out loud.”

Pedryn looked over at Eric and met his gaze. Understanding passed between them, one of mutual respect and acceptance. They both understood how unreliable Olan had been as a king and the irony of Eric as their leader. That was not what the dvergers needed right now. They needed a true dverger, a leader who could give them a measure of hope in the chaos and instability around them. Eric didn’t believe in Atelho in the same way Torsten had. No, he still clung to his own faith, as fragile and tenuous as it may be.

“Well then, we must begin to move back northward,” one of the other dvergers said.

The other dvergers shouted their agreement, though more than a few of them shot guarded and veiled looks at Eric, who stared back at them without fear.

“Why northward?” he asked.

“We can slip past the Dragonhosts while they are busy killing each other. We go north to regain our stronghold. We travel to Tealcenrir.”

He glanced sidelong at Pedryn, looking for clarification and guidance. Pedryn, however, was on his knees, cradling his amulet in his thick, meaty hands. It glowed with a faint white light. All the other dvergers stared at him, transfixed by the glowing rapture on Pedryn’s face.

“What’s going on?” Eric asked. Valundnir appeared in his hands with a shower of sparks and a coalescence of shadows and light.

Pedryn looked up at him. His eyes shone with awe and wonder, though there was trepidation in them as well—and sadness.

“I have been chosen,” he whispered. “Chosen by Atelho to take Torsten’s place as High Priest among the clerics.”

Even as Pedryn spoke, the amulet in his hands changed. The silver white metal appeared to bubble and twist, suddenly changing to an exact replica of the medallion that hung around Eric’s neck.

“It is a sign,” he continued. “A sign of Atelho’s will. We must go.”

Pedryn got to his feet on unsteady legs, his demeanor and countenance calm and at peace. “We do not question Atelho’s will. We go north. You can come with us, or you can stay here.”

“Well then, it looks like we go north.” Eric tossed Valundnir into the air. The hammer spun, end over end, climbing into the air as if it had been thrown by the hand of a giant. It slowed and, just as it hit its apex, vanished.

*              *              *              *

Sigvid, son of Siglan, watched as Caleb flew off into the sky on the back of the enormous White Dragon, his arms wrapped around the waist of the insufferable aylfin maiden. He grunted noncommittally, but the truth was he would miss the boy. He looked over at Nepja and Lando where they stood next to the massive frozen carcass of the slain Red Dragon. What the creature had revealed had been both disturbing and exhilarating at the same time. A dverger army numbering into the thousands besieged by the Red and Brown Dragonhosts! The dverger nation may have survived after all.

“What now, wizard?” he asked gruffly.

Nepja looked over at him with an inscrutable expression, his skeletal fingers wrapped around the contours of his glowing staff.

“Now, dverger, we walk the Path of Souls. We must find this army of dvergers in the west.”

Sigvid grinned, though he had never heard of the Path of Souls. He dropped a hand to the axe at his belt.

“Let’s go then!”

Caleb slid from Rolaen’s back onto the ground, and landed in front of a large ice dome behind a massive statue of an aylfin woman. He didn’t remember much of the flight because Kaelie, the aylfin maiden, had put him into an enchanted sleep, but he remembered snatches of clouds and distant scenery below them. He had awoken only moments before as they had spiraled down into the middle of the cluster of large icy domes in the frozen tundra. He did not know where he was, though he suspected by the ice he was somewhere in Antarctica. He didn’t feel the cold in the slightest, but oddly didn’t find this peculiar at all, as though he had expected it.

He looked up at the ice sculpture of the woman in front of the snow-bound structure and started in sudden recognition, though the features were not exact. Memories came flooding back to him of the woman he had rescued in the dverger raid and the words which she had spoken to him. It was her voice that he had remembered in dreams telling him of the Dragonlords. Somehow he knew it was she that had helped Sigvid craft the bow that was on his back.

Kaelie dropped to the ground behind him.

“Who is this?” he whispered.

Kaelie’s response was reverent and just as soft. “This is Faerin—mother of the Aylfins.”

The words resounded in his ears and they rang within his mind as if filling a gap he had not known was there. A rectangular section of the wall at the woman’s feet shimmered in blue light and vanished, revealing a doorway.

Caleb stepped into the ice dome chamber as if walking into a dream. An ancient aylfin woman lay sprawled on the floor as if dead, her hair a stark ancient white. He had never seen anyone who looked so old. Just beyond her, an ovular object shook and wobbled in a bed of sand atop an icy pedestal. Strange heatless flames danced weakly beneath it.

Suddenly, there was a resounding crack and the ovular object shattered, sending fragments flying in all directions. A white, scaly, serpentine creature flopped about in the slimy remnants of the egg. Tiny white wings, little more than membrane stretched over thin finger-like bones, flapped wanly in the remaining fluids.

Eventually, the baby dragon righted itself on its four unsteady limbs and turned its head about to stare directly at Caleb, its deep blue eyes piercing him to the core. He felt a presence enter his mind and speak his name in thought.

“Caleb.”

Caleb sank to his knees, tears suddenly appearing in eyes. The voice rocked him to the very center of his being. The world stopped spinning in its course—suddenly all that mattered was the dragon hatchling before him.

“Caleb. You have found me at last. I have waited long for you. You are Faerin’s chosen!”

It was Rachel’s voice.