Seraph of Sorrow (35 page)
The rest of the Blaze stood by, perched on the beams of the bridge’s arch like reptilian eagles. None of them appeared certain what to do. In a battle between their Eldest, the Ancient Furnace, and their greatest enemy, what to do? Even Jonathan Scales had taken a few steps back, and his hidden wife had not shot any more arrows. Were they confident in their daughter? Afraid of hurting her? Winona welcomed their indecision; the fray was crowded enough.
She got close enough to Jennifer to push the girl aside with her bulk. This gave her an instant to lash at Glory with massive jaws. The mayor winced at the tooth that grazed her arm, but recovered in time to slash her enemy across the scaled cheek. Winona did not mind the cut. It was shallow, and a dragon’s skull could take far more punishment than that. It bothered her far more that Jennifer kept inserting herself into the middle of this fight.
“Eldest, stand down!”
“I don’t take orders from children.” Winona dodged another strike from Glory.
“Mayor, stand down!”
Glory did not grace Jennifer with a reply. Winona could see the mayor was not attacking the girl with the same force that she attacked Winona. Like the battle between Ancient Furnace and Eldest, the battle between beaststalkers seemed more about dominance than death.
Between Winona and Glory, it was a different matter. The mayor’s blade slid through Winona’s defenses and struck her between two lower ribs. This caused her to grunt, though she couldn’t say it hurt that much. Reaching down with one wing claw to cover the mayor’s hand on the hilt, she reached up with the other claw, grabbed some of that shining white hair, and slammed her thick reptilian skull into her enemy’s forehead.
That’s for Ma.
Then she put all her weight down upon hand and hilt, until she heard a crack in the aging wrist. A hiss of pain escaped the mayor, who let go of her blade.
That’s for Forrester.
With the sword still sticking out of her side, Winona pivoted on one hind leg and brought her tail around. Glory was focused on her broken wrist and did not see it coming. The blow struck the torso, knocking the mayor off her legs and sprawling her against the bridge railing.
“Eldest, no!”
Winona pushed Jennifer aside, her limbs full of strength and hate. Victory was too close. She heard the buzzing above, as the Blaze watched the tide turn her way.
If I kill her here,
a corner of her mind thought,
maybe it can be over. Maybe we don’t have to burn the town down.
To hell with that,
the rest of her mind answered.
She dies, and we burn the town down anyway. A new Pinegrove will rise from the ashes.
She opened her jaws and stomped toward where the mayor slouched against the railing.
That was when everything went very wrong, very suddenly. The nighttime sky beyond the strange barrier quivered. The steel girders overhead groaned like ghosts, and the railing behind the mayor began to melt. Winona stopped and steeled her hind legs.
Sorcery. Werachnids!
She turned to look for them and was astounded by the scene around her. While there was nothing on eight legs as far as she could see, there was plenty else to take in. Molten steel was dripping off the girders, forming puddles of magma. The Blaze above chattered like lemurs as they grew hair over their bodies, and her paralyzed granddaughter curled into a writhing mass of black coils and feathers. Instead of Tasa and a thunderbird, a flock of rainbow parrots fought what appeared to be a flying biped composed entirely of kelp.
And in the midst of it all, the Ancient Furnace shone like a gold statue, staring at Winona.
The Eldest of the Blaze cursed as the bridge heaved to one side, making her stumble away from Glory Seabright, who had begun to grow rose-scented quills all over her body, until she was like a giant, perfumed porcupine. Winona knew the movement of the bridge wasn’t real—neither were the melting beams, or the transformations of those on it. No, this was the work of Jennifer Scales, who had learned a new trick from the only dragon who could possibly have taught it to her. Tasa had told the truth, after all.
Damn you, Smokey! How could you help her!
The edges of Winona’s mind began to blur. The knowledge that what was she was sensing was not real, combined with her eyes’ and ears’ continued insistence that it was, spun her consciousness. She thought she heard the Blaze’s chatter shift to screams of alarm—or was that cackling laughter?—and so she whirled toward Glory Seabright, expecting an attack. The quilled mayor had sprouted a few pretty irises around her nose and ears, but she was not moving.
Or is she moving, and I can’t see it?
She turned to the golden form of the Ancient Furnace, the only part of her environment that remained stable.
“Ancient Furnace! You’ll cost me my life! Stop this immediately!”
Jennifer neither answered nor moved. The unreal shapes and sounds—and the emerging scent of sulfur—did not abate. Her panic increasing, Winona searched for something she could hold on to. Every step she took toward Jennifer felt like climbing a rising drawbridge. Every step she took toward the mayor felt like acid on her hide. Back toward the western end of the bridge, a herd of giant lemmings was approaching, chattering and chewing gum. One of them broke ahead of the pack and came straight for her, leaving the others to run in circles beneath the hairy Blaze while a large, purple worm bounced back and forth among them.
“Jennifer Scales, please!”
Call off the fight
came a chorus of voices from the shining statue.
Spare Mayor Seabright. Send the Blaze away. Then I’ll let you go.
“How dare you!” Indignation combed Winona’s mind clean enough for her to banish some of the illusion. There was the true night sky to the east, with stars pulsing a tranquil beat, behind the gray and stable bridge structure. Catherine lay on the ground, half-real and half-snake, while Jennifer Scales continued to glow.
Winona turned to the west, where everything was still wrong. The flowery porcupine began to stand up with a quizzical look.
Soon she’ll realize I can’t function, and she’ll kill me.
To the west, the lemmings chattered at the Blaze, which howled back from their red-hot girders above. The lone lemming that had broken away now ran on two legs, baring its teeth and closing the distance on Winona and Glory. It carried something in its front paws—
A piece of paper? A hockey helmet? The letter
Q
?
—and raised it high as it charged.
When she tried to back away, the bridge chose that moment to heave again, and she stumbled over her own feet. As she fell, the object the lemming held came down in a fierce arc and buried itself in her throat.
An axe,
she realized too late.
The illusions collapsed nearly as quickly as she did, but she had no time to take in who held the axe. The gloom of death descended too quickly. Winona Brandfire, last of the Brandfire dragons, saw only three things before she passed.
The first was the fury on Glorianna Seabright’s face, as the mayor realized her own victory had been denied. In that fury, filtered through the wisdom of imminent death, Winona saw the folly in her actions this night.
I was nothing more than a conquest for her. She was nothing more than a conquest for me. And we both should have been so much more.
The second was the crimson blur of Tasa, her first and last friend, racing down through the bridge girders in a tearful wrath, shouting her name over and over. Even as he got closer, the sound of his voice got fainter. Would he survive her death? She didn’t think so. And she didn’t want him to, for what he would probably do for revenge.
The third was the horror on Jennifer Scales’s human face, as the girl realized she had played a role in the Eldest’s demise.
And in Catherine’s hobbling,
she reminded herself. Despite this, she found she couldn’t generate any more anger. She had only sadness and regret. Her head tilted to the side and she tried to talk, but blood filled her throat and spilled over her exhausted jaws.
Don’t change,
she tried to warn the darkening shape of the girl.
Don’t change, like I had to. Stay as you are. Stay happy.
Stay away from the rest of us.
PART 5
Henry Blacktooth
The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.
—SOPHOCLES
CHAPTER 17
Perfect
At the age of fifteen, Henry “Hank” Blacktooth attended the funeral of his father. He did not break. He was, after all, perfect. His mother had made him so.
His stolid demeanor at the service was true to form, everyone there commented. Tall, quiet, and muscular, he had always stood out from lesser classmates who talked too much and too loudly. Beyond that, he made himself rare. Most girls saw only flashes of him during school hours, walking at the head of a small pack of serious boys between classes. They heard his voice only when a teacher asked him a question (to which he always had the correct answer). Once the school day was done, he went home. As strong as he was, he was not on a sports team, because that would have interfered with his grueling studies under his parents’ tutelage.
The huge gaps he left in girls’ knowledge of him set their imaginations free: He was a romantic soul, deeply hurt, who hungered for a soul mate to kiss with just the right amount of force. He would be devoted to this lucky girl (and every girl at Winoka High nominated herself the odds-on favorite). He would anticipate her needs. Above all, he would fight for her.
Hank learned how to fight from his mother, Dawn Farrier. A fierce, independent woman tutored by Glorianna Seabright, Dawn had taken the mayor’s recommendation to marry into the Blacktooth family, to a handsome man named Geoffrey. Geoffrey Blacktooth’s parents had moved to Winoka shortly before he was born. They had no connection to the town where a fifteen-year-old Glorianna stunned dragonkind and emerged as a messiah. They had never gone on a raid with her, or camped out on her farm. In fact, camping was far from their roots. The Blacktooths were one of the few resident families of Winoka who could trace their lineage directly to the Welsh dragon-killers of the Dark Ages. In fact, their family owned a castle in southwest Wales, full of armor and weaponry that had seen all manner of drakes, wyrms, and other beasts.
One piece, the Blacktooth Blade, was legendary among beaststalkers. There were illustrations and descriptions of its deeds in the faded, tattered pages Richard Seabright had left his daughter. The Blacktooth Blade was a token of immortality and invincibility. It had lasted over sixty generations. It had touched a beast in every one. It had killed every beast it touched.
It touched the skin of Dawn Farrier once. The details of the incident remained private.
The funeral for Geoffrey Blacktooth, favored son of Welsh immigrants, was a spectacular and honorable affair. Everyone from Winoka was there—the mayor, the city council, and most members of the police and fire departments, and many families. Some families had teenaged daughters, and all of their eyes were on the bereaved son. Hank’s eyes, however, were on only two girls—one he had met when he was twelve, and one he had met a year later. Both meetings had been short, and both had been in the presence of Glorianna Seabright.
The first meeting had been so brief, Hank barely remembered the mayor. She was training with a single child, chosen from all the Winoka families to receive the mayor’s concentrated tutelage for several years, as she had done with Dawn years before. She and a young blonde were at Winoka High’s football field. The girl had sharp green eyes and long, delicate fingers grasping a bow. Her jeans and sweatshirt suggested she had not yet passed her rite of passage. When introduced, Elizabeth Georges never looked anywhere but at the other end of the field, where an archery target the size of a basketball swung from the field-goal posts. It had a dozen arrows sticking out of it in a tight cluster. Hank glanced around the field and found no wayward arrows on the ground. During the minute his parents talked to the mayor on some boring business, ten more missiles slammed the center of the target.
Flawless,
he had thought to himself.
The more recent meeting had been about a year ago, as Hank entered high school and his parents had brought him along again to a meeting with the mayor. They found their leader outside city hall, training with a young brunette with sharp blue eyes. Wendy Williamson had succeeded in her rite of passage, as Hank could tell from the elaborate lace around her practice robes, but she didn’t appear older than sixteen. She nodded and said, “Hey,” in a throaty, tired voice, which made his heart flip. Then she went back to her long sword drills while the mayor and his parents continued to talk. Her blade whipped past her body and arms, slicing unseen opponents and blocking invisible thrusts. He didn’t take his gaze off her until his parents tugged at his sleeve to go. She, on the other hand, didn’t look back.
Brilliant,
he marveled.
Although he had met those young women only briefly, they lingered in his mind. He made detailed drawings of their weapons in the margins of his school texts. He incorporated what he had seen of their techniques in his own exercises, and he imagined working with them in tandem to fight the evils his parents had warned him about.
Once or twice, as he began his sophomore year, he tried approaching them in school. These attempts were short, the results brutal. As infatuated as other girls might have been, Wendy Williamson and Elizabeth Georges were at another level. Promises of what he might accomplish someday did not impress these seniors. Elizabeth, whom the mayor had proudly honored two years ago as the Young Stalker Who Killed an Elder, was a complete granite wall. The more Hank stumbled over how much he admired the mayor and her quest to destroy the creatures of the crescent moon, the harder her eyes would get and the tighter her jaw would become. When he tried his last, best hope for a connection—he mentioned the Blacktooth Blade, his family’s prized and deadly heirloom, and how he hoped to use it soon—she almost spat at him and told him to “go play with your toy sword somewhere else.”
Wendy had been more polite, but no less formidable. She smiled at him in an almost condescending way and told Hank they were too different: She was a beaststalker of age; he a hopeful. She was a senior anticipating college; he was a sophomore consumed with the high school world around him. Above all, she was a poor girl from a Scandinavian family of no particular distinction, while he was from the mighty Blacktooths, descended from Welsh royalty.
“Your best friend has old European roots, too,” he had objected.
“It’s hard to explain Lizzy Georges. She’s less Georges, and more Lizzy.”
“So maybe I’m less Blacktooth, and more Hank.”
This had made her giggle, which crushed his heart. “Oh, Hank. You have all these girls in school swooning after you. Any one of them would make you happier than I could. You’ll have more time to spend with a junior, or a sophomore. Why not date one of them?”
He had walked away red-faced.
I don’t want one of them,
he steamed.
I want the best.
Now, here at his father’s funeral, he could not take his eyes off either of them. They stood together, somber but beautiful. Ideal beaststalkers. He had to possess at least one of them.
How can I make them see I’m worthy?
he asked himself. The answer was obvious. He needed to meet and then exceed their accomplishments.
The mayor,
he decided,
is the key.
He resolved to talk to one of them after the ceremony, but he didn’t have to. The moment guests began to file out of the cemetery, Glorianna Seabright approached him and his mother.
“My condolences, Dawn.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
“I can’t help but feel partly responsible for your sadness today, dear. After all, it was I who suggested you marry the boy.”
“He was a good choice, Mother.”
“Not as good as we could have hoped, apparently.”
Hank stiffened, but his mother’s touch on his shoulder kept him from speaking.
Glory’s disturbing white eyes settled on him. “And what of you, little Henry Blacktooth? Will you stand in your father’s place, and carry forward the brave Blacktooth name?”
Her tone made his teeth grind.
You need her,
he reminded himself. “I will.”
“The legacy continues, then. I look forward to your rite of passage later this—”
“Will you train him, Mother?”
“Excuse me?”
“Would you please take Hank under your wing, like you took me? It would mean the world to me . . . and to Geoffrey.”
Hank held his breath. His mother saw the opportunity, too! Surely she had reasons that had nothing to do with Elizabeth and Wendy—but she was plainly after the same goal.
“I took you in when you were five, Dawn. You were ten years from your rite of passage. Little Henry here will have finished his, I imagine, before ten months.”
“You’ve taken on teenagers before.”
“One.”
“Hasn’t Wendy Williamson turned out well?”
“She’s turned out lovely. I took her on because I wasn’t ready to—Look, Dawn. I’m not sure why I have to explain myself to you.”
“It’s not fair that you would take that Wendy on, and not my Hank.” Dawn’s tone stayed steady and logical, even as her words turned childish to Hank’s own ears. “Hank’s as good as she is. Better, perhaps. Won’t you at least let him try out?”
“Try out? You know better. It’s not a competition or an internship, Dawn. It’s a slice of my life. I believe I get to choose how I spend those slices. Is that all right with you?”
“You must have someone else in mind. Who?”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Maybe I’ve had enough of this sort of thing.”
“That doesn’t seem likely.”
“It doesn’t
seem
to be any of your business!”
“You raised me for ten years, and now things like this are none of my business.”
Still cold,
Hank noticed the tone.
Still clinical.
“I don’t see what the point of all those years was, what the point of marrying a Blacktooth was, if you never planned to take on my Hank.”
Glorianna licked her lips impatiently. “Dawn: I said no. I’ll say it again: no. I hope I didn’t say that in a long-lost Gaelic dialect, requiring your husband’s translation?”
Hank snapped. He stepped in front of his mother. “Don’t talk to her like that!”
Glory did not move, but her white eyes shifted in his direction. “Little Henry. Don’t you think your mother can take care of herself? I certainly do.”
Hank blinked. Of course he thought his mother could
(“Geoffrey, you did that on purpose!”)
(“I’m sorry, Dawn! It was an accident!”)
take care of herself.
He noticed two figures still lingering in the cemetery—Elizabeth Georges’s and Wendy Williamson’s well-dressed curves slid past gravestones and tree trunks.
“I want to train with you,” he said, with as close an imitation of his mother’s calm as he could summon. “You’re our leader. I want to follow you.”
“Yes, well, you
want
to train with me; and people in hell
want
ice water.”
“Are you saying no, then?”
“Good heavens. Is there a selective deafness gene in your family? No. No! NO!”
Anger overwhelmed him again. “You don’t think I can do as well as those girls?”
The mayor’s arms disappeared into her white-and-black dress robes. “Not that it matters, but no, I don’t think you could.”
“Mother, honestly—”
“Dawn, neither you nor your son rate with Wendy Williamson or Libby Georges.”
Hank huffed. “I’m as good as them—better! You just don’t care. Or you’re too afraid!”
Glorianna took three quick steps and leaned in until her sharp nose was right above Hank’s eyes, and her quiet breath spilled over his face. Not knowing what this meant or what to do about it, he stood still, half frozen in fear, half stiff with pride.
“Mother.” Dawn remained calm. “Put your sword away. He’s disappointed. So am I.”
“Disappointed?”
Glory’s tone was not so tranquil. “What do you know about
disappointed
?”
Dawn stretched her hands out, taking in the cemetery.
“Ah, yes. You think it begins and ends when you fall in love with the wrong man, Dawn, but that’s just the start of it.
Disappointed
is so much more than love destroyed.
Disappointed
is learning you’ll never bear your own children again, so you raise others to fill the void . . . except they’re never really yours, and they never stay long.
Disappointed
is training a brilliant young couple in the next generation to lead your people . . . only to have them die in a freak car accident.
Disappointed
is taking their daughter and investing the best years of your life in her, only to have her spit in your face.
Disappointed
is having yet another child of mine—this would be you, Dawn, if you’re keeping track—whom I thought I’d raised properly, suddenly present her spoiled, disturbed son as the perfect successor to my legacy.
That’s
disappointed, Dawn. What you are, and what your son is, is
not
disappointed. Not by a fucking long shot.”
Spoiled? Disturbed?
Hank tried to wrap his head
(“I’m sorry, Dawn! It was an accident!”)
(“That was no accident! I can’t practice with you anymore. You’re disturbed!”)
around the words.
“I’m sorry if you don’t feel you’ve raised me well, Mother.”
“
Obviously
I don’t! Or I wouldn’t be considering slicing your son’s arm off right now.”
Dawn did not even look at her son. “Hank, please take a few steps back.”
The command unfroze Hank, and he took four quick backward steps. It was at this distance that he saw the mayor’s sword, drawn and ready to strike.
His mother smiled as if he had just finished the dishes. “Good boy. Perhaps you could take a knee and lower your head, too.” He did so. “Mother, I’m sorry I offended you today.” Still, her voice barely rose or fell. “I’m also sorry Hank offended you. You know teenagers.”
“Too afraid.” The quiet sarcasm cascaded over the back of Hank’s neck, causing his hackles to rise. “Honestly. Nothing interests me more than the insecure, egotistic ramblings of an adolescent delinquent. Tell me, little Henry Blacktooth. What do you think makes you so special? What can you offer this city, besides your raging hormones?”