Sunset of Lantonne (105 page)

Ilarra could not see what Nenophar saw, miles away in the night, but she could see Lantonne. Fires dotted the city and were spreading to the surrounding outer city. Smaller bonfires seemed to move like people darting to and fro in the streets.

Drawing her eye away from the city, the towering lord of flame walked across the plains east of town, standing nearly as tall as the keep had been before it fell. All around the flame creature, the wet land burned endlessly, raising a plume of smoke as the rain burned off.

Ilarra very nearly missed spotting the cloud near the quarry at first, but when she did see it, she almost fell from Nenophar.

When last she had seen the cloud, it had been nothing more than a black stain on the sky that sometimes gave the appearance of dark mists rather than mere shadow. Now, the cloud spun like a tornado, picking up streams of flame from the city, pulling them into itself, and leaving long flickering lines that ran up into the sky. Where the black cloud met the normal grey clouds swirling ominously overhead, flames shot out in all directions. The incessant flickers within the clouds glowed red, making the sky itself seem to glow like embers.

“The sky is ablaze,” she mumbled, unable to look away. “This is what Turess saw. ‘Headlong into a burning sky,’ you told me.”

If he heard her, Nenophar said nothing, angling toward the quarry as he flew. If anything, the dragon sped his slight descent, gaining speed rapidly as they circled down toward what remained of the city.

“Nenophar, let me tell you what I intend to do before we go farther,” shouted Ilarra, clinging to the spines.

I already know,
came the answer, softly enough it seemed to blend into the roar of the wind.
I didn’t tell you everything Turess saw, because the decision had to be yours. I accept whatever comes of it. He told me the result of deciphering the prophecy’s limitations and specifically what would happen to both of us for even trying.

Nenophar banked hard as tendrils of black smoke raced past them, coming out from the cloud faster than Ilarra thought possible. Even Nenophar did not fly nearly as fast as they had come, and it was only through his superior eyesight that he had the time to react at all. When Ilarra spotted them, the tendrils were no more than fifty feet out—far too close to avoid.

As Nenophar turned to circle the column of black smoke, Ilarra caught a glimpse of something down near the outer portion of Lantonne, on the ground between the last buildings and the quarry. For a second, she thought it might be the Lantonnian army returning at long last. Even if they would serve no purpose in her and Nenophar’s task, they would be essential to getting the survivors out of the region.

Then, she got a better look as Nenophar’s wing flapped out of the way again. Settled on a blackened section of land, the white thing she had seen stood out starkly. She stared at it until she realized what it was, and wished she had kept her attention on the cloud. Laid out like a rock formation, the enormous skeleton of Nenophar’s brother lay where he had fallen, as if the cloud had stripped his body bare. Every bone lay where it would have fallen if his flesh had vanished instantly.

A white-hot blast of flame startled Ilarra back to the battle at hand, as Nenophar spread his wings and slowed to a near-hover in an attempt to stay back. Even with the bulk of Nenophar’s body between her and the flames, they burned Ilarra’s skin and dried her eyes and lungs.

Ilarra traced the brilliant light and heat back to its source several miles east and beneath them. There, the lord of fire had turned its attention in their direction and hurled flames from deep within itself toward them.

Even more disturbing than watching the towering creature try to strike at them from so far off was the way the cloud began pulling at the beam of white fire, draining much of the energy into itself. Each second the elemental continued to hurl fire in their direction, the black cloud pulled the flames away from them and grew brighter, as though it might burst into flame at any moment.

“How long before we’re close enough?” screamed Ilarra, as Nenophar rolled over backwards and soared away from the flames.

Two, maybe three minutes,
he replied, his voice sounding strained. Given his size, Ilarra could only imagine how hard it was for him to evade threats the way he was.
Are you ready?

“How long can you keep him from taking control of me?”

While flying?
he asked in reply, tilting his head to give her a skeptical look. Even looking away, he managed to avoid another tendril that nearly blocked their path.
A minute perhaps, and even that is questionable.

“Hurry.”

Each loop around the cloud, Nenophar got closer, making it more difficult to avoid the tendrils that continued to snap out of the cloud. By contrast, through most of each circle, the elemental’s flames could not reach them and, instead, were fully consumed by the cloud, making it glow all the brighter.

The whole time, Ilarra counted down in her head, giving Nenophar two minutes. As she neared thirty seconds remaining, Nenophar turned sharply and flew straight toward the heart of the column of smoke, where the flames it had taken into itself seemed to burn brightest.

With a pained scream, Ilarra tore apart the wall in her mind keeping Dorralt from controlling her. The instant it fell, she could feel Dorralt attempting to seize control over her, as well as Nenophar’s influence trying to hold back Dorralt back.

Ilarra forced a memory to the forefront of her mind of her first meeting with Nenophar as a dragon. She strained to feel the same fear and awe she did that day as he had reared up in the cave, ready to tear her apart. More importantly, she needed Dorralt to see that fear and believe it to be real.

“Dorralt,” she gasped, flattening herself against Nenophar’s back as black tendrils of smoke flew past. “I need strength now if you want him! This is our chance!” Ilarra felt the hesitation, the probing of her thoughts, but Nenophar kept Dorralt from doing much more than look in. She prayed he saw what she wanted him to see, or everything would have been a waste and they would both be risking death for nothing.

Then, it was as though a dam had been thrown open, stripping away all the restrictions Ilarra had long felt on her magic and capabilities. She could feel Turessians all over Eldvar, many more than Dorralt had claimed, possibly as many as five hundred. All of them turned their attention to her in that moment, offering up their magic and power in hopes of having her destroy a dragon. This was what Dorralt’s army had sought for months, and they would do anything to see it come to pass, including giving her everything they could spare.

A tendril from the cloud slapped onto Nenophar’s shoulder and back, tearing away hundreds of scales near Ilarra. The incredibly hard scales shattered as they fell away and the flesh beneath split open, spraying her with hot blood.

Using the power coursing through her, Ilarra pointed at the tendril and watched as it evaporated. The cloud was undaunted, sending out hundreds more as Nenophar flapped closer, trying to maintain their distance while avoid the whip-like strands.

Ilarra knew there was not much time. She could spend every last second fighting off the tendrils, or she could do as they had planned. If she did not give Nenophar the power he needed swiftly, they would both die anyway, or Dorralt would get through to her and see what she was actually trying to do.

Another tendril struck at Nenophar’s left wing, shredding part of the membrane there and forcing him to counterbalance and work harder to stay aloft. The sudden lurch nearly unseated Ilarra, but she wrapped her arm around the nearest bone spine and planted her free hand on Nenophar’s back.

Through her touch, Ilarra began pouring magic into Nenophar, feeling his body hum with the added energy. The magic of hundreds of Turessians flowed through her and into him through their bond and her hand, strengthening Nenophar even as she felt the Turessians scattered around the world weakening. They would recover in time, but taking all she could from them was a matter of personal pride, even if Nenophar already had all he might need.

Abruptly, the magic faded to a trickle and then stopped coming, leaving Ilarra trembling and sick-feeling as hundreds of Turessians began shouting at her within her head. They had seen what she was doing, or Dorralt had figured it out. They cut her off, but continued to use the link to curse and rant at her and call for her death.

Dizzy, Ilarra sat up on her perch and looked at the sky around her. The sun had begun to rise in the east, finally giving the land around Lantonne light from somewhere other than the flame elemental’s wrath. The growing daylight made the black tendrils stand out as something that did not belong. Thousands of them had already wrapped around Nenophar’s body and limbs, looking like so many ropes that sought to bring him down.

All around Ilarra, the black smoke tore into Nenophar’s hide, leaving bloody rivulets running down to drip off his tail far below her. They were pulling her and the dragon into the cloud steadily while Nenophar struggled to free his front legs.

Then, with a roar that deafened Ilarra, Nenophar tore free of the tendrils, even as more wrapped around his neck. He raised both front legs, aiming at the heart of the column of smoke and whispered a word of magic Ilarra had never heard and knew had never been meant for the ears of mortals.

For a second, nothing happened, and Ilarra worried they had failed. The tendrils of smoke tightened all around Nenophar and more slid over his shoulders, trying to grab at her.

A rumble, almost audible but mostly felt through the air, made Ilarra realize the spell had yet to go off. It first became visible as Nenophar’s clawed hands began to glow bright red, a second before a matching color appeared deep within the cloud.

Ilarra smiled as the cloud began to buckle and flail, the red light tearing it apart from within. She could feel the wrongness of the cloud diminishing and changing as Nenophar continued to struggle against it. She abruptly fell sideways and had to catch herself as she lost her grip with her right hand. Looking down, Ilarra found her hand was gone, her skin crumbling rapidly. Already, it had gotten nearly to her elbow. Similar burns blackened her flesh everywhere she looked.

Sighing, Ilarra lay down against Nenophar’s back, gazing up at his long arched neck as the tendrils crushed the life from him. With a choked last attempt to free himself, Nenophar began to fall as his wings gave out.

She held on to Nenophar as best she could as she felt herself dying with him. She closed her eyes and smiled at the weightless feeling of falling, while happily ignoring the darkness coming over them as the cloud closed in, trying to claim them before they reached the ground.

In those last moments, too brief for her to call seconds, Ilarra saw things that made her wonder. She saw the armies of the undead march across the world, then fall back. She saw a man—a wildling—do the unthinkable to save millions, without knowing his actions’ outcome. She saw pain and death, but she saw hope and deliverance. The world could still be spared.

That was good enough for her.

The sun rose over the camp. Most of the survivors from Lantonne were already up and about, gathering what supplies they could scavenge to get on the road quickly. Unspoken among them was the knowledge that remaining so close to the city almost ensured the undead forces would find and kill them if they waited any longer.

Coming out to join them in the light, Raeln stopped on the porch of the large wooden building at the center of the camp, but he barely saw the sunrise or the gathering people through his bleary eyes. Instead, he snuffled through a stuffed nose and rubbed at his face, trying to wake himself up fully.

On’esquin sat at the front of the porch, the leather-wrapped rolled parchment in his hands, smiling absently at the sunrise like a child would. How he could be so obsessed with a bunch of papers, while thousands lay dead, Raeln could not fathom.

Lying on their backs at the foot of the porch steps, the four corpses that Varra had animated were arranged as though for a funeral. Each had its head separated from its body and placed alongside it reverently. To Raeln, it looked as though On’esquin had given them some form of funeral.