Chapter 5 #2
The Behemoth seemed to retreat for a moment.
Its claws and head were not visible. But then the massive tail swam into view.
Things seemed to slow as that tail was slammed against the outside wall of the throne room.
The blocks shuddered. They held, but some shifted inwards.
Dust, stone and dirt suffused the air. That tail came in for another slam.
No! Absolutely not!
All of this had happened in moments. Moments where Caden was shocked and unable to move.
But now he leaped off of Iolaire’s back and towards the “mirror”.
His arms were spread wide. He knew that this was what he had to do.
Iolaire had shown him. He closed his eyes the moment his forehead hit the “mirror”.
It was cold. Freezing cold. Like dipping his hand into a bowl of ice water. Colder than that. It seemed to seep into his very bones. His very soul. But, of course, it was his soul.
There was light. Like dawn breaking upon the horizon.
And a sense of great speed and vast distances being breached, but at the same time it felt like a simple breath.
Because one and the next, Caden went from the Spirit Realm to the human one.
He opened his eyes and saw Esme, Mei and Jahara’s faces above his own.
“Caden?!” Esme gasped.
“He’s back!” Mei cried.
“Of course, he is.” Jahara smiled.
Without saying a word, Caden leaped up. His body was completely at his command. He felt Iolaire’s strength within him mixed with his own. They were one again. They always would be.
That tail was coming around again. Time slowed.
Valerius’ head was turned towards him. Illarion was beside him. They were both firing out the windows at the Behemoth, trying to hit it. The tail would likely take out the wall. Throne room’s ceiling could come down on all of them.
Caden leaped over the ruined couch. His mouth opened, but he knew this gift wouldn’t work against the Behemoth unless he was shifted. He had to stop that tail first.
He was out the doors, but only a foot or so.
No room to shift. Iolaire would do what the tail was attempting to do simply by coming into being.
His arms stretched forward. Ice formed ahead of him in a wall, slowing the tail down, but not stopping it.
Caden braced and reached into himself and Iolaire and drew out a greater ice power.
Iceturn.
That’s what the tail looked like. It looked like it was made of glassy ice. A sculpture of a tail. Not the real thing. But the Behemoth was still moving. Forward momentum had taken over. That huge length of solid ice was going to crash right into him.
Valerius’ arms were around him and he was pulling Caden back inside of the throne room.
He landed on top of Valerius’ nude body, the Black Dragon King then turned and tried to shield Caden with that body.
But Caden used his much greater strength--at the moment--to keep Valerius right where he was as the tail smashed into the building and shattered.
The screams from the Behemoth were so shattering that Caden couldn’t hear for long moments.
His body was flattened on top of Valerius’.
The other Dragon Shifters and the Wise Women were crouched down on the ground, weapons falling from nerveless fingers, as they covered their ears.
Foul blood flooded the courtyard, but not for long.
For the Behemoth was taking off…
No! No, we can’t let it get away to hurt more people! Caden thought.
Will hurt. Much death, Iolaire said.
Yes, this is its endgame. We have to stop it, Iolaire!
He got off of Valerius. He turned and looked down at that beloved face. He touched Valerius’ cheek. His ears were still ringing so he couldn’t hear anything. He hoped Valerius though could.
“I’ve got to make it shift. I have to send it back to the Spirit Realm. The other Dragons are waiting there to destroy it. Do you understand?” Caden asked, his voice sounding blubbery and coming in and out to himself.
Valerius caught his hand and looked up at him as if seeing something so treasured, but feared lost. Caden wasn’t sure if he had heard. He hated leaving Valerius like this. But he had to. He kissed the Black Dragon King and got up.
He raced out of the doors and shifted. To be in their Dragon form again in this world felt so right. The only thing more right would have been to have Valerius and Raziel flying by their side.
Soon.
They were up in the air. Their powerful wings beating effortlessly. All the fears he usually had about shifting and flying were gone. He was the White Dragon King. He and Iolaire were meant to be together. This was what he was meant to do.
The Behemoth had flown towards the Mid. It wasn’t headed out into the countryside, but clearly had decided to take out as many people as it could before it returned to the Shifter Realm and the justice awaiting it.
They banked and headed after it. Their eyes caught sight of the bridge though.
His breath pulled in and Iolaire gave out a cry of pain.
Rose, Wally and Marban were all huddled around a still figure.
The figure was Chione. Rose had her hand.
Wally was patting her head. Marban was calling for help, ordering other Shifters about as a born leader did.
The cause of her stillness became clear as there were hundreds of other still bodies.
The Horde… some of it anyways. Not all of the human forms shifted to make the Behemoth. Was that because the other Dragons were defeated and are still in the Spirit Realm?
Iolaire did not know.
They were all laid out on the bridge like a carpet.
It reminded Caden sickly of images he had seen of Jonestown after the massacre there.
He didn’t say suicides, because those people truly had no choice.
Most of them anyways. But these bodies were still alive.
He could hear heartbeats! Chione had fought them, kept them away, but kept them alive.
What has it cost her, Iolaire? What has it cost all of them?
But he knew he couldn’t focus on that now.
For the Behemoth let out a terrible, bone-rattling cry as it thundered downwards in more of a crash landing than true landing in Dragon Strike Square. It left a furrow of broken stone and earth.
The end and the beginning, Iolaire told him.
Yeah, we’re ending this where we began it, Caden realized.
But though the moon was out and he was now the White Dragon King, the Square was just as filled as it had been for the Anniversary.
They had come out of their homes and flooded into the Square because of the excitement, wanting to know what was happening up at High Reach, trying to get a look.
Once more they had come with their cameras and smiles and laughter.
But no more.
That broken stone and earth that marked the Behemoth’s crash landing?
It wasn’t just those inert materials. It was bone and blood and people, too.
People were dead and dying. People were crushed and smeared across the cobblestones.
People were missing limbs and screaming for help.
There were people who wouldn’t last that much longer.
The Behemoth was sitting like some horrendous spider with its still-bleeding stump of a tail, tracking him with its yellow eyes.
In both of its clawed forelimbs it held half a dozen people.
They were screaming and beating against the scaly fingers helplessly.
The Behemoth was smiling. It would show him just how much pain it was in by killing innocents and making him feel every one that he failed to save.
The Behemoth thought that he would come at it with Ice Breath or Frost or Gale.
It thought that he and Iolaire had simply made it first through the “mirror”.
It didn’t understand why they were the only ones here.
And Caden was fine with that.
Iolaire… NOW! Caden commanded. Send it back, now!
The cry that had turned the great Green Dragon Mephous back into its slender man-form erupted from their mouth. The sound filled the air, echoed against the stone, causing lightning to rumble in the clouds.
The Behemoth blinked.
For a second, that was all that happened. Caden felt fear reach up to strangle them both as he and Iolaire sent another Command to the Behemoth. For that’s what this was. It was Command. It sent a Spirit back to its realm.
You will leave this plane! You will go!
And then the Behemoth’s body started to jiggle almost as if it were made of Jell-O and someone was shaking the bowl to make it move.
The Behemoth’s jaws opened as if to object to this unseemly jiggling.
But the jiggling flesh turned to blurring flesh turned to flesh that was there and not there like a negative image.
And then the Behemoth was gone.
The claws holding the people were gone too and they were falling. He and Iolaire darted in and just managed to catch the humans before they hit the ground and joined the other dead and dying.
He felt a welling of triumph! They had done it. Iolaire twittered and let out a gout of snow! The people in their claws were shouting their thanks and crying with relief, too.
The other Dragons are on it now. They’ll destroy the Behemoth and this will be over! Caden cried.
It was then though that Caden realized the shouts of happiness had turned into screams of terror. He thought, at first, that it was the horror of the dead and injured people, but no. These were fresh screams.
And Caden suddenly realized why.
The Horde--the part that made up the Behemoth--was still there. And it still had the power to kill and destroy.