84. Master and Apprentice
Chapter 84
Master and Apprentice
22 nd Day of the Blood Moon
Firnin Mountains – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Salara whipped threads of Spirit through the air around Vyrmír, slicing through Eltoar’s threads of Air that aimed to pull Taran from Nymaxes’s neck. Dark clouds swarmed about them where the sky had previously been clear and blue, claps of thunder booming. There wasn’t a doubt in Salara’s mind that this stormhead was Boud’s work. The druid had failed to mention these abilities when they had found her, but the black clouds had emerged far too suddenly to be natural.
Salara looked through Vyrmír’s eyes, tracing the warmth of each dragon that swirled through the storm, shadows bursting to life amidst the cracks of lightning.
Only five sources of heat darted back and forth through the dark clouds – the largest by a distance being Helios. Rysírix and Lauthín had already fallen, broken and shattered by the black dragon – their soulkin, Visenn and Falisín, with them. Her master’s soulkin had only grown larger and more savage in the years she’d remained within Lynalion’s bounds. And in the short time since their emergence, he had already slain four of her kin. She could not allow more to fall.
As Vyrmír circled around and prepared to take Helios head-on, Salara stilled her heart, the stormwinds battering against her. Vyrmír roared, defiant, and she roared with him. He spiralled as a stream of fire illuminated the dark clouds, so wide it would have swallowed them whole. He spread his wings and swept upwards as Barath?r, Andrax, Baerys, and Nymaxes all crashed into Helios together, talons and teeth tearing and slashing.
After rising, Vyrmír folded his wings and plummeted. Salara shifted so she stood at his neck, whirling threads of Air about herself to keep from being torn into the sky. With a roar, Vyrmír whipped to the left, and Salara launched herself from his back.
The wind howled in her ears, the clouds swallowing her as she dove, her vision nothing but black and grey. But she did not need her eyes. She saw Helios’s warmth through Vyrmír, blazing like a burning city. And atop the monstrous dragon, she could see Eltoar’s fire burning.
Salara adjusted her flight with threads of Air, holding her breath, feeling each beat of her heart hammering against her ribs.
A flash of lightning illuminated a black shadow so large she could not see its end.
Another push right, then left, adjusting. Something flitted past and skittered off her helmet; a scale torn free. Salara pulled Vyrmír’s mind into hers, drawing on his courage, and his strength, and his will. She forged threads of Earth and Spirit into her bones and flesh, hardening them, whirling threads of Air to slow her pace.
A heartbeat passed and she crashed into Eltoar and ripped him from Helios’s back, her shoulder slamming into his chest. Even with the Spark fortifying her body, the collision punched the air from her lungs and shook her to her core.
She gasped for air, the world whipping past as she spun over herself again and again, her arms wrapped around Eltoar’s chest in an iron grip. He slammed his elbows down into her helmet, sending her head spinning. She twisted around him, coiling her legs about his waist and snaking an arm around his throat, squeezing with all her strength. As they fell, a glowing red pendant came loose from his breastplate, and Salara grabbed the crimson stone and ripped it free before tossing it into the sky.
“Your demon god cannot save you!” she roared, the wind devouring her words.
They came apart just as they broke free from the dark storm clouds that blanketed the sky. The world took shape around her in a moment of strange peace that was shattered when Eltoar crashed into her once more. She grabbed the back of his skull and rammed her helmet into his before lifting her knees to her chest, planting her feet into his stomach and kicking him free.
Above, Helios broke from the clouds, Vyrmír and the others swarming around him, tearing strips from his side, blood trailing. Salara watched in agony as Helios twisted his neck and closed his jaws around Baerys and his soulkin, Indivar.
Baerys was a brave dragon, and fierce, but he was a hatchling next to Helios, and the great black dragon bit him in half, crushing bone and scale both, blood and gore misting into the wind.
No…
Salara’s heart broke as Baerys’s severed body fell and Indivar was lost amidst the carnage. In that moment, the fury reignited within her, and Vyrmír dragged the shattered pieces of her heart together, binding them with fire as he crashed into Helios with a savage rage. Vyrmír was still smaller, but the difference was not as great as it had once been. Helios twisted to snap his jaws around Vyrmír’s throat, but Vyrmír tore at the black dragon’s side and opened a wicked gash through Helios’s scales. He roared and redoubled his attack, tearing at the dragon he had once looked up to as a god.
As the battle above raged, Salara wound herself in threads of Air and bound threads of Earth and Spirit to her bones. Dropping from a height like this was no simple thing. She welled threads of Air into a sphere and slammed them down, wrapping others around herself and pulling upwards, slowing her descent as much as her body could stand.
A shockwave rippled through the ground below her, a cloud of dust pluming upwards as Eltoar made impact.
Salara settled her mind, stilled her heart, then slammed into the earth.
Eltoar drew in a ragged, dust-filled breath, the air around him thick and clouded with dirt and broken rock. In the sky above, Helios’s rage was only surpassed by his sorrow. This was not what either of them had wanted. The last thing this world needed was more dead dragons. Twice, Andrax had left his belly exposed and Helios had not the heart to make the final blow. They had flown together as hatchlings, fought side by side, hunted, and slept. Helios did not want to add Andrax to the list of friends he had laid low.
But it was the sight of Vyrmír’s unabating fury that truly scored their shared soul. Vyrmír was a son to them, as Salara was a daughter.
Helios swept across the sky above, twisting and slamming his tail into the side of the crimson dragon that had fought at the Three Sisters, then unleashed a stream of dragonfire across the smaller black dragon that swept past him. Helios could have ripped it from the sky, but his heart was weak.
Eltoar pulled his mind back, staring through the dust to the western skies. He only hoped that Lyina had reached Voranur. Eltoar understood Voranur’s pain, but the white dragon needed to be protected. The future of their entire race could depend on it.
He walked from the small crater that had formed in his landing, moving through still-drifting dust. He slid his sword from its scabbard at the sound of crunching dirt.
Salara stood before him, her burnished gold plate now coated in dirt and dust. She had shed her helmet, dark hair loose over shoulders.
“I offer you the right of Alvadr?,” she said, sliding her sword from its scabbard, her voice cold and devoid of emotion.
“That right is offered before an attack.” Eltoar circled, his eyes fixed on Salara. She held not a drop of fear in her heart.
“To those with honour,” Salara corrected. “I offer you Alvadr? not because you deserve it, but so that the warriors who march from here, already bloody and broken, may live to see another sunrise. So that they may be spared. Otherwise, I will burn them myself.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Salara.”
“It does.” Salara wiped blood from her face, her stare fixing on Eltoar. “We are not in the skies, and you do not sit astride Helios’s back as I had promised, but this will do. A blade in your hand, with nobody here to watch you die. Nobody here to sing any songs of your heroism.”
“Salara, that young dragon – if we can understand how ?—”
“Quiet!” she roared, a sudden rage flaring in her voice. “I will not let you in again. I will not let you twist my mind with your false words. This ends here, Master . Will you accept Alvadr?, or will you fight without honour?”
Eltoar stared back at the elf he had once seen as the closest thing to a daughter he would ever have. He remembered teaching her how to hold a sword, how to fix her belt so it wouldn’t slip, how to play Masari. He had carried her in his arms the first night she’d gotten too drunk. He had held her as she’d wept the first time her heart was broken. He had watched with pride as she’d carried her head high that next day. She had been his greatest joy… she still was.
“Did you see them fall?” Salara asked, not turning her gaze from Eltoar.
Eltoar narrowed his gaze before his pulse quickened.
“The young one ripped open Seleraine’s belly and tore her wing from her body. It was beautiful.” Her words were laced with venom. “To see the first of a new generation tear apart the last of those who betrayed the old. Poetic, don’t you think?”
Eltoar’s jaw clenched, and he tightened his grip on his sword’s hilt. “Heraya take you,” he whispered.
“Heraya? So you do still pray to the true gods. Was it all an act? All just a grab for power? Were you so jealous of Alvira and the love we had for her – so poisoned by Fane’s words – that you saw no other path than to murder her?”
“Do not speak on what you do not know,” Eltoar growled, Helios’s fury burning in him as the dragon kept the others above at bay.
Salara shook her head, fresh blood streaming from her nose. “She loved you, you know? Not just as a companion. She told me one night when we’d drunk too much wine. You remember after the Battle of Alduin’s Place? She didn’t say it in words, not truly, but it was clear in her eyes, in the way she spoke of you, in the trust she had in you. She loved you, and you murdered her.” Salara hocked a ball of spit and blood onto the cracked earth. “Karakes fell too.”
Eltoar staggered backwards, the air fleeing his lungs, his throat tightening, and in the sky above Helios let out a heart-wrenching cry.
“I’ve never before found pleasure in someone else’s pain…” She walked towards him, the tip of her blade hovering just above the grass. “How does it feel, Master? To be hunted? To be drawn into a snare and butchered one by one? At least we didn’t do it while you slept. At least we didn’t feign honour, only to set it on fire. Are you all that is left? How does it feel to be alone?”
Eltoar let out a long sigh, his heart cracked and bleeding at the thought of Lyina gone to rest in Achyron’s halls. He hoped Salara was lying, trying to break him, trying to hurt him. But something in her voice told him it was true. “Salara… please…We cannot go on like this.”
Salara only shook her head. “No. You do not know me. I owe you nothing. You made this,” she said, shaking her head. “Eltoar Daethana is dead. You killed him. And I am here to seek vengeance for the death of the master I loved. Uvrín mír, Sainor, nur kanet cianilar hamín.”
Forgive me, mentor, for not coming sooner.
Salara lifted her blade and fell into Howling Wolf. She had always favoured that form.
Eltoar set himself in Patient Wind.
Salara came at him with a rage, her steel blurring as it flashed left and right, pushing Eltoar backwards as she forced him into fellensír simply to keep her blade from opening his throat.
Good movement. Strong. You have grown. Eltoar twisted his back foot in the grass and flicked his blade into reverse grip, using Salara’s momentum and aggression against her. She lunged, and he slipped past, her blade gliding along the strong of his with a rasp. He whipped his blade back and brought it down against the backplate of her cuirass.
She stumbled but regained her footing in a heartbeat, pivoting to meet his gaze, fury in her eyes. “Do not treat me like a child. Kill me as you would kill anyone else.”
“Do not let your anger rule you,” Eltoar said, shifting his stance into Striking Dragon. Above, Helios rose through the dark clouds, forcing the others to rise with him. He would not kill any more of his kind than he had to.
Salara drew in sharp breaths, the muscles in her jaw twitching. She charged once more, the fury of svidarya in her movements. The burning winds had always been a part of her, harnessing the rage in her heart. But her lack of control had held her back. That was no longer the case.
Eltoar parried her first strike at his neck by shifting into Rising Dawn, then swept his blade across and took the full force of her downward swing.
Salara leaned in, her face inches from his. “Stop holding back. You were Alvira’s First Sword. The greatest swordsman in all Epheria. Tell me, ghost, was she surprised when you turned that same sword on her? Or did she see it coming?”
Eltoar threw his weight forwards and pushed Salara from him, holding down the rage that bubbled within and setting himself into Tenp i’il Uê. Stone in the Water .
Salara swung at his side, and as he turned the blade away, she smashed her elbow into his cheek with a crunch .
“I saw signs,” she said, moving forwards as he staggered backwards. “I saw you change and darken, but I ignored it all.” She brought her blade down twice in an overhead swing, smashing it against his in a fury before sweeping left then right and flicking the steel tip across his nose, slicing through flesh and grating bone. “I told myself I was seeing things. I told myself that if you were worried, you would talk to me. If you had fears, you would share them. Because we trusted each other.” Salara feinted left, and Eltoar took the bait. She twisted her blade down and dropped her right shoulder, slamming into his chest and sending him backwards once more. “Because we were family.”
When Eltoar caught his balance and looked at Salara’s face, he found tears mingling with the blood on her cheeks.
“You were everything to me. You were a friend, a mentor, a father. I thought we were more. If you had come to me… we could have done something. We could have stopped all of this. You just had to come to me.”
“You were too young, Salara. You didn’t understand. Your heart was too full of dreams, your head too full of legends and stories.”
“So you waited until the night you were to slaughter our kin? Was I suddenly old enough then? Or were you hoping to pull me into your shame and your darkness after my choices were already stripped from me?” Dried blood cracked at the corners of Salara’s mouth. “Was I too naive to comprehend that you wanted people to look at you the way they looked at Alvira? She adored you, loved you, trusted you. And the entire time you craved what she was, what she had.”
“That is not true.” In the back of Eltoar’s mind, Helios’s rage overflowed at the thought of Alvira and Vyldrar. Darkness had never threatened to swallow Helios’s heart more than the night he had killed Vyldrar.
“All great things require sacrifice,” Fane had said, time and time again. Alvira and Vyldrar had been Eltoar and Helios’s greatest sacrifice, the most necessary to ensure victory. The two dragons had been like brothers… and it had nearly broken him.
“It is true. But you always failed to understand one thing that I, in all my youth and lack of understanding, with my head of dreams and stories, saw clear as day. You could never have what she had because she was better than you. In her heart and in her soul.”
“She was weak!” Eltoar roared, his blood burning, memories of Alvira flitting through his mind.
Salara closed her eyes and gave a soft sigh, a new tear carving its way through the blood and dirt on her cheek. “There it is,” she whispered. “There’s the anger I know consumes you. You always told me that I needed to control my fury and not let it control me. But you were wrong. It was you who was ruled by anger. You buried it deep down as you have always done, until it festered, until it clawed its way free and the world suffered. Your anger made you vulnerable, Master. It gave him cracks to pry open.”
“She stood by and watched it all happen.” Even as Eltoar tried to push his anger down, Helios refused. The black dragon roared in Eltoar’s mind, then hurtled towards Vyrmír, the two of them crashing through the sky, lightning flashing about them. “I kept trying to tell her, Salara. I kept trying to show her that a gentle hand only walked us more slowly towards our graves. She allowed The Order to be torn down brick by brick, allowed it to rot, allowed it to?—”
“At least she tried!” Salara surged forwards, swinging her blade at Eltoar’s side, moving from Waiting Mantis into Still Night and then to Setting Sun. “You gave up on us!” Steel carved left and right as Salara moved into forms Eltoar had never seen, a movement he did not know. She flowed like water, the blade an extension of who and what she was, just as he had taught her. “You gave up on me !”
Salara stepped inside Eltoar’s guard, throwing all form to the wind, and launched herself at him. Her shoulder connected with his breastplate, and they both went crashing to the ground.
She fell atop him, her sword lost in the tangle. She slammed a fist down into his face, his cheek crunching . “You took everything!” she roared again, punching him again, the steel of her gauntlet slicing open his flesh. “You’re a monster! You will never be like her! You will never be loved because you are empty and cold, and?—”
Eltoar swung his elbow and smashed it into Salara’s face, feeling something snap , her cheek bursting open, blood spraying from her already-broken nose. He grabbed the arm loops in her chestplate and swung her to the ground, slamming her down. In an instant, the Spark filled him, and a glistening blue níthral took shape in his fist, the blade levelled at Salara’s throat. “I loved you like a daughter! I loved her !”
A warning flashed in his mind from Helios. Vyrmír broke free from Helios’s grasp and plummeted towards them, leaving Andrax and the other two dragons to slash at Helios.
Salara leaned forwards, blood dripping from her throat. “Kill me. Kill me, and add me to the list of Draleid you have slaughtered. But I want you to know now, you have lost…” A smile cracked her lips, and she laughed. “At this moment, Vandrien marches on Anaduin and Elkenrim. Berona will fall next, with or without me. It is already in motion. I tell you because you can do absolutely nothing to stop it. The empire you built on the bones of our kin is dead. For what is an empire without souls to name it so. You failed. And your name will forever be inked as he who bled the dragons from this world.”
Eltoar’s hand shook, his níthral scraping the skin from Salara’s throat.
“Kill me!” she roared again, the veins popping in her head and neck. “You fucking coward! You are no Draleid. You are a demon.”
Eltoar clenched his jaw, staring down at his old apprentice. In his mind, he saw back to that day in Ilnaen, in the northern hatchery tower, Dylain’s broken body lying on the floor, Fane’s voice in his ears. “All great things require sacrifice.”
“No…” The words trembled as they left Eltoar’s lips, his entire body shaking. He stared into Salara’s fury-filled eyes. “I will not sacrifice you.”
Eltoar released his Soulblade and stepped backwards. “I’m sorry… I caused all of this. I failed you and I am sorry and I know that it means nothing.” He swallowed hard. “There is still something I can do. Whatever the cost. I can fill some of the cracks. I can give them a chance.”
Eltoar savoured the sight of Salara’s eyes, of her dark hair, of the proud warrior she had become. A warrior he would have given anything to have fought beside. “I didn’t deserve you.”
He turned and walked back towards where he had dropped his blade when Salara had tackled him.
“Don’t walk away from me!” Salara roared, leaping to her feet, Vyrmír alighting behind her with a force that shook the ground.
The wind swirled around Eltoar, dirt and loose blades of grass whirling in the air as Helios landed, blood trickling from a thousand cuts, a score of deep gashes along his side and a tear in his right wing.
“Go,” Eltoar called out as Helios lowered his head.
“We are not finished!” As Salara roared, the other three dragons landed on either side of Vyrmír. Andrax’s pale yellow scales were crusted with deep wounds and clotted blood, his left eye savaged. The crimson dragon limped on one leg, and the smaller black dragon had a deep wound along his flank.
“I have two friends to mourn,” Eltoar called back, resting a hand on Helios’s neck. “You have three. Five dragons died today. We are done. Leave now. I do not want to add more to that number.”
As Eltoar started to climb Helios’s neck, Vyrmír leapt forwards, jaws opening, flames flickering in his throat. Helios was upon him in a heartbeat.
The great dragon clamped the talon of his winged forelimb down onto Vyrmír’s throat and slammed Vyrmír’s head into the ground. Helios loomed over Vyrmír and let out a monstrous roar. Nothing would harm his soulkin. Nothing.
Eltoar looked at Salara, who stood still as a statue, the power of the Spark pulsing from her as she gazed open-mouthed at Helios and Vyrmír.
“Take Vyrmír and go, Salara. I am done killing today.”
“I am not!”
Slowly, Helios pulled away from Vyrmír, a low growl resonating in his chest as he backed away, the ground shaking beneath him.
As Vyrmír pulled himself back upright, Eltoar mounted Helios. He looked down at Salara for a moment longer before Helios cracked his wings and they lifted into the sky.
It hadn’t taken Eltoar long to find Karakes’s lifeless body splayed across a plain of grass, his lower jaw ripped free.
Helios whined, sorrow flowing from his heart to Eltoar’s as he nuzzled his snout into the top of Karakes’s head.
Eltoar had to close his eyes to stop the tears from flowing as Helios’s grief overcame him. “La?l sanyinal, myia nithríen.”
I am so sorry, my soulkin.
He rested a hand on one of Karakes’s scales, waiting just a moment before walking slowly towards where Lyina lay, her legs snapped, blood coating her face and armour.
A physical ache set into Eltoar’s chest, and his stomach felt as though it would turn. He knelt beside Lyina and dropped his gauntlet on the ground before brushing a strand of bloodied hair from her face. He cupped her cheek, leaned forwards, and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Du vyin alura anis, yíar’ydil. Du?n il haydria i myia elwyn.”
You can rest now, old friend. You were the honour in my heart.
As gently as he would a newborn babe, Eltoar slid his arms beneath Lyina’s broken body and lifted her to his chest. He carried the woman he had flown beside for centuries to Karakes’s chest and laid her against it, so that she might rest closer to his heart.
Eltoar brushed a thumb along Lyina’s cheek. “Heraya v?ra alioner n?ir aie v?nai din n?ra.”
Heraya will smile when she sees your light.
Eltoar needed to move, but he didn’t want to. To move was to leave Lyina and Karakes, to accept they were gone, to face the truth of what was. His heart needed just a little longer.
He knelt there until his back ached and his legs lost feeling. The entire time, Helios curled around Karakes, a low whimper in his throat, his heart bleeding.
Eltoar nodded softly to himself, then brushed his hand along Lyina’s cheek for the last time. “You were too good…”
He stood, collected his gauntlets, and walked to stand fifty or so feet away. Helios rose from where he was curled around Karakes, his red eyes speaking only of loss. The dragon moved behind Eltoar and stared down at their dead kin.
“I will make this right,” he whispered.
Eltoar reached out to the Spark and pulled in threads of Earth, Spirit, Fire, and Water, pushing them into the ground. The earth beneath Eltoar’s feet shook, cracks spreading. He wove the threads around Lyina and Karakes and deeper into the soil. He drew a breath, Helios’s strength joining his as he dragged earth and rock and root from about him and forged a hill around the two soulkin. As the earth climbed, Helios leaned forwards, a pressure building within him, and he poured dragonfire down over Lyina and Karakes’s bodies, so hot it melted the steel of Lyina’s armour. The flames continued to rage until the hill swallowed them.
Eltoar slid his sword from its scabbard and climbed to the top of the formed hill. He wrapped both his hands around the hilt, then drove the blade into the earth. He leaned down and rested his forehead against the pommel for just a moment before turning, climbing back down, and mounting Helios.
He would find Voranur and Seleraine, and then he would do what needed to be done.