Chapter 46 The Heavy Cost of Pursuit
SOUNDTRACK: The Oath by Glum Aleks
~ brEN ~
When the sun rose for the third time after our midnight launch from Fyrehold, I sat on Akhane’s back, gripping the neckstrap, but slumped. My body dragged with fatigue—Akhane and I had only stopped for minutes at a time to eat and drink, and three hours in the hottest part of each day to sleep.
Weariness had reached my bones. My muscles quivered with it, and my stomach gnawed.
But it was the separation that threatened to undo me. Flying away from Donavyn had been even harder than I’d expected—and as the awareness of the bond faded until I was left with only a hollow sense of him, a whisper of a memory of the connection—I panicked.
Akhane, too, was struggling. We’d expected to have to fight the bond. But neither of us anticipated pain. And the shrieking ache of loneliness.
If I hadn’t had her, I wouldn’t have made it.
‘The same is true for me, Bren,’ Akhane breathed in my head wearily. I wanted to weep, listening to her. She’d had it even worse than me—at times, screaming with pain when muscles tied up in protest of our solitude.
“I never thought it would hurt like this,” I said breathlessly.
Akhane shook her head like a dog. ‘I was aware it would hurt, but… I understood it would ease as we drew further away.’
I lay down on her neck and hugged her as best I could. ‘You are so strong,’ I told her with sincere admiration. ‘I'm proud of you.’
Akhane crooned, and I felt the rush of love from her in the bond. ‘Little Flame, you honor me.’
‘I wish I could do more.’
We flew on without words for a time, but though we were high, at some point, the sun’s rising light twinkled on water below and I looked down and frowned.
‘Akhane… is that the gorge near where we found the army?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s take our rest there. Just to check. I know they gathered up the men, but you need a break, and I want to see if there’s any clue of this plot that we missed at the time.’
Akhane didn’t like the idea, but we were due for a break—she’d been flying to the point of exhaustion for three days—and she descended slowly, wheeling and spiraling down.
She landed much closer to the campsite than we had the first time, but we’d seen no sign of men or activity out here. It was unlikely I’d find anything, but I wanted to check.
I was still bothered by the fact that the king had sent me out here to discover these men, and obviously obscured where they were from.
Were they Vosgaardians? Fyrehold men? There’d been no sign of dragons, and Akhane hadn’t scented any nearby.
But it was possible, just like Fyrehold, that they sent their furies into the hills…
When I dismounted—stumbling and almost falling when I dropped the last few feet to the ground and my knees and ankles didn’t want to brace—I patted Akhane’s leg.
‘Go find something to eat. I feel so bad about how this is wearing you out.’
‘It suits our purpose, does it not?’ she sighed, turning her head so her incredible eye fixed on me from the side. ‘I must appear finished. As I would be if I’d truly lost my mate.’ Her voice tightened on the words and her gaze shifted north—as mine did.
We couldn’t see them. Couldn’t pinpoint their locations or even their feelings anymore. But we could sense the vague direction in which they lay. I caught myself looking north and slightly east whenever I stopped thinking. My mate’s presence called to me.
‘Yes,’ I told her reluctantly. ‘But… you passing out midflight in our last few hours doesn’t serve us at all. Tired, Akhane. We need you tired. Not dead. We’re going to reach home tonight if we’re smart about it. So… Go. Find something to eat.’
I gave her one final pat, then turned in the direction where I’d found that camp, what seemed like a lifetime ago, though it had only been, what…
two months? Three? I shook my head. I felt like a different person standing in this spot.
I recognized the terrain, despite the morning light.
The wood in front of me would thin and reveal a clearing on the other side.
As I started walking, my legs trembled. My steps were shaky.
Small lights twinkled at the edge of my vision, and it seemed harder to breathe than usual. I was spent.
We still had many hours of flight ahead, but we would reach Vosgaarde tonight.
I’d resolved not to eat today, though I might sleep.
I had to keep myself on the edge. They had to believe we’d fled Donavyn’s death, which heralded Kgosi’s.
With memories of Ciar fresh in their minds, even without the judgment, they’d expect to see us both at the edge of our limits.
As I walked, it became clear my body was closer to that ledge than I’d thought. And that worried me—was I dragging more because Akhane was worse than I’d thought? Did our weariness make each other feel worse? Or were we truly reaching the limits of our strength?
When I reached the clearing—which the forest was already working to reclaim—I stopped and considered the space, remembering those strange fire-roofs they’d built to keep anyone overhead from seeing their flames. I remembered the banners, and the men patrolling the camp.
I was struck, anew, with fear, realizing how close I’d come to being in the hands of actual enemies.
Then my blood ran cold, remembering those enemies were ordered by the very man we’d been working to protect.
I turned towards the edge of the clearing—there had been another camp inside the trees to the east, and I’d meant to look more closely there because I’d seen less of that area.
But then, as my mind turned over that entire, impossible night, my shaking steps drew up short.
The king had sent me out here to men who, presumably, didn’t know me. Had I been uncovered by those patrolling guards, what might have happened?
I frowned. Donavyn and I hadn’t yet bonded, though the dragons, it turned out, were already aware of their bond, and holding off on completing it to give us time.
No one had known, when I flew out of the Keep that early morning, that my death would have hurt Donavyn.
So, what had been the king’s game?
‘Do not give energy to questions you cannot answer, Bren,’ Akhane sent me wearily—along with reassurance that she’d found some food. Though, given the ache I could feel in her middle, it wasn’t more than a few mouthfuls.
‘But the king… he was behind all of this. Why?’
‘Who knows why evil men do the things they do? Who knows what draws them?’
‘But why me? Donavyn thinks he just found me an entertaining distraction at the beginning. But for him to intervene when I was still a Flameborne… he had to think he was gaining something from this, Akhane.’
‘I’m certain he did. But I do not know what it was. And I don’t believe you can guess.’
I chewed on that as I walked around the areas the camp had spread, but beyond an occasional forgotten dish, and a handful of spots that had been dug out for firepits, I found nothing.
When I walked—slowly, painfully—back to Akhane, it was to find her sprawled on the grass, sunning her wings, her neck outstretched.
She was miserable. I walked straight to her head and scratched the spots she liked best—her eye-ridges, and the skin behind her ears and at the base of her horns.
“Do you need to eat more?” I asked her, genuinely concerned. This trip at a leisurely pace would normally take almost a week. We would do it in less than four days. Even my brothers and their larger, male dragons had been exhausted by this trip, and they’d eaten properly and slept more.
Akhane sighed and I leaned on her neck, truly worried about her for the first time. ‘Akhane… do we need to rest for longer?’
But, in answer, she heaved herself to her feet and shook. ‘No, Bren. This is the purpose—to be weakened and haggard, yes?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Then, we will keep going. And today, we will take the first steps to defeating this bastard,’ she said, her tone determined… and shockingly dark.
~ DONAVYN ~
I swore as a massive greenscale—usually a healing dragon, though some were incredible fighters—bore down on us once more.
‘Can you reach him, Kgosi?’
‘He resists,’ my dragon growled in return. I pinned myself to his back, shaking my head.
Three days since I’d left Benji in the valley and told him to return to the castle with a message for Gil and Voski, to return home with them.
Three days without equipment or rations, we’d been pursuing Ruin and Carnage—three days of clusters of wild dragons being sent back to thwart us, and Kgosi slowing our pace, wheeling to avoid conflict while he reached into their minds as gently as he could to speak, to explain—to show them the freedom they could enjoy.
They were young, and scared. But he now had over a dozen trailing us.
Each a small victory against this godawful assault on the minds and hearts of young dragons.
Each yet another small delay, forcing Kgosi to hunt more, rest again, as he flew and fought, single-mindedly, to save as many as he could.
The dragons were unaccustomed to people, fearful of me, and a couple had left Kgosi as well, though he’d given them complete freedom. He hadn’t forced them into a herd link.
‘They have been controlled and used enough in their young lives,’ he’d told me darkly, that first night, when the first of the pair who’d joined us, left as the sky turned red with the sunset. ‘I will not be another iron fist on their minds.’
I agreed with him. Of course, I did. A man shackled to service was a slave, not a comrade.
I’d never force a man to fight for me, and didn’t see how anyone could be trusted who had.
And yet... The niggling fear that these dragons may have been set up to lull us into a false sense of security…
That they might be flying off to inform, or to follow from a distance and attack at an inopportune time, would not leave me.
Kgosi had very little patience for that.
‘One of these days, Donavyn, you will learn to trust my judgment of such things,’ he muttered bitterly, the second night, when I’d expressed concern about the second dragon leaving us, while eight more remained.
‘I do trust you, Kgosi. It’s them—and Ruin and Carnage—I don’t trust. How can you be sure—’
‘Are you certain your yellow-belly belongs to you?’
I gave him an unimpressed look. ‘Considering possible plots is not cowardice,’ I snapped back.
‘And pointing out the obvious isn’t clever,’ he returned. ‘I am certain these poor creatures will not attack us, and they won’t return to Carnage. You will have to trust that I can know that. Our energy is better spent elsewhere.’
Now, we had a dozen dragons flying with us—following, though they kept their distance from me whenever we landed. And we were facing a new foe: A large dragon. Older than the others, though Kgosi was certain it had also been afflicted by chains on its mind.
This one flew alone—likely a strong male who would seek his own herd soon. He was fierce, and angry, and ruthless.
Kgosi claimed he couldn’t break into his mind without breaking it completely. ‘My choices are to kill his identity by stealth, or kill his body face to face,’ Kgosi rumbled unhappily. ‘I know that I would rather die with my wits intact.’
I agreed. And so, we fought.
Wheeling, banking, screaming—Kgosi tried again and again to reach the male, but he would not waver, and his attacks became increasingly violent—and Kgosi’s pleas increasingly desperate. The young ones who followed us shrieked and flew nearby, but would not intervene in a challenge between leaders.
Kgosi tried, again and again, to convince the poor creature that he meant no harm, but it had been ordered to attack him until death.
I felt the moment Kgosi gave up and accepted that he had to kill the adversary.
‘Strap in, Donavyn,’ he sent reluctantly. ‘I will have to flame him.’
I pulled up the hood of my leathers, tightening the chin strap to keep the dragonhide tight to my skin.
It covered my ears, which I hated, the wind of flight thundering against it and deafening me to any but the loudest calls from the dragons.
But if Kgosi measured it necessary, I wouldn’t question it.
I tightened the safety strap with knots again and leaned forward, hooking my heels under his wing ridges, and wrapping the neck straps around my arms, clamping the ends in my fists so there was no chance of being thrown free.
And then, Kgosi dove.
It was like riding a mountain. Ascents at such speed, my ears threatened to shatter before they popped.
Descents that sent my stomach into my throat, and all the blood out of my limbs.
We whipped and turned, dodging darts of flame and ruthless talons, Kgosi defying the weight of his bulk, and turning on a wingtip to face the dragon when it dodged past after a head-to-head challenge.
We chased that fucker down, and under normal circumstances, I might have cheered—the soldier watching a foe to be vanquished. But Kgosi roared, and flapped on, gaining on the beast, who looked over his shoulder and snarled defiance.
‘You have to take him, Keg.’
‘I will—but his mind is cracked, and I hoped…’ Kgosi drew his head up—slowing his flight, but the trailing smoke from his nostrils a sign he prepared fire to flame this asshole out of the sky.
To my shock, the dragon arched, diving, twisting, curling himself into acrobatics nearly as agile as Kgosi’s, until he flew under us in a blink.
What the—
My body shrieked as Kgosi dove after him, twisting and rolling in the sky, in a move that would have sent me plummeting to earth were it not for the straps.
I clung as desperately as I could, praying he’d find the angle—the dragon was now flying straight for the young bucks that followed us, as Kgosi roared a final warning.
When the other dragons scattered in flight, the new brute ascended abruptly.
I was shocked when Kgosi slowed his flight, then breathless as the dragon rising ahead of us twisted, mouth open and talons extended, turning to face us in the same moment my dragon arched, backflapping so aggressively, we almost stalled in the air, and his back legs and tail followed through, curling him almost into a ball.
Kgosi widened his jaw and a split-second later, a plume of flame so bright and thick it seemed like liquid, poured from his throat and straight for our enemy.
Unable to hold my seat, I was flung to the limits of the straps, thanking God for the thick, impenetrable leather, as it caught my weight and held me to him while Kgosi twisted like a cat.
And then, as if the world had slowed, a plume of flame erupted from the dragon—a spear from his lips that grew, blooming like a flower from a stalk. The heat shimmered the air and sizzled my brows as Kgosi screamed and twisted once more, then dove… and we plummeted towards earth.