Chapter 52 Freedom
SOUNDTRACK: Written in the Stars – Epic Version by Vince Cox, EpicTrailerMusicUK, and J. None.
~ DONAVYN ~
I curled myself over Bren, holding her, curling around her so she was shielded from her dragon’s flame.
But as Ruin screamed, and his agony was echoed by his dragon in the skies above, my dragon reached out.
I dropped to my knees, still holding Bren, shuddering as Kgosi roared in our bond and consumed my thoughts, my own sight overwhelmed by the deluge of his…
Carnage, twisting like a snake that wrestled in the grass, his tail whipping, wings snapping, frantically clawing at the air to flee Kgosi who’d just passed judgment on his bonded rider.
‘Do not believe you will escape your fate. You who have darkened our herd with pain and perversion, and who fed a man’s bloody, selfish ambition. I see you, Carnage. I see your true heart—and I call judgment!’
The dragon shrieked, his pain and rage ringing in my ears, but it was with Kgosi’s ears that I heard his voice—deep and sly, now tight with pain.
‘You call yourself a Primarch, yet kill a Furyknight? How dare you!’
‘I dare because I know my purpose. If you have complaints, take them up with the Creator,’ Kgosi snarled in response, whipping through the air, diving suddenly, then ascending with a roar from the other side of Carnage’s shuddering, wobbling flight when the dragon twisted again.
Now the two faced each other head on and my heart spun in my chest.
Carnage had been weakened by Ruin’s death. I had no doubt that Kgosi would triumph. But a dragon with nothing to lose was an erratic weapon, and when Carnage opened his mouth, it was reflex to shout a warning.
‘Kgosi! Watch out!’
At the last possible second, Kgosi rolled and dropped—Carnage giving a roar of victory—but instead of passing under his foe, my dragon twisted, and I watched in awe as he rolled a second time, coming up underneath and to the other side, to catch Carnage’s tail, and one of his wings in mid-flight.
Carnage shrieked, and my ears rang again.
Bren struggled under me, but I could feel my dragon’s pinpoint rage, and his need for justice—and punishment.
I couldn’t let her go. Couldn’t risk that she was harmed by any of the furies in their wrath.
Shouts rose from the Furyknights around us.
I lifted my head to find my dragon, high in the sky, tangled with Carnage, both of them plummeting like massive stones.
Kgosi’s wings whipped and snapped as he fought Carnage for control.
Carnage writhed and screamed, his massive body twisting like a cat’s, only one wing free to flap and fight for purchase.
I heard their confrontation in my mind, through Kgosi’s eyes.
The air whistled between limbs, wings, and necks as the two began to roll, tumbling through the air.
Carnage was frantic, mouth open and teeth bared, his head whipping back and forth as he struggled to rip free from Kgosi’s grip.
When he couldn’t, he roared again, then snapped his head aside to bite at Kgosi’s leg, laying his scales open.
Kgosi screamed and flinched, his wings beating the air. But he didn’t let go. And every man in the Keep shuddered, some falling to their knees, as Kgosi reached for every mind in the vicinity—dragons and men—so no one would miss the truth.
‘You led man and dragon to perversion and death! You obscured truth, betrayed your herd—betrayed me!—and sought your own gain over the wellbeing of the minds and hearts of young dragons who have never known freedom or choice.
‘You enslaved their minds, and taught men to dismiss their natures, taking from them as weapons, rather than bonding with them as partners. You are a curse to any creature who meets you. And your power is halted today. Do you have anything to say for yourself?’
Carnage screamed, ear-shattering shrieks that made my head ring, but when he answered Kgosi, my dragon shared his response with everyone.
‘You claim kingship? You claim grace? It’s very easy to appear noble from the place of worship, Kgosi—you are not my Primarch, and I will not submit—’
Kgosi opened his mouth and sent a plume of fire and smoke over the bastard, who twisted and cried, screamed and snarled, pieces of him going up like torches.
But his dragon scales resisted even Kgosi’s fire, while the wind fed the flames that pierced the flesh beneath.
Carnage was slowly burning alive under his scales, screaming and cursing in their link.
But I watched on in horror as both of them turned, spiraling, flipping, tumbling in the air—rapidly approaching earth.
‘Kgosi… Kgosi, let him go. You have to fly—he’ll drag you down to kill you both—’
‘I will not allow this infection to spread, Donavyn.’
Kgosi’s grip was on Carnage’s tail, the rudder the dragons used to balance them in flight.
Without that, and with one wing twisted, he was unable to keep himself flat in the air.
And Kgosi, who should have been able to control their trajectory to a degree, was too tangled with Carnage’s bulk to do more than slow their progress.
‘Kgosi… please.’
In my mind’s eye, I saw through Kgosi’s red, raging gaze as he released Carnage’s wing—which snapped wide, but barely slowed their passage before something in the limb gave way.
Carnage shrieked in added agony as his wing folded back and Kgosi added a new blast of flame to ensure the tender membrane was alight.
Still they spun. Still they fell…
Men around us on the ground began to murmur, then shout as the two massive shadows of the dragons grew large and larger, falling like boulders.
“Kgosi! FLY!” I screamed, grabbing Bren up again and running us both. ‘Kgosi! You’re going to die!’
Kgosi used his free limb to claw Carnage’s snout, pinioning his mouth closed and yanked his head around so they were eye to eye.
‘You are a living lie,’ my dragon spat. ‘In the Creator’s name, I judge you worthy of death.’
Two, massive scaley backs curled overhead. Men ran, screaming, and dragons trumpeted and shrieked as Kgosi, at the last possible second, threw Carnage away from himself, following the dragon’s crackling passage with a final plume of white-hot flame.
My senses were overwhelmed—the images in my mind overlaying the images of my eyes as my dragon flipped and snapped wings wide, clawed the air, screaming, attempting to wrench his plummeting weight back into flight mere seconds before Carnage’s writhing body slammed into the earth, which opened like water to welcome him to the grave.
Dirt and sod rose in an explosive wave, chunks, stones, and earth showering the launch hollow and stable buildings as the entire Dragon Keep trembled.
I was thrown off my feet and twisted around Bren, rolling us, screaming in my mind as a shuddering groan echoed across the launch hollow, and Kgosi’s bulk seemed destined to follow him to the ground—only to sweep his wings wide and catch his own momentum, talons clawed and trailing in the dirt as my dragon flapped, straining, heaving himself back into the air, and finally…
impossibly, to safety, his wings flapping furiously until he was high enough to bank around.
When the shaking and screaming stopped, the launch hollow was a warzone.
Carnage lay on the ground, writhing still, coiling like a dying snake, unable to rise. His body crackled in flames, the light under his scales first feeding that fire, then slowly doused by it. He roared and shrieked, and some of the dragons in and around the Keep screamed in response.
But Kgosi—limping in flight, slowly wheeled around, then landed, coming to a staggering halt just a dragon’s length from the male he’d defeated.
Overhead, the young, wild dragons circled and screamed, calling for Carnage, who attempted once more to rise. But his tail didn’t work, and his wings were broken, along with at least one of his legs. His eyes were whitened, burned to blindness.
He staggered, roared… then whipped his head towards Kgosi and opened his jaws wide, inhaling deeply.
I shouted a warning—certain he was about to flame my dragon, but Kgosi coughed a tiny dart of flame straight into his mouth. Carnage choked, froze, gave a terrible cough that seemed like he must vomit—but then his head snapped back… and detonated.
Kgosi had ignited Carnage’s own vapors within his throat.
The resulting explosion, from within, given all that fuel and only a dragon’s tender inner flesh as resistance, blew the dragon’s head off his neck.
Scales, skull, and blood rained over the hollow as Carnage’s massive body jolted, then slumped. His long neck swayed, then collapsed over his carcass’s weakly pedaling legs. One wing shivered and twitched… then all went still.
In the stunned silence that followed, Kgosi began to vocalize. Quietly, at first, but with increasing intensity.
Hengh… hengh… hengh-hengh-hengh…
A fathomless, bass rhythm that he called up from under the earth, that grew in volume until the ground under our feet hummed with it.
He was joined by more and more dragons—some sliding down the sides of the launch hollow, others appearing from the surrounding woods and landing nearby, until a dozen massive, male dragons made a circle around Carnage, opened their mouths, and poured flame on the body.
Weary, but swelled with strength, Kgosi lifted and turned his head, scanning the launch hollow, taking in the dragons overhead, and offered his voice to every witness.
‘Every soul present—both human and dragon—have my assurance… I stand as your Primarch, your leader, your defender. My weapon will never be used against any one of you unless you choose, as this dragon and his rider did, to use your Creator-given gifts against the minds and hearts of others. Then… then I will bring every ounce of strength and power available to me against you. And my conscience will remain clear before God.’
Shrieks and calls rippled through the night sky—the wild dragons reacting to Kgosi. But the Vosgaarde dragons raised their voices in song and cry, heralding their Primarch.
Kgosi ignored the adoration, but ruffled his wings—his shoulders hunched against pain. I prayed he’d heal quickly. He then turned to address only the dragons, though he let me hear him.
‘You, all of you, are mine if you wish to be. But know the humans are in upheaval and our roles in their lives may change. If you wish to leave this place, or choose not to submit, I will not pursue you. You are free. All of you.’
And then my dragon, my pompous, hilarious, wise dragon, fed every other dragonfury—including the wild ones—the picture of freedom.
He showed them choices. Solitude when and as they wished, or unity to follow others.
The option to eat or sleep, to move or stay…
And if they stayed with him, they would remain free-willed, but be given a purpose that served the herd, and may align with the humans.
‘Follow your hearts,’ he urged them gently. ‘You are no longer slaves—and need never be again.’
And then, my dragon sighed. The heat rising from Carnage’s body increased as the other dragon’s sustained flames pierced his scales to ignite flesh and bone.
All of us who weren’t dragons, fell back. But Kgosi and the others continued to huff flame onto the body, until it collapsed… and finally, there was little more than a massive pile of smoldering ash.
The launch hollow was hazy with smoke and the aroma of burned meat when my dragon finally turned to face me. As others around him took flight once more, and the dragons above cried and called, Kgosi lumbered towards me.
‘Well done,’ I sent with a lump in my throat. ‘Though, you scared me. I thought I might lose you.’
‘I know,’ he replied simply. But then his head rose towards the palace and he stopped walking. He hadn’t broken our link though. ‘But now… it’s time for you to make your choice, Donavyn.’
I frowned, turning to find the queen—who looked pale even in the dim light of night—surrounded by lines of armed soldiers and guards and staring down at us from the edge of the launch hollow, one hand to her throat as if she feared Kgosi would come for her next.