Chapter 31 #2
I’ve only ever seen dragons one other time in my life.
On the night when the dracori attacked my home village, dragon spawn swooped from the sky, raining fire down on the rooftops.
They had seemed like such nightmarish hellbeasts then, but now?
Now they look so human. Mhoryga’s creatures, perhaps, born of hell and flame…
but is that their fault? It’s not as though they asked to exist in the first place!
I cannot know whether they are innocent, cannot know how they have been used by our mother or for what dark purpose.
But I saw the way they tried to shield and comfort their youngest brother, how they fought not to let him be taken from them.
They are my brothers. And now, I will watch them die.
“Unchain the dragon spawn,” Alderin commands.
By some magic or mechanism I don’t understand, the meorise chains binding their limbs fall away and are dragged from the arena, leaving the two young men standing there in a pool of sunlight.
They are both without armor or weapon of any kind, stripped to the waist, and barefoot.
Both are strong-looking fellows, one a little broader and darker, the other fair and freckled.
Despite these differences, they are unmistakably brothers; even from this distance, I can discern their flashing gold eyes. Eyes like mine.
Alderin stands at the rail, gazing into the arena below.
“Champions,” he calls, his voice a boom of thunder, “this is a trial of courage. You must show no fear in the face of death and fire. You must prove yourselves ready and willing to fulfill the mighty task which the gods have ordained for you. This is your final test, the culmination of everything you have fought for. Surrender your lives, offer up your hearts. And may the best man win.”
He lifts one hand above his head. We all wait, poised in that moment of suspense in which he holds us captive. “Champions,” he cries, then brings his arm swinging down sharply, “commence!”
Instantly, both Taigan and Warrick leap into action, rushing to the center of the arena.
The dragon-spawn brothers stand back-to-back, watching their approach.
I want to scream at the unfairness of it as I watch those two armor-clad men hurtling with blades and shields at two unarmed, unprotected souls.
But the holabella holds me in firm submission, and I can do nothing but watch.
From the tail of my eye, I can just see Philippa leaning over the rail, unable to disguise her own feelings in this unguarded moment.
As the champions close in on them, one of the dragon men, the fair one, kneels and folds his hands in an attitude of prayer.
His brother tries to get him up, shouting at him even as he circles him in a protective stance.
But the fair young man seems cut off from the world around him, sinking deeply into a trancelike state, his eyes closed.
Taigan darts forward, sword flashing. He cuts the darker man across the upper arm. The dragon man staggers back, and green, sizzling blood drips from the wound.
The man looks down at his arm, as though it doesn’t belong to him. He stares at that seeping fluid, so brilliant and hot, it seems to dull the light of the reflected sun. Then he looks straight at Taigan—and fire sparks from his eyes.
The next moment, he opens his mouth, and billowing flame issues forth.
Even as Taigan leaps back, putting up his meorise shield as a barrier, the dragon man’s body transforms. His neck elongates and thickens, his torso warps, his back arching until the bones of his spine burst through his flesh in razor-sharp spikes.
His skin shreds away, revealing scales so dark, they look black from this distance, but they gleam with a green iridescence in the light of his own fire.
His fingers curl, nails lengthening into talons, and two massive horns burst from his skull.
Anyone watching must know in an instant that this was the true reality of his being all along, that the form he wore up until now was nothing more than an illusion.
Only a body and being like this could contain such an inferno of heat.
The dragon, now the size of a large cart horse, sinuous and coiling with a barbed tail, rears back his head and sends another gout of flame spewing at Taigan.
The prince once more catches it with his shield, but even from this distance, the radiating heat is so intense, I can’t help fearing Taigan will be roasted alive.
Warrick springs into action then, throwing himself at the dragon and aiming a blow for the base of his skull.
Some part of my brain remembers being taught—probably by Master Gormon—that dragons have a weak point there, where their scales offer less protection.
Warrick looks like some figure out of legend, his powerful body flying through air, his sword arm drawn back.
Though a visor covers most of his face, I can see his mouth open in a furious roar.
Just at the last moment, the dragon spawn twists. One of his great, leathery wings strikes Warrick hard, knocking him from the air. He loses his shield, which spins off across the stones. Warrick himself hits the ground hard, stunned. Beside me, Philippa smothers a scream in both hands.
And through all this, the fair dragon remains kneeling, head bowed, hands folded. As though the chaos around him cannot reach him, cannot touch him.
The dark dragon whips his head around, a savage hiss steaming through his cage of teeth.
He crawls toward Warrick, each movement strangely elegant and fluid, like a snake, despite the strange jointedness of his limbs.
Warrick, still half-stunned, scrambles to his feet, but his bad leg gives out when he tries to put weight on it.
He goes down, kneeling, and the dragon lashes out with his talons.
A flash of steel, and Warrick deflects the blow, cutting off one of the dragon’s curved fingers in the process.
The dragon spawn utters a shriek that echoes off the stalactites overhead.
More fiery blood pours from his wound. In my head, even through the thrum of holabella, I can feel his pain, his rage, his fear.
He rears back his head, jaw opening wide, aiming a blast of fire straight at Warrick where he kneels. The prince of Anfalen’s eyes widen.
Just at the last instant, Taigan leaps into the path of the flame, deflecting it with his meorise shield.
He and Warrick crouch behind what feels like much too small a barrier, and once more all of us watching from the balcony flinch back from the awful heat, though we ourselves are far removed from it. How can they possibly endure it?
The dragon’s flame is spent, and he gasps for breath, chest heaving, head shaking.
I can already feel the fire in him mounting again as he prepares for another devastating blast. As he raises himself up and opens his mouth wide, however, Taigan boldly lunges forward.
He throws himself straight at that awful maw, thrusting out his right arm and plunging his sword straight into the dragon’s palate.
A shining blade emerges through the top of the dragon’s skull—a third horn between the other two.
I stare. I cannot move, cannot react, not even when my brother’s death agony bursts inside my head, rippling through my senses and awareness, breaking through all drugged barriers. I feel it all for a terrible collection of heartbeats.
All around me, cheers erupt. The courtiers, the king, Philippa, even the guards. They throw up their hands, bellowing with triumphant glee, calling out Taigan’s name.
I hear them. But only with my ears.
In my head, much louder, much more terrible, is the silence. The silence where the dragon’s voice was but moments ago.
My brother. My brother.
He falls. His terrible body lashes and coils in death throes, and that barbed tail knocks Taigan flat.
When the horrible contortions finally still, Taigan rises, standing proud above the body of his slain enemy.
He stretches out a magnanimous hand, pulling Warrick up and helping him away from the flow of dragon’s blood, which glows like hot magma, melting stone beneath it.
Together, the two princes survey the dead monster in all its hideous glory.
Through all this, the second dragon spawn remains kneeling. I can see his lips moving, and in the very depths of my head, I hear his prayer. I do not understand the words, but a single meaning comes to me: Mercy, mercy, mercy.
There can be no mercy for dragons in this world, however.
Leaving Warrick where he is, Taigan marches to the second dragon. “Come on!” he shouts, his voice rough and exultant with victory. “Come on, get up and fight! Show us your true self, demon, and let us fight as we are fated to!”
The dragon ignores him completely. And again, in my head, I hear the echo: Mercy, mercy, mercy.
“Very well,” Taigan declares, and tosses aside his helmet, revealing his fine handsome face.
Sunlight from the upper world shines in his golden hair, and he looks like an angel come down into the darkest reaches of the world.
“Then in the name of Eidolo and all the gods of this realm, who have seen fit in their wisdom to appoint me as their weapon in this world, I send you, demon, back to the hell from which you spawned.”
He draws back his sword arm.
I cannot look away. I cannot even close my eyes.
I watch as the blow falls. Single, sharp, and swift.
I feel the sudden cessation of that voice in my head—the silence where, but a moment ago, there were prayers.
Then I give in to the holabella’s numbness and sink into darkness.