Chapter 27 Burn #2
See how my Jormungandr rises! Hedda’s jubilant voice fills me, her caustic laughter thundering all through my chest as she celebrates.
The last ceremony of the Black Dragon has begun.
Come, Bloodwalker, and control my creature; bring our Lineage to glory, rather than destruction, at last. For this is why I have groomed you to wield my Jormungandr, completing our Ancestor’s ancient agenda.
Unify us into our true nature, ascendant.
Or watch the world fall, as my creature tears everything you love apart. The choice is yours.
As the Black Dragon roars its unstoppable supremacy to the world, I watch it take off. Flying high above the cavern of the Rift, it roars again—its terrible power exploding everywhere now, as the seething tentacles of the Black Rift explode out with it.
Heart-cursing ropes of oilslick black death thrust far and wide to kill every soul everywhere.
Everything around it catches fire. The diseased black ropes of the Usurper kill the very earth they touch; as the Black Dragon’s ropes seethe over the land and scorch the earth a caustic crimson-black, the Rift’s leviathan taint explodes out with it, ravaging everything like a cancer.
Like dual jaws consuming the world, its madness is terrible. I watch those ropes explode out so far now I can’t even see where they end. The bowl of the broken valley is consumed by darkness. As the Black Dragon roars, that valley is scorched by fire.
Oilslick-black fire, which devours everything.
Horror takes me as I fall back into my body with the rest of my drakes, protected and supported by Laerke.
She is the strongest among us right now, as we shudder and shake in pure terror of what we’ve just witnessed, exhausted beyond anything we’ve felt yet, from how the power of the Two Rings razed us.
But despite how everything has just gone to shit, and the shudder of death I feel in my bones, Strom takes my hand.
As Bjorn grips my middle, growling like a beast into my shoulder, and Mikkel seizes my hip, gripping his fingers in like talons as he snarls, Baldur kisses my neck, rumbling a sub-sonic, cosmic roar deep into my belly and chest.
It bolsters me, as all my drakes touch me now, even in our despair. Laerke touches my shoulder now, growling with us at what we’re all up against, and I feel our courage firm.
Because this is what we were made for—what we were born for—as we steel ourselves to battle this leviathan and its black taint now. This is what all Blood Dragons live and die for, as I feel a new energy fill us, one that was never there before.
The unity of our Bloodwalker power—awakened now, in each of us.
That power is far more than anything we’ve ever had before; shakily, we pull each other to our feet, not even bothering to swipe up our abandoned clothing as we stand ready to face this creature now.
It will not master us; we will master it, as I feel a renewed purpose inside all of us, my drakes and I shining like a lodestone of power in the darkness, together fully, at last.
“The time is now!” I roar all through my mind, as I raise my voice to our entire assembly of allies waiting on a wide promenade between the ruined buildings of the Harnakje for our next move.
I harness Mikkel’s ability to break into minds like water, and Strom’s to command their attention, using my drakes’ abilities effortlessly now, because they are my own.
“Tonight, we fight the Black Dragon!” I roar to our allies as my drakes snarl and draw close around me, amplifying my sending with each of their endless Bloodwalker power now.
“Prepare for annihilation! Because it is time to do what you were born for: destroy our enemies! And we shall rise together as one into the Void of our Ancestors. Heroes, to the end. Who’s with me? !”
Every tired heart is filled with courage, as my roar straightens them up. Our allies come to readiness as my drakes and I suddenly share one power, roaring and ripping open a portal right back to Harnakje, even through the protected magic of the Sanctum.
As we stride into our allies’ midst, Laerke with us, I see steel fill everyone’s eyes, along with blood. We are all ready now to fight the battle of our lives—and I know even if we don’t survive this, we’ll go out fighting this thing together, as one.
I feel my Bloodbond’s new oneness fill our people with fire now, as it bursts all around us in a seething tirade. Because we know that together, we’ll join with our Ancestors in the Void today, as we go out fighting this thing.
But I have to break the Black Dragon’s Void first to get us there.
Everyone will only be sucked into the creature’s infernal maw if we fail.
That knowledge fills me now, as I harness Baldur and Bjorn’s powers again, roaring with all my drakes to tear open the most gargantuan portal ever, right into the Black Dragon’s airspace.
Everything there boils with black madness. Burning ruination and diseased curse-ropes are everywhere, as our forces hesitate only a moment, shocked by what they’re seeing.
And then roar as one, in defiance of our fate.
A trio of the ages, Prince Halfdir, Svanhild Magnussen, and Annika Eriksson roar now, shifting up fast as they launch into the air to fight our last fight.
As Strom, Bjorn, Mikkel, Baldur, and I echo it, everyone shifts up, readiness roaring all through their bones and veins for what we’re up against, and how much we’re going to fuck our enemies up.
At my final roar like a general of the ages, we head out, winging up through that terrible portal in the skies.
Carnage assails us as we gain the Black Dragon’s airspace.
Even as we wing in among all those diseased curse-ropes, we dive and fly hard around them as they ripple through the skies, everywhere.
Growing ever bigger, they surge to every horizon now. The Black Dragon’s caustic fire is all-consuming, as it roars in its infernal madness. That horrible concussion of shrieking sound threatens to break me, shuddering my bones, even as it hauls at my blood, nearly making it jettison from my body.
Our forces are united in our purpose now, however, as I feel our towering oneness roar through them all—because we know we’ll go out fighting, no matter what.
As a battle begins inside the valley’s cursed bowl, Lithava’s rebel Jarls, the False Knights and even a contingent of Ice Dragons seething in through a second rip in midair, we’re ready for them, and everything it’s going to cost us.
But I see how the black energy of the Rift pushes Lithava’s rebels anew, lighting up their terrible oilslick sigils all over their dragon bodies in a hellish vibrance as they shine, full of diseased crimson madness and violet annihilation.
As this final battle of kin-against-kin ensues, it triggers the cosmic division energy that ravages this place.
Crimson and violet-black sigils scour through Lithava’s entire forces now, making them Wraith as they sear with that hellish madness.
I feel the insane energy of the Black Rift possess them.
We are no better, as my drakes and I light up like elder gods with blazing white sigils now, from whatever united power we’ve found, rising to counteract the Rift’s.
All of Lithava’s thousands of warriors blister with diseased madness, insane, as I see the rim of the cavern far below us ignite in a vivid white ring now from the godly sigils imbued inside it, resonating with our fight.
The darkness that pushes our enemies fills the center of that cavern like a black hole as the leviathan taint of the Black Rift fills it.
And I know, as I rip and roar, and fight in a seething glory now with our small force of allies, shining brighter than a supernova in all that searing violet-crimson and black, that Hedda’s final ceremony has begun.
Because the cosmic division energy wants to draw this massive battle of good and evil right to it—so it can drink from all of us, as dragons on both sides fall.
And feed its division energy, endless.
It wants to spread its black taint through the entire cosmos. And that’ll happen if our kin-fight feeds its hellmouth, letting the tentacles of the Rift and the Black Dragon explode out a millionfold over the entire earth, claiming it and every last creature on it, if we can’t stop it.
I will stop it, however, even if it takes everything I have. I crash a sudden command through our allies, Hold this position! While my next command is to Laerke and my drakes.
To the Usurper!
My drakes and I break from the vast melee now, winging up high into the stratosphere to go after the Black Dragon.
Down below, I see Prince Halfdir, Svanhild Magnussen, and Annika Eriksson surge in to lead the fight.
Even as we wing up hard now towards the Dragon of All Souls, to find an opening as it rampages, I see how my stepfathers are with the other commanders.
Olander Mortensen and Mathilde Eriksson are with them also, as the battle takes on a renewed viciousness without us. Our allies burn as bright as suns as they hammer our foes with Bloodwinds and Bloodspears so towering, one would think they were all Bloodwalkers in their furious might.
But our foes smite them back with equal vicious intensity, seething as dark as they do bright. As we gain a higher vantage, winging up fast towards the Black Dragon’s head as it roars its insane curse-work over the entire battle, I see how dragons on both sides fall.
Allies and enemies both plummet from the skies as they are hit by the Black Dragon’s heart-curses, or scoured by its black fire.
Or they die simply because their bones are crushed as blood jettisons from them, due to the Black Dragon’s thundering concussions when it roars.
Like dark and bright comets, they rain down into the madness of the Black Rift; I feel their souls get sucked into the Usurper, as their bodies feed the Rift now.
Annihilated, they are consumed; it’s Armageddon come alive, as I surge up towards the Black Dragon like a star now, blazing through the skies to take it down.
The air is thin and frigid as we gain the Black Dragon’s location, but energy unlike anything I’ve ever known superpowers me as I wing hard around it, trying to find an opening.
Even as I roar at it, trying to interrupt its mad rampage, my drakes and I cannot get close.
As we wing around it, Lithava and her drakes come for us like a hurricane, splitting off from the battle to come get us, even though they were drained nearly to death by the Black Dragon’s heart-curse just moments ago.
They’re recovered now, thanks to how much energy my drakes and I gave them via the Two Rings, and how much the Black Rift gives them. Even though they no longer carry the energy of Hedda, Lithava and her mates are possessed by the Rift now as they fight to let Hedda’s end come.
Lithava shrieks up at the Black Dragon for it to blast us, but I feel how she can’t command it anymore.
As the creature looks at me, I know Lithava’s lost control of it.
It’s my turn now; I scream at the Usurper with all the towering overtones and bass notes of my entire Bloodwalker dragon in my voice, to get ahold of it.
My inner dragons unite in a gargantuan explosion of auric wildfire as I burn like the brightest star in the cosmos, to take this behemoth down. All my drakes do, too, as the united fire of our new Bloodwalker power explodes through us like the universe going supernova.
And the Dragon of All Souls listens—training in on our voices and magic.
Before it roars.
Resisting our call—decimating the skies once more.