Chapter 8 #5
The flock of dragons that had been in thrall around the world eater turned as the world eater disappeared from the world, sheared away from the portal and headed back toward the fortress in an exhausted cloud.
“What do we do? How do we get it back?”
“Some things, once done, cannot be undone,” he said. “They must simply run their terrible course.”
“Vilka! There has to be something!”
“Very well. If you insist on saving humanity from the wrath of a world eater, there is something to be done,” he said. “Someone can bait it from your world, return it to the dragon realm, defeat it in battle and return it to its den.”
“Oh,” she said. “Sounds, um… difficult.”
“No more difficult than tearing a hole in space and time and waking him in the first place, I am sure,” Vilka sighed.
“Really, Kate, I did not think this situation could have been worsened, but thanks to your efforts, it has. Avastias rising almost certainly has the elders of our people en route to our door. Their wrath would have been terrible enough when they realized the circumstances of his awakening, but now when they arrive, they will have the additional question of what we’ve done with the creature. ”
“Well, I guess I’ll just explain to them,” Kate said simply. “That’s all anyone can do.”
“The elders will not be interested in your explanations. They will want to know how a human stole an ancient dragon.”
“I didn’t steal anything!”
“Well, we had a world eater here, and now we don’t,” Vilka said. “And the difference between those two things is you. Believe me, I know how they think. They will be furious at the waking of the beast, and even more furious at its loss.”
“Then we get it back,” she said simply. “Before they arrive.”
“This is not like baking another cake because you ate half the first one, Kate,” he growled. “We cannot simply put part of the world eater back in the cake tin and hope for the best.”
“No, but if we get it back, that will make things better. And maybe… what if you got your dragons to reconstruct the mountain where it escaped? I mean, can they really tell that it’s gone? If we close the portal, it will be like nothing ever happened.”
“Aside from the nightmare of a species wreaking havoc on the human plane,” Vilka said, his tone thick with sarcasm. “Yes, precisely as if nothing ever happened.”
“I’m just trying to help,” Kate said. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s not as if you had a sign saying ‘huge dragon, do not wake’ on the mountain! I didn’t intend for this to happen, I was just trying to get back home. If anything, this is your fault.”
“How is this my fault, precisely, human?”
“You should have let me go when I told you to.”
“I should have clapped you in chains and kept you in the deepest, darkest dungeon I have, you mean,” he said, his eyes narrowed to two angry slits.
“Have you no remorse, girl? Do you not understand your role in all these things? How much destruction will be done before you see that you have some hand here?”
“I don’t think you see your role in this,” she countered. “You kept me here against my will. You expected me to roll over and obey you, why? Because I am a woman? You think just because you have sex with me I’m going to stay here forever?”
“I think because I have claimed you as mine, that I will keep you here,” he growled.
“I think you have no choice in it, and I think that is a good thing because you take no responsibility for what you break. You think you are entitled to do anything you please. Even now, as the world eater could be visiting any kind of horror on your people, and you would rather argue with me than admit the error of your ways.”
“I have confidence in our military to handle a dragon, even one as big as that one.”
“You don’t understand, do you.” He shook his head and drew a deep breath.
“Kate, Avastias is not a dragon. He is terror incarnate, he is fear and predation made flesh. Your militaries have weapons of great power, but he will not be defeated by their physical means. It will not be as it was at the end of the last war, when cowards trained their weapons on a gracious retreating force.”
“So this is about me being human. You hate me because I’m human.”
He let out a short laugh. “You can’t begin to know how wrong you are.”
“What does that mean?”
“You will find out soon enough,” he declared, taking her in hand.
Kate tried to squirm out of his grasp, but it was a token struggle and she knew it.
Vilka was determined to make sure she did not escape again and he showed it by wrapping his hands around her and holding her fast as he attached new chains pulled from a nearby chest. They were made of the same material from which the fortress itself was forged.
The links were obsidian black, gleaming with a dark light.
He clapped two irons around her wrists and a new collar replaced the pretty one she had worn before.
That fell to the floor, shattered by the dragon’s grip and was replaced with a thicker, much less comfortable collar that was heavy around her neck, and to which the wrist irons were attached with more chains, smaller links that did not strain her overly, but that absolutely made her feel the intellectual weight of the shackles.
“The elders will be here soon,” Vilka said. “I will present them to you and your fate will be decided.”
“My fate was decided a long time ago,” Kate said defiantly, her shackles clinking as she stood defiantly before her irate lover and so-called master. “I decided it, and these chains and your elders don’t make any difference. You can slow me down, but you can’t stop me. I will get back home.”
“Defying me will not undo your destruction,” Vilka said. “I know you prefer fighting me to looking at yourself, but I will not allow you that luxury. You will await your true fate—the fate arising from the consequences of your actions, not the fate you imagine you deserve based on your fantasies.”
Not content with the chains and shackles, Vilka produced the last implement of his displeasure… a length of velvet fabric that he wrapped three times about her head, making the world go dark.
She felt another length of chain fastened about her waist, and then her wrist shackles clipped to it. She could no longer reach her face, not even to scratch her nose—and definitely not to remove the blindfold.
“Where are you taking me? What are you doing?”
“To your destiny.”
She could hear the dark smirk in his voice and let out a little growl as he tugged her forward. Wherever she was going, she doubted she was going to like it.