Fifty Six
Alara
Rohan growls, pushing me behind him gently to shield me from them as the guards track the movement with their arrows, face masks on.
“Stay behind me,” he says, eyes on the king.
Halen’s face twists with fury as rain begins to pepper my skin, cool against the heat of the fire that still rages over the fields and city.
“You dare burn my city!” he fumes, sword pointing at Rohan, and my heart pounds as I move back a little. “You dare attack my people? Make a mockery of me?”
“You have attacked my people,” Rohan snarls, banging a hand on his chest. “My dragons, for years! Now you know how it feels.”
He walks forward then, picking up this axe.
My eyes go back to the guards. “Rohan…”
“I won’t let them hurt you,” he tells me, his grip on the handle tightening, my hair right under his palm. “Never again.”
He raises his axe and points it at the king.
“Come down here and face me, or are you still a coward?”
The guards shift restlessly, looking at their king for an answer.
Halen shifts. Looking at his guards for a moment. “Why would I lower myself to be near you?”
Rohan shakes his head.
“We Dragorie die with honor to be embraced by Morana. You,” he says, taking a step closer as I move further back toward Escor and Drogonah. “Are a spineless king. A greedy king. A weak king. An unfit ruler and an even worse father.”
The guards look at Rohan in shock, their mouths dropping open, some lowering their bows.
Rohan laughs. “Ah, they didn’t know that this lowly barbarian is your son?”
I reach Escor, placing my palm against his scales, Drogonah at his back, focused on all of them.
“What do we do?” I whisper to them.
The guards begin to murmur amongst themselves, the king looking around nervously.
“You are a bastard child!” he shouts.
“No!” Rohan roars, slashing his free hand through the air. “I am my mother’s son, and you will pay for the crimes you committed against her, against my people, the dragons. Against the very land you took an oath to protect when you became king and failed.”
“I protect my people!” He splutters.
“The people in your circle, but not the lands, and you will never be worthy of it.”
Halen bares his teeth, growling as he sheaths his sword and rummages through a satchel on his horse.
“No,” he says, “You will die this day.”
“I won’t die until you take your last breath,” Rohan replies.
Halen lifts something out of his bag. “You won’t live to see me die, boy.”
Rohan freezes, Drogonah and Escor freeze. I freeze.
It’s an egg.
A red egg.
From the cavern.
Drogonah and Escor growl as more guards on horses lift their eggs too.
That’s all of them. They have all the eggs.
“Rohan…”
“You continue to touch what isn’t yours,” Rohan snarls as Drogonah gets to his feet. “You dare steal from a dragon!”
“A dragon and his leader helped get these eggs! And they are my dragons now!” Halen shouts. “And you will die for ever crossing me. For thinking you could ever defeat me! Guards, loose!”
The guards shift their bows, and my eyes widen.
Rohan is already running toward me. “Alara, get down!”
Arrows fly through the air, the breath releasing from my lungs in a rush as I watch them come for us. All of us.
There’s so many of them, too many.
There’s nowhere to go, to hide.
“Rohan,” I whisper as he reaches me, and his arms wrap around me. I close my eyes and I hold him just as tightly, waiting to be struck with the vapor.
But then darkness descends on a threatening growl, heat surrounding us and I look up on a gasp.
“Drogonah!”
He stands over us all, protectively, Rohan, Escor and I, and he’s taking the arrows, his large body jolting from the sheer number of them as he releases a stream of fire in the guards’ direction.
People scream, shouts echoing.
Shards of glass from the spheres join the rain as they impact with Drogonah’s scales, the mist-like vapor coming down with them and into Drogonah.
“Fuck,” Rohan says as Drogonah’s front legs buckle. He growls in pain, the fire stopping. Escor stands, head raised and rumbling in fear.
The jolting stops suddenly, Drogonah breathing heavily and I can feel him slipping away.
“Out, quickly.” Rohan ushers me out, Escor following on a limp just as Drogonah collapses into the dirt with a mournful sound before going silent.
Rohan curses. “Stay here.”
He stalks toward the king as I go to Drogonah’s front, stroking along his snout.
“Thank you,” I whisper, throat tight at seeing him unresponsive.
“You think guards with Nighturn will stop me from ripping your head off?” Rohan shouts, striding toward them as the rest of the guards shuffle back, no longer in possession of Nighturn arrows.
Did he use his last batch?
I look at the dead bodies on the ground, charred from Drogonah’s fire. He took out at least half of them.
“No, I don’t think I could stop you,” Halen says, his tone calm.
“But a dragon will.” A growl comes from the smoke at his back, where the gate is now crumbled.
“You will die by my dragon, the very thing you risk your life to protect every year. The very thing your people have died for and it will be all for nothing.”
The king kicks his horse, moving to the side and his guards on horseback follow, those on foot moving to the other side.
The horses move restlessly when Escor growls, but my eyes stay on the crumbled wall ahead, to the fire at its back, the smoke and the large claw that pushes through it.
Escor lowers his head, baring his teeth.
Another growl, and my heart beats in my throat as the face of a dragon appears out of the smoke, teeth bared.
“No…” I say, as the rain falls heavier. “No.”
Rohan stills, eyes trained on the once-hanging dragon ahead, now free.
“Meet my favorite possession,” Halen says. “Though I’m sure the elven bitch told you all about her. Well, now you get to meet her in person.”
I clutch my side and watch in horror as the dragon approaches Rohan slowly, head down, green vapor swirling in her teeth.
How is Halen controlling her?
I turn to the king, where he holds the eggs.
He’s doing what Karag did to Vali… using them to get her to do his bidding.
I blink rain from my eyes. “Rohan, be careful.”
He stands still, axe angled a little at his side, ready to fight as Escor slowly moves past me.
But he’s no match for her.
“Escor…”
The dragons get closer to each other, Rohan between them, the king and his guards to the side, the eggs in their clutches, and all I can do is watch.
“Hold, Escor,” Rohan says so quietly that I almost don’t hear it. Escor rumbles, but he does as he’s asked, standing at his back.
My eyes sting. He’s so small compared to her, three years old, and yet he’s there at Rohan’s back, willing to protect him at all costs.
Rohan’s eyes stay on the dragon approaching him, the king’s sickening grin, vile. He holds the egg in view, then Rohan does something no one expects.
He drops his axe into the wet mud.
His only weapon against her.
And then he takes a step toward her.
“Admitting defeat?” the king asks, but he doesn’t get an answer.
When the dragon is close, with fire still burning around us, smoke thick in the sky, Rohan holds his palm out, and waits.
I move closer unconsciously, heart beating so fast I can barely catch my breath as the dragon bares her teeth and lets out an almighty roar in his face.
Escor tenses, tail high, the horses spooking, their riders trying to get them under control. Yet Rohan doesn’t so much as flinch in front of her.
He stands there like a pillar. Patient, unmovable.
The dragon’s jaw snaps shut, vapor curling out and around her snout as she stares at him, purple eyes bright.
I hold my breath as they regard each other in silence, emotions churning too fast for me to differentiate and then, in the pouring rain, the dragon moves forward, and places her snout to his palm.
“Oh, Morana,” I breathe, hands resting on my knees in relief as I take my first breath in what feels like forever.
The dragon closes her eyes and rumbles. It’s a painful, mournful sound that makes my heart ache, and a sob builds in my throat.
“It’s okay,” Rohan says, stroking her as Escor tilts his head curiously.
Because she’s not hurting him. She’s not attacking him.
She’s…
I gasp, feeling it flow through me.
“Kill him!” the king demands, but his order goes ignored by the large dragon.
“It’s okay,” Rohan repeats. “I have you now, Herja.”
The sob I tried to keep in, releases.
Herja.
“Fuck, I have you,” Rohan mutters to the dragon he played with as a child.
Who he would bite.
Who’s back he would sit upon.
His mother’s dragon.
“How dare you defy me, beast!” the king roars, lifting the egg up high in threat.
“No!” I cry out, running toward him without thought as the dragons roar in fury, turning toward Halen.
Rohan races for the egg.
But he’s too far away, and he’s already lifted the egg to throw it, to kill it.
“No, stop!” I shout.
“Put the egg down!” Rohan roars, axe in hand again.
Halen’s face twists. “You will pay for what you’ve done—”
An arrow suddenly lands in his shoulder, causing the king to fall off his horse. The egg drops from his hands, rolling on the ground toward me.
The dragons roar, the horses bucking with their riders and running off into the burning fields in fear.
“Alara, the egg!” Rohan shouts as he runs for the king.
I slip in the mud, my side burning as I run for it.
Escor gets there first, picking it up gently with his mouth, and Herja barrels over, snarling down at him.
“No,” I gasp, holding a hand out as I go to Escor. He drops it into my hand, a purr coming from him and I hold it protectively against my chest, closing my eyes in relief.
“The others,” I say to Herja, looking to where the horses ran, and without a moment’s hesitation, she takes off, the ground vibrating with her steps.
All she’s ever wanted was to protect them. Even beaten, even half-starved, her ferociousness to protect those eggs while hanging from chains never wavered. Just like it won’t waver now.
I watch her disappear into the night, and then I hold out the egg and inspect for any damage, to see if it’s hurt, but I find none.