CHAPTER 19 #3
I looked up into the snarling maw of a dragori.
Up close, I knew it for the abomination it was.
Time stilled as I gazed into its black lifelight.
Its head, wings, and claws were mockeries of a dragon’s.
It was covered in reptilian scales and hide that lacked the strength or protection of dragonhide.
There was no magic in this thing, aside from whatever twisted magic created it.
A small tail protruded from its back, but it was useless and cropped.
Saliva dripped from its fangs, which were long and lethal.
It was larger than a man, even a Riht, but not by much. I guessed about seven and a half feet.
Time snapped back. Ivank reached for me—just as something shot out from my back.
He cried out, recoiling. I screamed and dove to the ground as three dragori landed on top of me.
Thick, dark vines snaked around me, each one covered in outward-facing spikes.
The dragori atop me clawed at the bramble growing thicker and thicker around me.
One let out a hissing shriek, and black blood oozed through the cracks in my rapidly growing cocoon.
Gasps from the Riht sounded all around.
“KILL THEM!” Lispen shouted, accompanied by the metallic hiss of blades being drawn.
A ball of brilliant red-orange streaked across the cracks in my makeshift armor.
Terror. In an instant, the weight of the dragori flew off me.
My vines fell away, sloughing off like shed skin and crumbling to ash.
Neither their creation nor destruction had been conscious, but I had no time to consider.
I hopped up, finding my footing despite the rocking ship.
Wep had killed one at my feet and dropped his sword to pry another off with both hands, leaving him momentarily defenseless.
He reached for his sides and drew his short swords, but not fast enough to block the dragori’s claws.
In slow motion, it slashed out, straight for his chest. Its three-inch talons would gut him.
Even his mail would do little to stop it.
“NO!” I screamed, reaching for him. Something raw and ancient welled within me. Tingling heat raced down my arms as stakes, long and sharp, shot from each of my hands, embedding into the creature’s back.
At the same instant, Wep spun, rolling with the dragori’s strike and using his momentum to whip his blades around. One bit into its skull, the other into its spine beneath its wings—just a second after my spikes hit. With a horrifying shriek, its black lifelight winked out.
I sucked in a breath, fear crawling through me at what I’d done, but I didn’t have time for it. Power still thrummed at my fingertips. With clenched fists, I focused on Vaya’la’s peace, willing it to subside.
Wep yanked his blades free, black blood spraying in a wide arc, then turned to de-wing and stab the third dragori, who Lispen had engaged, straight through the back. It dropped, but not before its claws latched onto Lispen’s forearm, leaving three deep gashes.
To my left, two more dragori had been slain near the stern, Raif and Helene among the group responsible. I looked up. We were out of range of the cliff. No more dragori until we made land.
Wep’s intensity slammed into me, and I turned to face him.
He was breathing hard and staring at me in a way that was all too intimate.
His lifelight flickered juniper—pride—I might have craved it any other time, but not then.
Not when my whole sense of self was changing.
Not when I, Bound to the Dragon of Life, had turned into a bringer of death.
Yet, I was trapped in his sights with no way to escape.
All I could do was watch as he drove the tips of his short swords into the benches on either side of him, leaving the blades standing on end and covered in black blood.
It took him three strides to reach me. He wrapped his arms around me, crushing me to him, heedless of the people around us and the armor between us.
“Living armor,” he whispered in my ear. “Incredible.”
Over his shoulder, I watched Teke rip one of my spikes out of the dragori’s back before it tumbled over the side.
They looked at me, eyebrows raised and pulsing with bright teal—awe—then chucked the spike over the railing.
Raif pulled Lispen to the side, gripping her arm to examine the claw marks despite her protests.
Ivank and Lex lifted the last dead creature and threw it overboard.
I heard its thick splash before it was swallowed by the sea.
“Regret not killing the abominations. They should never have lived.”
“You’re the bringer of life. How can you say that?”
“I speak only truths. The abominations are creatures of Death, and to Death they must return.”
“Marr Wep, we need you!” the man Wep had called Monserak shouted across the ship.
Wep released me, squeezing my arm for a second longer, though he had already turned to answer the call.
My knees buckled, and I sank to the deck. Rough hands directed me to the nearest bench.
“Was that your first time using your blessing?” Ivank asked.
I shrugged, looking at Teke, who shook their head.
Shooing Ivank, they knelt in front of me and gripped my shoulders.
“What I can’t work out,” they said in a hushed tone, “is how you called upon roots in the market but made vines and spikes today. It’s unlike any bierla I’ve ever seen. ” Their eyes were a warning.
“Do I need to hide our binding from them?” I asked Vaya’la. I had been hiding it on instinct, not instruction.
“All will be revealed soon enough.”
“I couldn’t say,” I told them.
They pulled me into a fierce hug and whispered in my ear, “You need to work it out. Wep is perceptive. He should hear it from you first.”
“How long have you known?” I whispered back.
Teke held me at arm’s length again. “You told me, remember?”
I nodded, though I hadn’t told them. She did.
We made land minutes later. Scanning the coastline, I saw nothing of that corrupted black light. Wep sent three ranngs out in scouting parties while commanding the rest to follow him. My ranng, being the least experienced, remained with the ship.
We waited in the darkness. I readied my bow.
“Do you think there’ll be more?” Lispen asked Raif.
“Wep said two dozen max. We’ve already killed half that,” he replied.
Teke stepped up at my side, shield in hand. “Keep your eyes on the tree line. We want to see them before they’re upon us.”
“We need to assign sections.” Raif walked in an arc, making six divots with his boot. “We each take a slice extending out to the trees. Call out anything you spot. Serae,” he turned to me, “you’re our best archer. Get in the longship so you have the advantage of height.”
“Do me a favor, love,” Lex begged. “Don’t hesitate. If they get too close…well, you’re a good shot, but you’re not that good.” He grinned and ducked as Lispen’s hand flew harmlessly over the back of his head. He popped up with a great, “Aha!” and leapt away to his divot.
From my post on the longship, it was easy to watch the trees.
The stempost had dips in the carving to accommodate bows, and I positioned myself behind one.
I kept my second sight open. The soft white glow of my companions comforted me as I lay in wait, ever watchful for that horrible black light.
Occasionally, flickers of periwinkle—boredom—would flash through one of them, though we all remained at the ready.
It was an exercise in patience, to be sure.
The night was still thick around us when I caught black and crimson glowing between the trees. “Helene’s quadrant,” I called out below and watched every one of them stiffen and turn. I waited for it to break the tree line and present a better target for me.
“Do not hesitate. All dragori must die.”
I loosed an arrow, eyes trained on the creature. It kept running. When I loosed my second, its corrupted lifeforce winked out.
“Ivank’s,” I called as two dragori barreled toward us.
Three of my arrows took one down, but the second ran at Ivank with alarming speed.
Raif rushed in to intercept. He slashed at its side, but the creature’s claws clamped around his blade.
With arms distracted, it couldn’t block Ivank’s mace crashing down on its skull.
By sunrise, my kill count had climbed to seven. Fifteen corpses littered the beach, and rank black blood clung to my ranng. My vantage alone spared me.
The other ranngs began to filter from the trees with Wep at their rear, black blood smeared all over his armor.
“Were there more?” Raif asked after giving him our report.
“Dead,” was all he offered.
He walked straight into the sea, soaking every inch of him and even submerging his head.
He left behind a dark pool that floated like oil on the surface.
Dripping wet, he directed the rest of the ranngs back to their places, rotating out those stationed at the oar-ports.
Ivank and Teke were both assigned to rowing, so I found myself sandwiched between Helene and Lex on the trip back.
“He looks good wet,” Lex whispered in my ear.
I elbowed him, but Martyrs, was he right. Wep stripped out of his soaked leathers and mail. His tunic and pants clung to his body in a way I shouldn’t be appreciating.
The strong winds shortened our return to the small inland port.
Most ranngs were ordered to mount and ride directly for Drakh, mine among them.
Drained, we departed in relative silence, heading home to rest and prepare for afternoon training.
Nothing, not even this mission, could stop Wep from training.
When I was back atop Kappa, Teke pulled their horse up to my side. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about. Everything’s fine.”
“Liar.”
I whipped around, finger extended, ready to give them a piece of my mind, but I pulled up short. Their shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.
“What’s so—”
They pointed. Behind me, a torrent of reddish-green leaves blew in the wind. The ranng behind us had gone hoarfrost white, all gaping at me. Behind them, more were leaning in their saddles, craning their necks.
“It is past time we begin, Small One.”