Michael Mathias - The Wizard and the Warlord

Yip surprised the elf by projecting a thought into his head. It was almost a command. “Carry my brother and follow me,” it said.

When the elf nodded his understanding, Yip quickly opened his jaws, leaned down, and gave the startled elf a slobbery lick across the face.

Talon winged himself and his burden in a great circle downward over the courtyard before Queen Willa’s palace. It was a place the hawkling knew well. Many times he had sipped from the fountain’s water, or wetted his beak to better preen himself. Hyden had spent half a year in Dahg Mahn’s tower studying the books with Phen, while Talon soared the sky above this place.

Talon could see Claret lying across the palace’s wall, half in the city, half in the forested park. From above, her scarlet corpse looked like an open wound on the land. The dragon, all dragons, had always scared Talon badly. However, the hawkling knew how much Hyden had loved and respected this great wyrm.

Seeing the person he needed to find floating face up in the pond caused the bird to falter and nearly plummet from the sky. He recovered when he saw Phen blink his eyes open. Phen wasn’t moving at the moment, but he was alive.

Talon had flown long and far carrying his heavy load. The time he had spent with his body being heavy and petrified had strengthened him. Nothing else could have prepared a bird his size to carry a skin full of water so far.

Seeing Queen Rosa burst out of the palace after Lady Telgra, Talon followed her course. As the hawkling guessed, she went straight to the one who was to receive the fruit of his labor. Hyden Hawk had once sworn his loyalty to Mikahl as a friend, not a king, and so had Talon. Just because he was no longer linked to his wizard didn’t mean that the bird would forsake his vow. He’d shared too much human thought to suddenly revert to being an ordinary hawkling. The goddess had sent him on his own quest, and Talon had no desire to let down either her, or the High King; not if he could help it.

Seeing Phen twitch, Talon dove toward the boy and fluttered to a stop, perching on his chest. The sound of Rosa’s wails as she reached the High King’s side told Talon that he might be too late. Even if he wasn’t, he still needed Phen. Queen Willa’s sorrowful gasping, and the shouts of soldiers all around them, didn’t seem to stir the dazed boy. For Talon, this wasn’t good. He needed help.

The thought occurred to Talon to find Spike. The two of them had communicated regularly on the journeys they had undertaken with their wizards. Talon was relieved to hear the prickly little cat’s mew coming from an ornamental shrub by the palace steps.

Knowing that it might be too late to finish his deed, Talon began squawking orders to the lyna cat and any other animal that might be in hearing range. Luckily for the realm, the great wolf, Yip, and the elven archers who carried Arf’s tattered corpse had just come over the rubble of the broken wall. Yip heard the hawkling’s instruction and was eager to help save the life of the High King. The great wolves revered Mikahl Collum above all men. Their ferocious pack leader Grrr had died to save him.

Rosa found Mikahl barely breathing. His hair was burned to a hard, crispy mess, and his left knee was a bone-splintered hole. The long chainmail shirt he always wore to battle was blackened and melted into his chest and shoulders. His arms were drawn in and his legs were curled, their skin fused together as if he had been dropped in a pan of boiling hot grease. His face was swollen and disfigured. The only thing that indicated he was alive was the nearly inaudible repetitive rasp of his lungs struggling to draw air.

Queen Mother Telgra took one look at him and went about finding another to heal. She knew there was nothing she could do for him, and the Heart of Arbor confirmed it in her mind.

Queen Willa had her hands to her mouth. “Oh, Mikahl,” she sobbed at the horror of his injuries.

Around her, the guards were struggling between protecting the queens and letting them mourn. No immediate threat had presented itself until a black, wolfish thing came leaping toward them as it fled from a group of elves.

“Protect the queens!” a shout rang out.

A frantic hustle ensued as Queen Willa’s guards tried to form up around them. Yip darted inside the closing ring, and with a series of loud, insistent barks, scared Queen Rosa away from Mikahl’s body. A sword slashed an arcing slice at the wolf, but an elven arrow dinked off of the blade in mid-swing, saving Yip by a hair’s breadth.

“Back!” Dieter yelled. Already he had another arrow nocked. “It means no harm.”

Another of the guards ignored him and jabbed at Yip, but Talon came flapping down gracelessly past his face and screeched out an ear-splitting cry.

Spike braved his fear of great wolves and darted from the bushes through the trampled pink snow, between the soldier’s legs, and to the High King’s body.

A long, tense moment ensued, a standoff between the men and the elves. For a long while it seemed that the animosities of the past would get the better of them and they would attack each other. During that time, Queen Rosa and Queen Willa watched with wide-eyed wonder as Yip kept everyone at bay while Talon unstoppered the wineskin and Spike clumsily used his paws to direct the water Talon had carried all the way from the Leif Repline fountain into King Mikahl’s mouth.

Once again Hyden Hawk found himself before the goddess. Her misty form stood thigh-deep in a swirling cloud of steam, scowling at him. “What’s wrong with you, Hyden?” she asked.

The question stupefied him. He was too saddened by his failure, and the sight of his fallen friend, Mikahl, to even try to form a reply. It didn’t matter, though. The angry goddess didn’t wait for an answer.

“I tell you that Gerard no longer exists inside the Abbadon, yet you falter at the critical moment!” Her voice was stern, yet loving, like a scolding mother that is as relieved as she is angry at her child. “Don’t you remember dying? The dragon had to bring you back, Hyden Hawk. Don’t you remember?”

“Aye,” he mumbled. “It’s only Hyden now. When I died, the link between Talon and me was broken.”

A heavy sigh of understanding escaped the goddess. It was she who’d made the mistake. All the confidence and direction she had instilled into the hawkling hadn't reached Hyden. Her expression softened.

“You’ll always be Hyden Hawk,” she reassured him. “Sir Hyden Hawk Skyler, the greatest wizard the realm has ever known.”

“Is that how they will remember me?” he asked.

“What?” She looked at him as if he were daft. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because of the balance,” he replied. “Gerard, the Abbadon, Hell Master, Warlord, whatever he was, is gone now. When the scales balance back…” He let the sentence trail off and shrugged as if his point were clear.

“Phenilous is right, Hyden,” the goddess chuckled. “Deep down, you’re still just a hick. Why the greater gods ever chose you…” Shaking her head, she put her hands on her hips in exasperation. “You paid your life forward, Hyden Hawk Skyler. To keep the balance, the Warlord had to die. You already had. The Dark One is no longer alive, but there are still an army’s worth of his hellspawn scattering across the lands. Mikahl hasn’t died, but he's been crippled. Phen’s destiny lies with his unborn child. Who else but you is there to keep the balance?”

“Mik is alive?” Hyden asked with wide-eyed hope. Out of all the things she’d said, that was the one that registered.

The goddess threw up her arms in frustration. “You’re impossible,” she said with a huff. She pinched the bridge of her nose with a misty finger before continuing. “When you regain consciousness, you’ll be under water, fool. Try to swim up instead of down.” She turned and stormed away back into the roiling steam cloud from which she’d come.