Michael Mathias - The Sword and the Dragon

“I’ll ask you only once,” Hyden said down to her. “If you tell the truth, I’ll leave you to your fate. If you lie to me, then Claret here will gladly roast far more than the rest of the hair from your head. Am I being clear?”

Shaella didn’t respond. She turned, and glared at Claret’s huge, unblinking yellow eye. She knew that, through the link of the collar, the dragon could tell Hyden anything it knew. She cursed herself for carelessly sharing her feelings with the beast. Then, with a scrunched up face, she looked back up at her lover’s older brother.

Her face was tight, and dark with emotion, save for the pale scar that ran down the one cheek like a tear drop.

“Is he alive?” Hyden asked. “Did you betray him? Did he go into that dark place? Is he still alive?”

Having Hyden place the blame on her, caused her to stiffen, but his brotherly concern for Gerard softened her resolve more than just a little bit. If she truly loved Gerard, or what was once Gerard, then she couldn’t lie to his flesh and blood about what had happen to him.

“The Gerard you know is dead, but I love what he is now, no less than I loved him before.” Her answer was no lie, and through Claret, Hyden knew it.

“What has he become, then?” Hyden didn’t understand.

“Ask the dragon,” answered Shaella coldly. “Between my father’s insane magic, and the effects of the dragon’s yolk, what’s left of Gerard is barely alive, and trapped in the Nethers.”

She turned then, and strode stiffly off into the darkness, wiping the tears from her face as she went.

Hyden had to stop Claret from blasting her with dragon’s fire. He wasn’t sure if it was the tears she had shed, the look in her eyes, or the knowledge of the depth of her love for Gerard, but he felt in his heart, that she had been truthful, and he didn’t want to kill her.

She truly had, and still did, love his little brother. Part of Hyden wanted to kill her, and if Mikahl ever recovered from his injuries, he would probably never forgive him for not doing so. But what’s a Dragon Queen without a dragon? There would be time to deal with her later. He was about to be forced to seal his brother into a blackened void full of demon kind, evil spirits, and all other manner of dark things. If Mikahl couldn’t understand the show of compassion, then so be it. Gerard had loved Shaella. Through Claret’s memory he had seen the last moments of his brother’s life. His brother had loved her as well. How could he possibly kill her?

As Claret lifted back into flight, Hyden tried to clear the mess from his head. He knew what he had to do when they got to the Seal. If he could figure out how to dissolve the Night Shard into the carved symbols, he would have to do it. There was no sense in tormenting himself over it. With a deep sadness gnawing at his heart, he closed his eyes, and sought out Talon’s vision.

Outside of the city’s innermost wall, the wall that protected the palace itself, the city of Xwarda was a smoldering ruin. The moonlight, the wavering illumination from the scores of burning structures, and the thick smell of rotting corpses, lent the place a hellish air. The shrill, repetitive call of a wyvern, and the horrific pleas of a dying man only added to that sense. It was no place for the living, and every man who still drew breath, was doing his best to retreat to the pseudo safety of the castle grounds.

All along the top of the castle’s defensive wall, men raced to and fro. Archers held off the undead, while groups of exhausted soldiers retreated in from the city to the castle grounds. The Highwander Magi used fire, smoke, and a plethora of illusions to confuse the dark enemy, so that as many men as possible could get inside the gates.

The castle’s wall remained intact, but it didn’t give the feel of safety to those behind it anymore. Their final defensive fortification was the oldest, and least formidable of the three protective walls that ringed Whitten Loch and the palace. The other two walls had not just been breached, but had been pulverized – leveled in some places. Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before this wall fell as well.

From above, Queen Willa surveyed the destruction. She slowly walked the circumference of the tower roof, trailing a hand idly along the tops of the crenels. To the south, the battle raged on. She could see the tiny glints of firelight reflected from the swords and armor in the streets, and along the alleyways, between the castle’s wall, and what was left of the secondary wall. Any minute, those men would get the order she had just given to retreat to the inner grounds. She hoped they lived long enough to find a way back in.

To the east, the devastation of Pael’s meteoric fireball stood out amid the otherwise unharmed section of mercantile shops and residences. At the eastern gates of the inner wall, an isolated scuffle between a hulking boar-like beast and a knot of men was raging under the gate tower’s bright lanterns.

To the north, and west, large groups of the undead were gathering in the shadows thrown by the burning structures, and reorganizing their numbers. Just inside the secondary wall, to the south, the ruin was empty, save for a lone figure, robed in dirty white. Willa could barely make it out as a person.

He was standing in the center, of what was nothing more than a huge circle of rubble. Upon seeing this, Talon leapt from Willa’s shoulder, and with widespread wings, glided down through the air, away from the tower. The sudden action from the long still bird, startled the troubled Queen.

King Jarrek “harrumphed” his presence from the top of the stair landing. He had been standing a few steps down, inside the boxy shelter, for a few long minutes, so that he could catch his breath before engaging Queen Willa. After fighting in the field all morning, and tending to Brady Culvert in the afternoon, the long journey up the stairs had taken its toll on him. He wasn’t a young man. When she turned, and greeted him, with a tired, and obviously forced smile, his exhaustion was forgotten, and he was taken aback by her plain, natural beauty.

She was the first pleasant sight his eyes had fallen upon, in what seemed like forever. The vision of his mother, and his betrothed mangled in the collapsed ruin of the Ladies’ Tower, back in Castlemont, quickly erased any mirth or admiration he might have started to feel. He moved his eyes from hers quickly, lest she see the sorrow, and lack of hope he was suddenly feeling. His gaze landed on the cloak covered body, lying dead in the middle of the roof. He started to comment, but thought better of it

She understood his silence, and walked back to the southern facing edge of the parapet. She was relieved to see the men there fighting their way back towards the inner wall. Her orders had been received, and relayed. Seeing that the retreat had been called, she turned to Jarrek.

“The word is that you saved a lot of our men.”

He shook his head, as if he didn’t want to speak on the matter, as if it had been nothing.

“You’re calling them in, then?” he asked tactfully.

“Something like that.” She met his gaze.

“The hawk boy flew off on the dragon. He said that when he does whatever it is that he’s going to do, Pael will lose some of his demonic strength.”

She made a strange, deliberate face, and forced back the feelings of hope that were brewing as she spoke the words.

“He said to hold off Pael as long as we can.” She indicated the castle grounds around, and below them, with a sweep of her hand.

“We can hold out strongest here, where I can access the Wardstone. Spread out about the city, the wizard is picking us apart.”

“You’re putting all of your eggs into a single basket,” Jarrek said, but not in any disapproving or judgmental way. “Does this ‘Hawk Boy’s’ word hold such merit?”