James Maxey: Bitterwood

Albekizan rose, spreading his wings wide. His voice boomed through the hall: “Let the hunt begin!”

Bodiel leapt into the air. The dragons cheered as he beat his wings against the rising wind and lifted into the darkening night. But the crowd’s cheers changed to whispered confusion seconds later. Shandrazel remained standing in the hall.

The king growled. “It may be you failed to hear me above the thunder. The hunt has begun! Go!”

“Father,” Shandrazel said, then paused to take a breath. After a moment he looked up, facing the king squarely. He said in a firm but respectful tone, “You know my feelings. I do not desire your throne. I will not hunt Tulk. This ceremony is archaic and cruel. There is no need for blood to be shed. Simply appoint Bodiel as your successor. Your word is law.”

“And you are breaking that law!” Albekizan shouted, spittle spraying the floor before him. “I command you to hunt!”

Jandra drew closer to Vendevorex who wrapped a wing around her.

Shandrazel stood unflinching before his father’s anger. With a shrug he said, “I am indeed breaking your law. Command the guards to arrest me. I won’t resist.”

Albekizan leapt from his pillows and raced toward Shandrazel. He pulled up short of his rebellious son, their eyes locked. The king’s muscles tensed visibly beneath his hide. He stood frozen in rage but Shandrazel did not back down.

All the dragons in the room averted their eyes. No one wanted to witness this shameful confrontation between the king and his son. No dragon would risk the king’s wrath by staring. So most heads were turned to watch events outside the hall. The edge of the storm had reached them and rain began to splatter on the marble floor. Illuminated by the still distant lightning, Bodiel could barely be seen gliding low over the treetops nearly a mile distant, searching the foliage for signs of his prey.

Then, Bodiel folded his wings back and dove into the forest, swift as an arrow racing toward its target. Lightning flashed again, now much closer, momentarily blinding Jandra. The thunder made her jump. Vendevorex hugged her more tightly. When her vision cleared, Bodiel had vanished.

“Oh!” Queen Tanthia cried. “Oh no!”

“What is it, my love?” Albekizan asked. “Is our rebellious son breaking your heart?”

“It’s the shadows,” Tanthia said, quivering. “The shadows in the room have grown so dark. I feel their chill in my soul.”

Albekizan turned his back to Shandrazel to face Tanthia. Calmly he said, “There’s nothing to fear.”

Almost as if his saying it had made it so, the night fell quiet. The thunder faded and the wind shifted, silencing the rain for an instant. At this moment, a mournful, anguished howl rose from the distant forest. Lightning flashed and thunder washed away the voice. The wind twisted, whipping back into the hall with a harsh blast of cold rain, sending the torch flames dancing wildly. Tanthia gasped as one of the torches extinguished, a soul forever lost.

“He’s dead!” Tanthia cried. “My son is dead!”

“No,” Albekizan said, looking out into the storm. “No human could… could…”

The king fell silent then turned and rushed past his rebellious son. He leapt into the rain, catching the wind, climbing into the air. Shandrazel paused, gazing after his father, then glanced back at his mother.

“Please find him,” Tanthia said. “Find him.”

Shandrazel nodded. He walked to the open side of the dome then beat his wings to rise into the night.

Vendevorex took Jandra by the shoulders and whispered, “We should take our leave. The king may need my assistance. It’s best that you wait back in our quarters. I will accompany you.”

Jandra nodded. Vendevorex sprinkled a pinch of silvery dust in the air. The whispers of the assembled crowd let Jandra know he’d just made them invisible. As they moved quietly from the great hall, Jandra watched over her shoulder as Shandrazel faded into the rain.

SHANDRAZEL HATED FLYING in the rain. He disliked the water in his eyes and loathed the way the wind treacherously shifted and vanished beneath his wings. Yet duty drove him, duty and love. Despite their differences, he loved his father and cherished his spirited younger brother. He hoped that no harm had come to either of them. The only real danger he could imagine was if Bodiel had crashed in a sudden downdraft. But even then, he’d been so low over the trees that the crash wouldn’t have been fatal. If Bodiel had been diving in pursuit of Cron, what possible harm could the slave have done? Despite his father’s keenness for the sport of hunting humans, Shandrazel saw no more challenge in it than he did in his mother’s appetite for devouring baskets of white kittens. An unarmed human was a small-toothed, clawless thing. Certainly, Bodiel was safe.

During the confrontation with his father, Shandrazel hadn’t watched where his brother flew. He had no idea where to start his search. He blinked through the rain, trying to make sense of the tangled treetops that rushed beneath him. The jagged ends of broken branches caught his eyes. There was a gap in the forest canopy. Shandrazel descended into a small clearing to find his father already there.

A slain dragon hung in the crook of a tree. It was a sky-dragon, not Bodiel. In the dim light, Shandrazel drew closer. The beetles swarming over the dragon’s body gave testimony that it had hung here for hours. The body stank; the sky-dragon’s bowels had loosened after death. Oddly, just beneath the stench, the air carried the unmistakable mouthwatering scent of horch.

A single arrow jutted from the dragon’s jaw. Shandrazel studied the arrow, which was fletched with a red feather scale from a sun-dragon’s wing; black thread wrapped around its split core fastened it to the slender shaft of ash. He then looked closer at the dragon’s face. He gasped. He knew this dragon.

“His name was Dacorn,” said Shandrazel. “A biologian. He taught me botany during my summer on the Isle of Horses. Who would do such a thing? He was a gentle soul. He had no enemies.”

Albekizan paid no attention to Shandrazel’s words. He, too, had noticed the arrow. He plucked it from the corpse to examine it. It was a tiny thing in Albekizan’s talons, a fragile sliver of wood that Albekizan snapped effortlessly.

Shandrazel raised his long neck and bellowed, “Bodiel!”

“He won’t be answering,” said Albekizan. His father leapt up, knocking aside branches as he caught the air, rising once more to continue his search in the violent rain. Shandrazel tried to follow but the rain made it difficult to see his father, let alone keep up with him. They flew in ever widening circles, searching the trees, and soon Shandrazel had lost all trace of his father. He continued his search, hoping that finding the corpse of his former teacher was only a macabre coincidence.

At length, Shandrazel found Albekizan sitting by the riverbank with Bodiel’s head clutched against his chest. Bodiel’s arrow-riddled, lifeless body lay half in the water – it was possible he’d died further upriver and drifted to rest here. Shandrazel landed, feeling as if his own heart were pierced with an arrow. Never had there been a soul as bold and joyous as Bodiel’s. It seemed impossible that he should be dead.

Shandrazel stepped forward, using his wings to shelter his father from the rain. He froze as Albekizan looked at him. Their gazes locked. Albekizan’s eyes burned with fury, fury and something more, an emotion he’d not seen in his father’s eyes for many years: passion. Albekizan, cradling Bodiel’s dead body, was filled with frightening, fiery life.

Shandrazel stumbled backward, his talons slipping in the muddy earth. The air seemed charged, ready to spark.