Calen felt something nudging him, pushing into his ribs. He groaned as his sensations came rushing back, feeding his body with pain. Everything hurt. A deep rumble emanated from Valery's chest as the young dragon continued to push his snout into Calen's side.
"I'm all right, I'm all right," Calen said, coughing as he opened his eyes and pushed himself to an upright position. The air was so thick with grey dust he could barely see more than a foot in front of his own face. The only light was a soft blueish-green glow that drifted through the dusty haze. Calen quickly dismissed his thought to create a baldír. He didn't have the strength; steering the Wind Runner had sapped the last of his energy.
Reaching up, he grasped his hand around something rough and metallic; using whatever it was as leverage, he pulled himself to his feet. A sudden pain burned just below his ribs. He looked down to see two long gashes had ripped through his leather armour, their edges stained crimson. He shook his head, trying to loose the stiff grogginess clouding his mind and the ringing in his ears.
"Is anybody there?" he called, the words drifting through the air, accompanied by moans of pain, low grumbles, and the spluttering sound of men coughing as the dust mixed with blood in their throats. The sounds seemed to come from all around him.
Calen brought his hand to his face as a sudden flash of white light burned his eyes. Valerys leapt in front of Calen, his head lowered towards the light, his mouth pulled back in a snarl, and a deep growl reverberating in his chest.
"It's me, Draleid."
As the glare from the light dimmed, Calen made out Vaeril, a small baldír floating in front of him. The elf's face was so streaked with blood and dirt he looked almost unrecognisable.
A man stood beside Vaeril. He was taller than the elf, with shoulders that looked as though they were carved from stone. Calen recognised Tarmon Hoard immediately.
"You're both a sight for sore eyes," Calen said, trying to muster a half-smile as he fought the pain in his body. "Are you hurt?"
"We'll live," Tarmon replied, his mouth twisting into a grimace; his hand was pressed against the spot where the arrow had struck him.
"And you, Draleid?" Vaeril stepped closer to Calen, ignoring the fading rumble from Valerys's throat. "Were you injured?"
"I'm fine, Vaeril," Calen said, swatting the elf's hands away. "Have you found anybody else?"
"Not yet," Tarmon replied between short breaths. "We only came to a few minutes ago. The elf pulled me from the rubble."
With the newfound source of light, Calen took in his surroundings. They stood in a wide, open cavern, its surfaces smooth and angular. A multitude of tunnels were nestled into the rock all about the cavern, branching off deeper and deeper into the mountain. Small swaths of Heraya's Ward protruded from the rock at random places throughout the wide, open space, glowing with a dim bluish-green light. Bits of bent and shattered steel were strewn all over the ground: remnants of the Crested Wave.
The horrid mixture of death and dry earth tinged the air. Every few seconds, blood-chilling shrieks of pain broke through the blanket of low cries and moans that echoed throughout the cavern. Everywhere Calen looked, he saw crushed armour, gore, bodies, and severed limbs. Two men were impaled on a piece of shattered steel. A dwarf, long dead, lay a few feet away, both of his legs shorn at the knee. The acidic taste of vomit teased the back of Calen's throat, but he pushed it back down with a gulp. "We need to check for survivors."
Just as Calen spoke, he felt Valerys – who had begun wandering through the debris – scratching at the back of his mind urgently.
"Valerys has found someone." Calen waded through the debris from the crashed Wind Runner, Vaeril and Tarmon close behind him. He dropped to his knees as he reached Valerys, panic setting in when realised who the dragon had found. Erik was half buried in a mound of clay and bits of curved, bent metal.
Dirt bedded into Calen's fingernails as he dug away at the debris. "Erik! Wake up!"
A plume of clay and dust fountained into the air as Erik coughed and spluttered. His eyes were raw red and half-stuck together with dirt. "Calen?" His voice was weak as he choked out the word.
Tarmon dropped down beside Calen, tossing away some of the heavier bits of bent steel weighing Erik down.
"Don't move," Tarmon said, as his gaze fell on something. "Elf?"
"What's wrong?" The panic at the back of Calen's mind turned to dread when his eyes fell on two thin steel rods, one that jutted out through Erik's leg and another just above his hip.
Vaeril knelt beside Erik, the dirt crunching under his knee. He reached down and slid his hands beneath Erik's body, his eyes darting around, looking for something. "The rods are not connected to anything on the other side. On the count of three, I will need you to pull them both free. Then I will stop the blood flow and knit the wounds. Understood?"
Both Tarmon and Calen nodded. The Lord Captain of the Kingsguard looked a lot more certain than Calen felt. Taking in a deep breath, Calen steadied himself and wrapped his hands around the steel rod that jutted out just above Erik's hip. Erik let out a sharp gasp of pain. "Fuck, why don't you just stick another one in? That might actually hurt less."
"Shut up, or I will shut you up," Calen replied, raising his eyebrow as a question to see if Erik wanted to take him up on the offer.
Erik gave a weak smile that quickly twisted into a grimace of pain as Tarmon grasped the other steel rod. "Just hurry up and get them out of me."
Calen felt Vaeril drawing from the Spark, just as he did when he was healing Tarmon on the Wind Runner. Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Spirit. Calen attempted to follow the threads as Vaeril spun them around each other, but the speed at which the elf worked was astounding. There was more to the Spark than simply pulling on the threads. There were so many intricate and complex ways it could be twisted, turned, and shaped. So many ways that each of the elemental strands could be combined. Therin had said healers were special. That a wound couldn't simply be healed – the healer had to understand precisely what it was they were healing.
"One," Vaeril said. "Make sure you pull it free in one clean movement."
Calen tightened his grip around the steel rod.
"Two."
Erik closed his eyes. His mouth twisted in the anticipation of pain.
"Three."
Erik howled as both Tarmon and Calen pulled at the steel rods, ripping them free of his body, but Vaeril did not hesitate. He set to work straight away, weaving his threads of the Spark in complex patterns. It was beyond anything Calen had ever seen. The wounds were so open that he could see inside, yet not a drop of blood flowed. Calen watched as muscle and tissue knitted itself together. Strands of thin red filament shot every which way across the wound, connecting on the other side. He stared in wonder as the wounds closed, and the holes were patched over by skin in the way that a spider weaves its web.
Vaeril collapsed as Erik let out a sigh of relief. The elf just about managed to catch himself with his left hand before he hit the ground.
"I am well," he said, as Calen reached out to grab him. "Healing is different from everything else. It takes more from you. I just need to rest, as does he."
Calen nodded in acquiescence as the elf propped himself up against a large boulder.
"We need to keep looking. More might need our help," Calen said, turning his attention towards Tarmon.
"Agreed, Draleid. There are bound to be more," Tarmon replied, bringing himself to his feet.
Calen grunted and dragged himself to a standing position. He had always been considered tall, but even he had to look up to talk to Tarmon. "Please, call me Calen."
Hours passed as they dug through the Wind Runner's wreckage in search of more survivors, finding far more than Calen had even dared hope. Calen looked around. Besides himself, Falmin, Vaeril, Erik, and Tarmon, just over sixty others had survived – sixty-two, to be precise. Twenty-three dwarves and thirty-nine men. Everyone sat around a large pile of Heraya's Ward they had gathered in the centre of the cavern to provide light; Vaeril couldn't have kept the baldír going indefinitely, and there was nothing they could burn. The blueish-green glow of the luminescent plant pulsated through the cavern, bathing everything in its strange light.
As happy as Calen was to find so many alive, there had been over two hundred souls on the Crested Wave. Over two hundred souls, and this was all that was left. So many dead. All but fourteen of Tarmon's Kingsguard. The magnitude of the loss pressed down on Calen, coiling knots in his stomach and constricting his throat. The only thing that stopped him from becoming lost in the depths of his own anguish was the touch of Valerys's mind against his.
The dragon stood by Calen's side, nuzzling his snout into the palm of Calen's hand, trying desperately to ease the sense of loss that held Calen in its grasp.
"Thank you," Calen whispered, the most fragile of smiles touching his lips as he ran his fingers over the scales of Valerys's snout. A feeling of comfort pressed against the back of his mind in response.
Groaning, Calen dropped down onto the hard-packed dirt. His muscles ached, his throat was dry, and a multitude of cuts laced his body. Valerys nestled in beside him, resting his scaled head on Calen's knee.
"Tis b'yond belief what you can do, elf." Falmin fingered the mottled patch of skin that covered where the arrow had come through his abdomen. Erik had found the navigator, unconscious, half buried beneath a mound of clay and steel.
Vaeril nodded in recognition. "I am sorry I could not do more. I am weak. For everything that healing gives to the victim, it takes twice over from the healer."
"Ah don' be worryin' 'bout that. Women love scars," Falmin said with a wink.
To his own surprise, Calen couldn't help but choke out a laugh as he watched Vaeril. The elf simply stared at Falmin, unsure what to say, an uncomfortable expression set on his face. "Falmin, I just wanted to say thank you. If you hadn't come back for us… well, we wouldn't be here."
"Aye," Tarmon said, shifting his weight in the dirt. "The Draleid—Calen," Tarmon corrected himself, "is right. We owe you our lives."
Erik nodded in agreement.
Falmin's face contorted into a look of genuine shock. "You owe me yer lives? Not a one o' us would be alive if it weren't for you. If the guard hadn't held the empire in the yard. If the Draleid hadn't steered the Crested Wave – may the gods care for her tiny metal heart. I think I already owe you m'life more times than I know, and I feel I'll owe you a lot more soon. Jus' scratch one offa the list."
"So," Erik said after a brief silence. "What are we going to do?"
The question hung in the air like a bad smell. Everybody had been thinking it, but nobody had said it out loud. They had no idea where they were. Even Falmin, without knowing the route that Calen took to get there, was at a loss.
"This place looks like what used t'be a waypoint. Long time ago by m'reckonin'. All o' those tunnels go somewhere," Falmin said, pointing across to the other tunnels that were set into the sides of the massive cave. "I say we just pick one. All o' the main tunnels have markers on 'em. If we can find one, I can probably get us to Durakdur. Maybe."
Calen perked up a bit at that. There was hope.
"We need to be careful," one of the dwarves, who had told Calen his name was Korik, said. The dwarf, a member of Kira's Queensguard, stood no taller than five feet and a crimson cloak hung over his shoulders. Korik's head was shaved clean, and his thick black beard was knotted with an array of gold and silver rings. His double-sided axe lay across his lap. "A lot of dark things roam the depths of these mountains: Uraks, wyrms, Depth Stalkers, kerathlin. There is a reason some of these tunnels were abandoned."
"What in the gods is a Depth Stalker?" Erik leaned forward, his forearms wrapped around his knees, his short blond hair reflecting the bluish-green glow of the flowers.
"Oh, they're nasty all right," Falmin said. "Some of 'em are as big as a house. Skulls like arrowheads, hides as thick as stone, and tails covered in spikes as long as yer arm. I ain't seen nothin' that'd chill your blood more than staring up at one of those things…"
A shiver ran the length of Calen's spine. The thought of running into a Depth Stalker didn't sit well with him. A light vibration emanated from Valerys, a low growl in response to Calen's fear. Sometimes Calen forgot that his mind was no longer solely his own.
"What's gotten into him?" Erik asked, tilting his head sideways at Valerys.
"Nothing. Don't think he likes the sound of a Depth Stalker."
Valerys's growl grew deeper.
"Whatever it is we do," Vaeril said, sitting forward, "we need three things – food, water, and rest."
"Aye." Falmin stretched his arms in the air. "I could sleep for days."
Calen had been ignoring the dull ache that had set into his body, the energy that had been leeched from him. Bringing down those buildings had taken a massive toll on him, and in truth, he wasn't sure if he would physically be able to stand back up if he tried.
"Agreed," came the deep voice of Tarmon Hoard. "First, we rest. Then we move. I will arrange guard shifts. Two hours sleep each, then switch. That is all the time we can afford. Is this agreeable?"
Tarmon was looking directly at Calen as he spoke. The man was young to be the Lord Captain of the Kingsguard, but he had seen at least ten more summers than Calen. Calen realised that Tarmon wasn't the only one looking to him. They all were. They were all looking to him to make the decision.
Feeling the weight that hung over Calen's shoulders, Valerys gave a grumble, lifted his head, and brought himself to his feet. The young dragon strode off towards the centre of the cavern, his lavender eyes watching over the tunnel entrances.
"Yes," Calen said, finally, with as much confidence as he could muster. "Valerys will stay on watch as well."
"I'll take first watch," Erik said, climbing to his feet. He was joined by Tarmon and some of the other men and dwarves. "I'll wake you in a few hours."
Calen kicked at a small rock as the group made their way through the tunnel. A few hours of sleep weren't nearly enough. Calen could have slept for days on end, but that wasn't an option.
"I don't think he has any idea where we're going," Erik whispered to Calen as Falmin examined a navigator glyph on the tunnel wall. "We've been walking for hours, and he seems to have no better idea of where we are."
"He has more of an idea than we do," Calen replied. Everything looked the same to him, but Falmin seemed to recognise some of the glyphs that had been etched into the smooth tunnel walls. "What else would you have us do? He's our best chance of getting out of here."
"I know." Erik let out a heavy breath and ran his hands through his hair. Calen wasn't used to seeing Erik anything other than calm. "I'm sorry… these tunnels, they just… They make my skin crawl. It feels like the walls are closing in."
Calen stopped in his tracks, resting his hand on Erik's shoulder. "We'll get through this, Erik. We just need to keep going. One foot in front of the other."
Erik nodded, his gazed drifting to the ground. "Yeah, you're right."
"Can I get that in writing?"
Erik let out a chuckle, raising his gaze to meet Calen's once again. "Shut up and get back to walking," he said, pushing Calen forward. "We'll never get out if we just keep standing around."
The small bunches of Heraya's Ward that grew in random places along the ground and tunnel walls provided just enough light for Calen to see a few feet in front of himself, but not much more than that. A baldír would have been a waste of energy, but it was still a tempting option. Just like Erik, Calen couldn't help but feel claustrophobic, staring forward into the endless depths of the tunnel, buried beneath miles of rock. His only true comfort came from Valerys, who padded along beside him, the ethereal light from the flowers painting his snow-white scales with a strange bluish-green hue.
"How are you feeling?" Vaeril asked as he stepped up beside Calen.
"Me? I'm fine," Calen lied. "What about you? The healing looked as though it took a lot out of you."
Vaeril raised a curious eyebrow. "What you did in the Wind Runner courtyard, it should have killed you. You have not known the Spark long enough to survive drawing so deeply from it."
"I wasn't sure it wouldn't." Calen shrugged, a resignation in his voice. "I'm still not sure how it didn't."
"I have never seen a Draleid before, and I have not learned much of their ways with the Spark, but I believe it may have something to do with Valerys. We may ask Therin or Rakina Aeson when we arrived back in Durakdur. I'm sure one of them will know more."
Calen gave a weak smile as he pondered the idea, his eyes falling on Valerys. As he thought about Therin and Aeson, a question popped into his mind. "Vaeril?"
"Yes?"
"Why do the other elves of the Aravell hate Therin?"
Vaeril sighed. "They do not hate him…"
"They ignore him, Vaeril. They scowl at him. Gaeleron shows nothing but disdain for him. He doesn't even attempt to hide it. It is only you who does not."
Vaeril's eyes tracked along the ground as they walked, not meeting Calen's gaze. Calen could see the thoughts ticking over in the elf's head. "They do not hate him. They see him as having no honour. To an elf, that is as good as not existing."
"But… Why?"
"That is a story that would take a long time to tell. And I was not alive when it happened, so my account may be inaccurate."
"We have time," Calen said, gesturing at the endless tunnel that lay before them, shrouded in darkness, only patches illuminated by the luminescent flowers. He was tired of people keeping things from him.
"Very well," Vaeril replied. Calen saw Erik shuffle a little closer, his ears perking up to hear what Vaeril was about to say. "I have told you the start of the story before, when we were in the Aravell. I shall tell you again. When The Order fell and Fane Mortem took power in Al'Nasla, a great purge began. The empire hunted the Jotnar to extinction, or so they thought, and they drove the dwarves underground. We elves, and small groups of your people, stood against them. Enormous battles were fought across Epheria. Many, many lives were lost. But in the end, the combined power of the empire and the treacherous Dragonguard was too much for us."
"What happened?" interrupted Erik, who had moved closer as Vaeril talked and was now walking with them.
"A divide," Vaeril said, a deep sadness in his eyes. "In our history, we refer to it as The Breaking. Our people split into two factions. One of which believed the war was no longer theirs, and they abandoned the other races of Epheria."
"And the other?" Erik asked, leaning in closer.
"I am part of the other. We believed we could not just leave Epheria to fall to Fane. We needed to do something."
"But what about Therin?" Calen interjected, growing tired of hearing the same story.
"Therin had to make a choice. The elves of Lynalion, or the elves of the Aravell."
"And he chose Lynalion?" There was a look of shock on Erik's face. Calen didn't speak, but dread churned in his stomach. Surely Therin hadn't chosen to abandon the continent. To leave it in Fane's hands.
Vaeril sighed. "He chose neither. Therin's beliefs aligned with the elves of Aravell, but his duty was, first and foremost, to all elves. You see, to me, Therin's choice was the most honourable. He chose what he knew would be exile, so as not to encourage the breaking of our people. To the others, he was a coward, leaving his people to stumble alone in their darkest hours. Honour is a delicate thing. What one elf views as honourable, another might see as despicable."
"There's something up ahead," one of the soldiers called out from the front of the group.
Sure enough, as Calen lifted his head, he could see a speck of yellow light in the distance. "What do you think it is?"
"Hopefully, a way out," Erik answered with a shrug. "But I suppose we'll find out soon enough."
The further the group walked, the larger the yellow light became, growing and growing until it became clear that it emanated from a chamber at the end of the tunnel.
"Draleid, you're gonna wanna see this," Falmin called back from the head of the group as he stepped into the chamber.
As Calen, Erik, and Vaeril approached the mouth of the chamber, the Belduaran soldiers – who had been walking at the front of the group – stepped aside to let them pass. Calen couldn't help but feel more than a little uncomfortable at the chorus of "Draleid" and "my lord" that left the soldiers' lips as they gave a slight bow of their heads.
Dipping his head towards the ground, Calen made his way past the soldiers and into the chamber, trying his best to avoid the amused smile he knew sat on Erik's face.
Once inside, Calen could see the source of the yellow light that had shone through the tunnel: an enormous, luminescent flower similar to Heraya's Ward. The flower sat in the centre of the hexagonal chamber, which stretched about fifty feet from side to side. The walls of the chamber were smooth and angular, carved straight into the rock of the mountain, like most dwarven architecture. On the far side, past the luminescent flower, was a massive stone doorway with glyph markings carved all along its edges, inlaid in gold.
On either side of the doorway stood two enormous golden statues that stretched from the floor to the ceiling of the cavern. Both statues were identical: dwarves in sharp-cut plate armour, the heads of their axes resting at their feet, with their arms crossed over the pommels.
"I didn't see one this colour in Durakdur," Calen said, holding his hand just a few feet from the glowing flower that sat in the middle of the room. The yellow light was mesmerising. "It's incredible."
"By Hafaesir's hammer."
Calen turned to see Korik and the other dwarves entering the chamber. Each of them dropped to one knee as they caught sight of the yellow flower and the enormous, statue-framed doorway.
"It's always drama with dwarves," Falmin muttered, rolling his eyes. Shaking his head, the navigator walked off to the other side of the chamber, toward the massive stone door.
"Do you know this place?" Calen asked as he approached Korik and the other dwarves.
"I cannot be certain," the dwarf answered, his voice laced with awe. "But I believe it to be an entrance to Vindakur, the jewel of the Freehold. We lost contact with them centuries ago. Every scouting party we sent was met with collapsed tunnels, swarms of kerathlin, or Uraks. We had thought this place lost. In all the texts, Vindakur is the only city in the Freehold where the Heraya's Ward takes this colouring."
"Could it be, truly?" another dwarf asked, stepping past Korik, his eyes fixed on the enormous stone doorway.
"Aha!"
All eyes turned to Falmin, who stood by the massive stone door, his hands on his hips and a triumphant look on his face. Yellow light flooded through the parting stone that was now split in two, each of the halves receding into the walls that framed it.
Falmin shrugged as Calen and the others approached the opening passageway. "I figured I'd make meself useful, while you lot were blabberin'. There was a lever over there. Just had to pull it."
"I—" Calen was cut short as Erik stepped between him and Falmin.
"What in the…" Erik's voice petered out as he tilted his head sideways, gazing at what lay on the other side of the stone door.
The cool light of the moon washed over the rubble as Rendall picked his way through the remains of the collapsed building. Belduar had finally fallen. For centuries, it had been a thorn in the empire's side. It had withstood attack after attack. Many dragons had fallen to those monstrous crossbows, wickedly brilliant inventions of the dwarves. The Fade may not have succeeded in taking the new Draleid, but destroying those machines was the gift that turned the tide.
The new Draleid. Rendall's laugh echoed through the empty ruins of the city, mixing with the crackling of the still burning fires. The boy from the village was the Draleid. He would not have believed it if the Fade had not confirmed it. However dark and twisted that creature was, it didn't lie. It had no need to. Rendall would have killed the boy on the spot had he known.
He tssked as he kicked aside a pile of crumbled rock. The scouts hadn't found the bodies of any civilians. Not one. No women, no children, no old or infirm. The Belduarans must have evacuated them before the battle. Down those tunnels they made sure to collapse as they retreated.
The grotesque corpse of a Belduaran soldier was splayed out on the ground at Rendall's feet. The metal that had once protected him, now fused to his bones. The molten steel had peeled away most of the man's charred and blackened skin.
Rendall's face twisted into an unimpressed grimace as he tapped his boot on the misshapen corpse. Dragons were an effective weapon, but they never left enough people alive to interrogate. Rendall enjoyed interrogating people. There was something about seeing a person reach their breaking point, and seeing how far you could push the limits of the body. Some crumpled with a simple flogging – crude, but effective. Others required more… nuance. They were his favourite.
Some men gritted their teeth and set their jaws when Rendall threatened to take their limbs or peel the skin from their bones. It always surprised him how many of them truly believed he would not follow through on his threats. He enjoyed the fear in their eyes when they realised they were wrong.
"Inquisitor, sir."
Rendall let out a sigh as he stood with his hands on his hips, his red cloak billowing in the dust laden breeze. "What is it, Captain?"
"We found a live one, sir. An elf."
Rendall snapped his neck around. He made no attempt to hide the wicked grin that spread across his face. Before him stood three soldiers in the red and black of the Lorian empire, steel breastplates stained with dirt and blood. But at their feet, with its knees in the dust, was an elf.
Its long brown hair was crusted with blood, and a thin scar ran down its right cheek. There was a stump of mottled flesh where its left hand should have been. It was not fresh, but it still looked raw. A wound from a previous battle, most likely the recent attack. Cold hatred burned in the elf's eyes as it stared back at Rendall.
"Good," Rendall said, hunching down in front of the elf. "There is fight in you. I will enjoy stripping it away, piece by piece."
Rendall gave the elf a quick wink before rising to his feet. "Don't keep it with the other prisoners. Take it to my tent and secure it there. This one will require special attention."
"Sir." The soldier nodded before dragging the elf away.
I will find your secrets.
Eltoar leaned back with his eyes closed, letting the wind roll off his face and rush through his hair. He took a deep breath in through his nose, shifting slightly where he sat at the nape of Helios's neck. Opening his eyes, he looked out over the blazing pile of ruin and rubble that had once been the city of Belduar, the flames illuminating the night. A slight pang of guilt twisted in his heart. He had now helped raze two of the most beautiful cities that had ever existed. Images of Ilnaen's white walls crumbling flashed through his mind. The screams of the dying. The acrid smell of charred flesh. The taste of ash and blood tingeing the air.
He pushed it all away, banishing it to the darkest corners of his mind. And that was where it would stay.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Eltoar reminded himself how many of the Dragonguard had fallen to Belduar's giant crossbows over the centuries. The bolts fired by those dwarven contraptions travelled at speeds only matched by lightning. He clenched his hands into fists at the thought of the dragons falling from the sky, blood streaming behind them. In truth, even those giant crossbows should never have stopped the Dragonguard. But in their hubris, they had underestimated them. This time, Eltoar had not repeated past mistakes. This attack had been swift and uncompromising. It had not hurt that the Fade had destroyed enough of those contraptions during its initial attempt to capture the Draleid, that their bolts could not fill the sky.
Eltoar pulled himself from his own head, letting out a tired sigh. Land down beside Lyina and Karakes. Helios rumbled in response before gliding left and dropping into a nosedive.
Eltoar smiled at the sudden change of direction and sheer drop. Nothing in the world had ever come close to riding on Helios's back when the dragon flew freely. The power, speed, and elegance were unmatched by anything in the known world. He let his mind flow freely into Helios's, feeling every subtle motion of the wind. The slight pull of the current, the chill in the air, the subtle vibrations elicited by Helios's wingbeats. He could feel it all.
Through Helios's keen eyes, he could see Lyina down below, tending to Karakes – the red scaled dragon had taken one of Belduar's bolts through the shoulder during the battle. He would live, but Eltoar could almost sense the pain radiating from the majestic creature.
Almost as quickly as he had dropped, Helios pulled level just above the ground with a single powerful beat of his wings, sending spirals of dust and ash sweeping into the air. Eltoar leapt from the dragon's back, cushioning his landing with threads of Air. I will send for some food. Rest, my soulkin. You have earned it.
Helios dipped his enormous head so the tip of his snout rested just in front of Eltoar, who reached up and rested the palm of his hand on the dragon's black scales. "Myia elwyn er unira diar." My heart is always yours.
A feeling of comfort and warmth radiated from Helios's mind to Eltoar's before the enormous dragon curled himself up and lay on the ground, his eyes fixed on Lyina and Karakes.
"How is he?" Eltoar asked as he approached his sister-in-arms.
Lyina was a human of old Lorian descent. Her bronzed skin was unmarred by the passage of time, while her dark blonde hair was tied at the back of her head. Just like Eltoar, she wore the white plate armour of the Dragonguard, gilded at the edges, with a black flame emblazoned across the chest.
She let out a sigh as she turned to Eltoar. "He's all right – lucky, really. If the big lummox had pulled up when I said, then I wouldn't be here patching up his shoulder."
A deep growl resonated from Karakes as the red dragon's lips curled back into a snarl, baring his teeth. Karakes wasn't quite as large as Helios, but he was not far off, over a hundred and fifty feet from head to tail.
"Oh, pipe down," Lyina hissed, before turning back towards Eltoar. The woman seemed half-mad sometimes, but she was a warrior of incredible skill, and she had stood by Eltoar in the darkest of days. "He'll be fine. He just needs to rest."
"See to it that he gets it. We ride north at daybreak."
Lyina responded with a firm nod, before turning around to tssk at Karakes.
With that, Eltoar headed for the Dragonguard command tent. It was not difficult to find; the rest of the army tended to avoid setting their tents within a mile of the Dragonguard and their dragons.
Just like the Dragonguard's armour, the large tent's canopy was a brilliant white with a trimming of gold and a black flame stitched into each side. The tent stood over fifty feet by fifty feet, with a rectangular flag at its peak fluttering in the wind. Even in the pale moonlight, Eltoar could see the two symbols that occupied the flag: the black lion of Loria and the flame of the Dragonguard.
Fane had been true to his word. The Dragonguard were not tethered, whipped, and commanded like the Draleid had been by The Order. It was true that Fane often called on them, but it was different. On the field of battle, they were their own, and in life, they were the arbiters of their own fate. Gone were the days when the council of The Order demanded fealty, when the Draleid and their bound dragons were forced to heel to the whims of tempestuous and childish rulers.
But had the price been worth the reward? That was a question Eltoar asked himself every day, and it was one he saw in the eyes of his brothers and sisters. Nine. That was how many of the Dragonguard remained. Hundreds had joined their ranks at Ilnaen, and twice that number had fought on the other side. Now, only nine were left.
Not a single dragon egg had hatched since that night – until now. Not one of them had been able to understand why the eggs had not hatched, but maybe this… maybe something had changed. They needed to find this new Draleid and his dragon. They needed to understand.
Eltoar entered the command tent to find Pellenor shirtless on the floor, his legs folded, and his eyes closed. Pellenor was a gangly dark-skinned man, built from wiry muscle. Apart from the cropped beard he wore, there was not a hair on his head.
"Did you sense anything?" the dark-skinned man asked.
"I did not," Eltoar replied as he poured himself a cup of water from the large crystal flask that sat on the table to his right. "Has the Inquisitor reported yet?"
"Not yet." Pellenor opened his eyes and tilted his head at Eltoar, his eyes narrowing. "You are troubled."
"I am fine," Eltoar snapped. Pellenor always seemed to pick up on even the most subtle of Eltoar's moods. It was equal parts useful and irritating. At that moment, it was more the latter than the former. "Where is Meranta? I did not see her outside."
Pellenor didn't react to the change of subject. He simply raised an eyebrow, which only served to frustrate Eltoar further. He curled his bottom lip but acquiesced. "She went hunting. Better to hunt now, while she can, than thin the herd. There is never any telling when livestock might run low."
Eltoar nodded, draining his water in one mouthful, then refilling the cup. He tried his utmost to keep his mind from fixating on the new Draleid, but that was easier said than done. Why had that egg hatched when none of the others had? That dragon could be the key to truly rebuilding what was lost. They needed to find it.
"What's he frowning about?" Lyina asked as she walked into the tent, rubbing the blood off her hands with a thick cloth.
"He's fretting over the hatchling and its Draleid," Pellenor answered without missing a beat.
Eltoar shot Pellenor a scowl but stopped himself from speaking. How the man had any idea what was inside Eltoar's head was a mystery. But he always seemed to know, whether Eltoar told him or not. "I am not fretting. I am curious, that is all."
A knowing smile touched Lyina's face as she gave Pellenor a playful wink. The two of them were bad enough on their own, but together, Eltoar found them infuriating. Fane had questioned why, of all the Dragonguard, Eltoar had chosen Lyina and Pellenor as his right and left wings. At times like these, Eltoar asked himself the same question. But in truth, the answer was obvious: they were skilled, they were loyal, and above all else, they reminded him of what once was. Where the others had changed, Pellenor and Lyina had stayed the same. They had not allowed what happened at Ilnaen to eat away at them, piece by piece. They had stayed true to who they were, choosing not to look back but to look forward instead.
Of the other Dragonguard, Ilkya and Voranur had grown cold over time; apathy seemed to be the only emotion they could muster towards others. Death had become a part of them. Their captain, Jormun, was worse still. Eltoar only wished the man tended towards apathy, but instead, he was pure bloodlust. Eltoar could feel the darkness that loomed over Jormun's soul; it was a tangible thing. Over the years, he had consumed Essence at an unsustainable rate, and he was not the man he had once been.
In truth, Eltoar rarely saw the other three Dragonguard. The last he had heard, Erdin had flown west, towards Arda; Luka had gone to Karvos; and Tivar hadn't left Dracaldryr in nearly a hundred years. Eltoar couldn't blame them for their absence. Darkness had loomed large over them all since Ilnaen, or 'The Fall' as it had become so commonly known. That name clamped like a vice around his heart and left a bitter taste on his tongue.
It was at least an hour before the messenger arrived from the Inquisition to give his report. He was a scrawny young man who barely fit in his leathers and had a weaselly face with a scrunched nose. There was an awkwardness in the way he held himself. He quite clearly did not bring good news. If it were good news, then he would not be there at all; Inquisitor Rendall would have come himself. That scheming rat would never miss an opportunity to heap praise upon himself.
"Well?" Eltoar said after the young man had stood at the entrance to the tent without speaking for almost two minutes. Eltoar pushed himself back in his chair, letting out an impatient sigh. Lyina leaned against a tent pole some five feet away, and Pellenor was where he had been since Eltoar had arrived, sitting on the ground with his legs folded.
"I emm…" The young soldier swallowed hard before straightening has back. "I am here to provide a report from Inquisitor Rendall, sir."
"Go on," Eltoar said, gesturing for the soldier to speak.
"The emm…"
"The commander doesn't like men who can't finish their sentences," Lyina said with a shrug. "I'd get on with it if I were you."
The young man swallowed hard. "Inquisitor Rendall reports that there was no sign of the Draleid within the city walls, my lord. He believes the Draleid escaped to the Dwarven Freehold through the tunnels."
Eltoar clenched his jaw before standing up. "First," he said, walking toward the young soldier, "I am not a lord." The soldier looked up at Eltoar with what could only be seen as terror in his eyes. Eltoar was more than aware of the intimidating figure he cut with his broad shoulders and sharp jaw, along with the white plate armour he wore, the black flame of the Dragonguard on its breastplate. He knew of the rumours that flooded the common army. Tales of how the Dragonguard's souls were as dark as a Fade's. How their dragons feasted on the bones of those who failed the empire. Eltoar did not care for the rumours, but they did have their uses. "Second, is he sure the Draleid has retreated into the Freehold?"
"Yes, my lo—". The man shook. His lips trembled, and he was back to stumbling over his words. "He is sure."
Eltoar eyed the young man and pulled on threads of Air. He funnelled the threads towards his ears, amplifying the sounds around him. He narrowed the threads, focusing until an erratic thumping noise filled his ears. The soldier's heart pounded as though he were climbing a mountainside in full plate. There's something you aren't saying. "Very well. Leave us."
The soldier didn't need to be told twice. A look of pure relief flashed across his eyes, and he was gone from the tent before Eltoar could even begin to contemplate whether he should have given him to Helios as a plaything. That would have been one way to send a message to that infernal Inquisitor.
"Have that messenger and Inquisitor Rendall followed. They are scheming something, and I want to know what," Eltoar said once the messenger was out of earshot.
"It will be done," Pellenor replied, rising to his feet without even unfolding his legs. "I believe you are right. There is definitely something left untold in this story."
"Any ideas?" Eltoar asked, raising an eyebrow.
Pellenor puckered his lips in thought. "He may not have found the boy or the dragon, but he did find something, or someone, he believes will lead him to them."
"You got all that from a shit-scared soldier who barely spoke more than four sentences?" Lyina scoffed, shaking her head. "I swear you just make these things up, Pellenor."
The corners of Pellenor's mouth pulled back in amusement. Not quite a smile – the man rarely ever truly smiled – but Eltoar definitely saw amusement. "No, Lyina. I 'got all that' from centuries of studying inquisitors, watching how they operate, seeing how they react to particular situations, and applying a semblance of logic." There was a momentary pause as a silence filled the air between the two Dragonguard. "That and I received a message from one of my informants. They saw this particular Inquisitor having a one-handed elf dragged to his tent." Eltoar watched as Pellenor gave a mocking bow and exited the tent.
"That bastard," Lyina said, throwing her gaze to the sky.