Page 6 of Wings of Frost and Fury (Merciless Dragons #4)
THE BATTLE OF GUILHORN
THE NIGHT BEFORE
THE FALL OF ELEKSTAN
War breaks everything.
There is no right side in any war. All of it is wrong and ruinous.
I hate that my clan is so desperate for food that we have joined the human conflict on the mainland.
After a plague wiped out the prey on many of our islands, we had to bargain with the king of Vohrain.
He promised that if we helped him conquer Elekstan, he would give us the bountiful Middenwold Isles, where our clan could find food and escape the threat of starvation.
The Bone-King agreed to the deal shortly before he died, and since his demise, Kyreagan has been tasked with upholding the bargain. My clan has been fighting with the Vohrainians against Elekstan for several weeks.
Mordessa has been different ever since we went to war.
I’m not sure Kyreagan notices it. As her closest friend, I’m attuned to her moods.
I sense her grieved determination, her desperate resolve.
Like the rest of us, she knows that this conflict and its rewards could be the last chance for our race.
She’s vicious as she slays the humans with her lightning, unrelenting as she works in tandem with Kyreagan and his brother Varex, malevolent as she glides in company with Grimmaw, the mother of the Bone-King.
There is no trace of the kind, golden dragon who kept my secret and stood shoulder to shoulder with me while I battled my corrosive desires.
Mordessa has become a violent creature of war, a destroyer of countless lives.
I have not heard her laughter since the war began, and I miss the rich sound of it.
But I have hope that she can recover from this and return to her former self. The conflict is nearly over. Tonight we defeated Guilhorn, a powerful stronghold. Its ruin opens the way for the invading forces of Vohrain to access the capital city, where Elekstan’s queen resides.
The Elekstan soldiers have just raised a black flag to the top of Guilhorn’s highest tower, an admission of their defeat.
I’m high above that tower, wheeling through the sky in the company of Saevel, a shining green dragon, and a few others of my section.
“Should we destroy the tower?” asks Therenax, a brown dragon with red eyes.
I mated with her twice during the last frenzy, but another dragon impregnated her.
Like Mordessa, Therenax has been particularly murderous of late, eager for death and destruction.
I understand her anger, but I am less vindictive toward the armies of Elekstan.
After all, they are only defending their homeland.
We would do the same if we were in their place.
“Guilhorn has surrendered,” I tell her. “Let the King of Vohrain and his people decide what is to become of the survivors.”
She cuts me a belligerent look and begins to reply—but then the light goes out of her gaze, the way the last gleam of sunset vanishes from the waves of the ocean at nightfall.
One moment her eyes are red-hot embers, and the next, they are empty and dark.
Her wings flutter like autumn leaves as she falls.
Vylar, the Bone-King’s daughter, sister to Kyreagan and Varex, tumbles from somewhere above me, her wing nearly catching mine. I have to beat my own wings harder to stay in control as the wind of her descent buffets me.
But she doesn’t fall much farther. Her body jerks to a halt, skewered on the metal tip of the tower, on the very flagpole that pronounced Guilhorn’s surrender.
All around us, everywhere, dragons are falling. Struck dead. As if their hearts failed, one and all, in the same moment. The very air shakes with the thunder of their bodies slamming to earth, crashing into the walls and buildings of Guilhorn.
Saevel cries out, all the violence of agony in his roar. I hear the same cries rising around us from the remaining dragons—dragons with the jaw spikes and elbow spurs of males.
Within myself, a sudden void opens, a yawning, dreadful absence.
Before, I could sense the females of the clan, both here on the mainland and very distantly on our home isle of Ouroskelle.
Now there is nothing. No whisper of their faraway existence, and no surety of their nearby presence. They are simply gone.
Magic , whispers my heart. The darkest and deadliest of magic .
A spell like this is beyond anything we’ve seen so far from the sorcerers of either human kingdom. This is unutterably cruel.
“My sister,” cries Saevel. “I told her to fall back, to let us handle Guilhorn. I need to look for her.”
I know the dragon of whom he speaks. Nyreza, nearly twenty-five years, spawned in the last hatching season. She is a pink dragon, smaller and more brightly colored than most of us. Weaker. An easier target, at least in her brother’s eyes. He was trying to protect her.
“She’s gone.” My voice sounds as cold as my own frost-fire. “They’re all gone.”
“You can’t be sure,” he hisses. “Nyreza hasn’t been through mating season yet. I couldn’t sense her before, so it means nothing that I can’t sense her now. She could still be alive.”
“Go look for her if you must. I will find the princes.” And Mordessa. I must find Mordessa. I know she was flying near Kyreagan, as always.
In my soul, I already know she is gone.
Gone, gone, gone . The word pounds in my skull like a terrible drum as I bank right and search the skies for Kyreagan and Varex. I don’t see them anywhere.
I dive toward the city, scanning the streets for a golden body.
There she is, amid a ruin of bricks and beams, cast down like a piece of discarded treasure, woefully inanimate. Her shiny scales reflect the devastation of the burning buildings. Nearby lies Grimmaw, mother of the Bone-King.
Between the bodies of the fallen females, I spot the black wings and sharp horns of the two dragon princes. They are motionless, stunned. And they are grounded, which even now, in the hour of Guilhorn’s defeat, can be a dangerous thing.
Whatever is happening, my clan will need its leaders. Mordessa’s spirit has already passed into the air—I cannot help her. But I can help the Prince she loved .
“Kyreagan!” I perch on a half-collapsed rooftop nearby. “My Prince, we can’t stay here on the ground. Come. We must fly.”
Varex hears me and prods his brother with a wingtip. They mount into the sky with me, but no sooner have we achieved some altitude than they spot Vylar’s body, impaled on the tower.
Their roars of agony blur into my own pain as I cast another look down at the body of Mordessa, my cherished friend, the one who helped me through so many of my darkest moments. It is unutterably cruel that her spirit was taken at the moment of our victory, so close to the conclusion of the war.
Even in the torment of their grief, Kyreagan and Varex still seem confused, unsure what’s happening.
I don’t know exactly what I’m saying to them. I know I’m voicing words of explanation, telling them that all the females are dead, but it’s as if someone else is speaking through my jaws, while I remain trapped inside my own mind, a prisoner of my pain.
Distantly I am aware that someone has mentioned the Supreme Sorcerer of Elekstan, the Queen’s personal magician.
He is the only one with sufficient power to destroy half our species.
He and the Queen, and all those who inhabit the royal city, are to blame for murdering our mothers, our sisters, and our friends.
Kyreagan is giving orders in a darker tone than I’ve ever heard him use. He’s directing us to leave Guilhorn behind and head for the capital city of Elekstan. There is vengeance in his mind, though what form it will take, I do not yet know.
On the way to the Capital, we spot a lone man on horseback, riding hard. At first the rider’s head remains bent against the light rain, but when he hears the thunder of our wings, he looks up.
“I recognize that man,” Varex calls to Kyreagan. “He’s a Vohrainian spy. He’s riding as if he has important news. We should speak to him.”
Kyreagan seems impatient to reach the Capital, but he knows the value of information. He commands the rest of the dragons to remain aloft while he, Varex, and I descend to intercept the spy.
The spy’s horse balks at the sight of us, and the rider barely manages to stay in control.
“What news?” Kyreagan demands.
“Did it truly happen?” gasps the young human. “I rode as hard as I could, the second I got word. I thought maybe the spell hadn’t taken effect yet… Maybe we could do something to avoid it.”
“If by it you mean the sudden, devastating death of every female dragon, then yes,” growls Kyreagan. “It already happened.”
“Fuck.” The spy is shaking, probably afraid that the three of us will hold him responsible for not bringing us the warning faster. “I would have sent a bird with the message, but there were none available to me. I’m sorry. I—”
“Just tell us what you know,” interrupts Varex.
“Of course.” The spy clears his throat, renewing his grip on the horse’s reins. “When I met with my contact from the palace, he told me the Supreme Sorcerer had been working on something to end the war. A plan to kill all the dragons.”
“Then he succeeded,” snarls Kyreagan. “The death of the females effectively ends our race, unless we can devise some other option. The Rib Moon approaches, and mating season is nearly upon us.”
“I am glad to see that some of you survived,” falters the spy. “Personally I’ve always liked dragons—”
“Where is the Supreme Sorcerer now?” demands Kyreagan.
“He is dead. The working of the spell was too much for him. My informant came to me right after it happened. He said they carried the body out—”
“I do not care about that,” Kyreagan interrupts. “If he is dead, we cannot have revenge upon him, so we must think of something else.”
Varex exchanges a few additional words with the spy, and then we let him go on his way.