Born of Fire: The Dawn of Legend (110 page)

“That one’s still alive,” came a voice that interrupted his thoughts. Looking down at the horde below, he saw it now turning its attention on him. Finding himself in the sudden grip of panic, he let go of the body that had served as his only means of protection and flew upwards, back into the tower. Gripping his chest, he breathed heavily as fear coursed through his body, a crippling sensation that now caused him to crumple to the floor. He knew he would be branded a coward, a traitor to the holy order for having so selfishly sacrificed one of their own in battle to save his own life rather than facing death bravely
. If my brother finds out…I will have wished to die back down, there with the others…torn apart by those savages
. It was at that moment he was struck by a sudden realization. DayKar would never learn of what he did, nor would anyone else.
They all died: all of them. I’m the only survivor, and it’s the survivors who live to tell the tale the way they see fit
. Rising to his feet, he held out both hands, ignited them with flame, and then taking a deep breath, fired a blast directly into the center of his chest plate.

“Hah! Did you see that coward run?” TarFor boasted.

“Did you see him use one of his own to shield himself from our attack?” VoRenna replied, shaking her head.

“And they have the audacity to call us savages!”

“Hey, less talk you two, and more action,” NyRo said.

“We’re almost through,” declared VayRonx as he leaned in with all his might. At last the wall gave way, crumbling inward in a plume of dust. “We’re in!” he called back to everyone else with a roar that echoed all the way back to the very last warrior. “To the top!” The army poured into the tower and began working its way up each level, some using their flames to leap from one platform to the next.

“This is going far better than I expected,” NyRo said as he dug his claws into the side of the wall and began running up its length.

Seeing all the DraGons pouring back inside, BaRone said, “Looks like they intend to fix that.”

“We have incoming!” VayRonx shouted as he leaped up into three DraGons, stunning them, then biting through the neck of one while the other two fell below.

“Don’t let them get to the top!” said one of the DraGons. “We have to hold them here!”

“Hear that?” NyRo asked. “Looks like they’re dead set on keeping us from getting to whatever is happening up there!”

“Let them try,” VoRenna said as she spread her claws and sprang into the air, grabbing the DraGon who had given the order and tearing out his throat with her teeth.

“Now that’s the spirit!” TarFor exclaimed. “You heard VayRonx, kill everything between here and the top with wings!”

“Belay that,” came a voice from above as NyEssa descended with the other surviving Highwing, landing on the platform just above.

“I’m glad to see you made it,” said VayRonx. “But where are the others?”

NyEssa looked over to her companion who motioned with his head for her to go on. “Of those from my tribe who came, we are all that is left. The others died seeing that those children made it here safely.”

“NyEssa, I am truly sorry for your loss,” VoRenna said, bowing her head along with the others.

“They died a warrior’s death,” the alpha replied, lowering her head slightly as VayRonx came up and placed his under it. “Fighting to defend something precious to us all. Their flames will be honored forevermore.”

“NyEssa, please believe me when I say that I do not mean to downplay the pain of this tragedy,” VoRenna said, “but what about the children? Where are they now? Safe?”

“No safer than us, I fear,” she lamented, meeting her eyes.

“We were trying to figure out a way to the platform atop the tower when we were attacked. We sent them on ahead while we held off the guards.”

“You sent them alone?” VyKia asked in surprise.

“Believe me, it was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do, but we had no choice. It did, however, bring something to light.”

“And that would be?” VayRonx asked.

“How they get from the top inner level to the platform itself.”

“It’s some sort of device that allows for near instant transport from one place to another,” said the other Highwing. “I don’t pretend to fully understand it myself, but the four of them used it to get to the top.”

“Will it work for the rest of us?” TarFor asked anxiously.

NyEssa nodded. “I believe so. DraGons use it, many of us are no bigger than any of them, and so I don’t see why not.”

“That’s good,” VayRonx said. “But I still need to know what those four found themselves in the middle of when they got to the top. What exactly is up there?”

DayKar grabbed ShinGaru by the neck and began slamming him repeatedly into the ground. The large DraGon was now beside himself with rage. All those he was surrounded by had failed him in one capacity or another, and now that he was on the eve of what was supposed to be his finest hour, he found himself once again being forced to take matters into his own hands, fighting to achieve that which he desired most. Nothing ever came easy in life. He had learned that the hard way so many times during the course of his, but not as much as he did when he first came to EeNara: the wilderness, backwater planet where he faced opposition at every turn. Forced to fight a war against a race of overpowered animals just so he could at last spend the rest of his life with the one he loved. A laughable thought, now that she lay dead no more than ten meters away from him after having survived all the horrors this world could throw at them, then sleeping for a hundred centuries. No “this time around, things would be different” he had told himself every day for his seemingly endless existence. It was the thought that kept hope alive in his heart as he walked amongst the enemy, moving through their lives unnoticed and hiding in plain sight. How many times he had wanted to tear free from his alien prison and feel the sun against his wings.

Now was that day, that moment, and he was not about to hold back. Not this time, not ever again.
Give them an ounce of mercy and they will rip your beating heart out of your chest
. Oh, how he had learned that lesson the hard way, having lost so many that he had cared for in the war against the DyVorians. Even now, in the midst of his vengeful assault on those who had followed him from that bygone era, his ears ringing with their pain-laden cries of anger, he could still hear those of his comrades from so very long ago, their voices echoing out of the past through his mind as he remembered seeing them being mercilessly torn to pieces right in front of his eyes.

Then there was the Doom Bringer, a towering form seemingly larger than life, a monstrous blasphemy of the natural order, an unholy beast whose sole purpose was to burn the Nova Queen off her perch atop all creation. It was the dogma decreed to all DraGons, the faithful created in her image and born to carry out her will until her pure white flame consumed all there is and ushers them into her kingdom. Only something so impure and evil could hope to taint her purity, to kill god.

He remembered the day he laid eyes on the Doom Bringer for the first time. It was something that left a deep scar and made it so he could never know a night’s rest free of nightmares. Seeing such a beast made all his courage, all his strength and will, fall away and be replaced with complete and total despair. He was prey to this beast, which knew not the feelings of mere mortals, but only the hunger for death and destruction. A monster that was the master of fear of any living thing it laid its wicked eyes upon. Now that very same titan of terror, that abomination to all that he deemed good and holy, had been reduced to a mere impudent child, ignorant of his own true power and nature. A child who was currently serving as a tool to restore the very dynasty he had nearly destroyed in a past life. It was ironic how things turned out. He would even go so far as to find it amusing, although those who were the keepers of his people’s faith would never admit to such a thing. So what did that say about him? Could he, the young hopeful knight who had sacrificed seemingly everything so he could be with the beautiful blue flame he had fallen in love with, be losing his faith? Could anyone blame him in light of all that had befallen him, now that the very same blue flame’s blood pooled cold upon the floor? The very thought was like a talon piercing his heart, prompting him to tighten his grip around the creature now trapped in his hand as he proceeded to squeeze the life out of him. “If I am to be denied all my dreams, then I will at least take some degree of comfort and pleasure from destroying any and all sense you all have ever had of a future! Today is when history will look back and recognize that it was I who brought about your extinction!”

Suddenly, there was a flash of what seemed like a white light, then darkness in his right eye. Feeling disoriented, he shook his head in an effort to clear the haziness on his right side only to see it fade to black where it remained as such. “Nice shot!” he heard EeNox say from the side now shrouded in darkness. Turning, he saw him standing next to LyCora, who was standing with her legs spread and her flame blazing brilliantly. It was then that he put the boy’s comment with what he was seeing and made the connection. He had been so focused on ShinGaru that he had failed to pay any attention to the others, giving one of them time to line up a clear shot. The full force of the blast had struck directly in his right temple, blinding him in his right eye.

“Damn you!” he growled in a shaky voice as he gently rubbed his now dim eye. “Damn each and every last one of you!”

“Speak for yourself, you son of a bitch!” LyCora shouted back furiously. “What right do you have?” Her voice trailed off as it quivered with raw emotion. “You…you…I can’t let you live after what you’ve done! I hate you! I hate all DraGons! EeNara will never again know the horror of your armies! This all ends now!” She fired another blast from her mouth only to have it sail over her target’s head as he ducked low and charged forward. LyCora had no time to react and found herself impaled through her left thigh on one of the smaller bony horns on DayKar’s brow. LyCora shrieked in pain as he smashed the side of his head she was caught on into the ground, driving the horn deeper into her leg.

DayKar could feel the warm sensation of blood flowing out of her leg and running down the blind side of his face and into his mouth, where it touched his tongue and sent a surge of pleasure through him. “So sweet.” He began savagely thrashing his head back and forth, forcing her to wail in pain.

LyCora had never been in so much agony as the feathers on her back were pulled free and her skin peeled and stripped away in ragged strips as she was raked repeatedly across the ground. Worst of all, she felt stripped of any dignity she had ever had. What would her mother think if she saw her now, completely victimized on every level? Shame now mixed with pain as she felt her heart sink. EeNox leaped at the DraGon but was sent sailing in the opposite direction with a swift swipe of DayKar’s tail.

“Patience,” the DraGon called out after him. “It’ll be your turn soon enough.” Turning back and looking down, he saw a wide spread of red under LyCora as she lay their twitching uncontrollably, her eyes focused seemingly on nothing as small, weak chirps escaped her throat. Feeling satisfied with himself, he reared his head back as a large ball of gold fire formed just above him, resembling a smaller version of the one he had tried to destroy KaNar with. “Ironically, I’m giving you a merciful death compared to what the rest of the people of this world are going to suffer when the others get here.”

He suddenly lurched to the side as something wrapped around his left hind leg, causing him to accidentally send the ball of fire into the ground several meters off to his left, where it exploded in a brilliant flash, sending a shock wave that forced him to dig his claws into the tower itself to keep from tumbling off the edge. Baring his teeth and growling angrily, he looked down and saw the long, broken form of ShinGaru encircled around his shin, with his teeth sunk into the meat of his exposed calf.

“You miserable little shit!” DayKar bellowed furiously. “Why won’t you just fucking
die
already?” Reaching down, he grabbed him and with some degree of effort, pulled him free and brought him close to his face. Angling his head so he could view him with his remaining good eye, he parted his jaws and prepared to close them down on ShinGaru’s head when he felt yet someone else attacking him, climbing on his side, prying his armor off and trying to lock their jaws around the fleshy part of his throat. To his great frustration, the attack came from his blindside, and he now felt thick, serrated teeth working their way into him. Unable to see, he was hardly ignorant to the identity of his attacker, for the scent of the young TarBoranx was unmistakable.

EeNox used every ounce of pressurized strength in his jaws to push his teeth as deep as they could go into the neck of the DraGon. The whole time the same instinctive drive kept shouting in his every fiber: bite harder, push your teeth in deeper. As if a slave to this unseen force, he obeyed, and using all the strength his muscles and flame could muster, he at last felt his teeth glide through soft, warm flesh, and lock back into place in their closed position with a huge piece of warm flesh between them. EeNox felt himself rip away from his enemy and fall back down, where he felt the ground beneath his feet seconds later. The wave of instinctive ferocity fell back like a receding tide and at once, he felt like himself again. With two large chomps, he effortlessly swallowed what was in his mouth. It was only then that he finally noticed the warm fluid dripping down on his snout and running down over his lips. Looking up, he saw the garish hole in DayKar’s throat as a steady stream of blood now poured from it.

DayKar tried to cry out in pain but heard only a gurgling gasp escape his throat.
Damn it
, he thought as he felt his strength flowing out from the wound. He staggered off to the side as he placed a hand against his throat and began cauterizing the wound. It was then he noticed AnaSaya’s body was gone. Turning his neck in every direction, he was startled to see her slowly limping her way towards the altar where Rex and DiNiya continued to fuel the rift, which was now almost fully open and unleashing all manner of haunting and otherworldly sounds. “No, you don’t!” DayKar shouted in a now raspy voice as he haphazardly seared closed his injury, and began loping after her.