Eternal Darkness (A Novel of the Amagarians Book 1) (18 page)

Pain clawed and dominated Saieke’s body. She did not know if Cullen and Chedra were alive. The claws embedded deep inside of Saieke ripped and sliced at her insides. She felt as she was looking through a prism at the Darkan that had her pinned on
his claws.

“He has arrived,” a voice hissed
close by.

She was flung away, and her body bounced and rolled as she landed a few feet from Cullen. Hot blood poured from her stomach and wetted her caftan. She pressed her hand to her stomach and tried to sit up. Agony was alive inside her. A vicious snarl of rage echoed in the forest. She lolled her head weakly to the side.
Tzar
. She let out a ragged sob when she saw him. He was too late. She was dying, and she could not feel any energy from Cullen
or Chedra.

Less than five minutes had passed since they discovered the Mevians in the cave, yet utter destruction had been left in their wake. Saieke flinched from the tortured sound that ripped from Tzar’s throat when he saw his mate and son. He threw back his head and his roar echoed for miles. He lunged as he and the Darkan came together
with ferocity.

The Darkan referred to as elder Macklin stood with a cruel curve to his lips and lazily observed the battle. The three Mevians were casually observing it as well. She heard snarls and roars and saw trees being felled, but could not make them out at all. Yet, they were killing each other less than fifty feet
from her.

She whimpered and tried to crawl towards Cullen. She still had her vial around her neck and if she could save even one of them she would do it. She dragged herself while keeping the enemies in her vision. With every breath she took, pain lanced through her and pinpricks of light dance behind
her eyes.

Saieke paused when the elder’s lazy look disappeared and rage flared in his face. A Darkan head rolled and stopped at his feet. Her stomach heaved. Tzar was bleeding from several deep gouges but he looked feral. He roared and lunged towards the elder. Saieke blinked in disbelief as the elder stood where he was and calmly waited for his arrival to backhand him. The elder’s strength was of such that Tzar flew more than three hundred feet before he twisted in the air and landed on his feet like a cat. The elder made a step forward
and paused.

Saieke stilled when she felt the all-consuming rage that
suddenly appeared.

Drac

Viciousness and bloodlust bled from him. At the center of it, she felt a coldness that leapt out and slid against her mind. She grasped eagerly at the connection and recoiled. Unadulterated cruelty and evil pervaded her mind. She pulled her mind from his quickly and heaved in the aftermath of
such feelings.

Saieke whimpered as the elder’s
chakra
pulsed out and his skin bulged and stretched. Hideous rage and wickedness spilled from him as his
chakra
swirled. His skin contracted and Saieke screamed weakly as something leapt from his skin and manifested beside him. She had never seen such a creature outside of their great book. A hydra: It was over ten feet tall with a serpentine body and seven heads. It stood on four feet while its heads undulated, snapping in pure power and rage. The seven heads’ eyes were pitiless. The elder’s claws had extended and his face had the shape and cast of a hydra. He also seemed much bigger and more vicious. His tongue forked out and fangs
dropped down.

Saieke,
his voice was a deep distortion that she had never
heard before.

She swiveled her head to look at Drac. Black scales covered his entire body. His face was fully covered in scales and slicked over his head. His serpentine eyes had no heat in them, there was only an unfathomable void that glowed yellow with flecks
of red.

She ran her eyes over him in morbid fascination. He had five claws curved like blades on his hands. Scales covered his feet and claws sprouted from where his nails should be. Muscles that had been sleek before now bulged and contracted, and massive wings sprouted from his back. They spanned more than seven feet and were a weapon themselves. The edges were sharpened blades with several jutted edges meant for impaling. A tail ran from his back and curved deadly at
his feet.

Saieke…

Dread danced up
her spine.

There was a rush of wind and energy and Tehdra appeared and rushed to Cullen’s.

Saieke whimpered and crawled over to them, trusting Drac to ensure that she came to no further harm. There was a low melodious laughter from the Mevians that vibrated through her battered body. They sped towards Tehdra
and Cullen.

Drac simply appeared
between them.

Wings uncoiled with speed and he impaled one of them with its sharp edges through the Mevian’s throat. Blood spewed; he gurgled, thrashed and then slid lifelessly to the ground. Massive clawed hands reached out and lifted the other and flung him high and far. Saieke moaned weakly when the hydra lunged and disappeared in the direction Drac had flung the Mevian. Teeth chomped and it devoured
the Mevian.

The other Mevian started to flash away but was stopped as Drac’s tail reached out and speared him in the shoulder. He opened his mouth and released a scream of destruction. The ground shook, and Saieke rolled with it toward Cullen and Chedra. The sound was choked off abruptly and she turned to see him lying limply impaled on Drac’
s tail.

“Help me,” she rasped out
to Tehdra.

Tehdra glanced at her with very pain-
filled eyes.

“I can help him,” Saieke whispered. She gasped in raw anguish as she was lifted and
shiktred
away. She was placed gently on the ground, still in the jungle but some miles away from Drac and
the elder.

“How can you help?”
Tehdra growled.

She turned slightly as Tzar appeared beside her in a rustle of wind with Chedra and Cullen in his arms. His face ravaged by pain
and despair.

Saieke raised her hands and pulled the necklace with the vial from her neck. There was only enough for two. She sobbed and spilled some of her elixir down Cullen’s throat that Tehdra held open. She then switched to Chedra and poured the remainder down her throat. Her hand trembled, and exhausted and weak from pain Saieke slid
into oblivion.

***

Coldness swept through Drac. They had harmed his princess, and even now he could not feel her though
their
lei
.

All who brought her harm must die…we will hunt and annihilate
them all.

He was surprised at the calm promise from his beast. He had always believed further harm to the princess would have him once again fighting for dominion. Was it because he had acknowledged she was theirs? Would it be the same if she
was killed?

His skull almost splintered from the rage that wrapped around his will and tested the bonds of
his dominion.

No…his demon was only calm because
she lived.

The elder crouched and Drac tracked his movements. He was a traitor to their king and people. The law said he should be judged by
the council.

He has touched what is ours…only death
. And
Drac accorded.

The elder’s beast, a fearsome hydra, screamed its challenge. Drac could not hope to take the elder alive for interrogation. He would not succumb. The beast inside would sing in triumph if pain were to be inflicted on it. It would love any torture
Drac dealt.

Drac snarled as elder and summoned beast barreled at him with speed. He rushed forward and met their blows. His claws swiped and cut slashed deep into the elder’s chest. The elder had slammed his poisonous claws into him and raked down with the intention to gut him. The scales that covered his body acted like armor, but the blow took him several feet off the ground and he was
flung backward.

He snapped his wings open and shot into the air in time to dodge the attack from the hydra that had come up under his flank. He spun in the air and shot down with speed, his claws opened and came together at the hydra. His claws ripped and two of the hydra’s heads came off. He plummeted down, then came up with claws swinging under the belly of the beast. He was met with snapping heads that uncoiled and bit deeply into
his hand.

The razor sharp teeth crunched through bones. Drac roared and slashed with his other clawed hand to be met with the other heads that uncoiled around the body to protect it. Pain raked at his wings as the elder came behind him and tried to rip them off his back. Drac unsnapped his wings and the sharp edges and spikes sliced and his tail lashed up and impaled the elder
from behind.

He flexed his wings, throwing him off, propelling himself back sharply. Heads roiled and the hydra rushed at him with a speed that he almost could not track. Drac launched himself in the air as heads spewed deadly venom in unison into the air. He pushed down with his great wings and shot further into the sky, landing on a large branch of a tree that stood more than two hundred feet above
the ground.

Drac perched, serpentine eyes glowing as he watched the hydra and elder below. Pain coiled through his hand where the beast had crushed bones with its teeth, and his blood ran in rivulets dripping to the earth.
Chakra
snaked around him in churning blackness. Evil reared as his darkness absorbed the pain he was feeling and luxuriated in it. He felt the vile evil that leaked from the elder and his beast and Drac’s
chakra
contracted to
meet it.

Instead of five heads undulating from the hydra there now stood nine. For each head he sliced off, two grew in its place. Drac’s beast howled inside as its rage grew and its need to destroy and kill consumed them both. His psychic barrier collapsed as he summoned his beast to corporeal form. His skin stretched and the tattoo slid sinuously along his body, and a clawed foot stepped off his skin, then a head, and in a final stretch, the beast fully came alive and leapt from
his skin.

The Dracan that appeared stretched and roared. It was a black massive winged creature that stood twelve feet tall. It reeked of unremitting cruelty. His eyes were yellow with deep flecks of black in them and resembled those of a snake. His fangs were razor sharp and protruded more than a foot. Sharp claws jutted from its forehead and ridged all along his back to encompass
his tail.

The creatures that surrounded the forest for miles shrieked and then became eerily silent as they departed rather than face the malevolence that had been manifested. Beast regarded beast as dracan and hydra faced each
other down.

The dracan roared in triumph at being summoned to corporeal form for the first time in years. It looked at the hydra and the need to consume and destroy unfurled inside
of it.

Kill
, its hiss slid across
Drac mind.

Kill
, he said
in agreement.

The Dracan flew at the hydra and met a spew of poison that arched for more than a hundred feet in all directions with a belch of dark fire. The air snapped—sizzling as the heat of its fire incinerated
the venom.

The hydra shrieked as massive wings dove and claws ripped off several heads in savage brutality. Heads sprang back instantly, and now more than twenty heads snapped and writhed. The dracan landed, and the beasts assessed each other
with cunning.

They could not kill each other. It was only the host that could die as the
chakra
that controlled them resided in the Darkans. They could defeat each other, and then the beast would return to its tattooed form on the Darkan to be summoned again almost instantaneously unless the host was dead or
too weak.

Drac assessed the elder. He would not put him in chains nor would he be given a trial. Blood dripped from his stomach and poured from his throat and shoulder where Drac’s claws had slashed deep and his wings had impaled him. There was a deep throb in the underside of Drac’s wings where the elder had scored deep with his venom
tinged claws.

At least one hundred heads now roiled and writhed, defending and protecting the body with its poisonous spew. Drac knew his beast was not even winded. A part of it played with the hydra cruelly, reveling in the fact that it
was summoned.

End it
, Drac commanded.
Our princess
needs us
.

Yessss

There was a scream of rage and satisfaction as his beast rushed at the hydra. Giant claws and wings synchronized and sliced, and ripped heads from body. A spew of black flames shot from the dracan’s mouth and engulfed the hydra in flames. The hydra screamed in agony when the black flames touched the many wounds left from its
severed heads.

It barreled toward the dracan, which spun in the air, picked up the hydra with it claws and flung it high. Before the hydra could land, the dracan repeated the motion over and over while attacking. Wings and claws sliced and shredded, while black flames ate at
it relentlessly.

Blood rained from the sky as the dracan released and attacked the hydra, over and over, without respite. The horrendous howls that came from the hydra were deafening. Drac’s beast landed with a triumphant snarl as the hydra disappeared in a pulse of
chakra
and contracted back onto the elder’s skin. Before he could think to draw on reserves of
chakra
to re-summon beast, Drac attacked
with ruthlessness.

He used both hands to punch at the elder’s chest with the intention of ripping him apart. The elder
shiktred
and reappeared behind him. Drac shot into the air, grabbing his head from above. His wings beat the air as he rose at a
dizzying speed.