Dragonoak (53 page)

But I
marched on alongside Kidira, because the pull of her fingers
wrapped around my collar was stronger than the pull of the
Bloodless Lands.

“How far
do we have to go?” I asked, miles in.

We were
walking along the edges of what must've once been Myros;
everlasting indeed. How curiosity didn't eat Kidira from the inside
I couldn't say. Cities and towns came into view, along with the
roads that once led through the mountains. We passed a village that
I could've run to before Kidira thought to shout at me. From the
path we took I could see characters carved into the gate at the
entrance to the village. I wanted to grab Kidira's shoulder and ask
her to read it to me, but even if she could stare into the
Bloodless Lands, she still wouldn't have been able to read
Myrosi.

“Far,”
she eventually said. “We need to reach the mountains behind Thule.
It'll take us weeks and we'll have to cross back over for food, but
this is the quickest way.”

Somehow,
the prospect of spending weeks in the Bloodless Lands didn't feel
like any real stretch at all. They hadn't changed since they'd been
frozen over at the end of the War, and in the same way, time around
them seemed to have slowed to a stop. We could've spent an hour or
a month there and I wouldn't have noticed a difference.

I
wondered if Kidira felt it too. I couldn't comprehend walking along
the edge of Myros and noticing nothing but the way the mountains
all seemed eager to stand out from one another without ever
crossing into the Bloodless Lands. I couldn't understand being
unable to tear disease and rot from a body either, and that was an
impossibility to most people. I didn't linger on it, didn't ask
Kidira how she bore it all. In the silence of the Bloodless Land,
her words were of no comfort. They rose up into the air, scattering
out into cities that were neither living nor dead, spreading out as
if to drive in how immense the Bloodless Lands were; greater than
all of Felheim, the territories and Agados put together.

The
words slipped away as though they'd never been spoken. When I heard
a low rumbling, a pounding in the distance, I thought I'd imagined
that too, until the noise remained, ricocheting off the mountains.
Kidira came to a sudden stop, arm held out to prevent me going any
further, spear at the ready.

We held
our breaths, watching the edge of the mountain we roamed close to,
noise growing ever-faster, ever-louder. I convinced myself that it
was soldiers, a hundred or more, all marching in unison, knowing
there was only one place a necromancer would run. I didn't breathe
a word of my suspicion, for Kidira only would've sneered at my
paranoia, and with good reason; a strangled cry twisted itself into
the air and a series of claws cracked into the mountainside,
splitting the rock in its grasp.

A wing
stretched out, and for a moment, I was back in Isin. A dragon as
large as any fishing boat that had ever pulled into port spread out
its golden wings, crawling around the mountain that warped into a
castle tower, ready to crumble.

CHAPTER XIX

Kidira
raised her spear as though it would do any good, then looked to me
to banish the creature. The kraau had its head tilted back and a
screech of a roar pierced right through me. I couldn't think,
couldn't raise my hands to send death surging through the dragon. I
had barely put myself together; my heart wasn't in the right place.
I met Kidira's gaze and slowly shook my head.

We ran. We charged towards the mountains, fuelled by some
half-formed plan of being able to duck and take cover, but it was
no good. The kraau was smashing its knuckles into the ground, using
its winged arms to drag itself along after us, while we were
heading towards mountains that would pose no obstacle to it.
Stupid, stupid. Why was I leading it
away
from the Bloodless
Lands?

“Keep
going!” I shouted to Kidira, gritting my teeth and regretting all
the momentum I'd built up as I ground to a halt, flying in the
opposite direction like an arrow let loose.

“Rowan!”
Kidira called after me. I could imagine the way her eyes were
flashing and knew she expected to be able to order me back to her
side without another word. But I kept running towards the dragon,
hoping I could confuse it for long enough to slip under its wing
and head into the Bloodless Lands. Surely its mind wouldn't be able
to withstand what resided out there.

I ran as
fast as I could, but the dragon was two steps ahead. It slammed a
boulder of a fist into my path and I stopped too sharply, losing my
balance in narrowly avoiding it. I skidded across the dirt on my
palms and knees, grit in my wounds, skin growing over it, tearing
back open. I rolled onto my side, and my head cracked against the
ground. I meant to push myself up, but the dragon peered down at
me, smoke coiling from its nostrils. Smoke that would never lead to
a fire; why incinerate what it could eat? It sneered, jaws creaking
open, tongue flicking into the air between us.

The dragon lashed out at me and something finally pounded
harder than my heart. A crack of a
thud
filled the air, covering the
kraau's cry of pain, and I was convinced a mountain must've thrown
itself against the creature to send it off balance. Still on my
side, I saw a blur of a shape fly towards the dragon for a second
time, sending it toppling over the border of the Bloodless Lands. I
pushed myself back to my feet but didn't run. I just watched, doing
what I could to catch my breath, staring until I suddenly realised
what I was seeing.

Another
dragon.

My
dragon.

He was
small, but the kraau recognised him as a fhord in spite of all
that. In spite of the shroud of death that kept his wings beating.
They scuffled as stray cats for as long as it took Kidira to run to
my side, and the dragon that had attacked us hissed out a thin
stream of fire between its front fangs. Oak needed to do little
more than huff, sending the other scampering back off with a beat
of its wings.

I ran towards him, panic seeping out of my system, clearing
the last of the fog that had formed when I'd tumbled and hit my
head, and saw that he wasn't alone. A figure climbed from his back,
dark horns stark against the white of the Bloodless Lands behind
them.
Kouris!
I
could've thrown myself into her arms, but I wasn't given the
chance. Oak leapt towards me, head knocking against my
chest.

I
laughed, arms wrapping around his horns. Kidira, not knowing what
to make of the situation, still had her spear raised, but her eyes
were fixed on Kouris. I leant against Oak's head, glancing between
the two of them. My mouth went dry to look at Kouris, yet I ached
for Kidira more than her. I buried my face between Oak's eyes,
where the scales were discoloured, perpetually going to rot, and
felt the reverberations of his soft, comforting growls rattle
through me.

I
couldn't bear to watch them reunite. Not again.

“Kidira... ” Kouris pleaded more than said. All of the
laughing she'd done upon learning Kidira was alive, all the joy and
relief that had rushed through of her, all of it was for nothing;
she sounded as I must've when I sobbed Claire's name out on a
bloodied floor.

But
something more remarkable than a dragon arriving in time to save us
happened: Kidira responded.

“Kouris,” she said quietly, evenly. If only she'd spoken to
the dragon in that tone: it would've roared and whined its way into
its own grave.

They
said nothing more and they said it too loudly. I kept my head down
but the air was thick with all that continued to go unsaid between
them, and I wished that they'd shout and scream at each other and
be done with it. The words would float up into the air, finally
free, yet they said nothing.

I looked
up and saw that Kouris' eyes were more moonlight than silver, and
Kidira stared not at her, but off to the side, into the Bloodless
Lands. I had to clear my throat twice in order to drag their
attention towards me, grasping for something to say once they were
looking my way. Kidira shook her head, pressing the heel of her
palm against her temple, and I wrapped my fingers around one of the
dragon's horns.

“How did
you find him?” I asked Kouris. At least I knew he'd understood me
and made it to Kyrindval after all.

“By
chance, more than anything. Reckon he recognised me,” she said,
voice slowly coming back to its usual strength as she went on.
“Came up and bumped his head against me. Kind of reminded me of
you, if I'm to be telling the truth.”

I
nodded, glancing down at Oak. He rolled a dark eye up to look at
me, and I continued smoothing my hands along his snout as he
settled down against the ground, torn wings folding against his
back, tail swishing along the edge of the Bloodless Lands. He knew
who Kouris was because I'd showed him; I'd changed him when I'd
only meant to save him. How many of his thoughts echoed my own I
couldn't say, but when Kidira stepped closer he let out a low,
rumbled growl of warning.

I
wrapped my arms around his muzzle, whispering, “No, no. It's okay,
it's okay.”

“What
did you do to that dragon?” Kidira asked, upon recalling that she
had a voice after all.

“I
brought him back. That's all I did,” I said, glancing off to the
side at Kouris. “I gave him another chance and let him do as he
pleased.”

“Yrval,
come now,” Kouris pleaded, exasperated. Kidira turned her head
sharply and looked at her, brow furrowed in scrutiny, able to fix
her eyes on her once more. She folded her arms across her chest, as
if waiting for either me or Kouris to explain what had really
happened with the dragon, but he wriggled free of my grasp before I
could even consider answering.

He shook his head, tilted it back to let out a piercing yawn,
then plodded off towards the mountains. We watched him wander off,
too tense to speak to each other, hoping he'd do
something
to keep us
distracted. He fell down on his side at the foot of a mountain,
close to what remained of a stubborn old tree. He wrapped his jaws
around it, idly tearing chunks of bark away.

“We're
going somewhere,” I told Kouris, eyes still on Oak. “Through the
Bloodless Lands, to where they're keeping the dragons. We'll be
able to get there a lot faster now.”

“I'll be
coming with you, then,” Kouris said, and took the joint silence
Kidira and I produced to mean that we had no objections. As if
making a peace offering, Kouris quietly added, “He got a name,
yrval?”

“Oak,” I
said quietly. “You should've asked before.”

The four
of us headed back into the mountains, as quietly as we could with a
dragon clambering over the wall. We were a good ten miles from
where we'd started and the wall there was more refined, though
there were plenty of footholds to be found. Kouris walked up the
wall without having to grasp to keep her balance, and though she
didn't offer to take me on her back, she'd hold a hand out to me,
when I needed it.

Whenever
I wrapped my fingers around hers, hoisting myself up a steeper part
of the wall, I couldn't help but notice way she wasn't looking at
Kidira, wasn't giving herself the chance to endure Kidira scorning
her outstretched hand.

I helped
Kidira, when the rocks became too tall to clamber up alone, and Oak
even used his snout to gruffly nudge her along, far from having
warmed to her. Kidira had decided that we'd make camp before
heading onto our destination, and so we made camp; she muttered
something about the Felheimish losing control of their dragons, and
we accepted her explanation. Neither of us wanted to engage with
her, much less argue, and we weren't yet privy to her
plan.

She
marched with such strength between the mountains, never once
faltering, in spite of the exhaustion that riddled her. Kouris and
I let her choose the camp site, let her head off to hunt dinner,
and quietly set about gathering wood to burn. It was late evening
and staying still left me restless, as though Oak's arrival hadn't
seared weeks off our journey already. I said nothing of it,
shoulders hunched, and while we were alone, Kouris didn't try
luring me into conversation. I'd glance over at her but she'd be
miles away, head full of all the weighty things Kidira hadn't said
to her.

There
was goat for dinner. Kidira prepared it, silently putting a portion
of the meat to the side that went uncooked, and placed it in front
of Kouris once our own meals were prepared. Oak toyed with the
carcass between his jaws as we ate, licking the bones clean more
for the taste than out of hunger. I looked up at the sky, trying to
will Isjin into existence so that she might take pity on me and
bring the night crashing down upon us.

I curled
up next to Oak, after a time, trying to convince myself as much as
Kidira and Kouris that sleep would come to me. To my relief, I felt
a lot more relaxed with a dragon forming a barricade between the
three of us, and was able to let a little of my glow trickle away
from me. It was far from gone, and I wondered when it had become
such an integral part of me; Kouris hadn't asked what had happened,
if I was alright. I took a deep breath, telling myself that I
didn't want to slip a hand under my shirt to see if my skin really
was as smooth as it'd once been, more than a decade ago. The
tension pushed through my veins, urging me to clamp my hands
together, to tug on my fingers, but when Kidira spoke, I didn't
dare to move an inch.