The Hearts of Dragons (10 page)

Four days later, Iren
stood once more in Akaku Forest. He held the Muryozaki vertically before him.

“Remember,” he muttered.
“Remember how it felt.”

He focused on a tree
thirty feet away. He couldn’t use magic on his own, but the Muryozaki itself
was magical. That might make the difference.

Iren pulled the katana
back over his right shoulder. Last year, he had channeled magic through the
sword to lengthen it so it could cut through Feng’s leg. If he did the same
here, an arc of light would reach out and slice the tree in half.

He took a deep breath
and swung.

No magic came. The sword
didn’t extend. It didn’t even glow.

“You should try getting
closer,” a female voice said from behind him. “Your sword isn’t as long as
Balear’s.”

Iren turned and saw Hana
approaching. He glowered at her.

“Whoa, testy!” Hana said,
raising her hands in front of her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Her smirk gave away the
lie. Iren sheathed the Muryozaki and stalked away from her. He hoped she’d
leave him alone, but she bounded after him.

Iren headed in Balear’s
direction. The former general was practicing in the forest too, and with much
greater success. As his giant Auryozaki sliced through the air, it dropped three-foot-wide
trees like twigs.

“Tired of wrecking the
forest yet?” Iren called.

Balear stopped in
midswing. Sweat dripped off him. He had come to Akaku to train every day since
he’d become the Sky Dragon Knight. “I didn’t expect to see you out here,” he
said. He paused a moment, then grinned. He pointed his sword at Iren. “Hey, how
about a match?”

Iren hesitated. He knew
the Auryozaki’s capabilities from his fight with Zuberi. Its length would keep
him out of reach, and its weightlessness would let Balear swing it so quickly
that Iren would have few chances to counterattack.

The situation would be
different if he had magic. The spells he’d learned training with Rondel far
surpassed what Balear could do.

Of course, if he could
use those abilities, the match wouldn’t be a contest. He returned Balear’s
smile. “Bring it on.” He drew the Muryozaki.

Hana looked from one
young man to the next and then, rolling her eyes, stepped between them. “Boys,
those aren’t wooden sticks. If you spar with sharpened blades, you’ll kill each
other.”

Iren didn’t listen. Hana
had just provided the perfect distraction; Balear couldn’t swing his long sword
without hitting her. Iren ducked low, ran past Hana, and was under Balear’s
guard in a second. He slashed up, intending to stop his blade just beneath
Balear’s jaw.

He was almost there when
Balear noticed what was about to happen and leapt backward. At the same time,
he swung the Auryozaki down. It plowed into the earth and disrupted Iren’s
attack with a burst of debris.

The dirt momentarily
blinded Iren, and that was all Balear needed. His sword
whooshed
as it
carved a horizontal arc through the air. Iren raised his katana to block, but
the force of Balear’s blow sent him sprawling nonetheless. Apparently the
Auryozaki was only weightless to its owner.

Iren staggered to his
feet and readied for Balear’s next strike. Hana shouted at them to stop, that
they were both being stupid, but she might as well have disappeared.

Balear lunged, his arm
and blade together giving him a ten-foot reach. Iren barely sidestepped the
blow.

Then he saw his opening.
Weightless sword or not, Balear was no Zuberi. He couldn’t attack as fast as
the Quodivar leader had, and because of his shorter height, he could only swing
his weapon in a couple directions. Iren deflected the Auryozaki with his katana
and forced the giant sword sideways. He charged and penetrated Balear’s defense
again. This time, he knew the soldier was too unsteady to jump away. Iren
thrust. He would send the Muryozaki past Balear’s face and leave a harmless
scratch along the Lodian’s left cheek.

Iren was so intent on
victory that he almost missed seeing Balear whirl the Auryozaki back around.
With the sword weightless, the Lodian could swing it even while off balance.
Iren cursed and converted his own strike into a vertical guard. Unlike his last
block, though, he was close enough to Balear that only the base of the
Auryozaki connected with his katana. Balear’s leverage was less there, so Iren
kept his feet.

The two pushed with all
their strength as each tried to break his opponent’s guard. Their eyes met, and
Iren saw joy in Balear’s face.

Something about that
expression broke through to Iren, and he realized that he wore an identical
look. He heard his own laughter, though he hadn’t known he was making the sound
until just then.

At once, as if they’d
prearranged the spectacle, Iren and Balear separated. Iren sheathed the
Muryozaki. He was panting and sweating, but he’d never felt so alive.

That was when it
occurred to him. Magic didn’t matter. He wasn’t helpless without it. He could
stand his own against a Dragon Knight. Maybe he couldn’t live with the Kodamas,
but he wasn’t crippled.

“That was good,” he
wheezed. “You learned how to handle that thing quickly.”

Balear hefted the
Auryozaki over his shoulder. “Keep practicing with me,” he said, just as
winded, “and I’ll be better than Dad and Zuberi in no time.”

“Fine by me. I’ll just
get that much stronger too. I refuse to lose to you.”

“Well, I’m not going to
lose to you either.”

Iren and Balear stared
at each other across the expanse of forest for a few seconds, laughing as they
caught their breath. Finally, Hana ran up and stood between them again. She
folded her arms and glared. “If you boys are done screwing around, we should
get back to Veliaf. Something’s wrong here.”

“You mean besides the
fact that even though Balear’s sword is twice as long as mine, he still
couldn’t win?” Iren asked with a smirk.

Hana’s expression didn’t
relent. “No, this is something else. Don’t you feel it? It’s getting colder.”

In truth, Iren felt
warmer now than he had for a long time. As his sweat cooled, though, he
realized Hana was right. The temperature had dropped significantly since he and
Balear had started fighting.

Then he noticed
something that made him step back in surprise. A snowflake had fluttered by his
face.

“What on Raa?” he asked.
“It’s nearly summer. Even this far north, there’s no way it can be snowing.”

Yet snow it did, and it
grew stronger by the second. Soon the flakes accelerated into a squall, and a
white layer covered the ground and spruce branches.

“Let’s get out of here,”
Iren said. He had no idea what was going on, but it stank of magic. These woods
were still the Yokai’s domain. Even if their numbers were reduced, they might
have something to do with this.

The trio had only taken
a few steps toward Veliaf when over the wind came a long, low, terrifying roar.
The sound froze Iren in place. He craned his neck to look in the direction of
the call. The others stared back too.

“What was that?” Balear
asked.

Iren gulped. He had
fought both Yokai and their larger cousins, the Oni. Though monstrous, neither
could have made that sound. It was primal, more animal than anything sentient.

Heavy footfalls and a
sloughing sound confirmed Iren’s suspicions. Not even the ten-foot-tall Oni
would be this loud moving through the woods.

At last, through the
snow, the creature came into view. The moment it did, Iren’s hands fell to his
sides, quivering.

The monster towered
fifteen feet high, and its girth was so great Iren doubted he could reach his
arms around it. It wore no clothes, but white fur covered it. Its hands sported
claws the length of Iren’s forearm. On each foot, instead of toes, the monster
had a single pointed nail as long and sharp as a dagger. Most horrifying of
all, though, were its burning eyes the color of blood and its needle-like teeth
protruding from its oversized maw.

Balear stood beside Iren,
his body rigid. “That’s a Fubuki,” he breathed.

The Fubuki had no need
of a weapon, but it nevertheless carried the most brutal creation Iren had ever
seen. One end was a long, jagged bone spear, while the other bore a hammer
larger than Iren’s torso.

As Iren studied the
weapon, his panic increased tenfold. Along the edges of the Fubuki’s hand,
familiar writing poked out. “Impossible,” he said. “That weapon is a Ryokaiten.
That thing is a Dragon Knight!”

“We should run,” Iren
said.

Balear stepped toward
the Fubuki and raised his Sky Dragon Sword. “We can’t,” he replied, the waver
in his voice barely concealed. “If we do, and this thing follows us to Veliaf,
people will die. We have to stop it here.”

Iren had no idea how they
could fight such a monster, even had it not been a Dragon Knight. Yet something
in Balear’s stance made Iren hold his ground. He drew the Muryozaki.

If he fought, he would
die. Even so, Balear was willing to face this thing. Iren wouldn’t let him do it
alone.

“Hana,” Balear called
without turning around. “Go to Veliaf and warn them. Whatever happens, you have
to live.” The man had never sounded so intense.

Iren couldn’t tell if
Hana was happy to have the chance for escape. She looked at Balear, her expression
one of genuine astonishment that Iren had never seen from her. Finally, though,
she fled south.

At the sight of its
quarry escaping, the Fubuki bellowed in challenge. Its cry sent shivers through
Iren, and he almost dropped the Muryozaki.

“I wanted to bring peace
to Lodia,” Balear said. “It might not turn out that way. But if I have to die
here, at least I can give Hana enough time to raise the alarm!”

Balear’s resolve amazed
Iren. If Ariok chose his knights according to bravery as Hana had claimed, then
the Sky Dragon had chosen well in Balear.

With another horrible
roar, the Fubuki charged. Balear stood firm, but Iren couldn’t stop himself
from retreating a step. It was a small movement, yet it was enough to expose
his weakness. The Fubuki focused on him. Its spear thrust at Iren’s face. Iren
managed to sweep the weapon aside and countered with a slash to the monster’s
wrist, hoping to disarm it.

He had to abort his
strike, though, as the Fubuki’s Ryokaiten spun around. Iren leapt back as the
hammer end swung at him. The bizarre weapon missed him by an inch, yet the force
of its passing threw Iren to the snow.

Iren swore. If that
hammer landed a direct hit, his corpse would be less recognizable than those
Ariok had dropped from the sky. Worse, he couldn’t block it. The hammer would
smash through any guard he could manage.

“Lodia!” Balear cried as
he struck at the monster’s exposed left side. Iren smiled; it was a good plan.
The Fubuki’s Ryokaiten was in its right hand, so it had to cross its own body to
bring the weapon to bear. Even if it did, the spear would do little against
Balear’s gigantic sword.

Unfortunately, the
hammer could do plenty. Faster than Iren thought possible, the Fubuki used the
heavy weapon’s momentum to spin it into Balear’s sword.

The crash of the two
massive Ryokaiten rang across the forest. Iren nearly bit off his tongue as his
teeth clapped together. Balear went sprawling, and clouds of snow flew into the
air as he tumbled along the ground. The Fubuki was unfazed.

Iren struggled to his
feet. The Fubuki had its back to him as it focused on Balear. Rather than shout
and reveal his presence like Balear had, Iren snuck up behind the creature and
slashed silently at its arm.

The monster couldn’t see
him, but whether through scent or some other means, it must have known he was
there. Its spear lunged backward. Iren’s shirt ripped as the weapon sliced
through his right side.

It missed his flesh,
though, and the Fubuki’s mistake was made. In failing to impale Iren, it had
let him get too close. Iren stabbed up into where he hoped one of the monster’s
kidneys was.

Iren had thrown his full
strength into the thrust, yet his sword only penetrated a couple inches into
the monster’s thick hide. Undaunted, the Fubuki backhanded Iren in the shoulder.
The force of the blow made Iren drop the Muryozaki and sent him flying. He
landed with a crash next to Balear.

The Fubuki reached down
with its left hand and grabbed the Muryozaki. The katana looked like a toy in
the beast’s enormous paw. With a howl that shook the forest, the Fubuki hurled
the sword in the opposite direction from Iren. The blade speared a tree forty
feet up all the way to the hilt.

Iren’s eyes flicked from
the Fubuki to the Muryozaki with despair. Even if he could climb that high, he’d
never be able to pull the weapon out of three feet of wood.

“It doesn’t look good
for us,” he said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Balear
admitted, “but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up.”

The soldier stood and
pointed the Auryozaki at the Fubuki. Iren couldn’t help but be impressed.

“Don’t charge him,” Iren
advised. “He wants you to get in close so he can hit you with that hammer. Take
advantage of your sword’s length and attack from far away. Aim for his right
hand or arm. If you can make him drop his Ryokaiten, you might have a chance.”

Balear nodded but didn’t
speak. He circled the Fubuki warily.

Then the monster did
something that made Iren’s blood chill more than it already had. It smiled.

The tip of the Fubuki’s
spear glowed a light blue, and a spike of ice lanced from it. Balear saw it at
the last second and raised his sword to block. The ice shattered against the
blade.

When he lowered his
weapon, the once-implacable Balear was shaking. The fifteen-foot-tall Fubuki
was impossibly tough on its own, but it could use magic as well.

Again the spear
illuminated, but instead of a single shard, this time a barrage of them
launched from it. Balear stabbed the Auryozaki into the ground and hid behind
it. The spikes bounced off it without harm.

The rain of shards
stopped, and Iren saw the Fubuki’s plan. “Balear, move!” he shouted, but he was
too late. Balear’s sword protected him, but it also blinded him to what his
enemy was doing. The Fubuki surged around Balear’s defense.

With a victorious howl
the Fubuki thrust its spear. Balear flung himself away, but surprise slowed his
reaction time. The spear pierced his right arm at the elbow.

Balear’s wound wasn’t
fatal, but then it turned blue. Iren watched in horror as the flesh around the spear
froze. The ice radiated out, creeping over Balear’s arm.

It had just reached his
shoulder when the ground shook. The Fubuki backed its weapon out of Balear and
whipped its body around in search of the disturbance’s source.

The monster’s blood-red
eyes settled on Iren. He gulped. The Fubuki must have decided he was causing
the tremors.

Iren was sure the Fubuki
would slay him, but then he realized he’d misinterpreted the beast’s gaze. It
wasn’t looking at him, but past him.

Hoping the Fubuki
wouldn’t pounce on him the second he turned his back, Iren looked over his
shoulder. The moment he did, he gasped.

Hana stood fifty feet
away. In her hands she clutched a long-hafted brown war hammer.

The Fubuki bellowed in
challenge, but Hana stood firm and unafraid. When the Fubuki pointed its spear
at her, Iren called, “Look out for the ice shards!”

Hana didn’t move. The
spear glowed blue, and a barrage of bolts shot toward her. Iren slammed a fist
into the snow, unable to do anything to stop the slaughter.

As the shots landed,
though, they bounced off Hana as if she wore heavy armor. She cocked an
eyebrow. “Is that all?” she asked. “I guess I shouldn’t expect anything more
from someone who isn’t a Maantec.”

The forest shook again,
and dozens of rocks of various sizes burst from the ground. They floated in the
air around Hana. She smiled. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

The stones shot forward
with such speed that Iren could barely track them. They pummeled the Fubuki,
but its hide prevented any serious damage. Even so, several red splotches
appeared on the monster’s fur.

For the first time, the
creature stepped back. Iren had no idea how intelligent Fubuki were, but this
one was smart enough to know that it had lost. With a final roar, it swung its
Ryokaiten in a broad arc. Snow whipped around it, and it vanished.

The temperature warmed
back to what it had been before the Fubuki’s arrival. Iren let out a breath he
hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The monster had retreated. They were alive.

But not for long. Iren
ran to Balear and cradled him in his arms. The man’s eyes were blank.

“We have to get him to
Veliaf,” Hana said. The ground rumbled, and the dirt under Balear lifted up,
levitating him.

Hana next raised the
chunk of earth beneath herself. Like a leaf on a breeze, she floated to Iren’s
katana and withdrew it effortlessly from the tree it had impaled.

“H. . .How?” Iren
stammered once Hana returned to the ground and handed over the sword.

“Later,” she said,
“after Balear is stable. Come on.” She walked south toward Veliaf. The floating
mound with Balear trailed behind her.

For a long time Iren
stood transfixed. He watched Hana as she became smaller and smaller. It wasn’t
the shock of learning that she was a Dragon Knight. It was that she could save
them, and he could not.