The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (6 page)

almost at that stage. Voss will strike when the dragon is at its weakest, shortly before it closes its eye. My guess is they have taken Grella to calm it.”

“With her lullaby?”

“Yes. She will be of no use to them

when it’s done.”

“I’ll find her,” I said, as a tear began to

bloom in Eleanor’s eye.

I turned and lifted the door latch.

“Wait,” she said. “One more thing.” She hurried back to the fireside again and opened a small, decorative box, the kind women use for personal things. She returned, rubbing her fingers in a pot of waxy lotion. She pushed back the sleeve of my robe and rubbed some into my wrist.

It had already disappeared into my skinbefore I asked her, “What is this?”

“A scent.”

She saw my gaze narrow.

“Don’t worry. It will not give you awayto Voss. Only a Taan could detect it. It

will last for three days. If you should get close enough to Grella, she will recognise it and know that help is at hand.”

With that, she kissed my head and let

me go.

I ran at a steady pace all night, guided by the moon and the shape of the mountain. Beyond the borders of the settlement the farmlands divided into fields of crops or open grassland grazed by sheep. I followed the paths the Taan had made, crossing the earth like a silent wave, flowing forwards but never pulling back. For every steep hill there was a gentle valley. For every wayward bend, another course that ran true. Even when the river

curled its tail across me I was able to

meet it at its shallowest point and skip

across the boulders that sat up in its bed. And when the rain came to soften and

puddle the ground I was nimble across it, too swift to be stopped. Yolen would have been proud of me.

But he would have been puzzled, too. Yes, I was young and able-bodied and naturally adapted to the land we inhabit, but I was a boy with limited endurance. How, he would have asked, could I have run until dawn?

The answer lay back in Brunne’s krofft. As my feet beat their rhythm against theearth I began to feel that I was not alone. Whatever had attached itself to my mindwas cleverly adjusting the potential of mybody to keep my heart pumping and mylungs filled with air. All I had to do was

focus my intent.
 
The forest, by morning
, I kept   saying   to   myself.   And   my ‘companion’ strived to accomplish the task. Only if I tried to think too much did my muscles start to burn and my knees begin to ache.

But I had to know what Brunne had

passed to me. So, as the morning light approached and the trees began to come within hailing distance, I dipped a little deeper into my mind. This is what I learned.

“What are you?” I asked.

My right thigh twinged, but only for a

moment.

We are Fain
 
, they said. I felt them inmy head like a gentle breeze. Like a cloudof twinkling stars. Alive.

“Are you my enemy?”

No.

“Then why are you inside me? What do you want?”

We seek the fire of the dragon
 
, they said.

“You are hunting fraas?”

No. We would be one with the beast.

“To kill it?”

To die with it and live again.

This sent my thoughts into a rapid spinand I felt the sharp taste of exhaustion inmy mouth. The creatures said,
 
You mustconcentrate, Agawin. You must followyour intent
 
.

I looked up at the mountain andremembered my quest. Grella. Voss. Galen the dragon. With each of these

thoughts, a fresh burst of energy surged through my body. “Show yourself,” I said.

We cannot
 
, said the Fain,
 
we have no form except that we inhabit. When we are bound to your form, men call themselves

‘Premen’. We were Brunne
 
.
 
Now we are

Agawin. We can roam freely if we wish
 
.

“I am Premen now?”

“Yes.”

My heart thumped against my chest.

Premen. What would Yolen make of
 
that
?

“Where are you from? Are you even of

this world?”

My rhythm picked up. I was smoothernow. The Fain swarmed in and out of mymemories.
 
We were like you once
.

“A boy?”

Human. We evolved and detached. We

are thought without form.

The first tall spikes of the forest loomed up. I adjusted my course to keep them on my right.

We are consciousness, pure.

“Then why have you attached again – to Brunne and to me?”

Why not, in fact, attach to the dragon?

Although my thought was simply that –a thought, the Fain beings read it with

ease.
 
We seek illumination
 
,
 
but the

dragon’s fire alone is not enough. The human form must also be present
.

And what would be the result, I wondered, when men and Fain and dragon came together?

Their reply was swift.
 
Perfection
, they said.

Sunlight flickered across the land. I wasscurrying upwards now, over a bed ofbald earth and shale. To the east, nestledin the hollow of the hills, I could see thegreat lake of Varlusshandaan gleaminglike a frozen eye. Further north ran thewild reindeer herds that dragons of oldhad poached from sometimes. Was thatanother reason Galen was here? I listened

for his roar but heard nothing other than my constant footfall. The only sense truly alive in me was smell. In the clarity of morning the pine resin was so fresh that it made my nostrils dance. At any other time I would have been lifted up like a feather. For there was nothing to touch the raw beauty of the stone and the swathes of green earth that served it – and the pines.

This was Kasgerden in all its glory. Butall I could think of as I finally stoppedrunning and rested my hand against thefirst tall tree was the object of my journey,the warrior, Voss. Brunne’s words werecoming back like whispers.
 
Voss is in thegrip of a shadow. It wields him. Not theother way about
.

Bending double I said to the Fain, “Doyou speak through Voss as well?”

They buzzed and circled around mymind.
 
Voss is tainted
, they said.
 
There is Fain within him. A dark form. The Ix
 
.

And there, all hopes of perfection burst. So there were beings, just as powerful asthe Fain, that would use dragons andunicorns and innocent humans in the

pursuit of evil?

We must triumph
, said the Fain.

‘That we must,’ as Rune might havesaid. That we must.

Tiredness had swamped my body bynow. But I moved on, following the edgeof the forest, this time keeping to awalking pace and taking water at regularintervals. I could see what Eleanor had

meant about this trail. The general curve of the trees would bring me to the rockiest side of Kasgerden; already I could see its famous grey scarps. But the slope here, though it still required climbing, was the choice of the novice. I had once heard

Yolen say that this approach was like ‘scaling a giant who had laid his hand,palm up, on the ground’. For a nimble boy,aided by the Fain, it would be easy. But it

would not be quick.

And the lure of the trees was profound. The pines had stood for many thousands of years, their secrets as dense as their thickening number. Sensing my desire to test the maze, the Fain counselled that to travel through the trees was quicker but the likelihood of going astray very great. Then there were the skogkatts, of course. Even supposing there was only one wildkatt for every two hundred trees, that would still be a multitude for Voss to have

cleared. Something told me the katts were in there still. Maybe looking back at me. Waiting. Keen.

I put aside any thoughts of temptation. But as I adjusted my bow against my shoulder I saw something that changed my

mind. A strand of blue thread was clinging to the bark of a nearby tree. I snatched it

up.

Horses have entered the forest
 
, said

the Fain.

I looked at the bracken. I had never

learned how to track a horse; I had never had any reason to. A hunting man, one of the Horste, perhaps, might have deduced from the breakage of twigs that the pattern could only have been made by hooves. But what I saw among the needles was not a row of prints but a small trail of horse dung, relatively fresh. Voss and his men had been here.

I stepped into the forest. The Fain

inside me buzzed.

“Help me look for more thread,” I

whispered. If they had gone through on foot, maybe Grella had left a trail. The Fain, I could tell, were wary of the venture. Nevertheless, I felt a slight pinch in my eyes and the light in the forest seemed a little less dim. Straight away, I spotted another piece of thread, ten trees further in, positioned about waist height off the ground. I crept forward and took it. The same blue as before. Clever, clever Grella.

The forest breathed. A needle fell and

made me look up. High above, in the few chinks of sky I could see, the points of the trees were ticking to the west. Suddenly, the bracken rustled. I quickly stepped back. My footfall made a crunch that could have been heard a small field away, but

the bow was off my shoulder and loaded and ready. I had aimed at every possible gap in the trees before I realised the ‘rustlers’ were mice.

I closed on them, still tensing the bow. When they saw me, they scattered in alldirections. Some seemed to leap from ashadowy hole at the base of a tree. As Idrew near, I saw that the hole was an opencarcass, festering and partly eaten away. An arrow was lodged between a set ofdried ribs. The skull was stripped and theeyes removed. What was left of thisunfortunate creature was covered in

matted, blood-stained fur. It was a skogkatt. Several hours dead.

I lowered my bow and put the arrow back. So there was some truth in the

motested story. Voss had been here, killing the katts on his short cut to the dragon. And Grella, in her way, had recorded it.

Now, I felt impelled to follow theirpath. So I hunted the markers with greaterenthusiasm, but a lot less caution. And Ilearned two things about Voss in theprocess. That he was brutal – but aboveall, cunning.

I came upon three more threads andanother dead katt before the trail spilledme into a small clearing, just a circularpatch of ground no greater in width than Yolen’s cave. I saw another thread on the

far side of the circle and ran to pick it off. There   was   more,   clinging   to   the neighbouring tree. I picked it and saw

another next to that. And another next to

that. I turned and looked around the

clearing.

There was blue on every tree.

My heart thumped.

The first skogkatt scuttled down a pine to my left, moving so fast it seemed almost weightless. Its brown fur blended so well with the forest that all I could target was the sound of its claws. As I raised my bow, it spiralled around the dark side of the   tree.   My  arrow   whistled  with murderous intent, nicking the bark and skewing away tamely without tasting blood. By then, the scratch of their claws was everywhere. At least one katt to every tree. And in the gaps at ground level, deadly green stars. A sea of eyes moving

towards me. I was doomed.

Lay down your bow
, said the Fain.

I was afraid to. I clung to it. Turninglike a mad man. Target to target. “Can weoutrun them?”

Unlikely
 
. “Climb?”

They are tree dwellers, Agawin.

And the ground would be unforgiving if

I fell.

Withdraw your weapon. They mayshow you mercy.

And kill me quickly? Without hindrance – or mess?

I rested my aim on the leading katt. Itwas three times the size of any other I hadseen. Brown, as most of the skogkattswere, with streaks of black running

through its thick fur. Its ears were tufted, in the way of some owls. The intense green eyes were exquisitely savage. As it squatted down ready to spring at me, I could have put an arrow right between those eyes. One last act of cruel defiance. But I went the way of the Fain instead. I fired my arrow into the ground.

Noble. But pointless.

The attack came, not from the front, but from a katt I could not see, to my rear. The Fain, which seemed to have awareness in all directions, warned me and I turned to meet the creature as it leaped. It wasn’t heavy, but the shock of the impact made me stumble backwards. I fell to the forest