Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)

“I am the future. The Varlamagnes are no more.”

Every last person in Roanoke stopped what they were doing and watched their holographic vid-screens. A hooded figure’s face took up the entire screen. The voluminous hood shadowed his face, giving nothing away.

“It is time for a new era,” the voice said, confident and controlled. “An era of my might. The weakness of the royal family has been a tolerated curse for far too long. It ends now.” He paused a moment. “The revolution has begun. If you are not with us, then you will die with the rest. The Blak Army will prevail. I urge you not to take arms against us. We will not show mercy to Crown supporters.”

The mysterious face disappeared.

Mere seconds later, explosions ripped through Roanoke.

People ran screaming with terror. Others weren’t so fortunate. The multiple blasts that ripped through the city killed thousands of people. Over a hundred buildings collapsed, killing more. The tolls of dead only rose higher. Troopers clad in black, military gear with high-powered blasters and laser rifles flooded the streets. They herded people into large cargo vehicles that rolled through the debris-filled streets. The ones that tried to run away or fight with their nanos were gunned down and killed.

The vehicles rolled away, carrying their prisoners with them.

The hooded figure stared at the large vid-screen displayed over the wall in front of him. It flickered with blue, luminescent light. There were easily over a hundred different screens plastered on it, each one with a different view of the city. Smoke and fire seemed to invade almost all of them. Black clad warriors filled the rest.

He smiled and reached up a hand to his hood. He pulled it back.

“W-wilhelm?” a voice suddenly asked. It was hoarse. Barely there. “You…you’re dead. I watched you die.”

Wilhelm turned to look at the man that had spoken. Once a friend, a brother, but no more. Now, he was little more than a murderer. He turned to look fully at his prisoner, King Rowan.

The king’s eye widened in shock. Half of Wilhelm’s face was a twisted mass of scar tissue and lumpy, reddened flesh. In spots that ranged in size, he could see thin sheets of metal covering the skin. The eye on that side had somehow survived but the skin around it looked like melted wax and gave it a slouched, droopy look. His lips had been burned off. When he grinned, it gave his face a sickening, skeletal look.

“Yes. Hard to look at, isn’t it?” he asked with a sneer. “Imagine what Katrina thought when I finally made it back to her. Needless to say, our love did not survive it.”

“So the answer was to attack your home? To kill your own people?” King Rowan asked, breathing hard. He tried to move but couldn’t. He’d been poisoned by some toxin that paralyzed him from the neck down. He couldn’t even remember how Wilhelm had managed it. “Why didn’t you have our doctors heal your face? Why resort to this instead?”

“I went to the best doctor’s we had to offer,” Wilhelm replied, his eyes filled with hate. “They could repair damage to my flesh but they could not recreate it. In some places, my skin had been completely burned away. I survive thanks to my own ingenuity. But like they said, I cannot replace what was lost. I can only patch it and prevent infection.”

“This isn’t the answer,” Rowan said. “Rebellion and murder will only leave us weak and unprotected.”

“Maybe, but it’s not like it was difficult. Actually, it was all very easy,” Wilhelm replied, smugly. “Do you even realize how much hatred some of your people have for you and your family? No? I didn’t think so. If you had, I doubt this revolution would come as much of a surprise to you. I guess that, more than anything is what angers me the most. Your simple arrogance. You think you can just rule people and they will love everything you do. That’s not the way it works. The majority of your people are not happy with their lives and I used that to form the engine of your own destruction, the Blak Army. And we will rule all.”

“Roanoke will not fall to you,” King Rowan snapped, his voice rough with anger.

Wilhelm got in the king’s face, his breath blowing hotly as he laughed maliciously.

“Roanoke is only the start,” he said. “I won’t stop until the world is under my thumb. I have been to the brink of death and come back. It is my destiny to rule this pathetic land and remake it.”

The king looked away from him and the manic gleam in the man’s eyes.

“What happened to you?” he asked. He couldn’t believe this was the same man that he had once been so close to.

“I was awakened, you could say,” Wilhelm replied. “And you, my king, were the catalyst. If not for your incessant need for glory and fame, I never would’ve started down this path.”

“Do not put this on me,” King Rowan growled.

Wilhelm roared with rage and punched the king across his lower jaw.

Rowan grunted in pain.

“This is all on you!” he roared. The depth of his anger was staggering. “Everyone’s deaths. All their blood. It’s all on your head!” He smiled, stretching his skull-like grin out wide. “And you will live to see everything that you worked for crumble and be laid to waste.”

He threw his hood back on and pressed a button on the glowing screen of his mechpak. The doors to the room they were in opened and four Blak Soldiers entered. They bowed from the waist to Wilhelm.

“Take him to the cell I’ve prepared,” their leader proclaimed.

They bowed again and then walked over to the paralyzed king. One of the four chose a blueprint and his mechpaks opened. Nanos flew out, merging together to form a stretcher that hovered a couple feet from the floor. They laid him on it and took him from the room. The king was unable to do anything about it. Whatever toxin Wilhelm had used left him completely vulnerable.

“You will not succeed,” he called out but the only thing he heard was Wilhelm’s harsh laughter.

****

King Rowan was put in an uncomfortable, metal chair facing a blank wall. His arms and legs were bound by thick metal bands. Another one went around his chest. The toxin’s paralytic effects were starting to wear off so he tried to struggle and break free. It was no use, however. He was still too weak.

“Enjoy the video,” Wilhelm’s voice said, coming from speakers hidden inside the walls. “I picked it special for you.”

King Rowan was about to say something back, but the wall in front him was replaced by a vid-screen. It was only a ghostly blue at first, but then a video started playing. He watched himself talking to Rone on the terrace outside his son’s apartment and as he did, a giant snake of fear wrapped itself around his heart.

That wasn’t him.

“Just think about what I said. Can you do that much? You can even take that flight you asked for earlier. No guard. Maybe it will clear your head.”

“Really?” Rone asked, carefully hesitant. “You’d let me fly off by myself?”

“Yes, I mean it. Just try to be careful.”

“I will.”

Rowan tried to shut his eyes against this vision, knowing it didn’t lead to anything that he wanted to see.

“Now, now, Rowan. You’ll miss the best part.” Wilhelm’s voice came through the speakers again. “I went to so much trouble to make this for you. You shouldn’t be so rude.”

A bolt of electricity stabbed into the King’s back, causing him to jerk in pain. He gritted his teeth against it, not wanting to give the bastard the satisfaction of hearing him yell out. When it was over, he still kept his eyes firmly shut. Another bolt of electricity stabbed into him, followed by another and another.

“So stubborn,” Wilhelm said, enjoying his former king’s torment. But it wasn’t the kind of pain he was looking for at the moment. He wanted him to watch as his sole heir and child died. He wanted to see the hurt and pain on the man’s face as something he loved dearly was ripped away from him.

Rowan still kept his eyes shut. It took nearly forty rounds of electricity before he finally couldn’t bear it anymore. His eyes snapped open and slowly focused on the vid-screen. It showed Rone creating a flightpack and then lifting off. The view changed. Now it showed Rone in the air, roaring his way over Roanoke’s walls. In moments he was over the Qandari and looking as if he loved every second of his freedom.

It didn’t last long. Rowan watched as something came hurtling toward his son. He saw Rone glance back and then speed forward. There was a long stretch of the video where Rone was doing everything he could to evade the missile after him but it was useless. It finally caught up to him and stuck to his left leg. Needles sprouted out of it and plunged through a nano-shield and into the flesh of Rone’s calf. His son’s mouth opened with pain and his face contorted into something hideous. He watched Rone try to pry it off but before he could even reach it, electricity shot through him. The nanos forming the shield died and were ripped away by the wind. Rowan watched Rone’s leg burn and blacken. Blood oozed out of the wounds. His son tried to pry the object off again, but this time it detonated. A pulse of purple light rippled out instead of an explosion.

“NO!” Rowan roared. Spit flew out of his mouth and his face turned bright red.

His son plummeted like a stone. The camera following Rone unnoticed, tracked his fall.

Rowan didn’t want to see it anymore but he was helpless to look away. His son continued to fall. He could see him trying to fire up his burners again but Rowan knew the EMP detonation wouldn’t allow it. Not unless the bomb had been a small one. But he didn’t dare hope for that. Wilhelm wouldn’t go through all this trouble to make that kind of mistake.

He continued to watch the footage of Rone’s death.

And then, impossibly, his son’s burners did fire again! Hope surged through him.

Rone managed to level out his steep fall. There was an instant of pure triumph on his face. He even pumped a fist in the air. But his flight was too fast and he couldn’t avoid a giant sand dune. He bashed into it so fast a cloud of sand flew up into the air.

The drone filming everything flew in for a close up. It showed Rone, dead or unconscious and half buried in the sand.

Rowan stared closely at his son’s chest, trying to will it to rise and fall but there didn’t seem to be any movement. Then the footage abruptly cut out.

“It annoyed me that Lord Guilder did not use a big enough EMP bomb to completely kill Rone’s nanos, but I have to admit, I like the end result a little better I think,” Wilhelm spoke, his voice annoyingly conversational.

Rowan gritted his teeth, his jaw clenching down hard.

I am going to kill you, old friend, he thought to himself, imagining the feel of his hands wrapped around Wilhelm’s throat as he squeezed the life out of him. And Lord Guilder will be next. The idiot was probably more than willing to join Wilhelm after I publicly humiliated him, Rowan reasoned.

“Seeing your face light up with hope only to have it crushed again was the most amusing thing I’ve seen in years.”

Rowan heard tinny laughter as Wilhelm’s voice faded from the speakers.

Then, the video started again. When it was finished, it replayed. Again and again this went on. Whenever Rowan tried to stop watching, the electricity would pound into him.

He screamed in rage until his voice went out. He could feel something in his throat pop. He didn’t care. He yelled out soundlessly.

****

Rone started coming around. His head felt dizzy and his eyes were blurry and unfocused. He tried to look around, but the only thing he could manage was to weakly turn his head left or right. To the left was what looked like a giant fireplace and a hazy figure in a chair. Everything else was too out of focus to even see.

He turned his head to the right and flinched in sudden fear. Someone was watching him.

“I’m sorry,” a voice called. A soft, feminine voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He tried to say something, but his throat hurt too much. He swallowed and gritted his teeth against the sharp pain.

“Here,” the girl said. “Drink some water.”

He watched her take something off a table and pass it to him.

His vision still wasn’t working quite right, but it was getting better rapidly. He was able to grab the cup the girl had given him. He brought it to his lips and drank slowly but deeply. The coolness of it was like heaven on his burning throat.

“T-thank you,” he managed to say. He took another drink, coughed roughly for a minute, and then drank the rest. “Where am I? Is this Raleigh? Dare?”

The girl wouldn’t answer and he could feel the sudden nervousness in the air. He blinked his eyes several times and rubbed them. The blurriness to his vision receded and for the first time, he got a good look at his surroundings. He was in a large, circular hut. All manner of odd objects and plants decorated the place and judging by the six other beds, it was some sort of healer’s home.

A Terraquois healer! he realized suddenly. The simple building with its tribal objects were a dead give-away.

No, no, no, he thought to himself.

The blood drained out of his face. Every horror story about the savage tribes-people assailed his mind at the same time. Icy currents of fear raced through him.

Run! his mind yelled at him.

He didn’t give himself any time to reconsider. He shot up and tried to get off the bed but his left leg smashed into one of its wooden posts and exploded into pain.

He yelled out, lost his balance, and then crashed to the floor. His injured leg smashed into the ground before he could stop it and another powerful burst of pain flooded him. He fought the urge to black out from it.

“Stay away from me!” he screamed out. He was hysterical and nearly blind with panic. He was in one of the enemy’s city-tribes. He was surrounded by them.

They’re going to kill me! he thought. They’re going to kill me and eat me.

A soft hand gripped his shoulder. It was calm and oozed reassurance. He could feel it like some sort of energy that seeped into his pores and into his blood stream. He felt his racing heart suddenly slow to a typical beat. He felt his breathing return to normal and the fear recede.

“It’s okay,” the girl said. He turned to the sound of her voice.

He was shocked nearly silent at the sight of her. She was easily the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Her long, lustrous black hair fell over the sides of her face in wavy curls. A strip of silver ran down the middle seam of her hair and a beautiful, blue jewel was suspended from its pointed end and laid over the middle of her forehead. It glittered in the soft light of the fire roaring in the fireplace.

She looked at him with her soft brown eyes. Her beautifully sculpted eyebrows furrowed in concern and her full, red lips held a slight frown.

She was so pretty that he thought for a moment she wasn’t real. That it was a hallucination his mind worked up to cope with his current situation. He reached out a hand. It shook fiercely but he kept going. His finger slid over her cheek and then the rest of his hand cupped it. Her skin was soft and warm and her hair felt like silk.

She was real.

He jerked his hand back suddenly, even though she never said he had to. He looked up at her eyes and saw no malice in them.

“Who are you?” His voice was steadier now and the pain in his throat was almost gone.

“My name is Keiara,” she responded. “I found you in the Javardi Desert, half-alive.”

“Javardi?” he asked, confused. And then it clicked. “You mean the Qandari Desert?”

“Yes,” she responded with a bright smile, understanding him. She reached a flawless hand up to brush away stray curls from her face. “You were half-buried in the sand. My brother, Asher, and I found you.”

“And you took me to get treated?” he asked. He tried to get up from the floor but the pain in his left leg distracted him. He finally took a good look at it, to try and see how much damage had been done. “My leg!” he yelled instead. “Where the hell is my leg?”

His pant leg had been cut away and he could clearly see what was left of his limb. White bandages covered the stump. He could see spots of blood darkening them, some of them growing bigger from where he had bashed it into the bed and then the floor. His heart was beating way too fast again and he was breathing harshly. Then he scrambled back and up, using mostly his arms to pull himself onto the bed. He looked again at the stump of his left leg and fear was replaced with white hot anger. He looked at the girl and she shrank away from his rage.

“You cut it off?” He reached out and grabbed her arm, painfully. His mechpak hummed loudly and nanos came racing out. They merged into a razor sharp blade. He grabbed it out of the air with his free hand and threatened the girl with it.

She tried to yank her arm back but he was too strong. She couldn’t break his grip. Her eyes widened slightly in fear as she watched the knife drift closer to her.

“Enough,” someone said, and for the first time Rone remembered the hazy figure in the chair next to the fireplace.

His eyes snapped to that voice and found an ancient crone rocking slowly in a chair. Her wrinkled eyes watched him carefully.

“Release her, boy, or you will not like what comes next.”

She gave him some time to comply, but when it became clear he would not release her, she waved a bony hand in the air. She twirled it into an intricate, unseen pattern and then pointed at Rone.

He wasn’t sure what he thought would happen, but having every plant in the place suddenly shoot ropy, painful tendrils at him was not it.