SWNOVELS Fireblade: Chapter 25
I’M BEGINNING TO THINK the only way I will ever persuade Dragar to concede defeat is to cut off his arms and legs––but I suspect I really would be in trouble with Jantian if I tried that. I dodge away from the heavy Rapathian blade yet again and manage to get close enough to Jantian to convey my thoughts to him in blunt and unflattering terms. Together with a request for backup before I run out of patience and remove Dragar’s arrogant if handsome head from his shoulders.
I can hear the exasperation in Jantian’s sharp intake of breath as he signals Marin to engage. Not the move I expected and the instant I think about the possible chaotic consequences, I can see why this was Jantian’s solution of last resort. If Marin fails to keep Zandar under control, Dragar will be nothing but a scorched cinder within the next few minutes. End of Jantian’s long-term strategic plan, whatever it was.
I watch Zandar’s slowly beating wings as he inches forward. I’m already regretting my admission of failure. I should have kept trying for a while longer.
Dragar glances up at the approaching threat and then back at me.
“Coward! You fail to fight and then you hide behind a monster.”
The utter contempt in his words cuts through me like a knife. I spring forward and dodge to one side, deflecting his heavy blade with my own and using the movement to drive my dagger at his neck––
Only to have my wrist grabbed from behind and wrenched aside. Deris shoves me out of the way, following through with his own blade to pin Dragar’s sword to the ground before stepping back out of reach and dragging me with him.
“Jantian guessed you would snap the instant that arrogant thug insulted you. Dragar’s reaction was as inevitable as your response to it.”
The grumble of angry and confused voices from the surrounding warriors has an ominous undertone to it. What has just passed makes no sense to them and they don’t like it.
Zandar swoops into the core of the tense standoff, cinching his great coils like a circular rampart around the enemy commander before he can recover and attack again. I can tell that Marin has warned him to hold back his fire and now I’m beginning to see how this might actually work. Dragar stabs upwards, repeatedly and ineffectually trying to penetrate the glittering scales as the dragon moves in ever tighter circles to isolate him from everyone else.
Then Marin moves, faster than a serpent’s strike, leaning down and pinning the heavy Rapathian sword to the ground with his own crysteel, releasing his fire down the blade in an arc of searing heat. Dragar screams as the glowing sword falls from his burned hand. Zandar widens the circle of his body, forming a defensive ring around Deris and myself as we run forward to pin Dragar’s arms to his sides. Jantian moves closer to lock a heavy chain around the Rapathian commander’s wrists.
I glance around to check on the enemy reaction.
Another standoff. And it holds only because Zandar is now pushing his coils outwards in a wider circle, using his weight to shove the press of soldiers back, away from us.
This could still go either way.
I take the chain from Jantian’s hands and keep my voice low. “Jantian, back off. They don’t know how many of us are immune to dragonfire.”
I wait until he and Deris step aside to give me some space and then I toss the end of the chain up to Marin. He catches it easily and watches me as I move back several paces.
“Dragar. Will you surrender now?”
“It makes no difference if you kill me.” In spite of his bound hands he holds his head high and glares at me from under dark brows. I can’t help but admire his courage––until I suddenly see past the bravado to the calculating strategy behind his words. He has already figured that we need him alive for something.
Now he is calling my bluff. “We have the superior numbers. We can destroy your fiery Elemental and defeat your army as well.”
In a way he is right, even if not in the way he thinks. They have no weapon that could kill Zandar, but they have more than enough to kill Marin if he keeps attacking. When that happens, the dragon will go out of control and destroy both armies––and only the Five know how much of Samaran as well in the days and weeks that follow.
Mutually assured destruction is not victory.
I try one last gamble. “Dragar? What will it take to convince you that we are invincible?” I walk across the open space to stand a few paces from the wall of Rapathian fighters still watching us.
Then I look up at Marin, hoping he will understand what I am waiting for.
He does. I can barely hear his quiet command but Zandar responds instantly, releasing a scourge of fire directly at me. The hot blast of flame feels strange, flowing around me and yet it does not burn.
I don’t hear the screams from the Rapathians caught in the fire until they are already fading. I don’t turn my head to look at the destruction. I have to stay focused on Dragar, watching to see how he reacts.
His eyes track from me to Jantian and the Eldrin and back again and in that moment I know my guess was right. He is trying to work out if we are all immune to the fire. It will wreck the battle plans I am sure were already forming in his mind, to use our people as human shields while the Rapathians attack Marin.
“Dragar, we will keep you and one witness alive to write your place in history as the commander who watched his whole army burn. The general whose vanity refused to let him surrender, when it was in his power to save thousands.”
I hold my breath for a long slow moment, asking myself if I really have found the one thing Dragar considers to be worse than conceding defeat.
Then he turns to look directly at one of his captains and raises his chained hands. I assume the signal he gives is the order to surrender. A long drawn-out sigh whispers and groans its way across the packed ranks of warriors, and then slowly, cohort by cohort, they lay down their weapons.
I leave Jantian and the Eldrin to oversee whatever taking of prisoners and collecting of weapons has to happen next. I have eyes only for Marin as he leaps down from Zandar’s neck and hands Dragar’s chain to Brac.
It feels as if we are the only two people left in this strange world of death and reprieve, cut off from everyone else by the great coil of glittering scales encircling us. I cautiously reach out to touch Marin’s hand, intensely aware of the inner fire still coursing through him. Words, any words, are inadequate in a time like this but I feel compelled to make some kind of contact, trying to bridge the sudden gulf that has opened between us.
“That was a brilliant move, using your own fire like that instead of Zandar’s. I wish I had thought of it.”
He gives a self-effacing shrug that does little to dispel the overwhelming aura of savage wildness about him. When he speaks, he seems distant somehow.
“It was hard, giving Zandar the order to burn you. I had no way of knowing if you would still be immune to it if you were not the one commanding him. I just hoped you knew what you were doing.”
I decide not to tell him it had been no more than a desperate guess. There are more pressing things to focus on and little time to plan. We have fulfilled our commitment to secure this victory… but our chance to escape has been lost in the standoff with Dragar. The focus of too much Samarian attention and adulation is on us now.
“Marin? What should we do?”
I know he heard my question but he turns away. I hear him quietly thanking Zandar, asking him to return to Annubia. The inevitable dispassionate response resonates in my mind.
As you wish.
But then the coils hiss and move until Zandar’s great head is right in front of me, his gleaming golden eyes fixed on mine.
When will you return to Rahimar?
I can’t respond for a few moments. Not only because I have no idea when I will return, if ever––or even if I will be alive to make that choice. There is a strange clash of reactions happening inside me, the gratification that such a powerful creature would want to know if we will meet again, conflicting with an instinctive recognition of the wrongness of it. Little good has come from too deep a connection between human and Elemental. Not in ancient history and not since.
“I… I don’t know, Zandar. This battle may be over, but the war is ending in so much chaos and destruction, it will take time before anyone can know where their path will lead.”
So be it. I shall be waiting.
The heavy beat of wings stirs the dust as the huge creature lifts off and soars above the battlefield. I watch him go, the parting connection between us tearing and stinging through my body with the uncertainty of our reunion. I try to fight through the confusion, knowing that this is my last chance to get some answers from Marin. I grip his arm, trying to persuade him to focus on our escape.
“Marin! Tell me how we’re going get away from all this attention!”
That distant look in his eyes is still there. Maybe he has worked out his own route to escape from here and I can help him best by staying out of his way and finding him later. The dragonfire is concealed within him once more but I still feel the underlying surge of it, crackling and threatening like the brief instant of calm before a thunderstorm breaks in its terrifying intensity. He must have been holding much of it back while he dismissed Zandar, but now the aura of his power and confidence is rapidly growing stronger.
“Ariel. There is no need to run. I can protect you.”
The words are calm and quiet, but there is something wild and fey about him now as the forces of both Rahimar dragonfire and Eldaran ice-shadow take over. I know only too well how that feels and the terrible things it has driven me to do––but I can’t reach Marin to try to hold him back.
He seems focused on his own path and I don’t understand where it will lead.
I look to Jantian for answers, only to have my hopes instantly dashed. I can tell that the Eldrin commander knows that something is going on with Marin––but he has no more idea than I have about how to deal with it. Once again he pre-empts anything I might try next, thrusting the reins of a warhorse into my hands.
“Ariel, go. Ride now. It will take a while for the rearguard to collect the surrendered weapons and marshal the prisoners, but the advance guard has already turned back and is heading for Blackthorn. You must let them all see you, alive and victorious, before getting ahead of them to switch places with your sister. The distance is short enough for it to be a close race.”
My gaze tracks again to Marin. “But what about––”
“I’ll watch him. Just make sure Alina is ready to give me some backup with the High Council when I get there.”
I can sense Jantian’s concern but I feel uneasy about obeying his orders. Unfortunately I can’t think of any alternative, not without being able to communicate with Marin. I feel as if I’m being carried along by a great flood that is beyond my control, a flood whose course is already set but whose destination I will only discover when I arrive.
I mount the great black stallion and turn his head back toward the Manor, the setting sun glaring in my eyes.