“By the Heart of Arbor, it’s three times the size of the one we saw in the Wedjak,” Corva said as he came up behind them. “Its roar scared that devil back into the portal.”
Neither Durge nor Jicks replied, but Jicks glanced at Hyden still lying limp in the giant’s arms. Corva saw the tears flowing down the young swordsman’s cheeks and sucked in a breath. He started to say something, but a roar louder than all the others combined, that lasted nearly a full minute, ripped through the world around them. Afdeon shook again and pieces of stone and mortar vibrated loose.
“By the gods,” Jicks mumbled softly as the roar ended.
Corva stepped up beside him and looked out. A ruby-scaled dragon, which was easily twice the size of the green wyrm, was winging its way directly toward them. It was darting its angry head to and fro as if it expected a challenge from one of the other dragons in the sky. They stayed clear, giving it a wide berth; all save for a smaller red that was barely ten feet long and flying under the other, in her shadow.
The monstrous red let out a blasting gout of flame ahead, and downward, of its path. The raw heat of its breath evaporated the steam for at least five hundred feet in all directions. Satisfied that no threat was hiding in the mist below, it closed its maw and banked around so that it was facing the hole in the castle directly. With a thump of wings that made Jicks’s knees buckle and Corva take two steps back, it threw its wings out wide and stalled itself less than a hundred feet from them. The dragon’s body lifted and lowered in time with its massive wing strokes. Its huge head eased forth with narrow brows on a long, glittering, serpentine neck.
Durge, as if presenting a small child to its parent, held Hyden’s limp body out before him. Jicks’s heart hammered through his chest in both fear and awe. He had heard tales of how Hyden and the High King had defeated the demon wizard Pael, and he was most certain that this was the dragon that had helped save the realm.
Jicks glanced at Durge. The giant still showed no expression on his face. He was entranced, Jicks decided. The medallion on Hyden’s chest was fountaining sparks as bright as diamond chips in the sun. He swallowed hard, then looked back at the dragon. Its elongated snout scrunched up as if it were sniffing the air. Beyond it, the smaller red wyrm looped and banked around, chasing the other’s tail as a kitten chases a yarn ball. Jicks saw that the little wyrm’s wing scales were long and resembled feathers, some of them had shed, revealing a thin membrane of wing skin underneath.
A loud whooshing sound filled the moment. Jicks could feel himself being sucked forward toward the dragon. It was drawing air into its cavernous lungs.
“J- J- Jicks!” Corva managed. “D- Dragon’s fire!”
The dragon’s mouth opened, revealing sharp, yellowed teeth as long as a man is tall. Its forked tongue drew back, and its throat opened up. Durge, still holding Hyden out as if in offering, took a knee and lowered his head.
Both Jicks and the elf bolted away from the hole in the wall as fast as they could.
Claret couldn’t help but chuckle at their foolishness. Then she let out a roar that was loud enough to wake the dead. And the blast was laced with more than enough dragon magic to do exactly that.
Talon found Phen, Dostin, and Queen Mother Telgra as they and the elven escort came upon the bodies of the fallen elves in the Evermore forest. The hellspawned horde had long since abandoned the carnage to answer their master’s call. Arf whined under Phen, sensing the sadness of the elves around him. Phen, too, could feel the almost palpable emotion oozing from them. Dostin cried openly as his mount, Yip, padded along closely beside the new Queen Mother. All around them, littered in the forest undergrowth, near the few hulking demon corpses, lay the decimated bodies of elven archers and swordsmen. Some women and a few children lay here and there, as well, but not nearly as many as there could have been. The lack of innocent corpses was clearly heartening to Telgra.
“They fled like cowards, south to the human city,” an older elf said as he stepped out of the woods. He had a large gore stain on his tunic and haunted amber eyes.
Telgra stopped and glared at him. Dostin’s hands clenched his staff, and the wolf beneath him growled silently.
“Better than to die like fools fighting an enemy far greater than you can defend against,” Phen replied. The ease with which he moved now was still surprising. He’d been petrified so long that his muscles weren’t used to doing anything.
“Where’s your wife, Bandear Cottonwood?” Telgra asked the elf. “Where’s your daughter?”
“Mind your manners when speaking to the Queen Mother,” one of Telgra’s escorts said when Bandear started to reply harshly. His expression shifted to a sneer and the old elf turned and ran away.
“Should I chase him?” the elven guard asked.
“No, leave him,” Telgra replied. “He’s obviously distraught. He’s seen our people killed and is probably terrified. Leave him be.” She wiped away her tears. “I must go into the Arbor Heart alone.”
“We will follow you to the Heart Tree, Queen Mother,” the guards insisted. “There’s no telling what beasts or scavengers might still be lingering.”
She nodded and wiped her face again. Phen wanted nothing more than to go to her and hold her in his arms, but he knew it wasn’t proper. She was a queen. He forced the impulse away and mastered his emotion. She must have sensed his inner struggle because she caught his eyes with her own and let a faint smile of understanding curl the corner of her mouth. It disappeared quickly when she had to step over half of a young elven boy. He was clutching a bow in his left hand and his face was a grimace of pain. It looked like his legs had been bitten off. The appendages were nowhere to be seen.
Talon observed them from the trees without letting his presence be known. The familiar link between him and his wizard had been broken. The hawkling understood that Hyden had passed from the world of life, but he wasn’t sure yet what to do. Since his hatching, Hyden had been there for him. Hyden was Talon’s mother, father, and sibling, all in one. The hawkling was too confused to go to Phen yet, and Spike was in Phen’s coat pocket sleeping. Talon thought to communicate with the lyna first, but he couldn’t until it awoke. He flew from limb to limb and watched Hyden’s friends from a distance while trying to sort through his avian instincts and familial emotion.
Luckily, the goddess called upon him. Talon was pleased to be needed by such an esteemed being. He didn’t hesitate to do as she asked.
The escort came to a stop in a long, oval-shaped clearing. At one end of it there was a towering tree. Its trunk was as big around as some of the smaller castle towers Phen had seen. It stood majestically among the other trees like a king among peasants. At its base, a tangle of roots twisted their way into the ground. Phen slid off of Arf and made Dostin give Yip’s back a rest, as well. The two great wolves immediately bounded into the forest to snatch a meal.
Queen Mother Telgra disappeared through an archway formed by the roots of the Heart Tree. Phen saw her hair reflect off a shaft of golden sunlight as she continued past the Heart Tree trunk to disappear into the forest beyond. Phen took a breath and was about to ask one of the guards if there was any food about when half of the elven escort gasped in unison.
Phen turned to see Dostin sitting in the throne-like seat formed by the tree’s roots. The elves seemed shocked, or afraid to say anything, and a few of them exchanged disturbed looks. Phen understood that the simple-minded monk was sitting in Telgra’s throne.
“By the Heart of Arbor,” one of the elves said. “I never thought I’d see such a thing.”
“It’s the prophecy, I'm sure of it,” said another.
“What prophecy?” Phen asked. Before the elves could answer he spoke kindly to Dostin. “Get out of the Queen Mother’s throne. By the gods, do you have no manners?” Dostin jumped up quickly. His face reddened and he looked around sheepishly.