The Lost Runes Saga [Epic Fantasy]

FORTY-SEVEN

"Ow," Vidar said, crawling out from under a piece of broken table. The entire house was in disarray, and dust filled the air. Coughing, he moved to stand, feeling around his body for injuries, surprised he had lived through that massive tumble with nothing but a few scrapes and a little tenderness.

The screaming whine of unoiled hinges brought him out of a daze, and Vidar looked up to see the older dragon rider exit the house. Rend must have already gone through, because there were no signs of him in the rubble.

Hurrying out the door while rejuvenating the algiz runes about his body, he at first didn't realize what he was seeing. A house across the street was utterly demolished, the massive dragon's bulk wrapped over the rubble, and near that spot, a broken-down mess of blood and gore filled the street. The blue-scaled dragon's rider hadn't made it.

The dragon moved its head, shifting this way and that as it struggled. Multiple injuries scoured its body, with blood leaking out of a wide gash down one of its legs. Rend was already at the dragon's bulk, running his hand over its scales, and the other dragon rider soon caught up, both of them gesticulating and shouting at each other, speaking in their foreign tongue.

The dragon caught Vidar's eye, and it let out a pitiful bout of fire. The algiz runes withstood the dragon's flames, but it was still enough to fill the street between them, and Vidar thought it best to leave Rend be for the moment. Getting close to them was not an option.

Instead, he rounded the corner and met with Alvarn running down the street, his face red, and his lips with a bluish tint. He stopped and bent over, trying to catch his breath. "Finally. Found. You. Thought. Maybe. You'd. Be. Dead."

"Why?" Vidar asked, looking up at the sky. The three still-airborne dragons were in a frenzy, attacking the city. "Oh, you mean the cart? It was a fine prototype. Did you see where the small dragon crashed?"

Alvarn nodded and pointed.

"Good. Let's go."

"What are we going to do?" Alvarn asked, having regained his breath somewhat.

"We're going to hope that Rend can talk the others down. That's still the plan. While he does that, we're going to find a use for the dragon that didn't make it. Did you prepare a styrka rune?"

Alvarn's eyes widened, and he nodded without saying a word, pulling a styrka rune out of his bag. It didn't take them long to find the dragon's corpse. It was about half the size of Vatrfjall, but its corpse still filled the street next to a razed inn where it must've crashed, and then slid off.

Vidar narrowed his eyes and pointed. "Is that people? Movement around the corpse?"

The figures were blurry and incorporeal.

"That's not people," Alvarn breathed.

"Shadows," Vidar murmured.

They were closing in on the dragon, tendril-like hands reaching for its scales. Eager, Vidar thought they looked eager, their dark forms undulating. With the sun at its zenith, the houses around the dragon didn't cast more than the shortest shadows of their own. This meant these figures were out on their own, braving the sunlight. It made them appear almost see-through, rather than the inky black Vidar had seen before, like they were on the brink of being washed away.

"That's mine!" Vidar shouted, running at the figures.

Alvarn followed. "Vidar, wait!"

Without stopping, he ran at the shadow figures and released flames from the logiz rune. Fire scoured them out of existence, and when Vidar ceased his attack, they were all gone.

"How did you know you could burn them?" Alvarn asked, having followed.

"If the shadows and dragons are enemies, it stands to reason the dragon's attack should be able to hurt them. Now get in there with the styrka rune."

"Are you sure?"

"The dragon is dead. Don't you want the dragon's essence of your own? A regenerating supply?"

"I do."

"I won't force you, Alvarn. If you don't want to do this, then don't. No matter what you choose, you better decide soon. Something tells me we won't have peace here much longer."

Alvarn squared his shoulders. "No. I want to do it. What do I do?"

"Drain it with the styrka rune, like I told you. Hurry!"

Other people were peeking out of houses now, trying to get a look at the dragon.

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"Go back inside and hide!" Vidar shouted. "Fools!"

To their credit, everyone followed his order.

Alvarn made it to the corpse and put the styrka rune against the dragon's belly.

"It isn't working."

"What do you mean?" Vidar asked.

"The rune fills up, but I can't take it into my heartwell."

"There's a difference, then," Vidar said, looking down into the palm of his hand.

"What do you mean?"

Vidar held up his own styrka rune to show Alvarn. "The rune is part of me. Yours is just a tool. See the difference?"

Alvarn looked down at his own styrka rune and put it into his bag. The dragons roared up above, their ceaseless attacks growing more agitated by the moment. As far as he could tell, the three remaining ones had little coordination, but they did have anger. They dove and lashed out with tail and claw, or released bouts of flames to burn. Gray-scale was especially terrifying, like a giant compared to the others, with slow, measured movements that wreaked havoc wherever it attacked. Something that large and ponderous must've been hit with styrka arrows, but it didn't show any signs of weakness.

"How do I make it part of me?" Alvarn asked, pulling Vidar's attention away from the sky. He set his jaw, eyes blazing with determination.

Vidar gave the question some thought. He didn't have a knife, and it would take too long to create something to burn him with. And he didn't see the arrow that had felled the dragon anywhere. Then he got an idea and grinned, rummaging through his bag, coming up with a burn tool. "We'll use this."

Alvarn paled and then both of them ducked as a dragon, the other small one, with light-gcreen scales, shrieked and swooped down just above their heads, releasing bouts of flames on houses nearby. In the distance, Vidar spotted the bluish sheen from a massive algiz rune, with a massive barrier springing into existence against the flames. The larger symbols were working. Not everyone would have access to them, though, and the dragons in the sky were going berserk.

"We better hurry. Give me your hand," Vidar said, reaching for Alvarn.

"You're not burning the styrka rune into my hand," Alvarn said, pulling away.

Vidar let out an exasperated grunt. "Who else is here to do it?"

"Give it to me," Alvarn said. "I'll do it myself."

"You're going to burn yourself?"

Alvarn grabbed the pen and placed his hand on the dragon, palm down, to burn the styrka rune on the back of his hand. "Make certain we have algiz runes to get us through this."

"Aye, aye," Vidar said, using most of the remaining dragon's essence in his heartwell. It wouldn't last much longer if he kept spending it like a madman. Using stakra runes on the cart, then to control his falling, ate into his reserves, leaving little for defense.

A sickening hiss cut through the air, followed by a faint crackle, like fat popping in a skillet. Alvarn let out a whimper and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Halmstadt burned around them, the smell from Alvarn mingling with a hundred others, all of them together stinging the back of Vidar's throat. This time, at least, the flames were far away, and not threatening to turn them to charred meat. One immediate threat less to worry about.

Other threats remained, though, and the smaller, green-scaled dragon was banking around, coming in for another swoop over their heads. Vidar ducked, feeling like it'd almost taken his head off despite being well over the rooftops.

"You almost done?" he shouted.

"Gath!" was the only reply from Alvarn.

Vidar spun and saw his friend struggle as skin blackened beneath the sowilo rune's heat. It would be a little longer before he completed the runic symbol. Somewhere from back the way they'd come, a terrible roar made it feel like the ground shook beneath his feet. The massive, blue-scaled dragon stood and rose above the rooftops, recovered enough to move. Judging by the way it opened its enormous jaw and released an inferno into the sky, Vidar doubted it was in a forgiving mood. In the far distance, over Nordstan, the gray-scaled dragon raked the top of the keep with its clawed feet, tearing into it and doing untold destruction to the upper floors. It answered the blue-scaled dragon's call with a bout of flames before taking to the air again.

"The small one is coming back!" Vidar shouted, glancing up at the sky without wanting to take his eyes off the blue-scaled dragon getting to its feet mere streets away. If he wasn't mistaken, Rend and the older rider were now on its back. "Hurry!"

"I'm going as fast as I can," Alvarn said, speaking through clenched teeth, his breathing coming in ragged huffs. Spittle ran out of the corner of his mouth, his glasses made opaque by misting sweat and tears.

"Doing all this while walking around in the cold without boots," Vidar muttered, turning just in time to see the green dragon swoop down again. This time, it didn't climb back up. Dirt, snow, and cobblestones scattered in all directions as the green dragon landed with the grace of a charging bull. It dashed forward, stretching out its neck toward Vidar, opening its jaws.

"No!" Vidar shouted, taking a half-step back on reflex and lifting his arms in front of his face, as if that would offer any sort of protection. Even this smaller dragon was large and ferocious enough to grind his bones to dust.

Algiz runes saved him, and he stepped back again, then braced and triggered a stakra rune. The thrust missed its mark but forced the dragon back long enough that Vidar had time to grab Alvarn's staff, where it stood leaning against the corpse. Every fiber of his being wanted to run and hide, but that was not an option this time. Even if Alvarn stopped what he was doing, they were caught between the buildings on either side and the dragon's corpse blocking the street. If they wanted to run, they'd need to do so by getting past the living dragon.

It charged forward and attempted another bite powerful enough to make the algiz runes almost deplete their essence, but this time Vidar didn't flinch. Thrusting the butt of the staff upward allowed for the styrka rune to connect with the dragon. At first, it held itself in place, resisting, but the drain on its essence proved too much, forcing it back again. The moment it retreated, Vidar triggered logiz. Gushing flames erupted from his palm, crashing against the dragon with a roar.

Once the flames died away, the dragon stood there, eyeing him without a trace of damage on its green scales. Vidar swallowed hard. Dragons were impervious to their own flames. Good to know. The dragon rider atop the dragon's back made herself known then, leaning out to the side by hanging on to the saddle, her long blond hair whipping around her in a sudden gust of wind. She shouted something incomprehensible at him, screaming and shaking her head, rage in her eyes.

In the middle of that relentless stream of what Vidar could only guess were curses, she stopped cold. Her eyes locked on something over his shoulder, and in an instant, her fury melted into raw, wide-eyed terror. He'd never seen fear hit that fast.

Vidar couldn't help it. Needing to see, he turned his back to the dragon and its rider.