Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)
Chapter Thirty-One

As Darvian was rushing down the tunnel, and the Behemoth was finishing up his rampage, and Wilhelm was amping his army of soldiers back up, Rone was flying as fast as he could through the sky. His mind was rioting with worries over Keiara. He saw himself getting to her too late and replaceing a burnt corpse waiting for him. He saw her suffering. He saw her skin blistering and cracking, her blood boiling. Just the thought of it caused his rage to surge forward like a tidal wave. It washed over his mind, consuming him, and before he knew what was happening he was being propelled forward by a thin stream of wind.

He didn’t question it, but he did welcome it. He needed all the extra help he could get, even if it was a coincidentally helpful gust of wind.

The Citadel was about four miles away from the Great Sea, which put him (just coming out of Judicial Hall) about sixty five miles east of his destination. Even with his burners maxed out, he wouldn’t get there for close to thirty-five minutes. That was dangerously too long, and the only thing he could hope for was that the crazed leader of the Blak Army would wait for him to get there. That he would want to make sure Rone was coming so he could watch helplessly as the girl was torched.

Please, don’t let me be too late! his mind clamored.

The wind seemed to scream around him, and he felt himself going a little faster.

A half hour later he came to the Citadel and found himself staring at the elegant plaza in front of it. He found the second, enormous landing and the pole that Keiara was lashed to. He could dimly make out a figure walking around the staging area. There were others on the landing, but none of them mattered to him. The only ones that did were Keiara and the man trying to murder her.

Without stopping to think about it, he dived straight at him.

He didn’t know how fast he was going, but he knew it was faster than he’d ever gone before. The air around him tugged at his face, his hair, and his clothes but he let all that slip past his notice. The only thing he was focusing on was the bastard intent on hurting Keiara, a girl that had looked past centuries of hate and decided to save his life. As he drew closer and closer, he started yelling. His rage burned even brighter and his eyes never left the black cloaked figure.

He came hurtling down, whistling like an incoming missile.

The figure glanced up and saw him. He pointed to the soldiers in the streets but none of them reacted. He didn’t know why he was being allowed to come straight at the Blak Army leader, and a part of his mind thought that maybe he should show a little more caution, but he wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip him by.

Rone focused on his nanos and created a picture in his mind of what he wanted. He methodically placed each part, however minuscule, in his mind. He let the whole thing encompass it and when every detail was perfect, he bid his mechpaks to open and create what he was thinking of. It appeared a minute later, a ridiculously huge weapon that mounted itself to his chest. The massive barrel pointed straight down, at the black-cloaked man. He focused on the weapon and sent the biggest ray of blaster fire he’d ever seen lancing with deadly accuracy at his foe. The man looked up but was too late to dodge.

The massive bolt of energy struck and there was an enormous, concussive boom.

Clouds of smoke billowed in the air, obscuring everything. Rone used the cover to fly over to Keiara and landed next to her on the circular platform. His flightpack and body cannon dissolved and the nanos returned to his mechpaks. He looked at Keiara and was again struck by her beauty, even though she was somewhat disheveled. She was looking at him, tears in her eyes and he couldn’t help but give her a kiss. She returned it without hesitation.

“I’m sorry I left you like that,” she said. “I was scared.”

“I know,” he replied, smiling. He grabbed the rope tied around her and set about trying to undo it. When it proved too difficult, he produced a whirring mini-saw created with his nanos and started hacking into it. “It’s okay.”

“Watch out!” she yelled suddenly, but too late.

Always too late.

Rone turned in time to see the black-cloaked man, his clothes wreathed in tendrils of smoke, jumping at him with his arm cocked back. It was an amazing jump and the shock of seeing him alive was enough to distract Rone. The fist landed on the side of his face and he was thrown from the platform before he could even make a dent in the ropes binding Keiara. He hit the ground painfully, all the air rushing out of his lungs.

He groaned, arching his back. The tendons on the side of his neck bulged as he tried to breathe again.

The black-cloaked man jumped from the platform. Rone dimly saw him coming, but he was still unable to move. Thankfully, a freak gust of wind was strong enough to send him rolling out of the way.

The man landed with a smashing sound of impact.

As Rone clumsily got to his feet, he looked over and saw the maniac in a two-foot crater with bits of concrete jutting up. The black-cloaked man glanced at Rone and smiled cruelly. Then he slowly got up and walked out of the crater he’d created.

Rone backed up, fear pounding in the side of his head.

How strong is this guy?

“I admit…” the man said, with his mechanical sounding voice. “I thought you would play the coward and not show up. I’m glad you did though. Now I can kill the both of you and resume my plans.”

“That’s…not…gonna….happen,” Rone said through gritted teeth. His ribs hurt and his back felt like it was on fire from where he’d been thrown from the platform. “She’s….she’s…coming…with me.”

“By all means, take her. Take her,” he replied with a shadowed smile.

As he was drawing nearer, Rone could dimly make out the features hidden by the man’s voluminous hood. It was ravaged by burns and it looked as if his lips had been melted off.

“But you have to go through me first, and boy…that won’t be easy.” The man laughed out loud and the sound of it drilled into Rone’s mind.

The man blurred and a millisecond later he was in front of the Prince.

Rone didn’t even have time to gasp in shock before rough, strong hands had a hold of his shirt and he was lifted into the air. He struggled madly but the man’s grip was too strong and he couldn’t break it. Then he was being thrown. He hurtled through the air and into the massive pile of wood. He could smell chemicals and accelerants soaked into it and he had to stop himself from gagging at the stench.

“NO!” Keiara screamed. “Stop it!”

But the man wouldn’t. He spent the next ten or fifteen minutes beating the crap out of Rone. Rone, to his credit, managed to score a couple of hits. Including one in the last encounter that ripped away the man’s hood.

Rone abruptly stopped. His body frozen.

“Wilhelm?” he asked. “How? Why?”

Wilhelm Coran? That was the last person he expected to see or be the leader of a rebellion. Rone had spent months mourning the man’s death. He had been his teacher in everything related to combat and fighting. But more than that, he had been a friend.

“Why?” Wilhelm laughed and he sped forward, slamming a knee into his former pupil’s gut. Rone let out a pain-filled yell and fell to the ground. He coughed harshly, blood flying out and hitting the concrete inches from his face. “I was left for dead! Burned. Maimed. Mangled. I was left there. Do you have any idea how much agony I was in?” He grabbed a fistful of Rone’s hair and jerked him to his feet. “Do you know how much it hurt?”

“I…don’t…understand,” Rone replied.

With a snarl of disgust, Wilhelm flung Rone to the edge of the landing. His head went over the side and leaned back, almost touching the first step.

“No. I don’t suppose you would,” Wilhelm retorted. “Although, I bet you have a better understanding of what pain really is now, don’t you, boy? How’s that leg of yours?”

Rone was already on his knees when Wilhelm asked that. Before he could stop himself, his hand went down to his left leg, touching the cool metal surface of his prosthetic. Phantom sensations and tingles, previously unnoticed, seemed to surge to life now.

“Seeing your father’s face as he watched you fall from the sky over and over and over again was the greatest pleasure of my life,” Wilhelm said, his voice full of cockiness and satisfaction.

Rone’s heart seemed to hammer in his chest.

He did keep my father alive, but only so he could torture him with footage of my supposed death. What happened to you Wilhelm?

“What happened to me?” Wilhelm asked, a broad grin on his lipless mouth. “I died! I died and it was the King’s fault. And the Terraquois!” he raged, pointing his finger back at Keiara. “They all murdered me!”

Rone’s heart seemed to skip two or three beats. His blood ran cold. He had heard his thoughts! He’d plucked them right out of his head.

“And now I’m going to murder both of you!” Wilhelm continued. “But don’t worry, I’ll give you both the pleasure of watching each other die.”

He grabbed Rone again and started hauling him to the center of the landing. He forced the Prince to his knees directly in front of Keiara.

“It’s a fitting end for a savage and a traitor,” Wilhelm said.

There was the whirring of Wilhelm’s nanos. In one hand, he held a lighter and in the other he’d made an old-fashioned pistol complete with primitive bullets for ammunition.

Rone heard the slide being drawn back.

“This is one of my favorite blueprints. Old, but much more personal,” Wilhelm stated, almost absentmindedly.

“Rone, no!” Keiara yelled, her eyes filled with rage.

“I’m sorr…”

His words were cut short as a loud explosion of sound interrupted him. Then something slammed into the center of Rone’s back like a truck. He was thrown to the ground. It hurt so much but he kept his eyes on Keiara.

Wilhelm threw the lighter and it came into view, its flame flickering orange, red, and yellow.

It landed on the pile of wood and instantly set it on fire.

Tears came to Rone’s eyes as he watched the flames engulf Keiara and wished it would all end. The pain. Keiara being burned alive. Wilhelm’s maniacal laughter. All of it, but it wouldn’t. It kept going for what seemed like forever.

He could see Keiara’s eyes blazing brighter now. Literally. They glowed orange-yellow as the fire reached her legs and then crawled around her body. Amazingly, however, the flames did not burn her.

In fact, they didn’t even seem to touch her.

Then everything went dark.