Soulblade: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Romance (A Dance of Fire and Shadow Book 4)
Soulblade: Chapter 22

HANDS ARE CLUMSILY lifting me up, pushing me onto the back of a horse. I must have passed out again but I can’t be sure for how long. All I can think about is how unrealistic they are being if they think I can stay on a horse any better than I could stay on a dragon. It does involve a certain amount of strength to control your arms and legs…

Then strong arms grip my waist and the horse is urged forward onto the road out of the city. Everything dissolves into mist and cold once more. The darkness around me clears a little as we stop at the crest of a low hill and look back at Duhokan. The dragon is circling above the city ruins, spitting fire as he passes, the gaunt shapes of the buildings crumbling to blackened ash and dust in his wake.

Brac’s voice, somewhere nearby. Worried.

“The temple is collapsing. Will that destroy your repairs t’ veil?”

I try to rouse myself from the fog of exhaustion.

“I can’t be sure, but I don’t think so. If it took the artifice of those ancient Power Mages to open it in the first place and the combined efforts of Marin and myself to fix it again, I think it’s unlikely that earthly disruptions would have any effect on it. If it disappears under a mountain of rubble where no one else can reach it, so much the better.”

“Let’s hope, then.”

Deris rides into my frame of vision. He takes one look at me and frowns. “I’d like to get further from that cursed city before we make camp, but we need to let you rest first.”

He leads the way into a cluster of moss-fringed trees and tethers his horse. The rider who had been holding onto me dismounts and reaches up to lift me to the ground.

“Oh. Thanks, Dragar.”

He carries me across the clearing and props my back against a rock.

“I’ll… go help Brac.”

He seems gruff and awkward. At least it’s a welcome change from his previous aggression. I watch him helping Brac to carry Marin over and lay him on the ground beside me. I force myself to lean over and check Marin’s pulse.

Alive but unconscious.

Brac and Dragar drop the saddlebags beside me and go off to gather firewood. Deris walks over and flops onto the grass at my side. He looks in almost as bad shape as Marin and I.

“Deris? Is this because of the healing you gave Nem?”

“Mostly. Does that mean it will take me until tomorrow before I can fight again?”

“Probably.”

He closes his eyes and leans back against the rock with a long sigh.

“Let’s hope Nem and Zandar work things out, then. If there’s another bandit attack right now, we’re three fighters down.”

“I think I blacked out back there and I didn’t see much. What makes you think Nem might not be working too well with Zandar?”

“I’ve seen both you and Marin interacting with him and there was always a sense of uncertainty, unpredictability about your communication. With Nem, that is multiplied tenfold. We almost didn’t make it out of there.” He hesitates. “Not much we can do about it until they’ve finished whatever they’re doing in Duhokan and get here. Priority has to be getting you and Marin back on your feet. Do you have any ideas?”

“Absolutely no clue. Maybe a night’s sleep will be enough.” Even as I say it, I have an uneasy feeling that it is not going to be quite that simple.

Brac is shaking me awake. It is so easy to keep drifting off into the grey mist of exhaustion from which there seems to be no respite. I’m starting to wonder if this is permanent, like Elise from my village who sickened with the marsh-fever and never really recovered. The next few years of her short life were as a pale shadow of her former self, always tired and weak…

“Ariel. You have to eat.”

Brac shoves the bowl of stew into my hands.

“Thanks, Brac.”

I spoon the stew into my mouth, wishing it would taste of something, anything, to make the eating of it less of a struggle. Marin has regained consciousness and has already finished. He hands his empty bowl to Brac with a few courteous words of thanks, but I can tell he is barely able to sit upright.

Lupine whimpers and lays her head on his lap, her blue eyes focused on his face as if pleading with him to get better. He rumples the thick mane of fur around her neck.

“She’s feeling guilty about hiding behind Zandar instead of joining in the fight at the temple. It will take me a while to convince her she did the right thing or it could have been her instead of the unfortunate horse that was possessed by a wraith. Animals don’t seem able to deal with those cursed things at all.”

“What about you, Marin? Are you starting to recover from it now?”

“I wish. Maybe it takes time. I’m more worried about you, because you were in there far longer than I was.”

“So long as we can both ride. We just follow the others and head back to Samaran––”

The trees to the south of us erupt in gouts of flame as Zandar swoops low over our heads. I turn away from the searing heat, throwing an arm across my face to shield it from the burn.

“Hells gates! Deris said unpredictable, but this is total mayhem!”

More fire breaks out among the trees before Nem manages to persuade Zandar to draw the air away from it and snuff the flames. None too soon, with hot patches of burned grass smoking all around us.

Charred branches crack and splinter as the dragon crash-lands at the edge of what had been a clearing in the trees until a few moments ago.

I look up. Two enormous golden eyes gaze down at me from a heat-haze surrounded by prickles of flame. I wish he looked at least a bit contrite, but all I sense is smug gratification.

“Zandar! What kind of flying do you call this?”

Power. So much rich fuel here after all. I have held back for so many days and now I have found the secret…

It could almost be a rumbling purr of satisfaction. Except that it is too deep and fierce to have anything in common with a cat of any size. I try appealing to the rider, still perched high above me among the orange flames.

“Nem? Any insight into what is happening here? He’s twice the size he was before you started.”

She pushes back her dark curls, her balance perfect as she sits astride his scaly neck as if she was born to it. Which, in a way I suppose she is, being of Nissanda’s lineage.

“He said something about having to expend more fire to get this damp forest started, but it turns out to be surprisingly potent fuel once it heats up. I hope the plan was to reduce Duhokan to a pile of cinders, because that is what happened.”

“What now?”

“I wish I knew. He seems over-excited about ‘his’ new territory and all the new fuel it contains.” Nem glances apologetically at Dragar. “I’m sorry about this, but I’m not sure if I can stop him.”

Dragar looks too shocked to respond for a few moments, but his habitual suspicion soon surfaces.

“You mean you intend to burn my entire country to black cinders of oblivion? What kind of treachery is this?”

I turn to face him. “Not treachery. Think of it like trying to put out a forest fire. His dragonsight is no longer blind here, now that he can see far-visions in the flames of the marsh lakes. And replaceing rich fuel to burn always gets him… well, a bit over-excited.”

One look at Dragar’s face tells me I could have explained that rather more tactfully. I try another angle.

“Nem, can you persuade Zandar to return to Rahimar? Bury all that extra energy in the sands of the Taskana?”

Nem seems to have already acquired the skill of communicating with Zandar without speaking. After a few moments she looks down at me again from the glowing scales.

“He doesn’t want to leave here just yet.”

“Did you ask him to leave, or ask him to take you there?”

“I asked him to leave… Ah. I see what you mean.” She goes silent again while I marvel at the way Zandar is able to keep his thoughts directed to one person at a time.

Then his great head turns to fix me once more with that overwhelming golden gaze of his.

She wishes to return. I cannot refuse her need.

“Of course. That is what your pledge demands.”

A cloud of ash and dust envelopes the camp as Zandar rises into the evening sky and disappears above the blackened trees on thunderous wings.