And despite what she’d said to Mercy, Charity hoped Lindon wouldn’t be one of them.
Lindon woke and shivered.
[I’m both relieved and disappointed.] Dross drifted out, floating over Lindon’s face. [Unless we have died, and the afterlife is an exact replica of your guest house in Moongrave. Then I’m only disappointed.]
It felt like only a moment ago that Lindon’s body and spirit were wracked with pain, and he quickly twisted to check his condition. His body seemed unharmed, and his spirit was whole. Malice must have released him from the consequences.
He contemplated sending a message through Dross to tell Mercy about the Dreadgods, but his throat tightened. He sighed.
“That is disappointing.” He slid out of his bed and stretched. “I was hoping she’d let us out of the oath entirely.”
[We could break it again,] Dross suggested.
“I’d rather not. What time is it?”
Dross drifted to another floor and checked a clock. [About an hour until dawn. Four hours until that defense coordination meeting.]
“Good.” Lindon headed down the stairs for the entrance to the basement. “Time to train.”
12
Orthos threw himself out of the way as a black dragon erupted from the basement of Shatterspine Castle.
Light burned around the dragon in a haze of red and black. The Burning Cloak. Ziel caught the charging beast on his massive silver shield. He returned the blow with his hammer, slamming it down on the dragon’s skull.
The impact shook Orthos’ body and even rattled his consciousness. The castle trembled around them. Debris rained from the ceiling.
The dragon formed breath, but not in its jaws. Liquid madra of fire and destruction curled into balls all around its head, then blasted forward at Ziel.
The human weakened the Striker techniques with a spinning script of Forged green runes, then blocked them with his shield. Another script started to appear around the dragon’s neck, but he twisted his serpentine body and snapped the half-formed signs before Ziel could finish Forging them.
The battle between Archlords was nothing Orthos could take part in, but he could sense the dragon’s precise madra control and see the intelligence in its eyes. This was no mindless creature twisted by madra corrosion, but an angry dragon who had been trapped in time.
He sensed a human with familiar madra and continued his battle from centuries ago.
“Stop!” Orthos shouted, Enforcing his voice to be heard over the battle. “We are not your enemies!”
Black fire leaped up where Ziel had been standing. He jumped aside, none too nimbly, and was chased by Forged Blackflame claws.
A ring of script caught Ziel in midair and launched him like an arrow. This sudden change was too much for the dragon, who tried to back up, but Ziel caught him on the chin with a solid smack of his hammer.
The dragon’s body slammed into the far wall, and durable stone cracked.
A nearby pillar crumbled. The entire castle seemed to groan.
“Stop before we’re all buried!” Orthos yelled again.
The dragon righted himself, rage in his black-and-red eyes, and began forming breath between its jaws.
Orthos stood between the dragon and Ziel. “This is foolish! Your fight ended years ago!”
At first, Orthos thought the dragon would unleash his Striker technique anyway. But after a moment of consideration, he dispersed the madra and spoke to Orthos.
“Years? How many?”
Orthos turned back to Ziel for help.
The dragon snarled. “I was imprisoned in Year 780 of the Obsidian Calendar.”
“Yes,” Orthos rumbled. “Well. I have never heard of that calendar.”
“I think that should serve as an answer,” Ziel noted.
The dragon furiously circled the tiles, thinking. The room grew hotter and hotter as fire aura in the room grew excited. He stopped to speak again. “Who rules the Blackflame Empire?”
“Hmmm…technically, Naru Huan of the Path of Grasping Sky.”
“Sky? Is he a blue dragon? Or a sea dragon?”
Orthos wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that Naru Huan was a human. “This may be hard to accept, but this Blackflame Empire is not the one you left. It is another of the same name, re-formed after yours fell.”
The Archlord dragon was breathing heavily now, his every exhale carrying the heat of an open oven. He closed his eyes, and Orthos felt a pang of sympathy. He knew what it was like to wake from a trance and find that months had passed by, but years? Centuries?
He couldn’t imagine.
Finally, the Archlord mastered himself and opened his eyes, turning to Ziel. “Then are you a student of the Rune Queen’s, or her descendant?”