Legon Awakening

chapter Fifteen

Fate



“Our enemies always beat us in the way we least expect it, and therein lies the problem. We toil our days away trying to find that weak spot in our armor when we shouldn’t have been fighting to begin with.”

-The Great Defeat, Secunum Renovatie



Keither opened his eyes, blinking at the ever-present lavender glow. He wasn’t too sure just how long they’d been in their hiding spot. It appeared the dragon had found something. Maybe it was them, maybe not. But there were people in the area. Legon was having a harder time sensing their surroundings as the group of soldiers searching the area had scared off all the larger animals. He was now forced to tap into the minds of rodents and squirrels. The thing that was odd was that Arkin’s spells hadn’t been tested at all. Kovos suggested that they try and check the minds of the men, but the idea was snubbed when Sasha pointed out that they may have a Venefica with them. It would be unwise to take on a large group and a magic user. Keither laid his head back down. It would almost be worth getting caught just to see light and a color other than purple. Legon breathed out a long breath.

“What is it?” Sara asked. It was good to hear a voice again. They’d been quiet for several days.

“They are leaving. They weren’t looking for us.”

“They weren’t?” she said.

“No. I was in the head of a rat when a scout approached and said that they caught the deserter.”

“This was about a deserter?” Sasha asked incredulously.

“They are close to the border. He could have been a spy. We should have known when they didn’t use magic to find anything,” Arkin said with relief. He was looking better now; all of them felt better. Maybe the few days of downtime had been good for them.

“We will wait for them to leave the area. Legon, let us know.”

Legon nodded at Arkin and closed his eyes. After a few hours passed, Arkin brought the horses out of the deep sleep he had placed them in so they would not make noise. They packed their belongings and began to make their way out through the thick brush. The light from Legon’s magic was just bright enough to dim any light that could have made its way into their hideout, so Keither wasn’t sure what time of day it was. As they moved out of the thicker parts of the trees and back on the road, he was blinded by dazzling light. He held his arm up, blocking the sun from eyes that did not seem to want to adjust.

* * * * *

Legon leaned back in Phantom’s saddle feeling the warmth of the sun. He had seen the sun through the eyes of the animals but hadn’t opened the connection enough to feel it. The only feeling that he had allowed himself once was that of a bird flying in the trees, popping in and out of the canopy. The animal seemed to like his presence and enjoyed showing its abilities to the world. The feeling of freedom was amazing. The wind in his, well, feathers, and the exhilaration of a dive. Before, the thought of flying had been frightening; he was terrified of heights. But he thought he was over that now. It was all about perspective when it came down to it.

The road was growing narrower as they went and they were using a number of switchbacks. At one point in time the road became only a game trail, so it wasn’t straight but it was long. They would be continuing on the road for about one and half weeks, at which time they would need to go off the main road and across wild country to avoid towns and the army. There were just a few towns on this road, and that was a problem. They were unavoidable, but they didn’t have to stop at them. The hope was that the towns were still being guarded by their own appointed people and that the military would be expecting them to handle security.

Over the next few days he felt the group’s apprehension building. They kept mental connections nearly all the time and had forgone the usual nightly training to cover more ground. They didn’t see many people, thankfully, and those they did chose not to talk to them. His connection with birds of prey primarily helped them avoid road blocks and check points, but these detours took time and that normally meant not sleeping much at night. Kovos rode up next to him.

“How are you doing, buddy?” Legon asked.

“Been better. I won’t lie to you on that. How do you think I’m going to make it back up to Salmont without being discovered?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Legon paused. “You don’t have to go with us if you don’t want. You said that you would come with us to the southern towns and you have. I don’t want you and Keither to -”

“Don’t be dense. I’m not turning back.” Kovos said

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am.”

* * * * *

Kovos looked at his friend; he didn’t need a mental network to figure it out. Legon thought that they were going to run into trouble, and he agreed. But that didn’t mean that he was turning back.

It seemed that even nature knew something bad was coming. The closer they got to the border there were less of the normal signs of life everywhere.

The trees parted suddenly up ahead, giving way to fields and stone walls. They were about three days from the next town, so this must be a co-op. They decided to stop at a farm and see if they could buy fresh food. They made their way down a thin path that led to a small cottage with a thatched roof. They dismounted and walked to the door. Nothing was there to greet them. No dogs, no kids… nothing.

“Maybe they’re in the fields,” Keither said.

“No, they’re not,” Legon said slowly.

“What do-”

“Shhh, Keither,” Arkin said drawing his sword. Kovos followed. Sasha attempted to string her bow. There was no magic to help her.

“Legon, can I get some help here?” she asked.



His eyes were closed. “There’s nothing in my range. Just rats, birds, and other small animals.”

“Can you tell what is going on? I don’t like the feeling here,” Sasha said



“No, I can’t.”

“Let’s move on to the next house,” Arkin suggested.



They mounted the horses and rode slowly to the next house. Empty again, and then another, and another. Finally, they reached what must have been the co-op’s center. There were signs of violence here. There were five buildings. Most looked like they were once storage, but not anymore. Their roofs were gone and blood was in the street and on the walls. A chill crept up Kovos’ spine. Where were the people?

“Do you think that the army…” he began.

A woman crawled out from under some rubble. She was covered in gore, from head to toe. Her clothes were ripped and there was a large cut down the right side of her face. She stood and walked to them slowly. Sasha swung off Murray and started to her, but was stopped by Arkin.

“Get on your horse!” he barked.

“But Arkin….” She stopped, and even Kovos felt fear course from Arkin’s mind to hers. She leaped back on the horse, which also sensed that all was not well here.

“What happened here?” Arkin asked.

The woman responded. “I’ll tell you what happened here: they happened.”

“Who are ‘they’?” Arkin asked

“Dragons.” She looked around. There were no tears. Kovos figured she was in shock.

“Were there others?” Sasha asked

“Yes. If we tried to leave town then their archers got to practice on us. But mostly it was the dragons.”

“What did they do?” Sasha asked, terror in her voice.

Sara spoke coldly. “Iumenta dragons prefer fresh meat.”

“So they…” Kovos started.

The woman broke in, tripping on her words. “The army needed the livestock for their human and Iumenta soldiers, now didn’t they? But what of the dragons? They needed meat too. And that meat was….”At this she seemed to snap. “They ate them. They ate them! They’ll get you too!” she screamed. She ran away as Kovos heard in the far distance a soft but distinctive THUD. He was moving even before Arkin began yelling for them to run.

* * * * *

Keither clung on to Pixy for dear life. Up until this point, he thought that she had been doing rather well. Presently that belief was being challenged. Pixy was young and smaller than all the other horses, not to mention that she was carrying the greatest weight, but her will to live was apparently far greater than the others as she was pulling ahead of all of them. He wasn’t sure if he was still holding the reins or not, but even if he was it didn’t matter. He chanced a glance to his side. They were passing Sara, who was riding the mare they bought her in Salez. She was white, so Sara had named her Ghost, and she was fast—really fast. Sara yelled at him.

“Keither, are you ok? You looked like you were going to fall.”

“That’s because I am going to fall, Sara,” he thought. The question wasn’t if gravity was going to win, but rather when. If they made it to the forest and he fell, that might not be that bad. If he went before, there was no way the others would be able to stop their terrified animals before he got eaten.

He looked down desperately, trying not to get thrown off. They were coming up on the forest. Thank goodness the co-ops were small. He couldn’t hear the dragon over the sound of hooves and his own heart, but he knew it was there. He must have been holding the reins because they suddenly slipped out of his hands. Then he heard it—a roar from behind him. It was a sound like nothing he’d ever heard before, piercing him to his core. They were just about to enter the forest when he looked back, morbid fear getting the best of him. Was it on them? No, it was hovering over the former center of town, presumably angry that there wasn’t more than one lowly person to eat. It brought large gray bat-like wings down, raising itself further from the ground. He knew it was too far away but he swore he saw blood on its mouth. Had the woman from town met her end? The dragon reared its head back and opened a giant mouth to show black teeth. “Look away,” a voice in his head said. But he didn’t.

Fire erupted from its mouth like a wild river of flame and destruction. The fire covered the ground in an instant, swallowing two of the buildings. Then as the dragon drove its wings down the force of the wind carried the flames over the rest of the center, curling up to meet the sky. Never in all his life had Keither even dreamed of anything like this. The dragon busied itself burning the center with a continuous stream of fire that must have lasted thirty seconds. Then it looked in their direction, following the cloud of dust from their frantic retreat. Two grey eyes with yellow where the whites should have been met his. As the first tree of the forest passed by him, Keither knew a new kind of terror, one that he knew would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. Of course the rest of his life was a relative term right now. Chances were there weren’t going to be any dreams now that he had locked eyes with an Iumenta dragon.

He looked forward, panicking. Now they were in the forest, but it was like a dream to him. Nothing was real. Just terror; that’s all that existed. Maybe he could use a script from the Jezeer. He thought, but he couldn’t remember them. Sound was gone, but then he heard that roar again and jerked in his saddle. Pixy was delirious with fear, not unlike her rider, but still running. She was trying to throw him off. It worked. The last thing he saw was the trunk of a tree.

* * * * *

Arkin reached out with his mind, trying to make contact with the resistance. The dragon didn’t pursue them, which had its pros and cons. The pro was that they were alive. The con was that it had surely sent people to come find them. He stretched again, hoping to feel someone, but nothing was there. They were holed up in yet another clearing that Legon found with animals, but this one wasn’t as ideal and they needed to move as soon as Keither woke up.

The boy had hit that tree hard and Arkin was sure that he was going to have a concussion. But that was better than death. For the first time in many years, Arkin felt a very real fear. So much work had gone into this whole thing and the people he was guarding were innocents. Any of them dying would forever stain his hands with blood. He repeated the fear script in his mind.

Fear is the blinder; I am the light and master of sight, I will master my fear and never again see night.

He repeated it again, controlling his breathing, changing his heart rate.

“Wh… what happened?” Keither asked as he started to wake up. Maybe he wouldn’t remember the dragon at all. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?

“You fell and hit a tree,” Kovos said, hovering over him. He hadn’t gone more than a foot away ever since they had arrived at their hiding spot. Seeing his brother awake, a look of relief washed over his face.

“Do you remember anything?” Sasha said as she checked his pulse and looked at his eyes.

“I don’t think so. The last thing I remember was a tree and that I was scared… because we were running from…”



Keither tried to get up but Kovos held him down. “It’s ok,” he said.

“No it’s not, no it’s not! I looked into its eyes! We are not ok!”

So much for hoping Keither wouldn’t remember.

“It’s going to be fine,” Kovos said soothingly.

“No it’s not, Kovos. I’m going to die out here and it’s your fault—your fault I came with you to warn Legon, your fault we left Salmont.”

“Keither, I’m-”

“You’re what? Sorry? You’re sorry for me getting beaten, sorry for me watching someone die, sorry for all this?”

“I don’t know what to say other than-”

“There is no ‘other than’! This is your fault that I am out here! If you want to go get yourself killed for Legon and Sasha that’s fine, but you didn’t need to bring me into it!” Presumably, Keither was only kept from yelling due to a massive headache.

Kovos looked hurt. “Look, I can’t change what has happened, and I told you that I was warning Legon about danger.”

“Then why did you drag me along? Couldn’t you tell that I didn’t want to be there? Or did you want proof for Emma that you weren’t a horrible person and that you cared about people other than yourself?”

Kovos’ face flushed and he gritted his teeth. “No, I didn’t drag you along so I could make my girlfriend like me, Keither. You wanted to come and then changed your mind. I wasn’t going to let you go walking around in town with royal guard around.”

“Oh yeah, and why is that?”

“Because you are helpless, that’s why. You don’t think before you act, you don’t worry about consequences. How many times have I had to pull you out of a sticky situation that you put yourself in, huh? How many?”

“You only care about yourself. Don’t blame me.”

Kovos laughed coldly. “Only care for myself huh? Is that what you think? What have you ever done for someone else, Keither? Tell me, when have you helped at home? When have you ever tried to pull your weight? This has been the most I’ve seen you work in your life, and even then it’s what, taking down a tent? Oh, never mind, you gave up some fat to help Legon keep your ungrateful hide alive.”

* * * * *

Kovos felt anger seething in his body. He wanted to hit Keither, wanted to smack him in the mouth. After all the sacrifices he’d made for his younger brother…. But still, it was his fault that Keither was out here, and he hadn’t been a good person. He felt himself deflating. Kovos knew he was hard on the boy, and it was obvious that Keither hated him. His own brother hated him. It was etched in his face. But how could he change that now? How could he show him that he did care and that he loved him? Legon brought him back to reality.

“Shut up you two,” he hissed.

“But…” Keither was cut off by a hand to his mouth.

“We have company.”

Kovos heard the sound of many feet coming their way. From the trees in front of them, men in full armor spilled into their little clearing. They were found. Their training took over. Arkin and Legon took their places up front while Sara frantically readied arrows for Sasha. As they approached, he felt Legon’s magic making his muscles tighten with extra strength. Light glinted off his sword as it was unsheathed and he saw out of the corner of his eyes the shine of the fenrra.

An arrow hissed by him and buried itself deep in a soldier’s shoulder. He felt the animal inside him coming to life, the one that obliterated thought and feeling. The one that felt no pain. The berserker. Before he let it take him one thought bubbled in his mind, “You will never see Emma again.”

With that, the rage took over and he lunged forward with a yell and brought the blade across his front with incredible speed and force. It sliced the man in front of him across the belly, spilling his intestines on the forest floor. The world was in slow motion with the enhancements being made by the two Venefica flanking him. He pushed the falling man aside and closed in on another.

* * * * *

Keither stumbled over to the horses and retrieved Legon’s giant cleaver. His job was simple: keep enemies away from Sasha and Sara. He came lumbering back up, still feeling dizzy from hitting the tree. Sara was handing arrows to Sasha at break-neck speed, and Sasha in turn was shooting them at the oncomers. Keither noticed that she wasn’t shooting to kill, but rather to injure and incapacitate. He started as flashes of emerald and purple illuminated the clearing. Legon and Arkin were fighting with magic. He looked to see Arkin snap a man’s neck with a bolt of green magic. Legon followed suit by firing a blast of amethyst light, obliterating half of a man’s pelvis.

Keither was having a hard time following the magic battle. Arkin, Kovos, and Legon were like blurs and they easily felled ten men, but more came. One made it by Legon and ran at Sasha. She didn’t see him coming. Keither needed to hit him with the cleaver, but he couldn’t. He was too afraid. He dropped the cleaver and fell back away from the oncoming soldier. Sasha turned to see the man raise his battle axe. It started forward. Keither couldn’t look and covered his face. Then came the sound of someone hitting the ground… was she dead? He looked to see the man lying on the ground, Kovos’ hunting knife protruding from the side of his neck. A voice came.

“Keither!” It was Sara. He looked at her very red and angry face. “Time to be a man. Do your job, got it?”

He stood and took the cleaver in his hands.

* * * * *

Sasha was aware that she had nearly been killed, but thankfully she was almost in a full Mahann state and wasn’t feeling emotion right now. She was taking full advantage of the Mahann and the magic making her stronger. She was acting as the center of the mental network with everyone connected through her. She could sense the changes Legon and Arkin were making to spells, and who Kovos was going to decapitate next. Sara was keeping her busy with a steady amount of arrows which were quickly running out. Keither, however, was not connected. He was too scared; his mind was closed. Not that Sasha would have let him in with his current level of fear. She couldn’t have an unstable emotion clogging her network.

Sasha was aiming for major joints like shoulders and hips. They were debilitating injuries and made the men scream bloody murder. Hopefully there were a lot of conscripts in this group and the screams of their comrades would take the fight out of them. However, the strategy didn’t seem to be working, and a steady stream of new soldiers was filling the clearing. She told Kovos to move over a foot. As he did, she let an arrow go. It flew past the man he was fighting but hit another square in the shoulder, embedding itself in the joint. She continued to fire but paused as she saw a new figure entering the clearing. Not even the Mahann could stop the emotion this time.

A tall man in all black jumped into the clearing. His long silver hair, thin face, grey skin, and yellow eyes struck fear deep into her. The Iumenta had two fenrra in his hands and looked at her. He was about fifty yards away,—well within range. He came forward, covering ten yards in a few steps. She began to rapid fire the arrows at him, not caring about hitting joints, just going for a hit. He flicked the arrows away lazily with the fenrra as he came. Kovos moved in his path, swinging his sword hard. The Iumenta parried the blow and lashed out at Kovos.

* * * * *

Legon was aware that for the second time in his life he was slicking the surrounding trees and landscape with other people’s blood. This came to him after cutting a man’s throat with the tip of the fenrra in his left hand. They now shined crimson with their new coating. He moved forward coming, down close to the ground in between two men. He pivoted on his right foot, swinging a fenrra at a man’s leg, chopping the femur in half and severing the femoral artery. More blood sprayed everywhere. As the leg came free of its howling owner, Legon turned and with the other blade stabbed the other man. He turned the tip of the fenrra so it effortlessly passed through the man’s ribs, slicing lung and heart.

The soldier’s armor seemed to have little to no effect on Arkin, Kovos, and himself. With the magical enhancements to their bodies, they even cut through chainmail without issue. Still, he was feeling a definite drain on his magic. In the beginning he had been sure that there would only be a few of them, but they didn’t seem to stop. Arkin was using his magic to fortify their bodies from injury, so if a major vein was cut, the bleeding would stop instantly. Sasha was managing the whole thing from a distance, tapping into their minds and using logic to decide the best amount of energy to be used and where.

Suddenly, on the other side of the clearing an Iumenta stepped into view, and Legon felt his body go cold. Even with magic helping them he wasn’t sure they could stop and Iumenta. What if it was a Venefica? He felt Arkin’s emotions boil up in the connection.

Sasha was shooting as fast as she could. He felt more emotions, but this time from Kovos. They were ones of finality and sorrow. His best friend stepped in the path of the Iumenta, slashing hard at him. He was no match, but Legon and Arkin both started dumping copious amounts of magic into Kovos, who was fighting as hard as he could. He was starting to acquire minor nicks and cuts but didn’t seem to care. The Iumenta was backing away. Kovos was winning!

Still more and more men entered the area. Their camp must be somewhere nearby. Legon could only see one way out. It was going to knock him out, but it was their only hope. He felt magic building in him and also sensed Sasha’s apprehension. The spell was simple, really; it was just going to shred twenty or so men in the area. In the pause Arkin could help Kovos and kill the Iumenta. If they were lucky, when others arrived to see so many of their own dead and a slain Iumenta, they wouldn’t pursue.

He felt the magic hit a point that it hadn’t ever reached before, even more than the other day when blocking the dragon. He released the spell, pointing the palm of his hand at the rushing soldiers. Time stopped in that instant. He saw an orb of lavender magic form in his hand and start to leave. It was size of his head and tear-shaped. The tear was a translucent purple with bright veins of lilac glowing around it. The smaller end stayed connected to his palm. He’d never seen magic like this before. It always had moved so fast; this was beautiful. It continued to stretch, the tiny bit connected to him. Then, moving like water, it snapped back to him, covering his hand and moving up his arm.

He tried to scream as he felt his skin tear and bone shatter. His eyes were on fire. All he could see was magenta light. He felt all of his spells failing as Sasha franticly attempted to disconnect his mind from the others. The pain was unimaginable. He wanted to die. He tried to cry out, but time was going too slow and he couldn’t open his mouth. He opened his scorched eyes to see the smoke that must be his own body burning from the magic. He begged for mercy in his mind and felt something tugging at his consciousness. A deep voice told him that he was worthless, but that he would be made better. He remembered his dreams then, and felt for hope, felt for Sasha and her love. The smoke in front of his eyes cleared to reveal a massive wall of glittering diamonds. They where white and radiated light. A horizontal seam in the wall opened to reveal a violet blue eye the size of a shield.