Dragon Soul - The Ancestor Gods Saga Book 1

34. The Long Awaited

I slammed the ugly man against a wall. It surprised me how easy it was to do. I had no difficulty lifting up the man and throwing him back with a jerk. It clearly surprised him too.

"Get off me!" he grabbed at my arms and tried to wrench himself free.

His efforts were rather underwhelming.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

"I think I know him," Gebert said in an effort to be helpful. "He is a local thief. They call him Spider. I recognise him because I have heard the description of his scar."

"I am not a thief!" the scarred man spat at Gebert. "I am a highwayman."

"It is all the same to me," I told him darkly. "What were you doing here?"

He squirmed further.

"Tell me!" I snapped him back into the wall again and his head recoiled into the stone.

He cringed and some of his bluster evaporated.

"I wanted the thing in the bottle," he said. "It is mine."
"How is it yours when the knight Lexon earned it?" I asked him nastily.

"He abandoned it in the inn!" Spider attempted to argue.

"He was injured and being treated by the medico!"

Spider did not seem to grasp my point.

"I was going to use that stuff to buy myself a future!" he yelled at me. "It was meant for me. It belonged to me! I know it did. When it swirled in the bottle, it wanted me. It was mine!"

To my alarm he suddenly started to sob violently. I was slightly embarrassed and let him go. He fell to his knees and hid his head in his arms.

"I was reading in the old books that the soul could have that effect on some people," Gebert said softly to me. "It drew them to it. I think it wanted a new home to reside in. Maybe that is why dragon souls can be united to people? It is drawn to mortals."
Except I was no mortal. I wanted to ask Gebert what his books might say about a descendant of a demi-god being linked with a dragon soul, though I suspected it would not be helpful. We were interrupted by the arrival of Tylesin breathless in the doorway.

"Hartnor is back!"

He did not have to say anything else. I ran toward him and pushed past him on the stairs.

"Where is Lexon?" I called over my shoulder.

Breathlessly Tylesin gave me directions. I was running as fast as I could, not sure what I would actually do when confronted with Hartnor, but certain I had to reach Lexon before the dragon knight did.

"What... are... we going... to do?" Tylesin shouted behind me.

"How should I know?" I replied.

It occurred to me that though I was running as fast as I could, it seemed to take less energy than I would expect, and I was not breathing hard at all. It was something I slipped to the back of my mind for the time being.

I turned a corner and ahead was the long road that ran downhill past the tavern. It felt somewhat inevitable that this was where we would make our final stand against Hartnor. I saw the dragon knight up ahead, looking more crazed, more outraged than before. Lexon was right in front of him, just stood there.

I went to shout to him, but before I could a blaze of fire erupted from Hartnor's hand, formed into a spherical shape and engulfed Lexon.

The world just seemed to stop. One moment Lexon was stood there, the next all I saw was a fiery ball that tumbled to the ground with the motion of Lexon's falling body. I froze, unable to comprehend what I had just seen. Lexon was simply gone, a roiling ball of flame in his place.