Return of the Stormcriers

CHAPTER 42 - PERCHANCE TO DREAM

Fire lit the sky in dark rippling tongues, flickering across the smoke-filled horizon. Wind howled through the twilight sky, carrying with it the scent of rain and the charged iron that preluded a close strike of lightning. The enormous red dragon, Aundin, soared below the clouds, majestic wings spread wide as he glided between drafts of wind. Banking sharply like an armored hawk, Aundin turned towards the ground, mouth open, teeth bared in a fearsome grimace.

"You will not escape me little human. Thief of our powers; unworthy wielder. Kuvas raskavamir." His dual voice roaring into the night and echoing in Matt's mind until it bounced between his ears and threatened to drown out every thought. He couldn't move, his feet like lead in his boots; rooted to the earth as if he had been planted in place. A tree waiting to be uprooted by the storm.

Aundin dove towards him, his mouth widening impossibly as he grew closer and closer. Thirty feet, twenty, fifteen; still Matt could not move. He struggled and strained but his body rebelled against him, refusing to answer to his demands and forcing him to watch in mute horror as dagger-like fangs closed around him as the red dragon slammed shut his maw, and the world disappeared.

  A silent scream tore from Matt's lips as he was swallowed, but before he could feel the gnash of teeth or the burning of digestion he felt a tug, deep within his gut that pulled him, much as a hook drags a fish from water, and he was torn through worlds, through reality. His vision changed, growing sharper yet muffled as he adjusted to being forcefully pushed from one dream into another. For it must be a dream; how else could he have moved from one place to another so fluidly? But where was he now? A shiver ran down his spine as he surveyed his new surroundings. While being hunted by Aundin had been a visualization of a nightmare, this felt different; somehow more tangible.

A clearing; unlit by even the slimmest finger of moonlight. Flickering torches held by hooded acolytes provided the only illumination of the area. And what an awful sight they allowed him to see. Five dragons; one brown, one green, one blue, Kvandi the purple dragon he had seen in the forest, and Aundin the red lay around the clearing bloody, beaten, and battered. Thick crimson rivers ran down their scaly hides as they lay panting amongst the pine trees; proud and fearsome beasts brought low. Kneeling before the downed dragons were ten prisoners in ragged clothes, torn and ripped from struggle. Their hands were bound with iron-wrought manacles and their shoulders were held by yet more robed figures who chanted in a deep guttural language that Matt did not understand.

  A swift glance down revealed his dagger in his hand. The same sapphire blue instrument he had found in that clearing; this clearing, he realized with horror, all those weeks ago. In the iridescent shimmer of whatever strange metal the weapon had been forged, an unfamiliar visage stared back. Still human, but older, possibly early fifties with hard intense features; it was hard to get a clear view with a hood of his own obsuring his hair and the sides of his face. Striding forward on feet that were not his own he neared prisoners that knelt before the menacing brown dragon, holding the dagger threateningly.

  "You can't do this!" the nearest prisoner, a young woman with tangled auburn hair, shouted at him in defiance, an expression of anger and disdain upon her face despite the inevitability of her circumstances. Matt opened his mouth to offer words of comfort and reassurance to the young woman but to his dismay, all that tumbled out were the strange words of that unfamiliar chant, his voice powerful and resonate; also not his own.

  The acolyte that stood beside the prisoner held her shoulders down as she struggled to rise, and Matt closed his eyes as he felt his hand reach forward and slide the blade across her exposed throat, spilling her blood upon the ground. His body hummed in approval at the deathblow as his eyes were forced back open by whatever compelled him to witness the grisly scene. The blade seemed to hum in his hand, nearly vibrating with approval.