The Terror of the Raiders

Chapter Nine - Follow the Trail (Revamped)

~ Kiara ~

The pain ebbed and flowed, undulating through me as if it were its own ocean. I could get no rest from it, build no defences against it.

My eyes could not tear themselves away as I stared at my shattered thunder. The pile of broken bones and hewn flesh that had once been Tai Shan slumped within my reach. My kits were simply gone – it was little comfort to me that the shells of their eggs could not be broken by anything but another dragon. For without my magic to flow through them the way a bird's body warmth would her own nest, they would perish. It would only take a couple of weeks.

The flames burning around my heart seemed to dim slightly as Hopelessness had outdone her sisters Despair and Exhaustion. My fight was fading.

The fire inside spluttered and died, but the loss of pain brought no peace. For it had consumed everything I'd had. My heart was now but glowing embers. The glow and life receding from deep crevasses that cracked and split like a weakened piece of charcoal.

I was alone now.

My body collapsed as I acknowledged that fact.

The stone floor that Tai Shan and I had so carefully spent decades preparing for our clutch came rushing up to meet me. The small twinge of pain in my jaw was easy to ignore when it made impact.

It didn't matter anymore.

I let my eyes droop down and prepared to finally fall into my exhaustion. Bu something held me back.

On the verge of sleep, I started back into consciousness as I finally noticed a scent that didn't belong. There was still the faint of my eggs, gone three days now though they might be. There was the heart wrenching pull of my lifemate's body, settled in the bitter tang of his greening dried blood. And there was...

The scent of a dragon slayer. Unlike all other smells infused into the atmosphere of my home, this one was magical. It clung to a killer's soul rather than their body or clothing, and would only fade when they died.

So, Tai Shan had not been able to kill the man that made the final blow.

A new purpose set itself alight in the embers of my heart. A reason to keep breathing for a little longer before I could join my love in the afterlife. But instead of searing me, it warmed me only enough to get back to my feet.

Vengeance.

These eggs had been my last chance at children, but they would harden long before I could catch up to them. And Tai Shan was gone from my side until I could meet him again after death.

But he had given me one last gift – one last task – before I could cross over. I will make them pay.

I let the though run through my entire being as I slowly made my way outside again. I let it consume my mind and fight off the relentless exhaustion that had been hounding me for far too long. The muscles along my wings felt rejuvenated, and my eyes no longer wanted to close.

I was ready to hunt.

Blood would run. Screams would sound. They would pay.

It fuelled me as I found the strength and tensed my legs, preparing to push myself into the air and begin my search. I stretched out my wings as far as they would comfortably go and raised them.

Then something caught my eye and a tendril of dark satisfaction curled in my stomach. One of the raiders' warships was still beached along the sandy bank. It was pushed far out of the reach of the waves and half tucked behind a few trees. They must have hidden it during my desperate arrival yesterday.

The satisfaction that Tai Shan had killed an entire crew of warriors settled beside my desire to avenge him, and I let them drive me up into the air. I would finish the job.

The sun had been setting when I'd collapsed beside my lifemate's remains, but now it was rising behind me. Slowly climbing into a bloody red sky. A silent preview to how my future would look covered by the remains of my prey.

I let it light the way ahead of me as my shadow stretched darkly over the waves below me. The killer had been on his ship for some time, and I had to go further out when his scent did. Far enough that a human's weak eyesight would barely be able to see the land, and kept going until the sun had passed over me and begun his decent.

An endless expanse of water washed gently below me, but it held no sway over my awe. I had lost my passion for the sea. My anger had so consumed me that when a dolphin leapt out of the waves to greet me, I almost set her alight.

I no longer felt that there were any innocents left in the world. Everything should burn. The only thing that held me back was not a desire to protect, as it would have in the past, but the knowledge that I might later need all of my flames to complete my vengeance.

It peaked my curiosity why the murderers would return to land now, but my rising hope fell when I could see no ships along the shore. But there were a few smaller vessels.

And then I saw the village.

The charred remains of wooden huts and the ash of their thatched roofs. But that wet burning smell was still recent – it had probably happened not long after the destruction of my own home.

If I'd had any heart left, it would have gone out to these humans. Especially after I noticed the heavy bloodstains that littered the ground at the settlement's centre. But even if I tried, I could feel nothing but hatred now.

Still, my eyes scanned for survivors.

It took too long to see any, and I was practically on top of the village by the time I saw the little girl. She was so young, so delicate, so dirty.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

And this is the last of my revamped chapters, I was never able to get past this point before. But thank you to everyone who stuck it out with me and helped me get this far, I look forward to finally finishing the story. It also means that none of the chapers will include "(Revamped)" in their titles from now on because I litterally cannont revamp what I've not already made, and for consistancy I will at some point be taking the "(Revamped)" from the titles of the first nine chapters.