Chapter Twenty-Four

 

“Krikor! I should have known you’d be cowardly enough to leave.” I dragged him to his feet, my sword still at his neck. “I have the souls of many Goblins in this sword,” I said to him as menacingly as I could. “We need to talk, and I don’t want any more tricks, not unless you want there to be another Goblin soul in here. I have to say it would be quite fitting.”

He looked scared. With his people dead and his magic almost completely gone, there was nothing left for him to do and he knew it. He gazed at me with sorrow in his eyes, which unnerved me. I was expecting anger or defiance. “What do you want?”

“You know what I want.”

“The souls of the dragons.”

“Yes. I want them back and I don’t want to spill any more blood.”

“Your blood would be useless now, anyway. You are no longer innocent. You are a murderer just like the rest of the people in your village.”

“I killed to save my people,” I spat at him. “Something I wouldn’t have had to do if you hadn’t trapped them.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Your people? How interesting that you call the dragons your people, when in fact your people are the ones that slayed them.”

“The dragons are my people Krikor, but I don’t expect you to understand that. You’ve manipulated us all for too long and today, it’s going to stop. I know you can free the dragon souls without my blood. You would need to be able to in order to turn their souls into magic.”

“So, you know?”

“No, it was only a theory, but I know now. How much magic do you have left? I know it can’t be a lot.”

“It isn’t. Why do you think we were taking the swords back? We needed the dragon souls to generate more.”

“Do you have enough to bring my father back to life?” It was a long shot, but I had to ask.

He regarded me curiously. “You father died at the hands of a Goblin?”

“Yes.”

“If he died on a sword, the sword would trap his soul, just as your sword has trapped my fellow goblins. You only need to free him.”

Hope rose within me. I could save him. “He was speared through the brain.”

“Ah, well, in that case, there is no hope. The brain is the one part of a person that can’t be fixed by returning a soul. There is only one way to fix this, and that is to use magic. A lot of magic.”

“So, do it!” I insisted. 

Krikor looked at me, a sly smile on his face as though he knew something I didn’t.

“What?” I asked, holding the sword right up against his neck.

“There is only one way to get all the magic we need and you know what that is.” His grin widened as I realized what he meant. To get enough magic to bring my father back to life, I’d have to sacrifice the souls of the dragons still trapped in the swords. I heard footsteps to my right and left. A war was raging in my head. I couldn’t let my father stay dead and yet, could I really give all those dragons to save him?

Tears sprang to my eyes. Tears of frustration. A loud, guttural scream escaped my lips at the injustice of it all. 

“The dragon souls left in the swords might have been there so long that no one remembers them,” said a voice. It was Ash. He’d turned back into a human. “You can save him.”

He was right. Dragons like Mary had been captured so long ago that they no longer had living family. No one would care if they just disappeared. No one really knew them. That is, of course, if they were all captured a long, long time ago. 

I turned to Ash. He was wearing one of the spare sets of clothes we’d brought up and already there were patches of blood from the arrow wounds. I loved him so much right then. “My father died to save them,” I murmured. “He wouldn’t want me to choose him over them. Saving the dragons was what all this was about, what it’s always been about.”

I turned back to Krikor. His grin was gone. “My father died the way he would have wanted to. Making amends. Saving the dragons.”

Krikor grimaced, but he knew he had no choice. My sword was at his throat. “So be it,” he said. “Follow me.”

With one of my hands holding onto the scruff of his neck and the other with my sword to his throat, I had to walk slowly while Krikor led us to the entrance of his village. It was still partly submerged, but Ash and Morganna managed to dig enough of a hole for us all to fit through. 

“Over here!” I yelled to everyone else. It took a while, but eventually, they all converged around the entrance. “Is that everyone?” I asked, not wanting to leave anyone behind. They’d fought for this, and they needed to see it. The dragons and the wolves had all changed back into their human forms and gotten dressed.

“It’s everyone that’s still alive,” Spear grunted. 

My heart fell as I took in how few there was left of us. A couple of the Wolvren were injured with various wounds. Xander had a nasty cut on his head and blood dripping from his arm. Most of the dragons looked uninjured, thankfully. Ash seemed to have come off the worst. 

The tunnel was darker than I remembered it, but before now, it had been lit by magic. Now, we only had the faint light from the entrance to guide us. In the main chamber, holes in the ceiling let in enough light for us to see. 

“This way,” Krikor said, leading us to the far end of the cavern and into a tunnel I’d not seen before. It was almost pitch black, but Krikor knew his way without the light. I held on to him tightly, knowing if I let go, he’d be gone in a flash.

The tunnel seemed to go on for miles downhill. I was beginning to think it was some kind of trick to escape when we came into another cavern. This one was a lot smaller than the one I’d seen so many times up near the top of the mountain, but the beauty of it took my breath away. Intricate patterns carved into the walls surrounded us, and each one was decorated with precious jewels just like the ones the Goblins used in our swords. The artistry was magnificent and awe-inspiring, but it was not this that took my attention. 

There, in the middle of the floor were swords. Not just our swords, but the swords of others too. Other Slayers’ swords, just like the ones from the abandoned village downriver. They were not piled up as they had been at Spear’s house. Instead, each one was mounted in a placeholder that held them so the sword blade pointed upward and inward. They were in layers of circles, rising higher and higher around a central spire. My eyes followed the line of the swords to the very top, where there was a crystal, larger than any precious stone I’d ever seen before. Light emerged from it and it was this that enabled us to see.

“What’s that?” asked Ash, taking a step towards it.

“Don’t!” Morganna held him back. “There’s very powerful magic in this room.”

“Not enough of it,” remarked Krikor dryly. 

I pulled the sword away from his neck but kept a firm hold of him. “What now?” I asked wearily, desperate for all this to be over. I was exhausted and losing blood at such a rate, I didn’t dare look. 

“I have to climb up and touch the crystal,” Krikor replied. 

I didn’t want to let him go, but at the same time, I wanted to finish this. “Circle the room,” I said to the others. “Morganna, can you stand by the exit in case he tries to escape?” Morganna nodded and moved into position. The others circled the wall and joined hands. If I let go of him now, there was no place for him to escape to. “No tricks,” I hissed in his ear.

I let him go, but held my sword up to his back should he try and run. He didn’t, though. He walked forward and began to climb. Each foothold and handhold was between the blades of two swords. He was risking hurting himself with each step, and if he fell, he’d be extremely lucky not to skewer himself. Still, I held the sword to his back, lifting it higher and higher until he was beyond my reach. The crystal was about twenty feet up and so it took him a while to climb, picking out his route between the swords. I wouldn’t have been able to find my way up there. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before reaching out to touch the crystal. I wondered why he didn’t try to escape. As soon as he freed the dragon souls, everything was over for him. Not that I’d left him much choice in the matter.

“Wait!” yelled Spear. “The dragons we already freed are dying. If we release the rest, won’t they fall prey to the same illness?”

Krikor looked down at him. “Your dragons are not dying. They are being reborn.”

“Reborn?” asked Ash. “What do you mean?”

“The illness is not an illness at all. It is part of the magic. When someone stabs you, even with a magic sword, damage is done to your body. When the dragons’ souls went back to their bodies, the internal damage was still there. Healing requires a lot of energy. Right now your sick dragons are literally rebuilding themselves. Within a month, they will begin to wake, newer and fresher and younger than they were even before their souls were taken. Their outer skin will shed, leaving them with a beautiful new complexion. They will be reborn.”

“But some of the dragons whose souls were not taken have fallen ill, too,” I remembered.

“The magic works in the same way as a disease. It is contagious. They will be reborn, too. You’ll have a village of young, vibrant dragons. You should be pleased. It won’t work if you stay as humans though, so I suggest you all go home and stay in your dragon forms until the day you can rise again, free of illness, free of old age and free of any injuries you have sustained.” He eyed Ash as he said this. Blood was still dripping from him and he looked so pale. Was this another trick? I had no idea, but if we didn’t let him free the trapped dragons, they may as well be dead anyway. 

“Do it!” I shouted up at him.

He held his hand out once again and this time touched the crystal.

A bright flash of light caused me to close my eyes. With everything else going on, I’d completely forgotten about the intense heat that blasted out of the swords when the dragons were freed, and this time there were so many of them. I braced myself for the fire and flames, but they didn’t come. Instead, a powerful wind wailed around the room, knocking us all over. I curled into a ball as the wind roared. The noise was intense, like being in the center of a hurricane. 

When it was all over, I opened my eyes. The others were laid on the ground as I had been, and the light from the crystal was out. 

I blinked a few times, wondering how I could see everyone, even dimly, when I saw there was a small shaft of light coming from behind a part of the carved wall. I’d not seen it before because the light from the crystal had been so bright.  

“Daylight!” I shouted, running toward the crack. My voice echoed through the cavern. 

“I think this was the way the dragon souls went,” said Spear who’d been right next to it. Between us, we pulled on the wall making the crack wide enough to get through.

I turned back to get Krikor but he wasn’t there. 

“Where’s Krikor?” I asked, desperately searching the room. “He couldn’t have come this way. The crack was too small until we pulled it open.”

“I’m sorry,” said Morganna, “I think he escaped back up the tunnel. The wind knocked me over. I felt something jump over me, but I thought it was the dragon souls.”

He’d escaped, but as I looked down the tunnel through the wall and saw bright daylight flooding in, I knew that so had the dragon souls, and so would we.