Daire raced after her. Bryn’s screams echoed down the hallway, but he refused to admit defeat. He pumped his arms and legs and prayed she used the sword. He didn’t like being without it, but what was the alternative?
The dragon roared. Daire rounded a corner and clipped the wall that angled in faster than he’d been expecting. He expelled a breath in an “oof,” and kept going. Panting hard, he ran as fast as he could. Desperation dragged him down to swallow him under its murky depths. A sob broke free and echoed off the walls. Daire sniffed hard, still running, as he fought the urge to give in to the despair. Trying as hard as he could to push away the encroaching wave.
Bryn’s screams grew louder. The tunnel narrowed and he turned another corner. It opened up ahead, so he stopped and huddled against the wall. Watching. Waiting.
“Bryn.” He breathed her name. Another prayer, another cry for help.
She cried out and the sound echoed through the walls of a cavern.
Flames flashed, the light so bright after the virtual darkness of the tunnels. He lifted one hand and shielded his face. The dragon roared. Bryn whimpered, and he moved to the mouth of the tunnel to look out.
The dragon was the size of a school bus in body. Its wedge shaped head was wide. Its tail thick and long as it swished back and forth. The dragon stalked to the far end of the cavern. Light reflected off the scales all over its leathery body, interspersed by thick scars and chunks of missing flesh—as though pieces had been chewed off. Injury, or self-inflicted?
This thing was centuries old. Something else originally good that had been appropriated by evil until it was a shadow of what it once was. Daire could hear each exhale push out its nostrils, along with a rush of hot air that tickled hair across his forehead.
Bryn whimpered again.
Daire stepped out. “Hey!” He yelled the word as loud as he could.
The dragon stopped its forward progress.
Daire walked along its flank. “Over here!”
He needed Bryn to throw back the sword or this was going to end with him having some chunks of his own missing.
The dragon turned its head in an arc and repositioned its front legs. It stared down at Daire from ten feet above and eyed him like a mid-morning snack.
“Remember me?” The thing probably didn’t understand him, let alone match him to the boy he had nearly destroyed so long ago. But that wasn’t the point. He needed its attention. “Bryn, can you get to me?”
“Maybe.”
Hearing her voice was like balm on a wound. “I need my sword.”
The dragon stepped closer to Daire. Inhaled. That narrowed black gaze pinned him to the spot. He dared not move. He had no idea what to do, other than try to hurt it and then run. Get far enough away they could lose it in the tunnels and hopefully not be scented. Tracked.
Burned.
Eaten.
The idea of hurting it didn’t sit well with Daire. He’d hunted animals before, but this creature now inching its head closer and closer while Daire stood still and waited for Bryn to emerge was a wounded animal. This one might even have been tortured.
It almost didn’t seem right to add to its injuries. But what else could they do? If it came down to him and Bryn being killed versus distracting the dragon with another injury, he knew which he would choose.
The dragon didn’t deserve to die. But it wasn’t like Daire could persuade it to be nice. Or ask if it was simply trying to live out its days in peace.
Maybe it couldn’t die. Like him.
Maybe it wanted to. Like the druid.
Bryn rounded the edge of the cavern, his sword in one hand. The blade was wet with a dark liquid more purple than red. Had she already wounded it? Her eyes were wide, her face pale with fear. Maybe she was worried this was only a hallucination. More wary of her mind’s ability to create situations such as this, rather than the reality they were faced with.
He’d wonder if he was hallucinating if this wasn’t as vivid as it was. Bryn had to know this was real.
He felt a drop of sweat roll down the center of his back, beneath his T-shirt. The tightness of the laces of one boot, pulled tauter than the other so that the difference was noticeable. Those tiny details convinced him this wasn’t a hallucination. And it definitely wasn’t Bryn’s hallucination.
Whether she would believe him or not was another question.
The dragon inhaled. The rush of air headed toward the dragon whipped at his jacket. Daire tensed. He knew what would come next.
He stepped toward Bryn, itching to run. Could he meet her halfway, or would the dragon burn him to a crisp?
He saw doom approach like a flash of prescience that could only come from Providence.
Daire turned and raced toward Bryn. He didn’t want to be burned. He also wasn’t going to stand there and wait for it. A quick death wasn’t in the cards for him. Instead it would be a long and painful recovery.
Again.
The roar of flames was like an explosion. Heat pressed against his back, pushing him forward. His entire body shuddered at being faced with this all over again. His mind may have forgotten after so long, but his body remembered the pain. The agony.
He collided with Bryn. They huddled against the wall of the cavern. Flames exploded around them. She hid behind the shelter of his body, her cries drowned out by the roar of the dragon. He could feel the tension in her arms, clutched against his sides.
He dipped his head and felt the hair on the back of his neck get singed by the fire.
Daire shifted to take the sword from her.
The second the flames receded, he turned. Swiped out with the sword even before he looked. Daire caught its nose and stunned the dragon enough he could run toward it. He swiped left to right next. Cut open a line on the creature’s neck. Long, but not deep. He only wanted to distract it with the sting, enough for them to get away.
“Run!”
Bryn stood still. Her wide eyes stared up at the dragon, now towering over her. Daire ran to her, but the dragon’s great head swung down. It roared again, and flames rushed toward her.
“Go!”
Bryn ran, chased by the flames. He wanted to go after her, but that meant both of them would be pursued. They needed to make two targets, not one.
Daire struck again with his sword. He cut deeper this time into the animal’s shoulder. It reared back. The front legs lifted off the earth and the head swung at him. It slammed into his body with the force of a semi-truck. Daire flew through the air, able only to think enough to make sure he kept hold of his sword. Then he was falling.
Falling.
So far.
All the way.
Down.
Daire hit solid ground so hard it knocked him out for a few seconds. His vision swam, but with the darkness there was nothing to see. He couldn’t even make out his own hand in front of his face. He rolled over and groaned, then blacked out again. For how long, he didn’t know.
When he was aware enough to stand he slid the sword back into his jacket collar and stumbled down the tunnel. Hand on the wall. The other out in front so he didn’t walk into anything. Twice he turned corners.
There was hardly any air down here.
No light.
Daire had no idea where he was going. It felt like hours that he walked, praying he would find Bryn. That she was safe. That he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his immortal life down here.
It was tempting to pray that the druid would succeed. That he would destroy the tree of life—the All Tree—and end it. If the whole world was gone, who would still be around to care? But honor prevented him from asking that. It was only a simple end. Little more than a cop-out.
Survival might be a whole lot more complicated, but it also kept his conscience from rising against him in conviction.
His steps faltered and Daire’s brain took a few moments to process what he was seeing.
The cavern was huge. Much larger than the one the dragon had been in. Like the inside of a cathedral, bigger than any he’d ever seen. On both sides of the walls a great tree—one on his left, the other on his right—stretched out of the ground, encased in the walls on either side. The two trees reached up to the ceiling where the leaves intertwined with each other.
The whole cavern teemed with life. It smelled like freshly fallen rain. Insects buzzed in the air, thick with humidity. Enough that he could feel the damp against his skin. Sunlight streamed across the cavern, but he couldn’t tell where it came from.
Great branches hung low from the tree to his left. Heavy with fruit he couldn’t identify. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The tree to his right was barren of fruit, but dotted instead with buds. Flowers. Insects, and small animals. The tree of life.
A moth as big as his hand flew past his face. It lifted to settle on a branch. Unseen birds chirped. The air moved with the grace of a summer breeze. Fresh air.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He spun to the right, where the druid stood watching. His robes hung from slender shoulders and fell to the floor. The same outfit he’d worn all those years ago back in that cabin. The day Daire’s whole life had changed.
He watched the other man take in the scene. The truth was something he’d believed since the day he first heard it. But standing here now, Daire realized everything he’d heard and read…it was all real. This was no myth. And while he had never doubted, seeing it with his own eyes was nothing short of astounding.
He surveyed the entire room again. His brain still processing what he was looking at.
Two trees. The trunks ran up the left and right sides of the cavern, the trees halfway embedded in the walls. Part of the cavern itself. Above his head branches spread across the ceiling and hung down like so many lanterns, leaves so low he could reach up and touch them.
The tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Despite the fall of man, they were still here. Hidden deep in the ground where humanity would never find them. Their location buried in myth, revealed by riddles wrapped in secrets. He didn’t think Providence had birthed that song, part of Norse mythology. Bryn’s heritage. Rather Daire believed that the location had been handed down by other immortal entities who now controlled the world, governed by the prince of the power of the air.
He had brought the druid here.
That dark power would want any other outcome to his future than the one written in the scriptures. And so, why not lead a powerful druid to this place so that he could attempt to destroy life as humankind knew it?
Daire launched toward the druid, sword first.
He never hit the other man. Instead he sailed right through the druid, as though he were nothing but a mirage. Daire stumbled but didn’t go down. The scene changed. Gone was the green. The golden sunlight, the buzzing insects.
Now the tree of the knowledge of good and evil hung with rotten fruit. They littered the floor, half-eaten and decaying. The cavern no longer felt like warmth and goodness. The trees seemed to shudder against the atmosphere. The buzz of insects grated against his ears.
Daire stared around in an entirely different kind of wonder as mist curled from the walls and rolled across the floor. It made no sound as it floated through the room, rising as it went. Like an incoming weather system, but this one ebbed and flowed. Undulating with what was contained within each molecule.
Daire’s skin itched in the places that had been cut and sliced the last time he’d faced the mist. He looked around, but couldn’t see the druid anymore. He drew his sword. Instinct guided his movements into a fighting stance. The mist rose above his head and swirled around him.
The mocking laughter he’d heard last time started out quietly. It grew louder and louder. At the point it filled his senses, a creature stepped from the mist to face him. Snarling teeth. Claws. Gray skin, cracked and peeling.
It lunged at him. Daire swung his sword and hacked off an arm. He swung again. Two more emerged from the mist on either side of him. Daire spun and sliced at every inch of scaly flesh he could find. One swing took a head off. He ducked but got caught in the side of the head by a clawed hand. The slice bled immediately, throwing a screen of red in front of one eye. He could feel the damp down the side of his face.
Still, he fought. Slashed. Spun. Cut. Turned the sword to slam the hilt into a shoulder. An abdomen.
His breath came fast. Daire sank inside himself. To that place he both liked and hated in equal measure. The killing haze was upon him. It didn’t matter what happened now. He would not rest until every living creature in this dark place was no more.
They kept coming.
Daire kept fighting.
A slash opened on his thigh. Another across his left shoulder. He pushed aside the pain, barely feeling it with the adrenaline coursing through him. The will to kill numbed everything until only the need to destroy remained.
Strength as hot as a blacksmith’s fire raced through him and ignited his limbs. It was in this place that he gave up control of himself and truly let go. Only Providence could finish this. Only He could take the weapon—Daire—and strike the killing blow against such an evil.
And he did.
Daire sank to his knees in an ocean of pieces. Of blood. He coughed long enough to finally pull in a full breath of air, dank though it was. The creatures gave off a scent. Sulphur. Death. Evil.
Daire swiped his sleeve across his face and wiped away the blood, then stood on shaky legs and looked around again to search for the druid. Wherever the man was, he was surely enacting what he had planned. That couldn’t mean anything good. Especially not if he was determined enough to employ evil to occupy Daire while he did it.
He stepped over the creatures. The mist parted. And then he saw her.
Pinned to the tree like a modern-day crucifixion, her blood running down the trunk.
Amelia.