Dustin

Dustin was sulking, wondering what he had done to Rale to deserve such a colossally screwed-up life, when the world around him suddenly sucked to one side, so powerful it knocked him down and to one side, almost tumbling him down the Slope to the northeast. Dustin, having felt this before, hastily wedged himself between two boulders and grabbed the rock around him as tightly as he could, bringing the chain up short.

The swine-faced Auldhund stopped at the sudden tautness and glanced over his shoulder with an irritated snort. “Oh, I see. You’re throwing a tantrum now.”

“Quiet!” Dustin snapped. In the distance, he could hear the ethereal wind coming closer. He huddled deeper into the rock, wedging his feet tight against the stone.

Seph snarled and gave the chain a hard yank. “Get up and walk.”

“Listen. Pig,” Dustin growled, “you hold onto me. Get a good grip. Do not let go of that goddamned axle, okay?”

Seph blinked at him. “What in the rubble are you—”

Dustin felt it hit as it always had before, when the Auldheist of old were forging armies, creating drakes, or raising the dead. The wind that hit him was nothing of this world, but he heard it anyway—a screaming, pounding shriek that pummeled him from all sides and made him strain to hold onto the rock. The energy drained him, buffeting him, tearing his essence northeast, towards the ruins of Ariod. Dustin started to scream as it tried to tear away his soul.

Seph blinked. “What the…”

Dustin lost strength in his arms as the pull continued, and horrifyingly, he felt himself slipping. “Hold. Me,” he gritted, unable to fight the ethereal wind.

“Yeah, okay,” Seph said, reluctantly, still standing upright on the trail.

“No, you wrap yourself around a rock and hold me!” Dustin shrieked, already losing purchase.

Seph wasn’t exactly the brightest star in the night sky, but his eyes widened and he wrapped his big arms around a jutting piece of rock as he was commanded.

The rock didn’t look big enough to Dustin, not at all, but he’d already slid free. Screaming, Dustin felt himself come to an abrupt stop at the end of his chain, his wrists gouged by the metal, but blessedly staying in place like a feather at the end of a piece of twine, blown out over the mountainside in a windstorm.

“Drake, what the hell is going on?!” Seph cried, his big muscles straining against the pull.

Dustin was screaming too hard to form a coherent reply.

Horrifyingly, the rock wasn’t big enough, and Seph slipped. Dustin had an awful moment when he thought they would be torn out across the Slope together, when the piggish Auldhund’s big hand caught another jagged boulder and arrested their flight. Then, even more surprising, Seph got a foothold and managed to drag himself back to land, then wedge himself into a crack, big muscles straining. Dustin had to give the boy credit—what he lacked in brains, he made up for in strength.

The pull went on too long—it wasn’t a fluke, wasn’t just some kid that accidentally wandered too far into the ruins, as Dustin had hoped. Someone had activated the Pillar.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it ended, and Dustin fell to the mountainside in exhaustion.

“Is it over?!” Seph cried in a panicked tone, still clinging to the rock.

“It’s over,” Dustin managed, though his eyes were drawn northeast with unease. Somewhere up there, something big had just happened, and Dustin was going to be the only one in this whole damned country that could feel it.

Which meant the only person in the whole damned country that would believe him and not think it was just another lie made up to escape, was the pig-faced brute that had just saved his life by clinging to a mountain.

Then Dustin thought of his mates, and his mates’ eggs. He felt his excitement at surviving yet another Pact drain away, replaced by dread.

He knew most of the other drakes weren’t old enough to know what was coming and find shelter. A few might have been sleeping deep within their caves, but any that had been caught out in the open…

“You sure it’s over?” Seph demanded.

“Sure,” Dustin said, on a wave of defeat. If he hadn’t been the last fire drake before, he probably was now.

Still, it was several moments before Seph finally released himself. When he did, he still had a conspicuous hold on the rock. “What was that?” he demanded.

“Someone made it to Ariod,” Dustin gritted. “They just activated the Pillar. We need to warn someone.” Oh, what he would give for his wings!

But the boy—the stupid, ignorant, stubborn boy—just snorted. “That’s impossible. The Citadel guards it night and day.”

And then, as if Dustin flying through the air and almost tugging them both off the mountainside had just been a crazy prank to try and trick him, Seph just snorted and got back to his feet and hefted the wagon axle back over his shoulder. “You almost got me. Let’s go.” He jerked the chain and started back down the trail.

“Listen to me!” Dustin cried, getting to his feet and following. “Only Thibult’s got the kind of power to activate the—”

Seph jerked him again, cutting him off. “Stop lying or I gag you.”

“It’s not a lie!” Dustin cried.

“Thibult’s dead,” Seph said, with the total certainty of the truly ignorant.

“Oh?” Dustin demanded. “Then I suppose you were there, three hundred years ago, and you saw him die. Or, wait, you must’ve been alive to see him die a thousand years ago, in the war with Ariod, where he unleashed the Formless and the Tsoradin? He died then, too. I was there.”

“Thibult’s dead,” Seph said again. “I have bigger things to worry about.”

“Bigger than the man who slaughtered the Auldheist?” Dustin screamed.

“Gag is next,” Seph said casually.

“Goddamn it,” Dustin said as the Auldhund shifted under the weight of the axle, “Tyroan would have believed me.”

Seph snorted. “You escaped Tyroan.” Meaning the fool thought he was smarter than the old warrior that had been Dustin’s bane for the last hundred years.

“You obviously can’t take me back to the Spyre,” Dustin said, deciding to switch tactics. “And we’ve been treading these mountains for days. What’s your goal?”

“Get you back to the Spyre,” Seph said.

Dustin made a face. “So you mean to put me back in a stone tower and leave me there forever.”

Seph shrugged and kept walking.

Dustin stopped and yanked on his manacles. The wagon axle slid off of the Auldhund’s wide back and hit the ground hard.

“Dammit, drake!” Seph cried, spinning to face him. “What is the matter with you?”

“My name is Dustin,” Dustin said, “And you could at least let me burn that damn thing so if it tumbles down the mountain, I don’t go with it.”

Seph immediately gave him a suspicious look and bent to pick up the axle again. “I don’t mind carrying it.”

“You mean you don’t want me running off.” Dustin disgustedly yanked the axle off the youngling’s back again, this time making the Auldhund roar as he spun. “Listen to me,” Dustin said, unimpressed with the youngling’s show of tusk, “Something big is going down, whether you want to see it or not. You need to start treating me like a friend here, boy, or we’re both going to die in these mountains.”

“You are a prisoner of the Spyre,” Seph said flatly. He bent to retrieve the axle.

Dustin shoved him back, angry now. “I have never done anything to those damn Aulds in their towers. They imprison me because they read some words written on parchment four hundred years before I was born!” Seph moved to take the axle again, ignoring him, but Dustin shoved him again. “I am two and a half thousand years old! I am tired of your childish, thoughtless crap! Did you even feel the pull on Ariod just now? Someone got inside. That means they got past the Citadel. Obviously, this is a war. Free me and I can help you fight it, like I have every time in the past.”

At that, the Auldhund rammed a giant palm into Dustin’s throat and threw him against the ground, pinning him there as he glared down at him, piggish nostrils flaring. “Don’t do that again.”

Dustin glared up at his captor furiously. “Do you know what’s the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life?”

The Auldhund pulled away, unanswering.

To Seph’s back, Dustin said, “The worst thing I ever did was take that bastard Tyroan’s eye on my first escape. Besides that, I’ve never hurt a soul, aside from Thibault’s tszieni in the last war. I didn’t even eat Tyroan’s horse—I just scared it off and made out like I had.”

Seph looked at him for a long time before he turned away again, saying, “You’re lying. You said yourself if you had to choose between my life and your freedom, you’d choose your freedom.”

Dustin wrinkled his nose. “Fine. I didn’t want to do it this way, but—”

Dustin snatched the knife from the Auldhund’s belt, and held it between them, circling.

Seph stared at the knife with something akin to disbelief. “Just what do you think you can do to me with that toothpick, drake?”

Once he was in position, Dustin smiled. “Not you. Me.” At that, he stabbed himself in the chest.

The Auldhund’s eyes went wide and he stumbled, looking crestfallen. “Drake...”

Dustin threw the knife aside and leaned forward, dribbling the liquid fire from his wound on the wood around the metal eye keeping him chained to the axle. By the time Seph realized what he was doing and his dismay morphed into fury, the eye fell away, leaving a loose chain on the ground between them.

The Auldhund narrowed his eyes. “That’s your secret, isn’t it?”

“One of them,” Dustin said, picking up the chain. He started walking again, the hole in his chest already sealing as droplets of fire seared it shut.

“Give me that,” Seph snapped, trotting up and yanking the chain out of Dustin’s hands. “You’re still a prisoner of the Spyre.”

Dustin tried yanking it back, but the Auldhund’s grip might as well have been made of iron. In frustration, Dustin glared up into Seph’s piggish face and said, “Think about it, boy. Some moldy book somewhere says that my death is going to bring with it the downfall of the Spyre. Do you think the Aulds would want you to drag me all the way back to the Spyre through forested lands with a tszieni on our heels, or do you think it would want you to release me to go hide in the mountains, as far from the damn thing as I can get?”

“It would want me to protect you,” Seph said, frustration showing in his blue eyes. Dustin sensed indecision, and possibly a crack in the youngster’s armor.

“What better way to protect me than keep me chained to a post, eh?”

“You are an escape artist,” Seph snapped, snatching his dagger from the ground and brandishing the heat-warped blade at him. “I need to keep tabs on you.”

Dustin sighed. “What if I gave you my word, boy? Would that be enough for you? The word of a drake to an Auldhund. Surely there’s something there where we can find common ground.”

Seph twitched his long snout at him. “I suppose...”

“Good,” Dustin said. He held out his hand. “I swear I won’t desert you. Shake on it.”

Seph peered down at the hand, then held up the palm that had pinned Dustin to the ground moments before. It was scored red, with the beginnings of blisters. “I’ll pass.”

Dustin grunted and hefted the irons. “Sorry. The energy is building up with every day that passes. I need to get these off and make the transformation soon or I’m going to explode from my own heat.”

Seph raised his heavy boarish brow, looking a little pale. “You will?”

“Of course,” Dustin said. “Every day I don’t greet the sun with a transformation, it builds up. Eventually, pop.” He made a little bursting motion with his manacled hands and smiled. “No more drake.”

Seph considered that for a long time, then jerked on the manacles. “You’re lying. Let’s go. The Ganlins will be able to take care of the tszieni.”

Dustin froze. “You’re taking me to Ganlin Hall?”

“You have a better idea?”

Dustin’s face twisted, but he followed. “I hate Aulds. Especially those Aulds.”

“Why?”

Dustin laughed, holding up the shackles. “You don’t really think a Vethyle could make these, do you?”

The Auldhund glanced at them. “Never thought about it.”

“They can’t,” Dustin said. “To alter the degree of Function it takes to create this kind of a smart enchantment, one would have to be ranked in the eights, if not the nines.”

“Narrows it down a bit,” Seph said, though it was obvious he didn’t care.

“Besides,” Dustin sighed. “I already know which Auld did it. This has got the smell of Rees’s work all over it.”

Seph inhaled deeply as his hoofed feet picked their path through the peaks. “Really? I can’t smell it.” He kept walking, dragging Dustin with him.

“You wouldn’t know veoh if it smacked you on the ass,” Dustin said, feeling miserable. If the Auldhund was going to take the trouble to cart him all the way to Ganlin Hall and the word ‘tszieni’ ever popped into the conversation, there was a good chance he would never be allowed to escape again.

Before this, he’d been lucky. Even a fool could see that. An unlocked door here, an unattended sewing kit there... It was almost miraculous the way Dustin kept finding opportunities to free himself.

If Agathe and Rees had their way, however, Dustin would probably be locked in one of their treasure vaults for the next three thousand years. He had to escape this young pup before that happened. He refused to let himself be dragged back to the Spyre again, especially now, with a tszieni out there, hunting him. He had to get free. Now if only he could convince the bull-headed child to let him go before they both became a feast for the undead...