Chapter 126: Take It
Neville and his tree joined the Deranian army, which split in two: half under Adelaide’s command, half under Lune’s command. Marcus was the first to recover from his dragon injuries, and he wouldn’t rest until this was all over. He led the army himself.
‘I am fine and whole. There is no reason to stay in bed.’
After the soldiers were divided, a man detatched from Lune’ troops and went to join Adelaide’s soldiers.
‘Hey,’ cried another soldier. ‘Aren’t you coming with us?’
‘No.’ The man was haggard, so thin that he looked like a skelleton wearing human skin.
The undergrowth ended abruptly in black. There was no nuance, no grey in between, one step was green, the next was black. Pierre didn’t force his horse to leave the green. He crossed alone the blackness that once was Fabec.
The black ended as abruptly as it had started, but inside the Mouth there was no green, there was death. Pierre walked over dunes of ash, dust of corpses, metal shells. It was strange that so much death didn’t smell. On the contrary, there was a scent of sweet herb and honey in the valley.
Ashes floated in the air, small flakes that vanished when they touched Pierre’s skin. Lives. All that ash had once been Franish lives, taken by darkness, digested by the War. The ground rumbled and Pierre’s blood almost ran in the wrong direction.
In the Mouth of War the battle went on.
What a terrible fo e was a true dragon. Relentless, endless. He couldn’t attack War directly; it was untouchable for him, but Chelag’Ren used the tear caused by Sáeril with Nuille’s power to grow larger. The War would never be able to treat its wound with that dragon making sure she bled on forever. It had to kill him, but how? As he was, inside the wound, enveloped in that poisonous power, Chelag’Ren was as untouchable to War as it was to him. So they fought a battle that was impossible for both, but which neither could abandon.
The valley stirred around Pierre, and he thought he was now close enough to do what he had in mind. Or rather, he was far enough from the others. He didn’t think he needed to be close to the dragon or to War, but he wanted to make sure his people were safe. He didn’t know how his own power, that undefinable story, would work, but he was sure that there would be retaliation from darkness. He didn’t exactly have a plan, but he had na idea. That idea was born when he took the ink bottle with Nuille’s power inside.
Pierre oppened the little ink bottle.
War felt what could only be described as a shiver. No! That power was death and War had barely just begun to live.
Pierre dipped his little finger in the ink; he dipped the story in the ink.
Despair gave War more strength. It launched darkness, wind and death against Chelag’Ren, pushing him away, than it threw itself, all of itself, against Pierre, who had fished Chelag’Ren’s scale from his pocket and was writing on it with his finger.
War grabbed Pierre, threw him against the ashes, covered him in darkness, smothering him. His body stopped obeying him as soon as the War touched him. He closed his eyes, not wanting to die. Wanting to — funny to think of her now — he wanted to see Vivianne. How unfair to not think of Gregoire or Chelag’Ren. Pierre forced himself to put them both together with Vivianne.
He realized he was thinking too much.
He realized that he was alive.
He opened his eyes. Chelag’Ren, terribly red and white in the valley of grey, held the War, no longer untouchable, in his claws. He pulled it like a blanket away from Pierre. The gigantic white wings unfolded and for a moment Pierre thought the sky had become white. Chelag’Ren took off, taking the War with him.
Pierre was lying on his side. He tried to change position, but he was a pile of broken bones and pain. From his unmoving hand, a red scale fell. On it, with Nuille’s power, it was written Chelag’Ren.
Pierre was fading away. His right hand barely obeyed him, but he managed to take the acorn Sáeril had given him, and plant it there, in the Mouth of War. Darkness hugged his head from his nape to his eyes. His right hand fell limp on the spot he had planted the acorn. The last thing he heard was the scream of an eagle.
Chelag’Ren pierced the sky; a commet with War for a tail. It clung to Franária, but Chelag’Ren was too powergul. Higher and higher, red and black tearing the blue, until the sky was left behind and there was only silence, War and the red dragon with the sun on his scales. Chelag’Ren rolled the War like clay in his claws.
The War had no eyes. It felt without seeing the extent of the world they were orbiting. So big and juicy. All it wanted was a little piece for itself. Franária, nothing else. If it knew — if it only knew — that dragons were so powerful, that even a tiny human could lend them the power to. It had seemed to simple, to take a dragon for itself, manipulate his magic, manipulate its own future. It had been a mistake.
‘So you wanted my power,’ said the dragon.
I only wanted to live.
Chelag’Ren opened his mouth. ‘Take it.’