M O O N L I T S C A L E S :
Chapter Ten
[]
THE FIRST THING to go were the feathers. It wasn't all of them, but I had lost quite a bit in the first three minutes. Granted, they'd all be replaced by tomorrow night, healthy and white like nothing had ever happened to them, but it was just sort of unnerving for me to see my own feathers stripped from my wings, torn off by the pointed teeth and claws and arrows that came too close.
The rough skin covering my left hip was shredded to the bone when a giant golden dragon, larger than I was, took a swipe at my eye, and I had ducked, too caught up in the moment's danger to realize only my neck was out of the way and I had left the other half of my body in range.
The wound stung as I shoved my attacker's back into the trunk of a somewhat sturdy tree and sank my teeth into its shoulder. We were a growling ball of opposing monsters, rolling back and forth like playful toddlers wrestling each other over a toy.
Its neck was thinner and longer than mine, which was, thankfully, easier to snap than mine. I didn't even get a chance to breathe before another dragon, black as the charred ground under my webbed feet, had me pinned down with its sharp talons digging into my ribcage. The only thing that kept me going was that I'd have to be in the forest, well hidden, when I changed back. I would never survive if I morphed in the middle of a scrimmage with a huge beast. I had a good forty minutes over my head, leaving me with less than a half hour to fight off what I could and escape into the cover of trees without any pursuers.
After I had taken care of the coal black dragon, I had a moment's respite. I had located neither Ambrose nor Phoenix after returning to the battlefield, which was overcome with flying arrows and columns of flame.
I regulated my breathing and examined my body, which had faded to an ugly, dim grey. I drew less attention this way, but I couldn't help but gag at the thought that I was covered in ashes that once made up a living thing, whether it was the green grass that Casim missed so much or another noble soldier who had lost his life against a monster. A monster just like I was.
I was faring well, I supposed, given what I'd been through and all of the other possible consequences. My leg was still bleeding pretty badly, and I had a nasty wound at my shoulder where a stray arrow had been embedded too far deep in my flesh to be taken out with care. Surprisingly enough, none of the men who had fought alongside me in training aimed for me now, and I only wondered if Luna had anything to do with that.
Glancing up at the moon, a full circle of light and the only source of hope in this wasteland, I decided I should slip away now, while no one paid me attention. I poised my neck over my shoulder, on the constant lookout while I crept to the boundary where the trees began. After I assured myself that I was not being followed, I leaped into the temporary safety of the forest.
I did not have to wait long for one o'clock to have its effect on me, and I was already bounding back towards the war before all of my scales had flaked off. I froze just before the tree line ended. My wounds had healed in the process, but I was in a loose dress and the nearest weapon in sight was slung over the fallen body of a man yards away from where I stood. I bit the inside of my cheek as I debated whether I should give up for the night.
It was then that the blow of relentless fighting hit my body, taking its toll on my weary limbs. If I believed I had been exhausted before the battle started, it was nothing compared to the fatigue that flooded throughout me now.
I stumbled to the tree that Ambrose and I had been using as our interim refuge from the impact of day-long training, the tree that I had dropped from when the Lutheran beasts embarked. Before slipping into the tired void that marked the edges of my vision black, I called for Phoenix. There was no response, and again there was nothing after I whistled a second time. My heart sank, devastated that something might have happened to my loyal pet. Hoping for the best, because really, all that was left now was hope, I curled up against the dry, chipping bark, and quietly hummed myself to sleep. I was out within seconds.
>>>>>--------------------------------------->
My eyes fluttered open, the midday sun too bright a contrast against the darkness of sleep. I swung my forearm over my eyes to protect them from the harsh rays, groaning weakly in complaint. Standing on aching, trembling legs, I slowly adjusted myself to the daylight, squinting. The events of last night came rushing down on me, and I jogged to the remains of our camp, praying that most of us had survived.
The dragons would be back tonight, fiercer and angrier than yesterday. If last night's debris was bad, then tonight's cost would be worse. I started running to the bivouac, ignoring the burning protest of my lungs and the sharp points of tree branches that grazed my skin as I sprinted past.
I approached the clearing and tentatively peeked through the rotting, crisp foliage of a singed bush. The air hissed at my abrupt intake of breath, and I unconsciously stepped out of the woods, my jaw hanging open like the trout I had stolen on the last day I saw my family. The ground was completely charred, not an inch of life left. There wasn't a big difference between what it looked like now and what it looked like when I arrived at Casim for the first time, but there was something now that made it seem more full of . . . emptiness.
Half of the tents were completely burned to ash, in piles of powdery, black dust. The majority of what was still standing was clouded with smoke, and inwardly collapsing like they carried the burden of the war. Not a survivor was in sight.
I knew this couldn't be it. I knew the remainder knights had to be scattered among the forest, like I was. If they were all gone—and I would not let myself believe that for a second—then the dragons would return tonight and feed off of Avalon's villagers, taking over the kingdom. Surely there had to be soldiers that made it through. There was no way the dragons had abolished us all in one sitting.
I wandered around the death-soaked battlefield, aware that war was an ugly thing, but never knowing just how scarred it could make a person. I crossed the entire span of Casim in under ten minutes, and not even the whisper of a breeze lightened the weight of grief that suffocated me.
It wasn't until I crossed over into the other end of the woods that a familiar sound made my heart soar. "Phoenix!" I shouted into the still air, my head swiveling every which way for a sign of my falcon.
"Skylar?"
My neck snapped to the left, and there stood Ambrose, with my bird propped up on his fingers. Phoenix obediently flew into my open arms, his sharp nails digging into my bare shoulder, but I was too relieved to know he was safe to care.
I stiffened. My bare shoulder. I was in my silver dress.
I peered around the body of my bird, narrowing my eyes at the prince, who just nodded. "I knew."
I frowned, anger bubbling in my chest. Before I could test his patience with any demanding questions about the matter, he clarified, "You are the only girl I have ever met with eyes like those."
Of course it was the eyes. Did I really believe him to be so dense as to not remember that I had reptilian slits? I sighed, my fury draining, quickly replaced by concern. "Are you alright? What of the others?"
Ambrose looked away with a solemn expression. "Many 'others,' as you put it, are dead."
I pressed my lips together. I wasn't shocked at this, and a part of me expected since signing up for the dreaded war that the outcome wouldn't stray far from the actual result. I just didn't want to believe it.
For a minute, I imagined myself in Ambrose's position. These were his people, his royal subjects. It was his duty to protect them, and I could see the guilt in his eyes as plainly as it washed over mine when I came home without food for my family. It was the guilt of knowing you failed in one of the only things you were meant to do, of knowing that while you were still alive, so many others were not as lucky, and you'd do anything to swap places, because that was what you grew up knowing was right.
I didn't know how to comfort him, if anything could, so I placed my hand on his shoulder in what I hoped indicated that he would always have my support. That was the moment that I had fully pledged my loyalty to the prince of Avalon.
We expended the next hours scrounging the grounds for uneaten food and usable supplies. When we stumbled upon a fallen knight we'd pause, pay our respects with a ritual that Ambrose was taught to do for every man who'd lost his life protecting his kingdom, and moved on. We collected few items, and even fewer men who were well and able. Only one soldier was strewn across the dead, barren grass of the forest, alive but fatally wounded. I rushed up to him and examined the gash that sliced open his chest, and I did not have to know my medicine to understand that he had no hope for survival. He must have known this, too, for he simply grasped my hand, offered me a weak smile, and nodded off into, hopefully, a better place.
If only the Battle of the Beasts was over, then maybe, just maybe, I could have dealt with the thick emotions that ran rampant in my mourning heart. But knowing that this was only the beginning of the end, that the damage of last night was nothing compared to the possibilities of what tonight's onslaught would bring, I was on the edge of fainting. I was empty—no hope, no light, no spark within that would compel me to fight strong.
After we had salvaged what we could and gathered all the men who still blazed with the will and power to fight, the sun had slowly settled to the horizon, like the yolk of an egg that had spilled over and leaked from the sky. Too soon, the sun disappeared entirely and the moon took its place as the anchor that held me to the earth. It was nearly eleven, and the dragons were supposed to resume their brutal attack in the hour.
For once in this lifetime I was not exhausted, I was not aching, I was not reluctant. I just was. Our meager group of survivors, not including Arkus and Rafe, stared out boldly at the ocean that lapped at the very edge of Casim's border. It hardly reflected anything tonight, and resembled a vast, empty hole of darkness that swallowed everything in its path.
We waited for the dragons. As our small, rather pathetic army joined together in the center of this wasteland, determination plastered on each and every one of our faces, save mine, I was shaken. I called to mind all those soldiers that had died. They had been murdered by these creatures, and if I didn't do anything about it, nobody would. They would go on unremembered by everyone but their families, just as the past had been going on without a second glance from me, before I knew what it was like to be a part of it.
A new motivation took over, and a fearless fierceness washed over me, awakening my dazed body. I can't describe it, only that I suddenly felt the urge to demolish every single dragon that dared to threaten my life and the lives of anyone in my kingdom. Nerves tingled their way up my spine, but I was nervous in a deranged, good way. Just like before, when I was excited about doing something I'd never imagined I was capable of, I was ready for these monsters.
I may have been a dragon, but I was nothing like the beasts that were not far from where I stood. If I was going to die certain of anything, it would be that.
When blinking specks of movement flickered into my vision, we turned to each other. There were seven of us, and as we formed a circle, tightly holding the next hand, we had a silent understanding. Tonight we would go down with every flaming wild spirit that was in us. We would be strong, and brave, and remembered.
As the rest of us unsheathed their weapons, Ambrose turned to me. "Thank you. For knowing me." Then he placed his hand on my cheek and he pressed his lips to mine. It was a brief kiss, not desperate, but as we separated to face our deaths, I also knew nothing had held more meaning.
This was it. This is what I'd trained for. As I raised my weapon, the sword that my hands were very comfortable with now, I set my jaw. Phoenix was lurking in the shadows, ready at an instant to shoot home like a speeding arrow when—if the dragons overpowered us. I closed my eyes and silently prayed that, whatever happened to me, my family would remain safe.
When I opened them, the seven of us clashed with the dozens of seething monsters. Little were they aware that we had a renewed strength, and were just as powerful as the handful of them. We kept up well, aiming for the smallest chink in their armor of scales or any sensitive spots like the eyes and nose. The only thing that set us off were the constant blows of rapid fire that would cook us in a second.
Ducking to avoid another column of flames that roared over my head, I speared a dragon through his nostrils. He recoiled and went flying in a spasmic manner, crashing into another dragon that was about to burn a nearby knight who was busy warding off two beasts at once.
As I blocked the swipe of a monster's claw with my broad blade, I caught a glimpse of the moon. Ambrose must have seen it too, because in pursuit of a weakness of his rivaling dragon, he warned, "Go! Leave, Skylar!"
We both knew that one less fighter, even if it was for a short amount of time, would be a great risk. But my transformation in the middle of the battlefield would only attract the dragons to my vulnerability, with a guaranteed death.
So, after plunging my sword into the heart of a dragon, I bolted for the trees. If one of them was following me, I didn't notice. I threw myself into the cover of the deadly branches, and urged the change to have its effects already.
I had never tried to speed up the shifting process. It had always just happened, taking its time to adjust to my human body. I didn't think it would work, and I was still in the woods a moment later, stomping my foot like a child with my impatience.
Then came the scream.
It was one of those loud, painful ones that snap you to life and alight all of your senses, heightening your awareness to a perceptibility that amazes you. You pick up on the slightest things, like an insect crawling towards you on the soft dirt, or a feather floating to the surface of a lake. They send a chill up your spine and your heart plummets, because it knows what you don't want to believe. I don't know how, but with distinct certainty I knew exactly whom this scream belonged to.
I was darting out of the trees so fast that Papa's clothes were being torn to shreds from the branches that threatened to snatch me like the hands of the dead and hold me in their lifeless clutches for eternity. I leaped out of the forest with my blood boiling, and my feet pounded across the ashes of Casim, sending me sliding a few times on its slippery, dust-covered coating, but never fully losing my balance. My eyes scanned the battlegrounds until they settled on the bloodied form writhing in agony under the weight of a monstrous creature, the largest dragon I had ever seen.
It was a scarlet red, the exact shade of blood, which sickened me to the core. Its wings were webbed and tipped with thorns, and horns the length of my legs protruded from its crest. The devil's spawn's fangs were dripping with blood, and its hideous, leafy tongue flicked in and out of its gaping mouth as it dove in on its prey.
Three things happened at once then: Ambrose, on the brink of death, still found it in him to yell out a weak, "Skylar! What are you doing? The moon—" before being cut off by the dragon, who pressed its heavy palm into Ambrose's chest as its neck whipped around to face me. I was already launching myself at its stomach, which was half raised above the ground.
What I wished for a minute ago, about shifting in record time, backfired. I had transformed into a dragon in midair, and what came with it was this searing pain that sliced down my bones and tore through my rippling muscles. Maybe my muscles were trembling with fear, but I was too stubborn to recognize it as so. Or perhaps I had been blind with rage and didn't notice that I had, in fact, changed before charging the dragon that was crushing Ambrose. Maybe that pain came, not from the rapid transition from girl to dragon, but from something else.
Because the final thing that happened, so fast that I didn't even realize it until it was too late, was the moonlight. It glinted off my scales with a light that traumatized my fears. I had changed in the moonlight.
Everything went black.