Chapter 2
1381 Words
2
“Not so fast!”
The screeching, terrified creature was me. Xander held me in his arms against his chest. My arms were wrapped tightly around his neck. There were a lot of reasons for this, about five hundred, to be exact. Those five hundred reasons were the five hundred feet between us and the ground that we flew over.
“If we go slower we will not reach the base of the Heavy Mountains before nightfall,” he told me.
What I hated more than seeing the ground so far down there was not seeing the ground because of night. Instead I looked behind us. We were flanked by Spiros on one side and Darda on the other. They carried the bags with our limited supplies on their backs. Beyond them stretched the vast lands that separated us from the distant, long-out-of-sight castle of Alexandria. There was only the four of us way up there.
“Tell me again why we couldn’t bring all the palace guards,” I pleaded.
“Herod requested I bring as few companions as possible,” he reminded me.
I raised an eyebrow. “How paranoid is this guy?”
Xander pursed his lips. “He is a very cautious lord. It would do well for you to speak as little as possible so as not to arouse his ire and suspicion.”
I leaned away from him and frowned. “What would he think I’m hiding? A plot to overthrow his realm?”
“Such a thought may enter his mind,” he warned me.
I looked down at myself and frowned. A thick cloak covered my body, and beneath that was one of the fancy dresses made by the castle seamstress. “And that’s why I’m having to wear these stupid dresses?”
“Unfortunately, yes. He is rather old-fashioned, having come from an older generation of dragons.”
I snuggled against his warm chest and sighed. “The things I do for adventure in this place. So what do these mountains of his look like, anyway?”
Xander’s head perked up and he nodded in the direction ahead of us. “Those are the Heavy Mountains.”
I followed his gaze and beheld a range of jagged, snow-capped mountains. They rose up from the forest floor like scabs and pierced the black-clouded sky with their gray, gnarly shapes. Sparse trees covered their steep hillsides, but the slopes were pocketed with boulders and scarred with black patches of roasted rocks.
Among the peaks were tiny valleys of short, stubby trees that crowded around cold creeks. Nestled in one of those valleys, one devoid of trees, was an imposing stone castle. The blackened stone reflected the darkening sky and left me with a chill.
I shivered at the sight and squirmed closer to Xander’s body heat. “Cozy looking place, isn’t it?”
“They are rather bleak,” he admitted.
“Is there a reason they’re called the Heavy Mountains? Do they make people feel heavy, or are they trying to tip over the continent?”
He shook his head. “Nothing like that. The name derives from the fact that no dragon may fly over the upper half of the elevation.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“It is rather a long story.”
I glanced at the many miles between us and the base of the mountains. “I think we’ve got time.”
He took a deep breath. “Four thousand years ago the forests were the realm of the dragons, but the peaks were ruled by humans. Herod’s ancestor gathered his forces and marched on the mountains to take the resources. At first they attacked the mountains in their dragon forms, but the humans possessed a great sorcerer. That sorcerer climbed the highest peak and cursed the entire range so that no dragon could fly over the upper half of the elevation.”
“What would happen to them?” I asked him.
“Their wings will cease to flap and they would plummet to the earth.”
I cringed. “Ouch.”
He nodded. “Yes. Herod’s ancestor and his army felt a great deal of pain that day. The sorcerer cast the spell at the point when many of the dragons in their full forms flew over the peaks. They fell to their deaths on the rocks below. At the end of the battle the day belonged to Herod’s ancestor, but with such loss of life the victory was a hollow one.”
“So that was one of the wars that killed off the dragons who could fly in the dragon form?” I guessed.
Xander pursed his lips as he looked out over the cold, gray mountains. “One of many. Far too many.”
I cleared my throat. “So where’s Herod’s place?”
He nodded at the tallest peak. A jagged bunch of smaller peaks made a mess of spiked rocks. “His castle is situated among the stones there.”
I furrowed my brow. “But isn’t that over halfway up the mountain?”
“Yes, but we will not be flying to the castle. There is a path at the base that grants entrance to those invited by the lord,” he told me.
“This guy really is paranoid, isn’t he?”
Xander shook his head. “He is merely cautious. The mountains were the last human stronghold to be taken by the dragon lords, and the conquest was not finished for another five hundred years after the castle was taken. During that time, the humans waged an unorthodox war against the dragons wherein they used surprise to attack and any counterattack was met with a retreat into the Coven Caves. A great many humans managed to secretly enter their former castle and murder several prominent dragon warriors, including the lord who had taken their land.”
My eyes widened. “Wow. And they kept that up for five hundred years?”
He nodded. “Yes, until the grandson of the murdered lord set fire to the caves and destroyed the remnants of the humans.”
I frowned and straightened. “They didn’t murder him. They were just trying to get back their castle from the dragon that stole it from them.”
Xander smiled. “I recall that my mother said much the same when she first heard the tale. My father and mother had quite an argument, and they did not speak to one another for quite some days.”
“So should we carry on tradition or are you going to agree with me?” I wondered.
He chuckled. “We will ignore tradition and end this discussion in an amicable draw.”
I grinned. “I accept your surrender.”
Xander closed his wings close to his body. We fell into a steep dive toward the forested ground. The wind pulled my hair behind me and whipped at my face with its cold, dry tongue.
I clung to my dragon lord and glared at him. “What the hell are you doing?”
He smiled at me as he opened his wings. The wind caught us and we glided over the tips of the trees. “A dragon lord without honor is nothing. Death would be a better fate.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, if you’re going to do that then let me down.” His wings tensed. I stuck my face in his and glared at him. “Not that way!”
Xander pecked a teasing kiss on my lips and stretched his wings. “I accept your surrender.”
I folded my arms over my chest and slouched in his arms. Spiros flew close to us. “Is all well, My Lord?”
“Merely a tradition,” Xander replied.
Spiros looked to me with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Methinks the lady dislikes this tradition.”
My narrowed eyes flickered to Xander. “Very much.” A sly smile slid onto my lips. “Maybe I should ride with Spiros for a while. You know, for the change of scenery.”
Xander’s eyebrows crashed down and he clutched me tighter to his chest. “Tradition demands you remain with me, and we are almost at our destination.”
We flew over the dark forests with our two companions at our rear. The trees eroded away before the rocky soil of the mountains and all but disappeared a hundred yards from the foot.
The black, rocky slope was scarred by a winding path that disappeared into a patchy fog. The white fog wafted over the large boulders like a snake. At the base of the path was a large archway hewn from a single stone. The arch stretched twenty feet over the mouth of the route. Its face was blackened by fire, but on the surface was carved straight lines and round circles with a few squiggly ones thrown into the mix. Their gray color stood out against the black, even in the dimming light of the day.
It was an entrance Dracula would have been proud to call his own.
- Writer
