[Beastborne: Voracious] (Book 5) Chapter 20

Hal stood in front of the two dragons, hands clasped behind his back in a stance that was becoming exceedingly familiar and comfortable to him.

Mira lounged at his side. Somehow, the elf was able to do so while standing upright. Hal could never quite get that level of ease and calm.

In truth, he would have preferred it to his current stance, but he’d tried it in secret a few times and it always looked odd. He would have preferred to be aloof, but that wasn’t in the cards.

Orrittam rumbled to himself, deep in thought. On one side, Mira yawned, and on the other, Noth looked concerned.

“This is a risky plan,” Naitese told him, arms folded beneath her chest. “Even for you, Hal. You are just getting to grips with the foundations of your dragonfire and you want to press even further?”

“He does not like to walk if he can run,” Orrittam said with a kindly wink at Hal. “However, he is not attempting to use dragonfire to undo this… [Kol’thil Bleed] as he calls it. He is asking us to help him. A rare thing, even rarer from one such as Hal.” Orrittam and Naitese, both in their human forms, shared a look, then turned to Hal. “I will leave this up to my daughter.”

That was a surprise and a half.

And clearly not just for Hal. Naitese looked taken aback by the odd decision as well. Orrittam, as her senior, generally should have dictated how Naitese acted until she was strong enough to challenge him and win.

That was the way of the dragon.

Hal struggled to keep his face carefully blank. If Naitese thought he wanted it badly enough, she might say no just to spite him.

Though their relationship had improved in recent days, it was still rocky. Hal wouldn’t have feared her attacking him if they were in a fight together, but he also wasn’t sure that she’d help him if he needed it. Maybe she’d just let fate play out.

Naitese tilted her head. Ribbons of silvery white hair floated down from where they escaped her pinned-up bun. “He is quite stoic, wouldn’t you say, Father? I think that means he must want this very badly.” She strutted back and forth between them. “And he has brought his females.”

“Friends,” Hal corrected.

Naitese made a dismissive gesture. “What would you give me if I agreed to help with this little endeavor of yours, son of man?”

Hal shrugged. “Nothing.”

“You ask for aid and offer nothing in recompense? Bold.”

“I ask for help because that is what a friend does, knowing that when they are asked for help, they will do all that is within their power to return the favor.”

Naitese stopped and looked over her shoulder at him. “So you would trade favors then. If I do this, I will be owed, yes?”

Hal shook his head, but it was Mira who spoke up.

“That’s not how this works,” she said. “Friends don’t keep a tally. You don’t help a friend out expecting to be helped back the same number of times. You do it because you care about them and want them to succeed. We all do better if we support each other. Even dragons.”

Naitese’s look should have frozen Mira where she stood, but the elf merely flipped her hair over one shoulder and remained lounging while standing as if she couldn’t care any less.

“Mira speaks true,” Orrittam said softly, though his voice had a way of carrying that was truly impressive. “Dragons are not unsociable creatures. Without the aid of our nestmates and parents, many of our kind die. There is a reason dragons battle to be given complete freedom. It shows that they are ready for the horrors and cruelty of the world beyond. It sets a parent’s mind at ease.”

Pursing her lips thoughtfully, Naitese glanced back at Hal. “You are sick?”

“In a way,” he answered. It was true. He couldn’t use his Kol’thil Sigils without extreme pain and, if pressed too far, death. That limited what he could do in a fight.

“And you will become stronger if we do this?” she asked.

“I should, but I cannot say for certain. Perhaps this’ll work, perhaps it won’t, but I believe it’s worth trying.”

Hal watched Naitese turning the idea over in her head. Helping him without any guarantee of return was something of an odd concept to her. That much was clear.

He wouldn’t beg though. Hal had a backup plan, one he didn’t like, but he would use it if he had to.

Breaking his [Kol’thil Bleed] was his top priority right now. His dragonfire was, for the time being, taken care of. He still needed to train it and get to use it better, but the truth of the matter was that it no longer posed a threat to his safety.

And that meant he had to turn his attention to his Golden Kol’thil and the threat that caused.

Not to mention, if he finally reached a high enough rank, he could absorb the Sigils that the Copper Kol’thil mage possessed. It would be a massive boon, and now that he no longer had Besal to back him up or to use as a massive MP battery, Hal needed every tool at his disposal, primed and ready.

“I mislike this,” Naitese announced.

“Duly noted,” Hal told her.

She glared at him, trying to see if he was smiling or laughing at her. That would have been an easy way to get her to say no. Instead, Hal simply watched and waited. She would answer when she was ready and not a moment before.

“I will do it,” Naitese finally told him. “Your weakness reflects poorly upon me, and without it, you will have no excuse if you suffer during your training.”

Hal was startled by that. He had fully expected to fight and argue for her help. And so that was probably why he let the following slip, “I would not use the Sigils on you during our training, perhaps to defend, but never against either of you. They can be an unfair advantage, not to mention they literally cost Experience to use.”

Naitese and Orrittam both were taken by surprise by his outburst. Even Hal seemed shocked he’d said so much.

Not that he didn’t trust them, but because he preferred to keep things as close to the vest as possible. What with spies and Kinslayers out there hunting for him, and that was only the threats he knew of.

While he trusted Leis as much as he could, he didn’t know this Hamrin person, despite the mage’s potential to revolutionize Brightsong. And therefore, he couldn’t trust him not to leak a weakness that he happened to stumble upon.

“As you wish,” Naitese said with an unusual dip of the head in his direction. “You will be able to rely upon my flames to see you through this trial. Let it never be said that I wished to stunt your growth for my own personal vendetta. When we face off against one another again, Hal, you will be as strong as you can possibly be so that the true victor may be revealed.”

Hal bowed at the waist to the both of them, hand over his heart. One dragon to another. “Thank you.”

***

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Noth asked once the plan was explained and underway.

“No,” Hal confided in her, stripping off everything but the training garments that he used with the dragons. He needed something that would stand up to dragonfire without melting or being destroyed. “But the only other way to do this would be extremely painful and protracted. “I’m something ridiculous, like 30 ranks away from where I need to be. In all this time, I’ve gotten a little over a dozen ranks from using my Kol’thil. How long do you think it will take to nearly triple my current rank?

“My Beastborne Class is lower Level than what my Kol’thil needs to be at, and you know how much I dump EXP into that. This is the only way, Noth. The only way that I could see this working out without killing me, that is.”

“This could still kill you,” Mira put in. She looked at their faces. “What? It could. It’s risky even by your standards, but I agree it’s less risky than your current problem. I was the one who held your hand and tried to keep you tethered to this reality when you nearly died during the Battle of Brightsong. I bore witness to that power firsthand, Hal. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have that power at your fingertips and be unable to use it. I’m with you on this.”

“But he could do it slower,” Noth tried to argue, but she knew she had already lost. “Oh fine,” she said snappishly. “It’s not as if I could have ever stopped you from doing something you really wanted to do.”

Noth threw her arms around Hal, squeezed, then let him go. Mira gave him a much more chaste hug, but no less loving.

The dragon forms of Naitese the Tyrant White and Orrittam the Noble Gold towered before Hal. The enormity of what Hal was about to do finally reared up like a looming tidal wave. What have I gotten myself into?

But he stayed firm and took his appointed position. He had explained everything to the dragons about what they were to do. The plan had a great many holes in it. Hal knew that. And yet it was still agreed upon to be the best option available.

There was no turning back. With a grin over his shoulder at the distant forms of Noth and Mira, Hal looked at the dragons.

“You are sure about this?” Naitese’s voice boomed. “I will not be able to stop once I start.”

“I am resolute,” Hal told her. If Besal could sever himself for the good of both of them, then Hal could do this. He learned that much from his friend.

It was like ripping out an infected tooth. You didn’t want to touch anything for fear of the pain that you knew would come, and yet you feared the pain of getting it pulled just as much, if not more, so you waited and delayed and suffered because you were used to it.

Hal had lived much of his life on Earth in that rut of familiar pain and unhappiness because change was hard, and he never felt like he had control of his life. It was different here.

“I am ready,” Orrittam told him.

For some reason, even though Orrittam was the one that would be at risk if something went wrong, Hal had never once entertained the idea that he would say no. The Noble Gold was true to his namesake and was truly eager to help Hal, though Hal could not fathom why he valued their friendship so highly.

It was a grand friendship at that, Hal had to agree. You couldn’t ask for a better friend than Orrittam. He was strong, wise, and, above all, kind.

Orrittam raised up to all four massive golden paws, the shovel-like claws digging into the soft earth. He let out a challenging roar that split the heavens and rolled through the forest clearing. Clouds of birds took to the sky.

It must have been heard for miles around.

Hal didn’t need to tap his dragon essence to respond in kind. He filled his lungs, used a touch of Spirit drawn out from his core, and roared in kind.

A third roar, no less loud or terrifying, joined the chorus as all three voices spoke in High Draconic. What they said was for their hearts alone. But any wandering dragons would have marked the day as one to remember for generations to come, because such a chorus had never been heard since.

Hand raised toward the colossal golden head of Orrittam, Hal made the hooking motion to cast [Gold Kol’thil: Dominate].

His Gold Kol’thil slipped free from the new mark on his arm, rising out of the dragon’s mouth like it was spitting out a d20. Gold lightning arced from the back of Hal’s fist and pain flooded his world so completely that he didn’t even feel the silvery breath of Naitese’s dragonfire on him.

His scream of agony and frustration shifted across the spectrum until it came out as a proper dragon’s roar that shook the heavens.