Igor Ironbeast's Arc

Chapter 9 of 9

Emberling died before dawn. Igor sat with his hand on the dragon's neck until the scales cooled and the ember-cracks along its ribs went dark. He stood up when the last heat left the body. The keep sat behind him, walls lit, gates shut. Inside was the throne. Between him and it stood Mara Voidweaver, and he had nothing that could touch her. He walked. He did not know where. He walked away from the keep because he could not walk toward it. The land past the wall turned bad within a mile. Grass gave out. The ground split into black seams that glowed red at the bottom. Burned trees stood in rows like broken teeth. Bones lay in the ash. This was old killing ground. He had heard the guards call it the Field of Ruin. He had not known it started so close. He crossed a cracked stone bridge and stopped. Something small stood on the far side, waiting for him. It came up to his hip. Antlers grew from its skull. Its eyes were two green lamps. A cloak of leaves hung on its shoulders. It watched him with no fear. "You are the one who killed the pit fighter," it said. Its voice was dry, like wind in dead branches. "And rode the black dragon out." Igor set the hammer down. He had no strength left for a stranger. "Move." "I am Kuros Thornheart. I felt your dragon die. The forest felt it." The spirit tilted its antlered head. "You go back to that keep with iron in your hand and the blue woman will unmake you. Iron does not bite her." Igor said nothing. The truth of it sat in his chest like a stone. Kuros stepped aside. Behind it, driven into the black earth, stood an axe. The haft was wound with living vine. The twin blades were black stone veined with green fire. The metal pulsed slow, like something breathing. "A dragon died here once," Kuros said. "The forest took its last breath and shaped this. It cuts what iron cannot. Spirit. Light. The blue kind." Igor stared at it. "Price." "When you sit the throne, the burning stops at our border. No more fires sent out from that keep. No more hunts through our trees." "Done." He walked to the axe and set his hand on the haft. The vine warmed under his palm. He pulled. The weapon came free of the ground with a sound like a held breath let go. It was heavier than his old axe. It felt right. He turned back toward the keep. The walls were far off across the black field, small in the first grey light. He started walking. Behind him the dragon's body lay cooling. Ahead, Mara stood somewhere in that courtyard, and now he had the thing that could cut her.