Sorren Draegos's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Sorren Draegos crouched in the wet ferns and counted the hoofbeats behind him. Six riders, maybe seven, closing from the ridge. He was seven feet of fae warrior with a sword that was not yet ready to do what he needed it to do, and that was the whole problem. The blade at his hip glowed a faint blue through its wrappings. It could summon lightning. He could not yet summon it on command. Until he mastered the strike, he could not kill the tyrant who had carved every black tattoo into his skin. Until then, he had to stay alive. The hunter had found his trail two nights ago. Sorren had run north through pine country, slept in short bursts, eaten cold. The rain helped hide his tracks but not enough. Whoever the tyrant had sent was good. The horses did not stop when he stopped. They only got closer. He pulled the heavy fur cape tighter and looked at the sky. Low cloud. Good cover. He whistled once, sharp, through his teeth. The drake came down through the mist like a dropped stone. Grey and black, wings wide enough to shadow the clearing, red eyes fixed on him. The silver band on its front leg caught what little light there was. It landed hard and folded its wings. Green fire steamed at the corners of its mouth. Sorren put a hand on its snout. The drake pushed back into his palm. "They're close," he said. "We go up." He swung onto its back. The first rider broke through the treeline below, black armor, crossbow raised. A bolt hissed past Sorren's ear and split a branch. He felt the second bolt hit the drake's shoulder scale and skip off. "Now," he said. The drake shoved off the ground. Ferns flattened. Two more bolts went wide. Sorren locked his knees against the ridged spine and held the fur cape down against the wind. The clearing dropped away. He heard the hunter shout an order below, thin and useless, and then the cloud closed over them and the shouting was gone. They climbed until the air burned cold in his lungs. Sorren looked down through a gap in the cloud. The riders were already turning back toward the ridge road. They would report. The tyrant would send more, and next time they would watch the sky. He had bought himself days, not weeks. He drew the wrapped sword across his knees and unwound the cloth. The blade lit his hands blue. It hummed under his fingers but would not spark. "We need somewhere quiet," he told the drake. "Somewhere high. I have to learn you," he said to the sword, "before they learn the sky." The drake banked north, into the mountains, and Sorren let it carry him away from the hunt he had just escaped and toward the one he still had to win.