Bonded Promise

Thunder crackled in the twilight gloom and a torrent of rain fell from an ominous sky. It tempered the fires below, relegating them to dozens of small blazes instead of a sea of flame that would have engulfed the countryside. Ash, soot, and smoke climbed up in the sky, mingling with the already darkened sky with a blackish-gray plume. Men and animal screamed as their flesh bubbled and cooked from the curtain of heat that stalked across the landscape.

Heat that was born of a furious and unquenchable rage.

The dragon soared above the chaos, its glowing green eyes capturing every detail. Its maw hung open in an animalistic grimace as wisps of smoke slithered from between its teeth and throbbing nostrils, a by-product of the fiery fury it had unleashed upon the land. The destruction should have diminished its unnatural aggressiveness, and yet, the rage persisted.

The sensation overshadowed every instinct. Survival was no longer the overriding impulse. It had been tainted by the nearly blinding need to lay waste to everything in its path. Instead, as it watched the fruit of its deeds, the dragon’s rage grew with the insatiable lust to unleash more destruction.

Its thoughts were forgotten when the faint yet musky scent of another dragon was carried along the winds. Not just one dragon though, but two. A mated pair.

Veering north, the dragon followed the trail, its mind fixated on its newly-established prey.

The dragon’s maw curved upwards, showing teeth half as long as a man’s leg, in a grotesque approximation of a smile. A thunderous rumble came from with it, the anticipatory sensation of flesh ripped and torn between those teeth a salivating prospect. The rumble gave way to an ear-splitting bellow that was buoyed along the winds. Those that survived the fires shriveled in terror.

As for the dragon pair, they shuddered with a different kind of fear and instinctively fly that much faster.

**

Screams rend the air. Intermingled with the terror of death and defeat, is the triumphant shout of victory. Z’zyr roars, flame sprays from his massive mouth, incinerating the men who dare march against him. Perched on his back is a man of legend, the only man deserving of being Bonded to such a beast.

Halmyr.

The warrior directs Z’zyr’s fury and the two feed upon the bloodthirsty spirit and violence of conquest thrumming within the other’s veins. Arrows and spears bounced against the dragon’s scale, pebbles against a castle wall. Men wail as the dragon sweeps its fury from side to side, felled by flame, tail and claw. Bodies are burned in their metal shells, crushed under the dragon’s massive foot or shattered like kindling from the furious whip of his tail. They are helpless to shield themselves from the assault and though it offers no challenge, both dragon and rider still revel in the destruction.

From above several roars of challenge sound and the pair glance up to see a Fury—four dragons and their riders—streaking towards Z’zyr and Halmyr.

“They come, my friend,” Halmyr whispers through the smile underneath his helm. “As we predicted.”

They come to their deaths…Z’zyr’s voice echoes within Halmyr’s mind.

“That they do.” Halmyr’s pats the dragon’s neck with an armored hand. “Let us remind them we are. Let us show them our rage.”

Z’zyr maw contorts and answers the challenge with a massive roar of his own before opening his wing and taking flight.

Rage, the dragon agrees. They shall know ours before they die.

And know it they do…

**

Bone crunched as the dragon bit into the neck of the she-dragon. Her howls and thrashing had ceased and the predator took little satisfaction in the death of its prey.

The bigger of the two beasts—the male—lay dying nearby, limbs lifeless after his spine was severed by a single powerful bite. Its wails of pain and frustration are a harmony to the predator. Taking one last bite, it severed the she-dragon’s neck from her body.

The helpless cries from the male draw forth the dragon’s ire and it turned its attention towards him. It crept towards its prey, making little sound as it moved with an unnatural grace for a creature that dwarfed even the ocean’s largest krakens. The closer it got, the more high-pitched the whine from the broken creature. It was pathetic, how the other dragon clung to life, afraid to embrace its fate. The cowardice angered the dragon and the rage that was on the verge of subsiding was renewed with a feral intensity.

With terrifying speed, the dragon charged the body and with one vicious swipe of its claws, tore into the dragon’s exposed belly. Blood, meat and viscera burst forth and the dragon shrieked. The predator reared back, breathed deeply and then fired a gout of living flame into the exposed innards. The fury of it was so sudden, the fire so complete, that the dragon could only release the briefest gasp…

And then it was over.

**

Twilight had faded tonight and, having left the remains of its prey, the dragon again took to the sky, scouring the countryside for a makeshift den to spend the next few days in slumber. The final kill had finally suppressed its rage. It was still there, a slight buzzing at the back of its consciousness but a full belly quelled the worst of it and now the dragon could sleep, something it had not done in many moons.

Movement below caught its attention before a desperate cry reached its ears. It skirted above an immense forest where giant trees stood arm-in-arm for miles in every direction. Snaking between the trees were a dozen humanoids—kobolds by the stink of them—and two humans. The kobolds were arranged in a lot—three single file lines three span apart as they were wont to do—their small, gluttonous hands holding one of a myriad of tools made for cutting.

An angry growl quaked through the dragon’s gullet. Humans were a bane, an anathema, lower than even insignificant specks like kobolds, gnomes, and the avaricious dwarves. Humans had taken from it, stolen its identity. All of them were deserving of the flame, to be burned alive until nothing was left of them but dust.

The dragon dove towards the humanoids, a living meteor of muscle and bone, fortified by a nigh impenetrable shell. The humans had stopped as the bigger of the two collapsed. Unintelligible cries, high-pitched and frantic, came from the smaller human, likely a child. It would return to them later, but first, it would deal with kobolds. They had fanned out from their single file lines, ready to surround and fall upon their prey.

They never saw death that screamed from above.

The dragon breathed in the life-giving air and birthed a torrent of flame. It was an inescapable wave, blowing apart trees like kindling. The kobolds felt nothing as their grotesque and stunted bodies were blasted to ash. The first seconds of the dragon’s fire had incinerated the entire lot but then it banked left, reigning destruction to the small patch of forest in a circular pattern. The humans would be trapped by the wall of flame. Helpless to hide. Helpless to flee.

The ground shook as it landed just beyond the wash of trees. It stomped through its flames, impervious to heat of its own fire. The dragon grinned, if it could be called that, at the violence and screams that would help satiate the last bits of rage before it could slumber.

The crackle of splintering wood and the snarl of the fire were the loudest sounds in the forest. Still, the dragon heard the mumbled words from the small human, who pushed at the unmoving heap of the larger one. Based on the size, the former was a child with the latter no doubt its parent. The dragon could not understand the child’s words…its mind had lost the ability to discern the language of men long ago. The smaller human was perhaps two seasons though it moved with the dexterity of a child twice its age. Its back was to the dragon though the tension that reverberated through it said that the child knew death was close at hand. But it wasn’t until the dragon was half a head away that the child turned and faced it.

It was difficult to pick out any features from the boy—the child was most certainly male—as its honey brown skin was caked with dirt and blood, the latter of which was too much to be his own. But when the dragon’s gaze fell upon the boy’s eyes, everything was forgotten. Tears leaked from black pools that seemed to fall into eternity, glistening with swirls of silver and white. Though the dragon caught the briefest flash of fear in those eyes, it was muted by an incomprehensible curiosity and something else. The incongruous nature of the gaze excited the briefest flash of memory, and it bloomed behind a curtain of opacity in the dragon’s mind.

The dragon crept still, close enough that a flick of its tongue would tag the child. It still expected him to recoil in terror. Instead, he reached out with a small, chubby hand (the other held the still hand of the adult companion) and pawed at the dragon’s snout. His lips moved slowly, like someone tasting a new dish and uncertain whether or not it made sense.

As if it were in a trance, the dragon moved forward and the moment the child’s dirty fingers touched the heated scales of its snout, the creature understood that indefinable emotion that stared back at him...

Recognition.

Unbidden, the dragon pulled away and regarded the child anew. The unlikely pair stared at one another, oblivious to the fire still burning around them. After several long minutes, the child blinked sleepily. His attention returned to the unmoving husk of the adult and an exhausted cry escaped his lips. The dragon chuffed, startling the boy and he wiped a sleeve across his dirty face.

Sleep, child.

The words came from the shadows in the dragon’s mind. The child reacted to the disembodied voice. He offered a longing final glance at the dead body then curled into a ball, shivering in pain and exhaustion. On instinct, the dragon paced around the child several times before settling around the two human bodies with leathery wings forming a canopy over them.

As if in omen, the rain intensified, pelting against the dragon’s skin, a melodious rhythm that relaxed the its heightened state. Its eyes scanned the forest for movement, though the fires continued to burn, a wall of flame against the world.

Eventually, to a background of rain, fire, and smoke, they both slept.

**

Lightning slashes through the wind and rain. Thunder booms, shaking the castle to its foundations. Four knights adorned in gleaming silver with golden piping and resplendent golden capes stand silently as the rain pelts their splendid armor. Their eyes are hidden behind their helms. The King’s guard.

Their king stands, frail and shivering underneath an extravagant robe. He leans against the hilt of the sword, the tip of its obsidian blade speared into the ground. He awaits a friend he has not seen in months. Or has it been years?

He stares up at the weeping sky until a massive winged shape breaks through the storm, streaking down towards the outcropping. The king’s guard do not move, though each cannot help the quickening of their hearts, the tightening of their throats and the knives dancing in their bellies. The king looks up at the falling form and smiles fondly. The dragon spreads his wings, arresting his fall. Still, when he lands, the ground shakes, nearly causing the king to stumble.

“Still love to make an entrance, my old friend.”

Aye, my King. The dragon’s voice reverberates in the king’s mind and he holds a single wing over the king, sheltering him from the storm.

“’My king’. Come now, Z’zyr, we have suffered through far too much for you to address me as such.”

Z’zyr offers his former rider a very human-like shrug. Your kind are such for ceremony.

“That is not fair, Z’zyr…” the king trails off and narrows his eyes. “Are you japing, old friend?”

The dragon snorts and claws at the ground with a giant dewclaw.

A spasm of coughs burst from the king’s chest and only the sword prevents him from falling to one knee.

“Gods be damned,” the king curses, wiping the spittle of blood from his lips with the back of a hand. “They conspire to rob me of my dignity. Death should have embraced me during the Battle of Elmir.”

And then you would not be king and this land would be ash.

“Bah,” the king says and spits. The thunder rolls overhead but the rain slackens. No words are exchanged until the king whispers. “I do not wish to die with blood spilling from my lips or soiling myself.”

That is the way of things, My King.

“Call me by my name, you stubborn beast.”

That is the way of things, Halmyr. The use of his name calms the agitated king and he deflates just a little more.

“I am tired, Z’zyr. Tired of this mundane life, of political machinations. Tired of this—” he shakes the handle of his sword, Blackshear “being nothing more than a ceremonial object. I’m tired of having no other counsel than those who see me not as Halmyr, but only ‘My King’.

“I miss it, Z’zyr. The blood, the battles, the conquest.” He looks up at the dragon’s brilliant emerald eyes. “I miss flying into battle on your back, laying waste to our enemies. The simplicity and freedom of it all.”

Heavy is the head…

Halmyr waves away the proverb as it sounds in his head. “Do not recite Hecatar’s drivel. You sound like Valish’h.” A cloud of sadness envelopes the king and Z’zyr turns his head in sympathy.

A powerful woman, your queen was. I miss her.

Halmyr nods. “Aye. My first queen.” He smiles fondly.

I miss her most.

“So do I, old friend. So do I.”

The pair are silent for several minutes, content with one another’s company. As if reminded of something, Halmyr speaks.

“I have a great-great-great grandchild now. Or ‘children’, to be precise.”

Congratulations, Halmyr. And they are healthy? Over his more than half century as king, Halmyr’s kin had seen many a hardship during births. Three of his seven daughters had died and nearly a dozen children had been lost within their first year. Most who had survived were hearty souls who took after their progenitor, though none had carried the bloodlust that nearly consumed Halmyr in his youth. Almost none.

“That they are. Amarish’h—my great-great granddaughter—had twins last winter. My great-great grandsons produced six children between them these last few years. All healthy and strong.”

Do any possess your traits?

The king tapped the side of his face, pointing to eyes that, even after a century, still pulsed with the inexplicable blackness and those mesmerizing swirls of purple, silver and white. “They do not. The last was…Moad.”

An uncomfortable silence befalls the pair at the mention of the king’s firstborn.

“Sixty years it has been, a literal lifetime for most men. And the pain refuses to abate.” The last words are spoken in a hoarse whisper. Z’zyr does not speak, yet remains stalwart for his Bonded. He knows—senses—that there is more to Halmyr’s mood and after another span of quiet, he is proven correct.

“I still remember it, Z’zyr,” the king speaks with a fondness that belies his melancholy only moments ago. “Seeing this incredible beast, no bigger than a wolf pup, surrounded by a pack of dire wolves. Was but a pup myself. Had yet to get through my tenth summer.”

A less than banner moment in my existence.

“You were less than a year at that time…”

And could not produce even a flicker of flame…

“You were abandoned and…this is my story, Z’zyr, not yours.” The dragon sweeps his wings back and offers the king a surprisingly accurate impression of a bow. “And you think we are the overly dramatic ones.

“Anyway. Something had spoken to me that day. It was why I braved the lashing I knew my father would give me for traversing so far from home. I knew, not thought or believed, but knew that day would change my life.” Z’zyr says nothing.

“It is why I called you here, my friend. I’ve had a similar vision.”

While I may have placed our meeting up to fate, the years since have proven your visions are never far from truth.

“But this…” he hesitates. “This is different.”

In what way?

Releasing his grip on Blackshear, Halmyr steps forward until he is close enough to touch the dragon’s jaw; he removes his gloves. Hands that were once powerful are skeletal and bent with swollen knuckles. He places them against Z’zyr’s jawline and sighs at the familiar heat and power that pulsates underneath his palms. Z’zyr leans into the touch, a spike of sadness—an alien sensation—drives through him.

“You were Lost. Trapped on an island, but it is not water that surrounds you but fire and darkness. Your soul is screaming…awash in blood and fire and death. And then I am there, but it is not me.” Halmyr shakes his head. “I am sorry, my friend. I speak in Stygian riddles. Forgive me.”

There is nothing to forgive, Halmyr. Z’zyr tries to ignore the disquiet Halmyr’s words have produced within him and instead says What else is there?

The king looks up sharply, almost angrily but then it fades and he is again a weary ruler struggling under the weight of a lifetime of unintended responsibility.

“I am ten and a century, Z’zyr. I have buried three wives, a dozen children—two of which died by my hand—and countless grandkin. Men are not meant to live as long as I. Mezzo is five and sixty but stout and has a kingly air about him. Those that love him truly love him and even those that would defy us, respect him. Moreso than they ever did me.”

But they do not fear him.

“Fear, my friend, is a strong tool when wielded by one who knows nothing else. I was raised, daresay, born for the sword and to break the bodies and will of other men. After Moad, I knew that my way would break apart the land I had forged together. Mezzo may not have the bloodlust of his brother but he is more than capable in warfare and, more importantly, he knows people. How to speak to them, to listen. It is time this land be given such a man to rule it.”

Z’zyr pulls away from the king, putting distance between them. What would you have me do, Halmyr? The question is sharp. Angry.

“I ask that you…” Halmyr curses. Forgive me my friend, it is unfair of me to ask such a thing of you.

Speak. It.

He tells Z’zyr. The dragon turns towards the skies and is silent. The rain has slackened and the thunder is a distant memory. The king shakes his head, ashamed of the request. How could he ask his Bonded such a thing! A selfish desire. He knows that if Z’zyr leaves without a word, they will never lay eyes upon one another again. The possible finality of it makes Halmyr ache and he is ready to accept a slow and indignant passing as penance.

He shuffles back to the sword and begins to motion to his guard when one word reverberates in his mind. It is tinged with anger, resignation, and sadness. But there is also love in it, so much love.

Yes.

Then Z’zyr opens his wings and rises up into the air until he is swallowed by the darkened clouds.

Tears roll down the king’s haggard, weather-worn face. “Thank you, my friend,” he whispers. “Thank you.”

**

The dragon awoke from its slumber to a deluge of images. Of memories lost beyond the stretch of time.

It remembered.

No…he remembered.

He remembered his name. Z’zyr.

He remembered his Bonded: Halmyr.

He remembered it all.

The rage that had been his existence for nearly a century. Since Halmyr…died.

An agony Z’zyr thought long gone, the same one that had erased all that he was, returned. It thrummed with an intensity greater than his monstrous heart. His body spasmed and claws dug into the ground. Rarely a dragon lasted so long after the death of its Bonded. Such a symbiosis was akin to sharing a soul with another living thing. Though not as complete as a mated pair, the schism created from the loss of a Bonded companion was a shattering of a dragon’s soul. Though it granted humans exceptional longevity and health, they were still fragile creatures, eventually broken both by either time or circumstance.

Fear and understanding shot through Z’zyr and he glanced down at his charge. The boy was still asleep, his small brow furrowed in bad memories. Safe but defenseless. The child’s parent was dead and these lands offered few, if any human settlements. None that wouldn’t press the child into servitude or worse. And then there were the things like kobolds whose penchant for delivering horror upon their victims was well known.

Z’zyr breathed in and the boy’s scent drifted into his nostrils. Though familiar, it was the boy’s eyes that brought the past into greater focus.

“And then I am there; but it is not me.”

The dragon shivered. He glanced down only to find those eyes—Halmyr’s eyes—staring back at him. The swirls loped and slashed in their black pools but there was more than that. More even than the silver and white brilliance. There was an emerald glint there, a glint that reached into Z’zyr, deep into the molten core that was a dragon’s soul. It called to him, awaiting the dragon’s response.

It would have been simple—and prudent—for Z’zyr to break the gaze and leave this place. Likely, the most merciful choice would be to end the boy quickly so that he would not suffer. Simple. And the right choice.

But he had made a promise to a man long-dead. Even as Z’zyr’s fire embraced him, Halmyr had screamed “Remember your promise.” The act had been crippling and Z’zyr had lost himself to it. Now that the memories had returned, so had the remembrance of his promise.

The boy reached out with tiny hands and his eyes spoke of an Oath he had no ability to understand. But Z’zyr knew things like this defied reason, even free will. Even if he wished, the dragon could no more leave this child than he could tear out his own soul. Were the child older, there would have been more to it but, at its core, the Oath required but one thing from the dragon. Not a poetic creed of fealty and dedication. A single word of acknowledgement that would Bond both child and dragon as one.

Thus, Z’zyr did the only thing left to him.

He fulfilled his promise.

He said Yes.

THE END