Their stay in Ravenholde was brief, but they left well rested and with enough provisions to last them for the rest of their ride to the capital of Midaras. They also left with the addition of contingent of guards wearing lighter versions of the iron-and-steel war plate he had seen those fighting the Blackscale Knights wearing. Their escort had swelled from the four rangers to also include an entire squad of soldiers, numbering ten in total. That, in combination with the fact that they had officially crossed into the sovereign territory of the Iron Queen, finally put Valen at ease.
They joked and talked like they had not the entire journey so far, and for once Valen finally felt like things weren't as bleak and terrible as he had been forced to grow used to. Plus, having the new little wyvern additions to their party made things even jollier, their plucky attitudes and cute whines making for a pleasant distraction after all that had happened.
That was how the last day of their travels passed, in good conversation and pleasant laughter, until the time finally came.
“We will reach Midaras by midafternoon, at the very latest. Our journey is coming to an end,” Bardus announced, from the front of their company. They had begun to pack up their little camp; though this last leg of their journey was the shortest, they'd still needed to make camp in the mountains and get a fire going to combat the cold.
Valen was now sharing a tent with the twins, thankfully a rather large one as otherwise there would have been far too little space. Hera, on the other hand, had taken to sharing a tent with Layne. Despite the obvious differences in their personalities, they seemed to be becoming fast friends.
Valen and the twins paused in their work as they packed up their tent, looking at each other and grinning. They were about to meet a queen! That was something that none of them had ever thought they would be able to say.
“Let’s pick up the pace, slowpokes!” Samuel joked, before turning and setting back to their task with a nearly wild abandon.
Simon and Valen simply looked at one another, rolled their eyes and then grinned, joining him. If the mood among them all had been happy before, now it was downright jubilant. Celebratory. He could not help but think back to the night when this whole thing had started, the night that he and Hera had lost their parents and brother at the hands of the Blackscale Knights.
It cast a dark pall over him for just a moment, but he shook it off and pushed on. Three months. Three months since then, and so much had changed as to make it feel like more of a lifetime. He was just glad that, for now, it was almost over.
A short time later, everyone was once more astride their horses and Raenelir made his first appearance that morning of the day, coming to a landing with a whole lot of wyvern whelps in tow. Aevra was among them, having grown at least another five or six pounds since last Valen had made note of her size. If there had been any doubt before, Valen was sure of her future Matriarch status now.
The other wyverns, the ones still not quite strong enough to go flying for extended periods of time, ran alongside the horses. In total, there were maybe thirty of the younger wyverns with them. Several had still ended up running off since the day that Valen had awakened, something that could not be avoided. They were wild, after all, and the fact that so many still remained with them despite that was nothing short of a miracle.
They made quite a procession, he knew; anyone seeing such a group would be stuck somewhere between dumbfounded and fear struck. Valen would not have been able to blame them, especially not with Raen along. The Highborn had grown some since that first day he and Valen had met as well, after all. He had gained at least another couple of feet in length, which made sense considering his species and his age.
The people that had seen a fully grown Highborn were either very old or very dead by now, as they had become increasingly rare over the years. While books might be able to tell some, the stories of their fully grown size were often conflicting if not completely inaccurate. He looked forward to being able to see for himself just how much Raenelir would grow in the years to come.
The day passed agonizingly slowly now that their destination was at hand; they tried to talk amongst themselves to pass the time, but they were all simply too thrilled to arrive at their destination. The Dead Peak was far behind them now, though Valen could still see it poking over the other mountains in the distance if he tried. Ahead, he could see where the Drake’s Tail finally came to an end, the mountains along their path growing smaller and smaller as they descended.
Hours crawled by, but that did nothing to damper their mood. Soon enough they were following the road around one last mountain, cresting a small rise. Valen could feel the spike of excitement among even the rangers now and knew what that meant.
Hedrick and Samorr shared smiles and then they were riding ahead, followed by a few of the regular soldiers who shared in their excitement. Their group continued on down the other side of the rise, leaving the others behind for a moment. Grinning, Valen glanced over at Raenelir in the back, bringing his horse to a stop so he could climb down and handing the reins over to Layne, who came up alongside him with a questioning raise of her eyebrow.
“I want to see it with Raenelir,” he explained.
That was enough for the ranger, who nodded and accepted his horse’s lead. Valen turned and walked back to the Highborn, Raen eagerly waiting for him, as if he could sense what was on his mind. He climbed onto the wyvern’s back, eager for the feeling of wind in his face as he gazed upon the city of Midaras for the first time.
“You ready, Raen?” he asked, before pulling himself onto the Highborn’s back. He clapped his hand against the wyvern’s side twice and Raenelir leapt from the trail, out into the open air over the long fall that would have awaited anyone who fell from the road normally. Raenelir, however, simply extended his long wings, the wind catching him and pulling him up into the air with Valen laughing atop his back.
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Aevra and a few of the other whelps even took off after them, letting out their own cries of joy as Raen’s roar shook the sky.
They flew out from the mountains and saw the city that awaited them, magnificent spires of iron, marble, and a myriad of other materials he could not have put a name to. Three layers of walls were staggered through the city’s interior, with watchtowers all along their length. Smoke rose from thousands and thousands of chimneys, an easy way for him to be able to tell that there were a lot of people living there. Beyond the city lay a massive lake whose waters almost looked black. With the sun hitting it just right, it made for a sight more magnificent than anything Valen had ever seen.
He wished that he could have stayed that happy a little while longer.
He could not.
For then the shadow fell over them all. Valen looked towards Hedrick, Samorr and the others who had ridden ahead of them on the path, catching their eyes just in time for the firestorm to consume everything in sight as Agrathor, the great Blackscale Patriarch, overcame them all from behind.
Their deaths came so fast that Valen could not even register what had happened at first.
All he saw were the flames, and all he heard were the screams of those who had protected him all the way from Lakevale, who he had even come to consider as friends. Horror took him next, horror made all the worse by the panic that accompanied it. Where was Hera?! Samuel?! Simon?! Layne?!
Valen would have been sick, except that the gigantic black dragon that blocked out the sun overhead did not allow him that moment to feel his loss. Agrathor roared, a sound that shook the very skies themselves, and the mountainside was awash in flames with no clouds in sight and no rain to stop the fire from spreading down into the city below.
Not that it mattered right now; the only way anyone in Midaras would survive now was if the Patriarch and, Valen had to assume, his rider Velitarii were to be slain. There was no one here to help him, none who could hope to take on the High Lord and his beast other than himself and Raenelir. He was their only hope, and he was terrified.
The same fear that he had carried with him for so long after leaving what remained of his home back in the Divide, that he thought he had shaken, came rushing back. It nearly overrode any sane thought left in his mind. This was not a dragon, a drake, a beast like any other.
This dragon was terror and hatred made flesh, and he had no idea how to fight it.
The wind from the rise and fall of Agrathor's wings buffeted the wyvern whelps flying around Raenelir and with a start Valen realized they would all be knocked out of the sky if he and Raen did not do something. Even the Highborn was having to fight to remain in control, though thankfully he was strong enough to do so without exhausting himself now.
The chains around Raenelir’s neck whipped around in the wind, clanging together and distracting him for a moment as he tried to figure out what to do. Aevra flew alongside them, the strongest of the whelps, trying desperately to stay aloft. Valen saw her, and something in him shifted. He took a deep breath, accepting what he knew he had to do.
“Raen! Please, catch the little ones!” Valen cried, pointing first at Aevra and then the others, hoping that the Highborn would understand him. Thankfully, though he did not know if Raenelir understood him that time, it seemed the wyvern was considering the same thing. He tucked in his left wing so that he pulled in that direction, allowing Valen to reach out and pull Aevra out of the air.
The not-quite-so-little-anymore wyvern was panting, but let out a sound that sounded like thanks. Then Raenelir was moving again, maneuvering around in the air as the other whelps faltered in their flight before Agrathor's wingbeats. Valen was left in a frantic state of reaching out and pulling them in. He was grateful that not all of the flight-capable younger wyverns had followed them into the sky, as that would have been too much for him to deal with, as well as likely too much weight for Raen to carry. As it was, counting Aevra there were only four of them they had to save. Once the little drakes were settled in a ball in front of Valen, they were looking for a place further down the mountains toward the city to come in for a landing.
It was difficult, but as the Patriarch roared once again and Valen’s adrenaline nearly took control, Raenelir managed to tuck in his wings and dive down to the mountainside entrance of Midaras. They did not head straight for the gate, however, as the soldiers protecting the city would most likely think they were a dragon and rider approaching instead of friends. Considering the gigantic beast of a dragon now hovering out over their city, it only made sense.
Instead, they touched down among some rocks, the land this far down the mountain thankfully almost bare of trees; that would help keep the fire from spreading all the way into the city, at least – until Agrathor decided to torch the city directly. No one would be able to protect the people of Midaras from that.
As soon as they touched down, Aevra and the other whelps leapt to the ground and ran out among the rocks, searching for places to hide as Raenelir spun on his two powerful legs and jumped back up. If they had been further up the mountain trying to take off now, the strength of the wind from the gargantuan dragon's wings might have made it difficult to take off, but here the downstrokes were not quite as potent.
They rose in the air like a bolt of lightning. Valen already felt something in him coming to life, every hair standing on end. He hoped that meant the lightning sense was going to hit him, because otherwise he had no chance in this fight at all.
Agrathor was at least thirty times the size of Raenelir, his flames powerful enough to turn steel to liquid, not to mention he could likely kill them with a single physical blow. They would have to rely on their speed advantage, as the Patriarch’s extra size and strength would have come at the expense of his agility. However, the other issue that they would have to deal with, though Valen had not yet seen the man since he had only seen the Patriarch's face and underside so far, was Ravas himself.
His Oath made him far, far beyond simply dangerous. Now, Valen had to somehow defeat him before he could turn his power upon the city.
Valen’s eyes fell to the chains still around Raenelir’s neck and immediately realized that if Velitarii saw that they still remained, he would be able to use it to take them out of the fight with a wave of his hand. There were simply too many unknowns in regard to the power of Velitarii’s Oath; what was the range of his ability? Was it more powerful the closer one got, or weaker if they were farther away?
Regardless of all that, Valen’s first priority had to be checking to see if the others were even still alive. There was no way that Samorr and Hedrick could have survived… but the others might not have been in the blast radius yet. He prayed to the Four or any other gods that might have been listening that his sister and his friends would still be alive. He could not lose them now.
'Not now.'
Valen and Raenelir flew as quickly as they could back up towards the ridge where Agrathor had breathed his fire, but to his surprise he watched as the Patriarch did not press the attack on Midaras. Instead, he turned toward the peak of one of the mountains and alighted at the top, watching events unfold eagerly. He was confused, up until he heard the roars of dragons and immediately turned to see the last four Elites of the Blackscale Order flying towards the ridge from the opposite direction. His eyes widened in horror. If anyone was still alive up there, and the dragon riders reached them before he could join the fight…
“FLY, RAEN! FLY!” he shouted, and his friend answered with a roar, the world becoming a blur as Raen shot through the air, faster than Valen had ever experienced before.