But before either of them could do so much as brush the red canyon dust off their hands from the rocks they’d landed in, Layla suddenly heard a roar surround her. It wasn’t just around her; it went thundering through her bones with the force of a hurricane as Layla screamed and Heathren Merkami roared atop her. Suddenly, the Fallen Ephilohim was in motion, curling his body around her, his thousands of wing-filaments sword-edged and glimmering like black pearl beneath the broad desert sky as they flared out with a vicious snap at whatever assailed them. Layla felt dozens of creatures rear back and heard roars assault the wide desert canyon, shuddering the floors and walls as Heathren protected her.
But Layla knew the sound of her people – and as she lifted her head, peering out through a gap in Heathren’s filaments, she saw the vast presence of Dragons surrounding them.
Over a hundred Dragons – all changed into their beasts and ready to fight.
CHAPTER 18 – FATHER
All around Layla and Heathren, Dragons swarmed in a massive ring. Sidewinding in surprise at their sudden arrival, staring them down with necks arched in terrifying menace, the Dragons hailed from every Lineage in the Twilight Realm. Massive Crystal Dragons in gemstone colors shone beneath the high desert sun with vicious serrated plating. Thunder-dark Storm Dragons flared their wings wide and crackled with lightning. Phoenix of ten different varieties had taken to the sky, whirling and diving as they screeched like dinosaurs with their long plumed tails streaming out behind them. Desert Dragons vicious as vipers had coiled up ready to strike with their red and ochre eyes pinned to Layla and her escort. Even a few Sirens roiled on the hard-packed red sand, their flowing filaments moving in currents of their magic like water.
Through Heathren’s protective wings, Layla saw they had arrived in a vast canyon of red sandstone, all of the walls carved into Greco-Roman columns and domes, porticos, and vaults. Triangular lintels reminded her of the abandoned city of Petra in Jordan, though this desert city was thriving with many-tiered waterways, farmed terraces, and lofty gardens.
But as a hundred pairs of eyes fixed upon her and her escort, magic whirling and seething with vicious fury, it became clear the Dragons surrounding Layla and Heathren were primed to attack. Roiling and snarling all around them, the Dragons watched them with hostility, and Layla felt the simmering tension in the air ready to crack like a whip if she even so much as moved a muscle. Terror filled her as she gazed out through Heathren’s wings; he moved oh-so-slowly, gathering her into him as he subtly pushed to crouching with one hand upon his swords and one arm wrapped around her with a few extra filaments to secure her close. As Heathren slowly shuffled his long filaments down so they had a view of the pissed-off Dragons, Layla felt him draw one silver sword.
Staring those Dragons down – and brightening in his vicious light tenfold as if he was ready to smite them all.
“Know me, know what I am. Know my rage, Royal Dragon Binds – the rage of the Fallen Ephilohim.” Heathren Merkami spoke in a voice that swirled through the entire canyon upon a wave of his etheric magic, hammering every ear as his eyes and skin and wings blazed with a terrible light. All around, Layla saw Dragons snort and writhe, their wings flaring or coils roiling in affront as the Fallen Ephilohim’s terrible voice hit their ears. “Know that to cross me is death – and to try and harm she whom I protect will bring you far worse than death.”
“Royal Dragon Binds? All of them?” Layla whispered, glancing at Heathren in shock, though his gaze remained pinned straight ahead as he held her close, his silver sword extended before her now and blazing with light like the rest of him. Deep inside, Layla’s drakaina gave a roil of recognition – and with a sudden shock, she realized Heathren was right. As if feeling coils of light reach out from every direction, she could sense the Binds now; exploring her with their magic, evaluating her. But even as it happened, Layla saw rage deepening in their eyes, and she felt the temperature of their wrath ratchet up ten notches at Heathren’s display.
She could feel their Bind-power inside them – but they couldn’t feel hers.
“Hold very still, Layla.” Heathren murmured with barely a breath of air. “Your kin don’t recognize you as one of them; they can’t sense your magic, buried deep inside you as it is right now. Can you open your power at all, for them to feel?”
“I’ll try.” Layla swallowed hard, a deep fear pouring all through her to have so many furious Royal Dragon Binds surrounding them – coiling in tighter by the moment.
“Do. Or I think we might be dead presently.” Heathren spoke wryly.
His scathing humor was not lost on Layla – Heathren was powerful, but he wasn’t battle-a-hundred-Royal-Dragon-Binds-all-at-once powerful, even as a Fallen Archangel. His ready stance told Layla he knew he could take out the first wave of them, maybe even the second. But eventually, they were goners if all these Royal Dragon Binds surrounding them now decided to push their point.
And annihilate the intruders in their midst.
Slowly, Layla felt her way back down inside herself, where she had gone with Rake this past week, and with Heathren last night. She found her drakaina, but after its initial interest at discovering others of its kind, it had gone back to coiling up deep inside her. Layla was amazed to have found so many Binds alive and in one place, wherever they were now. But though her Dragon wanted to know her kin also, there were other things keeping her coiled up right now.
And no matter how Layla pushed and prodded her internal self, she couldn’t raise her drakaina from that seething inner vortex.
In a sudden furious anger, Layla roared at her drakaina internally. It felt like a thousand black spears all thrusting at her Dragon at once, jabbing into it cruelly. As she did, her Dragon suddenly heaved outward, roaring at her back in a furious, bitter menace. That single hot flush of her drakaina’s deep wrath sent a shockwave of power slamming out from Layla’s body, flooding from her skin in curls of white etheric flame. It was instinctual and uncontrolled, and flaring out, it concussed right into all those Binds surrounding them.
Hammering those nearby to the ground and flooding far out into the terraced canyon.
It was the flame in their tinderbox. As Heathren cursed a blue streak, Dragons were suddenly coming at them; hammering into Heathren as he thrust up a fast barrier of etheric power around them in a battle-rage. Terrible lances of Storm Dragon lightning smote Heathren’s barrier as he hurled etheric strikes with his wings; massive Crystal Dragons stomped the ground and thrust up skewers of crystal beneath them as Heathren jolted Layla up fast into the air on a powerful thrust of his wings. Clutched close to him, Layla was suddenly back in memories of those awful amusement park rides where the cages spin in every direction at once as Heathren whirled and dove, slashing with his silver sword at eyes and throats, pummeling Dragons with massive shockwaves of energy from his wings and sending them flying. Through it all, he blazed with the light of ages as he roared, battling Dragons back by the dozens in moments.
More coming at them from all around.
“STAY YOUR FURY!”
Layla had thought it was Heathren’s shout that had pummeled the desert air, but even he jolted from the massive voice that had suddenly exploded through the canyon – shuddering the Royal Dragon Binds. As Layla blinked in shock, she realized that voice had been female, as Binds all around them suddenly heaved back with snarls of confusion. As they did, two massive Dragons hurtled down from the sky, slamming into the ground – one to Layla and Heathren’s left, one to their right. As they slammed in, each two or three times larger than any other beast there, they coiled right around Layla and the Ephilohim.
Forming a protective barrier with their bodies.
With enraged and confused snorts, the Royal Dragon Binds pulled back from those two massive Dragons now coiled around Layla and Heathren. Breathing hard, all the Binds’ gazes were locked upon the newcomers.
And it gave Layla a moment to see them finally as the battle halted.
Held aloft by Heathren about twenty feet off the ground from his silver-bright wings, Layla had a good view of their protectors. The first was massively beautiful and sparkling white-green, like a high-north river in whitewater spring flood. Silver was in his robust body and serrated scales, his high mantle of spikes sparkling like spears of pure green-white ice in the desert day. Clear as snowmelt, his fangs and talons and scales shed waves of cold that turned to vaporous mist in the heat. As he roared at the other Binds to stay back, Layla heard the crashing sound of breaking glaciers and avalanches in it. As he snapped tremendous ice-clear wings out from his body like a Storm Dragon, shedding waves of condensation now, his roar thundered into the other Binds – and Layla felt the depth of his mind-command to all of them.
Stay back – she is one of our own!
The other Dragon who had coiled into a protective barrier around Layla and Heathren was as darkly glossy as the male was white. A female, she was a sleek black without hardly any color to her at all except for an oilslick gold that shimmered through her smooth black scales. With only a small mantle of black-gold spikes and a double-row of corkscrewing black-gold horns, she was all smooth lines and beautiful contours, without wings or hindlegs. Long and coiling like a serpent of the sky and sand, Layla knew she was a Desert Dragon. The sparkling gold in her eyes was piercing as she coiled in a protective loop around Layla and Heathren in a way Layla had also done during battles. She did not roar, but her mind-speech was somehow far more deafening than the drake’s as she addressed the furious Binds all around.
