The Horde… some of it anyways. Not all of the human forms shifted to make the Behemoth. Was that because the other Dragons were defeated and are still in the Spirit Realm?
Iolaire did not know.
They were all laid out on the bridge like a carpet. It reminded Caden sickly of images he had seen of Jonestown after the massacre there. He didn’t say suicides, because those people truly had no choice. Most of them anyways. But these bodies were still alive. He could hear heartbeats! Chione had fought them, kept them away, but kept them alive.
What has it cost her, Iolaire? What has it cost all of them?
But he knew he couldn’t focus on that now.
For the Behemoth let out a terrible, bone-rattling cry as it thundered downwards in more of a crash landing than true landing in Dragon Strike Square. It left a furrow of broken stone and earth.
The end and the beginning, Iolaire told him.
Yeah, we’re ending this where we began it, Caden realized.
But though the moon was out and he was now the White Dragon King, the Square was just as filled as it had been for the Anniversary. They had come out of their homes and flooded into the Square because of the excitement, wanting to know what was happening up at High Reach, trying to get a look. Once more they had come with their cameras and smiles and laughter.
But no more.
That broken stone and earth that marked the Behemoth’s crash landing? It wasn’t just those inert materials. It was bone and blood and people, too. People were dead and dying. People were crushed and smeared across the cobblestones. People were missing limbs and screaming for help. There were people who wouldn’t last that much longer.
The Behemoth was sitting like some horrendous spider with its still-bleeding stump of a tail, tracking him with its yellow eyes. In both of its clawed forelimbs it held half a dozen people. They were screaming and beating against the scaly fingers helplessly. The Behemoth was smiling. It would show him just how much pain it was in by killing innocents and making him feel every one that he failed to save. The Behemoth thought that he would come at it with Ice Breath or Frost or Gale. It thought that he and Iolaire had simply made it first through the “mirror”. It didn’t understand why they were the only ones here.
And Caden was fine with that.
Iolaire… NOW! Caden commanded. Send it back, now!
The cry that had turned the great Green Dragon Mephous back into its slender man-form erupted from their mouth. The sound filled the air, echoed against the stone, causing lightning to rumble in the clouds.
The Behemoth blinked.
For a second, that was all that happened. Caden felt fear reach up to strangle them both as he and Iolaire sent another Command to the Behemoth. For that’s what this was. It was Command. It sent a Spirit back to its realm.
You will leave this plane! You will go!
And then the Behemoth’s body started to jiggle almost as if it were made of Jell-O and someone was shaking the bowl to make it move. The Behemoth’s jaws opened as if to object to this unseemly jiggling. But the jiggling flesh turned to blurring flesh turned to flesh that was there and not there like a negative image.
And then the Behemoth was gone.
The claws holding the people were gone too and they were falling. He and Iolaire darted in and just managed to catch the humans before they hit the ground and joined the other dead and dying.
He felt a welling of triumph! They had done it. Iolaire twittered and let out a gout of snow! The people in their claws were shouting their thanks and crying with relief, too.
The other Dragons are on it now. They’ll destroy the Behemoth and this will be over! Caden cried.
It was then though that Caden realized the shouts of happiness had turned into screams of terror. He thought, at first, that it was the horror of the dead and injured people, but no. These were fresh screams.
And Caden suddenly realized why.
The Horde--the part that made up the Behemoth--was still there. And it still had the power to kill and destroy.
Darkness
“He’s here! He’s gone! Though what an exit!” Illarion offered Valerius a hand up from the ground. “Did you see what Caden did to that bastard’s tail? Ice! Pure ice.”
Valerius grasped Illarion's hand and scrambled to his feet. He slung the rifle over his back, the strap laying across his bare chest. He might still need it. He’d keep it until Raziel returned.
“Caden and Iolaire kicked the Behemoth’s butt! Literally!” Illarion chortled.
