WARDEN
The scent of sulphur is strong in my nostrils as above us the Thegn grows, seemingly emboldened by the sword and not seeing the surroundings, or apparently the huge dragon swooping in, low over the ground and the stones.
I’m still losing blood, but I can’t feel pain anymore. I have my sweet mate close to me, and I suck in her scent to take away anything else. To take away my desire to be mortal which has meant I can leave her.
I can’t leave her.
I belong to her. I am Lady Ryle’s mate, and it’s all I’ve wanted to be since I set eyes on her. She is my saviour.
“Warden, if you leave me, I will never forgive you,” she says in my ear.
“I won’t leave,” I murmur, but it’s getting harder and harder to stay awake.
Something takes hold of me, of us. Something which smells of smoke. I attempt to fight against it.
“No Fenrother,” I groan.
“Not Fenrother,” a voice says, and it isn’t the Lambton Wyrm.
“Hush,” my mate says, her hand on my brow. “Hush, Warden. You’ve done enough. Let them help us.”
I feel myself lifted up, and as I groan and open my eyes, below the stones are moving, becoming something else, becoming warriors.
Stone against stone?
“Thegn?”
“The sword has it now.” Hazel is bent over me. Her eyes are dark for a moment, then they brighten into the blue I know and love. “It wanted revenge, and it didn’t want to spoil my soul.”
“Because yours shines like a star, my lady. Nothing could tarnish you.”
“Hush,” she says, her fingers in my hair at the base of my horns which I love. “Hush, Warden. It’s time to leave.”
“But there is a battle...”
“And you’ve fought enough.”
If I close my eyes, if I go to sleep and I don’t finish this, I know I’ll never hear the end of it from Linton.
So, I don’t.
I might be mortal, but it doesn’t mean I have to die. And while I have my Hazel, I will remain alive. I will be here in the Yeavering, in the Night Lands, to prove to all she is mine and this Brag can mate.
The Laidly Wyrm has curled her tail around Hazel and me as the air remains filled with fire. I have my head in my mate’s lap, and it is good.
It is all good.
“It looks like there is one final outing for the Warhorse,” the Wyrm says with a smile, or rather a bearing of a set of huge white pointed teeth.
“Time to finish this.” I push myself into a sitting position. “Unless I end the Thegn, I cannot ever be sure it will not return.”
“Then take this.” Hazel takes the amulet from around her neck and puts it over my head. “The sword and the amulet are the key to ending the Thegn, to getting back the amulet of Backworth, and to putting it in a place from which it can never return.”
“The sword?” I query. “It told you.”
“It’s something I know,” Hazel says, tapping at her chest. “In here.” She gazes at me, the lights flickering off her multi-coloured hair. “And you are to come back, or I will find you and haunt you.”
“I think it’s supposed to be the other way around, little mare.”
