Thrall - Christie Golden [59]
She sprang from a sitting position straight up into the air with a speed that was almost faster than his eye could follow. A heartbeat later, a giant red dragon hovered over him. The fine gray dust of the dead land was stirred up and covered Thrall’s skin and robe, causing his eyes to water. He leaped to his feet and stepped back quickly, wondering what would happen next.
“Yes, I was made,” Alexstrasza said, her voice deeper, harsher, and full of anger and a blistering bitterness. “Made into the Life-Binder without truly understanding what was being asked of me. And what is being asked of me is no longer bearable. I have sacrificed, and given, and aided, and fought, and my reward is more pain, more demands, and the death of all I hold dear. I do not wish to kill, but I will, orc, if you trouble me further. Nothing matters! Nothing! GO!”
He tried one more time. “Please,” he said, “please consider the innocents who—”
“GO!”
Alexstrasza reared back, beating her wings to keep herself aloft and opening her enormous, sharp-toothed maw, and Thrall fled. A sheet of billowing orange-red flame charred the stone where he had been sitting. He heard her drawing breath again and half ran, half fell down the side of the jutting peak.
A roar filled the heavy air. It was a mixture of anger and anguish, and Thrall’s heart ached for the grieving Aspect. He wished he had been able to find some way to reach her. The thought of her dying here, alone, from lack of food and water and most of all from a broken heart, pained him. He regretfully imagined travelers one day coming across her bones, bleached and old like the other skeletons that dotted this landscape.
He slipped and slid the rest of the way and, bruised and with a heavy spirit, trudged to where Tick had said to meet her. The dragon wheeled above him for a moment, then landed and regarded him sadly.
“Where shall I bear you, Thrall?” she asked quietly.
“We go to the Nexus, just as we planned,” Thrall said, his voice ragged. “We go to convince the blues to unite with the other flights, as Nozdormu asked.”
“And … we go alone.”
Thrall nodded. “Alone.” He glanced back at the shape of a great red dragon, her wings beating erratically, her body contorted as she threw back her horned head. Perhaps, if she saw what the others were doing, her heart might yet be moved. “For now.”
Yet even as they flew northward, over the sound of Tick’s beating wings, Thrall could hear the bitter, roaring grief of a broken Life-Binder.
Like a shadow stretching out across the land at twilight, something dark lifted up from the hollow in which he had concealed himself. Far enough away so that he would likely not be seen, but close enough to keep the quarry within range, King Aedelas Blackmoore, perched atop a twilight dragon, followed.
The wind blew back his long, black hair. His face was, if cruel, not unhandsome. A neatly trimmed black goatee framed thin lips, and his blue eyes snapped beneath elegant black brows.
After the first effort, Blackmoore had decided not to follow Thrall through the timeways. It was too tricky; the odds of his prey eluding him and leading him on a futile chase were too high.
Better to wait, and bide his time, and be where he knew Thrall would eventually have to appear.
Thrall. He had heard enough about Thrall to want to dismember the orc with a paring knife. Thrall, who had slain him, whose mere existence had caused Blackmoore to continue down the path of a pathetic, drunken coward. Thrall, who had led an army of orcs against Durnholde. No, it was quite the joy that lay before him. The victory would be even sweeter, given what a challenge the