'They're all dead,' Melia said, pointing out into the woods. 'All dead.'
I turned to peer through the trees. Behind me I heard Maram making strangled sounds as if his desire for Melia had caught in his throat. 'Ah,' he groaned, 'ah, ah, ahhh!'
I turned back to see Melia's face pressed into the curve of Maram's neck. Her hand was clutching there, too, as she pulled closer to him. It took me a moment to credit what my eyes knew to be true. Maram's eyes, I saw, were almost popping from his head as he struggled to scream. And all the while, Melia squeezed harder and harder as she fastened her teeth into him and bit open his neck. 'Ah,' Maram gasped through a burble of blood, 'ah, ah, ahhh!'
'Hold, there!' I shouted. 'What are you doing?' I moved over to pull her away from the stricken Maram, but she raised an arm and knocked me to the ground with a shocking strength. As I was rising back up – and Liijana and Alphanderry moved toward them – Maram's cloak fell open to reveal Melia's changing shape. Now I couldn't credit what my eyes reported to me, for in only a moment Melia had transformed into a large, black, growling bear.
'Val,' Maram gasped as he struggled helplessly, 'ah, Val, Val!' The bear – or whatever Melia really was – pushed its snout against Maram as it growled and bit and lapped his blood. Its black claws dug into his back, pulling him deep into this killing embrace. I swung my sword at it then. I expected to feel the kalama's razor edge bite through fur and flesh. Instead, it fell against the bear's hunched back as if striking stone. With a scream of tortured steel, it broke into two pieces. So broke the noble blade that my father had given me. I stared down at its jagged hilt-shard as if it were I who had been broken.
'Val, help us!' Liijana called to me, I looked up to see her and Alphanderry ruin their blades against the bear as well. Atara shot an arrow point blank at the bear's back but somehow, it glanced off its furry hide. Master Juwain finally found his heart and beat at the bear's head with his leather-bound book; but he might as well have beaten at a mountain. Suddenly the bear swiped out with one of its paws and knocked Master Juwain off his feet. Then, still gripping Maram with one arm, it struck out at Alphanderry and Liljana with the other, bloodying and stunning them. It didn't take long for it to rip apart the fence surrounding our camp. Now licking the blood that smeared its mouth, it carried Maram off into the woods.
'Val, they're getting away!' Atara shouted at me. She fired off another arrow, to no effect.
For only a moment, I hesitated. Then, gripping my broken sword, I sprang after them. I ran crashing and screaming like a wild man through the thick bracken. My feet pounded against the green-shrouded earth as my eyes fixed on the black, shaggy thing pulling Maram through the bushes with an unbelievable strength. It seemed impossible that I could hurt this unnatural creature in any way. Yet I suddenly knew with an utter certainty that I couldn't fail, that a light beyond light would show me where my sword must strike. And so as I closed with them and the bear-thing raised its paw to brain me, I ducked beneath it and stabbed out with all my strength. The splintered steel drove deep into the bear's armpit. It howled in a sudden rage as blood spurted and I wrenched my sword free. Then the bear's paw swiped out again, striking the side of my head and knocking me nearly senseless.
‘Val!' Atara screamed from behind me. 'Oh, my lord, Val!'
I rose to one knee, breathing hard as I blinked and looked out upon an amazing sight. For the beast was shifting shapes and changing yet again – this time into what I took to be its true form. It had two arms and two legs, even as I did, and two hands, each ending in five thick fingers. It was entirely naked and hairless and covered with a thick, black carapace more like the burnt iron of a meteor than skin. It couldn't have moved at all except for the joints in this stone-hard armor. Into one of these, I saw, between its mighty arm and blocky body, I had chanced to drive my sword.
Although blood flowed from it freely, it seemed that it was not a fatal wound. It now dropped Maram onto the ground as it turned to regard me. It was a man, I thought, surely it must be a man. But only its eyes – large and lonely and full of malice – seemed human.
'Val!' Atara shouted. 'Get out of the way!'
This hideous man suddenly moved forward, growling and cursing at me. I saw from the blazing intelligence of his eyes that this time he didn't intend to present his more vulnerable parts to what was left of my sword. He would kill me, I knew, crushing me beneath his body as easily as he might a rabbit. I might have turned from him and fled back toward our camp. But then he would have had his way with Maram. And so instead, sensing the unbearable tension in Atara behind me, I suddenly dropped to the ground. I heard her bowstring twang as an arrow shrieked through the air above my head. It drove straight into the beast-man's eye. This stopped him dead In his tracks, though strangely he did not fall And then another arrow, fired off with the blinding speed of which only Sarni warriors are capable, took him in his other eye.
'Father!' he cried out in a terrible voice that seemed to shake all the world. In this one sound were many deep emotions: astonishment, longing, relief and bitter hate. For only a moment, it seemed that a howl of grief answered him from far away. And then he died. He toppled backward to the ground like a tree and lay still among the ferns and flowers.
I was very weak, as if it had been my blood that he had drunk. Yet I managed to get up and go over to Maram. Atara and the others joined me there, too. Master Juwain found that the wounds to Maram's neck were not as grave as we had feared. It seemed that the beast-man had only pierced the vein there to take his meal. Maram, he said, had most likely fainted from the loss of blood.
'I hope that is the worst of it,' he said, looking through the woods at the body of the beast-man. 'Human bites are more poisonous than a snake's.'
He brought out his gelstei then and reached deep to find its healing fire. After a while, Maram opened his eyes, and we helped him sit up.
'Ah, Atara, you killed him!' Maram said as he looked into the woods. 'Good! Good!
I guess that puts your count at twenty-two.'
The beast-man's last word troubled us, for he was so fell and hideous that we did not wish to see his father. And so when we heard something else crashing through the trees behind us, we jumped to our feet as we took up our weapons with trembling hands.
But it was only Kane. He came running at us through the bushes gripping his bow and arrows. He stopped before the body of the creature Atara had killed and stared down at it for a long moment. And then he growled out, 'I came upon his spoor a couple of miles from here. So, I was too late.'
Enough strength had returned to me that I was able to walk up to him and touch his shoulder. I asked, 'Do you know who this is?'
Kane slowly nodded his head. 'His name is Meliadus. He's Morjin's son.'
At this news, Atara shuddered, and so did I. Atara's gaze turned inward as if she were seeing some private vision that terrified her.
Master Juwain stepped up to Kane and cleared his throat 'A son, you say? The Red Dragon had a son? But no one has ever told of that!'
'I myself thought it only a rumor until today,' Kane said, pointing at Meliadus. 'He's an abomination. You can't begin to understand how great an abomination.'
He went on to tell us what was whispered about Morjin: that long ago, at the beginning of the Age of the Dragon, he had gone into the Vardaloon to breed a race of invincible warriors from his own flesh. Meliadus had been the first of this race – and the last. For Meliadus, upon growing to manhood and beholding the hideousness of his form, had conceived a terrible hate for his creator and had risen up against him. According to Kane, he had nearly killed Morjin, who had fled the Vardaloon and had left the vast forest to the vengeance of his mighty son.
'Once,' Kane said, waving his hand at the dark trees around us, 'the Vardaloon was a paradise. It's said that many people lived here. Meliadus must have been jealous of them. He must have hunted them down, man by man, tribe by tribe.'
Maram, sitting back against Liljana and Alphanderry, managed to cough out, 'But how is that possible? He can't have lived all that time!'
Master Juwain rubbed his bald head thoughtfully and told him, 'There's only one explanation: Morjin must have bestowed upon him his own immortality.'
'Immortality – ha!' Kane said. He moved over to Meliadus, and with the help of his knife, pried apart the fingers of his left hand. There he found a stone, which he brought over for us to see.
'What is it?' Maram asked.
