A Forge of Valor

  A place of legend—and of fear—the Devil’s Finger was one of the few places in Escalon that Merk had never yearned to go. It jutted out of the mainland and reached to the far southeastern corner of Escalon like an appendage that never should have existed. “Peninsula” was too hospitable a name for it. It was nothing more than a barren stretch of rock, mostly slick and jagged, sandwiched between two bodies of tumultuous water.

  Merk cursed as he slipped again, scraping a knee for the hundredth time. He had already twisted both ankles and wrists as he fell time and again, picking his way through each rock. He had created a sort of system, turning his ankles and raising his arms to give himself balance, leaning forward to catch himself on his hands when he slipped. This was an awful, nasty place, a place that no humans should ever live. It was too aptly named.

  Merk knew, though, that he had no choice but to venture on. After crossing all of Escalon, this was the final leg to his trip, the last stretch between him and the Tower of Kos. Just reaching this peninsula had taken nearly all he had, his having to cross southeastern Escalon alone after he parted ways with Kyle, then skirt the peaks of Kos and hike alongside the Thusius. All of that trekking, just to arrive here, on this peninsula. This was probably why, he reasoned, most pilgrimaged to the Tower of Ur, not Kos. Kos was always rumored to be too barren, too desolate, too forgotten, to hold the Sword. Everyone had always assumed that it was the tower of distraction.

  Yet as he searched the horizon, Merk knew otherwise. All the legends had been wrong. The legendary Sword of Fire lay where no one suspected it to be. Merk knew it was only a matter of time until the trolls found out, and he knew that he was racing the clock, with each step he took, to beat them there, to secure the sword before they could reach it.

  Merk scanned the horizon again, hoping for some sign—any sign—of the peninsula’s end. He hoped to see the outline of the tower, even if faint.

  Yet there was nothing. Just more rock, with no end in sight. He was exhausted, worn to the bone, and yet it seemed he had still days more to go.

  Merk looked out to his left and saw the Sea of Tears, its currents vicious, its huge waves smashing into the rocky shores of the Devil’s Finger, sending up rolling waves of mist and foam. He felt the spray around his ankles, washing the stone beneath him, making him lose his balance. He did not know what was louder, the crashing of the waves or the gales of wind which kept him off balance.

  Merk looked the other way, to his right, yet that sight offered no reprieve; there were the black, murky waters of the legendary Bay of Death. It, too, had vicious currents, yet these currents swirled, making a frothing collection of whirlpools. The bay was dotted with these whitecaps all the way to the horizon, the bright white a stark contrast to its black waters, stirred up by the constant gales of wind. For Merk, seeing those black waters was even more disconcerting than the waves smashing into the peninsula from the Sorrow. It was as if the two bodies of water were trying to destroy this narrow piece of land with all their might.

  Merk turned to the path before him, looking ahead as he thought he heard an odd noise. Yet he saw nothing.

  The sound came again, though, a distant sound, almost like a horn, and this time he looked back over his shoulder—and his heart fell as he spotted something on the horizon. There was the faintest outline of an army of banners, and as the distant horn sounded again, Merk knew, with dread, what it was: Marda. The trolls had already reached the Devil’s Finger. They were making better time than he thought.

  Merk turned back ahead and doubled his pace. He had a day’s start on them, but they were gaining and could overtake him. It would be a race to the finish, to see who could reach the Tower of Kos and secure the Sword first.

  Merk hurried forward, ignoring the hunger pangs in his stomach, the blisters on his toes, the exhaustion that nearly shut his eyes. He had to reach the Tower of Kos no matter what it took, to save Escalon, to redeem himself from his past. Despite it all, it felt good to finally have a cause, to have a true purpose in life.

  Merk hiked and hiked, hour following hour, the sun growing high in the sky, blinding him from its haze through the ocean mist. He ascended the top of the highest boulder he had seen, eager for the new vantage point, filled with hope that, once at its top, he might finally spot the tower.

  But he was crestfallen as he looked out and saw nothing but more boulders, more false peaks. It looked from here as if nothing but barren rock covered the world.

  Merk stood there, out of breath, and leaned on his staff to rest for a moment—when suddenly he heard a new noise that made his hair stand on end. It was a clattering, and sounded like a crab skittering across rock.

  He turned, on edge, and searched the boulders beneath him, wondering if he were hearing things. After all, there had been no signs of life on the entire journey, and it had not occurred to him that anything could even survive out here in these barren conditions. After all, what could they possibly feed on?

  But then it came again, an unsettling clattering noise, and as Merk searched the rocks again, a gust of wind carried away the mist, and this time he saw something that made his blood run cold. In a crack between boulders, there slowly emerged an enormous claw. It was a crab’s claw, yet bigger than any claw he had ever laid eyes upon. It stretched and stretched, at least ten feet long.

  There emerged another claw, then another, and Merk watched in horror as there emerged from the fissure a monstrous crab, thirty feet wide, overshadowing him. Merk froze as he stood there and looked up at it. With its black shell and red, beady eyes, it lifted its head and scowled down at him, opening its jaws and hissing, displaying rows of jagged teeth.

  It then skittered across the boulders, right for him.

  The creature moved surprisingly fast, and Merk stood there, frozen in fear, not expecting this, and having no idea what to do. He had no room to maneuver, even if he wanted to. It lunged right for him, claws out. A moment later Merk felt an awful pain on his shin, and he looked down to see one of its claws grabbing him, pinching him.

  The crab hoisted him into the air, and as Merk dangled by one leg, it opened its mouth wide and pulled him close, preparing to swallow him whole. Merk saw the rows of teeth looming, and he knew he was about to die in the most awful way imaginable.

  By some grace of god, Merk’s instincts kicked in at the last moment, and he reached out with his staff, turned it, and jammed it vertically inside the creature’s mouth. The crab tried to close its mouth and was furious to find it jammed.

  Merk, still dangling, reached into his belt, drew his sword, spun around, and with one huge effort, plunged it with both hands into one of the crab’s eyes.

  The crab shrieked as green pus shot out of it, and it released its grip on Merk. Merk landed hard on the rocks, winded, feeling as if his bones were breaking. He rolled and bounced down the steep boulders, slick with moss, down and down, sliding inevitably toward the crashing waves below. He scrambled, trying to grab hold of something to stop his fall, but it was all too slick. He was sliding to his death.

  The crab reached up with its pincher and managed to extract Merk’s sword from its eye, then closed its great jaws, shattering Merk’s staff into pieces. It then turned and set its sights on Merk with an eye filled with fury, a fury unlike Merk had ever seen. This crab was intent on eating him alive.

  Merk, still sliding, finally grabbed hold of a nook in a rock, right before he slid off the edge. He looked down, dangling, and saw, hundreds of feet below, a plunge awaiting him into the Sea of Tears. It was a plunge that would kill him.

  He looked back up and saw the crab coming down for him, somehow able to hold its balance on anything, and Merk knew he was sandwiched between two awful deaths. With death certain on either side of him, he did not know what to do.

  The crab came closer, and as it was just feet away, Merk suddenly decided to choose one death over the other. Better to die by the ocean, he figured, than to be eaten alive by this thing.

  Merk let go and
slid down the rock, bouncing and rolling, bruising himself with every bump, sliding downward and downward. He shrieked as he fell, hardly able to catch his breath as he plummeted down, right for the ocean.

  The crab, fearless, as quick as light, skittered down after him, and in one lightning fast move, it reached out with its pincher and tried to grab hold of Merk’s other leg. Yet Merk was falling too fast, and to Merk’s great relief, it missed.

  His fall continued, until Merk suddenly came to a hard stop as he felt himself smashing into rock. He looked down, baffled, to see that, by some grace of God, there was a small stone ledge he had not seen, jutting out on the edge of the cliff, and he had luckily smashed into it. Barely wide enough to hold him, he lay there on his side, clinging to the edge of the cliff, praying for life.

  The crab clearly had not expected to miss with its pincher, and the move threw it off balance: it slid over the edge, shrieking an awful high-pitched noise, and continued sliding right down the side of the cliff. As it fell it snapped its claws one last time at Merk, trying to grab him and drag him down with it, and Merk, frantic, held his breath and pulled himself in tight against the stone. It barely missed, just grazing his arm. The crab continued to fall, to his great relief, flailing, on its back, its belly exposed, its legs kicking up in the air. It dropped hundreds of feet, and Merk watched it fall, waiting, still feeling unsafe until he actually saw it dead.

  The immense creature finally landed in the ocean far below, on its back, with a great cracking noise, as its shell cracked. Merk watched with great relief as it was washed away in the massive waves of the Sorrow, its legs still flailing as it floated away on its back, off to some cruel and unknown death.

  He lay there, on the edge of the world, and breathed deep for the first time. He looked up at the steep ascent and he could only wonder: what other horrors awaited him on the Devil’s Finger?

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  Kyra knelt on the stone as she had all night long, her legs numb, so lost in meditation that she no longer felt her body. She had slipped into a strange state where it had become hard for her to distinguish reality from fantasy, and she could no longer tell if she was awake or asleep as she slowly opened her eyes and looked out at the black sky, the million twinkling red stars, and most of all, the visage of her mother. There she was, in a flowing white robe, with startling blue eyes and long blonde hair, ascending the temple steps, approaching her, as if she had been awaiting her forever.

  Kyra, breathless, studied her mother’s face as she neared. It was a beautiful, timeless face, with her fine features, chiseled cheekbones, and haunting eyes, eyes that Kyra could find something of herself in. In her flowing, white gown, she seemed to float up the stairs, seemed to hover just before Kyra, just out of reach, smiling back sweetly.

  “You have lost your way,” her mother said, her voice so soft yet echoing throughout the empty city. It was a voice that resonated within Kyra’s soul, one that she had always longed to hear. It restored her just to hear it.

  “What is the way, Mother?” Kyra pleaded. “No one has ever taught me.”

  Her mother smiled back.

  “That is because you must teach it to yourself,” she replied. “The warrior does not look outward for others to train her; she looks inward. You look outward, Kyra, always, for external recognition. You search for approval, for fame, for weaponry, for teachers, for mentors. That is all an illusion, Kyra. None of them will help you. Look inside. That is the hardest journey of all.”

  Kyra frowned, struggling to understand.

  “I…” she began, “don’t know who I am, Mother.”

  Her mother took a deep breath. Kyra’s heart pounded with anticipation as there followed a long silence, filled with nothing but the howling of the wind.

  “What is it within you that you refuse to face?” her mother finally asked.

  Kyra struggled with the question. As soon as her mother asked it, Kyra knew this was the question she had been grappling with all night long, the answer just out of her reach. She knew her mother was right: she was striving for approval and recognition, external ways to better herself. Her mind was so focused on the outside world, it was hard to focus internally.

  “You must empty your mind, Kyra,” her mother said. “You must unlearn everything you know.”

  Kyra tried, but felt she could not. Instead, she found herself distracted by a million thoughts.

  “How, Mother?”

  Her mother sighed.

  “Stop trying to see the world for what you think it is. See it instead for what it truly is. For what it is right now, in this moment. The world right now is not what it will be a minute from now, and it is not what it was a minute ago. It is ever-changing. What do you see in the now?”

  Kyra pondered her mother’s question and she felt a warmth rising within her as she began to realize the truth of her mother’s words. She realized she had always tried so hard to grasp onto everything, to understand it. And in that preliminary understanding, she realized now, she had lost all chance of understanding. The second she knew something, her knowledge was no longer true. The state she needed to strive for, she realized, was a state of continual open mind. A state of continual not knowing.

  Kyra closed her eyes and dwelled on it. As Kyra knelt there, dwelling in her mother’s meditation, she felt a warmth spreading within her, overtaking her, as she slowly felt herself filled with clarity.

  After a long silence, Kyra opened her eyes, filled with understanding and excited by it.

  “The true warrior,” Kyra said, looking back excitedly, “knows nothing. He knows that the only battle is within one’s self. The outside world is illusion.”

  Her mother finally smiled wide.

  “Yes, my daughter.”

  Kyra felt the warmth continuing to spread within her, while at the same moment, the sky became filled with color. The sun began to creep over the horizon, a sliver of dawn breaking over the vast night sky. It was as if the world were waking with her. The sun and the moon hung opposite each other in the sky, the stars still between them, and Kyra knew something special was happening. She felt a power coursing through her, and for the first time, she no longer felt any lingering doubts. It was as if a veil had been lifted from the universe. Her source of power, she realized, came from her understanding.

  As Kyra closed her eyes, dwelling in her enlightenment, an image flashed in her mind’s eye—a baby dragon. It opened its eyes, shining, their light so intense that she gasped. She was confused to realize it was not Theos. It was a baby dragon. And far more powerful. She felt an instant connection to it.

  She could feel its pain, its wounds, its clinging to life. And as she stared back in her mind’s eye, she willed herself to heal it. To summon it.

  There flashed through her mind another image: a weapon. She frowned, struggling to visualize it.

  “What is it I am seeing?” Kyra asked.

  There came a long silence, until finally her mother replied: “The dragon wakes. And the Staff of Truth beckons you.”

  “The Staff of Truth?” Kyra asked, puzzled.

  “The one weapon that can save us.”

  Kyra, confused, tried to bring the picture into focus.

  “I see it atop a mountain of ash,” she said. “In a land that burns with sulfur and fire.”

  “It is you, Kyra,” her mother said. “It is you who must go there and retrieve the weapon.”

  “But where?” Kyra asked. “Where is this weapon? Where must I journey?”

  There came a long silence, until finally her mother uttered a single word, a word that would change her life forever:

  “Marda.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The baby dragon lay on the forest floor, feeling himself dying and no longer caring. He was so weak now from loss of blood, he could barely open his eyes. He had been slipping in and out of consciousness, overwhelmed by dreams of his father coming to greet him, to escort him into a bright light.

  He had f
ought it at first, but now he was ready to let go. This life had been too short, too painful, too confusing. He did not understand life. Why had he been born only to suffer? Why was he not meant to live longer?

  Without his father alive, he felt little cause to go on. His wounds ached, but the pain lessened as he drifted more into unconsciousness, as he stopped fighting the urge to live. Death, he realized, might not be so bad after all.

  As the baby was sinking, feeling more at peace, falling into a world of white, the sounds of the forest muted, distant around him, suddenly, it came. It was like a ping to his consciousness, a single direct beam of energy that startled him from his state. That brought him back.

  The baby opened his eyes with a jolt and looked around, breathing hard, wondering. And then it came again.

  It was real. It was a call, a command—a summons. It came from a girl in distress, a girl his father had cared for very much. A girl who was more than a girl. A human who was more than a human. It was a girl who needed him. Who was calling him. Who had a power he could not resist. A power that made him want to live.

  With a new sense of purpose, the baby opened his eyes all the way and even craned his neck. He allowed the white light to fade, the feeling of comfort to fade. He embraced the pain of life, however much it hurt. After all, he was alive, and life mattered more than all. He could always die later, find peace later. But he could only live now.