o
DARKSTALKER
Okay, let's take stock of things, Darkstalker thought as he silenced out the screaming, and the panicked minds of the galvanized soldiers. The situation was worsening. Two lieutenants were down, their troops were destabilizing, and the IceWings were taking full advantage of the momentum they'd gained.
Even he started to feel a wave of dread wash over him, but he forced himself to fight it. There were still plenty more NightWings than there were IceWings. They needed to regroup and form a plan, but regrouping was possible. More importantly, Clearsight was okay, despite her persistent efforts to get herself killed. They could salvage this.
When he looked over at Clearsight, though, he noticed that she was thinking otherwise.
The panic that struck his heart when he saw the watch in her talons nearly threw him out of the sky. "No!" he shouted, flying straight for her.
He reached forward to rip the watch out of hers talons, but before he made it to her, an explosion went off in her mind.
Her vision of the blast was so vivid that even with the weak, unconscious connection he had with her thoughts, there was a split second where he thought it might have been real. But it really was just a vision. Nothing nearby had exploded. Not yet, at least.
Clearsight recoiled, and the watch slipped from her talons. Half-a-heartbeat later, Darkstalker crashed into her, and they started tumbling down.
He broke away from her, and they both righted themselves, spreading their wings to stabilize and catching the same draft of wind to lift themselves back up.
When he looked at Clearsight and slipped deeper into her thoughts, she had broken out of the vision. She looked frantically all around her, confused, shaking like a leaf.
He held her head in his talons. "Clearsight! What did you see?"
"I — I don't know. I…." She shook her head. Clouds of defeat and hopelessness swarmed her mind. "Darkstalker, we can't win this."
"Yes we can!"
"We can't."
"We can! Tell me what you saw!"
Clearsight didn't answer. She looked down, completely nonplussed, wondering only where the watch had gone.
Darkstalker held her chin and pulled her head back up. "Clearsight, what was that explosion?"
"I don't know," she whispered.
"Then find out!"
"What's the point?"
"Because whatever it is that's keeping us from taking the fortress is probably linked to that explosion. If you find out what causes it, we can find a way to work around it."
That broke through the fog in her mind. A spark of hope lit up, and she desperately clung to it as she examined the futures.
Her brain moved like clockwork, far too rapidly for Darkstalker to follow. A dozen simultaneous visions intersected in her mind, flashing in and out of her headspace like words on a scroll. Darkstalker had to pull himself out of her mind in order to keep himself from getting dizzy.
But he could still read the look on her face. He watched as her eyes strained and her brow furrowed. And he saw the moment of discovery, when the corners of her mouth softened in the most subtle way, and her eye ridges shifted from a posture of deep thought to quiet determination. She'd found something.
A few seconds passed before it all snapped together. She opened her eyes and blew a piercing note into her whistle. "All NightWings, come together, follow me!"
All at once, a hundred pairs of black wings shifted. Darkstalker stayed beside Clearsight at first, but when he remembered that Clearsight had dropped the watch, he found himself descending. His eyes scanned the grassy field below. Any ignorant dragon could pick that watch up and press the button on it without knowing what it did. He needed to make sure that he found it first.
But his search was cut short. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a pair of IceWings flying towards him, and he knew that if he let them catch up to him while he was isolated, he'd be as good as dead. He made a mental note of where he was, remembering the shape of the ground and his proximity to the forest and the mountains, then he made haste, turning around and flying towards the congregation of NightWings that was starting to form in front of Clearsight.
Clearsight, meanwhile, was flying towards the onager. She blew the whistle twice, and seconds later, six dragons were carrying the giant machine into the air. As they began flying north with the onager, the other NightWings surrounded it protectively.
Darkstalker returned to Clearsight's side, keeping an eye out for any IceWings that tried to approach them. He wanted to ask her what the plan was, but there was a piercing concentration in her eyes, and he couldn't see any sense in disturbing it.
With the dragons surrounding the onager, the IceWings had no way of getting to it. They persistently tried, but every IceWing that got too close was driven off with NightWing fire. Before long, Darkstalker heard regrouping orders from the IceWing commanders, and the remaining enemies retreated towards the mountains.
But they came back. As the mountains began to close in, a more organized sentry of IceWings took shape. First came the assault of dragonflame cactus bombers, flying overhead and dropping cacti with lit fuses attached into the NightWing cluster. Some of the cacti were kicked away by particularly brave soldiers, and others fell through with dud fuses or delayed explosions. But two cacti found their mark, detonating in the heart of the NightWing formation. At least a dozen NightWings crashed into the hills.
Then came the coveys of IceWings, lightly armored but much more agile. They flew in V-formation, sweeping the edges of the NightWing cluster with an onslaught of ice breath.
Darkstalker had no knowledge of how to counter these attacks, but fortunately the other NightWings did. When the IceWings swept back around for a second attack, eight NightWings flew out from the cluster. With remarkable coordination, they grabbed four of the IceWings by their wings or tails, pulling them into the NightWing formation. Darkstalker heard their slaughter more than he saw it. The soldiers swarmed them like livid wasps, claws and daggers at the ready. There was a chorus of blood-curdling screams before one-by-one they fell to the ground, drenched in the blue of their own blood.
The cave entrance soon appeared. It was more than large enough to accommodate for the onager and the NightWings carrying it, though Darkstalker reckoned that once they were inside, it would be a struggle to navigate the walls and get it into position.
At first the mouth of the cave was brimming with IceWings, but once the NightWings landed in front of them, they overwhelmed the defenses through sheer numbers. The IceWings were either pushed back or cut down, and about a third of the NightWing body came flooding in.
They quickly made space for the onager. Clearsight flew forward to give directions to the NightWings carrying it, and Darkstalker followed, intent on protecting her at all costs.
They finally landed far in the cave, where sunlight stopped penetrating the walls. Clearsight looked behind her as the dragons approached with the onager. They had placed it on the ground now and were rolling it further into the cave.
"Darkstalker, join the soldiers at the mouth of the cave," Clearsight commanded. "I want you to help keep the entrance clear."
"I'm staying here with you," he said sternly.
"Look, there's a hundred IceWings outside trying to block our way out. We can't let them trap us in here."
"Why not? It's not like we want to get out of here. We're besieging the fortress. And we fight better in the caves, so—"
"Darkstalker, trust me: the fewer dragons that are clustered near the gate, the better."
Darkstalker suddenly remembered her vision. That huge explosion — it had been so clear in her mind. Whatever it was, it had to have been moments away. Was she planning on doing something drastic? Was she going to sacrifice herself to ensure they could win?
No, he could never let her do that. "Please, let me keep you safe. Whatever it is you're planning, let me do what I can to protect you."
"The best thing you can do to keep me safe is keep the entrance clear. Now go!"
Darkstalker wished he had been reading her mind, because he wasn't sure if that was the truth. But she flew off and started giving orders before he could challenge her. He sighed and made his way towards the cave entrance.
This would be so much easier if Clearsight would just tell him what her plan was, or at the very least what was going to cause the explosion. The IceWings surely had plenty of brightsting cacti left, right? Maybe they were planning on blowing up the area in front of the gate.
With how many NightWings there were in the cave right now, that felt alarmingly probable. A few well-placed cacti blasts would destroy their onager without a hitch. A few more could take out most of the troops. It would also take out several IceWings, but maybe if they got desperate….
Perhaps the plan was to break into the fortress before they got the opportunity to counterattack in that way. Clearsight would know if they could rush the breach fast enough, and how much time they would need in order to retreat safely if they proved to be too slow. And the clearer the path of retreat was, the more time they'd have to safely continue their breaching efforts, hence why Clearsight wanted him to help keep the opening clear.
The line of assault, where IceWing and NightWing blood was spilling, was right at the mouth of the entrance. It was as tall as it was wide, so an agile IceWing could still fly over the ground troops to get in. But there were five or six NightWings in the air, and no IceWing dared such a maneuver, lest they get grappled by one of them.
The smell of NightWing blood sent Darkstalker's heart racing with a primal fear, and his instincts kept him from leaping into the fray. Instead he found a particularly large and particularly experienced-looking NightWing and stayed close to him.
He steeled himself, trying to quell his terror by replacing it with pride. This is my chance to kill some rotten IceWings, he thought. Clearsight had already killed two herself. How embarrassing would it be if he couldn't beat that?
His opportunity came when a flurry of a dozen IceWings flooded in all at once. They breathed ice down on the ground dragons in front, drawing furious cries and roars of fire. Half of the IceWings were intercepted by dragons in the air — they were dragged down and torn apart. But a few made it through. Darkstalker and the dragon beside him targeted the same one, and simultaneously they delivered a burst of firebreath at the enemy.
The IceWing flew past the fire at first, but the heat soon grew unbearable for him, and he fell, his face contorted in pain. He tried running beside an IceWing who managed to break through unharmed, but Darkstalker and several more NightWings were already on them.
He saw the IceWing rear his head to deliver another blast of ice breath, but the NightWing beside Darkstalker charged ahead and tackled him before he could exhale. There was an opening in the IceWing's underbelly, and Darkstalker raked his claws against it. They sank deep into his flesh, and he pulled away, tearing tiny scales off and opening deep blue gashes into his stomach. The IceWing lurched forward, and the other NightWing bit into him, tugged twice, and avulsed nearly a quarter his neck.
A loud snap came from beyond the cave, followed by a loud crash. Darkstalker reared his head, worried for Clearsight's safety. But he spotted her beside the onager, whose throwing arm was being pulled back into place by a trio of NightWings. A boulder rolled gently beside the gate.
The gate stood at least four dragons high and three dragons wide, and its wooden beams were reinforced with iron from the top and the bottom. It was a small wonder that the IceWings were confident that it'd never be breached. Yet, there was a clear disturbance in the structure now. One of the wooden beams had buckled, and the gate now stood slightly askew.
Darkstalker couldn't help but feel a little scared of the onager himself after seeing the damage that just one stone's throw had done. It really did throw with more strength than twenty dragons, and with Clearsight's powers to guide it, its accuracy was rivaled only by a scavenger's throwing arm.
A plume of fire caused Darkstalker to rear his head, and another cluster of IceWings came swooping in. Darkstalker quickly scanned the thoughts of the NightWings near the front lines. About a quarter of them were dead, a quarter were injured, and a quarter more were exhausted. The remaining soldiers were still putting up a fight, but there were more IceWings now, and they were only interested in getting to the onager, not in killing every NightWing that they saw.
In his periphery, he saw an IceWing land, and when he turned his head, he saw that there was a struggling NightWing beneath his serrated claws. Darkstalker leapt forward to tear him off of the pinned soldier, and this time, he didn't hesitate to pull out his dagger. The IceWing was only lightly armored: Darkstalker found an opening and stabbed. The blade entered the IceWing's neck just underneath his chin.
Something awful turned in Darkstalker's stomach when he realized the IceWing was going to die from that. He felt his own neck tensing up as he pulled out the blade and the IceWing choked on his own blood. For a second he was wondering why he didn't feel triumphant.
But he didn't have time to linger on the question. He had other IceWings to deal with. IceWings that would get Clearsight killed if they got too close.
But just as he started scanning the room for another NightWing to support, he heard a whistle blow three times from within the cave. Clearsight was calling a retreat.
Oh no, that can't be good. Were they too late?
A look of confusion came over all of the NightWings around him. Retreat? he heard some of them thinking. But we're winning, aren't we?
Suddenly, Clearsight flew past them, followed by dozens of NightWings. Darkstalker ran after her, stumbling over the bodies littering the cave floor in an effort to avoid getting trampled. All it took was a few seconds for the confusion to amass into order, and every NightWing was flying out of the cave.
Darkstalker took to the sky. He glanced behind him and saw an outpouring of the remaining NightWing soldiers, many of whom bore armor stained with blue smears of IceWing blood.
Clearsight blew the whistle three times again, alerting any NightWings that were still outside that might not have heard the first retreat order. Another thirty or forty NightWings converged towards the cluster.
As the last of the NightWings left the cave, Darkstalker heard regrouping commands from within the cave. The IceWings that had been fighting now began to rush in. He saw a few unfortunate NightWings who had been slow to retreat, and though they tried to fly past the IceWings, they failed to break through. He winced as the IceWings pushed them back into the cave, and looked back ahead before he could see them getting torn apart.
He winged up, taking advantage of the enchanted water he had drank and pumping his wings to reach Clearsight at the front of the pack. She appeared to be talking with Lieutenant Morningstar, though even from a distance the conversation hardly sounded cordial.
"What in all the shining moons is wrong with you!" Morningstar shouted. Darkstalker pitched towards them. Morningstar looked like she was ready to break Clearsight's wings: her front talons were even twitching, reaching forwards slightly. "The onager is still in there! They're going to destroy it!"
Which means they won't try and pursue us, Darkstalker thought. Why would the IceWings bother throwing away their troops to give chase when they'd just taken control of the only thing that could tear down their gates?
"Keep flying," Clearsight said sternly. "Pick up the pace!" she then shouted, addressing all of the NightWings.
Darkstalker blinked and looked behind him. Was his assessment wrong? He didn't see any IceWings, but maybe Clearsight saw them giving chase in the future. He finally found the sense to peer into her mind, but all he could read from her was a soul-gripping anxiety that was expertly hidden behind the stone-cold look in her eyes.
Despite her orders, the NightWings didn't pick up the pace. Whether they were dejected by their defeat or exhausted from their fighting, their wings didn't carry them any faster.
"We've lost!" Morningstar scolded. "We clutched defeat from the jaws of victory, and it's because of you! We had it! You had to have seen that we had it! Are you an idiot? Are you a coward? What could have possibly compelled you to turn back now of all times?"
"I know what I'm doing, Lieutenant," Clearsight simply said.
"If you knew what you were doing, we'd still be trying to win this!"
Suddenly, Clearsight stopped. Most of the other NightWings behind her stopped too, though some ended up colliding with others.
"Everyone!" Clearsight commanded, "Turn around, spread out, and hold your positions!"
Darkstalker turned around. The entrance to the cave was still fairly close, perhaps half a mile out. But now he was confused. Was Clearsight having them brace for another attack? No, if they wanted to attack, surely they would be better off continuing to retreat, right?
He scanned the area for IceWings, but again none were there. They had all gone back into the cave, likely to help disassemble the onager and collect weapons and armor from the fallen NightWings and IceWings.
Then he saw a flash at the mouth of the cave. Then he saw a blast. A red ball of fire shot out of the entrance with such force that a crack formed in the mountain. Smoke and smoldering stones spewed from the eruption as parts of the mountain turned into boulders, falling down in front of the cave entrance.
There was a quiet murmur, followed by an ear-piercing shockwave. It shook the air and threw everyone into a dizzy fit. A few NightWings who didn't or couldn't follow Clearsight's orders to spread apart collided with one another.
Darkstalker instinctively covered his ears and spread his wings to stay stable. When he found the sense to look at the cave again, all he saw was billowing smoke as the echoes of the shockwave rang through.
"What … just happened?" Lieutenant Morningstar asked breathlessly.
"Sabotage," said Clearsight.
"What?"
Clearsight glanced back at Morningstar. "Didn't you wonder why we never heard anything back from Foeslayer?"
Darkstalker felt his heart sink into his stomach. The pieces fell into place with heart-wrenching clarity. Mom….
"Foeslayer? What, was she doing an infiltration mission here?" asked Morningstar.
Clearsight winced, and Darkstalker heard a voice in her mind reprimanding her. "It must've been my job to tell you about it. Well, she was instructed to sabotage the IceWing supplies being stored in the Shooting Star Valley fortress just before the attack. We knew she'd be able to sneak in unnoticed, so she has probably been inside of the fortress for some time now. I can only imagine her surprise when she saw the mounds of dragonflame cacti that they had stored there."
Darkstalker didn't need to hear any more. He immediately started flying back as fast as his wings could take him. Clearsight called his name, but he could hardly hear it, and he wasn't going to let her slow him down.
He wasn't sure what exactly had happened, but he could hazard a couple of guesses. And if Foeslayer was in the fortress when the explosion went off….
Maybe she was okay. She had her earring on, right? Maybe it protected her. Maybe she was still alive, but stuck in the cave-in and needed rescuing.
But when he flew into the cloud of dust and spotted the entrance to the cave, he found that even that was too pessimistic of an assumption.
Foeslayer was standing there, atop the rubble and debris, without a scratch on her. She looked a little dazed, but was otherwise completely unbothered. Even the dusty air, which was causing Darkstalker to start coughing, seemed to have no effect on her.
When she saw Darkstalker approaching, she smiled. "Darkstalker? What on earth are you doing here?"
"Mom!" Darkstalker landed so hastily on the rocks that he nearly crashed. He ran forward and hugged her tightly, but then the stones beneath his feet gave, and he fell to the ground. "Are you alright?" he asked as he picked himself up.
Foeslayer laughed. "Yes, but are you alright?" She brushed some of the dust off of his scales, and her talons went over a layer of IceWing blood. Her smile vanished.
"Mom, I'm fine," Darkstalker promised. "I came here to help Clearsight win, but I … it looks like you already had everything covered."
"Foeslayer!" Clearsight shouted as she landed beside Darkstalker and marched up to his mother. "You are very, very lucky that your son was here."
"Oh, really?" Foeslayer said, tilting her head at him. "What did he do?"
Darkstalker tilted his head at Clearsight. Yeah, what did I do?
"He helped keep my head on straight while you were planning this crazy maneuver," she said, waving her arms in the air at the debris.
Darkstalker looked over his shoulder and saw that Lieutenant Morningstar, along with most of the NightWings, were alighting near the rockslide.
"I wasn't expecting the explosion to be so … intense," admitted Foeslayer. "But if I was going to destroy their supplies, I couldn't think of a better way to go about it than just blowing it all up."
"How on earth are you still alive?" asked Morningstar, looking around at the rubble, dumbfounded.
"In case there are still IceWings nearby, I shouldn't say," Foeslayer said with an apologetic smile. "But I'll admit that I wasn't entirely sure I would survive."
"But you did this anyway?" asked Darkstalker, feeling a slight ache in his heart upon hearing that.
"Well, opportunity knocks," Foeslayer said. "This war has been going on for too long. I saw this as a chance to maybe finally bring an end to it. If that chance ended up costing me my life, then at least I would have died knowing that my dragonets wouldn't have to fight in a war that I started."
Darkstalker felt a wave of anger pass over him. How dare you even consider that! Don't you realize how much you mean to me and Whiteout? How badly it would hurt us if you died?
"Judging by what happened here, I'd say that this probably did the job," Morningstar said. "That was the last offensive holding they had in our Kingdom, and the explosion destroyed the entirety of their largest battalion. If Queen Diamond were smart, she'd cut her losses and surrender now."
"I'm glad things turned out well," Clearsight said with a sigh. "But it could have gone very badly. Why didn't you blow things up before the battle started?"
"I would have," she said, "if I hadn't heard that they were planning on inviting General Floe's battalion to reinforce the fortress. I figured it would be better to wait until they were all in the cave before setting off the explosion. But they decided at the last minute to attack first, and I never got the opportunity.
"At first, I assumed that I'd just have to wait for the battle to end and hope that you would win. But then I remembered that Clearsight would be leading the fight. I figured that if I committed to a plan on when to set off the cacti, Clearsight would see the explosion in her visions. I decided to wait for the sound of the onager throwing its first rock, then counted off a thousand heartbeats before lighting the crates of cacti. That would have given Clearsight enough time to see the explosion coming and fly the NightWings to safety while the IceWings all stayed behind."
"Well — I mean yeah, that's exactly what happened," Clearsight said, looking away from Foeslayer when she started beaming proudly. "But still. If it didn't, it could have gone very, very badly. Next time you want to rely on my powers, make sure that if it goes wrong, I'd still be alive to see it going wrong. Otherwise I won't be able to see it."
Foeslayer's eyes went wide, and her thoughts indicated that she wasn't sure whether to apologize or to reprimand Clearsight for not commanding the siege safely from the rear, like she said she'd be doing.
"Captain Clearsight, I owe you an apology," said Lieutenant Morningstar, bowing her head reverently. "I never should have doubted your judgment. I insulted your authority and I'm deeply regretful for that. I hope you can find it in you to forgive me."
Clearsight glanced at Morningstar, taken aback by her sudden change in attitude. When she found her voice, she said, "You're forgiven. We were fresh from battle. Tempers were running short." She looked over at the sea of NightWings standing beneath them. "We should do a headcount," she said. "Queen Vigilance would like to know how many we lost, and which battalions were hit the hardest."
Morningstar nodded, and the two of them started towards the NightWing soldiers.
Darkstalker, meanwhile, returned his attention to Foeslayer. "You really shouldn't have risked your life like that," he said quietly.
"Hey, it turns out I didn't in the end," Foeslayer assured him. "The earring didn't even let me get trapped in the cave. I felt my body being carried out just as the walls started crumbling. It was weird, being surrounded by a loud and screaming hot inferno one moment, then being at the foot of the landslide the next."
"But what if the war's still not over?" he asked. "Yeah, if Queen Diamond is smart, she'll surrender. But she doesn't seem very smart. She might not give up until you're dead. And as long as this war is still going on, Queen Vigilance will still be trying to get rid of you."
"After all this, I think I'm long overdue for retirement," Foeslayer said, revealing for the first time the hint of exhaustion in her voice. Her mind revealed to Darkstalker she hadn't slept in days. "If Queen Vigilance insists on keeping me out here in the field and away from you and Whiteout, then do me a favor and just murder her already. Everyone in the palace keeps saying you're going to do it."
Darkstalker figured that she was either joking or simply not thinking straight, but he still felt the need to correct her. "I'm not going to kill the queen," he said. "I really wish that rumor would go away."
Foeslayer patted his shoulder. "Relax, Darkstalker, I'm just teasing you."
"Yeah, well, I'd rather not be teased about it," he said. "Vigilance is only a few paranoid thoughts away from sending an assassin after me, you know."
He felt the remorse swim into her mind. "I'm sorry, sweetie," she said softly. "But I hope you know that you don't have anything to worry about. Keen Eye is keeping an eye on you, and she has more than enough influence to keep you safe."
Darkstalker sighed. If he were being honest, Keen Eye's assurance of his safety didn't exactly mean that much to him.
"Of course, that's assuming that you're in the palace," Foeslayer continued, "which you're not. You're out here, having just taken part in a huge battle, where you could have died."
"Nah, I couldn't have died," he assured her. "I'm way too smart to do something silly like that."
Foeslayer was about to retort with something, but a shout from the crowd of NightWings cut her off. "Captain Clearsight!" the voice shouted.
Clearsight, who was still near the front of the army, poked her head up. "I'm here," she shouted back. "What do you need?"
"A messenger just arrived from the palace. She came bearing a scroll with the royal stamp. She was instructed to give it to you."
"Let me see it."
The crowd of NightWings parted, making way for the soldier, who walked to Clearsight and offered her a scroll in his talons. The scroll was small: the wax seal was wider than the scroll's diameter, and the paper was folded to keep the contents from being visible.
Clearsight took the paper and flew atop a broken stone near the base of the cave-in before breaking the seal. Darkstalker started towards her, but hesitated when he saw the look in her eyes. At first they went wide, then they went wider, then her eyes darted back to the top of the scroll as she read through it again. Darkstalker followed her mind as the words passed over her eyes, so that he could pick up the meaning too. Then his eyes went wide. Then they went wider.
She lowered the scroll and turned to Darkstalker.
"Clearsight," he whispered, "I swear, I—"
"I don't need to hear it," she said, even more quietly. "I need—" She bit her tongue. Her mind was racing but no ideas were coming to her. "Just go."
Darkstalker folded his ears. "But Clearsight—"
"I'll figure it out, okay? I don't know what the troops will do, but you probably shouldn't be here while I tell them. Go and find my watch, okay? It's still on the ground somewhere."
He really wasn't sure if that was a good idea. But Clearsight wasn't going to let him say no to this, so he decided all he could do was trust her judgment. He nodded, and flew off without another word.
The letter was from Princess Acuity. Queen Vigilance was dead. Darkstalker and Prince Fathom were the prime suspects to her murder. Fathom was already imprisoned, and Acuity had given orders to Clearsight to bind Darkstalker in chains and escort him to the palace.
He descended to the plains where the battle had taken place and landed about ten feet from an IceWing corpse. For over a minute he simply stood there, unable to remember what he was supposed to be doing. He could hardly even think. They had Fathom. And that meant they had his scroll too. He had nothing.
For the first time in his life as a thrice-moonborn dragon, he felt completely powerless.