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Kavos nodded, clearly liking the idea.
“And you, Duncan?” he asked in return, concern in his voice. “As poor as my odds are in the north, your odds in the Gulch are much worse.”
Duncan nodded back and smiled. He clasped Kavos’s shoulder.
“Better odds for glory, then,” he replied.
Kavos smiled back with admiration.
“And what of the Pandesian fleet?” Seavig chimed in, stepping forward. “Even now they hold the port of Ur. Escalon cannot be free while they hold the seas.”
Duncan nodded to his friend, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“Which is why you shall take your men and make for the coast,” Duncan replied. “Use our hidden fleet and sail north, at night, up the Sorrow. Sail to Ur, and with cunning enough, perhaps you can defeat them.”
Seavig stared back, rubbing his beard, his eyes alight with mischief and daring.
“You realize we will have a dozen ships against a thousand,” he replied.
Duncan nodded back, and Seavig smiled.
“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Seavig replied.
Seavig mounted his horse, his men following, and he took off without another word, leading them all off into the desert, riding west for the sea.
Kavos stepped forward, clasped Duncan’s shoulder, and looked him in the eye.
“I always knew we would both die for Escalon,” he said. “I only did not know we would die in such a glorious way. It shall be a death worthy of our ancestors. I thank you for that, Duncan. You have given us a great gift.”
“And I you,” Duncan replied.
Kavos turned, nodded to his men, and without another word, they all mounted their horses and took off, riding north, for Kos. They all rode off with eager shouts, raising up a great cloud of dust as they went.
That left Duncan standing there alone with several hundred men, all looking to him for direction. He turned and faced them.
“Leifall approaches,” he said, watching them near on the horizon. “When they arrive, we shall all ride for the Gulch as one.”
Duncan went to mount his horse, when suddenly, a voice cut through the air:
“Commander!”
Duncan turned in the opposite direction, and he was shocked at what he saw. There, from the east, a lone figure was approaching, walking toward them through the desert. Duncan’s heart pounded as he watched her. It could not be possible.
His men parted ways on all sides as she approached. Duncan’s heart skipped a beat, and he slowly felt his eyes filling with tears of joy. He could hardly believe it. There, approaching him, like an apparition from the desert, was his daughter.
Kyra.
Kyra walked toward them, alone, a smile on her face, heading right for him. Duncan was baffled. How had she arrived here? What was she doing here? Why was she alone? Had she walked all this way? Where was Andor? Where was her dragon?
None of it made any sense.
And yet there she was, in the flesh and blood, his daughter returned to him. Seeing her made him feel as if his soul was being restored. All felt right in the world, even if just for a moment.
“Kyra,” he said, stepping forward eagerly.
The soldiers parted ways as Duncan walked forward, smiling, holding out his arms, eager to embrace her. She smiled too, throwing her arms out as she walked toward him. It made his entire life worthwhile just to know that she was alive.
Duncan took the final steps, so excited to embrace her, and as she stepped forward and embraced him, he wrapped his arms around her.
“Kyra,” he gushed, tearing. “You’re alive. You’ve returned to me.”
He could feel the tears streaming down his face, tears of joy and relief.
Yet strangely, as he held her, she was still, silent in return.
Slowly, Duncan began to realize that something was wrong. A split second before he realized, his world was suddenly filled with blinding pain.
Duncan gasped, unable to catch his breath. His tears of joy quickly morphed to tears of pain, as he found himself breathless. He couldn’t process what was happening; instead of a loving embrace, he felt a cold shaft of steel puncturing his ribs, being driven all the way inside. He felt a hot sensation gushing down his stomach, felt himself numb, unable to breathe, to think. The pain was so blinding, so searing, so unexpected. He looked down and saw a dagger in his heart, and he stood there in shock.
He looked up at Kyra, looked into her eyes, and as horrific as the pain was, the pain of her betrayal was worse. Dying did not bother him. But dying by his daughter’s hand tore him to pieces.
As he felt the world begin to spin beneath him, Duncan blinked, baffled, trying to understand why the person he loved most in the world would betray him.
Yet Kyra only smiled back, showing no remorse.
“Hello, Father,” she said. “So nice to see you again.”
Chapter Two
Alec stood in the dragon’s mouth, gripping the Unfinished Sword with trembling hands, dazed, as the dragon’s blood gushed down on him like a waterfall. He looked out from between the rows of razor-sharp teeth, each as large as he, and braced himself as the dragon plummeted straight down for the ocean below. He felt his stomach dropping through his throat as the icy waters of the Bay of Death rushed up to greet him. He knew that if he was not killed by the impact, he would be crushed by the dead dragon’s weight.
Alec, still in shock that he’d managed to kill this great beast, knew that the dragon, with all its weight and speed, would sink to the bottom of the Bay of Death, and would take him with it. The Unfinished Sword could slay a dragon – but no sword could stop his descent. Worse, the dragon’s jaws, now lax, were closing in on him as its jaw muscles relaxed, clamping down to become a cage from which Alec could never escape. He knew he had to move fast if he had any chance of survival.
As the blood gushed down onto his head from the roof of the dragon’s mouth, Alec extracted the sword and, as the jaws nearly closed, braced himself and leapt. He shrieked as he fell through the icy air, the dragon’s razor-sharp teeth scraping his back, slicing his flesh, and for a moment, his shirt snagged on the dragon’s tooth, and he did not think he would make it. Behind him he heard the great jaws clamp shut, felt his shirt rip, a piece torn off – and finally, he was in free-fall.
Alec flailed as he dropped through the air, bracing himself for the black, swirling waters below.
Suddenly there came a splash, and Alec was in shock as he plunged into the frigid waters, the icy temperature taking his breath away. The last thing he saw as he looked up was the dragon’s dead body, plunging down near him, about to impact the bay.
The dragon’s body hit the surface with an awful crash, sending huge waves of water up in either direction. Luckily, it just missed Alec, and the wave instead crested out and away from its corpse. It carried Alec high up a good twenty feet away before it stopped – and then, to Alec’s dread, it began to suck down everything around it in a giant whirlpool.
Alec swam with all his might to get away, yet he could not. Try as he did, the next thing he knew, he was being sucked down in the vast whirlpool, beneath the depths.
Alec swam as best he could while still clutching the sword, already a good twenty feet below the surface, kicking and plunging in the freezing waters. He kicked for the surface, desperate, sunlight sparkling high above, and as he did, he saw massive sharks begin to swim toward him. He just spotted the hull of the ship bobbing in the waters high above and he knew he had but moments