Read Online Dagger - The Light at the End of the World by Walt Popester - Free Book Online Page A

a hurry, Hammoth, in a hurry and
afraid. I swear I saw him cry when he discovered the Spiral on the
baby’s chest.” He drew a long sigh. “That mark should not be on a
mortal. It is the symbol of the infinite; the eternal cycle of
destruction and rebirth, that regulates the flow of the great All.
It’s the symbol of the gods. He has already sent one of his most
trusted student beyond the walls of Agalloch in hopes of
discovering a little more about what happened, as well as what
expects us, but when Aniah begged him in tears, saying, ‘Kill him,
Poison lord! At least you can kill him, can’t you?’ His answer was
a gloomy silence. In that way, he confirmed that one suspect I
never wanted to become a certainty, there’s no way to kill him. He
is immortal, all like his father.”
    “ Then we have to hide him!”
Hammoth ordered. “There’s nothing to talk about!”
    “ The boy?”
    “ That bastard!” he
specified. “Gorgors have eyes and hands even in here, you can bet
on it! We have to hide him as far as possible, where they will
never find him. if they do find him, the consequences could be
unpredictable.”
    “ You speak with wisdom but
there’s no place that far. Not on this world, at least.”
    “ So what should we do? Close
him in a crate and let him spend the eternity on the ocean’s floor?
So to lose control and leave him at the mercy of the currents of
fate?”
    “ Angra would never allow
it,” Marduk said.
    “ Was he already informed?”
Hammoth asked. Marduk nodded. “And what does he think about
us?”
    “ He just bowed his face,
without answering. He looked humiliated, and
disappointed.”
Hammoth shook his head. “We betrayed his
trust. You can betray the trust of a god only once. We are now
impious to his eyes. No storm will ever wash away the blood on our
hands.”
    A gust of wind slammed
against them, shaking their clothes and hair, before leaving them
to silence. It was the Scream of
Skyrgal , the strong wind that used to come
and go with suddenness, knocking men on the ground, bursting open
the windows, stripping the trees of their leaves.
    “ While I was coming here I
was thinking about a possible solution,” the Dracon said. “It’s not
a good idea, but it’s still an idea, and it’s the only one I
have.”
The Pendracon raised a hand. He looked at
him with firmness and fear at the same time. “Make him disappear,”
he said. “I do not want to know where. No one must ever know I just
killed twelve Guardians to protect this secret.” He let those last
words ring within his conscience, as he looked at his hands. “Yes.
I killed them. And you’ve already figured that out if you’re still
the Delta Dracon I know. This secret is worth more than our useless
lives. There are spies here at the Fortress, after what happened to
Crowley I’m sure about it. If we can’t trust all our men, we can
trust none of them. The child and his cursed blood must disappear,
nobody can know where. The salvation of all for which we have
fought depends on it.”
Marduk looked at him. “It’s a great burden
you give me.”
    “ Yes. It is.”
    “ And I hope to be worthy of
your trust.”
    “ You’ll have to
be.”
Hammoth looked down to him. He put a hand
on his shoulder and sent him away with that gesture. Marduk bowed
as a sign of obedience and strode to the door. Then, he stopped. He
turned to look at his Pendracon, overwhelmed by responsibility,
drunk, exhausted. He looked at him with compassion and felt
remorse. A Guardian, especially a Dracon, could not look that way
at their infallible, irreplaceable guide, the man from whose
decisions life and death of all depended. He could not doubt his
unquestioned integrity but, in the end, not many years had gone by
since they were both just Guardians, blood brothers, friends of a
Pendracon called Crowley Nightfall. He heard his wild laugh,
remembered the light in his amused eyes as he watched them vomit
their soul out after a night of drinking.