Chapter 1054 — The Stars Over Tarrond
Blade of Dawn · Page 4 of 4
"But it cannot be denied that dragons driven to despair after losing the bonds of society remain a very great danger. Our innate power is too strong, while the starting point of most mortals in this age of civilization is too weak," Noreta sighed. "That is why we must find a way — we cannot let a proud people sink into such a dark, despicable state, and the most urgent thing we can do now is to bring some hope to the other survivors who may exist in the wild."
"Bring a little hope?" Metzen repeated instinctively.
"That idea you proposed really is excellent," Noreta suddenly smiled in the dim, dusk-like light. "Perhaps even you do not realize how excellent it is."
"My idea?" Metzen was taken aback for a moment before reacting. "Oh, you mean lighting the flame? It was really just a sudden inspiration... After all, I did spend so long active in the human world."
Noreta kept smiling and glanced back toward the tallest ruined watchtower in the southwest corner of the camp. "Lord Bayangol is about to light the flame — they say he repaired a pressure-boosting device dug out of the ruins, and the blaze it spews will be enough to cross the entire plain..."
Metzen instinctively looked that way as well. In the dim light, with the most primitive, natural vision, untouched by any filter or visual enhancement system, she saw the tall tower; on the platform at its top, vague shadows were moving, and a point of firelight flickered now and then.
She blinked, wanting to see more clearly — and in that very instant, a blaze that shot into the sky, accompanied by a roar of pressure, suddenly tore apart the gloomy dusk!
A colossal pillar of flame rose up, piercing the murky, dim sky above the ruins of Agondor as if it would run through heaven and earth; its brilliant light, just as Noreta had said, could be seen across the entire plain.
Many dragons in the camp were startled by the blaze and raised their heads to look toward the watchtower; even those dragons already somewhat delirious from the backlash of the boosters were, for a moment, drawn to it.
In Metzzen's violet eyes the leaping flames of the camp were reflected, and she was somewhat startled; several seconds passed before she looked away.
She gazed beyond the camp, her eyes sweeping across the dim plain shrouded under filthy clouds.
The rolling, scorched earth, the savagely torn ruins of the city, the molten, twisted wreckage of steel — all of it lay wrapped in a still and shadowy gloom.
The fire rising from the ruined camp of Agondor was, in all that vastness, the only light in the world.
Metzzen stood on the high platform gazing into the distance, and for a long while she found nothing at all; at last she sighed with disappointment, and at her side Noreta said softly, "Perhaps they haven't seen it yet — or perhaps they did send up a signal, but we couldn't—"
A faint point of fire suddenly appeared in Metzzen's and Noreta's sight. It rose from the very edge of the horizon, lasted only a brief moment before dissolving into the sky, but a few seconds later another flame of the same kind climbed up in the same place.
The rest of Noreta's words died unspoken; she and Metzzen both stared wide-eyed, and within mere seconds new light appeared in their view — light from another direction, a bolt of lightning, unmistakably lightning wrought by magic.
Then came a third signal, and a fourth.
Now a faint breath of dragonfire, now a bright flash of lightning, now merely a sudden plume of dust thrown up from the ruins — as though answering the flames of Agondor one after another, they rose from every corner of the barren, scorched plain, great and small, far and near.
The nearest of them was close by the camp itself.
Metzzen's eyes went very wide—
Beneath the dim and heavy sky, these faint lights shone bright as a field of stars.