Soul Forge Saga Box Set

by Richard Stephens

  With dawn came the tide, forcing him to wait even longer. He impatiently bided the morning hours away until the surf calmed. Not waiting for the shoreline to become fully exposed in the falling tide, he waded into the cold surf.

  The path dipped lower than he hoped. At its deepest point, a frothy swell rode up over his sword belt. He didn’t care. The cold, the wet, the hunger, the pain in his joints—they meant nothing. He had one thing on his mind. He didn’t dare think beyond that.

  Reaching the far side of the cliff’s base, he spotted an animal track leading into the dizzying heights. Even though the path ran away from the plateau overhead, there didn’t appear to be another way to access the heights.

  Standing at the end of the shoreline trail, he stepped away from the edge to escape the worst of an incoming swell. The wave surged past the broad rock under his feet and crashed into a shallow alcove that prevented anyone on foot from travelling farther up the shoreline.

  He craned his neck. The promontory extended over the water, casting the immediate area in shadow. The sun lay hidden behind the plateau and the iron-grey clouds sweeping northeastward.

  With his life’s goal in reach, self-doubt entered his thinking. The devil responsible for robbing him of his reason to live stood atop the rock formation. All he had to do was climb up there and fulfill the desperate yearning that fueled his will to live. If not for his insatiable desire for revenge, he would have succumbed to the dark desire of falling on his blade the day he had returned home to find his family slaughtered.

  And yet, with Helleden within reach, he faltered. Fear gripped him. Not fear for what he assumed awaited him. He didn’t care if he died as long as the son of a bitch died with him. He feared failure. What if he wasn’t up to the task? What if Helleden killed him and lived? He couldn’t bear the thought of that outcome.

  He believed that by discovering the earth blood fount, he had been afforded the power he required to finish the task he’d let slip through his fingers on the bloody plains of Lugubrius.

  How many people had died as a result of his failure? Tens of thousands of innocent people at the very least. All because he had lacked what it took to rise above his grief and go after the vile sorcerer years ago.

  And then Alhena…he shook his head…Phazarus had come along. Reaching through his self-loathing, the old man had given him the opportunity to make amends. Looking back, he couldn’t help thinking he was already too late.

  His beloved queen had died because he wasn’t strong enough to face his demons. If he could believe the tale of the Chamber fiasco, the merciful Abraham Uzziah had been subverted by Helleden, and had prepared the kingdom’s stage for the day the sorcerer returned.

  Silurian shivered at the thought of how the poor chambermaster’s spirit must be dealing with the result of his actions. Facilitating King Malcolm’s death must have driven a knife through the Chambermaster’s heart. Silurian hoped the gracious man hadn’t been aware of his actions in the end.

  And then there was Rook. His best friend had died defending those left behind—doing his best to pick up the shattered pieces of the broken land in a futile effort to make things right.

  He screamed his frustration into the howling wind. It should have been him! If he’d acted faster, his best friend—his sister’s husband—might still be alive.

  His sister. The only important person left to him. The one who fueled his passion to do what must be done. He steeled his resolve. He mustn’t fail. Her life depended on it.

  He envisioned her innocent face, recalling her fear the day they had faced Hairy and Thonk all those years ago. He had delivered her safely from those nightmarish beasts. He planned to do so again.

  It was time to set things straight.

  Fishmonger Bay bustled with early morning activity. Fisherwomen and men were bent tending nets or loading bait in the scuppers of deep hulled skiffs as they prepared for the day. The sun remained hidden behind The Spine, leaving the coastal hamlet in cool shadow. Judging by the thick cloud cover drifting over the churning ocean and the branches and other loose debris littering the area, a bad storm had ravaged the coast last night.

  To Sadyra and Melody, the temperature felt balmy compared to the cold of the mountain pass. Sweat dripped from their faces—it had been a long night. Neither woman had slept much since leaving their companions, but their spirits were bolstered by their proximity to their destination.

  Sadyra’s eyes flitted from the local tavern to the smithy, from the poor excuse of a shipyard to the mercantile building—its roof sagging precariously in the middle. Nothing ever changed in the backward community of her youth.

  Her pace slowed as childhood memories assaulted her. She envisioned her younger sisters playing in the surf, looking over their shoulders as if worried about who watched them. A huge wave rose out of the sea and washed over them. When it receded, only the older girl remained. Sadyra gasped…

  “Sadyra!” Melody’s voice brought her back to the present.

  Sadyra shook her head. She’d imagined it. Of course. Her sisters—she swallowed the lump in her throat, correcting herself—her sister was grown up now.

  Her tired gaze drifted beyond the town centre to where a path wound farther up the coast toward the hovel she had grown up in.

  She blinked back the tears blurring her vision. She had fought so hard to forget her past and now, here it was, unfolding before her. She bit her lower lip and glanced at Melody.

  “Sorry. Just a bad memory.”

  The Wizard of the North gave her a strange look, but her question wasn’t what she thought it would be. “Where now?”

  “You said the Summoning Stone is a jut of rock protruding over the water not too far north of here, right?”

  “That’s what I gleaned from the tome in the Wizard’s Spike.”

  Gleaned? Sadyra frowned. She had no idea what that meant. However, she understood the gist. “The coast from this point on is almost impassable by land. A small trail leads up that hill.” She indicated the steep rise on the far side of Fishmonger Bay. “From up there we see a great, black rock sticking out of the mountainside. I’ve been there many times. It’s nothing special really.”

  “Take me to it.”

  “It’s a rough trail. It wanders up and down the mountainside, passing by the bottom of a cliff along the shoreline to just beyond the outcrop. If the tide’s in, we won’t be able to get there.”

  Melody studied the mountain heights. “If that’s the only way there, let’s move.”

  Sadyra followed her gaze. There were other ways into the upper levels if one knew where to place their hands and feet.

  Walking through town, which consisted of a dozen or more ramshackle, wooden buildings leaning away from a solitary dock jutting into the waves, Sadyra noticed Melody’s interest in the odd statues and washed out murals on the cliffs behind the hamlet. She’d forgotten the villagers’ fixation with dragons.

  It never dawned on her until that moment to make the correlation with what they might be facing. As far as she was concerned, the tales of flying beasts indoctrinated into the history of Fishmonger Bay were nothing more than fanciful myths to entertain children and the rare visitor. She’d never thought much about the statues. Growing up, they were just something that was always there, like a tree, or an old building.

  To her, Fishmonger Bay was a dead-end village inhabited by backward thinking people. A place without a future. She dismissed the notion that her hometown was anything but a mishmash of jumbled buildings offering nothing more than poverty and heartache.

  She shook her head at the local pier. Without a break wall, the dock on their left was a muddle of planks and posts loosely tied together. How many times the townspeople had rebuilt it over the years, Sadyra had no idea. In calmer weather, it served as a great place to moor the heavily laden fishing boats, but in heavy seas, any boats tethered to the pilings were churned into driftwood. The jetty lay empty, its deck disappearing beneath rolling whitecaps.


  Trying to remain inconspicuous, they walked through the town with their faces pointed straight forward, trying not to make eye contact. Sadyra kept her head low. Recognizing many of the grizzled faces walking about, she dreaded the prospect of anyone remembering her but as they passed beyond the last dilapidated warehouse and started up a slick mountain trail, she felt oddly sad when no one had.

  Near the top of the slope, the traces of a path branched up into the trees to the right. Had she not known where the ancient grave markers of some distant relatives lay partially hidden beneath an old lilac bush, she would never think it was anything more than an animal track. She knew better. The path led to her old home. The hovel she was born in. The one her parents had died in. The one she had killed them in. She stifled her tears. They had had it coming.

  Standing on top of the hill, the coastline spread out before them, littered with jagged reefs that were forever pounded by ocean swells.

  Sadyra recalled more than once being caught out there, unprepared for the sudden storms that swept over the heights unannounced and battered the coast. She’d wrecked a few of the family’s fishing boats as a child. She could still feel the welts she’d received as a result.

  “There!” Sadyra yelled over the noise of the wind and surf, pointing to a promontory that appeared too heavy to be hanging off the mountainside. It projected over the sea at a higher elevation than where they stood, but she knew its top was as flat as Madrigail Lake.

  “How long will it take us to get there?”

  Sadyra pursed her lips and tilted her head. “If we catch the tide out, we should make it there by noon.”

  Melody frowned. “That long?”

  Sadyra nodded. “Unless you know how to fly.” As soon as she said it, she regretted her choice of words. It wasn’t lost on her what they might be up against. She tried to envision what kind of damage her arrows would do against a dragon. Provide it kindling, more like.

  “Will the tide be out then?”

  “Not sure. It changes daily. We should’ve asked in town.”

  Both women looked back at the distant hamlet, barely visible from the hillcrest through the trees.

  Melody’s hood blew off her head, whipping her blonde hair in the wind and covering her face as she spoke. “We can’t go back. We have to find Silurian.”

  Sadyra pulled her own hair from her face. “How do you know where he is?” She examined the crags above their position. “He could be anywhere.”

  Melody threw her arms in the air. “I don’t. We’ll just have to start there and hope we discover something.”

  Sadyra followed her gaze to the promontory. As fit as she was, the last few days had been grueling. She didn’t relish traversing the hazardous trail up to the so-called Summoning Stone. How Melody had kept up with her was a mystery. The woman was driven, and with good reason, but there were limits on what a body could do.

  Melody started down the steep hill, using that same staff to keep from slipping on the slick layer of mud amid the rock-strewn path.

  Sadyra let her get a good distance ahead, making sure no one followed. She wouldn’t get a better overview of the land until they reached their destination.

  For some reason, she had an urge to fire an arrow toward Fishmonger Bay. She might have if she thought it would fly that far.

  She took two long, steadying breaths—a technique Pollard had taught her years ago, and her tension eased enough to focus on her role with the Wizard of the North.

  Melody wasn’t exactly thinking straight. The woman had too much to concentrate on. Too much to lose. Sadyra knew she would have to be the level-headed one if they wished to get anywhere near their intended target.

  She took a third breath for good measure and let it out slowly. If the sorcerer was up there, today would be judgement day. Depending on the outcome, it might prove true for the rest of the world as well.

  She adjusted her gear and made to step onto the trail but stopped, her attention riveted on the promontory. She squinted, trying to focus on the ledge. Something moved up there. Something huge. She watched a while longer, but whatever it was had moved away from the edge.

  She checked on Melody’s progress. The wizard rounded a bend far below and disappeared.

  Sadyra gauged the waves against the crags jutting out of the surf. They were in luck; the tide appeared to be pulling out. She realized she knew this just by watching the rhythm of the sea. This was her home town. She had grown up here. She had laughed and loved and worked hard here. She knew the nuances of the coast as if it were an old friend. A friend she had abandoned to escape the cruelty of her parents. She fought back tears. A tough place to come home to.

  With any luck, by the time they reached the shoreline, the path beneath the cliff supporting the Summoning Stone would be passable—the plateau accessible via a narrow trail ascending its far side. She’d better get a move on or the wizard would leave her behind.

  She gave the Summoning Stone one last look before skipping down the slope, her footing sure. She was a well-trained Splendoor Catacombs Guard. This was her terrain.

  Fiery Reckoning

  Silurian stepped onto the animal track and froze. A woman’s voice called out to him.

  “Silurian! Stop!”

  He spun around, staring at the blonde-haired woman hustling toward him, her wizard robes flapping about her slight body. How had she found him so fast?

  She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight. Through gasping breaths, she said, “I thought I’d lost you. Oh, Silurian, thank the gods I found you.”

  All at once, the large boulder of crushing darkness lifted from his chest. Like someone had pulled his heart out of the murky depths of despair and held it up to the sun. The realization that there were still things worth fighting for stared him in the face.

  He returned her embrace. She was the reason he fought. Her wellbeing the driving force behind his desire to deal with Helleden Misenthorpe once and for all. In the throes of his epiphany a cold filled him. He didn’t dare put her in harm’s way.

  Catching her breath, Melody pointed to the underside of the ledge. “Do you think he’s up there?”

  He didn’t know what to say. If he went up there, she’d surely follow and he couldn’t allow that. Not if he wished to concentrate on what he needed to do.

  “What’re you doing here?” His words came out angry.

  “What do you mean? I’m here to kill Helleden. Just like you and the rest of us.”

  He looked back the way they had come. “The rest of us? Who else is here?”

  “Sadyra should be along soon. We came ahead to stop you.”

  “Stop me? Why would you do that?”

  “We have to do this as a united front. Helleden is too strong for any one of us. Together we might have a chance. Especially if he hasn’t found a way to summon that…” She stared at him hard, reading his expression. Her jaw dropped. “He’s already got one?”

  Silurian nodded. “I saw it last night.”

  “Oh no. How big?”

  “Big.”

  “Well, um, we should go back to Fishmonger Bay and wait for the others.” She stared at the underside of the Summoning Stone. “Let’s wait for Phazarus. He’ll know what to do.”

  “And take the chance of Helleden getting away?”

  Melody looked around. “Where’s he going to go? Sadyra says there’s no way out of here except back the way we came.”

  “Unless he flies.”

  Her eyes widened. “You think he can fly it?”

  “Don’t know, but I’m not taking the chance.”

  He saw the fear in her eyes. He didn’t blame her. He was scared stiff.

  Their attention was drawn by Sadyra rounding the curvature of the cliff face, sprinting hard. She stopped a few steps short of the large rock they stood on. “There you are!”

  Silurian cringed. Another life to worry about. He contemplated telling the archer to remain here and direct the others when they showed up
but he noticed her squinting at something behind them, over the ocean.

  A cold dread shot through him.

  Melody stiffened beside him.

  He turned his head slowly, not wanting to believe what he knew to be true. Drifting high upon the air currents, a black mass circled over the ocean. Flapping its great wings, it turned its angular head their way.

  Silurian faced it head-on, his sword blazing bright. What good a flaming sword would be against a creature that reportedly breathed fire, he had no idea, but it was the only thing separating him from a fiery death.

  Melody clutched the wrist of his sword arm, the runes on her staff changing from orange to light blue. “You need to protect our outside flank. Use your sword to bolster my magic.”

  He stared at her. How was he going to do that? He saw she prepared to employ a cold spell. Cold made sense. They were about to be charred. What effect it would have on dragon’s fire, they were about to find out.

  He fought hard to curb the urge of running away from the nightmare descending on them. He blinked at Melody, her instructions filtering through his fear. Outside flank?

  The gargantuan beast plummeted out of the sky, catching its descent at the last moment with great, outspread wings and landed on a rocky spur on the far side of the alcove. Clawed feet, bigger than a man, crunched the granite, holding its inverted bulk to the steep embankment. Glowing emerald eyes watched them from either side of a horned head—its nostril slits swirling with orange flames.

  Its mouth, lined with dozens of curved teeth, opened so wide that Silurian could see down its throat to the flames roiling within.

  The dragon lifted its head, roaring at the sky before it thrust its mouth toward them, spouting a stream of fire.

  Silurian switched his sword to his off hand as Melody’s staff emitted a field of static blue energy. He held the sword’s tip against the visible magical shield she generated. Concentrating for all he was worth, he willed the earth blood magic to augment the shield and together they deflected the searing flames into the rock and surging water.