The dragon shrieked, its emerald eyes on Silurian as it dropped out of the sky. Standing by himself, he was stuck helplessly between the fighting and the wizards.
The dragon opened its fearsome mouth, exposing an inferno of roiling flames.
Silurian held his sword before him, as if the thin piece of metal would be enough to divert a swath of dragon fire. He steeled himself and thought, Dragon, I feel your pain. Let me help you get the parasite off your back.
The dragon shrieked. Its head retracting in preparation to expend its flames.
Helleden’s greasy black locks flew around his pale face, his small mouth open, laughing hysterically.
Silurian bent low to minimalize himself as a target.
Alhena and Melody discharged ice spells at the beast to little effect.
The dragon disgorged a torrent of fire so hot the ground burned and plant life withered several paces away from the path of the flames.
Melody’s cry of absolute terror had her companions on the battlefield looking her way.
The dragon turned abruptly, slowing its flight. With a great whoosh of beating wings it dropped to the ground and faced the Wizards of the North.
Helleden slipped from its neck and straightened his robes, showing no fear of the magic users standing in his way—his rings and the amulet around his neck gave off wisps of arcane activity. “With Silurian out of the way, it is time to rid the world of wizards once and for all. How I have longed for this day, Phazarus.”
When the Axe Falls
An old townsman, his nose broken and bald head covered in blood, pulled Sadyra away from the pile of bodies. Demons still fought in small pockets but for the most part, the secondary battle had been put to rest.
“Sadyra. Allow me.”
Sadyra glared at the man, her fist cocked, ready to pound his broken nose, but she stopped herself.
“Gitch?”
The man smiled at the unsavoury nickname Sadyra had labelled him with in her youth working amongst the grizzled fishermen.
“Aye, my dear. I still curse the day you landed in my best net and cut a hole in it big enough to sail a brig through. It’s been a long time.”
Gitch helped Karvus and Olmar toss demon bodies off the bloodied, mangled form of Pollard Banebridge—Pollard’s skin ripped and torn, his brass cuirass dented and gouged beyond repair.
Sadyra pushed Karvus and Gitch aside and knelt against Pollard’s massive bulk. She placed her tiny hands on his blood covered cheeks, moving his head from side-to-side. “Pollard,” her frail voice squeaked.
The big man lay unresponsive to her touch.
“Hey, ho!” Olmar declared, his attention on the dragon landing in front of the smoldering remains of her family home.
Olmar, Karvus and Gitch ran off.
Larina bent close and gave Sadyra a squeeze, whispering softly, “Come on, Sadie, we’re not out of this yet,” and bounded away, picking up stray arrows along the way.
Tears fell from Sadyra’s cheeks to Pollard’s handsome face. Although the battle was only half won, she couldn’t bring herself to leave him lying in the field amongst the vile demon corpses.
Wracked with painful sobs she laid across his hard cuirass and buried her face into his neck. “Don’t leave me. I need you.”
The Songsbirthian wheezed, “Then get off me and make us proud.”
Sadyra’s head poked up, her freckled face smeared with blood and dirt. An incredulous smile dimpled her cheeks. She cried even harder with happiness. “You’re alive! Oh, my love.” She smothered his face with quick kisses.
He tried to laugh but a wracking cough clenched his features. “Sadie, dear. They need you. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here when you get back.”
She looked at him, his pale face barely visible through her wet eyes. “You better be.” She leaned back and found his sword wedged in the torso of a demon nearby. There was no way she’d be able to remove it, so she placed her old dagger in his open palm and helped him wrap his fingers around it.
“Take that.” Her voice broke. “Don’t you let anything get you.”
He forced an agonized smile, his own eyes tearing up. “Go.”
She didn’t think she had the strength in her legs to stand up but she did. Stepping over the corpse of a mangled demon, she looked back. Pollard’s eyes were closed.
She stumbled over the next body and slipped in the gore, falling to her knees.
An ear-piercing shriek drove a hatchet through her frail nerves. The dragon’s head reared up high and darted forward, a blast of fire aimed at the wizards.
Pops and Melody stood firm, their staffs ablaze with blue light, deflecting the flames around them.
Olmar and Gitch ran at Helleden, the fools hollering at the top of their lungs, alerting the sorcerer of their approach.
Helleden spun to face the threat. Red wisps of magic coalesced from his talismans, swirling into a ball of static, crimson lightning.
The sorcerer was in the process of hurling the deadly sphere but jerked sideways at the last second, a throwing knife embedded in his hip.
The lightning ball crackled harmlessly past Olmar as the giant tackled Gitch to the ground. The static charge impacted the trunk of a large tree, exploding in a shower of splinters and a myriad of arcing tendrils.
Sadyra ran toward the chaotic scene, her apprehension rising. She didn’t know where to direct her attention.
Helleden faced Larina standing off to the side, raising her bow.
Sadyra’s eyes flicked to the gargantuan beast spewing fire, its onslaught collapsing the ice shield the Wizards of the North powered with failing intensity.
Where was Silurian?
Her fear for Larina brought her concentration back to Helleden. He conjured another ball of crimson death, his attention focused on her closest friend.
A blur of motion crashed through the smoldering ruins of her old home. She gaped. Karvus swung his axe through the air to pummel the unsuspecting sorcerer.
The flaming pass of the dragon hit the ground behind Silurian and continued up the hill toward the wizards and the burnt-out hut. The concussion of the blast threw him forward to the ground, away from the fire, knocking him senseless. In his state of delirium, he couldn’t help thinking the dragon had missed him on purpose.
A woman screamed. He thought it might be Melody but his addled brain struggled to focus. He fought hard to keep from blacking out.
He tried to roll over to see how everyone was doing but his mind wallowed in confusion. He put a shaking arm on the ground and tried to push up only to fall back on his face.
The noise of the land battle lessened. Had his hearing suffered? He turned his head to witness a bunch of unarmoured men and women of all ages hacking and poking at Helleden’s remaining minions. He blinked several times, trying to make sense of it all.
An eerie shriek jarred his attention to something happening behind him. The roar of flames pulled his mind from its haze. The dragon!
He sat up.
Olmar’s charging hulk crossed his vision. The crazed sailor roared as he and another man Silurian had never seen before ran at a black-robed…Helleden!
His mind cleared. The sorcerer. The dragon. The fire. His sister!
Melody and Alhena were bent behind a diminishing ice shield.
Silurian located his sword in a patch of burnt grass and got to his feet, stumbling a couple of times. He needed to help them.
The inferno faltered. The dragon’s eyes narrowed at his approach but he never wavered. He pulled up behind the wizards, wary of coming into contact with their shield.
Reaching out, he extended his dull sword, touching its tip to the edge of their power. The sword’s runes flared to life, reinforcing the wizard’s spell with its touch.
The dragon fire ceased and the beast tilted its head.
Windwalker?
The question reverberated in Silurian’s mind so clearly, he was sure the dragon had spoken it aloud. He glanced at Me
lody and Alhena who dropped their shield for a moment’s respite. “Did you hear that?”
Melody gave him a quick hug, relief in her eyes. Neither wizard answered him though, their attention was divided between the dragon and Helleden.
The sorcerer discharged a crimson blast at Olmar, his accuracy thrown off when he suddenly jerked sideways.
A tree erupted in spectacular arcs of crackling energy.
Helleden’s pendant flashed and a chunk of ground beneath the charred remains of the hut exploded, sending Karvus flying through the air to land amid the smoldering wreckage, his battle-axe spinning on its own and landing with a clang and a thump on the path before the hut.
Free me.
Helleden spun on the dragon. “What are you doing? I command you to burn them!” Red wisps jumped from his rings, intertwining with the wire collar around the dragon’s neck.
The dragon shrieked.
Silurian dropped to the ground in exquisite agony. He released his sword to grab at his head and the pain subsided.
Melody knelt beside him. “Again? It must be Helleden.” She straightened and discharged an ice ball at the sorcerer. The blast should have frozen him solid, but his trinkets flared to life, absorbing her magic.
Silurian went to pick up his sword and noticed the ruby tang stone glowing softly of its own accord. The recent events pieced themselves together. The significance of the gemstone they had taken great pains to collect from the Gimcrack became clear. The key to their salvation—the secret their mother had died to protect.
Wrapping his fingers around the hilt, he opened his mind and sensed the dragon—the Tang Stone a magical conduit enabling its bearer to speak with dragons.
He crouched down and closed his eyes, shutting out the outside world. What must I do?
Free me.
Another blast of pain paralyzed him. He dropped his sword and severed the link.
Helleden confronted the dragon with outstretched arms—a steady stream of crimson wisps filtering into the wire collar.
The dragon turned its head on Helleden, immense pain in its emerald eyes. Silurian thought for sure it would eat the sorcerer. Instead, it retracted its neck.
“The collar controls it!” Silurian shouted and grabbed his sword, trying to ignore the pain in his head. He fell to his knees but refused to relinquish his hold. His sister’s life depended on it.
The dragon prepared for another blast, the knowledge transmitted to him as if he had thought it himself. “Mel, ice shield!”
I’m sorry. Came the dragon’s sad words before opening its mouth and throwing its head forward—a great gout of flames incinerating everything lying between them.
Melody and Alhena stood over him, their staffs radiating a thinner shield than before.
Silurian fought through the debilitating hurt and joined the earth blood magic with their waning power.
The shield solidified momentarily before it wavered again.
His sister’s desperate voice reached him above the deafening roar of the flames, “I can’t hold it much longer!”
“Breathe deep, my child. Remember our lessons,” Alhena’s steadying voice coached her.
Slowly at first, their combined magic solidified the shield and they pressed forward into the path of flames.
A pain more acute than anything Silurian had ever experienced wracked his body. In the brief interval it took the dragon to reload its breath, he felt the inhumane torment Helleden’s psionics were inflicting on the majestic creature. I feel your pain. You are not to blame.
A brief sense of gratitude filled Silurian’s tortured mind but the sentiment turned bleak.
Your magic is waning. You will be lucky to survive my next breath. Please forgive me.
Silurian couldn’t breathe—the dragon’s despair too much to bear.
The dragon retracted its head, preparing its killing fire. Its great head came at them, exhaling a firestorm that made everyone still alive fall back—even Helleden.
The ice shield flickered and condensed under the intensity of the discharge. Silurian reached deep, channeling every ounce of earth blood into the defensive shell but it wasn’t enough.
Flames licked around the edges of the shield, scorching the wizards’ fireproof cloaks.
Alhena yelled and Melody screamed, expending everything they had in one last, futile push, but it wasn’t enough. Wrapping their cloaks around Silurian, they fell to the ground.
Sadyra backed away from the raging inferno, the conflagration so intense she couldn’t see the wizards or Silurian anymore.
Helleden’s rings shot arc after defensive arc of crimson lightning around his person, preventing every arrow and knife Sadyra and Larina launched from reaching him.
The most infuriating aspect of the whole battle was the fact that the sorcerer didn’t even bother to look at them. His total concentration lay on the dragon. It was as if his rings defended him of their own accord.
Olmar and Gitch followed several townspeople toward the preoccupied sorcerer but before they got anywhere near him, they were infused with lightning and dropped unmoving to the ground.
Sadyra tried unsuccessfully to swallow the lump in her throat. Somewhere behind her, Pollard lay amongst the dead. Judging by what was transpiring before her eyes, the rest of her party would be joining the corpses littering the hillside very soon.
Alhena cried out and Melody screamed.
Their ice shield collapsed beneath a brutal onslaught of dragon fire and all three defenders fell to the ground, huddled beneath a heap of blackened cloth as the dragon ceased its assault.
Sadyra was beyond caring. She ran over to the steaming pile of black robes. She knelt down but hesitated, afraid to lift the cloaks for fear of what she’d find.
The wizards’ staffs lay remarkably unscathed on the ground; Silurian’s sword discarded close to her feet.
Helleden laughed by the dragon’s side. “It’s too late, little one. They’re beyond help now.”
Sadyra looked over her shoulder and snarled at the sorcerer walking toward her.
Olmar had gotten back up and charged with Larina at his side, their clothing torn and bloodied.
Helleden didn’t appear to notice. One moment her friends were running, and the next, they were laid out flat, their weapons flying away from their falling bodies as Helleden’s rings went to work.
Sadyra gritted her teeth, seething. The runes on the face of the Sacred Sword Voil lying in front of her were glowing with a blue magical essence. With nothing else to lose, she entertained a crazy idea. She had no way to wield anything arcane, but perhaps the sword would do it on its own.
She wrapped her delicate fingers around the hilt and was bombarded by a strange sensation. Someone was speaking inside her head.
Reecah? It sounded confused.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about?” Sadyra said out loud, looking around for the person responsible.
Reecah. It is me. I am Lurker.
Her eyes met the dragon’s and right away she knew. Eyes wide, she stepped back, stumbling on one of the wizard’s robes. “Look, Mister dragon, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Helleden glared at the black behemoth. “Are you speaking to that woman? I warned you not to communicate with these people.” He stepped toward the dragon, discharging wisps of energy into its collar.
The dragon shrieked.
Sadyra thought for sure it would strike at Helleden but something held it back.
Free me, Reecah.
Sadyra felt the dragon’s anguish. She frowned. Who was Reecah? Did the dragon think that was her?
Was this your home? the voice asked, an undertone of pain seeping into her mind.
What an odd question. How did it know that? Her mind whirled with everything that had transpired over the last little while. The fighting and the people. Her home burning down. Snippets of conversation she’d had with various people along the way. One of the last things she’d heard Silurian ye
ll before the dragon incinerated him, rang loud in her mind, ‘The collar controls it!’
Yes, Reecah. The collar. Release me. Don’t let him make me kill you. I could not bear that.
Sadyra stumbled backward. It read her mind.
Yes. We were once joined as one. You left me, long ago. I have hidden ever since.
“Look, Mister dragon. I don’t know who this Reecah person is. Yes, this was my home but you mistake me for someone else.” Her voice continued to rise in frustration. “My name is Sadyra, and if I thought I could get past that bastard and take off your collar I would gladly do so.”
Ah yes. I see it now. You are descended from Reecah Windwalker. You share her essence.
Her essence? That made no sense whatso—
Something grey rose out of the ashes of the hut. It bent down stiffly and lifted a great battle-axe from the trail in front of the ruins.
Large and scary in appearance, melted skin clung to the man’s blackened head. A clump of shrivelled red beard hung off one cheek.
“Karvus?” Sadyra squeaked, recoiling at the grotesque figure of the Kraidic Emperor.
With a battle cry belying his deathly appearance, the Kraidic emperor charged.
Helleden spun, waggling his ringed fingers and discharging ribbons of arcane power.
The dragon dropped its head between them, intercepting the bolts.
“Karvus! Sever the dragon’s collar!” Sadyra screamed.
Karvus bellowed one last time, and swung his mighty battle-axe into the collar, severing the cable and cutting into the dragon’s neck.
“You fool! What have you done? It’ll kill us all!” Helleden raged.
The beast calling itself Lurker reared up on its hind legs emitting an earth-shaking roar. It retracted its head and opened its mouth wide, oblivious to the blood running from its wound. Dripping flames, it drove its head at Helleden and disgorged a swath of dragon fire.
Helleden’s rapid incantations could be heard over the roar of the flames, as he channelled defensive spells to counteract the fiery assault. “Your flames can’t harm me, dragon!”
Lurker never stopped his advance. His mouth came down over Helleden’s head, cutting his chant short, and snapping the pasty-faced sorcerer in half.
Soul Forge Saga Box Set Page 103
