Dragon Sword: Demon's Fire Book 1

by Christopher Patterson

  “I don’t speak dog,” Sir Garrett replied.

  In a rare form of aggression and bravery, Andu screamed and attacked the knight. But, as much as Bu hated these Hámonian pricks, they were all adept fighters. Andu wound up on his back, Garrett beating him senseless until Bu pulled him off the man. That’s when Andu retrieved a knife from his boot and tried to stab Garrett in the back, again, with a mighty yell. He was a loyal dog, but not at all stealthy.

  Bu grabbed Andu, and Garrett turned on the sergeant with his sword drawn. That was when Bu heard dwarvish shouting, and he knew they had alerted the patrol to their position. His glare at the knight told the man this matter would have to be settled at a later time, and that’s when he pulled Andu behind the large bush and muffled his curses.

  In a way, he was happy to see his broken sergeant show a bit of balls, but it was misplaced and at the wrong time. Garrett would have killed him, and he gave away their position.

  “What do we do?” Bao Zi asked in a croaking hushed voice.

  “These little hairy pricks won’t stop looking for us now they’re here,” Bu replied. He finally let go of Andu and gave the man an angry look that caused him to whimper like the dog he was. “We’ll have to kill them. That’s all there is to it.”

  Bu looked at Garrett.

  “Wait here,” Bu said.

  “What am I waiting for?” Sir Garrett asked.

  “When I slit the first dwarf’s throat,” Bu said, “attack.”

  Bu jerked his head sideways, and Bao Zi, Andu, and his last remaining eastern soldier followed him. They crawled on their bellies for a long time, and Bu suspected the knights of getting restless, but there was no indication they would disobey their orders. For as long as they crept along the mountain floor, the dwarves stared out into the forest, muttering to one another. They broke their circular rank and stepped away from one another, fanning out and inspecting trees and bushes.

  Bu would have much rather continued without a fight. He was low on resources and, if this wizard of Fealmynster was as crazy and powerful as Li said he was, he would need all the strength he could muster, but these dwarves would not let that happen. The northern dwarves were aggressive and unkind to intruders in their lands. Once they saw several easterners, fighting would be inevitable. If Bu had tried to sneak away, it would never have worked with the useless idiots he had in his party.

  Bu stopped and looked over his shoulder. Bao Zi stared back, waiting. Bu nodded. He could smell the bear fat on the closest dwarf, and a deep musky smell. It disgusted him, but he sought to ignore it. Bu crouched behind a tree, pressing his back up against its trunk hard. It was wide enough that it covered his whole body. He withdrew a dagger from his belt.

  As he waited there, dagger in his right hand, he saw the tip of a spear pass by, then the whole blade and part of the shaft. It was slow, as the dwarf gingerly tiptoed forward. Bu was certain that this dwarf, no doubt chosen to be a scout for his tracking abilities, knew they were in the forest. As about half the shaft of the spear passed in front of Bu, he grabbed the wood, pulled the dwarf forward, grabbed his hairy chin, jerked it up, and plunged the dagger blade into exposed flesh.

  “Now, Bao Zi!” Bu shouted, and his personal guard stood and threw his own dagger at the next nearest dwarf.

  The loud grunt said that Bao Zi hit his mark, but he wasn’t sure if the dwarf was dead. Bu stared at the bush behind which the knights hid.

  “Now!” he shouted again, and Garrett and four other knights emerged from the bush, swords drawn, shouting like madmen. Fools.

  A spear sailed through the air and struck one of the knights in the chest. He went down, dead. Bu drew his sword. The dwarf Bao Zi had attacked wasn’t quite dead, so he brought his steel—Patûk’s steel—down on the scout’s head. Four more.

  He hadn’t seen one of the dwarves rushing him from the side. His last eastern soldier rushed from cover and swatted the dwarvish spear away. The dwarf dropped the weapon, drew a short sword, and thrust it—hilt deep—into the eastern soldier’s gut. Bu pushed the soldier aside and brought his own sword down on the dwarf’s neck. Blood sprayed him across the face.

  Garrett actually proved his prowess in battle, blocking one spear strike with the simple bracer on his forearm and, in the next motion, removing another dwarf’s head with a precise sword strike. He wounded his first attacker with a sword to the scout’s leg, and another knight brought his sword down into the dwarf’s chest.

  That left one dwarf. Bu knew the scout wouldn’t surrender, but he could possibly run and try to alert whatever outpost from which he came. Dwarves didn’t normally retreat, but to withdraw here wouldn’t really be capitulation. Andu flicked a knife towards the dwarf as the scout turned to run. It struck the dwarf in the leg, enough to make him stumble. Bu was on him quickly, tip of his sword buried in the back of the dwarf’s shoulder.

  “Where’s your outpost?” Bu asked, turning the dwarf over so he could see his ugly face.

  “Easterner dung,” the dwarf said in Shengu with an angry groan.

  “Where’s your outpost?” Bu asked, this time in Dwarvish.

  The dwarf didn’t answer. Bu jabbed his sword into the front of the dwarf’s shoulder. The dwarf gritted his teeth.

  “We are looking for Fealmynster,” Bu said.

  The dwarf stared back with wide eyes and then narrowed them.

  “Speak, and I will give you a quick death,” Bu said.

  Bu slid his sword into the dwarf’s flesh deeper.

  “Almost directly north of here, there’s an abandoned road,” the dwarf said with a groan. “It leads to a surface tunnel that runs through the northern range that separates the Gray Mountains and the northern tundra. From there ... from there, it’s a fortnight or more to Fealmynster.”

  “Are there more patrols?” Bu asked.

  The dwarf laughed.

  “Of course,” the dwarf replied.

  Bu frowned and brought his sword down on the dwarf’s neck. He looked at the dead knight and his dead soldier. This was a costly battle.

  “Bao Zi, let’s move,” Bu said.

  28

  Specter watched from the corner of the tavern as two men jostled for position, each trying to impress a young prostitute who clearly had not been working in the business for very long. She looked nervous, scared even. A veteran would have recognized the opportunity for extra coin. This girl simply wanted the night to end.

  These men were Durathnan. It made sense. They were in the northwestern edges of Gol-Durathna. They were soldiers, but not ordinary ones. Specter recognized Dragon’s Teeth, the elite of the Northern Kingdom. Specter laughed. They were supposed to be upright, righteous, merciful, kind, generous, chivalrous, and here they were, bullying a young girl barely past her sixteenth winter. He thought it was funny how people viewed the world. Northerners were inherently good. Westerners were inherently strong. Southerners were inherently free. People from Wüsten Sahil were exotic, Mek-Ba’Dunians were barbaric, and Isutans were mystical. Easterners, like Syzbalo, were simply arrogant.

  They were all men. They were all wicked—some more than others. They were all selfish. They were all cruel. Specter wished people would just realize that. It’s what made his job so easy. He preyed on man’s natural habits. And when he drained their life, he didn’t feel bad. They would have done the same thing to him, given the opportunity.

  Most would say they wouldn’t. Drink someone’s blood and live forever? Lunacy. Despicable. But any man, when his back was pressed against the wall and death was knocking at his door, would make that deal.

  The two men finally convinced the girl to take both of them upstairs, all for the price of one. The tavern owner just shook his head as he stood behind the bar. He got his cut no matter what. He didn’t care that these men were about to take advantage of this girl and probably traumatize her for the rest of her life.

  After a few moments, Specter stood and followed. While they began to walk up two flights of stairs, Spec
ter waited in the shadows and then began to climb, testing each step for creaks. The girl opened the door to a room, and the first man—his hair dark and curly, his shoulders wide and his chest broad—pushed her in. The other man, also wide and strong with long, blondish hair, laughed as he followed, and the door shut behind them. Specter stood and listened.

  “No! Wait!” the girl pleaded.

  “No! Wait!” one of the men mimicked in a falsetto voice. “We made a deal. You’re not an oath breaker, are you?”

  “I changed my mind,” the girl said.

  “No changing your mind in this business,” the other man said.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” the first man said. “I go first.”

  “Hog’s piss,” the other said. “Last time, there wasn’t nothing left for me. She was all spent and couldn’t even stay awake.”

  “What do we do then?” the first man asked, all the while, Specter could hear the girl sobbing softly.

  “You take one end, and I’ll take the other,” the second man suggested.

  “Deal,” the first said.

  It wasn’t that Specter felt bad for the girl. He didn’t. She had chosen her course … perhaps. She might have been forced into the brothel, sold by her father, or an alley rat with nowhere else to go. Specter shrugged. He had killed younger … drained younger. But she was Isutan; at least half. He could tell by her tanned skin and her almond eyes. It was probably what appealed to these pasty pale northerners so much.

  Specter didn’t open the door but stepped through it. It took energy to do it, took a year or two off his life, but he would get that back … soon.

  The men didn’t see him. They had both pulled their pants down, and the curly-haired soldier pushed the girl’s face into the mattress of the bed, her underclothes simply pushed aside. She tried to scream, but the blankets and sheets muffled her cries. Then, she turned her head to the side, and she saw Specter. She stopped struggling.

  “She’s already broken,” the blond-haired man said, a hint of disappointment in his voice. “I was looking forward to more struggle.”

  The other man shrugged. He was about to stick the girl when the blond man gasped.

  “What, by the bloody gods, is that?”

  Specter stepped from the shadows into the light. He knew his appearance was jarring—his white hair, his white eyes, his black, leather armor. Both men pulled up their pants. He let them. He had no desire to kill men with their pants down. He extended his hand, and the Bone Spear appeared.

  “Black magic,” the first Durathnan said.

  “The blackest,” Specter said with a smile.

  The curly-haired man drew his sword and charged. Fool. Too eager. Too ambitious. Specter side-stepped, kicked out and watched the man trip and fall into the wall. He gave him another kick to the ribs. Bones broke.

  “What are you doing here?” Specter asked.

  “None of your damn business,” the blond man said, unsheathing his sword.

  “Tsk, tsk,” Specter said. “Such language around a young girl.”

  The blond man gave the girl a mocking look.

  “She’s nothing but a whore.”

  “An Isutan whore,” Specter replied. “She’s one of my countrywomen.”

  “What difference does it make?” the man asked.

  Specter kicked out as the first man tried to get up. He felt the man’s balls crunch under the toe of his boot. Specter leaned forward.

  “It makes all the difference.”

  He jabbed with the butt of his spear, hitting the blond man half a dozen times all over his body before the man could even move. Specter was like smoke, shadows, or the wind. He was behind the man, punching him in the solar plexus. When he turned, he was behind him again, his boot to the back of the man’s knee. A fist to the back of the head. A hammer fist to the side of the face.

  “I yield,” the man said, already bruised and bloody.

  He dropped his sword and threw his hands up.

  “What are you doing here?” Specter asked, pointing the bony point of his spear at the man’s throat.

  “Whoring,” the man said.

  Specter rolled his eyes. Men from the west were simpletons.

  “No, here, in this town,” Specter said, looking around the room, “in …”

  He looked at the girl.

  “Bardsville,” she said.

  “Here in Bardsville,” Specter said.

  “It’s a border town. We’re in the army. Is that such a mystery?”

  “No,” Specter said. “You’re Dragon’s Teeth.”

  The man’s face blanched, whiter than it already was. He chewed on his cheek. He didn’t know what to say. Clearly, they weren’t supposed to be there. Or, people weren’t supposed to know they were there.

  Specter grew bored quickly. The curly-haired man began to rouse again. He let the man get to his knees and stand. As the Durathnan turned to face the room, Specter stabbed him with his spear. The soldier jerked backward, foaming at the mouth and convulsing. His poison worked quickly.

  When Specter retracted his weapon, he ran his finger along the bony blade, scooping up what blood he could, and then licked it. It was sour, but it was blood. The man fell to his knees, and Specter attacked, jerking his head to the side and plunging his teeth into the soft part of his neck. In moments, the man’s skin turned gray, and he looked a ragged husk of a person.

  Specter stood and closed his eyes for a moment. He could feel the magic working. The small creases around his eyes disappeared. The minor aches in his joints faded. The few wrinkles on the back of his hands vanished again. His skin was new and soft. His muscles strong. His mind sharp. And after so many years, he enjoyed draining a person as much as the first one.

  The blond-haired man looked on in horror. The girl looked on with a mixture of awe and delight. She squinted, a malicious look on her face, and glared at her one, living attacker.

  “You were saying,” Specter said.

  “We’re a small unit,” the blond man said. “Please … don’t hurt me.”

  “Go on,” Specter said.

  “We are accompanying a unit of Atrimus.”

  “The Shadow Men?” Specter asked, more to himself than the man in front of him.

  “Aye,” the man said, his voice shaking uncontrollably. “They’re following a man, some westerner. They have orders to kill him.”

  “Erik Eleodum,” Specter muttered.

  “I don’t know,” the man said. “Please. Please.”

  “Stop whining,” Specter said, almost disappointed. Cowardly behavior always soured their blood even more.

  “They have spies in the dwarvish lands, in Wyrma and Ghrâg.”

  “The righteous King Agempi has spies?” Specter said facetiously. “How dare he being such an upright man. What did these spies say?”

  “Supposedly, word reached Ghrâg that the westerner we are seeking is in Stangar,” the soldier replied. “I don’t even know what Stangar is. I just overheard them saying it.”

  “It’s a dwarvish outpost,” Specter said, “in the Gray Mountains, at least a fortnight north of Wyrma.”

  He watched the man for a moment.

  “Is that all?” Specter asked.

  The man nodded.

  “Thank you,” Specter said.

  The man seemed to relax at that. He sighed deeply, and his shoulders slumped with relief. That’s when Specter attacked. It was so much easier to drain a person right after they died. Their blood had lost some of its vigor, some of its warmth, but they didn’t struggle. But this man was northern scum. He deserved the pain he received. And he was unsuspecting.

  Specter felt the artery open up in his mouth, like popping a berry. The blood was warm and squirted with each beat of the man’s heart. He drank and drank until the Durathnan’s skin was a sickly gray, his body rigid and stiff and brittle. He dropped him and stood, closing his eyes and relishing the new life he had just received.

  Opening his eyes, he looked at th
e Isutan girl sitting on the bed, legs curled up underneath her, and her clothing rearranged. She looked a little scared, but when she looked at the two men, she smiled.

  “Thank …” she began to say.

  Specter was quick, quicker than he had been, new blood coursing through his veins. He grabbed the girl by the throat. He barely squeezed, but it was enough to make her choke and gasp for air. She didn’t struggle, but she looked at him with wild eyes. She was frightened now.

  Looming over her, Specter turned her face to the side, staring at her neck. He could see the artery thumping against her soft, young skin. Thump. Thump. Thump. He felt his own heart quicken with each thump, became aroused by it. He heard it. Felt it. Smelled it.

  Specter let her go.

  “Go back to Isuta,” he said with sudden lazy eyes.

  “But my father ...” the girl began and then faltered.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s here,” she said. “He’ll die if I don’t …”

  “He’s not Isutan is he?”

  The girl shook her head.

  “You’ll die if you stay,” Specter said. “Isutan women are strong, powerful, independent.”

  Specter turned to the dead men, opening his arms as if to present them.

  “Look at them,” he said. “Is this what you want?”

  She shook her head.

  “Go back to Isuta,” he replied. “Let your father die. Join your own people and live.”

  Specter wasn’t a compassionate man. Truth be told, if this girl hadn’t been Isutan—even if she was only partly—he would have drained her too. Her blood alone would give him a year, maybe more. The younger, the stronger, the younger, the sweeter.

  That was his payment, after all. He would do this thing for the Lord of the East—he smiled at himself thinking of the title and not the man’s name—and he would give him blood … young blood. Orphaned children. The babes of homeless or slave women. He would kill them first, of course. Specter wasn’t that cruel. And their death would be quick and painless. He couldn’t use poison, it always soured the blood, made it almost unpalatable, but he had ways to make their passing quick and painless.