Dragon Sword: Demon's Fire Book 1

by Christopher Patterson

  Erik nodded and led the way over to the double-doored gate in the wall surrounding the meadow.

  “What’s on the other side?” Bryon asked.

  “I don’t think I want to know,” Bofim replied.

  Erik grabbed a large circular handle on one of the doors. He looked at Bryon over his shoulder.

  “I told you,” Erik said, and then pulled on the handle. “Death.”

  42

  The cold came as a shock. When Erik opened the gate door, the jungle outside the wall looked normal—a thick, dense forest of vines and creepers and tall, wide-trunked trees with broad leaves. Moisture and heat hung in the air like a heavy blanket. But as soon as they passed through the gate and stepped into the jungle, the world around Bryon shimmered and twisted, and his next step gave off the loud, audible crunch of snow. He immediately started shivering and retrieved the bearskin his father had given him and pulled it tight around his shoulders.

  Despite his thick animal fur, the cold still bit Bryon all the way to the bone.

  “What, by the Creator, happened to the nice, warm, elvish meadow?” Bryon said through chattering teeth.

  They all looked behind them, and all they saw was a thick, mountain forest covered in a blanket of snow.

  “Elves,” Beldar grumbled.

  “What was the purpose of that?” Bryon asked, looking at his cousin.

  Erik just shrugged.

  “That old man in Eldmanor is crazy,” Bryon added.

  “I don’t disagree with you on that point,” Erik replied. “But my gut tells me there was a reason for us finding the white tower, as broken as it was.”

  Where it was daytime in the elvish meadow, here, it was night again. Despite the snow and the cold, when Bryon looked to the sky, it was clear, the moon and stars brilliant and bright and closer than when they were on their farm. And he saw the green glow they had been following.

  As they walked the whole night, the green light changed its position in the sky, almost fading until it looked as if it actually glowed in front of them, the light snaking through the trees. They rested for a moment in the morning when watery sunlight first broke through the cloud cover, but after what Bryon supposed was noon, they started off again. As dusk settled, the greenish glow remained in front of them, emerald, ghostly shadows seeping through the trunks of tall, wide pines.

  “Carefully,” Turk muttered.

  They crept closer to the green light, now glowing bright and brilliant. As they neared it, they heard voices—deep, booming voices—and the clanging of metal and what sounded like the crushing of rock. The trees stopped at a ledge, and the green light was even brighter as Bryon leaned against a tree trunk to peer into the canyon below.

  There were open fissures, smoke or gas escaping the cracks in the earth. Bryon squinted as a bright white light illuminated the whole area, coming from tall poles. The light hissed and sizzled but looked more like a beacon than a fire. As the smoke rose from the crevices—already a pallid green in color—it merged with the light from the torches, casting the green glow into the sky.

  The sound of two male voices yelling at one another erupted, even though Bryon didn’t understand the language he sensed cursing and scolding. He looked to the origin of the commotion and saw two etenweird, one with a large axe and the other with a large pick. Another three stood on either side of one of the fissures, striking the ground hard with their tools.

  “It’s a mine,” Turk said.

  “A giants’ mine?” Erik asked.

  “Aye,” Nafer replied. “They’re quite good at it too.”

  “What are those torches?” Bryon said. “Why do they burn white?”

  “Firestone,” Bofim explained. “Rock that catches fire burns brighter than any fire and doesn’t emanate as much heat as wood. Some of the gas that comes through the earth can easily catch fire with a regular torch, causing devastation. But the firestone is less likely to ignite it.”

  “What are they mining, do you think?” Bryon asked.

  “They could be mining more firestones,” Bofim replied, “or obsidian. Coal. The etenweird have little use for gold or silver, but iron perhaps.”

  The two giants who had been arguing started fighting, punching each other with heavy fists. As the fight went to the ground, they wrestled around, crushing smaller rocks and overturning trees as if they were nothing. When they rolled into the cavern wall of the ledge on which Bryon stood, the ground shook. Another giant, an even bigger one, emerged from one of the fissures, his face gray and dirty. He coughed and then yelled.

  Pushing himself out of the crack and to his feet, he rushed over to the two fighting giants, kicked one in the ribs, and punched the other one in the face. He grabbed them both by the backs of their necks and stood them up, scolding them and then throwing them towards the mining site. He pointed to the fissure from which he had just emerged, and the shoulders of the two fighters slumped. The huge brute began barking orders, and the other giants, six in all, visibly increased their efforts.

  “Do you understand what they’re saying?” Erik asked.

  “Their language is primitive,” Turk replied, “but he said something about magic or wizard.”

  “Do you think they’re working for the wizard of Fealmynster?” Bryon asked.

  “It’s possible,” Turk replied. “Either that or they’re speaking about some etenweird shaman.”

  “Maybe they can lead us to Fealmynster,” Erik said.

  “Oh, right, cousin,” Bryon said, throwing his hands up. “Are you just going to walk down there and ask half a dozen giants to show you the way to their boss, who just happens to be a powerful and crazy black mage?”

  Erik just shook his head and continued to watch the giants. He could be so frustrating. As much as he had grown over the last three years, he was still the idealistic Erik Bryon had always known.

  The wide canyon in which they worked was definitely giant made, and Bryon scanned the fissures that made up the mine. There were tents and mining tools, implements for crushing rock and sifting and melting ore. There was a large crack on the other side of the camp, opposite of where they spied on the giants, and another giant emerged from that one. He looked smaller, weaker.

  “We should lure one of them up here,” Erik said. “That smaller one.”

  “Oh, just like that, eh?” Bryon replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  As Erik turned on Bryon, his face turning red, Turk cleared his throat.

  “That is a tall task,” Turk said. “Firstly, how do we lure a giant up here? Secondly, do you think it would be so easy to subdue a giant? You saw what just one did, how violent and aggressive and powerful they are. Even a juvenile such as that one is a dangerous foe.”

  Erik took in a deep breath and then sighed deeply.

  “What should we do then?” Erik asked.

  “Firstly, it is a big assumption that these giants work for the wizard of Fealmynster,” Turk said.

  “You heard them,” Erik said. “They spoke of a wizard.”

  “But how do we know which one? It could as easily be one of their shamans,” Nafer added. “They’re little more than novice necromancers, but they practice the dark arts mixed with nature magic.”

  “I say we just pass them by,” Bryon side. “It’s not worth the fight.”

  Turk put up his hand, silencing everyone. He nodded towards the giant that had broken up the fight, listening as the etenweird spoke to one of the others.

  “I just heard him mention Fealmynster,” Turk said.

  “So, what do we do if luring one of them up here isn’t a good idea?” Erik asked.

  “Your idea to get one of them to lead us to Fealmynster is a good one, but we should wait,” Turk said. “One of them will eventually need to relieve himself. As uncouth as giants are, I doubt they piss down there. Wait until one of them goes into the woods, and by that time, we should have a good plan devised as to how we can subdue him.”

  Bryon watched the giants
while Erik and Turk devised a plan to ambush one of the brutes when they walked into the forest to relieve themselves. It didn’t take very long for the juvenile to eye the forest above him, and despite his previous doubts over the plan, Bryon grinned to himself. The youngster looked to the giant Bryon assumed to be their leader and said something. The leader looked irritated and curtly replied. The young giant jumped up, grabbed the ledge of the circular pit, and pulled himself up, disappearing into the nearby forest.

  “There’s our chance,” Bryon said.

  Erik led Bryon and the dwarves around that wide canyon, making sure to stay well behind the trees that lined the ledge. They could see the giant, his large back turned to them.

  Erik put his circlet on; the sapphire in the center glowed as soon as it fitted snuggly on his head. He poked his head out from behind a tree and bobbed his head up and down, back and forth. To anyone looking up into the darkness, it would have looked like some dancing light, a will-o-wisp or one-eyed animal spying on them. If this giant was young and curious, he might be tempted to investigate.

  The giant turned, letting his tunic made of skin fall to his knees and wiping his hands off on the front of it. He must have seen the bouncing light as the juvenile scrunched his eyebrows and peered forward, squinting. He stepped forward, peering even closer.

  “Here he comes,” Erik said.

  Erik backed away from the tree behind which he hid, Beldar and Bofim standing each beside another tree, and tied a length of hemp rope between the two of them. Turk waited with Bryon, each a balled-up bearskin in their arms, and Nafer stood behind them, an axe held tightly in both hands.

  “Careful with that,” Erik said. “We don’t want to kill him.”

  Nafer nodded.

  The giant followed the light into the forest, and Bryon grinned again.

  Curiosity skinned the gnome.

  The giant stepped farther into the forest, somewhat cautiously, and Beldar and Bofim pulled tight on the rope. As the giant stepped into the rope, he stumbled and, even though he snapped the rope with his girth and strength, he tripped and crashed to the ground.

  The giant landed on his face but rolled over. He was three times as tall as the dwarves and almost a body length taller than Bryon, but Bofim and Beldar were on him with their rope, nonetheless, trying to hold him down. As he opened his mouth to scream, Bryon and Turk stuffed their bearskins in, stifling any sound, and Nafer was quick with three heavy strikes to the back of the head with the flat side of the axe. One such strike to the side of a man’s head would have crushed his skull, but the giant simply slumped a bit, losing the desire to struggle, and then his eyes rolled to the back of his head as blood seeped from the spot where Nafer attacked him.

  “We need to tie him up,” Erik said.

  “What will hold him?” Bofim asked. “Surely, not the rope.”

  “He won’t be unconscious for long,” Nafer said. “His skull is thick. He is already starting to come to.”

  “Stand over him,” Erik said to Nafer. “Bryon, you point your blade at his eye.”

  Bryon unsheathed his elvish sword and pointed it at the giant’s eyelid, fluttering as he regained consciousness. He looked at his bearskin stuffed in the giant’s mouth.

  My bearskin is ruined, and if this doesn’t work, it will be all for naught.

  Bofim and Beldar attempted to hold him down with rope. Erik stepped on the giant’s chest, unsheathing Ilken’s Blade and pointing it at the etenweird’s throat. Nafer swapped Turk’s axe for his own spiked mace.

  The giant began to struggle as he rolled his head side to side, and when he first opened his eyes, he looked furious, lifting his arms and easily flinging Bofim and Beldar aside. But then, he saw a glowing, purple blade at his eye, a dwarf with a mean-looking mace overhead, and another man with a sword to his throat, so he rested his head back and waited.

  “You may be able to stop one of us,” Erik said in Dwarvish, “but you can’t stop all three; one of us will kill you.”

  The giant understood enough to keep still, and his only movement was to slightly grimace.

  “Ask him, Turk,” Erik said.

  Turk nodded.

  “I will have them remove your gag,” Turk said, “but the moment you breathe too deeply, this man here with the magical sword will pluck your eye out with his sword, and the dwarf with the mace will crush your other eye. Do you understand?”

  The giant nodded, slowly. Turk looked at Bofim and Beldar, and the dwarves removed the bearskins from the giant’s mouth.

  “What do you want?” the giant asked, and even being young, his voice was deep and reverberating.

  “What are you mining?” Turk asked.

  “Iron ore,” the giant replied. His Dwarvish was rough, but he spoke it well enough for them all to understand. “And firestone and some other rock that is brittle and smells terrible. The others simply call it black rock. I don’t know its real name.”

  The giant looked around. Bryon knew he was surveying, planning.

  “He’s wondering how he can get out of this, Erik,” Bryon said in Westernese. “Be careful.”

  Erik looked at Bryon and nodded slowly.

  “Why is a man speaking Dwarvish?” the giant asked.

  “Why are you mining here?” Turk asked. “Why are you mining black rock?”

  Bryon and Erik both knew what black rock was, and, like the giant, Bryon didn’t know its real name, but he knew it was flammable and volatile. Some of the farmers would crush and sow it with their soil, supposedly helping produce better crops.

  “I do what I am told,” the giant said with a shrug. “That’s all. Boss says mine, so I mine.”

  “You know what Fealmynster is, don’t you?” Turk asked.

  The giant squinted and lifted his head, then smiled. He chuckled.

  “You seek Fealmynster?” the giant asked with a weird hint of mirth in his voice. “To the Shadow Lord with you.”

  “You will take us there,” Turk commanded.

  The giant shook his head and spat through broken teeth at the dwarf. Most of the spittle landed on the giant’s chest, but it reeked of black root and bad breath.

  “Bofim. Beldar,” Erik said.

  The two dwarves stuffed the bearskins back into the giant’s mouth, and before he could reach up to pull them out, Bryon traced a neat burn line along the giant’s cheek, just under his eye. The hair of his patchy beard burned away, and the wound immediately began to blister. The giant screamed against the bearskin and reached up to remove the gag when Bryon pointed his sword so close to the giant’s eye he shied away, clearly feeling the intense heat from the blade. Erik nodded to Beldar.

  “I’ll die,” the giant said after Beldar slowly removed the gag. “The wizard will kill me.”

  “What do you think is about to happen?” Erik asked.

  “We will burn your eyes out first and then kill you very slowly,” Turk added. “Lead us to Fealmynster, and we will let you go. No one will ever know it was you.”

  The giant stood, Nafer and Bryon behind him, weapons trained on hamstrings. Bofim and Beldar held their spears, pointed at the giant’s balls.

  “Lead on,” Turk said.

  The giant grunted, looked over his shoulder at the mine, seemingly contemplating whether he should cry out. He seemed to accept it would be to his death, and he simply stood waiting to see what they wanted to do next.

  Even though the rope was broken, Bofim and Beldar tied the giant’s hands behind his back and put another rope around his neck, roughly tightened. Bryon didn’t think they could actually hold the giant, but as long as he thought his life was in danger, he would be obedient.

  With a prod in its butt with Bryon’s sword, the juvenile lumbered forward through the mountain forest, each one of his steps was three or four of the dwarves’. When he moved too fast, Bofim would tug hard on the rope around the giant’s neck and the giant relented and slowed down. They marched through the whole night, and around noon the next, the men
and the dwarves were getting in need of a rest, but the giant moved as easily as he did at the start.

  “By the Creator,” Bryon said, “does he not tire?”

  “Men,” the giant grunted with a disapproving stare. “Weak.”

  “Strong enough to subdue you,” Erik replied.

  The giant just growled quietly.

  They continued on until the sky darkened again and even in that dim light, Bryon felt everything looked the same.

  Are we going in circles?

  Bryon looked up and saw a green glow in the near distance; it was ahead of them and not behind them. He looked up at the giant and then grabbed Turk’s arm.

  “We’re going in a circle,” he said in Westernese.

  “I think you’re right,” Turk said.

  “What?” Erik asked.

  “He’s been leading us in circles, now we’re going backward,” Bryon reiterated. “He’s leading us back to the mine. I’m guessing he knew the others would come looking when he went missing.”

  Without a word, Erik drew his sword and jammed it into the back of the giant’s leg. The giant howled, turning and swiping at Erik with the back of his hand. Erik rolled out of the way just as Bryon also brought his sword across the back of the giant’s leg. Nafer thumped his mace against his knee, and the giant stumbled, the leg they’d injured giving way. Beldar and Bofim stabbed each one of the beast’s shoulders with their spears.

  Turk was about to strike the giant in the back of the head with his battle-axe—with the edge—when a deafening roar stopped him. Turning, at least half a dozen giants burst through the trees, crudely made axes and clubs and maces in their hands.

  “Run!” Erik cried.

  They raced towards the mine, the only way to go. The thundering footsteps of six large and angry giants echoed behind them. The giants were easily gaining on them, and Bryon saw the tree line stop, knowing the ledge was close. He didn’t know what to do. One, adolescent giant was hard enough to subdue, but six fully-grown, very angry giants would be impossible, and they were close to becoming simple meaty smears on the bottoms of these monsters’ feet.