“We’ll see,” Bryon said.
One of the man creatures—the four-armed one—walked by and slammed a wooden baton against the iron bars of Bu’s cell.
“Shut your mouth!” the beast said in Shengu, spittle flying through the space of the bars and striking Bu in the face.
“You’ll pay for that,” Bu said defiantly.
The creature laughed. He said something to the other one in a language Bu didn’t understand. The other creature joined in the laughter.
“How?” the four-armed creature asked, speaking Shengu again.
“Come in here and find out,” Bu said.
More laughter.
“You’ll be a fun one to break,” the man-beast said. “The boss will turn you into something interesting … and I’ll enjoy watching you be fed to one of his pets.”
The guard walked away, and Bu shrugged as if he didn’t care, but now felt a little less brazen. He could no longer see the spider—an ártocothe the dwarf had called it—but he could hear the sounds of the arachnid draining its victims of their bodily fluids; they just stood there and let it happen. He heard the roar of a snow bear again, which caused more howling to echo through the dungeon; imprisoned wolves he presumed.
“This place is cursed, Bao Zi,” Bu said, leaning against one of the cell walls and sliding to his behind.
“Truly,” Bao Zi croaked.
“We need to get out of here,” Bu added.
“How?”
“I don’t know,” Bu said, “but a fate worse than death awaits us in here.”
“What about the Dragon Sword?”
“What good will it do me if I am dead?” Bu replied.
“What about this Erik Eleodum?” Bao Zi tilted his head towards the man’s cousin and dwarvish friends. “What about them?”
“Right now, I don’t care about them,” Bu replied. “In truth, if I get out of here, I may never care about them. If Eleodum is up there, I pray to every god that is out there that he can somehow set us free.”
51
Erik stared at the steel of his dagger.
“I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry, Father.”
He gathered his courage, closed his eyes, took a deep breath in, and …
Dream Walker.
The voice was a whisper in his head.
Erik.
He wasn’t dreaming. When he heard his name, he suddenly remembered his mother’s parting words to him. They came to him as did the old man’s words.
I can’t lose another son.
He remembered what his father had told him.
You’re a good man. I am proud of you. Proud of the man you have become, the leader, the friend, the brother … the husband.
Those weren’t words of derision and disappointment. Those were words of pride. He remembered looking down at Demik, as the dwarf’s life slipped away. Saw the dwarf’s face in his mind as he spoke.
There’s no greater sacrifice than a friend to give his life for another friend.
Would he have done that for a coward?
Erik
Why would the old man start to use his name?
Erik
Now he recognized the voice and looked down at his dagger in his hands. It glowed, faintly, every gem in the handle giving off the faintest light. Erik closed his eyes, and in his mind, he saw a woman. She was tall and lean, muscular yet beautiful. A slight breeze blew aside her golden hair revealing her pointed ears. An elf. She wore a long, blue gown and a steel breastplate over the gown. She held a long sword in her right hand. The weapon could have been his dagger, only larger. An elfling clung to her left leg, a little boy, but Erik could tell what the child would look like when he was grown. It was the elf from his vision after his baptism.
A shadow blotted out the sun, dark and looming and moving quickly, too fast to be a cloud. In his vision, Erik looked up. The wings were unmistakable. The shape of the body. The tail. A dragon.
Erik’s heart quickened, and he felt his hands shake. But the elf maiden and her boy were unmoved. It was as if they recognized this dragon and, to confirm Erik’s suspicion, the dragon landed, softly, behind the she-elf. It nuzzled her hand as if it was a dog. The elfling boy ran to the beast and hugged its nose.
The world around Erik shimmered and disappeared. It reappeared as the same place only the elf maiden was gone. The elf that stood before him was the elf from his dwarvish baptismal vision. He wore a suit of plate armor adorned with ornate embellishments. He now carried the sword his mother had held. His shield was shaped like a dragon wing, and what looked like two dragon horns extended from his helm. Stones of all different colors of gems—red, green, blue, white, black—but perfectly round, floated about the elf’s helmet, spinning about his head and moving with him. They reminded Erik of the stones that Mardirru had given him and the white stone he had found in the white, broken tower. The elf warrior stepped up onto the dragon’s foot, pulled himself up its leg using its scales and sat in a high saddle. He looked at Erik and nodded. Then he heeled the dragon. The beast roared, spit fire, and then leapt into the sky, flying high and away.
“A dragon rider?” Erik muttered.
Yes,
Erik opened his eyes and was back in his room. His dagger had replied.
The elf from my baptismal vision?
Yes.
Why do I keep seeing him? Why here? The tower? My baptism?
The dagger made no reply. Erik thought of the sword the elvish warrior carried and how similar it looked to his dagger. He again saw the stones floating around the elf’s head and then looked at the stones in the handle of his dagger. This warrior had looked powerful, a mighty warrior, maybe a wizard even. Erik remembered the elf maiden and the young elfling that ran to her; her son. Then, he remembered something his dagger had said to him a long time ago, something about a mother’s voice. Erik’s eyes went wide, and then he nodded in understanding.
You were an elf, once. That was you in my vision.
Yes, I was the Commander of the Dragon Riders, a most honored position among my people.
So, there are good dragons and evil dragons?
Yes.
I see. But where have you been?
It took all of my energy to save your friend. I risk much by speaking to you now.
Then why do it? Why save Nafer? Why talk to me now?
I sensed how much you cared about your friend. I remembered caring for someone as you do. You are no coward, Erik. For you to take your own life, especially using me, has more ramifications than you could possibly know.
Eric could tell the dagger’s strength was waning again, but he had to know more.
The sword you wielded. The sword your mother had. That was the Dragon Sword.
Yes.
I thought it was a weapon possessed by the dwarves.
They created it and gave it to the elves…as a gift.
The sword, Erik thought, looked so much like…
Erik looked at the dagger. He remembered how it transformed when he fought the dragon. His eyes went wide, and he almost dropped the weapon.
You ...
Yes. You have had the Dragon Sword all along.
Why not tell me?
I am bound, Erik. I could not.
Then why have I traveled all this way?
I will explain in due time. For now, before I cannot communicate with you anymore, you must take me to the altar of Fealmynster. You saw it, didn’t you?
Yes.
You will place your sword, Ilken’s Blade, next to me, on the altar, along with the dragon tooth you cut from the dragon’s—Black Wing’s—mouth.
They’re gone.
No. They are hidden away. You will find them in the dungeon. Your friends are there too.
My friends! My cousin! They aren’t dead?
No. They are imprisoned in the dungeons, with others. You can still save them.
I have no weapon.
You have me.
That was all Erik needed, but when
he moved to the door, it was locked. How could he go about this? Sustenon wanted him to kill himself for some reason, and if he did, Sustenon would know, and his possessed soldiers would come to his room. Sustenon was a powerful wizard, and, as the old man in Eldmanor said, he was a Dream Walker too. He would know if Erik was pretending. He would know what Erik was doing.
Dream Walker.
The whisper again. It was the voice of the old man from Eldmanor.
I know what you need. I will cloud his vision as he walks through the land of dreams. Wait behind the door. They will come.
Erik waited behind the door of his small room. He heard footsteps and someone standing on the other side. A key turned, and the door opened slowly as a commanding voice said something in a language Erik didn’t understand. The door opened fully, and when they must have seen the room looked empty, there were shouts and men marched in. He could see the backs of two possessed soldiers, but there was someone else with them. He sounded angry. He pushed passed the possessed soldiers and into the room. He was some odd combination of mountain troll, an ogre and a man. Maybe some animals too. He had heard Sustenon performed experiments.
The thing was large, half a man taller than Erik, with a sloping brow, a flat nose, little horns growing through thick, black, knotted hair, an under bite exposing small fangs, and three, cat-like eyes. It didn’t wear a shirt, and its skin was gray and scaly and covered in warts. Bony protrusions ran the length of its spine. Its knuckles almost dragged along the ground—the arms were so long, and its legs were so short and bowed it walked with a wobble.
It said something again. Its voice was angry. It pushed one of the possessed men out of its way and punched another. They ignored the assault and simply continued to stand at attention. Then, the beast put its nose to the air and sniffed. It smelled him. Erik gripped the dagger in his right hand.
The man-like creature reached out to slam the door shut and as it did so, Erik lunged and thrust the dagger upwards into the meaty part of its arm and twisted. Blood exploded from the wound, and the creature howled. One of the possessed soldiers thrust his spear at Erik, but he easily dodged the predictable attack and stepped on the spear shaft, knocking it out of the soldier’s hands. As the soldier drew his sword, Erik dropped his dagger back on the table and picked up the fallen spear and thrust it into the large beast’s armpit. It howled again, flailing about and knocking the bed over, in turn, knocking over the soldier who had drawn his sword. The soldier’s head hit the wall with a thump, and he went still, lying across the mutant.
The other soldier attacked with his sword, and Erik rolled underneath the attack, coming up right in front of the possessed man and jamming his dagger into the underbelly of his jaw. The man’s black eyes rolled back, and he fell to the ground dead. Erik hoped he had released the man from a tortured life of servitude.
As the mutant struggled to its feet again, Erik grabbed the spear once more and thrust it into the inside of the giant creature’s leg. Again, it howled, ripping the spear from its body, bringing flesh and blood with it, but it squared up to Erik.
“Fool,” Erik muttered with a mirthless smile.
“I’ll feast on your bones,” the creatures said, speaking Westernese.
“You speak,” Erik said. “You looked too stupid to form words.”
The beast roared and charged Erik, who dove to one side and watched it run headfirst into the door, pulling it off its hinges and smashing it open into the corridor outside. With a grunt, it staggered to its feet, only for Erik to thrust one of the soldier’s swords through an eye into its head. The creature’s mouth opened, and it crashed to the floor, taking the sword with it.
Gasping slightly to get his breath back, Erik returned his dagger to his belt, pushed a sword through his belt as well, and grabbed a spear, holding it in his left hand. He clambered over the broken door and looked left and right. Both directions looked the same. Left. He knew to go left. He didn’t know if it was his dagger or the old man from Eldmanor, but the inclination was unmistakable. He ran. The walls were black stone, and all looked the same. Everywhere was so similar, Erik even wondered if he was running in place. But he eventually came to the end of the tunnel and a stairwell that wound both up and down. Down. He would free his friends first, and retrieve his sword and the dragon tooth, as his dagger had instructed him.
Erik ran down the stairs. Just like the hallway, it looked the same. At regular intervals, he saw a new hallway, and then the winding staircase continued downward. He heard footsteps. He stopped. The tips of spears came into view, followed by two possessed men, their faces green and their eyes black and emotionless. He kicked out at one. The man fell backward and tumbled down the stairs. The other pointed his spear tip at Erik, but he kicked it out of the way and jabbed with his own spear. The blade easily slid into the soldier’s neck.
Erik grabbed the dead soldier’s oval, leather shield, holding it high to his face in his left hand and his spear over the top of the shield with his right hand. He slowly descended and saw the first soldier crumpled in a broken heap at the well of another hallway, his neck at a peculiar angle. Erik stopped for a moment to peer down the hallway. No one, nothing, was there. He continued down the stairs, eventually coming to the bottom.
For the first time, this section of the keep was different. The stones that made the wall were large and gray, stained with green moss and crawling with creepers and fungus that didn’t need the sun. The hallway he stared down was short, and he could see bars at its end, dividing the corridor. Two possessed soldiers guarded the door in the bars. They stared, blankly.
Erik moved quickly, keeping his shield and spear high. When the possessed soldiers saw him, they immediately dropped their spears to fighting positions.
The soldiers were strong and well trained, but they were robotic in their movements, lacking the tactical ingenuity a normal soldier might have. Their attacks were precise but predictable. As one stabbed at Erik, he twirled, swinging his spear behind his head and then towards the soldier, slamming the shaft into his face. Blood exploded from the soldier’s nose, knocking him back, but he seemed unfazed. It didn’t matter. Erik had opened him up enough to expose the man’s neck, and he attacked, killing the soldier with one quick strike. He stuck the spear between the legs of the other soldier, tripping him, and when he looked up, Erik slid the blade of his spear into his eye.
Erik stood in front of the bars. There was no door, no hinges, no lock.
Use me. Point me at the iron bars.
Erik did as his dagger told him, and the bars shimmered, and the outline of a door appeared. A large lock materialized as well, and Erik jammed the dagger blade into the lock. The latch shook, and, with an audible clicking sound, the door opened.
Erik walked into an enormous room of cells on two sides, all consisting of three stone walls and bars on the front with no doors. It looked like there were more cells around the corners at the end of this first group. He didn’t have time to see who or what was in the cells, as the sound of the door opening attracted two more possessed soldiers. They marched towards Erik, crouched, in their fighting stances, shields up to their eyes. Erik deflected one strike, returning with a strike to the inside of the leg and then an exposed eye. He swatted away another, punching out with his shield, pushing the man back and then skewering his belly as he tried to regain his footing. As he heard the loud smack of a head against stone, a mighty roar came from somewhere in the dungeon.
Erik looked to his left and saw an open door, weapons lining the walls. He ran to the room and found it was the place where the jail keepers kept the weapons of those who were imprisoned in this horrid place. Scanning the room, he saw Ilken’s Blade, Bryon’s elvish blade resting against the wall next to it. Then he saw Turk’s half-moon bladed battle-axe. He saw the scabbard with iron embroidery made to look like vines and thorns, the broadsword once wielded by Demik Iron Thorn and now carried by Nafer. Nafer’s four-spiked mace rested next to the broadsword.
Er
ik grabbed his sword and Bryon’s as well as his shield, slinging it across his back. As he exited the room, he came face to face—rather, face to chest—with another grotesque monster that remotely looked like a man. The thing had three arms, one of them springing from its chest, and the middle hand reached for Erik and he instinctively swung upwards with Bryon’s elvish sword. The blade flared and the man-creature roared as black blood spewed from the severed arm. The monster punched at Erik, but he easily dodged the attack, the large mallet-like fist slamming into the stone wall. Erik heard the crunching of bone as the stone cracked, and the beast pulled its hand away, bloodied and deformed.
Two down, one to go.
Erik stabbed upwards with Ilken’s Blade into the creature’s upper ribs, slashing the elvish blade across its belly at the same time. The beast howled, turning on Erik, but as he removed his sword from the monster’s ribs, exposing bone, he slashed it across the creature’s knee. It went down, now eye level with Erik, and he punched the elvish blade into one, large, oversized, bulbous eye, and it exploded in a white and yellow filmy mess. Ilken’s Blade slashed across the beast’s neck, and black ichor spewed from a severed artery. Bringing the elvish blade to the other side of the monster’s neck brought it down. Face down it scratched at the ground as its life drained away in a black sticky mess, its final breath a gasping gurgle.
52
Andragos had followed Erik as long as he could. He watched him pass the ice bridge, marveling that they had solved the riddle of its elvish magic. How? His cousin’s sword maybe? As they walked along the ice bridge, magic—he presumed it was Elvish—began to cloud his vision, but what was the purpose? The memory of a white tower passed through Andragos’ mind, followed by a huge gate in a wall. If Erik made it through there, he would be closer to Fealmynster.
He knew Specter, the Isutan assassin was close, and he knew a hard fight awaited the young man and his friends, but he didn’t know exactly when the two would come across each other. Maybe Erik would have to deal with Sustenon first? Apart from the dragon, that would probably be Erik’s hardest challenge. It would certainly be the most complex.
Dragon Sword: Demon's Fire Book 1 Page 33
