“Lies,” the dwomanni hissed. “You are nothing compared to the Shadow and the Mistress.”
Rolling laughter rippled through the dungeon, causing the walls to undulate and crack. The cloaked figure unsheathed a black, long sword that seemed to drink up what little light existed. Syzbalo thought, for a moment, the shadowy figure meant to use it on him, but he stepped towards the cell. Before he could strike the dwomanni down, however, a surge of magic passed through the Lord of the East. It was like swallowing a mouthful of freezing water and it caught his breath. The dwomanni must have felt it too, as his body went rigid and his eyes went wide. The red light present in the cell brightened to a blinding intensity and the twisted creature screamed as he began to levitate.
Blood poured from his nose and mouth and eyes and ears. His screams went silent as his body moved, bones breaking internally, muscle tearing away from their tendons. His tattered clothes caught fire and his pale skin turned black. He crumpled to the ground, nothing more than charred bone and ash after only a few moments.
“What have you done?” Syzbalo asked as the magic subsided.
Do not question me, insect! the voice boomed, so loud the Lord of the East ducked, covering his head with his arms.
The hooded figure cackled, sheathing his black sword.
I can give you the Dragon Sword, if you truly wish it, but if you follow me, I will give you power beyond frivolous elvish magic.
Syzbalo waited a moment, collecting his thoughts and digesting what had just happened.
Do you desire power?
“Yes,” the Lord of the East replied.
Will you follow me for that power?
“Yes,” Syzbalo said without hesitation. The thought of such power, something that could infiltrate his most magically guarded places, destroy a creature in such a way, emanate the kind of power he felt was almost intoxicating.
Bow to your new master, the voice said. Bow to the Lord of Chaos.
Syzbalo didn’t know in which direction he should bow and, for a moment, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to bow to someone…something. But the power he felt. The power he had been given as of late, was enough to bend his knee. He took a knee and bowed.
“Master,” he said.
Good. It is time to find the Stones of Chaos. It is time to resurrect my beasts.
Before You Go
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Stone of Chaos: Chapter 1
Erik Eleodum watched the setting sun reflecting off the frost-covered ground. It never snowed heavily in Northwest Háthgolthane, but as the winter waxed and the temperatures dropped, the frost that covered the grass and the branches of the bare trees each morning would remain all day. A flash of purple distracted him. He leaned to his left and raised his sword, blocking the oncoming strike.
Erik grinned at his cousin, Bryon Eleodum, who was breathing heavily, sweat glistening on his face despite the cold. The purple light of Bryon’s elvish sword seemed to meld with the greenish hue of Erik’s dwarvish one—Dragon Tooth—and, for a moment, his cousin’s snarl was illuminated, making him look angry. Erik knew he wasn’t, that was the look Bryon had when they trained. Obviously annoyed Erik had blocked his surprise attack, he kicked out, pushing Erik away with his boot. Bryon was better than most, perhaps one of the best with the sword, but Erik was better. It just happened that way.
There usually wasn’t much to do on a farm in the winter except to raise a few hardy crops and tend their livestock. They would service their tools and make sure they had stocked enough seed for the coming spring, but that season had also been a time of rebuilding. Erik’s father’s barn had burnt down at the end of autumn, and Erik had expected to spend most of the winter helping his father rebuild it.
However, within a week of the fire, a hundred dwarves from the Gray Mountains arrived at the Eleodum farmstead and the barn had been rebuilt within several weeks. The dwarves arrival was testimony to their generosity and recognition that Erik and his family were now, as far as they were concerned, dwarves after he had been baptized into Clan Dragon Fire.
Erik had also wanted to spend time with his wife, Simone, but she her pregnancy had recently left her in bed most days and he had no idea how to comfort her. His mother and sister, Beth, did most of what was needed, often shooing him out of his own bedroom so Simone could rest. That left little more to do than train, and so that’s what Erik and Bryon did, along with their dwarvish companions, Turk, Nafer, and Bofim, and even Andu, an Easterner who had once served the king of Hámon, a man named Bu Al’Banan, and now served the Eleodums as a head farmhand.
“Are you going to train or what?” Bryon asked, feigning a swing with his sword only to kick out again.
Bryon was tall and, even though he looked lean, was stronger than most. Their instruction had originally come from a man who once served in the Eastern Guard, the most prestigious military force in Golgolithul, a nation most these days referred to as the Eastern Empire. Wrothgard Bel’Therum was a good man and an even better teacher. Perhaps his most valuable lessons weren’t about using a blade or weapon, they were the mental ones, about calming the mind, envisioning success in battle before it even happened. He taught them to understand their weaknesses and strengths, and using the latter to their fullest advantage.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Erik retorted, swatting Bryon’s foot away with the broad side of Dragon Tooth’s blade.
“Day dreaming,” Bryon replied. “That’s all you do these days… day dream. Do you miss the adventure that much? The fighting? The danger?”
Erik looked north, at the Gray Mountains. Low clouds covered the two tall peaks known as the Fangs. Snow covered the entirety of the mountains, even the foothills. He wondered how the people of Mayisha Maythia —once known as Fealmynster—were doing. Was Shu’ja’a as good a leader as he thought he would be? Erik shook his head, wanting to dismiss such thoughts.
“No, I don’t,” Erik replied. “I don’t miss it at all.”
Erik looked over his shoulder, back at his house, where Simone lay in bed. She would be all right, as would their baby. Erik’s mother had experienced the same fatigue when she was pregnant with all four of her children—Erik, his now deceased brother, and his two sisters—but Simone spending most of her time in bed put more stress and worry on Erik.
“You’re lying,” Bryon said.
“I don’t lie,” Erik replied.
“You just proved yourself a liar,” Bryon said with a smile.
“Do you miss it?” Erik asked.
“It’s all I think about,” Bryon replied without hesitation.
“Truly?” Erik asked. “What about your farm? Your parents? Your sisters?”
“I am grateful for my farm,” Bryon said, “and father has been teaching me the business aspects more but, as much as I feel blessed for a renewed relationship with my family and the opportunity to run a successful farm, I find no true purpose in it.”
They both looked to the Gray Mountains. Then, in unison, they looked east.
“I had purpose out there,” Bryon said. “But what was it all for?”
Erik stared at his cousin, studying his face as Bryon continued to look east. The look that crossed Bryon’s face could only be described as one of yearning as he remembered past days.
“What do you mean?” Erik asked.
Bryon turned to look at Erik.
“You know damn well what I mean!” Bryon replied. “Wh
at was the purpose of all of it? The dwarves? The dragon? That damned sword? Befel’s life? What was it all for? So we could come back to Western Háthgolthane and live out the rest of our days as farmers? We could have done that without ever leaving. And Befel would still be alive.”
There wasn’t a day that Erik didn’t think about his older brother, and so many things reminded him of the only man he looked up to as much as his father. From the smell of the farm to the sounds his pigs or cows made to the simple buzzing of a passing honeybee. He was a better man than all of them, loyal and strong, and he left this world the only way he would have expected to… helping someone else.
“Maybe it was to teach us to appreciate what we have,” Erik said but he didn’t sound convinced.
“Seems a harsh way to teach us that,” Bryon replied. “I just feel like there is more for us. Out there.”
Erik said nothing but he agreed. In fact, he knew there was more for them. He—they—were wanted men. The Lord of the East wanted Erik’s sword, once known as the Dragon Sword and now reforged as Dragon Tooth, and therefore, wanted him dead. The north—Gol-Durathna—wanted him dead as well, for a reason Erik could only guess was to keep Dragon Tooth out of the hands of the Lord of the East. A rebel faction of dwarves, led by a politician named Fréden Fréwin, wanted him dead, thinking men were nothing but a disease. And, even though King Bu Al’Banan had stayed true to a word of truce he had given Erik, the latter still suspected the king of wishing him ill will also. Slavers from Saman—northern most city of Wüsten Sahil—wanted him dead. There were probably others, men he didn’t even know existed, who wanted his life.
And if all these people wanted Erik dead, it meant they wanted his family dead as well. He would have to save his family, but what was it Dewin the ancient wizard had said? Something about winds of change moving swiftly and that Erik would be called. That’s when he was to leave again. But called by who and how?
Save the world, you will save your family. Save your family, the world dies.
Those fifteen words Dewin had spoken rattled daily in Erik’s mind. The old man had put the weight of the world on Erik’s shoulders, but it was all riddles. Everyone spoke to him in riddles. Andragos. Dewin. His dreams even never brought clarity. Some damned mystery he couldn’t figure out. He just knew he’d become mixed up in it all and that it somehow had to do with his sword—Dragon Tooth—and a crown and a spell… and dragons.
“Only the Creator knows,” Erik finally muttered.
“What was that?” Bryon asked.
“The Creator,” Erik said, speaking louder, “he knows what is in store for us. We just need to wait.”
“I’ve been waiting,” Bryon said. “We’ll continue waiting and supposedly know what he had in store for us when we die and, according to you, go to meet him. I don’t know that I want to keep waiting for some stupid sign.”
Erik just shrugged. They continued to stare east, as the sun sat more than halfway below the horizon, and remembered a different time. Erik wondered which part of all that had happened was currently uppermost in Bryon’s mind. For Erik, he couldn’t shut out the last time he spoke to Dewin.
The sun was almost gone when Bryon turned to Erik, extending his hand.
“Tomorrow,” Bryon said.
Erik nodded with a smile and shook his cousin’s hand, but Bryon didn’t squeeze back. His eyes were trained on the east.
“Bryon, give it a rest,” Erik said, smiling and almost laughing. “The east will be there tomorrow.”
“Hush,” Bryon said, letting go of Erik’s hand and squinting, leaning forward. “I see something.”
“It’s nothing,” Erik said. “Dusk always changes how things look.”
“No,” Bryon said. “There’s someone out there.”
A year ago, Erik’s untrained eye would have never seen it, or he would have passed it off as an errant ray of sunlight or a distant firefly. But now, it was unmistakable. The flash of a blade.
“I see it,” Erik said.
As if still instructed by Wrothgard, Erik and Bryon crouched simultaneously, and began to move slowly towards the waist high fence that surrounded Erik’s home. The movement was fluid, unhurried yet deliberate. Against the gently rolling hills the farmlands backed onto, a myriad of bushes and fences marked out farm and land boundaries. Despite the different fruit and nut trees—albeit leafless in the deep winter—and farmhouses and barns that could obscure a man’s vision, Erik could see shadows, and he knew Bryon saw them too. Men were moving a step at a time.
“What do we do?” Bryon whispered.
“We don’t even know who they are,” Erik replied. “They could be anyone.”
“Who would be slinking in the shadows?” Bryon asked. “Especially in the farmsteads. Especially around your farm?”
“Children,” Erik offered.
“They don’t look like the shadows of children,” Bryon said.
“Older boys,” Erik offered, even though he didn’t believe his own words.
“No. It’s probably that prick Bu, going back on his truce.”
“It’s only a matter of weeks since that lord of his was here talking of trade agreements.”
“So what? He’s a tricky bastard,” Bryon said. “Maybe he’s decided it’s time to finally take away our free lands. I think they’re Hámonian.”
Erik’s stomach twisted and something caught in his throat.
“If they are here to kill us,” Erik said, “then they could be anyone.”
Stone of Chaos: Chapter 2
“So, what do we do?” Bryon repeated.
“Sneak up on them,” Erik said, “slowly.”
“Get your hunting bow,” Bryon said.
Erik nodded and crawled over to the gate in his fence and up onto the walkway made of polished flagstone leading to his front door. He stopped twice, his eyes trained on the shadows hidden in the night, as their unknown assailants still moved furtively. He opened the front door as quietly as possible, hoping he didn’t alert his wife and the shadowy figures slinking in the darkness alike. The main living room of their home was dark and for the first time in his short marriage, Erik was glad Simone forgot to light the candles and lantern. He reached just inside the door, where he kept his hunting bow, and grabbed that and the quiver of arrows leaning next to the weapon.
“Are they still there?” Erik asked when he returned to his cousin, still crouched next to the fence. The sun had now fully set and it was harder to follow the shadows. The moon was low on the horizon and shedding very little light.
“They’ve moved,” Bryon said, and pointed towards a copse of apple trees. They were closer now.
As his eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, Erik saw one of the figures—he surmised there were three of them—motion with an arm. Their paced seemed to pick up as they made their way across a wide road made of hard packed dirt that passed through the Eleodum Farm. He looked down at the hunting bow and nudged Bryon.
“What?” his cousin asked.
“Here,” Erik said, giving him the bow, “you’re better with this than I am.”
Bryon nodded, took the bow, and nocked an arrow, waiting. The figures had disappeared into a dip in the road, only to rise up again. Bryon drew the bowstring back halfway.
“Shouldn’t we wait to see if they’re hostile?” Erik asked, looking at the half drawn bow.
“Why don’t you go over there and ask them if they mean to shove a knife up your ass or just join us for dinner?”
Erik didn’t answer. He ducked down as he heard shuffling and whispering, so quiet an untrained ear might have missed it.
“They’re close,” he whispered.
Bryon just nodded, breathing slowly and lifting the bow.
“Are you sure about this?” Erik asked.
“Nope,” Bryon whispered, shaking his head.
Erik looked down at Dragon Tooth, still sheathed. If these men were as good as he thought they were, sneaking up on them by the cover of nigh
t, Bryon would only get one shot. He would have to move quickly. He plotted his course— around his wife’s rose bushes and over the fence to the right of a wagon; that would take him south of where the men were last seen. He point for Bryon to move in the opposite direction and then circled his finger back the other way; they would converge in the middle.
Bryon nodded his understanding and breathed out, slowly and evenly. He pulled the bowstring as taught as it would go as one of the figures moved and then stopped again, low in the night. The unmistakable glimmer of the moon on the edge of a blade as the clouds shifted confirmed their expectations; they weren’t friends.
“Do it,” Erik said, deliberately, his voice now hard steel.
Bryon let go of the bowstring and headed right before he could even check what had happened. The arrow sounded like a quick gust of wind before Erik heard a thud and a quick cry. One of the figures stood about fifty paces away, then his body gave a quarter turn and disappeared from sight. Erik heard the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the ground.
Erik moved left around the cut-back rose bushes and leaped over the fence, head still stooped low. He ran to the left of a wagon, making sure to crouch low under its wooden sides. He inched his head around the end, and waited until he heard whispers in the darkness. The language sounded familiar and it reminded him of two soldiers from Gol-Durathna who had taken the Dragon Scroll from him, causing the dragon attack on South Gate, the poor suburb that rested against Fen-Stévock’s southern wall. Another snatch of a few words confirmed to him these were Durathnans.
Their voices sounded concerned, their words quick and angry. As the moon rose higher, he saw there was one more than he had originally thought and confirmed that when he heard three distinctive voices. He presumed they were arguing over what to do next now they’d been discovered and one of their number was dead.
He ran south, hurrying past the trunks of the orange trees that ran along the eastern edge of his property; they weren’t wide enough to give him coverage. He stopped again, this time behind another gray-leafed bush. The shadowy men were now quiet; they had stopped moving.
Dragon Sword: Demon's Fire Book 1 Page 44
