by Eric Vall
“Agreed,” I muttered and dipped my head. “I think we should go ahead and alert the rest of the group once we’ve arrived, but we should make a rescue plan that we can carry out before they get there.”
“I know you don’t know much about centaurs, but I can hear you,” Jager called out from a few feet ahead of us.
Well, shit. There went the element of surprise.
“Listen, Jager--” I started.
“No, go ahead,” he cut me off. “I do think we should rescue the child before the queen can intervene. She isn’t thinking clearly, and it could hurt our chances of being successful.”
Ooookay, that was unexpected.
“Well, then I guess we can wait until we see what’s going on and form a plan before we send for them,” I continued slowly. “Then we can save the boy before she gets there, and she can be a little more reasonable since he’ll be safe.”
Suddenly, Jager waved his hand through the air and covered his mouth with a finger to shush us. He pointed ahead, and I noticed the grass waving as though someone was walking a few feet ahead of our group.
I reached into my spatial storage and pulled out the Sword of Healing, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye as Nike did the same with the Sword of Light. Aaliyah’s claws fully extended as her orange eyes scanned the grass before us, and her lips curled back to reveal her fangs.
Then the grasses parted, we stepped to the edge of a pond, and a large black body came into view.
Jager released a sigh.
“It’s just a sarangay,” he muttered.
Just a sarangay? That thing was huge. The beast stood on four legs and was still nearly as tall as the grass. Its big black head was decorated with two enormous horns that stuck out above its ears and then curved forward as though ready to attack. It looked something like a bull, but at least twice the size of the ones I’d seen back on Earth.
Then I noticed the two diamonds that hung from each of its ears. Each jewel was the size of my fists, and they sparkled in the sunlight as though they wanted my attention.
I was mesmerized as I stared hungrily at the diamonds.
“It will kill you to keep them,” Jager whispered when he followed my gaze. “Don’t even think about it, dragon.”
“It can try,” I grunted as I took a few steps forward to get a better look.
Jager huffed as I peered through the grass at the beast. It didn’t even notice us watching it, and I smiled to myself.
I was about to add to my hoard.
I closed my eyes and reached out with my magic to call the pond water into my spiritual sea. I felt the water obey my command, and I stuck out my hand to direct the water in front of the sarangay.
Then I created a spear from the fluid, and it shot out of the pond like a rocket. The water spear pierced the sarangay in the throat, and the beast let out a loud gurgle while its blood poured from the wound.
“How the hell?” Jager’s blue eyes were wide with surprise as I let the water spear return to the pond.
A moment later, the creature crashed to the ground next to the pool, squirmed a couple times, and then laid still.
I emerged from the grass, walked up to the beast, placed a foot on its motionless carcass, and rolled it to its side. Then I reached down and plucked the enormous diamonds from its ears. I grinned as I turned the jewels over in my hands before I opened my spatial storage and carefully placed them inside.
“Can you eat this?” I asked Jager and gestured to the sarangay’s body.
“Uh, yeah,” the centaur answered as he, Nike, and Aaliyah joined me at the water’s edge.
“Great,” I replied and lifted my sword. Then I sliced the body into a few smaller pieces and added them to my spatial storage as well. I’d give them to the cooks once we got back to Lumin, since I needed some more meat tonight.
Satisfied with my work, I stood up and surveyed the pond. No other creatures made an appearance, so we were clear to keep moving.
“So, it’s true what they say,” Jager said once we were back on the move.
“What’s that?” I replied as I glanced at him.
“Dragons are obsessed with treasure.” The warrior stared straight ahead as he awaited my response.
“Yep,” I answered with a shrug. “We have a sense for it, and once we’re on the trail of treasure, it’s nearly impossible to stop hunting for it until we get it. I love women, too.”
“Oh.” Jager fumbled in his footing for a moment before he recovered. “So, you just take whatever you want?”
“No.” I raised a brow. “We take unclaimed treasure without hesitation, but we don’t steal. Or, at least, I don’t. I don’t know about other dragons, though River told me the stories of the ones your tribe dealt with before. I’m not like that.”
“Good.” Jager’s shoulders sank with relief.
“Lord Evan isn’t anything like what you’ve heard,” Aaliyah piped up. “I wasn’t expecting someone so kind and giving. We’d heard a lot of stories, too.”
“Where are you from?” Jager asked as he looked at the Demi-Human.
“Tikal,” Aaliyah replied and lifted her chin with pride. “We came to Lumin from there. I decided to join them on their campaign.”
“You left your home for the dragon?” the centaur asked in surprise.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “I’ll return to Tikal later, but I wanted to be with Lord Evan and his people on this adventure.”
“Interesting,” Jager murmured.
We walked another couple miles in silence as the centaur absorbed the information about me and my group. It seemed he was trying to reconcile the stories he’d grown up on with the actual experience of getting to know me. He didn’t show any signs of the fierce hatred that River harbored, but he was still cautious of me.
Soon, we came upon a large hill, and Jager put up a hand to stop us. The sun was low in the sky, almost ready to set, and the twilight gave us a little more cover than walking up in broad daylight.
Then I realized we were close to the tear. We could all feel the negative energy that emanated from the gap to the other world, and it felt like we could all get sucked in at any moment and be lost forever. It was almost enough to make us want to turn back, which explained why the Sect had chosen this location. Most creatures would instinctively leave the area, which gave the Sect easy added security.
“The Gates are just over this hill,” Jager muttered. “I think we’ll be able to see down there, but we should make sure they don’t have guards at the top.”
“Got it,” I agreed. “Aaliyah, you should go up first. You’re the quietest. If there’s a sentry at the top of the hill, take care of the problem silently. We’ll follow at a safe distance.”
The lioness nodded and began a lithe ascent to the top of the hill. Then she disappeared into the tall grasses, and they barely showed any sign of her movement. If anyone was watching, they’d mistake it for a breeze moving the tops of the tall grass.
Once she was about ten paces ahead of us, I signaled the other two to follow me. Jager stayed hunched over, so his human torso wouldn’t show above the grass, while Nike and I tiptoed up the hill.
Suddenly, a robed body rolled down through the grass to our feet. The man’s throat had been gouged out with large claws, and his empty eyes were wide open.
I guess Aaliyah had found the guard.
A few moments later, we joined her up at the top of the hill and peered down into the valley.
The Dandelion Gates were a massive metal structure that towered above the hills surrounding it. They were shaped like gates, though it didn’t look like they led to anything in particular. The structures stood on their own, and the field around them consisted of a shorter grass and a variety of flowers. Blues, oranges, and pinks brightened the ground around the golden frames, so technically the Dandelion Gates were beautiful, but the ominous feeling remained.
Evil was close.
Chapter 10
I surveyed the scene below
us with my high-power dragon vision.
The Dandelion Gates towered over the camp and extended about half the length of a football field. Each gate had about ten thick spokes that spread out from a circle in the middle, and it gave them the look of a sun in the center of each gate. The spokes connected to wide, gold bars, and large stone columns held the gates in place. The sun had started to set, and the golden structure reflected the waning sunlight and created a pinkish halo around the Green Glass Sect’s camp.
I wondered briefly what the Dandelion Gates had been built for, but I shook my head to clear away the random thoughts and focused on the camp instead.
There were three Sect members who guarded the perimeter around their camp, and another one stood guard on the hill diagonal from us. Two more members were hunched over a piece of parchment on a table, and several tents were lined up in a row off to the side. I imagined there were at least one or two of the kidnappers in each of the tents as well. The tents indicated the Sect members had been here for a while, though there was no telling how long they’d planned to stay.
But we were about to shorten their trip.
A small fire burned in the center of the camp, but it emitted no smoke. So, at least one mage was here to set up their magical fire that kept the location a secret. A thought flitted through my mind about a sage, and I briefly wondered if Olivier was the sage the Green Glass Sect seemed to blindly follow. I’d be sure to ask him when I finally caught him.
We’d heard mention of a base camp before, but there was no way this was all of the Green Glass Sect’s members. With the battles we’d faced already, I imagined the Sect numbers were possibly in the hundreds, but there were only maybe twenty people here.
I scanned the ground to look for Olivier. I knew he had to be involved with something this big, but I didn’t see him so far. Even if he wasn’t here, though, he likely had a hand in the plan to kidnap Archer, which just added to my list of reasons to kill the bastard.
As my eyes skipped over the camp, the rift stood out from the rest of the peaceful scenery. The smoky miasma leaked from the opening and swirled into the air, but it seemed to have no interest in attacking the Sect members, likely because it somehow knew they were helping the demons escape their world. We’d suspected some kind of consciousness to the miasma, and this seemed to confirm it. I still wasn’t sure if it was a true hive mentality, or if the spells that released the miasma somehow came with a level of control. If I could ever catch one of the mages, I’d have to find that part out, too. I’d never seen a mark on the miasma, but I doubted anything would be clear on its hazy form.
Still, the gate to the underworld sent shudders down my spine. This one was considerably larger than the one we’d seen by Hatra. It stretched almost the full length of the Dandelion Gates, and it was probably fifteen feet wide. There was no telling how deep it was, especially since it wasn’t like a big pool. The rift was a tear in the reality of our world, and normal measurements couldn’t define it.
Then I saw Archer, and my focus changed.
The young centaur was tied to the bottom of one of the gates, nearly hidden by the shadows of the tall metal structures, and two Sect members stood guard over him. They were paying little attention to the child, though, and he pouted as he stared at the ground by his feet. He didn’t appear to be injured, but he was dirty, and his hair was wild. He wore no shoes or shirt, but he was wearing what looked like a nightgown.
So, Cesar had moved him in the middle of the night. His attempts to look for the boy this morning were part of a big ruse to allow the other kidnappers to take Archer further from the city, and it had worked since they’d gotten him all the way here without leaving a trace.
I focused on the Sect members who were looking at the parchment and tuned my dragon hearing into their conversation. In case the centaurs decided to kill all the captors again, I needed to learn what I could about their plans.
They seemed to be preparing for the sacrifice.
“We have to get him to shapeshift before we put him in the tear,” one of the men said. “The centaur form makes the spell work better, according to this.”
“He’s not listening to us,” the second guy grumbled. “He only listens to Cesar.”
“Well, then get that idiot back over here,” the first man demanded. “Where did he go, anyway?”
So, the traitor was here somewhere, but no one seemed to know where.
I had a feeling I’d be able to find him.
“He claims he didn’t know the whole plan and won’t help us anymore,” the second man replied with an eye roll. “He said Olivier only told him we needed him to get to the queen, not that any harm would come to the boy.”
“Who knows what Olivier told him?” the first Sect member said with a shrug. “I just know we have to get the transformation done, so we have to figure something out before Olivier comes back. We can’t disappoint him.”
Now that I had some information, I turned back to my three comrades.
“They need Archer to shift into his centaur form to complete the sacrifice,” I informed them. “So far, the boy isn’t listening to them at all, but we have to get him out of here before they try any other methods. Plus, Olivier should be making an appearance at some point, so we need to make sure Archer is out of harm’s way before then.”
Aaliyah and Nike nodded solemnly, and I summoned a messenger dragon to send to the rest of our party.
“Tell Alyona and the others we found the boy and the Sect,” I instructed. “We need Alyona to come seal the rift once we get rid of them.”
The tiny dragon dipped its head and buzzed away from my hand to head back to the Oracle’s forest. We would have just less than an hour until they arrived, which was plenty of time to figure out how we could handle all the guards without putting Archer into danger. As the Oracle mentioned, Nike was an excellent strategist, so I figured he would be able to come up with a plan that suited everyone’s abilities on the battlefield.
I turned back to the group to plan an attack, but then Jager suddenly shoved past me and barreled down the hill to the Sect camp, straight for Archer.
“Wait--” I tried to reach for him, but he was galloping to attack.
I cursed under my breath and took off after him with Nike and Aaliyah close on my heels. I veered to the side and shifted into my dragon form without missing a beat. Then I ran, jumped, and flapped my wings to take flight just as the centaur warrior broke through the edge of the camp.
The Sect members yelled and scrambled for cover as the centaur pulled out his bow and shot the first assassin in the leg. Jager quickly yanked another arrow from his quiver and shot another Sect member in the chest, and he continued to gallop toward Archer until a dagger whizzed by him. Then he changed direction to go after the Sect member who had attacked him.
The centaur had really fucked with our ability to attack together, but we needed to make the most of it now.
So, I circled around the camp and breathed a column of fire onto the tents, and a dozen Sect members screamed as they tore free of the burning canvas and ran toward the middle of the camp. I started to send out a wave of earthquake magic to separate them from the other members, but then I realized I didn’t know how it would affect the rift. The last thing I needed was to open it any further, so I held off and sent cracks of lightning at them instead. The lightning bolts buzzed to the ground and sent up sparks in every direction, and in the twilight, the lightning looked out of place and eerie.
Two Sect members were electrocuted by the lightning shocks and fell to the ground in a heap. The others dodged the strikes and continued to run away from me and my magical assaults, but I’d catch up with them soon.
I looked over to see Nike wielding the Sword of Light as he entered the battle. One of the Sect members sprinted toward him with a long spear in hand, but Nike swung the sword in a wide arc and sliced through the attacker’s torso with one swoop. The assassin crashed to the ground in two pieces at Nike’s feet, and the
noble stepped over him as he continued the attack.
I grinned at my best friend’s swordsmanship and looped around again toward the parchment the men were studying before. It looked like some kind of spell, and I wanted to make sure no one else could use it. If they were willing to sacrifice a child for it, the spell or whatever it was had to go.
So, I breathed fire over the parchment and the table it sat on. The table erupted into flames, and the two Sect members who stood near it yelled as they dove away from the fire. They stood up and ran away from me, but they ran straight for the rest of my party.
I saw Aaliyah out of the corner of my eye as she leaped onto one of the assassins and dug her claws into his face. He screamed as blood poured down his face and neck, but the lioness opened her mouth, planted her long canines into his throat, and yanked her head back. The force ripped out his jugular and sent a spray of blood across the grass in front of him, and the Sect member’s blood curdling screams stopped as Aaliyah finished the job. Then she tossed the nearly decapitated body aside and searched for her next prey.
The two guards beside the boy left their posts and ran over to assist their companions, and I realized we needed to take full advantage of the opening.
“Jager!” I roared to the centaur as he stomped a Sect member’s head into mush. “Get Archer!”
The warrior dipped his head and galloped over to the centaur boy to untie the ropes that bound him to the gates.
Then I saw a flash of blonde hair across the camp, and I turned to see Olivier as he threw off his hood and glared at me.
I knew he’d be around here somewhere.
“Fucking dragon,” the man snarled.
Apparently, he wasn’t happy to see me, either.
The feeling was mutual, except I just wanted to kill him.
“Traitor,” I growled, made a beeline for the bastard, and shot a stream of webs at his feet to keep him from taking off.
Olivier looked down at his feet in surprise before he mumbled a spell, and the webs melted away in seconds. Then he laughed and began another spell.
