“Other worlds after life there may be, Whill. But not all pass on. A soul can be kept, and it can be taken.”
It was then that Whill knew the greatest fear he would ever face. Death would be no escape; it would offer no haven. Even in death, Eadon would control him, would use him. Whill was trapped. Avriel was trapped. As far as Whill knew, her body was dead and her soul a captive, forever at the mercy and will of Eadon.
“Her body is not dead; she is very much alive. The many energy stones embedded in her flesh held enough energy to keep her body alive and breathing, as they were meant to,” said Eadon. He paused with a smirk. “Or hadn’t you seen the stones?”
Whill lunged forward and struck the energy wall hard. “You are a sick son of a b—”
“Hold your tongue!” Eadon interrupted. “No need to get personal.”
“Personal!” screamed Whill. “You have stolen a soul; you have destroyed your own homeland, and you have filled the world with darkness. You are insane, and you must be stopped!”
Eadon smiled and tilted his head. “And you will be the one to stop me?” he asked.
“I will. For it was told by Adimorda,” Whill professed.
“Indeed it was.” Eadon smiled. “It was indeed.”
Chapter 6
The Brotherhood
Dirk Blackthorn looked out upon the city of Del-Oradon. From his modest room within his modest inn near the center of the city, he could see his quarry much better. He had found other Brothers of the Red Dragon, the secret society he had been pursuing for more than a year. They alone knew of the red dragon tasked with the keeping of the fabled blade of Adimorda. Dirk had learned from a dying man that they were the keepers of the secret of the blade, should anything happen to the red dragon Zhola. No Elf had been entrusted with the knowledge, as was the will of Zhola.
Dirk had gotten the attention of the brotherhood. He had killed many of their own. It was said that there was a bounty on his head of fifty thousand gold coins. This amused Dirk greatly. For it was the highest bounty he had been cursed with in his many years; this meant that he had pissed off the right people.
The Brotherhood of the Red Dragon was set to meet this night, midnight, at a mansion of one of their own. Dirk awaited the hour. He watched the scattered clouds flirt lazily with the half-moon. His mind drifted to the wood of old, the forests of his youth, to her.
Krentz.
She had been the most energetic and life-loving being that Dirk had ever met. She was like a child in many ways but in many others like a woman. She had been his first and his last lover, for they had reached heights together that he would never reach with another. Nor had he met a woman since that even sparked his interest. Everyone was either a target or an informant, useful to his cause or not.
Krentz had been born a Dark Elf. But her spirit disagreed with the savage, dark, and brutal ways of her people. She was not of her kind, but nor would she be taken in by the Elves of the Sun, for her intricate black-spell tattoos gave her away to any that looked upon her. When Dirk came upon her at that early age, she had been on the run from her people. She had been hunted; they wanted her dead, and she would have died had it not been for Dirk.
They spent years together, years avoiding the many search parties that still hunted for Krentz. Never in all the centuries had a Dark Elf ever strayed from the way of its people. Krentz had created a precedent that Eadon did not want followed. He had sent more than one hundred Draggard after her, but she and Dirk had killed them all. The last year they spent together, they had done so in peace, within the forests of Eldon Island.
She had awoken one night, shaking in a cold sweat in his arms below the stars. “You will die because of me,” she had said in a petrified whisper. “If you stay with me, you will die!” she had screamed. They had fought over the dream for more than a week. Krentz had only become more sure, more scared. Dirk had pleaded with her not to leave, saying that they could kill whoever dared try pursuing them. She would hear none of it. She knew of her abilities of future seeing. She knew it to be true. She believed that she could change it by leaving Dirk forever; as long as she was never near him again, he would never die.
She left him before the morning sun, and he had not seen her since.
Dirk shook his head in disgust and looked to the moon’s nightly advance with sudden alarm. As if part of a sick curse, Dirk was only vulnerable during those times that he thought of Krentz. Always he was alert to his surroundings, aware of those around him—unless she slipped into his thoughts.
Darkness had come to the world; lights glowed within the brotherhood’s secret meeting place. The time had come.
He slipped out of his room, taking with him all that he owned. He would not be returning to the inn. He hit the street and walked in a circle around to the back of the stone building that the brotherhood would be using. The mansion was set on its own lot, near the center of the city. It was home to a rich merchant, one of the Brothers of the Red Dragon. The top tier of the brotherhood consisted of seven men, each with the full knowledge of all secrets of the order. They were the true brotherhood.
Dirk came to the gate of the mansion and walked the street along its perimeter. Never looking directly at the building, he took every detail in peripherally. He followed the building for a block. He noted several guards upon the rooftop of the stone building, crouched in shadow behind gargoyles, and many more near the doors and walking the perimeter.
He could have simply snuck into the mansion, slipping past the guards like a whisper. But that was no fun, not when he could utilize the opportunity of immobilizing so many targets. He knew that if any alarm was given, the seven members of the brotherhood would go separate ways and escape through different routes. That was unacceptable. Dirk knew that he needed to take each sentry independently.
His first target was the nearest guard. The guard walked the perimeter of the gate lazily, looking off into space as he marched. Dirk sighed to himself. There was nothing worse than bad competition.
He scaled the fence and jumped to a nearby tree branch, gaining the attention of the guard. The man looked up quickly and gripped his spear, and his helmet fell over his eyes. Dirk swept his legs and caught the armor-clad man in one arm while jabbing him in the neck with a poisoned dart. He looked around; no one had seen. Dirk lowered the guard slowly onto the grass to sleep off the effects of the dart. He followed the shadows to the next guard in line.
Dirk threw a stone into the bushes near a tree, and the second guard perked up and hustled over to the sound. Just as he arrived at the bush, Dirk was there, jabbing him in the neck with a dart from behind. The guard snored softly and would for an hour. Dirk focused his will upon his ring of shadow, a black pearl set in a ring of steel. It was something he had traded for the life of a Dark Elf. He became like a shadow then. To any that may look upon him, he would seem like a trick of the night and make one question one’s tiredness.
Like a phantom, he ascended the mansion’s stone wall. With the help of many enchanted stones set within the heels of his boots, he leapt from stone perch to stone ledge, grabbing a handhold easily with his similarly enchanted gloves. To any that saw him, he was the shadow of a nearby tree.
One that did not see him was the guard closest to him as he reached the roof. Dirk crouched down as he landed upon the roof behind a gargoyle. The guard, sensing something, began to unsheathe his sword but was stopped by a powerful grip that crushed his hand and a fist that smashed into his forehead. A dart to the leg left that man sleeping as well.
So it went with the rest of the guards of the brotherhood, until Dirk peered through a skylight window at the meeting of the brothers. The members sat at a circular table in a small room within the left wing of the mansion. Dirk noted that no guards stood within the room but seven waited outside of it.
He smashed through the window, hooking his grapple at the same time. He descended the rope quickly and landed upon the table at which the brothers sat. Thud, thud, and thud, the da
rts thumped into the chests of the startled brothers. They in turn looked to their chests at the protruding darts. Dirk had hit them all in less than two seconds, spinning as he went. They hadn’t even had the time to stand in protest. Glass rained down upon the table moments after Dirk had landed. No guards entered the room at the ruckus, for no one outside had heard a sound. The brotherhood rarely met to discuss business, and when they did, it was in a soundproof room.
Dirk looked each of the order in the eye, daring them to retaliate. Both Dirk and the brothers knew they could not, even if they wanted to. The poison in the darts he had used paralyzed the victims, leaving them only with the ability to speak and move their eyes.
None of the brothers spoke. Dirk sat cross-legged upon the table and brushed glass from his shoulder. He reached out and took one of the brothers’ glasses of white wine, looked at it intently, smelled it, listened to it, and drained the glass. He whipped the glass over his shoulder to smash against the wall. The brothers watched, eyes wide, paralyzed. Dirk then proceeded to take from its box a fine Isladonian cigar. He brought it to his lips and lit it with a candle.
“It is hard to get an audience with you people. I was quite disappointed when you refused my offer for a meeting. Now look what I have had to resort to, to get your attention,” said Dirk as he lifted his hands outward and looked around at the brothers. He puffed on the cigar over and over, getting a nice, fat cherry going at the end. The gray ash cooled and looked like fine fabric.
“The darts protruding from your chests have administered a drug that as you know has left you paralyzed. What you do not know, is that it will kill you in less than fifteen minutes,” said Dirk as he watched the eyes of all seven men widen. None spoke.
He slowly retracted a dart from the band on his thigh. “This, however, will reverse the effects of that dart so that you may live. All I want to know is the location of the sword of Adimorda, and you shall all live fat, happy lives.”
The brothers all eyed each other; they looked mostly to one man in particular. He was an old man, with a beard to his chest and eyes that shown with defiance. Dirk got up and walked upon the table to that man and kicked him in the face, knocking him out. The others looked to him with wide eyes.
“Now that Mr. Backbone of the order is out of the way, let’s say we make a deal—your lives for a little information.”
“Never!” yelled one man.
Dirk kicked him in the face, and he slept as well.
“Over our dead bodies!” cried another. He slept also as did three more after him.
Dirk centered on the only remaining brother that hadn’t spoken.
The man was small and pudgy. He had manicured hands and the best clothes of all the men. Many rings adorned his fingers, and a wine glass, a beer glass, and a pipe lay before him. Dirk knew that he had chosen well.
“So?” asked Dirk. “Will you tell me what I want to know and save your own arse and those of your brothers? Or are you truly righteous at heart?”
The man whimpered and shook with the effort to move against Dirk.
Dirk rolled his eyes and looked to the other sleeping brothers. “They will all be dead in five minutes, as will all your guards, as will you be, my plump friend—unless you tell me what I want to know.”
The man cried and slobbered, spittle falling from his sweating chin. “They will know I have betrayed them. My life is forfeit if I speak anyway.”
Dirk smiled. “That is where you are wrong, my friend. My next dart will not only remedy the one that afflicts you all, but it will also render your memory void. You will all wake puzzling over a broken window and sore heads. Not even you will remember your own betrayal. You save the lives of yourself and your brothers, and no one is the wiser.”
The fat man whimpered and cried and finally broke, with a minute left till his death. Dirk did as he promised and gave every one of them the antidote.
He walked along the perimeter of the mansion with the knowledge that he had sought for years and smiled to himself. Beyond him, upon the grounds of the mansion, a guard came to and rubbed his neck.
Dirk walked into the night whistling a happy tune.
Chapter 7
An Invitation to Execution
Rhunis met Abram at the bar within the inn they had been staying at for a week. He sat down wearily and ordered a beer. He nodded to the barkeep and looked around the room. None of the few patrons within gave them any mind. He handed Abram a small scroll.
“Finally!” Abram announced and hurriedly broke the seal and uncurled the paper.
It was a short message written in a code that only he and Zerafin knew; they had agreed upon it when Zerafin had left for Elladrindellia with his sister’s body. Abram read the scroll and then quickly caught fire to it with a nearby candle.
“Hey!” protested the barkeep.
“Apologies,” said Abram. He nodded to himself and pondered what he had read.
Rhunis looked at him dubiously. “So, what did it say for Kell-Torey’s sake?”
Abram looked to him with a smile. “Zerafin will be leaving Elladrindellia shortly; he will meet us here in one week.” said Abram.
Rhunis took a large pull from his beer mug and set it down gratefully. He wiped the foam from his mouth. “‘Bout damned time and none too soon. I found this while coming back into the city.” He handed Abram a paper. Abram took it and tilted his head back to read it.
It read.
Come one, come all
Your great King doth invite all that may attend
To the newly finished Coliseum of champions
The 27th of this month
For the grand opening celebration featuring
some of the greatest gladiators
to have ever bled in the arena
In honor of this great day of blood sport
and festivities
All in attendance shall witness the trial and
execution of the most hated criminal
in all the lands of Agora
Bringer of darkness
Master of the Draggard
Enemy to all free humans of Uthen-Arden
Whill of Agora
Abram’s jaw dropped, and his face shone with a strange mix of emotions—joy at hearing that Whill was indeed alive, sadness in the realization of his friend’s sentence, and finally he felt rage.
“The bastard intends to kill him in public, make an example out of him.” said Abram.
“Indeed,” Rhunis agreed. “It said what? The twenty-seventh of this month, that gives us a week.”
Abram’s breathing had increased, and his mind raced. “Zerafin will be here by then. I am sure of it.”
Rhunis grimaced. “That gives us little time to be ready to infiltrate the coliseum and break Whill out of there.”
Abram patted his old friend on the back. “We must be ready by then, and we will. Zerafin will have soldiers with him; I am sure. For Whill’s sake, we must be ready.”
***
Dirk walked through the streets of the city to his destination, the great library of Oshtock. He doubted he would find what he sought, but if the information was not there, it was nowhere in the city. He passed a town crier on his way and paid him no mind, until something in the boy’s hand caught his eye. He turned to the boy and absently handed him a coin as he took the paper. Dirk could not believe his luck. There, in bold print, was news of the new coliseum; to his amazement, Whill of Agora’s execution was the main event. Dirk read it again and pondered the situation.
***
Nah’Zed hurried to follow Roakore down the hall and into a side passage. Roakore had just come from two days spent with his twenty-seven wives and was in one of his moods. Through another tunnel he went with a slight limp and down a flight of stairs, with Nah’Zed following behind.
“Sir?” She puffed. “Sir? You are due to meet the boy Tarren shortly fer dinner, along with Haldagozz ‘n’ the Elf lady Lunara n—”
“I be knowin’ whats it is I got
ta be doin’ ya dolt. I be headin’ that way didn’t, ya happen te notice?” roared Roakore as he spun around on Nah’Zed, causing her to bump into him as she followed.
Nah’Zed hit the solid Roakore and dropped her quill and parchment and many papers. She looked to them and then up to the scowling Roakore, and her nostrils flared with anger. “I know ye be knowin’ where ye be goin’, but it seems ye ain’t knowin’ what ya be wearing to where ye be goin’! Ye got on yer bed clothes!” said Nah’Zed with frustration and slight embarrassment.
“Me, king.”
Roakore scowled at her and looked down at his bed clothes. He burst into a great belly laugh that was picked up by his royal brain. “Bahaha! Thought it was a wee bit breezy in this here tunnel.” said Roakore as he tied tighter his bed robe.
***
Tarren and Lunara awaited Helzendar at the entrance to their living quarters. They slept but a minute’s walk from Roakore, though Tarren did not see him daily. Indeed, weeks would go by without Tarren seeing the great Dwarf king, but he did not mind. He was so engaged in his study of the Dwarf language, history, customs, and battle techniques that he had not a minute to spare to loneliness.
He lived with Lunara, and from her, he had learned a great many things. She alone could have kept his mind busy with learning. But she understood that to live alongside Dwarves was a great chance for the boy, a great chance for her for that matter. She did not distract the lad from his teachings; there would be time for other lessons.
Tarren had an insatiable appetite for knowledge that Lunara respected. For a human child, his energy and enthusiasm was great enough to better that of many an Elf she had known. He learned all lessons taught to him, the first time. There was no need for repetition for the boy. The harsh and awkward language of the Dwarves came easily to Tarren, and he sometimes insisted on speaking it for days. Lunara had to admit that his pronunciation was perfect, without accent, while hers was not. The Dwarf talk was too rough and sharp for her Elven tongue.
Whill of Agora: Epic Fantasy Bundle (Books 1-4): (Whill of Agora, A Quest of Kings, A Song of Swords, A Crown of War) (Legends of Agora) Page 45
