Nath let out a stream of fire into his own visage. The flames washed over the image. Its handsome face was unscathed.
“You have no power over me,” it said. “I am everlasting. I am invincible. Your mortal lives will end.”
All four twins said the same thing at the same time. In a deadly fracas, they were beating the scales off Nath, the armor off Brenwar, and choking Bayzog and Selene to death.
But when he caught sight of Selene’s eyes bulging from her sockets, Nath’s energy surged. He let Fang go and hip tossed his twin. In a single leap, he made it to Selene’s side. He punched her twin in the face with a flurry of punches.
Its face faded. The body shimmered.
Selene tore free of its tail that faded out for a moment. Coughing, she said, “Nath, that’s it. We all need to attack as one.”
The spirit resumed its solid form. “I will kill you.”
Nath’s twin tackled him. It shoulder drove him into the ground. Using its momentum, Nath rolled and flung his own twin into Brenwar.
The two twin spirits collided. They faded for a moment.
Brenwar slipped free, nose bloodied and eyes wild with anger. “I’ve had enough of this! For Morgdon!”
Attack as one! Nath thought.
As soon as Brenwar swung at his own twin, Nath loosed his flame on the same. Fire and metal clinched together in the breastplate of the dwarven twin. The spirit moaned. Its body faded to that of an apparition.
Before Nath’s twin could react, a bolt of energy smote its face. Brenwar hit it with Mortuun. Nath hit it with a geyser of flame.
It let out an angry screech. “I cannot die. I will kill you!” it said, resuming the form of an apparition.
“Nath!” Selene yelled. She was limb locked with her twin. Their fingernails were digging into one another’s throats.
“Brenwar, help Bayzog!” Nath scooped up Fang. He rushed over to Selene and did a double take. Selene and her twin had thrashed around so much, he couldn’t tell which was which. “Uh, Selene.” He caught the hot stare of one woman’s violet eyes. With a quick swing, he chopped the head off the other. The blade cut through flesh that turned to smoke. Helping Selene up, he sighed.
“You know me well, Nath. Good thing.”
Mortuun collided square in the back of Bayzog’s twin.
The spirit hovered near them in ghostly forms that, for the moment, were harmless. Its words, however, were a different story altogether. The foursome rose up, facing the countless fiendish faces on the inner terraces and said, “Kill them all! Now!”
Men, orcs, ogres, and nuurg rushed down the steps. The wurmers dove right at them.
Rubbing his neck, Bayzog said, “The gem’s inside the pit, Nath. I can feel it in my bones.”
“I know. All of you, listen to me. Get out! I can take it from here.”
“There is no out!” Brenwar said. He leaned over the pit. “It’s the way it’s always been. The only way is down.” He jumped the wall into the pit, landing on a narrow set of stairs below. He crushed the smaller wurmers underfoot and crushed the bigger ones snapping at him with his hammer. “Are you coming?”
“Go, Nath. Selene!” Bayzog said. “I have an idea that should buy us time.”
With a nod, Nath quickly led them in a jump down onto the steps into the pit. They hit the bottom dozens of feet below.
Wurmers flew right at them from above. Selene launched missiles into them. Nath sliced them into bits with his sword.
Bayzog shouted a word of command. The gem mounted in the Elderwood Staff turned a bright golden yellow. A force field of citrine energy sealed the pit over like a sheet of ice. Wurmers flew into it and bounced off. Within seconds, soldiers big and small were striking it with every heavy object they had.
With a deep crease between his eyes, Bayzog said, “What are you waiting for? That shield won’t hold forever.”
“Brenwar,” Nath said. “Keep the wurmers off him.”
With a skull-crushing swing, Brenwar replied, “Keep them off of him? Who’s going to keep them off of me?”
The wurmers came at Nath and Selene in waves. It was just small ones the size of goats and sheep. Nath swung Fang in broad arcing sweeps. Blood and acid flew.
Energy exploded from Selene’s hands. The radiant energy blasted away the scales and crackled the skin of the wurmers.
The insect dragons hummed an angry Ree-Rah chorus. It became louder and angrier the farther they ventured into the pit. The monsters clamped their jaws on ankles and wrists. If not for Nath and Selene’s iron-like scales, they’d have been torn to bits and devoured in seconds.
Selene turned a dog-sized wurmer into a sizzling tower of goo. “Nath, it’s good to see that you haven’t forgotten how to show a dragon lady a grand time.”
Nath ripped a wurmer from his arm and flung it away. “Yes, tell me about it.” Together they slew wurmers by the dozens. There wasn’t any sign of the life stone though. I’m starting to have my doubts, Selene. I can feel it, but I can’t see it. Something’s wrong. Maybe the stone isn’t here after all.”
“It has to be. Keep fighting.”
CHAPTER 39
Sansla flew in the night sky, dodging the wurmers that pursued him. He used the light of the Occular of Orray to draw their attention. It worked perfectly, but it also did something better yet. Its light kept them at bay. It allowed him to watch the scene below him unfold.
The roamers and elves advanced on the hive from all directions. Climbing up the levels, they engaged the enemy, except for three: Shum, Liam, and Hoven. Everything was a distraction so these three roamers could slip inside with the orbs of destruction they carried. Now, Sansla could see that the three roamers were boxed in by superior forces. They weren’t going to make it.
It’s time for me to engage.
Fist first, Sansla dropped downward in the sky. He plowed into three nuurgs, knocking them down another level. Now on his feet, fighting by his elves’ side, he said, “Make haste! Take to the cave!” He led the way.
“Yes! Follow Sansla, our king!” Liam yelled.
Fighting as a single unit, they hacked their way to the highest level where the main cave mouth opened. The soldiers were no match for the blinding speed of elven steel. Swords and daggers in hand, Liam, Shum, and Hoven took the advancing enemy down in heaps.
Sansla picked up a nuurg and hurled it over his head. He beat his chest. “There!”
The mouth of the cave waited.
Sansla rushed toward the opening.
His roamers followed.
A giant that rivaled Eckubahn’s great size appeared. It was long-armed, smooth, and black skinned, with teeth like a wolf. Its eyes were flames of amber.
“Watch out!”
The giant’s hands were swift. It snatched Sansla off the ground, pinning his wings in its grip.
Sansla gasped.
“I am Sulker. Eater of all things!” Its burrow-sized nostrils flared. Saliva dripped from its jaws. “Ah, your flesh will be sweet. So divine!”
With his arms still free, Sansla waved at Shum. The roamer tossed up an apple-sized orb of destruction. Sansla scooped it up. “Dine on this!” He flung the orb down the back of Sulker’s throat.
Sulker laughed. “You dare toy with me.” He spat the orb out. It exploded on impact, shaking the very foundation of the cave.
The roamers momentarily lost their footing but popped back up quickly.
Sulker’s brows knitted. “I’ll squeeze you to death!”
Sansla’s ribs cracked. “Argh!”
“Hurts very much,” Sulker said, leering at him. “It won’t hurt so much when you are dead.”
With his arm hanging down at his side, Sansla flipped his fingers.
Hoven tossed him another orb. “We only have one left, oh king.”
“I know,” Sansla replied. When Sulker drew Sansla toward his wide-open mouth, Sansla jammed the orb deep into the giant’s nasal cavity.
“What? What have you done?” Su
lker dropped Sansla. With his long finger, he dug in his nose. “Get this thing out of me! I can’t find it!”
“Give me the last orb, Liam,” Sansla ordered.
Liam stuffed it into his hand.
“Now go. All of you flee. I must handle this.” He shoved them all away. “I live to let live.”
“We all do, oh king!” Shum said with a salute. He, Liam and Hoven jumped over the ledge.
Sansla spread his wings and flew deeper into the cave, right toward the snapping jaws of awaiting wurmers.
Sulker’s last words echoed in the chamber, “No, no, no, don’t leave me!”
BOOM!
The orb of destruction turned the giant into bits and pieces. The force flung Sansla forward. He collided with the wurmers. Using his powerful limbs, the wounded ape pushed his way into the heart of the hive. He stomped through the mist. Eggs were crushed under his feet. Gnashing teeth ripped at his fur and skin. He wouldn’t be denied.
His ice-blue eyes locked on the throbbing heartbeat that illuminated the room. He stormed toward the glow. The life gem pulsed inside a murky cavity in the earth filled with red gel. With the last orb in his hand, he plunged it beside the gem and covered the cavity with his powerful body. The wurmers smothered him in a mass of inescapable bodies.
I live to let live.
***
The ground trembled. A thunderclap erupted out of the cave. With misty eyes, Shum, Hoven, and Liam watched the hillside cave in.
CHAPTER 40
Nath bit into the tail of a wurmer and slung it away with his teeth. “This is becoming ridiculous.” The sublevel of the pit was a field of wurmer eggs as far as the naked eye could see. The nasty lizards burst from their eggs and crawled onto the misty floor.
Over the raucous battle, he caught Brenwar’s voice. “You had better hurry up! This ceiling of evil is about to fall.”
“Look!” Selene slung a wurmer right of his position. “That way!”
There were rows of stone sarcophaguses lined up on the floor. It all came together. The pit wasn’t a pit at all but an ancient burial chamber.
Nath fought his way toward them. “There are so many. Do you think it’s in one of these?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you start looking?” Selene said, slinging wurmers off of her.
The first stone coffin was covered with a lid made from black stone. It must have weighed a ton. Nath shoved the lid aside. The bones of a large man lay inside. He shoved off one lid after the other. The results were the same. Old bones. No life gem.
“I’m growing tired, Nath,” Selene said. The anguish was present on her face. The wurmers might not be able to kill her, but they could wear her down—which was more than Nath could say for Brenwar and Bayzog.
Nath spat out a stream of fire. It spread from one wurmer to another. They screeched and crackled. He took Selene by the hand. “Come on. Look for anything that might be helpful.”
Every sarcophagus was identical, but he sensed the power of a life stone. It pulsated like a beating heart. He shoved a lid that cracked on a stone floor. Finally, filled with frustration and anger, he started flinging the lids at the wurmers. The onyx tablets crushed eggs and many of the little demons.
Selene shoved a lid off. A wurmer scuttled at her feet. She snatched it up by the neck, stuffed it in the coffin and pushed back the lid. “There’s too many of these things!”
“Wurmers or coffins?”
“Both!”
Together, in the midst of fighting wurmers, they pushed aside more lids.
“Guzan! It has to be in one of these,” Nath yelled. He batted three wurmers away with the lid and slung it aside.
Clonking wurmer heads left and right with Mortuun, Brenwar was yelling at the top of his lungs, “Find that thing, Nath! Find it!”
They’d cleared over a score of the lids and there were still dozens left. Every last one of them was marked the same. Stone coffins with black lids. One wasn’t any more distinguished than the other. A pool of greater doubt formed in Nath’s mind. If they didn’t find the life gem soon, they wouldn’t make it out of there.
“Selene, perhaps we should go! We’re just wasting time.”
She shoved off another lid. “We’ll never get another chance. It has to be here. Keep looking!”
With wurmers nipping his knees, he kept pushing off lids at random. All of a sudden, the entire chamber was washed in pulsing illuminating light.
“I found it!” Selene shouted.
Nath bounded over to her in two great strides and looked into the great ruby’s fiery light. “I’ll finish it!” he said, raising Fang over his head.
Selene grabbed his arm. “No! You’ll kill us all!”
“It must be done!”
“That’s what I brought these for,” Selene said, revealing the orbs of destruction from her satchel. She had two in hand. She dropped them inside the coffin.
“I’m not taking any chances.” Nath shoved the lid over it. “How much time do we have?”
She shrugged. “Not long.”
Nath grabbed Selene’s hand. “I suppose we had better get out of here then. Brenwar! We’re coming!” Stride for stride, Nath and Selene raced through the wurmers and flames.
Brenwar’s battle-wearied face brightened. “It’s about time! Now what?”
Nath noted the army of people pounding away at Bayzog’s mystic shield. “Step aside and let it down.”
“They’ll land on top of us!” Brenwar said.
“Not if you get out of the way.” Nath dragged them under the pit’s overhang.
Eyebrows perched, Bayzog said to Nath, “Are you certain this is the proper course of action?”
“It’s either this, or we’ll all get a firsthand taste of the insides of an orb of destruction.”
“Two orbs,” Selene corrected.
“Good point.” Bayzog’s lips babbled rapid whispers.
Nath scooped Selene up in his arms.
She opened her mouth to object.
“Trust me,” he said.
The citrine shield barrier gave. Hundreds of soldiers plummeted with frightened howls. They all hit hard in a loud clamorous thud.
“Grab my legs and hold on!” Nath ordered.
Brenwar and Bayzog latched on.
Nath’s wings beat in a fierce fury. He lifted off the ground, higher and faster. He passed the opening in the pit.
Several soldiers launched themselves at him. Most fell short and tumbled into the pit. One, a long-armed gnoll, caught Brenwar’s leg. The extra weight dragged Nath down a foot.
“Let go of my foot, you hound!” Brenwar cracked its skull with the butt end of Mortuun.
The gnoll fell.
Nath regained speed. He flew toward the skylight.
Wurmers darted right at them. They latched on with their claws.
Nath let out a booming roar. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” His dragon heart raced. A new surge fueled his veins. His wings beat quicker and without ceasing.
Two quick, muffled, yet all-powerful explosions came.
BOOM! BOOM!
After a gust of wind propelled him up and out of the skylight, Nath veered away from the gap, flying as far from the opening as he could get. He had made it twenty yards when a volcano-like explosion burst out of the skylight, flinging Nath and his friends farther away.
A huge geyser of life-rending lava gushed into the night in a steady stream. It spat up flesh and stone. Charred bodies fell from the sky. Burning bodies landed on the ziggurat and as far away as the forest.
The faces of the titan army were ashen. Their jaws hung to their knees. By the hundreds, they fled.
The geyser spewed for several long, scintillating seconds.
Nath had no doubt that everything inside the temple of stone had died a death worthy of the worst. He landed on top of the abandoned ziggurat. The stone was hot but bearable. “I can’t say for sure, but I think that did the trick. Look!” Wurmers dropped out of the sky like dead flies. �
��It’s raining.”
Cradling Mortuun in his gashed-up arms, Brenwar said, “There’s still plenty left to fight.” The forest was burning. “And our friends are still out there.” He headed down the steps. “What are you waiting for? The fireworks are over. Now it’s time to clean up.”
NEXT BOOK IN THE SERIES
Only one more book to go! Nath’s final clash with Eckubahn awaits. Pre-order now on Amazon here: Link: Or click the picture! Also, in an ideal world, Nath Dragon would look young and be much more handsome than pictured, but it’s difficult to pull off perfection. He’s an Adonis, but I like getting the best artwork done that I can when I can to help the readers visualize. I hope that’s cool. But you can always email your ideas and suggestions of what you think Nath should look like. [email protected] Oh, and leave a review on book 9 HERE and don’t forget to join Nath’s army HERE.
OTHER BOOKS AND AUTHOR INFO
Craig Halloran resides with his family outside his hometown of Charleston, West Virginia. When he isn’t entertaining mankind, he is seeking adventure, working out, or watching sports. To learn more about him, go to www.thedarkslayer.com.
Check out all of my great stories…
CLASH OF HEROES: Nath Dragon Meets the Darkslayer
Squawk — Beginnings
Squawk — Odyssey
Squawk – Revelations
The Chronicles of Dragon Series
The Hero, the Sword and the Dragons (Book 1)
Dragon Bones and Tombstones (Book 2)
Terror at the Temple (Book 3)
Clutch of the Cleric (Book 4)
Hunt for the Hero (Book 5)
Siege at the Settlements (Book 6)
Strife in the Sky (Book 7)
Fight and the Fury (Book 8)
War in the Winds (Book 9)
Finale (Book 10)
The Chronicles of Dragon: Series 2, Tail of the Dragon
Tail of the Dragon
Claws of the Dragon
Eye of the Dragon
Scales of the Dragon
Power of the Dragon (The Chronicles of Dragon, Series 2, Book 9 of 10): Dragon Fantasy Series (Tail of the Dragon) Page 13
