“Sir, what happened?” they all asked, eyes wide at the unarmored general.
“I was defeated, men. I was defeated fairly by a craftier foe and my own hubris. Remember the lesson this night, gentlemen. No matter how powerful you think you are, no matter how unassailable you believe your position may be; a clever man can defeat you. And if you let your pride rule your actions, you have just given him the key to do it.”
General Baneford stepped past his men and approached Azerick who walked over to Maude, touched the stone bars that trapped her, and turned them to dust. Borik and Malek moved quickly but warily to Maude’s side as Azerick released the spell on them.
“Maude, I hope you will accept my apology for deceiving you. I had to convince the general and his men that I was somebody else with entirely different motives, and I felt the best way to do that was subterfuge against all involved,” said Azerick, his voice heavy with fatigue.
Maude glared then sheathed her sword. “I despise deception, but in this case I suppose the ends justify the means. Fortunately, I am in a joyous mood since we found the companion we all thought lost.”
Maude turned away and lowered the crow’s cage that held the disheveled elf. Malek shattered the lock that held the cage closed with his hammer, not wasting the time to ask anyone to use the key that someone most certainly possessed. Maude reached in and pulled Tarth out of the cage and laid him gently onto the ground. Tarth reached toward Maude with a trembling hand and croaked something she could not make out.
“Borik, get him some water, quickly!” Maude commanded.
The dwarf ran forward with a full skin and shoved it into the elf’s hand. Tarth focused his gaze on the life-giving water skin, shook his head angrily and contemptuously tossed it aside.
“I don’t understand what you want, Tarth,” Maude said and lowered her head toward the elf’s parched lips.
“H-hairbrush!” Tarth rasped.
General Baneford walked over to the visibly exhausted young sorcerer.
“My offer still stands. I could really use a man like you,” the general told Azerick, his respect for him evident.
“Sorry, General, I have other responsibilities and some tasks I need to take care of. Sorry I had to destroy your armor, but I could not allow it to fall into anyone’s hands. Too many good people have already died because of its existence,” Azerick replied.
“I’d wager it would be more accurate to say you have some people to take to task,” Baneford chuckled. “To be honest with you, I’m not sorry to see it go. I, too, have seen too many good men’s lives thrown away for something that would just make people miserable, although it does put me in a bind with those Black Tower wizards. They already paid me to recover and hand it over to them and I’m not sure I could talk my men into returning what we were given.”
Azerick smiled wanly at the general. “I would not worry too much about the Black Tower wizards for long, General. Keep your men on the move and they will have a difficult time finding you. They are going to have far bigger problems to deal with before long.”
“Coming from any other man that would sound like overconfident boasting,” General Baneford said and extended his hand. “Good hunting and good luck.”
Azerick gripped the general’s proffered hand. “Good luck to you as well, General. You seem to be a decent man. I do not know how you got caught up in this sordid business but I hope you find what you are looking for.”
“What I’m looking for is some peace and freedom for me and my men, but that will likely only come after a great deal of fighting.”
“That is one of the few things worth fighting for, General. It is the very reason I am here now and doing what I must do,” Azerick replied then turned away and made his way toward Maude and the others.
Maude was brushing the elf’s hair while she made him drink some water. Azerick received some cold looks but none were overtly hostile.
“Maudeline, really, I can do it myself, I am fine,” Azerick heard Tarth protest.
“Hold still and drink more water, I can do it,” Maude ordered in a tone most would think harsh but was full of affection to those that knew her.
“Maudeline, I love you dearly but I have seen your hair and I will crawl back into that crow’s cage before I let my hair look like yours.”
“How is he?” Azerick asked.
“Bird-brained and useless like always,” Borik growled but those familiar with him could detect a small amount of pleasure in his voice. “Say, can you teach him that beer freezing trick?”
“Sorry, Borik, I would have no way of knowing how to teach it to a wizard,” Azerick replied regretfully.
Borik’s faced turned red. “Well, why the heck not? You’re both wizards! I thought your kind traded spells all the time?”
“Because he is not a wizard, you hairy-faced little cretin, he is a sorcerer,” Tarth informed the dwarf.
“What are we supposed to do now, Azerick? You destroyed the armor, or at least put it out of reach,” Malek asked.
“Tell Jarvin that you have taken the armor out of enemy hands and secured it so no one will likely ever be able to threaten anyone with it again,” Azerick told the cleric. “If I were he, I would call that an unexpected but acceptable conclusion to his problems.”
“I suppose it is. So where will you go now? I presume you are not traveling back with us to Brelland.”
“No, my business is not yet finished,” Azerick told them.
“Despite your ruse, I think you have good intentions. I wish you luck in your journeys,” Malek said, a sentiment the others grudgingly shared with him.
“For good or ill, my intentions are my own.”
Azerick forced himself to walk back to where Horse was picketed and led him out of the makeshift stable before mounting and riding toward Langdon’s Crossing. He knew he would not be riding far. He felt as drained as his staff at the moment. After an hour or so, Azerick had lost all concept of time and had fallen asleep several times in the saddle, he directed Horse into a shallow basin, removed his saddle, and fell asleep with his head and shoulders resting on its padded seat.
CHAPTER 4
“Joshua!” Shakrill shouted for her apprentice. “Joshua! You have until the count of three to get your lazy, useless hide in here! One—!”
“Yes, mistress, I’m here!” a young, sandy-haired man in his late teens declared breathlessly as he burst into his mistress’s chambers.
“Set up my scrying bowl, you lazy little wart. I don’t know why I put up with your ineptitude,” Shakrill caustically ordered the apprentice.
If Joshua took offense to his mistress’s verbal abuse, he dared not show it. He was used to it by now; she had never used a kind voice when she addressed him or any of the other apprentices or novices of the Black Tower. Of course, its commonality did not make the hateful words sting any less.
“Yes, mistress,” Joshua obeyed meekly, averting his gaze, not even daring to look her in the eye.
Joshua went about following his mistress’s command with efficient practice. He retrieved a stone bowl from where it sat upon a bookshelf among other assorted magical accessories. The bowl was carved from a dark grey, almost black, stone with red swirling patterns and was about six inches deep, as big around as a dinner plate, and had four small nubs for legs like a small iron cauldron. He set it on the dark wooden table where his mistress preferred to work. Joshua then returned to the bookshelf, retrieved a blown glass bottle of pure elemental water, and began pouring it into the bowl.
“What are doing, you imbecile?” Shakrill shouted. “I need the dragon’s blood you incompetent little twit!”
Shakrill would have been considered beautiful by most any standards with her long black hair, pale blue eyes, and alabaster skin if it were not for the perpetual scowl that never left her face. She gave off such an aura of malice that any man that made the mistake of trying to consort with her would wither under her fierce glare and waspish tongue. She was the most feared, if not the most power
ful, wizard in the Black Tower.
Joshua poured the precious liquid back into the bottle, careful not to spill a drop lest his mistress whip him, not that she needed such a reason, as he was well aware. He took a clean rag and thoroughly dried the bowl before filling the bottom inch of the vessel with the thick, black liquid.
“It is ready for you, mistress,” Joshua informed the dark wizard.
Shakrill looked up from the tome she was reading and stalked over to where Joshua was awaiting her approval before leaving. Without warning, she grabbed her apprentice firmly by the wrist and slashed his hand with a razor-sharp knife she materialized from inside her black robes. Joshua knew better than to so much as flinch away from the unexpected assault and remained perfectly still as Shakrill held his hand above the bowl, adding his own blood to the preserved black liquid already in the small basin.
Joshua staunched his wound with the rag he had used to dry the scrying bowl as soon as his mistress released her grasp. She would beat him if he bled on her floor as she had on occasion after she had been the one that caused him to bleed in the first place.
“I assume you were doing something useful before you came to me?” Shakrill asked as she stared into the seemingly bottomless bowl.
“Yes, mistress,” Joshua dutifully replied.
“Then get back to it! What are you, a porter waiting around for a gratuity? Be gone!” Shakrill screeched at his fleeing back.
Shakrill sat and bent over the bowl, a sinister smile adorning her cold but perfect face.
“Klaraxis,” the dark wizard called softly.
The viscous black blood rippled in the bowl as a face from one’s worst nightmares glared up from the depths of the shallow vessel. The face was jet back, long fangs and sharp teeth spiked from its upper and lower jaws. The base of blood red horns could be seen in the reflection jutting forward out of the creature’s head just above its pronounced brow. Its wide nose looked like it once belonged to some great ape from the jungles of Lazuul.
“What do you want, Shakrill?” the demon lord asked impatiently, glaring at the wizard with its malevolent, scarlet eyes that shone like brilliant rubies.
“We are nearly ready for your transcendence, my prince. You should be able to sense the essence of your soon-to-be host,” Shakrill told the demon.
“Ah yes, he will be acceptable, Shakrill. You have done well,” Klaraxis praised the wizard.
“It is my pleasure to serve you, my prince. Joshua is useless as an apprentice but he is young and strong and will serve well as the vessel to your essence.”
“How much longer until the ritual can be performed?” Klaraxis asked.
“In precisely seven days the planets will be in the most beneficial alignment we can expect for at least the next several years,” Shakrill informed the abyssal lord.
“Very well, Shakrill, I see no reason for you to disturb me until then,” the demon cautioned the wizard and faded from her view.
Klaraxis leaned back contentedly on his throne made from the bones of some of the more powerful creatures to have displeased him. The bones of the lesser creatures he had slain over the millennia formed the sixty-foot-tall wall that encircled his palace of black soul stone. It was only seven more days until he could travel from his domain on the fifth circle of the abyss to the realm of mortals. The demon prince was not normally known for his patience, but he had waited almost a thousand years to return to the realm of mortals, he could wait another seven days.
“Skunk! Get in here!” Klaraxis shouted into the empty air.
A small, winged demog materialized before the demon lord’s throne with a puff of sulfurous smoke and a flash of fire and hovered near his master.
“Yes, oh great and terrible lord of all, what can the dutiful Skulk do for you?” the little demog demon groveled.
Without warning, Klaraxis shot out a red-taloned hand, grabbed the smaller demon by the throat, and pulled him close to his fanged mouth.
“Did you just correct me, Skunk?”
Skulk tried to swallow, but the iron grip of the demon lord would not allow even that small measure of movement.
“No, my most exalted and all powerful master who could never be mistaken. Your most loyal and humble Skunk would never dare presume so much,” Skulk croaked.
Klaraxis contemptuously tossed the demon through the air where he fluttered back to hover several yards from the irritable demon lord.
“Bring me a sacrifice, make it two, I feel like celebrating,” Klaraxis commanded.
“At once, my majestic and universally feared master of all he surveys,” the demog replied and fluttered away down the black halls of the palace.
“Skunk do this, skunk do that,” Skulk mocked in a whisper to himself as he did his master’s bidding. “You’re a worthless little slime, Skunk. I wouldn’t use your bones to build my privy, Skunk. Big bagalesh’s ass thinks he can abuse Skulk just because he can. Big bagalesh’s ass would be lost without Skulk. He can get his own stupid sacrifices next time if Skulk is so worthless.”
“Skunk, move it!” Klaraxis’s voice rang down the hall loud enough for Skulk to feel it.
“Yes, great omnipotent one!” Skulk shouted and raced away in terror.
***
Shakrill leaned back in her chair smiling evilly, a perfect imitation of the demon lord. Joshua was almost worthless in her eyes, which made him one of the best apprentices she had ever had, and she had gone through quite a few in her years. He would be hard to replace, but the power that the Klaraxis would bring her and the Black Tower in exchange for freeing him would be worth far more than the inconvenience.
Ballizarr and the other wizards of the Black Tower told her she was foolish to enter such a pact, that the demon prince could not be trusted. Of course he could not be trusted. He was a demon, a lord of demons at that, which is why she did not leave their compact to trust. She had discovered the demon’s soulname, and with it, she could control and command him to do her bidding. Klaraxis was unaware of this fact, but she would enlighten him once he arrived.
With the demon completely under her control, she would not only restore the Black Tower to its former glory, but replace that old wretch Ballizarr as head of the order as well. Her smile grew even wider and more malevolent as she pictured the current master of the tower kneeling before her and kissing her feet. In seven days she would command the Black Tower and all those who resided within its dark halls. Then she would rule the realm, no, the world!”
***
The sand dragon flew swiftly toward her cave, a fat goat gripped tightly in her long talons. She hated to hunt the beasts that belonged to the humans but she had had no luck finding wild game and her baby was hungry. Her foraging had taken her far from her normal hunting range as well. She knew that the hated wyverns roosted along the cliffs to the north and she made certain to avoid their territory. She thought of her young one waiting hungrily back at their cave and pumped her wings for more speed. As a sand dragon, she was far more at home burrowing under the soft sands than she was flying, but the tasty goats and camels that were her usual prey did not burrow, and they were rarely found near her home.
Only a slight disturbance in the air gave her any warning as a sharp pain lanced across her brassy scales on her right side. She banked hard to the left in an attempt to avoid the wyvern’s attack. They had flown out of the sun, executing a rather clever ambush for the otherwise stupid creatures. Humans and other two-legged peoples called them two-legged dragons but that was an insult to dragons. No true dragon would claim the vicious and stupid creatures as even a distant relative.
She barely had time to register the shadows of the other wyverns as they dove at her. She dropped the goat knowing she was going to have to fight her way past these disgusting beasts. She was not as swift a flyer as many of the other types of dragons and knew she could not out fly them.
Another pain flared across her broad back as a second wyvern raked her with its sharp claws, cutting through her glitt
ering scales, tearing a triple row of deep furrows in her flesh, and drawing dark blood. She banked again and a third wyvern flew past, barely missing her vulnerable wing.
The sand dragon roared in fury and dove at the back of the wyvern that had fatally misjudged his attack. Her almost disproportionately long, hard claws tore into the softer scales of the wyvern. Her serpentine neck snaked forward and clasped the thin neck of the wyvern just behind its narrow, wedge-shaped head. One powerful bite from her strong jaws crushed the bone and cartilage just beneath the hide and muscle.
The paralyzed and dying wyvern plummeted like a stone and struck the ground a few seconds later, spraying a large geyser of sand into the air. A sixth sense warned her of another impending attack. She dipped her left wing and twisted her stout body sharply, flipping over in mid air. The sudden loss of lift sent her plummeting toward the ground but also served to drop her below the clutches of the attacking wyvern. She released a searing blast of fire up at the creature, incinerating its dry, leathery wings, and scorching its face and chest.
She could hear the beast screeching in pain as it fell to its death as she quickly righted herself before she struck the sand next to it. Just as she snapped her wings out to regain lift, another set of claws tore into her back and an even sharper pain wracked her body when the wyvern’s vicious stinger knifed into her between her shoulder blades. The crippling poison burned as it coursed through her blood stream.
She dipped sharply left and right, dislodged her attacker before diving for the ground before the effects of the paralyzing poison took full effect. She already felt her muscles responding sluggishly as she raced for the safety of the drifting sands. If she could just reach the ground, she could burrow below the sand and rest, safe from attack, until the poison wore off.
When she was just a few hundred feet up, only scant seconds from safety, she lost all control of her muscles. Her head and tail slumped and the force of the wind pushed her limp wings uselessly behind her. Unimaginable sorrow filled her as she thought of her precious little one alone, slowly starving to death in their dark cave. The poison had set in so thoroughly that she did not even feel the impact of the sand when she struck. Darkness consumed her and a final tear traced its way down along the fine golden scales down her lifeless cheek.
The Sorcerer's Vengeance (The Sorcerer's Path) Page 7
