King Of Souls (Book 2)

by Matthew Ballard

  Flame rose from the poison streaking her armor. The electrical field fizzled and shattered beneath the Earth Mother’s unbridled fury.

  Danielle held open her palm and pulled on the vegetation surrounding Arber, Aren, and the sorcerers.

  Grass already five-feet tall, swirled and thickened locking down the sorcerers’ legs and hips. The thin smirks of superiority evaporated, replaced by fear and uncertainty.

  “Danielle stop!” Arber’s eyes widened as he pointed over her shoulder. “They’ll kill Keely if you don’t stop!”

  Danielle’s breath caught, and she whirled. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might burst through her chest, and her gaze dropped to the forest floor.

  Keely’s face stared back, but her eyes had lost focus. A shaman stood at her feet dragging her unresponsive body across the matted forest carpet. Keely never moved.

  Beside her, a second shaman dragged Jeremy bound hand and foot. His condition appeared identical to Keely’s as he lay numb and unresponsive. A strange blue sheen covered their exposed flesh.

  “They’re not dead Danielle. I swear to God they’re not,” Arber said. “But they’ll kill them if you try to fight.”

  Danielle whirled on the disgraced guardian with murder in her thoughts. “They look dead already Arber, and now I’m going to slaughter every last one of you. I’m tired of your lies.”

  Arber’s jaw fell open. He raised his palms and shook his head. “No Danielle. I promise they’re still alive.” His head snapped toward Aren who’d kept his gaze locked on Danielle during the entire exchange. “You have to show her Aren. She’ll kill us otherwise.”

  Aren appeared in no hurry to oblige as the smirk never left his face. “Why should I? I care not a whit for her life or her friends.” The childlike sorcerer stiffened stretching to his full height.

  “Would the emperor?” Arber said.

  Doubt flickered in Aren’s eyes before his mask of smug indifference returned. “Fine.” Aren directed his index finger toward Keely while his ring glowed a soft blue.

  Danielle spun, her gaze locked on her fallen friend.

  Color returned to Keely’s face, and her eyes regained focus. Keely’s expression showed no fear, and her lips moved. In a hoarse breathless whisper she spoke. “Don’t give in Danielle. Kill them and run.”

  “That’s enough,” Aren said. He directed his finger toward Keely freezing her features in place.

  “She’s not dead Danielle, and neither is Jeremy,” Arber said. “You have to stop before more people die.”

  Danielle couldn’t believe his nerve. His actions had led to thousands of deaths, and he dared speak to her about restraint? But she’d seen enough death to last her a lifetime. Around her, the forest died with her friends, and her father wouldn’t survive another day defending the first tree. How could he? She couldn’t watch her friends die. She didn’t have the strength. “If I comply, you’re to let my friends go, and Ferris.” She squeezed Ferris’s shoulder.

  “I don’t think —,” Aren said.

  “Yes,” Arber said cutting off Brees’s older brother. “We’ll let them go, but you have to come with us.”

  Ronan could find her couldn’t he? He could track Lora’s Sphere through their bond. He’d find her and save her. He’d have to. Danielle nodded.

  “Make yourself useful Arber, and take her pack,” Aren said.

  Arber stepped forward and reached toward Danielle as if touching a venomous snake. “Danielle?”

  “You do realize what you’ve done?” Danielle slipped the leather pack from her shoulder and handed it to Arber.

  “I told you, I don’t like doing this,” Arber said.

  Laughter, short and bitter, rolled from Danielle’s throat. “No, you idiot. I followed you into Obsith. Keely and I both did. You traveled to Zen with somebody named Martell didn’t you?”

  Arber’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  Danielle ignored his question. “You’re carrying the plague Arber. Did you know that?”

  “That’s not true,” Arber said but his eyes betrayed doubt.

  “Plague? What plague?” Aren said.

  “Three hundred years ago, a man named Dimrey brought a plague among our people. It almost wiped out our civilization,” Danielle said. “Arber carried it to your people.”

  Arber squeezed his lips shut remaining silent as the color drained from his face.

  “Arber doesn’t look sick,” Aren said.

  “He’s not sick. He’s had the antidote, but he’s still a carrier.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Aren said.

  Danielle shrugged. “Suit yourself, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I bet at least one or two of you surrounding me right now is already showing the first signs. Check the base of your neck or your wrists. Look for a red rash. A few of you may have already seen it and blamed it on the weather change.”

  The haughty look in Aren’s eyes evaporated replaced by an inkling of fear.

  Arber took Danielle’s pack and stepped back the color in his face gone.

  A sharp squeal sounded from a female sorcerer standing behind Danielle. She raised her wrist skyward revealing a long red rash extending from her wrist to the crook of her elbow.

  A male sorcerer behind Aren cried out. He pulled away his burlap collar revealing red bumps descending beneath his clothing.

  “Soon enough, you’ll develop the fever, and by then it’ll be too late,” Danielle said. “Martell’s dead isn’t he Arber? Let me guess, he fell ill. Am I right?”

  “Shut up Danielle,” Arber said as anger swelled in his eyes.

  “Arber, we need the cure before this spreads any further,” Aren said.

  Danielle smiled. “I’d venture to say that if I go with you, in a week you’ll all be dead then I’ll simply walk away.”

  Arber glared daggers through Danielle ignoring Aren’s plea.

  “Arber the cure! Now!” Aren said.

  Arber whirled on the tiny sorcerer towering over him like an angry giant.

  Aren stepped back as fear washed over his face.

  “You’re killing the cure!” Arber pointed toward the gnarled shriveling heartwood tree behind Danielle. “It’s in the fruit these trees produce, but they’re all dying!”

  Worthless dead fruit littered the forest carpet mocking the sorcerers surrounding Danielle.

  “And to think, I returned to the Heartwood so I could deliver a cure to your people.” Danielle shook her head in disgust. “If you harm any Ayralen, most of all my friends or family, the cure dies with me. Do we understand each other?” Danielle spit out the words while her molten gaze bored a hole through Aren’s ashen face.

  A whoosh of air rustled the grass surrounding the standoff. A juvenile rust-colored dragon appeared descending beneath the darkened tree line.

  “You’re coming with us,” Aren said.

  The young dragon settled in a narrow clearing several feet away. Half the size of the creatures attacking the first tree, the dragon kept a wary eye trained on the fleeing refugees.

  Arber stepped into a crystal foothold set in the dragon’s double saddle and slipped into the rear seat. He offered his hand to Danielle. “Come on Danielle, you’re coming with us.”

  Danielle’s face buzzed while her gaze locked on Ferris.

  Ferris clung to Danielle’s leg like a lifeline, his face a mask of shock. He repeated the same phrase in a low mumbling tone.

  Danielle knelt and held his cheeks in her palms.

  “Don’t leave me Miss Danielle,” Ferris said in an almost catatonic state.

  “Ferris, stay with Miss Keely and Jeremy. They’ll take care of you.” Tears streamed down Danielle’s cheeks.

  Aren climbed behind a second sorcerer seated in the dragon’s front saddle and glared at Danielle from his perch. “Climb on! Now!”

  Ferris clung to Danielle’s leg and screamed as if beaten.

  Hard knots tightened in Danielle’s stomach, and she pried h
is hands from her leg. “I’m sorry Ferris. Stay with Miss Keely.” She stood and moved toward Arber’s extended hand unable to look the boy in his eye.

  Ferris fell forward tumbling into the grass near Keely and Jeremy’s frozen bodies screaming.

  Danielle took Arber’s hand, and he pulled her behind him on the saddle.

  “Go!” Aren pulled a glowing crystal whip from the saddle under him and lashed the dragon’s side.

  Danielle gaze locked on the scene playing out below as she rose skyward seated atop the dragon’s back.

  “I see them over here!” A deep voice bellowed inside a hedgerow lying between the group and Elan’s Gap.

  Beside Keely and Jeremy, a sorcerer’s expression froze in shock a moment before he dropped to his knees. His hands reached for his chest. He stared horror stricken at a heavy barbed arrowhead protruding from his breastbone. The sorcerer's chest heaved for a few seconds before he fell forward landing face first in the matted grass.

  Sorcerers scattered into the thicket. Spirit shields sprang to life around Keely, Jeremy, and Ferris.

  Danielle watched from fifty feet above as Keely stirred and Ferris crawled next to her curling at her side. Before she disappeared above the withered forest canopy, Danielle turned away.

  Goodbye Old Friend

  In her eagle form, Rika glided high over a cliff’s edge skimming a rocky outcropping before pitching down and left. Ronan and Rika had made good time since leaving Moira at her cabin in the valley beneath Dragon’s Peak. They’d raced westward aided by a strong steady tailwind and a desperate sense of urgency. Connal Deveaux needed to know about a looming desert attack.

  Ronan craned his neck over a nearby peak. He searched for the Queen’s Road that led past Elan’s Gap and through the mountains into greater Meranthia. The memories of his time spent in Ayralen last autumn had haunted him throughout their westward journey. He recalled the strange flashing lights over the Chukchi Desert. His father had insisted that a high-altitude desert storm had passed near the Heartwood. Connal had claimed the storm provided a brilliant light show but nothing more sinister. Last autumn, Ronan’s intuition had nudged him of potential danger. Now it screamed at him insisting a much greater threat.

  The peak gave way to a rocky valley descending to a long ribbon of road winding through the mountains.

  Nervous flutters ran wild in Ronan’s stomach, and he couldn’t shake a feeling of dread. He reasoned that Tara’s appearance in Meranthia didn’t point to a similar threat in Ayralen. But, his rationalization felt hollow. He sat up straight on Rika’s saddle, and scanned the twisting road searching for its exit at Elan’s Gap.

  Rika screeched a high-pitched cry of warning and tucked her wings back before plunging downward.

  The bear cub popped his head from the leather pack strapped to Ronan’s back. He peered right and left before disappearing inside its murky depths.

  Ronan’s stomach sank at the sudden change of altitude, and he reached for Elan’s magic. He reinforced the spirit shields already surrounding him and Rika. He craned his neck searching for potential threats, but the sky surrounding Rika remained empty. Ronan glanced below, and motion on the Queen's Road caught his eye.

  Like a rushing river current, ripples of people bustled along the highway cutting through Elan’s Pass. Refugees numbering in the thousands stretched the length of visible road seemingly without end. Unlike the final year of Merric Pride’s reign, the refugees came from Elan’s Gap moving toward inner Meranthia.

  Ronan’s stomach heaved. He should’ve trusted his instincts last autumn and insisted on a formal investigation. Danielle and Keely had no business flying into the desert alone. Had he arrived too late? He leaned over Rika’s neck. “Hurry Rika. Dear God hurry.”

  As if shot from a ballista, Rika screamed forward hurtling toward Elan’s Gap at speeds fast enough to rip apart an ordinary rider. But Ronan’s shield, spun from Elan’s purest magic, buffeted the wind’s force.

  In a blur, she swooped downward whistling over the Ayralen refugees. She loosed a high-pitched screech and raced ahead hugging the Queen's Road.

  Ronan shot his fist skyward commanding a deep blue orb of spirit energy into his open palm.

  Heads craned and fingers pointed skyward as refugees flashed by. A thundering chorus of cheers erupted below. The refugees stopped to watch the king and his lady ready themselves for battle.

  Rika pitched right following the highway’s twisting course. She veered past a raised boulder and beneath a rocky overhang increasing her speed as she surged ahead.

  Like an ocean’s wave at high tide, the crowd’s roar grew louder and faster as it followed the couple hurtling toward Elan’s Gap.

  Ronan’s head buzzed fueled by the refugee’s raw emotion urging him onward. He couldn’t imagine what had started the exodus. But, he wouldn’t stop until he’d found Danielle, Connal, and Rika’s family safe and whole.

  Rika pitched left then darted right racing six-feet above Ayralen’s fleeing populace.

  Just ahead, the Queen’s Road broadened like a river delta before descending a hundred feet ending at Elan’s Gap.

  A pair of massive iron gates hung open buoyed by the crush of refugees pouring through. Perched along the fortress’s high walls, two dozen spirit shields glimmered with blue energy. Meranthian archers and battle knights raised heavy Ayralen longbows and fired into the sky above the Gap. Heavy ballista launched iron scattershot outward against an enemy hidden from view.

  Ronan leaned forward and raised his voice over the crowd’s thundering cheers. “Fly over the right wall, I can help those archers.”

  Rika surged upward streaking toward the fortress’s high walls lined with archers and knights.

  Ronan leaned over Rika’s saddle and flashed his palm toward the soldiers lining the wall. He directed flows of spirit along the line reinforcing their shields.

  “King Ronan!” A soldier fighting near the wall’s inner edge raised his longbow high overhead and cheered pumping his fists. He pointed toward Ronan and cheers erupted from the soldiers lining the high-wall’s parapet. Soldiers raised weapons high on either side of the fortress’s towering gates.

  Lighting crackled and Rika screeched pitching down and right. Fingers of white energy pounded her shield sending spider webs of blue spirit racing around her body.

  Ronan’s head snapped toward the source of the lightning attack, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

  A blond-haired child no older than ten seasons rode atop a silver and green dragon with his finger pointed at Ronan. On his index finger, a heavy silver ring glowed white before morphing into a dull shade of red. The child’s blue eyes betrayed a soul much older than his outward appearance suggested. His eyes lacked a child’s innocence and showed no mercy.

  Ronan flattened his palm and channeled spirit. He sent a wispy net of transparent energy floating toward the childlike sorcerer.

  When Ronan released his trap, gusts of air from the dragon’s huge wingspan washed over Rika. She spun on a massive updraft of violent turbulence and screeched beating her wings in a furious try to regain her lost balance.

  The dragon arced upward and pitched sideways. The sorcerer raised his index finger, and his silver ring flashed bright red. His thin pale lips curved upward into a mocking sneer, and he mumbled words lost in the wind and fighting. A thin line of flames leaped from his fingertip a moment before his eyes widened, and a pale expression of shock settled over his face.

  A smear of inky glass-like spirit wrapped the sorcerer in a detention shield the world had never seen. Like a shroud of skintight glass, the shield constricted surrounding the man-child in a spirit prison.

  Ronan closed his palm, squeezed, and yanked.

  Any confidence the sorcerer had once displayed evaporated as he shrieked like a frightened child. An invisible hand pulled him from his saddle into the empty air above Elan’s Gap.

  The riderless dragon swung beneath Ronan and retreated over the blackened forest cano
py.

  The sorcerer fell thirty feet before Ronan yanked on the spirit line jerking him to a stop on an invisible tether. He resisted the urge to sever the line and let the little cretin splatter against the forest floor like a rotted piece of fruit. The sorcerer might provide useful information.

  The sorcerer screamed twisting and flailing trying to escape, but like a fly caught in a spider’s web, he’d find no relief. He deserved no pity.

  Across the blackened vale, hundreds of heartwood trees stood naked of any fruit or vegetation. Miles of thick gnarled limbs stretched in every direction. Death’s promise had replaced the forest’s grand majesty. No animal life stirred, and the once lush undergrowth lay hidden beneath a layer of rotten fruit, leaves, and branches.

  Cold wind washed over Ronan’s face as he absorbed the full extent of the apocalypse laid out before him. How in Elan’s name had this happened? Three months ago, he’d seen the forest thriving. Worry for his father and sister pricked his thoughts. He had to find them.

  Rika’s body shook under Ronan as her eyes swept over the devastation. She rolled in a slow arc turning her gaze from the horror and flew toward the fortress’s base at Elan’s Gap.

  A quarter mile northward, a pair of juvenile dragons and their sorcerer riders beat a path toward the forest's center.

  Blue spirit energy flashed near the fortress gate while scores of refugees emerged from the tall grass lining the road.

  Ronan leaned over and ran his hand along Rika’s neck. “I’m sorry Rika. We’ll find out who did this. I promise.”

  Rika glided toward a pair of shield knights directing refugee traffic through the iron gates.

  A shrill squeal sounded from the sorcerer where he dangled beneath Rika bouncing off the hard packed forest floor.

  Rika dragged the little rodent through burr filled ground cover and thorny shrubs. When he caught on the edge of a blackened heartwood limb, she beat her wings harder until he snapped free.

  Ronan didn’t try to soften the sorcerer’s short trip across the forest floor. He’d earned far worse than the meager punishment Rika doled out.