The Dragon's Champion

by Sam Ferguson

  *****

  Lepkin bent over the stream and scooped a couple handfuls of water into his mouth. He pushed back and leaned against a boulder for support. The wound in his chest was beyond agonizing. After he had defeated the warlock and the Blacktongues he had changed back into his human form and pulled the arrowhead from his chest. The tip had broken off in his sternum, but he had forced through the pain. Failure was too steep a price for the Keeper to pay.

  The wound was hardly even noticeable in dragon form, but every moment he spent as a dragon he became more susceptible to the evil of Nagar’s Secret, despite the fact that it was far from him at the time. He was caught in an agonizing dilemma. He could remain human and deal with the pain and possibility of infection, or remain as the dragon and suffer the evils of the book. Ultimately he had chosen to remain human. Death was a fate he was willing to accept if need be. But he could not allow himself to become twisted by the evil of Nagar’s Secret. He knew it had the power to turn him to the other side. That could not be allowed to happen. Lepkin knew too much about the upcoming events, and he knew far too much about Erik. No. He would rather die than allow any possibility of betrayal.

  He pinched his shirt between his forefinger and thumb, gently pulling the cloth back to look at the poultice he had secured across his chest. With his other hand he pulled the old poultice out from the wound. His chest burned, stinging as bits of him clung to the poultice. He gritted his teeth and continued until he could see the wound. The hole gaped back at him, a tiny rivulet of fresh, bright blood running out from within. Master Lepkin knew he could not stitch the wound closed. He had to let it heal from the inside first. His main concern now was to avoid infection.

  He turned back to the tin cup of boiling water he had over a small campfire. Lepkin pulled a cloth from the boiling water and sprinkled what little bit of salt he had left onto the cloth. He wrapped it around his little finger and gently wormed it inside his chest. He groaned with the pain, taking care to be as gentle as possible. Once he had finished cleaning the wound out he discarded the cloth and reach for a small vial of green liquid. He poured half of the contents over his wound. It stung almost as badly as the salt, but he knew it would help. It was a mixture taught to him long ago, consisting of herbs that accelerated the healing process in addition to keeping the wound sterile. When he was finished with the vial, he set it down and picked up a fresh poultice. It contained many of the same herbs as the vial, but these were the leaves of the herbs, in addition to leaves and roots of other herbs, instead of the juices. He fastened the poultice to his chest and wiggled it a bit to make sure it wouldn’t come undone while he walked.

  Once Lepkin was satisfied he let his shirt down and cleaned up around him. He didn’t want to leave any sign of his passing. He had no way of knowing how many more Blacktongues might be after him. Since his horse had died during the encounter with the warlock, Lepkin was forced to make the already long journey to Valtuu Temple by foot. That would take a lot more time than he had originally planned on. Time, Lepkin knew, that he did not have.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Come, do it again,” Marlin said.

  Erik sat on the stool in the training hall and waited for Marlin to prepare the next trial. The prelate was standing off to the side, as he had the past two days, watching. Marlin created twenty replicas of himself and all of them moved, walking around Erik quickly, to confuse him. Erik watched the Marlins pass by for a few moments and then he closed his eyes and fell within himself again. He went deep into his soul and found his power. It was not an emotion, as he had thought when he began this training that gave him the power to discern truth. It was the reason he trained, the fact that he felt others were in danger and counting on him to succeed, that gave him the power he needed. He opened his eyes and all of the false Marlins were gone.

  The real Marlin turned to the prelate. “Do you see?” Marlin asked.

  “Quite remarkable,” the prelate said. “I have not heard or read of anything of this nature.” The prelate walked forward and nodded to Marlin. “Let us see what he can do with both of us combined.” An instant later there were over one hundred people in the training room. Half of them were in the image of the prelate, and the other half looked like Marlin.

  Erik didn’t have to close his eyes this time. He had already tapped into his power, and so he was warmed up and ready to go. He waved his hand and all of the false images vanished. He was again alone with just the real prelate and Marlin looking at him.

  “Remarkable,” the prelate said again. “Move on to the last three trials, he is ready.” The prelate began to walk away and then he turned back to face Marlin. “He is more than ready,” the prelate added.

  “What are the last three trials?” Erik asked after the prelate left.

  “They are designed to help the trainee fuse combat skills with the ability to discern truth,” Marlin replied. “Follow me into the next chamber.”

  Erik rose from the stool and walked behind Marlin. The two of them passed through another golden door to stand in a room filled with strange machines. Erik puzzled at them as he stepped into the room. Large, wooden maces dangled from ropes attached to poles. Erik quickly realized that this was a type of gauntlet, an obstacle course for him to cross.

  “Stand where you are, and don’t move until I tell you too,” Marlin said. Marlin then walked across the room and pulled a lever on the far wall. The poles began to spin, swinging the wooden maces out. Erik quickly realized that there was no clear path between the contraptions. No matter where he went, he would be hit by the maces. “Now, you must learn to use both your natural eyes, and your spiritual eyes,” Marlin said. “This trial is completed once you reach me and shut the machines off with the lever.”

  Erik looked through the blur of twirling weapons to see the lever that Marlin had pulled to start the test. “Do I get a shield or anything?” Erik asked over the whirr of the machines.

  “No,” Marlin said.

  “Great,” Erik muttered to himself. He suddenly found himself wishing that he was back at Kuldiga Academy dueling with the other apprentices. He slowly inched forward, trying to discern which maces were real. His hair whipped to the side as a mace grazed his head. Erik jumped back with a yelp. This was not a child’s game, he thought. He focused on his power and waved his hand. All of the maces remained. If these weapons were illusions, the magic that made them was much stronger than the magic used in the previous challenge.

  Erik focused all of his mental strength on his inner power. He knew that he had to clear out the illusions in order to see the correct path to take. He mentally held onto his reason for training and then loosed his power on the machines in the room. All of them remained. There was no path cut out for him. He didn’t know what to do. He could try to wield his power as he ran through the gauntlet, hoping not to get slammed by one of the swinging weapons, or he could wait for the answer to come to him.

  “Come, Erik,” Marlin called out over the din of the machines.

  Erik looked to his left, then to his right. He burst into action, running straight into the fray. He unleashed his power with every step, but none of the maces or poles disappeared. He ducked under the heavy sweep of one mace and then sidestepped just in time to dodge another. He jumped straight up, grabbing one of the ropes and swung with it around the pole. He looked ahead and realized that the poles were all placed in such a way that the maces of nearby poles meshed with each other like giant cogs of death. Erik held his breath. He was about to enter the range of a nearby pole.

  A mace came soaring at him, but he dropped from the rope just in time to avoid it. He rose to his feet and dashed in a zigzag pattern. He allowed some of the maces to glance off of him, knowing that he couldn’t dodge them all. One of the maces caught his leg and flung him to the floor. He slammed hard onto the wooden planks, but he kept rolling, using the momentum to propel forward through the room.

  He flopped to his stomach and used his elbows to crawl forward, just un
der the reach of some of the maces. Erik heard the things whizzing by his head as the machines twirled above him. He was almost there. He took heart, gathered his courage, and unleashed his power again. Still, none of the maces disappeared. Erik rolled to his back, taking a glancing hit on his shoulder as he did so, and watched the two poles nearest him. He mentally timed their rotation speed. He had to time his move exactly right. He waited for two more cycles before he jumped to his feet.

  Up he went. He sprang left, then right, then somersaulted forward. His movements were quick as lightning. The maces spun furiously around him, but none touched him. Finally he was across. He stood next to Marlin, panting heavily.

  “Thought you could outsmart me eh?” Erik quipped. Marlin smiled and nodded. Erik reached up and pushed the lever back into place. A clicking sound echoed over the roar of the twirling poles. Erik smiled and turned back to Marlin. “None of the maces are fake. They are all real.”

  “Very good,” Marlin replied. “But not good enough.”

  Erik looked out to the poles. They were still spinning. Slots opened up in the floor and bamboo poles shot out from below, as though an army of spearmen had come alive under the wooden planks. Erik looked back to Marlin and felt his face flush when he realized his mistake. He used his power and the false Marlin vanished. Erik searched through the blur of spinning weapons and saw another Marlin standing on the side of the room, next to another lever.

  Erik started to walk forward, but then he thought better of it. He used his power and again Marlin disappeared. No one was in the room with him. Erik looked up and all around, but no one was there. He unleashed his power a final time and then Marlin came into view. The man was standing in the doorway that they had entered through. Erik realized that Marlin had never left his side.

  “Sometimes you must be able to discern when others are leading you into a trap,” Marlin called out. “You must be able to tell the truth from all lies. You let your guard down, and because of this, you believed what your natural eyes showed you. You believed that I had crossed the room, but I never did.”

  “I know,” Erik shouted angrily. “I get it. But it’s over now right? I know that you are the real Marlin, so how do I make this contraption stop so I can get back to you?”

  “I’m sorry Erik,” Marlin said with a shake of his head. “I told you that this trial would only be successfully completed once you reached me and pulled the lever.”

  Erik couldn’t believe it. Somehow he had to find a way back through this mess; that now included the bamboo poles coming out of the floor. This was going to hurt, a lot.

  *****

  Lady Dimwater stepped through the magical portal and stood in front of the gates of Kuressar. Before she could announce who she was an angry guard shouted a warning to her. She dismissed it and approached the gate. She was not in the mood for games this day.

  “Open the gate and tell Lord Hischurn that I have returned, as promised,” Lady Dimwater announced.

  “I ain’t gonna open the gate for you, miss puppet of the kingdom. Lord Hischurn gave us orders to turn you away,” the guard shouted back down.

  Lady Dimwater looked up at the gatehouse and saw that this guard was not the same she had seen previously when she had Erik along. This man was different. “I will give one warning to you, and then I will open the gates myself,” Dimwater threatened.

  The man held his arm up and shouted orders to his men. “Kill the witch!”

  “Wrong answer,” Lady Dimwater said under her breath. A hailstorm of arrows flew down at her. She waved her hand and they all turned away from her, carried on magical wind to places far away from her. She muttered an ancient spell and the gates burst open in front of her. Wood and iron split and creaked against the strain of the spell, but there was nothing the guards inside could do to shut the gates again.

  Men charged out from the inside with swords. Lady Dimwater shook her head and blew a kiss at them. A gust of wind knocked each soldier to the ground. The men rolled across the dirt. Their armor clanked and fell apart and their swords slid away from them.

  A cloud gathered at Dimwater’s feet and lifted her up into the air. Arrows continued to fly at her, but none of them ever got close. She scanned the battlements of the wall and then summoned forth a gale so powerful that all of the archers were swept from the wall. Only the captain remained in place in the gatehouse, but that was what she had intended.

  Lady Dimwater floated down beside the hard faced man and smiled slyly. “I am an agent of King Mathias,” she said. “I gave you a proper warning.”

  “Do your worst, witch,” the captain hissed. “Not even you can defeat what is inside this castle.”

  Lady Dimwater arched an eyebrow. There was something in the man’s tone that unnerved her. She snapped her fingers and all of the wind stopped. Every soldier and archer froze in place, as if turned to stone. She knew the paralysis spell wouldn’t hurt the men, but it would buy her time to interrogate this captain. “Pray tell, captain, what is inside this castle that I should worry about?”

  “It’s too late,” the captain said with a grin. “You can’t escape now. Jerutho already knows you are here.”

  “Jerutho,” Dimwater repeated the name. Suddenly she realized that the name belonged to a powerful warlock. Jerutho was an associate of Tukai. “All the better,” Lady Dimwater said confidently. “I shall have the pleasure of disposing of two traitors today instead of one.” She winked at the captain and he fell lifeless to the ground.

  Lady Dimwater walked to the back of the gatehouse and looked down into the courtyard. Her paralysis spell had affected not only the soldiers and archers, but also chickens, street vendors, and even a bard in the middle of his song. She gathered her cloud again and floated out above the scene.

  The castle keep was made of gray granite. Its single tower rose fifty feet into the air, affording a grand view of the valley below to anyone who looked out the top window. Down below her a grand, sweeping staircase led up from the courtyard to the front entrance. The door was made of wood with iron plating for added strength. As she looked down at the door, it opened and out walked a man in black robes.

  “Ah, Lady Dimwater,” the man said. “Nice to see you.”

  “Take a good look, warlock, for I will be the last thing you see on this plane.”

  “Oh, I think not,” the warlock said. “Tukai may have fallen by your hand, but he was not the strongest member of our order. In fact, the others are in play right now. We have had our eyes on you for a long time. You, and Master Lepkin too.”

  “Enough talk,” Lady Dimwater said. She sent a spiraling tornado of flame down to consume the warlock. The flames roared through the air and engulfed the man, and part of the entrance as well.

  Suddenly the flames died out. Smoke rose from the stairs, but the warlock stood tall. “That is a nice trick. I’ll have to use that the next time I attend a feast and the boar is undercooked.”

  Lady Dimwater sent a bolt of lightning from her left hand. The magical energy slammed into the warlock and knocked him back into the wall next to the door. “How is that?” Dimwater asked slyly.

  “Good,” Jerutho said. “That one actually tickled.” The warlock rose back to his feet and waved his hand. A wave of energy slammed into Lady Dimwater and her cloud. She was flung back into the top of the gatehouse. “Perhaps it is time for you to stop looking down on people,” Jerutho called out. A magical force wrapped around Lady Dimwater and brought her down to the courtyard. “There, that’s better.”

  Lady Dimwater dispelled the magic with a snap of her fingers and sent a psionic blast at Jerutho. He held out his left hand, palm facing her, and the spell reversed course and struck her with its force. Lady Dimwater fell to the ground on her back.

  “I expected more from the legendary Lady Dimwater,” Jerutho scolded. He clapped his hands twice and all of the soldiers and archers were freed from the paralysis spell. “How will you deal with this?” The soldiers all quickly rearmed themselv
es and prepared to strike.

  The men raced toward her. She clambered to her knees and uttered the words of a charm spell. As she finished the words all of the men within a forty foot radius of her stopped in their tracks and turned on the other soldiers that were still charging. Steel rang against steel. Bloodcurdling screams erupted as some of the soldiers felt the sting of death.

  Lady Dimwater stood once again and regained her composure. “I underestimated you, Jerutho,” she said. “But you will not walk away from this battle.”

  “No, Lady Dimwater, I won’t. I already know that,” Jerutho said. “I accepted that fact long before you stepped through that magical mirror of yours. But, I promise you that you will not leave this courtyard alive.” Jerutho clapped his hands again and a slew of Blacktongues poured into the courtyard. There were well over two hundred of them. “Blacktongues are immune to charm spells, witch,” Jerutho said.

  Lady Dimwater steeled her nerves. She knew that there was likely no way out of this. Still, she kept a few tricks up her sleeve. She clapped her hands and all of the air around her erupted in an invisible fire. The magic flames leapt out, following her outstretched hands and taking down men by the dozens. The souls of the men were ripped from their bodies, adding strength to the invisible magic flames.

  Lady Dimwater snapped her fingers and Silverfang appeared at her side. She whispered a command to him and the wolf bounded off, ripping at enemies as he tore through the throng. The wolf and the fire took down three score men before Jerutho could react. Finally the warlock moved to counter the fire spell by summoning forth a torrential downpour from the previously clear skies.

  Water fell down in heavy sheets, drenching everything in the courtyard. Lady Dimwater’s dress clung to her skin as she walked toward Jerutho. Her magical fire roared around her, cremating any soldier or Blacktongue that got too close. “Foolish warlock,” she chided. “Water does nothing to the Flame of Souls.”