The Harry Ferguson Chronicles Box Set

by William David Ellis

  Belle glanced around to see what had happened to Marc Cadish. He was gone. Even in her battered and confused state she wondered, How did he get out of here?

  Chapter 27

  As Harry watched the red-haired giant hammer the car to pieces, the wind began to whip snowdrifts into a white frenzy and a tremor shifted through the night.

  Harry looked up and saw a dark dragon descending, feet first, into the snowdrifts that covered the streets. The wind settled as the giant wings ceased their motion.

  There was no place to run and he wasn’t inclined anyway. He drew his sword and his armor began to glow with a blue radiance. His visor slipped into place.

  He was struck by how familiar the dragon looked. Then it hit him. His mouth dropped open as his eyes widened. He had seen this dragon before. He had actually fought this dragon before! It was Laden Long, the counterfeit clergy who had fought him in Texas in the parking lot of the community library.

  Harry’s gawk changed to an angry frown. He set his jaw and prepared. He raised his sword, positioning his body to once more fight his old nemesis. A quick thought raced toward his embedded friend, Sword, are you seeing what I am seeing?

  “I am, Harry, I should have warned you. Darkness can always call darkness up. I am not surprised.”

  Well, it would have been nice had you considered the possibility and warned me!

  Harry braced for the dragon to rip into him. Peter Fawkes’s demolition of the car had ceased. He spun to see if the giant was creeping up on him, didn’t see him, and turned back to the dragon.

  Flame burst from its mouth but surprisingly didn’t shoot toward Harry. It circled the dragon, encasing it in a brilliant conflagration of color. Then, as quickly as it had come, it dissipated. When it dispersed, the dark clergy stood in its place, arms folded, clouds of vapor rolling off his cassock robe. He started toward Harry, but Harry shifted into a defensive stance, sword extended.

  The clergy smirked. “It’s a little late for that now, don’t you think?”

  Harry stared back, not saying a word. Laden Long continued, “You fight, the Bigfoot and the dog die, then you die too. You surrender, they live and you don’t. Not a great choice, but it’s all you have.

  “By the way, Harry, you look, well, a little younger than when we last met.” Harry’s brows furrowed and the cleric went on, “Yes, Harry Ferguson, it’s really me in a different time and place, just like you. I can move about the time streams too.”

  Harry growled a reply, “I saw you die. The explosion blew your head off. How is it you can be here now?”

  “Oh, dragon rider, don’t you know you can always get a dragon back, especially a dark one? How do you think I got here in the first place? It’s just a matter of blood, Harry. The same way I came the first time. And the same way we are going to call forth a being of incredible power. You know her as the strongman. I call her master. Now decide: two deaths or one?”

  Harry dropped his sword in the snow. Peter Fawkes appeared from out of the dark and bound him. Fawkes picked up the sword, and immediately the smell of burnt flesh scorched the frigid air. Fawkes screamed, throwing down the white-hot weapon. His shrieks and curses broke the night stillness as he clutched his blistered hand. He fell to his knees, shoving it into the snow as steam rolled off.

  Long glared at him, disgusted. “Fool-of-a-giant! Get the sword and get back to the church!” Then he blew out a fiery breath and shifted into his dragon form. Lumbering over to Harry, he grabbed him in his claws and leaped into the sky.

  Chapter 28

  Sarah’s eyes narrowed and then closed. She was trying not to curse. She knew her grandmother would not approve, but then thought, She ain’t here! And then, He never gets any rest, and apparently neither do I. But no, I’m not going to curse now, but save it for when the flames are thrown and my people are attacked, and then I will do more than curse. I will be the curse!

  Kusaila was already out the tent and shifted. His giant dragon body launched and Sarah ran behind him, racing with him toward the sound of the trumpets. A few minutes later they saw the hordes arrayed against them. A small group of their own cavalry had taken a stand, driving their brave horses into the mass of humanity. The long pikes of their enemy were devastating them, but that didn’t stop them. The cavalry was trying to blunt the first wave of the attack and was doing it with their bodies.

  Kusaila screamed and dived, spraying a torrent of golden flame on the masses that surged over his dead soldiers. Sarah was about to join him in his headlong rush when she heard, “No, Sarah, look up!” She craned her long neck to see six dragons hidden by the early morning sun about to dive on Kusaila. She turned to fly directly into their plunge when again Liv yelled, “No, Sarah, act as though you are fleeing. They are intent on Kusaila. Then after they sweep past you, circle round and dive on them!”

  Sarah did not want to leave Kusaila unguarded. But Liv spoke, “He knows they are coming and he has prepared; now move!” Sarah was already halfway out of their lunging flight path. She dived, hurtling to the ground, gained speed, and then veered up, moving out of range of the enemy dragons. Then, using the speed she had gained, flipped in midair and came around behind them. The long-necked enemy dragons were focused on Kusaila; they knew if they could kill him his army would fall soon after. They did not expect the cowardly female dragon they had seen run from their charge to slam into them from behind.

  Sarah had practiced moving her wings like swords, angling just the right way at just the right speed so the wingtips would sweep through flesh like a hot butter knife. Two dragons had gotten close enough to join their flame in one single focused spray and were about to hurl it on Kusaila’s back when suddenly their worlds went dark. Both heads rolled seconds apart. Before they stopped blinking, they were dead and Sarah had moved on, hammering the next dragon, breaking its back as she ripped her talons into its unsuspecting flesh.

  Kusaila was also busy. Surprise was powerful, and he had deceived his attackers into thinking they had ambushed him.

  Just as they were about to strike his unprotected back, he flipped over one of them and slashed the shocked underside of the other, ripping through the great beast’s belly in one mighty tear. The dying screams of the serpent rent the sky, spewing its blood and intestines across the battleground beneath him. With a powerful crash, its body fell, exploding among its own soldiers. Kusaila had not stopped to watch. Only three left and Sarah had just about made it two. The loss of surprise and the quick and bloody death of their comrades had hurt them. The enemy dragons would not give up, but they were now reacting out of fear and that made them vulnerable.

  Kusaila screamed, calling Sarah to him. She dashed close and heard his voice in her mind. “Sarah, deception has worked well so far. Let’s try it again. My troops need a barrage as well. I am going to run toward the largest mass of enemy soldiers. One or both of these dragons will follow, hoping to come behind me. If one follows hold the other for as long as you can, then flee. I am going to dive quickly, spray flame on the enemy, and then flip hard, coming around on the dragon that follows me. If they both follow, you come behind the last one and fall on it. Do you understand?”

  She wanted to scream “No!” but remembered Liv was also there guiding her. “Yes, go now!”

  Kusaila dived again, skipping off the ground like a rock off water, trampling enemy soldiers and then spraying the rest with skin-bursting flame. He drove through the charge like a plow through soft ground.

  Sarah didn’t watch him go; she had her own troubles. Instead of one or both dragons following him, neither did. When they saw Kusaila move away to take the battle to their troops, relief settled over them and huge gaping grins spread across their deranged faces. Sarah gulped as they began to circle her, each flyby drawing closer. The first-time round, they flew together, and then they got wise. One flew clockwise, the other counterclockwise so she could not keep eyes on both of them. Liv, if you have any ideas how to get me out of this, now would be a great time to
share them!

  “I’m thinking, Sarah… I have a hundred thousand pages of ancient dragon tactics to process. It’s going to take some… hold on… oh yeah! Dive, Sarah, go to ground, and as soon as they try to follow you, jump right through them and hightail it toward your own people. Head low and as slow as you can right for Kusaila’s balustrades. You are going to lead these thugs into your people’s maws. Move!”

  Sarah dived. The four hundred feet between her and the ground was breached in seconds. Her tormentors dived after her as soon as she turned. They knew if they could pin her on the ground it would all be over. Lunging, their immense claws reached for her. But she was smaller, faster. She slipped through their grasp and then flew low and fast along the ground right over the heads of her soldiers who, seeing her, filled the air with arrows aimed at her foes. They were too slow, and the scales of the enemy dragons too hard. Sarah knew approximately where Kusaila’s artillery hid and was about to bet her life on that guess. Liv had told her to go slow enough that the great weapons of war could strike the dragons that pursued her, but if she dawdled, they would be on her ripping her to shreds. She was faster, but only just.

  Then she saw the balustrade, a whole nest of them. She didn’t know if they had seen her or were ready to fire. But she had no choice. Casting a quick prayer to the sky and hope to the wind, she flipped up, exposing her breast to the weapons. If the dragons behind her were going to follow her, they would have to do the same. She closed her eyes, shrieked, and turned up sharply. The moment she did, the artillery captains unleashed their missiles. One missed her by a hair, but the dragons behind her were not so lucky. Of the twenty-four obsidian-tipped bolts fired, twenty of them landed in the flesh of her tormentors. They ripped through the hard dragon scales like cat’s claws scathing mice. The agony-laced shrieks of the dying serpents were pitiful. But after half a second of remorse she turned back, blew a victory flame of thanks into the sky, and flipped back, hearing the shouts of her victorious soldiers. With a roar of victory, she flew back into the battle, looking for Kusaila.

  Chapter 29

  The red-haired giant sat in the gloom of his quarters in the old cathedral. His hand burned. The doctor who had treated him was more a theoretical specialist than a regular physician but remembered enough to debride the wound—which meant peel the burnt skin away while the patient screamed in agony—and then apply a hypochlorite solution, wrap the wounded hand in gauze, give the burn victim a bottle of Irish whiskey, and send him back to his room.

  Peter Fawkes sat in the easy chair and gingerly poured the whiskey in a glass, almost stopped, then just filled the whole glass. His hand throbbed. The doctor had said that was good; it meant there were nerves left to feel pain. Fawkes was trying to find the bottom of the bottle, and not just for the relief of his hand but also for the relief of his heart. Seeing the captain of the dragon riders again, Harry Ferguson, had brought back memories the giant had buried and reburied and finally just run from. Now he attempted to drown them and was not doing a good job. The Irish whiskey was finally making him sleepy. He had fallen asleep a couple of times only to move his hand wrong, bump it, and be yanked back screaming into wakefulness. He had almost slipped across the threshold again, the whiskey pulling him down into darkness, when he heard his name called.

  “Peter Fawkes.”

  His head jerked, his eyes popped open, and he bumped his hand. “Damn! Argh… oh, that hurts.” As he cursed, he scanned the room but saw no one. Frowning, he looked around the room again and mumbled, “Cheap whiskey and pain making me hear things.”

  He took another long sip of his drink, sank deeper into his chair, and, just as his eyes were closing, heard it again.

  “Peter Fawkes, dragon rider, champion of the North Star. I’m talking to you.”

  The giant sat up, eyes rolled back in his head, instantly sober. “Who is this? Where are you?” he croaked.

  “You remember me, Peter; we met once when you rode Boian. You knew me as Ray-oum-aour. The speaker sword.”

  “Ha, now I understand. You burnt me, you evil bastard! I couldn’t understand why you would be hot to touch, but it’s you, the flaming sword.” Fawkes paused and then mocked the voice coming from inside, “You’re too late, Rayoumaour, your master is going to die and there is nothing you can do about it.” The giant chuckled and poured himself another drink.

  “So, you do remember me, Peter. That is good, very, very good, and if you remember, you have probably already figured out that when you touched me, and your flesh and blood ignited with my steel, we formed a bond. You can hear me and I can hear you. I also have access to your memories… and by the way, the whiskey you’re drinking is not going to work. I shut down the nerve endings in your hands and sped up your metabolism so you could drink a gallon of that stuff and won’t feel it, and won’t need it. I’ve also sent several million regenerative cells to the burnt area of your hand, and by morning it should be very much improved.”

  Fawkes wasn’t about to say thanks and just grunted, something like, “We’ll see,” then, “And what is this little visit and favor going to cost me, sword? Because if I remember, and I do, your favors always came at a price and you always had an agenda.”

  “Actually, Peter, I have come to do you another favor. Seems to me you are already paying a price that has bankrupted you, and I really don’t see, and I have looked, just what you’re getting out of it. And my agenda, as you call it, is to see you free.”

  The giant snorted, his eyes narrowed. “Free from what, Ray-oum-aour? There is no going back; my bridges were burned long ago, when your captain Harry Ferguson accused me of treason and allowed my partner to die, a dragon so righteous and just, so compassionate and wise, that dragon riders should have trampled hell to rescue him, but they didn’t! Instead, they let him be butchered, cut into pieces, and parceled out as trophies!” Fawkes gripped the arms of his chair so hard that blood flowed from his burned hand. He did not notice. Then he screamed, “Now let me be. Go from me, do not torment me!”

  Silence answered and waited. Fawkes listened and then sighed. He stood up from his chair and began to pace, back and forth, back and forth. His hand was tingling but not screaming at him through waves of pain. Finally, just as a rut was about to be worn in the carpet, he took one long breath, exhaled, and said, “What do you mean, free me?”

  The sword answered, “What I am about to tell you is going to cause you pain, Peter, and I feel obligated to tell you it will. What I have for you is a message passed to me through another living artifact who witnessed and recorded the message. What I have is Boian your partner’s last word to you. It was recorded after he was taken captive. I have held on to it for a very long time, hoping circumstances would allow me to share it with you. Do you want to hear it?”

  Fawkes gaped and his stomach churned. His eyes squeezed shut, he ground his teeth. And finally, after several sharp breaths he whispered, “You lie. There is no way you could have that. I would have known about it long before now. You’re just saying this in wild hope that your friend will not have to endure what mine did.”

  “You are absolutely certain of that, are you? And I wonder, wouldn’t you have a secret word or sign that you and Boian would have worked out just in case something like this happened? How would I know that word? I know all dragon riders and their partners are required to have one, but how would I know yours?”

  “You are desperate! You would do anything to save Harry Ferguson.”

  “You are right, I would do anything to save Harry! Including lie and also coerce. I know how to make a person bend to my will; there is not much left afterward. I am capable of mentally gutting you and using you like a puppet. It would be a grievous sin. But for Harry’s sake I would do it! But you are judging me by your standards, not mine. Lying is what you would do…”

  The giant’s face contorted, anger spreading across it like a mutilating cancer. He was about to erupt. The sword continued, “But Peter, what I really want to do is save two
dragon riders, and one of those is you.”

  Fawkes’s expression fell. His entire body sagged into the chair. As quickly as it had come, the madness fled, leaving in its wake a deflated heart and streaming tears.

  “Peter, your anger is a shield, a flaming hot shield, but what it shields is fear. A broken heart still mourning and hiding its loss, and fear of greater loss by its storm. Do you want to see the recording? Surely Boian used the secret word or some sign. If the message doesn’t contain it, then I or the one who sent it to me is lying. But if it does, then heed it, Peter Fawkes! So, what do you want? Do you want to know what Boian’s last words to you were or not?”

  The giant’s face was flushed and his eyes swollen. Slowly he nodded. “Yes, yes, I want to see him again. No matter what.” And then he growled, “But if you are lying and this is a deception, then I promise I will be the one that puts the blade to Harry Ferguson and it will be a slow death!”

  “Judge for yourself, Peter Fawkes.”

  Fawkes closed his eyes and tried to relax. It was a futile task. He peered into the darkness of his imagination. There was a flicker on that dark screen and then an image focused.

  A huge black dragon with green stripes stood chained to a stone wall, its claws manacled to the wall, its legs chained to anchors in the floor. Fawkes’s lips trembled and he whispered, “Boian.”

  There was no way the beast could have heard his name, but he raised his head and stared back as though he had. His face was swollen and dried blood covered the right side. One eye was closed shut, and one of his horns had been hacked off; only a jagged stump remained.

  The dragon sighed and in a rasping voice said, “Peter, I’ve been assured you will get this message. I hope that is true.”