Dragon Slayer 2_A Pulp Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Michael-Scott Earle

  Arieste let out a little rumbling growl behind me, and the gemstone on her forehead brightened as she prepared to summon the ice shield.

  Captain Daxos whirled toward me, and I saw fury written in his tear-rimmed eyes.

  “Never!” he shouted and bared his teeth in a snarl. “My father swore to aid you in your mission, and I would never betray his oath.” He still gripped the lieutenant’s hand, and I could see his hands shaking in his fury.

  “Even though you serve in the Blackguard under Military Councilor Warrald?” I demanded. Arieste tensed behind me, and even Irenya used the momentary lull in the ghoulin hordes to glance our way.

  My eyes flashed between Captain Daxos and Sergeant Dai. The bald, square-jawed sergeant seemed as infuriated by the accusation as the captain, and he reached a beefy hand toward one of his heavy short swords.

  “I serve the Council of Four!” Captain Daxos replied in an angry voice. He released the lieutenant’s hand, stood, and strode toward me. Though he was a few inches shorter than me, he showed no hesitation or fear as he glared up into my face. “The Military Councilor may administer the defenses of Windwall, but he is not the only Councilor I have given my oaths of loyalty to.”

  “Both of us,” Sergeant Dai rumbled. He hadn’t drawn his sword, but I knew he was a heartbeat away from violence. He was as hurt by the lieutenant’s betrayal as the captain, but he was a proud soldier and would fight anyone who accused him of such treachery.

  “I’m certain Lieutenant Trosken swore the same oaths as you,” I insisted. “But you heard him yourself. He was prepared to stab me in the back on the Military Councilor’s orders.”

  “And for that, Trosken will have to answer to the Goddesses,” Captain Daxos growled. “He will be judged for his actions, as will I. But when I stand before the Three, I will do so with a clear conscience knowing that I served my city to the best of my ability.” He straightened and head his held high. “My father taught me the difference between obedience and blind servitude. He made certain I knew when it was best to disobey an order that would lead to the harm or deaths of those under my command, even if it cost me my position in the Blackguard. He also taught me the value of loyalty and honesty.”

  I met the captain’s eyes, and there was no sign of deceit or treachery there. The man before me was as good a human as I had met on Iriador. He had his flaws and failings like all of us, but he had stood by my side through the most horrific of battles.

  “Upon my word as a Blackguard,” Captain Daxos said, “and upon the life of my sister Jian who you saved, I swear to you that I had no knowledge of, or part in the lieutenant’s betrayal.” He made the three-fingered sign of the Goddesses. “May the Goddesses judge me if I am lying.”

  Sergeant Dai made the same gesture and raised his three fingers to touch his forehead then his heart. “Aye,” he rumbled. “So I swear.”

  “I believe you,” I said after a long moment, and then I lowered my axe. I really did believe them, because I could see just how much it hurt both men to find out their companion, the man Captain Daxos said he trusted, betrayed them. I’d use that anger, first to kick Emroth’s ass and all her minions, and then to deal with Military Councilor Warrald.

  “What should we do with him?” I asked the captain. “We can’t just leave him here, but we don’t have time to bury him. The ground is too hard and we have no tools for digging.”

  “In Windwall, we cremate our fallen and spread their ashes to the wind,” Captain Daxos said as he turned to look down at the silent body at his feet.

  “Let’s see what we can do about that,” I said.

  I strode toward Irenya, and the red dragon turned to look at me as I came to stand beside her. The tunnel before her was filled with charred, blackened corpses, but I could no longer see any signs of a single living ghoulin. My magical senses told me the tunnel was clear of Emroth’s minions for at least a few hundred feet around the corner. We’d have enough time before the next wave attacked.

  “It’s time to return what I gave you,” I told her.

  For a long moment, her golden eyes burned into mine, and I could see the hesitance written there. She had her power back, and she was reluctant to let it go. The dragon instincts within her cried out to fly free, to be in control of her life once more.

  But the human side of her triumphed, and she lifted her head to expose the gemstone set into her chest. I placed a hand on the gemstone and tugged on the fire magic surging within her. The magic resisted me, like a fire that resisted any attempt to be extinguished, and it required a great deal of effort to pull it back into myself. The shock of the burning heat nearly staggered me, and the tattoo on my right shoulder sizzled and glowed.

  It took a moment for my body to feel normal once more, but finally, the fiery magic settled down to a burning heat deep within me. I opened my eyes to find the curvaceous redhead standing in front of me. She had a naughty smile on her lips as she glanced down at my hand, nestled between her ample breasts.

  “You really know how to make a girl feel loved, don’t you?” she asked with a wink.

  I returned the smile but didn’t answer. Instead, I turned to where Captain Daxos and Sergeant Dai knelt beside the still form of their companion.

  “Allow me, Captain,” I said.

  The two men moved back as I tapped into the burning magic within me and summoned the flames to my fingers. Instead of a huge pillar of flames, I compressed the fire into a stream two feet across and six feet long. The yellow-white flames engulfed the body, and I kept up the flow as long as I could manage. When the fire died, only ashes and melted steel remained.

  “There is no wind blowing down here,” I told Captain Daxos, “but maybe we can spread his ashes, anyway.”

  I turned to Arieste, who dipped her dragon head in understanding. Her white wings snapped out to their full extension, and she gave them one great flap. The wind picked up the lieutenant’s ashes and sent them whirling across Ironfast.

  For long moments, Captain Daxos and Sergeant Dai watched the swirl of ashes in silence. When the last had faded from the light leaking from my glowing pauldron, the captain turned to me.

  “Thank you, Sir Ethan,” he said and gave me a deep bow from the waist. “He was a good man.”

  I only nodded in reply. Right now wasn’t the time to point out the fact that the lieutenant had intended to assassinate me and steal the Circlet on the Military Councilor’s orders. The Blackguards needed a few minutes to grieve the passing of their fallen comrade.

  I, however, needed to hit some shit. The fire magic boiling within me only increased my anger at Warrald, so I gripped my axe tighter and turned toward the tunnel. The next wave of corpse-like figures stumbled toward us, and their black eyes fixed on me.

  With a furious growl, I raised my axe and charged down the passage toward them.

  Time to kill some ghoulins.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The ghoulins’ disgusting cries filled the passage as I rushed them, and I answered with a roar of my own. The blade of my axe chopped through a ghoulin head, then I bashed another in the face with enough force to crush its skull. When another slashed at me with its razor-sharp claws, and I met it with a blast of fire magic that tore a gaping hole through its chest. The monster became a hollow bag of bones and drooping flesh, and I kicked it into the ghoulin behind it.

  The fire of anger surged through me, and I took it all out on the ghoulins. I hacked, chopped, and bashed until my arms burned and my lungs begged for air, but still, I refused to stop. They stumbled toward me in twos and threes, and they fell by the dozens. A mountain of bodies piled up in front of me as my sweeping axe blows severed heads, mangled torsos, and sheared through limbs. My pulse pounded in my ears as I fought, but it only drove me to push harder. I wanted to take out my anger on these corpse-like monsters solely because I didn’t have Military Councilor Warrald in front of me.

  Humans were at war with dragons and monsters, but Warrald was so focused on hi
s pitiful political aspirations that he would have risked the fate of Iriador just to get his hands on the Circlet of Darksight.

  I’d have to do something about that. I needed Windwall as an ally to help Whitespire fight off the blue and green dragons, but something told me Military Councilor Warrald would be a problem as long as he was in power. Or alive. Once I had dealt with Emroth, the Councilor and I were going to have some hard words.

  I drove the pick end of my axe head into a ghoulin’s skull with bone-crushing force. I ripped the axe free, and blood sprayed from the steel as I swung it around to decapitate another ghoulin. When I hacked down the next creature, I found myself alone in a corpse-strewn hallway. I was breathing hard, and my arms felt like they were on fire, but my anger still hadn’t diminished. I was going to keep killing these fuckers until Emroth ran out of minions or my temper cooled.

  I turned on my heel and strode back up the tunnel toward where Captain Daxos, Sergeant Dai, Irenya, and Arieste stood watching. Even the women seemed surprised as they stared at me, and the two Blackguards’ jaws hung open. They’d just watched me chop through nearly twenty ghoulins in the space of ten seconds.

  “Arieste, you won’t fit through that tunnel as a dragon,” I said in a commanding tone. “Time to become human again.”

  The white dragon dipped her head toward my outstretched hand so I could press my palm against the gemstone in her forehead. I gritted my teeth as the icy magic coursed through my veins and mingled with the fire power burning there. The sizzling heat of the two meeting powers set every fiber of my being burning, then slowly the pain lessened as the magic found a way to coexist within me. I pulled at the power until Arieste had once again returned to her human form.

  “Are you okay, Ethan?” Concern sparkled in her pale blue eyes.

  “I’m pissed, but not with you,” I told her tersely. “We’re going to deal with Emroth, then we are going to deal with a traitor.”

  “What’s the plan, Sir Ethan?” Captain Daxos spoke with a new hesitation in his voice. The betrayal of his lieutenant must have shaken him, and my visible anger made him wary and uncertain of what I’d do. Right now, I didn’t give a shit how any of the others felt. I just wanted to find something to hit and keep on hitting it until my anger faded. If I didn’t, I was pretty sure I’d rip Councilor Warrald to pieces with my bare hands when we returned to Windwall.

  “We’re going up that tunnel,” I said as I pointed toward the passage which the ghoulins had just come from. “We’re going to kill any ghoulins in our way, and we’re going to find where they’re coming from. That’s going to lead us right to Emroth, and we deal with her once and for all.” I fixed the two men with a hard glare. “Then, once we’re done kicking the dragon’s ass, I’m going to go and give Councilor Warrald a piece of my mind. If you have any objections to my ripping off his head and shoving it up his puckered ass, keep it to yourself.”

  Neither of the men spoke, and I could see the hesitance in the Blackguards’ expressions. Captain Daxos and Sergeant Dai were both soldiers, and men accustomed to following orders from their superior, in this case, Military Councilor Warrald. They were both loyal to Windwall, the Council of Four, and the chain of command. Yet the fire of anger burned in their eyes as well. Warrald had turned their comrade against them and caused him to betray his oath to help save Windwall. It was the sort of thing that made even loyal men turn against their commanding officers, especially when their commanders were raging, uptight assholes like Military Councilor Warrald.

  I turned to the women and found Irenya fully dressed in her tight leather corset and flowing red dress. Arieste was working at the last of the ties on her dress as I shouldered my pack and turned to retrieve the glowing pauldron. I didn’t put the shoulder armor away since I knew it would come in handy when we went through the tunnels to find Emroth. Instead, I strapped it in place atop my scale mail. The fit was a bit bulky, but I could still move easily enough.

  “Let’s move out,” I said, then turned and strode down the tunnel without waiting to see if the others followed.

  The glow streaming from my magical shoulder armor provided enough light to see fifty yards up the tunnel, and I had no problem spotting the ghoulins long before they reached me. A band of eight creatures surged toward me, and more appeared around a bend in the tunnel behind them. I didn’t bother with my axe from this range. Instead, I tapped into my ice magic and summoned a dome of ice to form behind the leading group of ghoulins and block off the ones behind them. A heartbeat later, a pillar of fire filled the corridor around the ghoulins and turned them to ash in seconds.

  The fire melted the ice wall, and the next group of ghoulins shuffled toward me. I let out a shout of rage and charged, and my axe sang the song of death before me. The steel blade chopped through two scrawny ghoulin necks with a single sweep, and my return blow buried the pick into the side of a monster’s skull. I brought my boot up in a powerful kick right into another ghoulin’s neck, and the creature fell with a shattered spine.

  Flesh hissed and sizzled beside me, and I whirled to see a severed ghoulin arm falling away inches from my head, but Captain Daxos brought his flaming blade whipping upward in a diagonal blow that tore through the head of the ghoulin who had nearly caught me off-guard.

  I turned to the Captain and gave him a nod of thanks. He said nothing, simply returned the nod and took his place at my right hand. I could feel the magical pulses of Arieste and Irenya behind me, and I guessed Sergeant Dai brought up the rear with his two swords. Between us, not a single ghoulin was going to walk out of this tunnel alive.

  Through the darkened passages we went, and our steel and magic met twisted flesh and bone and left only carnage behind. Ghoulins fell by the droves, and we left dozens of bodies littering the stone corridors behind us. I led the way up the gently inclined passages with fire and ice, and Captain Daxos joined his sword with my axe for any ghoulins that survived. Arieste and Irenya wove their magic to lend us support and guard our backs, and Sergeant Dai’s short blades put a quick end to the creatures’ suffering.

  Anger and power drove me onward and lent strength to my attacks. I could feel the worry radiating from Irenya and Arieste, but they said nothing, simply watched my back as I fought. Captain Daxos kept the ghoulins from overwhelming me in the heartbeats between summoning the blasts of fire and the walls of ice. We plowed through the clustered groups of ghoulins like a bulldozer through a paper wall, and I lost count of my kills after dropping the hundredth ghoulin.

  A pair of aswang tried to surprise us at an intersection, but the Mark of the Guardian warned me of their presence long before they leapt from their hiding places. A dome of ice trapped one in place, then a pillar of fire withered the other’s wings. The vampire-looking creature fell with a shriek and writhed on the floor as flames licked at its parchment-like skin. Then Captain Daxos’ sword cut off its cries, and black blood spurted from the gaping wound in its throat.

  The second aswang pounded against the wall of ice surrounding it, but Arieste was using her limited magic to fortify the barrier. I drove the spike of my pickaxe into the wall to break a hole, ripped it free, and then filled the dome with a blast of fire hot enough to melt steel. Ice hissed and steam billowed as the dome melted. Only a pile of sodden ash remained of the aswang as we moved on.

  Slowly, with each fresh ghoulin corpse, I felt the fires of my rage melting away beneath the exhaustion building within me. Each fresh use of magic was taking its toll on my body, and though I tried to ignore it, I could feel my nerves protesting from the strain. I began to conserve my magical energy and instead relied on the strength of my arm and the support of my comrades to bring down the ghoulins.

  Hope surged within me as a speck of light shone in the distance. It had to be at least four hundred yards away, down a long tunnel, but there was no mistaking it. Daylight was ahead. We had found the way out of Ironfast, the path the ghoulins were taking to get into the Lost City beneath Windwall.

  The sig
ht renewed my determination, and a roar burst from my lips as I broke into a run. I hit the first cluster of ghoulins with a pillar of fire that turned all fifteen corpses to ash, then hacked my way through the three ghoulins that survived unscathed. Six heartbeats later, another burst of flames filled the hallway with enough force to scorch even the stone walls. The twenty or thirty monsters in front of me died screaming, and my gut roiled at the stink of charred flesh.

  “Ethan!” I heard Arieste’s call from behind me, but I was too focused on reaching the light to care. We needed to clear the tunnels of any ghoulins, and then close the way behind us. I had been the one to open the magical door to Ironfast, so I was responsible for the vulnerability in the city’s defenses. Once this passage was closed, there would be no way for the ghoulins to get into Windwall.

  I formed a thick dome of ice around myself, then charged forward like a linebacker for a tackle. The force of my rush bowled over a dozen ghoulins, and I could hear their gurgling cries as my companions finished them off with fire, ice, and steel. I poured more speed into my legs and kept right on charging through the clustered monsters. The ice shield protected me from their pathetic attacks, and the power of my blitz attack crushed skulls, shattered ribs, and snapped withered arms and legs like twigs. Dozens of the assholes fell to my power, and the four men and women behind me took care of the rest.

  The light grew brighter as I approached, and then I burst through the last cluster of ghoulins into fresh air and daylight. I was momentarily blinded, but I didn’t need my eyes to fight. I released the ice dome as I summoned a blast of fire and spun to send it spraying all around me. The cries of ghoulins echoed in the air, and I kept up the stream of flames until six pounding heartbeats had passed.

  “You aren’t getting in!” I shouted as I leapt back into the passage and set the thickest ice shield I could summon to block the gap. No more ghoulins were getting in this way, and I could help the others deal with any of the fuckers that had survived my charge.