Champions of the Dragon: (Humorous Fantasy) (Epic Fallacy Book 1)

by Michael James Ploof

  “Thank you.” Annallia took the seat beside the bed.

  The healer left them, and the queen opened her eyes weakly. She smiled at her daughter.

  “Mother, you must rest. They say it is just a spell. That you are worried about Brannon, but he will be f—”

  “Brannon!” said her mother, suddenly coming alive and grabbing Annallia’s wrist so hard that it hurt. “Brannon is in danger!”

  “He is with the other companions, Mother. He will return victorious. You will see.”

  “No, it is a lie, it is all a lie! Oh, my dear, sweet, Brannon. What has your father done?”

  “Mother, what are you talking about?”

  The queen swooned, and her eyelids fluttered. She struggled against the effects of the potion and gripped Annallia’s wrist tighter. “Lies…all lies…”

  “Mother, what do you mean? What is a lie? Mother!”

  “The prophecy…the quest…lies. They’re sent…to feed…” The queen’s grip suddenly loosened, and her hand fell to the bed.

  “Sent to feed? What are you saying? Please, Mother, what do you mean?”

  The queen’s lips moved, and her voice was barely a whisper. Annallia bent down and struggled to make out the word.

  “The…whelps,” said the queen. Then she passed out.

  “Mother?” Annallia shook her gently, but it was no use.

  What had her mother been saying? Brannon was food for whelps? She had to know more, but there was no way to wake her mother. There was another way to speak to her, however, but Annallia was reluctant to attempt it. Mind melding was forbidden without consent, and if she was caught, the consequences would be severe. But if Brannon was in mortal danger…

  To hell with it, Annallia thought, and she placed her palms on each side of her mother’s temples.

  Mother, can you hear me?

  Nothing.

  Mother, I must know about Brannon.

  Brannon! the queen’s mind suddenly called out, echoing in the vast chambers of her consciousness.

  Yes, Mother, tell me about the danger he is in.

  You must help him. He is in mortal danger. Kazimir is a liar; there is no prophecy. He made a deal with the dragon. The champions are food for whelps.

  Have you told Father?

  Your father knows. Oh, gods help him, but he knows. He said Brannon will return a hero, or not at all.

  “What are you doing?” came the voice of King Rimon.

  Annallia jumped, startled, and released her mother. “Father, I did not see you come in.”

  “I asked you a question,” said the king sternly.

  “I was just soothing Mother,” said Annallia. She rose from the bedside chair and approached her father bravely, trying to ignore the effects of the sudden separation of minds. “What did you think I was doing?”

  Rimon and Annallia stood staring at each other. Both knew the other’s mind, but their thoughts went unspoken. Annallia knew that her father would never admit to such a thing.

  “She needs her rest now,” said Rimon.

  “I was just leaving,” said Annallia, and she brushed past her father.

  “Annallia!” her father called when she was almost out the door.

  She froze and turned to face him. “Yes, Father?”

  He seemed to be mulling over his words. “Your mother has been babbling nonsense all afternoon. Do not fret. She will be better soon.”

  “Of course she will. Is there anything else?”

  “No, you are dismissed,” said Rimon, watching her closely.

  “Very well,” said Annallia.

  The door of branches closed behind her on their own accord, and she determinedly made her way back down to her horse. By the time she reached the beast, tears were streaming down her face. Her sorrow wasn’t for her mother’s condition, it wasn’t because of the peril that her brother was in, it was because her father had once again proven himself to be a cold, unloving bastard. One who would send his only son on a suicide mission just to test his manhood.

  Annallia mounted her horse and took the eastern road through the city to Val’s tree, praying to the gods the entire time that he was still in the city and hadn’t yet left for Fort Vista on the eastern coast of Halala.

  When she arrived at the tree, it was dark outside, and light shone through the small cracks in the circular, woven rooms of vine among the oldest branches.

  “Valkimir!” she called, rushing up the winding branches fashioned into stairs from the base. She noticed other elves on nearby trees watching her from woven balconies and tried to compose herself.

  “Annallia?” Valkimir called from three branches up, looking over the edge of the balcony off his bedroom.

  She hurried up to it and rushed inside, where Valkimir was waiting. “It’s Brannon,” she said, panting. “He is in grave danger. Kazimir is a liar, the entire prophecy is a lie. You’ve got to—”

  “Whoa, whoa, hold on. Catch your breath. Here, sit down.”

  “I don’t need to sit down!” she said, pushing away his guiding hands. “You need to listen.”

  “Alright,” he said, regarding her with concern. “I’m listening.”

  “My mother told me that Brannon and the other champions are not meant to scare off Drak’Noir, they are meant to be food for her whelps!”

  Valkimir stepped back from her slowly and put a hand over his heart. “But surely your mother is mad; why would your father allow such a thing to hap—” His eyes slowly fell to the floor in realization. Then suddenly his head snapped alert. “How sure are you that your mother was speaking the truth?”

  “I spoke to her through a mind meld. There was no fallacy in her words, I can assure you of that.”

  Valkimir paced the room back and forth, wringing his hands all the while. Finally, he seemed to notice Annallia was still there. He indicated a vine chair which, like all other furnishings, grew out of the wall. He sat across from her and took her hands in his large ones, callused from a life of constant swordplay. “Tell me from the beginning how you came across this information.”

  “If you will allow me, I will show you. For there are things that words cannot rightly express.”

  “A mind meld?”

  “Have you ever experienced one?”

  “Only once, when being questioned by the king’s inquisitors regarding my relationship to you and Brannon,” said Valkimir, eyes haunted by the memory.

  “I promise that I will be more gentle.”

  He nodded and leaned forward, bearing his head to her.

  “Not that way. For this mind meld, you will be joining my mind. Please, put your hands upon my temples.”

  He licked his lips and rubbed his hands together before slowly putting them against her temples. She closed her eyes and slowly guided him into her mind, careful not to let him wander. When he was comfortable in the dark room she had created, she showed him the memories from the time that she returned from the hunt, until she left to find him.

  When it was over, she bade him to leave her mind, and he released her with a gasp.

  She opened her eyes and found Valkimir shaking. Sweat beaded his smooth forehead, and his fierce green eyes were wild with anger.

  “I saw the truth in your father’s eyes,” he said. “It is as Brannon suspected. And I…I didn’t believe him. How could Rimon send his own son on such a fool’s quest?”

  “I don’t know,” said Annallia, not having any defense for her father. “But you must stop this if you can.”

  Val took her hands in his and kissed them. “Annallia, I will return with your brother, or I will not return at all.”

  Chapter 18

  A Gift and a Curse

  Gibrig awoke with sudden panic, as if he had been suffering from a bad dream. A deep sadness darkened his mind, consuming him, and he found that he had been crying in his sleep.

  Outside, a powerful wind blew mournfully through the mountain pass.

  “Gillrog?” he called in the dark, wiping his
eyes.

  His brother didn’t answer.

  Gibrig threw off his sheets and peered through the darkness, trying to make out the bed on the other side of the room.

  “Gill?”

  Still nothing.

  He got up and lit a candle. Gill’s bed was empty, but it was still warm to the touch. Gibrig opened the window to the night and the wind took his breath away for a moment. He scoured the mountain valley and thought he saw a tall figure heading into the western fold leading to Ruger’s Ridge—Gillrog’s favorite place to be alone.

  Gibrig considered giving his brother the privacy that he obviously sought, but he was worried for him. The other dwarven boys had been particularly nasty earlier in the day, and Gill hadn’t even spoken at dinner.

  Gibrig got dressed and put on his boots. He considered waking his father, but then thought better of it. Hagus Hogstead was seldom aware of the taunting that his sons endured, as they always denied it or played down how bad it was. Gillrog was embarrassed of the things the other dwarf boys said to him and his brother, and had made Gibrig swear not to tell their father.

  He made his way quietly down the hall and out the door. He couldn’t see his brother anymore, and hurried across the field toward the fold.

  “Gill!” he called as he reached the crag.

  Again, he heard no reply.

  Gibrig hurried up the trail to Ruger’s Ridge, his apprehension growing with every step. The trail that he and his brother had climbed a thousand times now seemed foreign and treacherous. He slipped more than once in his panic, but ignored his scraped knees and hurried along up the steep cliff. He was crying now, and he knew that it was Gill’s sorrow that he was feeling. The twins often shared dreams and emotions, and though Gill tried to play down how much the taunting hurt him, Gibrig knew the truth of it.

  The nicknames—human, freak, tall weed—followed them like a shadow, but what hurt Gillrog the most were the accusations that they had killed their mother when they were born.

  Sobbing now, Gibrig crested the ridge. He looked east, and there, standing on the edge of the jutting ridge, stood Gillrog.

  “Gill!” Gibrig called against the wind.

  His brother turned around slowly. He was smiling.

  “I’ve got to go now, Gib. I’m sorry.”

  “Gill, wait!”

  “Don’t come any closer!” Gillrog warned.

  “I know ye be hurtin’, Gill. But ye can’t do this.”

  Gillrog looked upon his brother with pity, though it was he himself who stood upon the precipice of death. “I can’t do it anymore, Gib. Don’t you understand? I don’t want to be here.”

  “Then…then we’ll just run away. Come on, back up from that ledge. Let’s talk.”

  “I ain’t no good for ye, and I ain’t no good for Pap,” said Gillrog, glancing over the edge. “I shoulda never been born. If it weren’t for me, ye’d have a mum.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Ye know it be true. Ye been a good brother, Gib. I’ll miss ye.”

  “No!” said Gibrig, mind racing. “If ye do that, ye know ye can’t ever get into the Mountain in the Clouds. The gods’ll never allow it, and ye won’t get to see Momma.”

  Gillrog offered Gibrig another pitying look. “There ain’t no gods, Gib. Even if there were, they’d never let me in anyhow.”

  “Gill…”

  “Goodbye, Gib. I love ye.”

  To Gibrig’s horror, his brother turned and took a step off the ledge.

  “Gill!”

  Gibrig ran to the edge, but sudden pain shot through every fiber in his body and dropped him to the stone. He felt his strange connection to his brother disappear, replaced by cold, dark silence.

  “You can’t leave me here alone!” Gibrig screamed, and he clawed his way across the rough stone. He pulled himself to the edge, hoping against all odds that he would find his brother clinging to the ledge.

  Instead he found his brother’s body, twisted and broken one hundred feet below.

  “Gibrig…Gib!”

  He shot awake and grabbed the person shaking him.

  “Gill!”

  “It’s me, Murland. You were having a bad dream. Are you alright?”

  Gibrig clutched Murland’s robes as the face of his brother slowly morphed into that of the young wizard’s apprentice. He broke down then, sobbing, and Murland pulled him in to cry on his shoulder.

  “It’s alright, it was just a bad dream,” said Murland.

  “No…no it weren’t. Oh poor, poor Gill. I shoulda said somethin’ different. I shoulda known what he intended to do.”

  Gibrig cried into Murland’s shoulder until he had no tears left and, sniffling, released the confused wizard.

  “Are you alright?” Murland asked.

  “I be fine, thanks.”

  Gibrig got up and noticed for the first time that it was nearly dawn. Everyone was awake, and they were staring at him. “Sorry if I woke y’all.”

  “It’s alright,” said Sir Eldrick, coming toward him. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

  “Yeah, was just a bad dream is all,” said Gibrig. He glanced at the sky, hoping to change the subject. “Looks like it’ll be a nice day today.”

  “Indeed,” said the knight, watching him.

  Gibrig smiled and went about preparing his things for a day of travel. To his relief, no one asked him anything more about it that morning.

  ***

  The companions continued on their way shortly after. The forest became sparser as they went, and it soon opened into a long, stretching valley with a wide river snaking from the north to the south and leading into the Blight, a land that was said to be haunted.

  There were many questions for Sir Eldrick concerning his incredible fighting prowess while on the bottle. At first, he ignored such questions, not wanting to divulge information about his condition, for it was both his greatest weakness and greatest strength. Willow was tenacious about it, and would not let the topic rest.

  “So, what is it, like a curse or something?” she asked as they rode.

  Murland hovered just off to the side of the road, gliding along on the wings of his tireless backpack. Brannon rode to the left of the knight, surely glad to have something to keep their attention away from his cowardly abandonment of them at the first sign of trouble the day before. Gibrig, however, rode behind them all. He was sullen, and spoke little to the others. Sir Eldrick knew that it had something to do with his bad dream, and the violence of the day before had shaken him.

  “It isn’t a curse that I am aware of,” said Sir Eldrick, hoping to placate the ogre.

  “Well then, what is it, like a magical power?” Willow pressed.

  “And why did you pass out for so long?” Murland put in.

  “Does that happen every time you drink spirits?” Brannon added, doing his best to look inquisitive.

  Sir Eldrick gave a sigh. “It is a gift and a curse, I suppose, for it has brought me my greatest glory, and my greatest shame.”

  “How do you mean?” Willow asked.

  “Well, take yesterday, for instance. I chugged down that bottle and easily defeated the highwaymen, but then I passed out for hours, which is extremely dangerous. And that is just what happens on liquor.”

  “What do you mean? You have different reactions to different spirits?” said Murland.

  “Exactly. On liquor, I am the greatest fighter that Fallacetine has ever seen, but it only lasts a few minutes, and then I am out for hours, as you saw. On beer, I am a tireless fighter, though not as good as I am on liquor. But rather than pass out on beer, I black out and go on day-long binges, often waking up in strange lands, or deep into enemy territory.”

  “What about wine?” said Murland.

  “Wine,” said Sir Eldrick, chuckling. “Wine, my young friend, turns me into the greatest lover Fallacetine has ever seen.”

  “But what is the downside to that?” said Murland, who was quite curious about the topic of
lovemaking.

  “Having women’s husbands after you, I would imagine,” said Brannon.

  “Indeed,” said Sir Eldrick. “Not only that, but I have so many children spread across these lands that I lost count long ago.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Gibrig, surprising everyone. “I never knew me mom ‘cause she died when I was born, but I think it would be worse if she was alive and just didn’t want to see me.”

  “I never said I didn’t want to see my children,” said Sir Eldrick, rather defensively. “But how in the hells do you have a relationship with so many children, spread all over like they are?”

  “Sorry, Sir Knight. I didn’t mean no offense.”

  “Aw, never mind all that. And quit saying you’re sorry all the time.”

  “Sorry.”

  Sir Eldrick sighed.

  Soon the conversation turned to Willow and her incredible fighting prowess, which seemed to impress even Brannon. The ogre was more than happy to talk about herself and how she beat the bandits and sent them packing.

  “Yup,” she said with a tusky grin. “Good thing Sir Eldrick got me free when he did. Or else those bandits would have killed all of us.”

  “You sure did a number on them,” said Murland. “I would have helped, but I couldn’t get a clear shot with my wand.”

  Brannon scoffed at that and rolled his eyes.

  “What about you?” Willow asked Brannon. “Where did you go when the bandits attacked?”

  “I…” Brannon began, his cheeks suddenly flushing. “I went and got Kazimir.”

  Willow scowled in thought and scratched her head. “How did you know where to find him?”

  “I, um…”

  “If ye got scared and ran away, it be alright,” said Gibrig. “We all get scared sometimes.”

  “I didn’t run away! I came back with the wizard, didn’t I? When I saw the bandits attack, I doubled back, meaning to surprise them, but then I ran into Kazimir on the road.”