The Rawn Chronicles Book Four: The Dragon and the Daemon (The Rawn Chronicles Series 4)

by P D Ceanneir

  ‘Oh great, now we have to dodge flames as well,’ moaned Furran.

  ‘If you can think of anything better, then be my guest,’ shouted Powyss over the sound of crackling fire.

  ‘I already have,’ said Furran as he drew his Spit Gun from its holster and fired four bolts into the heads of the burning front rank. All four corpses fell to the ground. ‘Aim for their heads.’

  Behind Furran, Whyteman and Linth looked at each other, and then set about taking out as many of the dead as they could by bow and arrow. The rest of the Paladins opened fire with their own Spit Guns. Garnet ordered his men to defend with spears. Row upon row of corpses fell to the onslaught then they stopped shuffling forward and instead lingered at the opening. Powyss took the opportunity of the lull to order a reload.

  They were about to fire another volley when they heard the roar of the Ice Drake above them.

  Havoc, Little Kith and Carbaum cut through the dead with ease and sprinted for the opening on the other side of the banqueting hall. The dead ran after them, ungainly though they were, they still moved fast across the floor. The trio exited into a corridor with a narrow ledge, down below them was a field of crystal spikes that glinted with the silver blue glow. They raced around the ledge looking for an exit and discovered one blocked by another shuffling hoard. A larger exit beyond this was empty, but the dead would overwhelm their escape route before they reached it.

  Little Kith turned to Havoc. ‘I’ll give you some time, boss, just you get that Talisman!’ Then he hefted his large double-headed axe in his muscled right arm, adjusted his shield in the other, and ran screaming towards the dead blocking the path. He barrelled into them, crushing some against the left-hand wall, others he sent tumbling down the fifty-foot high ledge and impaled themselves on the crystal spikes. He hacked his way into the opening and was lost from sight.

  Havoc had no time to be concerned for his friend, Carbaum yanked at his arm and pointed towards the advancing dead behind them.

  ‘Let’s move!’ he yelled. The prince kept pace with him as they reached the second opening and both men yelled as they slipped on the ice. They fell down a long ramp as they entered the opening and skidded to a halt by slamming into dozens of those ice spikes. A mist of cold moisture rose from the ground about three feet high.

  Carbaum got up and then fell down again as pain shot through his left leg. Blood trickled down his thigh and he saw a shard of ice had pierced his leg just above the knee. He shouted for the prince but received no answer. The dead were coming fast along the ledge and through the opening. He forced himself onto his feet and hobbled as best he could through the structures, gritting his teeth as the pain from his leg shot through his body. More dark shapes appeared up ahead and he realised he was now surrounded. The zombies converged on his position, dozens of them in a multitude of cultural armour. He braced himself for the attack as he raised his sword high.

  Something tall and black appeared out of nowhere and started attacking the dead with a sword in each hand. At first, Carbaum thought it was the prince, but this person was much taller and his swords were completely black except for the silver pommel on one of them. The tall hooded man was fast, faster than any man the captain had ever seen before. The swords moved so quickly that he had trouble tracking its passage through the air before it found dried flesh. It cut through armour like a ship’s prow through water. In a few minutes, he reduced the dozens of undead to a mere handful. The corpses seemed to shrink and cower from this black cloaked figure and then they shirked away completely as they disappearing the way they had come.

  The Captain stood aghast as the two swords merged together with the masterful ease of a Rawn. No blood or debris showed on the blades, in fact not even light settled on it. The man turned towards him, the darkness in the hood concealed his features. He walked over to the wounded captain.

  Carbaum was no coward, yet fear rose in him as the figure approached, the captain’s back bumped into a six-foot ice spike. He flinched as the cold seeped into his chest, but at least it was helping him to stay upright.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ the voice was a harsh whisper and matched the menacing form completely. Carbaum did not hear any concern in his voice at all.

  ‘Just a shallow cut,’ he said pointing to the inch of protruding ice now melting down his leg as it mingled with his blood.

  ‘Fixable,’ the hooded figure stated.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Carbaum and realised that he probably would not want to hear the answer to that question. The man raised a pale, long-fingered hand and pulled down his hood to reveal a pale skull-like grinning face with large sunken black eyes that reflected his own pale face of dread back at him.

  ‘I’m the Son of Death,’ said the sinister being with a grin and his cold and emotionless laugh echoed into the very chambers of the damned.

  Lord Ness never heard the voice of the Nicbetha. The minds of Rawns were different from a normal mortal and anyway, he had another agenda. Instead, he followed Mannheim.

  He watching through openings in the walls of an adjacent corridor as the Archward walked without fear up a winding tunnel that seemed to go on forever.

  After a distance, that expressed to the Ri how large the palace actually was, Mannheim entered an open topped room at the highest point of the palace with a circle of twelve standing stones twenty feet high. At the centre of the circle sat a stone throne, and as Lord Ness settled behind an arch of ice, he saw an old friend and colleague sitting on it.

  `I have come as you bid, my master. I have brought Him,’ said Mannheim, and to Ness Ri’s disgust, flourished a subservient bow towards the man sitting on the throne.

  ‘You have done well, Mannheim,’ said Gonliss Ri in a raspy whisper. His old friend was just that, old, while Ness Ri was over two thousand years old, Gonliss was close to the same age, but his time away from his homeland had not been kind to his body. Age had caught up with him. His hair, although white like most Ri’s was lanky and unkempt, missing that youthful vibrancy. His body was thinner and face sallow, with dark shadows under his eyes. Life truly was seeping from his every pore.

  The circle of stones marked a tapping point for the Dragon Lanes. Ness Ri was in no doubt that this was where the Ice Drake was summoned, for only Ris have the ability to summon dragons from the energy of the Earth. There was a steel blue glow emanating from the monoliths and a bright sheen shimmered above the stone’s tips.

  ‘Yes you have truly done well, Mannheim. Though, there are others with him and that was not part of the plan,’ said Gonliss Ri.

  ‘Unavoidable Master, I could not change the circumstances. Although, sending Glajziur may have convinced the prince to act quicker,’ said Mannheim.

  ‘A necessity, Mortkraxnoss will be here soon, it is only a matter of hours. I can feel the Isle of the Dead approaching. It calls to me.’ Gonliss Ri stood and lifted his arm, stretching his long index finger to point at the far edge of the circular room. There the cold mists of morning hung like a screen, hiding what was on the other side. With a flick of his wrist, the mist disappeared to allow the suns red dawn to mix with the blue hues of the monoliths. In the distance a mountain peak towered over the long ridge that the ice forest grew from, but something else pulled Ness Ri’s sight from the spectacular snow-capped mountain. A dark cloud, gigantic, as high as it was wide, was edging its way around the tops of the hills towards the north. Pointed grey crests of hidden mountaintops poked through the black smog of cloud.

  It moved, slowly and gracefully, but it glided closer and closer with each passing second.

  ‘Mortkraxnoss,’ whispered Lord Ness with awe.

  ‘You are quite correct, old friend,’ said Gonliss Ri, who was now staring straight at Lord Ness. ‘Come out of your hiding place and join us.’

  Mannheim flinched in wide-eyed shock at Ness Ri’s appearance from behind the arched column he hid behind. The Ri walked forward with confident strides, never taking his eyes off Gonliss.

  ‘You have d
iscredited yourself and deceived the Ri Order, Gonliss,’ he said. ‘When did you give yourself to the Brethac Ziggurat?’

  ‘Long before my quest, my friend, but the Brethac Order means little to me now. All of my life’s fibre, my soul, bends to her will, the Nicbetha. You do not know how beautiful she is. She captivates me and commands my existence. I am a slave to her demands. She is my teacher, yet I have only scratched the surface of her secrets.’ He gripped his sword staff firmly in one hand, using it to steady himself as he walked towards Lord Ness. They stopped a few feet from each other.

  Ness Ri was amazed at the change to his once close friend. The thin face and the dull eyes looked deep-set inside wrinkled and hooded eyelids.

  ‘So, was all of this a ruse to bring us here?’ he said.

  ‘Only a ruse for one of you, Ness my old friend, the one foreseen by the Nicbetha. She calls to the new Keeper of the Gredligg Orrinn. Even when I did her bidding and sent Glajziur to steal the Talisman all of those years ago, I thought it was to stop the Ternquin Assassi from using it. I now know it was to be given to the Blacksword.’

  ‘You know about the Blacksword?’

  ‘Of course, everyone knows of the prophecy and the Nicbetha explained it all to me. He shares the same body as the De Proteous, does he not?’ The smile that split the pale face of Gonliss was one of smug glee at Lord Ness’s shocked expression, but the Rogun Consul quickly regained his composure.

  ‘The dreams I had. The dreams of the cave and the Great Orrinn?’ frowned Ness Ri.

  ‘All from the Nicbetha, I’m afraid. The psychic link she has with the My’thos god Hagan is strong. She needs this to force her way into the sub-conscious minds of Rawns. For some reason she cannot read the minds of our kind on her own. Once she used you, it was only a matter of time before you arrived,’ he turned to look at the approaching cloud that enshrouded the Floating Isle of Mortkraxnoss, ‘and just in time too.’

  The quiet sound of creeping feet alerted Lord Ness to someone approaching behind him. With surprising speed, he withdrew Belthoin and spun round knocking the dagger from the Archward’s hand and pressing the tip of his sword to his throat. Mannheim’s lip quivered as he raised his arms in surrender.

  ‘It was not Gonliss Ri that knew of the whereabouts of the Talisman, it was you, wasn’t it, Mannheim?’

  The Archward nodded slowly.

  ‘Mannheim is my spy, my contact with the Brethac Ziggurat back home, and has been since I found Ternquin,’ said Gonliss in an offhand way. ‘After all, it was the ancient Elementals who started the order and it has been continuing to do so in secret within Ternquin’s community of Wards for many years.’

  ‘Who is his contact on Tattoium-Tarridun?’ asked Ness Ri with an angry frown, ‘would it be Lord Sernac, by any chance?’ Now it was Gonliss Ri’s turn to be surprised as he walked around Lord Ness and the captive Archward with a slow but menacing prowl. Finally, Gonliss smiled and shook his head.

  ‘You cannot know much about Lord Sernac, or you would not have come. The Nicbetha would not send you her dreams if she knew you were a member of the Brethac Ziggurat or knew of Lord Sernac’s identity. That is why the Order has left you alone after Saltyn Ri’s attempt to kill you at Dragersloth,’ Gonliss nodded at Lord Ness’s surprised expression. ‘Yes, I know about that, Sernac and I conversed through Lobe Stones, Manheim has a similar one. He keeps me well informed about events back home and I pass him any knowledge regarding the Nicbetha. He also wished you to have your independence to continue with your plans for the quest. That is why Lord Sernac did not reveal himself to you and ask you to join the order, though I know he often thought about it, so you see, you know very little.’ said Gonliss Ri.

  ‘I know he hides behind the name, covering his true identity in secrets and manipulates from afar,’ said Lord Ness, feeling like he had just lost a hard game of Karsh as he noticed the smug look on Gonliss Ri’s face. ‘Is he a Ri?’

  ‘Of course he is and more.’

  ‘More?’

  Gonliss chuckled.

  ‘An Elemental, then, like Cinnibar?’

  Gonliss stopped laughing. ‘Enough of this,’ he said and he quickly slipped out his Rawn sword from the top of it’s staff and knocked away Belthoin, releasing Mannheim from its sharp point. There was a whirlwind of cloth and sword strikes that the Archward tried hard to watch as the two Ri’s raced around him. Sparks flew into the air with each lunge and parry as the two combatants leapt over him while he cowered in a ball on the floor.

  The fight lasted several minutes and then silence descended inside the circle. Mannheim dared to look up from his cowering crouch to see that Gonliss Ri had Lord Ness’s sword point poking out of his back, yet the Ri stood very still looking into his old friends eyes.

  ‘I already told you,’ he smiled as Lord Ness stared back at him in shock, ‘she has my soul and in death, I can feel no pain.’

  Glajziur dived through the opening in the roof and released a white stream of ice-cold air at the group of huddled warriors. It slammed into the ground causing the floor to shake. White frosted spikes sprung up from the impact and spread out into a twisting line like a colourless snake whipping in painful frenzy. The line of the Ice Drake’s frozen breath reached Powyss and his men. The commander suddenly felt arms lift him from the ground and out of the way as the cold death struck. The shadowy form of the dragon fluttered past him as it climbed upwards, landing on a low ledge where it’s neck snaked this way and that as its bulbous pink eyes looked for more prey.

  Powyss turned to his saviour and saw Linth beside him, other Paladins had also dived out of the way, but he groaned when he noticed the tall pile of jagged ice encasing seven of the Falesti and through the clear glass of the block he could see the face of Thane Garnet frozen in his last shocked scream.

  ‘Ahh, damn you!’ he shouted and stood up, pointed Bor-Teaven at Glajziur and sent a long stream of hot flame towards the dragons bulky body. It hit the beast’s front right leg and cut a deep score along its flank. The Ice Drake bellowed in pain and thrashed so much that it hit the far wall with its tail causing the top half of the structure to collapse, exposing them all to the outside world. Beyond the wall, Powyss saw what looked like the masts of ships in the distance, but then the dragon rose, huge and terrifying to block his view.

  The Paladins took the commanders attack on Glajziur as time to reform. They circled around the creature and threw their spears at the tough hide of dragon with little effect.

  Suddenly there was a loud high-pitched whistling from above them. The Dragon and the Paladins all looked up at the source of the sound and saw Carbaum limping out of an opening and whistling with two fingers in his mouth obviously drawing the dragons attention towards him, beside him was a recognisable figure in his iconic clock of black.

  ‘The Blacksword!’ said Powyss, echoing the cries of the other Paladins. The Blacksword jumped from the ledge and used the Wind Element to glide over to the nearest column of ice. Now he was out in the open and in full view of the dragon. Glajziur turned around and climbed up to a low-level platform so he was blocking the rooms other exit. He growled as he limped on three legs due to the wound he received from Havoc’s spear. He stopped twenty feet in front of the Blacksword and roared loud and long into the space between them. The Ice Drake’s pink eyes bore into the Blacksword’s black ones with malice. He then reared up onto his hind legs and breathed in a huge lungful of air.

  The Blacksword reached up to the hilt of SinDex, still in its sheath, strapped to his back. He pulled the sword out of its scabbard and threw it at the same time. It spun, end over end, through the air and struck the Ice Drakes exposed chest, punching through its heart. The dragon gave a surprised grunt and then shuddered as his momentum toppled him over onto his side, but not before his wide head crashed through the remaining wall behind him.

  Carbaum leant up against the frame of the opening he and the sinister being had walked through. His mouth was agape as he watched the figure glid
e from his icy column and land on the still dragon’s stomach, witnessed in amazement as he extracted the black-blade from the creature’s chest, flicked off the bright red blood with one motion of his wrist and sheathed the sword. Carbaum looked down at the others and saw the same shocked look of wonder on their faces too.

  The Blacksword did not turn to regard the others, he ignored them completely; he merely stepped off the dragon and walked through the exit at the far end of the room, disappearing into the darkness.

  ‘Well,’ said Furran breaking the silence of the moment, ‘if there is one way to kill a dragon quickly, then that’s it.’

  It was Tyban, squinting in the dawn light as the sun rose over the distant horizon, who noticed the thick column of blue grey smoke drifting up from the fjord.

  ‘Oh no, that is coming from Ternquin,’ he moaned as he looked through his telescopic spyglass. Tia nodded and rung the small brass bell at the quest ships bridge.

  When some of the crew had rushed onto the deck, Tyban ordered them to beat to quarters. The sail was trimmed and outriggers set to give the ship maximum capability of movement, gun crews ran to their cannon or catapults.

  Throughout the commotion on the busy deck and the loud shouts of the officers, Captain Danyil walked confidently to the bridge as the ship turned towards Ternquin. He looked through Tyban’s spyglass for a long time then collapsed it quickly with a violent motion.