Bayzog and Sasha came up on either side of them. “I have to be with my sons,” she said.
“I don’t see any way out of here without someone getting hurt,” Nath admitted. “I’m open for ideas.”
“I was prepared to handle the dwarves,” said the part-elf wizard, “but not all these elves. There are far too many.”
From the middle of the road, Axillis said, “Nath Dragon, this is a surrender-or-die moment, meaning if you don’t surrender, we will fight and many will die. Of course, being the murderer you are, I’m certain that won’t bother you.”
“It bothers me plenty.” He started back down the hill. His hope had been that they could rescue Rerry and Samaz before the elves and dwarves found them. They were too late. The elves wouldn’t let up any more than the dwarves. “I’m not guilty of the bloodshed I’m accused of, and I won’t be held responsible for any more bloodshed.” He unhooked Fang from his back. Elven bowstrings tightened. He handed Fang to Slivver, who took a spot by his side.
“Dragon King, you cannot do this,” Slivver whispered.
“I wish I had a choice.” Nath lifted his hands. “I’ll come willingly on one condition.”
“You are in no position.”
Nath gave the elf a hard stare. “Let me be clear. We could wipe all of you out in seconds if we wanted to.”
Axillis blanched.
Nath continued, “Someone has to fight the titans, so let the boys go, let my friends be free, and you can take me.”
“And me,” Brenwar growled. “If anyone is as not guilty as he is, it’s me.”
Glenwar and Axillis locked eyes. Glenwar gave a nod. Together the dwarf and elven leaders said, “Done.”
As the elves bound Nath’s feet to his neck with elven elotween, Rerry and Samaz hustled up to him.
“Thank you, Nath,” Rerry said to him, “but it hardly seems fair, and I don’t feel worth it.”
Nath gave him a wink. “You’re worth it. Now go up there and hug your mother.”
Unable to hide the sad look on his face, Samaz gave him a quiet nod.
“Samaz, stay close to your parents. Your father has been through something horrendous, and I don’t know what the consequences may be.”
“I will.”
CHAPTER 27
“Who are you?” Selene asked. She saw the queen wurmer and the gnomes, but the source of the voice in her mind was unseen. “Reveal yourself.”
The female voice laughed. “I am one of the titan spirits, released from the Great Dragon Wall courtesy of your dearest Nath Dragon. For centuries I’ve seen many things from beyond. Your life has been quite interesting, Selene of Gorn Grattack. Ha, you think you can walk away from your evil deeds and replace them with good ones? It’s entertaining.”
Selene and Sansla stood back to back. She looked from side to side, saying to him, “Do you see anyone?”
“Can’t say I do,” he replied. “Of course, this gigantic wurmer blocks most of my view.”
The newborn wurmers creeped in among the black gnomes. Their tiny claws scraped over the rocky floor. Selene shivered. There weren’t many things that startled her, but the thought of being covered in wurmers sent chills up and down her scales. “You must have something to fear if you won’t face us, eh? What’s your name?”
A cold wind blew through the warm room. The unseen spirit whispered in Selene’s ear, “I am Tylabahn, sister of Eckubahn and Isobahn.”
Misty vapors coiled around Selene’s neck like gentle hands. The air thinned. Her breathing became shallow. Chin up, Selene said, “If you seek to scare me, you will fail. I do not fear your monstrous ilk.”
The ghostly vapors moved in between Sansla and Selene, caressing and probing them from head to toe. Tylabahn continued, “Your heart races, dear Selene, High Priestess of Barnabus. But of course you don’t fear me. It takes a monster to know a monster.” The spirit made a hair-raising chuckle. “I find it so amusing that you stand right in the heart of the monsters you awakened. You, the high priestess, awakened the wurmers for your own purposes. And now you seek to destroy them? Why, Selene? Why don’t you use them to finish what you started and help us?”
Selene swallowed. Sweat beaded on her forehead. “I’ve seen the error of my ways. Soon you will as well.”
Tylabahn’s voice became angry. “Don’t presume to judge me, Selene! You have as much blood on your hands as I do. Do you really think you can redeem yourself? The people of Nalzambor will never forgive you, nor forget you.” The spirit embraced Selene like the hug of a loving mother. “Join me, Selene. Shed that make-believe nobility and embrace the warrior who resides within. You are meant to be more than a shadow, but instead a ruler of this world. You were so close, Selene. It was Gorn Grattack who failed, not you.”
The burning desire to fight simmered and boiled within Selene. The power she’d lost had been awesome. She had controlled all who surrounded her. Ever since she gave that up, she had felt lost, trying to fit in and scrape by. She wasn’t sure who she really was.
“You cannot undo what has been done, Selene. This world is already conquered. The dragons and the races don’t know it yet, but they will come to that realization soon enough.” Tylabahn’s voice was a welcoming purr. “Join me. Join us. Be an everlasting goddess.”
“Don’t listen to her, Selene. The spirits are liars.” Sansla clawed at the vapors. “They make promises they will not keep. Do what must be—urk!” Sansla clutched at his throat. His powerful arms flailed.
Swaying in a trance, Selene watched Sansla struggle against his unseen bonds.
“I am going to kill him, Selene. He has no power against me. I am ten of him. But you, Selene, you can end this. Show mercy. Take out your sword and kill him. A quick death is much better than watching him suffer. Besides, he’ll make a great meal for the wurmers. They’ll be thankful to have you as a second mother. They’ll be loyal to the end.”
Without even realizing it, she drew her sword.
Sansla’s elven eyes enlarged. “No, Selene, don’t let her seduce you.” He tried to scramble away, but the vapors lifted him off the ground and spread his arms and legs wide. Wings beating, Sansla strained against his bonds.
She approached with her blade pointed at his chest. The anger that had once made her queen of the world bubbled over. She wanted that power back. She wanted it all.
But she wanted it on her terms. With the tip of her blade inches from Sansla’s exposed chest, she said, “If I kill him, can you make me a whole dragon again?”
“You will become more powerful than you have ever been.”
With the growing hunger within, she said, “I’d like that.” She drew the sword back to strike.
With compassionate elven eyes, Sansla said, “I forgive you.”
The words came to Selene like a cold slap in the face. The spirit of Tylabahn shuddered within her. Selene lowered the sword, shaking her head.
“Finish him!” Tylabahn commanded. “He might forgive you, but the rest of them won’t!”
Selene shrugged off the unseen bonds and put away her sword. “Some of them will, and some of them won’t. I can live with that.” She reached into her satchel and withdrew an orb that filled her hand. It pulsated and throbbed.
“What is that?” Tylabahn hissed. Ghostly tendrils came at Selene.
“It’s an Orb of Destruction!” She sprinted to the burbling pool of goo as a gem of life beat within.
Tylabahn’s tendrils licked out, tripping her feet and dragging her away from the pool. “You fool, you would kill yourself!”
Selene clawed at the rock floor with her free hand. “Not to mention you, all the wurmers, and these useless little gnomes.” She muttered an enchanted word. The orb in her hand pulsed faster. A tendril locked up her wrist, trying to wrench it free. The orb fell from Selene’s grip.
“Hah! Now you’ll only destroy yourself. The gem of life is protected.”
Out of nowhere, a black gnome rushed over. He picked up the orb, sl
ipped through Tylabahn’s tendrils, and slammed the orb into the boiling crater.
The spirit of Tylabahn went wild. She released Selene and Sansla. The ghostly vapors of her body dug into the gooey pool, slinging slime everywhere.
The black gnome took Selene by the hand, saying, “Come, come. I know a way out.”
“This mountain will collapse on us in seconds,” Selene said, racing after the scurrying gnome.
He replied, “Then you had better make the most of them!”
CHAPTER 28
Nath stood still while the elves secured his feet to his neck. “I think you’re being excessive, seeing as I’ve turned myself over to you.”
“We’re not going to have you running away,” Glenwar said. “We know how fast you are.”
“So my reputation precedes me.”
“I don’t think you should be making light of your situation, murderer.”
“Alleged murderer. Aw, I can’t believe I’m even saying that. I didn’t kill Laedorn and Uurluuk!” He rattled his chains. “I can still run faster than you, even in these things.”
“I’d like to see you try.” Glenwar marched away, leaving a dozen dwarven spearmen standing guard.
Nath sighed. Nothing seemed right about the elves or the dwarves. He understood they had a duty to bring him in, but they didn’t seem right. Not the way he was used to seeing them. The worst thing had been seeing Glenwar challenge Brenwar. That had been downright unnatural. Now the father and son couldn’t even look at each other.
The dwarves and elves lined up in two separate columns and started to march. They headed east, just beyond the distant peaks of Morgdon. Brenwar and Ben stayed by Nath’s side, talking to him from time to time, but they were without their weapons.
“I think you’d be better off fighting the real war that’s going on,” Nath said, holding his chain so it wouldn’t choke him, “not fooling around with this farce.”
“I’m not taking my eye off you. Not with them holding the other end of that chain. I don’t like it.” Brenwar’s hot glare scanned the ranks of his kin. “It’s weird.”
“Dragon,” Ben said, “If it gets too wooly, you have to get out of this.”
“Don’t even talk like that,” Brenwar warned. “They’ll shackle all of us.”
“No, Ben. Don’t be antsy. That’s just what the enemy wants. They want to take us all off the game table. We can’t let that happen.”
“Who is they?” Ben asked.
“Good question. Let’s just hope we know them when we see them.”
“Well, if I were you, I’d summon the dragons to free me.” Ben dusted off a bug that landed on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t toy around with them. They should know better.”
“I’ll be curious to see who the other witnesses are.” Brenwar did a half step, getting his feet in sync with the other dwarves. “So far, there’s only Piigliin that I know of. He was always trouble. It’s hard for me to speak against my kin, but we have our share of rotten eggs. They were always swiftly dealt with, but now it seems they are turned loose.”
“There is bad in everybody.”
The conversation fell silent. The steady rhythm of boots hitting the ground stayed with them all through the day until nightfall. Nath wasn’t surprised when the torches were lit and they kept on going.
As Glenwar had mentioned, they joined ranks with even more dwarves. Another host of elves came as well. By morning, Nath was marching with a full army thousands strong.
All this over me?
The next day, the army came to a halt at a military outpost called the Corridor. The fortress had been crafted by dwarves and elves, and it was extremely well fortified. A twenty-foot-high wall stretched over one hundred yards, and it was half as deep. They entered through a steel portcullis on the side closer to Morgdon, guarded by dwarves. They heard that elves guarded the side facing toward Elome. The facility had been built when the dwarves and elves battled the orcen hordes together. In recent years, it was all but abandoned, so far as Nath knew, with only a skeleton crew to watch over it. Apparently, now it served another mutual purpose: his trial.
Thousands of soldiers lined the walls and the parapets, half facing outward and the other half inward. The banners of the dwarves and the elves snapped in the high winds. The four round corner towers rose forty feet in the air. At the very tops were elven archers and dwarves on ballistas.
In the center of the courtyard, a court hearing area had been built with slabs of cut stone and wood. Five throne-like chairs made from highly crafted steel sat upon a stage, empty. In front of the stage was a large cage made from steel bars.
Glenwar and Axillis hooked Nath by the arms and put him in the cage. “The trial comes when the trial comes,” Glenwar said as he and Axillis departed, slamming the cage door shut behind them.
“I could use a meal,” Nath said.
Axillis waved his hand at the army. “After we feed all of them, then we will feed you. Maybe.”
“I’ll find you something, Dragon,” Ben offered.
“No, I’m not really that hungry. Just testing the waters. And they’re foul.” He pressed his face against the bars. “They couldn’t possibly find me guilty, could they?”
“The dwarves better not, but I can’t speak for the elves.” Brenwar tugged the bars. “Dwarven. Well made. You’d have a hard time getting out of this.”
“Thanks, Brenwar.” He lifted his chain. “Care to comment on this?”
“The best.”
CHAPTER 29
Over the next couple of days, the dwarves hauled in lumber and built bleachers that rose from the flagstone courtyard floor to the top of the parapet wall. With the assistance of the elves and Brenwar—who’d gotten bored standing around—they turned the fortress courtyard into an arena.
Nath waved at his old friend, who was pounding in nails with his skeleton fist. “Thanks, Brenwar. Make sure everyone is comfortable.”
Ben returned with a platter of food and took a bite of apple pie, which oozed juicy glaze. “Do you feel like eating yet?” Also on the platter were sausage links, a small brick of cheese, and a tall tankard of ale.
Nath shook his head no. “What’s going on out there? It smells like an elven festival.”
Ben lifted his brows and nodded. “You’d be surprised. It’s as if word has spread all over. The elves and the dwarves are pitting their arrays of food and ales against one another. Slabs of meat, tasty cakes, pies with raspberry jelly jam whip oozing out of the rim, and hors d’oeuvres.” He licked his lips. “I can’t remember the last time I ate so well.”
“Ben! If they find me guilty they’re going to kill me.”
“I think that’s part of the draw too,” said the aging farm boy-turned-soldier, wiping the juice from his mouth. “Oh, sorry, Dragon. I guess I got caught up in the moment. You know they won’t find you guilty. It’s impossible.”
Clasping the bars, Nath said, “Do you remember the floating city?”
“Of course I do.”
“Did you always think such a thing was possible?”
Ben chomped down on the crust of the pie and said with a mouthful, “No, but that was magic.”
“Yes, that was magic, and what do I always say about magic?”
Ben’s eyes slid up. “Uh, you say ‘with magic, anything is possible.’” He nodded.
“Yes, and that includes my conviction.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Ben! Quit eating that food. It’s doing—Ben?”
The old warrior had set the tray down, picked up the tankard of ale, and walked off as if he hadn’t even been part of the conversation. He disappeared into the crowd.
“What in the name of Guzan is going on?” Nath turned and slid down against the bars, holding his head. Everyone was acting strange. That hadn’t initially included Ben and Brenwar, but now it did.
It has to be the titan spirits, but how? They couldn’t possibly possess so many people. Or could they? And if the people are
under a spell, won’t the judges be, too?
He banged his head against the bars. “Great dragons.”
“What did those bars ever do to you?” said a female voice.
Nath found himself gazing up at Laylana, the granddaughter of Laedorn. Remaining seated, he said, “Please tell me you still have your wits about you.”
“Excuse me? That’s an awfully strange way to address your defender.” Her jet-black hair hung in a long braid over her shoulder. Her beautiful eyes were deep pools of green. “I assure you I have all my wits and more. You’ll need them.”
Getting up on his feet, he reached through the bars, pulled her body in, and kissed her forehead. “I can only hope so. Everyone here is going mad! They celebrate before my trial. Laylana, a curse has fallen over the people.”
“Keep your voice down.” She gave their surroundings a glance. “I got here as soon as I found out you were in custody. I was afraid this would happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever has afflicted the minds of the elves, I can’t explain. It started up weeks ago. They all started acting off, or silly. Some are affected and some are not.” She held up her hand. She wore a silver band on her ring finger that was engraved with leaves. “This ring was worn by Laedorn. It protects me from many things. I hope this madness is one of them.”
“It’s affected my friends, Ben and Brenwar. Maybe something they ate or drank.”
“I admit I’m not the most knowledgeable when it comes to magic. I’m a warrior, as you know, but I’ll keep investigating.”
“Bayzog could help if you could reach him.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Perhaps the warden will let me speak with him.”
Taken aback, Nath said, “What do you mean, the warden?”
“Didn’t you know? They’re held captive in the Corridor’s dungeons.”
“They were supposed to be set free. I had Glenwar and Axillis’s word on that!”
“I’m sorry, Nath, but it was discovered that they plotted your escape. They had to be brought in, but they surrendered willingly.” She touched his hand. “Stay calm. I’ll look into it. I thought you knew.”
Trial of the Dragon (The Chronicles of Dragon, Series 2, Book 6 of 10) (Tail of the Dragon 7) Page 9
