by James Somers
Towering over Tarris was the Temple of Moloch, hewn from granite structurally and then overlaid with obsidian rock taken directly from Mount Doom itself. The brittle nature of obsidian had left the outside of the temple, from top to bottom, a jagged, razor sharp skin that had already cut to ribbons a number of would-be thieves trying to scale it.
The black spires of the temple, denoting the presence of the black dragon, ascended almost to the clouds in height and could be seen from several days away. Every other structure in the city had been constructed in humble obeisance to this imposing edifice. A veritable army of carrion feeders circled the spires, sending down its soldiers in waves to feast.
The broad avenue leading toward the temple was strewn with bodies: men, women, and even children. The streets of Tarris had literally been bathed in blood. From the vision, Ezekiah knew that an army of death walkers was responsible for the carnage they were witnessing.
“There doesn’t appear to be anyone left alive within the city,” Donavan said.
The only living things that moved were the birds, thousands of them, and the swarms of flies. They showed no fear of these two interlopers. How long would it be before they were also added to the menu?
“We should hurry,” Ezekiah said. “There’s nothing we can do here.”
They moved like soldiers closing in on their prey. Ezekiah had actually served as such within the army of his late father. Donavan had never known real war. He had been raised within a home that worshipped the Serpent Kings. When he converted to faith in Elithias, his family had disowned him; his father sprinkling soil upon his own head to signify the death of one of his children. When he had tried to reason with them, Donavan’s brother, Staniel, had threatened to turn him in to the High Guard. He had gathered what little personal possessions he had and left the only home he had ever known.
Ezekiah led them along the sidewalks, moving from business to business, home to home, attempting to stay out of the open as much as possible. Even if no one had been spared in this horrifying attack, that didn’t mean there were no death walkers lingering in the city. Not to mention the dragon himself.
When they approached the vast courtyard before the temple, Donavan asked as much. “Did Moloch leave with the death walkers you saw in your vision?”
Ezekiah kept up his pace across the courtyard without answering. He looked high and low for any sign of wraith dancers, priests, or death walkers then ran to the main doors and stopped, waiting. Donavan followed quickly after him.
“Ezekiah? The dragon? When did you say he left the city?”
Ezekiah grinned. “I didn’t.”
Before Donavan could reply, the prophet ran through the door with his sword ready. Donavan closed his eyes, sighing heavily. He opened the door and followed.
Darkness prevailed over what sparse light was available through high stained glass surrounding the main chamber. Lamps burned here and there as well. The dark granite structure had been fashioned from many supporting columns that rose up joining walkways above with the central space beneath the giant spire left open. Directly beneath, on the ground level, stood an altar of obsidian rock; roughly hewn so that whatever was placed upon it as a sacrifice would flay themselves with every struggle against the manacles that anchored their limbs.
Donavan shuddered at the sight. Blood had clearly been spilt upon the altar recently, though a body was missing. The stench of dragon was overpowering. The entire temple reeked of it. Donavan began to complain about it, but Ezekiah quickly placed his hand over the man’s mouth first.
The prophet walked silently toward the altar, taking note of the various shapes and figures carved or painted into the smoothly polished stone floor. He pointed them out to Donavan; marks which indicated priestly positions during ceremony. He nodded, but did not attempt a verbal reply.
Several corridors adjoined the huge chamber, but without exploration there was no way to know where they led, or to whom. A deep bass sound resonated throughout the temple, vibrating the stone floor beneath their feet. Ezekiah mimicked someone talking with his fingers and thumb. Donavan replied with a questioning look, raising his hands to make small flapping motions.
Ezekiah nodded. Moloch was, indeed, still present within his temple. He was talking to someone; but who?
Ezekiah crept beyond the altar of sacrifice toward a stair leading down away from the temple sanctuary. Lamplight filtered into the stone stairwell from a chamber below. Donavan followed as they went silently down into the bowels of Moloch’s temple.
Dragon stench overwhelmed them as they descended. Ezekiah breathed through his mouth, knowing that a monster awaited them. He kept his sword ready for anyone who might jump out of the shadows to attack them. He had killed before; many times during his service as a soldier under his father’s leadership. That was before his call by Elithias to be his prophet.
Still, the old instincts held fast. Even if he had to face a wraith dancer, he might stand a chance. He had faced them before a few times and had lived to tell about it. As they came to the landing below, it opened into a long, straight, narrow corridor. Ezekiah looked long and hard for any sign of movement; guards or otherwise.
Though the corridor was only dimly lit, he saw no one present. Still, the sound of voices resonated through the corridor to them. Cautiously, they proceeded forward again. Several yards in, they discovered alcoves built into the walls. Within these alcoves hung swords on the right hand side and bows with quivers of arrows on the left.
Ezekiah paused. Knowing that Donavan, while not a soldier, was quite good with a bow, he quietly removed a set and handed it to him. He then removed another for himself. When they were ready, they proceeded further along the hall. A longer range weapon might prove invaluable if they encountered resistance.
Ahead, the voices grew louder. They came to a section of the hall where the walls stopped and the floor continued as a walkway with stone rails on either side. Beyond the walkway, curving stairs descended on the right and left side. Ezekiah and Donavan paused here against the wall.
Below, they heard the voices of priests and Moloch himself. Ezekiah took a chance and peeked around the corner of the stone wall into the chamber below. Immediately, he recognized the room from his vision. What’s more, the dragon’s massive black head was extended into the room through a porthole set in the wall at the far end. Before him, stood his priests, seven in all, and one other figure hooded within a dark robe.
“Approach me, my assassin,” Moloch commanded.
Ezekiah attempted to scan the scenes depicted upon the walls in hopes of discerning some information about the vision.
The hooded figure walked toward the scaly beak of the dragon and then bowed. “What is your bidding, my lord?”
This was the voice of a woman, though Ezekiah did not recognize her. She was definitely a wraith dancer though. Of that much he could easily be certain.
Moloch’s voice rumbled throughout the chamber walls. “You must destroy the regent once he has the sword,” the dragon said. “Haven beyond the sea holds the key. Do not strike him down before he has the sword. Is that understood?”
“Clearly, my lord,” she answered. “What of the death walkers, my lord?”
“The faithful in every patron city have been converted,” Moloch reported. “The death walkers will destroy all that they encounter, leaving you free to pursue the regent. He will be protected so that he may receive the sword from Elithias. Then you must strike him down.”
“And the rebels led by Varen?”
“By the time they manage to take the mines, the death walkers will already be upon them. Varen and his rebels shall not escape the ravenous hordes that come for them.”
Ezekiah listened intently, but he couldn’t be sure of the references that Moloch mentioned. He could not recall any regent serving within the kingdom at the moment. But, whoever he was, the dragons wanted him dead. That was enough of a reason to assume this regent might be a valuable ally. In that moment, Ezekiah
knew what he must do.
The prophet drew an arrow from his quiver, nocked it to his bow and fired. The hooded figure whirled around at the sound, though it was barely perceptible. The wooden shaft cut through the air, striking Moloch’s great yellow eye. The dragon howled with fury; the wound causing him to slam his massive head into the rock walls around him.
Instinctively, Moloch opened his mouth to attack. The priests pointed at the walkway, crying out as they drew swords from their sides, preparing to pursue. Only the cloaked assassin was quick enough to escape. She vanished into thin air just before the acid erupted from glands within the dragon’s mouth.
Moloch sprayed the entire chamber below, bathing his helpless priests in toxic fluid that instantly began to dissolve their tissues and bone. Their screeching cries became gurgling moans as their bodies melted like wax. Ezekiah ducked behind the wall as acid cascaded across the stone, sizzling briefly as the residue evaporated.
Donavan retreated back down the corridor, calling to Ezekiah to follow. “Come on, there’s no way you can get in there now!”
Ezekiah started to run, but the hooded assassin appeared next to him, striking him across the jaw. He stumbled, but recovered in time to face his attacker. Her identity was still hidden, but a dagger flashed in her hand ready to plunge it into his heart. Then, unexpectedly, she relented, as though she had not realized who he was.
An arrow divided between the prophet and the assassin as Donavan tried to kill Ezekiah’s attacker. She turned, her cloak billowing around her as Donavan released another shaft down the corridor. The assassin vanished again leaving the arrow no target. Ezekiah blinked, wondering if what he had just witnessed was real. He had never seen a wraith dancer perform such a feat.
Moloch’s fury only increased in the chamber below. The dragon thrashed wildly against the structure of the building, causing blocks of stone to fall around them. Ezekiah ran down the corridor after Donavan, wondering why he had attacked the dragon the way that he had. He had sabotaged his own attempt at examining the chamber from his vision.
They ran the stairs toward the sanctuary of Moloch’s temple, coming out behind the altar of sacrifice as huge shards of obsidian splintered and crashed to the floor around them. Stained glass shattered high up, cascading down into the sanctuary as Ezekiah and Donavan ran through, trying to reach the doors. The dragon wailed below them, continuing, in his rage, to destroy his own temple.
Ezekiah and Donavan charged through the double doors as the supporting pillars of the temple gave way to the dragon’s continued madness. The sanctuary filled with stone and glass. “Don’t stop! Keep running!” Ezekiah warned.
Behind them, the gigantic spires rising from the top of the temple crumbled and fell. A horrendous explosion of obsidian showered the entire courtyard and beyond with razor sharp fragments. Ezekiah and Donavan managed to escape destruction, but they would spend another hour picking slivers of black stone out of their clothes and skin.
The dragon moaned beneath the rubble behind them. It would take some time before he freed himself. And still there remained an assassin commissioned by the Serpent King to kill a regent in a place called Haven neither of them had heard of.
MINES
Varen waited impatiently for the locomotive to reach the ancient platform near the mines of Urtah, his former home so many years ago. Hundreds of years earlier the tracks had still been in use, according to his late mother. The trains had been salvaged from the old world early on in order to make runs from the mines. However, all of that changed as the power of the dragons spread and the mines became theirs.
By and by, they had sought to do away with all manner of ancient technologies in order to better control the people. Now, the only places to find such items were the black markets which ran in most of the patron cities underground, or rusting away in mechanical graveyards within the ruins of the old world.
Jillian stood behind him, looking on over his shoulder, caressing the back of his neck to calm him. This was one of Varen’s longtime dreams; to come back to these oppressive mines and free his people from the servants of the Serpent Kings. His hand squeezed the pommel of his sword until it ached.
“Soon, my love,” Jillian cooed.
Varen sighed, closing his eyes, relishing the moment that would be his. His father and mother had passed away in the mines while he was still young. Starvation and breathing problems had brought them down to walking skeletons before they died.
Varen remembered the indifference of the guards as his parents’ bodies were dragged away by him and his brothers. They had not been allowed to bury them. While the guards laughed, he and his brothers had been forced to hurl their bodies over a cliff. Many skeletons had been waiting at the bottom of the gorge; their bones bleached white by the sun.
There had been no time for mourning. He remembered the crack of the whip as he cried, looking down into the gorge after them. “Back to work, you mangy curs!” one of the guards had said. “Don’t cry. You’ll join them soon enough.”
But he had survived. The youngest had seen his two older brothers go before him. One had been killed in a cave-in. The other had tried to kill a guard and escape. He was too weak to succeed. Instead, Varen had been forced to watch as his brother was beheaded. Years passed after that with only the monotonous grind of digging in the mines from dawn till dusk.
Only when Ezekiah came with his soldiers did he finally know freedom. In the back of his mind, Varen still had some affection for the prophet, if for no other reason than his freedom. Ezekiah had made this moment possible for him, even if he didn’t see any other reason to like him.
Though he hadn’t voiced it, Varen had been somewhat saddened by the man’s death inside of Mount Doom. He still wasn’t sure what had gone wrong. Ezekiah was meant to plant the explosives under the threat of death for the wraith dancer and the boy and then return to claim them while Varen detonated the charges. But the explosives had detonated ahead of his schedule. In the end of the matter, Varen had chalked the accident up to the will of Elithias; if he even existed. He felt Ezekiah would have looked at it that way, at any rate.
The failure of his coup in Babale still burned within his mind. He had underestimated the dragons’ fury. He had initially seen victory when they attacked the dragons. But the explosives blowing up within Mount Doom had driven the creatures mad. The Serpent Kings had not even spared their faithful followers during their berserk rampage through the city.
No matter. He and his soldiers would regroup and get ready to fight another day. In minutes he would free the slaves in the mines and add them to his ranks. Once they were nourished back to health, they would begin training for their next attack on the dragons.
Varen had expected to find the second train already here, or close by, since he had diverted an entire day to load more weapons and provisions. However, there was no sign of them. Perhaps they had been delayed, but without some form of communication there was no way to know.
The train slowed as Arthur, the old engineer he had captured, brought the train alongside the ancient depot landing. They would disembark here and still have a half a mile hike in order to reach the mines. Jillian went to the door of their passenger car and was off the train before it even stopped. Varen followed after her, waiting on the landing while she went ahead to be sure that no guards were posted.
If they happened to have heard the locomotive’s approach in the main camp, it would still take them a little time to hike out to the platform to investigate. They wouldn’t expect an army to be waiting for them. Varen motioned his men out of their boxcars.
His soldiers, nearly two hundred in all, assembled themselves in a relatively orderly fashion and prepared their weapons for the pending assault on the mining camp. In the meantime, Jillian swept through the platform gates and beyond, finding no posted guards to reckon with. She returned within moments as Varen readied his troops. They were well rested from their cross-country ride and well fed from previously stored provisions.
“Do you mean to wait for the other train to arrive?” Jillian asked.
“They’ll just have to mop up the mess we make,” Varen said. “We’ve no way of knowing when they will arrive, and I have no intention of delaying this any further. The men are ready, and so am I.”
Jillian smiled and then kissed him passionately as they stood upon the platform. The men looked on; many of them wishing for a woman to kiss them as well, though none would have ever voiced that opinion in Jillian’s presence. Each and every one of them rightly feared her. The fact that Varen had managed to tame such a creature only made them respect his power and authority more.
When she withdrew, Varen turned to his men. He was smiling inside, but he presented only a stony face to his soldiers. “We will sweep into the camp, unnoticed if possible. I want snipers to take up places on the ridge as we approach. Guards should only be armed with melee weapons; no firearms. The rest of us will take them head-on.”
Varen paused to set his gaze upon them for a moment before continuing. “Let me be very clear,” he said. “No slave is to be killed in this raid. We are here to liberate the workers, not murder them. These are my people. If one of them should die by any of your hands, I will devise the most painful means I can think of to end your life. Am I clear on this?”
The entire assembly, following a collective swallow, replied, “Yes, sir!”
Varen turned to Jillian to find her admiring him. He was wearing light armor, carrying a broadsword across his back, one machine gun slung over his shoulder with extra ammunition clips, and a pistol holstered on each leg. “Let’s go,” he said, stepping past Jillian.
She fell in line behind him, keeping pace with him easily. She wore no armor, only her tunic. However, on her person she carried various weapons as well as two fighting knives with blades as long as her arm. Jillian still refused to use any of Varen’s guns. The ways of the wraith dancer were still her ways. She still enjoyed the up close and personal methods of combat best. The entire assembly of soldiers followed after them, single file, running down the winding, narrow trail through the rocky hills surrounding the mines.
