Cloak & Dagger: Book II of The Dragon Mage Trilogy

by Carey Scheppner

  “That means it’s fresh,” said the elf. He eagerly took a few big gulps of the fresh water. “Ahh, that’s good,” he said, refilling his wineskin a second time.

  While he was thus occupied, Rebecca reorganized the contents of her pack. The talisman’s vibrating was becoming annoying due to the fact that Alric had magical items in his possession, so it was moved to the bottom out of the way. The dagger was repositioned in the side pouch for easier access.

  Satisfied, they moved on. The footing along here was slick at times and both of them slipped and stumbled along as best they could. Finally they encountered a tunnel on their left that led up from the water’s edge.

  Rebecca hesitated. “Should we investigate?” She nodded in the direction of the tunnel.

  Alric stopped to examine the ground. He appeared to be peering at something.

  “What is it?” asked Rebecca.

  Alric picked up an object and held it closer to Rebecca’s torch light. He rotated it in his fingers. “It appears to be the tip of a claw. The slender shape is consistent with the claw of a lizardman.”

  Rebecca became excited. “Really? Then maybe this tunnel leads to a lizardman lair!”

  Alric shrugged and cast the claw aside. “It’s possible. I guess we’d better check it out.”

  Rebecca smiled and led the way, making sure to hide her grin. The elf had said ‘we’. That meant that he no longer objected to her presence. Either that, or he knew she would come along anyway and there was no point arguing about it.

  A good half hour of exploring revealed nothing and they were about to turn back, when Alric stopped suddenly and raised his hand. Rebecca, who had chosen to let Alric take point a little way back, almost ran into him.

  “Wha-?” Rebecca started to speak out but Alric shook his hand furiously for silence.

  “Shhh!” he whispered. “I heard something.”

  Rebecca strained her ears. After a moment, she heard a distant shuffling noise ahead of them.

  “Someone’s coming!” whispered Alric. He looked back at Rebecca. “Let’s go back to that last intersection. We might be able to avoid a confrontation.”

  Rebecca nodded and turned to lead the way back. They rounded one bend in the tunnel, but that proved to be futile. Coming toward them was a group of orcs.

  Alric swore and looked behind them. The shuffling noise they had heard earlier was almost upon them and the tunnel began to flicker with the reflection of torchlight. “We’ll have to make a stand here,” grumbled the elf. He pulled his dagger from his robe pocket.

  Rebecca drew her axe and looked at Alric’s dagger. “Is that all you -?” she began. Her words trailed off as Alric chanted a spell. With a small flash of light, his dagger grew into a long sword. Rebecca’s eyes widened. “That’s a clever trick!”

  “It’s magic,” said Alric.

  Rebecca knew it was. She could feel her talisman vibrating right through her pack.

  Alric positioned himself with his back to the dwarf and braced himself to face the creatures making the shuffling noise. He could see them now and immediately recognized them as orcs. The shuffling noise was made by an injured orc that was dragging its leg.

  Rebecca was already facing her opponents as well. They had slowed and were approaching the duo cautiously. They were looking at Rebecca’s waist and licked their lips anxiously.

  “Water!” murmured one orc, trying to edge past his friends. He was somewhat smaller than the others and they roughly pushed him back behind them. “Hey!” he cried, obviously disappointed.

  “You’ll get your share,” growled the orc with the torch.

  Rebecca threw down her torch and it went out. With the axe in one hand and her other hand now free, she withdrew her magical dagger.

  The orcs slowed but continued to advance.

  Alric’s opponents weren’t as cautious. They drooled and pointed at him, shambling forward eagerly.

  The two groups of orcs struck at roughly the same time. Alric grunted as he withstood a vicious blow from an orc’s club, his sword biting into the rough wood. With a powerful thrust, he threw the orc back into his friends, freeing his sword at the same time.

  Behind him, an orc swung his club at the dwarf’s head. Instinctively, Rebecca ducked the blow, realizing almost too late that she was not protecting the taller elf at her back. Not a second too soon, she thrust her axe upward against the club with such vehemence that the club was redirected hard against the tunnel ceiling. The vibration of the club, along with the unorthodox battle tactic, caused the orc to drop his weapon. Another club came in low to Rebecca’s right and she only had time to twist her dagger hand. The club struck the tip of the knife and a small flash occurred. Any life within the club was burned out of it and the remainder crumbled in the orc’s hand.

  The orcs facing Rebecca stumbled back into their buddies looking confused and helpless without their weapons.

  Meanwhile, Alric had already slain two orcs with some straight thrusts and had a moment’s respite to glance behind him.

  “How’s it goin’?” he asked.

  “Everything’s under control,” answered Rebecca.

  The sound of steel against steel told her that the battle behind her had commenced. Seizing the moment, Rebecca lunged at the orcs and swung her axe deep into one’s shoulder while her dagger found the abdomen of the other. The now familiar flash of light signaled the death of one orc. A scream was its final act as it dropped to the floor. The other one winced as green blood oozed from its severed limb. It wobbled uncertainly before sagging to the floor, unconscious. The orcs behind them were preparing to step in to do battle, but the bright flash had impaired their vision. One stumbled over its dead companion and fell flat on its face. Rebecca chopped its head off with a single one-armed blow from her axe and stepped back to brace for the next assault.

  Alric sliced the head off of the orc armed with a sword, his agility giving him the edge in that battle. Unfortunately, this gave another orc an opening. It struck Alric in the leg with its club and the elf went down with a yelp. Fortunately for Alric, he was already moving in the same direction as the blow so it didn’t do any serious damage. Nimbly rolling to his feet, the elf made a couple of quick moves with his sword and dispatched the offender before it could cause any more harm.

  Rebecca was now facing a terrifying orc armed with a meat cleaver. The orc was the largest and ugliest she had encountered thus far. With a vicious downward thrust, the orc tried to chop the dwarf like a log being prepared for kindling. Rebecca tried to block the attack with her axe but could not hinder the heavy blow. Falling to her back, she rolled out of the way as the weapons clashed to the floor beside her head. Letting go of her axe, she rolled up to the orc and stabbed it in the leg with her dagger. The orc was already off balance, and the searing pain in its leg was enough to fell the giant. In the blinding flash, Rebecca rolled out of the way, while Alric turned back to stab the creature as it fell.

  When Alric saw that Rebecca was O.K., he turned to find that his remaining adversary was fleeing. It was the limping orc. Wasting no time, he sprinted after it and finished it off with a couple of quick stabs.

  Rebecca rolled to her feet and faced her last opponent. It was the small orc. Somehow it had ended up with the torch. It trembled as it faced the fierce looking dwarf. Sizing up the situation properly, its voice quavered in some unknown gibberish as it dropped the torch, turned, and fled back the way it had come.

  Rebecca was out of breath and knew it was pointless to try to follow. She turned and saw the elf approaching with a slight limp. His form looked somewhat eerie in the flickering light of the torch the orc had dropped.

  “My side is secured,” said the elf.

  Rebecca nodded. “My way is clear. Only one got away.”

  The elf sat down and winced, rubbing his bruised leg. “I think we should rest for a few minutes.”

  “What happened?” asked Rebecca, indicating Alric’s leg.

  Alric told her,
and when she offered to examine it he waved her off. “It’s nothing.”

  Rebecca sighed but knew better than to argue. She stood up and made sure the unconscious orc was dead. Then she checked the bodies for anything useful but found nothing of interest.

  “They wanted something,” mused Alric as the dwarf returned to his location.

  “They mentioned water,” said Rebecca. “They seemed to be looking at my wineskin too.”

  “Maybe they thought you had dwarven ale,” suggested Alric.

  “That’s ridiculous,” retorted Rebecca. “I don’t carry that kind of thing on a journey.”

  “Orcs like dwarven ale,” stated Alric. “You’re a dwarf.”

  “True,” admitted Rebecca finally. “But they did mention water.”

  “That’s what boggles me,” said Alric. “Why would they kill for water?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “If water was hard to come by, why don’t they go to the river and obtain it there?”

  “Maybe it’s not drinkable,” suggested the elf.

  “But we filled our wineskins with it and even drank some of it!” said the dwarf. “It seemed like good water to me.”

  Alric shook his head. “We filled our skins with water from the spring that ran into the river. We didn’t use the river’s water. I thought I smelled a strange odour from the river. Maybe it isn’t drinkable.”

  Rebecca had also noticed the strange odour. The elf could be right. “I guess we’d better ration our water from here on in. It could mean the difference between life and death.”

  “Agreed,” said the elf. He rose to his feet. “Ready to go?”

  The dwarf hopped to her feet and picked up their extinguished torch. She took it over to the still burning torch from the orcs and relit hers. Then she stomped out the orc’s torch and kicked it aside. “Let’s go.”

  As they left the battlefield behind, the elf commented, “You fought well.”

  Rebecca was surprised at the elf’s comment but did not show it. “Thanks. You’re pretty good with that sword.” She noticed at that instant that the elf had already returned his sword into dagger form.

  The elf did not respond and Rebecca respected his silence. She knew now that Alric had accepted her presence and she was not about to jeopardize that with pointless babble.

  Chapter 13

  Many hours had passed and Vera was beginning to become fatigued. Her quest to find Cyril was more difficult than she had imagined. There were numerous tunnels that the cyclops could have gone down and it was entirely possible that she had missed the right path. Furthermore, she had to be careful not to become lost. The paths she had taken thus far were becoming difficult to remember. She made sure to mark intersections by making scratches in the walls in case she wanted to leave the mountains. The cleric narrowed down her search to the tunnels that seemed more heavily traveled because the others were too dusty and cobwebbed to have been used recently. Cyril was large in stature, so the smaller tunnels were definitely out of the question. That left the larger tunnels and main branches. Even using these tactics, Vera was beginning to lose hope. The only things that kept her hopes up were scuff marks and signs of recent disturbance in the sometimes soft soil on the tunnel floor.

  But now the cleric was in need of some much needed rest. She hadn’t slept for a day and a half now and her body ached from the climb up the mountain. Her lit staff indicated some low alcoves ahead where she could crawl in away from the main tunnel. It was off to the side at an odd angle and she was fairly certain it would hide her from view should any undesirable travelers come along. It was also deep, so she could crawl well out of visible range should anyone actually look in that direction. The dirt and cold of the ground was a far cry from a soft, clean bed in the Tower of Hope, but it would have to do. She laid out her blanket so her clothes could remain as clean as possible and laid down. Sorting through her pack, she withdrew some compressed rations and ate a sizeable portion. Then she took a small drink from her wineskin and put it safely into her pack. With dinner completed, she canceled her spell on her staff and her alcove became dark. Then she curled up on her blanket and fell asleep.

  She didn’t know how long she had been sleeping when she awoke with a start. Something furry had crawled into her blanket and was rubbing her leg. With a cry, she shook herself free of the blanket and found her staff on the ground nearby. Chanting an incantation, she lit the staff and caught sight of a furry creature as it fled from her alcove. It was a mouse.

  Composing herself, Vera gathered her belongings and stuffed them in her pack. She was fully awake now and decided to move on. Hoping that she hadn’t fallen too far behind the cyclops, Vera hastily crawled from her resting place and proceeded to follow the tunnel at a brisk pace. She didn’t go very far before she heard a muffled sound ahead. It sounded like something large was shuffling along. Her heart jumped to her throat. Could it be Cyril? She hoped so. A side passageway appeared to her right and that’s where the sound had originated. She entered and walked around a gradual corner. The shuffling sound was nearer now. Vera’s heart pounded. Shakily, she attempted a loud whisper. “Cyril?”

  The sound stopped. Vera braced herself, hoping that it was Cyril and not something entirely different. The shuffling continued and became louder still.

  Holding her staff high, Vera fingered a small dagger at her side in a belt holster. Whatever was there was getting closer. “Cyril?” repeated Vera, louder this time. If it was Cyril, he would answer.

  The shuffling sound paused but still there was no answer. Now Vera was afraid. She turned and started to run back to the main tunnel. The shuffling sound was right behind her. Whatever it was, it was now running after her.

  Vera was a fast runner, yet whatever was behind her seemed to be keeping up. She began to panic. There were all manner of creatures in the mountains and she could be in grave danger. She was foolish to have entered the mountains alone. She wondered what had possessed her to go after Cyril in the first place.

  Her thoughts changed when she stumbled over some uneven ground. Right now she had to get away. She looked behind her before entering the main tunnel, half expecting to see a gruesome creature in pursuit. Only flickering shadows from her staff light were visible. Breaking free of the side tunnel, Vera turned to go back the way she had come, but the way was blocked by a massive creature. Her momentum prevented her from stopping in time, and she flew headlong into the creature’s arms. The creature instinctively embraced her while she instinctively let out a blood curdling scream.

  Vera fought like a demon to escape the grip of the creature, and to her surprise, she succeeded. Spinning away, she turned and stopped dead in her tracks. The way was blocked by the creature that had chased her. It was an ogre. Its eyes were a pale shade of yellow, and it had a messy mat of black hair. Its head was shaped like a Neanderthal, and its arms hung like a gorilla’s, with long hair under the armpits. The entire body was covered in dark brown hair, and the stench of its unclean body filled the air. Yellow teeth grinned at her and spittle drooled from its mouth. Looking up, it suddenly saw the other creature behind Vera. Its jaw started to open in surprise and it froze on the spot. Vera spun to see what it was staring at and froze herself.

  Cyril was the first to recover from his look of astonishment. “V-Vera?” he stammered. “What are you doing here?”

  Of course there was no answer. The others were both paralyzed. Cyril shook his head in bewilderment. He stepped forward and gently picked up the prone figure of the cleric, hoisting her over his shoulder. Deftly stepping past the ogre, he strode purposefully down the tunnel until he came to a fork. He chose the left one and walked a short distance before entering a conglomeration of bisecting caverns. Winding his way through several of these, Cyril found a smaller tunnel that appeared to have been abandoned for an extended time. Entering this tunnel, he walked for a good half hour before he deemed it safe to stop and rest near a moon-shaped alcove.

  Gently putting the cleric down, the cyclops
surveyed his surroundings. The walls here were wet with dew and veins of some sorts of minerals ran in all directions.

  A moan signaled the awakening of the cleric from her paralysis. Cyril made sure to avoid his gaze as Vera regained consciousness.

  “Cyril!” exclaimed Vera suddenly. The fragile cleric sprang at the cyclops and embraced him. “I’ve found you at last!”

  “You were looking for me?” asked the cyclops. He tried to detach the cleric gently but she refused to budge.

  “Yes!” said Vera. “I couldn’t just let you run off like that! It wasn’t your fault that you paralyzed the head groundskeeper!”

  “Sure it was!” retorted Cyril. “He was my boss! I had no right to do that!”

  Vera finally let go of the cyclops to look at the side of his face. “He had no right to treat you like he did! I would have done far worse to him if I were you!”

  Cyril shook his head. “You don’t understand. Someone like me could never be allowed to roam in the human’s realm. I’m a freak!”

  “No, you’re not!” stated Vera resolutely. “Just because you only have one eye and accidentally paralyze people doesn’t mean you should be confined to a life of exile! You have a special gift!”

  “Gift? It’s a curse, not a gift!” snapped Cyril.

  Vera calmed her voice before continuing. “You can let it be whatever you want it to be, Cyril. If you want it to be a curse, then it’s a curse. But if you want it to be a gift, it can be a very useful gift.”

  “How?” asked Cyril. “Tell me how it can possibly be a gift!”

  “Look at what you just did,” said Vera. “You used your gift to save me from an ogre, and an ugly one at that. Your gift saved my life.”

  Cyril tilted his head in consideration. “I could have paralyzed you and not the ogre if the ogre didn’t look into my eye. You could have been hurt!”

  “Nonsense!” shot back Vera. “You would have protected me by force if necessary. I know you better than that.”

  Cyril grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess.”