“Not if you die first,” Seth said, dropping his hold on the rope and pulling his sword from its sheath. Seth landed like a cat and parried two quick blows from the guild master and then lunged, just missing the other man’s neck.
Alyssa nocked another arrow and released it at one of her own Balarian soldiers who had come to Makor’s aid and was about to strike Seth from the rear. The man fell dead instantly, arrow in his neck.
“Madalena, kill the beast now!” Orwell roared, pulling his sword from the body of one of the Balarian officers who had tried to kill the justiciar.
Arwell had pulled his own sword and moved to protect Orwell’s back. “There are too many of them,” he said to his Ulathan colleague as a wave of attackers flooded into the main hall dressed in leather armor and wielding wicked-looking short swords.
“Have faith, my good friend. Help is on the way,” Orwell said, moving to protect Diamedes from a spear thrust by yet another Balarian soldier.
“Help?” Arwell said, moving his back to Orwell’s and parrying thrusts from two leather-clad thieves.
Orwell yelled over the din of battle. “Now would be a good time, Master Seth.”
Seth swung his sword at Makor’s neck, barely missing as he responded, “Not up to me now, Judge.” Seth took two steps back and looked behind him quickly at where Caesar had ran. “You heard our guest, Master Caesar, get that door open.”
As on cue, a stream of armed Ulathans appeared in the great hall coming from the side door that the assassin administrator had opened. They immediately engaged the Balarian cutthroats and countered the rush of troops and men by the thieves’ guild, equalizing the battlefield.
“Now, Madalena,” Orwell screamed above the clashing steel of the raging battle around them as it echoed off the tall walls of the great hall.
Madalena finished dispatching another Balarian who got in her way and mounted the dais by the large stone that had pinned the dragon’s snout to the floor. Alina, the dragon, blinked her massive eyelids as she saw the holy warrior woman raise her mighty sword above the dragon’s head for a killing blow. Seeing her fate in the human’s eyes, the dragon snorted and exhaled sharply, using her breath weapon despite her jaws being shut. The results were spectacular.
Rock, dragon scales, and a tooth or two shot out in a shattering of fragments from the dragon’s mouth, and Madalena flew back off the dais, landing ten feet behind her and on her back. The beast roared in pain and reared its head above the hall floor, shaking it violently, spewing icky purple dragon blood in all directions. Soldiers, thieves, assassins, and guests all scrambled to get out of the way as the dragon started to move, crossing the hall floor quickly toward Alyssa.
One last arrow was all that Alyssa could release before the dragon reached her, and Alyssa pulled her small sword, holding it out in front of her. The effort was futile as the dragon grabbed the small Balarian thief into one of its large claws and closed it tightly. Blood came from Alyssa’s mouth as she struggled to breathe, her torso being crushed in the mighty grip of the dragon.
“No!” Seth yelled, taking one last swing at Makor before pulling a dagger from his baldric and hurling it at the newly minted guild master. The Balarian’s reign in ruling the large thieves’ guild was short indeed as Seth’s dagger plunged into the man’s skull between his eyes, and slowly the newest member of Balaria’s triuverate fell backward, landing with a lifeless thud.
The effect on the morale of the troops and cutthroats of the guild was immediate as many dropped their weapons and fled the great hall. The battle for Balax was over. The battle with the third blue remained. Seth ran toward the dragon and Alyssa, stopping only when Orwell and Arwell grabbed him by his tunic and held him back. Madalena stood, shaken but determined as she also approached the dragon, now pinned against the back wall by the mass of armed humans in front of her.
“Are you there, Alina?” Seth asked.
A slow trickle of blood came from the dragon’s maw, followed by words, “I’m here, human. You killed my sisters, and now I will kill you.”
The dragon’s speech was slurred as its jaw seemed to be dislocated, and a long fang hung from its upper mouth, threatening to fall out. It squeezed slightly, and Alyssa started to turn blue, asphyxiation starting to take effect as the petite woman could not exercise her diaphragm in order to inhale and exhale. Seth had scant time to think or act.
“My life for her life,” Seth said, pointing to Alyssa and nodding his head.
Alyssa’s eyes got wider, if that was even possible, and her look said no even though she couldn’t speak.
“Not a good idea, Master Seth,” Orwell said, loosening his grip on the assassin.
“Yes . . .” the dragon said, easing its grip for a moment and lowering its head at Seth.
“I have a better deal,” Diamedes said, stepping forward and in front of the others to face Alina the dragon directly. “I know not only where Elos lies,” Diamedes started, “but I also know the location of your queen’s fiery lair, far to the north. Would you kill this man and then have us kill you or will you depart and warn your mistress? You decide and do it now.”
The dragon’s eyes gazed intently on the small historian, and the room fell silent. For a moment, it appeared that the beast would reengage and die fighting, taking many if not most of the human survivors with it into death. Slowly, however, it moved across the hall, and Orwell motioned for everyone to clear it a path to the main doors that exited onto the courtyard.
“Well?” Diamedes asked. “What will it be? Will you go and warn her of our plans or will you stay and fight?”
The dragon backed against the main doors and stood motionless for a moment, Alyssa still firmly held in her massive claw, starting to black out from lack of air before Alina the dragon spoke one last time. “You will all pay for this . . . humans. She will learn of your wickedness and she will make you pay. You will all burn.”
In an instant, the dragon released Alyssa onto the floor and burst through the main doors of the great hall, knocking both of them off their hinges. With a slap of her massive tail, she sent rock chips and dust flying from the stone arch of the doorway and fled toward the cliff face of the courtyard.
Seth ran to Alyssa and held her while the others ran after the dragon to watch it leap from the courtyard and fly off into the night sky, disappearing far to the north.
The large group met in the courtyard and nodded to one another. Balarians and Ulathans stood across from one another, armed but calm as their leaders met for the last time.
“So what will Balaria do?” Orwell asked, addressing Seth, Alyssa, and Caesar.
“We will reorganize and rebuild what we must,” Caesar said. “And I can assure you we will no longer host any further meetings or conclaves for any other realm.”
A few chuckled, but Orwell was serious again. “I don’t know how the Kesh will take the news of what happened to their representatives here in Balaria. Are you sure you want to inform them yourselves? Duke Uthor will send a messenger to Keshtor if necessary.”
“No,” Seth began. “We will finish our duty and honor the relationship we have with our mainland neighbor. It is our duty to convey the events to the Kesh as they happened and we will do that shortly. I, on the other hand, would like to know how the royal historian came to learn of these creatures and their homelands. That was a master stroke of strategy that your historian performed in there, and I am grateful for his assistance.”
All eyes turned to Diamedes as he shifted the weight from one foot to another, looking rather bashful. “I, uh . . .”
“Come on now, old friend, don’t keep us in the dark like this,” Orwell said kindly.
“Well,” Diamedes began, “I did learn of the word Elos from the ancient tomes of Tyniria, but linking it to the ancestral homelands of the blue dragons was . . . well, it was a guess, nothing more.”
“You mean to say that all that posturing in front of that dragon was based on a guess?” Caesar said, a tone exu
ding astonishment evident in his voice.
“Yeah, that was risking our lives, if you didn’t know,” Alyssa stated, rubbing her arms, which still hurt from the bruising they took.
“And the ancestral location of their queen? Do they have a queen?” Madalena asked from her position behind Justiciar Orwell.
“Another guess, both on the queen and her lair,” Diamedes said, shrugging and looking down at the flat rock tiles of the courtyard.
Orwell laughed out loud, and Seth smiled. “That was one mighty bluff, my old friend,” Orwell said, patting the smaller, older man on his shoulder.
“Well, I couldn’t let our hosts die, at least not one of them while in the presence of the other, not after the affection they showed for one another,” Diamedes said, and Alyssa blushed and looked down.
“That obvious, eh?” Seth asked.
“Oh, you two got it bad,” Diamedes said, his tone serious despite eliciting a few chuckles.
“I still don’t understand how we got it so wrong,” Madalena said. “Three dragons and not two?”
“They weren’t twins but rather triplets.” Diamedes changed gears, looking around and coming back into his element where history, fact, and information were his bread and butter, so to speak. “I am certain there is much we don’t know about them, and we have much to learn but little time in which to do so.”
“I can’t agree with you more,” Seth said, and everyone nodded.
“What now?” Alyssa asked, looking at Seth.
Seth put his arm around her and looked to Orwell. “Justiciar?”
Orwell looked around the group and sighed. “Now we go to finish this dragon war.”
Epilogue
Summons
The rock pile on top of the Akun altar in the holy room of the temple was stacked high, and a couple of rocks had fallen onto the floor below. The burial had been simple and in accordance with their customs. Krom lay in the same room where he had died defending his faith.
Far away, a black heart beat inside the massive, mighty chest of a black dragon, a wicked creature that had an unnatural power over death. Further away, the death planet, Dor Akun, continued its inexorable journey toward Claire Agon, and the closer it approached, the more massive its influence became upon the smaller blue-green world.
When the call could no longer be denied, the piles of rock began to shift as they slowly fell to the floor from the movement underneath. The body of Krom, High Cleric to Akun, was being called from the abyss to serve the black queen. She was in need, and the dead cleric could not ignore her call.
Soundlessly the body of Krom set its feet upon the floor and stood from the altar, moving to a far wall to silently secure an axe and a mace from the weapon’s stanchion located there. Then, with lifeless eyes, it moved with purpose and began its long journey to serve its new master, a mistress who went by the name of Qui Amatha.
Sometimes, dead was better.
Continue the Adventure, Read:
The Green Dragon: A Claire-Agon Dragon Book 3
Now.
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About the Author
Salvador Mercer loves to read. Having read the works from Tolkien, McCaffrey, Donaldson, Asimov, Burroughs, Crichton, and many others, the desire to write took over the once sane man and now he finds himself immersed in telling tall tales and intricate fables from this world, and across the stars to many others.
His stories are inspired by past author greats, but written and moved forward by Mercer who sincerely hopes that the stories delight and entertain the reader. He invites you to enter the worlds and realms of his books, and hopes you share with him your experiences there.
Salvador Mercer is fluent in English, Russian and Spanish, having served in the US Army, 750th Military Intelligence Brigade as a Russian Voice Intercept Operator, works in the field of Public Transit, loves languages, history, reading, boating, traveling, and science. He lives in Ohio with his three boys, a baby (elf), toddler (hobbit), teenager (orc), and wife, Masha.
Appendix A
The “Science” of Claire Agon
Claire Agon is the second planet orbiting Tau Ceti, located just less than twelve light years from our own planet Earth. It circles its star in the habitable zone, just over two-thirds of one AU, or astronomical unit, which is the distance of Earth from the sun. This places it in orbit about the same distance around Tau Ceti as Venus is to Sol. It has an atmosphere similar to Earth’s, but it is different in composition, because the inhabitants of Claire Agon are silicon-based life forms, not carbon-based as on our planet.
Claire Agon has two companion moons about half the size of Earth’s moon, but circling the planet much closer, four times closer, in fact. The two moons are tidally locked to Claire Agon, each showing the same face to the planet. The two moons in the common tongue are called Tira and Sara, in that order. Tira rises first, followed a few hours later by Sara. Both moons are named for Claire Agon’s daughters in Agonian mythos. Lunar eclipses are not uncommon due to the close orbits of the two moons to the planet, and a full lunar cycle occurs approximately every nine days. Both moons are much like small Agonian worlds, and their blue, green, and white cloud-tipped atmospheres can clearly be seen from the surface of Agon.
Claire Agon, or simply Agon in the common tongue, isn’t the only planet circling Tau Ceti. Recently on Earth, astronomers have detected up to five planets circling the class G star, which is similar in type to our own Sol, but it masses only four-fifths that of our own sun. The astronomers are almost correct insomuch as the system actually has six planets. One planet, however, they could not have imagined; it circles Tau Ceti in an elliptical and eccentric orbit, tilted at thirty degrees above the solar plane. That planet is the size of our own Neptune, but instead of being a gaseous planet, it is a rocky planet, with a huge mass relative to Earth and an atmosphere and magnetosphere in a class unto itself. Agonians call this planet “Dor Akun,” or “Death World,” though the term “Father of Death” is also used, depending on the culture.
Dor Akun orbits Tau Ceti once every two hundred years, and when it approaches perihelion, or its closest approach to the star, it actually comes within the orbit of Claire Agon. In addition to this, Claire Agon is also pulled by the gravitational force of Dor Akun, to the point that it, too, reaches perihelion and does so at the same time as its bigger mate, Dor Akun. During this time Dor Akun is a mere million miles from Claire Agon, and it reaches perihelion exactly on the solar plane where Agon orbits Tau Ceti, thus eclipsing Agon as i
t transits from perihelion and begins its slow, arduous journey up and back to its aphelion, to begin the cycle all over again.
The eclipse lasts an entire Agonian month, and its tidal forces pull mercilessly on the smaller Agon, flexing its crust and creating huge tides and displacements of waters both great and small. Agon is cast into a cold, dark, month-long isolation, suffering immense damage to life there.
Fortunately for those who live on Agon, the event occurs only once every two hundred orbits of Agon and once every orbit of Dor Akun. Where the two planets actually cross orbits, the larger planet, Dor Akun, is inclined by several million miles, and so the paths of the two planets never cross.
Some Earth-based scientists, if they could witness the odd but regular orbits of Agon and Akun, might conclude that the event will eventually decay the Agonian orbit to the point where it either degrades into Tau Ceti, in a spectacular but deadly spectacle of death, or, more likely, on one pass, it will be captured by Dor Akun and her orbit will take her into the deeper regions of Tau Ceti space, where it is cold and dark and eventually even silicon-based life would freeze to death.
This, however, isn’t the only thing that occurs during the transit event. On Earth, we are protected from radioactive particles by its magnetosphere. In Agon the sphere is weaker and charged particles rain down from Tau Ceti yearly, but during the transit event the great magnetosphere of Dor Akun acts much like a wing does on a modern-day airplane as it slices through the air; it funnels a steady stream of highly charged particles from the local star around itself and onto the surface of Claire Agon every two centuries. The phenomenon causes mutations in the silicon-based life forms of Claire Agon, and so evolution there takes place at a much more rapid pace than it does on Earth.
The Blue Dragon: A Claire-Agon Dragon Book (Dragon Series 2) Page 21
