The Legend of Drak'Noir

by Ploof, Michael James

  “Enough of this!” said the captain, and he produced a dagger that was quickly put to Sir Eldrick’s neck.

  The knight’s grin disappeared.

  Suddenly, Packy erupted from the shadows and flew into the captain’s face.

  “Now!” said Brannon, and he threw his seeds down into the dirt.

  Gibrig grabbed the water pouch and squirted the seeds as Murland bellowed his strange words of magic, and pure blinding sunlight lit up the cave. When the glare died away and Gibrig could once again see, he found the cave full of writhing vines. Sir Eldrick was free and being whisked away toward the back of the cave by Willow, and Murland had both bears in sight at the end of his wand. They stood with their hands up, eyeing the vines warily. Captain Ripps was being held aloft by a tangle of vines, and one slowly snaked up and wrapped around the pirate’s neck as Brannon strode forth.

  “How did you find us?” Brannon asked in a voice hard and demanding.

  Captain Ripps glanced down at his neck and grinned at Willow.

  “Is that…is that my finger?” she said, blanching a lighter shade of green.

  “You are not the only ones with a wizard,” said Ripps, and even as he said it, there came a blast of icy wind and snow from the mouth of the cave at his back.

  The vines were frozen solid, and a voice bellowed unnaturally loud, shattering the snaking appendages and leaving them to fall like crystals to the floor.

  “Come on!” Sir Eldrick yelled.

  Gibrig, who had been holding his shovel with white knuckles, jumped when he heard the command. Willow must have pushed the stone aside, for she and Sir Eldrick were now waiting beside the dark tunnel entrance, urging them all on.

  “Go!” cried Murland, and from his wand erupted a thick swath of flame.

  Brannon and Gibrig rushed into the tunnel as the mysterious wizard cried out with spell words of his own. Once they were inside, Gibrig looked back and saw Murland and a hooded figure locked in wizardly battle. Murland’s fire spell collided with the other wizard’s ice spell, which resulted in thick steam that quickly filled the cave, making it impossible to see.

  “Murland!” Gibrig yelled, and he was about to rush into the cave again, when a strong hand pulled him back.

  Sir Eldrick sped past him. He was unbound, and looked every part the knight in shining armor. “Cryst!” he bellowed, and the glowing sword flew through the mist and landed in his outstretched hand.

  Willow pulled Brannon and Gibrig back deeper into the tunnel, saying something about not getting in the way of battling wizards, when a mind-numbing explosion lit the haze like a thunderhead. Gibrig, Brannon, and Willow were blown back into the tunnel, and darkness swallowed them whole.

  Chapter 21

  The Lair of the Beast

  “You’ll never get away with this!” Caressa cried, shaking her shackles to get Kazimir’s attention. The wizard had been sitting at a desk opposite the group for the better part of two days, working on some sort of spell.

  Of course, Kazimir did not respond. Caressa knew that it was useless. She and the others had been encased in some sort of crystalline membrane that smelled faintly of copper and eggs, and she suspected that it was soundproof. Akitla had tried to use her innate ice magic abilities, but she couldn’t conjure the faintest bit of frost. Hagus had tested his bonds, raging against them for hours and sputtering curses all the while. In the end, it had been the entire group who had urged him to stop, for his voice echoed inside the small shield spell that acted as a secondary prison outside of their crystalline encasement.

  “Save your strength,” said Valkimir, who was stuck to the stone wall beside Caressa.

  He looked to be meditating, and Caressa wanted to strangle him.

  “How can you be so calm at a time like this?” she asked, struggling feebly against her encasement.

  “Would you rather I screamed and thrashed and did nothing useful but give others a headache?” he asked, peeking at her with one cocked eye.

  Caressa let out a sigh. “Then what is your plan?”

  “My plan is not to speak about my plan in a spell prison that surely grants the warden with the ability to hear our every word.”

  Kazimir glanced back and smirked at Valkimir.

  “Then you can hear us,” said Caressa, glaring at Kazimir, who had happily gotten back to his work. “Know this, you back-stabbing charlatan! Murland and the others will march to Bad Mountain, and you will pay for your treachery.”

  Kazimir’s shoulders began to jerk with laughter, and he waved her off. “Please, no more jokes. I am trying to work.”

  “You might think them fools, but they are not. They are champions, one and all,” said Caressa defiantly.

  “Yeah!” Dingleberry sang. “They’re champ-champs!”

  “I’ll tell you anything!” Wendel cried, trying to ignore Caressa’s glare. “Let me out of here and I’ll tell you anything you want to know!”

  “Well ain’t ye a brave one,” said Hagus, glowering.

  “Brave!” Wendel shrieked. “There are plenty of brave people, and they’re all dead!”

  “And ye already be dead, ye weasel!”

  “Say, Kazimir,” Wendel went on. “You want to know how much magic Murland knows?”

  “Shut up!” said the wizard, banging the table.

  “Let me out of here, and I’ll do anything. ANYTHING!”

  “Get ahold o’ yerself, ye blasted skeleton. Say a word ‘bout the champions and I’ll smash yer bones and feed ‘em to the ravens!”

  “Would you all mind shutting up?” said Kazimir. “Have you ever heard of someone’s captor letting them go just because the prisoners complained? Grow up!”

  Hoping for another angle, Caressa worked herself up and got her tears flowing. She began to sob, which caused Kazimir’s shoulders to slowly move up around his neck. After five minutes of her wailing, he slammed down whatever he had been working on and marched over to the spell shield. He spoke the words of magic and waved his hand, causing the buzzing wall of sparkling light to wink out. With another spoken phrase, he made the crystalline encasement holding Caressa disappear.

  Weak from inactivity, she fell to her hands and knees. Kazimir held out his hand, cocking a brow at her. “Well then, get up. I’ve decided to give you quarters more fitting a princess.”

  She took his old weathered hand and let herself be led out of the chamber, glancing over her shoulder at Valkimir, who gave her a hopeful nod.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she told him as he led her through a dark tunnel.

  He glanced back and scowled. “Do I look like I care about animalistic rutting? What an insult.”

  “Then where are you bringing me?”

  “Dear Caressa,” he said as he turned and led her up a stairway carved into the stone. “You are a princess after all, and I would rather not start a war with the King of Magestra. Lucky for you, you are too important to feed to Drak’Noir.”

  “Why don’t you just help them? We could all work together. Surely with your magic and the help of the rest of us, we can defeat Drak’Noir.”

  “Hah!” Kazimir burst with sudden laughter. “You do not understand, and neither do the other fools. Drak’Noir cannot be killed by any mortal. Her power is unsurpassed in Fallacetine, and with every year she grows stronger.”

  “But surely you cannot keep her at bay forever.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not.”

  They finally came to the top of the stairs, and Kazimir pushed aside a heavy wooden door. “These will be your quarters until this is all over with.”

  Caressa was surprised by the lavish room. Her eyes instantly went to the large bay window that overlooked the Backbone Mountain range. Bad Mountain was the tallest in the range, and so the view was unsurpassed. From here she could see for miles.

  “You will find everything you need here,” said Kazimir from the door. “Ring that bell there on the bed stand if you need anything, and one of my servants will see to your needs prom
ptly.” With that he turned out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  “Wait!” Caressa rushed to the door and tried the knob, but of course she found it locked. “Damn it!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. She didn’t know what she hoped to accomplish with the stubborn wizard, but she hadn’t learned much that might help the champions.

  She scanned the room, looking for a possible escape route, or a weapon…anything. But there was only the window, and it hummed with magical energy, much like the rest of the grand room.

  A lavish, four-poster bed sat adjacent to the window against one wall of the wide room, which boasted its own small library, a small bar, and a sitting area fit for at least six people. Caressa thought that was funny since she wouldn’t be having company any time soon. She found a dresser and walk-in closet with clothes and shoes that were surprisingly all her size.

  “Tricky bastard,” she said under her breath and went to explore the wash room.

  She found a large claw-foot bathtub at the center of the room, which had no windows, but did boast a large, circular skylight. If she went to the northern side of the bathroom and got on her tiptoes, she could just make out the snowy peak of Bad Mountain. She looked to the western sky, wondering where Drak’Noir was. Caressa was sure that the dragon was not in the mountain, for she had neither heard nor seen any evidence suggesting the affirmative, but then again, the mountain was tall and wider than any other, perhaps miles across at the base. If Drak’Noir was not already there, then where was she coming from?” The west, Caressa assumed, or possibly the far north of the Eternal Ice, which was said to go on forever.

  These thoughts led her to other questions, many of which the group had brought up more than once during their time together; if Drak’Noir had a mile-wide wingspan, how could five people sate her hunger? And if it was indeed whelps that the fools were to be fed to, why did she need them brought to Bad Mountain by Kazimir? Surely a dragon so grand could find her own food and could easily feed her own young.

  Caressa plopped down on the bed with a sigh and tossed the multitude of pillows on the floor, annoyed. She looked to the shiny silver bell and wondered… She reached for it, but then considered what it was that she would say to the servant. Her stomach answered with a growl, and she rang the bell.

  A knock at the door startled her, and she jerked upright with a small pip of a cry. She looked at the bell and back to the door suspiciously. “Who’s there?” she called out in a loud, sure voice.

  “Room service,” came a shy male voice.

  “Yes, well, the door is locked on my side, so I cannot let you in.”

  “I can get in, your highness. May I enter?”

  “Yes, you may enter.”

  Caressa had been prepared for a troll, a hunchback, a tattooed dwarf, a sprite, even a ghoul, but she was not prepared for the handsome young man who came through the door as if on a puff of smoke. He didn’t walk so much as glide across the room. There was no magic aiding his stride, for indeed, he did walk, but he had such grace, such quiet majesty, that Caressa was taken aback.

  “Who are you?” she said in a voice much higher than she would have liked.

  “Benjamin,” said the young man, whose black bangs partially hid his eyes.

  “But…who are you? Why are you here?”

  “You rang the bell.”

  “Well, yes, I know that. But I mean, are you Kazimir’s apprentice or something?”

  “I…” he said, jerking his head to the side and causing his bangs to fly back, revealing jade green eyes that sparkled in the light. His hair fell back after only a fleeting moment. “What would you like? Something to eat, perhaps?”

  “Yes, I’m quite hungry. You see, your employer likes to keep people hostage without feeding them much.”

  “My employer?”

  “Kazimir.”

  “Oh, right,” he said. “What would you like to eat?”

  “What do you have?”

  “Anything.”

  “Really, anything?”

  “Yeah,” he said, peeking at her from behind his bangs. She thought that his face had flushed, and a new angle came to her.

  “What’s your favorite food?” she asked.

  “Mine?” he said, as though no one had ever cared to ask what he liked.

  “Yes, silly. What is your absolute favorite?”

  He shrugged.

  “Come on, you’ve got to have a favorite.”

  Benjamin glanced back at the door as if someone had said his name. “Please, just tell me what you want.”

  Caressa gave a bored sigh, but it gained her no attention, not even a glance. “I suppose I’ll have a breakfast. Eggs, toast, tea, porridge, and fruit.”

  “What kind?”

  “Surprise me.”

  He seemed to consider that and looked unsure of himself. “Uh, alright, hold on.”

  To her surprise, Benjamin did not pull out a wand to conjure her breakfast, instead, he headed for the door.

  “Aren’t you just going to whoosh it?” she asked.

  “Whoosh it?”

  “Yeah, you know, make it appear from somewhere else with magic.”

  “If I knew magic,” he said, looking her directly in the eyes for the first time, “I would whoosh myself out of here.”

  He turned toward the door, then back toward Caressa as if he had more to say. Finally he hurried out of the room, slamming the door on his way out.

  “What a curious young man,” she said to no one. Of course, she knew nothing about him, but she was quite interested, and he might just come in handy. But she would have to play her cards right; no screw-ups like with McArgh, who had almost had her way with Caressa. Benjamin would be easy, and she didn’t have to fake her attraction to him.

  She blushed at the thought, reminding herself that she loved Murland. “A lady can look,” her mother always said. “But if she knows what is good for her, she will not touch, for nothing good will come of it.”

  Caressa would never do such a thing, of course. But Benjamin didn’t have to know that.

  Chapter 22

  Into the Dark, Dank, Dreary

  Willow tumbled down the tunnel, which seemed to have no end. She rolled over Gibrig and Brannon more than once, offering her apologies as they trundled, slid, and went head over heels down the steep tube. They landed with a collective “Oof!” Willow got the worst of it, landing first on the hard stone with the other two landing on top of her.

  Brannon and Gibrig groaned and slid off her back, and she pushed herself up in the dark. “Anybody got a light?” she asked, her voice sounding dully, telling her that the chamber was small.

  The only reply came as distant screams. The voices proved to belong to Murland and Sir Eldrick, who suddenly erupted from the mouth of the chute and flattened her back to the floor as they too landed on her back.

  “What is this?” she screamed. “Pig pile the ogre? Get off!”

  “Murland, Sir Eldrick? Is that y’all?” Gibrig asked in the dark.

  “Lux!” said Murland, and the tip of his wand lit up, revealing five disheveled companions and a tunnel leading off to their left.

  “How did you get away?” said Brannon.

  “With a little luck, and a lot of chaos,” said Sir Eldrick as he got up and dusted off his armor. He looked to the only way out and back up at the chute, where the raucous voices of pirates could be heard. “A little light down that tunnel please, Murland.”

  Murland pointed his wand down the tunnel, but it revealed only more of the same.

  “What ye think be down there, eh?” said Gibrig, who, to his credit, didn’t sound as scared as one might expect.

  “Only one way to find out for sure, Master Hogstead,” said Sir Eldrick, and he lit a torch from his pack with his trusty flint.

  Willow gave the chute one last look and hurried to follow the others as Sir Eldrick led them out of the small chamber.

  “You think that was some kind of chimney?” said Murland.r />
  “If it was, then there is no fire feeding it smoke right now,” said Sir Eldrick. “But I do believe the chute, as well as this tunnel, was made by something other than nature. Look how the walls have been chiseled.”

  “That ain’t dwarf work, I can tell ye that,” said Gibrig.

  “No, of course not, too haphazard.”

  “What is it then?” Brannon asked.

  “Shh,” said Sir Eldrick as light shone from the end of their tunnel. He unsheathed his sword and strode forth, gently keeping Murland back with a hand to his chest.

  A deep rumbling began to shake the stone, and dust floated up from the floor. The sound grew louder, until it felt as though a behemoth was coming to swallow them up.

  “What in the hells—” Willow began, but then a screeching metal object flew past the opening in the tunnel, and Sir Eldrick leapt back.

  The long metal train rushed by like a steel snake in the deep, leaving in its wake smoke and steam and hovering dust.

  The companions coughed and hacked and breathed into their shirts as Sir Eldrick stepped out into a larger tunnel heading in the adjacent direction. There were wooden tracks built up on a loose gathering of stone. Through their boots, the companions could still feel the chugging train.

  “It looks like we’ve found ourselves on the wrong side of the tracks,” said Sir Eldrick with a quick laugh.

  “Hilarious,” said Brannon, swiping at the dust. “The tracks must lead to a city of gnomes or something. Unless I am mistaken, the train was heading west, which is the way we should go.”

  “I agree,” said Sir Eldrick. “Anyone object?”

  No one spoke up, and so Sir Eldrick and Brannon started down the tracks toward the imagined city.

  “What you think it is?” Willow asked Murland, who walked with her and Gibrig. “You think it’s gnomes, or some long-lost tribe of dwarves?”

  “It ain’t dwarves, like I done told ye,” said Gibrig.

  “Well, there ain’t no need being snappy,” said Willow.

  “Sorry.”

  “I don’t know, Willow,” said Murland. “I’ve only ever read of a few creatures that live underground. The wizards of Abra Tower never focused on the underworld much.”