by Jack Conner
Throgmar flew ever faster—faster—but the storm was too swift, even for him. A bolt of lightning struck one of his wings, and he roared. Dove. Baleron’s stomach leapt to his throat. They were all going to die!
Another bolt of lightning speared the Betrayer’s back, and Baleron yelped as ribbons of electricity webbed Throgmar’s talon, then faded.
Another bright blue tongue struck the Worm, and another. It was a wonder he was still alive at all.
The other dragons put distance between them and Throgmar. His immediate vicinity was not a safe place to be.
He maintained the presence of mind, at least, to put himself into a large spiral, all he could do with the full use of only one wing, and it slowed them enough so that they would not necessarily die on impact. Baleron wondered if this is how Ungier had felt, falling from the terrace.
They fell forever. Down, down, down, Baleron had long moments to contemplate the coming darkness—or would it be darkness? What happened to loosed souls in Oslog now that Illistriv was no more?
The land pitched up at them.
Baleron gritted his teeth and braced himself.
Throgmar struck the ground with his chest, nearly horizontal to the land, and went sliding forwards across the blackened wastes, tearing a scrabbled swath. Baleron was bumped up and down, jostled terribly in the dragon’s fist, but Throgmar held him tight, fingers closed, sealing Baleron in.
At last the speed of Throgmar’s slide diminished, and he ground to a halt.
The roar in Baleron’s ears faded enough so that he could pick out individual sounds, but in the scaly enclosure of Throgmar’s fist, all he could hear was his own ragged breathing.
Throgmar’s fist half opened and Baleron could see the bleak surroundings, a flat wasteland of charred earth.
An avalanche of pebbles as Throgmar shifted his weight. Dust rose up. The dragon moaned.
Reeling, Baleron climbed out of the claw, coughing and wheezing; their landing had churned up a great deal of dust and ash. He saw that they were on an open plain cut through with many fissures, many miles from Krogbur, which still stood in the distance, a fiery line disappearing into a black sky. Piece by flaming piece the tower crumbled away, and the pieces were like fireflies filling the air around Krogbur.
Baleron looked down at himself in surprise. He was alive . . . at least for now. Gilgaroth’s poison still coursed through him.
What of Rolenya?
Heart in his throat, Baleron made his way over to the other scaly fist and pried her loose of the Leviathan’s claw. Hefting her limp weight in his arms, he carried her some distance away and set her down as gently as he could on the plain of ash.
Her eyes were closed. She did not move. He stared down at her for a long time, praying.
The rain didn’t reach this far, and he shivered in the cool air, his skin still wet. For the first time he noticed that Rolenya was covered in gooseflesh.
His eyes widened.
Could it be . . . ?
He waited, staring, hardly daring to breathe.
Suddenly, her chest rose and fell. Relief washing through him, he raised his head and whooped in joy. Laughing, he kissed her forehead and cheeks.
“Rolenya!”
He looked around. The Great Army was far away, and the soldiers would be busy fleeing the earthquakes and leaping flames. The dragons had already broken off. Rolenya, he realized, was safe. He would die, yes, but she would not, and that was just fine.
She stirred.
“Sleep,” he told her, stroking her hair.
All of a sudden, he grimaced in pain, clutching a hand to his chest. His concentration wavered in and out. It was only a matter of time, he knew. He had to make the next few minutes count.
He returned his attention to the Leviathan. Throgmar lay on the charred ground, his body blackened in places and smoking, and he looked too weak to move. His amber eyes were partly open, and he and Baleron regarded each other for several moments silently, sullenly.
Unable to put it more diplomatically, Baleron asked, “Can you go on?”
Throgmar grunted. “I DO NOT KNOW WHY I TRIED.” He seemed to sag, and rested his weary head on the earth. Deflated and hollow, having perhaps killed his mother and helped the murderers of his father escape their rightful deaths, he seemed both angry and racked with guilt. At the same time, he also seemed strangely uplifted, as if a weight had been removed.
Blood from dozens of wounds along his massive bulk leaked into the blackened earth, and his scales glistened redly. Perhaps Mogra’s venoms were even then running through his system, finishing him off.
“Was vengeance sweet?” Baleron asked him, thinking of the Spider Goddess.
“VERY,” answered the Worm.
“So she is dead, then.”
Throgmar did not answer for a long span. His eyes clouded, and Baleron thought the dragon was likely imagining the moment he slew her. He must have been right, as the Worm soon said, “I DROPPED HER FROM A GREAT HEIGHT AND SET HER AFLAME. I DESCENDED AFTER HER, MEANING TO WATCH HER STRIKE THE GROUND, MEANING TO WATCH HER DIE . . . BUT A PLUME OF SMOKE ROSE UP AND I LOST HER . . . AND THEN A SCORE OF MY OWN SPAWN FELL ON ME, SHRIEKING THAT I WAS A TRAITOR . . . I SLEW MY OWN CHILDREN, BALERON. AND THAT IS AFTER I SLEW MY MOTHER! WHAT DOES THAT MAKE ME?”
“I don’t know,” Baleron admitted. “But I thank you.”
“DO NOT. I WOULD HAVE SLAIN YOU, AS WELL—IN TIME.” He added this last part sinisterly.
Baleron spread his arms wide. “Then, if these are your last moments, and you were going to kill me anyway . . . ”
Throgmar studied him for a long time, and Baleron waited.
At last the dragon lowered his eyes. “I LIED. VENGEANCE WAS ONLY SWEET AT THE MOMENT. TELL ME, WAS IT SWEET FOR YOU? YOU TASTED IT TWICE, IF NOT THREE TIMES.”
“Sweet the first time,” Baleron told him truthfully. “But afterwards bitter. And now I find out I didn’t kill anyone, not then, but . . . it hurt the intended target—”
“ME.”
“You,” he agreed. “So—the job was done. The second time? It feels great. I ached to kill Gilgaroth. I know he was your father, but . . .”
“OH, I HAVE HATED HIM FAR LONGER THAN YOU. MY HATRED IS OLDER THAN YOUR COUNTRY!”
Aloud, Baleron mused, “It’s hard to believe he’s gone. To live without the constant threat of war and oblivion will be strange . . . I suppose. Others will know that peace, not I.”
It was odd to talk with Throgmar like this, Baleron reflected, as though they were two old friends, but in a way that’s exactly how it felt, that they were two comrades sharing a last talk before their deaths overtook them. It was only a question of who would fade first.
“AND ME?” Throgmar said. “HOW DID IT FEEL WHEN YOU HAD YOUR REVENGE ON ME?”
“You? Oh, that was the best, the sweetest of all.”
Chuckling, Throgmar took a large deep breath and let it out in one great, melancholy sigh. His golden eyes dimmed.
Baleron waited for the dragon to take another breath, but he did not, and after a few minutes the prince realized the truth of it. He hung his head.
Silently, oddly morose, he closed the dragon’s eyes.
“Sleep well,” he said. “And may your spirit have no need of further vengeance.”
On the black stairs, Illistriv had burnt itself out, leaving only a smoldering husk where once had been a mighty being. Gilgaroth’s eyes were still half open, and they were still flaming, but the flames were dying. Within seconds, they would be out.
The Dark One opened his maw one last time and groaned, a long, sad groan of lament, and then his fire faded.
Krogbur broke around him. The fires of the Second Hell engulfed the whole of the Black Tower and consumed the last of Gilgaroth. In the end, his own Inferno claimed him. And then it too went out.
The cold shadow in Baleron’s chest throbbed once, swelled, and he heard a horrible cry inside him. Then something left him. It was as though there had
been a cloud on him for years, so long he’d grown used to it, had not even been aware of it, when suddenly it was no more.
It shocked him, and he staggered, almost drunken.
Gasping, he looked toward the Black Tower. Gilgaroth must be dead. Really, truly dead.
The Doom was no more. Baleron . . . was free.
For a little while.
Returning to Rolenya, he found her still breathing. As he bent over her, he brushed dark hair from her face, and she stirred. He continued to sit beside her, and it was not long before her blue eyes opened.
“Thank the gods,” he breathed.
She gazed up at him tearfully. She must have been having a nightmare, as she looked panicked, frightened. He stroked her head to calm her.
“Did we . . . die?” she asked.
He shook his head. Tears leaked out. “Not yet. There is none to claim us. Gilgaroth is dead.”
Wonder filled her eyes. “Truly?” When he nodded, she embraced him tightly. “Oh, Baleron! You did it!”
“No,” he told her solemnly. “It was—”
The Black Tower exploded.
With Gilgaroth’s death, the energies he had stolen to raise and bind the tower were loosed, and that coupled with the destructive element of the out—of—control Inferno . . .
Baleron and Rolenya watched with astonishment as the immensity of Krogbur, flaming like a torch, flamed suddenly brighter, then erupted in a shower of fire and molten stone in a line from the ground to the sky, an immense eruption that showered millions of tons of death out over the wasteland . . . and the army camped at the tower’s base. Baleron and Rolenya, even many miles away, could hear their screams. The army that would have spelled the end of the Crescent was no more. A few dragons still wheeled about the spire, but as it exploded it took them with it.
As the countless pieces of the tower smote the wasteland, the earth split and broke, laying ruin to mountains and fields of ash and filth, burning them all away in a bath of fire and red hot magma. Baleron never could have imagined the BOOM or the shock of the rushing air that followed. He could feel it in the very land, feel the vibration as the shockwave swept outwards. The wind of it ruffled his hair, burned his skin.
He and Rolenya huddled tighter as the devastation drew nearer. More wind howled around them, carrying with it the spirits of demons and innocents loosed by Illistriv’s obliteration, as well as the heat from the Inferno’s fires.
Such a huge cloud of dust and ash billowed up from the ruin that Baleron could hardly see what happened next, but he did. All the volcanoes in Oslog seemed to erupt at once, jetting lava into the sky and sending glowing rivers of the earth’s blood down their black slopes. Great earthquakes were triggered, and the land was broken again and again. Lava spewed up from the ground. Old mountains fell and new ones thrust up. The world was sundered and remade.
Baleron and Rolenya, frightened, looked all about at the breaking land. The destruction that radiated out from the site of Krogbur’s fall edged closer and closer. Baleron tensed. It looked as though the ruin would swallow them.
“I love you,” Rolenya whispered, and held him tight.
The destruction rolled toward them, closer and closer. He could feel the earth vibrate. His teeth rattled together.
Then, suddenly, miraculously, the destruction ceased rolling in their direction. The earth continued to split and quake, but the devastation came no closer to the two lovers. They seemed to be too far away to be in immediate danger, even though the ground still shook beneath them, and he could still smell the smoke of the fires.
At last the earth calmed as much as it could, and the former brother and sister breathed sighs of relief.
“It’s over,” Baleron said. Wind howled in the silence that followed. “They’re gone. Gilgaroth and Mogra. Dead. The Black Tower fallen.”
“We . . . won.” She said it in a small voice, sounding surprised.
He almost didn’t believe it. For a moment he was absolutely convinced that this was yet another trick of the Dark One’s, and that any second all this would go away and he would be back in Krogbur’s pits, hallucinating, Ghrozm standing over him with a scalpel.
“We did,” she said. “We truly did.”
He winced as a sudden jolt of pain nearly knocked him over, and he had to hold on to her tightly to steady himself.
“What is it, Bal?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
He grimaced again. “I’m dying, Rolenya. The blood of Gilgaroth . . .”
A look of terror crossed her face.
“I’m sorry, Rol,” he told her. “So sorry. After all this . . . and I desert you now. . .” He was short of breath. His insides were baking.
An odd calmness descended on her. Her eyes flashed with confidence and surety and her usual prideful stubbornness. With conviction, she said, “Gilgaroth said once that he had enough darkness to counter my Light, but he was wrong, and he paid for it. Now let me prove it once more.”
“Don’t try. You’re still too weak.”
“I’m strong enough for this. Now be quiet.”
So saying, she pressed her lips to his and held his face against hers. Her lips were soft and warm and moist, and he felt he could drown in her touch.
Slowly at first, but then more quickly, he could feel a strange power coursing through him, countering the poison of the Shadow. It washed him of the taint and corruption of Gilgaroth, and he was like a withered plant suddenly given light and water. It seemed to awaken, if accidentally, the remains of the Flower of Itherin, and he felt a glow inside him. Renewed energy and vitality rose in him, burning the poison out.
Their lips parted, and he gasped, staring at her in wonder.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“I feel . . . good.” He laughed. “Very good.”
She smiled, her blue eyes wet, and for the first time he contemplated a future in which the two of them lived, in which they walked away from this.
She half sat up, and he helped her. For a while he just held her in his arms, and together they surveyed the bleakness of the wastelands. A great blaze shot up to the south where Krogbur had fallen and the Inferno loosed. Illistriv’s fires were dying, but new ones sprang up. The rest was grim and dark. Occasionally, the earth trembled, and all the volcanoes in the area were erupting like great fountains, sending the burning blood of Oslog high into the charcoal sky. The Dark Country was wounded—perhaps mortally. Rivers of fire cut through it, but the prince and princess were safe for the moment. Just the same, Baleron recognized the need to move while they could. A hot breeze blew down from the mountains, carrying the stench of sulfur.
“I hope our homes don’t look like this when we return,” she said.
“Me, too.”
“Will the armies still be there? Will the war still go on without him?”
“I doubt it. They’ll turn back and hide here for another thousand years, and we’ll rebuild.”
“Rebuild? But you have no home. You have no country.”
“There will still be survivors, hiding somewhere in the north. I’ll unite them and found a new capital.”
She looked at him strangely. “That’s right. You’re . . . you’re King now.”
He sighed. “Of Ungoroth?”
“Of whatever we make of the ruins.”
“We?”
She took his face in her hands and kissed him again. “Of course.”
He reminded himself to be vigilant. The great army of Gilgaroth might be destroyed, but there were still countless creatures out there, prowling the waste. And dragons. Many, many dragons. Baleron realized that he and Rolenya were without weapons, food or water, and had only each other to keep them warm. It would have to be enough.
They climbed to their feet.
“We have a long road back,” she said, her blue eyes scanning the bleak, jagged horizon to the north. To the south, all was ruin: fire and clouds of smoke.
Taking a deep breath, he held out his hand and she took i
t.
The sun, he saw, was rising to the east, a white disc behind jagged black mountains. The storm clouds were breaking up, revealing the last visible stars. It had been a long night, and he doubted the day to come would hold much light, but it was more than he had expected. Many horrors of the night were likely seeking shelter from the sun; it was probably the first time Brunril’s Torch had been seen in this land in many years. A hot breeze blew.
“Come,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Wearily, bleeding and barely able to stand, Baleron and Rolenya left the body of Throgmar where it lay smoking on the ground and marched out into the wastelands, bound for home.
THE END OF THE WAR OF THE BLACK TOWER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jack Conner lives in Oregon. You can visit him on facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/jack.conner.98
Please leave feedback wherever you purchased The War of the Black Tower, and help spread the word. In fact, to encourage you to leave a review, if you like the novel and leave a review to that effect on Amazon, email Jack at [email protected] and let him know, and he’ll give you a free copy of another one of his novels or short stories. This offer is good for the first thirty reviews.
Did you spot any flaws? Typos? Let Jack know at the email address above.
If you enjoyed The Black Tower Trilogy, be sure to find out where the adventure began in The War of the Moonstone, a two-part epic fantasy.
You can find Part One of Moonstone here . . .
. . . in the US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZX6OLU
. . . in the UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GZX6OLU
Turn the page for a complete listing of Jack Conner’s books. Following that is an excerpt from War of the Moonstone.
