The Sacred Lake (Shioni of Sheba Book 4)

by Marc Secchia

  It seemed crass to Shioni, but she had to help the others. “Sorry.” She pushed the dead priest aside and scrambled to her feet.

  Haile had already downed two men, a Sheban warrior and a Gondari scout, and he held General Getu at bay with the power of the spell he had used before. Annakiya’s arrow pinged off an invisible shield. Haile’s laughter burbled around the church. Shioni wished the stones of this holy island would rise to assault him. Now there was an idea. She cast around swiftly. A nice round stone. She under-armed it beneath his feet.

  The big man shouted in surprise as his ankle turned. General Getu’s sword hammered down, but Haile rolled away from the blow. The staff swung around and blasted a hole in the wall as the crafty General dodged aside. Abba Petros struck from the other side, hacking a chunk of wood out of the staff. Haile roared. His meaty elbow took the Father in the upper chest, dropping him instantly. At once he went on the attack, pounding General Getu’s shield with blow after blow, massive overhand blows carrying the full strength of his arm.

  Shioni palmed her dagger. What use could a dagger be?

  But the General danced away from the blows. He put in a few strikes of his own, testing Haile’s magical shield. Sparks flew from each impact. Haile did not appear to care about or feel those blows. He forged ahead like a stubborn ox, missing as often as he struck–but there was a fearsome certainty in how he moved, as though he knew that Getu’s strength had to fail while he could keep on battling until the Sacred Lake dried up. Annakiya’s arrows would not penetrate his shield. Shioni tried her magical arrow again, but it deflected off of the false king and vanished somewhere into the trees. He was wise to that attack now.

  Round and around the two men circled, avoiding the prone body of Abba Petros. The Father had been knocked unconscious.

  “Weakling,” Haile taunted. “You’re all weaklings. Is this the best Sheba can serve up? A crippled General and a couple of warriors too weak to last a minute in combat?”

  General Getu saved his breath. Shioni could tell he was calculating, assessing, playing the false king out while she was meant to devise a means of magical attack. It did not seem Haile could be touched with weapons of metal. Shioni only wished she knew more. What she did know, he brushed aside with ease. He sent a blast of his staff that made her and Annakiya sprawl across the stones to avoid it, and then Haile set about pounding the General with real purpose, sword and staff working in tandem. Even his physical strength was brutal enough. But the staff spat crimson fire with a sound like the working of forge bellows: Hss! Hss! Each time, Getu dodged with catlike speed. But his beard hairs smoked and the top rim of his shield appeared to be melting.

  Shioni pinged Haile with a stone. Thock!

  “Come on, Shioni, think of something!” cried Annakiya.

  “I’m trying.”

  She tried a combined attack, throwing her dagger and blasting Haile with a barrage of imaginary fire simultaneously. But even that did nothing. Haile swatted the flying dagger at Getu, who ducked and threw Shioni an angry glare. He circled, testing again with his sword, flicking blows with the speed and guile of a cobra.

  Hss! Spat the staff, a gush of fire. Getu’s shield caught alight. He shoved the flaming edge at Haile, but the crafty false king sidestepped and smashed his own sword against Getu’s shield. Getu staggered. He shouted as sparks blew into his face.

  Haile laughed manically as he strode forward, cornering the General. “Come on! Am I fighting babies here?” He hacked a large chunk off Getu’s shield. “Is this the vaunted General of West Sheba, cowering like a beaten cur?”

  “I’ve faced dragons and lived,” Getu snarled through clenched teeth.

  Shioni eyed up Abba Petros’ sword. Now, if she could grab that while Haile’s back was turned … but the snake staff spat in her direction. Hss! Although she hastily tried to shield herself, she felt the heat and flames licking around her. Through the orange flares she saw General Getu hacking at the false king, who stood his ground, cackling and taunting his opponent. Another blow staggered the General. Now he thrust Getu against the stone wall. He rallied, but Haile reached down with the staff and hooked his heel.

  Getu cried out and fell.

  With a huge cry, Haile raised his sword and staff together, planting himself with one foot either side of the fallen General. He would smash Getu to bits. Again, an arrow sliced off his magical armour. Shioni’s weak attack vanished mid-air.

  Haile’s eyes glowed with an excess of power, with a killing rage. “Any last words, General?”

  “This,” said Getu, and his back arched like a fish leaping out of water.

  His sword thrust entered Haile’s belly below his armour. The man was so massive, Getu’s arm disappeared up to his elbow.

  For a dreadful, long second, all was still.

  Then the false king toppled to the ground like a felled tree and lay unmoving. The staff clattered to the stones beside him.

  Beyond him, General Getu rolled smoothly to his feet. “Nothing beats the old pretend-to-trip trick, eh, Haile?” he said. “You murdering son of a … what? Back, everyone. Get back!”

  Chapter 27: A Thing More Dreadful

  Yowling like a scalded cat, Haile’s snake staff twitched across the ground. It trembled and hopped about with grasshopper leaps. A noxious grey gas began to gout out of its mouth. And then the staff bulged all along its length, growing six legs and two heads with eye-popping speed. In a second it was larger than a horse. Three seconds, and the twin heads overshadowed the church. Four, and the tail and back legs crushed the stone wall behind the church and disappeared into the thicket beyond.

  The creature had two flat, adder-like heads, and the body of a gigantic lizard. Vestigial wings lay folded against its back. The skin was a pestilential grey colour, like the inside of a tomb, and it stank as though it had lain rotting at the bottom of the lake for a thousand years.

  “A dragon,” breathed General Getu.

  Somehow, in her mind, Shioni had conceived of dragons as glorious, noble beasts, with shining armoured scales and dazzling, toothy smiles. This creature was none of those things. Its sheer malevolence; its gigantic, evil presence, rooted her to the spot even when her brain was screaming at her to flee. A single step made the ground tremble, and the nearer of its mouths had black fangs longer than her dagger, which dripped acid venom on the ground.

  “Ah. Rid of the old windbag at last,” hissed the left head. Its voice sounded like claws scratching in sand.

  “Useless magician,” agreed the right. “Couldn’t teach him to swat a fly. After all we invested in our little puppet.” A forked, red-as-blood tongue flicked toward Shioni. Baleful reptilian eyes seemed to strip her of any humanity, of any defence, of any hope whatsoever. “You, however, might be worth the trouble.”

  “I’ll never serve you,” said Shioni. Her arm quivered noticeably as she held it toward the beast, struggling somehow to prepare a magical attack. What could she do against a creature like this?

  “My friend is not for eating,” Annakiya added, more stoutly than Shioni.

  “A little Princess with a big mouth,” hissed the dragon. Annakiya bumped against Shioni, who was already backing up toward the nearest tree–not that a tree would stop this creature, she realised. The teeth snapped toward her. “As feeble as an earthworm. But loyal to her father, so single-minded in her pursuit of the teshal. Not smart enough to realise there was a bigger prize at stake. A prize you have now freed me to pursue.”

  A pair of gigantic nostrils sniffed toward Annakiya and Shioni. More by luck than design, the Princess sent an arrow right into one of those cavities. A curl of fire turned it into charcoal.

  “Silly girl.” The dragon puffed ash at them.

  “Fight me, you slithering worm!” roared Getu. He had picked up a sword from somewhere. But his fierce cut skittered off the dragon’s scales.

  “General Getu,” hissed the left head. “My cousin had a nibble of your arm. I wonder how you’ll taste? You look a
bit tough and stringy.”

  “Horrible!” snapped the General, stabbing again.

  The right head lunged for him. Getu vanished around the side of the church building. The dragon chased after with deadly speed, churning dust into the air and splintering trees and branches somewhere back there in the forest.

  Shioni readied her bow. “See how you like this then, dragon.”

  She imagined a magical arrow alongside the metal-tipped one. No, slightly ahead. Now, shoot!

  Fire blasted out of the dragon. The feet shook the ground, sending Shioni and Annakiya staggering. Shioni leaped up, crying, “Abba Petros! Help me, Anni!”

  Together, the girls dragged the priest out of harm’s way as the dragon curled itself around the church building in pursuit of the General. Odd that it didn’t simply crush the church, Shioni thought. She drew another arrow. Pinpricks, but they might help.

  Had this creature been hiding inside the staff all along? Manipulating Haile? Controlling him, leading a weak man into great evil? Or had Haile simply matched the dragon’s evil with his own?

  The dragon lunged.

  Shioni screamed as she sent another arrow lancing into its side. She knew. She knew before the head rose above the church and a foot disappeared down the dragon’s gullet.

  The heads turned her way.

  “Old warrior; full of flavour. Not bad for a snack. But I’m still hungry.”

  “Oh, Shioni … no, not Getu,” Annakiya wailed.

  Shioni took her stand between the Princess and the dragon, her bow held ready, but despair crushed her heart. How could an arrow ever harm a creature of this size?

  “You and I … together, we can be great,” growled the dragon’s left head.

  Shioni shook her head. “I’m no Haile.”

  “Haile? He was pathetic. I’ve commanded thousands like him over the centuries. You humans have no idea, do you?” The dragon slithered closer, dragging on its belly despite the squat, sturdy legs. “Where are you going to run this time, slave-girl? What magic will you use against a dragon, who lives and breathes magic?”

  “Thousands of weak-minded fools,” said Shioni.

  “You have magic,” said the dragon, dismantling her attempt at a shield with a touch of its mind. Words slithered all around her; vile, cunning words. “I smell it on you. I smell it in your blood. I could teach you much, much more, Shioni of Sheba. Magic to fulfil your every desire. Magic as great as the ancient ones. Greater, even. Just imagine, you could make this Princess your slave. You could rule unchallenged over all the kingdoms of men.”

  “Enslave them in bloody chains, you mean,” said Annakiya.

  Shioni glanced at her best friend, shaken at how the dragon had filled her thoughts and tugged at her desires. “Right. And what’ll you have in payment? Only my soul?”

  “Only your soul?” The dragon’s laughter battered the pair of them as they retreated out of the church courtyard gate. “You little fools. You’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Let me show you my power, slave-girl. Just the smallest taste.”

  The scaly lips pursed. Suddenly, Shioni faced an unstoppable gale. The wind snatched her up as though she were a feather, blasted her through the trees, and tossed her out over the Sacred Lake.

  Shioni landed with a resounding smack. She sank into a liquid brown world. After the chill of the dragon’s breath, the water felt surprisingly warm. She could see a few feet in every direction. Shw was stunned–how had the dragon done that? What now? Bubbles surrounded her body. Ah, yes, that way was up. She should swim to the surface. But a thought stopped her.

  The sword.

  That useless hunk of metal? Pretty, but use neither to man nor beast. And even with a sword, how could she hope to fight a dragon?

  Draw the sword.

  Shioni pictured General Getu’s legs disappearing down the dragon’s maw. Her teeth ground together. No beast was going to have her friends for breakfast! She yanked on the hilt. To her utter amazement, the blade slid out as smoothly as though it had been oiled. In the same movement she raised the weapon above her head, underwater.

  And the world turned white.

  Shioni felt a soundless explosion punch her body. The entire lake seemed to jump a foot off its foundations. A single beat of glorious music filled her ears and made her think of angels. For a moment she felt one with the universe. The songs of stars thrilled her soul; her mind was an explosion of colours and ideas, gazing over a vast sweep of history as she saw empires and armies and oceans and mountains of fire. It was too much to take in.

  She cried out as the sweet agony ceased. There was no second beat of music. There was only a vast, echoing silence.

  She would never be the same.

  Suddenly, Shioni found herself standing on dry ground. Lake-bottom algae which should have felt slimy to her bare toes, crumbled into dust at the movement of her feet. A vast segment of lake water had been vaporised–by a titanic lightning bolt of magic, she realised, which had arrived and disappeared so quickly her head was still spinning. What did this mean? Your kind were here … your kind were here … how had the whole world not felt the lake’s leap?

  Here came the water, roaring and foaming back toward her.

  Shioni hurled herself forward. She hopped and hurdled boulders at a breakneck speed, racing up to the old shoreline of the island before the waters smashed together behind her. She stared back at the foaming, seething lake. Her gaze dropped to the sword, to the curl of her fingers around the perfect hilt, to the bright length of blade. The metal had a blue, slightly oily sheen, as though it had never been used. The entire surface was covered in miniscule writing almost to the very cutting edge. It was eerily beautiful. Deadly beautiful.

  Her arm made an experimental cut. The blade sang through the air as though it sought to divide even what she could not see. It had a light, yet substantial feel in her hand. Shioni knew in an instant she had never dreamed of a blade as fine as this.

  “Annakiya!”

  Startled out of her reverie by a shrill scream, Shioni plunged into Tana Qirqos’s undergrowth. She took the trail so fast, she bounced off trees and tripped and nearly knocked herself out on a tree root. She launched herself five steps at a time up the final slope to the church and came to a skidding halt.

  “Come on, my pretty,” said the dragon, prodding Annakiya with its nose. “Scream again for me. I so enjoy a good scream–”

  “Stop terrorising my friend!”

  The dragon had Princess Annakiya pressed up against the wall, and had clearly been playing with her–a game of torture and terror. One head remained where it was, just a foot from her face, while the other turned to glower at Shioni. The slit eyes blazed crimson with power, endless lakes of power. She felt puny and insignificant in comparison. Ancient evil battered her senses. The beast corrupted even with a stare, with the vileness of its presence in a holy place.

  “You!” spat the dragon. “You’re like a bad dream. Will you not give up, girl?”

  Shioni dodged a gob of flying venom. She levelled the sword at the dragon, lightly balanced, ready to strike. “Not until you’re dead, beast.”

  “Beast? I was ancient before your kind walked the earth, human.” The head lowered menacingly. Shioni stood her ground, but her leg muscles trembled in readiness. Huge nostrils tested the air. “That magic … I have not felt such since … it couldn’t be you. No, you’re human. Just a human girl. Maybe it was the Ark; I felt its power!”

  “As I’ll strike you down. Now leave my friend alone!”

  The dragon said, “Don’t think you can threaten me with that miniature skewer. This is my lineage: To the Egyptians I am Wadjet, the snake-Goddess. To the Israelites, I am Ba’al. To the Babylonians, Marduk the snake-dragon. And to–”

  “I don’t give a rotten fig for who you think you are!” Shioni snapped. “You ate my friend.”

  The dragon snorted with laughter. Mid-laugh, it swooped in the hope of taking her by surprise. But Shioni’s reactions
were too quick. She dived at once to her right, tucking in her shoulder and head, and rolled neatly to her feet beside the church. Kicking off the rough stone steps, she swung hard from right to left. The blade struck a piercing note as it sliced through the dragon’s foreleg, cleaving armoured skin, muscle, and bone with ease.

  Shioni was as surprised as the dragon. Expecting the blade to strike and stop, she instead twirled completely about and almost fell over.

  She blurted out, “Heavens, what …?”

  The dragon stared stupidly at the stump of its leg for a long moment, before the pain clearly registered and its heads rose to howl at the sky. Every bird for a league around took off in fright. Foetid green breath smoked from its lungs. The dragon wailed again, a dreadful, keening duet from both throats, making Shioni and Annakiya stagger at the blast of sound.

  The blade was unmarked. Even the dragon’s blood, hissing and smoking on the courtyard stones, had not touched or damaged the blade. What magic was this? A sword made by dragons, to slay dragons?

  “For that, you’ll die!” shrieked the dragon, thundering forward.

  Shioni was already sprinting across the courtyard, trying to lure the dragon away from Annakiya and Abba Petros, who rolled onto his elbow and stared around wild-eyed. A gout of flame from one head, followed by a stream of acid from the other, hastened her flight. She tried to draw a shield around herself, just in time to stop a second gobbet of vile venom mid-flight. It worked, to her amazement. The venom slid away from before her astonished face to reveal the dragon’s teeth, rapidly closing in on her head. Her arm moved automatically. The blade sliced deeply into the dragon’s face.

  Still, the thrust of the head knocked her tumbling. The dragon collected itself, giving her a split-second in which to find her feet. Now the heads approached more carefully, hemming her in from both sides, seeking to trap her against the outer wall of the courtyard.

  Shioni feinted right. The dragon shadowed her move.

  “Say goodbye to your life, slave-girl,” it rasped.

  “Not before I carve you up for dinner,” she retorted, feinting a second time. “Another couple of legs, and you’ll just be an overgrown worm.”