Heads down, they shook their heads. They were big men, hardy, but not as big as Tormac.
Ben, chewing a mouthful of food, was all eyes as he gawped at Tormac.
“Ben,” I said, snapping my finger, “eyes over here!”
He didn’t budge.
The crowd fell silent when the leering Tormac said, “What are you looking at, bug eyes?”
CHAPTER 25
Turning pale, Ben chewed once and stopped.
Tormac was a warrior. He had the scars to show for it. The steel on his wide hips was heavy, and the dark eyes over his big, flat nose made him all the more menacing. This was not what I needed.
“Well, bug eyes?” Tormac said in a grizzly voice, smashing his fist into his hands. “What are you staring at?”
“Don’t hurt him, Tormac! He hasn’t had his milk yet!” someone shouted.
The tavern erupted in laughter. Ben’s cheeks turned red.
Tormac chuckled as he pawed at his beard.
“What’s the matter, bug eyes? Did you leave your cow at the farm?”
More laughter.
Ben looked at me. Tormac looked at me. All eyes were on me.
I hitched my arm over the back of my chair, leaned back, tossed my hair over my shoulder, and said, “What are you looking at… ogre nose?”
It got so quiet I could hear Tormac blink. I continued.
“The last time I saw nostrils that big, dwarves were mining copper out of them.”
Somebody laughed, somewhere. I think it was the barmaid.
“What?” Tormac said, hand falling to his blade.
“Ah, good idea. Get your nose picker out. I think I see a boulder… er… I mean a booger in there.”
Chuckling ensued. Tormac leered around, bringing the chuckles to an abrupt stop.
“Or is that a toothpick? You could use it; I can see a halfling wedged in that gap between your teeth.”
The entire room erupted.
“BRAHHHH—HA-HA-HA-HA!”
My chair clacked on the floor as I teetered forward and stood up, smiling.
Tormac’s face was as red as his beard.
“You’re going to die,” he said through clenched teeth.
I fanned my hand in front of my face and said, “What happened with you and that half orc out there? Did you eat him?”
Food fell from Ben’s mouth. The entire tavern was doubled over now, except Tormac.
He swung.
I ducked.
“Let’s settle this at the table,” I said, dodging another swing. “My arm against yours.”
Tormac stopped. An ugly smile started on his face. He was taller than me and as thick as an anvil, an oversized man with the girth of a dwarf. I was strong. As strong as any man, but Tormac was more than that. He was a mountain. He pulled out a chair and sat down.
To cheers, I joined him. I looked at my right arm, my dragon arm. It was still well concealed. And Tormac, I'd known he was right handed when he reached for his sword. Of course, you could always tell by which hip it rested on.
We locked hands.
“I win, you leave. You win, I leave.” I scanned the crowd. Hope filled the eyes of some. “For good.”
“Hah!” He nodded. “You’ll be leaving, all right,” he growled, “in pieces. Your friend, too.”
The barkeep raised his arms, hushing the crowd, then wrapped both hands around our knuckles. “That’s odd,” the barkeep said, looking at me, “you have very rugged skin.”
“Get on with it,” Tormac said, sneering. “I broke that last man’s arm at the elbow, and I’m going to do worse to yours.” He spat juice on the floor.
I winked.
His knuckles turned white as he began squeezing my hand. I’d never arm wrestled such a big, big man.
“Ready,” the barkeeper started, “Set… wrestle.”
Tormac put his shoulder into it, shoving my arm down. The crowd roared as my arm bent toward the table. He was strong. Every bit as strong as he looked. A real brute who knew what he was doing.
“Come on, Dragon!” Ben shouted.
I stopped the descent inches from the table and heaved back. Tormac’s eyes widened as I began pushing his arm back.
The lively crowd found new life.
“He’s pushing Tormac back!”
“Impossible!” someone said.
I loved the attention. I put more dragon muscle into it.
“Hurk!”
I forced Tormac’s arm past the starting point and back.
“Golden eyes is winning!”
Sweat dripped from Tormac’s forehead and down his nose. The salty taste of my own sweat stung my eyes. I pushed his arm downward little by little.
“NO!” Tormac yelled. “No one beats me!”
The big man snorted in fury, shoving me back, up, up, to the starting point and backward. The entire tavern exploded with shouts of cheers and triumph.
I felt my own ears redden now. My dragon arm was aching. It was fast, but how strong was it, actually?
“Hang on, Dragon!” Ben shouted.
I was, barely. I fought back with everything I had, shoving the brute's arm back. We teetered from the starting point, back and forth. Part of the crowd was chanting…
“Tormac! Tormac! Tormac!”
The other part chanted…
“Dragon! Dragon! Dragon!”
I liked that, but it wasn’t helping. Tormac shoved my arm back down, my knuckles barely an inch from the table.
Tormac was huffing and puffing. I held on. Arm throbbing, head aching, I fought on. I didn't care who you were or what you did, I wasn’t going to lose to anyone. Not while I lived. I shoved back with everything I had.
Tormac’s eyes were full of triumph as he said, “You’re finished!”
Something in the man's face angered me. An evil menace lurked there. A bully. A man of violence. A troublemaker. A thug for hire. A kidnapper. Maybe a murderer. I could see the truth. This man had preyed on the weak all his life. Used his gifts for evil, not good. My inner furnace was stoked.
“No, Tormac,” I growled, “You’re finished, not I!”
I shoved his arm upward. My dragon arm may not have been stronger, but it hadn’t tired.
“No!” Tormac snarled.
Our wrists reached the starting point, and Tormac’s arm went down.
The roaring crowd were jumping to their feet!
“Dragon! Dragon! Dragon!”
Tormac was shaking his head. Desperation filled his eyes. I took a quick deep breath and shoved everything into it.
“Nooooooo!” Tormac pleaded.
Wham!
I slammed his knuckles onto the table.
Chest heaving, I managed to say, “Time to go, Tormac!”
The crowd was all smiles as they helped the exhausted man out of his chair. His eyes were weak as he held his arm and was shoved toward the door, the crowd turning on him.
“Get out of here, Tormac! You stink the place up.”
“Be a stranger!”
“Your mother’s a bugbear!”
Raising my arm in the air and waving, I said, “That’s enough, everyone. It’s time to celebrate that he’s gone.”
The room fell silent.
I had a very bad feeling.
Someone gasped.
Others pointed.
Ben was pointing to his arm.
I looked at mine. My dragon arm had returned. Black as the night. Strong as steel. Beautiful as a black pearl. “Welcome back,” I said.
“What manner of trickery is this?”
“He’s a changeling!”
“A demon!”
“Fiend!”
I shot Ben a look and mouthed the words, “Get to the horses!”
Something as big as a ham and hard as a rock smacked into my face.
CHAPTER 26
Tormac leered over me with a face filled with fury. The man, I hated to admit, punched like an ogre. I could only imagine his booted heel descending towa
rd my head would be twice as bad. Seeing spots, I rolled, gathered my feet, and sprang away. All the people who'd cheered me on moments before now screamed for my head.
“Cheater!”
“Changeling!”
“Kill him!”
“Bash his face in, Tormac!”
My, the tides change fast here.
A wooden tankard zinged past my head.
“Hold on!” I shouted, holding my arms up. “No one stated any rules! I’ve deceived no one. All I did was make a challenge to arm wrestle. Tormac agreed! He lost. I won. Now back away!” I said, shaking my fist.
No one moved. I had a way of capturing people’s attention like that.
One woman in the back, dressed in a black vest of leather armor, spoke up.
“Men in disguises can’t be trusted! Get him!”
“But—”
The two big goons who sat at the bar seized my arms, locking them behind my back. By the look and smell of them, they were ugly brothers. And not just any type of brothers, but wrestlers, judging by their tattoos and scars and how they locked up my arms.
“Them’s scales on his arms,” one said.
“Never seen anything like that,” said the other. “He’s a monster of some sort!”
“A changeling! They're evil; burn him!” a woman shouted.
“He’s a demon! No one has gold eyes like that!”
“Hold him still!” Tormac said, rolling the sleeves up on his bulging arms.
“Tormac,” I said, “you don’t want to do—oof!”
The belly blow lifted me off my feet. I groaned.
“That…”
“Hit him once for me, Tormac!”
This can’t be happening.
Whop!
I couldn’t speak or breathe, and I swore my stomach was screaming from the other side of my back.
“Let’s see if we can’t take care of that smart mouth of yours.”
He swung at me.
I jerked back, letting Tormac’s fist hit one of the goons in the face.
“Watch it!” the goon said.
“Don’t hit him in the face; he’s too handsome!” one lady said, standing on a table wearing a helmet of lit candles on her head.
“Thank you!”
“No, hit him in the face!” one of the bowmen said.
“What is wrong with you people!”
Whop!
Tormac belted me in the stomach again, draining my strength from my head to my toes. I tried to fight, but the goons held me tight. They were like two pythons around my arms.
Whop! Whop!
Tormac laughed. “I told you you’d leave in pieces.” Pow!
My teeth clattered in my face. I have no business being here without Brenwar. I’d settled for Ben the lily pad instead.
“Get him out of here!”
My body was moving, but not by a will of its own. I could hear the jeers as my knees were dragged across the floor.
“One!”
I felt the wind rushing past my ears.
“Two!”
My stomach was teetering inside my belly.
“Three!”
I was flying.
Crash!
Through a window I went, skipping over the cobblestone road. Struggling, I rolled onto my elbows, groaning when I touched my bleeding lip.
Everyone else spilled out the doors or gawped out the broken window.
I waved, saying, “Never let it be said the Ettin’s Toe isn’t full of charming hospitality.”
Someone grabbed me by my shoulders and began pulling me up to my feet.
“Come on, Dragon.”
Thankfully, it was Ben.
“Ah look, bug eyes has come to help his demon friend.”
“I’m not a demon!” I said, grabbing my saddle. My leg wobbled in the stirrup as Ben shoved me up into the saddle.
It sounded like the entire city burst into laughter.
“Soldiers!” someone said, pointing.
“Tell them we’ve found a demon!”
I’d had enough already. I wasn’t about to spend the night in jail. Even worse, I didn’t need to be accused of being a demon by soldiers.
“Follow me, Ben!” I said, snapping my reins.
Tormac waved and laughed as we galloped away.
From one side of the city to the other we'd gone when I came to a stop. Aching and weary, I slid from my saddle and took a seat on a stone bench in a long-forgotten park. It was the Garrows. An old part of the city: quiet, discreet, creepy.
“I don’t like this place,” Ben said, eyes flitting around.
“It’s not so bad in the daytime. See,” I pointed.
Statues, fountains, and gardens were everywhere, but shaded in grey and black, leaving an eerie feeling in the air.
“Come on, I’ve a friend I was going to check on anyway. Now’s as good a time as any,” I said, clutching my side.
“You all right?”
“Just a couple of broken ribs,” I said through my teeth. They hurt. How many more beatings was I going to take over Ben? Everywhere he was came trouble.
“Sorry, Dragon. I know it’s my fault. I should have stayed in the country.”
Yes! Yes, you should have!
I didn’t say it, however. It was his life. He had the right to do what he wanted. But I think he’d start to think first more often if his ribs got busted, not mine.
“This is it,” I said, wrapping my reins around a lantern post.
A single building, no wider than ten feet, stood in stark contrast to the larger buildings at its sides. There were no windows, only an open doorway with stairs leading up.
“You first,” I said.
“What about the horses? We can’t leave them here.”
“Do you see any people?”
He looked around and shook his head.
“No.”
“They’ll be fine then. Trust me.”
Standing at the bottom and looking up, we saw a stairwell lit with small gemstone lights leading to a doorway at the top.
“Is that,” Ben squinted, leaning forward, “a door?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like it’s a hundred yards away, more maybe.”
“Then we better get started.”
“But?”
I grabbed him by the collar and shoved him forward, saying, “Trust your feet, not your eyes this time.”
Up the steps we went. One flight. Two flights. Three flights. Ten flights. My body ached with every step. Ben was huffing in front of me, eyes wide as saucers as he kept staring back.
“Keep going.”
Twenty flights. Thirty flights. Ben stopped, hands on his knees, scrawny chest heaving, looking back.
“Dragon, what is going on? We aren’t going anywhere!”
I cast a look over my shoulder. We were only one flight up from where we started, and I could see the tail of one horse swaying at the bottom.
I smiled. “We’re almost there, Ben. Keep going.”
Forty flights.
“You did good back there, Ben.”
“I did? How?” he said, wheezing.
I took a breath.
“You got the horses as you were told. You got out of harm’s way like I said. If you hadn't, you might be dead, but you’d have been beaten up pretty bad still.”
“But you got hurt.”
“True, but I’m used to it.” I squeezed his shoulder. “Up. We’re almost there.”
Fifty flights.
Sweating like orcs, we both let out sighs of relief as we placed our feet on the landing at the top. It was marble, checkered in red and green, with the pattern of a mage on the bottom.
Both of us looked back. We still weren’t any farther than when we started.
“I don’t understand,” Ben said, blinking.
“And you probably never will.”
I reached past him and grabbed the ring of a gargoyle-faced knocker.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
&nb
sp; It echoed like thunder.
Ben stuck his fingers inside his ears.
“Who lives here?” he asked.
“Bay—ulp!”
The marble floor disappeared beneath our feet, and into the black we went.
CHAPTER 27
Brenwar inspected the horn he had strapped around his shoulders. It was a horn carved from bone and gilded with brass and iron. It had two purposes. One was to make noise that was privy to dwarven ears. The other was to listen.
He took the small end and held it in his ear.
From a hilltop, he looked down on a small village. A few hundred residents lived there, and he knew that they, like most small-town residents, weren’t welcoming to dwarves. He could hear voices, talking, and laughter, all of it as clear as a bell. After an hour of listening, he huffed. There were not sounds nor any talk of Nath Dragon. He slung the Dwarven Horn back over his shoulder.
“Two hundred years old and he still acts like a boy." He huffed. "And to think: he might live another thousand years.”
Steady through the night he went, down the hill, through the trees. The sun and the rain and the days without sleep did not slow him. His brethren had been scattered toward all of the major cities, seeking for signs, yet none of them had sent word. The Dwarven Horn could send a sound over the air that only the dwarves with other horns could hear. It was dwarven magic, rare and ancient, more pertaining to their craft. One horn linked to another, forming a network of dwarven logic and mystic bounds. Normally they were used in times of war.
“We should have found him by now,” he muttered under his beard.
He knew Nath would be looking for dragons. His friend could be anywhere in the world. But it would be easier to find a needle in a haystack if that’s what Nath wanted.
He combed his stubby fingers through his black beard, eyeing it.
“There better not be any pixies in there,” he warned. “Hmmm… perhaps my thinking is wrong. Should I be searching for Nath, or searching for dragons?” One would certainly lead to the other. “Perhaps the Clerics of Barnabus?”
What if the clerics had already trapped the man? Nath’s father had said, “Keep him from the hands of Barnabus.”
Many of the people in Nalzambor thought the clerics protected people from the dragons, unaware it was the other way around. But the clerics were a devious lot, doing good deeds in the day and dark things in the night. Many were fooled by that, and many were not. Barnabus had been a great warrior who fought alongside the dragons long ago, but now his memory had been turned into something else. No longer a dragon warrior, as the seers said, but a dragon hunter.
The Chronicles of Dragon Collection (Series 1 Omnibus, Books 1-10) Page 28
