Strife In The Sky (Book 7)

by Craig Halloran

  All around, soldiers pounded on doors and kicked them in. Dragon claws, blue, grey and yellow, clicked on the cobblestones as the dragons slunk through the streets. From the tops of buildings they watched, making piercing cries like hawks. There wasn’t sanctuary anywhere in the city.

  He slogged through the town, peering into storefronts, down alleys. His entire body was shaking. His stomach groaned and he rubbed his belly. How long did Bletver the triant say I slept? A week? No wonder I’m so weak and starving. If he could, he would have changed into a soldier and blended in, but he didn’t have the strength. That would be the easy way, assuming a dragon didn’t snatch him, fly him up, and drop him for dead. I’ve flown with a dragon once, and that should last a lifetime for me.

  He sighed, shuffled along, and continued on his quest to find rest. Narnum the Free City was huge. Wide open. There must have been a thousand places to hide, but without any friends or allies, he couldn’t find one. He kept walking until he found himself face to face with the edge of the city. The countryside, its farms and green hills, looked like freedom, but it was anything but that. Towers, bulwarks, and great weapons of war surrounded it now. He could see dragons crawling through high grasses and soldiers marching through the fields. He shook his head.

  Is there anywhere peaceful left in this world? He leaned against a building. If I were a triant, where would I hide? That’s where they’ll be looking. Narnum had bridges, huge barns and storehouses. The rivers were said to be as deep as they were wide.

  While running through town with the crowd, he’d seen soldiers rowing up and down the rivers, poking sticks into the water, and a dragon slithering through the grass to slip into the river.

  He pulled the shawl tighter around his shoulders. If you can’t hide in the river, where can you hide?

  He scanned left and right. No one was about. It was just him leaning back against a building that overlooked the river. Maybe the best place to hide is right in front of their faces. He pulled his knees up to his chest and tucked his head between them. His belly growled. Just rest, Gorlee, rest. You can find something to eat later. A gentle breeze stirred, bending the reeds along the river. The sweet sound of the wind put him right to sleep.

  Gorlee hadn’t moved for hours when his head popped up and hit the building.

  “Ow,” he muttered. It was dark now. He could hear the voices of soldiers and see lanterns and torches in the fields, and others cast shadows in the streets. He was rubbing his eyes and yawning when he heard a rumble nearby. The blood in his veins turned to ice, and his heart pounded in his chest. A large black creature moved toward him. A lion-like face emerged from the shadows and came face to face with him.

  Gorlee swallowed hard.

  The feline fury touched him nose to nose. Its scaled paws pinned his toes to the ground, and smoke rolled from its nose. Hot saliva dripped from its mouth and sizzled on his leg.

  Gorlee screamed.

  CHAPTER 20

  “What is it, Brother?” Faylan said to Finlin.

  Finlin stood inside her tent just inside the flap, hands clasped and one thumb rolling over another. They’d been marching hard for days and were finding things difficult to navigate from time to time.

  He cleared his throat.

  “And don’t tell me more scouts have been lost.”

  He remained silent.

  She slung her plate of food into a tent wall.

  “What! How many this time?”

  “Two,” he mumbled with his head down.

  “That makes for seven of my soldiers in three days!” She grabbed a dagger out of her belt and jammed it in the table. “How did it happen this time?”

  “Logs.”

  “Logs!”

  “Rocks,” Finlin added.

  “Rocks! Logs and rocks!”

  He nodded.

  She made her way over to him and pinched his cheeks with her fingers.

  His eyes started to water.

  “Tell me about these logs and rocks,” she huffed. “What, no deep pits this time?”

  “Well,” Finlin said, “they fell in the pit first and then the rocks and logs came.”

  “And did you see where the logs and rocks came from?”

  “The trees,” he said.

  She clenched her teeth and pinched his cheeks harder.

  “You’re hurting me,” he said.

  “I don’t care!” she said with a curse. Then she released him.

  He backed away. I’m going to knock her out one day.

  “I told you to let me scout alone. You see that I am unscathed. Those soldiers you sent are as clumsy as they look. And they made too much of a racket in the woods.” He raised a finger up. “But I have good news.”

  “Really,” she said. “I can’t imagine what that might be.”

  “On my own I have discovered the nature of our threat, and I know just how to find them.”

  She raised a brow.

  “And?”

  “Dwarves.”

  “Hah!” She said. She poured a goblet of wine and picked at some food still on the table. “It must be those ones we encountered before. The ones that traveled with Nath Dragon or whatever it was. Hmmm, it seems they want to slow our army’s movements and take us out one by one.”

  “And they can’t hurt us when we stay together,” Finlin added. “Just let me scout. I can find and spring their snares.” He smiled. “Even better, I think we can catch them in the act. Snare them and take them.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “The dwarves can’t detect me as quick as I can find them,” Finlin said. “They live in rocks, and we’re bred in the woodland. No, I’ll find them, lead them on a chase, and where we wind up…” He punched his fist into his hand. “…the draykis will be waiting to pounce.”

  Faylan twitched her lips and scratched the side of her cheek.

  “I suppose it will work. How many do you need?”

  “I need them all,” he smiled, “and I will let not a single dwarf get away.”

  “So be it then,” she said with a wave, “but you’d better not fail me again.”

  ***

  Pilpin ran a stone over the blade of his axe. Most of the other dwarves were doing the same. For the past few days, they’d been harassing the scouts of the soldiers of Barnabus with pits, snares, and other traps, but they had yet failed to get their prey.

  “We’ll get them,” he said, thumping the edge of his blade. “We’ll get them both.”

  “Aye,” one said, followed by another.

  Pilpin nodded. So far, their efforts had been successful, but the satyrs had evaded all the tricks and traps. The little goat-man was faster than a jackrabbit in the forest, and he noticed anything out of the ordinary. He could sniff them out in the breeze. Must get that satyr and that satyr woman. Justice will be served the dwarven way, or it won’t be served at all. Every dwarf, one and all, would die if necessary, to bring to justice the enemies of their friends.

  Horn Bucket rode up to them from deep in the woods. He sat tall in the saddle, looking like a bear with a wooden helmet on his head.

  “We have him,” Horn Bucket said. “Devliik wants us to make our move. All of us. It’s now.”

  The dwarves scrambled out of the dirt and climbed into their saddles with determined looks in their eyes. Pilpin followed Horn Bucket’s lead into a pass at the bottom of the hill. Horn Bucket signaled for them to spread out. Once they did, they came to a stop where two more dwarves on horses waited. One was Devliik.

  “He’s up there,” Horn Bucket said, pointing with his missing hand. Ahead was more forest and rocky terrain. He eyed the others and then Pilpin. “No path through the way we came except through us.” He winked at Pilpin. “This time, I think he’s wandered too far away.”

  Devliik raised his arm and dropped it down.

  The dwarves spurred their mounts forward at a trot. Two remained back with small crossbows ready. Pilpin could feel his blood charging through his veins.
Peering ahead, he saw two small horns peaking around a large oak tree.

  “Don’t let him flank us again,” Devliik said.

  The satyr had evaded them before. Two at a time and sometimes three, they had gone after him on horseback, and they had come so close. But this time, all of them were ready. They maintained their trot. The satyr didn’t move. Pilpin could see his brown eyes shifting from side to side.

  Run for it, you little horned fiend! Run for it!

  They closed in. Thirty yards. Twenty yards.

  The satyr bolted up the back. The dwarves dug their heels into their mounts and charged after him.

  “East ten!” one dwarf yelled.

  “West five!” said another.

  “Southwest fifteen!” Pilpin shouted out with his eyes on the satyr.

  The dwarves might not be as quick, but they were tactical. Everyone shouted a direction and a measure, cutting off the satyr’s path wherever it turned.

  Back and forth the dwarves shouted.

  The satyr dashed through all sides of the pass, only to be cut off time and again. Desperation filled its eyes. It snarled and barked at them. They closed in and started to surround it. It turned and sped straight down the pass, away from them and its army.

  “After him!” Devliik said. “This is just what we wanted!”

  Horses thundered through the pass fifty yards, then a hundred. Devliik led them to a stop where the pass almost dead ended in a cliff of huge rocks.

  “Well, well,” Devliik said, looking above.

  The satyr hung suspended above them upside down with its leg in a snare.

  “Your days of running are over, Murderer,” Devliik said, getting off his horse. All the dwarves did the same.

  Pilpin pulled the rope that held him, and the satyr landed hard on the ground. It sprung on its feet and started to run.

  Whop!

  Devliik punched it in the jaw, and it fell to the ground. In seconds, the dwarves had its arms and legs bound with rope.

  “What do you have to say for yourself, Murderer?”

  Finlin flashed them all a grin and said, “You didn’t trap me, you bearded fools. I trapped you.”

  The horses nickered and bolted back down the pass.

  Pilpin and all the dwarves readied their weapons, scanning the area.

  Hidden in the rocks, the draykis emerged with claws and teeth that looked like razors.

  Finlin laughed and said, “There won’t be any dwarven justice, but there will be more dwarven deaths.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Twang! Twang! Twang!

  Nath snatched one arrow out of the air. Another splintered off his chest.

  “Gads!” Bayzog cried out.

  The third arrow buried itself in Bayzog’s leg. The part-elf crumpled on the ground. Nath rushed over.

  “Are you alright?”

  “I’ll be fine. Go!” Bayzog said.

  Nath pointed his finger at Otter Bone.

  “You’ll regret this!” He dashed into the woods.

  Twang!

  He swatted an arrow away and made a bead toward the tree in which sat the man who fired it. He jumped up high, grabbed the man’s leg, and jerked him off the branch. The archer scrambled to his feet and reached for another arrow.

  Nath snatched the bow and snapped it in half. Whop! He knocked the man out.

  Twang! Twang!

  Arrows skipped of his back. He whirled and pounced thirty feet through the air into the trees.

  “How’d you—” the archer said, “—ack!”

  Nath slung him to the ground.

  The last archer tried to climb away.

  “Where are you going?” Nath said, grabbing the man by the belt and hurling him downward.

  The man crashed on top of the other.

  Several men with swords ran beneath his feet, straight for the camp.

  Nath leapt out of the tree and ran straight at them. He slung one right after another to the ground and held his laugh when they got up from the ground. He narrowed his eyes.

  “You should have stayed home tonight.”

  They gang rushed him.

  Whop!

  A man fell gasping for air.

  Wap!

  The next spun like a top to the ground.

  Crack!

  A jaw went loose.

  Wap! Wap!

  A man’s eyes rolled up in his head.

  Boom!

  The last man’s feet left the ground, and he crashed out of sight in the forest.

  Nath headed back for camp.

  Bayzog and Brenwar were fine, but Otter Bone was shaking.

  “My patience thins,” Nath said, picking him up by the collar and lifting him from his feet. “Have your nephew go and fetch my friend.”

  Otter Bone coughed and sputtered.

  “You are fast, Dragon. Very fast indeed.”

  Nath shook him.

  “Tell your nephew to get moving now.” He glanced at Bayzog. The half-elf seemed hurt. “How’s the leg?”

  Bayzog’s face turned clammy and a sheet of white. He fell onto his back.

  Nath let go of Otter Bone and rushed over.

  “Bayzog!”

  The wizard’s eyes were weak, and his breath was thin. He started to say something.

  “P-Poison.”

  Nath whirled toward Otter Bone, who had a thin smile on his cracked lips.

  “You are fast, but wise as a serpent you are not,” the sage said, pointing at the arrow in Bayzog’s leg. “You missed one.”

  “Brenwar!” Nath said. “Get the chest!”

  The dwarf got off of Horse Neck and punched him in the back of the head. The man sagged into the ground. Brenwar headed for the chest.

  “It will do you no good, Nath Dragon.” Otter Bone said. “Only I have the cure for the bane that ails him. And I’ll never tell without those crystals.”

  Nath’s fires burned deep inside. His chest heaved. His nostrils flared. He fought the urge to turn the man to cinder.

  “I’ll find a way with or without you, Sage.”

  Brenwar set the chest down and opened it up.

  “That won’t help,” Otter Bone warned. “He’s been hit with poison, not magic. But a potion will probably heal his leg. Not that he’s going anywhere.”

  Nath put a healing vial to Bayzog’s lips.

  Bayzog sipped. A moment later, he coughed and sputtered. His violet eyes rolled up into his head, and his body went limp.

  Nath crushed the vial in his hand.

  “Cure him now, Old Man.”

  “Old Man, am I? I’m certain I’m not older than you. You are old, but you are not wise, Nath Dragon. So many decades you have wasted.” He shook his head. “You should have seen this coming.”

  “I’ll get the cure from him,” Brenwar said, stepping forward.

  “Brenwar Bolderguild. If you only used your wits as much as you used that hammer, you might not have ever been in this predicament. You or the young black dragon.”

  “Why you—”

  Nath stopped him with is hand.

  “I’ll get the crystals.”

  Otter Bone eyed him.

  “And?”

  “And I’ll give them to you,” Nath said.

  “Now you are learning,” Otter Bone said.

  Bayzog groaned. The part-elf looked miserable, sinking Nath’s heart. As much as he didn’t want to cooperate with Otter Bone, he had no choice but to comply. He had to save his friend. And another thing bothered him too about Otter Bone. The things the sage said seemed to voice concern. But deceit was often clouded in mystery.

  “Is there something specific about these crystals you want to share with me?” Nath said, “Or am I supposed to find this needle in the haystack without any idea what the needle looks like?”

  “Ah, now I know you are committed,” Otter Bone said, scratching the scraggly whiskers on his chin and combing his frosty hair back from his smoky eyes. “I’ve seen visions of these things. Three the s
ize of eggs should suit me. Above, there are many common things and many terrors as well.”

  “Like dragons?” Brenwar stated, folding his arms over his chest. “How do we roam streets that are filled with dragons?”

  “Well, what was your plan to begin with? Obviously you were going to go up there,” Otter Bone said, “and try to find a way to stop the dragons.”

  “Bayzog was going to help out with that,” Brenwar bristled, “and that’s why we sent Ben into the city, to get some insight on what we are dealing with!”

  “I’m a sage. I know these things already. Please don’t repeat them—”

  “Why you—”

  Nath held the deep-chested dwarf back.

  “Get on with it, Sage!” Nath said.

  Otter Bone cackled.

  “Alright, alright then. My, your patience does not match your longevity.” He sighed. “I know you want to free the dragons from the control of Barnabus. The stones of jaxite are many that they use, but,” he held his finger up, “there are not that many. The jaxite is difficult to cut, but doers up there get it done.”

  “Who are the doers?” Nath said.

  “That I do not know, but the dragons are not the only thing that guards them. There is something else. Something stark I’ve seen. Dark and deadly. Malevolent. The curse on the Floating City makes it hard to see, but I get drifting visions from time to time. Stands my hairs up on end, it does.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure what lurks up there can be stopped or killed.”

  “Dragons and dark forces,” Brenwar huffed. “How much worse can it be?” He swung War Hammer around. “Either way, I’m ready.”

  Otter Bone laughed.

  “You cannot go, Bolderguild. There is no time for turtles to fetch my fare.”

  “I certainly will.”

  “You’ll never make the climb in time.”

  Bayzog moaned.

  “Brenwar, someone needs to keep an eye on him and Bayzog. You’re all I have.”

  The older dwarf grunted and made a quick nod.

  “And you better get moving,” the old sage said to Nath. “The longer he stays sick, the more damage is done. I cannot reverse the effects beyond a period of time.”

  Nath glanced at Bayzog. The mage looked miserable.