Azerick saw Toron’s large horns and muzzled face rising above the crowd. He ran towards him, suspecting that Zeb would be close by. His assumption proved correct as he drew near and saw Zeb talking with the mayor next to Toron. Zeb seemed angry and Toron held his big, double-bladed battle-axe tightly in his fist and wore his heavy leather battle kilt.
“What happened?” he yelled as he drew near the small group.
“Seems you were right, lad. The good mayor here was keeping something from us all along. I assume you saw the dragon?” he asked then continued when Azerick nodded in affirmation. “It seems that the dragon shows up every year right around the time of summer harvest and demands tribute as some kind of tax. It took me and three of my men to keep Toron from trying to lop its big ugly head off and getting himself, and probably a lot of us, killed in the process.”
“It’s not our fault!” The mayor cried. “We do not have the weapons or fighters to even try and defend ourselves against that creature, and we are too far away from any vassal to request help from them.”
“You should have let me go,” Toron growled. “Better to die as warriors defending yourselves and what is yours than living as cowards to be preyed upon by another!”
“I agree with you, Toron, but it is their town and their way of life to live as they choose. I say we get the ship loaded with whatever goods you plan to take, I’ll get my things and my books, and we will leave them to their own problems as soon as you are ready to set sail,” Azerick said with undisguised contempt.
Zeb looked a bit squeamish as he answered Azerick. “I’m sorry, lad, but the mayor gave most of your things to the dragon.”
Azerick spun on the squat little mayor. “You did what?” he shouted at the man as blue arcs of power began jumping across the knuckles of his clenched fists.
Mayor Remkin backed away with his hands raised before him, suddenly realizing for the first time exactly what made this young man so intimidating.
“It wasn’t my fault!” he quailed. “The dragon could sense some of the things in your room and demanded that we bring them to him or he would peal the roof off the inn and dig them out himself! I had never seen him so insistent! Besides, you were all supposed to be gone by now!”
Azerick made several short paces, gnashing his teeth and clenching his fists in frustration. He finally spun towards the mayor’s quaint yet opulent home and struck it with a lightning bolt powerful enough to shatter a large section of the front wall. Lacking the supporting base, an equally large section of its roof quickly followed the wall downward to lie atop the pile of smoldering rubble.
He then spun about and faced Zeb. “Zeb, load up the ship with whatever you plan to trade, get the men on board, and get out of here.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” Zeb asked.
“No,” came the furious sorcerer’s short reply.
“I will stay here with you,” Toron proclaimed.
“So will the rest of us, lad.”
“No, Zeb. If I cannot take care of this myself then you and your men will not be able to provide that much help. There is no sense in you all dying for nothing. Toron, there is no one I would want more by my side and watching my back in a situation like this than you, but if it actually comes down to a fight I do not think that even your great strength and battle prowess will get me out alive. I need you to take whatever books I have left and keep them safe. Just get them to North Haven. Deposit them in a safe box under my name. I will retrieve them there if I am able”
“Very well, I will guard them with my life. They will be there for you when you come for them,” Toron rumbled.
With those instructions, he stalked up to his room and filled his pack with essential supplies. He stopped by the kitchen and stuffed some food into his bag. When he reemerged from the inn, Zeb and a few others were still standing near to where he had left them. The mayor and several locals were surveying the damage to his house.
“Which way did it go?” Azerick demanded.
Several locals all pointed to the north and slightly west of the town.
“What are you going to do, son?” Zeb called after him as Azerick headed for the ruined gates.
“I’m going to get my things!”
“Do you really think your magic is powerful enough to destroy a dragon?”
“No!”
Zeb asked, “Then how are you going to get your things back?”
“I don’t know!” he shouted over his shoulder.
“Do you think getting yourself killed is going to make Delinda happy?” Zeb called out.
Azerick spun around at his words. “All of my life people have taken from me! They took my father, home, mother, and friends. They took my freedom and my wife. They took my child, Zeb! They took everything because they were strong and I was too weak to protect them, but no more! I have my own power now, and I will kill or die to protect what is mine!”
With that declaration, Azerick turned and stalked out of the ruined gates, snatched a spear from the hand of a surprised guard, and headed out of the town towards the mountains.
Mayor Remkin sidled up next to Zeb. “That is a troubled young man. I will pray for his safe return.”
Zeb turned and looked at the fat mayor. “You better pray that he finds his things if he does return here,” Zeb told him then started issuing orders to his men.
It took two days to get all the cargo loaded onto the ship along with Zeb, Toron, his original crew, and several young men from Riverdale that decided they wanted something more in their lives than farming. Zeb and his men traded every bit of gold and uncut gems they had collected from the fallen bodies of the cavern gnomes to purchase the iron ore they were going to trade farther downriver.
Azerick put the town to his back and made in the direction of his stolen property. He was sick and tired of someone always taking from him the things that were most important. Murderers had taken his parents, Travis’s foolish actions had taken away his school, Xornan had taken away his love, and now this dragon dared to take away his books and his chance at living a peaceful life in this valley.
He stopped and turned at the sound of someone calling his name. Anna ran up to him, breathing hard from the exertion of catching up to him.
“Anna, I’m sorry. I completely forgot about you. I want to apologize for my behavior once again.”
“No, Azerick, it is I who must apologize. Zeb told me what happened to you, and I am so sorry. If I had known of your loss, I would not have thrown myself at you. I am not sorry for liking you, but I understand that this was a bad time for you.”
“Please do not think it had anything to do with you. You are lovely, kind, and smart; much like Delinda was, and it confused me. I still should not have reacted as I did. If things were different, if I were not so messed up in my head, I would never have pushed you away.”
“I understand. Please be careful,” she told him, stretched up onto her toes, and kissed him once again. “For luck.”
She turned away and ran back towards the town before he could think of anything to say. Azerick watched her for several minutes before he resumed walking in the direction of his stolen property.
CHAPTER 9
One of the first things he had learned about magic was that a mage was capable of imbuing his more valuable possessions with trace magic that would allow him or her to know precisely where it was once they got close enough. Magus Allister had taught him that rather painful lesson when he was still nothing more than a street rat. A clever street rat, but a street rat nonetheless.
After three days of hiking, Azerick knew that he was getting close. He could feel the effusion of his trace magic, albeit very faintly. He climbed the foothills and followed the base of the mountains westward. At the rate he could feel the magical emanations increasing, he estimated that he would find their location shortly before sundown.
He spotted the large cave set a couple hundred feet up the steep-sided face of the mountain. As he climbed the treacherous
rock-strewn slope, he prayed that the dragon would not be home and he could simply walk in and take back his things.
As usual, his prayers went unanswered as a deep voice rumbled out of the cave mouth with the force of an avalanche. “You are either very foolish or very stupid, little sorcerer.”
“I’m a sorcerer not a—oh, never mind,” Azerick responded, cutting short his usual clarification.
“So which is it that brings you to seek your death on my mountain?” the dragon asked.
“No one has ever called me stupid before; quite the opposite really. So if I had to choose I guess I would have to go with foolishness,” Azerick replied much more calmly than he felt.
“You are fortunate. I have just finished a rather large meal and I am in no mood to exert even the minimal amount of effort it would take to crush you,” the dragon rumbled sleepily.
Azerick surveyed his surroundings, looking for anything that might provide him with any kind of advantage. He stood next to a huge boulder the size of a carriage that must have fallen from the high cliff face that rose above the dragon’s cave some centuries back.
“I’m afraid I cannot do that,” Azerick replied.
“And why is that?” the dragon asked, his curiosity piqued.
“You took some things from the town of Riverdale that belongs to me. I would like to have them back.”
A deep rumbling emitted from the cave opening that Azerick interpreted as laughter. “Anything within my cave belongs to me, just as anything that comes into my valley. I will allow you to leave since you have thus far provided me with amusement, but you amuse me no longer.”
“I will make you a deal. I do not care one wit about the things you have taken from the town, its people, or whatever else you may have collected. Just let me have my things back and I will not trouble you any longer,” Azerick compromised.
“So you will allow me to keep the things I have taken if I return what was once yours?” the dragon asked in angry disbelief. “What arrogance, what presumption! The only thing being allowed here is my allowing you to live, and that gift I now choose to revoke. I will show you what you have the power to allow!”
Azerick heard the scraping of claws and scales on stone. A slight wind picked up as the dragon filled its huge lungs full of air. The sorcerer stepped behind the large boulder just as the dragon stretched its long neck out and breathed a massive jet of flame. Azerick could feel the incredible heat of the blast as it splashed against the boulder. He could feel the rock heating up and cracking under the awesome, fiery assault.
Azerick prepared a spell he had been practicing since his arrival in the valley. It was one that he had studied the description of in the great tome that he was so desperate to get back. He called back out to the dragon once more from the short-term safety of the massive boulder.
“Last chance, dragon. Just give me back my stuff. There is no need for us to do battle!”
He heard the dragon drawing another great breath and jumped out from behind his stone barrier. He released his spell just as the dragon’s head stretched out of the cave and began spewing another burst of stone-melting flames.
At first appearance, Azerick’s spell did not appear to have any visible effect. It was not until the jet of fire was abruptly cut off with an accompanying crash and sick crunch of bone that gave proof that the sorcerer had done anything at all.
A massive boulder, only slightly smaller than the one Azerick hid behind, fell from the towering face of the mountain. It came to a rest over a hundred yards from the base of the steep slope. A dense stand of hearty trees finally arrested the runaway juggernaut’s flight a hundred yards down the face of the slope. Once the dust began to settle, Azerick stepped out from behind his stone barrier, which was still radiating a great deal of heat, and went to examine the destruction his spell had wrought.
The massive, horned head of the dragon lay still upon the rocky ground. A large rent in its hard, glittering scales oozed blood about six feet back from the huge, wedge-shaped head. A glint of white showed the cusp of one of the creature’s great vertebrae protruding from the ghastly wound. Azerick’s eyes traveled up the cliff face and examined the smooth indentation that marked the spot where his spell had undermined the stone that had held the big boulder in place and ultimately proved to be the dragon’s demise.
“I take no pleasure in your death, great dragon. Despite your greed and arrogance, I find you to be a magnificent creature,” Azerick spoke to the enormous corpse.
It was not until Azerick squeezed past its massive bulk that he realized how truly impressive the dragon really was. From his studies, he estimated that the dragon, much like him, to be just at the transition point of being considered an adult by its own kind. The tunnel that led to its lair was long and the dragon’s body blocked most of the waning outside light from reaching very far into the cavern, so he conjured up his own magical illumination.
From the looks of the huge claw marks, the dragon had widened much of the long passage in order to accommodate its great girth. Large patches of stone had been worn smooth, most likely by the continual scraping of the dragon’s hard scales. It took several minutes of walking before the tunnel opened into a huge central cavern. Azerick circled the vast chamber and saw that much of its walls had been scraped smooth by the dragon just as the tunnel leading in had been.
The chamber looked like a giant stone bowl turned upside down with Azerick trapped beneath it. He ran his hand along the smooth, almost glassy walls where the dragon must have used magic or the heat of its own powerful breath weapon to melt the stone smooth.
By far the most impressive feature of the dragon’s lair was the massive glittering pile of treasure that lay piled near the back wall of the cavern. A great mound of gold, jewels and numerous other items of value lay in a heap as tall as the sorcerer and twice that in width at its base.
Azerick doubted that even the King’s own treasury contained so much wealth. In fact, only the church could likely match or exceed this horde’s value in all of Valaria. As Azerick cautiously approached the immense source of riches, an ominous rumbling filled the chamber. A loud crack sounded from the direction of the cave entrance followed by the deafening sound of thousands of tons of stone crashing down and spewing a choking, blinding cloud of dust into the cavern.
Azerick hunkered down and covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve. Even that bit of protection could not prevent his lungs from getting a thick coating of the fine grey powder. As the rumbling ceased and the dust began to settle, Azerick’s lungs violently tried to expel the contaminants. His coughing brought up mouthfuls of grey, gritty phlegm, but that finally abated as the dust settled enough for him to see and breathe.
A fine grey powder coated everything in the cavern including the sorcerer. Azerick looked like an animated statue while the pile of treasure appeared to be an oddly shaped boulder. Azerick crossed the cavern to examine the passageway to the outside. His findings were not optimistic. Several feet in, rubble blocked the entire tunnel. From the amount of dust and the force of the cave-in, Azerick surmised that thousands of tons of stone, if not more, now choked off the entire passage.
He cast the spell that he had used to bring the boulder perched above the cave entrance down onto the dragon’s neck. Several square yards of stone turned to little more than dust in an instant. A second rumbling immediately sounded as more stone fell into the opened passage, blocking it off once more and sending another cloud of dust into Azerick’s face. He sighed in exasperation at his failure.
“I probably would have died of thirst before I could tunnel all the way out anyway,” he muttered to himself.
He circled the large chamber and slowly examined the walls in search of another way out. Fortune smiled upon him for once when he found a small crevice from which he could feel a faint breeze. Azerick cast his excavation spell once more and the crevice became a passage large enough for him to crawl through. Just as he had hoped, the crevice opened into a larger tunn
el that he could easily negotiate.
Azerick returned to the main chamber and examined the treasures before him. He found his books, including the large, ancient tome, and his scrolls near the top of the pile. The scrolls, still safely rolled into their scroll tubes he dropped into his pack. He picked up the large tome, blew off the thick layer of dust, and began flipping through its yellowed pages for a particular passage he had studied before. He sat upon a dust-covered pile of coins and began studying the pages before him.
After two hours of careful research, he picked up the short spear he had snatched out of the surprised gate guard’s hand on his way out of Riverdale, and began drawing a series of runes in the dirt floor all around the pile of treasure. Once he felt his work was complete, he compared his work to that shown in the book and felt confident that it would do. He cast a minor spell that would ensure that the runes would not be contaminated or accidentally marred by a small animal or a limited amount of water should any rains seep through. The magical sigils glowed faintly for a moment then subsided.
Careful not to step on his work, Azerick filled a pouch with gold and silver coins and several cut gems. He packed the precious tome into his pack and crawled through the exit he had created, leaving behind the large chamber and its treasures. Once he gained the larger natural cave that lay beyond he magically carved exit, he cast his excavation spell once more and caused the small passage to collapse, sealing off the treasure chamber once more.
“Great, I’m in a tunnel again,” he muttered to himself, something he was doing more and more frequently.
Azerick was confident that it would not take him nearly as long to find the surface as it had when he and the others had escaped from their captivity and forced servitude. That confidence began to wane as the second day of his spelunking came and passed.
His water was nearly gone and his food was running short. To make matters worse, the tunnel he was traversing was growing smaller and smaller until he was forced to crawl on his hands and knees. It did not take long before the knees of his trousers were rubbed through and the skin beneath were worn raw.
The Sorcerer's Torment (The Sorcerer's Path) Page 22
