by Greg Curtis
This time he felt a whole raft of emotions coming from the machina's master as he spoke. There was more shock and fear at the thought of losing. Somehow this creature had never considered himself vulnerable. Then there was anger at being labelled a pretender, and a strong hint of false denial at being told he'd simply found his secrets. The enemy considered himself as more than that even if he knew the truth. But the important thing was that there was no sense of anger at being told the original Dragon had lost badly because he was an idiot. This one wasn't the original. He didn't like being called a pretender, a copy of the Dragon, but he wasn't the Dragon himself.
That question now answered, it remained only to scare the enemy, and to scare him badly. Sam though had a plan for that. One that he knew would work because this new Dragon was no disciple of the Red God. He knew nothing of tactics or strategy. Nothing of war.
“So you think the magic of your steel drakes makes them immune to fire?” For an illustration he let a small flame appear floating just above his left hand. Immediately he sensed the enemy watching him intently, more than slightly curious as to what he was going to do with the fire. Exactly as he wanted him to, while all the time the fire surging through him was growing and being shaped into a sword in his hands.
“Did it ever occur to you that there's no such thing as true immunity to magic? Just the strength to resist. But strength – all strength – has its limits and enchantments of fire protection are no match for a true fire wizard. Elven mages are a hundred times stronger than any others in the lands. You took Shavarra by evil and skulduggery, while Ragnor's Rock was also unprepared and with only human wizards at their side. Never again will you strike so easily at the elves. And you will pay for your crimes!” As he uttered his curse Sam couldn't help but shake. It wasn't just for effect, or because of the anger that was once more fighting to be released. It was because of the massive bolt of fire that was coursing through his body, almost out of control, desperate to be released. He didn't try to hold it back.
Sam let go a blast of pure fire at the stricken steel drake. Shaped into a fiery sword, it was as strong as anything he'd ever tried, and the heat from the blade almost cooked him where he stood. Which was nothing compared to what it did to its target. But just in case it failed, he reformed the ground under the creature into a swamp of liquid earth. One way or another the creature was about to die, while its master believed it destroyed by fire.
Happily the earth magic wasn't needed. At the first touch of the flame blade the steel creature began screeching, as its twisted remains buckled under the incredible heat which was easily hot enough to melt and forge metal. Its eyes, those massive ruby cut crystal eyes, instantly blackened, and then shattered as if a hammer had been dropped on them. Even its six foot long polished steel talons twisted up into unrecognisable shapes.
Scarcely a heartbeat later the creature exploded – if that was the right word. In truth what it did was so much more powerful than anything he'd ever seen before, that calling it an explosion was like referring to the sun as a candle in the sky.
The sound was like a cannon blasting barely a foot away from him, while the ground underneath him buckled and shook with its force. The fire and flame that screamed out in all directions was so bright it even lit up the bright daylight sky. The pieces of steel, sand and flame that came at him like a million flaming arrows were thankfully soaked up by the ice shield he'd been growing around him for all that time, but not without almost knocking him to the ground despite his being in the calm centre of the fire.
For a while Sam thought he was going to die, the ferocity of the fire all around him was so great. But it didn't truly matter right then, because more important than that was feeling the creature die. Or rather, he felt its strange link with its evil master shatter. And somehow when he heard the screams of the machina he realised that whatever the strange link was that connected master and machina, it could transfer just a little of the creature's suffering back to him. At least when he was concentrating on them. Using them as his eyes and ears. He wasn't just angry for once, he was hurt. It was a good feeling as far as Sam was concerned, even if it only lasted a heartbeat or two.
Too soon it was all over. The battle was ended and the victory his. One moment the evil one was there, then the next the ground shook with thunder and it was gone. Sam figured the Dragon wouldn't be sending any of his machina back in their direction in a hurry.
A few moments later the smoke had cleared enough that he could see once more the outline of the shattered steel drake. But this time what few parts of it were still recognisable were twisted and blackened. The rest was simply missing; in its place a pile of embers, some puddles of steel, and mounds of blackened earth smouldering away. The sight of it, burnt, broken and above all dead, confirmed to him all he wanted to know. He was truly gone.
It was an enormous relief to have the Dragon gone from his thoughts, and Sam breathed deeply of the fresh air, amazed at how good it tasted in his lungs. But as well as the relief, a feeling of triumph was slowly growing within him. He had defeated the enemy, even if it was only at a great distance and through his servants. Better yet he had destroyed the remains of a steel drake with fire despite the supposed impossibility of doing so.
And the Dragon had been told a pack of lies and had apparently swallowed them completely, showing his true naivety in war. Now Sam felt sure he would be slowed down in his campaign of conquest for fear of his ships being followed back to his base. Nor when he next attacked, would he go for an elven province. He was too scared. He would find smaller, weaker targets, hoping to gradually increase his power on the land.
It was a strange thing to understand, but this new Dragon, powerful as he was, wasn't impossible to defeat after all. He could be fooled, his armies beaten, and eventually, he could even be hunted down and killed. After three long, painful and hard months of misery and despair, for the first time the elves could have some hope.
Hope not just that they would find safety in the Golden River Flats, but also that the enemy could be defeated, and that they might one day return to their beloved Shavarra, though it might be many years away. He couldn't wait to tell the elders, even though he knew it would become an interrogation. They still didn't quite believe that he could feel the machina's master through his creatures. But they would.
Even more he wanted to tell Ry and her parents. The smile on Ry's face would warm him down to his very toes, while her parents would celebrate as only travelling elves could. There would be feasting, music, singing and dancing. Or at least what they could manage of such things on the trail.
Of course, first he had to find her somewhere in a caravan filled with frightened people, and then pray she hadn't been hurt. Fire Angel or not, it seemed he had his own lesson in humility to learn. No amount of magic could guarantee safety let alone victory.
Chapter Nineteen.
The cavern was dark much as Heri had expected, lit by only a few torches hanging from the walls. And the walls themselves were very cold to touch owing to the fact that the water flowed down them in winter. It was never the sort of place that a man wanted to be, and Heri shuddered a little in the cold, damp air. He worried that some disease might already be attacking his lungs. But he had expected all of that and it wasn't as if he had a lot of other places where he could find what he needed. His spies had told him long ago exactly what he would find in this black market, and how to gain access. Most of them were probably dead by now, some by his own hand. Still, they had been useful.
He pulled his fur a little tighter around him, flicked the reigns lightly and had his horse trot slowly, further into the darkness. She snorted, not liking the dark or the smell, but she obeyed him. If only his subjects had been so obedient! But then she was alive and many of them weren't. They were ashes in the remains of Fall Keep. They had paid for their treachery with their lives, and that was as it should be. The memory still brought him pleasure. It might have been more than a month ago that he had lost his t
hrone, but it was good to know that his enemies had not prospered from it.
In fact the news on the trail had been all bad for his enemies. The keep had been completely destroyed, and the resulting fire had levelled much of the city behind it. What was left of the citadel was now little more than ruins, and no one knew what had happened. More importantly no one knew he was alive.
With no king to usurp the throne and no citadel to capture, the nobles of Fair Fields and their armies had quickly fallen into their old bad habits, and had started fighting. Most of them blamed the others for destroying the keep. Prince Venti was the one most commonly blamed. It had been his army almost on the doorstep of Fall Keep when it had happened after all. And so the strongest of the noble houses had become the first target for the wrath of the others. Several of the towns of Griffin Dale were now under siege and the prince was said to be desperately recruiting soldiers to defend the rest.
But the Principality of Griffin Dale would not be the last to go to war. Because even when there was nothing left to fight for, the noble houses would fight each other purely for spite. Fair Fields was once again in a state of near anarchy. It had always been a realm that had needed a strong king. Without one it was falling into ruin. Maybe that would teach the nobles something about how useful a king he had been, Heri thought. Not that he planned on letting any of them live long enough to truly regret their treason. First he would kill his verminous brother, then it would be their turn as he reclaimed his throne.
Meanwhile refugees from Fall Keep were flooding the roads and the towns in their thousands, looking for somewhere to live and generally causing chaos. But that had worked in his favour from the start. With so many refugees on the roads, what was one more? So after a few days on the road by himself, with his stubble starting to show through and hiding his face, he had simply joined them. No one had recognised him. Now no one would recognise him. Not when the king was dead and he now sported the start of a full beard and was dressed in a peasant's cloak. No one was even looking for him.
Two hundred paces in the cavern narrowed just as he'd been told it would, and at the far end was a huge dark, heavy, oak door with huge iron hinges. It was the sort of door that would be used on a castle to withstand the blows of a battering ram, and it was here for exactly the same reason. The people on the other side of the door lived in constant fear of attack. Why else would anyone live in such a gloomy cavern?
Dismounting, Heri approached the door and thumped it as hard as he could with his good fist. Three good solid thumps, a brief pause, and then three more. It was the first part of the code his spies had told him to use. The information turned out to be good as a few moments later a small, steel barred slot opened in the door and a pair of eyes stared back at him from the other side.
“Yeah?”
It was more a grunt than a word, but Heri understood the guard perfectly.
“Alder Lives.” He gave the password and then promptly worried that he'd got it wrong when the eye slot snapped shut. But a heartbeat later he heard the noise of huge bolts being slammed open, and then the door itself swung inwards. Not feeling anywhere near as confident as he appeared, Heri strode through the open doorway and led his mare into the black market.
His spies had told him what to expect, and yet he still wasn't prepared for what he discovered in front of him. For a start the narrow cavern had suddenly opened out into a huge chasm in the middle of the mountain, with a domed ceiling surely as high as the grandest of towers. He thought there was actually enough space to fit his old keep and the parade grounds as well.
There was plenty of light in the great cavern, though no sunlight. Instead it came from glowing crystals embedded in the walls. Great purple crystals that cast a somewhat sinister glow on everyone and everything inside. His spies had never been able to tell him what they were made of or how they worked, but it was enough that they did.
To the side was a small shrine to Alder, the only god most of these people would ever worship. Even most of the mercenaries were his followers rather than those of the Red God. But then they fought for coin, not victory. As long as they got paid they didn't care whether they won or lost.
The sculpture of the God of Mischief was a particularly ugly one. Someone had gone to great lengths to show all of the grotesque lord's deformities in their full glory and had succeeded wonderfully. All those parts of men and woman, people and animals were shown woven together into a whole that was more hideous than any creature that had ever lived. Heri threw a copper piece into the offering bowl as was expected and walked on into the market, trying not to stare at the statue.
The market itself was just like any other. It was comprised of simple stalls and the traders competed with each other to get the peasants to buy their wares. In fact many of the traders that had once visited his kingdom might also have set up here. He might well have bought from some of them. But none of them he was certain would recognise him. Though even if they did, none would do anything about it. Not when they had as much to lose as he did. This was the fabled black market of Fair Fields, a place where the lawless and the black of heart did business, and there was no such thing as a good, honest merchant. Everyone here had a price on their head if they were caught. Though it was probably a mistake, Heri felt almost safe among these brigands and rogues. At least he understood them. Besides, there was no price on his head. Everyone thought he was dead.
“No trouble.” An oversized guard, a human with some form of tusked beast blood in his past, grunted the order at him. Heri might have thought he was part troll save that his tusks ran down from his top jaw instead of the other way around.
Heri ignored him as he strode hurriedly towards the waiting stalls, almost dragging the mare with him. They were the reason he had come and their wares, illegal and probably unobtainable anywhere else, were what would allow him to cause the trouble the guard didn't want – for his brother.
The first stall he came to was run by an ageing mercenary of some sort, too old to fight anymore, but still showing all the scars of his past on his bare flesh. He was a grizzled man with hard eyes and plenty of long ropey muscles in his arms. No doubt he had once been a man to fear, and he probably would still pose a risk to the unwary. But Heri had no interest in him. His wares were mainly stolen weapons, many of them poisoned or carrying other curses that would never have been allowed in the more civilised realms. His armour selection was poor. Most of it was old and rusting, but the stuff that was still serviceable included quite a few pieces that a burglar or assassin might wear. Blacked out, light weight for ease of movement, and well-oiled for silence. Heri could have used some of it, but he had to come to his brother openly, and being dressed as an assassin would not help. He moved on.
Further down the row of stalls he found a sylph merchant with a wide assortment of poisons and potions. And the man was pure blooded. The pointed shape of his skull was too marked for him to be anything else. That surprised him. Sylph seldom left their cities and the company of their own people. No doubt he was a dark wizard, cast out from his people for some crime or other and trying to make some easy gold. Heri didn't like either wizards or the sylph. They were an arrogant people. And their magic threatened him. But Heri didn't care about that when he discovered the merchant had a vial of clouded azure, something no other wizard would ever carry. It was the one substance known that would block a wizard's magic. The trick of course was to get it into the wizard. They didn't tend to like being poisoned. Still, Heri bought the vial for what was an outrageous price, and felt better for it. Finally he had something to remove his half-brother's magic. Without it Samual would be far less dangerous.
At the next stall he found a trap-maker, and quickly made a pair of knife throwers his. They were intricate and highly illegal devices in every realm he knew of. After all they were one of the favourite weapons of thieves and cut-throats everywhere. Heri wasn't a swordsman, but he had always been very deft with a knife. Until Samual had destroyed his hand and taken that skill
from him. The knife throwers though would make up for his missing fingers as they hurled the knives for him, and they were easily concealed in sleeves.
It seemed that Heri's decision to visit the black market had been a good one, and for the first time in ages he found himself smiling as he stowed away his purchases. But there was still a lot more to buy, if he could find it. And top of the list was something to take out the elves who were sheltering Samual. He was absolutely certain that Samual would be with the Shavarran elves. After all, that was where his whore was from.
The bestiary further down the row looked like it might provide some answers for him, and he quickly scurried over to it and the rows of exotic and deadly creatures locked away behind its bars. His horse though had other ideas as she smelled some of the creatures behind the bars and knew them for the predators they were. He had to spend some time calming her.
Eventually they made it to the pens, and Heri had to admit that he liked what he saw. Giga monsters, wyverns, blood trolls, snap wolves and so many more. The beast-master and his handlers had scoured the world to stock their bestiary, and possessed the most dangerous creatures imaginable. None of them of course would have been seen in a normal market. None of them would have been allowed to live.
