The dragons descended on the gray lava flows that had cooled and solidified long ago. Nearly every color was represented here—even a rare Gold had found its way from the western islands.
“I am Reshikk, the last of the ancients. By the glory of the Father of Dragons I have been released from my prison.”
Reshikk waited, eyeing the gathered newcomers. Dragons did not often lie to one another, and so to question the word of another was to directly challenge them.
Soon, one such dragon stepped forth—a lean, well-muscled red with a large crown of horns. “The father of dragons, you say?”
“Do you doubt my words?” Reshikk asked, staring down at the red.
The other dragons watched the Red, waiting for the accusation. He eyed those around him and gave a disgusted snort of black smoke at their cowardice. He stood tall, spreading his smooth wings wide, and let out a blast of flame that licked at the stone beneath Reshikk’s clawed feet. Reshikk answered the challenge with a roar, and those surrounding the brave Red backed away to safety. The Red leaped into the air as Reshikk dove down to meet him, and the two came together in a great firestorm. They locked horns in the air and twirled in flight, both frantically beating their wings to keep them aloft. Claws locked in combat, and spiked tails wrapped around scaled necks.
The aerial battle ensued as they tried to overpower one another and steer their opponent into the rocks below. Reshikk used his superior weight and shifted their tangle of horns to the side, before spraying the Red’s shoulder with green venom. The dragon shrieked and tried to get away, giving Reshikk the opportunity he needed. With a sudden flurry of beating wings, he gained the upper hand on the Red and tilted forward, pulling his tail free and wrapping it around the other dragon’s wing.
They spiraled down to the ground a hundred feet below, with Reshikk riding the Red and bathing him in flame and acid. He landed on top of the accuser, and covered his horns in acid that ate through to the ground below.
“I withdraw my challenge!” the Red cried. “You have been blessed by the father of dragons. I call you my KING!”
Reshikk stood atop his defeated opponent and growled low, eyeing all nearby.
The females gave terrible shrieking cries. The males roared for the victor and bowed before him until their horns touched the ground. Reshikk strode forth from the carnage that was the challenger’s smoldering body. Female greens dared a glance at him, and turned their long necks to look shyly to the side, shifting their hips and raising their tails skyward. Many of the other clans’ females offered themselves in this way. None of the males offered objection, remaining obediently cowed.
Behind him the Red bitterly endured the acid as it burned through his once proud crown of horns. He stood on shaky legs so that he might bow before his king as well, and in doing so offered himself up wholly.
Reshikk eyed him with a grin from over his shoulder, then leaped into the air and flew to the monolithic perch once more. “I have come to you with the power of your forebears, and a message from our father.”
The dragons finally lifted their heads to regard their king. He stared down on them with gleaming emerald eyes. “The humans are weak, their kingdoms in disarray. The elves have lost their power, and the dwarves have been weakened as well. Now is the time for us to strike. Our fires shall spread across the land. The shadow of our wings will turn day into night. Humans, dwarves, and elves shall fear us once again. For the age of the dragons has come to Agora!”
Chapter 15
The Curse of Power
Roakore shot back a glass of whiskey and poured himself another. He slammed the book closed and got up from his wide desk, focusing on the stacked wood beside the low burning fire. He was tired of wrestling with this problem. Deep down he knew that he still retained the power to move trees, loath as he was to admit it.
He considered pouring another glass and drowning his dilemma in spirits. Instead, he turned to the cut logs and focused on them as if they were stone. He raised a shaking hand and imagined himself grabbing hold of the lumber with his mind. His other hand wiped away the sweat from his brow. A part of him still hoped it wouldn’t work. Roakore silenced the thought. If he was going to really attempt the feat again, he had to accept that it was possible, he had to believe. He let out a deep sigh and left it all up to the gods.
Roakore PULLED.
The entire pile of wood shot toward him and he howled and ducked to the floor. The pieces flew over his head and slammed into the far wall. Hung weapons and shields and a long bookshelf crashed to the floor, creating a terrible ruckus.
“By Ky’Dren’s bloody beard…” Roakore gasped.
“What in the hells happened?” One of his wives had come to the door that connected to his sleeping chamber. She glanced from Roakore to the mess of wood and metal, and curiously back at him.
Roakore got up in a huff, stammering to explain. “Well, the damn shields and weapons weren’t hung right at all!” He walked over to the pile and kicked a piece of wood. “Was testing the integrity o’ the hangin’…ye know, tossing lumber around like I do.”
His wife looked utterly confused. “You lost yer fool head? What you talkin’ ‘bout? How all that firewood get all the way over there at once?”
“Well…I was pilin’ it o’course. Didn’t like it where it is. It be an eyesore.”
“You was pilin’ it all hackneyed like that?” She regarded the mess skeptically.
“Bah.” He threw up his arms. “What ye be knowin’ ‘bout wood pilin’ anyway? Go on, get back to sleep and leave a dwarf to his work.”
She appeared to have more to say, but instead rolled her eyes and left, closing the door heavily behind her.
Roakore let out a pent-up sigh and returned to his desk for another drink. He considered the implications of what he had done. The pile of armor and wood sat scattered about the floor. He put down his glass and reached out a hand, focusing only on one piece. The small log floated into the air and came to his hand where he snatched it out of the air.
From his place beside the desk, he maneuvered the weapons and shields back to their hangings on the wall. The wood he floated back beside the fire and stacked neatly. When his work was done, he sat back in his big stone chair looking out the window. For many troubled hours he remained, pondering his new abilities.
Chapter 16
The Crossroads
The cold rain let up when the sun rose, leaving the dead apple orchard bathed in a thick cloud of fog. Raene picked up an apple and sniffed its brown flesh. Rotten. She tossed it in the air and gave it a kick and continued on through the rows of withered trees. Whatever kind of evil blight was on the land, it seemed to be taking the entire countryside. She had traveled a week north by pony since dismissing Dirk and Krentz south of Brinn. Now she was in Shierdon, nearing Bearadon. To her left a few miles was Lake Eardon, and at its center, the capital island city of Belldon. Raene had considered traveling there and killing the false king, Ainamaf, who was said to still be alive and impersonating the king, but she continued on course, determined to find Zander. After she took out the necromancer she could return and deal with Ainamaf.
Raene considered summoning Chief and having him hunt for her, though she doubted anything edible would be found anywhere in the dying land. She found that she did want company, however, and pulled the figurine from her pocket and spoke the words. Chief’s blue glow illuminated the dense fog around her momentarily, and soon he was sitting on his hind legs, tongue hanging to the side, tail wagging slowly. He wanted to play.
“How ye doin’ there, boy? Dirk and Krentz still angry?”
He barked.
She snorted. “Figures. Here, Chief, go get it!” She picked up a stick and gave it a toss. The wolf turned to mist and flew through the orchard in a streak of blue light. “That there’s cheatin’!” said Raene, seeing how he caught the stick before it could hit the ground. When he returned to her, only his snout was in solid form, the rest of him trailing behind in wispy
tendrils.
“C’mon, let’s see if we can’t find some trouble.”
Raene continued on to the north with Chief in tow. The orchard gave way to what should have been a golden field of wheat. Instead, they found more death. The plants had taken but had been stunted, and were now brown and drooping. She came across many abandoned farmhouses as she traveled up the eastern ridge overlooking the lake. She searched the dark haunts but found no food.
The land was eerily quiet. Swirling mists blowing across the choppy waters licked at the shore and foamed up against rock faces. No boats traveled the waters, and no chimney smoke came from the clusters of cottages. Raene felt exposed traveling along the high bluff and took the first road she came across leading east.
They followed the wagon trail for a few hours before coming to a crossroads. The sign said Bearadon was five leagues north. She was about to call to Chief, who she had sent to scout ahead to the east, when she heard a creaking sound. The crossroads was bathed in thick mist, and Raene peered toward the southern road from where the sound had come.
“Who goes there?” she called out.
A jingling of chains answered.
Slowly, she took her shield from her back and readied her spiked mace. She called to Chief, but the wolf didn’t answer. The jingle came again, followed by a rasping breath. The fog was too thick to make out much detail, but as she carefully strode forward she began to make out something up high. As she got closer she realized it to be a crow’s nest hanging from a tall post. Skeletal legs dangled over the edge, one with its foot missing. Raene gave a sigh; it was just the wind rattling the poor wretch’s chains. She was about to continue on when the chains rattled again, and a boney hand gripped the iron rods of the cage. An ear-piercing wailing erupted from the high perch, and the sunken face of an undead human slammed against the bars. The hand emerged and a boney finger pointed at her. Raene covered her ears, her instincts telling her to run, but she had to silence the creature before others heard its call.
Raene glanced around frantically. The roadside was littered with rocks and boulders. She took one up with her mind and pulled it from the ditch, sending it whirling toward the cage. The stone snapped the chain in two and sent the cage crashing to the ground. It broke open on impact and the screaming lich leaped from its prison and flew through the air toward her. She brought up her shield and met the attack with force, slamming the flying lich with all her might. It bounced off and rebounded quickly, but Raene was already on the attack. She swung her mace and caved in the side of its skull. It hit the ground and began convulsing, one clawed hand reaching for her. Still it screamed. With a cry she came down on the neck with her shield and severed its head.
Raene’s ears rang in the sudden silence. The hateful green eyes still had life in them, for they watched the shield as she raised it and brought it down on the head over and over again. She didn’t stop until nothing was left but a mass of bloody pulp. The body of the undead twitched and began to get up.
“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me,” said Raene. She slammed her shield into its back, severing the spine; still, the headless corpse thrashed about. Another screeching voice rang out in the mist.
“Chief!” Raene cried.
Tortured cries rose up in the distance to answer her. She cursed the blinding fog, unable to tell where the sound was coming from. There was nowhere to hide in the open crossroads, so she prepared herself for the imminent attack. She put her mace away and called upon her abilities. Dozens of rocks floated into the air and began to swirl around her. A snarl caught her ear, followed by the shriek of one of the undead—Chief.
When the first of the monsters erupted from the fog, Raene fought her panic and waited. Soon half a dozen were barreling toward her. When they got too close she finally released her swirling stones and sent them shooting away from her, riddling the horde. As the undead dropped, more charged from behind. Raene met a lurching lich with a shield bash and caved in the head of another. Chief exploded from the fog and rode one of the attackers to the ground and ripped out its throat. He turned into a blur of blue motion then, darting from one to another, felling many. A man with no jaw charged at her with a pitchfork raised high, his tongue waggling against his neck and a gut-rattling scream issuing from the ruined maw. She blocked the stab wide, letting it graze off the side of the shield and caved in the side of his head. He showed no sign of injury, but came on with ravenous mania, slamming a pitchfork against her shield even after the end had snapped off. She hit him again and again, not stopping until the battered body was left broken and twitching.
Panting, she looked around at the mangled bodies. Chief still had one down. He clamped on the neck and savagely shook his head. The crunch of bone echoed in the dead wood.
“Come on, Chief. Let’s get the hells out of here!”
They took off at a sprint to the north. Bearadon was only a few hours’ march. She hoped against reason that some vestige of humanity still remained in the city. If it had already fallen to the undead hordes, then Zander had become much stronger than she realized.
The fog couldn’t be trusted. It had a slight greenish glow to it, and whispers rode upon the twisting currents. The looming shadows of dead and twisted trees kept her thinking she saw movement from the corner of her eye, but she found courage in her father Ky’Ell’s words. “Fear hides in the corner of yer eye, lass. Don’t let it distract ye from what’s right in front o’ ye.”
She considered summoning Dirk and Krentz. They would come in handy if she was attacked again before she reached the city. Krentz would have more than a few words, she knew. And Dirk would try to keep the peace. Or would he? Raene knew she had done a bad thing in sending them away against their will. She had broken the pact. It was true she had saved them; but they had saved her life, too. All in all they were even. Except now she was their link to the world. She was by all rights master of the figurine, and therefore could force them to do her bidding. She hadn’t wanted it to come to that, but she had a chance like no other. With the deadly power of the two assassins and the spirit wolf, she could kill Zander and his minions and solidify a place in dwarven legend, even a seat at the table of the gods. Raene wasn’t about to let an opportunity like that pass her by.
For a hundred years she’d had to sit by watching her brothers get the attention of Ky’Ell, their father and King of Ky’Dren. She had to sneak her training with her brother. He would come back from his daily lessons and teach them to her in the small hours of the night. The training wasn’t proper, but over ten decades she found enough time to become quite skilled at martial combat. She was also a powerful stone mover and, in truth, had more power and control than all her brothers.
Raene was determined to succeed—to prove to her people not only her prowess and power but that of all dwarven females.
Chapter 17
Queen’s Landing
Zerafin snapped awake with a start. His mother blinked sleepily at him and caressed his hand with her weak fingers. “Shh, now. It was just a dream.
He wiped the sleep from his eyes and remembered that he had been sitting with her when he dozed off. It had only been for a moment that he drifted, for the swans were still gliding across the center of the pond, but it had felt like hours.
He left his mother to her rest and walked out into the skeleton of the once grand Cerushia. The vines that had once been used to create walls and barriers grew wild. Unable to control them, the elves used them as they could, building new walls of wood and stone. Many of the tree dwellings had frozen as they were and were still useful as abodes for many. But where once a branch would lower one down to the ground through mental control, stairs had to now be built into the trees to reach the high places.
The city had recovered as well as it could. Those elves who had never had magical abilities had become more outspoken, and their knowledge of old-world skills had saved them from starvation over the winter.
He took a horse from the stable and rode to the shore north of
Cerushia. It was the middle of the day. The skies were overcast and the wind swift. A storm was brewing to the south, but it would do the crops well.
The crashing of the waves upon the coast became louder as he approached. But rather than keep on north, he turned east when the road split and made his way to Queen’s Landing. The small harbor nestled on the eastern side of the peninsula was bustling with laborers. Three large ships were being built at the same time; those that would take the first of the elves back to Drindellia. They would be ready in a week.
Many of the dying elders wished to die upon their native soil, Queen Araveal among them. Zerafin had tried to talk her out of it, but she would not budge. In her condition he wasn’t sure she would make the trip, and the last thing he wanted was for her to die at sea.
He was considering going with her, but he worried for his people. The Old Ardenians would only continue their attacks, and there was word of strange things happening in Shierdon far to the north. Eadon and the Draggard had been defeated, but many of the beasts had escaped, or disappeared into the shadows and dark forests. Groups of them were still out there.
The scouts will return soon, and once I’ve heard their report I’ll make a decision. He told himself so, but deep down he knew that he had already made up his mind.
Chapter 18
Smoke on the Water
Aurora walked through the crowd of undead soldiers. Zander’s lich army made no camp. They burned no fires. She and Azzeal had tents, along with the few dozen dark elves that had joined the necromancer since the fall of Eadon. The small group of tents sat at the center of thousands of undead who stood motionless, green eyes glowing dimly. She tried not to look at them as she passed by, carrying a small barrel of oil under one arm. One of the ships was complete, and three more were underway. The undead needed no sleep, working night and day on the building. Dark elf handlers oversaw the work. Without their guidance the workers would never be able to complete the task on their own. They could be set to simple tasks like killing, moving materials, gathering, but the intricacies of ship building eluded their simple minds.
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