by Sam Ferguson
The two guards shook their heads and looked to Njar. “Are you feeling well?” one of them asked.
“Of course,” Njar said impatiently. He walked up to the tree with the intent of inspecting its condition more closely, but a large root ripped itself from the ground. Thwack! Njar went tumbling backward across the ground.
“Njar, are you all right?” the guards asked in unison.
A wind blew in from the north, carrying that same, sadistic laughter. “They cannot see it, old friend. Their eyes are not open to the truth.”
Njar jumped up, the rage boiling in his chest. “Show yourself!” he shouted. The two guards stopped short of reaching out to him and looked at each other, perplexed. Njar realized how silly he must have looked, and shook his head as he brushed himself off. “Nonac is ill,” he said simply. “Keep your eyes open and your wits clear.”
The two guards nodded silently.
Njar then turned and walked back toward his home. There was nothing more he could do here. Nonac refused to let him close, and no one else could see the approaching danger. If he kept acting the way he did, they would declare him mad and exile him. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed to stay in Viverandon. Dremathor was coming soon, and Njar had to prepare.
Rameun’s words came back to him as he walked. Njar stopped and glanced back at Nonac. Could he let Viverandon fall to save the world? Would he be able to turn his back on all that he loved?
The wind came in again, soft and subtle, carrying Dremathor’s sinister laugh with it. It mocked him, enjoying his slow fall from grace. Njar shook his head. He would not be able to let Viverandon fall. No matter what it meant to the world, he could not stand by and let Nonac die and leave his home defenseless. Rameun had said it was time to show strength.
Njar took in a breath and spoke to the mocking winds swirling around him. “Go on and laugh now, old friend, for I am not going to wait here for you. It is time for the shadowfiend to know what it is to be hunted.”
“Oh?” Dremathor’s voice replied as the wind continued to blow. “What does an old goat like you have that can ever harm me?”
Njar clenched his fist. “Just you wait,” Njar said. “I let you come in with a firebrand and set my home alight. That is not a mistake I shall leave hanging.”
“The wise satyr will forsake his precious principles of balance and turn to the ways of the warrior?” Dremathor’s voice laughed in the wind. “Oh, I think not.”
“Think what you will, you drooling cur, for it does not change the path I am on now.” Njar reached out and gathered a green mist from the field, summoning Terramyr’s essence. With it, he reached out and grabbed the wind, holding it in place. As he did so, a translucent face appeared in the wind. It was that of Dremathor. Njar twisted the green energy around the shadowfiend’s ethereal neck and squeezed. “I am Njar Somoricliar, the Son of Thunder, and I am coming for you, Dremathor, and anyone else who stands in my way.”
Dremathor’s eyes went wide. Njar squeezed until the apparition exploded in the energy’s grasp and melted away on the wind. This time, there was no sound of laughter. Njar smiled and headed for his home. He had not set his hands on his father’s sword for quite some time, but now seemed like the correct moment to take it up once more.
*****
Erik and Lady Arkyn waited as Gerald’s daughters dropped anchor and the schooner came to a halt.
They were only fifty yards away from the shore of a beautiful island of sandy beaches and sweeping grasses. Some distance beyond the beach was a thick forest of tall pines. There was no visible road, but Lady Arkyn knew where they were headed.
“You sure we can’t change your mind?” Gerald asked as he came up to Erik.
“No, the road from here will take us into more danger,” Erik replied. “You should head south. If you can, make your way to Lokton Manor. Ask for Braun, he’ll take care of you.”
“I wish I could go with you,” Gerald said as he wiped a tear from his dull eye. “The salt in the wind,” he explained.
Erik smiled and allowed Gerald the cover story, but he could see that he was very sad to see him and Lady Arkyn depart. “Stay safe, my friend,” Erik said as he extended his hand.
“And you,” Gerald said as he shook Erik’s hand.
“Don’t forget, I have some dried shark meat and seaweed wraps in this pouch,” Gerald’s wife said as she hurried up from below deck. “You ever need any more good food, you know where to find me,” she added.
The daughters were silent, but they waved and smiled appreciatively as Lady Arkyn and Erik got into the small dingy and began rowing to shore.
Gerald watched him from the deck until they landed on the beach, and then he gave the order to raise the anchor and unfurl the sails. Erik smiled as the ship turned and headed back for the fog. “Good people,” he commented. “The world could use more like them.”
Lady Arkyn agreed with a nod. “A few hundred men like Gerald could change the world,” she said. “All it takes is a good, solid family with a wise mother and good father, and most of the world’s problems would sort themselves out. There’s always a rotten egg here or there of course, but on the whole I have found a good, strong family can make a world of difference.”
Erik nodded. “It did for me,” he said. He didn’t even want to think where he would be without his adoptive parents. They had taken him in, taught him, and guided him. He had been greatly blessed by the gods, he knew. Of course, it helped that he counted Master Lepkin, Lady Dimwater, and Al among his family as well. He may have started without a family, but now he had become more fortunate than most, and he knew it.
They pulled the dinghy up onto the shore and flipped it upside down in the grass. They then began to walk along the grasses when a strange sound filled the air. Erik and Lady Arkyn turned to see the fog burn away from the surface of the water. A large ship was closing in on Gerald’s schooner. There was a great amount of shouting coming from both ships, but there was one voice that rang out clearly over the seas.
Gerald called for help. “Erik! Erik! Help us!”
Erik ran toward the shoreline and leapt up into the air, summoning his power to transform himself into his dragon form. Instead of changing, his bones felt cold and his limbs grew heavy. It was as if an unseen chain of thick, heavy links was coiling around him. He crashed into the water with a splash.
Lady Arkyn was there in an instant, pulling him up.
“To the dinghy!” Erik shouted.
Lady Arkyn grabbed him and held him back. “It’s no use!” she shouted.
“ERIK!” Gerald’s voice cut the air like a knife.
Erik turned in time to see a volley of arrows darken the air between the two ships. The missiles landed all over the schooner. Gerald’s daughters fell to the deck, but Gerald held fast to the wheel, working as best he could to steer away from the much larger ship. Time seemed to slow then. Erik tried to summon his power once more, but again he was prevented from using it. He could only watch helplessly as the attacking ship closed in. The massive ship bobbed up out of the waves just enough for Erik to catch a glimpse of the long, sharp ram extending out the front before it bored into the hull of the schooner. Gerald was thrown to the deck. He struggled back to his feet only to be rewarded with a second volley of arrows that concentrated on him.
Erik turned away as Gerald’s arrow-filled body fell down for the last time. The schooner cracked and broke apart. The last sound Erik heard before the larger ship crashed through the shattered schooner was Gerald’s wife screaming for her husband and daughters. The large ship then ran her over in the water, and she was not to be heard from again.
“Come, we have to go,” Lady Arkyn said. “There is nothing we can do.”
Erik tore away from her and walked out into the water. He called upon his power again, fighting against the magic that bound him to his human form. Tears streamed down his cheeks as pain racked his body and the pressure around him squeezed tighter and tighter.
; “Erik, we have to go, now!” Lady Arkyn shouted. “They are coming this way. We can’t fight off that many archers. We have to run.”
Erik heard the words, but he wasn’t paying them any heed. He was the Champion of Truth, he could break through the curse if he focused hard enough. He knew it. He struggled against the magic for another two minutes as the large ship came toward them.
A single archer leaned back, aiming his bow up at the sky. He let loose. The missile arced through the air and landed thirty yards short of where Erik stood.
“Erik,” Lady Arkyn said loudly. “We don’t have much time. They’ll be in range soon, and then they will all fire at us. We have to go!”
“I can do this!” Erik shouted. “I have to!” He called upon the dark corners of his soul where he kept his most painful memories. He called them up now, hoping the extra surge of anger they would cause within him would help him break through the bonds of the spell holding him in his human form. He saw Marlin die once again. He saw Salarion fighting as a slave for Tu’luh the Red. He relived watching Tatev’s murder at the hands of Tarthuns. He saw his father in chains upon the senate floor. Then he saw Janik in the woods near his home just before he had revealed his true nature and turned on Erik.
Erik shouted as his body started to transform. The bones elongated and broke, the muscles stretched and ripped, and then the spell gripped him tighter and snapped him back into his human form. He cried out in agony as his heart thumped within his chest and he struggled for breath. There was nothing he could do.
This realization came just as the first archer’s next arrow landed one foot to Erik’s left.
All of the archers pulled back on their bows.
“Run!” Erik said as he turned and grabbed Lady Arkyn’s arm. They darted for the dinghy and dove under it just as a barrage of arrows thudded into the ground following them up to the small boat. Several missiles came close to the dinghy as well. “Let’s move!” Erik said as he put his back to the middle seat in the dinghy and gripped the forward seat. He stood up straight, using the small boat as a large shell to protect them as they ran for the forest.
Arrows thunked into the wooden hull and bit into the dirt around them, but nothing was strong enough to get through to them. They kept running for the trees as quickly as they could as arrows kept following them.
“If we can make it to Gontin, I know the captain of the guard there,” Lady Arkyn said. “He’ll lock the town down and stop these men from getting to us.”
Erik nodded and continued to concentrate on his job holding the boat between them and the arrows.
Another volley thudded into the wooden boat. This time one of the arrows broke through so that the head grazed Erik’s right forearm, but he didn’t let the surprise slow him down. They continued to sprint until they reached the edge of the forest, and then he dropped the dinghy and they ran for their lives.
The bushes scraped at their legs as they darted in and around the trees. The arrows stopped following them now, limited by the range as the ship likely ran up against the shallower waters. Erik’s chest was filled with fury that propelled his feet forward faster than he had ever run before. As they drove deeper into the forest, he felt something else, as if bands were unloosed from around his body. Erik stopped, holding his hand out to steady himself against a tree as he heaved for breath.
“What’s wrong?” Lady Arkyn shouted as she came around. “We can’t stop now, we have to move on!”
Erik looked at her and offered a single nod. “Go on, then, go to Gontin. There is something I must do.”
“No, Erik, you can’t. There are too many of them. You can’t go back!”
Erik felt the power rise in his body. He now knew that there was indeed a range to the wizard’s spell.
“You can’t go back!” Lady Arkyn shouted again. “What are you going to do? You’ll never get close enough to them in your dragon form.”
Erik smiled. “Lepkin always told me that the brain was my best weapon.” He knocked his knuckles against a tree. “I only have to circle high enough above the ship to remain out of the wizard’s reach. How far would you say we have run? A half a mile?”
Lady Arkyn shook her head. “More like a quarter, maybe a tad more.”
“Then that shall be easy. “Step back please. I don’t want to hurt you.” Erik took off his clothes and tossed her his sword. “Go on in to Gontin, if you wish, I will catch up with you.”
“No, if you are going back to fight, then I will hold the position here,” she insisted.
Erik nodded. “There isn’t much time.” He let his power surge through him and he changed into his dragon form. He let out a mighty roar and then ripped four large oak trees from the ground as easily as a man might pull weeds. He leapt into the air, climbing higher and higher with each beat of his wings.
Gerald’s murder would not go unanswered.
He flew high into the air, until he had passed well beyond a quarter mile, and then he turned for the ship. He flew hard and fast, covering the distance he had run in mere seconds. He could see the several rowboats heading to shore with their landing parties; archers and swordsmen armed and ready to do battle. They pointed at him and shouted as he tore through the air above, but there was nothing they could do. Their puny arrows were nothing to him in his dragon form. The wizard was on deck aboard the main ship. He saw Erik too, and was busily waving his hands, no doubt trying to force Erik back into his human form. Unfortunately for the wizard, Erik had judged the effective distance very well.
He flew over the ship and then raised two of the trees in front of him. He used his dragon fire, tempering it slightly so as to light the trees rather than consume them, and then he dropped them over the ship. He circled above, watching the flaming bombs fall toward the vessel. For good measure, Erik brought the other two trees up and lit them as well. He put a great amount of strength into throwing the last two, hoping that the wizard below wouldn’t be able to stop all of them. The crew rushed about, pulling the anchor up as quickly as they could, but they were too slow for the burning trees. The wizard managed to knock one of the trees aside, but the other three struck their target. Two crashed through the main deck, while one crushed the main mast and lit the sails and rigging.
Archers in the rowboat were hopelessly aiming their bows up and firing at Erik, but the missiles stopped well short of him and turned back to fall toward the sea. Erik turned and flew back toward the forest. He ripped four more large trees without slowing down for an instant and then circled around once more. He lit the four trees and zeroed in on his target. The ship itself was already going down, but he had to ensure the wizard was killed. Only then would he be able to engage the other warriors more effectively.
Erik sent four fiery trees down at the wizard, who was stumbling and struggling to keep his balance on the ship as its rear end rose up out of the water and slowly sank downward. The poor fool never had a chance. The first tree struck the wizard and crashed through the upper deck, pushing the wizard’s broken body along with it. Flames roared out as the ship was pulverized.
Erik let out a mighty roar and swooped down. The archers in the nearest rowboat fired their arrows, but Erik swallowed them in a wave of fire that consumed the arrows and then pressed forward to obliterate the rowboat. He moved on to the next, and then the next. He then moved to the fourth and final rowboat when a familiar form stood and held his arms out to the side.
“My armor is made of Telarian steel!” the rogue dragon-slayer shouted. “It is impervious to your flames!”
Erik sneered. “Then let us see how you can swim in it!” He spewed out his fire as the rogue dragon-slayer raised up his shield to block himself from the fire. The boat around him turned to ash and he fell into the waters below. He and the other dragon-slayers splashed about for a bit, and then the weight of their armor dragged them below the surface and down into the murky, dark depths.
The mighty sahale then ascended toward the clouds and circled around the site of
the wreckage several times. Satisfied only once he had made sure there were no survivors, he returned to the forest and changed back into his human form. He found Lady Arkyn waiting for him at the edge of the trees, holding out his clothes and staring out to the smoke that had risen above the sea.
“That was quite a sight,” she commented.
Erik nodded and dressed. “I only wish I could have gotten to the dogs before they had caught Gerald and his family.”
Lady Arkyn smiled. “At least we may be comforted in knowing that Nagé will come for their souls, and escort them to the halls of the honored dead in Volganor. They shall have peace.”
Erik looked at her, and then glanced to the water. “That is the injustice of this world,” he said bitterly. “A good man should not have to die in order to find peace.”
CHAPTER 11
The moon was high in the night sky by the time Lady Arkyn and Erik arrived at the gates of Gontin. The walls were about forty feet tall, obscuring any view of the inner city they might have had. There were two men walking the ramparts above, and three guards at the gate below.
“A bit late for a pair to be traveling in these parts,” one of the guards said as he set down a pipe and picked up a book. A second grabbed a torch and followed the first as they came out to meet Erik and Lady Arkyn. “If you are planning on coming inside, I will need your names and your mark.”
“Is Captain Deringer around?” Lady Arkyn asked.
The guard stopped and looked at Lady Arkyn. He smiled, curling his thick mustache upward. “Lady Arkyn, it has been a long time. You don’t look a day older than you did ten years ago.”
“That is the blessing of an elf,” Lady Arkyn said. “How have you been Farnsworth?”
“I’ve been well. The Mrs. is as ornery as ever, but Sally and her husband had their second child last summer, so she has other things to fuss about now, which keeps her from nagging me so much.”
“Congratulations!” Lady Arkyn said.
