My heart hammered in my chest as I kicked my horse into motion. The thick forest forced us to ride in a long line rather than a column, and I fell in place behind the knight, with four Gray Hunters in the lead and the rest spread out behind us.
The forest seemed to press in around me as we rode. The towering trees clustered closer together, and their branches looked thicker while their leaves were a deeper shade of green. There was an eerie absence of sound aside from the clopping of the horses’ hooves on the muddy track. No wind whistled through the trees, no animals scampered around us, and not even the song of the birds echoed from the treetops. It was as if all of nature held its breath as we rode past.
Even if I had known how to tell time from the sun’s position, the thick canopy overhead would have made it almost impossible. The nervous tension in my gut grew as the minutes passed and we drew closer to Riamod’s land. I expected to see something dangerous around every bend in the trail, but then, with almost breathtaking suddenness, the forest ended, and I caught a glimpse of clear skies beyond. But instead of the bright, golden radiance that had bathed the farmlands outside Whitespire, the sunlight here seemed somehow harsher and fiercer.
The moment I reined in my horse beside Sir Galfred, just within the forest’s edge, I realized what it was. There was no color here.
The land was flat for miles in every direction, a sea of charred ground, burned tree stumps, and harsh, jagged volcanic rock. It seemed so at odds with the trees around me, but as I studied the forest, I noticed the trees here weren’t the rich brown and green we’d been riding through. Instead, I stared at the gray trunks that had been burnt by the dragon’s fiery breath.
I returned my gaze to Riamod’s land. The unbroken landscape of black stretched for at least thirty or forty miles toward the west before rising into steep, jagged cliffs, and the flat land disappeared over the north and south horizons. Even the blue of the sky was washed out to a bleak gray. The smell of smoke hung thick in the air, and I tasted the grit of ash carried on the wind.
This truly was a land of fire, death, and destruction.
I glanced at Sir Galfred and saw a hint of hesitation mingled with the determination in his eyes. “We move quickly,” he said in a tight voice. “We’ll find shelter in those hills, but we have to get across without being spotted.”
I studied the barren empty lands between us and those distant cliffs. We’d have to push the horses hard to reach them before nightfall, and if anyone was within twenty miles of our position, we’d be seen.
Sir Galfred kicked his horse into a trot, and I followed him into Riamod’s land. Scorched and barren earth crunched beneath Fleetfoot’s hooves as we rode, and the smell of smoke grew so thick it coated my nose and throat. Wind shrieked across the empty flatlands, and I found my hand dropping to the hilt of one of my hatchets. All around me, the Gray Hunters kept one hand on their reins and the other on their weapons. Their grim expressions told me they felt the same apprehension as I did.
We rode in silence for hours, and the towering trees fell farther and farther behind us as the craggy cliffs loomed larger in our vision. The closer we drew to the cliffs, the thicker the smell of smoke became. However, there was another smell on the air, a thick, heavy smell like rotting eggs. Sulfur. It twisted my stomach and made me glad I’d skipped breakfast.
I kept my head on a swivel, always watching the north and south for any sign of life. The surrounding land proved as empty as it appeared. There were no crows flying overhead, no animals scampering over the cracked, twisted, and rocky ground. This stretch of earth was simply dead.
The knot between my shoulder blades tightened as we drew closer to the cliffs. I didn’t know how to explain it, but it was like I could feel something in the distance. Not behind us or to the north or south, but directly ahead, in the shadow of the cliffs.
I wanted to say something to Sir Galfred but couldn’t come up with a convincing enough argument that he would believe. Hell, even I didn’t really know what I was feeling. It could just be anxiety playing tricks on my mind. This blasted landscape would play on any man’s fears.
But I couldn’t deny the truth of what I felt. It was like a whisper of wind but in my head instead of my ears. It was too vague to pinpoint the source and so faint I almost thought it was my imagination, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling.
Finally, I got up the courage to speak, so I kicked Fleetfoot to a faster trot and rode beside Sir Galfred.
“Sir Galfred,” I said in a loud voice so he could hear me over the sound of the horses’ hooves, “I think there’s something up ahead.”
The knight reined in at my words, and I had to pull Fleetfoot to a quick stop beside him.
“What do you mean, there’s something ahead?” The knight shielded his eyes with his hand and scanned the cliffs. “I don’t see anything.”
“I don’t either,” I said, “but I thought I saw something near the cliffs a little while ago.” I figured he would accept the fact that I believed I’d caught a glimpse of movement far more easily than a feeling that something was there.
“Any of you see anything?” Sir Galfred asked the others.
“Nothing,” snapped Grendis, who had been riding at the head of the column. The other Gray Hunters shook their heads as well.
“Are you certain?” Sir Galfred asked me.
“Or is it just cowardice playing tricks on your mind?” Grendis muttered in a voice clearly intended for me to overhear.
“Look, I could have sworn there was something moving around near the cliffs,” I said as I folded my arms over my chest.
“I believe you,” Sir Galfred said. Grendis made his feelings plain with a derisive snort, but the knight ignored the sound. “Perhaps your eyes are keener than the rest of ours. If you say you saw something, so be it.” He turned to the Gray Hunters. “Keep your eyes peeled for any sign of movement.”
“Imaginary though it may be,” Grendis murmured.
“Better safe than sorry,” I growled at him.
The Gray Hunter gave me a look that was half-sneer and half-glare.
“Enough of that,” Sir Galfred said and motioned toward the front of the line. “Grendis, you’ve got lead. Let’s move out.”
Grendis nodded and kicked his horse into motion, but I didn’t miss the snarl he shot at me. Clearly, I had a long way to go before we were anything close to friendly.
As I trotted behind Sir Galfred, I couldn’t shake the feeling that had plagued me for the last half hour. Even if I couldn’t see anything, it was like I could sense something ahead of us. It was faint and impossible to locate, but it grew stronger with every passing minute.
The horses covered the remaining mile to the cliffs at a ground-eating trot, and Grendis turned his horse’s head to the south toward a narrow trail that cut through the sheer rock face. We all followed and made for the path that Sir Galfred had told me would lead through the mountains that stood between us and Frosdar’s land of ice.
We were twenty yards from the mouth of the trail when the cliff face began to move. Rocks pulled loose of the mountain with a low rumble, and the very stones seemed to shift and form into massive figures ten feet tall. Dark eyes with pinpoints of fiery red stared at us, and one of the rocky creatures opened its mouth and let out a roar that sounded like an avalanche.
As the figures began to lumber toward us, two holes appeared in the mountain, and thirty small orange creatures rushed out screaming.
Then they charged toward us.
Chapter Nine
“Fire goblins!” shouted one of the Gray Hunters.
The goblins were creatures that stood about three feet tall, with stubby limbs, scaly orange skin, long pointed ears, and rows of needle teeth that reminded me of piranhas. They gripped crude clubs, maces, and spears in three-fingered hands, and their beady black eyes glinted with delight as they raced toward us. Their blood-curdling howls echoed off the cliff face and drowned out the rumbling of the rock trolls.
My jaw dropped a
t the sight of the nightmarish monsters, but Sir Galfred was ready for the attack.
“Dismount and form up!” the armored man shouted as he threw himself from his saddle. The knight drew a three-foot long sword and shield, and ten of the Gray Hunters clustered into a line with him at the center. Grendis stood in his saddle, longbow in hand and an arrow nocked. He drew, aimed, fired, and a goblin fell. He was already shooting his third arrow by the time I glanced back at him.
I was surprised to find the remaining five Gray Hunters pulling sledge hammers from their saddlebags. Adath was one of them, and he motioned for me to dismount. “Get that axe of yours, boy. We’ll be needing it.”
His words snapped me into action, so I drew my axe as I leapt from Fleetfoot’s saddle and raced toward Adath and the other four Gray Hunters.
“We’re to focus on the rock trolls,” Adath told me. “Wait until the goblins hit the line, then get around them to take down the big bastards. We can’t let them reach the others.”
“Got it,” I said as I tightened my grip on my axe handle. “And how are we supposed to bring down the trolls, exactly?”
“Go for the joints.” A smile broadened Adath’s bearded face. “Take out the knees, bring them down to eye level, then take them apart at the elbows, shoulders, and neck. That pick of yours will come in handy for punching through their rocky skulls.”
Now I understood why he’d called me to join them. My axe blade would be next to useless against the trolls’ rocky skin, but the pick head was designed for punching through stone. I flipped the handle in my hand and held the pick side ready to attack. Adrenaline coursed through my body, and I felt my knees tremble a bit, but then I told myself that a group of goblins and trolls were probably less dangerous than a building fire.
And they were definitely less dangerous than a dragon.
The rock trolls lumbered at a slow pace, but despite their tiny legs, the little orange fire goblins covered the distance far faster, and the three-foot creatures threw themselves onto the Gray Hunters’ shields with a howling cry. Though they were small, there were a lot of them, and I saw Sir Galfred’s line of warriors stagger backward beneath the wave of goblin bodies.
“Now!” Adath shouted. “While the little bastards are distracted.” He took off toward the left side of the line with another Gray Hunter and me at his heels while the other three raced toward the right. As we passed, I flipped my grip on the axe and chopped at a goblin that was about to strike down one of the Gray Hunters who was locked in combat with three of the little monsters. The force of my blow chopped his body in half, and I raced on as the thing let out a dying scream.
Adath reached the first rock troll three yards ahead of me, and he ducked the clumsy swipe of the creature’s long arm before smashing the ten-pound head of his sledgehammer into the troll’s knee. Stone turned to dust beneath the impact, and the troll gave a rumbling grunt of pain. His left arm came swinging around, and Adath had to leap to one side and out of reach to avoid being bowled over.
But the troll’s attack on Adath left the perfect opening for me. Without slowing my sprint, I brought my axe up and over my head and swung the pick toward the monster’s left knee. The side-swipe drove the pointed head deep into the joint between the two stones, and the momentum of the heavy axe combined with the strength of my arms ripped it out the other side. The stones of the troll’s lower leg fell away, and the creature crashed heavily to the ground with a moan.
“I’ve got this,” I shouted to Adath as I pointed to the other Gray Hunter fighting a troll. “Help him.”
Adath nodded and raced toward his comrade, who reeled and stumbled backward after being pummeled in the chest by the massive gray-skinned monster. Adath seized the man’s armor and dragged him back just in time to avoid another blow, and the troll’s fist smashed into the barren earth an inch away from the man’s foot. The Gray Hunter fell to the ground and lay there wheezing while Adath charged the troll.
My own opponent was recovering from his fall, so I couldn’t pay any more attention to my friend’s battle. Though I’d severed my troll’s lower leg, he still had two arms to attack with. Each arm was easily five or six feet long and must have weighed at least half a ton. He moved slowly, but even a glancing blow could do serious damage. I leapt over one low swipe that would have shattered my knees and darted toward the left out of reach of the huge fists. Before he could backhand me with a fist the size of a motorcycle, I swung my axe up and brought the pick crashing down onto the section of stone just between the troll’s upper and lower arm.
The monster gave another rumbling roar of pain as the stones crumbled away at its elbow. It tried to roll on its side and strike me with its other hand, but I saw the attack coming and met it with the sharp end of my pickaxe. The tip crunched through the troll’s palm and buried in the hard ground. The monster shouted with agony, and my ribs vibrated in my chest.
“Kill it and siphon its magic!” Nyvea shouted as I tore the pick free from the troll’s hand and swung for his rocky elbow.
“What?” I asked. Her voice had caught me off-guard, and I barely managed to avoid a powerful swing from the troll’s uninjured arm.
“Do as Adath said and drive the pick into its head,” she told me. “As it is dying, use your siphon ability to drain the magic that holds it together.”
The fallen troll swiped at me, but I dodged the attack and raced around its bulk toward its head.
“This creature is unnatural, the result of Riamod’s magic twisting the land. All you need to do is steal the magic holding it together.”
I brought the pick head down hard on the creature’s skull, just above its fiery eyeholes. The troll gave a low moan and the flames within its eyes flickered.
“Now!” Nyvea shouted in my mind. “Steal its power before it dies.”
It felt strange doing something like this in the middle of a battlefield, but I did as she instructed. I reached out with my mind as I had in the forest, and searched for the something extra, the force holding this monster of stone together. I gasped as I felt the magic within the troll. It was an angry, dark force, like the heat of flowing lava or the raging blaze of a forest fire, and I flinched back from the power instinctively.
“No, use it!” Nyvea shouted. “You have nothing to fear from it. You control the magic, not the other way around.”
“Come on.” I gritted my teeth and reached again for the magic within the troll. I could feel the power growing weaker as the monster died, but then I gasped as I felt the magic holding the creature together. It was like dipping my head into a stream of lava, a feeling as dangerous and terrifying as it was glorious.
“Now draw it out of the monster and into you.”
I tried to do what I had in the forest and pull the magic into my body. A thread of fire coursed in my veins as the first tendrils of magic seeped into me, and the flesh of my right shoulder sizzled.
From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a goblin hurtling toward me. His club crashed into my back and the connection to the troll snapped as I was knocked off the rocky body.
“No!” Nyvea screamed in my mind.
I acted on blind instinct and tried to roll with the fall, but I winced as my shoulder crashed into the ground and pain raced up my spine. As quickly as I could, I leapt up to my feet and spun around to face my attacker.
I found myself facing three angry fire goblins who each carried spiked clubs. The creatures bared their needle teeth in a ferocious snarl, growled something in a guttural language I didn’t understand, and then charged together.
Adath’s lessons from that morning kicked in, and I met their charge with a shout of rage and a powerful swing of my axe. The steel head sliced through one goblin’s neck and buried deep into the skull of the monster beside it. Even as the first goblin’s head bounced away, I kick my steel-toed boot up under the chin of the third goblin. The little creature’s head snapped back with an awful crunch, and the force of my kick hurled it backward to collapse in
a limp heap.
I ripped my axe head free of the goblin’s skull with a grunt, and droplets of black goblin blood spattered my face and hands. The blood sizzled on my skin like acid, and I quickly wiped it away with the hem of my cloak before it left any burns.
“No, it’s too late,” Nyvea said with a moan.
I turned back to the troll I’d taken down and found it lying silent and still. The fires in its eyes had gone out, and its body crumbled to a mound of inert, ordinary stone.
“Damn those fucking goblins,” she hissed. “Kill them all and steal their magic!”
She didn’t need to tell me twice. I waded into the rearmost group of goblins, and my axe sang a song of death. Goblin heads rolled, goblin bones shattered, and goblin cries filled the air. I brought down five in the space of two seconds, and Nyvea’s anger drove me to move faster and hit harder than I would have thought possible. I really was amazingly strong and fast on this strange world, and within half a minute, my furious attack shattered the ranks of the ugly little monsters, and they broke off their attack. The small monster’s shrieks and howls of fear echoed off the canyon walls as they turned to flee from my bloody weapon, and I found myself laughing at how powerful I was. It felt as if I was fighting a group of six-year-olds that didn’t have my reach, speed, or strength.
“Bring them down!” Sir Galfred cried. “Let none escape to warn Riamod.”
Grendis’ hands were a blur as he emptied his quiver into the backs of the fleeing goblins, and I drew my hatchet and hurled it at one monster that tried to run out into the empty wasteland. The heavy steel head crashed into the back of its skull, and it fell to the floor stunned. One of the Gray Hunters rushed toward it and dispatched it with a quick thrust to the base of its spine.
A single goblin darted between two Gray Hunters and raced toward the hole set in the cliff face. The opening was four feet tall and far too narrow for us to enter. If it managed to reach the hole, it would escape us.
My feet were moving before I made the conscious decision to run, and I sprinted toward the hole after the goblin. But the little fucker was faster than me, even with its stubby legs, and my heart sank as I realized I would reach the cliff literally two seconds behind it. I had only one choice.
Dragon Slayer Page 12
