Chronicles Of Aronshae (3 Book Omnibus)

by J. K. Barber

  “Who’s Walron?” Jared asked.

  “Walron is one of my brothers, the only surviving male from our clutch, other than myself, and the largest of us. But I fear he is lost to us now. The Empress’ hold on him is strong, not only magically but also mentally.”

  “I don’t understand,” the hunter said.

  “Though Salamasca, the Ice Queen, uses her dark magic to compel our obedience, I fear that Walron follows her also of his own free will.” Jared’s eyes widened in surprise. Sirus went on to explain his own theories regarding why Walron had abandoned his siblings, shutting them out of the mental link they all shared, which in turn prompted the woodsman-turned-dragon to elucidate on the way the dragons could all speak amongst themselves without the need for words, even over a goodly distance.

  Sirus then told Jared about the experiments the Ice Queen had performed on him while he was still human, forcing him to use his gift to talk to animals over and over again until Sirus feared for his sanity. When Jared’s mentor had awoken in the body of a newly hatched dragon, he had realized the truth regarding one of the greatest dangers against which Jared had been warned repeatedly. Should a person with Sirus’ and Jared’s ability become lost within the mind of an animal, the minds of the human and the beast were not destroyed as had originally been thought. Instead, the intelligence of one was switched with the other. A human mind in the body of an animal had no way to communicate with the rest of the world and fell farther and farther into a bestial state. Unfortunately, the man’s lost mind had none of the instincts that had been born into the animal and usually died in the wild or in captivity. The beast’s mind on the other hand had no way to cope with suddenly being trapped in the body of a man and tried to behave as it had when in its natural body. As such, they were often treated as insane, locked up or put out of their misery so that they were no longer a danger to others or themselves.

  “But,” Jared said once Sirus had finished his explanation, “because a dragon’s mind is able to think with intelligence like a man, you were able to survive the switch?”

  “Exactly,” Sirus said, another disconcerting smile splitting his scaly visage. “Well done.”

  Pride swelled in Jared’s heart at his mentor’s praise. Even after all these years, the hunter couldn’t help but be happy when Sirus commended him. As Jared looked at his teacher, he looked at the other dragons, still unable to wrap his thoughts fully around what had happened. As he did, he noticed the other three dragons looking at him.

  “Wait,” Jared blurted out. “You’re not in pain anymore?”

  Sirus looked around at his sisters and then back at Jared. “You’re right,” he said, mildly shocked. “I was so caught up in what we were talking about, I didn’t realize that the pain had receded.”

  “Do you feel any different?” Jared asked, hopeful that Sirus and his sisters had been cured. “Is the corruption gone?”

  Sirus’ head and spirits dropped. He stretched out one of his talons, showing the blackness that still ran through his veins beneath the translucent scales. There was no need for the dragon to respond. Misae, Isa and Niambe lowered their heads solemnly to the flagstones.

  “I’m sorry,” Jared said to all the dragons, his shoulders hunched. “I had hoped that when Katya…”

  No sooner had the hunter said the sorceress’ name then Sasha’s voice came rushing out the double doors behind him. The warrior was screaming Jared’s name, the panic was clear even at such a great distance.

  Without a word, Jared turned on his heel and ran back into the palace, sprinting faster than was safe on the smooth stone floors, given his wounded leg. Patches of ice still dotted the dragon’s nursery, but the hunter managed to keep his feet as he dashed through the room and into the crystal’s chamber. As he traveled through the second set of double doors, Sasha yelled his name again. Jared slid to a halt, seeing the source of the warrior woman’s distress.

  Katya lay still on the stone floor, Chyla’s tiny body rested unmoving on the sorceress’ chest. Niko was nowhere to be seen. As Jared stared at the two unconscious women, he saw Chyla’s body gently rise and fall on the raven-haired woman’s chest. He sighed with relief, but the fear in Sasha’s eyes did not allow him to relax. He strode across the room and knelt at Katya’s side, next to the red-haired twin.

  “What happened?” Jared said quietly.

  “She just collapsed,” Sasha said unsteadily. The woodsman had never seen the woman so shaken, even in the Blodwood, when Sasha had known her twin was in trouble but had been unable to find her.

  Jared took Sasha’s hand in his, gripping it firmly. “She still breathes,” the hunter said calmly. “I am sure she will be fine.”

  “FINE!?” Sasha exploded. “Fine!? Look at her!” she screamed. “Does she look fine to you? She’s not moving!” The pressure of the journey and the sacrifices made so that the Illyanders could get to this point had finally exhausted Sasha’s reserves of inner strength. The woman was beginning to unravel inside. Jared had seen it happen to Katya and the mirror was happening in her twin.

  Jared grabbed Sasha firmly by the shoulders, turning her away from the unconscious form of the sorceress and forcing her to look at him. “Sasha!” he yelled directly into the warrior’s face, not out of anger, but simply to draw her attention to him. When she looked into his eyes, he continued in a gentle, but firm voice. “Sasha, listen to me.” The woman’s eyes were wild with fear and anxiety, but she continued to look at Jared. “She will be alright, I promise you.” The hunter had no way of knowing whether he would be able to keep his promise to Sasha, but the pledge calmed the red-haired woman somewhat. Her body relaxed and Jared took her into his arms. She began sobbing quietly against his shoulder.

  “What’s all the noise?” a tiny voice said. Sasha and Jared looked to the source of the question and saw a tiny head pop up out of the folds of Katya’s robes. The hair on the head was sandy colored and wild looking. The face beneath the hair looked both tired and confused, as though the tiny Nhyme man had just woken up from too short a nap.

  “Niko!” Sasha exclaimed. “You’re alright.”

  “Of course I am,” he said, but then stopped. The little man stood up and then started running his hands over his diminutive body. “I mean I think I am.” Suddenly Niko looked panicked as he started checking himself over more quickly. “I am, aren’t I? I’m alright?” The Nhyme started counting his fingers and toes and then running a finger over the teeth in his mouth to make sure they were all still intact.

  Katya began stirring, which, in turn, jostled the blonde-haired Nhyme woman on her chest. Sasha broke from Jared’s arms, quickly placing her hand on her twin’s head. “Katya? Sis?” she said, her voice tentative in her worry. “Can you hear me? Are you alright?”

  Katya tried to speak, the words coming out mumbled nonsense, and then began coughing. Sasha grabbed a waterskin from a pile of the twins’ gear they had carefully laid nearby and poured a small amount into the sorceress’ mouth. Katya drank a mouthful or two and the fit of coughing passed.

  “Did it work?” she said weakly.

  “What?” Sasha said, focused solely on the welfare of her sister. Chyla sat up and Niko flitted to her side, offering the tiny Nhyme woman comfort and a miniscule piece of cheese.

  “Did it work?” Katya asked, her voice stronger. The sorceress started to sit up, but Sasha’s hand on her shoulder implored her to stay supine. The raven-haired woman gently waved her sister’s hand off and rose to a sitting position.

  “Gently, now” Jared said, placing his hand on Katya’s back. Sasha held her twin’s hand. The warrior was calmer, but the expression of worry on her face was unmistakable.

  “We did… something,” Chyla said, still sitting in Katya’s lap. “I sensed a change of some kind before I lost consciousness.” The tiny woman looked dazed, but her senses seemed to be returning quickly.

  All the eyes in the room looked at the giant crystal column that dominated the room. The gemstone struct
ure was still black, although the tendrils of purple and green inside were moving more slowly. As Jared’s eyes traveled down the length of crystal, he saw a tiny glimmer of light at the bottom, where the edge of the pillar touched the floor. As he watched, the glimmer slowly grew, not in brightness but in size until it encompassed the entire base of the crystal, a ring of radiance from which the tendrils of corruption inside gradually fled. As the hunter watched, the circle of light gradually but inexorably moved upwards towards the pinnacle of the column of gemstone. In the ring’s wake was pure, clear crystal, free from the darkness the Ice Queen had infected it with. Jared was reminded of watching the sun rise on a clear day. Sublime luminosity moved unhurriedly but unstoppably upwards, obliterating the clinging shadows of night. As the corruption was purged, Jared thought he heard a sound at the edge of his hearing. The noise was a strange cross between the sound of a steaming kettle and the death rattle of a wounded animal. The hunter strained his ears to hear the noise more clearly, but the sound always seemed just beyond the edge of being able to say definitively whether the noise existed or was simply a product of a tired imagination.

  After several minutes the sound and the corruption within the crystal passed. The ring of radiance had reached the pinnacle of the pillar of gemstone and then disappeared in a tiny glimmer of light, just the way it had started. All that remained was a column of pure crystal, so clear that a figure could be seen standing on the other side.

  The shape moved, circumnavigating the newly purified crystal until the strange reflections resolved themselves into a familiar looking figure.

  “Johnson!” Jared exclaimed, beckoning the veteran over to where the rest of the Illyanders sat, marveling at the now uncontaminated column of gemstone. The soldier walked over to Jared, the twins, and the Nhyme and unceremoniously plopped down on the stone floor.

  “Are we done?” he asked, his exhausted tone clearly indicating his fervent hope that the answer was in the affirmative. “I didn’t want to leave my post, but matters seem to be taken care of.”

  “I believe we are,” Jared responded, looking over to Katya, Niko and Chyla. The sorceress and the Nhyme nodded wearily. Despite their obvious exhaustion, the look of peace and triumph on their face was clear.

  “Good,” Johnson replied, his shoulder slumping with a similar fatigue. “Can we go now? I’ve seen enough of this cesspit for several lifetimes.”

  “Katya?” Sasha asked her sister. “Are you well enough to travel?”

  In answer, the sorceress slowly got to her feet, retrieving her staff from the floor as she did. The raven-haired woman was obviously tired but after a brief moment of wobbliness looked steady on her feet. “I think so,” she said with more certainty than Jared had expected. “It is time we were gone from this vile place.” Her face filled with sorrow as she looked at her sister. “Sasha. I want to go home.” For just a moment the young girl that Jared had first met so long ago in the haunted forest of the Bloodwood returned, but a stronger more confident woman quickly took her place. Jared nodded, stood and extended his hand to Sasha to help the red-haired woman to her feet. Johnson rose slowly, feeling the same weariness that they all carried on their stooping shoulders.

  The Illyanders trudged from the chamber which now housed a sparkling clear crystal, drug their tired feet across the dragon’s nursery and out into the courtyard beyond. Snow swirled in the air as Niambe folded in her wings, having apparently recently landed. All four dragons awaited the humans and the Nhyme, once again in the form of ravens, and though the reptilian creatures stood proudly, regal in their bearing and manner, Jared thought he detected a note of disappointment in Sirus’ voice as he spoke.

  “We have moved your fallen comrade from the other courtyard and placed her body just on the other side of the bridge beyond these gates.” As Sirus indicated the large wooden doors on the opposite side of the courtyard with a nod of his head, Isa lashed out with her mace-like tail cracking the thick iron-bound gates. Though stout, the hefty timbers of the gate splintered slightly from a single stroke of the dragon’s sinuous appendage. A half dozen more strikes and the once substantial doors were a pile of splinters and iron bindings. Isa looked at the humans, a smug expression on her draconian face.

  “Why have you moved Mala?” Sasha asked, her voice laced with concern over her former swordmistress.

  “We wished to help you on your way, so that you would not accidently be crushed when we destroyed this place,” Misae responded. The large female dragon looked at Sasha but said no more.

  “Destroy it?” Katya said, surprised. “Is this not your home?”

  “It is where we were born,” Isa said, “but the Ice Queen’s palace has never been a home to us, or to anyone I would imagine.”

  “The Empress’ keep has been a place of evil, vileness and depravity for generations,” Sirus stated, his tone and manner of speaking one that Jared barely recognized as his old teacher and friend. “We cannot, and will not, permit it to stand any longer.” The former woodsman lowered his head to look directly at the Illyanders. Jared saw the veins of blackness that still stood beneath the dragon’s translucent white scales. “I know you are weary,” Sirus said, his own voice portraying a tiredness of its own. “However, if you could see fit to travel a few hundred more paces, we can bring this den of corruption down so that no others may suffer even the sight of it. We hope that in time, this place will fade from human memory.”

  Katya walked forward and placed her hand gently on Sirus’ huge draconian snout. “I am sorry we could not cure you along with the crystal,” she said.

  “Though we are disappointed, sorceress,” he replied. “The crystal was more important than just we four. Our hope is that the elders will be able to help us with our affliction when they return. Truth be told, our expectation is not great.” The sadness in Sirus’ voice was plain for all to hear. The large dragon lifted his head on his long neck once more, his regal bearing returning. “Still, we will do what we can and what we must. Now, please, exit so that we can give the Ice Queen’s abode the treatment it deserves.” Jared detected a flare of his mentor’s old anger beneath his stately demeanor. “When we are done, we will return you to the therianthrope village, if you wish. Though we must land some distance away so as not to frighten them, it will shorten your journey greatly.”

  The woodsman nodded appreciatively and urged his friends forward, over the ruins of the front gates, and across the bridge of the Glacial Palace. The Nhyme, despite their weariness and the chilly temperature, took to the air in the familiar shape of a pair of ravens, eager to be away from the Ice Queen’s oppressive abode as quickly as possible. Jared heard the flap of four pairs of massive wings behind him and turned to see the dragons rise into the air as well. The woodsman’s step quickened as did those of Johnson and the twins.

  Over the next quarter of an hour the Illyanders watched as Sirus, Isa, Misae and Niambe made pass after pass over the Empress of Ice’s Glacial Palace, breathing huge bolts of lightning into the walls and towers. The Nhyme, returning from their brief flight, buried themselves in Katya’s pack, content to sleep in its warm confines while the dragons vented their wrath upon the keep. Then after a short while it was over. Salamasca’s vast keep, center of the Empire of Ice’s power, was a smoking pile of rubble and melting ice.

  Jared and Johnson fashioned a crude stretcher from the cloaks and spears of a pair of dead orcs they found nearby, their bodies rent and torn by the claws and teeth of a pack of therianthropes, and placed Mistress Mala’s body on it. Sasha and Katya made sure that the green velvet drapes that wrapped the old swordmistress’ body were secure and then indicated they were ready to return to Tunkaschila Mukwa. The dragons landed a distance away, their huge wings stirring up a small blizzard with their massive wings. Slowly the Illyanders trudged through the snow towards the waiting dragons. Not a single head, human, Nhyme or dragon, looked back at the Ice Queen’s Palace, content to know that such a place no longer fouled the face of Aronshae.<
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  Chapter 19

  It was well into dusk when the Illyanders got back to the therianthrope village. The scouts had spotted them crossing the Frozen March half a mile away. Chieftain Hridayesh and most of Tunkaschila Mukwa stood waiting at the northwest gates as Jared, the twins, and Johnson trudged through the snow towards them, the sun’s last rays behind them darkening their forms to the therianthrope’s eyes. Hridayesh wore a soft hide robe, lined in dark feathers, and held his staff of authority, its bone beads oddly quiet in their stillness. It was as if the wind itself felt the weight of death upon the land. Iluak stood by the chief’s side, his eyes on Katya and her exhausted stagger. The sorceress’ hands shook with cold despite her face being fully wrapped in a scarf, leaving only her eyes exposed to the frigid wilderness. The young therianthrope started towards her, but Hridayesh put a hand on his arm.

  “Let her walk with honor,” the Chieftain whispered to Iluak, who nodded with understanding.

  Sasha and Jared, equally as bundled up as Katya was, shared the burden of a makeshift stretcher that bore a body wrapped in blood-stained green velvet. Hridayesh’s eyes were fixed to the swathed form as it moved nearer. Seeing the other survivors, the chieftain prayed that it was not Mistress Mala’s corpse being carried with them. Where else would she be though? he thought. Iluak jerked slightly when his Chief let out a low lamenting moan.

  All four Illyander’s wore drawn and weary faces, the men’s chins thick with stubble. Their clothes were tattered and stained crimson with their own blood and that of their enemies. Sasha’s plate armor had numerous dents in it. Johnson’s mail was riddled with tears; it was in desperate need of mending. The older soldier held his head high, but his arms were wrapped protectively across his ribs that seemed to pain him horribly.