Spirit Blade: Book III of the Dragon Mage Trilogy

by Carey Scheppner

  “How will we find it?” asked the minotaur. “We no longer have your orb as a guide.”

  Amelia pointed to Galado’s sword. “The spirit blade the evil spirit has been using will sense its presence. The spirit was bound to it since it came from the time travel place. That same blade will seek to send the evil spirit back to where it came from.”

  “Why couldn’t my spirit blade do that?” asked Sherman. “It’s the same blade.”

  “Your blade was newly created,” said Amelia. “It hasn’t encountered the evil spirit yet. It won’t for generations to come.”

  Zylor picked up Galado’s spirit blade and held it aloft. Sure enough, it had a slight blue shimmer to it. The glow deepened when Zylor pointed it a certain way. “It’s brighter in this direction,” he said.

  “That’s where to begin your search,” said Amelia.

  “How did you know that?” asked Harran.

  “I see how things are going to happen,” said the mage. “Some things, anyway.”

  “This should definitely make the job easier,” said Zylor.

  “I’ll go with you,” offered Harran.

  “It might be easier if you used the invisibility ring,” suggested Kazin. “You’ll find it easier to pass through the enemy ranks if they don’t see a dwarf wandering around.”

  Zylor passed the ring to Harran.

  “I get to play with this for once!” said the dwarf happily. He slipped the ring onto his finger and disappeared. “Interesting!”

  Zylor turned to Olag. “Coming?”

  Olag was taken aback. “You want me along?”

  Zylor grinned. “Sure! I could use a good back up on this job.”

  “Uh, OK,” said Olag. He looked a bit embarrassed.

  Tyris’ flame creatures were seen running in their direction, burning some orcs in the process.

  “That settles it!” said Kazin. He transformed himself into a dragon and Sherman and Amelia climbed onto his back. “Good luck!” called the dragon as he lifted off.

  Chapter 35

  The warlock took delight in the wind as it whistled past his ears. Below, the battle had commenced in full force. Though it was still dark, he could see torches and fireballs on both sides and could tell that his forces were more numerous and in a good position to win the war.

  In the air, he could see dragon fire and other magical exchanges as the human dragon riders battled his own forces, and the wild dragons attacked any dragons with riders, regardless of which side they belonged to. Without their own dragon riders, these wild dragons were driven back by the dragon riders who used magic in conjunction with the flames of their dragons. As wild dragons spewed fire on the forces battling below, the warlock noticed how the little fire creatures worked. As the dragon flames reached the ground, the fire creatures absorbed the dragon flames and grew in size. As they did this, the humans who were nearby did not feel the effects of the dragon flames. All of the energy was simply being absorbed by the fire creatures. Every dragon attack made the fire creatures bigger and stronger and capable of protecting more people each time. But even this was not likely to stem the tide of monsters that threatened the meager human forces.

  Curious to see other facets of the battle, the warlock used the darkness to steer his mount south to see how things were faring on that side. He flew over and noticed a small, scattered guard of humans on that side of the encampment. Most of them had obviously been called to the main battle to engage the enemy there. Some of the sentries were pointing south and the warlock peered ahead to see the torchlight of an approaching army. As he neared, he could see it was his diversion army in conjunction with a sizeable army of trolls. Saliss had come through! He had roused the trolls and was marching on the human army as instructed. The size of his army would easily overrun the southern sentries in the human encampment. This was too good to be true! The warlock laughed in glee. The war was his! There was no way the humans could counter that, even with superior dragon power. He glided low to his reinforcements and saluted Saliss. The lizardmage commander spotted him and waved back, not knowing that his boss had changed - not in body but in spirit. But the spirit who now controlled the warlock was far more powerful than an ordinary spirit. It knew the warlock’s thoughts; it knew his desires and plans; and it could cast magic that was for more powerful than the puny humans he now fought.

  Suddenly a wild dragon came shrieking out of the sky above him. Too late to dodge out of the way, the warlock created a magical shield and waited for the wild dragon to spew its fire. As expected, the dragon tried to roast the dragon with its flame. Only it failed to do any damage to the rider or his mount. Veering away, it shrieked in dismay.

  Now it was the warlock’s turn. He steered his mount to pursue the wild dragon. He commanded the dragon to increase its speed to maximum. The dragon complied and gained on the wild dragon. When he was close enough, the warlock commanded his dragon to fire its flame. But the wild dragon veered to the side and easily avoided the blast of flames.

  Still pursuing, the warlock gained on the wild dragon again and commanded his dragon to fire again. As he anticipated, the wild dragon veered to one side to escape the flames. That’s when the warlock cast his own fireball - which was almost as powerful as his dragon’s fiery breath. Not expecting this tactic, the wild dragon did not move out of the way in time. The warlock’s fire engulfed the back of its body.

  Shrieking in agony, the wild dragon plummeted to the ground. The warlock howled in delight.

  But his joy soon turned to dismay as the burning dragon crashed headlong into the middle of the warlock’s army of reinforcements. The burning dragon obliterated a large swath of trolls, as well as some orcs and lizardmages. “No!” shrieked the warlock. He swore and pounded his fist into his dragon’s neck hard enough for it to notice and look back at him in fear.

  As he flew, the warlock spotted some smaller aerial creatures in the south who approached in a wide formation. As he neared, he could see they were too small to be dragons. What they lacked in size, they made up for in numbers. Before long, he saw that these creatures were pegasi, and they were being ridden by elves.

  The warlock frowned. Where had they come from? How many were there? Without coming up with an answer, the time came to engage them in combat. Bracing himself and shielding all but the front of his dragon, the warlock commanded it to fry everything in sight. The dragon flames were devastating. A dozen pegasus elf riders went down in the first blast. Laughing again, the warlock lowered his shield so he could blast the enemy with lightning bolts. Elves and pegasi went down in droves.

  The elves could not get close enough or go fast enough to get a shot in at this combination of destruction.

  The warlock was so engrossed in his destruction of the pegasus elf riders he wasn’t ready as an ice bolt struck his dragon’s tail. With a shriek, his dragon rolled sideways to evade this new attacker. The warlock turned to see a white ice dragon on his tail ridden by a female human mage.

  Reacting quickly, the warlock urged his mount to do a sharp turn while setting up his shield once more. Then he maneuvered so that he had a good view of his adversary. He waited for the white dragon to blast at him with another ice bolt. This time the icy breath was deflected aside. The warlock canceled his shield long enough to blast the white dragon with a lightning bolt. But his bolt was deflected aside by a magical shield that the human spell caster had in place. She had used the same tactic he had.

  The two dragons passed one another and the human spell caster looked like she was about to cast a spell of her own, but she held off as a swarm of wild dragons flew into the fray. Both combatants were drawn apart as they contended with this new threat. The warlock contended frantically with three dragons; one red dragon and two green ones, while the white one had to deal with two black ones.

  The warlock used a combination of magic and dragon flame to ward off his opponents and
then looked around for the white dragon, but it was lost in the darkness. With that threat momentarily neutralized, the warlock prepared to go after the pegasus elf riders again. But a sudden blast of lightning struck his dragon’s belly and the warlock noticed too late a new foe appearing from below him. Manifesting itself out of the gloom was a large bronze dragon ridden by a mage with a pointed hat kinked near the top. Another lightning bolt was unleashed by the mage, but the warlock raised a shield just in time. The bolt was deflected aside.

  At the same instant the warlock’s shield had been canceled by a ‘silence’ spell cast by the human mage. The reason for this became clear when the mage and his dragon did not slow down and charged right into him. Both riders were jolted as the dragons struck. The dragons began tangling face to face and clawed and bit at one another viciously. Both spell casters could not cast any spells in this position and the warlock suddenly realized that this was the human mage’s tactic all along. With magic neutralized, it was up to the dragons to determine the winner of this fight. The bronze dragon was bigger and stronger, but the warlock’s dragon held its own. The only problem now was since neither dragon was flying, they both began to fall while embraced in this epic struggle.

  Finally instinct told the dragons to part and both of them frantically flapped their wings to gain altitude. Had they fought only a few seconds longer, they would have both crashed into the ground.

  The warlock tried to get his mount to pursue the human mage, but his dragon was too intent on gaining altitude first. As it happened, one of the warlock’s lizardmage commanders had seen his predicament and had moved in to tangle with the clever human mage and his dragon. How the human mage didn’t lose his hat during the entire altercation was a mystery.

  With that threat being dealt with, the warlock looked up to see a large number of wild dragons coming in his direction. They were drawn to his magic, which was more powerful than anyone on the battlefield. In hindsight, the warlock realized he had brought this on himself. His magic had done this. Well, he thought, it couldn’t be helped now. He needed his magic to drive the dragons away. Now that he was far enough away from the human mage with the pointed hat, his magic should work again.

  He didn’t notice the battalions of sword wielding elves and centaurs who marched into the fray below him. They had been successful in their southern battle against the trolls more quickly than anticipated because the trolls had split up on two fronts to fight both the elves and humans. This was thanks to the warlock’s desire to have the trolls involved in his war with the humans. This evidently resulted in the trolls’ ranks being thinned sufficiently to allow the elven forces an easy victory. Now the brunt of the elven forces headed north to eliminate the other half of the troll army. Because the earthquakes were somewhat less noticeable in the south, they had made good time. But soon they would see more battle than they expected when they saw the massive army of monsters.

  * * * * *

  Kazin moved to a comfortable altitude and glanced back at Amelia. “Which way do we go?”

  “Just keep going straight ahead, Kazin. You’ll probably spot him before I do.”

  Kazin was suddenly jarred sharply from below. “Ooof!” He felt a shock at the contact.

  “What happened?” asked Amelia in concern.

  Kazin was jarred again and he twisted to see what had hit him. He only caught a glimpse of a tail. “A dragon is attacking me but I can’t see him!”

  Then something collided with Kazin’s right wing. Another spark lit up the area of contact. “Hey!” he cried. A small dragon was seen retreating out of range.

  This time Kazin braced himself and waited, all of his senses on alert. Then he saw it swooping in on his tail. Kazin twisted to get a claw in front of him and he successfully scratched at the wild dragon as it tried to snap at his tail.

  “Ow!” cried Kazin as the dragon made contact. He felt a piercing pain in his skull but shook it off. Then the wild dragon swerved and zoomed in with its claw extended. With incredible speed, it raked the claw across Kazin’s wing. The electric jolt caused both dragons to twitch away in pain.

  “What’s going on?” shouted Sherman. “I can barely see the dragon!”

  “It’s tiny!” yelled Amelia. “Should I put up a shield?”

  Kazin tried to increase his speed, but the little dragon outran him. It tried to claw Kazin’s tail, but the moment it got close there was another electrical shock bigger than the last time.

  “Ouch!” cried Kazin. The small dragon also shrieked and backed off a bit.

  “What’s going on?” asked Amelia.

  Kazin suddenly groaned as he realized what was happening. “Oh, no! Not again!”

  “What is it?” asked Sherman.

  “It’s Filbar,” said Kazin. “This isn’t good.”

  “Filbar?” asked Amelia. “You mean -,” she looked behind her but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. “Oh, no,” she repeated.

  “What do we do?” asked Sherman.

  “I’m not sure,” said Kazin. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the dragon approaching from the left. He turned so his back was to the beast. “Use magic to slow him down!”

  Amelia rattled off a spell and completed it slightly before the little dragon was about to collide with them. Sherman raised his sword because he had an opening in which to strike. He was about to drive his sword into the dragon’s knee when he recalled Kazin’s limp. As far as Kazin was concerned, he had always had a limp. But Sherman knew Kazin had never had a limp until this quest had started. He knew whatever had altered the past had caused his limp. Was it his sword? Was it the Sword of Dead that caused Filbar to have a permanent limp, only to be transferred to Kazin later on? Most injuries could be healed, but damage done by his sword would probably never heal. To strike now would have repercussions in the future.

  The hesitation Sherman experienced proved to have unexpected results. Filbar, although slowed by magic, still had enough momentum to collide with Kazin. Another electric spark emanated from the contact point of the two dragons and the ground below shuddered with the impact. With Kazin sideways, Sherman lost his hold and fell off. He plunged downward with Amelia’s screams in his ears.

  “Get lost, Filbar!” shouted Kazin angrily, batting the little dragon away with his wing. The spark from that motion made Filbar pause in his assault. Kazin took the opportunity to dive downward to try to catch his friend before he hit the ground.

  “What?!” cried Filbar. “I know that voice!” He tried to follow Kazin down but his body was still affected by Amelia’s ‘slow’ spell.

  “Just take your orb and get lost!” yelled Kazin. “If you don’t leave us alone, I’ll steal that orb from you right now!”

  Filbar shrieked. “No! You can’t have my orb! I’ll hide it! I’ll never let you have it!” He turned and fled, but only as fast as an ordinary dragon, because he was still under a ‘slow’ spell.

  Meanwhile, Kazin gained on his friend and caught him out of the air with his right claw. He curved his claw around Sherman’s body as gently as he could, considering the warrior’s wound, but even then Sherman cried out in pain.

  “Sorry!” cried Kazin. He flew to a spot away from the battle and put the warrior down as gently as he could.

  Amelia hopped off and immediately used magic to take away Sherman’s pain while redressing the wound. The repair was done quickly, and the companions climbed back on Kazin’s back. Kazin made a mental note to keep Sherman from fighting too much while they were up in the air.

  “Let’s try again,” said Kazin. He leapt into the air.

  They had hardly gone very far when a handful of wild dragons surrounded them. Kazin shielded himself and left an opening for Amelia to cast some spells at one of the dragons. Her slow spell sent one of their opponents spiraling away to safety. A second dragon attacked Kazin with its claws extended but struck the invisible shi
eld and bounced away. It was a large black dragon, larger than Kazin, and it shrieked in anger as it was foiled in its attempt to do damage close up. A third dragon, a green one, bounced off Kazin’s other side and flapped its wings to pursue him further. The black dragon belched flames at Kazin but the flames merely bounced harmlessly off the shield. The black dragon shrieked again and swerved away to rethink its attack. Meanwhile, Kazin made a swift move to give Amelia an opening to cast another spell. She waited until the right moment and cast some sort of distortion spell at the green dragon. It reeled and flew off in a daze.

  “What kind of spell was that?” asked Kazin.

  “I learned it from the ancient spell book,” said Amelia. “It’s a spell that makes the recipient feel woozy, like they’re experiencing many different emotions all at once. It has the effect of distorting their thoughts.”

  “Impressive!”

  “Um, Kazin,” said Sherman suddenly.

  A jolt brought Kazin back to his senses. The black dragon was trying to attack at close range again.

  Kazin swerved, dove, rose, zigzagged, and did all sorts of maneuvers to try to give Amelia an opening, but the black dragon was onto him. It stayed in a position that made it difficult for Kazin to gain an upper hand. At one point Kazin was able to raise the shield enough for Sherman to slash at it with his sword. The sword struck the creature’s front leg and sliced it open. The black dragon shrieked and veered away, but now it was very angry. It turned back to its nemesis and fought more ferociously than ever, blasting Kazin with flames and clawing at his shield mercilessly. It even used a ramming technique to try to dislodge Kazin’s riders. Remembering what had happened to Sherman earlier, Kazin was becoming angry himself. Whenever he had a chance to belch his flames at the opposing dragon, he was risking the same thing in return. The black dragon knew this and made sure it was facing Kazin during these moments. It obviously had experience in this sort of conflict.