by Jason Jones
“Yes, your majesty, we found a dragon.”
“You did?”
“We did, yes.”
“Was she black, a monstrous thing?”
“I believe so, yes my queen.”
“Good, she rots in hell then. I can sleep now, knowing she is dead.”
“No, my queen. The dragon we found…….”
Katrina passed on to sleep, her body warm and tingly, and her mind drifted in the darkness.
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“Get down!” James pulled Azenairk back against the sealed doors of Vundren. Their shields went up, fast, and they held their breath.
Again and again the hydra unleashed a smoldering gout, their shields were beginning to glow from the fires they blocked, the roaring flames from two hydra heads forced Zen and Sir James back toward the locked doors. Just as they would stop to breathe, the other two reptilian heads would unleash more lines of fire from their mouths, keeping the knight and the dwarven priest immobilized and blocking massive sprays of flame.
Saberrak ducked a bolt of lightning as it crackled through the air over his horns. It passed, and burned a scorching black hole into the green scales. He saw the tail come again, and jumped in the air with a quick flex of his muscled legs. The tail swept underneath, tearing rock shards up from the floor, and the gray minotaur landed and turned. He rolled under a biting reptilian head, came up next to the fat scaled body, and chopped both greataxes into its side above the three legs. Blood ran down to the stone and his feet, the screaming hiss was deafening, yet the minotaur pulled his axes free.
Shinayne, having climbed up the creature’s back, stepped to the left as another head snapped for her. Carice sliced it open from eye to nostril with one slash as it came, then she dove Elicras up under its chin and pulled down its throat. She pulled free and somersaulted across the hydras back before the head reared in pain, pulling her blades low in her tumbling roll.
“Saberrak, other side!” Shinayne directed her partner, keeping the beast occupied on all sides.
The hydra snapped again, too slow for the quick highborn elf, and bit into its own thick scales. Now on the other side of the same head, Shinayne dove her longblade into the remaining purple gleaming orb with a thrust of steel, and continued her laceration with her shortblade down and across the neck again. Black blood poured like a waterfall as the blinded head thrashed through the air with the elf attached. Shinayne pulled her blades loose, fell twenty feet, but never missed an agile step as she landed perfectly on its back.
“Jureste hiathuan desei ex moora durax!”
Gwenneth held the staff of Imoch tight, pointed it with both hands at the hydra, and felt the fourth rune near the top start to glow orange. She felt the powers of the draconic words she had learned, the fourth rune of mighty incantation, and suddenly the earth shook from her instead of the beasts’ steps.
One, then two, then three massive spikes of stone, sharp as any spear, thirty feet in length, erupted from the floor and pierced through the hydra’s body. Blood pooled beneath it, the body stuck in place, held by summoned earth and stone as the tip of one nearly pierced Shinayne when it protruded through the back.
“RRROOOOaaaarrrrchhhheeeiiiisssssssssssss!!!”
The heads, three with glaring eyes and one now without, screamed in horrid monstrous anguish. The beast reared up on two of its six legs, twisted its body free from the stone spears, tearing itself wide open. It charged Gwenneth, ignoring anything else as a river of dark crimson flowed from under its clawed steps.
Saberrak dove out of its path just in time before being trampled, freeing his axes from its scaly flesh. Shinayne leapt off of the back, onto the tail, then off the tail to safe ground behind it. Gwenneth unleashed another blast of lightining from her hand, then another, only angering the bleeding hydra more as it scrambled on six legs toward her, and the edge of the endless dark chasm.
Just as she went to unleash another blast, two heads screamed fire down toward her, another snapped with black fangs to devour, and the fourth head swayed in blind confusion. Gwenneth screamed, covering her face, with nowhere to go as her feet backed up to the edge of the plateau.
Whoosh!
She was gone, right before the flames scorched her spot and the massive teeth ate the charred remains that would have been, something hit her and she fell from the edge into the darkness.
“James, no!”
Zen looked up from his shield, sweat from blocked hydra fire pouring down his face, and saw his friend dive into Gwenneth and continue off the edge, at the last moment.
“Gwenneth!” Shinayne had seen but a blur, a blur of white tabard grab her, then a blur of James and Gwenne falling off the plateau together, into darkness.
The gray gladiator wasted not a word, running and leaping onto the back of the dark green scaled reptile that looked for where its meal had gone. His enchanted greataxe with the sapphire stones cleaved into a neck from behind, then he followed with the other axe into the same spot. One after another, he slashed deep gouges into the hide and flesh, until he saw neckbone. Saberrak kicked above his axe cuts, exposing the weakened spine. With one brutal downward chop, he severed the vertebrae and the massive neck tore loose and fell hard, squirming along the edge.
Crash!
Zen charged it, seeing two of his friends fall, and unleashed a brutal swing of his blacksteel warhammer. The bones of one of the hydra feet cracked loudly, and he continued to the next one as the fat reptilian body poured blood from its many wounds.
The hydra shot flame at Shinayne, and she dove to her right and rolled back up to her feet. Another head sprayed fire into the chasm, unable to see, both its eyes cut apart from elven blades. A third shot fire out its decapitated neck, and the fourth snapped for Saberrak, who was too fast to catch as he leapt for another snaking head to cleave.
The beast tipped to its right side, three of its feet and claws smashed and broken from the dwarf. It reared back on its tail, to turn around from the perilous edge, then it tipped forward. Shinayne struck again, her right hand slicing through the tail, her left with arcing cuts that deepened the wound. On her third precise cut with Carice, the thrashing tail tore off, snapped from its own muscle as she severed the bones in the center. The hydra leaned forward, instead of turning, all its balance now toward the chasm.
“Saberrak! Help me push!” Zen raised his shield, heaved, and slammed himself into the rear leg. He grunted, lifted, and pushed with all he had as the claws scrambled and slipped on a bloody stone floor.
“Our friends are down there!” Shinayne screamed over the horrid hisses of the hydra.
“It’s our only chance, elf, now push!”
Saberrak leapt from the forward end of the hydra, slid down its back over the severed tail, and rolled to his feet beside Shinayne. All three of them now pushed this monstrous beast from the rear, well covered from its fires, yet it held its ground as its claws dug into the stone. It was weakening, trying to back up, and it stopped its gouts of flame. Inch by slow inch, it pushed the three back, its wounds slowly healing by mythical means, unbeknownst to anyone.
“Push! Come on now, push this bastard off the edge!” Zen roared it loud.
Two sets of purple eyes rose over the hydra body, glaring at the three that were trying to push it to its doom. The fangs shone, reddish orange light flickered from its two mouths, not ten feet from them.
Crash, Carrooom, C-crash, Carrooom, Crash!
Sparks of fire and lightning, a hail of deadly showering stone shrapnel, and three explosions of arcane power ripped into the ledge the hydra pushed away from. The still slithering decapitated head slid off, falling without a sound. The rock crumbled, chunk by massive weakened piece, and fell to the chasm without end.
“Desmo de ruillas thrahas!”
Gwenneth yelled, staff of Imoch in one hand, James wrapped tight in the other, as she hovered in the air above the darkness. His ancient shield was held out to the side, glowing faintly as h
e squinted his eyes from the blast.
Three white pulsing orbs of ice slammed into the cracks in the stone plateau. A mere moment later, as the hydra pushed back against its foes, the rock ledge grew cold, then exploded. The hydra scrambled, but its claws found nothing to grip that was not tumbling down or covered in ice. Roaring hisses and screaming flame once more, the massive beast fell forward, followed by tons of broken stone. Zen, Shinayne, and Saberrak backed up a few steps, watching the hydra slide and fall into the black beyond. No one heard an impact, just a faint thunder from below, and a small dot of fire that vanished quickly.
Gwenneth, James holding on to her tight, levitated across the plateau and landed softly. Their feet touched the safe ground together, yet their embrace lasted a few moments longer. She looked to him, he looked back, eyes so close they could almost touch each other with their lashes.
“Thank you, for…that…very brave, James Andellis.” She whispered.
“I merely did what any knight would have, for a beautiful lady…Gwenneth. Thank you…for bringing us back up.” He whispered back, her breath was close, her lips moved an inch from his.
“The shield, eh?” Saberrak interrupted with a pat on the knights’ shoulderplate.
“Fell like a feather.” James laughed to the minotaur as Gwenneth backed up from their moment of closeness, yet he kept his eyes on her. She smiled to him, keeping her eyes on his the same.
“That was the craziest thing I done ever seen, James. I would expect it from Shinayne, even Saberrak, but you? Diving into an endless chasm? Ye’ got spirit boy, no doubtin’ that. Glad to have ye’ back.” Zen smacked him on the back and smiled, then winked to Gwenneth.
“You as well, me black robed destroyer, you too.”
“This coming from the dwarf that just tried to push ten tons of fire breathing hydra off a ledge?” Shinayne sheathed her blades and grinned, she took a deep breath now that everyone was safe.
“Aye, that was a bit insane then too, I guess.”
He chuckled, then looked behind them, to the giant double doors of gold. He walked slow, drawn to the holy hammer and moons symbols upon the battered and war scarred gold. Azenairk touched it, the green light hummed faintly, soft and sad, and he took out the keys from his belt.
“Virnu vetar, means third born son…means Vundren, by God, tis the doors to his divine forge. I cannot believe it.”
He wiped a tear from his face, then another, and placed the key into the lock. The same strange flash, the same unseen force opened the doors enough to pass, and the key was in his hand without him removing it.
“We made it, glory to God, all o’ yours too, we made it. She is vanquished, after thousands o’ years we---”
“Gathes morides tazhumul mastri hydra devoth ur mazu, Thalanaxe…”
“No, she is dead, the demon is dead…why does she still speak? It’s not possible, we killed her. She is down there, smashed at the end o’ that damn chasm, right?”
Zen felt the air grow cold, saw more ghosts of dwarves on the other side of the open doors. They looked back with sad faces, as if they were waiting for something, something terrible to happen.
“What did she say, minotaur?”
“You have desecrated my hydra, I curse you, Thalanaxe…”
Saberrak felt the words, his hide grew tingly with chills upon repeating them. He looked down to Zen.
“I believe we killed her pet. She is down there, this Arabashiel, we are not done yet, my friend.”
“Ye’ be right as rain on that, horned one. I need to be sharin’ a few words with her in fact, and I don’t think she will like what I have to say.” Azenairk stalked ahead, into the dark corridors, deeper down into the holy forges of his God.
Azenairk stopped, took a deep breath, and bellowed into the deep caverns of Kakisteele.
“And quit talkin’ in that old decrepit language, will ye’! I speak dwarven and Agarian, just them two! So if ye’ wanna threaten me, ye’ better learn to do it so I can understand ye’!”
“Enjoy your ability to speak, Thalanaxe, you will not have it for long, I promise you…”
The voice rippled the air, cast chills along the walls as it echoed, and spoke in a seductive yet dark female tone.
“Much better, thank ye’!” Zen tapped his hammer to his shield, and marched ahead.
Without a word of disagreement, his four friends kept pace. As they walked in, the ghosts bowed their heads, but did not follow. They knew what was down there, but could do nothing to stop these five brave mortals. So they prayed, prayed in their eternal silence that their deaths would be quick and painless.
They knew they would see them all too soon, in the neverending gray, and they would fight on forever. Just like they did. For the dwarven spirits here remembered Arabashiel, enough to know that she was unstoppable, immortal, and one of the supposed daughters of the dark God of Gods of the green moon. It was She that held this place, for all time, She, and one other.
Curses IV:II
Vin Armon
Capital of Armondeen
“Beware allies that are too good to be true, follow too closely, or take more interest in you than they do themselves. Falseness is the deadliest weapon your enemy has.” Spoken by Herrimus, first king of Harlaheim, bane to the northern oppression of the Empires of Altestan, and secret member of the Red Wolves of Agara.
Circa 2245 BC
“I have told you, elf, no one enters Arnhast this night. The queen cannot be seen, now leave.” The lady in black kept her hand on a scimitar that was sheathed at her side The twenty guards stared at this strange visitor, and his deer, with furrowed brows of confusion.
“I have something that will change your mind.” The Nadderi elf dropped his cloak, pulled off his black chainmail shirt, and then his black tunic. He set them arcoss his deer, and the deer looked at him with an odd glance.
“This is not necessary, elf. Please stop and leave. I could have the guards remove you, most painfully, I might add. Vin Armon does not permit elves…” Her words trailed off upon seeing this most strange elf disrobe from the waist up.
His flesh was pale, scars of many battles upon him, yet his spiraling patterns of black that looked painted into his skin along his veins stood out the most. From fingertips to his pointed ears, from stomach to his forehead, this odd elf was decorated or cursed in wicked fashion. His hand dragged slowly from a black burn that looked like a thorn in his abdomen, to a flaming triangle with peeled skin around it on his chest, right over the heart.
Kendari’s green eyes stared to hers as he smiled. He bowed again, as sick as it made him to do so, and then spoke softly.
“Tell her majesty that a faithful servant of Cancuru has arrived, a priest with a virgin offering if you would, who has been sent to honor her in all that she does in the names of the Eleven. I have been sent by powers far greater than you, with an important message from beyond, so take me in. Now.”
She had seen that sign before, never branded so, but it was the symbol of Cancuru, second born Nochtilian child of God, she had no doubts. She looked to the deer, then to this marked elf with a wicked gleam to his eyes, and then to the Tower of the Sceptre where strange red lights and flames were shadowing out the windows. Andora had stated no interruptions, not one for any reason, but this was different. She dared not refuse a messenger from the eleven, which this elf obviously was.
“Come with me.” She waved him in, seeing the deer was tied with a leather strap around the neck, and his black horse was tethered back before the gates.
“As you wish.” Kendari of Stillwood dressed quickly, nodded to the deer without notice, and smiled as he passed the guards.
“Tend to the horse, if you value your souls.”
He saw the skittish nods, even heard footsteps toward his stolen steed from Kivanis, and he tried not to grin. Past the black wrought iron spiked gates, into a lavish courtyard filled with midnight patrols of Armondi men, Kendari looked up to the three towers.
One wit
h an engraved talon, mostly dark in its eleven stories. To the opposite, a gray stone tower depicting a lance was more busy with lights and motion, but only on the lower floors. In the center she led him, to a tower with a sceptre, and toward the dark chanting and crimson lights that danced out the draperies above. Two scraggly guards with black solid eyes stepped forward, then stepped aside as this lady guardian of the queen raised her hand.
Up ten floors they traversed, past more strange eyed men with blades that neither spoke nor moved. Kendari pulled the deer a bit, hearing him slow in his clacking steps, reinforcing that he was in charge here.
“Those men, are they…what I think they are?” He left the question open, digging for quick answers, using his peripheral vision to place the layout to memory.
“You have heard of the Nataloni Nochti?” She responded.
“I have, yes indeed. I have heard much in fact, how is it she has so many?” Kendari lied, he knew nothing of these obscure men, but he could tell they were more than mere human guards.
“She has twenty two, it has taken years of sacrifice, over a decade in fact. But her personal guardians are the deadliest killers, both infernal and mortal, and they see everything.” She stopped as this elf grabbed her waist and turned her softly on the stairwell, a touch that was as much force as it was lustful.
“I have fifty in my temple, somenight I will show you.” He bit on her ear, playfully, then ran his hand up her thighs. He whispered in the arcane tongue, feszra faeyl, and a red glow came from his ruby pendant. He could now see things unseen, all around.
“What was that, those words?” She questioned, but did not resist his grasping hands.
“It means dark pleasures await thee. It is more beautifully spoken in my native tongue, the language of the Nochtilians, the dark ones.” He lied some more, easily.
“My lord, I would most enjoy that.” She trembled as he pushed her against the wall.
“But, I do not know your name, faithful priest.”
