The Sword and the Dragon (The Wardstone Trilogy Book One)

by M. R. Mathias

  “Thanks Mik, but she wouldn’t make it.”

  Hyden was starting to panic in fear for the animal’s life. One of the pups yapped and growled at him. Its stance was awkward, half afraid, and half protective. Its neck fur stood on end, but it was ready to dart away if it had to.

  “You’ll have to heal her yourself!” Vaegon called down matter-of-factly. “You have the ability, I know you do!”

  “What?” The idea seemed ridiculous. “How?”

  “You’ll have to calm yourself down, Hyden Hawk. You have to relax and clear your mind.”

  Vaegon sat at the edge of the ravine, not too close to the drop, but close enough that he could communicate with Hyden without having to yell.

  “Once you do that, I’ll talk you through it. If you really want to help the wolf, then we’ll get it done.”

  Mikahl watched in wonder as Vaegon talked Hyden into a relaxed state. In the back of his mind, something was nagging at him, but the revelation of what it was never came. The elf was speaking of envisionment, perceptual clarity, and intangible likenesses. Mikahl had no idea what any of it meant, but he was listening raptly whilst watching his friend below.

  If by force of will alone, if he could’ve made Hyden understand the confusing things Vaegon was describing, the wolf would’ve already been rambling away with her pups. As it was, he heard the expressions, and the careful instructions that followed them, but couldn’t even begin to grasp what they meant. Still, the intensity of the situation, and his deep-felt hope for Hyden to succeed, held him glued to the scene unfolding below.

  Hyden Hawk felt it tingling, felt the magic start to work his will in the wolf, but the amazement of the feeling, caused him to lose concentration. Now, he was frustratingly trying to calm himself down again, so that he might find that level of mental clarity once more. Deep breaths, envisioning a completely empty space, a void, as Vaegon’s smooth flowing words had suggested. Hyden Hawk formed the scene that was actually before him in the void of his mind’s eye. He was overcome by an electrical feeling, as the magic found him once again. He kept from losing its flow this time, and into the wolf’s flesh he delved.

  He wished he understood the creature’s anatomy better, and resolved to ask Vaegon how he might learn of such things. He had heard Mikahl speak of the great library at Lakeside Castle. In all his life, he had never held a book, much less tried to read one. He had seen books at Summer’s Day, on peddlers’ tables, and in some of the finer merchants’ tents, but not even once had he picked one of them up. He could do numbers till the sun went down, but he could neither read nor write a single letter. A book was as foreign a thing to him as a castle or a ship, or the inside of a wounded ridge wolf. He vowed to learn all he could, and he knew that the first step was to learn his letters.

  Some of the wolf’s wounds were obvious to his untrained eyes. The dark clots of pooled blood he removed, and the holes in the wolf’s thick, furred skin, he laced together with glowing yellow strands of magic, using the same type of stitches he had seen his mother use to patch the holes in his and Gerard’s britches when they were boys.

  The slight crack in the big bone, which connected the wolf’s spine to its hind legs and tail, he would have overlooked, had Vaegon not told him what to search for. He filled the tiny fracture with the strange, yellow magical glow in the same manner he had once mortared a loose stone back together on his grandfather’s fire-chute. The work was intense and taxing, and when he finally finished, he collapsed in a physically drained, yet pride filled heap of sweaty exhaustion.

  “It worked!” Mikahl exclaimed excitedly. “The wolf is getting to her feet. You did it!”

  Vaegon dared a look over the edge, and sure enough, the mother wolf was on her feet nuzzling and licking Hyden Hawk’s face. This delighted Vaegon. He had actually only suspected that Hyden could perform the deed.

  “Amazing,” he muttered, and for the first time, he held absolutely no doubt that Hyden Hawk was destined to be as powerful a wizard as the great Dahg Mahn had been.

  Hyden scratched behind the appreciative wolf’s ears absently. He could barely move. The pups nipped playfully at his other hand, while he lay there lost in the moment.

  He had done it! He had actually healed the injured wolf with magic. What would Gerard think about such a thing? It was ironic, Hyden thought, because it was Gerard who had always wanted to be a great wizard. Now, here he was, healing wolves and flying with hawklings.

  An odd thought occurred to him then. Gerard might actually find all that power he longed for in the depths of the Dragon Spire, like the old soothsayer crone had said he would. The thought had come from out of nowhere, and was lost again as Talon sent a shrill warning through him from the sky above.

  Hyden looked up, searching for the bird, but the large, dark shape of the beast that had killed Lord Gregory swept past overhead. Suddenly, true panic set in.

  Mikahl’s first thought when he saw the beast gliding by overhead, was of Loudin, but when he reached for Ironspike, his heart sank. It was lying in the grass, back in the clearing, like so much dead wood. The guttural urge to get to King Balton’s blade, and protect it, was almost washed over by the shame of his carelessness.

  Vaegon saw the look of despair come over Mikahl, and after only the briefest of glances at the boy’s hip, did he understand what had happened.

  “Go!” Hyden screamed from below, saving Vaegon the trouble of thinking of what to say.

  Hyden’s concern was for Loudin. He had no idea that Mikahl had left the sword out in the open.

  “Talon will show you the quickest way! Follow Talon!”

  When Vaegon set out, he was three steps behind Mikahl. Mikahl had spotted Talon, and was already headlong in his charge to get to the sword. It was all the fleet and nimble elf could do to keep up with him.

  Chapter 37

  In the pit of his stomach, Mikahl felt a certain icy dread, as he ran toward the clearing where Ironspike lay. Talon’s direct path spared him the short jaunt through the overly thick forest. Using the semi-dry stream bed, they went around it. The way was faster, but rockier. Even through the sparsely treed area Mikahl was charging through, the footing was loose and gravelly. At one point, a hook-thorn vine ripped at his face, and now his cheek was bleeding freely from the wide open gash the vine had caused, but he paid it no mind.

  The last stretch of the way was uphill and through trees dense with undergrowth, which threatened to trip him up with his every stride. He’d left Vaegon far behind, but he didn’t dare wait for the elf to catch up with him.

  Ahead, he could hear Loudin’s voice cursing defiantly over a deep, snarling growl, and the heavy thumping of wings. He had to hurry. He had to secure King Balton’s sword.

  By the time he came stumbling into the clearing, he was out of breath, but that didn’t matter to him. He was forced to reorient himself because he entered the clearing from an entirely different point than he had left it. The tree he had felled was aiming in the direction they had gone to find the wolf. It lay across his path now, pointing off to his left.

  To his right, by the trunk, was the hellcat that had killed Lord Gregory. It was hovering on slow, flapping wings, while clawing down at Loudin. The tattoo-covered hunter was shirtless and bleeding, but doing a fair job of keeping the creature at bay with the ax Mikahl had left behind. Somewhere, under Loudin’s bare feet, was the sword. Mikahl wasted no time charging across the clearing after it.

  As he approached, he saw that Loudin’s injury wasn’t mortal. It was only a gash across his tiger-striped back that was bright and glistening with blood, even in the valley’s morning shadow.

  The Seawardsman yelled, and swung the ax up wildly at the huge, menacing beast. It appeared to Mikahl, that the creature wasn’t trying very hard to attack Loudin. Surely, it could maul the hunter to pieces if it really wanted to. It became clear that it was after the sword. The hellcat was too big and too bulky to go crashing into the forest. Ironspike was at the clearing’s edge,
and Loudin was right there with it.

  Roaring with frustrated determination, the hellcat put its hind legs on the ground, and while folding in its wings, lashed out savagely with its fore claws. Mikahl was only ten paces away and closing fast. He didn’t even see the other dark shape swooping through the shadowed clearing at him. He heard Vaegon cry out a warning from somewhere behind him, but by the time the elf’s words registered in his brain, he was off his feet, and flailing through the air, sideways.

  As the world cart-wheeled before his eyes, pain tore through his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of a sleek, shiny black scaled thing, just before the grassy earth came up, and slammed the air from his lungs.

  Hyden, still lying exhausted in the ravine, cringed at Mikahl’s rough impact. He saw it all through Talon’s eyes. He wanted nothing more than to raise himself up and go running to help his friends, but his body wouldn’t cooperate with his will. The wyvern had been a surprise. At first, he thought it was a small dragon, with its sinuous body and great wingspan, but the memory of seeing a half-rotted thing in the snow as a young boy came to him.

  The village men of the Tuska Clan are very much like the men of the Skyler Clan, but they live in the easternmost reaches of the Giant Mountains, where the range borders the desert. They had wing-wounded a wyvern, and followed its blood trail all the way into the lands hunted by the Skyler Clan.

  Being distantly related to each other and aware of each other’s existence, primarily due to Berda and other nomadic giants, the Tuska Clan eventually sought out the Skyler Clan, seeking shelter and supplies for the long trip home. Stories were shared over a celebratory feast and Harrap brought out a skin of fire brandy he had purchased at that year’s Summer’s Day Festival.

  The next day, Uncle Condlin took a handful of the curious young boys out to see the mysterious beast, whose diluted blood could supposedly be used to shape stone. Hyden remembered it now as clear as if it had been only yesterday. That wyvern hadn’t been black though, it had been a grayish brown, the color of the rocky caves in the east. Hyden remembered that its dark blood had eaten away the shafts of the spears that had finally killed it.

  As he watched Vaegon try to get around the clearing to where Loudin was, by skirting the tree line, Hyden racked his brain, searching his memories of what the Tuska Clansmen had said about the wyvern, hoping to remember anything that he, or Talon, might be able to use to help them.

  Vaegon darted around the edge of the forest like a startled deer, ducking this branch, leaping that root, and twisting around every clump of dead fall and undergrowth that presented itself to him. He closed the distance between him and Loudin in only a handful of heart beats. He wasn’t fast enough though.

  The hellcat’s front claw caught Loudin in the chest, and ripped a trio of gouges down his body. As the hunter fell to his knees, a glistening bulge of intestine and gore bubbled out of the center furrow. The hellcat’s other fore claw, clenched around Ironspike’s scabbard beside him. Awkwardly, it began backing away from the tree line with the sword in its grasp and Mikahl’s belt dragging behind. Its wings unfurled, with a heavy snap and lifted it a hand’s breadth into the air.

  Vaegon snatched the ax from the ground, and ran out after the beast. He raised the heavy headed tool over his head with both hands and hurled it at the fleeing creature as hard as he could. The hellcat rose a few more inches off the ground as the ax flew through the air, head over handle, and struck blade first into its neck just behind the ear. It stuck there a moment then fell away. The wound was deep, and probably painful, but it was far from lethal. The beast roared its displeasure at Vaegon, but still made to get away.

  Loudin, still on his knees, fell forward, reaching his arms out as far as he could. His hands clasped around Mikahl’s belt, and as the horse-sized creature lifted away, he use the strength of his arms to yank at the sword. Deftly, the hellcat latched its other fore claw onto the sheath, and held it tightly.

  Loudin grimaced, and pulled with all he had left in him. He came up to his knees, as the furious beast started to lift up again. He felt his guts bursting out of him, fought the pain, and the knowledge that he was as good as dead. With a mighty heave, he pulled himself to his feet, and managed to hook is arm between the hellcat’s claws, over the sheathed sword. He felt the surge of power from the hellcat’s next wing-beat lift his feet off the ground. The pain in his guts was incredible, but he held on. He swore to himself that the beast wouldn’t have Mikahl’s sword as long as he could draw breath. The beast then lifted him higher.

  Vaegon felt helpless. He started to grab onto Loudin’s legs, but after seeing the two-clawed grasp the creature had on the sword, he was sure he would have only pulled Loudin free of it. The hunter’s guts were spilling now. The lining that had bulged out of his abdomen was tearing, and a coiled loop of slick, silvery intestine, dangled down by his knees.

  Vaegon was certain, that at any moment, the pain of the injury would cause Loudin to let go and fall back to the earth. He grabbed up the ax, intending to take a swipe at the beast, but by then, the only things low enough for him to possibly hit, were Loudin’s dangling feet. A wing beat later, even they were up and out of the elf’s range.

  A different type of roar, higher in pitch and more avian, came from where the wyvern was swooping back down at Mikahl’s prone body.

  Talon was fluttering about it, slashing, and clawing at the beast’s horny, black-scaled head, trying to take it off its intended course. Vaegon charged across the clearing towards them, raising the ax over his head as he went. Apparently, Talon got a claw into the wyvern’s eye, because it forgot Mikahl for a moment, and thrashed its head about in agony while hovering a few feet off the ground. Through some warning from Talon, Mikahl managed to roll his half-dazed self out from under the angry beast. Vaegon saw the opportunity, and heaved the ax at the creature, just like he had at the hellcat. Talon barely managed to flap clear of the heavy wooden handle, as it came whooshing by. Vaegon had thrown it so hard, that Mikahl heard the powerful “WHOOMP! WHOOMP! WHOOMP!” of it spinning through the air.

  The blade hit the wyvern in its face with a sickening crunch, sending it flailing into the ground, where it landed hard on its side. The splatters of blood that sprayed both Talon and Mikahl, began to sizzle and burn through feather and flesh. Instinctually, the hawkling made for water. The stream was close for the bird, whose tiny, hollow bones and body would be devastated, if the hot, acidy stuff got through its layers of feathers.

  On the ground, the wyvern wheezed, sputtered, and managed to slink a few feet away, before finally falling still. All around it, everything, even the grass, was being eaten away by its corrosive blood.

  Loudin’s horrifying scream filled the air, and echoed off of the hard surfaces around the valley’s rim. Mikahl rolled to his feet and followed Vaegon’s gaze with a knot of dread growing inside him. It was an awful sight to look upon, and seeing it, broke something inside Mikahl.

  Loudin’s intestines had gotten hung in the branches of a tree. A few yards of guts had been pulled out of him, yet, he still hung onto the sword with both arms, as the powerful wings of the hellcat pulled, and the beast twisted and yanked, trying to get free of him and the tangle. Another cry of anguish, and pain erupted from the Seawardsman, and chilled Mikahl to the bone.

  “Let it go, old man,” Mikahl whispered under his breath, but he knew in his heart that Loudin wouldn’t do it. He felt the sizzling pain of the wyvern’s blood burning his face and arms, but he ignored it. At the moment, there was no room in him to feel such trivial discomfort. He would rather lose the sword, and live his whole life in the shame of doing so, than to see his friend die this way. His very soul cried out for Loudin to let go. Tears welled in his eyes and he started to look away.

  Loudin screamed again. This time, it was cut off, as another few feet of his intestines were yanked out of him. Like some macabre kite, he hung there, suspended in midair. One arm came loose from over the sheathed blade, and it looked as if the h
unter was about to fall, but his other arm was crooked over the sword, and he refused to let it go.

  Loudin was beyond pain now. He felt the pull against his insides, and he felt the raw, cold mountain air touching places inside him that were never meant to be exposed. He felt the tearing when the hellcat lurched, and tore more of his guts loose. Something ruptured that time, and the world was growing fuzzy and gray, and yet he still refused to let go. He tried to scream again, but only a hot whoosh of air came bubbling out of him from somewhere besides his throat. This was it then, he conceded. It was over.

  Better to die for a friend, than to rot away in some woodsy cabin all alone anyway. He was done for, but as futile as all his effort seemed to be at the moment, Loudin still thought he could beat the beast.

  “You fargin, flying, panther-horse hell-born bitch,” he tried to yell, but no audible sound came. “You’ll not have Mik’s sword!” he finished anyway. With the last bit of his strength, he reached out with his free hand, and grabbed Ironspike’s leather wrapped hilt, and started sliding it out of its scabbard.

  Mikahl hadn’t been able to watch. His carelessness had not only cost him King Balton’s sword, but had cost his friend his life. He had failed his father and King. He had let Lord Gregory’s death be in vain. He had wasted the Giant King’s time, and on top of it all, he had killed Loudin.

  What a fool he had been to have even entertained the notion that he might be a king of some sort. A King’s bastard born fool is all he was, a squire who had grown too big for his britches, and had carelessly thrown away his honor, and a dear friend’s life, on a whim. He had failed. He wasn’t worthy to be called King. He was just a fool.

  Vaegon’s sudden gasp carried a tinge of hope in it. Just enough to bring Mikahl out of his shame, to look up and see what it could possibly be that mocked him so. What he saw, made his own breath catch, and drew him stumbling forward. First one step, then another, and then he was running. Ironspike was flying through the air. Its mirror smooth blade reflected the pastel colors of the morning in sparkling turns as it came spinning towards the ground. It landed blade down, sinking two thirds of its length into the earth from the momentum. Mikahl stopped and stared at it. It wavered there a moment, and then stilled. It looked more like a glimmering, jeweled cross, than a sword. He turned away from it just in time to see Loudin’s body fall crashing into the trees.