The dragon held his head motionless, despite the powerful movements of his neck and body, like a hunting bird with its eyes on its prey. The baleful glow of undeath blazed in Kamunki’s eyes. “The spirit of my world has made me whole once more.”
The tendrils of blight flowed downward from dragon, writhing toward the core of Vorallon with renewed energy. The threat to Vorallon remained, and unlike his previous incarnation, the dragon’s movement was unrestricted.
“Now I just require my name from you!” the dragon announced, the boom of his voice shaking more dust from hidden recesses in the vault above.
“You shall not have it, Dragon,” Lorace spat, raising his chain on the wind like a rearing serpent of dull silver.
“It is written on your flesh, fool, I will take it from you when I flay it off your bones,” the dragon roared, exposing a mouth full of cracked and decayed teeth.
The beast held his gaze for a moment before shaking from nose to tail like a wet dog, then roaring in frustration, “You rob me of my stone-shaping! I feel you throwing your will against mine.” The dragon glared toward Sir Rindal who was sliding away from Lorace, dividing the creature’s attention. “Do you think you can overpower me?”
“Am I not doing so?” Sir Rindal taunted with a barking laugh into the broken-toothed maw large enough to snap him up in one bite.
“You I can burn, it is not your skin I wish to preserve.” The dragon opened his mouth wide to take in a deep breath, to exhale noxious flame and acid as he did during his battle with Elena. Lorace sent his awareness into the beast’s great lungs, past the fire producing glands in his throat and pulled the air out, robbing the dragon of his breath. The dragon gagged, unable to breathe fire into the noxious spew it vomited up.
Denied again, the dragon swiped at the paladin with enormous talons. He struck with devastating speed and strength, but Sir Rindal twirled his blade in a graceful, easy sweep while sliding a step back. Three of the talons flew away, severed clean by Brakke Zahn.
The dragon’s smoking white eyes widened in surprise before narrowing in recognition.
“We danced thus once before, you and I.” Sir Rindal brought his blade up once more and leveled it at the dragon’s heart. “I see you remember it now.”
“I am the Lord of Vengeance!” the dragon bellowed.
An unseen force smashed into Sir Rindal, throwing him against the wall. The glowing glyph in his hand clattered to the floor, pitching the room into almost complete darkness. Only the glowing eyes of the dragon shed any light.
Sir Rindal let out a scream of utter agony in the darkness. Lorace leapt toward him only to be captured by another embrace of stone around his leg. In the absence of the glyph’s light, the blight was attacking, and living stone held Lorace immobile once more.
The brilliant sunlight of Defender of the Youngest flared between the dragon and the paladin. Sir Rindal was bound to the wall by thick arms of black stone about his waist. In that instant of darkness, the blight had warped the paladin’s legs into a twisted mass of scaly black flesh. The paladin convulsed against the wall as Tornin drove back the blight with thrusts of his sword.
Through his writhing, Sir Rindal’s fingers clung tight to his sword as he clung to life. His breath came in sharp, quick gasps of laughter. He raised his head to glare at the dragon as he reasserted his will, robbing the beast of his gift over stone again. The link he shared with the Lady was as strong and steady as Lorace had ever seen it.
“Is that all the spirit of your dead world can do?” Sir Rindal asked through pain-tightened lips as he reached out with his spirit to awaken the fallen glyph to brightness once more.
“It suffices for now,” the dragon rumbled as he took a quick step toward the trapped man.
Tornin stepped forward and raised his blazing sword higher.
Lorace called out to the trapped paladin, “Follow the link!”
He shared his sight with Sir Rindal, showing him the silver thread that connected Tornin’s sword with the strength of the sun. Use it how you can!
The dragon laughed; a deep booming sound that shook the stone around them. He gathered his haunches beneath him and lowered his head to be on a level with his new opponent. “Your light cannot hold me at bay.”
With astounding speed despite its size, the dragon sprang forward, his jaws snapping closed with a thunderous crack on empty air where Tornin had stood. The young knight was no longer there. The dragon whipped his head around with a roar, but Tornin ran too fast for any eyes to follow, circling the entire chamber several times within a single heartbeat. Diffuse, directionless daylight now lit the vast throne room.
Lorace took advantage of the dragon’s confusion to propel a shard of stone at one of the dragon’s eyes, but the same unseen force that had thrown the paladin across the room deflected the missile. It had been a small thing, like one of his stepping pads, splitting the air an instant ahead of the rock and vanished just as quickly.
Up rose a dozen more stones, creating a whirling maelstrom high in the chamber. Lorace guided each on its own path, weaving and dodging them through the air at a tremendous pace. He drove them faster until they drew streaking trails of heat through the air. The dragon snarled, but returned his attention to the paladin.
Lorace drove the dragon back, feinting with one stone after another at the beast’s eyes, whipping them away from more unseen barriers as he sensed them part the air.
More barriers flashed into and out of existence, trying to intercept Tornin, but guided by Lorace’s sight, the young man sidestepped each of them.
“You have fought him before as well, Dragon,” Lorace said, keeping the dragon’s focus away from the agonized paladin. “Do you remember the spear that entered your heart? It was driven home by the very same spirit you face again. You will not survive to be reborn, we will not allow that, and there are no more bodies in which to flee, unless you wish to run and join the spirit of your dead world.”
The flying rocks now trailed streaks of blazing fire. I must strike soon. The air was thinning, despite his channeling and funneling efforts to draw more down into the depths of the chamber.
Now! One after another, he struck the dragon’s weaving head with his meteoric rocks, spinning them around the barriers that snapped into existence and dodging them through the spaces in between. The long head reeled back to the blows as the stones hit with such explosive force. Lorace erected barriers of his own to protect Sir Rindal and himself from the heat.
The dragon staggered back, his claws digging furrows in the rippled black floor. The missiles had blasted away the beast’s right eye and the fan of one ear. Flesh from his snout, built from the bodies of blighted cattle and dead men, hung in tatters, but the dragon was far from destroyed. His wings snapped open, revealing rents in the sail sized panels of skin that stretched between each vane. With another piercing roar, he swept them toward Lorace in a wasted effort to buffet him with the ensuing hurricane.
“Now you are the fool!” Lorace cried as he took hold of the wind and flung it back into the dragon’s wings. The beast did not have the Devourer’s absorbing gift. Sir Rindal had proven this when his own gift robbed the dragon of his stone-shaping.
The Undead God’s barriers could do nothing as the wind tore the dragon’s wings back, dragging the beast back until their long bones snapped.
Tornin’s blade struck the stone grasping Lorace’s leg, freeing him in a burning explosion that left his boot scorched and smoking.
In the following instant, there was another flash of even brighter light and a second wave of heat washed over him. The combined will of Tornin and Sir Rindal wreathed Defender of the Youngest in energy drawn from the sun. The metal has remembered its heat!
Sir Rindal’s gift was protecting them all, holding the heat to the blade of the sword and away from Tornin’s hand. He recalled Adwa-Ki’s assessment of the metal’s possible heat and shuddered. With all that remained of his will, Sir Rindal was restraining a fire capable o
f incinerating a sizeable portion of Ousenar.
Tornin rained three tremendous blows upon the dragon in the span of a single heartbeat: the first two severed both forefeet; the last was a slash through the broad scales of the dragon’s chest. Scales and flesh melted away from the wounds like molten slag.
The dragon reared. Gobs of fiery flesh sprayed from his truncated forelegs as the beast waved them in the air and screamed. Recycled from the bodies of the undead, his flesh was void of corrosive blood. Where the flaming clots fell, the fire burned until only ash remained.
Rising into the air, Lorace unleashed Sakke Vrang toward the fire burning at the dragon’s breast. His chain shattered innumerable barriers erected by the Undead God, devouring their essence in black flame.
Wrapping the chain around his fist and forearm, he thrust it deep into the dragon’s unbeating heart. Sakke Vrang remained his to command. Lorace pushed the godstone chain to transcendent power with every bit of his will, and gritted his teeth against the pain of undeath’s foulness.
He commanded Sakke Vrang’s hunger closely, ensuring that none of the ancient spirit fled the vengeance of the chain. He consumed its corruption, freeing every soul the Devourer had taken, every victim of Tezzirax’s possession. A yellow glow took up many of the souls, including those that held the spirits of his parents and childhood protectors. Lord Aran was taking those who were his due to the realm of Jaarda.
The blighted foulness that remained flowed into the chain and on into his infinite tranquility. He reached down past the dead flesh, scales, and bones to take in every bit of its essence, and then the body of the great dragon followed in a towering vortex of black flame. Sakke Vrang let none of the foul spirit escape. The Undying One would not be reborn again.
Next, the chain consumed the blight anchored to the crumbling dragon. He urged Sakke Vrang’s hunger deep into the world, consuming every tendril of blight as they probed for Vorallon’s core. When the agony of the blight ended, Vorallon’s relief was immediate and glorious. His silver and indigo spirit rose and wrapped Lorace in a tight embrace then spread back into the land of Ousenar, shunning the depths of the dragon’s pit.
Long hidden, the rift at the bottom of the pit was, at last, clear to Lorace’s sight. An opening much like the portals the elves had summoned to step from one grandfather tree to the next. Beyond this portal, all was mind-numbing darkness and flickering hints of emerald green—an opening onto a universe of blight and hungering intelligence.
He leaped down into the pit, lowered on air eager to assist him. It was vastly deep. The corrosive life-blood of the titanic dragon had poured out for days, eating far into the world. The rift was a tear in Vorallon’s universe, out of which his life had slowly leeched into the eternal cold of corruption and undeath. It was already starting to close following the dragon spirit’s true death, healed by Vorallon’s restored life force.
Lorace extended an end of his chain into the darkness, into another universe where life was death. With Sakke Vrang’s touch, images of rage and hatred flowed. In ages lost to time, the spirit of the dragon’s world had gone mad. Instead of loving and nurturing, as did Vorallon, the spirit had rebelled against life. Dakkar was his name, and he had consumed the life he bore in a storm of blight that spread throughout the entirety of his universe, crushing even the stars to cold, lifeless corpses.
The chain consumed only a bit of the corruption that lurked on the other side. Whatever else the Undead God was remained hidden as it retreated from the rift.
Lorace used the power he gained to snap shut the rift with pure will, completely healing the wound. When all was whole again, he ascended out of the pit.
He found Tornin kneeling beside Sir Rindal, freed from the crumbling stone of the wall with careful blows of the fiery sword. Tornin turned toward him, his eyes glistening and limbs trembling with emotion. “Can we do nothing for him?”
Lorace knelt down to the unconscious paladin and touched Sakke Vrang to his blackened and disfigured legs. The corruption flowed away, but his body remained a ruin. The chain could not restore what the blight has taken from him.
Sir Rindal’s eyes fluttered open to gaze up at Lorace. “She is coming for me. I have served her well and she rewards me with her love.”
His awareness revealed the link the paladin shared with his goddess strengthening. He smiled down. “Yes, she is. They are awake now and they come.”
The air displaced around him as several people appeared in the room. He rose and turned to embrace Iris who flung herself into his arms while Micah stood behind her, smiling wide. Falraan rushed to Tornin who swept her up into a spin. Oen and his brother Lehan were also there with Hethal, Moyan, Prince Wralka, and Adwa-Ki standing with them.
Iris held him tight until she saw the ruined form of Sir Rindal lying on the floor beyond.
“No!” she cried, aghast at the disfiguring mess of his legs.
“It was the blight and the undead god, they struck him together,” Lorace explained.
Oen rushed forward and began a prayer to Aran, but a woman’s touch on his shoulder halted him—a woman who had not been carried there by Micah’s gift.
chapter 17
THE ASCENDANCE
First Day of the Moon of the Lady
-inside Blackdrake Castle
The Lady stood before them. “He is my concern now.”
Everyone stepped back in awe from the presence of the matron of the Old Gods. The Lady was tall and perfect, clothed in a gown of black cloth that sparkled with countless points of diamond brightness. Hers was the same image Lorace had seen in his dream just before waking on the beach. In the blue-white light of the glyph, her hair shone like silver and her skin was smooth and white. Her face bore timelessness, both young and mature, and wholly alluring and mysterious.
She bent down and lifted the form of her battle-torn paladin in her arms as one would a small child. His eyes fluttered open and he smiled up at her. His legs became whole and healed as her lips met his behind the screen of her flowing hair. Finally, she set him on his feet and held him in her embrace.
“You have earned your place with me, my love,” she whispered as she released him. “I will have you whole.”
“Thank you, my Lady,” Sir Rindal said before bending to retrieve his sword.
The Lady turned her gaze upon Lorace and his companions. At the edges of his vision, other figures of men and women appeared, twelve in all. Like the Lady, all of them were beautiful and clothed in stars.
She gave Lorace a gracious smile, “You have performed your task well, Warden. I am sorry for the pain you have suffered because of us. We failed to foresee the path you have chosen for yourself. Of all the Lords of Balance that we have ascended before, you will be unique. None has ever rejected their very nature as you have. Will you fulfill your tasks without regret or remorse?”
Lorace bowed. “I will try, my Lady. Rage lives within me still, but tranquility and love hold sway over my heart. It is my greatest desire to keep the spirit of Vorallon safe and provide him and his brothers the warmth they seek. I will fight with all my being to see that this is so.”
“Well answered. Would you have your namesake’s scars healed from your body?”
Lorace flashed a quick look at Iris before nodding to the Goddess. “Yes I would, I will need no record of his name.”
The Lady’s eyes filled with the fire of a passionate memory. “It is the name the dragon bore when he ascended with his brothers to be among the first Lords of Balance. It is written in the language of the great dragons, when he was blessed with life and a will equal to your own to serve his newborn world. He failed in his task, and his world—his whole universe—fell to undeath. Before you condemn his memory for his failure, or his very nature, think long on how you would have been affected if you had failed this day, as he did in his—if you had embraced your rage instead of your tranquility and if your beloved world had fallen. The great dragon was the first Chreen we raised, the name is yours n
ow, you have earned it more than any other before you.”
He was Chreen, the circle completed—his circle. The scars that he bore from a time when the spirit trapped within him could remember its name, faded away. The marks upon his skin vanished, but the name they bore sunk to the core of his tranquility to blaze up within the coals of his tightly controlled rage. He wondered what would have happened this day if the dragon had crawled from the pit with his name intact. Would the chain have gone, irrevocably to its namesake Lord of Vengeance?
The Lady opened her arms wide to include his companions. “Do you wish your friends to remain and view your ascendance?”
Lorace turned to face all the Old Gods. “Yes, they are more than my friends; they are beloved to me.”
“Very well, Lord Chreen,” The Lady named him. “You are charged with the continuance of corruption, never to exceed the balance—that all worlds never want for the nourishment of conflict. You are charged with the maintenance of the grand cycle of souls in Nefryt, the realm where all that is corrupt in this universe goes to be purified, never to allow an unclean spirit to be reborn into a soul. You are charged with the generalship of your guardians of Nefryt, the demons. It is you who will have to answer for any attempts they make to walk the realm of the living without your consent. You are charged with guiding the corrupt among the living realm, to always ensure the balance therein. Finally, you are charged with aiding your brothers in kindling the awareness of every sun and world of this living universe. Do you willingly accept all these tasks?”
“I do,” Lorace said with a nod. “Additionally I would ask one other task fall to me.”
She raised her perfect eyebrows at him. “Again, you would surprise me? Very well. What is this additional task you would seek, Lord Chreen?”
Gifts of Vorallon: 03 - Lord of Vengeance Page 17
