Only nervous laughter greeted that, and someone asked, “Your service to the dragons stops short of being dinner?”
Before anyone could answer, Cirion kicked in the door. The nearest guard turned to find Cirion’s short sword slicing into his chest. The guard went down with a grunt and the three other men stared in shock as the intruders charged. Nola’s crossbow found its target across the room, piercing through a man’s belly and pinning him to his chair. She was already swinging her sword at another man who soon fell dead. The last guard ran toward another door. Seeing this, the guard bolted to his chair yelled out, “No! Not that way!”
It was too late. As he crossed the threshold, the man turned to solid ice, his momentum carrying him sliding across the floor toward the stairs across the room, a wide-eyed expression frozen on his face. As he tumbled down it, the ice – and him along with it – shattered, cascading downward like ice cubes made of body parts.
“Nasty use for a transmutation spell,” muttered Raith, smirking. “Anywhere that’s safe to go, the guards know and have been. Either the dragon cleared a path through the halls or a wizard working for them did it.”
Nola looked at him flatly. “Or the wizard who opened the gate.”
“Or that,” he admitted.
“So how do we figure out which paths those are?” Cirion asked, noting his henchmen keeping alert in the hall.
In the silence, the wounded guard whimpered and the intruders exchanged a look. Soon they had pried him from the crossbow bolt and chair and were headed back down the corridor, the guard in front with Cirion’s knife to his throat. Unless he wanted to be the first victim of a trap, he’d steer them clear all the way to the gate, but it proved more difficult than that.
“Wait, wait,” said the guard, and they paused near a hall’s end.
“What is it?” Cirion whispered.
“Guards,” the man replied quickly, “around this corner. They’re always here. The gate room is up the stairs beyond it.”
Nola cautiously took a look to confirm it. “A lot of them on a wide staircase, looking bored,” she reported, turning to Raith coldly. “You better have something good ready.”
Cirion knocked out the guard and quietly laid him aside, and when the wizard gave the signal, they launched their attack. As they charged forward and startled guardsmen fumbled for weapons, the flapping of leathery wings accompanied a loud roar before the floor shook hard enough to knock them all off balance. Part of a wall nearby crumbled and an arrow intended for them missed wildly. A disturbed look passed between intruders and guardsmen alike.
The dragon had returned.
They stood quietly in the dark, their torches doused, the wizard’s staff dark. Just ahead sat an open room full of dust, cobwebs, and scattered crates, but no signs of recent passage. On the far side, an open archway revealed a stone staircase rising toward the castle’s main areas, dim firelight dancing down the stairwell from above. A nearby noise had inspired their caution, but it didn’t compare to the deep thud that now shook the walls, loose mortar falling from the ceiling, a rotting board dropping with a muted clatter. Anna cringed at the sound. Only a dragon somewhere above them could’ve made that thud. As the elves unsheathed their swords, she eyed the lance. Such a slender weapon taking out something massive enough to make that loud a noise seemed improbable.
Eric crept up the stairs with Lorian. After peering around the corner, they motioned for the others to follow. Anna made it there first, eager to see why the light above was so much brighter than expected on the floor below, and why the sound of flames was so deep, loud, and unusual. She leaned around Eric’s shoulder and saw why. Before them roared a superheated wall of crackling flames barring the way. No wonder the area below lay undisturbed. Nothing could get by this.
Except Soliander. When asked, the techie had no ideas, his staff not helping.
“Something’s hanging in the air there, guys,” Anna said quietly, squinting at the fire. “It’s a cylinder of some sort.”
After a moment, Lorian remarked, “Ah, I’ve heard of this from Soliander. This device of his sustains a spell without wavering and is nearly impossible to remove, unless...” He trailed off, turning to Ryan. “Korrin, do you still wear the Dispersion Ring? You can reach the device without getting burned. Just grab it and the spell will end.”
Anna had seldom seen such a dubious expression on someone’s face.
“Are you sure?” he asked
“Yes. Another item of Soliander’s, especially a magic resistant one, is the only way. Remember your arm will be unaffected up to the shoulder. It is magical fire, not real.”
“It seems real enough to me.” He began pulling out a gauntlet to don. “Wait a minute, I thought the armor was fire proof.”
Lorian shook his head. “Only against dragon fire.”
“Great,” he muttered. He held up one hand toward the fire, remarking, “Well, I feel the heat everywhere except on this arm. Maybe there’s some truth to it.”
Anna bit her lip. There had better be more than some truth to it.
Taking a deep breath, Ryan pulled the helmet’s visor down to protect his face, donned the right gauntlet, and carefully reached through the fire. The flames vanished as his hand closed around the device. Visibly relieved, he pulled up the visor with the other, bare hand, but the metal had become hot in just seconds and burned his fingers.
“Ow!” He jerked his hand away, seeing red blisters already forming.
“Let me see,” said Anna, the medical student in her taking control. “Second degree burns. We need to wrap this.”
Rognir cleared his throat. “Why don’t you just heal him, lass?”
She looked at the dwarf uncomfortably. Rognir’s healing of Eric had deeply impressed but troubled her, weakening her resolute disbelief in gods. She’d reconsidered this whole business with more seriousness than the hollow promises she’d made Ryan. Following Eric’s suggestion to start pretending, she’d chosen a goddess to call on, identifying with Goddess Kiarin’s philosophies. She’d imagined a pretend conversation with her but gone no farther, feeling silly. She wasn’t ready and couldn’t open her heart to this.
“I have a better idea,” started the knight, rescuing her. “I’ll just use the Trinity Ring.”
With mixed emotions, Anna watched as the wound disappeared even as another opened in her heart. She’d seen it twice now. The proof could not be denied. Her upset eyes met Rognir’s disappointed gaze, which stung.
Perndara the dragon beamed with pleasure. She’d resumed nightly flights after learning the Ellorian Champions were coming, since pretending she wasn’t here made little sense now. The exercise kept her from feeling imprisoned yet again, this time in the ruin. She had to settle for sticking her head in a waterfall instead of a dip in an ocean or lake like on that other world. Of course she could have gone back through the gate for a while, but…
Never again! she thought.
Standing by the Dragon Gate, she snarled at it before overhearing the sounds of steel on steel. The Ellorians were here! Afire with excitement, she impatiently waited for them to get past those amateurish cult members. Her preparations were in order – both her own and those directed by Nir’lion. She bellowed a small spout of flames to get warmed up but didn’t waste it. The bile that fueled their fire breathing only lasted so long. Days would pass before a full supply built up again.
Soon quiet descended and she waited expectantly for the door to open, but the minutes ticked by. Finally a familiar knocking preceded a cult member timidly entering. Behind him, two others dragged a man with fresh blood staining his leather tunic. They dropped him to his knees and walked out, shutting the door. It seemed that her legion of admirers – or at least, that’s how she chose to think of them – had captured someone, but not a champion, just a mercenary.
The man gazed at her with suitable horror, the ghastly wound in his belly more than just oozing blood. She asked a few questions he seemed too terrified to answer, which was just as we
ll, for she wasn’t much in the mood for conversation herself. She was quite hungry and topped off her recent snack of mountain goat. Her fanged mouth engulfed him and his screams.
There had clearly been a battle, and recently. A rivulet of deep red blood still flowed across the floor from the nearest slain man, whose sightless eyes stared at them as they listened at an archway. Ryan stared just as unseeing, reminded of the lives at stake but surprised to feel little pity. Maybe he was getting used to death, however horrible that seemed, but his distaste for cults likely contributed. He only felt pity on realizing that some of these zealots might not be the ones who coerced others to their vision, but the ones who’d been coerced.
“What do you think happened?” he whispered, putting a comforting hand on Matt, who looked like he was going to throw up.
Rognir’s eyes moved over the bodies. “We’re not the only ones in the castle uninvited,” he observed. The bodies were all human, but two looked like cult members from their matching attire while the rest were mercenaries, each dressed in his own unique fashion.
Lorian retrieved an arrow, noting its craftsmanship. “The fletching style is of Ormund. Cirion is here.”
“How?” Anna asked. “We were supposed to get here first.”
“When we find them,” started Eric, frowning, “we can ask.” Any chance at surprising the cult or dragon had vanished and there was no telling where Cirion’s mercenaries were now.
“Good plan,” Rognir gruffly approved, “except we’d better forget them and head for the dragon immediately.”
“Wait,” said Ryan, “one of them moved.” He indicated which one and Lorian crept forward. The wounded cult member stirred when Lorian touched him but lay unconscious until Rognir healed the man enough to come out of it. Anna pursed her lips.
“What happened here?” Lorian sternly demanded.
His tunic torn and bloody, the young cult member glared back, no love lost for those whose allegiance didn’t lie with dragons. “Why would I tell you that?”
“Because your future is in our hands,” started the elf, “and we’ll be more forgiving of what you’ve done here if you cooperate.”
Sneering, the cult member muttered, “Unlikely. I would show you no mercy.”
“Then how about because I’ll bash your head in if you don’t,” barked Rognir, scowling and raising up his well-used axe.
The man blanched. “We fought intruders, some captured, some killed.”
“Where were the captured taken?” Rognir demanded. “To the dragon?”
“No. Only one. The others went to the dungeon.”
“And which way is that?”
Gesturing with his head, the cult member said, “Back that way.”
“It had better be.” Without warning, the dwarf slammed the butt of his axe into the man’s forehead, knocking him out.
As they were shoved along a crumbling corridor, Cirion failed to hide a look of concern that convinced Nola how grave their situation was this time. They’d been captured on other exploits and gotten out of it, but not with a dragon involved. Taking one on wasn’t why they were here. He suspected the most gravely wounded of their group had been taken to it moments ago and met a gruesome end. The rest were likely headed to a cell, at least for now.
Guards forced him, Nola, Raith, and another survivor down several flights of stairs through increasingly damp areas, the signs of disrepair mounting. Cirion hoped the dungeon locks were poorly kept and easily picked, or the bars were coming loose from the crumbling walls. He’d used that to his advantage before. Few torches lit the way and he suspected they’d be the dungeons’ first inhabitants in a long time, his hopes rising. Unprepared jailors were the easiest to escape from.
Their weapons had been confiscated, but they might have less need of them if just fleeing. Too few of them had survived to reach the gate now unless the champions’ arrival distracted the dragon, or it flew out of the castle again. The glory of closing it had vanished. Saving his own skin, and to a lesser extent, Nola’s, was all that mattered. Everyone else, including that suddenly capable wizard, Raith, was expendable. It wasn’t that Raith had done anything wrong, but people with unexpected strength were dangerous. He and Nola had shared a look or two of agreement. It was only a matter of time before one or the other stuck a knife in the wizard’s back – maybe right after he helped get them out of here.
The guards rudely shoved them into a dank cell and Cirion expected Raith to follow, but the wizard was shoved into a cell across from them. A sign on the wall showed a broken wizard’s staff and the rogue nodded to himself. Of course. A room with magic protection so that spells failed. The wizard wouldn’t be helping them escape anywhere.
“What’s this?” the guard grunted, yanking down the nape of Raith’s robe far enough that even Cirion could see the symbol tattooed on the base of his neck from across the way. It hadn’t been there before, the rogue was certain, having seen the wizard’s nape more than once. Had Raith been using an illusion spell to hide it? The spell would’ve stopped working once in that cell. Most people would’ve recognized the symbol at once. The guard turned Raith around, and Cirion saw the wizard caught between a frown, a smirk, and a glare. With a knife to the throat, the guard led the wizard away again and this time Cirion suspected he knew where they were going.
Chapter 14 – Confrontation
The shimmering portal that hung in the air before him differed from those that others used to travel across or even between worlds. He could, unassisted, make it appear anywhere, such was his power. This took great strength, so he sometimes used more mundane avenues, especially if he’d recently experienced battle to sap his energy, but years had passed since anyone had been foolish enough to challenge him. Most wizards used permanent portals created by someone else to travel to a fixed location, but he always chose his own destination and often visited places that few others dared. Fixed portals were usually guarded, though, like any skilled wizard, he could make people forget he’d arrived.
The black robed wizard looked over at the rosewood cabinet in one corner, now empty after years. He hefted the staff, its weight familiar, the crystal atop it held by a bluish steel few had ever seen. Memories of happier times returned, but so did painful ones best left forgotten. Companions long lost had once given his life greater dynamics if not pleasure, and his was a life devoid of trust since separating from them. Still, the choice had been his, and it wasn’t one he consciously regretted.
He brushed aside the thought to focus on the task at hand. The time had come to learn who these champions-apparent were. His spy had learned enough before foolishly being caught, forcing him to incinerate the dark elf so Lorian couldn’t learn anything. A corpse only revealed so much. He had blocked the communication orb from reaching any of his other orbs. Still, he had a secret to keep and to that end he’d planned how best to deal with these imposters. Death was of course the ultimate option, as always, and this time there’d be four bodies for people to mourn over, not just a memory of heroes vanished.
“So tell me,” purred Perndara, her deep, husky voice rattling the loose stones nearby, “why is a member of my Dragon Cult sneaking into a castle guarded by the very same cult?”
Raith hadn’t thought of a good reply for her question despite knowing it was coming. With a mixture of defiance and awe, he regarded the golden dragon silently. She loomed more massive than any depiction in literature and was far more beautiful than he’d imagined dragons could be. The foul scent of death on her breath had never been mentioned. Nor had the giant, smooth intakes of breath, or the hot exhale that carried the reminder of flames, or the floor rumbling with her shifting weight as dust fell from the ceiling, the ruin adjusting to her. Only the folded leathery wings, the barbed tail curled around a pillar, and the great fanged mouth were common features of every story, and they were enough to induce amazement. The dragon’s piercing, malevolent gaze chilled him. Even without its other advantages, its intelligence and magic were fearsome.
It was little wonder the champions banished them—the dragons of Honyn weren’t given to good deeds and peaceful living.
“Unless, of course,” continued the dragon, “you are not a true member of the cult but an imposter. I wonder how best to determine your loyalty in the absence of an explanation.”
The wizard’s heart skipped a beat. Honyn’s dragons had inventive and nasty ways of getting answers and demonstrations of devotion, sometimes resulting in a loyal but dead follower. Cirion would have thought lesser things would scare him, but Raith was quite a different man than Cirion knew and had faced far worse threats than his supposed leader would have imagined.
“The intruders I was with want to close the Dragon Gate and I needed to be certain they could not,” he started, hoping this turned out well.
“Then why not simply kill them?” Perndara interrupted, unimpressed. “You needn’t masquerade as one of them.”
Thinking quickly, Raith said, “They have a scroll written by the Ellorians who imprisoned you. It describes how the gate works, or so I believe. They have not allowed me to see it or know its location. If I kill them it might fall into the wrong hands again.”
“I see. Go on.”
Realizing the dragon was baiting him, Raith stifled a sigh. Did she know better than to help people explain themselves? Getting them to say too much was always a goal, one he’d used himself. He chose his elaborations carefully. The dragons couldn’t know why he’d really come here. Not only would they kill him, but they would do for themselves what he intended to do for himself, and that would be disastrous. His loyalty to the cult – to anyone but himself, really – had ended the moment he read the scroll’s contents.
“I needed to locate and destroy the scroll,” he began, “but before I could, they insisted on coming here in an attempt to seal the gate for their own idiotic glory. I came along, hoping to discover what they’d done with the scroll and stop them.”
The Dragon Gate (The Dragon Gate Series Book 1) Page 18