Do the Gods Despise Us?

by Jeff Henrikson

  “There’s no way we’ll catch up with a Krone escort on their home territory since we have no idea what to expect.”

  Evisar shook his head. “We have no choice but to try.” He looked at the others and said, “Let’s go,” and then he started walking into the secret tunnel.

  Mestel reached out and grabbed his brother’s arm, “Listen to me, brother. I’ve seen us die just as we exit the tunnel into the Underworld. It doesn’t matter when we go or how quiet we are when we emerge. If we go into the Underworld now we will die. That’s a fact.”

  Evisar wrenched his arm free and said with a quiet malevolence that had never existed between them before, “What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. I can’t make decisions based off of what you know. I have to see it for myself. If this tunnel does lead to the Underworld, then I’m inclined to go after Devin and take my chances. And if it doesn’t, then I agree with Xander. I would rather head down a passage guarded by a hidden door than continue on our original path.”

  Mestel was greatly saddened by what was happening. He wanted to stay with his brother, but it seemed that was less and less likely. He looked away before a tear could fall from his face and said softly but loud enough to be heard, “Do what you will, but no good will come of it, and I won’t be going with you. I’m going to continue down the original corridor.”

  Valihorn piped up for the first time in the conversation. “I am with Mestel. I say we continue down the original corridor. It may not make logical sense, but he has not let us down so far, and I am inclined to trust him."

  Mestel was gratified that one of his friends backed his choice, but Mestel sensed Valihorn wasn’t backing him out of friendship, but rather that he was looking for something inside the fortress.

  Xander looked at Mestel and then at Evisar. He nodded his head toward the secret tunnel and said, “Evisar, I was just raised from the dead by a Krone witch less than a day ago; I have no wish to go back to what I saw in purgatory. This is our ticket out of this hell hole. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 69: Calm Before the Storm

  Nero sneaked down the main hallway of the Krone dormitory, grabbed the keys hanging on the wall, and unbolted the steel door to the dungeon below. Aside from the loud creaking of the hinges as the door opened, he was met with nothing but silence. He drew his rapier and moved silently down the steps. When he got to the landing, he couldn’t help but notice the bloodbath around him and the empty cell where the elves had been held prisoner.

  His eye went instinctively to Gaston’s body lying dead on the floor. He couldn’t say he was entirely sad to know Gaston was gone since they hadn’t seen eye to eye for some time. In truth, whoever killed him may actually have saved Nero the trouble of doing it himself. The human guard, Frank, whom he had paid a huge sum of money to break the elves out of their cell, was also among the dead. None of the elves were dead, and since the door to the cell was open, he figured Frank must have let the elves out of their cell and then been killed for his trouble. He searched Frank’s pockets for the gold he had paid him but found his pockets empty. Nero shook his head in dismay over the huge sum of money he had lost, but at least the elves were free, which was the point.

  He walked farther into the dungeon, stepping over bodies as he went. As he rounded the corner he saw an open steel door at the opposite end.

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  Gram walked impatiently across the courtyard, toward the barracks with three guards in tow. He still could not believe what had just happened. The elf archer had been dead for three days, and the reason he knew that was because he had killed the elf himself. Gram looked up from his thoughts and saw Arun walking toward him from across the courtyard. The lying slut was the only priestess strong enough to bring anyone back from the dead, but she had not been near the elf’s body without Gram being present. There was also no way she could bring anyone back to life after three whole days had passed.

  How had the elf come back to life and brought down ten men? Ultimately it did not matter; he would be dead again soon enough. Arun walked directly up to him, and they stopped four feet away from each other.

  Before Gram dealt with Arun’s betrayal, he turned to the guards behind him and said, “Go into the barracks and sound the alarm. I want every man to muster in the courtyard while Arun heals my hand.”

  The guards quickly ran off, leaving Arun and Gram alone in semi-privacy. Gram reached out with his good hand and struck Arun across the face, hard. “Krone slut. Did Nero amuse you? Too bad he will not be around long enough for you to enjoy. I could not even leave you alone for one day before you moved onto your next conquest. You are good, there is no doubt, but unfortunately I do not have time for your theatrics right now. The elves in the dungeon have escaped. Now, heal my hand quickly so I can deal with them.”

  Arun turned around to leave, but Gram grabbed her forcibly by the arm and spun her back around. Arun fought against his grip, but after a moment she seemed to give up and submit to his demands. Gram impatiently stuck out his injured hand for her to examine. Soldiers soon began pouring out of the barracks and coming down off the wall to assemble in the courtyard. As the soldiers assembled, Arun took Gram’s hand and broke the arrow in half with a quick stroke. The pain was excruciating as she pulled the arrow pieces from his palm, but it was nothing compared to the pain when Arun ripped the arrow out of his shoulder. Gram screamed curses that were not appropriate for a man of his stature as he fell down on all fours. He made to stand up and found himself lying flat on his back instead. Arun knelt down next to him and cast a powerful healing spell on his hand and then his shoulder.

  After Gram was made whole again, he unceremoniously regained his feet. By this point there was a large contingent of warriors standing at attention in even rows, awaiting marching orders from one of the most powerful beings on Tellus. Krone, hired mercenaries, and men and women of the Talon Guild stood side by side as one of the revered Thirteen walked down the line of soldiers and back to the center. When Gram felt he had regained his composure, he stepped forward to address those under his command. A sudden breeze snapped his robes to attention. He looked around at the men as a strange thrumming sound carried through the air.

  Gram ignored the strange sound and spoke loudly to everyone in the courtyard. “Soldiers and allies of the Talon Guild, we must act quickly to …” Gram’s voice trailed off in mid-sentence as the thrumming noise began to sound more like the beating of wings. He looked past the courtyard of soldiers, above the stone wall of the fortress, and saw a beast of legend soaring above the trees.

  Chapter 70: The Titans Clash

  Coming in low over the tree tops was the immense form of a dragon. In an instant, Gram forgot all his ambitions of recapturing the elves in the dungeon as the dragon came in a straight line toward the fortress, blotting out the rising sun. The look on Arun and Gram’s faces must have been horrifying because although everyone in the courtyard had his or her back to the beast, every soldier to a man turned and watched as the dragon’s wings thrummed through the air. From afar, the dragon looked like a black monster, but as it moved closer Gram could see the slightest glimmer of green in the scales, telling him he was incredibly old and therefore immensely powerful.

  Gram’s face went from one of anger and irritation at being shot in the hand, to shock and surprise at seeing his fortress under attack by a beast of legend, and finally to grim determination for the battle ahead. He could feel the irrational panic and fear that accompanied the presence of any dragon, but he violently suppressed it. This was not the first dragon he had encountered, and he saw no reason why it should be the last. To him it was not a question of whether he would win the battle, it was only a question of how much effort he would expend to secure victory.

  Most of the men broke and ran, but a few brave souls saw Gram’s calm determination and held their ground with crossbows raised as the dragon swooped down on the fortress and let loose a blast of acid breath. Those brave warriors who st
ayed were rewarded for their valor by being virtually disintegrated as the liquid acid flowed over the top of them and onto the ground. The acid spread quickly over the ground and many soldiers who initially ran fell over as their feet were eaten away, only to die as their chests and faces hit the acid-soaked ground.

  Amid the screaming and dying, Gram cast a simple spell that protected him and Arun from the power of the encroaching acid. He stood his ground and watched those who made it to the safety of the buildings and walls start coughing violently as the fumes permeated the air. Some made it inside and up the ladders while others fell, their lungs burned so badly they could no longer stand. With a single pass, the dragon had taken out half the garrison which Gram had been gracious enough to organize in the courtyard as an easy target.

  After the success of his first pass, the dragon looped leisurely around in a wide arc and headed back to the fortress. Gram wondered why the dragon had chosen now to attack, since the fortress was not any more of a threat today than the day before. There was something at work here he did not understand. Amid these thoughts, Gram noticed that as quickly as the acid had spread over the ground, it now receded just as quickly. The remaining Krone and human soldiers took to the walls to defend their home with bows in hand.

  As the dragon swung back around for another attack, Gram took those few moments of peace to cast a series of spells that were known to only a handful of wizards in all of Tellus. In quick succession, he briefly stopped time itself, turned his skin to stone for defense, opened a fifty foot high and thirty foot wide gate to another dimension, and called on the gods themselves to create a meteor shower.

  As time returned to normal, he watched four white-hot meteors streak out of the heavens toward the dragon’s position. The dragon dashed back and forth in the air and managed to dodge three of the fiery boulders, but the fourth struck the dragon squarely on the back and exploded. The beast screeched in pain as the white-hot shards covered its scaled body. The sheer mass of the meteor knocked the beast from the sky. The dragon plunged toward the ground and landed just outside the fortress, its colossal body shaking the ground like an earthquake upon impact.

  Gram nodded approvingly as the dragon smashed into the ground. He knew a meteor would not kill it, but it was a good start. As the dragon struck the ground, Gram moved efficiently over to the dimensional gate he just created and spoke with a voice that reverberated off the walls. “Shavon, prince of the Second Hell, I call you to do my bidding.”

  Gram watched as a scaly, hideous looking arm with talon claws appeared through the gate. The arm gripped the ground with the strength of hell itself and pulled the rest of the demon’s body through. First the horned head appeared, followed by the demon’s huge body and five other limbs. Gram could feel the weight of his own terror as he looked at Shavon. The magical fear that surrounded the dragon had been intense enough, but at least the dragon was a creature of Tellus. He belonged here and had a place in this world, but Shavon was utterly alien and the magical fear Gram felt in his presence dwarfed what he had felt only moments before.

  Shavon was everything a nightmare should be. He was a huge, fearsome, powerful demon that controlled the second hell, and now Gram would have to do mental battle with the demon in order to secure its loyalty. There were several wizards who could call forth a demon as powerful as Shavon, but there were few who dared. When a demon was gated in, the wizard had to gain mental control over it like a dog on a leash, otherwise the demon would turn on the wizard for having the audacity to disturb it. For this reason, wizards would cast the gate spell only in desperate times. Gram had long ago mastered his fears, but he would have to be a fool not to realize what a desperate time this was.

  The demon towered over Gram and spoke loudly inside his head. “Who calls forth the Prince of Fear? Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now, insect!”

  Gram grappled back and forth with the demon in his mind saying, “Shavon, I have called you to my side and you will submit. Attack the dragon until he is dead. Think of what a prize it will be to add an ancient dragon to the ranks of your kingdom.”

  The demon and wizard fought for control until finally Shavon was compelled to act. His loud voice thundered in Gram’s mind for the last time. “Hmmmm, I will do your bidding, mortal, since the prize is great.”

  As Shavon lumbered off, Arun finished a divine spell of her own. “By Evona’s hand, I call forth a beast from the Underworld.” Ten feet in front of Arun a floating blob appeared with one huge eye and countless tentacles. Each tentacle had a smaller eye on it, and Gram immediately recognized the shape of a beholder from his time in the Underworld. A beholder was immune to nearly all magic cast against it, while each of its eyes could cast a different spell against its enemy. Luckily for Arun, the creature’s loyalty was not in question, and it turned without preamble and headed in the direction of the battle.

  The dragon managed to painfully regain his feet, and Gram could see ripped scales and blood in the middle of his back where the white-hot meteor had literally driven his body into the ground with such force that a crater was formed. But dragons had ruled Tellus long before elves came to its shores, and this was one of the reasons why. As the beast stood up, he cocked his head back and let out a roar that pierced Gram’s soul with fear and power. He looked in Gram’s direction, and Gram felt a fear so deep and primal well up inside of him that it could not be denied.

  Even from a half mile away, Gram heard the dragon speaking arcane words in his own tongue. Instantaneously, the dragon seemed to move forward several hundred feet and his wings were now spread wide, where a moment ago they had been close to his body. It took Gram a fraction of a heartbeat to recognize that the dragon had stopped time, just as he had done, meaning the dragon was almost his equal as a spellcaster. The first thread of doubt played with the edge of Gram’s mind as he realized the dragon’s great physical power was matched by his arcane ability.

  The demon and beholder cleared the wall and moved against the dragon, but Gram could see they were moving at a much slower speed than they had just a moment ago. He nodded with respect to the dragon, for he had cast a spell that slowed his attackers and another spell that hastened himself, just as Gram would have done.

  Gram was considering which spell to cast next when he noticed motion out of the corner of his eye and looked to his left in time to see two large lions pounce on two of the guards left alive not more than ten feet away, ripping their throats out. The dragon must have summoned the beasts with another spell while time was frozen, catching Gram totally off guard. The dragon had outsmarted him; if the guards had not been there, he would have been dead by now. Gram swore under his breath as he and Arun were forced to turn away from the dragon in order to deal with the more immediate threat.

  As the beholder and Shavon moved slowly toward the dragon, the beholder struck first by shooting five magic missiles at the dragon from one of his eye stalks. A second eye stalk shot a ray of blue magic that struck the dragon in the chest. The dragon looked down at his chest and saw scales turning to stone. The dragon shrieked in pain as the stone spread across his body.

  The dragon was caught off guard, and the demon Shavon rushed forward to take advantage of the confusion at the same time the five magic missiles slammed into the dragon. The dragon hardly noticed the gnat-like missiles as they hit, but the huge demon was another story. The demon was not as large as the dragon, but he had razor-sharp claws with a body that was all muscle. Shavon mauled the dragon to the ground. The demon pinned the dragon’s head to the ground with one hand and raked his neck with the claws of his other hand. The claws bit deep into the dragon’s neck as scales and flesh tore away.

  Shavon’s voice echoed off the trees and walls. “Die, Malachite. Finally, I will have you in my kingdom.”

  Gram finished off the lions with a single spell and turned his attention back to Malachite.

  The dragon shrieked in pain and had to be close to death. Gram dared to hope until the dragon’s head snapp
ed up with unnatural speed and sprayed Shavon with his acid breath. Even before the cloud had fully formed, Malachite took one of his arms and delivered a crushing blow to Shavon’s head, sending the demon flying to one side. With magical speed, Malachite found his feet and looked down at his chest. Even with half his body turned to stone and huge chunks of his neck missing, the dragon would not be denied. With a look of determination, Malachite reversed the stone spell that was killing him. Gram watched with dismay as the stone receded until nothing but normal flesh remained.

  Malachite turned to face Shavon, while at the same time using his tail and the momentum of the turn to slam the beholder against an oak tree without so much as a passing glance. The beholder hit the tree head on with such force that it exploded, scattering flesh and ooze across the forest. The dragon ran forward with magic-enhanced speed just as Shavon started to get up, mauling the Prince of Fear and crushing him to the ground. Shavon raked Malachite with his claws, ripping scales and skin, but the dragon ignored the attack. Malachite reached out with his arm and grabbed the demon’s head with his huge clawed hand, and with only the slightest bit of give, Shavon’s head came free from his body. Without hesitation, the dragon slammed his head into Shavon’s chest and tore through his rib cage. Malachite’s head twisted once and pulled away with Shavon’s beating heart in between his teeth. His jaws closed, shredding the heart and spraying blood like a bursting tomato. Shavon’s body quit flailing and went completely still.

  By this time archers had lined the fortress walls and started raining arrows down on the colossal dragon. Most of the arrows could not penetrate the hard scales, but Malachite had been so torn up by Shavon that occasionally one found a soft spot. The dragon savored his victory over the demon for only a moment before turning his horned head, ignoring everything else and focusing all of his attention on Gram and Arun. The dragon did not break his lock on Gram as he opened his mouth and spoke a powerful prayer in the dragon tongue. The words rang through the air for all to hear, and when the spell resolved, the dragon was instantly healed.