“Sadyra!” Pollard’s voice sounded from far away, echoing off the heights. She allowed herself a moment of relief. At least they would be here soon.
Nighttime in the mountains was a scary place, especially this far north. Man-eating predators stalked the heights after dark; the worst of which were trolls.
She squinted at the dark shapes dotting the steep hills paralleling the path. Anything might be hiding up there and she’d never know of their presence until—
“There you are!” Pollard ran up to her, his sudden appearance causing her to yelp in fright.
She slugged him beneath his cuirass as hard as she could. “You trying to give me a heart attack?”
He hugged her close, her punch not bothering him a bit. “Don’t you run off like that again, you hear me?”
She cradled the hand she used to punch him in her other hand. “Not my fault you’re slow.”
“We ran as fast as our slowest member,” he said with a haughty voice as he knelt to inspect Karvus. “What happened?”
“Don’t know. I found him this way.”
Pollard straightened and withdrew his sword, looking around.
“Sadie! Pollard!” Olmar’s booming voice echoed in the distance.
“Stay with Karvus, I’ll let them know we’re here. Don’t want Lunkhead causing an avalanche,” Sadyra tapped his cuirass with the hilt of her dagger. “Or the wizards searing us.”
Melody knelt by Karvus, softly speaking to him. She stood and whispered to Alhena. “He says Silurian coldcocked him on his way by.”
Alhena looked grim. “It is worse than I feared. If we do not get to him before Helleden, we are all in trouble.”
“Is ‘e gonna be okay?” Olmar asked from across the fire Alhena built while Melody worked on Karvus.
“He will have quite the headache,” Alhena answered.
“Who did this to ‘im? I ain’t be seein’ signs of fightin’.”
Alhena shrugged and walked away.
Melody forced a smile for Olmar. “He’ll be fine. He just needs a bit of rest. Go and see if you can get us more wood.”
Olmar glanced at the huge pile stacked beside the fire and scratched his head. “Okay, Miss Melody.”
Melody sighed and knelt beside Karvus again. It did her good to have something to concentrate on other than Rook or Silurian, though neither were far from her thoughts.
She inspected the welt. In the poor light of the fire, it was tough to tell whether her healing made any difference. “Is it easing off?”
Karvus rose to his elbows and tilted his head to one side and then the other. “My vision isn’t as blurry. What did he hit me with?”
“I can only guess it had something to do with the earth blood magic in his sword.”
“If I’d known he was going to do that, I would have killed you two while I had the chance.”
Melody pulled back.
He smiled. A rare sight from the Kraidic Emperor. “I’m kidding.”
She didn’t know whether to believe him or not. She stood and gazed westward, down the path disappearing into the darkness. Silurian was out there somewhere. Chasing a sorcerer and quite possibly a dragon. She didn’t have time to waste tending Karvus.
Silurian’s actions had somehow served to pull her out of the funk she had let herself fall into. Knowing he needed her now more than ever brought clarity to her thinking. Though the heaviness in her heart still made her sick to her stomach, her focus was on saving her brother from himself.
She sought out Alhena. “I can’t stay here. I need to find him before it’s too late.”
Alhena got up from the campfire and pulled her aside. “You can’t face Helleden on your own.”
“I don’t plan on it. I need to stop Silurian until the rest of you catch up.”
“I fear there may be nothing you can do to dissuade him from the path he travels. He is beyond reason.”
Melody bit back an angry retort. “I have to try. He’s my brother. I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t do everything within my power to save him.”
“You are not trained for magical combat. That is one regret I carry. I never took the time to put you in harm’s way.”
Melody blinked several times digesting his words. If only he knew what she and Silurian had endured over the last few months. She’d never had a chance to tell Alhena of her and Silurian’s trials since leaving Dragon’s Tooth.
She swallowed hard. If she were to be any use to Silurian, she must pack up her grief and stow it away for another day. She needed to slay her inner demon. Silurian’s life depended on it.
“Phazarus,” she started, deliberately using Alhena’s real name. “Trust me when I tell you I’ve seen my share of trouble. I’m ready for whatever awaits us at the Summoning Stone.”
Alhena raised skeptical eyebrows.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid. I’m scared stiff. Not for myself or my ability to use what you’ve taught me. I’m afraid it won’t be enough. I know who we’re up against.”
“And if he has a dragon?”
She looked away and then back again. “Then he has a dragon. I will deal with it as best I can. What else can I do?”
Alhena stared long and hard.
Shivers wracked her slight frame. She wasn’t sure they were a result of the biting wind. Her staff flared, infusing her with warmth.
“You are stronger than you think. No matter what people might say, you are the true Wizard of the North. Never doubt that.” Alhena tipped his head toward where Pollard and Sadyra sat close together staving off the weather. “Take Sadyra and go. We will be along as fast as we can.”
Melody smiled. The pall of darkness threatening to smother her soul lightened, just a bit. Enough to rekindle her spark. It was now up to her to fan that spark back to life.
Obsidian Nightmare
Waves pounded the jagged rocks far below the granite promontory Helleden Misenthorpe stood atop; his arms spread over his head as he commanded roiling grey storm clouds. Ghastly tendrils of magic coalesced between his palms in a ruby sphere of power. The arcane ritual illuminated the flat promontory of the Summoning Stone with shades of blood in the black night.
A demon towered in front of him, steadfastly holding open an ancient tome, its long claws clasping the pages lest the wind tear them away.
The power Helleden channelled far exceeded any spell he’d cast outside of a controlled environment. A mispronunciation might render instant death to anyone close to the spell’s origin.
Scouts had informed him the meddlesome wizards and their pitiful gang were well into The Spine, somewhere between Storms End and Thunderhead.
One man had run on ahead, holding aloft a glowing blue sword. That would be the slime rat, Silurian Mintaka, he was sure of it. The latest report had him a few leagues on the other side of Fishmonger Bay. That was a while ago.
Helleden laughed maniacally as the forces he controlled sucked power from the atmosphere around the Summoning Stone. By the time Silurian arrived, it would be too late.
The sorcerer’s hand-picked minions stood around the edge of the promontory holding the magical, metal cable they’d constructed at Castle Svelte. Once applied, the collar would amplify his psionic ability, and he would gain mastery over the ancient dragon.
Lightning burst from the low clouds in jagged arcs. A bolt connected with the cliff overlooking the promontory, discharging a shower of sparks and loosing a house-sized chunk of rock. The slab fell to the edge of the Summoning Stone, smashing an unlucky demon standing guard. Those holding the collar witnessed the gruesome sight but not one of them shirked their duty—being squished by a ton of rock was better than any fate they would face if they disobeyed Helleden.
Rain driven by the wind wet Helleden’s face as the violent storm he wove increased in intensity. If it became much worse, he fleetingly feared he and his minions might be swept away. As powerful as his magic was, it paled in comparison to the elements he’d called forth.<
br />
A presence filled him, angrily resisting his contact. A large green eye formed within the darkest of the storm clouds, glaring down at him.
He never wavered. Intoning the runic script on the sodden page held before him, he threw his entire being into the spell, absorbing the alien presence—demanding it succumb to the ritual.
The Summoning Stone shook beneath his feet—the tremor having nothing to do with the waves slamming the face of the cliff. Euphoria filled him as the realization of what he had accomplished set in. He had tapped into an ancient magic and bridged the gap between himself and the magic of the dragon.
The overwhelming emotion of the dragon’s presence filled him. The creature’s confusion inspired Helleden to strengthen his hold on the link. He chanted the phrase he had learned from the tome, one he had practised exhaustingly since setting foot outside of the Wizard’s Spike on his journey to this spot. He intoned the last verse of the spell—the most dangerous part of the ritual. To slip up now would be disastrous.
The presence became agitated. It fought back, resisting Helleden’s call. He staggered under the strain, coming close to tripping over the cable into the crashing surf below. He was losing it.
The demon holding the book grasped his robe by the sleeve and helped him back into the centre of the promontory.
The mountainside trembled. Boulders and slivers of rock dislodged themselves from above, impacting the Summoning Stone with earthshattering vibrations.
Another collar holder vanished. One moment the red beast stood on the edge of the promontory, the next instant he was gone—a wedge-shaped chunk of mountain rock shook the Summoning Stone before it tipped over the precipice and fell from view.
The remaining demons held their ground, preventing the collar from plunging into the raging sea.
“Hold fast!” Helleden shouted, his words lost to the storm. His minions crouched low, sidestepping falling rock and doing their best to avoid being swept off the exposed promontory into the ocean swells.
Shock filled the presence. Helleden dared to smile. He had it within his grasp. He had no way of knowing whether the Summoning Stone and everyone still clinging to it could survive much more, but he increased the power at his command, drawing off the magic of the beast he sought to bring forth.
The clouds brightened with an ominous glow. A cyclonic black vortex formed overhead.
“Yes! Come to me!” Helleden screamed deliriously, his sodden black hair whipping about his face. The ruby sphere shot from his hands into the roiling mass. “You are mine!”
A blinding light accompanied by a deafening thunderbolt obliterated the atmosphere overhead, throwing everyone to the ground and sending two more demons to their death.
Helleden lay in a clump of tangled robes. He tossed the folds aside and gazed skyward, barely believing the glorious sight hovering above the promontory.
Bigger than a house, its great wings churning the clouds, a black dragon searched for him. It located the Summoning Stone and descended, emitting an ear-piercing shriek—emerald eyes glowing brightly in the dark sky.
The enormous beast scanned the Summoning Stone and locked on to the source of its bidding. It craned its horned head, opening a mouth large enough to swallow a giant.
Helleden grasped the lapel of his cloak and pulled it over his head, ducking to hide behind the enchanted garment.
The dragon’s breath scoured the stone he cowered upon, the heat so intense he feared he might melt.
A wave of air followed on the heels of the dragon fire, the beast’s great wings keeping it hovering just above the surface.
Helleden peered out in time to see the dragon’s head jerk sideways and crash to the ground, the magical cable around its neck. The demon who had devoutly held aloft the tome lay in a twisted, blackened heap. Flames devoured the thick tome near its smoking corpse.
The dragon righted itself and thrashed its head back and forth. The demons hanging onto the leash refused to release their grip and were yanked from their feet—several of them slipped over the edge, flailing helplessly into the bone-crushing surf below.
Three demons remained on the rock. They ran at the dragon, trying to regain control of the cable whipping about the fearsome creature.
Helleden shielded his eyes as the dragon opened its mouth to spew a deadly torrent of fire, engulfing his minions. He didn’t have much time. Rising to his feet, he spread his hands wide, incanting his psionic spell.
The dragon’s head spun, its emerald eyes narrowing on the one responsible for its torment.
Seeing the beast rear up on its hind legs, Helleden thought for sure his time had come.
His rings flared, their magic coalescing with that of his ruby pendant. He waggled his fingers and released the controlling spell.
A wispy trail of crimson vapour streamed between him and the dragon, the magical essence infusing the length of the cable pulled tight around the dragon’s neck—seeping into its metal surface.
The dragon’s head jerked forward, bringing its forelegs crashing down; its open mouth exposed jagged teeth longer than his arm.
Helleden flinched but the beast fell short of his position. He threw his cloak in front of his face, anticipating a fiery breath that never came. Instead, he sensed the mind of the enraged beast within his own.
In the blink of his mind’s eye, he instilled the dragon’s brain with an agonizing pain that quenched the gout of fire building within its throat.
The dragon gagged on the psionic pain. Helleden barraged the beast’s mind with images of Silurian hanging onto the end of the magical lasso cinched around its neck.
The dragon’s backlash was so powerful it nearly overwhelmed his control and severed the link. Outrage. Extreme sadness. A primordial need to expunge those responsible for the dragons’ plight.
Helleden fed his thoughts into the mind of the monstrous creature whining pathetically before him. An animal capable of incinerating him in seconds, or swallowing him whole. A dragon that had proven itself virtually indestructible according to the legends, and yet he had taken it down and was now exerting his control over it.
With just a subtle twist in the dragon’s thought process, he could convince it to crawl over to the edge and throw itself into the pounding surf. As much as this pleased him, he was troubled by the lack of communication from this intelligent beast. Through all the anguish Helleden instilled within its mind, it remained curiously silent.
He’d never employed his psionics on a creature of this size—nor, if his instincts were accurate, a creature of this intelligence. Men were easy to manipulate. Dragons, it seemed, were not.
Manipulating its pain sensors to keep the beast at bay, Helleden slipped in nuances of how Zephyr’s kings and queens had orchestrated the hunt centuries ago. In that, he wasn’t far off the mark.
He sensed confusion in the dragon as it attempted to reconcile its ancient memory of the atrocities committed against its kind. Helleden tread dangerous ground but as long as he merely tainted factual occurrences, at least the ones he had learned from the scrolls and books in the Wizard’s Spike, he was confident that by the time the dragon faced Phazarus and Silurian, the beast would have no idea what was real and what wasn’t.
Since Silurian and the Wizards of the North had no way of communicating with the dragon, they would be forced to defend themselves against it. If things went as Helleden foresaw, their actions would fuel the dragon’s misguided belief that they meant it harm.
As the dragon grovelled before him in the throes of agony, Helleden’s confidence knew no bounds. Through his mastery of the arcane arts he had at his beck and call an obsidian nightmare.
Coming Home
Stranded at the bottom of an impassable cliff, Silurian weathered the storm throughout the night.
Lightning flashed, outlining a distinct promontory over his head that projected over the ocean. Even had he not seen the underside edge of the plateau, he knew he was close. The malevolent presence of Helleden’s
stain had accosted him as soon as he approached Fishmonger Bay. The earth blood magic in his sword guided him through the sleepy hamlet and up the narrow trail beyond.
Climbing a steep hill and descending to the shoreline on its far side, he sensed Helleden’s presence through his sword, but before he was able to reach the sorcerer, a storm swept in, battering the shoreline and leaving him helpless to do anything but wait.
He located a sheltered alcove in the rock face to wait it out. Somehow, against his best effort to deny it, sleep found him.
His eyes flicked open near the end of the night, awakened by strong magic being employed nearby. Carried on the shoulders of a gale force wind, rain hammered the coast. He squinted through the deluge at brooding clouds swirling across the night sky. As he watched, a brilliant crimson flash lit up the sky above the promontory.
Fighting to see in the ensuing darkness, he staggered and almost fell into the raging surf. The silhouette of a beast of enormous proportions hovered over the rock formation. It folded its wings and dove out of sight.
The outcrop lit up in a fiery glow, and shortly afterward someone flew off the ledge, arms flailing wildly and dropping out of sight.
Flames erupted beyond the lip of the rock formation, the fury audible from where he stood at its base far below.
Something big was happening up there and he was powerless to intervene. Had anyone been close by, they would have heard him shout his frustration to the gods—not once, but many times. He was so close to confronting Helleden but he may as well have been back in Nordic Wood.
He unsheathed his sword, its blade bursting into blue light and dripping tiny blue flames. The weapon illuminated the path at his feet leading beneath the waves. He considered braving the water and swimming across the base of the cliff but the thunderous retorts of the waves kept him at bay. He gritted his teeth and waited for the conditions to ease.
Soul Forge Saga Box Set Page 99