Whill of Agora: Epic Fantasy Bundle (Books 1-4): (Whill of Agora, A Quest of Kings, A Song of Swords, A Crown of War) (Legends of Agora)

by Michael James Ploof

  Chief growled low in acknowledgement and followed Dirk silently into the castle. They slipped into a darkened room through the window, and Dirk saw it to be a small library. Chief became translucent and drifted through the wall. He remained in that form as he silently stalked to the door and out the hall.

  Dirk waited by the door for Chief to return. When he drifted in, he looked at Dirk, pawed his nose, and looked to the door.

  “Smell, stink…is it draggard?” Dirk asked. Chief shook his head and Dirk laughed quietly. “You’re a smart one, eh, Chief? Well, then, let’s kill ourselves some draggard.”

  Dirk opened the door silently, the enchantment in his gloves muting the hinges. To the left the torchlit hall led to a staircase and to the right there was a long hall and a bend. Dirk listened intently and his enchanted earrings complied.

  Below, far below, came faint sounds of struggle—a scream, crashing wood, breaking glass. Dirk darted for the staircase with Chief at his side. They went down the winding staircase tower seven floors before coming to the main hall. Chief ran ahead of Dirk, sniffing the floor and the air around him. His hair stood straight along his spine and he whine-growled to Dirk.

  “Show me the way,” Dirk bade him and the wolf was off running down a hall. Dirk followed at a silent jog, noting the doors to his left and right. The arrangement and size of the open doorways suggested he was passing the main kitchens on his left. To the right he assumed the dining hall sat, its five service doors spanning a long section of hallway.

  Farther into the keep, Dirk came to the armory. The mangled bodies of many soldiers littered the floor. There were a few dead draggard , but where there was one draggard body, there were five men. Chief went through a wall and Dirk followed, turning a corner at the end of the armory and coming to another stone hallway draped in shadow and dead. The sounds Dirk had heard before were no more. Nothing moved within the castle but him and Chief, it seemed.

  Chief came to a painting at the end of the hall and clawed at the stone below it. Dirk touched the stone with his gloved hand and felt a small breeze through the sensitive gloves. He pushed on one of the bricks and the wall turned in upon itself. Chief took up the trail once more down a wide, winding staircase and Dirk’s unease only intensified.

  After what Dirk guessed to be three floors, they came to an opening littered with dead Eldalonian soldiers. At the opposite wall a large iron door had been blown out of its frame. Beyond lay a torchlit room. Chief began to growl at the doorway and he crouched low as if stalking his prey.

  Chief charged into the room and disappeared from sight. Dirk followed cautiously and grimaced when he heard Chief’s yelp and the crackling of lightning. He dove through the threshold into what had once been a siege shelter but was now destroyed and riddled with bodies. These were not soldiers, nor were they servants. Here was the tomb of the royals of the kingdom, their golden buttons and fine, bloodstained clothing giving them away.

  Dirk ducked behind an overturned table after tossing three darts into the darkness. They hit with a bang and their light brightened the entire room. Chief growled and metal sang from its sheath. Dirk dared a look over the table and saw Krentz standing there in the light.

  “Down, Chief, wait. I would have words with this one,” he said, standing.

  “I see you have a new pet, a spirit wolf. Very Dirk Blackthorn,” said Krentz.

  “What have you done?” Dirk asked, seeing the children among the fallen.

  “What you could not,” she answered quickly and took a step toward him. Dirk noticed something hanging in her grasp, a severed head. Upon its wide-eyed head sat a crown of gold.

  “Then it is done,” he whispered.

  “It is done; my father’s will is done. Whill is now the rightful heir to Eldalon, for after this night, none of his line lives.”

  “Now what?” Dirk asked, coming closer; he could almost reach out and touch her. The glow of his fire darts waned, and the light danced upon Krentz’s tears.

  “Now you let me pass,” she answered in the voice he loved.

  “Or?”

  Krentz lifted her chin. “I cannot go against my father’s will,” she said with pain.

  “Fight it!” he screamed.

  “I will die!” she answered with a cry of pain from fighting the fealty spell and not attacking Dirk. She unsheathed her sword and slashed at him in a blur of movement. Dirk’s dagger and short sword were out in an instant. He parried a slash and deflected a stab and together they danced their familiar fighting rhythm. They separated and held a sword’s length between them.

  “Let me pass,” she begged.

  “I cannot.”

  “Then kill me now, for I cannot!” Krentz bent in pain at the waist. “Or else let me pass, and forget me. Do not seek me out; do not come for me…I cannot…” she stammered and fell to her knees in pain at her defiance. She would be dead soon unless she fought her father’s enemy.

  Dirk sheathed his blade and looked at Chief. “There is another way.” He looked back to his beloved and bent to kiss her quivering lips. “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I…” She shuddered as pain wracked her body.

  “Now, Chief!” Dirk yelled, and the spirit wolf attacked and clamped on to Krentz’s wrist. Her shields were down for Dirk and the wolf drew blood.

  “Back to your realm, Chief,” Dirk cried, desperately holding out the figurine and hoping against all hope that his plan would work. Chief began to dematerialize, and his contact with the dark elf brought her with him. Both elf and wolf turned to mist and smoke, which swirled up and into the trinket. Chief had brought Krentz to the spirit world through it. Dirk squeezed the timber-wolf figurine tightly and pocketed it, hoping that Krentz would survive.

  He surveyed the dead nobility, numbering over a dozen. To his credit, the headless King Mathus held a sword in hand. Apparently he had gone down with a fight.

  Dirk left the dead and went back to the roof the way he had come. From the tower window he surveyed the city beyond. There was no way to tell how long the siege had been going on, but by the looks of it the city had been surprised by the attack. The fact that three defensive walls had been compromised was not a testament to the length of the siege, but rather the efficiency of the dark elves. No army in the history of Eldalon had ever breached every wall—this would be a first. Knowing the relationship between Eldalon and the Ky’Dren dwarves, Dirk knew that they would rush to help as soon as they received word of Kell-Torey’s plight, but help would come too late. Kell-Torey was doomed.

  The squawk of the dragon-hawk told him that the beast had returned. It came into view as it flew toward Dirk. He leapt from the window and landed upon the large saddle. The dragon-hawk became camouflaged and together they flew out over the city once more. The draggard and dark-elf armies had taken the fourth wall already. Explosions of multicolored spells followed the soldiers as they retreated to the fifth wall. The sky was littered with draquon who had taken the fight to the inner defensive walls of the city. Many of the larger winged beasts carried dark elves who dropped down into the city and wreaked havoc.

  Dirk circled the city, flying high above the swarms of draquon that stalked their prey. His dragon-hawk mount growled low in his throat. Dirk shared the sentiment. He had no stake in this fight, but seeing his fellow man being destroyed by the draggard hordes gave him no pleasure. Anger welled in him as he watched the city burn, one he knew well. The screams and cries of the desperate people of Kell-Torey rang out into the night, and he could not ignore them. The dragon-hawk veered into a descent, wanting to join the fray. It was all Dirk could do to rein it in.

  “This is not our fight!” Dirk yelled against the wind, the smoke from the burning city choking him. The scent of burnt flesh rode on the smoke, and Dirk cursed to himself.

  He looked to the portal and the still-marching armies pouring from it. “There is nothing but death here, dragon. If you want to hurt the dark elves, let us go to the portal. I have a plan.”

>   The dragon-hawk immediately changed course and headed toward the rift a mile away. They flew over dark, seething armies of nightmarish beasts, some large enough to pull a catapult behind them. The war machines were like nothing Dirk had ever seen. One in particular would be suitable for his plan. He watched as a mammoth half-dragon, half-dwarf dwargon pulled back the lever and unleashed a boulder-sized projectile into the sky. It sailed over the outer walls and hit the city, taking out an entire building in a giant fireball.

  The dragon-hawk flew the mile quickly, and the closer Dirk got to the portal, the more his dread grew. Through it was a starlit sky, like a lake turned upright. Dirk and his mount were dwarfed by the rift, which was twice as tall as Kell-Torey Castle’s highest tower. It hummed and vibrated with chilling notes that turned Dirk’s blood cold. For some reason the rift reminded him of a recurring nightmare in which he cowered under the head of a needle so large that it blackened the sky.

  “There!” Dirk pointed to a war machine a hundred yards from the rift. “Fly me low over it.”

  Dirk unbuckled himself from Fyrfrost’s saddle and crouched upon it. “You are a dragon, Fyrfrost, let’s have a ring of fire around that machine!”

  As if waiting to be unleashed, Fyrfrost roared and banked hard left. He circled wide of the war machine and unleashed his breath upon the draggard armies. Dirk leapt from his mount as it connected the circle and banked over the war machine.

  The assassin fell through the air and landed upon the dwargon that had been pulling the catapult. Before the beast could react, Dirk plunged his dagger, Krone, into its neck while landing upon its back. “Do you understand Agoran speech?” he demanded, twisting the dagger.

  An unintelligible mumble was the beast’s answer, but Dirk could hear confusion along with the fear and rage.

  “Elvish, then,” said Dirk in the elven tongue and got a positive groan. The heat from the fire was nearly more than Dirk could bear. Without his enchanted armor and cloak he would not have been able to stand it. The dwargon, however, seemed more afraid of the fire than hurt by it.

  Three draggard that had been lucky enough to be close to the machine noticed Dirk, and like a pack of wolves they circled him and the dwargon. They looked curious as to why the beast had not killed him yet.

  “Kill the draggard quickly and turn this machine around,” said Dirk. He rode the dwargon with an arm around its thick neck and the other hand clutching the dagger. He braced himself for the fight and the dwargon made short work of the much smaller beasts. The dwargon then did as Dirk had ordered and turned the machine around. The circle of fire around them, at first twenty feet high, had burned down to ten. Over the circle flew many draquon, their hateful eyes boring into Dirk.

  “Hurry up,” Dirk said anxiously in Elvish. The beast redoubled its efforts and soon had the war machine turned toward the portal. Dirk counted the reserve bombs in a holding bin on the side of the catapult. Ten.

  “Load this thing up and fire short!” Dirk ordered, and by the dagger the dwargon was forced to comply. He turned a wheel and secured a heavy rope around a lever. From the bin he lifted the large bomb with ease and dropped it into the basket.

  “Fire!” Dirk yelled as a draquon swooped down toward him with reaching claws. The bomb flew through the air only a hundred feet and exploded with a ground-shaking boom. Draggard and dwargon alike flew in all directions near the portal.

  “Duck!” Dirk warned, and as the beast did so the attacking draquon missed him by inches. Dirk leapt from the dwargon. “Fire them all at the base of the rift!”

  The draquon circled Dirk within the slowly waning circle of fire. He unsheathed his short sword and opened his arms to the beasts. “Come on!” he challenged and the draquon answered. The beast dove at Dirk and a dart found its eye. The dart exploded on impact and the headless flying draggard fell into the flames.

  The catapult fired again and Dirk watched the flaming boulder disappear into the portal. There was no vibration from the impact, but from the portal came fire and draggard bodies. He had stopped the dark-elf advancement for a time, but he had also gained the attention of the surrounding armies.

  “Time to go, Fyrfrost!” Dirk yelled to the sky.

  Two more draquon dove toward him as the lever clicked again and the huge stone of the catapult dropped, sending another bomb flying. Dirk engaged the nearest draquon as it landed and with a roar charged with its trident. Dirk dodged the strike of the ten-foot nightmare and darted under the weapon. As the draquon pulled back the weapon, it also struck with its spear-like tail. The tail struck like a snake and Dirk rolled to the left, letting the tail glide off his enchanted cloak. His boots carried him along so quickly that no sooner had the draquon missed with both trident and tail than it was slashed by a stinging blade across the back of the legs. Dirk stabbed the legs of the beast with both dagger and sword, and by the time he had passed, the beast had been forced to take to the sky.

  Dirk leapt and did a half twist to face the retreating beast. He threw an explosive dart at its belly and dropped a smoke bomb at his feet. He barely was out of the way when another attacking draquon charged, flying blindly through the smoke. The retreating beast exploded, and the distraction and smoke was enough for Dirk to land a killing blow. With a quick and powerful blow to the back of the neck with his short sword, Dirk severed his attacker’s spinal cord. The draquon landed in a tumbling heap and rolled into the now-five-foot-wide flames.

  “Fyrfrost!” Dirk cried, not caring if he attracted unwanted attention. He already had it. Scores of draggard and dwargon hissed and growled just beyond the flame. The catapult clicked and launched again, but the projectile exploded only twenty feet from it. Dirk saw a purple dark-elf spell hit the bomb, and then he saw no more.

  Chapter 38

  Fendora

  The elven army made for the northern coast of Elladrindellia along with the small dwarven force. Avriel stubbornly refused to stay behind, and she flew upon Zorriaz at the head of the group above her brother and his mounted elves. Regiments of elven armies joined them at the beach from both the east and west. Whill was awed by the hundreds of elven ships that waited offshore. Fleets there were with hundreds of warships and rammers, each manned by powerful elven masters.

  Upon his elven horse, Whill gave Zerafin a look. “You did not gather this force overnight. You planned and set this into motion days ago.”

  “Yes,” said Zerafin. “I have been planning this attack for a long time. Fendora is a prime target.”

  The elven armies poured onto the many battleships that would carry them to the beaches of Fendora. High above, Roakore circled with Silverwind. A strong breeze came up over the beach and high waves crashed steadily onto shore. Far to the north, a darkness of cloud gathered.

  “They prepare for our arrival,” Zerafin noted as he and Whill watched the armies load.

  “Let them prepare. They cannot know what is coming for them,” said Whill, hearing the voice of the Other and no longer caring.

  Zerafin’s gaze lingered on him as if he had sensed a change in Whill. “The elders and masters were impressed by you yesterday. Until then the vote had been split concerning your worth.”

  Zerafin watched his sister circle overhead upon Zorriaz. Whill laughed. “All I had to do was chastise the elders and masters.”

  “Elven culture is…polite. Oftentimes we use small lies to avoid confrontation. We do not often speak so directly to others, only those closest to us. Your straightforwardness gained their ears.”

  “Then this is the beginning of the end,” said Whill, looking off to the north at the gathering darkness. A smile crept onto his face. “I would see light pierce the darkness.”

  “Then let us pierce it,” said Zerafin.

  The two rode to the harbor and boarded a warship. Whill had seen the design in books, but in life the ships looked much barer. There was neither harpoon nor cannon, no catapults or crossbows mounted to rail. Upon the elven warship, the only weapons were the elves.
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  The deck was flat and rose slightly toward the middle. Dotted along the smooth dark wood were large flat crystal circles. These were the power source behind the elven casters. The crystals held large amounts of stored energy, and it was a great honor among the elves to be chosen to harness that energy. These casters were chosen from the best of each school.

  The ships cast off, and telepathically the captains steered the fleets out. Krundars upon every ship wove the wind into the fin-like sails and rushed the currents along beneath, and soon they were traveling faster than it seemed possible. The fleet cut through the waves with ease as they sped faster still. The concentration of air weavers and water weavers caused huge gusts and northerly swells that lifted them up and rushed them on toward Fendora.

  The fleets made it to the island in two hours, and brought with them a tidal wave. As they approached the island the darkness grew, and the closer they got, the more dramatic the disturbance became. Now, sailing toward the island at breakneck speed, Whill could begin to make out a swirling storm of lightning and clouds of darkness. If it was a portal, it was quite unlike the one he had traveled through previously. If looked rather like a tear in reality, and through it a starry sky could be seen beyond the storm.

  “It looks like the gate to the hells, laddie,” Roakore yelled over the torrent as half of the ships veered left along the coast of Fendora and the other half went right. Behind them the ocean wave hit the coast with devastating effect. Orbs of pulsing light came alive under the flood, the shields of dark elves who had been lying in wait. Lightning crackled and struck one of the ships. A cascade of multicolored sparks shot into the air as the blast was deflected by the warship’s shield. Spells suddenly began to pour from the left side of the island as Whill’s ship and the rest of the fleet sped by. The water swelled beneath them once more as the Morenka water weavers strained to cause another wave. The island seemed to sink from Whill’s perspective as the ships rose with the water. Quickly the water turned and they were falling and a wave shot out from beneath them and ravaged the coast. Anything within a few miles would be washed out.