The Forgotten King (Korin's Journal)

by Beam, Brian

  Tharax finally stabilized, though his injured wing still made for a less-than-smooth flight. Being pressed face-first against Tharax’s chest, I had to turn my head to see how near the castle was. We’d grown much closer, but not close enough for me to maintain my grip on the rope the rest of the way.

  Sal’ let out a piercing scream. In that split second between when my heart stopped and when I tried to look down to see what was happening, Tharax whipped his serpentine neck, sending Sal’ and me swinging up and away from his body. The rope rotated around Tharax’s scales, taking Sal’ and me with it. One of Sal’s arms pulled away from my legs, but I didn’t even get the chance to worry before a sudden blast of wind slammed into me from above, throwing me down—quite painfully—onto Tharax’s back.

  Sal’, her one arm still wrapped around my legs, grabbed onto my belt and pulled herself forward onto my back, allowing me to drop my legs around Tharax again. Sal’ sat back up behind me, wrapping her arms tightly around my middle.

  “Dhezin’s blood, I’m good,” Sal’ called from behind me, using the god of wind in her curse. Given that during our flight she’d saved us twice with magically manipulated air, he seemed a fitting god for the occasion.

  “Sal’, are you hurt?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “We’re almost there,” she yelled over the rushing wind, leaving my question unanswered. The castle loomed just ahead of us.

  “Brace yourselves,” Tharax bellowed, his wings angling backwards and his head dipping. His entire spine, from the base of his skull to the tip of his spiked tail, was perfectly straight, like an arrow loosed towards the massive castle.

  Our speed increased, the freezing rush of air threatening to knock us from Tharax’s back. I leaned as flat as I could against Tharax with Sal’ pressed over top of me, helping us to cut through the wind instead of being blown off by it.

  Tharax showed no sign of slowing in his downward trajectory. The frigid air tore stinging tears from my eyes, but I couldn’t close them as I watched the walls and spires of the castle rapidly approaching. I think I called out to Tharax, but even if I had, there was no way he could’ve heard me over the thunderous wind around us. All I could do was hold tight and wait to collide with the castle at a speed that left little chance for survival. At least I’d die with Sal’s arms around me.

  Finally, I allowed my eyes to close, tensing my body in preparation for the imminent collision. And of course, since these words exist, that collision didn’t occur. At least, not in the way I’d expected it to.

  Tharax cut sharply upwards, his body practically vertical once again. My shoulders flared with indescribable pain as I slid down his back, the rope pulling taut around his neck. All four of Tharax’s feet slammed into one of the towering spires, his muscular arms bending to soften the impact. He scraped down the spire, his claws cutting furrows through the stone.

  An eternity later, our descent ended, Tharax’s claws firmly rooted in the spire. The downward pull of Sal’s and my bodies after the abrupt halt was enough to tear my grip from the rope and send us both plunging down Tharax’s back.

  My leather-gloved fingers scrambled to find purchase on Tharax’s slick scales to no avail. Time slowed as I watched my outstretched hands lose contact with Tharax’s body. At the same time, Sal’s arms released my waist.

  With agonizing pain, my back smashed into stone, my breath knocked completely from my lungs. After a brief moment of blurred vision, I realized that I’d landed on an expansive balcony overlooking Bherin on one of the castle’s middle levels. A quick glance to either side revealed the snow-blanketed balcony to be empty, aside from Sal’ and me. Tharax was latched onto the spire just above an arched, wooden door leading into it, revealing that I hadn’t fallen all that far.

  If Tharax had tried to land on the balcony at the speed he’d been flying, we probably would’ve crashed into the castle as I’d anticipated. We probably would’ve died. Though the short fall to the balcony hadn’t felt very good, by pulling into the wall-latching landing, Tharax had probably saved our lives.

  I jumped to my feet—okay, I slowly and agonizingly pushed myself to my feet—and turned to see Sal’ already standing. Her face was pale and lined with pain. An arrow was stabbed through her left thigh.

  Panicked, I rushed to Sal’s side, drawing my shortsword as I did, ready to protect her in case of an attack. With my arms having been sapped of strength during our flight, my relatively light weapon felt like an anchor.

  “Sal’, are you all right?” Again, it’s amazing the stupid things that tend to escape one’s mouth in times like this.

  “I’ll be fine,” Sal’ grumbled. She nodded her head towards Tharax, drawing my attention to the dragon.

  Tharax was gazing down upon us with dimming red eyes. Blood streamed from the two holes in his back, literally pouring onto the balcony. I was brought back, once again, to Bhaliel’s last moments.

  “Good luck to you both,” Tharax groaned. “The others are on their way; they—”

  “Tharax, look out!” Sal’ warned, though she was too late. The same invisible magic that had already ripped through the majestic dragon struck him once again from above, slicing through his skull and spraying the air with blood, brain matter, and slivers of bone.

  “No!” My throat burned from the vehemence in my voice as Tharax’s lifeless body fell from the spire and slammed into the balcony, shaking the entire foundation below us. I caught Sal’ with my free arm as she stumbled, but that just took us both down. My eyes shot up the spire, catching sight of several windows, but I didn’t see the culprit of the attack. Sal’ was scanning the spire as well, one hand in her wicker case.

  “The attacker must’ve retreated back inside,” Sal’ panted. “The magic of the Link all merges up there.” Sal’ pointed towards the top of the spire. “The one we’re after is in this spire, Korin.” She swallowed and turned to me, her eyes pained.

  I’m not sure what I looked like, but I felt as if someone had smashed my chest with a war hammer and had then thrown me off a cliff. Despite Max’s insistence that my father wasn’t a wizard, I feared that he was somehow the one who’d just taken Tharax’s life from within the spire.

  I shoved my anxiety aside. It didn’t matter who the Link was connected to or who’d so viciously killed Tharax. Whether it was my father, Raijom, or some other evil bastard, they had to be stopped.

  I put Sal’s arm around my shoulder, hefting her to her feet. Her left leg buckled, and I had to lock my legs and grit my teeth to prevent her weight from pulling me back down. The shoulder that I’d propped Sal’ upon flared with nauseating pain.

  “We have to get that out of your leg before it causes any more damage,” I told her.

  Sal’ shrugged off my attempt to hold her up. “Just be quick. We may have to fight before the others even get here.”

  I tugged off my cloak and used my sword to rip off a long strip of cloth from it. I knelt down, stabilized the arrow with one hand, and then snapped off the end sticking out from the back of her leg with the other. Sal’ sucked in a breath through her clenched teeth and exhaled with a grunt.

  “Ready?” I asked. Sal’ squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. I gripped the fletched end of the arrow sticking from her thigh and yanked it out. The scream that ripped from Sal’s chest stabbed into me as surely as the arrow had pierced her. Blood started oozing from the wound, but not enough to indicate that a major blood vessel had been pierced. I threw the strip of cloth around her leg, wrapping it three times before tying it off.

  When I stood, Sal’s face was bone white, except for the tip of her nose, which was reddened from the cold. Our eyes locked. Hers held a measure of sadness, as if this were the last time we’d ever be together. My mind coursed with the fear that it would be.

  The moment was interrupted by a loud crash as the spire’s door burst open. Dozens of heavily armored soldiers and robed wizards poured through it, pushing their way past Tharax’s remains. The soldiers’ gleaming
silver breastplates all bore a horned dragon’s head in red paint, the emblem of Lyrak Es’Tal, the infamous wizard king of Gualain’s past. That same emblem had been printed on my Contract before I’d destroyed it.

  It seemed odd that these troops were wearing armor paying homage to the man who’d ruled Gualain during the Power Wars a millennium before. Lyrak’s creation and use of Contracts had been the catalyst for Gualain’s downfall. He’d even prompted the law that prohibited wizards from becoming kingdom rulers in Amirand. Why would anyone hold any sort of honor for such a man?

  The enemy encircled us. Swords were bared, arrows were nocked, and the hands of wizards were held palm-out in our direction.

  I dropped back into a defensive stance, sword at the ready, ignoring the burning in my shoulders. Sal’ already had her hand outstretched, a glowing aura forming around it. We were probably going to die, but we weren’t going down without a fight.

  Chapter 53

  Korin, I am Your Father

  “Well, it was fun while it lasted.” Sal’s words were clipped as she spoke through her pain. She turned to look at me. “I love you, Korin.”

  “I love you too, Sal’,” I replied weakly, relishing one last look into her beautiful eyes.

  We smiled sadly at one another with grim acceptance and turned back to our enemies, prepared for death.

  And then came a familiar roar from directly above us. Looking up, I was met by the sight of Rhyxis and Ghalien sweeping down from the sky with Til’, Briscott, and Ithan visible atop them.

  Some of the soldiers started barking orders, prompting the release of arrows and offensive magic towards the descending dragons. The dragons were unperturbed, and they began raining fire upon the enemy. Panic ensued. Sal’ and I took advantage of that panic and leapt into action.

  The first wave of soldiers that charged after Sal’ was met with a wall of flame. Sal’ quickly turned to send another group hurtling across the balcony and over the railing to their deaths. This was no time to worry about killing the enemy; any hesitation would end in our own deaths.

  I cut through a couple of soldiers who apparently hadn’t trained under anyone nearly as skilled as my uncle. Drawing my dagger, I hurled it with practiced precision to slam into the back of an enemy wizard’s head, promptly dropping him before he could attack Sal’ from behind.

  Various destructive spells assaulted the enemy wizards from the backs of both dragons, indicating that Ithan and Max were both okay. Several enemy soldiers fell from arrows fired from Briscott’s bow. The dragons continued to shower fire down on the enemy, keeping Sal’ and me from becoming overwhelmed.

  Something didn’t seem right about the battle, though. The enemy wizards were concentrating their power solely on the dragons and those riding them, their attention not even gracing Sal’ and me. The soldiers wearing the dragon-head emblem on their armor seemed to only want to keep us trapped, refraining from using their weapons against us. I couldn’t puzzle out the reason for their lack of effort to kill us.

  Then the reason presented itself . . . and it wasn’t pretty.

  Before I even saw the one responsible for those attacking us, I could feel their dark presence. The feeling was similar to the sensation of wrongness that accompanied the summoning of an eldrhim, only a hundred times more potent. That sense of evil blanketed the balcony, literally sending violent waves of nausea through my body. I nearly collapsed from the sickness and fear that it incited within me.

  Ghalien and Rhyxis let out wicked roars from above, drowning out all other sound. They both swept away from the spire in a wide circle only to double back in a steep dive towards the balcony. It was their focused approach that drew my attention to the doorway. To the man standing against the darkness within the spire. To the man dressed in a familiar blue robe with a jeweled crown resting on top of his dark hair. To the man I’d seen countless times in my dreams. To the Prime Sovereign of Paigea and acting king of Gualain. To my father.

  Time stopped. The world blurred, my father and me the only ones in focus among the indistinct specters and dissonance. His face mirrored the one from my dreams with its short, dark beard and eyes the shade of a late morning sky. His cruel expression, however, didn’t. Untold evil and malice resided in the sinister curve of his lips and the dark gleam of his eyes. He may have appeared human on the outside, but looking into his eyes, I sensed no humanity.

  In that suspended moment of time, icy cold tore furrows across my heart before clawing its way into my stomach. Everything I’d dreaded stood personified before me. Max’s convictions of my father’s innocence shattered in my head, piercing my brain with horrendous revelation.

  Time resumed, but at a crawl. My father’s arm lifted towards the dragons. Sal’s scream from somewhere within the blurred world around me was the only indicator I had of the release of invisible magic from his hand.

  I turned my head to see my father’s attack tear through Rhyxis’s chest, misting the air with the silver-black dragon’s blood. His body dropped from the sky as slowly as a feather in my mind’s eye. A second invisible blast ripped through Ghalien’s face, his entire head becoming nothing more than a sick rain of flesh, red scales, and blood. Ghalien’s lifeless body followed Rhyxis’s in its plummet beyond the balcony, disappearing from sight. Max, Til’, Briscott, and Ithan had still been on their backs.

  “No!” I screamed, the word stretching out through the slow crawl of time. Somewhere to my left, I heard Sal’ cry out as well. With the enemy swarmed around the balustraded perimeter of the balcony, there was no way for me to see if our friends were okay.

  As time resumed its normal pace, I was greeted by the attention of my father resting on me, his cruel smile widening. He stalked towards me, casually lifting his right hand to the side just as a ball of fire reached him from Sal’s direction. The fire struck some kind of invisible barrier, exploding in a shower of molten sparks. His attention shifted to Sal’ as he continued walking towards me.

  With a flick of my father’s hand, Sal’ was knocked roughly to the ground, his soldiers immediately swarming her downed body and blocking her from my view. Max had been wrong; my father was a wizard.

  Ignoring my father’s advance, I rushed after Sal’, only to be thrown back by a burst of wind that felt more like being hit by a brick wall. Coming to a stop after a lengthy—and painful—skid across the snow-slicked balcony, I looked up to see the first line of soldiers around Sal’ propelling through the air, landing several paces away and giving me a momentary glance at Sal’.

  Our eyes locked for only an instant before more of the enemy descended upon her. Several soldiers staggered away, screaming, having been set aflame by Sal’s magic, but more poured in. Sal’ let out a terrible scream that cut across the balcony like a blade.

  Rage shot through my entire being, pumping fire through my veins. Fear that Sal’ had been killed was overshadowed by my fury. There was nothing in my mind but pure, murderous intent for the man still walking slowly towards me wearing that evil grin.

  With a primal scream, I launched to my feet, charging towards the man who I would never accept as my father. I’d been prophesied to kill him, and that is exactly what I intended to do.

  I didn’t make it far before a line of about a dozen armored soldiers formed a tight circle around me. The painted eyes of the dragon-head emblems on their breastplates stared ominously at me as they closed in. I was able to take down three or four in my rage before they were able to get their hands on me.

  Two soldiers grabbed my arms, allowing the others to pummel me with punches. Their gauntleted fists drove the air from my lungs as they connected with my ribs. I felt my nose crack, sending a spray of blood from my nostrils over my lips. Another punch to the side of my head caused my vision to flash white before returning to a swirling mess of color and motion. At some point, my sword was torn from my hand and cast aside.

  “Enough,” my father commanded, not loudly, but still somehow piercing through the clamor. Just as in
my nightmares, there was something sinister in his voice that set it apart from my earlier dreams.

  With the two soldiers still holding my arms, the others parted to reveal my father, Galvin Lemweir, smirking behind his carefully trimmed beard. This was not the man Max had known. Raijom had turned him into something else. Something evil. For so many years I’d wanted nothing more than to meet my birth parents, but not like this.

  My father’s hand clasped an object hanging from a golden chain around his neck. He twirled the object between his forefinger and thumb, revealing it to be a smaller, smoothed version of what had once been embedded in my chest. There was no doubt in my mind that he was holding the Source of the Link to the iniquitous rocks.

  Dull blue eyes stared into mine. “Check on the Dragonriders. If they still live, enlist them into our ranks.” None of the soldiers around him moved to comply.

  My father must’ve noticed my confusion and explained. “Surely you must be familiar with my Soul Crystals. My control through this,” he held the green rock before my face, “can be exerted on even individual bodies with a single thought.” He tapped his temple with his other hand. “I simply wanted to make certain you knew the fate of your fellow Dragonriders. They will become intimately familiar with my Soul Crystals if they still live.”

  I struggled to break free from those who held me, causing pain to explode through my shoulders and ribs. Rage clamped around my heart at the thought of this monster’s soldiers enslaving my friends.

  My father shook his head, and the next thing I knew, the soldier to my left smashed a steel-booted foot into the side of my knee. There was a snap, followed by the pain of splintering bone and torn muscle. The soldiers released me, letting my body crumple to the balcony as I screamed. My rage was buried beneath a mountain of physical agony.