“What the hell is that smell?” Merrill asked Stone.
Stone nodded slightly. “Smells a little like the niiwu but I’ve never known them to be in this area. Maybe we smell as bad to them.”
“I doubt that,” said Lance. “I took a bath last week.”
Stone pulled his sword, looking around and listening for movement. “If we can smell them they can smell us and they know we’re coming. Why can’t anything be simple? Their strength gives them a great advantage in a fight.” They saw a mother skunk travelling with a baby and Stone realized that was most likely what they smelt.
As they circled around the mountain, the group came upon a road block. A half dozen of the niiwu had set up a circular dwelling in the middle of the road and because the wind was blowing toward them by the time they spotted them it was too late. The niiwu were armed with both swords and bows; they were muscular humanoid creatures, having two heads that would sometimes argue with one another, brutish faces with grey-blue skin. They only wore loincloths and had gold bands of various styles on all their wrists, their bare chests were quite muscular, and where humans had nipples they had patches of miniature scales. Stone knew that every damn one of them had the strength of three men, realizing that they were in big trouble as they were facing six. He couldn’t see this ending well.
The tallest niiwu crossed his arms defiantly as he talked to the shorter female next to him; his second head appeared indifferent but was in fact staring lustfully at the female. “Krasta nar brate finitba cruta nor cruta.” (I haven’t eaten humans in months)
“Thak gratee nar baisuh Strabo finitba.” (They make the best stew)
Obed looked at Stone. “What do you think they’re saying?”
Stone shrugged. “I have no idea, but I’d wager we wouldn’t like it.”
“We need to get by here,” said Lance. “Is there a problem? Do they understand us?”
They were virtually identical except that some were bigger than others and some had distinguishing scars. “No problem for we, for you problem.” The female smiled showing her ugly teeth as she commenced to salivate.
Stone could see that the niiwu were all shifting slightly; preparing to attack was his guess. “Can we pay you to let us through? We have gold.”
“Get gold we will,” said one.
One of them walked up to Obed, each head smelling a different side of his neck. “This one I eat.”
“Mine that one!”
Merrill stared at Stone. “I hope I give them diarrhea.”
One of the niiwu kicked Obed so hard that it drove him against the rocks knocking him out, his brain receiving a terrible jolt as it hit. Stone blocked two mighty blows from another and tried to kick her, only managing to hurt his foot, like kicking a boulder. She smiled showing all her crooked teeth and swung at Stone with all her might; he barely managed to get out of the way as she accidentally split one of her companions in two. The moment of shock allowed Stone to cut off both of her heads.
But the five remaining overpowered the three knights; Stone was rendered unconscious with the hilt of a sword. Merrill and Lance were also taken prisoner, beaten into a stupor and then tied upside down from a tree. One of the niiwu started to pinch and bruise their legs, trying to decide which one he wanted to eat first and it was a difficult decision.
The four knights were tied one against the other hanging upside down as Stone returned to consciousness. Although his vision was still blurry he could see that three of the niiwu were busy sharpening their swords, while two others had commenced to argue and push one another. Stone shook his head at the thought that Alexa would never know what happened to him but if she ever found out heaven help the niiwu.
EIGHT
ASH RAN OUT OF ONE OF THE SIDE TUNNELS that he had dug as Zedock was sniffing Ella’s neck and they both had to feign indifference when the little dragon appeared. Zedock was a black dragon and Ella was a red dragon, something that had been frowned upon but when Ash turned out to be a rare dragon wizard it had changed all that. After all if a red and a black could produce a wizard, then there must be something right about the union. A dragon wizard had not been born in centuries; he was very special and just about everyone was looking forward to the dragon growing into adulthood and granting favors.
Ash flew out of the cave like a bat being pursued by a bigger bat. “Mom, Dad, he’s out! He’s out and he’s coming to kill all of us and he’s a wizard too and just as powerful as I am only he has a lot more experience and we’re all doomed. I don’t know what to do? I’m scared!”
“Well if we’re all doomed,” said Cinder-Ella out from inside the tunnel, “then I’m not cleaning my chamber.”
Zedock approached his son. “Calm down Ash. What are you talking about? Who’s out?”
“Dad, we have to fly far away from here and hide. There’s another dragon wizard and he’s going to kill all of us.”
Zedock shook his head. “Now Ash, even if there is another wizard out there, and I doubt that, he doesn’t even know we exist. Why on earth do you think he’d want to kill us?”
Ash was getting louder and louder. “Because he knows I exist and he knows that I’m the only one that could possibly kill him.”
Ella took Ash’s face into her hand. “It’s just another bad dream, honey. Wizards are exceedingly rare and we probably won’t see another one for a thousand years or even longer.”
They had never seen Ash frightened before, he was usually so confident and so it was disturbing to see the little wizard scared. Cinder-Ella and her sister Firestorm ran out of the tunnel crying.
“We’re all going to be killed mother!” screamed Cinder-Ella.
“I don’t want to be killed,” cried firestorm, her hot tears running down her face producing steam. “I’m too young to die, well I mean I’m not too young to die because babies die too, but I don’t want to die!”
Zedock stomped his big dragon foot. “Stop it all of you. Ash had a nightmare and that’s it. Ash, you tell them it was all a dream!”
Ash shook his head and stomped his foot, copying his father. “No, I didn’t just look at this!” The little wizard blinked his eyes several times going through several scenes in his head until he found the right one. He turned and played the image out through his eyes, casting the picture on the wall. The scene showed a big grey dragon killing people in a field of daisies, stomping them to death and being so utterly happy about it.
“Oh my goodness how awful,” Ella said to Zedock. “It’s a grey dragon and look at the size of him. My father told us about grey dragons, but I’ve never seen one. What are we gonna do? Ash is a wizard, but he’s just a baby. Maybe we should run?”
Zedock was trying hard to come up with something positive, after all he was the father and should know what to do, but he was young too and inexperienced in such things. He thought that he wouldn’t last long with that beast. “He didn’t use any magic he just stomped those poor humans to death. What makes you think he’s a wizard?”
“Trust me father he’s a wizard. I can sense him from here.”
Both Cinder-Ella and Firestorm had run back in and were peeking out of one of the side tunnels.
“Let’s deal with facts Ash and not have our imaginations run wild.” Ella was thinking hard about what to say next. “Why on earth would he want to kill you, he doesn’t even know you. Tell me why you think he wants to hurt you?”
“I already told you! He sent me two messages this morning saying I’m going to kill you, you little dragon wizard. I can hear them in my head as clearly as I can hear you now.”
Zedock shook his head. “Well, if that’s the case maybe you should kill him before he kills you.”
“Zedock!” Ella scolded.
“Why shouldn’t Ash kill him first if he wants to kill us? Ella, we’re talking about survival here. If it’s kill or be killed, I say kill, kill, kill!”
“But I don’t know how to kill him!” Ash screamed.
Ella found it difficult
to find the right words. “Ash, why don’t you just turn him into a bird or a tree or something?”
Ash considered it. “Maybe that would work but remember that he’s a wizard too and full of magical energy. I still think we should run away.”
“We’re dragons not chickens,” said Zedock. “We’re not going to run and hide; besides others will want to help too.”
Ella thought about that and didn’t think anyone would want to battle a grey dragon, and a grey dragon that was a wizard! “Ash honey I think you’d best work on the most powerful protection spell that you can come up with. Zedock, no one is going to go up against a grey dragon.”
Zedock shook his head, not knowing what to say. It didn’t sound good. “Oh.”
Ash was so good looking, a combination of cute and handsome. Everyone watched as he cocked his head as he went into himself. “Oh no!” said Ash. “He knows where we are! He’s on his way here!”
“It’s been nice knowing all of you,” said Cinder-Ella.
NINE
ALEXA FASTENED ABBEY TO HER BACK with two leather belts and then headed for the stables to retrieve her big black stallion, checking the saddle to make sure it was properly secured. A young stable hand with a goatee was warned not to tell anyone or else, and he nodded to show that he understood. Botrin had seen Alexa fight and was frightened of her even though he was pretty good with a sword himself. If the king asked he guessed that he would probably have to tell, for the king stood a lot higher up than a female knight, king’s daughter or not.
Alexa knew it was dangerous to take the baby with her but with Marcus and his uncontrollable magic she didn’t want to return to find Abbey turned into an inanimate object with no way to change her back.
The baby thought that it was funny being attached to her mother’s back, even more so as the horse commenced to trot, nothing quite like a baby’s laugh. Abbey’s laughter made Alexa laugh as well; bouncing up and down was great fun, almost as fun as being a donkey. Alexa picked up Stone’s trail just outside the kingdom and as she started to follow it she hoped he was okay, but in a land of magic one could run into just about anything. She thought if Marcus had been further along in his training she would have taken him with her but currently he might actually be more dangerous than anything she would run into. She knew where Stone was heading but decided to keep an eye on the tracks just to make sure that he hadn’t deviated from his destination, although she didn’t know why he would. Alexa always had eyes for Stone and he had felt the same for her, but friendship had kept them apart for years; friendship and the fact that she was a princess and Stone was a knight. She had felt his eyes on her many times, occasionally showing him appreciative smiles.
“We go, mummy?” Abbey asked in a bouncy voice.
“We’re going to find your father.” Adorok had appeared and informed her that Stone was in grave danger. The knight decided to take things into her own hands, being as stubborn as she was beautiful she had decided to do it by herself, besides it was too soon to send out other knights in search of Stone. She thought she would be stealthier by herself and maybe even more efficient dependent upon what sort of trouble he had gotten himself into.
Abbey laughed as the horse ran faster. “Is he law, law, law losted mummy?”
“Don’t worry we’ll find him.” Alexa certainly hoped that she would. Abbey continued to laugh hysterically at all the bouncing around on the horse but soon tired and fell asleep with her head bobbing around.
After days of riding and a trip through the portal, nightfall was looming. Alexa and Abbey were approaching Mount Ikwadinawoe and already she could smell the scent of the niiwu and she knew that if Stone and the others had run into those creatures their gooses might already be cooked, literally. There were stories that the creatures were created by a sorcerer long ago, but no one seemed to know for sure, she guessed that there were a lot more myth than facts out there. In any case it seemed that they had been around forever, even the earliest history books mentioned them.
Abbey was asleep behind her as Alexa started up the mountain, reaching Stone and the others just after the sun went down, discovering them hanging upside down naked from two large trees. They had been beaten, tenderized and bloodied, fortunate to not have suffered any broken bones and lucky to still be alive.
“Oh thank GOD,” said Stone. “Untie us and get us down.” And then he saw his daughter on his wife’s back and was instantly angry, couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He wanted to scream at her, but he didn’t wish to wake the niiwu, so instead he spoke in a soft voice. “Alexa, I can’t believe you brought the baby with you. You know how dangerous it is out here. Why don’t you have knights with you?”
“Stone, you don’t have to whisper. When the niiwu fall asleep for the night, they don’t wake up until sunrise no matter what. Watch this.” She kicked two of them hard and they didn’t move an inch as if she was kicking a corpse. Alexa pulled her sword and cut all their heads off, green gooey blood slowly oozed from their lifeless bodies; humans had always been enemies with the niiwu. Alexa had lost a good friend to the beasts when she was younger and had a particular hatred for them.
“We owe you our lives your majesty,” said Obed. “We would not have survived much longer.” If it hadn’t been for them tenderizing their meat for days and arguing over who was going to eat who they would all be digesting in the stomachs of the niiwu. They had struggled hard to free themselves, but it had been useless.
Alexa swung her sword cutting them down one at a time, catching them and making sure that they didn’t hit the ground. “Stone, why the hell didn’t you take me with you? You need to treat me like the knight that I am.”
Stone stood up and then immediately sat down feeling dizzy; he had a drink of water before retrieving his sword and armour. “And then you would have been hanging here with us.”
Alexa hadn’t considered that. “I suppose.”
Stone shook his head as he stared at his sleeping daughter. “Why did you bring Abbey with you?”
“I was afraid that Marcus would transform her into something permanent. He’s a danger to everyone, including himself I’d wager.”
“We are beholden to you your majesty,” said Lance. He also drank, feeling weak from the lack of food and water, a large bruise on his ribs.
Alexa nodded, Stone thought that she was particularly beautiful under the light of the moon. “One knight saving another that’s all.”
Obed stepped into the blood of one of the niiwu and it was difficult to get the sticky goo off his feet, the stuff having the consistency of snot. He was sure that Alexa would be a great queen one day. “If the story ever comes up I’ll just say we were saved by a knight, no one has to know that we were saved by the princess.”
“There you go,” said Alexa.
Stone’s left foot was still half asleep from being tied upside down. “We’ll eat and then head up the mountain at daybreak. They would have eaten us yesterday except that they got into a huge fight. Everyone wanted to eat Obed for some reason.”
Near the top of the mountain they found a village of sorts, there was a small castle surrounded by average size straw houses that glowed slightly, covered in some kind of blue dust. The castle was built with Tymon in mind, with smaller steps and so on, but it also accommodated several normal sized servants. The area looked peculiar, as if a part of the mountain had been blasted out by magic, leaving a concave shape that shaded half of the village from the heat of the afternoon sun. In fact in had been made centuries ago by a sorcerer who had resided here. A spell that had gone wrong killed the wizard with a mighty explosion that had been heard for miles, the acrid blue smoke had taken days to dissipate. Tymon had found part of the wizard’s skull just last week.
It was a busy place with the sounds of workers going about their business, working with some urgency Stone thought. A blacksmith was hammering noisily on steel in front of his wooden structure, in the process of making a magical sword, throwing enchanted rocks on
to the fire and pulverising them. Each time he threw another rock into the flame a different color of smoke emerged and he didn’t seem at all happy with the hues being produced. He looked as if he was going to pull out what little remained of his hair, just about ready to give up and start over.
A large stable held more than a dozen horses, a white one kicked loudly against the wall, taking the blacksmith’s attention for a brief moment. One horse whinnied and then another snorted. Tymon emerged from his castle and went directly over to Stone, being a little person he had to look way up at the knight. All the knights dismounted taking in the sights and the sounds, there was an unfamiliar though pleasant scent in the air, a cross between cinnamon and strawberries Stone thought.
“How the hell did you get past my guards?” Tymon said as much to himself as he did to Stone.
Stone hadn’t seen any guards assuming that the niiwu had killed and eaten them. “We didn’t see any guards just a bunch of dead niiwu.”
“Those were my guards! What the hell happened to them? Not easy to kill a niiwu, that’s exactly why I spelled them.” Tymon wasn’t a wizard, but the area had experienced so much magic over the years and quite a bit of magic dust continued to linger in the area and he took advantage of it.
Alexa thought uh oh. “Sometimes they’ll fight one another to the death over an argument,” she said, feeling guilty. She had never heard of anyone employing the niiwu for anything because they were wild beasts with no compassion for anyone or anything.
Tymon nodded. “Yes, they are unpredictable.”
Stone cleared his throat. “Tymon the truth is they were going to eat us so we had to kill them, in self-defence you understand.”
Alexa nodded, remembering how she had taken the heads of the niiwu. “It was them or us.”
Knights of the Wizard (of Knights and Wizards Book 2) Page 4