Big brown eyes, portals to a doggy soul, tested the truth in Harry’s words and saw the man would lay his life down for him. His massive jaw dropped, displaying a two-inch toothy smile. Harry grabbed the big head with both hands and shook. Slobber covered both of them, and Harry heard, “Raleigh big and strong. Him love Harry and Brady. Raleigh good now, no more ’fraid.”
Harry started to draw back from holding the big dog but was slow. The cold rain had soaked Raleigh, and, being the dog he was, quite naturally he decided it was time to shake. “No, no, don’t you do it, dog!”
But it was too late. Raleigh shuddered, slinging water all over Harry. Harry’s eyes, unshielded by his armor, were coated. Half-blind, he tried to wipe them on his armor but only managed to smear the foul-smelling liquid. Brady offered the underside of his arm. Harry didn’t want to accept the offer since it was the only dry spot left on the Sasquatch.
“You don’t have a choice, Harry; dry off or go into battle blind.”
Harry shrugged and wiped his eyes. “Thank you, Brady.”
Harry’s mission was to stop Belle Rodum’s assassination attempt of Renate Müller. John Timothy had drilled into him and his teammates that Hitler had to be destabilized for the timelines to flow in the right direction. Belle Rodum’s assignment was to stabilize the dictator so he would make better decisions. Both missions led to this night in this forest. Thanks to his armor, Harry had night vision; at least he did when his eyes weren’t blinded with dog-slung mud. With that vision, he saw Renate Müller’s large home. He was scanning it carefully when he saw movement. A second later the telescopic feature of his night vision kicked in. It was Belle Rodum creeping forward toward the mansion. Harry searched for others that might be assisting her but did not see anyone. That bothered him. But there was nothing he could do about it. He signaled Brady and Raleigh, and they moved to intercept Belle Rodum.
Cautiously Harry and his team drew near the home of Renate Müller. They had closed within a hundred feet of the house. No dogs barked, no guards sounded an alarm, all of which contributed to a rapidly growing uneasiness. Raleigh was ahead of Harry and Brady, eagerly sniffing the ground. Harry saw his tail lift and ears perk up, and then the great beast dashed around the corner of the house. Harry heard a loud yelp, and then a miserable series of doggy screams. Harry ran toward the cries but Brady’s long arm held him fast. Harry started to struggle but Brady yelled, “Harry, it’s an ambush. Raleigh fell into a trap.”
The speaker sword also barked quick orders. “You’re going to have to fight your way through it; give me control, Harry!”
Before another heartbeat, Harry answered, “It’s yours.” A surge of heat rolled through his body, his armor altered, the visor clicked in place, and the sword came out. Harry heard himself scream the battle prayer, “Gloria Patri meo ignis!” The sword flashed like handheld lightning. Brady sped toward his right, a dark blur. Harry didn’t have long to watch, as Brady slammed into a massive cowled figure.
Harry heard a high-pitched scream and yanked his head around to meet it. He had run headlong into a nightmare. He could tell his body was moving but he couldn’t figure why. He was screaming gibberish and trying to pull back from the tsunami of fear that poured over him. The speaker was in full command of Harry’s body. He had to be. The darkness that wrapped around Harry’s mind, choking courage from his soul, was the enemy. For a second he visualized the North Star, the dragon rider King; a vision of the King’s angry sword raised and slicing into the dark grabbed Harry’s scattered heart. He felt the darkness shift, pull back. He looked toward the vision of the King again, saw him smile, and turned to face the darkness. He lunged into it, hammering it with his fists, clawing with his fingers, and even in a tear-filled rage tearing at it with his teeth. The darkness fell back again. Harry saw his body continuing to swing the terrible lightning sword; the draugr was taking hits, but it was giving them as well. Harry felt his side burning and noticed his buckler arm was dangling in an unnatural position.
He heard the speaker use his voice to scream, “Gloria ignis, gloria ignis!” Then a fireball exploded, the ground heaved, and Harry was thrown backward. The draugr’s angry scream hammered against his ears. Then it was gone. Harry tried to pull himself up and felt the armor’s regeneration motors whirr. He forced himself to sit up and realized the speaker’s voice was still, but Brady’s yells and Raleigh’s heartrending yelps filled the night.
Harry drove himself to stand and limp toward Brady’s cries. A few painful strides and he saw the great Sasquatch on the ground struggling beneath a huge monk-like figure. Brady was covered in blood; the rübezahl was also battered, his cowl ripped, his face distorted, and one eye protruding from its socket. Harry lifted the sword and slammed it into the side of the rübezahl. It was like hammering an anvil. The sword struck but could not pierce. It acted as a club knocking the rübezahl off Brady. The rübezahl was thrown backward. Brady’s blood-frothed breath rasped, “I can’t fight him like this, must beat him in the heavens.”
Harry screamed back, “I have him now… pull back, pull back!”
Brady raised his voice to the dark, flashing sky and roared.
“Send the thunder of Your voice,
Your lightning to the ends of the earth.
The whirlwind, and cold from the north.
By the breath of God ice is given,
Swirl about, and bring correction, and mercy.”
Harry heard Brady’s cry but did not have time to observe the response. The rübezahl struck him across the face. Harry’s head rattled and he felt the visor bend. He jabbed with the sword, striking head-on, but was again stunned to see the blow had no effect and only caused the sword to vibrate wildly in his hands. Harry stepped back, giving ground. The rübezahl pressed forward, raising his hand to strike again. Harry braced for the blow. Brady called out, “Duck, Harry!”
Harry flung himself on the ground directly in the path of the huge crushing feet. A bright light flashed, followed a millisecond later by the crash of thunder. The rübezahl faltered. Another bolt exploded, blowing Harry to the ground. Suddenly he felt himself pulled back. Brady had grabbed his leg and furiously pulled him away from the rübezahl. Harry took a quick look back at Brady, who nodded you’re welcome.
Harry forced himself to rise and looked toward the rübezahl; his eyes widened and shock followed by a grin lit his face. The rübezahl was smoldering. His body seemed to have melted like a candle beneath a blowtorch. It was still quivering and Harry was tempted to strike it again when he heard Brady, “Step back, Harry, quickly!”
Harry backed up as quick as his wounded body would allow him. A cold wind started to blow, rapidly turning into a storm. Great balls of ice started to fall. Harry pointed toward the house and yelled at Brady, who pointed back at the pit where Raleigh lay whimpering. They hobbled toward it. Harry could hear the hail pelting his armor. He realized the stones diminished the further he got from the rübezahl’s body. In a few short steps, the wind had stilled completely and the only sound of the night was the deep panting and sharp cries of the large white dog. Harry looked back at the rübezahl and saw that he was coated with ice. He wanted to stop and ask Brady what he had done, but Raleigh’s cries urged him on.
Brady had cautiously entered the hole and was kneeling over the white dog. Harry could hear Raleigh’s thoughts now. “Raleigh hurt, oh, hurt so bad… scared… so scared. Help Raleigh. Bad stick poke through Raleigh… please help…”
The thoughts had lost their usual power and felt like feathery, sad whispers. Harry knelt in the pit, careful not to fall onto the sharp spikes that poked up from its bottom. The barb had sliced right through Raleigh. At the moment it kept the great beast from bleeding out. Harry knew enough to realize they could not pull it out of him, or more accurately pull him off of it. He had to remove the barbed end and then break it off on the other side of the dog so they could move him. Then he remembered that Belle Rodum was in the house and about to kill the actress. “What do I
do now?”
Brady answered the question for him. “You have to go. Go, Harry. Stop the witch. I can take care of Raleigh.” And with that, Brady carefully reached beneath the bloody frame of the dog and wrapped his powerful fingers around the spike. He gently but powerfully squeezed the iron pole. It crumpled with a metallic shriek.
“Good Lord!” Harry gulped. The metal broke off with a final loud snap.
Brady leaned over Raleigh’s great frame and said, “I have to take the sticker out now, Raleigh… be brave.” Before Raleigh could whimper a response, Brady yanked and pulled the pole straight out. The dog screamed and blood spurted. But it was over in seconds. “I can move him now and bandage him. I have already sent a call to my mate. She will be here momentarily. She is a great healer. You have to go now, Harry. Hurry!”
Harry whispered, “Raleigh so brave, so strong. Raleigh be okay now.” He tenderly stroked the great dog’s head and was rewarded with a lick that almost made him cry.
Brady saw Harry’s reaction and said, “He is going to make it. Now go do what we came to do.”
Harry nodded and climbed out of the hole. It had started to rain again but this time the rain smelled clean and the thunder, although loud, was welcome. Different artillery, he thought as he limped toward the mansion.
As his head cleared and the suit did its work regenerating his wounded flesh and broken bones, Harry started to wonder why the lights of the house were off. And why there had been no guards rushing to the sound of battle and lightning strikes.
Harry moved as quickly and quietly as he could. Considering the suit had a stealth mode that John Timothy had introduced him to, that was very quiet indeed. As he approached the house, he expected to be ambushed at any moment and regretted that Brady and Raleigh were not with him. The familiar voice of the speaker sword responded, “You’re not completely alone, Harry. I know you take me for granted, but I am here and I do have your back—literally.”
“A fact that I am extremely grateful for,” Harry whispered as he slipped through the front door.
“Belle Rodum is on the second floor, Harry. She has sensed you coming and stopped her attempt to kill the actress in order to deal with you.”
Harry breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed for just a second. So, no ambushes, he was about to say…
Harry heard a growl, then a blast of pain as he was picked up and flung down the hall. Landing on his back, he heard a crack, and then numbness. He struggled to breathe and could not. Panic swept over him. He tried to fight back but could not see and feared he had been blinded.
A dark wave of terror rolled over him, his eyes watered, his head spun. His fingers tingled and bowels churned. He tried to get up but a terrible cramping in his stomach kept him writhing on the ground. Then he was hammered by a wave of nausea and began to heave.
He heard a laugh. “Did you really think I could be killed by a little ball of fire? I just moved to a better place to destroy you. Your back is broken, you’re blind, your intestines are filled with worms, and I intend to keep you that way for a long, long time!” The draugr’s taunts were laced with despair, barbs of fear. Each wicked promise cut Harry, piercing his mind. He was sinking further and further into a prison of madness. He heard his own screams but it was like listening to someone else’s cries from far away.
The draugr continued to mock him. “And dragon rider, when you finally succumb to the darkness, I am going for your lady friend. The dragon lady…” When Harry heard the last goad, he flinched. The draugr saw it and pressed on. “Oh yes, what was her name? Yes, I remember. Her name is Sarah. I am going to find Sarah and I am going to torment her. I am going to show her what I have done to you and then…”
A blaze of pure white light erupted from Harry’s body. His eyes shone like lasers, and his fingers glowed like a welding torch. The draugr’s darkness shifted, condensing, imploding on itself. All the words and fears that had been radiating from the dark pit of sentient wickedness condensed into a writhing circle the size of a beach ball. The darkness shrieked and spasmed, frantically struggling to hold its form. The beast was being crushed. It tried to fight back, sending out thrashing tentacles, drowning in the tortuous light, but grew smaller and smaller. Its cries growing fainter. Finally exploding in a bloody mass of crushed draugr.
The draugr’s body reeked. Its dark blood coated the room and Harry too. “Dear God.” Harry covered his mouth, but his hand carried the stench and he gagged. He blew out a strong breath, trying to calm his roiling stomach. “Thank you, Speaker. I don’t know how you did it, but I’m glad you did. I was helpless and almost gone. Then I heard him threaten Sarah. I felt something yank me back from that dark brink. It got hot, unbearably hot… and then…”
“That wasn’t me, Harry; the draugr caught me off guard too.”
“Well, if it wasn’t you and it wasn’t me, who was it?”
“It was you, Harry. It was all you! Apparently, the draugr overstepped his bounds. When he threatened Sarah, he touched holy ground in your heart. And evil cannot abide the holy. Every time darkness conflicts with light, it loses, every time. What you could not muster to save yourself, you were more than able to loose for her. It’s the same thing that caused Kenneth Linscomb to almost rise from the dead.”
Harry shook his head, astonished. Then he remembered that somewhere up those stairs a witch was waiting for him.
“Yes, we need to get going. So far as I can tell, Belle Rodum has not killed Hitler’s actress. But surely, she is aware that her associates have been destroyed. Hurry, Harry!”
Harry picked himself up off the floor, automatically slipped back into stealth mode, and thought, She knows I am here. Why am I trying to be quiet? And why don’t I hear anybody else screaming or guards yelling? Where is everybody?
Harry strained to hear. The temperature of the room suddenly dropped. But sweat continued to trickle down his face, only now in icy streams. The house was too quiet. He looked around, adding his helmet’s night vision to his already careful listening. His eyes took in every detail, every fiber on the stairway carpet. Every speck of dust on the balustrades stood out to him. There were so many places she could ambush him from. His heart leaped. The ceiling! He jumped back, scanning the ceiling for the witch he knew was waiting… nothing. His heart hammered painfully against his chest. The draugr had left a mark. Harry wasn’t fighting the demon’s fear aura, he didn’t have to; he had his own fears now heightened by the previous battle to torment him. He turned to search the area he had just left and bumped into a table, knocking over a lamp seated on it. The crash echoed throughout the dark house.
A dark sultry voice said, “You know, as loud and messy as you are, you would make a terrible assassin.”
Harry jumped, cursed, and immediately felt guilty for it. He pivoted like a black cat in a rocking chair factory, facing his adversary. The physical manifestation of the speaker sword blazed blue, its tip pushed uncomfortably into the armor of Belle Rodum.
She just stood there looking at him, a moment’s stare ending in a temptress smile. She stepped back and put her hands on her hips. “Harry, how about a moment’s truce? You are ahead on points; both my associates have been dispatched and I am balancing on the tip of your blazing sword. I know you don’t want to hurt me. I haven’t killed Hitler’s bimbo, and both of us could use a break. So what do you think?”
Harry peered at her from behind the visor. What is she up to?
The speaker sword answered, “Be careful; do not offer information. Listen more than you talk. But yes, see what she wants.”
“What is on your mind, Belle?” Harry didn’t drop his sword but did pull it back a few inches.
“Who are you, dragon rider? Why are you trying to stop me? Surely you know that Hitler’s Germany is the only thing standing between Russia and conquest?”
“Be careful, Harry… big lies are hidden in small truths. Her voice alone can cast a spell.”
Belle Rodum frowned. Taking a step toward him, she re
ached out to the sword Harry still held in front of her. He took a step back. “What are you doing?”
She touched the edge of the blade just enough to draw blood. “There, now we can talk without interference. I want to talk with you and not some ancient sword.”
Belle threw her head back and let out a daunting laugh. “Harry, I am a lot of things but I promise you, on my own blood, that I will not try and deceive you… at least for the moment, we agreed to a truce. I intend to honor that. But I want to talk to you. To understand you. And… I want you to understand me. Besides, your sword will break through the blood barrier in a few minutes and have a complete record of our conversation. But it will be our conversation. Not one preempted by him. Do you have a problem with that?”
“As a matter of fact, I do, Belle. But seeing as how I don’t have a choice in the matter, I will go along with it.”
“Seeing as how? What kind of language are you speaking?”
“Ah, excuse me… I don’t know what you mean?”
“Harry, where are you from? Maybe not originally, but where do you call home?”
Even without the speaker’s warning, Harry knew better than to answer that question. But he also knew Texas was a really big place.
“Well, ma’am, I used to be from Eastern Europe but that was a long time ago… now I hail from the Republic of Texas.”
“Texas! Well, that explains a lot. Your accent, your manners.” Belle was about to get chatty but Harry was not inclined.
“One question, one answer. My turn… What are you?” Harry grinned as he thought about the question. He also remembered that around his neck inside his armor was the discern-ornament. The disc that, when applied to a conversation, caused the person questioned to answer honestly.
“I am a witch, Harry Ferguson. I was born one and come from a long bloodline of witches. My turn. Why are you trying to stop me from strengthening Hitler’s cause?”
The Harry Ferguson Chronicles Box Set Page 35