Trial of the Dragon (The Chronicles of Dragon, Series 2, Book 6 of 10) (Tail of the Dragon 7)

by Craig Halloran

  “Couldn’t you have just drained an orc or something?” Rerry asked.

  “Oh no, that wouldn’t work. You see, my curse is more interesting.” She combed her rich brown hair over her head. “You see, like you, I am part elf. Only a part elf will do. Part elves are hard to come by, and dear old Scar brought me two.” She tied up Rerry’s ankles. “What a feast. I haven’t felt so well in decades.”

  Samaz rolled over on his back and asked with an upside-down look, “What is the long-term plan for us? Are we to be indentured servants?”

  “No. It’s more of a short-term plan. What’s left of you will be dinner for the wolves.”

  “Wolves! You feed people to wolves?”

  “Certainly. They are my pets.”

  “Shouldn’t you have fed us to them before you sucked the marrow from our bones?” Rerry said.

  “I see you still have spirit. I can’t have that. It’s dangerous.” She bound up Samaz by the feet and tethered them to another section of rope she fetched, then patted down their clothes and looked inside their palms. “Just making sure you don’t have any tricks up your sleeves.”

  “I think you’re the one with all the tricks,” Rerry said.

  “Humph, I think you’re right, but you have to give Scar some credit. He marched you right on inside a witch’s haven, and you both followed him blithely.” She hefted the bigger rope over her shoulder and began dragging them out of the room. “Scar. How could you trust an elf named Scar? So young and naïve. So delicious.”

  Rerry’s feeble fingers clutched at a chair he passed. His grip only lasted a moment. Dread overcame him.

  I’m so stupid! I can’t believe I trusted Scar!

  Saree dragged them outside and down the hill without an ounce of care as they jostled over the hard roots and rocks. They might as well have been dead already. Rerry grasped at everything they passed with no effect, but one time her efforts did come to a halt. Samaz had tangled his arm up in a thick patch of ivy. With a scowl, she stormed over and gave him a swift kick in the ribs.

  Samaz groaned.

  She took up the rope and resumed dragging them down the hill. They came to a level overlook with a backdrop of stone. Rainwater trickled over the layers of rock. Old bones lay on the ground, picked clean. Rusting chains were fastened to the rock. The depressing area was partially overgrown. The smell of death and decay seemed to keep nature at bay. Saree shackled them by the wrists.

  A wolf howled.

  Saree howled back. Her eyes slid over both of them. “I’m grateful. The wolves will be grateful too.” She squatted in front of them. “Don’t be so sad. This is just a part of life’s cycle. Besides, you didn’t think you’d live forever, did you?” She winked. “But you could if you were me. Bye bye, part elves.”

  Rerry didn’t even try to stop her. He just tugged at the twine.

  Samaz did the same, saying in his old-man voice, “We have a better chance of sprouting wings than of getting ourselves untied.”

  But Just as Saree was about to vanish around a bend down the path, she stopped and said, “What are you doing here?”

  A sword cut through the air with a whistle. Saree’s head left her shoulders and bounced down the hill. Her body fizzled, and ghostly tentacles emerged. The mystic fibers drifted over to Samaz and Rerry.

  Rerry lurched in the mist. His essence filled him. Color and strength returned to his lips. It was beyond exhilarating. The next thing he saw was Scar untying the twine that bound his wrists and ankles. “You traitor!”

  “And savior,” Samaz said. He was free and up on his feet, rubbing his wrists.

  Rerry jumped to his feet and hauled back to punch Scar.

  Samaz stepped in the way.

  Scar handed his sword to Rerry. “I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. You boys didn’t deserve this, and I’m sorry. I hope you’ll understand one day.”

  Rerry snatched away the sword. “I should chop you to bits!”

  With a dead stare, Scar said, “It wouldn’t make any difference. I’m dead anyway. That’s the choice I made. I should have made it long ago, but I was a coward.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rerry asked.

  The sky darkened.

  “Just go! Go now!” The leaves in the forest started to tremble and shake. Wolves that sounded like a hundred howled. “Just get across the river. The wolves won’t follow that far. None of her minions will.” He shoved the both of them. “Don’t waste my sacrifice. Go!”

  With the forest agitated as in a thunderstorm, Rerry took off at a sprint down the hill with Samaz on his heels. Every branch they passed seemed to claw at them.

  And then they heard Scar’s scream over the racing wind, cut off with a loud snap.

  Rerry started to look back, but Samaz pushed him forward, shouting, “Don’t you dare! Onward!”

  They cut through the trees until they hit the bottom of the hill. Running for the river, they could hear the wolves barking in the forest.

  Rerry’s eyes caught sight of the bridge. “It’s there! It’s there!”

  With the wind whistling in his ears, his toes touched the first plank. Remembering to soften his footfalls, he skipped from plank to plank. They groaned but never gave. Samaz followed him step for step until they made it to the other side. Rerry turned to look at the pack of wolves gathered on the other side, howling in the wind. After a long moment, they vanished up the hillside.

  Hands on his knees and sucking for breath, he patted Samaz on the back. “We made it.”

  Samaz didn’t reply, just tapped Rerry’s shoulder.

  Rerry looked up and found himself facing a host of dwarves. Catching his breath, he said, “Perfect timing. This bridge is in desperate need of repair. I can assure you, my—”

  A dwarf clubbed him in the back of the head. The world went dark.

  CHAPTER 21

  Sasha climbed up onto the rim of the well. Nath took her by the waist and set her back on the ground. “No you don’t, Sasha. If he wanted you to go, he would have taken you.”

  “Let me go, Nath!”

  Peering over the rim, Brenwar said, “It’s a black hole. Not even a dwarf would leap into the likes of that. That part elf has gone squirrely.”

  Nath was dismayed. He’d never seen Bayzog do anything so impulsive before.

  “We have to do something, Nath!” Sasha said. “He’ll certainly need our help if something evil is down there.”

  Slivver stepped up again. “I’ll go in after him.”

  “I say we both go.” Nath prepared to make the leap. “On three?”

  Bayzog erupted from the hole. With the Elderwood Staff in one hand, the gem at the top burning like morning light, he slung Brenwar’s chest to the ground with the other. His robes were in tatters. He was scraped up from head to toe and panting for breath.

  “Bayzog!” Sasha rushed over and hauled the reeling man in. He collapsed in her arms, trembling. “He’s ice cold,” she said, brushing his face with her hands. She leaned over his shivering lips. “He’s speaking, in Elvish.”

  Nath leaned over the both of them. Interpreting Bayzog’s words, he said, “Put the lid on. Put the lid on!”

  The ground shook. A howling moan erupted from the well.

  Brenwar scrambled over to the giant slab of stone. “I could use a hand.”

  Nath, Slivver, and the rest of the silver dragons picked the stone up with ease. Together they lifted it high over the well’s rim, walked it over the top of the hole, and set it down.

  The quaking and moaning came to a stop.

  “That was weird.” Brenwar’s bone fingers drummed on the slab. “Weird as a bugbear wizard.” He made his way over to the strongbox and sat down on top of it, eyeballing Ben. “I’d better keep it.”

  “You look like you just laid a dwarven cackleberry.” Ben turned his attention to the others.

  Nath and Slivver had gathered around Bayzog. The part elf’s rosy hue was returning. He stared up at Sasha. “I missed you.
”

  She gasped. Her eyes became misty. “Missed me? But you were only gone a few moments, my dear.”

  “No, I was gone much longer than that. It seemed like years, but now I’m not so sure. ”

  “Look at your hair,” Nath said in awe. “Gray has overtaken the black. Bayzog, what happened down there?”

  “Everything.” He reached up for Nath. “Please, help me up.” Back on his feet, he gave his surroundings a once-over. “I fully didn’t expect to see you when I made it back. Actually, I was surprised when you didn’t leap in after me.”

  “We were about to, but then you came back.”

  The light of the staff extinguished. Bayzog said, “Trust me when I say those few precious moments lasted months in that dimension, maybe longer.”

  Sasha kissed her husband’s hands. “Bayzog, what did you encounter down there? You looked like you were being spat out by a giant.”

  “Another time, my sweetest.” He took a breath. “I’m just so relieved to know that no time has been lost here. Let’s find our sons.”

  “You need to rest, Bayzog,” Nath said. “The journey can wait. I’ll send the silvers to scout things out.”

  “No, it can’t wait,” Bayzog replied with anger in his tone. “We need to save our sons. Especially after what I’ve seen. Every moment counts from here on out. I aim to make the most of each one.”

  Nath found Sasha’s eyes searching his. She was as perplexed as he was.

  Whatever happened down there has changed Bayzog. Maybe even scarred him.

  Brenwar offered Bayzog a vial of golden liquid. “Drink this, part elf. We can’t have you bleeding and leaving a trail behind.”

  Bayzog gave him a look.

  “Well, do you want to find your sons or not? Drink up. I’m ready to march.”

  Taking the vial to his lips, Bayzog drank it down. And then he closed his eyes, pulled back his shoulders, and took a deep inward breath through his nostrils and released it through his mouth. “Thank you, Brenwar. I needed that.” He slung his arm over Sasha’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Let’s march.”

  Nath shrugged his eyebrows.

  I’m not sure what to make of this, but I had better keep an eye on him.

  Limping over to Brenwar with a hand on his pierced thigh, Ben held out his hand.

  Scowling, Brenwar gave the aging soldier a yellow potion too.

  Ben drained it and watched the hole in this thigh visibly close. He smacked his lips. “Ah!”

  Nath threw his arms around both of his healed friends. “Onward, then.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Selene trekked with Sansla Libor through the Valley of Bones. For weeks on end, she and the winged-ape Roamer King had scoured the skies with their eyes, following the flight patterns of the wurmers from the Chamber of Murals. The flocks of the dragon-like insects that hummed like locusts with a mind-jangling ree-rah, ree-rah sound had led them to where they now stood.

  Squatting with the sun at her back, she picked at the scales and bones of a dead dragon. It was a gray scaler, little bigger than her. Its body had been torn apart, its flesh devoured and burned. It was one of many loners she’d come across in this search. “There was a time when this wouldn’t have even made me sad.”

  “Are you sad now?”

  “No, I’m angry.”

  She stood up. Selene no longer wore the robes that hid her tail. With the help of Nath’s mother and Dragon Home’s vast array of storage rooms, she had opted for a different look, embracing what she was: a dragon in the form of a woman. She wore a steel breastplate similar to Nath’s that covered her torso. A skirt of iron links covered her legs to the lower thighs. Her arms and calves were bare of clothing but covered in black scales with sparkles of gray when the sunlight hit them right. Two daggers rested on her hips. A sword was strapped to her back. She wasn’t just a princess now but a warrior princess.

  Sansla’s nostrils flared. “The surroundings of this valley decay. It didn’t used to be this way.” He touched a branch where portions of the green leaves had wilted. “Something sucks the life out of the lands beyond the valley.”

  The Valley of Bones wasn’t a graveyard as the name suggested but rather a small stretch of land among the hills and valleys that had once all been a massive graveyard. Many races had buried their dead here long ago, but it hadn’t been a place of mourning, rather celebration. The grounds had always remained green and fertile year round, the soil rich and hallowed. But now the greenery had become sparse, and the varmints that darted from tree to tree and chuck-hole to chuck-hole had vanished.

  All over the hills, plains, and savannas, there were caves. Many were in the hills, but others were fresh holes in the ground, where the resting dead head been disrupted. These caves were marks of burrowing wurmers. The mindless things desecrated the dead.

  Selene and Sansla had spent day after day searching the caves, trying to find the hive of the queen wurmer.

  With the tall grasses licking against her knees, she bent her ear to the sky and stopped. The droning sound of the wurmers came from the northern hills. She and Sansla hunkered down. Wurmers by the hundreds flew overhead like a swarm of bees. The ree-rah sound was so deafening that she fought the urge to cover her ears. She remained still until the danger passed and the terrifying sound was gone.

  “It seemed like they burst from the mountain,” Sansla said. “A new flock, perhaps.”

  “They were smaller than some of the ones we’ve seen.” Selene patted a leather satchel that was strapped over her shoulder. “Maybe we’re getting close to the queen. I remember the last time I went to the sea, they combed the sky by the dozens nearby. Oh, Sansla, I never imagined what a terror I’d unleashed.”

  “The terror would have come one way or the other. It always has and it always will,” he said, stretching his massive jaws in a yawn.

  She gave the great white-winged ape a puzzled look. “You don’t believe evil can be entirely defeated?”

  “The roamers have a belief: Evil will fall when Nalzambor ends and a new world begins.” He winked. “I try not to think about it too much. In the meantime, I do my best to do the right thing.”

  Resuming her trek, she said, “It makes me wonder if there’s any purpose in what we do at all.”

  “People know what is right and wrong. Some accept it and others don’t. You’ve seen what happens when people are consumed by their selfish will. They’re left with nothing but destruction and misery.”

  “I know that now. I just can’t believe I was so blind to it before.”

  “You were taught wrong. In that regard, you were like many in the world. But Nath Dragon’s actions opened your heart, didn’t they.”

  She nodded. Her heart fluttered. “I feel bad for leaving him behind, but I understand his mourning. I just can’t believe Balzurth fell. I didn’t think it possible.”

  With his long arms swinging through the grass, Sansla said, “The sting of death is unavoidable. But remember, there are yet many miracles in this world.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He forged on without answering.

  They spent the better part of the day searching their way up the mountain. The higher they went, the more trees had fallen in the forest. The greens turned to browns. Leaves crunched under their feet. Not even a bug crawled, but Selene’s scales did. Near the peak, there was fog coming from her breath.

  “Interesting,” Sansla commented. Near the top of the mountain, a seam had ruptured between the rocks, big enough for a small army to march through. The wind moaned between the cracks. “Shall we take a look inside?”

  Selene had gotten comfortable with Sansla. His savage beast appearance starkly contrasted with his mannerisms. He carried himself in long easy strides and talked with the highest character of a nobleman. There was nothing gentle about him, though. He remained stern but reserved. She enjoyed that quietness about him. Eyeing the seam, she gestured forward. “After you.”

 
; He stepped aside with a bow. “I insist.”

  Their trek led them deep down into the mountain several hundred feet until the light of the sky dimmed. Close to an hour later, the seam widened into a cavern more than a hundred feet deep and ten times as wide. Standing among the rocks and debris were two stone giants, tossing back and forth a rock as big as the two of them put together. Their clubs were propped up against the mouth of a side cave. A soft glow of fire pulsated from a source somewhere deep in there.

  “That’s it,” she whispered.

  “Now we just need to find a way around the giants,” Sansla commented.

  “Or kill them.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Moving at a fast pace, Nath and his companions headed west on the advice of Bayzog and Sasha. A steady rain beat them like drums. The grasses were slick and the paths muddy. More than a day in, the journey had them climbing up the hillsides when the earth began to quake and he heard powerful roars through the rain.

  “What in Morgdon is that?” Brenwar said.

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to be the first to find out.” Nath took off at a sprint right in the direction of the danger. Reckless, he ran at full speed through the woods. Behind came Slivver and his guardians, hot on his tail. Nath couldn’t help but enjoy the moment, yelling back at them, “You might beat me in the air, but you can’t keep up with me on the land.”

  Slivver closed in.

  In a surge of strength, Nath lengthened his long stride, speeding through the forest like the fleetest white deer. The branches smacked against his face, but he didn’t care. He felt especially alive for some reason. And then new sounds of battle sent his blood racing. He burst onto the scene frozen in his tracks. His jaw dropped.

  A two-headed ettin was engaged in mortal combat with a sky-raider dragon. Both of them were beasts of brawn and muscle. The towering thirty-footers were tangled up in swinging limbs. The ettin pounded fists the size of boulders into the sky raider’s ribs. The dragon’s tail coiled around one of the two ettin necks. The ettin clawed with a free hand at its constricted head. The other hand of the ettin pounded harder and harder. The dragon let out a painful roar that turned angry.