The Exodus Sagas: Book II - Of Dragons And Crowns

by Jason R Jones

  Kendari kicked Florin square in the stomach as she dove at his face with her rapier, sending her back as her men convened on the Nadderi swordsman. Shiver plunged into his left, the blessed blade parried a rapier then riposed across a throat. He crouched to a knee under two more cuts and stabbed the hot blade through an abdomen then turned and released another assassin’s insides with a cross slash of the cross bearing blade of Cristoff. Four men lay dying as he stepped for the fifth, seeing a terrified Florin looking for an escape she would not find.

  His steps perfectly planned as he glanced to Nareene who had just finished her last two assailants and was in front of the throne biting into a neck with a horrible sucking noise that echoed pure evil. The last assassin dropped his swords and put up his hands to surrender. Kendari shot his arm forward so hard that Shiver went hilt deep through his chest and sizzled with dripping blood out his back. Withdrawing the blade, he walked past the falling body and continued toward Florin. He marched her to the throne, blades steady and menacing at his sides as if she were no threat.

  “This woman is mine Nareene, mine alone! Give my regards to Johnas when you meet him.” Kendari cut out with the steaming longsword, then with his hopefully blessed sword, both of which were parried by Florin. Her rapier went up, then down, then crosscut at his face, then a stopcut that hit steel bracer. Every move she made was countered, every step of her trained motions preempted, her lunge went out deep aimed at Kendari’s chest. His longblades caught her rapier and twisted it out of her grip as it flung and skittered into the great hall.

  “Kill her slowly for me, Kendari.” the blood and flesh covered mouth of Nareene hissed out in delight at the death about to unfold infront of her very eyes.

  Florin shuddered, her back inches away from the cannibal demoness. She stood, unarmed, facing Kendari of Stillwood.

  Kendari flipped the golden cross of Alden over in his left hand and dove the sword hairs past Florin’s face and into the unsuspecting heart of the demoness Nareene. Her flesh burned black and blue as her scream threw blood onto the ceiling high above. He dove Shiver into her neck up through her jaw, then pulled Cristoff’s blade free and chopped it across her shoulders. Her head rolled to the ground and began turning to shadowy mist along with the falling body. The blood from the ceiling turned black just as her red eyes glared at him as they vanished. Blood sprayed from the mist like a rush of sweet rain, then stopped.

  “Your! Soul! Will! Know! Torment! Like! No! Other! Kendari! I will be seeing you soon, so very…” Nareene disappeared into the netherworld, full of hate, betrayal, and vengeance.

  Florin looked at Kendari who had just used her as part of a bluff to kill this demon woman. She saw his face tighten, then look to the blade of an Aldane knight in his hand, then to the spreading and thinning mist on the floor. Reality and shock began to set in her mind as the rest of the horrific carnage remained. “You were after her the whole time, this whole time. You had no intention of killing me, it was her.”

  Kendari stared at the blood all over the marble floors, the tapestries, the walls and his blades. He stood still, enjoying the silence, then he noticed Florin slowly turn out the corner of his eye. She walked slowly to bend over and get her rapier, taking advantage of what appeared to be her opponent in more shock than her. Deadly silent and smooth motions of a trained killer, like a cat she moved for her weapon. She lifted the blade by her boot and kicked it into the air, grabbing it with finesse and absolute silence. She was ready and had him off guard.

  “Florin.” his voice seemed a far off whisper.

  “Yes?” she turned quick with her blade out for the kill, expecting him to be in front of the throne. He was nowhere to be seen. Pain shot through her chest as steaming steel rose from between her breasts and ribs to under her chin. The red covered edge sizzled with her blood as she gasped for air and life. Her gurgled words came out as just that, and her body flailed against the burning torment that ripped through her lungs. Her hair pulled hard from behind as her legs went numb with death and her rapier dropped. Hot breath whispered from behind her, softly to her ear.

  “Not even close.”

  Exodus II:XVIII

  Temple atop Mount Bailey, Willborne

  Katrina Willborne felt fatigue wrack her body underneath her heavy armor of steel plate as she reached the plateau of Mount Bailey. Stopping to catch her wind, she looked to the bodies strewn over the slope. Charred soldiers, faces without flesh, bodies frozen in broken poses of death, all save one. The lady mercenary noticed the faint breathing of the priest and his fingers twitching, then a faint moan from his burned and broken face-down position on the side of the lone mountain. Caring not for any of the men Marcell Keervin had lost or were dying, she trudged across the blackened temple entrance with the lord of Bailey, his sons, and her red minotaur guardian behind her. Drawing her longsword out slowly, followed by the three men behind her, Katrina stepped inside the settling smoke of the cavern.

  The dragon rested still in a pool of its own blood, the altar smashed to pieces, and the smell of the dead was everywhere. Katrina was puzzled. “This is not the dragon that my father told me of, the one I have seen as a child. He told me a great dark beast that filled the chamber dwelt here, this is not it. And where did the other one go and shall it return?”

  “Only Veuric would know, I rarely came up here with him. I never saw anything, only heard the voice in a tongue that he alone understood.” Marcell was shaking, his sons silent as the grave.

  Faldrune the red, spiked mace in his hand, prowled through the other caverns and passages looking for the companions that had desecrated a holy and secret place of Willborne. “There is a way out down here, I can smell the fresh air. The treasure is meant for sacrifice is scattered as well, my lady. Likely they looted as well as murdered. Let me find them, I can track that stench of a dwarf all day and night, like I smell it here, just like the aroma of the elven woman.”

  “Father, what will happen now? If the other dragon you told us of returns?” one of his boys spoke up, trembling. The feeling that great wrongs that would have to be atoned for permeated the dimly lit cavern amidst all of the blood and rubble.

  “I do not know, son. God, they, it, has always demanded sacrifice for many things. I can only imagine what they will demand now. Unless, by our luck, the other is dead.” Marcell looked around at the damage caused by the wanted travelers he had lured into his keep just last night. He had no idea that they were indeed this dangerous and deadly.

  Katrina resigned that they would have to track them with Faldrune in the lead and all of her men spread out as far as possible. “They could not have gotten far. Let us leave. Faldrune, get the men ready for a hunt. Marcell, you and your men will be assisting. I will have their heads---“

  The ground at their feet shuddered and shook, then again, and then it stopped. The entryway grew dark as wind rushed in and snuffed out the torches and sconces with a force that sent everyone back a step or two. A small trail of light could be seen from the middle passage that led out, then that too went dark. Thumping, slow and rhythmic, echoed from outside where the light of day was no more. At first they scattered, then back together, and finally into a stance intended on battle. Katrina put on her steel helmet and raised her shield engraved with the swords and dragon of Willborne. A red glow moved to and fro from the main chamber, with a slow moving shadow of a man shambling forward. Veuric, limping and staggered, hair and face half charred off and blackened, approached with this all encompassing red glow behind him. The night had turned to red outside the cavern.

  “Guirthinix astir valx trothini?” a sliver of black within a giant red eye came closer as its mouth spoke words through teeth as long as two men. The head of the black scaled dragon of Willborne filled the cavern passage at the end of its long neck. This beast was large enough to eat the one that lay dead before it.

  “Where is my son and who has slain my daughter?” Veuric spoke with eyes closed in a monotone voice that seemed to be forced
to repeat what it heard. His bladder let loose, his hands shook, and his lip trembled, yet the voice came out perfectly.

  “Veuric, what is happening here? What are you doing?” Marcell cowered at the sight of his priest of years being controlled to speak as his broken body was forced to comply by this gargantuan draconic being.

  “Kithixses!” the voice roared.

  Veuric stepped to the side of the cavern, eyes still closed and trembling. The eye moved back for a split second, then a massive clawed hand flashed in and grabbed Marcell and pulled him out just as fast. He screamed and stabbed once with his broadsword as he disappeared into the clouded outside atop the mountain. The scream stopped as the chewing began, then the horned reptilian head slinked back into the broken temple.

  Marcell’s sons ran for the rear passage, stopped by the curling and anxious tail of the immense dragon that smashed through the stone on the other side of the mountain and blocked them from escape. They turned white, realizing that this dragon, unlike the dead one in the cavern, must be well over four hundred fifty feet long to cover the top of the mountain in such a manner. Their voices were frozen in fear and terror, they white knuckled their blades, and waited for death.

  Katrina, followed quickly by Faldrune, got on both knees in a prayer position and lowered her head to the stone floor. “Tell our great dragon that the deaths of her children will be avenged. We know of the killers and defilers to her kind, and will hunt them and bring them to her.” she knew it was either this, or be eaten.

  “Jusivix nizrx ashrel relvix uun.” the words carried power, enthralling, terrifying power even though no one but the possessed priest understood them.

  “You will drink of my blood and be bound to me.” Veuric shuddered as he reached for his sword and cut the outstretched tongue that writhed in front of him, a tongue of red and black at least ten feet long from the tip of its jaw, as thick as a grown tree. The edge sliced a small cut, then another, then three more along the side as his mind was directed to. He kneeled, putting his hand to the rough wet bleeding tongue of the dragon that held his will. His mouth opened up and lips covered the cut that poured deep red draconic blood. He drank, swallowed and swallowed more. Soon Katrina and Faldrune did the same, gulping mouthfuls as the red sustenance ran down their chins. The petrified sons of the late lord Marcell just watched the hellish horror of these three drinking from the bleeding tongue of a giant serpent, unable to move.

  Silence reigned as Veuric, Katrina, and the red minotaur stood slowly, as if nothing had happened at all. They turned disturbingly slow, the colossal dragon glaring from behind at the two young men with its red eyes glistening light into the cavern. Katrina opened her eyes, red eyes, now red with black slivers for pupils that held an unholy glow in the dark. She, the burned priest, and Faldrune walked toward the sons Keervin.

  “It is great dishonor to the dragon to deny her wishes.” Lady Katrina Willborne spoke softly with her longsword lowered and her helm clutched under her other arm.

  “Especially with the loss of her children.” Faldrune held up his spiked mace.

  “There shall be a consequence for failure to protect her and kind.” Veuric put two hands on his weapon as they moved to give proper sacrifice to the great dragon they now unfailingly served. Screams rang loudly from the cloud covered temple on Mount Bailey, screams that no one would ever hear.

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  The night air hung with moisture on the clear sky over Willborne. The buzzing of insects and picking of birds as they scavenged upon the mutilated corpse of the male dragon in the river was all Shinayne heard. The still waters were depressing to the elf, hoping the scene of the fallen dragon would have washed away instead of being displayed on a calm moonlit river for all nature to view the atrocities of men. She waited for Gwenneth and Zen to catch up to her and for directions from the site of their defeated foe.

  “To the right, due east up the river.” Gwenne whispered in the dark, not wanting to share that her view of the arcane would not show her a living person, just the enchantments on the sword. Her doubts ran heavy that James was alive, hoping not to find his lifeless body or just his gear that had possibly been thrown in battle.

  “They killed it, by Vundren they finished the beast off. James! Saberrak!” Azenairk whispered loudly, hoping that only they would hear him and that nothing was here to contend with them in their search.

  Shinayne snuck through the foliage and trees along the river, poised with hands on her weapons and keen senses alert for the slightest motion. She heard something, a rustle in the cattails ahead, the ripples in the water, her enchanted swords out in a flash. “Who goes there?”

  “Shinayne?”

  “James!” the elven woman ran toward the rising tunic and wet brown hair and beard she could now see as James Andellis rose from his hiding.

  Gwenne Lazlette and Azenairk ran with their elven friend to hold James as she did, both relieved beyond words that he was alive and apparently in one piece. James embraced them all as they mobbed him, then the questioning looks turned their heads around in the area.

  “Where is Saberrak?” Shinayne asked, assuming he was scouting as usual in his overprotective nature.

  “Where is Taira?” James half heartily asked. He had seen her fall as the dragon fled the mountain, he assumed they would have brought her. The question was to stall in answering Shinayne just as much.

  “She did not survive the fall lad, I tried to help her.” Zen lowered his head.

  “James Andellis, where is Saberrak?!” she spoke stern with a line of anger and worry to her words.

  He lowered his head, stumbling for the right words to say. He sat down, the moment of joy over too quickly for him and the time to be the bringer of ill tidings once again reared its head. He froze, like in years past after the battle of Arouland, his words would not come forth.

  “James, what has happened to Saberrak!” Azenairk felt anger rise in his throat, he wanted to see his horned friend here and now. He grabbed James by the tunic to shake him into speaking.

  “He was taken.”

  “Taken by who?” Gwenneth snapped fast as the words escaped his lips.

  “Slavers, same ones that did this.” he pointed his broadsword to the remains of the ravaged dragon. “There were at least thirty. He distracted them from me so that I could hide and gave me time to escape from being pinned under the beast in the river. They mean to sell him in Devonmir, north of here, I overheard them.”

  “Why didn’t you do something!” Shinayne stifled tears and turned away, her blades sheathed.

  “Until an hour ago, I could barely walk. It took this long to heal, and they would have taken me, I assure you. They used poisoned darts I believe, and they have Norrice and his men caged for sale as well.” despite the truth of it, James still felt shame for his powerlessness in the situation.

  “Wonderful. Now what do we do?” Gwenneth sat on a bent log near the riverbed staring at her staff.

  “Has anyone ever been to Devonmir? How will we buy him back? Who do we speak to in this matter?” Zen knelt in silent prayer, trying to get a sense of direction and strategy on how to remedy this and get the minotaur free so that they could continue west. “How much does a minotaur cost then anyhow? Damn it!”

  “No clue, Zen. I have heard horror stories of the place and the arenas there.” James struggled to think of a way to bargain for their friend. “I doubt we will be able to find any legal or legitimate way to do this. They have many hours lead as well, all on horse. We don’t have steeds or even food for that matter and---“

  “What would Saberrak do, if it were you or I in there?” Shinayne interrupted them.

  They looked to each other, then to her, and then rolling and widening eyes and smirks came across their faces as they thought hard.

  “Well, out with it!” her voice became serious and demanding, for surely she was not going to let anything happen to her horned friend if there was anything that could feasibly be do
ne about it.

  “Shinayne, Saberrak would likely charge in with his horns lowered and axe raised…” James looked to Gwenneth.

  “Raging in anger as he cut down everyone who stood in his path…” Gwenneth looked to Zen.

  “And he would fight until we were free and the blood of his enemies lined the walls. Even if it meant his death, he would…” the dwarven priest looked to the elven noblewoman.

  “He would come for any of us with a fury and loyalty that would strike the fear into anyone that tried to stop him. He would take on an entire city if he had to. Does anyone disagree?” Shinayne started walking north.

  They all rose to their feet, following their elven leader toward the trail that the wagons surely had left. Zen spoke up to get her determined attention back for a moment.

  “So, what is your plan then?”

  “I believe we all just spoke it, Azenairk. Do you want to go through the Misathi Mountains, littered with giants or worse, to find Kakisteele, without him?” Shinayne kept walking, looking for the trail.

  “No, not at all, of course not.” Zen began looking for the trail in the dark as well.

  “Wait Shinayne, so you plan to just barge into Devonmir? A city of tens of thousands and break him out of the slave quarter or the arena?” James kept pace but had severe doubts that this was even sane.

  “Did you just fight off two dragons, riding the face of the second one, and crash it’s defeated body into a river, Sir James Andellis Knight of Chazzrynn?” Shinayne saw the trail of wagon wheels, a dozen perhaps, and followed them step by step.

  “Well yes, but this is serious now---“

  “So was that. As was the duel you won on the Altestani warship. We can buy information with the coin Zen took from the cavern. We will need to buy a few bows and lots of arrows. Gwenenth, you will have to come up with something quite ingenius and powerful to keep us from being mobbed. Zen, we will need your blessings and a little divine intervention in whatever way you can muster.” she stopped and turned to her friends.