Dreaming in the Dark_Chains of the Fallen Volume 1

by James E. Wisher

  She bounced off more stones before skidding to a stop. Everything ached but she didn’t have time to heal herself. Not with Grimgar closing fast, four black swords clenched in its hands.

  Marie-Bell raised her hammer just in time to block a pair of swords seeking to disembowel her.

  She leapt back to avoid the other pair as they sought her head.

  How was she supposed to focus and fight at the same time?

  The swords darted in like lightning. Even accelerated it took all Marie-Bell’s skill to block them.

  “You’ve learned my secret, paladin.” Grimgar snarled and spat black flames. “Pity you won’t live long enough to make use of it.”

  A skinny leg kicked her halfway across the cavern.

  She gasped for breath and winced. That one had broken a few ribs.

  Suppressing the pain, she leapt to her feet to meet the demon’s next charge.

  It was five feet away when bands of golden light bound it in place.

  Imogen stood in the cavern entrance, her hands glowing with soul force.

  Grimgar struggled and snapped one of the bands. A new one appeared instantly in its place.

  “I can’t hold it for long,” Imogen said.

  Marie-Bell clasped her hands and reached for the armor again. She found it faster this time. The holy light burst from a single ring of mail, drawing a roar from Grimgar.

  A second later another ring glowed to life, then another and another. Dozens of rings blazed forth, burning the corruption away.

  The demon writhed as whole sections of the armor melted off the dark coating. Flames erupted from its arms and chest as the final stretches of corruption disintegrated, revealing the perfect armor in all its glory.

  The holy armor reduced the demon to ash in seconds.

  Imogen hurried over and put a hand on Marie-Bell’s back. “Are you okay?”

  Energy that had been focused on killing the demon shifted to healing and Marie-Bell let out a sigh of relief. “I am now. Thanks.”

  “I heard you fighting and I couldn’t just stand there.” Imogen looked around the cavern. “This is nothing like my admittedly hazy memories.”

  Marie-Bell pushed away from the boulder that had been holding her up. “That’s because Damien blew it to smithereens.”

  “Yeah, he’s got a knack for that. He saved my life, twice, and I drove him away. He was never anything but kind to me, even when I didn’t deserve it, and I lacked the strength to give him the one thing he needed, space. I feared if I left him alone he’d realize he didn’t need me and leave.”

  Marie-Bell stared, uncertain of what to say in the face of the sudden confession. She’d been trained to fight and heal physical wounds, but wounds of the spirit were beyond her.

  She grasped Imogen’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Maybe when we get back, you can say you’re sorry. Damien didn’t strike me as the sort to carry a grudge. I bet he’ll forgive you.”

  Imogen forced a weak smile. “You’re probably right, even if I don’t deserve forgiveness. At the very least I need to try and make things right. Why don’t you grab that armor and we’ll get out of this horrid place.”

  Marie-Bell unbuckled her own armor, shrugged out of it, and reached for the glowing shirt of mail.

  Imogen grabbed her wrist. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “I think so, but the only way to be sure is to put it on and bind my energy to the armor’s.” Before she could think better of it, Marie-Bell pulled the armor over her head.

  Chapter Twenty

  After far too many hours resting in the troll igloo, Sig’s core had finally finished regenerating. Once more at full strength, he powered through the sky, extending his senses in every direction in an attempt to locate the ogres.

  There wasn’t much to go on at ground level. Everything was shades of blue and white with the occasional clump of spruce thrown in for variety. How did anything survive up here? Even the mammoths stayed farther south where the tundra allowed for grazing. Unless you wanted to eat ice, you were out of luck in this part of the world.

  Something tickled his senses and he banked left. The closer he came, the more powerful the soul force felt. It wasn’t an ogre. Even the berserkers’ strength paled compared to whatever he felt.

  The first roar sounded, dull and distant. The wind had finally died down and the air was so clear visibility had to be five miles. Despite that, at the edge of his vision, an isolated snowstorm raged. Sig had seen nothing else of interest since leaving his hideout. He put on a burst of speed, determined to find out what was happening.

  A mile out, a massive figure appeared in the storm. The linnorm had to measure twenty yards in diameter and its head towered forty feet in the air. Heaven alone knew how much of its body remained underground.

  Ten ogres battered the monster with ice weapons, darting in and out so fast the creature couldn’t land a counterblow. Not that the ogres were accomplishing much beyond annoying the thing. Heavy plates made of chitin covered its segmented body. The ogres’ weapons bounced off without leaving a scratch.

  The real horror of the linnorm was its head. It had a mouth filled with ten rows of teeth. Six black eyes the size of Sig’s skull jutted up on stalks that swiveled to watch the attacking berserkers. On either side of its mouth, a pair of mandibles tipped with long talons clawed the air. Those must be what the Ice Queen wanted.

  One of the ogres leapt toward its eyes. In a blink, the linnorm shifted and pierced the ogre with its mandibles. The unfortunate creature was torn to pieces and shoved into the worm’s mouth to be ground up by the many rows of teeth.

  Sig felt no pity for his opponents, but that was an awful way to die.

  The remaining ogres took their comrade’s death in stride, keeping up their futile attacks. Sig kept his distance and watched. Unless he thought up some way to slay the beast, or at least to cut off one of those talons, attacking would be a total waste of power.

  Three more ogres fell to the linnorm before the survivors retreated. The worm roared and wriggled back down into its hole. Sig still sensed it down there, waiting for any ogre sufficiently stupid to come close.

  With the show over, he turned his attention to the surviving ogres. They had gathered on a plateau about a thousand feet above the worm’s hole. Sig sent an invisible thread of soul force connected to his ear down to eavesdrop. He knew just enough of the ogres’ language to hopefully pick up something useful.

  “It’s impossible,” one of them said. “We couldn’t even hurt the creature.”

  “It can’t be impossible,” another said. “The queen wouldn’t have given us a task we couldn’t complete. While she is cruel and unpredictable, there’s simply no point to sending us out on a fool’s errand. There’s an answer, we simply need to find it.”

  The survivors of the war-band raced off away from the linnorm and Sig dissolved his thread. They had no better idea than he did how to defeat the worm. On one hand that was good. He’d assumed he’d be at a disadvantage out here. On the other, if the creatures that lived here didn’t know how to best the monsters, what did that mean for Sig?

  His core had dwindled to half strength, so he landed on a small, isolated outcropping impossible to reach without flying and let it regenerate. His rest area measured only five feet square, so he didn’t have room to pace, but his mind wandered on its own.

  The war leader had a point. It made no sense for the dragon to send them on a mission they had no hope of completing. It was equally clear that a direct assault would be fatal. The linnorm was too powerful to defeat in direct combat. Maybe the test was to see if they could put aside their differences to defeat a powerful foe.

  No, that struck him as far too subtle for the ferocious ogres to consider. Ilda might, but Gorn, not a chance. This was turning out to be a far more complex task than he’d first expected.

  Two hours later, his core restored, Sig took to the air. His growling stomach insisted he find a place to land and cook up the strip
s of meat he’d taken from the igloo. Sig wasn’t overly keen on the mystery meat, but he didn’t have a ton of other options.

  A trickle of smoke from one of the stands of spruce caught his eye. Who would be foolish enough to give away their position like that? It might be a trap, but curiosity got the best of him. He paused a safe distance away, linked his left eye to a thread of soul force, and sent it down for a look.

  The ghost eye slipped through the trees until it reached a clearing with a fire burning. Logs had been set up on either side of it and Ilda sat on one of them. It looked like she was waiting for someone. And where was Thog? Sig doubted the giant would leave her side willingly. He equally doubted any of the male war leaders would willingly partner up with a female. Since Ilda was the smartest ogre he’d ever encountered, she had to know it too. That meant she was waiting for him.

  Did he risk a trap or continue on his way?

  Hell with it.

  She might know something useful and he didn’t dare pass up the chance to talk to her. Hopefully he didn’t wind up dead.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The rich and powerful amongst the Builders must have been into dragons. Everywhere Damien looked, little black dragons decorated buildings or street corners. They used them as gargoyles would be used on the surface. Some even looked like downspouts, though he doubted this cavern had ever seen a drop of rain.

  At least they’d managed ten minutes without a trap going off. Dorius proclaimed that the entrance traps were probably the only ones they needed to worry about until they reached the sealed door. That struck Damien as far too optimistic, but then the professor struck him as the most optimistic person in the world. He’d have to be to keep exploring this empty city for years on end. They’d only been down here for a couple days and Damien already wanted to see the sky.

  There’s something out there.

  Lizzy’s warning stopped him dead. Damien kept his senses extended as far as possible, but he felt nothing. Given the limits of Lizzy’s perception, it meant whatever she felt was close.

  “What’s wrong?” Dorius had stopped ten paces ahead of him. “The sealed door awaits.”

  “We’re not alone.” He drew Lizzy from her sheath. “Show me.”

  Their minds linked and he immediately sensed five bundles of soul force. Whatever was out there nearly had them surrounded.

  Damien ran to Dorius, wrapped the professor in a soul force bubble and flew them both up to the roof of a three-story building.

  The instant his feet touched the roof he ran to the ledge nearest where he felt their hunters. Golden light spheres streaked down to reveal the enemy.

  “Heaven’s mercy!” Dorius gasped.

  Damien couldn’t have said it better himself. In the glow of his conjured light, five crystal lizards stalked around where they’d been standing a moment ago. The damn things were big enough to ride, with long, tough-looking tails that would probably crush a man to pulp with a single blow. The light passing through them shifted like a kaleidoscope.

  “What are they?” Dorius asked.

  Whatever they were, they had different characteristics than the blue crystal demons Damien fought this summer. For one thing they didn’t have any signs of corruption running through them. Whoever made them didn’t do it using demonic soul force.

  “Constructs of some sort.” Damien willed one of his orbs to float lower. A lizard leapt and snapped it out of the air, absorbing its energy and confirming his fears. “They’re made of the same crystal as the spears and spikes. My sorcery will be nearly useless against them.”

  But I won’t be.

  And thank goodness for that. The crystal constructs finally figured out where they were and began climbing up the side of the building, their claws sinking into the dark stone with ease. That didn’t bode well for what they might do to flesh.

  “Stay behind me, Professor.”

  Lizzy crackled with divine soul force. The first lizard’s head appeared over the edge of the roof. Damien sliced it off, expecting the construct to lose power and fall to the street below.

  Alas, it wasn’t to be. He leapt back from the swipe of a clawed foot as the headless construct kept coming.

  A little way away, another one reached the roof. A third joined it seconds later.

  Time to find a new perch. Once more he snatched up the professor and lifted a few feet off the roof.

  They’d barely taken off when something drained his energy and sent them crashing to the roof.

  He spun in time to sever a tail rushing toward his head. Three more quick slashes and the lizard lay in five twitching pieces. Even dismemberment didn’t end the enchantments powering the construct.

  The four survivors stalked toward them, giving Damien no time to try and puzzle out how he might destroy them forever.

  “We need a bridge between the buildings.”

  Dorius stared at him, but Damien wasn’t talking to the professor. A gray path of divine soul force appeared behind them. He dragged Dorius across it and spun around.

  The lizards stood at the edge of the roof, mouths agape.

  I can feel them trying to absorb the bridge, but my power resists.

  “Good. Let’s put some distance between us and them.”

  They ran across the second roof and Damien looked back. The crystal lizards didn’t attempt to cross the bridge. Instead, they swung their heads back and forth as though searching for something. He’d hoped to send them crashing to the ground, but it didn’t look like they’d oblige.

  “Can they not see us?” Dorius asked.

  Damien frowned. The creatures did seem confused. He didn’t care what was wrong. The important thing was they should be out of range of the lizards’ absorbing ability.

  A golden disk appeared under their feet and Damien flew halfway across the city before landing on another flat rooftop.

  “I suggest we camp here and make a fresh start in the morning,” Damien said.

  “A splendid idea. I find running for my life exhausting.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  As far as Jen could see, the town of Drevlin was little more than a jumped-up lumber camp. The long bunkhouses built for the workers had three-inch gaps in the wall from where the timbers had shrunk. At the far end of town, the lumber yard covered an area nearly as large as the rest of the town combined. The scent of fresh-cut pine lay over everything. It was the only pleasant thing about the place.

  One building had a little character and that was the saloon. Someone had painted it green and put a sign over the door written in gold paint. It said, “The Happy Ending.” A subtle advertisement it was not. It didn’t require a brilliant detective to figure out where they needed to begin their investigation.

  Lane had warned them before they left to be cautious. The barons only had so many guards and many of them worked for the gangs on the side. Ordinary guards didn’t concern Jen. The honest ones wouldn’t interfere and the crooked ones deserved a beating.

  “I don’t know about anyone else,” Rhys said. “But I need a drink.”

  Jen grinned and they guided their horses toward the saloon. The beauty of being a warlord was that no matter how much you drank you never actually got drunk. Sometimes it was both a blessing and a curse.

  They dismounted and tied their reins to the long railing out front. Jen had barely taken a step when the swinging doors slammed open and a huge, dark-skinned man with close-cropped hair and a surly expression emerged with a skinny, dirty man under his arm. The big man hurled his burden out into the dirt in front of the saloon.

  “Don’t come back until you got the coin to cover your bill.”

  “Hey!” The skinny man slurred so that Jen could barely make out what he said. “I’m a regular customer. You can’t treat me like this. You big shots ride into town like you own the place. Ha! Red Dragons. You lot ain’t so tough.”

  The bouncer turned back and Jen caught the flash of a tattoo on the inside of his forearm. It was a dragon in a circ
le.

  “That’s convenient,” Jen muttered as she swerved to intercept the mountain of flesh stalking the now-shaking drunk.

  “You’d best learn to show proper respect when talking to a Dragon.” The man drew back his fist.

  “No need for violence,” Jen said. “He’s just had a little too much to drink.”

  The bouncer flicked a glance her way. “If you’re looking for work, the madam’s inside. This is none of your business.”

  “I beg to differ. I’ve come a long way to speak to a member of your organization. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to direct me to your superior.”

  “You talk fancy for someone dressed like a whore.”

  His backhand came out of nowhere. An ordinary woman would have ended up with her jaw broken. Jen caught his wrist as easily as she might that of a misbehaving child.

  The bouncer struggled to pull away, but Jen ignored him. She glanced around his bulk at the staring drunk. “Best move along.”

  He nodded and scurried away.

  Jen twisted the bouncer’s arm until the tattoo stuck up for all to see, drawing a pained grimace. It was different than the one on her drawing, only three stars in a triangle pattern around the circle. What could that mean?

  “I’m guessing you’re not from around here,” Jen said. “If you were, you’d recognize the uniform of a kingdom warlord. Now, are you going to take me to your boss or am I going to break your arm off and beat you to death with it?”

  The bouncer groaned but refused to speak. Perhaps he thought Jen made her threat in jest. If he believed that, he was making a terrible mistake. With her enhanced strength, Jen could do exactly what she threatened as easily as a little boy could pull the wings off a fly.

  Unfortunately, if she killed this mutt, she’d just have to hunt down another one. “Maybe someone inside can help me. Let’s go see.”

  Jen grabbed his leg, picked him up off the ground, and threw him like a javelin through the saloon door. She walked past Edward who raised an eyebrow.