The Holtur Curse (The Holtur Trilogy Book 2)

by Cameron Wayne Smith

  Next, Sonja tried to locate her father’s residence, it looked completely different—not to mention smaller—from so high in the sky. In the end she traced the thin line—that was actually a series of wide cobbled streets—from the north gate’s courtyard, down along the main road, took the third right, second left, then looked at the fourth house’s roof. She chuckled to herself; learning all the street names never compared to a keen eye—especially from the sky!

  The sun was closer to Sonja than it had ever been, and she wondered why it wasn’t hotter up here. Surely the sun’s heat, combined with that of a flame wyvern’s, should incinerate her right now! The air they flew into was cold enough to come from a frozen sun, but it’s too early for that kind of weather. It wasn’t moist either, it was drying her throat out. Thirst overcame her. She couldn’t reach her water skin right now and decided it would be unwise trying to drink from up here. Instead, she searched for the Wounded Wyvern Tavern. The white, stone roof was easy to locate, but it looked a more plain from the sky than the ground. It made sense, advertising to the sky wouldn’t bring in all that many thirsty patrons!

  “Ready to descend?” Volk asked.

  Soaring so gently hadn’t felt like moving at all, it was so tranquil! Sonja then realised she could barely see the north gate without tilting her head and stretching her neck. “Ready when you are!”

  “Down!” Volk yelled, pulling the frame towards his body.

  Reizexus curled his head downwards, then his body followed, straightening out to a diagonal incline. The alpha wyvern tucked his wings close to his body, then shrunk as he descended. Raithia followed. Wind buffeted Sonja’s face, and the alpha stopped shrinking with the chase. Most of the town, the mountains and ocean, fled from view as the southern gate’s size grew at an alarming rate. The juvies spiralled and looped, turning their descent into a game among themselves.

  Not long before colliding with the gate itself, Reizexus spread out his wings, swooping across the land at breakneck speed. It felt as though Sonja’s heart was sitting in her stomach on the descent; the swift change in direction—from downwards to forwards—threw it deeper into her bowels.

  They shot away from Holtur, speeding across the land towards the ocean. The wyverns slowed down upon reaching the updraughts along the coastal cliffs. Sonja shook her head and beat the sack where her heart should be, attempting to regain her senses. Everything was where it was supposed to be, which was a definite relief.

  “Fuck, Red, I don’t like having no control!”

  “What do you mean?” Volk replied, veering Reizexus to the east. “We were in complete control!”

  Sonja rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t really focus on anything between Holtur and the coast.”

  “What?” Volk sounded annoyed. “You telling me you didn’t notice those bloody tracks?”

  “Bloody tracks?”

  “Might have been footprints?” Volk pointed into the scrub ahead of them. “Along that dirt road. The remaining brothers may have ran into a bit of trouble?”

  Sonja sighed, thinking of the more obvious answer. “Or the Professor…”

  “One way to find out.”

  Reizexus spiralled around a powerful updraught then glided across the thin coastal forest. Raithia followed, not entering the powerful updraught until Reizexus had left it. The juvies were all over the place, but their small size didn’t create an effective burble against the greater wyverns.

  Sonja had rarely ventured around the cliffs or forests south of Holtur, but from the sky they did look quite spectacular. Root systems—and some smaller trees—protruded from the side of the cliffs. The ocean side was mainly home to smaller, dryer scrub, while the inland side of the road housed larger and older trees. Further inland, the size of the vegetation increased; until the mountains and spires pierced through the land, then the plants grew tighter and rugged as the slopes ascended.

  Bloody footprints became apparent to Sonja once Raithia was above them. They continued along the dirt road for a while, then veered off under the thick, green canopy.

  “Land!” Volk shouted from Reizexus.

  Sonja lost sight of Reizexus as Raithia skimmed even closer to the ground. White knuckles gripped the frame as Sonja prepared for the landing. She wasn’t sure she could brace herself for the impact, they were moving pretty fast! Her body swung around with an impressive beat of Raithia’s wings. The next thing Sonja knew she was facing upright—watching Reizexus—as Raithia ran to a halt along the road. A sigh of relief escaped her lips. It was a pleasant landing compared to her last flight!

  Volk was already out of the sack and running towards the location where the trail led into the forest. Reizexus was trailing closely with the juvies frolicking about him. Sonja tried loosening the sack, but her hands were shaking from the adrenaline pulsating through her body. It was a different kind of adrenaline that came over her. Different to what surged through her when fighting monsters, and it was much harder to control.

  Volk turned to Sonja. “You alright, Captain?”

  “Yeah,” she rasped, then inhaled a deep breath. It turned out she forgot to breathe, which isn’t the best thing to do when pumping adrenaline. With air in her lungs and her heart starting to pump more regularly, she unclipped the sack and clambered out.

  “This way!” Volk exclaimed the obvious, then ran into the bushes.

  Sonja raced to catch up, a pair of juvies charging along either side of her. The trees here had full canopies—blocking out most sunlight—but there weren’t many branches too low to the ground. Large, dead branches littering the ground indicated that the trees must shed their branches when they no longer reached sunlight. The forest’s floor was covered in dead vegetation and the bloody footprints became impossible to track amidst the discarded red and yellow leaves. She smelt a slightly sweet scent above that of the rotting vegetation, then recognised the buzzing of bees coming from not too far off.

  “Professor?” Volk called out. Sonja repeated the call in another direction.

  “You hear that?” Sonja asked. “A rustling of leaf litter? That way.” She pointed, away from the buzzing.

  Volk and Sonja began prowling in the indicated direction, their boots sinking through dead vegetation with each step. Another leaf shuffling noise excited one of the juvies and it raced ahead of them with its wings tucked in. The little wyvern released an energetic screech and leapt towards the noise. It turned back to them, splashing blood from its mouth as it chewed on a fat, green frog.

  Volk sighed. “Only a frog…”

  Just as they thought the source of shuffling had been discovered—and eaten—the leaves beneath the little frog-muncher exploded. A crimson set of jaws burst from the ground, clamping firmly around the juvie’s waist. Skinny, webbed, red and white fingers—similar to that of the wyvern’s final meal, only considerably larger—grasped at the struggling juvie’s head and wings, pushing it gluttonously into the jaws. The predator-turned-prey screeched, and the tight squeeze forced out a plume of fire from its back and mouth.

  That whiny screech was cut short by the deafening roar of Raithia, then an even louder boom from Reizexus. It was difficult for the larger wyverns to move freely through this forest, but it wasn’t much effort for them to send two pillars of fire towards the creature that had wounded their offspring.

  Sonja and Volk leapt in opposite directions to avoid an early cremation, and the forest grew bright with the fires light. The crimson frog-like creature spat out the wyvern and had transformed into a hopping torch. It croaked in pain a few times as it attempted to flee, then collapsed. A loud popping noise confirmed that something had boiled, and escaped, from within it skin. Reizexus fell silent while Raithia whined.

  Cautiously, Sonja and Volk approached the juvie. Whining, a single winged claw scratched the burning ground as it attempted to haul itself towards its crying mother. Limp legs and tail dragged behind the poor thing. It jerked its neck around to Sonja, and the creature looked at her hopelessly; pain
was all its eyes displayed. Turning away from its gaze, Sonja noticed the other juvies had all left the forest to hide around the larger wyverns.

  “How can we help?” Volk asked, his voice croaky.

  “Reizexus,” Sonja called out to the large wyvern. “Your child is wounded, beyond anything we can repair. Even an angel would require a miracle to help.”

  Reizexus remained quiet while Raithia groaned louder and higher.

  “It would be torture, but I’ll drag your child out of the forest if you want.”

  Reizexus groaned, gargling a deep throaty noise.

  Sonja cleared her throat. “Or I can offer a quick, painless death.” She unsheathed her claymore, watching Reizexus’ pupil consume his eye as he watched from the road. She held the blade towards the wyvern. “Roar if you don’t want me to end it quickly.”

  The alpha closed his eyes and sighed a puff of smoke. Raithia’s whines grew louder, but she did not roar.

  Sonja looked at the juvie, it had stopped clawing towards its parents and just lay there, staring up at her, expectantly. “I’m sorry…” She brought her claymore down, cleaving it straight through the juvies neck. No rolling head. No burst of blood. What she had given was a sympathy. Sonja fought back a tear. What had she become? The last few suns had seen her tear through men without remorse, now she wanted to break down and cry at the death of a wyvern. She shook her head and began walking back to the road.

  A cough disturbed their silent walk out of the forest. “Slayers?” a dry, weak voice asked.

  “Professor?” Volk questioned.

  Another cough. “Yes…”

  Sonja looked towards the voice’s origin to find the thick, white trunk of a tree, smeared with bloody hand-prints. Following the bloody mark around the elderly tree, she found a hollow opening. Professor Wilbart Formidor—a sorry and bloody sight—held his hands to his stomach. “What happened?”

  “You know…” Wilbart dribbled blood with each word.

  “Caede?”

  Wilbart nodded weakly.

  “Shit!” Volk exclaimed upon seeing the professor.

  “I lied,” Wilbart mumbled. “Some secrets, should remain... Those brothers, they know…”

  “Know what?” Sonja asked.

  “How to find it…”

  “The Eternity Grail?” Sonja asked.

  “Yes…” Each word the professor spoke brought him visibly closer to death. “You must stop them…” He coughed “Vampires… have a role in things… for Holtur.”

  Sonja shook her head. “You knew about Rigst? How many more are there?”

  Wilbart blinked a few times, then narrowed his eyes, gazing sternly at Sonja. “Don’t let them steal that power.” A heavy arm struggled to point along the road. “Find the tavern… Moongate… climb the spires… stop the brothers…”

  “Why did you lie to us?” Sonja shook her head, still in disbelief that the professor knew of these horrors that cloaked themselves in the moon’s shadow.

  “Stop them…” Wilbart splattered blood through a cough. “Or the brothers will consume Holtur.”

  Sonja looked to Volk, his expression was just as worrisome as her own.

  “You must stop them!” Wilbart yelled, anger in his voice.

  “We will,” Sonja said, clasping her hand around the professor’s shoulder.

  Wilbart nodded short, rapid, shallow nods while coughing up more blood. His eyes rolled back in their sockets and his head fell back to rest against the tree.

  Sonja closed the man’s eyelids, then stood up to face Volk. “Red, did you see them?”

  “See what?”

  “The things that helped us?”

  “The shroud?”

  “No… before they came. They came before that too, the leeches?”

  “I didn’t see them myself.”

  Sonja sighed. “Rigst is one of them.”

  “You said that last moon… Eltra theorised that there may be multiple groups of them, some good, some evil.”

  “She did, and I think Wilbart just confirmed that. They’re also called vampires. My guess is that Caede and Crispin, the Brothers of Eternity, want to become like them.”

  “Why?” Volk asked. “Why would a man want to become a monster?”

  Sonja narrowed her eyes. “They already are monsters. They just want more power.”

  “We have to stop them!”

  “Yes,” Sonja said. “That we do.” A familiar rustling began to sound around them. “More lurkers. Let’s get out of here!”

  They raced towards the weeping wyverns. The sound of the lurkers chasing from under the forest’s litter was catching up. Sonja and Volk stepped out onto the dirt road, and all twelve of the remaining flame wyverns lit up the forest, spewing forth a blazing inferno. Trees and all, the forest went up in a brilliant plume of red. Several of the amphibious creatures bounced around on fire until something inside them popped. After that they just collapsed, allowing the fire to consume them.

  Sonja inhaled the smoking remains of burnt wood and fried lurkers. “Nicely done.” She smirked. “But we’ve got a lot more cooking to do yet!”

  Chapter 19: Moongate

  “Have you ever heard of a tavern outside of Holtur?” Sonja asked Volk. “One along the coastline?”

  Volk shook his head. “No, but there is a road. Despite its lack of upkeep, someone must be using it. Otherwise it would be overgrown.”

  “The tavern the professor spoke of… it must be home to the vampires, to the leeches.”

  “Shit, Sonja, we could burn it down, put an end to the vile things once and for all.”

  “You heard what he said, those creatures play a vital role for Holtur.”

  Volk sighed. “That’s fucking hard to believe, especially right now!”

  “Well, we failed at returning Professor Wilbart Formidor to Holtur, but we still need to stop the Brothers of Eternity. I shall be pressing forward, if you don’t wish to continue, I won’t force you to.”

  Volk spat. “What? Let you take all the glory for yourself?” He flung his ginger fuzz with a shake of his head. “I don’t think so, Captain.”

  Sonja smirked. “Didn’t think you’d flee, Red. Still, we need a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  “Besting Caede in combat would be difficult, even for myself. Crispin’s mastery of fire is far beyond yours, beyond that of Raithia’s or Reizexus’ too.”

  “Shit…”

  “So we need a plan!”

  Volk frowned. “What do you suggest?”

  “Remember the sorbguamis?” Sonja asked. “Remember what happened when they absorbed heat?”

  “The fuckers went berserk!”

  “Since our first encounter with Crispin, I told my brother that fire resistant armour should be a priority for the Bristrunstium.”

  “I doubt he could convince them of that!” Volk scrunched up his face. “You know those scholarly types, they always favour their personal projects.”

  “I have faith in him,” Sonja said. “He said he has made considerable progress and will be running tests this sun. Hopefully he’ll have something ready for us soon. Once we find this tavern Wilbart spoke of we’ll send the wyverns back to Holtur.”

  “Without riders?” Volk swallowed. “Without us?”

  Sonja nodded.

  “How is that a plan?”

  “You’ll write a note for my brother,” Sonja said. “Telling him to deliver the armour—with the wyverns—not too far from this alleged tavern.”

  “But what if Crispin finds us first?”

  “Hopefully he’ll be too busy looking for the Eternity Grail.” Sonja narrowed her eyes. “In the message, ask for Ivan Griswald to come as back up.”

  “That crazy fucker? Doesn’t he belong to Glacious Divine Ones?”

  “That he does.” Sonja nodded. “I don’t know how bad all of this is, but Ivan’s mark might allow him to succeed where we may fail. Ivan’s failure—especially his demise at Caede or Crispin’
s hands—would attract the wrath of Glacious.”

  “That’s quite the backup plan. Sounds like something Vivian Patressi would do!”

  Sonja laughed, then turned to Raithia. She, along with Reizexus and the juvies, were intently watching Sonja. How much of the common tongue the wyverns understood she could not say, but the intense look in their eyes confirmed more comprehension than she had initially thought. “I don’t want any more of your family to come to harm,” Sonja said, putting her hand out towards Raithia.

  “You finally falling for the reds?” Volk asked.

  “Perhaps. They are finer beings than some people,” Sonja said climbing into Raithia’s piloting sack. “Come on, we have a tavern to find.”

  “Let’s fly,” Volk said. Once comfortably strapped into Reizexus’ piloting sack, he looked to Sonja and asked, “Ready?”

  Sonja returned with a thumbs up. “Go!”

  On Sonja’s command the majestic, red serpents beat their wings and took to the sky. Sonja felt less discomfort and held her focus on the surrounds much easier this time. Regardless, losing traction with the ground, and seeing it shrink beneath her, still forced breath to get caught in her lungs. Her heart may have also skipped a beat or two. She doubted that any amount of wyvern flights would obliterate those feelings completely.

  Endless waves from the ocean’s merciless roil constantly crashed against the cliffs that held up the land. The road they tracked followed that jutting edge; it was carved, in and out, at odd angles along the coastline.

  Catching the powerful updraughts offered from the swell, the wyverns soared along for about an hour with ease. The land curved into a peninsula pointing east into the ocean while the shoreline—and road—turned north. Out this far east the inland mountains grew taller, sharp spires of narrow rock pierced through them—giving an ominous, unnatural feel to the land—like gigantic spears reaching for the sun.