Chapter 25
“Lucius, what’s wrong?” Silas asked. The younger man stared at him and the others like he’d seen a ghost. He then took a defensive stance, grasping his sword with both hands in front of him.
“What have you done with them, Memnon?” Lucius yelled.
“Did he just call you, Memnon?” Dudley said, frowning.
“Oh no,” Becca said. “There’s an acolyte nearby. He’s using an illusion spell on him!”
“Lucius, it’s us. Whatever you’re seeing is not real,” Siegfried said calmly. He took a step closer to his brother, but Lucius became more apprehensive.
“Dudley and Darius, find the acolyte and kill him. It’s the only way we’ll free him of this,” Silas said.
But before either man could move, a band of Draknoir rushed out of the main keep. There were six of the brutes, wielding spears and scimitars—screaming obscenities at Silas and the others. Behind the Draknoir group stood a tall, thin figure inside the entrance of the main keep. He looked liked the other Draknoir save for his black hooded cloak and glowing purple eyes.
The acolyte.
Silas moved toward the figure as Becca and Siegfried engaged the first of the Draknoir warriors. Siegfried released an arrow into the chest of the closest Draknoir and the beast stumbled for a moment. Then he surged forward and knocked the bow out of the elf’s hand. The two fighters encircled each other and fought in a close-quarter melee. Opposite from Silas, Becca parried blows from another warrior while Dudley and Darius fought hard against the remaining Draknoir with the help of the knights.
Silas kept his focus on the acolyte, but as he neared the conjurer, Lucius engaged him. He came at him with quick overhand cuts that put him on the defensive immediately. The strikes were furious and, if Silas wasn't on the receiving end of Lucius’ sword, he would have been impressed with the young warrior’s swordsmanship.
“Lucius! You have to stop this—I’m not your enemy!” Silas yelled, parrying another blow.
“You’ll die for what you’ve done to them!” Lucius cried.
Silas couldn't get through to his friend. More than a year ago, he faced a similar ordeal in Neroterra when the goblin shaman, Urbengal, hexed his men. Friends turned against each other, tricked into thinking their brothers in arms were fearsome orcs. The only manner of breaking the spell was killing the spellcaster.
Silas redoubled his efforts. He wouldn’t last long in a defensive battle against Lucius, but neither could he bring himself to hurt him. The best option he had was to incapacitate him long enough to kill the sorcerer.
“Siegfried!” Silas yelled. “Can you throw rocks as good as you shoot arrows?”
Siegfried, still battling the injured Draknoir, frowned at him. “I’m a little busy at the moment,” he said.
“When you’ve finished with that beast, throw a rock at your brother’s head!” Silas said.
“What?”
“Just do it!”
Siegfried dodged a swipe from the Draknoir’s blade then quickly stabbed the Draknoir beneath the armpit. The warrior fell to his knees and toppled sideways. Looking over at Silas, understanding finally appeared on Siegfried’s face. He grabbed a piece of stone debris on the ground, judged the distance to his target, then launched the stone into the air.
Lucius thrust his sword at Silas and just as the king parried it, the stone struck Lucius in the temple with a satisfying thwack. He doubled over and put a hand on his face where a welt formed. Silas ran past him, leaping across the courtyard like a deer fleeing from a wolf. The acolyte’s eyes widened as he neared and the Draknoir hurled a bolt of purple energy at him. Silas expected the attack and sidestepped the blast at the last moment. He felt the searing hot energy flow past him and it struck the wall of the courtyard behind him. Before the acolyte attacked again, Silas closed in. He drove the tip of his blade into the Draknoir’s chest and it came out the creature’s back. The acolyte’s eyes lost their ethereal glow immediately and Silas felt the sorcerer’s body go slack onto the blade. He withdrew the blade then turned his attention to the courtyard where Siegfried and the rest of his team handily defeated the remaining Draknoir without casualties.
Lucius, still clutching his temple, stood up and glanced around the courtyard—surprised to see them all. “What... where did Memnon go?” He asked.
Siegfried stepped over and placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “We’ll tell you about it later. Oh, and sorry about your head,” he said.
Lucius frowned, looking more confused than ever.
“Where do we go from here, Becca?” Silas peered inside the doorway where the Draknoir had come from.
“There’s a stairwell down this hallway. We ascend three floors and the lookout will be just around the corner. When we rode down the slope, I saw Memnon there, just as I thought,” she said.
Silas nodded. “He’s no doubt waiting to hurl thunderbolts or reanimate the dead with that cursed gauntlet of his,” he said bitterly.
“So what are we waiting for? Let’s go kill him and be done with it,” Dudley said.
But Becca was shaking her head. “This could very well be a trap. There could easily be Draknoir waiting to ambush us on the steps,” she said.
An ambush seemed likely to Silas. Fortresses like Arkadeus were built with maximum defensive capability in mind. Every stairwell in a fortification like this would be a confined spiral putting any invading force at a disadvantage. When ascending such stairs, the invader cannot see his attacker even if they are a few steps below them. Additionally, the stairs wound up counter-clockwise. This makes it more difficult to launch an attack with the invader’s weapon held on the right. The design of the staircase gave the advantage to those defending from above, not those attacking from below. It would place them in a precarious position if Draknoir were indeed waiting on the steps.
“We need to split up,” Silas said finally. “Is there any other way to access the third floor of the keep besides that stairwell?”
“Yes,” Siegfried chimed in. He gestured toward the stairs next to the wall of the fortress. “Those stairs will get us on the wall. From there, we can travel along the battlements until we reach the tower on the eastern wall. I’m confident we can enter the keep from there and find the stairwell.”
Silas turned to Becca and his sister nodded. “It’s a more circuitous path, but it will get them there.”
“In that case, Lucius and Siegfried will go along the wall. Take men with you. Dudley and Darius, you’re with us and the rest,” Silas ordered. “Once the stairwell is cleared from above, I’ll lead us up to Memnon’s lookout.”
“Begging your pardon, your Majesty. But how will we know Lucius and Siegfried have cleared the stairwell?” Darius asked.
“We won’t,” Silas admitted. Then he exchanged a glance with Lucius. “I’ll give you a quarter of an hour to reach the stairs before we rush in from below. It’s not much time, but there’s precious little of that to spare if we want to end Memnon and Kraegyn’s ambitions here and now.”
Lucius nodded. “We understand.”
“Good, now get up those stairs and—”
A sudden roar from above cut off Silas’ sentence. The shadow of a large dragon passed over the courtyard. It was Kraegyn. The Black Dragon circled around and spotted the group immediately. Before Silas could move or shout, the dragon lord swooped low and knocked down a buttress beside the doorway they stood in. Stones came crashing down. Silas immediately rushed inside the keep to avoid the rocky avalanche, instinctively pulling Becca away from danger. Dudley and Darius followed them, along with a handful of knights who avoided being crushed by the buttress. In a matter of seconds they stood in a dark hall, trapped inside Arkadeus.
“Lucius and the others are still out there,” Dudley said, his voice cracking.
“Then let us pray Yéwa is with them,” Silas said.
Lucius jumped away from the fallen buttress moments before it blocked the entrance of the main keep. He quickl
y searched the courtyard for Siegfried and found his brother had also avoided the falling debris. Most of the other men had not been so lucky—only three knights survived. He couldn’t see Silas or the others anywhere in the courtyard and presumed they had rushed inside the keep safely. Another roar from the sky jolted Lucius. They had to get out of here fast. Kraegyn would circle back and likely target whoever remained from his previous attack.
“Siegfried, let’s go—now!” Lucius shouted.
The small group ran up the stairs onto the top of the northern wall. Siegfried led the way down the narrow battlements while Lucius kept his eyes trained on the sky. Far off he could see the massive black shape of Kraegyn as he flew away from their position. Then the dragon circled to his left, heading back toward the courtyard.
“Here he comes!” Lucius cried.
They hurried down the wall, reaching one of the guard towers at the northeast corner of the fortress. The small tower provided some cover, but given the fact that Kraegyn had just toppled a large buttress, it offered Lucius little comfort. They ducked inside the tower just as Kraegyn passed over them. Fire blasted onto the roof of the structure and he could feel the intense heat burning through the wooden roof.
“We can’t stay here,” Siegfried said. He peered out the single slit in the circular wall of the tower. “He’s turning back.”
“If we rush out, he’ll burn us immediately on the wall,” Lucius said. “Wait until he passes over the tower again then we’ll file out of here and head for the tower near the keep.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” One of the knights asked.
“Probably not. But we have little choice in the matter,” Lucius replied.
“Here he comes!” Siegfried shouted.
Everyone crouched and huddled close in the center of the room. Lucius felt the rush of air as Kraegyn flew past, followed by another wave of heat buffeting the roof. Now he could see the flames burning through the wood above. He coughed as smoke filled the room then ran out of the tower with the others. They barely made it six feet on the wall before the roof of the tower collapsed on itself. Siegfried sped down the battlements, leading the group while Lucius held up the rear. To his right, Lucius saw the large courtyard at the front of the keep. Several feet above was a tall platform jutting out from the keep—the lookout point! Memnon strode across the platform and released bolts of purple energy from the gauntlet at the Aldronians fighting on the hill below.
Movement from above caught Lucius’ eye. Kraegyn was circling back for another attack. They still had several yards to cover before they’d reach the tower that led to the main keep. Lucius doubled his pace, pumping his legs onto the uneven stone as fast as his muscles would allow. But in the end, it was not enough.
Kraegyn crashed through the battlements with his hind legs. The dragon’s claws tore the stonework asunder, leaving a gaping hole at the top of the wall. Lucius fell backward from the impact and watched as knights fell to their deaths in the courtyard below. He searched in a panic for his brother and found that the elf was on the other side of the chasm that now divided them. Siegfried lay on the ground, unmoving. Lucius stood up, wondering how he could cross to the other side. Before an answer came to him, he heard a large crack beneath his feet. The stress created by the puncture in the wall caused the stone to split. He felt the wall careen slowly to his right, leaning into the empty courtyard below. Instinctively, Lucius spun his body to the left to avoid the perilous drop and clung to one of the crenellations.
He rode the section of the wall as it buckled and fell. Though he avoided being crushed by the crumbling rocks, the impact of the fall propelled him several feet. His body rolled violently onto the hard ground. Then everything went black.
Chapter 26
Silas led everyone to the spiral staircase at the end of the hall. Outside the stone walls, he heard the muffled sounds of battle raging on and he wondered how Aldron fared. His army would have a better chance of winning once Memnon was out of the equation. But their path to the Draknoir sorcerer was still hindered by the unknown dangers that lay ahead. Bracing himself, he gripped his sword and stepped in the stairwell.
“We don’t know if Lucius and the others will make it to the top, so we’ll have to move cautiously. Nobody do anything stupid and we might make it out of here alive,” Silas said.
There was a collective nod from everyone and he took a tentative step up the stairwell. One of the knights, Jerome, suddenly stepped in front of him.
“Excuse me, your Majesty. But we’ve sworn an oath to protect you and the kingdom. Let us take the lead in your stead,” Jerome said.
Silas nodded and the other five knights followed Jerome’s lead. They climbed up the tight staircase peering uneasily around each bend for any unseen attacker lying in wait. Torches were set every few feet on the adjacent wall and they cast eerie shadows as the flames swirled at their passing. They ascended one floor with no opposition and Silas was hopeful at the possibility they’d been mistaken. Perhaps the Draknoir had not posted anyone on the stairwell. Memnon was known for his hubris and he may have overestimated the strength of Arkadeus to keep out invaders.
It was a vain hope.
Once they were past the second floor of the stairs, a sudden sword strike cut Jerome down and the man fell dead onto the steps above Silas. The rest of the knights waited apprehensively for an advance from the enemy above, but it did not come. Silas gritted his teeth. The Draknoir would pick them off one by one. They had the strategic advantage. Why rush down the steps and jeopardize their lives when they could launch quick attacks that would be near impossible to counter? This would be a game of attrition and Silas would lose.
Well played, Memnon, he thought.
He saw two options ahead. The first was to descend the stairs and find another route to Memnon’s location. But that would take them longer and who knew how many more Draknoir were still in the fortress? They might lose more of their numbers in the process and he couldn’t live with that.
The second option was to wait for Lucius and Siegfried to engage the enemy from the top of the staircase. Again, there lay a problem with that course. He didn’t know whether they had survived Kraegyn’s assault on the courtyard. Even if they had, could they escape the Black Dragon’s terror to help them? He just wasn’t sure.
“What do we do now, brother?” Becca interrupted his thoughts.
Silas set his jaw as he weighed the options again. There was another option that stood out in his mind. They could rush up the stairs and overwhelm the Draknoir. It was the last thing the enemy would expect he would do, and sometimes that was the best strategy. The downside was the danger he’d place everyone in. But then the flickering flames of the torch nearby gave him an idea.
“Darius, hand me that torch,” Silas said.
“What do you have in mind?” Dudley said.
“Follow my lead,” he whispered. With the torch in hand, he reared back and tossed it upward around the spiraling stairs. The Draknoir above grunted in surprise as the torch clattered on the steps near him. “Attack!” Silas yelled.
The king rushed up the steps and faced his enemy, who hesitated for a second. Silas quickly took stock of the situation. Two additional Draknoir were behind the first and they too were caught off-guard. Not wasting the opportunity, Silas swiftly cut across the first Draknoir’s torso before the warrior could defend himself. The other two were on him in an instant, but Becca and Dudley were right behind him. Swords gleamed in the torchlight for several seconds. Then the stairwell was still again and two more dead Draknoir lay on the steps.
“That’s for Jerome, you scaly cowards,” Silas said, spitting at the ground.
“There might be more,” Becca said.
“I certainly hope so,” Silas replied.
They ascended slowly until they came to the next torch. Becca took it from the wall and gave a nod toward Silas. He nodded in return then she tossed the torch above them. This time Silas didn’t wait for a reaction, he s
urged up the steps with the rest of his knights. The Draknoir waiting were less skittish then the previous group. They likely heard the clash below them and prepared for an attack. Still, Silas’ early advance caught them unaware and they fought a skirmish that lasted only a few minutes. But Silas suffered casualties among his group. Two more knights fell to the Draknoir and a third was badly injured.
“How much further to go?” Silas asked his sister impatiently.
“One more flight and we’ll be at the hall that leads out to Memnon's platform,” Becca replied.
“I’m sure your former boss has heard all the commotion in here then,” Dudley said.
“Maybe. Sound doesn’t travel far inside this enclosed staircase. And Memnon is likely more focused on conjuring spells to aid his minions than anything happening here,” Becca said.
Silas ran a hand over his sweaty face. “There’s sure to be one more group of Draknoir between here and the third floor. Let’s finish this and do what we came here for,” he said.
He commanded the remaining knight in his group, Rodney, to stay with his wounded comrade. The injured knight, Dillon, protested the order, citing their duty to protect the king, but Silas strongly objected. No more men needed to perish on his account. In the back of his mind, he accepted that this would be his last stand against Memnon. He would fight the Draknoir leader until his last breath to ensure the survival of Aldron and all of Azuleah. Such a decision needn’t cost the lives of others, even ones so loyal to the crown.
They continued upward on the staircase—Silas and Becca in front and Dudley and Darius in the rear. Their pattern was the same as before. Becca grabbed the next torch, threw it around the bend, and they charged up the steps. But this time, no Draknoir waited to ambush them.
“I guess we cleared the place out,” Dudley suggested.
Silas nodded. He saw the third floor doorway around the bend. They stepped through it hesitantly, waiting for another attack, but as before, no Draknoir were around. Silas walked down a dark hall until it came to an intersection with another hallway. Light poured out from the right and he turned to glance down the new hallway. At the end of the hall stood an open archway and beyond it, Memnon stood on the lookout. The Draknoir’s arms moved wildly and every few seconds, beams of purple light emanated from the gauntlet he wore.
Keep of Dragons (The Azuleah Trilogy Book 3) Page 31