“But we would still be summoned into Barhus’s presence,” Orlla pointed out. “And he won’t leave himself vulnerable. He’s bound to have Protectors on the other side of the pass waiting to take us captive.”
“We will be summoned, but if we cloak ourselves in veiling runes, we will have the advantage,” Akolom said. “We can attack first as the Protectors won’t be able to see us. Our only path forward lies in killing Barhus and any remaining Protectors who side with him.”
“We dare not fail,” Orlla said. “If the dark dragon stone falls into his hands, all is lost.”
They fell silent for a few minutes considering the choices before them. They could submit to the summoning rune, and fight Barhus and however many Protectors he had at his side, or wait until the battle was over and hope the mainland armies broke through the pass and slayed Barhus before he had a chance to veil it from them.
Orlla shuddered as the distant cries of dying men meshed with the sickening clash of swords and spears. Hamend and Brufus would stop at nothing to gain control of the dragon stones. If the mainland armies penetrated the pass, they would hunt down every last Keeper hiding in the Angladior mountains.
“I’m with Akolom,” Orlla said. “Whatever hope we have of succeeding in our mission lies on the other side of the pass.” She turned to Erdhan. “You must arm your brother. You will not be able to protect him once we are summoned.”
A flicker of unease crossed Erdhan’s face, but he unbuckled his baldric and fastened it around his brother’s waist. “Take my sword,” he told him. “I have my throwing knives.”
Franz flushed with pride even though his bottom lip trembled. “I won’t let you down.”
Erdhan squeezed his shoulder and looked away, his eyes glistening with emotion.
Akolom and Orlla drew aside and began to construct a chain of veiling and mental protection runes around all four of them. Energy drained from Orlla, and her pulse thudded as the runes grew more robust. In the distance, the battle waged on. Every minute spent on this side of the pass was a minute closer to failure. They had to get through to the Angladior mountains before the mainland armies discovered them.
“Erdhan? Where are you?” Franz’s elevated voice cut through Orlla’s thoughts. “Where did everyone go?”
She smiled to herself as she watched Franz reach out for his brother, his fingers grasping at air.
Erdhan felt around for his brother and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’m right beside you. We are veiled from view. Only the Keepers can see our outlines.”
Resuming her concentration, Orlla focused on weaving the final layers of the runes.
At last, with a weary sigh, Akolom signaled to her that the veiling and mental protection runes were robust. Orlla cast an anxious look over him. Purple bags hung beneath his eyes, and the lines that radiated out from them had deepened and lengthened, carving their way through his flesh like flash floods gouging channels in a dried-out canyon. Her stomach roiled at the possibility of losing him before they reached the other Keepers. She needed Akolom to see this mission through. She would not be able to oust Barhus alone, and the other Keepers were a day’s journey away—too far to help her.
“Ready?” Akolom asked, looking around at them.
They gave grim nods, hands on the hilts of their swords.
“We’ll enter the pass one at a time, stay as close to the person in front of you as you dare,” Akolom said. “That way, we will be summoned almost instantaneously and can fight alongside each other. I’ll lead, and Erdhan can take up the rear.”
Erdhan turned to Franz and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t hesitate. At the first opportunity, drive your sword into the nearest Protector. The veiling runes won’t last long, and as soon as they spot you, they will try to kill you.”
Franz gulped and nodded, his fingers fumbling over the baldric strapped around his waist.
Orlla looked away. He was only a lad, but they needed him to be a man for as long as it took them to dispose of Barhus. Franz would have to fight for his life like the rest of them. There was little possibility of saving each other’s skins in the precarious situation they were about to enter.
Cautiously, they padded out from the trees and closer to the mounted Protectors who remained unaware of their approach. Orlla followed Akolom’s lead and snuck between the two horses patrolling the area in front of the pass. One of them let out a disinterested snort as they went by, not enough to alert the Protectors to something untoward. When they reached the narrow pass, Akolom didn’t hesitate. He turned his body sideways and slipped between the two mounted Protectors blocking the entrance.
Orlla stepped forward to follow him just as one of the horses turned its head to nuzzle its companion. She froze, then changed course and scurried around the horse on the left, pressing herself up against the thicket that lined the entrance as she went. A soft neigh was the last thing she heard before a bolt of energy swept through her and she began to spin. Her head felt as if it was about to explode with the momentum, and her mind grew groggy as she fought the numbing sensation.
A moment later, her feet touched down on the ground. Her eyes latched onto Akolom lying in a crumpled heap at her feet. Was he unconscious? Her muscles locked at the dreadful thought that his heart had given up after enduring the powerful summoning rune. She cast a frantic glance around, assessing the situation as Barhus’s voice drifted her way. He stood with his back to them, in conversation with half a dozen mounted Protectors only a few feet away, oblivious to their arrival. But, the veiling rune wouldn’t last for long.
A heartbeat later, Erdhan and Franz appeared at her side, shaken but upright. She pointed urgently to Barhus and his men. They couldn’t afford to waste time tending to Akolom now or they would all die. They would have to attack with fewer resources than they had planned and make the most of the time they remained invisible. She unsheathed her sword and raised it, turning her head in time to see Franz keel over in Erdhan’s arms, his eyes rolling in the back of his head as he let out a moan. Her blood ran cold. The summoning rune had been too much for his young frame.
Barhus wheeled around at the sound, eyes widening in his disfigured face. “They are here!” he roared. “Swords at the ready!”
Erdhan’s panicked gaze landed on Orlla, pleading with her to do something as he held his brother in his arms.
She could not fight them alone. Although the veiling rune was still in place, Barhus was able to see her and would direct the Protectors to her. Akolom and Franz were helpless—Erdhan was distracted and could not be relied upon to come to her aid while his brother lay motionless in his arms. Her eyes drifted to the sack at Akolom’s waist. There was another way to bring this to an end. A shiver shot down her spine. It frightened her to her core to even consider it. Conflicted, she glanced back at the others. To her horror, Erdhan’s solid form was already fluttering back into view. Any second now, the Protectors would see them clearly.
In one fluid sweep, Orlla sliced open the sack and reached for the dark dragon stone just as the shouts of the Protectors filled her ears. Holding the stone aloft, she invoked the forbidden rune inscribed upon it.
Chapter 32
A blast of hot air threw her backwards. The sky above them lit up with a brilliant explosion of flames, making it look like the heavens themselves had been consumed. The stone burned deep into Orlla’s consciousness as the heat inside it mounted. She felt no pain, even though she held the burning orb in her hands. Her mind warmed to the glow of the Onyx, her desire for it so overpowering she could think of nothing thing else beyond the euphoria of the moment.
One corner of the sky darkened, distracting her momentarily from the seductive beauty of the stone’s flickering core. Her breath balked in her throat. A mass of dark dragons, unblinking eyes gleaming like full moons, bore down on them. They churned the air into a tornado as they thrust their tails, propelling themselves forward in a whirlwind of motion that scattered the clouds in their path. Claws fully ext
ended, they snatched and tore at the Protectors as they dove among them. Erdhan threw himself over Franz to protect him. “Get rid of the stone!” he yelled to Orlla.
Ripped from her reverie, she dropped to the ground next to Akolom, and hastily stuffed the stone back into the ripped sack, covering it up as best she could. Almost at once, the darkness began to retreat and the dragons gradually circled higher in the sky until they disappeared from view entirely.
Heaving for breath, Orlla peered through the haze of acrid smoke, searching for any sign of Barhus. Surely, he couldn’t have escaped the wrath of the dragons a second time.
“Are you all right?” Erdhan rasped, laying a hand on her shoulder.
She nodded and checked to make sure Akolom was still breathing. “He’s alive, but barely,” she said. “He exerted more energy than he could spare on the runes to veil and protect us.” She stretched out her hands over him and began to weave a basic healing rune. After a few minutes, his breathing grew stronger. Relief flooded through her as his color returned. “He will recover. He just needs to rest.” She peered past Erdhan at Franz who sat to one side, pasty and wide-eyed. “How is he?”
“He’s okay, just in shock,” Erdhan replied.
Orlla got to her feet slowly, her legs unsteady. “Any sign of Barhus? We can’t let him escape a second time.”
Erdhan grimaced. “I think the dragons took them all.”
“We need to make sure,” Orlla insisted. “Tell Franz to watch over Akolom and the stone while we search for survivors.”
The smoke was beginning to clear and the true extent of the savagery that had taken place made itself evident as Orlla and Erdhan crossed the clearing. Blood was streaked across the ground where badly-clawed bodies had been dragged before going airborne. A shredded saddle lay on its side next to a rock spattered with blood. A short distance away on an embankment lay the partially eaten carcass of a horse, its intestines spilling out over the rocks.
“One of the dragons must have dropped it,” Erdhan said quietly.
Orlla turned away from the distressing sight of the magnificent animal’s gruesome demise. She spotted an abandoned bow by a nearby boulder and slung it over her shoulder. “We can make good use of this.”
They continued searching a wide swath of terrain around the clearing to make sure there were no survivors hiding in the vicinity, and then turned to walk back over to Akolom and Franz.
“What’s this?” Erdhan asked, kicking at a large, leafy fern.
Orlla screamed when Barhus’s mutilated head rolled out.
Erdhan quickly booted the head back beneath the fern. “I guess that answers our question,” he said with a shudder.
Orlla clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from gagging, trying not to picture what was lying under the leaves. She had despised Barhus but did not revel in the brutality of his death.
“We need to get out of here,” Erdhan muttered. “The scent of death hangs over this place.”
“We can’t travel until Akolom recovers,” Orlla replied. “I’ll construct a veiling rune over the entrance to the pass to keep us safe in the meantime.”
“I’ll check on him and see how he’s doing. If I have to carry him, that will delay our progress considerably.”
“I could try applying another healing rune,” Orlla said, her voice betraying her fear that her power would be exhausted by the time she had veiled the pass.
“Take care of concealing the pass first,” Erdhan responded. “If we need to, we can make camp here for the night to allow Akolom enough time to recover. So long as the pass remains hidden from sight, we’ll be safe from the mainland armies.”
Orlla walked down to the entrance to the pass and soon lost herself in the rune weaving she excelled at. Veiling runes came easy to her, and she had done much of her training at this very pass. As she went deeper into the rune, she realized she was able to link to some of the old runes that had previously been in place and reconnect them. Together with the fresh runes she was overlaying, the pass would remain impenetrable at least until sundown on the morrow. The thought cheered her weary spirit. They could make camp and get some rest tonight before hiking higher into the mountains to meet up with the other Keepers.
When she returned to the others, she shared the good news with Erdhan.
“In that case, I’m in favor of making camp for the night,” he said. “Akolom is in and out of it, although I think it is mostly due to exhaustion. With a good night’s sleep behind him, he should be ready to travel in the morning.”
“What about Franz?” Orlla asked.
“He’s worn out too.” Erdhan rubbed the back of his neck. “We could all do with some rest if you’re sure the pass is secure.”
Orlla nodded. “As it stands, it’s only visible to a Keeper. The runes will hold at least until tomorrow evening—longer if I fortify them again in the morning before we leave.”
Erdhan flashed her a grateful smile. “That’s the best news I’ve had all day, and it’s been a long one. I’ll scout out someplace nearby where we’ll be sheltered from this wind that’s whipping up.”
“Don’t go too far,” Orlla said, sinking down next to Akolom. “I don’t want to have to come looking for you.”
Erdhan winked. “I like how your forehead furrows when you worry about me.”
Orlla chuckled and lay down, folding her arms behind her head. “Make haste, or I’ll fall asleep and forget all about you.”
She didn’t realize she had dozed off until Erdhan poked her in the ribs. She bolted into an upright position, head spinning this way and that. “What is it?”
“You weren’t supposed to be napping while I was gone,” he chided, with a mischievous laugh. “Thankfully, our faithful knight, Franz, took it upon himself to keep watch over Akolom.”
Orlla rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry. Good work, Franz.”
The lad beamed with pride, unsheathing and resheathing the sword at his waist. “I know you sealed off the pass but I spent the time practicing my swings and cuts, just in case.”
Erdhan slapped him on the back approvingly. “A soldier is always prepared. You never know when the next attack will come.”
“Did you find a spot to bed down for the night?” Orlla asked.
“There’s a large burrow in some tree roots not far from here,” Erdhan said. “It’s protected from the wind, and it won’t take you long to come back here in the morning and fortify the runes before we head out.”
Orlla leaned over her mentor and shook him gently. “Akolom, can you hear me?”
He moaned and shifted position but made no attempt to sit up or open his eyes.
“Leave him be,” Erdhan said. “I’ll carry him. Probably best if he sleeps off the effects of the summoning rune.”
Orlla gave a dubious nod. She hoped it was only the effects of the summoning rune he was wrestling with, and not the beginning of his journey to the second life. She reached for the torn sack lying next to Akolom and a prickle of desire ran down her spine. Erdhan placed a restraining hand on her arm. “Let Franz carry the dragon stone.”
Flushing with guilt, Orlla nodded and snatched her hand away. Erdhan was right not to trust her. She was only ever a hairsbreadth away from succumbing to the dark call of the Onyx. She left Franz to wrestle with the torn sack and turned her attention to helping Erdhan hoist Akolom over his shoulder. When they had positioned him as comfortably as possible, they set off for the burrow Erdhan had found. Franz insisted on taking up the rear position, determined to prove his worth as a guard. Orlla suspected he felt embarrassed about passing out from the effects of the summoning rune and being unfit to fight when they’d needed him most.
Erdhan showed signs of weariness as they plodded through the trees and crossed a small stream. More than once, Orlla found herself stretching out a hand, fearing Akolom would slip from his grasp. The summoning rune had left them all shattered, physically as well as mentally. And the grueling days and nights with little sleep they had s
pent in the sinking bogs and lost kingdoms were catching up with them.
When they reached the burrow, which was further than Erdhan had estimated, Orlla helped make Akolom comfortable in a litter of leaves and then covered him up with his cloak. Franz carefully set the wrapped stone down next to him. Apart from the occasional moan, Akolom still hadn’t spoken a word since the summoning rune. Orlla tore her gaze from his seamed face. She would not allow herself to imagine the worst, not now, not when they were so close to reaching the other Keepers. Their combined power could enact a healing rune that would restore Akolom to health and vitality.
While she worked on getting a fire going, Erdhan and Franz whittled on some arrows for the bow she had found earlier. Orlla’s thoughts drifted to her father and the short period of lucidity she had enjoyed with him before his death. It had been a respite in a dry and barren few years. If Efyllsseum had held on to the Opal of Light, those dry and barren years would have stretched on into eternity. She didn’t regret the unanimous decision they had made to relocate the light dragon stone to the mainland. Even if she lost Akolom in the process, many others would live. Franz had been completely healed of his cough since the sun had returned to the mainland. Orlla blinked back salty tears of joy and sorrow intermingled. So much good had come of their decision to break the cycle of King Ferghell’s greed, and Akolom would want her to keep moving forward and see the mission through to the end, with or without him.
Erdhan got to his feet, bow in hand. “I’m going to test this out and see if I can bag us something to eat.” He nodded in Franz’s direction. “You’re in charge of guarding the camp and the stone while I’m gone.”
“Yes sir,” Franz replied, barely able to suppress a broad smile.
Orlla grinned back at him as she sank down next to the fire. She was too tired to stand, let alone fight. If the mainland armies came for them now, she had no strength left to resist them. Her eyelids drifted to half-mast as the fire began to warm her chilled limbs.
Onyx of Darkness_An epic dragon fantasy Page 25