by Dean Cadman
LUSAM
THE DRAGON MAGE WARS
BOOK FOUR
by
DEAN CADMAN ©2016
www.deancadman.com
First published 2016
This edition published 2016 by Dean Cadman
Copyright © Dean Cadman 2016
The right of Dean Cadman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
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This book is dedicated to
Dennis William Cadman
1947 – 2016
“My hero”
Chapter One
The magnificent dragon soared high in the blue expanse of the morning sky. Its deep purple—almost black—scales on its enormous wings glistened in the early morning sunlight, as it banked first to the left, then to the right, trying to gain what little cover it could find within the scant morning cloud, as it hunted its prey far below. Its long sinuous tail stretched out far behind it, belying its true power, and its black razor-sharp talons were tucked neatly under its belly, poised to attack when the time came.
A large antelope grazed peacefully on the vast grassland far below, oblivious to the danger high above it in the morning sky. Its senses were extremely keen, but its ancient instincts told it that predators only attacked from the ground, and not from the air above. Its ears turned independently of each other as it grazed, listening intently for any telltale signs of an approaching predator. Its nostrils flared, snuffing the morning air currents for any potential dangers, and its keen eyes constantly scanned the surrounding grassland and nearby woodland. But its fate was already sealed.
The dragon masterfully positioned itself in the sky with the low morning sun directly behind it, blinding the antelope to its incredibly fast approach. The antelope neither heard nor smelt the approaching dragon, and by the time it saw it coming, it was far too late for the poor beast.
The antelope easily weighed more than two grown men, but the dragon snatched it from the ground with its huge talons as easily as an eagle would a field mouse. The creature screamed in terror as it was carried high into the air, but was silenced a moment later when the enormously powerful talons crushed the life from the ill-fated beast.
The dragon roared loudly towards the morning sky, as if announcing its hunting prowess to the world, and defying anyone to challenge its dominance over its vast domain. It wasn’t simply sound that the dragon emitted. It also seemed to project its raw emotions too. Creatures of all sizes, from the smallest vole, to the largest predators all ran for cover. None of them knew why, or from what they ran, but neither did any creature fail to follow its overwhelming instincts to flee such a powerful challenge.
The mighty dragon began to rise higher and higher on the morning thermals. It gracefully glided in ever widening circles, searching out the best air currents on which to ascend into the deepening blue of the morning sky.
It had almost reached the height of the lowest clouds when it suddenly turned in his direction. It locked its serpent-like gaze onto him, and let out a roar that chilled his blood. The intense wave of emotion which hit him, was one of utter hatred and contempt. In one fluid motion, the dragon dropped its prey and dived towards him. He wanted to run, but his legs would not obey him. He wanted to scream, but when he opened his mouth, no sound came out. His legs seemed to turn to jelly beneath him, but even the ability to fall to the ground seemed to be denied him.
He watched, unable to move or speak as the enormous dragon dived towards him from the blue sky above. Its huge black razor-sharp talons were no longer held neatly under its immense body, but instead they were stretched out towards him, as if trying to reach for him over a great distance. As the dragon drew closer, its enormous jaws opened to reveal its dagger-like teeth within. Each tooth was longer than a man’s arm, and as sharp as any weapon he had ever seen in his life. The darkness within its huge maw seemed to go beyond the simple lack of light. The waves of hatred that the dragon had sent his way dizzied him, but that was nothing compared to its final roar of fury just before it finally struck him. Pathetically, he tried to raise his arms for protection, but they also failed to obey his command. As the dragon’s jaws closed over him, plunging him into complete darkness, he finally screamed.
A single image flashed before his eyes: a lone woman in a prison cell.
Lusam found himself sitting bolt upright in his bed, screaming and flailing his arms around, as if trying to ward off some invisible foe.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just another dream, Lusam,” Neala said, as she burst into the room.
Ever since Lusam had discovered that his mother was still alive and being held captive by Lord Zelroth, he had been having similar nightmares almost every night. He often woke up screaming and flailing his arms and legs around, often very pale and dripping with sweat, just like this time. At first Neala had thought it was due to the things Lusam had been forced to see and do during the battle outside Lamuria, as well as all the other battles he had fought beforehand. She had tried to convince herself and Lusam that the nightmares would begin to subside, and things would return back to normal soon enough—but, then it happened.
At the time they were staying at the Royal Palace, and during one of Lusam’s nightmares, he had managed to all but destroy the room they had been occupying. Neala had been in the room with him at the time, and woke to find fireballs and various other missiles striking the walls all around them. One narrowly missed killing her, and during a later—rather heated—discussion between her and Lusam, he had insisted that she no longer stay in the same room as him, due to the risk of her being injured, or even killed.
The damage to the room had been extensive, and it had even affected several other adjacent rooms too. Although the King had not directly asked Lusam and Neala to leave the Royal Palace, he had readily accepted their offer to do so when Lusam had suggested it. Now they resided in a disused part of the army barracks in the eastern part of the city, well away from the Royal Palace, as well as any other nobleman’s house.
Although the King had publicly ordered for the barracks to be furnished well, and befitting a hero of Afaraon, the furniture which arrived certainly did not match that ilk. It was clean and functional, but was certainly not expensive and ornate like the furniture within the Royal Palace. Lusam suspected the King had issued new—private orders—to furnish the barracks with much simpler, and easier to replace furniture, just in case Lusam should destroy it all again in his sleep.
Lusam actually preferred his new humbler surroundings to the ones at the Royal Palace, and would have accepted it that way gladly. He simply saw the empty words of the King as yet another demonstration of how the politics within the city, and country as a whole worked—something he was eager to stay as far away from as possible.
“I’m alright,” Lusam replied breathlessly. He was visibly shaking, but the colour seemed to be slowly returning to his cheeks. He had already thrown off the bed covers before Neala had even reached his side. She knew that Lusam always tried to make light of his nightmares, and today was no different. As Neala came within reach, he lurched forward, intending to catch hold of her and pull her onto the bed with him. Instead, his face impacted on a solid invisible barrier, and he found himself briefly seeing double of everything.<
br />
“Ouch!” Lusam said through the hand held to his bleeding nose.
“What’s the matter?” Neala asked in a concerned voice.
“Nothing. I must have created a forcefield around myself when I was asleep. I just found it with my nose,” he mumbled through his hand.
Neala couldn’t help herself, and burst out laughing at his expense.
“It’s not funny, it really hurt,” Lusam said seriously, but it did nothing to stem the laughter coming from Neala, and soon Lusam found himself joining in with her.
It felt good to laugh again. It seemed like it had been far too long for Neala’s liking. The Battle of Lamuria, as it had now become known, had been over a month ago. Even the first seven days after the battle, when everyone had mourned the dead, seemed more joyous than the previous two weeks had done to Neala.
Ever since discovering that his mother was still alive two weeks earlier, Lusam had petitioned the King daily for a ship to take him to Thule, so he could rescue her from Lord Zelroth. Only that first audience had been granted with the King, but ever since he had only been received by various dignitaries acting on the King’s behalf, all promising to pass on Lusam’s message to the King, but never hearing any reply back from him. With each passing day Lusam’s mood seemed to slip further and further towards despair.
Neala watched Lusam’s face as he blankly stared at the ceiling above his bed. He was obviously thinking about something, and Neala had a very good idea about what. She gave him a small squeeze, then propped herself up on her elbows facing him, so she could see his face more clearly.
“Was it the same dream again?” Neala asked, breaking the silence in the room.
“Yes. No. What I mean is, it’s never the same dream twice. Only the image of my mother in her prison cell is the same, and I only ever see her just before I wake up. As far as I can tell, it’s always the same dragon that I see, but it’s always doing something different. Sometimes it’s hunting like today, other times it’s asleep and wakes up just to eat me. But no matter where I see it, or what it’s doing, it always eventually sees me. But I’m not sure they are dreams at all any more.”
“What else could they be if you’re asleep?” Neala asked.
“I don’t know, but they feel too real to be only dreams.”
“Dreams are sometimes like that, especially nightmares,” Neala said.
“Yes, sometimes. But these feel very different, somehow. Something about them seems very familiar to me, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. The feeling only lingers in my mind for a few moments after I wake up, and trust me, it’s very hard to hold onto it for even that long, after just going through the sheer terror of being eaten alive by a dragon,” he said, chuckling with no real humour.
“At first, I thought it was just the image of my mother that seemed familiar in my mind after I awoke, but now I realise it wasn’t that at all. It was the mental contact with the dragon. I don’t know how, or why, but it felt almost exactly the same as when I touched the mind of the entity inside the wall in Helveel. Somehow, there is a dragon inside the wall of Mr Daffer’s basement, and before you say I’m mad, I know how crazy that sounds, but I also know that it’s true.” Lusam paused, expecting Neala to ridicule him, but she never did. Instead she remained silent, and waited patiently for him to continue.
“I realised that I had also experienced the same feeling in the High Temple, when I reached out and made contact with the power-orbs. It was to a far lesser degree then, but it was unmistakably the same feeling as I get in my dreams with the dragon.”
“Well, maybe you could convince me to believe that there is a hidden dragon somewhere in Mr Daffer’s basement. Maybe in a secret room or cave deeper underground, but that doesn’t explain the power-orbs. They’re certainly not dragons,” Neala replied.
“No, they aren’t dragons. But I believe they were once part of a dragon. That might also explain their weaker ability to affect me. I was able to withdraw my mind from the power-orbs after questing out to them, but I had no control whatsoever when I touched minds with the entity inside the wall in Helveel. It’s the same feeling I get in my dreams with the dragon, it seizes my mind, and then I can’t move or do anything,” Lusam said, shuddering at the mere thought of the dragon and its gaping maw.
“Well, I guess that answers my next question then. I was going to ask if you had tried to speak with the dragon in your dreams, but if you can’t move or do anything, I guess you haven’t,” Neala said, still watching Lusam’s face intently. Lusam simply shook his head, still staring blankly at the ceiling above him. Neala hated to see him so down like that, but had no idea how to cheer him up, and could do even less about his terrifying nightmares.
“Let’s go get some breakfast. Everything always seems better on a full stomach,” Neala offered, smiling down at Lusam. She caught his eye, and he couldn’t help but smile back at her, and even gave her an unexpected kiss as he sat up and swung his legs over the end of the bed.
“Sounds good. But I’d better get dressed first, I think,” he said grinning at her.
“Oh, I’m sure nobody would even notice,” she replied teasing him, and quickly rushed through the door, narrowly avoiding being hit by the pillow he threw at her.
“Hey!” he called after her, grabbing his trousers and shirt from the chair beside his bed and chasing after her.
Chapter Two
The next few days seemed to pass by incredibly slowly for both Lusam and Neala. The nightmares continued unabated whenever Lusam—reluctantly—tried to sleep, and with each passing day he grew more and more exhausted through lack of rest. The previous two nights he had refused to even attempt sleeping, fearing the ever present terror that awaited him there.
Evidently, the dragon within Lusam’s dreams had drastically escalated the intensity of the emotions it used against him, so much so, that he feared his heart might fail him whilst he was still trapped within his nightmare. It no longer simply saw him and attacked, thereby ending his torturous ordeal when he awoke. Now, it held him within the nightmare, forcing him to endure hours of sheer terror before it allowed him to leave: like a cat toying with a mouse before the final kill. No matter what Lusam tried to do within his dream—or Neala in the real world outside—it was impossible for him to leave the nightmare until the dragon allowed him to do so.
Neala had become so worried about Lusam’s well-being, that she had even sought out Hershel’s advice on the matter, only to find he had left the city earlier that morning, along with Alexia. Apparently, they were assessing the potential of the new recruits drafted from the regular army. Recruits intended to bolster the number of the paladins after the losses they had suffered at The Battle of Lamuria. The new recruits would now also include female paladins—something Neala felt a great sense of pride over, even though she knew it was really Alexia who had been the catalyst for the dramatic change in policy.
Understandably, Lusam seemed more concerned with rescuing his mother, than his inability to sleep. He continued petitioning the King on a daily basis for the use of a ship to rescue his mother, and on the eve of Seventh-day, he was finally granted another audience with King Theodore.
It was the first time in days that Neala had seen any signs of hope in Lusam’s face, but she knew he was in no fit state to attempt any kind of rescue mission without first resolving his sleep issues.
It was a long and agonising wait for Neala, knowing that at any moment Lusam could reappear and announce their imminent departure for Thule: to attempt the rescue of his mother. She had no idea how many days it would take them to reach Thule, or more precisely, Azmarin, the stronghold of Lord Zelroth. What she did know, however, was that Lusam would be in no condition to fight anyone by the time he arrived there, let alone Lord Zelroth and his entire army.
When Lusam finally returned from his private audience with the King, his face and posture spoke a thousand words. Neala knew instantly that he had not been granted his request, simply by his downhearted
demeanour. Even though she knew how incredibly important rescuing his mother had become to Lusam, she had to admit feeling a guilty sense of relief that he wouldn’t be allowed to attempt it in his current condition.
Neala asked how the meeting had gone, and his reply took her by complete surprise. She had never heard him swear and curse as much in all the time she had known him, and felt sure that any of the countless insults directed towards the King would have seen any other perpetrator executed for treason—and quite possibly even him. After he had calmed down enough, she attempted to rekindle the conversation once more, and was extremely relieved to discover that he’d had the foresight to erect a magical soundproof barrier around the room before his earlier outburst.
Apparently, the King had avoided answering Lusam’s direct request for a ship, and instead spent the whole meeting discussing the unveiling of Lusam’s statue in the High Temple, which was planned for later that same month. Even when Lusam had persistently brought the conversation back to the requisition of a ship, the King had either ignored him completely, or made non-committal statements regarding it. The only concession he’d managed to gain from the King, was that he would discuss the matter further after the unveiling of Lusam’s statue, as it would be wholly inappropriate for Lusam to leave Lamuria before that time. Lusam had no choice but to concede to the King’s will, but he was painfully aware that it would be at least another two full weeks before he would be permitted to speak with him again—and that of course, depended entirely on the King not avoiding him again.
Renn still had not returned from his personal mission to discover if anyone had survived the brutal attacks by the Empire magi on the coastal towns and villages around Prystone. After rescuing Rebekah and Kayden from Prystone, and learning the secret birthing rituals at sea of the locals there, Renn had vowed to return later and seek out any survivors of the recent atrocities. The hope was that it would provide the High Temple with a fresh, and much needed, infusion of trainee magi should he be successful in finding any more survivors.