Shing! Shing!
But there were no more. The fog lifted from the battlefield, and Fang’s blade went dim. Only the picturesque morning in the Mountains of Nalzambor remained, with a litter of dead ghouls on the floor. I dropped to my knees. A wave of exhaustion assailed me. Blood and sweat dripped from my nose. My own blood, that is. I must have been cut to pieces, but I didn’t care. I’d won.
Fang hummed one last time then quieted like a stone. Not a single notch, nick, or drop of blood was on its keen blade. My dragon arm, well, it seemed blacker than ever in the morning light, but in my heart I felt I’d done no wrong. I just hoped Brenwar was right about killing ghouls not making me evil.
“Brenwar!”
I rushed to him.
He lay on the ground, banged up and stiff as a stone. His dark eyes were like marbles gazing into the bright sky. I put my head to his chest and sighed. His heart was beating like a heavy mallet. I patted him on the chest. “You’ll be all right.” I hope.
He had a nasty bite mark on his leg. It was deep, red and purple, and swollen. You couldn’t wear armor everywhere. It would slow you down too much.
“Ah, Brenwar, I apologize. I should have acted sooner. But you’re still alive, and that’s all that matters now.” A thought struck me. “Huh … Did I just save your life?” I looked at my dragon arm. No changes. “Well, I’m sure even saving a dwarf counts for something. Don’t worry; I’m sure the paralysis will wear off in a while. But if you don’t snap out of it soon, I’m going in there without you.”
He blinked. His lip almost curled.
“See, you’re moving already. But it isn’t much faster than before,” I said, looking into his eyes, grinning.
The thought of me saving him would get him going, I hoped. I swore I heard a rumble in his throat.
I heard a rustle of feet. Something else began emerging from the tomb.
I grabbed my bow, Akron, and readied a special arrow, saying, “Not again.”
CHAPTER 19
The arrow I drew from my quiver was special: magic, powerful, and explosive enough to rock the entire mountaintop. I was going to take care of business with it. I drew the bowstring along my cheek and waited for the next ghoul to scurry from the tomb. What? Nothing came. Instead, I could hear tiny footsteps all over the grass. That’s when I saw the first one. It was pink. It was fluffy. Not a ghoul. Instead, I beheld a cat-sized dandelion with rows of tiny feet and a mouth as wide as its body. A carrion caterpillar. I lowered my bow.
“Whew!”
It wasn’t coming after me. No, it was coming after the dead ghouls, and it wasn’t alone, either. Where there was one, there were two. Where there were three, there were ten. They came from all directions, bright pink, pale blue, and canary yellow, marching over the ghoul bodies and coating them one by one with strands of a wispy white fiber. Sure, it was creepy: giant caterpillars with teeth and a coat of brilliant and fuzzy colors, but just you wait. Those caterpillars would become the most beautiful butterflies in the world one day. And not just any butterflies, either, but a very special sort.
“Fortune’s found us, it seems.”
Brenwar didn’t respond as I dragged him over to a tombstone and propped him up.
“I know, I know,” I said. “Nobody drags a dwarf without permission.” I felt a hundred tiny feet on my back as a lime-green caterpillar climbed over my shoulder. Weird. “See that? A good sign, isn’t it?”
He didn’t respond, but his eyes were glaring at me.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
It was a good sign. The carrion caterpillars, strange and dutiful, were often spotted on battlefields, coating the bodies of those who were not buried. The farmers said they made the best fertilizer in the world, though I found it hard to imagine anything good could grow from such evil things.
“I’m going in.”
There was another thing about the caterpillars: they didn’t come out until the danger was gone. I put my arrow back in the quiver and folded up the bow. Fang’s light was a torch when I drew it, and down into the darkness I went, two steps at a time.
Musty and cold. Typical of all the dead spaces underground. But there were plenty of good things underground, too. Just go to any dwarven city. Still, a tomb full of ghouls was disturbing. Whatever was buried down here needed a great deal of protection, and I couldn’t help but think that the ghouls were only the first wave. After all, guardians came in many shapes and forms, but at least the ghouls were out of the way. I'd have thought Corzan could have handled the ghouls, though, with the help of his goblin horde. But why risk it if you didn’t have to?
The stairs stopped about thirty feet below ground. Above me, I could still see the dawn's light creeping in, but it was awfully distant. The room I stood in was part tomb, part temple. Rows of ancient stone pillars held the ground up, and behind them on either side of the wall were shelves for bodies, some vacant and some occupied.
I shoved one, a weathered husk wrapped in deteriorating cloth. Its head rolled off and cracked on the ground. It was a man. The body above it wasn’t human, however. Its jaw had a row of canine teeth jutting out at the bottom, and the face was shaped like a dog’s. A gnoll, perhaps. There were lizard men, halflings, orcs, and faces of many of the other races, all shriveled and shrunken.
I couldn’t imagine why so many different people would be buried together, their bodies all at rest. Was it possible there was a time when all the races got along together? Be wary of the dead, my father always said. Perhaps all these people were evil, a common bond that served the same cause. I wondered if they all shared the language I couldn't read on the stones above.
I treaded lightly, making sure my feet didn’t land on any strange patterns or layouts. Tombs that held something of value would have booby traps.
“Perhaps I should have waited on Brenwar,” I muttered to myself, wiping the cobwebs from my face and eyes. So many cobwebs, but I didn’t see any spiders anywhere. I looked up. Nothing. Thank goodness.
So many bodies. Two dozen by the looks of things. Twelve on one side, twelve on the other, but a couple of shelves were missing bodies.
“Oh, there you are.”
A pair of tarantulas crawled past my toes. I wondered what the spiders fed on down here. I couldn’t shake the feeling that one if not all those bodies would reanimate and attack at any moment. The undead often did that. Find the stone. Find the stone. Find the stone.
The sad thing was, the Thunderstone might not even be down here. It could be anywhere on the mountain. I thought of the dragon, the blue razor. Hurry. I had to find the stone, make the deal, and free the dragon. My heart started to race. I didn’t have time to waste.
I rested Fang on my shoulder.
“What do you think? Is it in here or not?”
I often talked to Fang when no one else was around. He was a good listener, and when he wanted, he could help, too.
Thrum.
Fang pulsated with life, a single burst of energy. I held him out before my eyes and made my way around the room. There was only one way in and one way out. The wall adjacent to the entrance was nothing more than a slab cut from the stone. The last thing I wanted to do was search all the long-dead bodies. It was a great place to hide things, but disturbing the dead was never a good idea. Bad things could happen and often did.
I ran my dragon arm along the pillars. The shelves. The barren pieces of wall. My sense of touch was extraordinary. With my eyes shut, I could feel the imperfections as if I could see them. Still, nothing remarkable. Just an old tomb filled with corpses that had once housed a horde of ghouls.
“Fang, they must have been protecting something,” I said, circling the room. “And they couldn’t have survived down here in this small a room very long, could they? Perhaps I just need to wait for Brenwar.”
Thrum!
Fang flared again, its tip a red-hot glow pointing down at the tiles in the floor. I scratched the back of my head. “Huh? I guess I should have looked
there before.” I cleared some of the dust and dirt away with my boot. A colorful mosaic was underneath. On my hands and knees, I set Fang down and brushed and blew more dust away until I could make out a face of sorts. Perhaps an animal. Maybe a lycanthrope.
I found fingerholds around the edges of the stone, and my heart started to race. The floor was always a good place to bury things. And the face on the floor, well, so far as I could tell, it was a guardian. Something very important must lie underneath. Like a Thunderstone.
“What do you think, Fang? Should I wait for Brenwar?”
My sword glowed softly but said nothing.
“I’ll take your silence as a no.”
It was always easy for me to justify my actions with Fang, especially when his silence could easily be construed at will between yes or no.
I placed my hands on either side of the mosaic face, squatted, and pulled. It didn’t budge. I tried again, putting my legs into it, straining.
“Hurk!”
Nothing. I sat down, trying to catch my breath, shaking my aching fingers.
“I hope this isn’t one of those wizard locks. I hate those.”
Every so often, it was good to travel with a magic user. As crafty as they liked to be, they loved to be challenged by magically sealed things. All things magical, really. But I didn’t have one with me. I didn’t sense any magic in the cover stone, either. This time, it was going to have to be my flesh versus the stone. I stared down at the odd animal face in the mosaic and said, “You will not beat me.”
I hunkered down over it, got my grip, and threw all of my legs, arms, and back into it. I’m a big man, and a strong one at that. I pulled. Nothing. I groaned. Nothing. I shouted out loud like an angry giant.
“HAARRR!”
Stone began to scrape against stone. My fingers ached and my back burned, but I kept on pulling. I could feel my veins thicken like cords in my neck, and my knees cracked, but I was pulling it upward. Inch by inch. How thick was this stone?!
“RRRRRRR-RAAAAAAAH!”
I slipped free, toppling the stone over to the side and falling to my knees, panting for breath. It must have been the biggest stone I had ever lifted, because I didn’t make a habit of lifting anything heavy if I didn’t have to. I had Brenwar for that. A gaping square hole greeted me now. A trophy of my achievement. A blue hue glowed from within.
“It better … gasp … be in there.”
I sucked in a deep breath, exhaled, and peeked inside.
A Thunderstone! Well, it was a stone, big enough to barely fit in my hand, smooth as marble, with jagged, brilliant blue markings. I couldn’t imagine it being anything else. The question was… Was it safe to grab that thing? I ran my tongue across my lips. I wanted to grab it. Feel the power and magic within it. Perhaps it could even help reverse the effects of my dragon arm. Or it could make it worse. Father told me long ago of such things in the world that could help, help with anything, but you had to be very careful.
Eyes wide as saucers, I stared. Tempted. Tried. A struggle boiling within. How much easier would it be to save more dragons if I had greater power? I could wipe out the Clerics of Barnabus. Maybe destroy an entire temple. What kind of power was within that stone? I had to know.
“What do you think, Fang? A little touch couldn’t be too bad.”
Silence.
I rubbed my dragon finger under my chin. “Hmmm … I ought to see what kind of power Corzan would be dealing with.”
My golden eyes glimmered in the blue light. I grabbed the Thunderstone in my dragon claws. It was cold, and its markings were dim. Nothing. Nothing happened at all, and it felt just the same as before. I could only assume a mage could unlock the magic within. Disappointed, I flipped it up in the air and let it fall into my pack.
“Well, I guess that’s it,” I said, picking up Fang. “It’s time to go.”
To the staircase I went, limping as fast as I could. I’d spent enough time beneath the ground in the past day.
Crack!
The floor groaned, rumbled, and shook.
“Oh no!”
The bodies fell from their beds on the shelves, and the pillars popped with ear-shattering splits. The entire tomb was caving in. I dashed up the staircase, five steps at a time. The dirt from the opening above was pouring all over me.
Crash!
The staircase busted beneath my feet, and I tumbled back to the bottom. As the earth spilled inside my grave, I realized I was seconds away from my death. I leapt back to my feet and bounded up what was left of the steps, fighting my way through the dirt and sand that were spilling all over me. The tomb was filling fast, and all the dust was choking me.
I stuffed Fang back in the sheath and renewed my climb. Stepping. Digging. Clawing for whatever foothold I could find. I couldn’t see the top anymore. The falling dirt replaced the daylight with pitch black. I pushed upward, head down, fighting for every step, only to be knocked down again.
I couldn’t believe I was going to die like this. Choking on a mouthful of dirt, of all things. I yelled out, "BRENWAR!” but he was paralyzed. I had to make it, though. I was going up, up, slowly. I could beat this catastrophe. I was Nath Dragon: I could be anything. I would not be buried alive! I would not die like this!
My fingers found another lip of the stair. Ah, the top set, finally! Freedom would be mine in a moment.
Crack!
Again, the earth shattered and rocked. I lost my grip and fell.
Down I went.
My final resting place, on a lonely mountain barely known to the rest of the world, of all places. A tomb of dirt and bones.
CHAPTER 20
Finnius stood inside a large, circular stone chamber filled with many strange devices: cutting tools, bottles, knives, tables laden with power jars, and odd glass contraptions. Shackles and chains lined the walls, but no person hung there now. He imagined men had not so long ago. It was just another strange place, one of the many secrets beneath the Temple of Barnabus.
“This is it, Finnius,” Selene the High Priestess said. “My special chamber of horrors.”
Finnius swallowed. Despite his evil nature, a wave of concern for his own personal safety settled in.
“It’s all right, Finnius. I wouldn’t have brought you down here if I didn’t want you alive. If I wanted you dead or tormented, my guards would have done that.” She smiled, creepy yet beautiful. “And as you can see, business has been slow for a while. Now come. I’ve something to share.”
He followed, now more honored than scared. Selene stood before a vat, rectangular in shape, big enough for the frame of a man, a large one at that. Inside it, a thick, waxy liquid bubbled, a little red, a little orange, a little blue, and all swirling together. It looked like a boiling cauldron, but it did not burn hot.
“Blood. Dragon blood,” she said.
Finnius the cleric had never seen so much before.
“Well, dragon blood, and many other ingredients, but years of magic worked in and something else.”
Finnius’s mouth was dry, but his fascination got the better of him.
“What else?”
“Dragon teeth, bones, scales, and talons infused with another body.”
“A man?”
“In some cases. See for yourself.” Selene pulled her sleeve up over her elbow and reached inside the bubbling cauldron. Her lips twitched and curled as an ancient arcane language came forth. All the strange waters stirred before draining into the husk within. She released a small lever on the inside of the tub.
A man, or something like a man with a dragon-like face, lay within, eyes closed.
Finnius looked at her, then back at the figure in the vat.
She said, “A soldier. A creation of my own. I call it a draykis. Part dragon. Part dead. Part hunter. Do you like him?”
“Fascinating.”
“Awaken!” Selene said.
The draykis's eyes snapped open. They were yellow and slit like a snake's. It rose up and stepped out of the
vat. A variety of dragon scales glittered all over its body. Whoever it was, it had been human once but was now turned into a dragon abomination. A defiance of the laws of nature. A hulking man combined with the finer parts of a dragon. A work of arcane art come to life.
Finnius admired it, a lot.
“He’s magnificent,” he said, stepping forward and back. “Tell me more, High Priestess.”
She stroked the arm of the draykis and said, “In the case of this one, it’s a man fused with the parts and blood of a dragon. He has the unrelenting strength of a zombie, combined with the armor and weapons of a dragon. The mind of a man keeps it all working together, along with all the mystic spells.”
Finnius held his finger up and asked, “You said, ‘one’?”
She patted him on the cheek and said, “Clever, Finnius, very good.”
She clapped her hands together.
Four figures leapt from a concealed ledge above and landed on the ground.
Oh my!
Finnius stepped closer to Selene as four more draykis approached. They were awesome things: cloaked, with hoods drawn back revealing the scales and sharp teeth on their faces. Each moved with ease, but their stout frames suggested power, like the lizard men but more agile and cunning. Finnius wondered how much they could think for themselves.
“They are at my command, but soon they will be yours to command, Finnius.”
“It would be an honor, High Priestess.” He was wringing his hands. Anything that gave him power felt good. “Are we to hunt more dragons?”
“No, you are to hunt Nath Dragon.”
Finnius rubbed his hand over his skull. He’d tried taking the man down with lizard men before and hadn't fared too well. But these draykis, he was confident, would do better.
“I see a hint of worry in your eye, Finnius. If you are not up to this…”
“Nay, High Priestess. I’m honored. With this brood, I cannot fail.”
“Don’t be so sure, Finnius. But, the draykis will be well armed. And you’ll be taking more than enough reinforcements. They’ll be of great help. Questions?”
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