“Again, Finnius, I wouldn’t do that unless you want another man dead,” I warned.
The acolyte's fingers stopped inches from Fang’s hilt. He widened his eyes on me.
“Withdraw it, servant, or die anyway! Draykis!”
Several hulking figures stepped out of the shadows, two of which limped and had busted faces. It seemed all of my valiant efforts from earlier had been deflated. One stepped over the acolyte and wrapped its clawed fingers around his neck.
Sweating profusely, the acolyte wrapped his trembling hands around the hilt. Taking a sharp breath, he slid Fang from the sheath, holding my sword out in his robed arms. Fang’s steel flickered with life in the lantern light but was otherwise dim. I sagged. I hadn't really expected Fang to do anything, but you never know with him.
“Huh, I see your bluff has failed you, Dragon. Perhaps you should have stayed in bed. You look awfully tired. Maybe you should just sit down and rest.” Finnius jerked the sword away from the acolyte and pointed it in the acolyte's face. He clipped one cheek, then the other. “Next time, it will be your neck with a large hole in it.” Finnius whirled toward the others and said, “Lower him.”
Ben’s body slowly drifted over next to a large stone altar, where he sat upright, listless and catatonic. They had done something to him. His eyes flickered between me, the draykis, and the ceiling.
“Don’t give up, Ben. I’ll save you!”
“No, Dragon, no you won’t,” Finnius said, stepping over toward Ben and stabbing him in the chest.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
CHAPTER 39
I didn’t feel a thing when my buttocks landed on the cold stone floor. I was dead inside. Worse, Ben was dead! The only thought racing through my head was, “It’s your life to throw away, not mine.” I'd tried to warn him, yet guilt overwhelmed me. It mixed with something else: anger. It was all my fault. I had failed.
“Good, Dragon,” Finnius started, “you should rest, as you look absolutely horrible. I hope the High Priestess doesn’t mind when she arrives any minute now.” He clapped his hands. “Acolytes, begin the summons.”
Listless, I watched the Clerics of Barnabus gather around an archway off center in the chamber and begin their moans and mumbles. I felt my heart explode in my chest when the draykis hoisted Ben’s body onto the slab altar.
“I’ll kill you, Finnius,” I muttered.
Finnius cupped his ear, saying, “What’s that?” He jabbed Fang into the stone floor by the altar. “A fine weapon, a fine-fine piece of steel. Is it made of jaxite? I didn’t even feel it go in or slide out.” He turned his attention to the archway and looked back at me. “Won’t be long now, Dragon. And I can’t wait to see what the High Priestess has in store for you.”
Smoke of many colors swirled inside the archway, pulsating with life and energy. The sound of the acolytes chanting increased in volume and tempo. I didn’t care. Whoever the High Priestess was and whatever they wanted to do with me didn’t matter. I’d failed. I’d abandoned one friend, only to see another one dead. Huffing for air, I rose to my feet. I wrapped my hands around the metal.
“I’m going to kill you, Finnius!”
I wasn’t supposed to kill anybody unless it was life or death. What about Finnius’s death for Ben's life? It was more than fair.
Finnius leered at me, wringing his dirty hands together and saying, “Not even in your wildest nightmares. It’s over for you, Nath Dragon.”
The draykis, no longer two but ten, sprang into action as something small and white skittered across the floor.
“What is it?” Finnius cried out as a small, white dragon leaped past his face and into the corner. “Who let it out? I’ll kill one of you! Acolyte, get me those pixlyn!" One broke from the group and dashed off. “Draykis, capture that dragon!”
It was a long-tailed white, the same one I’d seen in the cage on my way in here. It was quick and fierce, and the draykis were no match for it. One sealed off the other way out as the other three chased it around the room. It scurried, hissed, snapped, and slipped through the claws of one then the other.
“Get it, draykis! Kill it!” Finnius screamed. “It doesn’t matter how!”
I jumped to my feet, pulling at the bars, fuming.
“I’ll not see any more of your murders, Finnius.
“You’ll see many more before this day is over, I assure you.”
The acolyte rushed back into the room.
“Well?” Finnius snapped.
“Gone, Cleric Finnius.”
Finnius wrung his hands and tugged at his robes, screaming at the draykis, “You idiots! Why did you abandon those cages?”
The draykis at the door replied, “We did as you requested.”
The long-tailed white flew from one side of the room to the other.
Finnius stomped his feet.
“Catch it! NOW!”
The long-tailed white locked eyes with me, and I felt a connection. It wanted the dragons free, and so did I.
Finnius howled. He saw us.
The dragon darted across the room toward me.
“Stop it!” Finnius yelled.
Lunging, two draykis collided with each other, but a third caught the end of the dragon's long tail and jerked it to the ground. The dragon screeched, tiny claws digging into the stone floor, straining toward me. I reached through the bars, my arm inches away.
“NO!” I screamed as another draykis, wielding a sword, rushed over, swinging it.
“Kill it!” Finnius shouted. “Kill it!”
CHAPTER 40
The white dragon's eyes glowed with green fire as the draykis swung the sword. A jet of white smoke shot out of its mouth, filling the room in an instant. I couldn’t see a thing, but I heard a blade chopping into flesh and stone. Something let out a nasty grunt, and I could hear Finnius hack and cough while I tried to fan the smoke away. As the smoke dissipated, I could hear him scream.
“Did you kill it? Where is it? Find it!”
Through the thinning smoke, a draykis rose from the floor, staring at the stump of his arm. The other with the sword was looking around, and that’s when I felt it. The tiny dragon had squeezed through the bars and was crawling up my back and onto my shoulder. His extra-long tail coiled along my waist and arm.
“Ahem,” I said.
Finnius turned my way. His face reddened and his chin quivered when he said, “Give me that long-tailed white, Dragon. Or I’ll kill the rest of them.”
“If you want this dragon, worm, why don’t you come and get it?”
The dragon’s tail tightened around my arm and waist. A surge of power raced through me like never before. Every muscle in my being pulsated as the purring dragon filled me with awesome power. I wasn’t a man any more. I felt the strength of a full-grown dragon. I grabbed the bars, and the metal groaned as I pulled them apart like noodles. Finnius’s jaw dropped to the floor when I stepped through the gap I'd just made.
“Unless you can bring my friend back to life, it’s time to die, Finnius!”
I knocked the first draykis that came at me from one side of the room to the other. I ducked under another blade that almost took my head from my shoulders. I was fast. Faster than ever before. Stronger than ever before. The power the little dragon was giving me was unbelievable!
“You’re dead!” I said, rushing Finnius.
He had turned to run before I closed in when two armed draykis jumped into my path. A sharp blade tore past my stomach, and a large hammer ripped an inch away from my head. I was faster and stronger, but I wasn’t impervious to metal. I did a backflip toward the altar and landed in front of Fang. I ripped him free.
“Now it’s even, uglies,” I said. I could feel the dragon's power flowing from my shins to my neck. Fang’s blade hummed with life. “Who’s the first to pay for the life of my friend?”
“You cannot kill us,” said one draykis, holding a sword. “We are already dead.”
“We’ll see about that,” I boasted
, knowing full well the odds were against me. I’d never faced such a formidable force of warriors before. So be it. I felt like I could fight an entire army now. I felt even better than when the crowd had cheered me on, “Dragon! Dragon!”
Faster than sight, I drove Fang into the nearest one's chest, drawing forth a groan as it fell. I chopped another one in the arm and kicked another one in the face. Another parried my strike and countered with a deep cut across my leg. On they came at me with the skill and precision of hardened soldiers, forcing me backward to parry again and again.
“NO!”
I knocked a blade free from one and stabbed another in the shoulder. Another fell as I hacked through its knee. Fang sizzled through the air like a living thing, cutting, blocking, and chopping. But all my strength and speed didn’t stop them from coming. Limping, snarling, and slashing, they pressed.
“Gah!”
One ripped its claws through my arm. Little dragon or not, I couldn’t keep this up much longer, and if I died, the dragons would all die as well.
Without thinking, I said, “Fang! Do something!”
Fang flared with brilliant icy light.
Striking like a snake, I jabbed a draykis that wielded a sword.
It stopped in its tracks, its scaled body turned to ice. I struck another draykis and one more. Instant statues of ice they’d become. I cut one in the arm and another in the leg with the same effect. Weapons poised high over their heads, the last two charged.
Slice! Slice!
They crystalized into pure ice.
There I stood among seven frozen horrors, feeling almost as astounded as they looked. Fang throbbed in my hand.
“What’s that, Fang?” I saw the tip flare up. “Ah, I see.”
I struck Fang’s tip on the stone floor.
KRAAAAAAAAAAANG!
The vibrations of the perfect metal resonated through the chamber like a giant tuning fork.
One by one, the icy figures of the draykis exploded into a thousand shards of ice.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Finnius screamed from right behind me.
I whirled just in time to catch a long dagger plunging at my chest. I twisted it free from his wrist, punched him in the face, and sent him sprawling to the floor.
“You’re going to pay, worm!”
Crawling backward, he shouted back, “It’s too late, Dragon. She comes.”
The mystic smoke in the archway was filling the room, but all the clerics but Finnius were gone. Eeriness covered me like a blanket. I shook it off.
“Great, then she’ll be here just in time to make arrangements for your funeral.” I raised my sword and closed in. I didn’t ever want to see this man alive again. “But there might not be much left to bury once I’m done with you.”
“Go ahead! Kill me! My High Priestess will just bring me back,” Finnius said, chuckling. “But that’s much more than I can say for your friend.” His eyes twinkled with darkness as his lips curled in a smile. “Come, Dragon, avenge your friend.”
“I’ll do more than that!”
The dragon on my shoulder hissed out a warning.
Crack!
It felt like a large mallet collided with my skull, knocking me to my knees. Finnius seized my wrists and shouted.
“AZZRHEEM-KAH!
It felt like lightning exploded inside me as I lay on the ground, hair smoking, every fiber of my being throbbing in pain. My eyelids hurt as I opened my eyes to witness a winged draykis reaching for me. Bigger than the rest, it scooped me off the floor like a doll and crushed me in its arms.
“Break his back!” Finnius yelled from somewhere. “I want to hear it snap, draykis!”
It didn’t have lips, but it smiled.
“Certainly, my lord.”
CHAPTER 41
All my strength fled when I gazed at the small, white dragon lying still on the floor. Completely drained, I fought on, legs kicking, but the monster had its mighty paws locked behind my back.
“That’s it!” Finnius said with glee. “Ooh! Your face is awfully red, Dragon, but I think it will look even better in a nice dark shade of purple.” Finnius limped over, leering up at me, triumphant.
I felt it. I was defeated. I’d failed. Any moment, the winged draykis would crush all my bones, leaving me living but an invalid.
“Worm!” I managed to spit out.
My spit sizzled through his robes.
“Eh… What is this?” Finnius asked, fingering the hole in his robes. My stomach churned with fire, and the taste of brimstone charged inside my mouth.
The draykis licked its lips, said, “I’m hungry,” and squeezed me with all its might.
I felt something snap as hot smoke burst from my nose.
Eyes filled with horror, Finnius backed away. “NO! What are you doing, Dragon? Stop that! Make him stop, draykis. NOW!”
The draykis, jaws filled with long sharp teeth, opened wide.
I tried to scream, but a jet of flaming liquid erupted instead.
One second the draykis's horrible face was about to eat me, in the next it was a ball of fire. There was nothing left of its face but bone as it released me and fell to the ground.
I jumped up from the floor to chase Finnius down.
He slipped on the shards of ice and fell hard to the ground on his knees, saying, “Mercy, Dragon! Mercy!”
Evil shows no mercy. No mercy shall it receive.
“Where was your mercy when you killed my friend, worm?”
“Mercy! I’ll do anything! Please!”
I wanted to stop it, but I couldn’t. A geyser of flame shot from my mouth, coating Finnius from head to toe. In an instant, he was burnt to a crisp.
A new rush of power assailed me as I chased the other acolytes down. Some burned, some escaped, and some died before it was over.
The only ones left were me and the dragons. One by one, I freed them from their cages, and one by one they were gone, the long-tailed white as well. Exhausted, I fell to my knees and fought the tears coming from my eyes.
“Ben,” I moaned as I crawled over to the altar.
There he lay on the granite slab altar, pale as a ghost. His energetic face, once full of life, now as stiff as stone. I’d saved the dragons but at what cost?
I brushed the hair from his eyes and said, “Ben. I’m so sorry, Ben.”
“For what?” he said, blinking.
I stiffened.
“Huh? Ben?”
He yawned, stretched out his arms, and asked again, “For what?”
I stumbled backward, clutching my heart.
“BEN! You’re alive!”
“That seems to be the case,” he said, fanning the eerie smoke from his face. “Is that your breath that I smell? It’s awful.”
“I guess that’s why they call it dragon breath.”
Sitting on the altar, Ben said, “Is this place shaking?”
Shards of rock and debris fell on my head and his. The High Priestess. Was she still coming? I rushed over and grabbed Fang. But where was Akron―and the rest of my things?
“We need to get out of here, Ben.”
Something was coming through the portal, something big.
“Ben, do you see my bow?”
I swung Fang into the archway, splintering rock, but it held. I felt the urge to hew the thing down. I felt evil as great as I’d ever felt before.
“Found it!” Ben said, hoisting it over his head.
“Bring it over here.”
I snatched Akron from his hands and nocked it with a powerful arrow. I rubbed my spit into the tip and watched it glow.
Holding his ears, Ben shouted, “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” I said as I let the arrow fly. It disappeared into the smoky archway. A split second later, a roar came out that shook the entire temple. I grabbed Ben by the arm and led us dashing through the corridors. The floors wobbled and the walls warbled as we rushed past the dust and debris through one winding corridor and another until we
arrived outside in the courtyard. The night air was like ice in my lungs.
“We made it,” I said, leaning over and grabbing my knees.
Ben was lying on the courtyard grass, wheezing.
From inside the ruins of the temple came a mighty thud like someone closing the lid on a giant sarcophagus. I fell to my knees, rain pelting my face, and scanned the area. No acolytes, lizard men, or draykis. It was over.
For a moment, I took it all in. I was alive, but more importantly, so was Ben.
“Look,” Ben said pointing.
A group of small dragons flew across the moonlit clouds in the sky.
I wanted to hug Ben but didn’t. Smiling, I squeezed his shoulder instead and said, “Ben, why aren’t you dead?”
He shrugged.
“I think Bayzog’s potion did it.”
“How so?”
“Well, he said that I would know when it was time to take it, so I did.”
“And when was that?”
“Well, I was with the horses, like you said, guarding them like you told me. After you’d been gone a little while, the horses started whining.”
“Whining?”
“Yes, I’ve never seen such nervous horses before. And that’s when I noticed it.” He stopped, thinking.
“Noticed what?”
"A giant shadow circling in the sky.” He shivered. “I’d never been so scared in all of my life. And I knew, instantly, that it was coming for me. That thing, those eyes, locked on mine, and I knew I was dead. I grabbed that vial and swallowed the entire bottleful. The horses galloped off, and the next thing I knew I was face to face with it. I’m embarrassed, but I think I fainted in its arms. I awoke, and I was sailing across the sky like a bird. That monster was carrying me. That’s when I blacked out again. Next time I awoke, I was spinning in that room, surrounded by those clerics and beastly things. Then that man took your sword and stabbed me.”
He pulled off his leather armor, which was cut clean through. He ran his finger along the white scar on his chest. He shook his head. “It was cold, the blade going in. As if someone shoved ice in my chest. But I didn’t die; I felt strange, outside of myself. I just closed my eyes and played possum.” He put his armor back on. “What was in that vial, Dragon?”
The Chronicles of Dragon Collection (Series 1 Omnibus, Books 1-10) Page 33