“You have business with the King?”
“Let’s go,” she said without answering.
The four guards stood and gestured for us to follow. It occurred to me that even though the guards sounded sincere in their newfound loyalty, they might just as easily be tricking us into following them to our demise.
The long, winding staircase seemed much longer going up than it did going down, and my smaller than average legs were struggling to keep up, each step seemingly higher than the last. It seemed like hours before we reached the door at the top, the lead guard pushing it open and letting welcome light onto the stairwell.
Our escorts were met by more guards at the entrance to the dungeon, and we prepared ourselves for a fight. The guards stopped only briefly to announce they were escorting the defeater of sorcerers and dragons, and the sentries parted to allow us passage. They knelt as we passed, then fell in line behind us. The uneasiness didn’t subside with the addition of more armed guards behind us.
We passed through several ornate passages with gold and reds creating the ultimate contrast to the dungeon below. Up several flights of stairs, my legs ached for flat and level ground again. At the third level, we were led down a wide corridor, more ornate than any of the rest. At least as wide as three passages with gold and red chairs and benches along the walls, we followed a bright red carpet led all the way to massive wooden double doors guarded by two knights clad in ornate gold and silver armor.
“The King will be in there, most likely,” one guard said.
“Most likely clinging onto his throne for dear life,” one said, chuckling.
“Are you going to overthrow the King?”
“Hadn’t really thought about it,” I said. “Rika, are we going to overthrow the King?”
“Come on. Let’s get this over with,” she said, skirting my question once again.
I sighed, looked at Gnath who shrugged, and we continued down the passage behind Rika. The two knights at door drew their swords as we approached.
“Halt! State your business!”
One of our escorts stepped forward. “These are the defeaters of sorcerers and dragons. Let us pass.”
The two guards looked at each other but hesitated. “The sorcerer is dead? The dragon…?”
“Dead. Let us pass.”
Almost in unison, the two knights sheathed their swords and stepped back. A half-elf could get used to this kind of treatment.
The doors were opened, and our escort led us in, and we were followed by more guards and the two knights as well. At the far end of the massive chamber, on a stepped platform several feet in the air, the King was sat on his magnificent throne. He changed his seating position nervously as we approached.
“What is the meaning of this? What are you doing here?” the King barked. He stood and looked as though he was about to go into a rage.
His answer didn’t come immediately but rather was withheld until we were directly in front of the throne platform.
“I present you the defeater of sorcerers and dragons,” The lead guard announced.
“The… the sorcerer is dead?”
Without a word, Gnath stepped forward and emptied his sack in front of the platform before him. The sorcerers head hit the floor with a thud and rolled a few feet before stopping, its eyes looking blankly into space.
“I don’t suppose you have a dragon’s head in another bag, do you?”
“I assure you,” I said, stepping forward to stand next to Gnath, the dragon is dead as well.”
“I see,” the king said, seemingly relieved. He stepped back to once again sit on his throne. “And I suppose you wish to… what? Overthrow me? A reward, perhaps?”
Between the king and me, Rika appeared. Again, never having noticed she was gone, it was a surprise when the suddenly appeared in front of us without forewarning.
The King’s eyes widened. He stood, almost as if in shock. He cocked his head, trying to grasp what he was looking at.
“Rika…?”
“Oh, you recognize me, do you? I’m surprised, considering it’s been, fifteen…? Twenty years?”
Oh good. They know each other.
“It is you. I see you have developed the chameleon skill – a gift from your mother. How have you been?”
“How have I been? When my mother died giving birth to me, you abandoned me; sent me to live with the peasants in Kakaria. Did you think I wouldn’t remember who my real father was?”
“I seem to be missing something…” I said, trying to make sense of all of this.
“Shut up, Wellington. Did you? Did you father?”
Father?
“You understand, I couldn’t have had a—”
“Bastard child?”
“Illegitimate child in the kingdom. The people would talk.”
“So, you sent me away to hide your shame.”
“To protect you from the shame you would have faced. The people can be very unforgiving.”
“You doomed me to a life of cleaning fish and mopping fish guts off the floor of a processing warehouse? It took me years to get the fish stink off my body.”
“Fish stink,” Gnath said, holding his nose.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“And then, when I finally decide I would make my way back to you, I find out you’re terrorizing the world with dragons.”
“I assure you, that was forced upon me by the sorcerer.”
“Well, now you can make things right again, at least to some degree. You can never repay those that lost their lives or loved ones to the dragon, but you will pay reparations to the people and the cities you helped destroy.”
“That will bankrupt Edenkeep. I cannot afford that burden, and I don’t deserve it. The sorcerer… it was all on him.”
“You never tried to stop him, did you? My friends, with no special skills, showed more courage in the face of death, in the depth of your dungeon, in the path of the dragon that you did with an entire army behind you. And further, you will reword my companions handsomely.”
“I will consider it.”
“You will do it, or we will unseat you right here and now. Make it a decree that you will pay reparations to the cities you destroyed and the people in it and reward my friends handsomely. Do it!”
The King hesitated, but after a moment called out for his royal scribe. A younger man rushed in, and stood at the King's side, scroll and quill ready to write.
“I decree, on this date, that I will pay reparations to the cities of Angkrage, Bane, and Faradore for the damages the sorcerer and dragon caused. In addition, I will pay a king’s ransom to the friends of my…” he paused, “daughter, Rika. I will fill in the names and specifics as necessary when we can sit down and work out all the details.”
“And one more thing,” I interjected.
“What is it, tiny elf?”
I stopped myself from trying to correct the king but instead stepped forward to speak closer to the man on the throne.
“Our friend was killed helping us. His name was Quint, the Spellcrafter. He gave his life to help us defeat the sorcerer and the dragon. He deserves a hero's funeral.”
“Done. Anything else?”
“I promised my friends one th… five thousand d’nar each for helping me get here.”
“Wait,” I said. You promised us a fee without actually knowing if you could pay?”
“Oh, I was certain I could get him to pay. What say you, father?”
He hesitated a moment. And then he nodded in agreement. “Consider it done. Will there be anything else?”
“Hungry,” Gnath said.
The king sighed. “Very well. Have the cooks prepare a hero’s feast. I might as well have one good meal before we no longer have a budget for food.”
“Meat on a stick,” I said. “My friend will want meat on a stick.”
While the meal was being prepared, Gnath, Nyssa and I, accompanied by several guards went back down to the dragon’s cavern to retrieve the body of o
ur friend. He gave his life to save Nyssa, and in all probability the rest of us and Neverwind as well, I felt we were obligated to properly take care of his body.
We made our way past the massive carcass of the fallen dragon, and as we walked past, I found myself confused.
“Where is the Spellcrafter?”
We all did a double-take, looking around for a body that should not have moved.
“Did he get back up and walk away?”
We found the spot where his body had fallen, the tell-tale puddle of blood, now drying on the cold, stone floor. There was no trail of blood leading away. It’s as if the body had just vanished.
“This makes no sense at all,” Nyssa said. “Where could he be?”
“Magic is something I will never understand.”
We made our way to the edge of the cliff, the morning sun was just beginning to rise, the sky clear of clouds and the cool, sea air felt refreshing.
“Look,” Nyssa said, pointing to the sky to the east. Silhouetted against the morning sun was the unmistakable outline of a flying dragon rolling and dipping playfully in the sky as it flew ever further away.
“Naamagal? It thought she was dead?”
“No, not dead, my friends,” a small voice, too small for the adventures to hear, said from the corner of the cave opening. “Sometimes you just have to believe in magic.”
The mole took one last look at her friends, then proceeded up the ledge to find some new ground to burrow into. Meanwhile, in the dark land of Devigon, the skies were clearing, and the sun was poking out from behind the clouds.
Now, dear readers, if you’ve followed our adventure this far you might think our story is coming to an end. I would like to think it would be because this adventure was enough to last a lifetime for poor Gnath and me, but sometimes endings are just a disguise for a new beginning. When does one story end and another begin?
THE END
About The Author
Currently living in Cadillac, Michigan, I am a U.S. Navy veteran, father of two, step-father to three more. Somewhere in the course of my life I set some goals that I felt if I could accomplish these goals I would have accomplished something in my life. One of those goals was to write a book. I accomplished that goal in 2014 with the publication of my first book, a short story called Rust. Rust was a story loosely based on my daughter and some of the trials young girls face in their formative years.
Three years later I published my second book, Nora’s Ark. A Novella in length, and at the time it was my crowning achievement in writing. Nora’s Ark was a story that was 11 years in the making, a story that I had start to finish in my head since 2006. When I first got the idea, I began frantically writing the book on an old computer. I managed to get a whole chapter and a half when I lost steam, and the book sat untouched for 11 years. It wasn’t until April of 2017 that I got enough courage to actually sit down and FINISH Nora’s Ark. With the constant whip cracking from my wife, I managed to finish it in early May of 2017, and I had it published on Amazon.com.
With Nora’s Ark out of the way, and some good reviews behind me, I then set upon my biggest challenge, a full-length novel kDira’s World, a post-apocalyptic adventure set one hundred years after the end of the world.
And then there is Johnny Rockett series, my tribute to all the things I love about classic science fiction, with a little humor thrown in to jazz it up a bit.
The Dragons of Neverwind is my first fantasy adventure drawing on my childhood of playing Dungeons & Dragons, reading The Sword of Shannara and the Earthsea Trilogy, and the humor that Piers Anthony put into his Xanth series.
I hope you like my little book about Neverwind and the characters that reside there, and I hope to have more in the series in the near future.
Thanks for reading, and PLEASE remember to review!
~ k.R. McClellan
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