Dead Druid: Claire-Agon Ranger Book 2 (Ranger Series)

by Salvador Mercer

  “Well, they are your companions and you know them best, but they will only assist in the quest if they do not kill one another first. I have seen unhappy husbands and wives lead a more productive relationship than your two companions.” Ketas smirked.

  “Our companions, Kesh, or are you not in this with us?” Haldor said.

  “Our companions, then, but you are all Ulathans nonetheless.”

  Haldor looked overhead, and then back to the eastern horizon, where a faint glow could be seen in the pitch blackness of the night. “The twin sisters will soon rise. Now or just before the dawn would be the best time to ambush us,” he said.

  “Your attempt to change the subject is noted,” Ketas said. “You do not really expect anything eventful to happen tonight. If you did, you would not have allowed the fire.”

  Haldor kicked at a piece of wood that was near the small fire as he looked down and around at their camp. Ketas was right, as usual. Haldor felt sure this entire quest was nothing more than a colossal waste of time for him and his companions, but he wasn’t giving the orders . . . at least not for the quest, though he was in charge of it here in the field. “You’re most likely correct, Ketas. I think our most serious injury will be the welts we incur from these blasted insects. The swamp is no place for city folk.”

  “I indeed hope that you are corr—” Ketas stopped speaking in midsentence. A rush of swamp water came near to the small fire and a large snapping sound broke the hush of the night. A muffled scream alarmed the group, and Seyla appeared, stepping out of her tent, sword held in one hand, shield in the other.

  Ketas stood and grabbed his staff. “Aloire sveti!” he exclaimed, pointing his staff into the blackness and a suddenly bright light illuminated the entire area. There, standing as if a void in the blackness, was a black dragon. Its front claws had landed on the tents of their soldiers, and Haldor could only imagine the death they had imparted.

  “Horag, watch out!” Seyla cried as the large black dragon swung its tail and caught the rogue exiting his tent opposite of the others. The tail caught Horag square across the chest, and he was hurled backwards into the swamp and darkness, disappearing from sight.

  Two of the men-at-arms who had been standing watch lunged into the beast from either side with their large halberds in an attempt to wound the creature. “Kill it!” Castor yelled, picking up a large pike ornamented at the top with a sharp steel point.

  Too late came the cry as the beast spat a large stream of acid at Seyla, who had advanced directly into the beast’s path. She tried to duck behind her shield, but the sizzling acid burned the flesh from her arm, and her shield started to melt as she screamed in pain. Before the last of the foul liquid was retched out of the beast’s huge maw, a blinding bolt of lightning, followed by a deafening clap of thunder, tore into its neck, shattering several scales and scorching the flesh underneath.

  The dragon reared up, pulling its neck back, and turned to face Ketas, who had unleashed the electrical discharge from his staff. Haldor had managed to sling his own shield onto his left arm and had unsheathed his own sword, lithely swinging it in a circular motion in front of him as he often did to acclimate himself to its weight. Then time seemed to freeze. The dragon had reared back and stood still for a moment as its gaze met that of the Kesh wizard. Even Castor and his two men took a moment to brace themselves, and then the beast did something unexpected and very human-like . . . It glared at Ketas and narrowed its eyelids in a look of hate that Haldor was sure he would never forget, if he survived the encounter.

  “Kill it!” Castor screamed again as the beast lunged towards the wizard and let loose another stream of black acid directly at Ketas’s face.

  “Dostoi!” Ketas yelled, and he held his staff horizontally in front of him. Haldor also raised his own shield and took several steps back, which saved his own life, as the black oozing acid hit an invisible spherical wall of force around the Kesh mage, and the acid splattered everywhere, including Haldor’s shield.

  “Argh!” Haldor grimaced in pain as a small amount of the black liquid landed on his sword arm. He instinctively ripped the sleeve of his tunic off and threw the smoking remnants clear of him. He should have struck then, as the beast’s neck extended not far in front of him, but he found himself preoccupied with his own pain, and he was experiencing some sort of unnatural fear that seemed to emanate from the black dragon. Where was Seyla? Why wasn’t she attacking?

  With a quick look to his side, he saw her kneeling on one knee, with her sword planted into the soft ground, grimacing in pain. Her left arm lay inside the shield straps on the ground, and only a burning stump at her left shoulder was left to show for her efforts.

  “Haldor! Kill it!” the Kesh wizard yelled, but again, too late. The beast never slowed its attack, and while the magical shield kept the liquid acid at bay, it did little to nothing to stop the beast’s jaws. They struck quickly, biting the wizard in half and leaving only his two legs standing on the moist ground, planted there as the only reminder that a man from Kesh had been to this swamp.

  Haldor was shocked, but newly galvanized by the death of his companion, he took two steps forward and brought his sword down hard across the beast’s neck, hitting it on the right side, and opposite the side where the wizard’s electrical bolt had hit the dragon. He felt his blade sink in between scales, and then suddenly it was ripped from his hand. The dragon roared in pain and reared its head back up as it used a hind leg to swipe one of the attacking soldiers, spilling his innards across the marshland.

  “No!” Haldor found himself screaming in vain, as his company, and indeed his quest, went from routine and more than boring to terrifying and utterly deadly in the metaphorical blink of an eye.

  “To the abyss of Dor Akun with you, beast!” Seyla cried, rising and rushing the beast with only one arm. Quickly reaching the dragon’s right front leg, she swung at it with her holy sword. Haldor watched, mesmerized at the bravery of his companion. He had seen her fight before, but never like this. She was a Fist of her holy Order, a holy warrior of Astor, and she looked every bit the part as her blade drew blood and bit deep into the beast’s leg tendons, hitting where the scales ended and the rough skin began. The blade glowed a bright white, and black blood from the dragon sizzled off it.

  She hurt the beast as it rolled over and away from her, landing not only on its left side but also onto Castor and his lone remaining man-at-arms. The sickening sound of bones being crushed was muffled in the soft earth and soil of the marshland. The beast didn’t wait and let loose a third missile of acid at its very own feet, completely engulfing what was left of the brave and gallant holy warrior. It seemed to Haldor that she began to melt almost immediately.

  Haldor stood there dumbfounded, looking at what was left of his bravest companion as her remains slowly shriveled into a lump of black sizzling and smoking goo. Then, ever so slowly, he felt the gaze of pure evil upon him, and he looked into the beast’s eyes as it lay on its side, wounded but deadly and alive, malign to its core.

  The beast struggled to stand back up, and Haldor would have thought that then and there was the time, the exact moment, especially after so much sacrifice, to strike the beast down when it was, for one brief moment, vulnerable. Haldor realized, however, that his sword was still sticking lengthwise from the dragon’s neck, and that he was no longer armed. He dropped his shield and did the only thing he could think to do.

  Haldor ran.