Dragon Bones And Tombstones (Book 2)

by Craig Halloran

  Whop!

  Bam!

  Boom!

  I stiffened. What was that? What was that, indeed. The sounds of battle didn’t come from me, but beyond the tree. I stood with Fang in my grip and peeked around the bend in the tree.

  “Come out from behind there, Nath Dragon!”

  I let out a sigh. It was Brenwar, standing tall, for a dwarf at least, three orcs crumpled at his feet.

  “Hah!” I said, limping forward, using Fang as a crutch. “It’s about time you showed up, Brenwar!”

  He eyed me, and I knew what was next: a lecture. Brenwar liked to lecture me on the things I did wrong, but this time it would be different. This time he was wrong and I was right.

  Brenwar hefted his war-axe over the plate armor on his shoulder.

  His voice was gruff when he said, “I told you to wait fer my signal, Dragon.”

  One of the orcs started to move.

  Brenwar whacked it in the head with his hammer. “But you couldn’t wait, could you? Just a few more minutes was all I needed. But once again, you rushed headlong into danger without thinking about the consequences.” He eyed the blood dripping from my leg.

  I slid Fang back in its sheath and folded my arms across my chest. “My leg will be fine. It’s not that bad.” I tried not to grimace, but I did. “And none of this would have happened if you would have been there in the first place.”

  Brenwar was scowling now.

  I threw my arms up. This wasn’t my fault. It was his. “I couldn’t wait forever. You know how I feel about that. Seeing a dragon caged infuriates me.”

  An angry growl rose in his throat.

  I could feel the heat coming off of him, hot like a furnace.

  “I’m not talking about your leg, NATH!”

  He stepped over a fallen long and punched me so hard in my chest I could feel it through my armor.

  “You killed two orcs, Fool!” He hit me again, same spot, but harder.

  I fell to the ground.

  “You killed—AGAIN!”

  So I did. But it was in self defense, and Father said that was all right, if you had to. Now my own anger was beginning to rise. No one pushes me around. No dwarf. No man. No orc and no dragon. I started to rise, but a jabbing pain throbbed in my leg. So I pointed at him instead.

  “Don’t do that again, Brenwar! What I did was in self-defense. It’s as much the orcs' fault as it is mine.”

  Brenwar slammed the blade of his war-axe into the log.

  I winced. He was angry, much more so than I.

  He sat on the log and looked me square in the eye.

  “Patience, Nath. I was on my way. If you would have just waited, you wouldn’t have had to kill any of them. I’d have distracted them while you freed the dragon. Just like we’ve been doing for months now.” He shook his head as he tugged at his beard with his iron-fingers. “Now look at you.”

  “What?” I said, checking over myself. I didn’t see anything wrong other than the hole in my leg. “Is it my face?” I patted it over. “Do you have my mirror? Brenwar, where’s the mirror?”

  Brenwar just stared at me, pupils blank, eyes expressionless.

  “There’s something wrong, alright,” he said.

  I was mortified. Was it possible I’d gained black dragon-eyes or a black dragon’s snout? Everything felt the same, but I could not help but wonder. “Brenwar, tell me! What is it?”

  He muttered something.

  “What!”

  Brenwar did something he rarely does unless he’s finished a few tankards of ale. He smiled. Or at least I thought he did. It was hard to tell underneath his black beard that looked like wool from a lamb.

  “Are you jesting with me?” I asked, standing back up, ignoring the pain. As my anger rose, I looked down on him. “Brenwar, why would you do such a thing! It’s not something to be joking about. Not at all.”

  He let out a short chuckle, pointed at me, and said, “You’ll think better of it next time, before you start carving into orcs or any other kind. Ha! You should have seen your eyes! You should be worried. And you should be thanking me, too. Your father told me to keep you in line. And you’re out of line right now.”

  I stormed away. The pain in my leg wasn’t so bothersome when I was angry, but it still hurt. But something else ached worse. My heart. I ripped a hunk of a tree out with my dragon-clawed hand, took a seat behind it, and wiped the dampness from my eyes. I missed my father and my home in the Mountain of Doom. And even though I’d been gone away years longer, it already seemed like I’d been gone forever. There was no worse feeling than knowing you could never go home again.

  I sat there and sulked for the next few hours. My heart was heavy, and my angry thoughts turned sad as the moons dipped from view with the sun. Brenwar was right of course; he always was. You would think that after two-hundred years of life I’d know much better by now, but I had such a hard time controlling myself. I hated dragon poachers and all their kind, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to loving the lust for battle. I had to be better, be wiser if I was going to solve the riddle that had become of my arm and hand. I had to turn my scales any color other than black.

  “You ready?” Brenwar said, stepping into view.

  I nodded.

  “Brenwar, how many dragons must I free to get things back to normal? We’ve freed so many dragons recently, at least seven that I count. Father said that for every life you take, a life you must save, or something like that. I’ve saved more lives than I’ve killed. In all of these months, only those two orcs have I killed, and only because I was trying to save myself from death.”

  He shook his head and grunted.

  “Well thanks, Brenwar,” I said, shaking my head. I knew it wasn’t up to him to solve my problems. I gazed at my right arm, the dragon arm. It seemed a great way to compensate a man that was left-handed. If anything, it did things that my left could not do. It was stronger, faster, and though I shouldn’t admit it, it was a magnificent thing.

  Whop!

  I ducked down. Brenwar slammed his axe into the tree, inches above my head.

  “Have you gone mad, Brenwar! You almost took my head off!”

  He ripped his war hammer out of the tree and yelled at me.

  “I should be taking our arm off, Nath! It’s your problem!”

  “I know that!” I shouted back. I wasn’t an idiot. Why would he say such a thing?

  “No, you fool! That’s not what I mean. If you could just see yourself looking at it. You like it! You crave it! Your eyes are like a dwarf's in a gold rush: hungry as a bear for honey. Thirsty as a fish out of water.” He waggled his dwarven hammer in my face. “You have a dangerous look in those eyes of yours. The kind men get when they have enough power and want more.”

  I laughed him off as he walked away. “You’re being ridiculous, Brenwar.” I carved my initials in a rock with my dragon claw. It was another one of those awesome things I liked to do. I got up to smiling as I followed him, saying, “I don’t like it.” I love it!

  CHAPTER 3

  Travel was slow going for the next couple of days, and Brenwar had barely said a word, which wasn’t odd for a dwarf, but I could still tell he held a grudge.

  I stopped, pulled off my boots, and dumped some gravel from them. We were in the Shale Hills, a network of ravines and green forests with hill tops and valleys covered in a blue-grey shale.

  “Hold up, Brenwar,” I said, stuffing my boot back on.

  The journey would have been more pleasant on horseback, but we’d given them up two rescues ago. Brenwar said they made too much noise. I agreed, much to my regret now. My wounded leg was still in agony. I’d used up the last healing vial on the last adventure. But I wasn’t letting it slow us down. I poured out the shale from my second boot, stuffed it back on, and began my tracking of Brenwar.

  His tracks, faint but discernible to my eye, led me to a stream that gently flowed over a bed of smooth shale. It was a nice place, lots of ferns, red and gree
n, both sides lined by pines. On the other side of the stream sat Brenwar: refilling his canteen, taking a drink, then refilling it again. He eyed me, shook his head, and turned away. I was starting to get sick of this now.

  “Brenwar, are you done pouting at me? Not communicating isn’t going to solve my problem. A little advice, such as where we are going, wouldn’t be so bad right now.” I skipped a stone across the stream. “Of course, I could always rescue dragons all by myself.”

  “Is that so!”

  Well, it was so, but I wasn’t going to say that. Brenwar taught me everything I know about tracking, but I fared pretty well on my own now. The fact that I was part dragon gave me an edge even he didn’t have, but his centuries of experience provided him with an edge that I had not yet developed. Besides, I needed Brenwar to keep me under control. I needed that, but I wouldn’t admit it to him.

  I sloshed across the water and stuck my nose down in his face. He still hadn’t answered a question of mine. And I was beginning to suspect maybe it wasn’t me, but rather the questions he didn’t want to answer." Brenwar, why did you take so long to arrive back at the orcen camp?”

  He started to turn away, but I stopped him.

  “Let go, Dragon. It wasn’t so long,” he huffed. “It hardly makes a difference how long it was now, anyway.” He started to pull away.

  I exclaimed, “I waited up in the tree for hours!”

  He huffed. “So.”

  “No, no, no, no, Brenwar. Not a couple of hours—Several hours. You’ve never left me hanging around that long before.”

  I got in his face.

  He tried to look away.

  I could see it in his eyes: he was hiding something. There was certainly something he didn’t want to tell me. I wanted to know what that was. It was driving me crazy now.

  “Tell me, Brenwar, or I’ll ask you every minute of the journey. I’ll talk like a chatter boxing gnome if I must. You know how good I am at it.”

  “Alright then!” He shoved himself back and shook his head. “I had to go.”

  I gave him a funny look. It didn’t make any sense to me what he meant.

  “Go where?” I said.

  He grunted, gestured with his hands, looked around and whispered, “I—Had—To—Go.” He nodded towards the ground.

  “Huh?”

  He made another gesture I didn’t comprehend. Then another.

  “Oh!” I didn’t know what to think at first, but like a sock in the belly it hit me. I started laughing so hard that I fell over. My voice was echoing from one end of the ravine to the other.

  “Will you quit laughing, you idiot! You’ll bring the entire hills upon us!” He tried to stop me. “Quit that!”

  It didn’t do any good. I couldn't get rid of the thought of Brenwar being late because he had to go to the bathroom!

  “Did you pile or pee?” I asked, only to erupt in laughter once more. “BRAWAH-AH-AH-HA!”

  “Pah! Both, if you must know!”

  I was still laughing when I said, “Well, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” I was being sincere.

  “Ho! It’s not like that happens often at all… er,” he was twisting his beard and rubbing the back of his head, “…it happens, now just leave me alone.”

  He walked away, leaving me alone with my laughter. Great Dragons! I hadn’t laughed like that in ages. There was nothing quite like a belly full of joy to take away the aches and pains of the soul. I caught my breath, giggled a little more, and sat up on the stream bank.

  It took a while before Brenwar sauntered back.

  “Let’s go, Laughing Dragon.”

  I held my finger up.

  “Certainly, but my question remains unanswered. You only told me part of the answer. You told me the circumstance, but I still don’t understand why having to relieve yourself took so long. Hours, at least?”

  He grumbled and kicked at the ground.

  “Did you have to go really far away? Were your bowels bound up? Was there—”

  “No! No! And No!” he said, looking as if he wanted to hit me again. “I’m a dwarf! We don’t go all the time. We can hold our water weeks at a time if we want to! And when we go, it takes some time, concentration, and privacy. Happy are we now, Nosey Dragon!”

  “Ah!” I held my finger up once more, not my dragon finger, mind you. “One more question, though.”

  He folded his arms across his chest and sighed.

  “What is it?”

  I reached out and he helped me to my feet.

  “Is that why you’re always so grumpy?”

  ***

  Up the stream we went, hour after hour, from dusk until dawn. Brenwar was speaking more, well maybe a few words per hour. When he’s onto something, he’s all business about it, and according to him, he had heard long ago that many dragons were held captive deep in the Shale Hills.

  "How many?" I asked him.

  He shrugged and said, “How should I know?”

  Well, I hoped it wasn’t too many. In most cases, we only rescued one dragon at a time, but I’d rescued as many as three on one occasion. Little ones: one bronze, one green, one red, their scales like shiny mineral stones.

  But dragons weren’t all just one color. They had different abilities, as well. Some could fly. Others could swim, and some could even cast spells. That’s right, and you shouldn’t be surprised because they are magical creatures, after all. Even I had magic like that, but I didn't have the hang of it, yet.

  I stopped in the stream, the waters rushing over my boots. Some loose shale was sliding down a hill. Brenwar was looking at me and I at him. Something was coming down the hill. Something big. I made my way into the reeds along the bank. Brenwar did the same. I readied my bow, Akron, and waited.

  Whatever caused the disturbance on the hillside wasn’t moving now, but in my bones I could feel that something was coming. It was dusk, and many creatures in the forest came out at that time to hunt. I filled my nostrils and exhaled in relief. It wasn’t one of the giant races, but I wasn’t comfortable that I couldn’t smell anything, either. That left me uncertain. Curious, too.

  I shifted around in the reeds and water, trying to get a better look up the hill. It was dim, the time of day that the dipping sunlight casts the darkest shadows. There was no moon or sun to adjust your sight. That’s when your other senses come in. You can’t always trust your eyes, but your nose and ears can serve you just as well, if you let them. I stepped farther out of the reeds. The wind rustled the leaves in the trees. The waters gurgled at my feet, but I heard the faintest sound. A heavy step. Two heavy steps. I thought what was coming was big, certainly bigger than me, which doesn’t mean much.

  “Dragon,” a voice said in a hushed whisper, “get back here.”

  It was Brenwar, but I wasn’t going to listen. I had my bow, and I was fast, so if something was going to try and eat me it would have to catch me first. Up and down stream I noticed the last glimmers of sunlight. I was more than halfway across when something emerged from the woods. A dark mass on two legs with arms as long as its feet crept through and huddled by the waters. Its head was large, more shoulders than neck, almost the size of a horse's, but more like a man. It looked right through me then scooped a handful of water into its mouth. The icy look in its eyes froze me, and how it did not see me, I didn’t know. It just wasn’t one of those things I recall ever seeing before.

  I held my arm out behind me and made a sign of caution. I was sure Brenwar’s keen eyes would pick it out. The creature's head turned my way again, tilted, and paused. Now my heart was racing. I saw the white of its teeth. A set of fangs in particular. Its body stiffened, and something fluttered at its side. It looked as if the ape-like creature had—wings! It came closer, wading into the stream, big fists splashing in the water.

  I didn’t move. I didn’t dare move. The last thing you should do when you are facing the unknown is panic. Or move, until you figure out what that move is going to be. My bow was ready. It was just a
nother extension to my body after years of practice and training. If the winged ape made any sudden moves, I would shoot a pointed feather into it. But this thing was big, much bigger than me, and I wasn’t going to start a fight with it if I didn’t have to. It’s not like it was an orc or a lizard man. If that were the case, I’d have shot ten times already.

  It growled, spread its wings, pounded its chest, and charged.

  CHAPTER 4

  My first shot zinged over the ape’s head. Not because my aim was off, but because it wasn’t. That thing was fast. Really fast, almost as fast as me, I hated to admit. My second shot hit it in the pack of muscles in its shoulder and bounced off like a toothpick hitting a wall of stone. You see, there’s a difference between the three types of arrows I use: non-magic arrows for hunting, mithril ones that can shoot through almost anything, and enchanted ones with special abilities. I didn’t need a magic one ninety-nine times out of a hundred, but I needed one right now.

  Drat!

  And the third shot, a magic arrow from my quiver, well that wasn’t going to happen. The ape was too close, too quick, and just a few yards from rushing into me. I hooked my bow Akron over my shoulders. The dwarven armor Brenwar made me had a design for that. I braced myself for impact, reaching down to wrap my hand around the hilt of my sword, Fang.

  Too late, Dragon!

  Brenwar jumped from the reeds and slammed his war-hammer into the ape’s chest, drawing forth a howl of anger. Brenwar was a couple hundred pounds of solid brawn facing eight hundred pounds of raw muscle.

  The ape snatched Brenwar from the waters of the stream, hoisted him over its head, and hurled him like a log that disappeared into the woods.

  Brenwar would never live that down if we lived to tell about it, and I wasn’t ready to die without recounting it one last time.