The Beginnings Omnibus: Beginnings 1, 2, 3 & Legend of Ashenclaw novella (Realm of Ashenclaw Beginnings Saga)

by Gary F. Vanucci

  Barnabus and Twarda charged the massive dragon as Jon watched and then followed close behind them. Ashenclaw landed in the midst of the ruins and set down on all fours. Figit made his way around her wide flank, slinking into the shadows and disappearing beneath her underbelly. Serifel and Bain, the death priest, both moved to opposite sides to give her more targets.

  Her tail came up and Triniach instinctively knew that it was the precursor to her spewing fire from her maw. He’s noted that some of the others had lifted their tail, too, even when airborne. He cringed and brought up his sphere of Protection, as did Azbiel. He mouthed a spell and pushed forth a wall of arcane force in an attempt to envelop the dwarves in the spell. The timing was not good. He watched as a wide surge of fire consumed them instead.

  Panic ensued and a great sense of both failure and loss overwhelmed the mage as he believed them all dead, burnt to ash under the onslaught of that great conflagration.

  The ground erupted all around him and he was pulled from his own remorse, forced to witness what was happening around him. Triniach observed both within and without the ruins, several tyrantian worms sprouting from the soil. There were at least a dozen.

  "It seems we have also woken a nest of tyrantians," Serifel mentioned with a crack of his knuckles.

  "Just what we need," said Figit nearby. “More problems,"

  A few of the worms raced to attack the queen of the scorching drakes, spitting acid at her as more still moved to attack them.

  "Brace yourselves, my friends. Things just got interesting," Triniach said.

  Azbiel launched a volley of arcane bolts into the closest tyrantian worm, dropping it instantly. Absolute mayhem commenced as Triniach floated into the sky, watching the carnage unfold.

  He watched the priest of death, Bain, summon a cloud of insects that surrounded and swarmed one of the worms.

  Serifel the monk launched another series of blows that must have landed ten times within each beat of his heart. The final blow exploded with the sound and force of thunder, dropping the tyrantian to the ground.

  Twarda, Jon, Barnabus and Figit all moved to engage the tyrantians as they emerged from the hot soil. Morgrim and Beulah remained close to them, giving them support in the form of healing and prayers to aid or protect them.

  Triniach himself launched a ball of fire directly into a cluster of worms that just emerged from the soil and watched as the blazing orb exploded upon impact, incinerating all of them at once. It was then that he noted a buzzing sound in his ears and saw a swarm of Tyrantian skimmers heading their way from the east and several huge tyrantian crawlers began to emerge from the holes made by the worms. Several larvae followed the crawlers out of the ground.

  "Things just went from bad to worse,” he said as he looked to Azbiel. “There appears to be a tyrantian nest below the surface of Shalratha’s ruins.”

  "They don’t like the heat either," supposed the mage with a shake of his head and a laugh as he headed toward the skimmers. Triniach looked after him as several of the skimmers swarmed Azbiel, a Sphere of Protection still surrounding him. The mage disappeared beneath their numbers and Triniach winced, hoping that the protective magic held.

  A burst of fire emerged from the center of the swarm and they all fell toward the ground in flaming embers, leaving only Azbiel floating in the air once more.

  Triniach breathed a sigh of relief. That reprieve turned to horror as he witnessed a tyrantian worm slash the dwarven priest Morgrim in half with its mandibles. It then proceeded to swallow him.

  "No!" he heard himself yelling as he fired bolts of arcane force into the tyrantian creature that had slain the dwarven priest.

  He managed to glance toward Ashenclaw as she too shredded the enormous tyrantian worms with her claws. He continued to watch the colossal drake as she incinerated multiple tyrantians with one exhale of her breath. In its wake were the ashes of what were once a throng of tyrantian worms. He could not help but admire her sheer majestic supremacy.

  Yet still more made their way toward her and them both, the others still fighting upon the ground and even more of the skimmers moved to attack her, coming from another direction. He wondered if the tyrantians would even soften her up for them. Sadly, he doubted it as she managed to incinerate the entire swarm of skimmers in one breath.

  No greater test of his power was ever presented. No more powerful a beast has ever been seen or recorded in history. It was then that another realization crept across his consciousness: perhaps she had graced Wothlondia many times before, but not one soul had ever survived to tell the tale.

  He shuddered at that thought.

  Figit turned to see many tyrantian crawlers emerge from the holes made by the worms and he cringed. He hated tyrantians in their many shapes and sizes and when he saw them, it made him feel like something was crawling on his skin. He wasn’t sure what was worse: tyrantians or dragons!

  Jon was on his left, vigilantly turning tyrantian worms to dust with his divine powers. He recalled how the paladins of any religion could offer divine judgments to aid in their ‘cleansing of the world,’ which was how Jon Veinslay explained it to him numerous times.

  And Twarda was to his right, tirelessly planting her axe head into any creature that wandered too close. She never tired, he knew. He’d seen her swing that axe tirelessly in many a fight and still those massive dwarven arms kept going.

  Barnabus was directly ahead of him, engaged with a crawler or three, he could not tell how many. Several larvae began creeping toward Barnabus and Figit was bothered that they might make it to him before he could intercept them. As his thoughts considered going over to offer him aid, the wily dwarf spun on the ball of his foot and cleaved through them with the massive head of his axe, yelling something in dwarven.

  Both Figit and Barnabus were surprised when the larvae exploded, discharging a green ooze that sizzled when it hit the dwarf’s armor, burning several small holes in the steel and singing the dwarf’s beard as well.

  “Now ye’ve done it!” he yelled in the common tongue as he launched himself into a flurry of devastating yet controlled swings of his weapon. Within seconds the crawlers and larvae infringing on him were turned to mush and Barnabus stood panting with several more spots of the green ooze upon his armor, leaving behind more holes to match.

  Figit not so much as heard, but felt something approaching him from behind. He instinctively dove to his right and doubled back to where he stood only a second ago to drive poisoned dagger tips into the hide of a tyrantian crawler. It attempted to swing a clawed appendage his way, but the poison had already taken effect and slowed its swing. He tumbled backward away from the slowed attack and reversed his direction again, planting three more stabs into its frame. It fell limply to the floor as he moved to aid Jon and Beulah, who’d backed themselves into a corner between a wall of crawlers and a pile of blackened debris.

  Jon drove the tip of his sword through a crawler and rebutted the advances of another with his shield, stunning it and knocking it to the ruin-covered ground. Beulah invoked a shield of divine force that deflected the rush of two more crawlers upon the two of them. There were too many of them, he realized, and figured Jon for dead. Figit heard the sound of yelling from above and glanced skyward to see Azbiel hurling a ball of fire their way.

  Figit dove forward into front flips, looking for something to hide behind while Beulah encased her and Jon within a shield of pure divine energy. He found a pile of rubble that hid his frame as the ball of fire exploded all around them. He felt the heat as it surrounded him and covered his yes. Barnabus and Twarda were too far away to feel the blaze as they had worked their way into the throng of creatures in an attempt to halt their advance.

  Oddly enough, Figit managed to catch a glimpse of what looked to be the monk and the death priest working in conjunction to stem the advance of the skimmers behind them. Figit crawled out from behind the pile of wreckage to see the burning remains of the tyrantians all about them.

 
He also noted that many of the skimmers fell to the unending fury of the elven archers and Sinadow in the horizon, who’d moved even closer to the boundary of the ruined city.

  They are still here, he thought with tempered elation. Perhaps they could still win the day. He felt that elation wither inexplicably. It was at that exact moment that he saw Ashenclaw’s head and body tower above the ruined structures. She sent a storm of fire across the ruins of Shalratha, engulfing not only her eggs, but all of the tyrantians and everything else in its wake. His heart thundered in his chest as both Serifel and Bain were caught in its conflagration, Figit shuddered as he imagined the finality of that situation.

  As the flames died out, he noted that the eggs remained, but all of the insect-creatures were turned to cinder. That event left alive only a dozen or so skimmers that remained airborne.

  The scene was devastating.

  He caught sight of Bain, who’d somehow survived the blast, but did not see the monk Serifel anywhere.

  Triniach felt the heat below him. He tossed a bolt of forked lightning that sent the last two tyrantian skimmers reeling out of control as they hit the icy surface of The Shimmering Lake. His vision cleared and through the smoke noted that the death priest, Jon Veinslay, and Beulah survived. But the monk, Serifel, had been reduced to ash right before his eyes and he could do nothing about it. The only thing that remained of him was a torn section of his vestments that floated toward the ground, blackened and burnt, save a white star that managed to remain unscathed.

  Azbiel hovered just above the ground, hurling lightning, fire and necromantic magic into the last of the tyrantian worms and larvae that remained on the far side of the ruined city. It appeared as though the tyrantian threat was coming to a close as only ashes and insect-carcasses could be seen both within and outside the ruins of Shalratha.

  Only Ashenclaw remained.

  The death priest, Bain, summoned a visible miasma of disease called Deathly Corruption that consumed the head and front portions of the giant drake in its framework. Triniach had seen servants of The Reaper work their cryptic procedures many times in the past and was familiar with a portion of their divine magic.

  Ashenclaw bucked and swiped with her claws, attempting to jab away the plague-cloud that surrounded her, but to no avail.

  Azbiel floated above her and arcane missiles burst forth from his fingertips, exploding into her back, directly between her wings.

  Barnabus and Twarda covered the vast expanse of ground to end up directly in front of her. They began to hack at whatever flesh and scales they could find and vanished within the borders of Bain’s spell.

  “Drop me on her back,” he heard from below him. It was Figit’s voice. The halfling was half-smiling and waved him down. Triniach floated down and grasped the tiny halfling by the wrists and carried him above Ashenclaw, releasing him at the crest of her back and neck and then circled back to launch bolts of lightning into her, joining the rest of them, as they put forth a concerted effort to down the queen of the scorching drakes.

  Jon and Beulah made it to her left flank and hammered her scaled frame with their divine powers. In between bolts of lightning, Triniach managed to see the elves on her right flank, near the bank of the river not far away, launching careful and accurate volleys of arrows into her hide. It seemed that they were beginning to make headway as he saw blood trickling from her sides. He began to think that they were going to down her until a roar and an outpouring of flames consumed the entirety of Bain’s spell.

  That was when things changed drastically.

  Ashenclaw flapped her wings once and swiped her claws once, heading toward the waterfront of the lake. By the time Triniach could make out what had happened, he saw that Figit was falling, dislodged from her back with her sudden and ferocious movements. Triniach raced over to grasp his hand, catching him midway to the ground, before lowering him all the way.

  “Take longer next time, Trin,” Figit said with a mask of fright laden upon his features.

  As he turned away to scope his surroundings, he saw Beulah knelt over Twarda, who was bleeding from multiple wounds on her chest.

  “I’ve tried all that I can,” Beulah claimed through sobs, her head bent low. She cradled the dwarven warrior in her arms and rocked her gently until the mighty dwarven warrior of the Stoneshell clan stopped breathing.

  Twarda’s eyes were like steel, fearless and resolute even in the face of death. Beulah ran a hand across Twarda’s face and closed her eyes gently, tears running down her own face.

  “She died on the field o' battle. No more glorious death coulda' been asked or given," Barnabus claimed, bowing his own head and banging his greataxe on his own chest multiple times in honor of her, as he’d seen Twarda do on numerous occasions.

  A blast of intense fire set the far section of brush and soil aflame. Triniach could not help but marvel at the sheer destructive power of this magnificent creature. It was intoxicating to see something so beautiful and deadly all at once. As his gaze followed her across the plains near the lakefront, he feared that her fiery breath caught all of the elven archers in its deathly blaze. Most of the ruins were on fire, tyrantian shells and carcasses littering the battlefield, and their own numbers were dwindling.

  "This may be our last stand. Make it count," he addressed them as he clutched his staff tightly in both hands. He and Azbiel both ascended into the sky as Ashenclaw turned to face them.

  She crossed the breadth of the lake and entered the ruined outskirts dropping to the floor and landing with such force, it made the ground shake and the ruins crumble to dust beneath her mass.

  Barnabus and Jon made their way in a rush toward her as Bain flung a spell that sent ghost-like creatures toward Ashenclaw, surrounding the drake with the souls of the dead. They surrounded her neck and head, giving the others a brief opening.

  Azbiel and Triniach both unleashed the fury of winter upon the drake, launching concentrated blasts of frost at her, just as Barnabus, Jon, Figit and Beulah disappeared beneath her chest. Then the mage witnessed the unmistakable glow of Beulah’s radiant shield glowing from beneath the drake, attempting to give the fighters shelter.

  Triniach held his staff tightly and continued to pelt her with the storm of ice and the chill of winter as steam poured from her scales. She roared in defiance pulling her wings overtop her in an attempt to shield her from the cold blasts, and giving the combatants on the ground a chance to strike.

  Figit found a soft spot on her right claw and began to probe very quickly for weak spots. He drove his daggers into her flesh as Barnabus swung his greataxe wildly, creating huge wounds in her hide, blood spilling forth. Within seconds, he was covered in her gore.

  Jon Veinslay stood beside him, using his holy blade and vengeful powers to carve a hole in her underbelly.

  As the halfling drove the point of his dagger into her paw once again, her left claw swiped across and in one fell swoop, cleaved Barnabus and Jon in twain. The dwarf’s final swing was struck with such force that the greataxe wedged into her scales, as not accepting death’s call for him without protest.

  Jon’s sword and shield flew in opposite directions as the man’s divided body collapsed lifelessly into the ruins. His helm rolled toward Figit and came to rest beside him as he continued to stab her paw in shock, disbelieving what had just happened. As the helm came to a stop, he could see Jon’s eyes wide open in distress, his head still encased within the steel.

  Ashenclaw roared and launched a stream of fire skyward that consumed Azbiel completely and sent Triniach falling out of the sky to plummet to the ruins below. Figit lost sight of him quickly behind her massive frame and he could only assume that he was dead.

  He could see the death priest continuing to cast spells of necromancy into her and he seemed to go intangible like a ghost for a moment as she threatened him with a crushing swipe of her tail, but it passed through him instead.

  Another blast of fiery breath met his spell of deathly blight head on as i
t seemed to catch in the flames and recoil back toward him. He disappeared within his own spell and the bright, deadly flames.

  He saw Beulah standing in the open shaking her head, clearly overwhelmed by all of the death and seemingly in shock or not caring whether or not she lived or died. Ashenclaw raised a giant paw and placed it down atop the dwarven priest and just like that, she too, was gone.

  A burst of light flashed from behind the queen of the scorching drakes and Figit tumbled backward, realizing that he would not get another distraction to get away from her. His heart was beating with fury in his chest and he forced himself to steady his breathing.

  His eyes widened as he saw Triniach emerge from the lake, hovering above her once more as he began to overwhelm the drake with bolts of thunder and lighting. Both the waves of sound and the lightning bolts assaulted her and she roared in defiance. It was as intense a storm as Figit had ever seen in such a small area.

  Ashenclaw beat her wings once and the ground shook with it as she was suddenly airborne. Debris and rubble flew all about and she opened her maw and the mage disappeared behind the rows of jagged teeth.

  Figit could see it as clearly as if it were happening right beside him. He quickly did a tally and realized that they were all dead. All of his companions and the new friends that they had just met were all gone within the span of ten minutes.

  Figit's mind raced and panic overwhelmed him. What was he to do by himself against the full fury of an enraged scorching drake that was the size of a small mountain?!

  His fight or flight instinct kicked in at that very moment and he decided to hide. He needed to formulate a plan. He found a place within the ruins, a crevice small enough to hide his frame within the piles of debris. He maneuvered to the spot and tucked his tiny body tightly within the space and slowed his breathing.