The Sword and the Dragon (The Wardstone Trilogy Book One)

by M. R. Mathias

  He staggered to his feet, and felt a humid, yet cool breeze on his skin. Above the heavy stench of old decay he smelled the earthy fragrance of dense vegetation. Instinctively, he sought out Talon’s vision, but found nothing there. Nothing but more blackness.

  His panic multiplied tenfold. He began to search the darkness with outstretched hands. Where was he? What was happening? What had happened to Talon? Finding nothing, but the hard rocky surfaces of the boulders and scree that surrounded him, he began to give in to his suddenly frantic emotion.

  Seeing that he was close to stumbling out of one end of her wormhole cavern, Claret spoke to Hyden.

  “I am here,” she hissed.

  Faint tendrils of flame briefly lit the area in front of the dragon’s great red plated head. A crystalline prism of deep, smoky blue had presented itself in that instant as well. The Night Shard was laying before the dragon’s hunkered down bulk, in a smooth section of floor, which was covered with circular etchings of runes.

  “I wants you to trust me, Hyden Hawks,” the dragon hissed softly.

  With her words, came the brief glow of the flames that emitted from her cavernous nostrils. Hyden made his way toward her, as she continued to speak.

  “I haves no doubts that you intends to release me from the collars.” Her voice was gravelly and ashen. “Never-the-lessss, I will haves it off, before I finish what you have started. You needs my fire to dissolve yon crystal. Removes the collars, and I will do the deed.”

  Hyden stopped in his tracks, and forced his fear, and worry for Talon aside. It took him a few minutes to gain his wits back. He cautiously checked his wrist, to make sure that the collar he’d stolen from Shaella was still there, before he spoke.

  “I could will you to do it, through the collar.” His voice wasn’t threatening, just matter-of-fact.

  “Yesss, Hyden Hawk, you could.” Her voice hissed, and flames licked the air before her. “But if you do, then you’ll never learns whether you cans trust me or not. You’ll never knows my nature. I would value that bond of - What’s the human words? - Friendships, with one such as you.”

  “Aye,” Hyden responded, choosing his words carefully. “I would value such a friendship as well. But if you tricked me in this, then I’m dooming my people to the fate of demon kind’s will.”

  “It is no easy choice to trust a dragon,” she chuckled, sending bright bursts of flame rolling out ahead of her. “I will hold no ill will towards you, if you choose nots to do so.”

  She turned, so that both of her luminous amber eyes came to bear on him. He felt, and smelled the hot, reeking heat of her breath on him.

  “It will sadden my fiery heart though, to not be able to call you my friend.”

  Hyden thought about Vaegon’s tale of Pratchert, of what Pratchert and the dragon might have spoken of at the Summer’s Day monolith. He wondered what the great Dahg Mahn would do in this situation. He thought of the two young wolves, and how the simple act of saving the mother, had came back to save him in the end. If his god’s gift was to speak, and interact with the animals, then in truth, there really was no choice to make. The feelings he’d felt, when he’d seen the tapestry depicting the collared dragon’s, came back to him. It wasn’t a matter of trust. It was a matter of right and wrong.

  “Turn your head, then,” Hyden said.

  His decision was made. When she was in position, he had her breathe enough light so that he could see the fastenings on the big, jeweled leather strap. It took some time for Hyden to figure out that opening the clasps was more of a mental exercise, than a physical one. The buckles were linked to his collar magically. It took some effort, and some trial and error, but finally, he bent the clasps to his will. They came loose, and the heavy collar fell to the floor.

  There was a sudden flurry of movement in the new darkness. Hyden was knocked to the floor. He became very tense and aware. He might have just made a horrible mistake. He turned this way and that, looking for some visual sign of his surroundings. Other than the two jagged holes that he knew were the openings into the cavern, nothing was discernible. He could only make out the holes, because the night sky outside, was just a few shades lighter than the pitch dark he was in now.

  “Your brother stole my eggs!” Claret growled, in a deep voice that was no longer contained.

  It sounded as if thunder had somehow gained the ability to articulate words. Flames filled the air over Hyden’s head, and he was suddenly very, very afraid.

  “Your people enslaved me to guard this portal for countless years, and I was left to helplessly look upon my un-hatched young, hope for a time when I might incubate them, and wean them into freedom.”

  The cavern went black again, as the dragon began drawing in a slow deep breath.

  “I should roast you from your bones, Hyden Hawk Skyler,” she said, as her vast lungs filled to capacity. “As I am not my blood kin, and as their deeds and minds are not my own, I’ll not holds you to blame for the actions of your blood kin.” She paused, and her huge yellow eyes loomed down at him. “Always remember who your true friends are, Hyden Hawk,” she commanded. “Now, step aside, and shelter yourself, lest I roast you by mistake.”

  Before Queen Willa let herself be dragged back down into the castle, she yanked the silver tipped Horn of Doon from her neck, and hurled it over the tower’s edge. She cursed herself a fool for even entertaining the idea that the ages old promise of the dwarves might be remembered, much less fulfilled, during this time of great need.

  In the distance, the bright colorful display of Mikahl’s battle with Pael recaptured King Jarrek’s attention enough that Willa wriggled free of his grasp. Both of them moved back towards the parapet to watch. From the air just above Mikahl, red streaks collided into a dome of blue, and radiated flares of lavender and purple, like some spectacular flaming star. It was impossible to tell who was who, or what was actually happening, but in the moments that followed, it became clearer.

  Jarrek and Willa could see that Pael was hovering and attacking. Mikahl’s shield was diverting the demon wizard’s energy somewhat. Mikahl returned the attack, with a white-hot beam of his own, and when the two forces met, the area around the two combatants was illuminated by an explosion of radiant light.

  Anyone with the vantage of height, could see them clearly now. They might as well have been battling under the midday sun. Mikahl’s rage pushed forward, but was forced back by a surge of demon might, and evil will. The bloody, prismatic beam of Pael’s, swallowed up Mikahl’s force, and came up against the glassine dome of his blue shielding energy again, only this time, it shattered the protective globe, into a shower of hurtling, glowing debris.

  Pael’s crimson ray didn’t stop there: it consumed Mikahl.

  After a bright cloud of sparkling, white smoke-like energy swirled up, from where the Squire-King had just stood, blackness, and the sounds of the battle raging below on the castle’s grounds wafted up, and once again consumed the night. The light of hope that Mikahl had represented had been extinguished, and King Jarrek had to catch Queen Willa, before she fell to her knees in despair.

  Mikahl felt the power of the demon’s will shatter his magical shield. He felt his magical armor absorb as much of the power as it could, before it burned away in a white smoking cloud of sparks. Then, he felt the demon wizard’s ray upon his flesh, and felt it bore into him, to the very marrow of his bones, but only for an instant.

  For that fleeting moment, he had felt the horror and pain of a million lifetimes, but that moment was over now. He heard the muffled grunting cough of Pael landing in the rubble. He heard the dark wizard cry out in rage, pain, or some other powerful emotion, and when he opened his eyes, he saw Ironspike lying on the ground before him. When he reached to pick it up, his muscles felt wrong, and stiff, and a tremendous pain tore through his body. He felt as if he had been cooked.

  He remembered Loudin of the Reyhall, and the agonizing pain he must have felt as he clung to the blade, trying to save it from th
e hellcat. He remembered Vaegon’s upper half laying among the rocks, and Grrr’s valiant leap into the jaws of the Choska to save him. Knowing that the hoard of pain that he was feeling couldn’t possibly equal the sacrifices that had been made for him, for this very moment, he gritted his teeth, lurched forward, and grabbed the leather wrapped hilt of his father’s sword.

  At once, Ironspike’s harmonic symphony filled Mikahl’s ears again, and he was drowned in cool relief. His pain was quickly vanquished, and a rush of energy took its place. Gathering his wits, he found his feet, and surveyed the scene around him.

  Not ten paces away, Pael was trying to get back to his feet. In the bright, blue glow of his blade, he could see Pael’s good eye rolling around wildly in its socket. He could see the clenching, and unclenching of the demon-wizard’s jaw, and the way the veins stood out on his neck. Something was wrong with him. Pael seemed to be caught up in some inner struggle, and was being tormented by it. Mikahl didn’t hesitate to wonder why the pale-skinned demon wizard was in such a state. He just raised Ironspike, and charged.

  Pael, with Shokin’s might behind him, had reached through the power of Ironspike’s defenses, had reached into Mikahl’s soul, and started to blacken it, but something had happened. Shokin was yanked from him, for a terrible, soul-wrenching moment.

  Pael clung to the demon’s power with all he had, but it was still slowly slipping from his grasp. Some power beyond reckoning was drawing Shokin away from him. Through the skittering of his good eye, he saw the boy coming for his flesh.

  What to do? He latched onto the demon’s essence, and cast another destructive spell, but it wasn’t to be. Icy blue steel bit into his neck. He saw bright, sapphire shaded rubble, then the dark starlit sky, then after a crazy whirl of darkness, his vision came to rest.

  He saw the bloody, spurting stump of a body, clad in black robes trimmed in sparkling crimson tears, and knew that he was seeing his own headless corpse. What was worse than watching his life’s blood pumping from his body, while his brain slowly died, was that his soul still clung to the demon’s essence, and the agony of it ripping free from his consciousness lingered, until he finally faded away into nothingness.

  Mikahl wasn’t satisfied that Pael’s egg-like head was sitting several feet away from his body. He judged where the wizard’s heart should be, and fell to his knees as he drove Ironspike through it. Such was the force of his thrust, that the cross guard of the hilt slammed into Pael’s back, as Ironspike pinned him to the earth.

  A deep, thrumming vibration erupted from the ground there. Mikahl felt it, and let go of the sword. He rolled away, and crumbled to the earth, naked, save for the tatters of his robe.

  He had expected Ironspike’s power to quell when he let go of the hilt, but it hadn’t. It vibrated and pulsed so deeply, that the earth trembled beneath him. Mikahl made to scoot away from the demon-wizard’s body, and immediately felt the depths of his injuries. He had to fight to stay conscious, as the thunderous low end of Ironspike’s symphony rumbled through the earth beneath him.

  A golden column of light began to twist upward, from the sword’s hilt. The intensity of it grew, and started to swirl its way up into the sky, like some giant corkscrew. The underside of a bank of clouds caught the illumination, and then parted, so that the glowing shaft could pass beyond their pillowy mists.

  Ghost-like forms of men, with haunted expressions on their stretched and twisted faces, came streaking by, making great whooshing sounds as they went. They were being drawn towards Ironspike’s hilt, as if they were soapsuds spinning around a drain. Once they were sucked into the sword, they were sent spinning upwards into the heavens. Four of them, five, and then ten. A score now. And thousands more. There were so many of them, that the air shimmered around the skyward beam of light, a cyclone swirl of ghostly souls.

  A great relief tried to wash over Mikahl’s pain, but couldn’t quite manage the task. It was even painful for him to close his eyes, but he closed them anyway and all at once he slipped away into unconsciousness.

  King Jarrek nearly dropped Queen Willa, when he saw the shaft of golden light pierce the distant darkness, and reach up into the very heavens. From the castle grounds below, he heard the cries and shouts of the soldiers who were defending the last bit of ground between the enemy, and the people huddled in the palace.

  “They’re falling!” one yelled.

  “The dead are dying,” another added dubiously.

  “It might be a trick! Where’s the wizard?”

  “It’s no trick, look!”

  Screams of joy and anguish, along with cries of pain and loss, rang out through the ranks of Blacksword soldiers. The angry shriek of a wyvern came howling out over it all, as the beast shot out of the huge depiction opening overhead, and sped away as quickly as it could. No longer bound by the demon-wizard’s will, it had no reason to risk the proximity of so many humans. A few arrows trailed up after the dark scaled creature, but none of them found its flesh.

  King Jarrek let Queen Willa down to the rooftop as gently as he could manage, and then ran to the parapet wall. As the undead soldiers fell, he saw a white, misty form shimmer up from each of them, like so much smoke. Then, as if caught up in the gusts of a magical wind, they were swept away, toward the base of the swirling tower of light. Entire clouds of misty souls went tearing through the ruined city, on their way toward the sword’s judgment. The sight was as breathtaking as it was unnerving.

  The guard at the stair landing had come up out of his hiding place, and stormed the roof screaming. “The castle is clear! The dead are dying! The dead are…”

  His voice stopped suddenly, and his face contorted into a look of sheer panic, when he saw Queen Willa lying there on the deck. He was overcome with relief, when he knelt down beside her, and saw her eyelids flutter open.

  “The dead have died, your Highness,” he said softly. “The night is won! I – I – I’ll call for a healer.”

  A sudden surging sound, similar to that of raindrops hitting a tin roof, drew everyone on the tower top’s attention. Over the corpse of the Master Wizard Targon, a misty cloud formed and peeled away audibly before it shot away in a flash.

  “Is it true?” Willa asked King Jarrek.

  His front half was aglow with radiance from the golden light that held his attention fast.

  “Aye, milady,” he answered in that Western way, without turning away from the scene before him.

  His voice was full of awe, and reverence, but still tinged with deep sadness, and regret.

  “I hope that it’s time for the kingdoms to unite again, because without help, I’ll never be able to free my people from the Dakaneese slavers. And King Ra’Gren, and that Westland wench, cannot get away without paying for their part in this.”

  Mikahl felt something scratching on his stomach. Then, he felt a slight ball of warmth nestle down there. It was soft, feathery soft. He didn’t open his eyes, for he knew what it was. The soft cooing sound he could make out, over the supernatural din transpiring around him, could only come from one source: Talon.

  Ironspike had healed the bird after all, or maybe the hawkling had just been stunned. Either way, Mikahl found that he had never felt safer in all his life as he did right then.

  Lying half naked and weaponless on a death-strewn battlefield, there was no one else he would rather have watching over him.

  Feeling safe and secure, it took only a fleeting moment for him to fade completely back into oblivion. There, his partially healed, and newly traumatized body, dragged him back down into the same comatose state that Vaegon had found him in when he had placed the replenished sword in his hands.

  Chapter 59

  The part of Shokin that had escaped the Nethers wrenched itself free of Pael’s body, and went tearing across the land, towards the Seal.

  No one saw it, or heard its screams, because it had no physical substance, and could make no audible sound. It was there though, and clinging to it desperately, was Pael’s vile
soul.

  Over the farmlands of Middle Seaward, then across the rich grazing plains of Valleya, the formless entities went. Over the edge of O’Dakahn, the Dakaneese cesspool city that was now overcrowded with Wildermont slaves, the demon essence and its ghost-like parasite, continued on. Then, across the nearly deserted marshlands, where the Zard, and other denizens of the swamp used to live before Shaella had led them into Westland. Flashing up into the Dragon’s Tooth Spire, they flowed past Hyden Hawk and the dragon. Then, they were pulled with rude force, down into the molten crystal that was coursing through the carved symbols that made up the Seal.

  Pael’s soul was rejected, and left behind, but Shokin’s essence was drawn to its other half, with a violent intensity. Soon after it had passed the barrier, the molten crystal corroded the symbols away completely. The power of the Seal was no more. The once smooth and polished face of it was left nothing, but a pocked, and indistinguishable ruin.

  Pael’s soul was not demon kind, nor was it substantial enough to even be considered evil anymore. In the world of demons, souls, and spirit essences, what was left of Pael would be considered more or less a gnat, or a pest. It tried to enter into the young man crouched against the pile of stones, but could not. It started at the lazing dragon, but the great predator’s heat warned it away. As the hissing puddle of liquefied stone finally began to cool, Pael’s pesky spirit darted out of the dragon’s lair, and went searching for something familiar.

  Gerard Skyler scratched at the sharp, bony protrusion that was growing out of his elbow. His other elbow had stopped itching a while ago. The dragon’s yolk he had drunk to replenish his bloodless body had changed him, changed him from the marrow of his reforming bones, out to his thick plated, slime covered skin.

  The darkness of the Nethers was so potent, that he couldn’t see himself though. It was a blackness that the eyes could never adjust to, but Gerard didn’t need, or care to see what was happening to him. He was on a stairway that spiraled down – forever down, and getting to the bottom had become his passion. He drifted in, and out of consciousness, sometimes waking in mid step, sometimes curled in a shivering ball on a landing that bore no door. He always woke in that blackness, and when he did, he would start plodding downward again, as if his destiny lay at the bottom of the shaft.