by Josh Powell
Chapter Guide
Dragon Apocalypse
Dedication
Copyright
Chapter One - The Berserker and the Darts
Chapter Two - The Berserker and the Pack
Chapter Three - The Pedant and the Unnamed One
Chapter Four - The Berserker and the Maiden
Chapter Five - The Berserker and the Dragon
Chapter Six - The Berserker and the Bard
Chapter Seven - The Berserker and the Bag
Chapter Eight - The Pedant and the Portal
Chapter Nine - The Berserker and the Nobility
Chapter Ten - The Berserker and the Dungeon
Chapter Eleven - The Berserker and the Sphere
Chapter Twelve - The Berserker and the Poison
Chapter Thirteen - The Pedant and the Plan
Chapter Fourteen - The Berserker and the Clem
Chapter Fifteen - The Berserker and the Cube
Chapter Sixteen - The Berserker and the Ant
Chapter Seventeen - The Berserker and the Invasion
Chapter Eighteen - The Pedant and the Portal
Chapter Nineteen - The Berserker and the Last Door
Chapter Twenty - The Berserker and the Beholder
Chapter Twenty-One - The Berserker and the Phage
Chapter Twenty-Two - The Berserker and the Orbs
Chapter Twenty-Three - The Pedant and the Berserker
Chapter Twenty-Four - The Berserker and the Dragon Apocalypse
Epilogue
Afterword
About the Author
Dragon
Apocalypse
JOSH POWELL
This book is dedicated to
Liam and Chloe
My berserker and little girl
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DRAGON APOCALYPSE
Copyright © 2015 by Josh Powell
All rights reserved.
340 S Lemon Ave #4745
Walnut Ca 91789
USA
Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited. Thank you for reading, I really appreciate you choosing to spend your valuable time reading my work. Please think about leaving a review for DRAGON APOCALYPSE wherever you purchased the book, or tell your friends about it, and then drop me a line. Leaving a review will help me out more than anything else you can do. I’ll send you something else to read to show my appreciation.
CHAPTER ONE
The Berserker and the Darts
“COME BACK, THIEF!” Pellonia shouted as she pursued the thief fleeing with the temple’s treasure in the dark of night. Although she was an elf, and elves are known for being agile, Pellonia was falling rather far behind. You see, Pellonia had yet to acquire the grace and beauty that were the birthright of every elf and she was, to all appearances, a thirteen-year-old girl.
Gurken lumbered along, trying to keep up. The dwarfen templerager wore a suit of chainmail so battle-tested that every link had been replaced on several occasions. He carried with him an axe engraved with dwarfen runes; the runes had, in the past, had a peculiar tendency to glow or burst into flames when battle drew nigh. Strapped to his left arm was a circular shield, similarly engraved. Strings of knots were tied into his ochre-clay caked beard, one knot for every person he’d killed in battle.
The thief hurled something in their direction before running into a two-story stone building and slamming the door behind her. Gurken raised his shield to intercept the object. Thunk. Lowering his shield, Gurken saw a crimson dart embedded in it.
“A dart?” Gurken said, laughing as he stopped in front of the door into which the miscreant had fled. “A dart? Have you run into a tavern?”
“They’re really quite effective.” A woman’s voice came from inside the building. “I can throw them much more rapidly than you can wield that axe of yours.”
Gurken plucked the dart out of his shield, used it to pick a piece of gristle out of his teeth and discarded the dart over his shoulder. He signaled for Pellonia to circle the building. She took off in a run.
“They haven’t got much mass,” the woman’s voice continued, sounding further away. “But I’m quite strong so that comes into play with each throw. In addition, I throw so many that I’m bound to get lucky and stick you in the eye eventually.”
Gurken winced at the thought. “Give me a good solid hard-cleaving dwarfen axe over darts any day!”
“It’s pronounced ‘dwarven,’” the thief shouted.
Gurken furled his bushy, fiery-orange brows. “One blow from my DWARFEN axe will end this fight for good. My good, not yours.” He cleaved the axe into the door, as if to make the point. The door splintered and creaked in objection to the rough treatment. The door swung open as Gurken pried out his axe, and he was forced to hold it closed with a foot to get the axe out. He shook his head, and looked at his axe. “Now I’m going to have to sharpen it,” he complained.
Gurken saw movement out of the corner of his eye as the thief leaned out a window. Her skin was midnight black, eyes glowing the bright green of a jungle cat. Her bone-white hair was pulled back and tied into a long braid that came down over one shoulder. She hurled more darts at Gurken. Gurken raised his shield, intercepting them as they came. Thunk thunk thunk.
The thief ducked inside.
“Now,” she continued, as her voice faded away once more. “Imagine if, in addition to my strength, the darts were also magical or dipped in the poisonous saliva of a Mimic? By attacking at a much greater-“ Her voice was suddenly much louder as she popped out of a window on the upper story and let loose with a barrage of darts. Gurken ducked under his shield. Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk.“-rate of fire, I gain a not insignificant advantage.”
The thief ducked back inside just as Pellonia rounded the corner and loosed a rock at her. The rock clattered off a wooden beam underneath the window. The thief leapt out, grabbed onto the roof and pulled herself up. She reached both hands into a quiver strapped to her waist and pulled out two more darts.
“Now, imagine, if you will, that I dual-wield the darts to increase the rate of fire.” She flung darts at the two of them with increasing speed, alternating her hands between reaching into the quiver and throwing the darts. Pellonia slid under Gurken, who was continuing to hold his shield overhead. Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk. Thunk thunk. Thunk. “Sure, my accuracy suffers, but with this many darts flying through the air, does that actually matter?”
Perhaps a quarter of the darts found their mark, striking Gurken’s shield. Fully half of the darts harmlessly struck the cobblestones around Gurken. The other quarter, well - a peasant boy fell to the ground, leg impaled. A bull was struck six times along its side but hardly seemed to notice. A dog yelped as a stray dart struck it, though, fortunately, it was a yelp of surprise as the dart bounced harmlessly off its back.
“How many of those things do you have wench? You’ll run out eventually, and then you’re mine,” Gurken taunted. “I’ll have you strung upside down in the temple dungeon before daybreak!”
Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk. Thunk thunk. “Did you just call me a wench? Typical. I suppose I shouldn’t expect more than that sort of attitude from the local constabulary.” Thunk. Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk.
“That ‘wench’ stole a magic quiver from the temple,” Pellonia hissed. Thunk thunk thunk thunk. Thunk thunk. “She’s not going to run out of darts anytime soon.”
Gurk
en was stymied. Thunk thunk. He could not advance while under this barrage of darts for fear of letting down his guard and getting stuck in the eye. Thunk. His shield was growing rather heavy as dart upon dart piled upon it. Thunk thunk thunk. Gurken retreated with Pellonia behind a barrel. Darts poured down like a heavy rain. Then, suddenly, they stopped.
Gurken risked a peek around the barrel. The thief was running away once more, over the rooftops, bounding between them. Gurken sheered the darts off of his shield with a single blow from his axe and ran down the street after the woman.
Gurken did not gain any favorable remarks from those he passed by for his agility. Nevertheless, though the thief was as nimble as a - well, as a creature of great nimbility… nimbl-ocity… great nimbleness, she was hampered by the uneven slopes and the unsteady footing provided by wooden shingles, clay tiles, or straw thatched roofs.
Straw thatched roofs, as it turns out, do not provide ample support to fleeing thieves and in an ill-timed landing, she fell through into the room below. Gurken was about to cleave into the door in order to gain entrance when Pellonia stopped him. She opened the unlocked door and they ran inside in time to witness the thief scrambling to her feet.
She stared them down, daring them to move, a dart in each hand at her hips. She bared her teeth at them, a gleaming pale white against her black skin, her black cloak fluttering in the breeze. She dipped the dart tips into a small flask at her hips.
Gurken and Pellonia pulled to a stop, then slowly split up and started to circle her.
“What’s your name, thief?” Pellonia asked as she pulled out a small knife.
She did not answer, instead bending her legs slightly and turning to face Gurken while keeping watch on Pellonia out of the corner of her eye.
Pellonia and Gurken, now on opposite sides of the thief, charged, expecting her to flee towards the now unprotected door. Instead, she lunged away from the door and flicked a dart into the side of each of their necks. Paralysis overcame Gurken and Pellonia as poison entered their system. They collapsed to the floor.
The thief smiled. “My name is Maximina. Maximina Nobility.”
Gurken opened his eyes, his head thrumming with a pounding ache. The world was upside down.
“What did that wench poison me with?” Gurken said. “Everything is wrong side up.”
“Why do you keep using that word?” Pellonia asked.
Gurken turned to his right. There was Pellonia. She was right side up, though the doorway was hanging from the ceiling and there were manacles laying against the ceiling as well.
“What word?” Gurken asked.
Pellonia glared at him. “Wench. The word wench.”
“Is it not a perfectly good word? Am I saying it wrong? Winch? Wanch? Wents?”
Pellonia rolled her eyes and sighed. “Let’s just get out of here,” she said and bent down to work at her manacles. She fell to the ceiling.
“What magic is this?” Gurken wondered in awe. Pellonia walked on the ceiling over to Gurken and opened the manacles attaching his leg to the wall. Gurken fell to the ceiling with a thump and an “oof!” as he landed.
Pellonia sighed once more. “It’s not magic Gurken, you were upside down.”
Gurken looked around and saw that they were in a small room that was quite familiar. They were currently the only residents of the temple dungeon, and seeing as they were no longer constrained by the manacles on the wall, and that there were sacks of soil, manure, and various rakes, shovels, and gardening hoes lying strewn about the room, one might have to refer to it as a gardening shed.
Gurken’s axe lay on the floor with a piece of paper on it, folded in half and closed with a clay seal. The impression on the seal was of a pair of lips puckered in a kiss. Gurken picked up the paper and frowned. He broke the seal and opened the paper. He growled as he read the paper, then handed it to Pellonia. Pellonia read it aloud.
To the temple of Durstin Firebeard,
I. O. U. one magical dart-producing quiver.
Signed,
Maximina Nobility
“She even signed it with a flourish,” Pellonia said. “She’s got class, I’ll give her that.”
“Class? She’s a lowly temple thief!”
“She didn’t really steal the quiver, she’s only borrowing it for a bit. Look, she’s going to give it back. She left an I.O.U.”
“That paper isn’t worth… it isn’t worth the paper it’s written on!”
“Why didn’t a dwarfen symbol on your axe light up and save the day?” The sudden change in subject gave Gurken pause. He was unable to simultaneously hold the thought of the temple thief and consider the wildly different question. He struggled, but then could no longer remember what he had been so angry about a moment before.
Gurken lovingly rubbed at Kenaz, the dwarfen rune of vision, revelation, and knowledge. “Hasn’t done that since the elves left. Never mind that now, we’ve got to get the temple’s artifact back. I don’t care if we have to track her across the world. I vow, in the name of Durstin Firebeard, dwarfen God of Butchery and Battle, that I will hunt her down and I will recover the temple’s artifact. She shall not escape.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Berserker and the Pack
“HERE YOU GO.” Maximina Nobility handed the magical dart quiver over to Gurken. “I don’t need it anymore.”
Maximina Nobility had been seen heading out of town in the dead of night on a pitch-black horse. Gurken and Pellonia set off immediately to find her and arrived at a small town by midmorning. They spotted her immediately; she was rather difficult to miss.
“What do you mean, you don’t need it anymore?” Gurken asked in anger. “We’ve tracked you down and-”
“I thought darts would be a very efficient and effective weapon. I’ve a much better plan now. Sure, darts provide a very rapid rate of attack, but you run out too quickly. I thought the magic dart sack would solve that problem, but it turns out that the darts it produces are neither magical nor poisoned, so they have to be dipped in poison after pulling them out of the sack, like I did with you. That lowers their utility remarkably. Far too slow. I tried taking them out, dipping them, and setting them aside, but the darts dissolved after a few minutes.”
“Doesn’t matter, you’re coming back with us to the temple to face a tribunal for your crimes,” Gurken growled.
“Did you try to…” Pellonia began.
“Put them back in the sack after dipping them in poison? Yes, but when they came back out again… not poisoned.”
“Perhaps some sort of…”
“Poisoned gloves?” Maximina finished Pellonia’s sentence for her. “A good thought, but too dangerous. I’m afraid I’d poison myself.”
“Perhaps if you just…”
“Prepared by pulling out a bunch of darts when I knew there was going to be a battle in the next few minutes? Not flexible enough. What if I was surprised?”
“That’s not what I was going to say,” said Pellonia. Maximina shrugged.
“Enough,” said Gurken. “You are hereby arrested. You will be coming back wit-”
“So what are you using instead?” Pellonia asked, interjecting.
“Dogs.”
“Dogs?”
“Dogs.” Maximina whistled and a pack of dogs that had been lazing about in the shade jumped to their paws and ran over to Maximina’s side. There were a dozen of them, lined up in a neat row.
“Now there are thirteen independently acting creatures on my side. That’s even more actions at once than I could take with darts. And, it’s scalable. If I’m facing a stronger foe, why I just go get more dogs. Sure, a few dogs will die here and there, but so what? They’re cheap! They’re like five pieces of gold each.”
A dog looked up at her and whined. Pellonia crossed her arms and glared. Gurken considered that the forces arrayed against them had suddenly become rather more difficult to subdue.
“That’s really mean,” Pellonia said.
“Is i
t? I suppose you’re right. I’ll have to come up with something else. In the meantime, I can’t go back with you.”
“You’re coming back with us all right,” Gurken said.
“Why not?” Pellonia asked.
“These villagers are under assault by a dragon and have asked for my aid.”
Gurken gave her a surprised look.
“What? If I don’t help them, who will? They can’t help themselves and I can’t, in good conscience, let them go on sacrificing virgins to the dragon, can I? How many virgins can they possibly have? They’re going to run out and then they’re really screwed.”
“We’ll help you!” Pellonia said, excited. “We’ve faced and defeated a dragon before, you know.”
Gurken looked at Pellonia, then back at Maximina and sighed. “Aye, we’ve slain a dragon before. I supposed we can’t let these people suffer.”
“Fabulous,” Maximina said. “It’s settled then. It’s my quest, so I’m party leader.”
“You?” Gurken exclaimed. “We’re the ones that defeated a dragon. I’ll be leading the party.”
“Ha! You couldn’t even get around my darts, and I have an even more effective weapon now.” The dogs growled in unison. Gurken curled his lip in a snarl and growled back at them. The dogs whined and sat down, pretending to notice a squirrel prancing about in another direction.
Gurken and Maximina glared at each other for a time, then both looked to Pellonia.
“I, for one, don’t care which of you is party leader,” Pellonia said. “The important thing is that we save this town.”
Gurken and Maximina blushed.
“Quite right,” said Gurken.
“Of course, of course,” said Maximina.
“Good. Now that that’s settled, Maximina do you have enough food for the dogs on the journey?”
“Food? Don’t they just hunt for food along the way?”
“Ha!” Gurken exclaimed. “No, they don’t just hunt for food on their own. We’d spend half the journey wandering about looking for lost dogs.”