“Stand still,” Khan directed. Within seconds it had passed. Feeling on solid ground again, Khan said, “Let us go then. Stay close.”
Together, the trio entered the labyrinth lair of the red dragon and the domain of the Cursed Cleric.
“We go there,” Malik said, pointing above the immense opening that led into the volcano and slightly to the west.
Bran looked from their vantage point. “Where?”
“The dark gap near those jagged outcroppings,” Malik said.
“I don’t see anything,” Bran responded.
“Trust me, its’ there,” Malik said.
Bran nodded, “The pull is straight into that opening, though.”
“I understand how its magic works, but it doesn’t mean we need to walk through the front door of a dragon’s home,” Malik said, a tinge of exasperation in his voice. “We can go by a less direct, though also less noticeable path as well.”
“You want to know just as badly as I do,” Bran said to his companion.
“Know what?”
“If that was your kin back there and if so are they still alive.”
“Maybe I do,” Malik said, “but even so, we have one last quest to fulfil in order to be rid of Azor’s hold over you.”
“What’s that to you?” Bran shot back.
“I told you. I want Ulatha freed and while the Kesh are gone, the undead was not exactly my plan either. Besides, if my kin are alive, then I want to know that and save them as well. There is something else interesting here as well.”
“What?” Bran asked.
“I’ve noticed the magic of detection that you hold in your wife’s brush, as well as the Scepter of Death, the rod that I carry, seem to be more active. The rod especially is pulsing with energy as if there were undead near us.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means that something is making the magic more powerful. I wonder if being near a dragon does such a thing?”
“I doubt many humans have had an opportunity to find out.”
Malik chuckled, “I guess you’re right. Any one near a dragon most likely didn’t have a very long life span.”
“No, I would think not,” Bran agreed. “But this magic is unholy and evil. I do not wield it or use it willingly.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing now.”
“Only because I have to.”
“Well, we have to do what we have to do, and I will do whatever it takes to free our homeland and realm from all tyrants.” Malik said emphatically.
“You have a twisted sense of morals and values,” Bran noted.
Malik shrugged, “As do many. Now, let’s go.”
The pair ran the rest of the way and then ascended the volcano using lower ledges and slopes on the west side until they came across the volcanic fissure that Malik had first pointed out. It was hot inside, but the pair descended into the crack and found themselves moving down a rough tube with walls that could cut their hands to shreds. They used gloves to mitigate the risk and the light became dimmer as they descended until they reached a point where a reddish glow took over from the fading sunlight outside.
Malik lead the way and turned to Bran as they approached a huge chamber. “Almost there.”
“Agon help us,” Bran replied.
The Northmen followed the score of Kesh and their wizard to the very mouth of the volcano. The opening was so wide and smooth with the many passings of lava as well as the comings and goings of the dragon that it could almost take the place of a road. The reddish glow emanating from inside the mouth of the volcano’s entrance hinted at the hot lava and magma waiting them below.
Hermes didn’t speak, only turning to face Kaz once who gave him a stern look. The Kesh wizard felt as if this wasn’t part of their deal and that the cruel barbarian was marching him to his executioner, if one could call a five-ton dragon such a thing. Hermes motioned to his men to take a combat formation and the men broke ranks from two columns to four rows instead. The lead two rows were ten men wide with spears and the last two rows were crossbowmen with bolts loaded and ready to fire. They were shaped as an arrow with each flanking soldier a half step behind the man to his center.
Hermes followed with his staff held in his right hand and he took firm steps to keep up with his men. They marched straight into the volcano and Hermes had a tinge of pride at the twenty Kesh soldiers who neither complained, nor showed fear. This was a marked improvement from the class of brigands he was used to dealing with. He could only chalk this up to the fact that the High Mage himself had released the Black Tower guards and Zorcross, wanting to ensure success for their mission, had allowed the best troops to accompany Hermes.
With grim determination, the group of Kesh and Northmen entered the dragon’s lair.
Magma was considered a younger dragon, at least by her species’ standard. She was on her first rotation to Agon when the humans attacked her and her sisters. Her two oldest siblings, ageless, ruthless, and utterly brutal, were murdered by the hands of the foul humans. Both Infierna and Conflagula fell to them, and in the resulting war that ensued many more of her multi-colored sisters fell as well.
Magma retreated from the raid on Kesh, where the prideful magic-users called home, after they had all but destroyed the cities there and burned most of the inhabitants to ash. At least those they didn’t eat. That had been a thousand years ago. The portal from this world to her world had been closed to them and her and her kin needed to wait for five passings of Dor Akun before the portal could be opened once more. That time had finally come.
Since the last time the portal had been opened, and the loss of her sisters, Magma had moved to her sister’s lair here at this volcano. Her own lair was far to the north and as the younger of the many siblings, she was forced to hunt and feed in lands that were less plentiful and had less resources around her. With the passing of her sisters, and no new transitions from her home planet, she was free to claim the lair as her own. When she did so eight hundred years ago, there was another inhabitant that was present when she arrived.
The warrior woman was strange to Magma. When she first encountered her the woman made no effort to either flee or fight. The woman would yell in agony and anger at times and then at other times she would stand and watch the twin sisters pass while the sun rose and set. Day after day without moving, without end. Eventually, Magma attacked her, having grown tired of the woman’s presence. It was dangerous to sleep with an adversary nearby. Things did not go so well.
The initial attack resulted in the woman cleaving off several scales from her snout. Magma had bathed the woman in flames hot enough to melt bone, but nothing happened. She had even stomped the woman under the immense weight of her clawed foot and received an impaling of the woman’s huge sword in return. It took several decades for the wound to heal properly and the woman promptly stood up when Magma retreated. It was then that she understood the human, female warrior was dead. It was difficult to kill something that was already dead.
In time, Magma ignored the woman and the dead woman ignored her. The woman seemed confined to her sister’s lair and never left the lava flood plain. Whether by some law of nature, magic, or oath that she had taken, the woman never slept, never travelled, never ate, and never left. It was wholly unusual for the young dragon, but in time, she became accustomed to her presence.
Coming out of her latest hibernation, she found a group of foolish humans camped nearby. She was hungry and attacked the human camp and fed, fueling her metabolism after coming out of her sluggish sleep. She was feeling rather well when the dead warrior woman took off in a direction she had never seen before. The woman was immune to obsidian and could vaporize it on contact. This caused the land around her to be formed with tunnels in the shape of the figure’s standing form. How or why this happened she could not tell, but the direction was unmistakable.
Looking south she saw with her dragon vision the human intruders that dared approach her domain. Her kind, drago
n kind, loathed the humans who practiced the arcane. They glowed brightly in the infrared spectrum invoking ageless years of hate and contempt. Seeing the Kesh magic-user so close to her domain she focused on killing him and his companions at the expense of seeing anything else. When they escaped, her anger simmered, and she flew back to her lair to wait for the man to show himself. They always did.
So she curled herself around the resting place in front of a pool of soothing, cool lava and waited for them. The crazed, dead, human warrior woman also returned and stood in front of her looking at the entrance. Waiting for something or someone. The dead woman muttered at times and Magma understood and could speak the human language. The undead warrior woman made no sense to her. She had to have gone mad, her mind a mix of mush and chaos as could ever reside within one of their kind.
Their arrival was expected, but not the arrival of two more parties. One large party with dozens of warriors and another of one of them, a foul, magic-using human. The other party of three, two in front, one hiding in the rear to her right was hardly more of a nuisance to her compared to the first party and the group of humans who evaded her first attack now entering her lair to her left. The nasty Kesh man standing behind a tall warrior with a magical shield and sword. The kind humans had to resort to when dealing with her kind. The type of weapon and armor that showed weakness.
She would kill them all. Her only dilemma now, since they suddenly appeared at the same time, would be in which order?
“Now Kesh, kill the dragon!” Baku yelled as the Northmen rushed behind the Kesh soldiers and approached their allies.
Hermes was almost awe struck and despite being a Kesh wizard, if one could be called that considering his incomplete training and cowardice in general, he was susceptible to the dragon’s aura of fear. It nearly paralyzed him except for the fact that the feared barbarian chieftain was now yelling at him, “Krik ahoud. To ni bood!”
“Alright,” Hermes yelled back, snapping out of his fear, at least partially. He raised his staff and summoned a bolt of lightning. It shot out at the dragon and went high, hitting the roof over its head and caused a few shards of rock chips to fly away from it harmlessly. The Kesh wizard found concentrating on his spell while the dragon roared and the Northmen yelled their war cry, was nigh to impossible. When he saw his spell fizzle out, he gave an order to his men, “Attack!”
Two score of bolts flew at the dragon and this did get its attention. It breathed a ball of fire that incinerated all the bolts in mid-flight. Even the metal tips had melted to balls of lead. Hermes felt fear overtake him until something stronger edged into his mind. Curiosity. There was an odd, armored figure standing in front of the dragon. It had long, white flowing hair and white eyes with no pupils. It wore plate armor with the emblem of an armored fist on its breastplate and a huge longsword in one hand, held down but above the ground.
Hermes would have thought the figure and hair demonstrated it was a woman, but the size seemed more like a man. The Northmen often times had long, flowing hair and it was difficult to tell for the Kesh man. When the figure screamed a war cry of its own, however, it was in a loud but feminine tone of voice and Hermes understood it was a female warrior. He also understood that the sword now pointed at him and she uttered two words which were not pleasant for him to hear. “Die Kesh.”
She charged him from over a hundred paces away and Hermes didn’t care about the dragon. He summoned a fireball and sent it directly at her. So fierce was his fear that it allowed him to focus for the first time in years and he hit her directly with the ball of flames and watched contently as it consumed her.
He felt the Northmen streaming around him as they charged the dragon and the crazed, armored woman would be in their path. Hermes started to feel better about the encounter until the flames died down and the figure stood, having paused momentarily, and faced him. She resumed her charge but at a measure walk this time. Hermes was about to turn and run when Kaz came up beside him and said, “You coward.”
Hermes was about to answer when the unmistakable sound of electrical energy winding up overwhelmed their senses. Turning to see where the sound was coming from the pair of men, Kesh and Northman, looked to their right and saw a group of three people that had arrived in the main lair from a side passage. Out front was the Ghost of Ulatha with a shiny shield and magnificent longsword held in front of him. He was facing the dragon, but his sight was drawn to the pair behind him. The Ulathan noble woman and the Kesh traitor whose name was not to be spoken. Hermes screamed, “Khan!”
The traitor ignored him and sent a bolt of electricity that caused their hair to float above them due to the intense amount of static in the chamber, even from a distance of a stone’s throw. The bolt impacted the dragon on its chest and blew away several scales and gouged the beast severely. The impact knocked the dragon back on its side and it lashed out with its tail and beat its wings causing the air to whip up around them.
Kaz took one last look at Hermes and said, “Now that is wizard.”
The man charged with his warriors at the dragon and they were yelling in triumph as a Kesh wizard had wounded their adversary. Hermes was about to curse Khan’s name when he noticed that Khan’s attack had two most advantageous consequences, at least from Hermes’ perspective. The first was that the dragon was temporarily incapacitated and the second was the warrior woman who was heading his way stopped and turned to face the traitor. She raised her sword at Khan and changed targets. Hermes thought it ironic that his foe was now his savior. Perhaps he would survive this battle and return to Kesh one day.
“There, do you recognize him?” Bran asked, pointing all the way across the chamber at a trio of fighters opposite them. “The one in back is my wife!”
Malik looked past the Northmen’s clan, a group of warriors along with a score of Kesh soldiers that had entered the chamber at the same time. They were still on an elevated position having come down from the upper slope of the volcano to reach the dragon’s lair. The entire scene was lit by an active lava pool behind the dragon itself and there was more than enough light to see the entire area despite its size. Seeing his brother in front with an odd sword and shield he replied, “By Agon yes, that is my brother.”
“Then we need to get to them,” Bran said, both tension and urgency in his voice.
“Agreed,” Malik said.
Both men noticed that the dragon had taken a brief moment to look directly at them before looking away, almost dismissively as if they poised no threat to it. They took it as a sign of luck, but events below were unfolding at a quick pace. The barbarians were charging and at least two Kesh wizards had now attacked the dragon to differing effects. A voice halted them in their tracks, “Not so fast, Malik.”
The men turned to face the speaker. “So you finally show your face, Isolda,” Malik said. “What took you so long?”
“You know what the lich desires,” she said. “Let’s not waste time, shall we? You both have family down there in danger and time is short. Give me the rod and take your prize back to the lich.”
“What prize?” Bran asked suspiciously.
“Your wife, of course,” Isolda said. “You do want to save her, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” Bran said.
“Then tell Malik to turn over the rod. I’ll take it back to the lich and you escort you wife there as well. Then you’ll have saved her and I will have saved my realm.”
“Save your realm from what?” Malik scoffed at her.
“From the lich and his army.” She stood her ground pointing a hand bow at him. The tip dripped black from poison and she had no look of friendship or kindness on her face. Her tone turned gentle for a moment as she said, “Look, Malik. You are a fine person and mean well for you and your realm but understand that I have my own orders and my own objectives. Let’s not make this more difficult than it has to be.”
“I suppose you think you’ll prick me with your little dart?” Malik mocked her.
“Ei
ther that or I will crush your windpipe and take it from you,” she said.
Malik smiled at her, “Your pride is obvious. Even without my bracers you couldn’t hurt me, much less break my neck, backstabber.”
“Calling me names won’t change the fact that I hold the high ground here and I mean that in more than a literal sense of the term.” Isolda shifted her weight to her other foot and Bran attacked.
“Get her,” Malik shouted encouragement, moving to back Bran up but it was over before it began.
Bran managed to knock her hand bow to the ground where the poisoned dart shot off against the near wall, a danger to no one and no thing. However, with one simple backhanded blow, Isolda knocked Bran to his feet, stunning him so that he was dazed and bleeding from both mouth and nose.
Malik didn’t bother drawing a weapon and at close quarters threw a punch directly at her face. Her other hand shot up abnormally quickly and caught his clenched fist in her own. He strained to break free and felt no help from his bracers. As he looked at her hand he noticed her sleeves had pulled back from her cloak revealing a matching set that she wore. Hers pulsed in the glow of an ebony-blue hued magic while his did not. Using her other hand she hit Malik in the chest knocking him to the ground and taking his breath away. She had to take a few steps forward to stand over both men.
“Don’t try that again, otherwise I’ll kill you both and take your wife back to the lich with me.”
Bran shook his head and tried to get his bearings. He rubbed his jaw where it hurt and looked at the violent thief from Balaria. “It would appear you have the upper hand.”
“I have the only hand and it isn’t only I who is betraying you here, Malik.” She turned to face him. “Our master has turned against you as well. You should not have broken your word to him when you took the scepter.”
“Curse him and all Balarians,” Malik said, finally catching his breath and inching back away from the Balarian.
Cursed Cleric Page 24