by Eric Vall
Byron looked up from his prone position on the cot once the door shut, and he rose up to a sitting position and chuckled when he saw us. The three petrified bandits from the abandoned library had been tossed on the floor next to him, and their rigid bodies remained in the same crouched position as when they’d hidden behind the shelves.
“Ah, Lord Evan,” Byron said as he stood from the cot. “Kind of you to stop by. Would you like a tour of my new home? I recently acquired some new statues.”
He nudged one of the other bandits with his toe and laughed.
“Stop playing games, Byron,” I growled. “We need to know why the rest of your crew is still here.”
“Oh, that, uh,” Byron stammered through his answer.
“Does your memory require more assistance?” Miraya asked as she sashayed closer to the cell door and lifted her finger.
“No, it does not,” the bandit answered firmly and backed away from the cell door. “I didn’t mention the whole mission before. That was my mistake. I’ll fix it, I promise.”
“Indeed,” I rumbled. “What is the whole mission?”
“To obtain the entire Celestial Triad,” he replied as his chin dropped to his chest.
“You know about it?” Alyona gasped and covered her mouth. “How do you know?”
“Sila told me some of the story,” Byron explained as he lifted his head and grabbed the bars. “She said some idiots tried to fight the gods with them forever ago, and the gods hid them away, but she said there’s no way they even work anymore.”
“How could she possibly know if they work?” Laika’s gray ears twitched with annoyance. “You put a lot of faith in this woman.”
“I’m not the only one,” he scoffed. “Besides, all she cared about was the money we’d get if the whole Triad was together. So, that’s what we were doing.”
“So, never mind that the gods didn’t want people to have them,” Naomi said with a scowl.
“It will bring a lot more money if all three pieces are together,” Byron pouted. “I was just following orders.”
“You stupid bastard!” I shouted and slammed my hands into the cell door, and it echoed around the cold, dark room. “I could burn you alive! Or petrify you forever, like your friends.”
“Yes, you could,” the bandit agreed, slowly cocked his head, and stared at me. “But then you wouldn’t know where my people are hiding.”
His expression changed from slightly apologetic to sly as he realized his leverage to keep his life. My inner dragon growled at the idea of keeping him alive, and I wasn’t too fond of it myself, but we needed the information.
“Well?” Naomi prodded. “Where are they?”
“I’m guessing you found some of them already,” he said as he began to pace back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. “The Oleum spell was stopped, which can only happen with a death. These guys aren’t mages, so it had to be another group.”
“Yeah, so?” I snapped.
“So, they always want us to travel in small groups,” he replied. “We aren’t permitted to travel alone. It keeps people from stealing.”
“No honor among thieves,” I muttered. “How many more are there?”
“I don’t even know.” Byron shrugged. “Sila and Milo have a large following. Everyone wants to make money.”
“Who is Milo?” I asked.
“Sila’s brother,” he replied. “Actually, he’s probably really pissed at you for killing his sister. I’m sure he’s figured out by now that she’s dead.”
“So, why take Parrish?” I questioned and narrowed my eyes. “Why not come after me, then?”
“Oh, that’s why you came to me?” he chuckled and stopped while he rubbed his chin. “Parrish was a backup plan. That means we don’t know where you’ve hidden the rest of the relics. The plan is to extract that information from him. He built quite a lot of this city, you know.”
“And where are they planning to perform their extraction?” Naomi asked through clenched teeth.
“Well, Milo isn’t a patient man,” Byron murmured as he resumed his pacing. “It has to be somewhere they could work without being seen.”
“We aren’t patient, either,” Naomi hissed as she took a menacing step closer to the cell.
“Wouldn’t it also have to be quiet?” I pointed out as I held out my arm to stop her. “I assume they aren’t planning to ask him nicely.”
“Nah,” the bandit scoffed. “Milo has a spell to block noise. One time, he tortured this guy in a tent for a few hours, and the rest of the guy’s camp didn’t even know until they found him the next morning.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know if we need more information,” I said, and I motioned for everyone to follow me back outside before Naomi completely lost her cool. “Where would there be few windows and very little foot traffic?”
Naomi considered her response as we made our way back to the castle.
“Well, several areas would be free of people walking by,” the lizard mage finally answered and tucked her magenta hair behind her ear to calm herself down. “But no windows, that really only leaves one type of place.”
“What’s that?” I raised an eyebrow.
“A cellar,” she replied. “No windows, and very unlikely that someone would happen to walk by.”
“How many cellars are there?” I asked and pictured dozens of underground structures across the city.
This could take hours, and we didn’t have much time.
“Two,” Naomi said and laughed at my surprised expression. “And one of them is right by the market, so it can’t be that one. They wouldn’t be able to go in and out without at least a few people noticing.”
“So, where’s the other one?” I wondered.
“It’s an old bakery,” the lizard mage answered. “Right behind the old library where we found Byron’s new statues.”
“Then that’s where we go,” I decided as we reached the front of the castle.
Nike and the dryads still stood outside with the guards, and I motioned for them to come over to us.
“Did you find out anything?” Nike asked.
“We think we know where they are,” I answered. “You come with us to check it out. Polina, Trina, Marina, stay with Israel and Lord Vallen. We need to make sure no one gets to them or into the castle.”
The dryads dipped their heads and returned to the boy. Then they led him and the lizard leader into the castle, murmured a few words to the guards, and shut the large wooden doors.
As the rest of us walked the two blocks to the old bakery, I considered the cellars I’d seen back on Earth. There were typically two entrances, and we would have to cover both of them to make sure we got to Parrish in time. We couldn’t risk them killing him once we entered.
When we got closer to the building, I could see I was right about the cellar setup. One set of doors poked up from the ground on the side of the building, and the angle suggested the stairs would lead directly under the former bakery. The ground floor featured two large windows in the front, but there was only a plain wall on the side where the cellar entrance stuck out. It had two large wooden doors with big metal handles to open and close them, and no lock was in sight.
“Okay, we need to split up,” I directed. “Nike, Laika, Aaliyah, and Ravi, take the front entrance and find the door down to the cellar. Miraya, Alyona, Naomi, and I will go through the in-ground door over here. We’ll all count thirty seconds, and then we’ll go in together. Everyone understand?”
There were several nods, and then we divided into our groups. We crept over to the large doors, and I pulled the Sword of Hatra from my spatial storage. As soon as I hit thirty, Alyona and Miraya pulled the big brown cellar doors open, and we rushed down the steps into the underground room. The room was dark and musty, and I had to blink several times to look around. It smelled like stagnant water and dust, and jars lined the shelves along two walls. They were filled with old rotting fruit and jams, and the smell was enough to
make my full stomach do a few flips. Flies buzzed around the room, and at first, I worried I was also smelling a dead body.
Then my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I could see a lizard Demi-Human man had been tied to a chair in the corner of the room. His face dripped blood onto his pants, and he sat hunched over with his arms tied behind him. His feet were roped under the chair and connected to his arms in a hogtie, and his head whipped in our direction, but his eyes were covered with a black cloth.
“Who is that?” Parrish asked, and fear colored his voice.
“It is Lady Naomi,” she replied as she hurried over to him. “I’m going to take off your blindfold and then untie you.”
“Thank the gods,” the prisoner sighed with relief. “Where is Israel? Is he alright?”
“He’s fine,” Naomi answered and sliced through the ropes with her clawed hand. “He was very brave, and he told us you were missing. We knew we had to come find you. Are you okay?”
“Nothing major.” Parrish shrugged and rubbed his wrists as the ropes fell loose around his chair. “They asked a lot about where Lord Vallen would hide something valuable. I told them I had no idea, but I knew they were asking about the catacombs. I didn’t tell them anything, though!”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Alyona reassured him and turned to give me an I-told-you-so look.
“I thought about it a few times,” he admitted with a frown. “I didn’t want to dishonor the city I helped build, so I told them I couldn’t even remember anything specific. I said I’d worked on too many projects, and it was so long ago.”
“And they believed you?” I asked uncertainly.
“They seemed to,” Parrish said. “They stopped torturing me at least. That blond character seemed to be enjoying himself, so I didn’t know if it mattered what I said anyway.”
Then I heard a crash from above us.
“You, get to the castle through those doors,” I ordered Parrish. “Your son is there with Lord Vallen. We’ll handle these guys.”
Parrish nodded and sprinted for the stairs that led outside without question.
I, on the other hand, growled and stormed up the stairs to the fight.
Chapter 15
We tore up the stairs into the old bakery and burst through the door just in time to see Nike flip a man onto a table. The guy’s body crashed through the wood, and dust flew up into the air like a cloud of smoke.
I looked over to see Aaliyah had a snake Demi-Human by the throat and pinned against the wall. She reared back with her left hand and drove her claws into his chest, and he hissed in pain as blood poured down the front of his cream-colored robes.
Another bandit started to run toward Aaliyah’s back, and I snarled as I rushed to cut him off. I slammed into him like a linebacker, and we hurtled through the fray and into the front wall of the store. His head crashed through the window, and shattered glass spilled out onto the road in front of the bakery.
I started to shove him further out the window when I heard screams from outside. A handful of lizard Demi-Humans ran by the building in terror, and I couldn’t see what was going on past the grimy window that remained.
“What the hell is happening?” I growled.
“Just give us the rest of the Triad,” the bandit I held by the collar said in a scratchy voice, and blood poured down his face from the wounds on his head. “You do that, and we leave them alone.”
“No one can have the whole Triad,” I snarled.
“Then we… will continue to… search for it,” he gasped.
“And you will all die for hurting my people,” I warned. “Are you sure you want to keep trying?”
“You… are one man,” he chuckled and then coughed. “You can’t possibly kill every single one of us.”
“Is that so?” I asked with a devilish grin as I conjured a fireball in my hand and let the flames dance in front of his shocked face. “I’m more than just a man.”
The bandit gasped as I smashed the fireball onto his face.
They fucked with the wrong dragon today.
“We have to help them!” Alyona cried out as she cast a spell on a bandit, and he crashed to the floor in a heap.
“We will,” I agreed. “First, we have to handle these guys.”
The princess nodded, and I looked over to see Ravi take her fiery daggers to a female bandit’s chest. Her robes caught fire, and she bled from the stab wounds as the flames licked up her clothes to her long, black hair.
I pulled my sword back out of the scabbard and drove it into the chest of the nearest thief. Nike and Aaliyah knocked down their opponents, and my fellow noble quickly sliced the Sword of Light across their prone bodies.
The bandits inside were done, but we had a whole hell of a lot going on outside the building.
We jogged out the front door just as a lizard Demi-Human woman screamed and ran past us. I looked in the direction she ran from, and I saw groups of thieves as they tore into houses and buildings to look for the relics. Doors had been ripped from their hinges, and even children ran by and screamed for help. I could smell smoke from a fire, and I scanned the city to see a plume of smoke curling up into the evening sky.
“These bastards are going to pay,” I growled. “Alyona, Miraya, and Naomi, can you create a protection spell around the castle that doesn’t let anyone in?”
“Yes,” Miraya confirmed. “All three of us should be enough to maintain the power.”
“But what about the people?” Naomi asked as she fingered her scar.
“We’ll send them to the castle for safety,” I replied. “You keep them safe, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Alyona said as she ushered the other two women toward the castle. “We can probably use a seal protection, so it allows Kana’s citizens to enter but no one else.”
As they jogged toward the castle, I turned back to find the thieves. One group had noticed our exit from the bakery, and they ran toward us with their own swords held high.
I sprinted toward them and plunged the Sword of Hatra into one bandit’s gut, and then I yanked it out and spun to slice the second thief in half. As the two crumpled to the ground, a third bandit pulled up short and stared at me in disbelief. He took a breath and then lunged for me with his sword extended, but I blocked his strike and swung my sword in a loop before I drove it into his chest.
A pair of navy-blue eyes gazed at me with surprise before the man fell to his knees and then keeled over flat on his face. Blood formed a pool underneath him, and I smirked at the dead body before I looked around for my next opponent.
My eyes focused on Ravi as she fought a few feet away. She conjured a fiery rope and lassoed two more bandits around their waists, and they struggled against the binding and bellowed for help as the flames began to engulf their clothes.
I was happy to help.
Ravi whipped them toward me, and I slung the blade in a large arc and slashed through the two thieves. As their bodies fell to the ground in pieces, the flames continued to travel across their robes until they looked like little campfires in the middle of the street.
I looked around us and noticed the bandits’ bodies had begun to litter the streets as we defeated each little group. Nike and Aaliyah had just finished off another pair of bandits, while Laika had taken out a whole trio on her own. But still more thieves seemed to come from all directions as they continued to rip through the houses and stores of Kana.
As I glanced to my right, one of the bandits tossed a lizard Demi-Human woman out of the front door of her shop before he ran inside. The woman landed on the road with a squeal, and my face burned hot with fury.
“Are you alright?” I asked as I ran over to help her and pulled her to her feet. Then I sent out a status check for injuries.
Classification: Lizard Demi-Human
Condition: Bruising to right hip and arm, high levels of anxiety, increased heart rate
Priority: Relaxation and rest will aid in recovery
Status: Scared, non-critical
“That man is attacking my store!” she moaned. “Why are they doing this?”
“I’ll take care of them,” I grunted and then turned to Ravi. “Help her get to the castle. It’s time to teach these bastards a lesson.”
Ravi dipped her head and linked arms with the woman to lead her to the palace.
“What should we do, my lord?” Laika asked as she, Aaliyah, and Nike made their way over to me.
“I need to get them all to come to me,” I muttered. “You get the rest of the citizens to the castle.”
They nodded and dispersed among the few lizard Demi-Humans who were still trying to escape the destruction. Now, I just had to figure out how to draw them all closer to me.
Byron said they were looking for the rest of the Triad, so they assumed we had both of the other relics. It would be hard to fake a bow, but it wasn’t too difficult for a dragon to make a fake version of the Eternal Flame.
I conjured a fireball in my hand, and I focused on creating tall, impressive flames. If it were the real Flame, it was probably bright and would catch attention.
“Hey!” I bellowed. “You want the Flame?”
Several bandits peeked out of the buildings they had been searching and stared at me in surprise.
“There!” one of them shouted. “That man has it!”
“Yeah,” I confirmed with a grin. “So, come and get it.”
Suddenly, nearly two dozen bandits poured from the buildings and surrounded me. They were drawn to the fake relic like moths to a light, and as their circle advanced closer and closer, I scanned the group. The thieves were mostly humans, though a few Demi-Humans were scattered among them. None of these guys were mages, though, or they would have already tried a spell to take the counterfeit flame.
Perfect.
The bandits crept closer with grins stretched across their dirty faces, but they wouldn’t be smiling for long.
When they were just out of arm’s reach, I slapped the flame with my other hand. A circle of fire burst out around me in an explosion, and my dragon magic consumed the bandits in flames. Their yells and screams tore through the evening sky as they stumbled around until eventually, they all laid still on the cobblestoned street.