The Warcrown Legacy

by Michael James Ploof

  The church was as quiet as the rest of the city, but its lights were burning inside. The stained glass windows glowed with internal light, and the smell became worse with the shifting of the wind. Krentz glanced back, offering Dirk a frown.

  “It’s a necromancer,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Can we handle it?” Dirk asked.

  “I don’t know. But if it’s got Chief, we have no choice.”

  Dirk nodded understanding, and together they moved to the back of the church, where a large cemetery dotted with maples took up half a city block. The tombs here were old, some dating more than two hundred years, their nearly illegible surfaces thick with moss, mold, and algae fed by the moisture from the sea. Many of the headstones stood crooked or cracked. Small bevel markers dotted the ground, sometimes resting beside alter tombs, whose runes were lost to the dark green growth. Near the top of the hill, a bronze saltire sat upon a cairn, and beyond, sitting in the shadows like a haunting presence, stood the large royal mausoleum.

  Krentz stopped and looked around. Dirk did the same, though he had not the gift to use mind sight like her. With it she would look through walls and spot the life energy within.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “Something is blocking my vision,” she said, staring at the mausoleum door with a strained expression. She let out a pent-up breath and cursed. “Whatever it is, it knows we’re here.”

  “Great,” said Dirk. He wasn’t one to dive headlong into danger without an escape plan, and though he had gotten over his intolerance of small spaces, he still didn’t like the idea of venturing into the dark depths of a graveyard. “Whill is going to owe me big time for this. Come on.”

  Krentz followed as Dirk silently climbed the steps leading to the mausoleum. The door stood halfway open, and light bled from the doorway, soft and flickering. This being the royal mausoleum, it wasn’t that strange for there to be torches alight within.

  Dirk glanced at Krentz.

  “I see nothing in the room beyond the door,” she said, and Dirk slipped inside.

  Beyond the threshold was an antechamber ten feet wide and twice as long. The room was empty but for the two torches burning on each of the side walls. At the back was a stairway leading down into darkness. Dirk moved toward the stairwell quickly, producing a dagger in his right hand. He stopped on the right side of the passage, and Krentz went to the left. She was facing the wall, which might have seemed strange to those who did not know that she was using mind sight to see through it.

  “There is nothing living in the next room…but if it is a necromancer that we seek, then there wouldn’t be, would there?” said Krentz.

  “If they know that we’re coming, as you say, then they won’t be expecting a dragon,” said Dirk, and Krentz offered him a mischievous grin. “Fyrfrost, come to me!” he said, holding the trinket aloft.

  The spirit dragon illuminated the room with bright blue light as he swirled around them, trying to find the space to change into material form.

  “Chief is missing, Fyrfrost, and whoever took him is down those stairs,” said Dirk.

  Fyrfrost was not in physical form, but still, a growl issued from the snaking light, and he shot down the stairs. Dirk and Krentz brandished their weapons and hurried after the streaking spirit dragon. They ran down the long flight of stairs, coming out into a large crypt, one large enough to house a dragon.

  Fyrfrost took physical form among the many royal alter tombs, and at the end of the long crypt, a green light began to glow.

  “That’s our friend,” said Dirk, noticing the necromantic light.

  A spell suddenly exploded against Fyrfrost, shaking the entire chamber and wrapping around the spirit dragon with long green tendrils of twisted light. Dirk winced when Fyrfrost cried out, for Dirk knew how much such a spell from a necromancer hurt, but he had needed to create a distraction and flush out the enemy.

  Krentz went left around the writhing dragon, and Dirk went right. The necromancer was standing with his back against a large door, his eyes alight with hellish green light, his palms out, and the spell dismissing Fyrfrost to the spirit world coiling tightly.

  To Dirk’s surprise, the necromancer was human.

  For a fleeting moment, Dirk thought he recognized the young man, but the moment passed as Fyrfrost disappeared in an explosion of blue light. Dirk was thrown off his feet and hit the wall beside him.

  He rebounded off the wall, ignoring the pain in his right arm, and hurled a small dragon’s breath bomb at the young necromancer. The bomb exploded, filling the chamber with angry red flames. Krentz shot a spell into the smoke, but it came flying back at her immediately and exploded against her shield.

  Dirk charged through the smoke, ready to end the necromancer as fast as possible. Whill wanted the others like him to be found and brought in alive, but this kind of power was just too dangerous.

  The necromancer had to die.

  A cold, coiling spell found Dirk in the smog, and he was lifted off his feet and pushed back into the wall hard enough to dizzy him. Then another of the writhing, serpentine forms shot out and took hold of Krentz as well, similarly pinning her to the opposite wall. Dirk ignored his panic, trying to reach his darts. Through the smoke, the necromancer was glowing, creating an eerie, shadowy form to appear before them. The coiling green spell slowly began choking the life out of Dirk, and to his horror, he felt a pull on his very soul. Across from him, Krentz struggled against her supernatural bonds. She shot spells at the necromancer, but they were lost in the swirling green smoke.

  “Nathaniel, stop!”

  Dirk strained to see who had spoken.

  “I said stop!” said High Commander Jarrex.

  Sudden realization flooded Dirk’s mind. Now he knew where he had seen the young man before—in a portrait behind the commander’s desk.

  The green coils did not release them, but the soul-sucking power subsided for the time being. The necromancer’s eyes stopped glowing, and he stepped forward to meet his father.

  “I told you to leave well enough alone, didn’t I?” Marsden Jarrex said as he strode to the center of the room. He looked tired and afraid as he shook his head at Dirk.

  “We can help,” said Krentz, forcing the words out.

  “We are not the ones who need help,” said Nathaniel, squeezing tighter.

  Dirk struggled against the choking grip. “Jarrex…we mean your son no harm…please.”

  “Release them,” Marsden told his son, and Nathaniel opened his clenched fist.

  Dirk and Krentz fell to the floor, choking. He dragged himself to his feet and hurried to her side.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes,” she said, and pointed at the back of the crypt. “Look.”

  From the door at the back of the crypt, people had begun to emerge. But Dirk instantly noticed that something was wrong with them…something was terribly wrong. More than fifty villagers sheepishly shuffled into the crypt, their legs shaky and unsure, their skin pale, putrid, and oozing. Their eyes were sunken, ringed with dark circles, and downcast in shame.

  “I did what I had to do, Governor.”

  “You know this is wrong,” said Dirk as he turned from the undead villagers.

  Marsden laughed. Behind him, Nathaniel stared at Krentz with green glowing eyes.

  “This, coming from The Wolf himself, eh?”

  “No good can come from raising the dead,” said Dirk.

  “I saved them,” Nathaniel said as he strode forward, eyeing Krentz with interest and Dirk with caution. “I saved them all. The gods have blessed me with the power to reverse death.” He stepped past his father and faced Dirk and Krentz bravely.

  “No,” said Krentz. “They haven’t. You have absorbed the power of a necromancer.”

  “You have the human power of old,” said Dirk. “Just like Whill of Agora. He has sent us to find you. He has sent us to help you.”

  Nathaniel glanced back at his father, but Marsden
seemed to have no words.

  “What do you mean, I absorbed the power?” Nathaniel asked.

  “That is the human power of old,” said Krentz. “Some humans, like Whill, can absorb the powers of the other races.”

  “What does Whill want with my son?” said Marsden.

  “He wants to protect Nathaniel from those who would use him as a weapon,” said Dirk.

  “I will not leave my family, or my people,” said Nathaniel.

  Dirk noticed how the undead citizens had surrounded them, and now over a hundred in all stood staring at Dirk and Krentz.

  “Where do we go from here, Commander?” said Dirk.

  The old warrior sighed, glancing at his wife.

  “That depends on you. You’ve put me in a tight spot here, Governor. I could have you both killed, but I will not. But neither can I let you leave this city, knowing what you know.” He turned to his son. “Can you control the elf?”

  “I can control her better if she is…undead.”

  “Marsden, do the right thing here, before you are beyond redemption,” Dirk warned as he stepped in front of Krentz.

  “I went beyond redemption a long time ago, Dirk. I’m sorry, but there is no other way.”

  Nathaniel and the undead closed in.

  “Listen to me, Marsden!” said Dirk, taking a defensive step back. “You’ve got to listen to m—”

  An explosion suddenly shook the crypt, and raging fire spewed into the chamber, forcing Marsden and Nathaniel to run deeper into the room.

  “Kill them!” the high commander bellowed, most likely thinking that Dirk and Krentz had been behind the blast.

  But they weren’t.

  It’s him! Krentz’s voice screamed in Dirk’s mind. He looked to the smoking door, backing with Krentz toward the other end of the crypt.

  From the doorway, Eldarian’s laughter could be heard.

  Dirk and Krentz made a run for it as black, snaking tendrils burst into the room. The hundreds of searching tentacles climbed the walls, spread across the floor, and wrapped themselves around the undead citizens.

  A scream echoed through the chamber, and Dirk turned to see Nathaniel and Marsden being lifted and slammed into the ceiling by the shadowy tentacles. Eldarian strode into the crypt, and behind him came a glossy-eyed and haggard-looking Orrian. There was a young woman with them as well, and her eyes glowed with the same raw power as Orrian’s.

  Orrian saw Dirk, and he smiled. Eldarian turned his attention on him as well, and he reached out with a clawed hand. A spell erupted from it, black and snaking and crackling with dark power. Dirk instinctively brought his protective cloak up and turned away from the spell.

  Suddenly, he was yanked through the back door by Krentz.

  She pulled him across the room, which was another crypt with much older-looking sarcophaguses. They ran for the only doorway, this one also at the other end of the room. Spurred on by his enchanted boots and pure adrenaline, Dirk leapt after Krentz as she came to the threshold, which led down a long stairwell.

  Behind them, the tortured cries of the undead echoed through the crypt.

  “Blackthorn!”

  Orrian’s taunting voice followed them down into the depths beneath the crypt. The stairwell brought them to a dripping, musty, underground tunnel system. Dirk was relieved that they hadn’t run into a dead end, and he took the tunnels that he thought would lead them back into the heart of the city.

  “He’s getting closer,” said Krentz, glancing back behind them repeatedly as they fled.

  Dirk lit two dragon’s breath bombs at a fork in the tunnel system and followed Krentz to the left. A half a minute later, the explosion rocked the depths, shaking loose dark earth and silencing Orrian’s taunting calls.

  “This way!” said Dirk, grabbing Krentz by the arm and pulling her to the left. There was light at the end of this tunnel, and with any luck it would lead to the surface.

  They hurried down the hall toward the bright golden light.

  Dirk was the first through the threshold, and he came face to face with a grinning Orrian. Dirk instinctively brought up his sword as Orrian’s gleaming blade swung for his head. The weapons clanged together, and Orrian extended his hand, releasing a blast of power that took Dirk off his feet and crushed him against the wall above the threshold. Krentz slid through the doorway on one knee below Dirk, ducking under Orrian’s spell, and she screamed as she hit him with a blast of power that sent him crashing through the far brick wall.

  Without a word, Krentz helped Dirk up, and together they charged through another tunnel. Behind them, the underground labyrinth rumbled and filled with flames. Krentz dropped back as she and Dirk came out into the city sewers and shielded them from the flames swimming through the tunnels.

  Dirk sped to a ten-foot ladder leading up to the city streets. Krentz went first, blasting the grate open at the top before climbing out. With one eye on the tunnel, Dirk hurried up the ladder. They had come out in a quiet street. It was still dark, for morning was many hours away. No guards marched here, and no citizens meandered through the streets.

  The city was asleep, it seemed…or was it dead?

  Below them, Dirk could feel the rumbling continue, and Orrian’s curses echoed in the depths.

  “Fyrfrost, come to me!” said Dirk, holding the figurine aloft.

  The dragon took form in front of them, and the street began to tremble. Dirk and Krentz scrambled up onto the dragon and urged it to fly swiftly. Fyrfrost spread his wings and leapt up to the roof of a two-story building before pushing off and taking to the sky.

  Chapter 23

  Orrian unleashed a shockwave of energy toward the ceiling of the dark tunnel, completely obliterating it and sending stones flying two hundred feet into the sky. He leapt through the gaping hole and landed on the mangled cobblestone street. Movement caught his eye in the sky far to the west, and he leapt high into the air and landed on the rooftop of a two-story building. He looked to where he thought he had seen movement, but it was gone.

  Until next time, Dirk Blackthorn.

  A black shadow darkened the street, and Orrian turned to see Eldarian standing amidst the rubble below. Beside him stood the necromancer, Nathaniel. The young man’s eyes were completely black, and Orrian recognized the hold that Eldarian had over him as well.

  “Let them be,” said Eldarian as he glanced toward the dark western sky. “They will lead us to others.”

  “Shouldn’t I follow them?” Orrian asked, wanting nothing more than to be free of his master’s invisible bonds.

  “No, I have other plans for you,” said Eldarian. The elf’s eyes were alight with the dark power of the mantle, and Orrian found himself looking away.

  But then suddenly he felt the intrusion within his mind abate. He felt Eldarian’s hold over him slowly wash away, and he lifted his arm of his own volition and stared at it with wonderment.

  “I believe that you may have learned your lesson,” said Eldarian. “Besides, I grow tired of inhabiting your mind and body. I can either kill you, if that is what you would like, or you can go to Vresh’Kon and offer him your support. Show him what it means to wield the power of Eldarian.”

  “Thank you, my lord. I will not let you d—”

  Eldarian grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off his feet with ease. “No, you will not let me down, or else you will share in Kellallea’s fate.”

  “Yes…my lord,” Orrian croaked, and Eldarian finally let him down.

  “The drekkon will soon be attacked by the elves of the sun. See to it that they are victorious.”

  “As you wish, my lord,” Orrian said with a bow.

  Eldarian regarded Orrian with mild suspicion before making a sign in the air with his hand and opening a portal to the drekkon stronghold.

  Orrian could see the drekkon through the portal, which led to some sort of underground cavern. He glanced one last time at Eldarian, bowed respectfully, and stepped through.

  Orrian touched do
wn on the hard, uneven stone, and the portal closed behind him without so much as a sound. Gone were Pearlton and the smell of the sea; in its place was the suffocating closeness of the drekkon halls and the smell of wet earth and worms. He had appeared in a circular chamber filled with scrolls and maps with strange markings scribbled upon them. Dozens of glowing crystals lay upon a long table beside a suit of armor with a few of the humming shards already mounted in the metal plates. Opposite Orrian, on the other side of the room, stood Vresh’Kon with his back turned and his hands busy with something out of site.

  Three drekkon who had been standing nearby suddenly reeled back when Orrian appeared. They hurriedly brandished swords and spears and pointed them at Orrian. Vresh’Kon turned from his work and regarded Orrian with interest.

  “I have been sent to aid you in the fight by Eldarian,” said Orrian.

  “Eldarian thinks that I cannot handle the elves on my own, is that it?” Vresh’Kon sneered, but his grin slowly faded into a scowl.

  “Something like that,” Orrian said lazily.

  Vresh’Kon’s eyes widened with indignant anger. He took three quick steps forward and stopped before Orrian, glaring down on him. The drekkon king was a head taller than Orrian, and nearly twice as wide, but Orrian wasn’t intimidated by him in the least, and he let his eyes show it.

  “Perhaps we should speak privately,” he said, knowing that Vresh’Kon would not dare attack him, but still needed to save face.

  “Get out!” the drekkon king ordered his minions.

  When they were alone, Vresh’Kon continued to glare at him. To his surprise, Orrian shouldered past him to look at the map spread out over a stone dais.

  “Well then,” said Orrian. “What is the plan?”

  The map of Drindellia showed many of the ancient elven cities, but it also showed the drekkon strongholds, symbolized as black Xs. The black tower was the closest to the elf, human, and dwarf settlements, but that had been taken by the elves not a day ago.

  “We are here,” said Vresh’Kon, pointing at the big X to the east of the black tower. “A force of more than a hundred thousand marches from the east and will join us soon.”