Blood Of The Wizard (Book 1) Page 13

  I could hardly imagine a stranger circumstance than cresting only three more hills and seeing what remained of a castle. It was on an inlet, which cut our journey to the shore by half a week.

  Perched atop a lonely chunk of rock, the waves of the vast sea beyond it pounding away at its base, I had not ever seen anything so desperate and desolate, yet so sturdy and welcoming. Strange, how hard it was to imagine what I was seeing, but I had no trouble imagining the restless spirits that no doubt still prowled the halls. Then I realized, that the Dead King I see once ruled here. What must it have felt like ruling in the far south? It was like a fairy land in an epic told by a gloomy poet; the king must have felt like the earth’s last habitant.

  For strangely long time, we all stood on that knoll of treeless land and watched the broad-brimmed waters, pewter and black, recede and crash again at the base of ruins.

  In time, though, the warmaids accompanied us along a road, of sorts, which rose up to meet us, forking into several, crumbling dead ends to either side into deep and brackish pools. We strode swiftly forward, and while I would have given all I possessed for the welcome of a roaring fire, we plunged waist-deep into frigid water for some hundred yards of low road, only to arrive at a somber, dark stone place. It was nearly June, but the wind that raced off the water, howling through the broken castle, seemed as cold as Faerland’s autumn frost. There was a smell that was hard to describe. Again, it was like autumn, but sour, tinged with the hectic flush of coming death.

  Only then I noticed that our motley party had with us a half a dozen goats, and even the beasts seemed leery to go any nearer.

  Bik and Andi, the two noisome redheaded warmaids that had adopted me, drew closer. Apart from a pat on the hands, I responded coldly to these warm overtures. But Bik pulled me closer still and pointed to a gray monolith, a lone, giant black mountain to the east.

  “The lair of the Black One,” she said in a kind of whisper. “The thunderwyrm.”

  Then I felt the unyielding agony that welled in Halvgar’s eyes. There, with any luck whatsoever, was his beautiful Shiri and his wonderful little Cullfor, somewhere in the bowels of that mountain, enduring unknown hells.

  They were not three miles away. The mountain they had been tucked away in was scarred, bleak, and lonely. It was half a mountain, really. The part that should have jutted out into the ocean looked as though they had been chiseled away by some enormous, mystical hammer. There were no foothills or peaks rimming it, just the lone monolith, bizarre, black and angular, rising from the water’s edge as if it had been dropped there from the heavens.

  I strained my eyes for any sign of the beast against the black slopes or the sheer, dark cliffs, and I thought for a moment I saw figures against the horizon. Sometimes my eyes did that though.

  * * *

  We made camp just inside, with a pathetic excuse for a fire and not so much as a pile of hay to sit on. There was a solitary window-slit facing the mountain. And while the tiny fire burned pitifully in the enormous, towering hearth, Delthal kept watch. He said nothing of it, but I realized I had lost a great deal of trust with him, letting the maids catch us off our guard..

  I could smell sea’s brine, blending with the thin smell of the fire’s scrub pine. Everything felt too still, and everything was strangely quiet as Bik and Andi pulled me aside.

  Others were taken aside two, I noticed, before that brought me upstairs, producing picks and combs from the folds of their thick mid-dresses.

  I looked out through a broken section of wall, breathing deeply. I stared out at the black mountain. It was disappearing into the gathering night, but it was no less impressive.

  I thought of Dhal.

  Andi knelt before me. She was freckled and pretty, with eyes that let you know she had known melancholies that no maid should ever have to endure. She pulled the twine from the braids of my beard. Bik approached. She was mannish and tough, but somehow the more fragile-looking and easily the prettier of the two. She scooted behind me, then pulled off my helm. With her fingernails she scruffed up my hair and unbound my pony tail. She would gradually loom into view, head first, combing and pawing at the front part of my hair before she began snipping at it here and there with small scissors. Then she would disappear behind me. Under my chin, Andi spread a bit of cloth over my lap, proceeding to even out lengths of my fire-singed beard. She told me to hold my chin high. Then, with a sharp razor, she sawed at the tangles under my jaw. I had never received, nor even seen, such care and attention.

  “They say the wyrm cannot resist the cry of a child. It is like the cry of a rabbit to a fox,” said Andi.

  “Yuh,” I whispered, unable to nod with the razor beneath my chin.

  “That is why we brought the goats.”

  I raised an eyebrow questioningly.

  “Have you ever heard a goat being bled from the throat?”

  “I see,” I mumbled. “You plan to lure it out with them.”

  Bik whispered into my ear from behind, “As smart as you are easy on the eyes, Mister Fie!”

  “And twice as generous,” I said puckishly. “Though I’m afraid you’ve arrived at the auction too late, my dears. The one called Dhal has stolen away with your prize bull.”

  At once, they both giggled, but then stopped themselves too soon.

  “What?” I whispered, Andi trimming again on my beard.

  “Nothing, master.”

  “Don’t call me intelligent then play me the fool! You obviously know her! What is it?”

  “A small matter, sir. It’s just that Dhal, she’s…”

  “She’s what?”

  “Barren, sir. Poor Dhal cannot conceive.”

  I grunted, softly.

  In my mind, I had no doubt that this was as villainous a trait to these generous dwarven maids as arson, or even murder. And that I would fail, no matter how hardily, and cleverly, we might try to have a little one of our own, should embitter me unspeakably.

  But it was not so.

  Instead, my heart gathered around the thought of her more tenderly than ever, endearing her to me more fully.

  “We understand, sir,” Bik said, changing the subject, seeming to mistake my silence for rage, “that your company of Merry Cutters does not mean to kill the beast, only to steal away with the wife and babe of the one called Halvgar?”

  “True,” I said, though I was not entirely certain that was the plan.

  Then the absurdity of that hit me…. thundering depths! Somehow we had drug ourselves halfway across the known world, and we hadn’t even discussed what we were going to do once we got here!

  “Very good, sir. Then luring it out of your path will serve both of our parties well!”

  Chapter 29

  Out of deference to Dhal, I occupied a different corner of the dark lodgings than Bik and Andi that night. Which is not to say my thoughts were pure. It would not even be right to say I had remained faithful to the spirit of my newfound longings for her—I had, after all, gotten bear-cat crazy on the sleeping skins of a massive she-elf. But that night was different. Not only did they know Dhal, but there was one in particular that looked a bit like her. So, as I settled in for some sleep, I kept a respectable distance. Indeed, I fear I slept nearer poor Halvgar, which is a sorry business for a stout young Cutter to admit. But it is a good thing I did. I truly believe he would have forgotten to eat, let alone try to get some rest, had I not been there to lug him forcibly downstairs to where a pair of maids was roasting a goat.

  Often I had seen the elf women writhe and pose like cats in front of him along our journey. It’s perhaps shameful, but often I would go across the camp fire and nod to a particular nice-looking she-elf, noting the obvious to him, because I thought he could use the distraction.

  “Lynx, musk ox, fox, sea bear. All keep a fellow warm at night, would you not agree, Halvgar?” I would ask, while the she-elves eyed me with suspicious curiosity.

  “Certainly, certainly,” Halvgar would answer. “But wrap yours
elf in marten, little brother, then talk to me about the rough hides of goats and horses!”

  I had nodded when he said this. And we had both had a laugh. But only now, with Bik and Andi eyeing me playfully across the dark room, did I realize the cruelty of my words—all my efforts to distract him had only been drawing his focus more fully to his beautiful Shiri.

  * * *

  I had almost dozed when disaster struck. One of the goats, playfully jumping about the castle’s top the way goats will do, found some loose mortar. The beast pawed, almost like a person, struggling to keep himself from toppling over. But it lost its strength and fell, dropping one hundred feet and breaking its forelegs on the seaside rocks, where it began squalling like a child.

  For a moment, my heart felt only pity for the crippled animal, which struggled to stand, only to fall under the awkwardly bent legs.

  Halvgar grabbed the head of an excellent axe and drew it from its sheath. With one eye cocked, he grunted as he tossed Loni and Fhal aside, bellowing like bull.

  “Come, Fie! We have to end that beast’s wailing.

  Suddenly, my sternum was as tight as a drum, and it was only pulling tighter as I drew my own axe and went running behind him. We charged down past snoring dwarves, who bounded upright , brandishing their own weapons and thundering about what the devil was going on!

  There was no time to answer.

  Scrambling outside, we both crashed on the slippery stones, but Halvgar was up, quick as a sneeze, rounding the corner. He had to leap from stone to stone in the dark, an affair even for treacherous than is sounds with unsheathed, heavy steal axes.

  Finally, we reached the flat rock where the goat still struggled bravely to stand on its busted legs, and Halvgar leapt to it and seized it by the scruff, burying his axe firmly in the skull.

  It fell over in an instant, as silent as the stones around it.

  But we were too late.

  Chapter 30

  It was the middle of the night, and it was almost three miles away, but we saw it clearly, as clearly as a waking nightmare.

  The full moon was shining over Heir’s Sea Peak. As the mists of my anxiety began to congeal, I gathered my hooded robe around me and watched a large black, slithering speck emerge from the base of a cliff. From such a distance, it seemed to move slowly, and there was no noise whatsoever but the break of the pewter-colored sea. But as it wound up the sheer wall, the lines became more distinct in the moonlight, and we saw the great reptilian body, halting and crimping. The scales glinted here and there like black armor, then the great wyrm of old, swollen and terrible, crested the cliff and paused.

  Now the rest of the fellows had emerged, along with each one of the warmaids.

  Uncle Jickie spit out what sounded like a laugh.

  “Well now, is that not a sight, my lads?” he said. “I haven’t seen a full moon that beautiful in some time!”

  Delthal and I looked at him sideways, but Halvgar and the rest grinned in understanding as, far off, the great serpent launched into a low, sideways roll, listing out over the ocean, almost seeming to plunge into the water before soared upward in circular sweeps, rising over the sea.

  And suddenly, everything in my head slowed. Random shouts began to rise. A long, low barking of orders rose as coarsely as a beast’s grunts. The sounds rolled through my stupefied head, and the great tumult of activity exploding around only amplified the odd feeling.

  At last Delthal pulled me from my stupor.

  “Bows, my lad! We’ll shelter in the castle and flower its damn hide!”

  One last time, I cocked an eye to the monster, floating even higher in the night sky. The heart, I reminded, is located at the same spot on any four-legged beast, just behind the shoulder—the left one, should such a shot present itself.

  I scampered back into our meager stronghold, shaking with adrenaline now. I grabbed up my bow and both quivers of arrows. I nocked an arrow before I even found a window, and the one I found was perfect. Near the middle of the castle, the window was wide, but not too wide, and the mortar and stones on the side seemed sturdy enough.

  It was coming this way now, like something that had broken through hell’s levees, it claws dangling limply beneath that tremendous reptilian belly.

  Breathy moments stretched as we looked out to it. I could only see four warmaids, plus Kenzo and Delthal, and we were all as silent thieves. Just out of bow-shot, its figure thickened, glistening with the wet look of a snake. The horns were raised, and it began shrieking now. It was a roar to make a demon hide, shrieking and echoing out over the ocean.

  In the next instant, the shuffle and clank of war roared from the fellows in wild calls. The rooms of above me and below me were alive with their curses.

  The dragon was just out of bowshot now.

  “Hooold,” I roared, knowing our supply of arrows was damned thin for such a foe.

  Once more, it blistered the air with its roaring. I drew my bow up and pulled back. I breathed, peering down the ash shaft. Then, even in all the commotion and thunder, it all seemed to hush. I became conscious only of the beast’s undulating path as it cut through the airs.

  “Hold.”

  The goats outside were yelping like dogs now, a noise I had never heard in my life.

  “Hooold.”

  Its enormous wings surged and flapped, curling the air with the tremendous leathery noise.

  “Loose!”

  Arrows hissed from all of us at once, flitting through the moonlit air, and as they pounded the beast’s flesh, it shrieked and raised its head to us, sending a spray of terrible blue fire. But the heat did not reach us, and dozens more arrows launched from our bows.

  The beast lunged away, curving in the air, so close to the castle that the wind blew through my beard. A hundred or so arrows had been shot at it, and still we screamed wildly, launching missiles into its retreating hide. But I could see not a single shaft protruding from its flesh!

  Surely, I thought, this was just a trick of the eye.

  The ground itself seemed to shake as the beast roared once more, turning now and rising. The maids to either side of me fired without cease. They were quicker than I was, and they were more steady and less winded. Bows plopped and arrows thudded out in the dark as the dragon began to come at us once again. The maids brought their shields to their sides with their feet, continuing to fire, but I had not even thought to bring mine upstairs. And now, with the dragon drawing closer, I saw the wisdom of their choice as it flashed enormous dagger-like teeth.

  I grimaced, and I continued to shoot, and shoot again. I was already running low on arrows. But I could do nothing about it, except keep at it, firing arrow after precious arrow. I struck the beast haphazardly. My arrows pinged off its backs or slammed into the horns that ran down the length of its neck.

  I managed to fire one into his shoulder, but it did not even flinch or veer, it just kept coming as if it had been pricked with some small needle. And as it came nearer still, it spilled that terrible blue fire once more, engulfing my left arm. It rose over the castle as I wheeled back to slap out the singing fire down my arms. I fell back, the entire castle shaking with yet another roar from the dragon. When I did, I discover that my first quiver of arrows was empty. Half my missiles were already gone!

  Then something writhing on the floor caught my eye.

  It was Kenzo—Mighty Kenzo, by far the strongest among us, had been downed. His face was charred, and his massive chest was shirtless, black and bubbling like liquid tar, smoldering from his neck to his groin. The very skin had been melted away at places, revealing seared strips of gore and the white, smoking bone of his sternum.

  The beast rose and turned outside, not two hundred yards away.

  “Kill me, Fie!” Kenzo barked.

  As the dragon roared, I faltered, grabbing my axe. I rushed to him, but faltered again.

  “Thundering hell…” he rasped. “Oooh, kill me, lad.”

  His mouth covered in blood, he nodded to me
, imploring me to get on with it. And as my axe dropped, it was almost as if I was watching the scene outside of my own head. I had turned him over. The blade dropped on the back of his neck. His head fell away with a quick thud.

  In the next instant, fire whipped through the windows again, but Delthal and the warmaids were quick, and Delthal covered my backside with a shield.

  The maids already sent wooden sheets of the missiles up, which began thudding into the beast again.

  “Dammit back to ye spot, Fie! Lead, old boy! Lead!”

  I returned to the window to see arrows still slamming into the dragon’s gut from above and below us. This time, it felt them.

  It landed and writhed, roaring and bellowing fire in every direction before it turned and charged the castle in a shivering burst of speed. It exploded into the walls as if attacking the structure itself, rocking us off our feet. The warmaids spilled to either side of me, sprawling across the floor as Delthal landed atop me with a thud. I rose to discover one of the maids lying on the stone, a flake of stone jutting from her breast. She was rolling in pain. Blood was flowing freely from the tear in her chest plate, and she was gasping for breath. The others went to her, and together they rose to remove the armor. Forgetting myself and the advice Delthal had barked, I rushed to help.

  But everywhere along the walls, stone was crashing, dropping to the floor, and where there was no stone, the beast’s black scales slithered, wrapping the castle so completely that it blotted out the thin moonlight.

  Stones too weak to stand the squeeze of it exploded in on us. Stones the size of a torso scooted in and jutted toward us. Timbers crashed over our heads, the dead, round timbers began poking downward like spears before splintering and shooting at us with a great rumbling snaps like trees sheered in half.

  Now figures dropped from the floors above us, pounding to the broken stone floor in agony.

  “Spears!” I roared.