Draconis' Bane (42 page)

A larger ball of fire
crossed the gap between them, this one bright green. It collided
with the man’s defenses. Tristan could feel the power radiating off
of the man as he fought to keep the shield intact. His robes
weren’t smoldering though, so Tristan judged that he would soon
best the woman magician. He began planning a way to capture or kill
the man.

“When the man there
kills the woman we need to run down there and bind him. We need to
find the leader of
The Bane
and he’s likely to know where
she is!” Tristan shouted over the battle.

William nodded his
reply as they continued to watch. The ball of fire seemed to grow
as the woman approached the man slowly, thrusting her arms forward
every few paces. The magician’s robes began to smolder and his
teeth clenched in effort as the fire slowly cooked him where he
stood.

Finally the giant
ball of green flame disappeared, leaving the rubble around the man
charred and unrecognizable. The man’s face was indeed scared and
burnt and his robes sizzled. Patches of visible skin blistered and
oozed blood and sweat as patches of robe that remained smoked.
Tristan continued to watch as the blade of a dagger slammed into
the magicians’ chest. His attention returned to the woman, her arm
extended and a look of obvious relief on her face. The male
magician dropped to his knees and slowly pulled the knife free. He
muttered something to the woman just before he fell over, dead.

The woman magician
looked around her, breathing deeply as smoke lifted from her robes.
She saw the three of them and before Tristan could so much as grab
his sword he was hit with blinding flash of light followed by
complete and total darkness. The last thing he heard was William
and Eurydice collapsing next to him.

“Stop your damned
screaming!” His father bellowed at him as he whipped him
mercilessly.

Little Tristan was
draped over his father’s knee behind their car, his dress pants
around his ankles as his father whipped him with his belt for the
embarrassing display in front of the church. Tristan screamed, he
couldn’t remember being beaten like this. The brutality of it alone
was enough to strike fear into his very soul.

Finally, after more
hits than the little boy could count, he was tossed off of his
fathers’ knee and landed painfully on the gravel of the church
parking lot. Tears were still streaming down his face as he
struggled to pull his pants up. He hiccoughed and fought for
breath.

“Now get back in the
car and don’t you move!” His father screamed, grabbing the boy by
the scruff of the neck and tossing him back into the car.

“You really should
pick on people your own size you know.” A male voice said calmly
from behind his abusive father.

Tristan’s father
straightened up, anger flashing over his features that the little
boy knew all too well and turned around. His father wound up and
swung at the stranger, who ducked the punch and delivered one of
his own to his fathers’ stomach.

The air was knocked
out of his father as he clutched his gut and wheezed for breath.
The stranger pulled back and punched his father in the side of the
head, knocking him out. The little boy wiped the tears from his
eyes, still sniffling, so that he could see who had saved him.

A familiar voice
said; “You have a job to do, pup.”

~

Tristan’s head
snapped up, his vision swam and he felt completely disoriented. He
tried to shake his head to clear his thoughts a little. All he
accomplished was a fresh wave of nausea. He saw a drain a short
distance away and used all of his strength to pull himself along
the slimy, dirty floor to the drain where he vomited until he
passed out.

When he woke up again
he felt much better. His vision wasn’t in waves any longer and it
didn’t make him sick to focus on objects. William and Euri lay
nearby on the other two cots in the room. They tossed and turned,
screaming from time to time like he’d never heard them before.

He stumbled over to
the door and found it unlocked and unguarded. Tristan looked down
to find that he was wearing a simple woolen night shirt. His prized
armor, weapons and shield were missing. He might as well have been
naked for how helpless he felt. He slowly made his way over to Euri
and William. He attempted to sit between then, but fell painfully
onto his backside.

Wincing in pain he
tried to speak but his throat was dry and raspy. At first he
couldn’t utter a word. After swishing his own saliva around his
mouth and swallowing, he managed to cough out his sister’s name
before succumbing to a fit of coughs.

Tears in his eyes,
Tristan tried to swallow again. Shaking his head he resigned to
himself that at the moment he just couldn’t speak. Besides, the two
of them were screaming and pleading so loudly that he didn’t think
they would have heard him if he’d shouted.

Tristan realized of
course what had happened. The woman magician had cast the
Nightmare
Spell
on all three of them. The young
Prince probably would have given up hope if it hadn’t been for
Knight-Captain Robertson. He could remember everything from his
dream this time and it hadn’t cost him his memory. Clearly
practice, he thought sarcastically, made perfect.

William and Eurydice
had no such practice; they were caught inside their own private
hells. Tristan began to panic, remembering what many people had
described to him as a death sentence of a dream. He wasn’t
confident that Euri and William could pull out of the nightmare of
their own volition. Certainly not Euri who cried loudly, sobbing at
whatever she was being exposed to in the dream, William ground his
teeth loudly withstanding monumental pain.

The young Prince was
at a loss on how to help either of them. The door opened and Ben
sidled into the room, a platter of meat, cheese and fruit in one
hand and a bucket full of water in the other. He gently put the
bucket down and turned to see that Tristan was awake and between
his cousin and sister, hunched down as though he was ready to
strike.

“Easy lad.” Ben said,
holding his free hand up in supplication.

He slowly edged
towards the table behind the door and placed the tray down on it.
Then he picked up the steaming bucket of water and pulled three
small cloths out of it. He wrung the first one out and slowly,
holding his hands up the whole time, walked over to Euri and began
whipping the sweat from her forehead.

Collapsing back on
the floor, Tristan watched in fascination as the old man cleaned
Euri and then Williams’ sweaty foreheads and necks. Then he wrung
out two new cloths and gently folded them and placed them on their
foreheads. Ben then picked up the two old cloths that had been
tossed off as the two of them turned and lashed out in their
sleep.

Finally Tristan
understood Eurydice’s happiness when he woke up from his nightmare
a year ago. If he’d cried and yelled this much in his sleep it must
have been excessively difficult for his family to watch him suffer.
The old man finished his chores and turned to look at the young
man.

“The lady doesn’t
know you’ve woken young Prince.” He began. “Eat, gather your
strength. The only way to save them,” He pointed at Euri and
William. “Is to
kill
the spell caster.” He abruptly swept
his way out of the room, leaving a pitcher of cool water
behind.

Tristan dragged
himself over to the platter and began to wolf down as much food as
he could hold down. When his throat became too dry to swallow he
guzzled down half the pitcher of water, which mostly ended up
soaking the front of his night shirt. He finally began to feel warm
again and rose shakily to his feet. Slowly, almost painfully, he
stumbled over to the third cot and collapsed, once again passing
out.

Tristan woke to find
a cloth on his forehead and his night shirt had been changed. He
felt vaguely annoyed that his clothes had been removed, but he
dismissed the feeling as something he could do very little about.
He sat up, feeling briefly dizzy at the effort. Tristan turned in
his cot and put his feet down, he jerked them right back up as they
hit something cold and metallic. Tristan didn’t need to look down;
he knew already that he had stepped on his scabbard. He reached
down and retrieved his sword belt from under his cot.

Tristan pulled the
blade slowly out of its scabbard, feeling the markings along the
blade as though it was the first time. His eyes narrowed and he
whipped the sword out of the scabbard and held fast to the hilt. He
swung it effortlessly back and forth, feeling less naked and
helpless by the moment.

Tristan sheathed the
sword and put it down on his cot as he stood up. He still felt
weak, though not as weak as before. He could now stand without
feeling as though he would faint from the effort and walked over to
the table. He ate and drank his fill again. Tristan felt the
strength begin to return to his hands and then he remembered about
Euri and William.

Quickly he crossed
the room and sat at Euri’s bed. He used the cloth to wipe the sweat
from her brow, trying to connect to her mind to no avail. The door
to the cell opened and Tristan spun his head around. Instead of the
hunched frame of the old man, a large guard walked into the
room.

Tristan rose from the
bed and turned, the man had a large axe strapped to his back and a
wicked looking sword hanging on his hip. He stopped as he turned
into the room. He was too busy staring at Euri’s unconscious form
lying on the cot to notice Tristan standing next it. The guards’
eyes must have had to adjust to the gloom, or he simply wasn’t
paying attention. He walked right up to the foot of the cot before
his eyes widened at the sight of Tristan standing there.

Protective rage rose
up inside Tristan’s stomach as he eyed the guard who had been
fumbling with his belt. He leaped over Euri’s sleeping body and
grabbed a hold of the hilt of his sword. He pulled it clear of the
scabbard as he spun and jabbed the tip of the blade into the
guards’ chest before the guard’s hand even reached for the sword on
his hip.

The guard looked down
at the dragon hilt of the sword, mumbling uselessly as the life
began to flee from his eyes. Tristan jerked the blade loose which
caused the man to rock forward. The young Prince kicked him in the
chest sending the man into the door to the cell, slamming it shut.
The light faded from the large guard’s eyes as he slid down the
door and slumped to the floor.

Another guard burst
into the room, forcing the door open and sending the dying guard
sprawling to his right. Tristan’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he
tightened his grip on the sword. This guard had his sword already
drawn for all the good it did him as Tristan lopped his head off.
It sailed across the room, bouncing off the wall and knocking over
what remained of the platter. The Prince spun in place and kicked
out sending the headless corpse out into the hallway.

Anger filled the
young man as he stalked out of the cell and walked down the
hallway. Farther down the hallway, light poured out of a room with
an open door. Tristan approached quietly, feeling like the grim
reaper closing in on his prey. He looking through the doorway
carefully, taking in everything he could see in the room.

Five guards sat
around the table playing cards, their weapons were close at hand.
Each of them had a dangerous and experienced look to them. The
Prince swore softly as he pulled his head back and looked around
the hallway he was in. He searched for another weapon of some sort,
an edge, some sort of surprise that he could use to take on five
experienced soldiers with just his sword in hand. He risked another
glance into the room and saw his armor in a pile on a table in the
far corner and cursed quietly again.

“That’s one way to
put it.” The Prince spun around bringing his sword to the ready as
the old man held his hands up. “Peace, young Prince.”

Tristan glared at the
old man. “You’re going to get your head cut off sneaking around
like that.” He croaked.

“I certainly hope not
my young friend.” He replied jovially. “Trying to figure out how to
get your armor without getting killed?” He asked rhetorically.

The Prince merely
nodded, looking supremely irritated. The old man chuckled slightly
as walked through the open door into the guards’ room. Tristan
watched in surprise from the hall as the old man walked past the
gaming guards. The moment he put a hand on Tristan’s armor the
guards were out of their chairs, closing in on the little man.

Tristan had found his
opening. He quickly entered the room and leapt onto the table. One
guard turned, only to have his throat cut as Tristan knelt down and
lashed out. The little man made a quick movement forward causing
the nearest guard to backup into his comrade. Tristan used the
opportunity to run them both through as he thrust the tip of his
sword into their backs.

The last two guards
drew swords and slashed downwards at Tristan. The Prince flipped
off the table backwards as the guards broke the table in two with
their blades. One of their blades became stuck in the rubble and
Tristan used the chance to quickly run him through. Tristan dove
over what remained of the table and rolled to a stop at the foot of
the table that held his armor.

On one knee Tristan
reached up and felt around for his shield on the table. The guard
pulled his blade free from the wreckage that was the poker table
and laughed at Tristan. He pointed to the wall with his free hand
as he continued to boisterously laugh. Tristan’s shield hung from
the spear rack and the young man sighed in irritation as the guard
closed in, still smiling.