Epic Fantasy Adventure: The Angel's Blessing: Holy Paladin's Quest: Book 1 (Sword and Sorcery Epic Fantasy Adventure Book With Dragons and Magic) (7 page)

My dread overwhelmed me. Visalth was swooping and soaring in victory as its brother began to rise from the desert dust. And despite my terror, my mind went straight to my master’s words even as my hand gripped my sword.

“
If all else fails, go for the wishbone
.”

With the cry of a berserker I did not know I had in me, I leapt toward the delicate V-shaped Wishbone and clove it in two as if I were slicing through water. The creature’s wings collapsed and its neck and head plowed into the dirt. The body began to thrash, but even as I looked for my escape I saw a wonder.

Kell was shrieking down toward the newly animated and flailing dragon. Riding on the golden light from the statue’s eyes, he dove down, holding Ashrune with two hands over his head – and the mighty war-hammer was healed and bathed in a powerful glowing light. In a flash Kell came down and smashed his newly blessed Warhammer into the dragon’s skull. It exploded into thousands of pieces, a few digging deep in my side.

Ignoring the pain, I raced from the crumbling disaster and looked up. Visalth was startled. He hung in mid air as he watched his triumph disintegrate before him. But then its dead eyes seemed to turn to cold murder. It gathered himself and plunged straight for Kell. But my master was well ahead, for even as Visalth dove Ashrune was launched into the air to meet him, and with a snap and a mighty crack, one wing was severed from the body and the bone-dragon’s wrathful assault became frantic as it crashed hard to the ground, shattering many bones near the ruin of its brother.

But Visalth’s rage was not quelled. Even wounded and near paralyzed, his tail and head were still viciously flailing at my master and me. We leapt out of its deadly reach and watched its impotent frenzy.

“There will be no more bone dragons from this place,” my master said.

And so saying he strode to the base of the mystical statue and Ashrune shattered away a large chunk of the leg. Another blow and the marble statue teetered. And with a third mighty blow the footings burst asunder and the grand form began to fall. Kell easily stepped aside as the statue smashed to the ground, crushing what was left of the cursed undead bone dragon.

But before we could taste success the warm wind whirled around us and we both heard the echo of the Angel’s voice;

“. . .and oft will leave the blessed a lack thereof . . .”

We turned from the devastation. Kell gripped the newly healed and magnificent Ashrune and hefted it aloft, giving thanks for the victory this day. We then launched into warm wind of the angel and high into the sky. And so, carried by the warm Angel’s wind and the power of the healed and mighty hammer, we sailed away from the ruins. We crossed the searing desert, past huddled remains of Galth’s outlands and out and over the sea.

Swiftly we left the accursed lands and swiftly we were back in the mortal world. The sun was low in the west and Kell found a star to guide us. My master pointed Ashrune and its power flung us faster. The waters below whizzed by at a dizzying speed, the wind rushing in our ears louder than any dragon’s roar.

We indeed needed that speed, for even as we flew like birds through the air, I began to feel a weariness creep over me. My limbs ached and I clutched at Kell. I saw his arm sag with the weight of his weapon. Then the wind behind us began to cool and our flight faltered. I heard Kell groan and felt his body tense as he strained and fought for every ounce of the blessed magic. But time and tides tarry for no man, no matter how desperate his plight nor how worthy his cause. And so we fell toward the wine-dark rolling sea.

“I have failed you,” my master sighed.

“No master,” I cried. “You need to…“

We hit the ocean hard.

The waters were rough and I floundered, the waves filling my mouth with salt water. The sun was all but set and the rollicking waves cast deep shadows. I called for my master but a slap of salty water made me choke and sputter. My boots filled and were dragging me down. The weight of my weapons made swimming impossible and I strained just to keep my head above water. My strength was fading, but the sea was unconcerned. I sank below the water, my heavy boots leading the way.

Then I found myself filled with a strange calm.

I had had a good life. I had learned love. I had seen wonders and magical marvels. I had gazed upon the face of an Angel, and I had helped a great warrior destroy a great evil. I was in a sort of peace as the waters drew me down. I might die, but because of me and my master, many in the Nine Realms would live, though they would never know the tale. Still, the Angel of Glory would know and that thought comforted me. I ceased my struggles and sank into the bosom of the sea.

It was quiet there. It was warm and dark. I was floating. I was not sinking, but rather I hung adrift in the silence. After a time my lungs wanted air and I knew that in a moment, maybe two, my body’s instincts would overcome me and I would gulp in the water and that would be the end.

In my haze I thought that I had gone delirious for I saw a woman approach me. She was naked and had such lovely, creamy skin. Her brown hair flowed all about her as if it were caught in a vortex. She smiled at me and her azure eyes sparkled. I thought it might be a kindly hallucination, a sort of final shard of the Angel’s blessing. I was tickled and almost laughed aloud as the vision wrapped her arms around me and kissed me full on the lips. I was neither stunned nor embarrassed, but held the dream-like woman and kissed her back with all the warmth she had given me.

And then there was a miracle.

My aching lungs were suddenly filled and the woman felt as warm and solid and real as could be. She pulled away from me, the divine kiss still warm on my lips and she smiled, and even as she pulled away my body was encased in a layer of air. It was as if a shimmering second skin of air had enveloped me, I became like a bubble of life in the ocean depths, and wrapped in that magical bubble I freely breathed in a place where I should have drowned.

My beautiful Nereid smiled again, a smile of joy and she took my hand. We swam on and to my astonished joy she brought me to my master. Kell floated in a silvery bubble of air as well, grinning and laughing a silent laugh. The woman took his hand in her other and through some power of hers the three of us began gliding easily through the ocean as quick as elegant fishes.

Our way was swift and our line was straight. I saw many wondrous marvels in that watery realm, things I would strain to recall and log later on. But my mind was on the end of our quest, and I yearned to thank the Angel of Glory and give her all due homage. I longed to be back aboard the
Chaos
, listening to the Annas bickering, content to sail for home.

We continued onwards for many hours before our watery savior dragged us up and we broke the surface of the sea in the calm cove before the Angel of Glory’s grotto.

Suddenly a loud cry shook me from my reverie. “Kell!” a beautiful woman cried. Then she rushed forward and into the ocean, swimming to us and flinging her arms around my master’s neck, kissing him long and deep, right there in the water. “You saved me.”

“You saved me Wendfala,” my master said as soon as she let him speak several minutes later.

“I rescued you,” she said, “but only after you destroyed Visalth. When his cursed life was destroyed so were the chains that bound me. Even as we speak, his armies are panicked and fleeing. You are a hero, Kell, and I will see that the whole of the Nine Realms know of your great deed!”

“Don’t forget my comrade,” he said nodding to me. “My apprentice—“

“An apprentice learns a trade,” she said. Her eyes scanned me thoughtfully. “Here is a disciple, for truly I see great deeds in both of your futures.”

She kissed me on the cheek and I blushed.

“I just hope that’s a wish,” Kell said as we swam, “and not a prophecy.”

I was tired and I was weary and I so wanted my master’s hope to be true. But that was not to be, for even as we waded up onto the soft sand shore of the Angel’s grotto, we saw that things were not right – not right at all.

There was no light. The hundreds of little candles on the gravestones were all gone out. We paused on the shore. The glow from Gavial’s chamber was dark. Wendfala waved her arms and spoke a word and the cavern was lit as if by the sun, and what we saw stopped my heart.

Every tombstone that surrounded the place was on the ground, as if some burst had exploded and laid them low. The two giant statues that guarded the chamber were broken. One had been shorn in half and the other’s head and wings were gone. But beyond that destruction and to my own horror, the
Chaos
was surged up against the grotto wall, its mast snapped and the rigging laying about in a tangle.

“Anna!” I cried as I raced blindly toward the Angel’s shrine. “Anna!”

But there was no reply. Kell and Wendfala caught up with me and we reached the top of the stairs together. At the top I stumbled and almost fell in. Kell just managed to hold me back and we gaped down at the abyss.

Where once Gavial had tested us and greeted us and finally blessed us, there was nothing but a deep round void that seemed endless. As if some force had reached up from beneath the earth and tore it away, the Angel’s chamber was no more. In its stead was a yawning dark chasm lit only by Wendfala’s magical flame.

“Anna!” I screamed into the darkness.

“What power on this good earth could do this?” Kell said in quiet amazement.

“No power on earth,” Wendfala answered. “We must leave here. My heart doesn’t feel good and we must leave now if we want to live.”

“No,” I cried, and then shrieked long and loud into the abyss again, “Anna!”

Someone clutched my shoulder but I shook it off. I stood in despair listening to my own echo.

“We must go,” Wendfala said. “There is nothing here that we can do, and if the powers that did this returns--”

But even as she spoke a single soft word drifted up from the depths.

“Longo . . .”

I sank to my knees gazing down. A small vapor of mist appeared. I craned to look as it rose, and as it rose it began to take shape and the form it took was,

“Anna?” I said.

“Longo,” the misty apparition smiled. “Would that all of your kind was as simple as you.”

“Anna . . . what?”

“Is that what you call the child,” the vision said. “She wouldn’t tell me her name. She has this silly notion about names holding power. So quaint. Still, the body is young and fair, and it feels so nice.”

“What have you done with the – “but before I could finish Kell slapped me aside.

“The Angel,” my master finished. “What have you done with Gavial?”

“And who are you?” Wendfala demanded.

“Questions, questions,” the misty thing answered. “But that’s alright. I will answer because I want you three to tell the world who it is that has the power to enslave an Angel.”

“Then tell us,” Wendfala cried. “Who are you?”

“I am as I am,” the voice of Anna said. “I am the mind bending Mistress of the nightmare that witches and wizards would never dare dream of. I am she who terrifies the undead and who haunts the thoughts of the gods themselves, and I am she whose name they will not speak.

“Go away then demon,” Wendfala goaded. “For truly there is no good here.”

“There surely is not.” The mist laughed spitefully. “I am the right hand of the idiot who thought he could use my pet dragon to conquer your pitiful Nine Realms. While your cunning led to my pets defeat, my minion’s failure is also my victory, for while your holy paladin was distracted, I saw into Kell’s mind and knew it blessed.”

“So now I know how to defeat you Kell,” the voice said with a sneer. “Your foolish quest may have defeated my dragon, but that bundle of bones was just a pittance of my powers, and your pathetic waste of an Angel’s blessing led me to the shadow of her wind… and so here I am thanks to you.

“And you Longo,” the vision smiled. “Longo the Simple. You go forth and tell all that you meet of all that you have seen. But also tell them this; tell them that I am she who will conquer all. Once you came to this place for an Angel’s swift blessing, but you will leave now with my slow curse. So hear my curse now simpletons, and hear it well.

“For ninety-nine nights and one hundred days your world will know nothing but a driving, vengeful rain. Waters will rise and islands will sink. In the lands that survive crops will rot in the fields and in the stores, and after that a famine the likes of which your world has never known will come. Behind that famine will come plague and pestilence, and the peoples of the world will war among themselves until nothing is left but a ragged bunch of bedraggled desperates who I will enslave into my service.

“So go now, Longo the Simple. Go with your friends and tell the world that I am everlasting and that I am patient. And tell them to be afraid. Go!”

And so saying the misty vision of Anna vaporized.

“Kell,” Wendfala said softly. “I think . . . I think that we should be afraid.”

“I think,” Kell said, “that whatever that demon was, it missed something.”

“What?”

“The other Anna,” he said. “I’m sorry Longo, but that’s why I stopped you from talking – before you could say
the Annas
. That thing knew only of Gavial and Anna. She didn’t know that there were two of them.”

“That means,” I said slowly. “That means that the other Anna . . .”

“Could be anywhere,” Wendfala said. “Angels are powerful, and it could be that in Gavial’s desperation she hid the child.”

“Then we must find her,” I said. “She’s the only one who could tell us more about that wicked being.”

“The girl could be anywhere,” Wendfala said. “We must look for guidance. The girl might give us a story but we need wise counsel. If that wraith spoke anything near true, then we must seek Gavial’s sisters.”

“Anna saved our lives,” I cried. “We must look for her.”

“Anna is one life,” Wendfala said. “I am sorry for your little friend Longo, but a thing that could capture an Angel is a thing to be feared and fought. We are puny in the light of that power and so we must look for greater help.”

“First,” Kell said. “We must look to the
Chaos
.”

My master walked down the beach and across the fallen tombstones. As he walked, a silvery noise began to dance about the grotto. We looked to the mouth of the cave and it began to rain.

The End of Book 1

Be Sure To Check Out Book 2 Coming Out Soon!