Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon) (43 page)

His words did not break the veil of sorrow that surrounded Oganna. A few minutes passed; Oganna cradled the lonely midget in her arms. So brave, so alone.

Ombre’s strong hand clasped her shoulder. “Oh no.” And his tears fell on her shoulder. “He is gone, then. Oh no.”

A scream broke the silence, and both of them glanced over their shoulders. A Megatrath had returned from the swamp, and its clawed fingers had frozen within inches of Caritha’s body. It stared down at her.

“Back for more, eh?” Ombre charged. He must have retrieved his sword, for he swung it in his hands. “You would kill an injured woman?”

But the creature’s arm shot toward him, faster than Oganna’s eye could discern. It held Ombre, pinning the sword to his side. “Silence, human.” Its voice rolled deep and commanding over the ground. “I am not here to harm her, or you.” It turned its gaze upon Caritha. “Your arm is broken, lady. Did my kind cause this?”

Oganna rose, cradling Mazella’s body in her arms. She nodded, even though the creature had directed the question to Caritha, and another tear rolled down her cheek.

The creature growled as Caritha grimaced a nod. “Do not fear. The villains will be dealt with. They will be dead before the night has ended.” It set its claws along the sides of Caritha’s arm. “This will be painful, so prepare yourself.”

Bone ground against bone in a sickening sound that made Oganna cringe. She walked toward the creature, where it held Ombre off the ground. Ombre struggled no more, just stared as the creature worked on Caritha’s arm. Caritha’s arm straightened, then bent. The woman cried out, and the Megatrath narrowed its eyes. “That is dragon blood in your veins.” It smiled, and her arm straightened into its normal shape.

The creature dipped a bow to Caritha, then growled at Ombre before plopping him on the ground. Ombre fell to his knees, and the Megatrath rushed into the swamp. Oganna counted not six but eight legs. The creature swam like a bloated alligator through the water until it was out of sight.

Caritha rose unsteadily. She touched her arm and exhaled. “I am so tired.” She stumbled toward Ombre, and he caught her in a hearty embrace. They stood there until they dared look upon Mazella’s corpse. “We must bury him,” Caritha said.

A terrible roaring filled the swamp, and the trio gazed into its dim depths. The water churned, and half a dozen Megatraths breached the water’s surface. Four of the creatures forced two of them onto the shore. They lumbered toward Oganna, Ombre, and Caritha. The two between the four, their eyes darting side to side, growled and groaned. But they cowered as the eight-legged Megatrath rose out of the swamp and joined their group. He lumbered forward as the other Megatraths halted.

“We have a custom among our race,” he said.

The two Megatraths behind him whimpered, and he turned on them, his voice the sound of thunder. “We have a custom that the murderers dig the grave of their victim, overlay it with stones, and die upon those same stones.”

The four creatures slashed the two with claws and roared. The Megatrath pair began to dig. With little effort, their powerful forearms opened a deep hole in the ground.

“Please.” The eight-legged creature took a step closer to Oganna. “This is the only way we can recompense what has happened.”

She shook her head, then bowed. “Truly I respect your customs, but we wish to bury him in a clean grave with a human ceremony. He fought and died alongside us, and we owe him the type of burial he would have wanted.”

The Megatrath growled and spun on the two murderers. His claws opened gashes in their throats, and they tumbled into the graves they had dug. The remaining creatures spat on the bodies, bowed to Oganna and the others, then lumbered back into the swamp.

Caritha sat on the ground and stared after the Megatraths. By her aunt’s silence, Oganna judged the woman was in shock. Ombre sat beside her. No one spoke as they all stared into the swamp. At long last, relieved but weary, Oganna and her companions fell into fitful sleep.

22

HOME OF THE MIGHTY MEGATRATHS

W
eary and with his throat parched, Ilfedo ascended yet another tunnel. It turned sharply and he rounded the bend. Again it turned, and he followed this as well, only to be blinded by sunlight. Shielding his eyes, he let his blade’s tip drag on the stone floor as he emerged, at long last, into Yimshi’s rays. He had made it out of those dark and lonely caverns and found the world he better knew.

Past the confines of his stone shelter, yellow sands stretched to the horizon. Just in front of his feet an almost-vertical cliff dropped to the desert floor. Yimshi’s rays brutally irradiated the scene. Waves of heat even penetrated the shadows where he stood. He retreated deeper into the cool shadows and realized another tunnel branched away from the cliff. It angled down rather steeply and was adorned with numerous gouges from Megatrath claws.

“We made it, Seivar. Thank God! This is Resgeria, see?” He pointed across the desert. “The Warrioresses and my daughter told us that a great wall divides the desert, and somewhere on the other side we will find Vectra.” He pulled the last bit of fruit out of his pocket and bit into it. The taste that he had almost despised before did not seem that bad anymore. As the juice trickled down his throat, he thanked the Creator with a quick prayer and stumbled into the tunnel.

As he started down the spacious tunnel, he found its inclination rather steep. He stepped in the gashes on the floor to keep his footing. It would take only a minor slip to send him sliding down the tunnel, a prospect that drove him to take even greater care.

A little while later the tunnel sloped more gently, and he stood at its end. The stone floor upon which he now stood was smooth, worn and polished by usage. The cavern walls, reaching far above him to the darkness-enshrouded ceiling, bore elaborate designs upon them. Chiseled, he presumed, though for all he knew they might have been carved by claws.

He had heard from Oganna and the Warrioresses of the channels, filled with oil, carved into the Megatraths’ cavern walls. Yet in the dimness he could hardly distinguish them. If lit by fire, the channels would illuminate the entire area. He considered setting them aflame with the sword of the dragon but thought better of it. These creatures were strange beings. Their customs were alien to him. He should not risk enraging them. Besides, his glowing aura illuminated much of the large underground habitat. The cavern walls were pierced by hundreds of tunnels as large as the one through which he had come. Some larger tunnels as well. However, these opened at ground level and led out the back side of the chamber. Cuts in the cavern’s rock walls led like ladders from the floor to a countless number of caves above him.

“Hello?” He tried to sound bold, calling into the silent unknown, but he felt a bit uneasy. Where had everyone gone? “Is there anyone within the sound of my voice? I am Lord Ilfedo of the Hemmed Land. I have come to see Vectra.”

Though he waited for a long while, there was no response.

Picking a tunnel at random in the hopes of finding one of the creatures, he started down it. Five steps in he stopped. The faintest sound had reached his ears—a dull rumble from a neighboring tunnel.

He redirected his steps in the sound’s direction, just as another, louder rumble followed. Several bends in the tunnel effectively kept the light at its end hidden from him until he had almost reached it. Hot air swirled into the tunnel from the stone-encircled arena ahead, and he put away his sword. Two of the hulking six-legged creatures were circling each other, whilst many more observed from atop the stones.

Fearsome to behold, the full-grown Megatraths stood above ten feet at the shoulders, while the meglings ranged from the height of his shoulder to just shy of their elders’. Dark gray scales ran from atop their alligator-like heads to the tip of their long bony tails. Creamy white scales plated their underbellies. The creatures could move on all six of their tree-sized legs if they wished, or simply balance their weight on their rear four and use the forward pair as arms.

One of the Megatraths in the arena retracted its claws and drove its fist into the side of its opponent. The other rolled with the blow, stood up, and faced it. Its sides expanded as it drew in air, and then it let out a torrent of flames, its sides constricting to send out as long an assault as physically possible. The other fell back, blinking its eyes and shaking its head. Ilfedo wondered if the flames had entered the Megatrath’s ear holes.

“Lord Ilfedo of the Hemmed Land?” Ilfedo’s ears rang as the deep-throated voice sounded from behind him.

He turned to find an adult Megatrath looming before him. He bowed slightly to the creature and sheathed his sword. As the Living Fire receded, the creature watched.

When the Living Fire fell entirely off Ilfedo’s body, the Megatrath said, “Vectra has asked that I bring you to her.” It growled and beckoned with one heavy hand for him to follow. It climbed a pile of loose stones to the gargantuan ones on which the observers sat.

Having no desire to be in direct sunlight again, Ilfedo considered a refusal. But a wave from the observers’ midst showed him Vectra’s location beneath an awning made from reptilian skin. Her tooth-ridden jaws smiled down at him, and he relaxed. A friend in whom he could trust, and one whose help he would need to find the Tomb of the Ancients and to enter it.
In all these travels I must not forget the key. I must reach it—and very soon.

Skirting a dozen half-asleep Megatraths on the stones, he joined their leader. “Vectra, it has been too long.” When he had last seen the Megatrath, she had been camping out in the city of Netroth with his daughter after their harrowing battle against the giants. His daughter owed her life to this creature.

“Too long, indeed. Please, sit. Can I offer you anything?” She gestured at a pile of fruit withered by the heat.

“I have been on a long and fruitless journey,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I slipped under the sandstorm along the Hemmed Land’s border and found my way here, via an underground route so incredible and frightening that I find it hard to believe it all happened to me.”

Her great eyes roved over his dirt-encrusted clothing.

He laughed. “Actually my throat is quite dry, and I lost my traveling supplies. I would be very grateful for a peaceful meal and conversation.”

The contenders in the arena collided, and one of them thudded to the ground, panting heavily. “Next!” Vectra roared. A Megatrath left the sidelines, flexing its muscles.

“Isor.” Vectra looked thoughtful as she named the new duelist. “Her brother was killed by Oganna and the Warrioresses.”

“Loos?” Ilfedo spoke the name of the murderous Megatrath slowly. Loos had invaded the Hemmed Land and slain the inhabitants of a border town. Ilfedo had sent his wife’s sisters to track the creature down and kill it, but Oganna had secretly followed them. Vectra had disapproved of Loos’s attack, and after Oganna had killed him, Oganna had formed an alliance with the Megatraths. He pulled away from his thoughts to look at Loos’s sister, Isor.

Vectra nodded, then waved him toward the tunnel through which he’d entered. “Come, Lord Ilfedo. The water springs are underground. I am most pleased you have come, and most curious as to how you came to be here. Come inside, and we will fill your stomach and talk, just as you asked.”

The circular room of black stone in which he stood fascinated Ilfedo. Four impressive silver bowls hung from chains attached to the ceiling some forty to fifty feet above him. The bowls each measured more than seven feet in diameter. Flames burned in them, and five silver mirrors—placed so as to reflect the light downward—illuminated the room.

Against the back wall and opposite the arching tunnel through which Vectra had led him was a basin of water with large snaking spouts above it that appeared to be carved out of the stone. Crystal clear, the liquid poured from the spouts into the basin and then drained out of it through two holes at the basin’s rim, disappearing into the rock wall.