The Chronicles of Dragon Collection (Series 1 Omnibus, Books 1-10) (42 page)

CHAPTER 8

One ettin encounter in a day was enough to last you a lifetime, but two? That seemed impossible. I shook my head and looked at Brenwar.

He had an expression I’d never seen before. His brows were lifted. His mouth was open. The grumbler was puzzled.

“Nath,” Bayzog said, “suggestions?”

Thoom! Thoom! Thoom!

The second ettin strode past the tall trees, head higher than the branches. A heavy chain was draped over his neck with a massive anchor on the end of it. He uprooted trees from the ground like pulling carrots, and he slung them across the land. He was bigger than his brother. Dark bearded. Terrible. Mean. Cruel expression. Heavy muscles over a solid round belly.

“You die now, dragon man,” the first ettin said.

The other head shook. Blinked its blurry eyes. Snorted. “What happened?”

“Quiet! I’m in charge of this.”

The other head snorted. “No, I’m the oldest.” It whipped around. “Say, who tied me up?”

Thoom! Thoom! Thoom!

“Dragon!” Bayzog said. “Time to act!”

“Hold yer ground, Dragon,” Brenwar said. He raised his hammer. “We’ve got a prisoner.”

I nodded. Watched.

The Legionnaires lined in rank, making a wall between our prisoner and the brother ettin. The bright plumes on their helmets billowed in the wind. They lowered their lances. The ettin heads stopped and bickered. The War Horn sounded again. The Knights of Quintuklen charged. They were brave men. Some of the bravest men I ever saw.

The first ettin laughed in my face. Low. Wicked.

Hooves thundered up the hillside. Shiny armor gleamed in the sunlight. It was a glorious sight. Brave men riding into battle. Doing what was right. Fighting evil.

The second ettin lifted the chain from his neck and roared. The anchor circled like a lasso over its heads. A fierce grin crossed its faces.

SWOOSH!

The ettin struck, scattering horses and riders all over the ground.

I yelled, “Nooooo!”

The bound-up ettin laughed.

More people would die if I didn’t stop this.

A white streak of power slammed into the second ettin’s face. It howled and dropped the anchor on its toe. One face was smoking. Angry.

The Legionnaires struck again. Their volley of arrows skipped off its face. Lances shattered on its limbs.

It swatted them away, knocking men into men, toppling horses and riders.

“Retreat!” I yelled.

It picked up its anchor and came right at us. Angry eyes locked on Bayzog.

I could see Bayzog’s eyes were drained. Weary.

“Shum!” I said, “Get Bayzog and Sasha to safety. I’ll handle this.”

Shum scooped his hands behind them and scurried them away.

Thoom! Thoom! Thoom!

“YOU GONNA GET IT NOW, DRAGON MAN!”

“Be quiet,” Brenwar said, shaking his war hammer in the first ettin’s face.

I reached over my back and grabbed Akron.

Snap. Clatch. Snap.

The ettin brother would overtake us in two more steps.

I loaded a moorite arrow and pulled the bow with my two dragon arms.

Twang!

The arrow buried in its knee.

The second ettin roared and turned on me.

I reloaded. A different arrow this time. I rubbed some spit on the tip and it glowed white hot. I pointed it at one face of the ettin prisoner, whose chest I stood upon.

Towering over me and the others, the ettin brother swung his anchor and chain.

“LET MY BROTHER GO!” it said.

I pulled back on the arrow and pointed right at one of the ettin prisoner’s eyes. They all widened. The tip of my arrow was still white hot. I took my aim back and forth from face to face, eye to eye.

“You better tell your big brother to back off,” I said. “You don’t you want any part of an exploding arrow, do you?”

“No!” one head said.

“No! No! No!” said the other head.

I touched the tip of the arrow on one of the ettin’s noses. It sizzled.

“Tell your brother to back away, then,” I said.

Tears formed in the eyes of one. A grunt came for the other.

“Don’t do it,” one said.

“No! I don’t want my head exploded,” said the other.

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “I have plenty of arrows for the both of you.”

Lumps rolled up and down their throats. They shouted.

“Brother! Back off!”

The ettin swinging the chain did no such thing. He stomped his foot, shaking the ground. He growled.

The Legionnaires continued their attacks. Some spears and arrows stuck in the ettin’s hide. Others broke. The ettin didn’t seem to notice.

A spear zinged by my head.

An arrow splintered on Brenwar’s chest. “Who shot that?” he said.

“Ben!” I said. “Find the commander. Tell them to back off!”

“All right, Dragon!” Ben dashed away.

I stood on the ettin’s chest, thinking.
Why the sudden attack on a small village? I have to find the women. Get them released.
But the Legionnaires would want to avenge their casualties. The villagers would want payment for the lost.

“Dragon,” Brenwar said, “you can’t trust what they say.”

Crack!

Another arrow shattered on his armored chest.

“That’s enough of that, I say!”

The ettin turned. Swung his anchor into the ranks, scattered the soldiers like leaves.

“Ettin!” I yelled. “Don’t do that again! Else your brother’s going to have one head, not two!”

It turned and lowered its big eyes. Its hairy brows buckled like giant caterpillars, and one head licked its lips. It stopped swinging and draped the chain and anchor around its neck like jewelry. What was taking place was just not normal.

“Let me hit him in the knee again,” Brenwar said.

“No, just give it a moment.”

The War Horn sounded. The Legionnaires, on horse and foot, made another formation and trotted back up the hill, leaving me, Brenwar, and two ettins all by ourselves.

“Can we talk now?” I yelled up to him.

His words were loud. Slow. Deep.

“FREE MY BROTHER. OR DIE!” Its ugly faces smiled. “I CAN KILL ALL OF YOU. I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU IF YOU HARM MY BROTHER!”

Great Guzan! I hadn’t thought of that. Supposing I did kill the ettin―which even though it was evil, I shouldn’t―what was to stop its brother from going on a rampage and killing more people?

“You won’t be killing me,” Brenwar said, “you smelly animal. I’ve taken down giants bigger than you!”

“GO BACK TO MORGON,” one head said.

“YOU BEARDED HALFLING,” said the other.

“Bearded what?” Brenwar started to bring his hammer down.

“Don’t!” I said. “Brenwar, let me handle this.”

Delay him, Nath,
a voice said in my mind. It was Bayzog.
We search for the women as you speak.

“You better make it fast,” I said.

“Make what fast?” Brenwar said. “Hitting the ettin?”

“No,” I said, “I was … never mind. Just be still.”

I didn’t want to tip the ettins off. They weren’t the smartest of the giants, but they weren’t stupid as orcs either. Well, maybe.

“Listen, ettin,” I said, “No one has to die. Not me. Not you. Not your brother. Let’s just trade. Your brother for the women. Even is even.”

“It’s a good idea, Brother,” the ettin prisoner said.

“THERE CAN BE NO DEAL.” Both of the free ettin’s heads shook as they said it.

Something about the way it said that ran a chill right through me.

“Of course there can be,” I said. I didn’t want to say the next thought I had in my mind, but I did. “Unless something has happened to the women.”

“HA, HA, HA,” it laughed. “THEY ARE ALL DEAD.”

CHAPTER 9

“This is perfect. Delicious. Salivating.” Kryzak wiped the sweat from his colorful head.

Before him, a small image of a man shimmered inside his grand tent, speaking on a bright carpet.

“It’s going well, High Cleric,” the man said in Common. “Nath Dragon battles the ettins as we speak. Others have split up. I must go now.” The gray image bowed.

He snapped his fingers. The image faded away.

“I wish I could see it,” Kryzak said, wringing his hands. He walked over and sat in a plush chair.

Two draykis were on each side. Four acolytes in grey robes and with single tattooed rings on their bald heads stood inside the tent as well.

He snapped his fingers.

One acolyte readied a goblet. The other poured.

Kryzak took the goblet and drank.

For years he’d been hunting dragons. Now he was hunting the most valuable one of all. Nath Dragon. He had longed for this day. Longed for the day he could prove himself to be the one, the only one for High Priestess Selene.

“I want to be alone now,” he said.

The acolytes departed, ducking through the tent flap one by one. Behind him, the draykis, nearly seven feet of brawn and scales, stiff as statues, remained. He liked them. Commanding things so big and powerful gave him a thrill.

He patted the bright tattoos on his head with a satin cloth.

“Nath Dragon,” he muttered. “So far, so easy… ”

The Clerics of Barnabus were a crafty lot. Their eyes and ears were everywhere. In cities, large and small. In villages, but not all.

He slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes. He smiled.

“No one can evade Barnabus.”

Nath Dragon and his party had been caught leaving Quintuklen. It was the last place he’d been seen since they trapped him at the temple. That’s where the drultures came in, flying notes back and forth faster than eagles. They tracked his every move southeast, toward Narnum.

Kryzak’s guess at Nath Dragon’s destination was the elven city of Elome, judging by the direction of his travel and the company he kept. An elven wizard. A Roaming Ranger. Why there he didn’t know, so he kept his distance. He had to work fast, though. Find any help he could get.

That’s how he’d found Ettin Cove. The giant brutes had taken some convincing, but in the end, they had agreed. Kryzak had his ways. Now the ettins laid into one small village after the other. There was no way Nath Dragon and his party would miss them. No way the cries and despair of the voices wouldn’t lure him.

Especially when Kryzak had spies within the ranks of the Legionnaires.

“I wish I could see it.” He mumbled some words, and smoke billowed from his mouth and nose, filling the tent in thick layer of gloom. “But we’ll see how it goes.”

CHAPTER 10

On horseback, Shum and Bayzog made their way from the village. Shum the Roaming Ranger was leading the way, following the trail of the ettins, when he pulled his horse to a stop. The big-boned elf slid off his horse, stepped into one of the giant foot impressions in the tall grass, and kneeled.

Bayzog, a bit weary, prepared a spell on his lips. He didn’t feel comfortable. He wasn’t ready. Over the decades, he’d spent most of his time indoors. Studying. Crafting. And it had been a decade since he’d last ventured into the wilderness. He was a little unsettled. He sneezed.

Shum looked up at him with a funny expression on his face.

“What?” Bayzog said, “Nothing to worry about. Probably from the excitement.”

Shum shook his head and sniffed the air. The smoke in the distance was dying down.

“I could smell them before,” Shum said, pushing his long hair from his face, “but the wind has changed. The tracks, however, hmmm, well, they come from separate directions.”

Bayzog coughed a little. Tapped his chest with his fist. He’d been uncomfortable since they had left. Not so much about the woodland but about heading back home. To Elome. He was an outsider. Part elf. Part human. His human side didn’t fight off the elements like the elven blood did. It bothered him. It always had. Shum was different, too, but a pure elf. One born in the harsh outdoors, living among the beasts and the monsters. A part of nature itself. The big elf stood in the footprint as tall as himself, staring over the horizon. Bayzog wondered if Shum felt the same.

“I say we follow the bigger one. Away from the smoke.” Shum swung himself into his saddle. “Their lair can’t be too far.” Shum looked at him. Waiting.

“After you,” Bayzog said.

They rode until the hills became steep and the terrain rugged, moss over rock-covered ground. This was the part Bayzog didn’t like. The sudden changes. The air. The wind. The setting sun. No roof over his head. He wasn’t sure if it was the man or the elf that preferred the indoors over the out. Elves, by nature, liked open spaces, the comfort of greenery blended with stone and tree trunks.

Shum slowed. Hooves splashed over a creek bed into a denser patch of woods. He looked over his shoulder at Bayzog with narrow eyes.

Bayzog felt it too. A shift. A darkness. The fine hairs on his arms tingled. That was the elf in him. He was certain. He still had the instincts, just a little dormant. He thought of Sasha. He hated not having her by his side. She gave him comfort. Security. She understood his nervousness and the edginess he fought so hard to hide. He made a sound in Elvish. A hoot of sorts.

Shum let him catch up.

“I should check in with Dragon. It’s been awhile,” he said. “And if we go too far, I can’t connect.”

“Do as you will, wizard. I’ll scout ahead.”

“No,” Bayzog said.

“Beg pardon?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said, scanning the area. “Don’t let me hold you up. I’ll be fine.”

Shum and his horse blended into the brush and out of sight.

Bayzog took a deep breath. It was still day but dark under the heavier foliage. The trees seemed foreboding. The sounds of nature―the trickle of the creek, the buzzing wings―did little to soothe him. He was alone and anything could happen. Like running into an ettin. He shuddered. They were some of the most fearsome things he’d ever seen. So big. Strong. Unpleasant.

“Ease yourself, Bayzog,” he said to himself. “Check in with Dragon and Sasha.”

He started the incantation for the communication spell, and magic filled his body. His mind became a spring of energy.

Thoom.

The ground shook. He lost his concentration.

Thoom.

His horse stamped and snorted. He clutched at the reins, heart pounding.

“All right, Shum, where are you?”