The Dragon Knight's Curse (The Dragon Knight Series Book 2) (22 page)

Flames and smoke still sprang from its feelers. To extinguish it, the worm dove back into the ground, twirling the sand and dirt around it in the miniature earthquake it induced in its thrashing. I didn’t know what it would do next, but I knew I’d be too pissed off to care what I attacked next.

Walking backwards, I exclaimed, “Ghevont! Remove one of the packs!”

When I reached him, the scholar dropped the heavy pouch at his feet. I went behind the camel and jabbed the point of my sword in the same place as the last animal. The distressed beast kicked its way forward, heading for the still churning soil. The blending ground suddenly shot toward the camel and tripped it up. A fountain of sand exploded alongside the newest bait. The chukurn’s fuming upper form, eight feet wide and thirty feet tall, slammed down on the struggling camel. I briefly thought about triggering the camel’s remaining pouch, but since I didn’t imagine it would do much damage, I picked up my pack of stones and ran toward the worm.

The chukurn was sliding back down its hole, but I wanted it to stay above ground. “Earth spell! Hold it!”

A pulse of sand tightened around the chukurn’s powerful body. There was no way Ghevont and Thoris could prevent a determined worm from breaking the hold, but the resistance seemed to puzzle it. It then detected something approaching it and, despite me being out of its range, bashed its head down to either crush or antagonize. Neither one happened. I needed its beak to open again, but it stubbornly kept it sealed. Noticing some of its body had stayed over the compressed camel, I ignited the dragon stones scattered around it. The flames convulsed the worm’s body, opening its jaws wide enough for me to toss in the pouch.

I knew I couldn’t just ignite them as before and let it be. I needed to fan the flames. Focusing on my training, I stood as still as possible and linked my prana with every rune I sensed within the chukurn’s mouth, who was now spinning to both douse the fire and break the spells’ hold. When everything but its sixteen foot long beak slipped back down, I poured a good chunk of my refined prana into the stones. The dragon flames burst forth, but I didn’t lose immediate control. As the chukurn rushed upward again, I sent a dense bubble of prana into the flames, turning it into an inferno that cracked the chukurn’s beak. The taxing effort spun my brain and forced me to fall on my hands and knees.

The most pitiful bellow I ever heard left the worm’s body, but I didn’t have the energy yet to see what it was doing. I did feel Ghevont place a hand on my shoulder and cast a kind of healing spell that transferred part of his prana into me. It would take a master to actually refill my spirit reserve, but he helped stabilize the prana I still carried. With the aid of a firm hand offered by Thoris, I stood up to see where my next steps should take me.

From the worm’s hole, something that sounded like a hollow belly grumbling for food throbbed below the sand. The chukurn was there, but with an enfeebled beak, I doubted I had to worry about it burrowing with dangerous speed anytime soon. Surpassing the weak whimpers of the chukurn was the shrill wind carrying the thumping effects of casting. A sweep of my eyes behind me showed that the other three worms had, either through human tactic or chukurn perseverance, closed tighter around the ruins. This had the effect of limiting their hulking movements, but they were also closer to the noncombatants.

Much of the action transpired to the northwest. Two of the worms were close together there, with one getting its flogging head blasted by every element. I don’t know who managed it, but a thin green gash extended several feet past its beak. The second had gone under and was trying to circle behind the defenders to get to the panicking animals, but swirling earth spells deterred its trajectory. Both were being engaged by most of the pirates, including my father, a few mercenaries, and the tribal men.

The majority of the mercs were in battle with the chukurn straight to the west. In its effort to sweep away the human annoyances, the worm used its long tail like a thick whip. One of these lashes of the tail sent somebody crashing against a corner of a ruined structure. Sophia stood on a pile of rubble at the center of the ruins and fired her arrows at any part of the worm that came inside her bow’s scope.

Also aiding the sell swords was Gerard, his knightly code urging him to help those he believed needed it more, I’m sure. Imagining myself having to tell a freshly motherless Odet that someone else she cared for was dead urged my steps toward the young knight. I had the ability to summon a few more dragon stones, but not the prana to take possession of their flames again. I thus didn’t have much of a strategy beyond supporting those who still carried the capacity to cast their spells.

Getting nearer a scene jumbled by the grimy wind had me seeing that Yang was part of the western group as well. He and Gerard were among a group of two other mercs retreating from the worm’s latest floggings when I caught up with them.

With a glance, Gerard studied my face and said, “I suppose you don’t have much of your special fire left.”

“No, but I do know we can stop them if we can break their beaks.”

“That won’t be easy. This one won’t even show us its pretty face.”

“It will, and we all have to focus on its beak when it does.”

The cagey chukurn persisted in implementing its rear appendage. It still tried eating us by sucking the sand we stood over, but as long as we paid attention to the swelling ground, we easily avoided its suction attacks. I didn’t like us wasting valuable energy on its tail alone, but I couldn’t think of a way to force its head to the surface.

After ducking out of the way, I rolled backward to analyze the battleground. Yang was running straight for the front end of the worm. He stopped midway across and splayed his hands on the ground. Using an earth spell, the ground around him began pulsating up and down, as though he were beating a drum. The wave of sand veered toward this enticing beat.

“You don’t think…” I told Thoris.

“I’ve seen crazier tactics.”

“Did they work?”

He ran faster toward his crewmate.

Yang didn’t react to either Thoris’ calling his name or to the sand wave going under him. The pirate was swallowed in a puff of sand. Everything on our end paused for a few seconds.

Nothing happened until the mist of earthen powder completely blew away, prompting the worm to head right for us. We didn’t take a step back before its head broke out from its lightless underworld. Sticking out from the center of its beak arose three glistening spikes of ice. The great worm shook its head, trying to fling these barbs off its face. It then smashed the ground with its body, rolling itself right for us. More of its body emerged in the process.

We had to leap out of the way to dodge a flattened fate. Almost everyone else was located at the safer tail end, but Malu needed some quick thinking to avoid being squashed to a pulp. He decided to run
at
the rolling mass and used a burst of air to help him jump on top of the worm. Then, with a precarious balance, the mercenary made his way to the tail end and dove off.

The chukurn’s body stopped rolling to contract and curl up. This constricted form next sprang outward. It was incredible to witness something longer than a small ship use such built-up energy to maneuver itself so suddenly. It whirled its head to the west, its tail snapping toward us. All of us ducked out of the tail’s path. Some of the sand grains I kicked up went into my eyes, forcing me to stay down a few seconds longer to wipe them out. Those extra seconds on the ground turned out to be fortuitous. The tail had come swinging back.

Thoris saved Ghevont by tackling him to the ground. However, Gerard on my left and one of the mercenaries to my right were barely picking themselves off the ground. My instinct told me to swing my leg under Gerard, getting him quickly back on the ground. He probably could have dodged on his own, but I wasn’t taking any chances. The inept sell sword did not react in time. He soared for a hundred feet before becoming one with the nameless sand particles I already associated the mercenaries with.

The beast stopped spinning and grumbled in deep rumination. It was beginning to roll again when the mercs near its head started hurling more spells, but knowing this would only serve to start another round of monolithic wriggling, a word from Malu stopped them.

“You still in there, Yang!?” Thoris asked the worm’s still slowly rotating head.

A muffled “Yes” answered him.

“Just try not to get swallowed! We’ll get you out in a minute!”

“Is that one of your men?” Malu asked Thoris when he met him near the head. “Crazy bastard.”

“Get the others to help with the other two worms. Tell everyone to break their damn beaks.”

Not long after the mercs left, taking Sophia with them, the chukurn’s tail acted up again. It punched and twisted into the ground, making a hole it slinked backwards into.

“Crap,” said Thoris. “Yang! It’s trying to go back underground! Get out now!”

“No!” said Gerard. “Wait until it goes almost all the way in! We’ll all then combine spells to break open its beak!” To us, he explained, “It’ll just thrash around if we attack now, but we should be able to hold its head long enough for Master Hur to escape once the rest of it is confined within the hole.”

Thoris reluctantly agreed with his assessment. It was a dawdling suspense watching the worm bury its seventy foot length in reverse, about a foot a second. Having no spell to contribute in the pirate’s breakout, I started receding from this circumstance to have a head start on the others, but I keenly observed the proceedings unfold. Just as the beak pointed skyward, Thoris, Ghevont, and Gerard combined earth spells to squeeze the sand around the chukurn’s head.

“Now, Yang!”

One of the ice spikes shot outward, creating a wider hole when the thicker back-end of the icicle burst through the beak. The worm quivered and was able to drop a few feet lower, but the earth spells held it tight a few seconds longer. A slash of Yang’s curved sword made the hole broader still. The worm broke the casters’ hold and rapidly descended. Yang himself jumped through the weakened section of the beak just before the cavity disappeared. I expected him to be slimed up with worm fluids, but the mouth of a living chukurn was apparently as dry as a dead one. The quiet pirate nodded when asked if he was all right.

We went to reinforce the already prevailing humans. It drained everyone’s physical and spiritual energy, but one of the remaining worms had its beak cracked. The other seemed to hear the abject moans of its wounded brethren and took them as a sign that it too would be suffering if it persisted in its attacks. The healthiest chukurn thus withdrew, though its dust trail could be seen roaming the distance. While the one with the cracked beak still had the ability to burrow, it was far too slow to become a threat. This debilitation, however, didn’t manage to halt its attacks until ten minutes after its companion had left. It then slothfully excavated three hundred yards of ground before stopping entirely.

Not a single one of us stood on their feet after the immediate danger passed. Every chest heaved, not caring that we breathed in the sand the wind gusted at us. Lorcan quickly took stock of the situation, confirming that every pirate’s head was still working. Menalcus suffered a broken arm and Aristos had drained his prana to the point he fainted as soon as the last menace turned around to leave. Despite the injury, it was Menalcus who carried Aristos back over his uninjured shoulder.

Both guides also survived, but Banering’s left arm dangled at his side. As for the mercenaries, three had been killed by body or tail and another was swallowed whole. I sensed some animosity grow between pirate and sell sword, as I was certain the paid men had noted the pirate’s tendency to aid one another over any merc.

Three facts prevented the strife from reaching a contentious level. Firstly, the mercenaries weren’t unified or skilled enough to threaten a seasoned pirate crew. The second was knowing that the untimely deaths of their associates meant more coin for them in the end. Of course, it was still a long journey to reach that end, making it the final reason no one would get at each other’s throats. If we wanted to survive the last march out of the Hadarii, then every able bodied warrior was going to be needed.

With at least one healthy worm still in the area, we couldn’t spend any time resting or going over growing grudges. We assembled the animals that had strayed from the ruin and forced our weary legs to slog through what remained of the unconquerable desert.

No one noticed we had lost a sariff pouch until a full three days after the chukurn attack. This was half our remaining supply. If we didn’t want capricious barbarians to respond poorly to their share of missing sariff, then our only choice was to avoid them altogether when the plants ran out. All the energy we expended in the worm fight also compelled us to exhaust our dwindling food cache. A feeble mule had to be killed a week after noticing the lost sariff to provide meaty nutrients for a few days.

Four days after that and we met with a roving tribe. We ended up trading much of our sariff for a collection of hardy cactus fruits. As it turned out, less than three days later, we ran into a large trading caravan with a much more varied stock of grub, some of which included literal bugs. A handful of seeds and roots for each of us was all we obtained on trading the little sariff we had left. As soon as this transaction finished, we created scout teams to look out for any sign of barbarian activity, our goal being to elude them at all costs.

The scout teams, which almost always included the guides, were largely successful in steering us away from more of their ilk, but not always. One windy night suddenly had forty tribesmen warriors flanking one side of the main group. All had their bows or spellbound arms trained on us. Luckily, Fardin’s rough understanding of their dialect allowed the enchanter to talk them down a little. The tribal warriors apparently believed we might have been sell swords hired by a rival tribe to fight them. Fardin convinced them that our goal was academic, but as a sign of “goodwill,” we were obliged to give up six of our best animals.

The mercenary treasures had to be moved to the remaining beasts. Since the added weight meant they could no longer carry people, basically everyone had to travel on foot the rest of the way. Only Fardin and his assistants could get away with riding the less burdened camels more often than not. Our weary legs needed longer rest periods, but having fewer animals at least meant less food to feed them. In fact, with the constant threat of barbarians and our desire to see civilization again, we reduced the number of times we stopped to let the animals graze on whatever plant life we came across.

Encounters with barbarians still occurred, but we were good at sidestepping the bigger groups, so these minor happenstances never escalated into anything serious. It helped that a group of over two dozen tired, dirty, irritated warriors was not a group one wanted to piss off. My experience with long treks on foot and familiarity with teeth-splitting pain gave me the fortitude to endure the final leg of our journey. Indeed, I felt as though I could leave everyone behind if I upped the pace by another mile an hour. I resisted the urge to go at my own speed, however.

As for everyone else, their states varied between solid health and suffering severe bouts of heat stroke and malnutrition. A few mercs underwent the worst symptoms, but Menalcus also needed to be treated for exhaustion, which likely came about due to the extra energy his broken arm needed to heal itself. His comrades gave up rations of their food and water to keep the big guy from passing out, but it still required four days of diligent observation before he was really out of danger. These sicknesses slowed us down somewhat, but we weren’t going that fast to begin with. All in all, the slowdown probably didn’t add more than a couple of days to the journey.

The first sign we were finally nearing a place to bathe off all the damn sand was when the guides and two of the traders separated from us to enter a large oasis controlled by a friendly tribe. Days later and an actual town with intact buildings of stone and wood was reached. This sight uplifted everyone’s spirits back to what they were when we found Kitiri’mor. We stopped by that afternoon and filled up a small tavern to the brim, wasting the few coins we carried to buy anything with alcohol in it. I didn’t get drunk, but it was the closest I had ever been. Despite the day of good business, I was sure the owner did not enjoy the sweaty stench that seeped into every wooden plank in his building.

Two and a half months after leaving Behar-Dural, its torches lit the eastern horizon on the cool night we came upon it. Our cheerful curses awoke every comfortable bastard in their bed as we marched down the city streets. Only Yang Hur kept his joy within himself, though I had no doubt it stirred somewhere inside him.

Anyone inside the college was awake, so there was no worry about our shouts disturbing dreams. Of course, that wasn’t to say some old men weren’t disturbed when they learned Fardin had found the legendary city. The testimonies and artifacts were almost not enough to convince the other enchanters of our feat. It was at the college where the procedure to account for every relic began. This was particularly important for the mercenaries, as they would need official documents to make a clay pot as valuable as a small house to art dealers and other academic institutions.

I wanted to immediately find any body of water to wash off the sand and dirt chafing in every fleshy crevice, but one of Fardin’s pile of letters was addressed to me. It was a small piece of paper with no identifying marks, except for a week old date. The start of its short message was “A Business Proposal II.” Three lines followed. The first said, “Both fit the description. They’re fairly close to one another, so I hope this doesn’t cause the scholar much confusion. Clarissa sends her regards.” Below this line was a row of numbers, town names, and geographic points.

I would have given it to Ghevont right then, but I wanted to give his drained body a chance to recuperate. I thus went ahead with my bathing plan first. Before I stopped over at a communal bath, I and many of the pirates dropped off most of our desert clothes at a washhouse. It was the middle of the night, but the unwalled building by the small river stayed open at all hours. Given the lack of other customers, the women there said they’d be done with everything in a couple of hours. As planned convenience would have it, the communal bath was a short walk upriver. After a long soak, I realized I would need a week more of baths to wash all the grime out.

Ghevont awoke in the inn bedroom we shared near noon. Not wanting to discuss what we needed to in public, I showed him a tray of food I had brought up for him. Leaning against his cup of lemonade was my letter.

“What’s this?” he asked on picking up the note.

“Look for yourself.”

He unfolded it and read the minimal contents. “So they found two possibilities, then.”

“Will that disrupt your calculations?”

“Yes, but these coordinates are no more than fifty miles apart, so my ‘confusion’ will only slightly expand the circle of error that was always going to exist.”

“How long until you can get a location?”

“Assuming I find the map I need at the college, then I suspect my calculations will take half a day’s time.”

“It’ll take that long to line up some points on a map?”

“Tell me, Mercer, what is the shape of Orda?”

“A ball?”

“And of a map?”

“A square or rectangle.”

“A
flat
rectangle. For me to correctly line up points separated by thousands of miles, I’ll have to take into account the curvature of Orda and of the ancient techniques used to account for it two thousand years ago. Not to mention I now need to examine two different coordinates.”

“And someone did all that centuries ago?”

“Impressive, no? We are obviously dealing with a mind as brilliant as my father’s. I can only pray my work lasts as long.”

“Just do me a favor and don’t become as obsessive about a dead god as they did.”

After eating what would likely be his last meal of the day, Ghevont and I headed back to the college to find the appropriate map. With easy permission from Fardin, the scholar rifled through dozens of ancient maps before finding three he liked. Fardin also gave Ghevont an office one of his few enchanter allies wasn’t using. I didn’t have to stay with him, of course, but realizing we were so close to finally discovering the grave site had me fixed to Ghevont’s side as he worked. Gods forbid I leave him a minute only return to find a lodged grape had killed him.

The benefit of being in a building with only old cranks was that everybody minded their own business as quietly as they could. Not many sounds rose above Ghevont’s scratching quill. I couldn’t blame Marcela in those times I saw her sleeping as her friend worked away. The scholar occasionally spoke out loud in five or ten minute bursts, but this was always in the hushed tone one used to speak with themselves. I told Lorcan beforehand that only he was allowed to bother Ghevont, so he used that consent to bring us a few fruits every three hours or so.

Riskel’s son worked well after the sun went down, but neither he nor I showed any hints of drowsiness, not when his quickening quill stopped his random sessions of audible contemplation told me he was near a resolution. The scraping of his quill stopped seconds after the clock tower tolled eleven times. Ghevont pushed back his chair and stretched. The act triggered a big yawn.

I stood up from my chair by the door. “Ghevont? Did you find it?”

“Find? No, I’ve merely isolated a relatively narrow area the grave likely lies.”

“How narrow?”

“A little less than six hundred square miles.”

“That doesn’t sound narrow.”

“Neither does twelve hundred miles, but that would still be within my definition of success.”

“I’ll take your word on that. Where?”

“In Efios. It’s officially within a strip of land owned by Uthosis, but no one really owns the jagged mountains the grave appears to be in. I couldn’t have thought of a better place to hide a tomb… Well, maybe the bottom of an ocean, but the execution of such an act would require-”

“What do you know of Uthosis?”

“Only that it was much more important to history before all its port cities were seized by anyone with a boat. I’m implying they had a weak navy, you see. The mountain range begins at its eastern edges and twists and turns for two thousand miles more. Dotted throughout the range are several volcanoes that are regularly spewing ash and magma at one time or another.”

“So within an area of sharp rocks, ashen skies, and angry mountains lies a grave fit for a god. Will you follow me here as well, scholar?”

Ghevont moved his lips to the side and cocked his head the opposite way. “Hmm, there’s a high chance we’ll meet with forces beyond our capabilities at the grave, isn’t there?”

“Yes. I know you want to see what your father died for, what he was killed for, but is it worth adding yourself to the list? You can always study the aftermath of whatever happens, you know.”

“All I’ve read are aftermaths, Mercer. In any event, our personal stakes are quite similar, are they not?”

“How so?” “Well, the Advent have taken the memory of your family, no? This circumstance isn’t much different from my own. The Advent have taken future memories of my family.”

“Aye, I suppose that’s true.” I didn’t point out the fact that I could at least make new memories with what remained of my family.

“In truth, ever since leaving Gwen I’ve had theoretical visions of my parents returning. How would that have changed things? What would Vey have been like? Or myself, for that matter.”

Ghevont’s logical monotone was the same as it always was, but I had a feeling the day I heard his emotions conveyed in his voice would be the day he became more like his sister. “I know how this sounds, but I’m not sure a complete Rathmore family is a pleasant prospect for the rest of us.”

“There’s no evidence to dispute the contrary. I’m only selfishly contemplating, don’t mind me. So you have no arguments against my joining you?”

“I’d say you’ve earned the right for a thunderbolt to blow us all to bits.”

“Why a thunderbolt?”

“I don’t know. What do you imagine when you see a god rise from the dead?”

His eyes looked up for a moment as he imagined it. “Hmm, fascinating. The skies are in illumination in my vision as well. This can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

“Ask a hundred other people and ninety of them… Forget it, this isn’t important. I have to let Lorcan know what you found.” Just before I closed the door, I said, “And good work, Ghevont.”

“I thought so.”