The Dragon's Test (Book 3) (23 page)

Alferug shrugged, but did not answer.

Erik looked down to the dwarf’s eyes and saw that the creature was holding something back. “What is it that you know that I do not?” Erik asked.

“Do not ask me now,” Alferug begged. “Trust me a little while longer, and I will tell you in due time.”

With his heightened perception, Erik knew that Alferug was not hiding it out of spite or malice, so he relented and did not press the subject further. “Give me a few minutes then,” Erik said. “Often I have gazed at the birds and wondered what it was like to fly. I would fly now, and feel it for myself.”

“I do not think that would be…” Alferug stopped his protest. Erik wasn’t listening anyway.

The great dragon sat back on his hind legs and leapt up into the air. A powerful rush of air flattened the grass and bent the nearby trees. Dust and small rocks kicked up into the air and the dwarves all covered their eyes until Erik was high enough that his wings did not disturb them.

The circling buzzards scattered away as Erik climbed up into the sky. Each beat of his massive wings propelled him up fifty yards. He smiled wide and let out a mighty roar, relishing the rush of the wind on his face and the utter feeling of power and control he felt as the world fell away underneath him. Soon he was parallel with, and then far above the mountaintops in the distance. The clouds became his playground and he looped and soared through them.

Despite his altitude, he could clearly see the impatient dwarves below him, waiting for him to return and continue on with his duties. He understood their urgency, but he felt he deserved this reprieve. He streaked through the sky, out to the west. His keen eyes spotted rabbits and deer below through clearings in the canopy of trees. Then he circled back toward the north and let himself glide on the wind. He closed his eyes and let the experience completely envelope him.

Then something else came over him. He couldn’t identify the feeling exactly. It was heavy, foreboding. It reminded him of the nights when he had to go into the basement. The feeling he would get as he blew out the last lantern below and only the light from the door above lit his way. The same hair-raising feeling of darkness encroaching on him from behind nagged him now. He opened his eyes, but the world was a bright as it had been only a moment before, yet the feeling remained.

Was this the power
of the book? Was Nagar’s Secret reaching out to snare him as well? He wasn’t sure, but he knew it was time to change back. He dropped down suddenly, turning his wings up at the last moment so that he landed as gracefully as a sparrow upon a tree branch.

He then spied Alferug. “How do I change back?” he asked him with his thoughts.

Alferug frowned. “Think of the runes I will show you,” he replied. The next mental image that came was a series of golden runes. As had happened before, they were familiar, and Erik was able to understand their sounds even without comprehending their meaning. As soon as he pictured them in his mind again, a warm, tingling sensation overcame him and he found himself standing on the ground, back in Lepkin’s human form.

“We should get moving,” Alferug said.

“We will go with you,” Lady Arkyn said as she and Gorin approached.

“No, for now we should part ways,” he said. “Go and catch up with Braun. Take any survivors we have left with you. I must go to the temple alone.”

“We will be with him,” Alferug said quickly.

Lady Arkyn nodded. “I have heard of you, Alferug,” she said respectfully. “I was saddened when the dwarves turned away from their traditions.”

Alferug grinned wide and folded his thick arms. “I am pleased to report that a new king sits on the throne, and the dwarves have returned to their traditions,” he said emphatically.

“Who is king of the dwarves?” Gorin asked.

“Al, my friend,” Erik answered quickly.

Alfer
ug nodded. “Aldehenkaru’hktanah Sit’marihu, the rightful heir has taken the throne and now Roegudok Hall has pledged its support to King Mathias in this time of great need.”

Gorin smiled and held out his hand to Erik. “Until we meet again, Master Lepkin,” he said.

Erik took the hand in his and gave it a hearty shake. “We will see each other soon, I am sure of it.”

Lady Arkyn then stepped forward and looked into Erik’s eyes. “I wish you luck,” she said. The tone in her voice clued Erik in to the fact that she had something else on her mind, but he did not press her to discover what it was.

“And I wish you the best,” Erik replied.

“Come,” said a red-bearded dwarf
hotly. “We have a long road, and I would wager there will be more enemies between us and the temple.”

“
Faengoril is right,” Alferug said. “We should be off.”

*****

Gilifan emerged from the forest and surveyed the scene before him. Crows, buzzards, and eagles squabbled with each other over carcasses in the late afternoon sun. Burnt tents and bits of wood and metal lay scattered over what must have been a camp the day before. Gilifan strode through the mess, carefully picking his way through so as to avoid dirtying the bottom of his robes. A pack of wolves chased the vultures away from a horse carcass and began to feast upon the fallen. Beyond them, wisps of smoke lingered in the air above the razed manor.

The wizard barely recognized Gondok’hr’s body when he found it. The two halves were horribly charred and mangled, but he knew it was him. He could still feel the remnants of his last breath lingering in the area around his body.

“Pity,” Gilifan said coolly. “I would not have let you off so easily had I found you first,” he said. The necromancer conjured forth a large, wooden staff and used it to overturn the burnt rubble around him. “Where did your little kobold friend put my amulet?” he asked as he searched the area. After several minutes he even used his staff to turn over Gondok’hr’s remains and peer underneath, but the amulet was nowhere to be found.

Frustrated, Gilifan slammed his staff in the ground and a mighty ring coursed out through the field as though he had struck a great gong.
The ring echoed off a few areas on the field, including Gondok’hr’s body. Gilifan went quickly and searched each area where the sound had reverted back to him, but he found only the corpse of mages and warlocks. He struck the ground again, sending out his locator spell, but it only bounced off the bodies he had already searched. There was no other magical presence to be found.

“Who took it?” he grumbled. “Who would dare steal from Gilifan?” He turned about, scanning the area around the manor once more. Seeing that the stable was still intact, he went inside and located a stall near the back where he felt secluded.

He drew a circle around himself on the ground and tapped it three times. “Tu’luh, master of the night, and the great commander of death, hear me,” Gilifan said. He tapped the ground once more and a hiss of black fire rose from the circle to enclose him, but the flames were not hot. They were as cold as ice and they damaged not a thing around him. As the cylinder rose up over his head he felt the ground sink beneath him and give way, revealing a vast, empty void of darkness. Into the darkness his body descended slowly, like a leaf falling gently from a tree.

A voice rumbled through the darkness. “I trust you have a good reason for disturbing me.”

Gilifan bowed his head reverently and respectfully put his staff behind him. “Gondok’hr has failed to slay the boy,” he said.

“Mmm,” the voice hissed. “And he has betrayed you, has he not?”

“Yes, Master Tu’luh, he stole my amulet from me.”

“No matter now,” Tu’luh replied. “His shortcomings have already been rewarded.”

“Master, I cannot raise the army without the amulet,” Gilifan said.

Tu’luh sighed slowly, shaking the void with the thunderous roll of his breath. “Get yourself out of the Middle Kingdom,” Tu’luh commanded.

“Shall I return to Kuressar?” Gilifan asked.

“No,” the dr
agon replied directly. “Abandon the island and go to our friends in the south. There you will find refuge, and we shall meet in my home in due time.”

“What of the boy?” Gilifan asked. “Shouldn’t I try to finish this?”

“I will see to him myself. I am almost ready to make my move.”

“And what of Kuressar, I was amassing forces there,” Gilifan said.

“Leave your puppets there to watch over the island if you must, but do not send them anywhere else. Gondok’hr has exposed our northern position too much with his failures. Let the humans scramble to hold the kingdom while we come up from the south with our other allies.”

“By your command,” Gilifan pledged. “I will go to them straightaway.”

“Good,” Tu’luh said. “See that they prepare to march on Ten Forts before the last sun of the summer sets.”

“It will be done,” Gilifan promised.

A great
whoosh
of air sucked him back upward and within an instant he was again standing on solid ground. The black flames around him shrank back to the dirt and faded without sound. The necromancer took in a deep breath to clear his head, and then he exited the stable. He was anxious to obey, but he was not keen on letting the boy escape so easily.

His mouth turned up into a wicked grin at the corner
s when his eyes once again fell upon the wolves. He brought forth his staff and uttered an ancient, dark spell to transform them. Each animal grew four times larger in size. The fangs elongated and the claws grew sharper, like daggers. A pair of leathery wings burst from their backs and they howled in hungry delight. They turned their depraved eyes on Gilifan and charged him in unison. The wizard held forth his staff and a blinding light shot out and seared each of the beasts on their foreheads, directly above their snouts.

“I am you master,” Gilifan said confidently.

The beasts slowed to a walk and stopped before him, staring at him as a dog might look to its owner just before a hunt.

Gilifan moved forward and stretched his staff to touch each of the winged monsters on the head. As he did so, his knowledge of Erik transferred to each beast, so that they knew the smell of his very soul. The animals snarled and gnashed their teeth after discovering their target, eager to begin the hunt.

“Go,” Gilifan commanded. “Go and kill the Champion of Truth.”

Al sat at the front of the wagon, next to the driver, listening to the men behind him talk about how interesting the forests were. Al smiled to himself at their talk. To him, this was now the normal way to live, but for his soldiers, this was the first time many of them had ever left the tunnels of their home. That was probably why he wasn’t wearing his royal armor. It didn’t feel natural to him. He knew he would likely readjust to living in Roegudok Hall, but he doubted if the armor or the crown would ever become normal for him. Despite everything, he still couldn’t help but look at the crown as a fancy version of a ball-and-chain. True, he might wear the crown on his head, but it felt as though it weighed him down every step he took.

“We are almost there,” the driver announced. The wagon lurched around a copse of trees and was suddenly thrust into the midst of a great field, lined with a couple of farmhouses where workers tend
ed to budding crops of corn and wheat. Beyond the field, stood the high, thick walls of Drakei Glazei.

“Wow, would you look at that!” someone exclaimed from the back.

“I didn’t know the humans could build anything like this,” someone else said.

“Not as impressive as our hall,” another put in.

Al started to turn around and add his comments, but he stopped when he spotted a wagon on a parallel road emerging from the forest. The driver was frantically snapping the reins and his shouts were just audible enough for Al to note the tension in his voice. The dwarf king stood on the bench and put a hand over his eyes.

“What is it?” the driver asked.

“Hard to tell from here,” Al replied. “Why don’t we speed up and see if we can’t catch them before they get to the gate.”

The driver sent a migh
ty crack of his reins and the wagon lurched forward as the stout ponies broke into a run. Al nearly fell back to where his soldiers sat, but he managed to catch himself with his left hand and sit down again. As they raced down the road another carriage emerged from the forest parallel with them. Al couldn’t be sure, but he thought he recognized it from Lokton Manor, or at least he had seen one very similar during his time there.

He motioned for the driver to
speed up and the dwarf grunted and snapped the reins again. The ponies pulled with all of their might, but they simply weren’t fast enough to keep up with the long-legged horses. By the time the two roads converged into one, the horse-drawn carriage was a couple hundred yards ahead of them and it showed no signs of slowing as it sped for the gates.

“We’ll catch them at the gate,” the driver said. “They’ll have to stop and check in with the guards.”

Al huffed. He had wanted to get to them
before
they all got to the gate. If they were from Lokton Manor, he wanted to hear an update without additional ears nearby. He would just have to content himself with catching up with them at the gate. There wasn’t anything else to be done.

As his driver pulled the wagon in to the guard house on the right side of the gate’s exterior Al leapt from his seat and sauntered up to the other carriage. A pair of guards started coming out to him from the guard house, but he let his driver deal with them. He wanted to discover who was in the carriage.

“Hello to the carriage,” Al called out.

A scrawny old man peered over from the driver’s bench. “What do you want?” he shouted out.

The door to the carriage burst open and out jumped Braun. “Wouldn’t have guessed to meet you here,” he said. The big man eyed the wagons filled with dwarf soldiers in shining armor. “Could have used them back at the manor,” Braun said.

“I was unable to come personally,” Al explained. “But, I did send some of our best warriors as quickly as I could.”

A woman dressed in black descended from the carriage and slowly moved around Braun. “And what of Roegudok Hall?” she asked. “Is there a new king upon the throne?”

Braun glanced from Al to Lady Lokton and the confusion was written
all over his face. Al chuckled.

“She and I had a long chat befo
re I left the manor,” Al explained to Braun. Then he moved forward and gently took Lady Lokton’s hand in his and kissed it. “I wish with all of my soul that we had succeeded in bringing your husband back to you. I don’t often fail to fulfill my promises.” A tear slid down Lady Lokton’s cheek, but the woman smiled and nodded.

“I know you did everything you could,” she said.

“My liege,” the dwarf driver called out as he bounded up to them. “We have been asked to assemble in front of the gate and go into the town on foot.”

“King Al?” Braun asked.

Al shot the big man a quick scolding glare and then turned back to his driver. “So stable the ponies then and have the others assemble as we have been asked.”

The driver nodded and went back to the others without another word.

“I guess that answers my question,” Lady Lokton said. “Well, perhaps now that the dwarves stand with us, we shall have a good chance.”

“I hope so,” Al said. He looked beyond to the gate. It was shut and a line of soldiers stood before it. He couldn’t see into the city, but it was obvious that things were not as tranquil as they had been before their last visit. As he looked at the guards, a smaller door opened off to the side and out walked Senator Mi
ckelson. Instead of walking with the pomp of a senator, the man ran out to greet them. His mouth turned up in a broad smile and his arms out wide in greeting.

“My friends!” he greeted warmly. “I did not think to see you again so soon. Come, what news do you have?” His smile faded somewhat when he gave Braun a good looking over. “You have seen trouble,” Mickelson noted.

Braun nodded. “Lokton Manor is no more, and our house has been devastated. We humbly ask for shelter here, and of course pledge whatever service we can to King Mathias in return.”

“You have already served him more than any house ever should,” Mickelson was quick to reply. “We have space for you, and for all that belong to your house.”

“What news from here?” Al cut in, pointing to the row of guards along the gate. “Things have not been static here I suppose.”

Mickelson shook his head. “The Lievonian Order arrived and helped restore order to the streets,” he said. “Together with the regular guard we have rounded up the more serious insurgents. There are no more riots in the streets, but there is still a curfew.” Mickelson looked back to the guards. “Of course, we have to enforce much stricter scrutiny of all travelers now as well, so we have more than tripled each watch.”

Al nodded and pointed over his shoulder at his waiting dwarves. “As is the custom, I brought a few of my own to pay tribute with.”

Mickelson’s face scrunched up as he looked at the dwarves. “A few of your own?” he repeated.

“I am now king of Roegudok Hall,” Al said flatly.

Senator Mickelson watched him for a moment, looking into his ey
es with a knit brow and a slight frown on his face. Then his expression lightened and he clapped his hands together. “Well, then there shall be great rejoicing in the palace today!” he exclaimed. “I would be happy to escort you to King Mathias myself.”

Al gestured to Lady Lokton. “First you should see th
at the lady is settled. My kinfolk and I can wait until then.”

Mickelson nodded. “Of course.” The senator walked over to the guards and took a roll of parchment from them. “Good sir,” he called out to the driver. “I shall help you navigate the streets.” He climbed up to sit on the bench and waited for the scrawny old driver to clamber up and take the reins. Lady Lokton offered Al one last smile before returning to the carriage.

“Come and find me when you have a moment,” Braun said to Al.

“How does Lepkin fare?” Al asked.

Braun smiled and leaned in close. “Erik is fine.”

Al bristled, but softened quickly when he saw Braun’s smiling eyes and happy demeanor. “How did you know?” Al asked.

“I didn’t, not at first. But I figured it out,” he said. “Don’t worry though, the secret is safe and so is he, as far as I know.”

Al nodded and then went back to his comrades. He watched the carriage drive through the heavy gate and then the doors closed like massive jaws around a morsel of food. The guards returned to their stations and no one else went in or out for the space of an hour.

In the interim time, Al went into the guard house to change into his royal armor. It wasn’t as functional a suit as one he would make for himself. It was meant for occasions such as this, where the show and perception of power was more important than the armor’s actual strength. A silver encrusted breastplate with gold inlay around the engraved edges shone brightly in the torchlight of Roegudok Hall, but in the daylight above ground it was radiant beyond compare. Each masterfully carved rune was traced with a line of gold. Each rivet that attached the layering plates was covered with a cap of ruby or emerald stone. The suit was polished to such a high sheen that Al dared not look at it long for fear of burning his eyes. The greaves were equally as stunning. They were made from black Telarian steel. Sharp contrasting lines of silver and gold were braided down the outer sides of the greaves, weaving around each other in such a way as to dazzle any onlooker when the armor walked past.

One of Al’s footmen came in to help him with his boots. The insides w
ere made of leather lined with thin rabbit fur to keep the sharp, rigid plates of steel from cutting into his shins. He barely managed to stuff his feet down inside without falling over, but they eventually managed to get them on and hitch them to the greaves with the clasps just below the knee. Al picked up his right leg and gave a practice swing. He found his range of motion drastically reduced. He would have to walk slowly. The footman grabbed Al’s left arm and clasped the plated gauntlets around his hand. Rubies and sapphires studded the wrist, while a great diamond was set in the middle of the forearm so as to look like an eye, outlined in gold. The final piece was the helmet. It was an open faced helmet with a crown fused to the top. As if the rest of the ensemble wasn’t gaudy enough, the crown featured a diamond directly in the center, flanked by two rectangular cut amethysts, which were followed around the rim by a pattern of emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and onyx.

“All that’s missing is a great horn sticking out of my forehead,” Al quipped.

The footman looked up, but didn’t laugh.

“What, they didn’t issue you a sense of humor?” Al asked.

“No,” the dwarf said flatly. Then he checked the fit and exited the guardhouse.

Al started to follow after him, but stopped when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window. “I look like an overdressed peacock,” he grumbled. He could almost hear
Alferug lecturing him about what a great honor it was to wear the royal armor.

“It was fashioned for the first dwarf king by the Ancients themselves,” Alferug would say.

“Doesn’t help me feel any less like a bird in a gilded cage,” Al replied to the imaginary scolding. “Let’s get on with it so I can put this back in the glass case where it belongs.”

He walked out of the guardhouse and instantly all of his warriors fell to a knee. The moment caught him by surprise, and was a bit humbling. “You’ve already seen me,” Al said. “Get up.”

“This is the first time we have seen you in the royal armor,” one of his lieutenants said. “It is tradition to kneel before the king whenever he wears the suit.”

“Well, you can
’t march on your knees, so get up and let’s assemble in front of the gate.” Al tried to walk quickly, but was painfully reminded by his rigid suit that he would have to walk slowly. He swore he could hear his father laughing at him, but he just growled to himself and set his jaw while everyone else around him stared and gawked.

When at last the gates opened again, Mickelson had returned and stood i
n the opening motioning for Al to bring his group forward. Even the senator was taken aback by Al’s suit of armor, but one glance at Al’s face was enough to keep him silent about it.

Only a few yards into the city a man approached from the street ahead of them. He wore black trousers, a maroon tunic with a golden dragon emblazoned above the breast, and a simple black cape. A long sword hung from his belt
. The runes on the scabbard were old dwarvish symbols that Al recognized.

“Grand Master Penthal,” Al said. “An honor to see you again.”

Grand Master Penthal stopped and waited for Al to walk up to him, and then he turned to walk with the group on their way to the palace. “It has been a long time since I have seen you, King Sit’marihu.” He glanced over his shoulder at the other dwarves. “Longer still since I have seen the dwarves come to Drakei Glazei.”

“Is the entire Lievonian Order here?” Al asked.

Grand Master Penthal nodded. “King Mathias summoned us shortly after Master Lepkin destroyed the senate hall. We all responded as quickly as we could.”

“What is the situation now?” Al asked.

“I am sure Senator Mickelson has already informed you that we had to deal with a few insurgents, but it was nothing that we couldn’t handle together with the regular guard. We do maintain a curfew though, just to make sure things do not get out of hand again.”