The Exodus Sagas: Book II - Of Dragons And Crowns (72 page)

“I hope, for your sake,
God
does not desc
end in anger upon us Marcell.” s
he moved her stallion closer to his so that they would not be heard.

“Divine justice is surely being dealt, my lady. A few fine words and chosen soldiers we can silence
, will
make amends when it is over, that is all we will require. They cannot survive, it is impossible.” Marcell looked to his sons, his boys that did not know the secret of the lone mountain. They were full of questions after hearing the roars and seeing the smoke and flame and bodies, as was any man here. “Still, better judgement would have me pull the soldiers back so that they see nothing more. Just in case.
The Gods
are surely angered with all of us around the mountain. Or something to that regard.
I will spread rumor.
Agreed?”

“Agreed. You, myself, Faldrune, and your sons will stay. Have your captains reiterate what you just said and send them to Bailey. Then, we will wait.” Katrina needed no horror stories or rumors of wicked alliances beyond what she already had heaped upon her.
The people must not know of the dragons, nor of her knowledge thereof.

“I will see to it immediately, my lady.” Marcell turned his steed toward his sons, suddenly filled with self loathing at what he was about to explain to his children. If he were to let the people know, there would be a revolt, riots, and their blood in the streets
. Centuries of deceit would
be undone in a few bloody moments, and Willborne would slip further back away from a great kingdom.
He had to explain this to his boys, now lordly men themselves, and get them to agree and understand his reasoning.

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Careful steps from giant clawed feet preceeded the serpentine body of the male dragon who was sniffing and searching for its mate.
It
s bright red scales reflected the torchlight that clung to life in the smoke. His black
forked
tongue moved in and out as its head moved from side to side, eyes seeing nothing, yet smelling the blood for certain. His eyes opened wide as the flash of electricity bolted toward his face. Nowhere
to move in the entrance to its home, the dragon charged forward as lightning cascaded through its neck and shoulder. He opened his jaws to release a stream of flame toward the outline of the being responsible for the attack just as
a swordblade plunged down through its nose and out the bottom and through the tongue.

James held on for dear life as he was smashed into the opposing walls from the flailing head of the second dragon. Saberrak joined him as he jumped up onto the side of the beast and grabbed hold of the scaly ridge be
tween the wings. His twin bladed great
axe in one hand, he drove the weapon deep into the demon reptile’s back where it lodged into bone and flesh.

Taira ran for the entrance past the dragon, her terror overwhelmed her reason. Shinayne dashed out from her hidden position as well, lacerating twice then twice again into the chest of the giant struggling serpent as fire spouted from the sides of its mouth. Heavy hits from the hammer of Zen did painful work to the right eye and skull of the trapped wyrm as he charged in with his friends. Gwenneth could not get a clear shot with anything that would not possibly hurt her companions, so held still with staff raised waiting to unleash a horrid ray of acid should the dragon get its mouth open.

The roaring beast hissed as blade after blade cut precious life from it, trapped, ambushed, and stunned blow after blow. Unable to defend itself, the dragon turned round and dove out the entrance to its temple home. The minotaur still clung to its back with an axe wedged in its hide and a human gripping a sword through both its jaws dangled from its face.
Its tail thrashed to ward off any pursuers, hitting someone hard on its way out. A scream was heard by all, then another.
It cared not, instinct and flight took over as the winged wyrm plummeted down the slope then flew from sight
into the clouds
.

“Gwenneth! Do something!” Shinayne yelled as she saw the dragon careen off the edge and take flight into the clouds, Saberrak and James with it.

Zen and Gwenne ran up to the edge with the elf, looking out at the fading shadow of their opponent. They loo
ked down at the broken body of T
aira a hundred feet below on the rocky slope
. Zen ran down to her as quick as he could without losing his footing.
Her legs were twisted behind her
, feet touching the back of her head
and the girl’s neck was at an akward angle up where it should not have been. Zen stepped around the bodies of burnt soldiers to get to the fair girl that James had saved from being sacrificed.

Shinayne and Gwenneth stood silent, neither knowing what could be done for their friends. The ambush was perfect, yet no one expected the dragon to flee with their friends still holding on.

“Azenairk?” Shinayne stifled her tears, sheathing her weapons and waiting for a reply on his inspection of the unmoving girl.

“She’s dead.” Zen bowed his head, looked to the ladies on the plateau above, and then to the sky hoping to see James and Saberrak return.

“What can you do Gwenneth? Something, anything.”

“We need to get out of here before we are captured. I can track James from a good distance, at least a few miles if not more.” Gwenneth thought hard on how to escape from the inside, what tunnels may lead out, for she knew going down the way they came in would put them into the hands of Willborne.

“How can you track James? Not Saberrak?” Shinayne waited for Zen as she watched Gwenneth walk back into the cavern.

“Because James has my father
’
s sword, and my memory of that weapon goes back to when I was a child, when my father was still with my mother and still very
much
alive. I could sense that sword long be
fore you arrived in Vallakazz, sometimes fond memories enchance one’s sight in the arcane I suppose. Either way, I can find them, just get us out of here first. Being captured will not help us get to them.” Gwenne strode down one of the three cavernous tunnels, then returned.

“Does James know he
be carrying
your father
’
s---“

“Does it matter, priest? No, it does not. It is a private painful memory that I care not to discuss with him, or you. And especially not now.”

“This passage leads down, the others are just shit and bones.” Zen stood by the middle tunnel past
the corpse of the female serpent
.
He knew they had just been chased up a mountain and faced two dragons. He was well aware that their friends were out there in danger. And the priest had just given the shortest prayer in his life to the girl they had hoped to save. Despite it all, he knew also that time was of the essence and they had to leave.

Gwenneth and Shinayne followed him, both wanting to say something, neither knowing where to begin. Shinayne felt Gwenne’s hand on her shoulder for several moment
s
, just a sign of reassurance that all would be allright.

“
Whoa
, will ye look at that then!” Azenairk stumbled in the dark of faint tochlight as coins scattered across the floor of the tunnel. “That there be
quite a pile.”
t
he dwarven priest found his feet in the shadowy light, now brightened by Gwenne’s staff, and looked amazed about the passage littered with coins of silver and gold, weapons, armor, jewels, and boxes from ages that were strewn all about.

Gwenneth kept walking, her focus on getting out of this deathtrap of a mountain was stronger than any amount of forsaken treasure. She f
ol
lowed the light of her staff past skulls in the walls and bones that covered her path. She heard Zen and Shinayne quickly filling their purses and pouches and turned. “Seriously, now at this moment?”

“We have no supplies, unless you plan on returning to Bailey and rescuing our horses. So yes, we need some coin to buy enough to get us to Evermont.” Shinayne snipped back, then spotted a greataxe, immediately thinking of her missing horned friend.
Tears welled but would not release.
“Zen, grab that for Saberrak, just in case.”

“
I’ve got it, and a few other things, let’s go
.” Zen whispered as if someone were watching.

The passage led out to the southern edge of the mountain, much lower after many slopes and twists through the inside. The three companions looked around the morning light of the outside world, seeing no army in wait.

“Now give me complete silence please, I need to focus on my father
’
s sword to find them.” Gwenneth heard the jingling of settling coins stop, their breathing shallow, and she began to concentrate with both hands on the staff of Imoch.
She saw the vision of the griffon hilt of an enchanted broadsword appear in her mind, a shield of magicked value as well near it, and sensed precisely where they were. Moments passed as her friends remained utterly silent watching the emerald glow atop her mighty staff. “Northwest of here, perhaps four miles past Bailey.
”

“We will have to be sneaky and take the long route around the city. Arm yourselves and kill any scouts on sight as quickly and quietly as possible. Follow me.” Shinayne led them down the mountain slope, keeping to every shadow as if their lives, and the lives of their friends, depended upon it.

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“James! James!, Get up James!” Saberrak limped over the dead male dragon that he and the knight had crashed into the riverbanks northwest of Bailey. His left arm was cut, shoulders bleeding, and his left leg had hit the rocks upon impact and was numb and swollen. His energy and strength though, was amazingly intact despite all he had fought just
recently. The gray minotaur held his axe low as a crutch and shook James by the shoulder with his free hand, hoping he would wake up. Streams of blood washed into the slow running river, blood from the enormous wyrm they had just rode to its death.

Saberrak smelled men, several, and he
ard them in the distance to the north
. James was stirring, yet he had not the time to wait. He pulled the dead wing of the dragon over his friend, covering and concealing him with a leathery black and red limb. He thought to hid
e here as well,
perhaps under the other wing, but if the men approaching had seen them plummet they w
ould surely search the dragon when
they found it. He heard horses, a wagon or three, many men indeed coming from the north, not from Bailey.

“
Saberrak, where are you going? Oh, my head and arm! By Alden we are alive, I think my leg is stuck but thank God we---“

“
SSshhhh!
I will be right back, there are men looking for us to the north.
They head this way, many.
I am going to give them a scare and a chase. You wait here until I get back, try to heal yourself and stay hidden. Wait for the others.” The gray gladiator crept out of the river’s edge and climbed over
their dead trophy dragon. The
n he heard them speaking in Agarian, and he knew they were searching for the dragon they had seen fall out of the clouds. Saberrak ran, full speed with
horns lowered, right toward
whoever it was, however many. All he wanted to accomplish was to keep them from James until he was healed and they could find their friends and get out of Willborne.

James looked around at the dragon he was pinned under and covered by, dead and lifeless and covering the whole river from head to tail. He held his hand up to the teeth of the beast, pulling the lip up by some red scale to reveal them. His eyes grew big as his hand was half the length of the black and yellow fang, one of hundreds for sure. He had no idea, in the heat of the ambush and battle, that the creature was as big as it was. It had happened so fast that the knight of Chazzrynn now felt fear at what sort of insane danger he had been in. A smile creased his face, knowing he had saved a girl from being this thing’s meal and stopped a false and evil practice from continuing upon poor people. His hand glowed blue, blue like the eyes of Annar, the eyes of Saberrak and
the scroll, and he held it
over his dirty white tabard with the cross of Alden upon it. He thought of the others, hoping they would find him and the minotaur soon.
Slowly, through light concentration, James Andellis prayed to whoever would listen and began healing his injuries
so that he had the ability to move out from under this beast
.

His legs pumped harder, ignoring the pain more and more with every heavy step.
He felt he was healing, though how he had now idea.
He heard the chase begin and tried to make as much noise as he could with crashing through branches and growling as much in pain as in hopes to strike fear into whoever was over the next hill hunting for them.
The forest was thick, too thick.
Saberrak the gray
saw flashes of men on horseback in armor, one with a large net held by another, then two more with longspears, and then he saw cages atop wagons over the hill. He kept running, further from the river
, drawing as much attention as possible as he tore through forest and hills dodging trees to keep the steeds slowed in their pursuit. Yelling, men giving orders across several wooded hills, and the corralling began to get closer. Suddenly a net was thrown over him and he tumbled to the ground tangling himself further. He cut out in rage with the axe, yanked it free from his horns and stood up still half caught in the thick ropes as horses passed him by. Glaring at now at least thirty men around him, Saberrak stepped toward the closest man on horse, then felt it puncture him in the neck above his scale mail armor. He pulled the longdart out of his bovine muscle and black mane of hair, feeling drowsy as he did. Axe in hand, the gray horned warrior raised his weapon to cleave the armored man down when another dart hit his thigh. He looked down slowly, his reflexes dulling and eyelids drooping to close against his will. A third dart hit home in his other leg, and before the minotaur
could reach it, he fell forward. A fourth dart saw him
unconscious with eyes closed. He lay there unknowing and asleep as the schackles were put on his wrists and ankles, then six men carried his massive body to the cages.