The Exodus Sagas: Book II - Of Dragons And Crowns (74 page)

The men went five to a side, made it halfway to the throne and stopped as the flames from every source turned red
and flared and the doors slammed shut on their own accord. Florin stepped slowly, wondering what sort of demonic
trick this could be, who was this
deceiver, and where the hell her targets were
hiding
. She turned behind her to see the pale face of an elven man, pointed ears, all in black with swirls of a curse marking him as the infamous Kendari of Stillwood.

“Where is Cristoff, what goes on here
!
?
Where are the fugitives of Chazzrynn with the scroll?! Where is…why are you…
” Florin felt fear, from just two beings against her and ten, yet a stifling fear that ripped her dominion, position, and confidence from her very soul.

“
What do we do my queen
?” One of the masked assassins spoke up in whispered worry.

“Oh, my apologies.” Kendari bowed as Nareene laughed. “I almost forgot, here be the queen of Harlaheim before me. Looking for someone,
Florin
? Florin, domenarch of the White Spider whose men have tried to kill me twice in y
our hole you call a country?” h
e paced closer as she backed up toward her men and the intimidating sight upon the throne.

“I am here for Cristoff, but if you insist, you and your little demonic whore can add yourselves to the list.” Florin stopped, her men crouching low with blades en guard.

“I believe, I am already on the list, courtesy of one Johnas Valhera. I am her
e
to send him a
little, red,
message
. Care to indulge me
?”
Kendari winked to the Harlia
n woman, knowing full well that Nareene, high priestess for the demon Cancuru and temptress of hell, would try and out-murder him quickly. He hoped the wink would give him the advantage
and convince her
as he drew Shiver with his right and the holy longsword of Cristoff reverse with his left.

Curved blades reaking with sulphuric flame and fangs dripping with blood tore into the masked killers on the right of the hall. Nareene had not pleasured herself with mortal murder in many years and the urge was overwhelming with all the fear and sweat on the air. Rapiers and shortblades broke, some cutting her immortal flesh, yet three men screamed out in horror as their crimson life was splattered across the tapestries.

Kendari kicked Florin square in the stomach as she dove at his face with her rapier, sending her back as her men convened on the Nadderi swordsman. Shiver plunged into his left, the blessed blade parried a rapier then riposed across a throat. He crouched to a knee under two more cuts and stabbed the hot blade through an abdomen then turned and released another assassin’s insides with a cross slash of the cross bearing blade of Cristoff. Four men lay dying as he stepped for the fifth, seeing a terrified Florin looking for an escape she would not find.

His steps perfectly planned as he glanced to Nareene who had just finished her last two assailants and was in front of the throne biting into a neck with a horrible sucking noise that echoed pure evil. The last
assassin dropped his swords and put up his hands to surrender. Kendari shot his arm forward so hard that Shiver went hilt deep through his chest and sizzled with dripping blood ou
t his back. Withdrawing the bla
de, he walked past the falling body and continued toward Florin.
He marched her to the throne, blades steady and menacing at his sides as if she were no threat.

“This woman is mine Nareene, mine alone! Give my regards to
Johnas when you meet him
.” Kendari cut out with the steaming longsword, then with his hopefully blessed sword, both of which were parried by Florin. Her rapier went up, then down, then crosscut at his face, then a stopcut that hit steel bracer. Every move she made was countered, every step of her trained motions preempted, her lunge went out deep aimed at Kendari’s chest. His longblades caught her rapier and twisted it out of her grip as it flung and skittered into the great hall.

“
Kill her slowly for me, Kendari
.” t
he blood and flesh covered mouth of Nareene hissed out in delight at the death about to unfold infront of her very eyes.

Florin shuddered, her back inches away from the cannibal demoness. She stood, unarmed, facing Kendari of Stillwood.

Kendari flipped the golden cross of Alden o
ver in his left hand and dove the sword
hairs past Florin’s face and into the unsuspecting heart of the demoness Nareene. Her flesh burned black and blue as her scream threw blood onto the ceiling high above. He dove Shiver into her neck
up through
her jaw, then pulled Cristoff’s blade free and chopped it
across her shoulders. Her head rolled to the ground and began turning to shadowy mist along with the falling body. The blood from the ceiling turned black just as her red eyes glared at him as they vanished.
Blood sprayed from the mist like a rush of sweet rain, then stopped.

“
Your! Soul! Will! Know! Torment! Like! No! O
ther
!
Kendari!
I will be seeing you soon, so very…” Nareene disappeared into the netherworld
,
full of hate, betrayal, and vengeance.

Florin looked at Kendari who had just used her as part of a bluff to kill this demon woman. She saw his face tighten, then look to the blade of an Aldane knight in his hand, then to the spreading and thinning mist on the floor. Reality and shock began to set in her mind as the rest of the horrific carnage remained. “You were after her the whole time, this whole time. You had no intention of killing me, it was her.”

Kendari stared at the blood all over the marble floors, the tapestries, the walls and his blades. He stood still, enjoying the silence, then he noticed
Florin slowly turn out the corner of his eye. She walked slow
ly
to bend over and get her rapier, taking advantage of what appeared to be her opponent in more shock than her.
Deadly silent and smooth motions of a trained killer, like a cat she moved for her weapon.
She
lifted the blade by her boot
and kicked it into the air
, grabbing it with finesse
and absolut
e
silence
.
She was ready and had him off guard.

“
Florin.
” h
is voice seemed a far off whisper.

“Yes?” she turned quick with her blade out for the kill, expecting him to be in front of the throne. He was nowhere to be seen. Pain shot through her chest as steaming steel rose from between her breasts and ribs to under her chin. The red covered edge sizzled with her blood as she gasped for air and life.
Her gurgled words came out as just that
,
and her body flailed against the burning torment that ripped through
her
lungs.
Her hair pulled hard from behind as her legs went numb with death and
her rapier dropped
. Hot bre
ath whispered from behind her
,
softly to her ear
.

“Not even close.”

Exodus II:XVIII

Temple atop Mount Bailey, Willborne

Katrina
Willborne felt fatigue wrack her body underneath her heavy armor of steel plate as she reached the plateau of M
ount Bailey. Stopping to catch
her wind, she looked to the bodies strewn over the slope. Charred soldiers, faces without flesh, bodies frozen in broken poses of death, all save one. The lady mercenary noticed the faint breathing of the priest and his fingers twitching, then a faint moan from his
burned and broken
face-down position on the side of the lone mountain. Caring not for any of the men Marcell Keervin had lost or were dying, she trudged across the blackened temple entrance with the lord of Bailey, his sons, and her red minotaur guardia
n behind her. Drawing her long
sword out slowly, followed by the three men behind her, Katrina stepped inside the settling smoke of the cavern.

The dragon rested still in a pool of its own blood, the altar smashed to pieces, and the smell of the dead was everywhere.
Katrina was puzzled.
“This is not the dragon that
my father told me of
, the one I have seen as a child
. He told me a great dark beast that filled the chamber dwelt here, this is not it. And where did the other one go and shall it return?”

“Only Veuric would know, I rarely came up here with him. I never saw anything, only heard the voice in a tongue that he alone understood.” Marcell was shaking, his sons silent as the grave.

Faldrune the red, spiked mace in his hand, prowled through the other caverns and passages looking for the companions that had desecrated a holy and secret place of Willborne. “There is a way out down here, I can smell the fresh air. The treasure is meant for sacrifice is scattered as well, my lady. Likely they looted as well as murdered. Let me find them, I can track that stench of a dwarf all day and night
,
like I smell it here
,
just like the aroma
of the
elven woman.”

“Father, what will happen now? If the other dragon you told us of return
s?” o
ne of his boys spoke up, trembling. The feeling that great wrongs that would have to be atoned for permeated the dimly lit cavern amidst all of the blood and rubble.

“I do not know, son. God, they, it, has always demanded sacrifice for many things. I can only imagine what they will demand now. Unless, by
our luck, the other is dead.” Marcell looked around at the damage caused by the wanted travelers he had lured into his keep just last night. He had no idea that they were indeed this dangerous and
deadly.

Katrina resigned that they would have to track them with Faldrune in the lead and all of her men spread out as far as possible. “They could not have got
ten far. Let us leave
. Faldrune, get the men ready for a hunt. Marcell, you and your men will be assisting. I will have their heads---“

The ground at their feet shuddered and shook, then again, and then it stopped.
The entryway grew dark as wind rushed in and snuffed out the torches and sconces with a force that sent everyone back a step or two. A small trail of light could be seen from the middle passage that led out, then that too went dark. Thumping, slow and rhythmic, echoed from outside where the light of day was no more.
At first they scattered, then back together, and finally into a stance intended on battle. Katrina put on her steel helmet and raised her shield
engraved
with the sword
s
and dragon of Willborne. A red glow moved to and fro from the main chamber, with a slow moving shadow of a man shambling forward. Veuric, limping and staggered, hair and face half char
red off and blackened, approached with this all encompassing red glow behind him.
The night had turned to red outside the cavern.

“
Guirthinix astir valx trothini
?” a
sliver of black within a giant red eye came closer as its mouth spoke words through teeth as long as two men. The head of the black scaled dragon of Willborne filled the cavern passage at the end of its long neck.
This beast was large enough to eat the one that lay dead before it.

“Where is my son and who has slain my daughter?” Veuric spoke with eyes closed in a monotone voice that seemed to be forced to repeat what it heard. His bladder let loose, his hands shook, and his lip trembled, yet the voice came out perfectly.

“Veuric, what is happening here? What are you doing?” Marcell cowered at the sight of his priest of years being controlled to speak as his broken body was forced to comply by this gargantuan draconic being.

“Kithixses
!” the voice roared.

Veuric stepped to the side of the cavern, eyes still closed and trembling. The eye moved back for a split second, then a massive clawed hand flashed in and grabbed Marcell and pulled him out just as fast. He screamed and stabbed once with his broadsword as he disappeared into the clouded outside atop the mountain. The
scream stopped as the
chewing began, then the horned reptilian head slinked back into the broken temple.

Marcell’s sons ran for the rear passage, stopped by the curling and anxious tail of the immense dragon that smashed through the stone on the other side of the mountain and blocked them from escape. They turned white, realizing that this dragon, unlike the dead one in the
cavern, must be well over four
hundred fifty feet long to cover the top of the mountain in such a manner. Their voices were frozen in fear and terror, the
y
white knuckled their blades, and waited for death.

Katrina, followed quickly by Faldrune, got on both knees in a prayer position and lowered her head to the stone floor. “Tell our great dragon that the deaths of her children will be avenged. We know of the killers and defilers to her kind, and will hunt
them and bring them to her.” s
he k
new it was either this, or be eaten
.