The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains (69 page)

No one looked, no one could hear it, but the dragon turned her head to Saberrak and whipped her tail in front of him. The gray minotaur was smashed into the mountainside unaware, axes falling to the red rock floor.

The clouds whipped up debris and red sand, the shade covered the pass and the crossroads, and the yelling of giants echoed from above. Kimtor kept running, shield up in front of him, broadsword out as he charged the black wyrm that sat atop what was left of his brother.

Gwenneth III:I

Misathi Crossroads, South of Evermont, Shanador

She turned, looking out of curiosity at what happened. She knew Shinayne was leading, saw Zen to her left alongside, but no Saberrak. No James. Then she saw him. Saberrak was not moving, laid out aside the mountain, axes not in his hands. She stopped.

The castle in the clouds was visible, the drawbridge lowered, the armored giant was nearly at the dragon, yet she did not care. A caravan, painted in festive colors, rolled out into the vale, drawn by horses reined by little folk. They screamed as they saw what was around them.

“
Incartres hulias, megruul!”
She felt the staff of Imoch speaking to her, she repeated what came. It glowed red from the emerald as she pointed with her right hand at the dragon. Spiraling black mist sizzled through the air and slammed into the wyrm, melting scale and flesh in between the wings.

“
Jiristas, Kulum
!” A piece of the mountaintop broke loose and spun at her command. She hurled it into the giant bridge from their floating city, smashing it off and tumbling with the rock into the other side of the vale.

Gwenneth hovered closer, feeling no fear, then spears began to rain down from above. At her, at the helpless gray minotaur, the wagon of little folk, and at the dragon. She looked up.

“
Hulias, tiroom, teliast!”
Gwenne held up her hand and her staff, the spears turned to dust, dozens of sharpened giant bronze spears. The valley glittered with powdered metal.

The wall of the giant castle exploded, then again as blue arcing arcane power ripped from her hands into the enemies before her. The dragon turned, inhaled, and exhaled a stream of flame at the woman. The stream shot forth, fire billowing toward her, the small folk that were trying to get their horses back to safety, and Saberrak who was still unmoving.

“
Litius latar, muthunool
!” A wall of green energy, swirling winds, and arcane mist sprung up across the vale between she and the dragon. The fires were sucked into the swirling wall, absorbed and dissipated. The dragon continued to breath, Gwenneth held the spell in place. Rynnth breathed again, unable to charge or move forward with her legs slashed open. Gwenne held the swirling wall up as it absorbed another blast of fire.

Saberrak woke up. He grabbed his axes, shook his head, and saw another giant. This one was armored, it crashed into the dragon and plunged his blade into her neck. The mess of giant and wyrm rolled toward Gwenneth and a painted wagon with little people all running in terror. The fires stopped with another sword stroke, the green swirling wall fell, and so did Gwenneth.

The minotaur was up on his feet in a dead run to Gwenne. He heard the battle, the screeching, the roaring, the earthquake of massive creatures fighting again. He slid, dropped his axes, and lifted her up off the ground. Saberrak stood and ran north, leaving his weapons and Gwenne’s staff. He saw Shinayne and Zen ahead. His steps were wobbly, his balance off, but he managed not to fall. He laid Gwenne over Zen’s shoulder.

“Go! Find James, get her healed and to safe ground, both of you.”

“What about you?” Zen asked

“
Have to get my axes
.” Saberrak turned and ran back.

He did not wait to hear their objections, his lowered his horns and ran back to the battle.

Kimtor slashed again, this time into the chest. Her tail was wrapped around his legs, her claws into his thighs. One sharp claw was even dug into his infected wound. Her wings battered him as she tried to fly. She bit and hissed, but every bite met with his bronze shield. His blade tried to cut her again, but she held his arm with two of hers. Her blood was everywhere, but she still overpowered Kimtor Seven-teeth. He looked up to his home in the sky. It was moving, Kimtor knew that it was forbidden for it to be this close to a human city, and the lightning and thunder would have been taken for a sign from the Gods to leave.

His brother Udmalyr was trying to control the castle from the throne, he could just barely see him. Part of the wall was ruined, blasted by magicks from the little human woman. He saw his father, stumbling toward the window above the Misathi, then he saw the spear in his hands. The clouds were forming back over his home, it was heading west now, but Kimtor saw the spear throw, it was a good throw. The spear of bronze landed through the wing of the dragon and into her belly from two hundred feet above, from an old dying king, his father Arytor. He struggled, holding the dragon as she bit and ripped her claws into him over and over.

Rynnth shrieked and roared, breathing flame onto Kimtor’s shield, taking his braids, burning his arm, and melting his armor into his flesh. She stopped as the axes from a gray minotaur chopped into her back. She felt the horned one run up her spine, then cleaved steel into her neck twice more. Saberrak roared, driving both axes down into the back of her skull. She shook ferociously, throwing the minotaur off. Saberrak leapt, landing into the opposing slope and sliding down to charge again. Rynnth shook again, dazed, blood puring over her horned nose and melted eye socket.

Kimotor dropped the sword, grabbed the spear, and pulled it out of her. Rynnth screamed and hissed, pain waking her fully once more. She breathed fire again, his bronze shield melted, his arm had a black skeleton for a hand that used to hold the shield, and Kimtor roared as his body burned. He plunged the spear into her chest just as she bit into his good shoulder, flames shooting out the sides of her mouth, now out of a bronze filled hole below her chest as well.

The pain from them both tore them in two directions as instinct took over. The dragon flew up, pulling the spear from her own chest and dropping it to the valley floor, the arm of Kimtor Seven-teeth still in her mouth. Her blood poured like rain onto Deadman’s Pass. Rynnth’s balance was wobbly, she crashed into the mountaintops twice in her flight south and dropped the ripped off arm of the giant. Twitching, dying, roaring and trying to fly away, Rynnth disappeared south into the Misathi.

Saberrak lowered his axes but five feet from the giant. He looked up as Kimtor hit his knees. One arm was gone, taken by the dragon and pouring blood down his side. The other was but bone with bronze melded to it. His face was scratched and bloody, hair burned off and helmet smoldering. Kimtor and Saberrak watched as the dragon fell from their sight. The eldest giant son looked to his dead brother Eybrol, then to the gray minotaur. He said little.

“Take my fathers’ spear and the fangs from around my neck.”

Saberrak walked in front of him, head low, and picked up the spear. He looked up, his eyes now glowing blue unbeknownst to him. He met the fading gaze of an old giant, holding himself up at an open window. Saberrak stared up at the old titan nearly four times his height, he felt no fear, and he received a nod from the old one as the clouds covered the floating fortress and it faded away.

The giant nodded to his father as well. Then his blue eyes stared into the glowing blues of the little horned warrior that held his fathers’ spear. “What is your name, brave minotaur.”

“Saberrak Agrannar.” Saberrak knew this giant wanted his honor, and a quick clean death, he aimed the tip of the giant spear toward the heart to end his suffering.

“
Agrannar
? Good name…
good name
. I am ready.”

Saberrak ran five steps, reached, and plunged the spear through Kimtor’s chest and out the other side.

Crash

He let go as the giant fell over onto the other one, dead. Saberrak looked up to the westward clouds, then to the south where the dragon had gone. All was quiet. Saberrak reached under the bronze armor, melted and twisted, and pulled off the necklace with seven dragon fangs. He put it on. The minotaur picked up Gwenne’s staff and walked slow back north to his friends, head low and looking to the ground.

Gwenneth looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun. Her body ached from all the power it had channeled. She saw James, Shinayne, and Zen. She tried to stand, but sat up instead. Her head was dizzy. She saw Saberrak walking toward her, the staff of Imoch in his hand.

“It is done then? It is over?” Gwenneth smiled seeing Saberrak alive and in one piece.

“It is,
thanks to you
.” Saberrak looked around. He saw the dead robed man, the dead Mogi giants, even the red minotaur had been slain. Smoke rose from the pit and the red rock in several places.

“
The dragon
?” Shinayne sat quietly next to Gwenne, her voice not much more than a whisper from the red minotaurs’ stranglehold.

“Dead or dying, its wounds were lethal and many.” Saberrak looked south.

“And the two giants, the ones from the clouds?” Zen asked.

“Dead.” Saberrak glanced to James.

“The woman, where is she?”

James hesitated, just a moment, then looked up to the high plateau. “Dead.”

Saberrak huffed, he had a sense James was hiding something, but he was too tired to ask.

They sat, at the crossroads, in peace for many moments of deserved rest. Then, the sound of charging horses from the north and a battle horn broke the silence. They all stood and waited to see what would come out of the mountains next.

Two armored men, golden blonde hair past their shoulders, rode ahead on large horses, larger than the southern realms boasted. One hundred men behind them, large men, bigger by a few inches in height and thirty stones of weight. Agarian men, Shanadorian men.

Saberrak looked to the green banner as the horsemen halted their stallions. A black horse reared, proud and regal, upon a shield of silver, the whole flag blew in the breeze. Then a wagon followed behind them on the road, out of the foothills to the east. Saberrak saw the little men, tiny elves, gnomes, thin short goblins, pudgy stunted men, over a dozen little miniature people, yet the men had beards or facial hair. The little men also wore decorated skirts, or so it looked. He noticed the big men ahorse wore the same.They peered around the corner into the pass beyond the crossroads, little eyes checking to see if it was safe this time.

The soldiers looked too, then all eyes fell on the five that stood before them. Dirty, blood covered with red and black, dusty and ragged. It was silent.

“You there, Knight of Chazzrynn, are these folk and that beast in your company?” The bigger Agarian man spoke, the one with the horn in his hand.

“Yes sir they are. We seek Evermont.” James straightened his sash a bit, not that it helped his appearance.

“Did you five traverse Deadman’s Pass, alone?” The other knight, the one with the stubble of blonde beard spoke next.

“Yes we did, all the way from Devonmir.” James smiled.

Gasps and looks of shock, whispers among the ranks and the little folk too, it was hard for them to believe.

“Need I ask about the dead giants and the dragon good knight?”

“We would love to tell you, surely, but may we enter the city first? Our journey has left us, well, hungry and in need of a bath to say the least.” James bowed his head in respect.

“Of course, of course. One hundred pardons, brave knight of the falcon! To Evermont!” The knights gave a respectful escort to the brave warriors before them.

A small man, a pygmy with dark hair and stubble looked up to Gwenneth and Saberrak. “On behalf of my players and family, I give thee the biggest thanks I, Tubrey o’ Tarnobb, can manage for saving us from the fires of the dragon. If ever you wish thine names in song, be it upon us to honor it.” The little man bowed deep with sincerity.

“You are most welcome, Tubrey o’ Tarnobb, perhaps Saberrak here would deserve a song?” Gwenneth chuckled, reached down, and patted the little pygmy musician on the shoulder.

Saberrak huffed, flared his nostrils, and walked ahead to Gwenneth.

Saberrak looked to her and whispered. “
Why are all these people wearing skirts?”

Gwenneth laughed, she did not know how to answer. She walked, arm on Saberrak for support. Toward a gray and red stone fortress city they walked, built half in a mountainside, with five spires rising hundreds of feet in the air. From those five spires were five hundred foot poles of steel, and atop each one was a gem, priceless in size, that glittered for miles around. Gwenneth looked to the flag of Shanador, a feathered cross of Alden, one of Evermont, and two others she did not recognize.

You did well, for a novice…

Gwenneth looked to the staff in her hand, the voice came from there, into her head. It startled her.

I have much to teach you, but in the wilds it will be hard…

Gwenne looked around to see if anyone noticed the creepy old voice.

No one can hear me, idiot girl. Now find that tower, the one that Carados built, there I will teach you much more…

Gwenneth nodded.