The Wandering Dragon (Children of the Dragon Nimbus) (36 page)

How many of them can
I
make die?

“H
...how do we penetrate the bubble?” Chess asked as he sagged against the stone parapet. Apparently controlling fire took more energy than just flinging it about.

He batted listlessly at stray sparks that backlashed toward them.

Or was it Skeller’s lullaby that drained him of energy. Lukan could barely hear it over the din below them.

But the soothing melody did make his leg hurt a little less.

Rapid footsteps slapped against the stone steps leading to this roof. Lukan shook off some lingering lethargy and limped to the side of the trapdoor. Then balancing on his right leg he lifted his staff in both hands, ready to swing it into someone’s head.

“Master Magician?” a feminine voice squeaked.

Lukan checked his swing and had to spin around to maintain his balance. Flailing, he fought to ground his staff. The tip skidded on the slates of the conical roof rising above the walkway. Instinctively he touched his left foot to the ground and instantly regretted it.

Fire as hot as Chess’ conjuring lanced in all directions from his wound. When it hit his hip he lost all strength.

Small but strong hands grasped his arm and held him tight until he found his feet.

“Thank you,” he grunted.

“Where is the magician?” the woman asked. She wore a palace uniform and stood tall and proud, very like Gerta. Stunning.

“I am Journeyman Magician Lukan,” he said, trying to infuse his voice with confidence.

“You will have to do. Queen Maria asked me, Sergeant Frella of the Amazon Warriors, to gift to you the Spearhead of Destiny with her blessing.” She thrust a silk wrapped lump into his free hand.

“Spearhead?”

“Of Destiny?” Chess echoed.

“It . . . it is a legacy from the first Amazons who fought the Krakatrice and carved out this city from nothing. Only a woman can use it unless it is gifted to a man by a true Amazon. Queen Maria has proved herself worthy.” She bowed and dropped back through the trapdoor. Her boots slapped the stones with as much speed and eagerness to leave as she had come.

“Thank you, Sergeant Frella of the Amazons,” Lukan called after her.
Magnificent.
All of the women here were magnificent.

“Spearhead,” he mused.

“To kill Krakatrice!” Chess said eagerly.

“Obsidian!” Lukan shouted in triumph as he tore off the protective silk.

The music in the background shifted, became a lively marching tune, a prelude to battle, filled with energy and enthusiasm and righteousness.

“How many of them can we make die!” Skeller shouted into the wind, making certain his voice carried to all corners of the castle.

Renewed sounds of battle rose from the forecourt. Shouts of aggression. Screams of pain. The clang of metal against stone.

Chaos.

Rejiia and the Krakatrice thrived on chaos and riotous emotions.

Only Lukan could bring order.

“Quickly, I need twine, thread. Rope. Something to secure the Spearhead to my staff.” His mind raced and settled on a strip of cloth from the hem of his tunic or his shirt. The shirt; finer cloth than the blue leather tunic. Stargods only knew the fine linen his mother had woven and sewn for him was ragged and filthy enough to rip apart for other uses.

“Here.” Chess thrust a ball of string into his hand.

“What?”

“From the pack. I packed bits of odds and ends before we left the city. Never know what you’re going to need. Master Robb taught me that.”

Lukan shrugged and looped a slipknot over the obsidian and the staff, then wrapped, pulling as tightly as he could. When he thought the two tools had become one weapon, he wiggled the blade. It didn’t move. So he tied a secure knot and let Chess cut the cord with a utility knife.

“Okay,” he said on a deep inhale. He used the breath to trigger the first stage of a trance. He’d need all the help he could find.

“How many of them can we make die?”
shouted an army of men and women below.

Barely noticing the pain in his leg, he limped back to the wall overlooking the courtyard. He focused all of his senses on the Spearhead. Just as his Da had taught him. He drew strength from his memories, from his family, from his love for them and theirs for him. He bound all that up in his connection to the staff, and through that to the obsidian. Volcanic glass from the heart of Kardia Hodos. Fire and Kardia. He needed water and air. Nothing for it, he ran his fingertip over the knocked edge. A drop of blood welled up. He smeared it on the point. Then he breathed on the whole.

One more step. He had to turn widdershins and pay homage to south, west, east, and north. Awkwardly he turned a full circle, making a quick but reverent bow at each point of the compass.

“Speed my quest to the triangle from which radiates all scales of magic and death. Penetrate the evil; make it vulnerable.”

He peered over the crenellated stone wall, sorting through the images of warriors, men and women all in palace uniforms, slashing and hacking at the snakes to no avail. Their weapons bounced off the magic wall of protection. And Gerta led the fray, facing down the largest of the five snakes. Five of them, all bigger than any strays he’d trained to kill. None of them as big as legend said they could grow. But one of them . . . The one facing Gerta . . .

All the other snakes mimicked its actions, half a heartbeat behind.

Rejiia focused her control on that one big one.

They looked to her as they would a matriarch with six wings. Lukan was almost surprised Rejiia hadn’t sprouted bat-like protuberances from her spine.

He centered his vision on the big, black snake’s head, nearly as long as his torso. The monster opened his mouth wide, hand-sized fangs dripping venom. Red eyes gleaming with hunger and malice.

Lukan drew back his arm, grip flexible on his staff, Spearhead ready. He affirmed his connection to the wood, the essential magical tool gifted to him by the trees of Sacred Isle. His thoughts and soul twisted with the wood grain in a braid from tip to butt, clean and smooth. Chanting a prayer to the Stargods, begging help from all four elements and cardinal directions, he cast his weapon, keeping his gaze affixed on that vulnerable triangle at the base of the Krakatrice skull. “Guide my weapon,” he whispered. His mind remained half inside the spear, half on the monster below.

A part of him continued twisting with the staff, flying fast, diving, carving a path through the wind that resisted him. Dropping, dropping faster and faster, the triangle firmly in his sight. The ghost of his body remained rigid on the roof while his essence found his target. Magic sparks pricked his surface and flashed into premature death. He thrust them aside.

Black snakeskin bent beneath his point and threatened to push him back out. He concentrated deeper, deeper, and deeper yet. The skin parted, unable to protect itself against that magically charged glass point sharpened and honed by elemental fire from elemental Kardia, empowered by a magician’s blood and blessed breath.

Cold, cold snake blood washed over him, engulfed him, threatened to drown him.

A sharp pinch to his arm jerked him back into his body. But his vision remained in the courtyard. Gerta rammed her glowing blue sword deep into the Krakatrice’s open mouth, all the way to the hilt. Half of her leather-clad arm disappeared beyond the deadly fangs. As she drew back her weapon, the light of life drained from the snake’s red eyes. She raised her blade above her head, heedless of the gore dripping back on her helmet. A wild ululation of victory rippled from her throat and echoed around the courtyard.

Axes flash, broadswords swing,

Shining armor’s piercing ring

Horses run with polished shield,

Fight those bastards till they yield

Midnight mare and blood-red roan,

Fight to keep this land your own

Sound the horn and call the cry,

How Many of Them Can We Make Die!

“Weapons. We need more weapons,” Robb said, pounding his fist against the stone windowsill. Outside he watched as only Gerta’s glowing blue sword made a dent in the shimmering magical wall surrounding the snakes. Nothing penetrated that wall.

“We have weapons aplenty, but what have you done with the Spearhead?” Maria asked from behind him.

He whirled, unaware that she had joined him. Badger and Scurry stood warily on either side of her.

“We need enchanted weapons,” he replied, then added, “I don’t have a spearhead.”

“Can you work the enchantment?” Maria asked, concerned about the fate of her weapon but ready to help in any way she could. With a gesture she sent her two guards to raid the armory. Badger went. Scurry stayed.

“I . . . I don’t know. I have little strength left. No reserves . . .” But Skeller’s music sent tingles of new energy up and down his spine, made his feet and fingers itch for action. The lullaby had done more harm than good. But this tune . . . This one changed the tide of battle.

The bard might not claim to be a magician, but he was certainly wielding his music with the same effectiveness as a staff even without the aid of the harp that might be his equivalent of a staff.

He caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eyes and whirled to face this new threat.

A spear, vibrating with an eerie blue and red light with an inner layer of more natural green fire flashed from above. It pierced that shimmer in the air and dove deep into the back of the skull of the largest Krakatrice.

Instantly, the heavy weight of magic dampening fell from his body, as if he’d shed a wet blanket. Sounds and scents slammed into his awareness. His eyes found new details, firmer outlines, and brighter colors all around him.

And he felt . . . tingles against his skin. Dragon magic begging him to gather it close and store it in that special place behind his heart. He stood straighter, taller, strength flooding in to replace the pall of illness and deprivation. His heart beat strong and true for the first time in days.

He dragged in fresh air and almost gagged on the smell of rotten magic mingling with death.

“I found spears,” Badger said breathlessly as he returned with at least two dozen long shafts tipped with iron clutched in his arms.

“Not obsidian, but it will have to do.” With the help of the two guards he lined up all of the spears on the floor, the tips pointed south toward the closest magnetic pole.

Maria retreated to the throne and climbed awkwardly into the seat. She curled her legs beneath her and observed with a new confidence and authority. In the shifting and fracturing light from the windows, she looked almost . . . almost beautiful.

Robb returned his attention to the spears. His renewed vigor wouldn’t last long. Already a vacancy at the back of his neck began to nibble away at his clarity. He’d have to ration the magic he poured into the weapons.

First he knelt on the floor with the South Pole tugging at his back while he faced the iron speartips. No sense in expending extra energy staying upright. Besides, if he collapsed at the end he’d have a shorter distance to fall flat on his face.

Before he could think better of his plan he closed his eyes and spread his arms before him, palms down, fingers splayed. His hands trembled too much. He didn’t need to see it to know it.

“I need a lit candle, a basin of water and you two close enough to breathe on the spell,” he called to Scurry and Badger. He heard them bustle about.

“Will a pitcher of wine do for the water?” Badger asked.

“Close enough, maybe better since it holds the essence of the Kardia from the grapes as well. Set it down in front of me.”

“Found a torch in the passageway,” Scurry said.

“Better. Hold it parallel to the ground, over the speartips.” Robb drew on years of practice and gathered the essence of three of the four elements into his cupped hands. They shone in his mind’s eye, eager to do his bidding.

“Together the four of us must draw a deep breath and hold it. Don’t let it go until I do. Watch me closely.”

He drew air deeply into his lungs, letting it fill every crevice of his body. “Release!” he shouted to his companions as he opened his hands and spread the elements onto the speartips.

Natural green fire pulsed from the metal. “Take them quickly to the warriors. The spell won’t last long.”

“Sir, we vowed to protect Queen Maria and not leave her side,” Badger protested.

“The only way to protect her is to get those spears to her warriors.” Robb sagged, bracing himself with hands flat on the floor. His lungs felt ripped apart and his heart beat too rapidly again—as it had during the worst of his fever. He closed his eyes to stop the black splotches from enveloping him. Bright splotches replaced them behind his closed eyelids.

He couldn’t fight it any longer. He had to give in to the pain, the fatigue, the loneliness. He’d done what he had to do.

He prayed it was enough as he slid to the floor. “Maigret, I love you,” he whispered as blackness engulfed him.

“T
HE DRAGONS ARE back,” Chess crowed. To prove it, he raised his arm high and hurled a small, elongated ball of fire into the battle. He pinched a tiny bit of the writhing flames between thumb and forefinger, forcing the ball to stretch and stretch into an arrow.

“Verdii?” Lukan looked upward as tingles raced from his upturned head down through his body, directly to his wounded leg. Blood pounded against the loose bandage. He looked to make sure it didn’t soak through the layers of linen and ooze down his leg. Clean. His leg remained clean despite the twisting of flesh that felt like—maybe, hopefully—his flesh knitting together and rebuilding some of the lost tissue.

(Some, not all. Even your best healers with our aid cannot repair all the damage
,)
Verdii said.
(A limp will always mark you. Take it as a badge of honor.)

A little bit of the heaviness in his heart lifted. Not all. Rather than fully face his permanent handicap he turned his attention back to the battle below.

Rejiia still commanded the center of the forecourt. She flung up an arm and blocked Chess’ fiery arrow. It shattered against her protection.

But the sparks flew outward in a perfect circle landing, on the remaining snakes.

The smell of burning poisonous flesh seared Lukan’s nose.

The wall beneath his hand shook. Rejiia turned a full circle, widdershins. Two stones, each a yard long and half that wide and thick, flew from the pile of rubble in the corners of the far wall.

Thud, thud. They struck the tower barely a yard below Lukan’s hands.

The next one will not miss
, Rejiia assured him. An ugly smile cracked her face.

“I need my staff!” As he said the words, the shaft of wood still buried in the neck of the largest snake quivered. Lukan braced himself at this sign of life from the monster.

But the Krakatrice was dead. The ripple of muscle spread outward from the obsidian blade. The staff,
his
staff, had responded to his need.

“Return,” he said on a long exhale. “Return to my hand as you left it.”

The wood wiggled and twisted free of the tough hide. “Come,” Lukan pleaded. He didn’t think he should order his staff. It was as much a part of his magic as his mind. It channeled his power, and the braided signature in the grain defined him. “Return to me, where you belong,” he continued his litany.

The moment he saw the staff lift free of the snake he felt it slap against his open hand. His fist closed around it without a thought.

Chess loosed another bolt of magical lightning. Again it shattered and sprayed against Rejiia’s wall, but this time a few of the sparks landed upon her tattered and filthy gown.

She screeched in outrage. Two more stones flew wildly from the pile. Without her firm control they landed harmlessly on the already dead Krakatrice, breaking its spine. She whirled her circle again and again. She stopped, facing Lukan, her skirts continuing to float outward for several heartbeats more.

If she saw two soldiers distributing spears with elemental fire swelling the iron tips, she paid them no attention. Gerta directed her Amazons to throw them into the mouths of the three remaining monsters. The blue glow on her sword had dimmed but it still contained a little lethal magic.

Rejiia conjured a ball of unnatural red fire, as large as any Chess had brought to bear. Her lips moved, commanding the alien flames to seek and destroy.

Lukan and Chess ducked behind the parapet.

“Robb’s alive and throwing magic! Only he could enchant those spears and Gerta’s blade,” they said together.

“But so is Rejiia,” Chess reminded Lukan.

“With dragon magic filling the air, we’re stronger together than apart. We have to join him,” Lukan gasped, crawling toward the trapdoor.

Red fire flew over the top of them and struck the slate roof at the center of the tower. The sparks lingered a few heartbeats, trying to feed on the stone. They died of starvation.

Lukan froze with his left hand clasping the metal ring embedded in the wooden planks. Three live Krakatrice. One dead.

Where was the fifth?

He looked over his shoulder to Chess. “Count,” he mouthed.

Chess’ fingers flicked open from his fist. Four.

“Where?” he whispered.

Something strange and cold passed from the iron ring into Lukan’s hand. He heard and felt a vibration that was different from flying stones hitting the structure. Different. Worse.

His staff quivered in his hand. The obsidian tip was still bound to it, still available as a weapon.

Silently he rose to his knees and directed Chess to grasp the latch from the side.

Praying fervently to the Stargods, to the dragons, to the ghosts of his parents, he raised the staff over his head, speartip aimed at the portal.

Chess mouthed his count. One. Two. Three.

He heaved the door open.

Lukan plunged the spear down, directly into the gaping maw of the fifth Krakatrice.

Obsidian easily pierced the soft palate, met resistance against bone. Volcanic glass, honed to the sharpest edge imaginable, sliced and penetrated deeper. Lukan pressed harder against the shaft, taking good care to stay away from those venomous fangs.

The staff broke through the bone and tore into the brain.

He yanked his staff clear. A gush of blood and brain matter followed. He rolled quickly to the side to avoid the splatter. “Not again. I’m not coming in contact with that poison again,” he muttered as he dragged himself to his feet.

“How are we going to get around that thing?” Chess asked.

“Ah, it’s just a little one. No longer than I am tall. Barely as big around as my upper arm,” Lukan brandished his staff in a show of bravado he didn’t really feel. He must be giddy with dragon magic flooding his system after so long an absence.

Or maybe he was just tired and in pain. He could use a good meal. The tray Gerta had left with them was empty. Not even crumbs remained. They’d only find more food below.

But first they had to get past the Krakatrice. The last one. He hoped.

The tower shook again. Rejiia still up to her old tricks.

Maria dropped off the throne. Pain jolted up her leg and lodged in her twisted hip. She didn’t care. She had to help Robb.

A dozen shuffling steps later she knelt beside the man who had helped turn the tide of battle against Lokeen and his pets. A niggling reminder that no one had seen the king since his escape. Hours ago? No, she thought only a few minutes, perhaps half an hour, had passed since the first tremor. From the reports and shouts outside, she thought that Rejiia had dislodged some keystones in the dungeon that had shaken the entire castle, but damaged only the barracks and dungeon wing.

“Robb?” she asked, placing her fingertips against his neck pulse. A faint flutter like a butterfly on the wing. His chest didn’t move. She pressed her ear against his mouth. No air. “Breathe, Master Robb. Great Mother, you must breathe. You must live.” She pounded her fist against his chest, aware just how tiny her hand was and how feeble her blow.

She pounded harder with all her might. “Breathe,
S’murghit
. Breathe!” Another blow that ached all the way to her shoulder.

He groaned. His chest rose and fell. Rose and fell. But still his eyes remained closed, his face slack and unresponsive.

“Don’t die on me, Robb,” she pleaded. “I couldn’t bear it if you died trying to help save my land from Lokeen and his monsters.” A tear trembled on her eyelid, tipped over and trickled down her cheek. She didn’t care.

“I’ll live,” he said on a harsh wheeze. Then he lapsed back into unconsciousness.

But he breathed. And his heart beat more steadily.

She sank back onto her bottom and worked her legs around to a more comfortable position, likely stuck there until Badger and Scurry returned to help her up. Gently she gathered Robb’s long-fingered hand into both of her own and cradled it in her lap.

“Traitors, both of you!” Lokeen screamed. He thrust aside the tapestry on the interior wall that Maria knew led to an escape tunnel.

Maria dropped Robb’s hand. He groaned again and shifted his body uncomfortably.

“You are the traitor, Lokeen. Traitor to our most sacred traditions, traitor to the land, traitor to my sister’s memory,” she said flatly as she scooted around to put as much of her body between the deposed king and the magician as she could.

“I decree that you both die. This instant.” He raised his right hand, brandishing a dagger as long as his forearm. Blood dripped from the blade onto the crossguard.

Death and destruction all around me. I drink in the fragrance of power. But nothing fills me. The Krakatrice are all dead. Even the one I sent to dispatch the magician. They took their power with them when they passed from this life, sharing none of the glory with me.

I have only my own anger to fuel me now. Of that I have plenty. I may die this day, but others will die with me. Lokeen among them. Geon, Bette, and Stavro, who all deserted me. But first I will kill the magicians. All of them. Including the dastardly bard who still sings his cursed battle music.

They are inside the castle. They have no escape and they cannot hide from me.

Once they’d sidled past the Krakatrice corpse, Lukan opted to sit on the winding staircase and scoot downward. Awkward and slow. But it took pressure off his wound and gave him the opportunity to listen to the castle and find pockets of people hiding, or battling, or conspiring. Narrow tubes containing staircases between the walls funneled sounds nicely.

They reached a landing with an arrow-slit window overlooking the courtyard. He paused to peek out. They’d come down nearly three full stories. Only two more to go.

“We have to hurry. Rejiia is coming!” he hissed to Chess who followed him.

The younger magician leaned over to survey the courtyard. “She’s batting aside armed warriors as if they were flies. She swats the air and they bowl over backward, landing flat. Can’t tell if they’re dead or just had the wind knocked out of them.”

“Her eyes are still black. Really black. We can’t let her loose in the castle.” Lukan pushed himself down and around as fast as his arms would let him.
Stargods
he needed food. And sleep. “I don’t know if I’m up to this,” he confessed to himself.

(Verdii here.
You have to be
.
)

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Glenndon could handle this with his eyes closed and his mind on placating a difficult diplomat. But I’m not Glenndon. I never will be. And truth be told, I don’t think I want to be.”

(Good. Now do your duty. We will help as we can.)

Energizing tingles ran up and down Lukan’s spine. He drank in the dragons’ gift of magic and power, storing as much as he could, letting it replenish his expended reserves. Almost instantly he felt bigger, stronger. Capable.

“Thank you,” he called up into the air, at the last second remembering to keep his voice soft so it would not carry to other parts of the castle.

The staircase branched at this landing. One led left, to the king’s study, the way they’d come up. The other led to another room where heated voices originated. He headed that way.