Battle Mage: Dragon Mage (Tales of Alus) (6 page)

Growling from the wolves and hissing from the cats in an attempt to intimidate the crag dogs received growls and the strange barks as they began to advance towards the intruders menacingly as well. The dogs had the advantage of the terrain, but among such creatures Cheleya was unsure how much it would even matter. The wolves and cats were a bit larger in size, though crag dogs were known to be solid and heavy for their size most likely because of the weight of their armored skins.

The girl wanted to move, but her legs refused her. It was like Malaketh’s magic had stopped her legs as well as her magic, Cheleya thought numbly.

A werewolf surged forward snarling angrily igniting his pack into movement. They had been summoned to destroy the girl after driving her far enough away. They wouldn’t be cowed by the vermin from the mountains.

Like a switch had been tripped, the crag dogs charged. They moved as one, but their individual movements were still their own as they danced left and right attempting to confuse their enemies. Claws ripped at the crag dogs as the werewolves and cats used the mobility of their nearly human arms to swipe at the dogs. Armor took the hits for the crag dogs as the animals swept their heads trying to bring their tusks to bear. They had claws on their feet as well, but the tusks were their favored weapons.

Armored dogs dodged in and out taking slashes to their armor while driving with their tusks. The mobility of the werewolves and cats, as well as their ability to react quickly with their clawed hands and feet, enabled the creatures to dodge and push the tusks away from vital points, but they were outnumbered and soon injuries were beginning to occur on both sides.

A crag dog was flipped onto its back by a werecat, which quickly flung itself onto the vulnerable beast slashing at its stomach. Crying out in pain, the crag dog bled from an open wound making Cheleya cry out as more tears streamed down her cheeks. It was her fault that these dark beasts were here and she felt for the crag dogs defending their home and her. The girl didn’t want the animals harmed or killed for her.

Sudden movement from the side startled Cheleya. A large black werewolf suddenly appeared looking ready to leap on the vulnerable girl. He had used his pack to distract the dogs and gone straight after their quarry. Cheleya screamed. It was a sound that came naturally to her human form apparently in her fear. To her surprise, two crag dogs appeared from virtually nowhere. From atop the protective stone behind her, one leaped from more than eight feet to the ground putting itself between the wolf and the girl. She wasn’t sure if the crag dog truly protected her or simply refused to let the wolf roam unchecked.

The second crag dog launched from the melee charging the great beast. Slapping its tusks aside, the black wolf nearly missed the one in front of Cheleya attack. A growl of pain, as a tusk gored its right thigh, brought a powerful slap across the dog’s head. Even its armor wasn’t enough to prevent the blow from stunning the animal. The black wolf started to draw back for a killing blow.

“No!” the girl cried throwing a large rock into the wolf’s face. Managing to strike him right between the eyes, the wolf nearly missed the first crag dog recover and attack again.

Catching the dog’s tusks, the giant black werewolf pushed its snapping maw back. The dog snapped on air before the wolf pushed it back putting increasing pressure on both tusks. A growl as the monster tore a tusk from the right side of the dog’s jaw preceded the cry of pain from the crag dog.

“No!” came the girl’s forlorn cry once again. The pain of such a powerfully destructive act was beyond her knowledge and the crag dog fell over as the black wolf used the remaining tusk to toss the animal aside.

Her first protector snarled as it recovered goring the black wolf in the same thigh with its tusks. The black wolf cried out in pain punching at the spiked head like a man. The blow was more powerful, but the armor protected the animal’s head and the many small spikes drew blood again. The pain of the spikes was minor and drowned out in the wolf’s mind by the tusk shifting in its leg.

Before the crag dog could think to pull out of the wolf’s thigh, a second attack from the werewolf’s clawed hand went for the vulnerable eyes. Jabbing through the crag dog’s left eye, the long claw on the werewolf’s thumb drove deep into the socket. Driven so deep that only the thickness of the rest of its hand stopped the claw, the crag dog began to convulse even before the claw could be drawn back to drop the crag dog onto the ground to die in a pool of blood.

The black wolf looked at the girl. Blood flowed from its wounds forgotten as it only spared any attention for its quarry.

Her breath caught in her throat as Cheleya looked death in the eye. She had no weapons and no magic. Her human body may as well be naked and tied to the stone behind her for all that she could do to this monster.

A new movement caused the werewolf to suddenly look upward and Cheleya found her eyes following his. Smashing into the werewolf from the sky, an even larger winged form drove the black beast to the ground.

“No, you don’t, beast,” Kel’lor’s deep voice stated as the gargoyle stood up putting himself between the wolf and the girl. Cheleya gasped in surprise nearly dizzy with the shock of her friend’s arrival. She spied no weapon in the gargoyle’s hands, but that didn’t mean he was unable to fight.

The black wolf recovered quickly leaping at the mar’goyn’lya. A fist drove the beast back as Kel’lor judged his opponent quickly. A second attack scored some scratches on the hard skin of the gargoyle accomplishing little.

As the wolf danced back readying for a third attack, Cheleya felt Kel’lor’s power rise. It attacked and the gargoyle’s deep voice ordered, “Dragon’s claws.”

A glowing red dragon’s hand appeared in the air between them extending from the gargoyle’s own hand catching the black wolf driving it head first into the vertical stone of the steep mountain cliff. A crack of stone and bone breaking from the power of the blow filled the air. The closest of the combatants broke from each other sensing the powerful magic of the gargoyle before looking to the large, black werewolf as the body slid down the stone with Kel’lor’s release of his spell. The skull was shattered and the wolf’s brain crushed inside the bone no longer controlled its lifeless body.

With their leader dead, the werewolves and cats pulled back from the crag dogs, which were willing to let them run. Injuries had mounted on both sides. Three wolves were left on the ground dying and one werecat, while three of the crag dogs were dead and several more were wounded severely.

“Kel’lor!” the girl cried running over to the gargoyle hugging him without caring how hard he felt to her soft skin. “You saved my life!”

Holding both of her small shoulders in his, the mar’goyn’lya asked, “Why didn’t you use your magic to fly away or fight?”

Tears came again as Cheleya mourned, “I can’t. Malaketh did something to me. He tried to kill me and trapped me in this form. I can’t change and I can’t use my magic!”

“Why would Malaketh try and kill you? Are you sure?” the mar’goyn’lya asked having trouble wrapping his mind around such a drastic thing.

Wiping at her tears in annoyance, Cheleya tried to explain, “He had Fa’Kelman’zer under a spell using a black amulet to control his. Malaketh made the master open the secret rooms to steal the artifacts and other magical items inside. He may have made him give him even stronger spells that had been hidden by the masters.

“When I stumbled on them in the chamber, he trapped me with his black amulet before destroying mine and locking me in this form. He is going to blame me for stealing from the academy, so
he disrupted my magic and threw me from the spire balcony. I was supposed to die but barely made my dragon wings open to keep that from happening.”

Looking dubious, Kel’lor asked, “Then why aren’t you going to the city to tell everyone?”

With a big sigh, the girl wondered how he could miss such an obvious reason. “First, who would I tell? You don’t even believe me and you’ve known me for over a year. Second, did you forget about the werewolves already?”

A sudden realization from her own words made the girl check the poor crag dogs that had defended her. Kneeling beside the dog that had been stabbed through the eye, Cheleya began to cry. The poor animal was dead and already starting to cool. She looked around the pack and asked Kel’lor, “Did you happen to bring any healing potions with you?”

She stood and moved towards the other crag dog that had his tusk ripped from his jaw. It was breathing hard and lying on its side. Seeing the girl approach, the dog raised its head. The six inch spike at the rear of its body serving as a tail wagged twice amazing her at the creature’s resilience. Hugging the wounded animal to her breast, Cheleya cried letting her tears go in sadness.

“I think I may have a vial or two in my pack actually. While I was never any good at healing magic, my alchemist master always says that I had a good feel for potions.” Digging into the pack he had dropped several feet away before attacking the werewolf, the gargoyle continued to talk trying to diffuse the sadness of the girl. “Too bad you aren’t a true dragon,” he stated sounding almost amused. “They say a dragon’s tears can heal almost anything. I never had any to use, of course, but that’s what the alchemists said.”

As her tears fell on the dog, Cheleya closed her eyes wishing that she were a dragon of legend with such tears. A glow formed around the two drawing Kel’lor’s attention. Several of the crag dogs moved closer to the dragoness wrapped in a human’s body. They seemed enchanted by the light that she radiated.

Kel’lor’s jaw closed suddenly as he realized that his mouth had hung open at the sight. He had never heard of magic like this, but it felt warm and peaceful. He could also feel the girl’s sadness and longing to help.

When the crag dog in her arms suddenly shifted to sit and lick Cheleya’s face, the girl opened her eyes in surprise. The dog looked almost completely healed though his tusk was beyond her magic to fix.

“You healed him,” the gargoyle stated in shock.

Still crying her tears, the dragoness replied, “Maybe a che’ther’s tears can heal too? It’s not like we ever cry normally, so who would know?”

Standing to take advantage of what she felt, Cheleya quickly moved to the worst hurt among the pack shedding her tears and holding them. Whether it was her tears or some innate magic in the girl’s human form, neither of them knew, but her healing magic healed all her saviors except for the few that had already passed beyond her ability to save.

Once finished, the crag dogs barked their strange cries to the girl and disappeared once more into their pass.

“I wish that none of them had died,” Cheleya said sadly as she watched her new friends disappear into the darkness. They had saved her life and she had managed to repay the debt if not completely in full.

Kel’lor surprised the girl and came to her wiping at her tears. He had emptied an unimportant flask in the moment to capture some of the che’ther’s tears.

“What are you doing?” the girl asked the giant.

“I thought that I would capture your tears just in case this never happens again,” the gargoyle replied.

Standing tall, Kel’lor looked back towards the distant city of Mar’kal and asked Cheleya, “So what now?”

The girl sat on the cold ground and shivered as another cold wind blew into the valley riding up her legs into the dress. Shaking her head and pulling the skirt of the dress tighter against her legs with her hands, Cheleya replied indecisively, “I don’t know, but I don’t think that I can go back to Mar’kal right now. Perhaps I just have to get out these mountains and find a wizard that can reverse what Malaketh has done to me.”

“Why would you leave the mountains? Malaketh is here and surely someone would know how to deal with magic using the amulets here rather than looking for some random wizard.”

“Why do you keep asking me all these questions, Kel’lor? You’re twice as old as I am. Shouldn’t I be asking you what to do?” the girl asked in annoyance.

Chuckling at the little human sitting so forlornly on the ground one moment and getting worked up the next, the gargoyle retorted, “I think that your human side is becoming more dominant. You never used to talk like this as a che’ther.

“So I am older and you want my advice. If you think that Mar’kal is too dangerous with Malaketh there, then why don’t we head south? Southwall has hundreds of wizards and schools of learning. I have heard talk of them quite often since they sent word of a tournament in the capitol, Hala. If we head there, we might find some of our wizards at the tournament that can fix you as well. We can warn them of Malaketh’s deceit also and maybe find a way for you to return.”

Eyes lighting up in surprise, Cheleya hopped up onto her feet excitedly. “Just when I thought that you weren’t as intelligent as I had hoped, you come up with the perfect idea. I had heard a few of the
wizards and magicians speaking of the Winter’s Edge tournament. There will be wizards from around the world, so I suppose someone must know how to remove this spell.”

Her brow wrinkled in confusion as she caught his use of ‘we’. “You will come with me, Kel’lor?” Cheleya asked unsure if he had meant his words. “This isn’t your problem to bear.”

Shaking his head, the gargoyle replied, “Ah, little sister, how can I not go with you? You have almost no magic, no protection, you’re stuck as a pitiful little human, which is why I would never pick one so small to hide in, and you have no place to go. How can I, as your big brother, let you in all good conscience go off to the human countries so far away through these dangerous mountains by yourself? You’d be dead before daybreak without me to watch over you,” he finished looking very proud of himself.