Champions of the Gods (19 page)

Avriel stood upon a stone that split the raging river. Behind her the Thousand Falls roared. She watched the western sky, waiting for a glimpse of the terror of dragons that Kellallea had warned her was headed toward Cerushia.

“They have laid waste along the northern coast of Elladrindellia
,
”
said Kellallea, standing beside her. Her brow was furled in sadness, and tears like diamonds quivered in her eyes. “Had Whill sworn fealty to me, this might have been avoided.”

“Whill does not trust you,” said Avriel. She could feel the rage simmering within the goddess, whose glow set the river alight with dancing beams.

It burned within Avriel as well. She was tired of the warring, the death, and the sorrow. Kellallea showed her images of a world alive with light and laughter, a world in which all races lived together in harmony.

“If you had been truthful with him from the beginning, much of this could have been avoided,” Avriel reminded her.

“They are approaching,” said Kellallea. “Prepare yourself.”

Avriel stared at the horizon, magnifying her vision with but a thought. The terror of dragons numbered at least twenty. At the lead flew a black dragon followed closely by a silver.

“Isn’t it possible to speak to them? We have done nothing to these dragons.”

“They are spurred by their god to take vengeance on me for the last war of the first age. The dragons were nearly wiped out, and their god was imprisoned.”

“Then why doesn’t the dragon god fight you directly?” Avriel asked.

“Once he has freed himself completely then he will surely seek to strike me down.”

“Then he is still within the ancient prison?”

“Yes. Though it has been weakened considerably. He is able to affect the mortal world more with every passing moment as his prison weakens.”

“Why can’t you strengthen the prison? Why are you expending energy trying to affect the mortal world?”

“The prison of the dark one relied on the treaty of the gods being enforced. It was a failsafe to keep any one god from breaking their vows. For all knew that if any of the gods meddled with the mortal world, they would free the god of death and darkness from his eternal prison.”

“
You
broke the treaty, didn’t you? When you ascended to the heavens and then stole from us Orna Catorna, you became a god, and as your first act, you broke the ancient pact.”

“Yes,” said Kellallea, with the first hint of humility that Avriel had ever seen from the ancient elf. “I inadvertently broke the ancient pact.”

“How can the prison be remade?” Avriel asked.

“Someone must defeat the Dark Lord, as was done in the past. Though the Dark Lord can never truly be defeated. Just as darkness and death can never be vanquished. They are a constant. For without them there would be no light, no life.” Kellallea looked to Avriel with shimmering eyes. “You see, to defeat the Dark Lord is to
become
him. The Lord of Darkness and Death is not a person, but a mantle.”

Far off in the distance the dragons flew in a wide formation low to the ground. Even from the great distance, Avriel saw the flashes of light as the dragons spewed forth their flames.

Avriel could feel Kellallea’s pain. Deep rooted and eons old, it was the heartbroken pain of loss. “Someone had to become the Dark Lord to trap his power…someone you knew.”

Kellallea glanced at Avriel with a hint of anger at her intuition. “His name was Eldorian. My mentor, lover, and friend.”

“Then it is Eldorian who is doing this now. He now bears the mantle,” said Avriel.

“Yes, but I doubt there is much of his old self left. He has been imprisoned with the dark power for eons. It has consumed him.”

The dragons were now only a few miles away.

“Are you ready?” Kellallea asked.

Avriel took a deep breath and closed her eyes, preparing herself to wield the power of the goddess. “I am.”

Kellallea disappeared with the wind, leaving Avriel alone upon the waterfall. A sudden surge of power jolted her straight and lifted her off her feet. She cried out in ecstasy and pain, floating higher and glowing with inner light.

The dragons had flown high into the sky until they were bathed in thick white clouds. As Avriel rose to meet them, a silver dragon opened its maw and released a crackling, hissing arc of lightning that struck Avriel’s energy shield and surrounded it in wild webs of electric light.

Avriel’s shield absorbed the lightning to the last spark. She used the absorbed energy in her strike, lashing out with both hands and sending a ball of writhing lightning straight at the center of the terror. The ball exploded with an earth-rattling retort, breaking into a hundred lightning bolts that consumed the flying dragons. Many of the beasts dropped dead, still others turned from such terrible power and began to retreat.

The black growled and shook off the effects of the electrocution. His wings smoked as he hovered above the waterfalls overlooking the city. He roared at Avriel and belched a long black stream of slow-moving fog at her. It descended like slowly falling snow and landed upon the water, and Avriel noticed how it withered the plants and turned the river black.

Avriel immediately conjured a gale from behind her that blew in like a hurricane, pushing the deathly fog away from the land and river and into the sky. With a conjured spell she froze the raging river before the blackened water fell over the precipice.

The dragons flailed in the powerful wind, flapping and fluttering like butterflies with broken wings. They spewed forth fire in their rage, gnashing and clawing at the air.

Avriel kept a part of her mind on the wind, and with another she mentally lifted the frozen slab of ice from the riverbed. She let it be taken by the wind, and as it floated up into the gale, the monolithic shard broke into pieces, which groaned and shrieked like colliding icebergs.

The power of Kellallea pulsed within Avriel’s core. She forced the black ice shards to explode into a million pieces which, spurred by the wind at her back, riddled the dragons.

She released the power of the wind and watched as the dragons fell from the sky. Some landed upstream and others crashed along the banks of the raging river. Avriel focused on the silver and the black dragons—the ones who had exhibited such extraordinary power. The silver lay dead upon a small island in the middle of the river. The black, however, was very much alive. It stood on the northern shore, glaring up at Avriel with hateful black eyes.

“You may think that victory is yours? I have been blessed by the Father of Dragons!” the black dragon said with a sneer that showed two rows of sword-like teeth.

Avriel floated down to the river bank and walked along it gracefully when she touched down. She stood before the dragon, unafraid.

“And I have been blessed by the goddess Kellallea. I would offer you peace, black, if you would accept it. You do not have to fight for the Lord of Darkness. You have a choice.”

What are you saying? Kill him!
Kellallea said to her mind.

“Kellallea wishes for me to kill you all. But, like you, I have a choice.”

Do you find yourself clever?

Avriel ignored the goddess, waiting for the black’s decision.

Ez’Rah answered with a jet of white flame that engulfed Avriel and scorched the earth down to the rocky bones beneath.

Fool girl!
said Kellallea. She suddenly took control of Avriel’s body then, wiping away the flame with but a flick of Avriel’s wrist and reaching out with a clawed hand. She felt her mind wrapping around the throat of the black dragon and viciously
pulling
, tearing the fire gland free and leaving a gaping, bloody hole in its midst.

The black dragon clutched its throat and reeled back. It tried to leap from the ground with outstretched wings, but a raised hand from Avriel held it firm from a distance.

“You will soon know the glory of the Father—”

Kellallea forced out Avriel’s hand, and from it, a pulsating beam of piercing light shot forth, hit the dragon in the chest, and vaporized him instantly.

Avriel felt Kellallea’s mind leave her body, and she shuddered with the memory of power that she had just wielded.

“You do not negotiate with the denizens of darkness. There is no coming back!” Kellallea had suddenly appeared before Krentz, her eyes glowing with churning, furious power. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, goddess,” said Avriel. “I understand that
you
believe that. You have to, don’t you?”

Kellallea’s eyes warned her from pursuing that train of thought.

Avriel defiantly went on. “You have to believe it. Because to think otherwise would give you a spark of hope.”

“Quiet your foolish tongue!”

“HOPE that some piece of Eldorian remains beneath the mantle of the Lord of Darkness and Death.”

Kellallea reached out a glowing hand and took Avriel by the throat.

“Rule through power and fear…” Avriel croaked beneath the goddess’s crushing grip. “Is that the way of the light?”

Kellallea glared at her with burning eyes. Slowly the inner fire died away and the goddess released her. “Never speak of Eldorian again.”

Then she was gone.

Raene slammed her shield down on the neck of the undead man and bashed him in the chest with her glowing mace. The green light in the creature’s eyes flared for a moment and winked out forever.

She glanced around at the carnage; nearly fifty of Zander’s minions lay dead at her feet.

“I think that’s the last of them,” said Dirk.

“Too bad. I was just gettin’ warmed up,” said Raene.

Krentz looked to the east, where the sun flirted with the horizon. “If we make haste we might reach your mountain door by sundown.”

“Aye. We be just as likely to come across me kin afore that. They be patrollin’ these parts so close to the mountain.”

Krentz indicated the corpses on the ground. “If they’re patrolling these parts, they’re doing a terrible job of it.”

Raene let the insult slide. She was tired of constantly bickering with the dark elf.

“Chief!” Dirk called out.

The spirit wolf came zipping through the trees in a streak of blue light and solidified at Dirk’s feet, wagging his shimmering tail.

“Is the way west clear?”

Chief barked once.

Dirk considered the looming mountain range. Thick white clouds crowned their snowy peaks, which were some of the tallest in all of Agora. Dirk knew the range well. He had a unique perspective of the grandeur that was the Ky’Dren Mountains, having flown over the range on a dragon more than once. He knew that these northern peaks soon gave way to the ocean and ran south for many hundreds of miles before opening up to the Ky’Dren Pass.

They had flown on Fyrfrost through hundreds of miles of thick cloud cover and fog until finally coming out near the Shierdon–Uthen-Arden border where the skies and the land finally cleared. The dark skies and foreboding shadows were steadily creeping south, however, and soon they would pass over the mountains.

“The undead march on Ky’Dren,” said Dirk. “I can feel them even now, coming from the northeast.”

“Aye, then we be just in time to warn me kin,” said Raene, shouldering her heavy shield. “Come on, this way to the northeastern door.”

The group started off again over the increasingly steepening terrain. Thistles and murderberry bushes dotted the rocky mountainside. Cliff walls rose up from the forests of pine and birch; on their faces had been carved runes and statues depicting gods of legend and kings of old. The eyes of the statues seemed always to watch the group as they made their way along the well-trodden path.

Krentz made sure to hide her tattoos with her cloak. The dwarves would be reluctant to allow her passage as it was. There was no way they would allow a dark elf into their halls, let alone the daughter of Eadon. Raene had insisted that they would have no problem, but Krentz had trouble trusting the temperamental dwarf.

The question of whether or not Dirk should make himself known had come up. In the end they had determined that, like Krentz, he would have to hide his true form. He could maintain material form now for at least a day without exertion, and at night Krentz could dismiss him in the privacy of her chambers—which Raene had promised would be the most lavish she had ever seen. Again, Krentz had trouble believing a word she said.

Once Raene had placated her father and endured his reprimand for so hastily running off to avenge her brother, she would explain the truth of Dirk and Chief. If Dirk and Chief were to help defend against the undead horde marching on Ky’Dren, the truth would have to come out sooner or later.

An hour into their hike up the winding path to the northeastern door, Chief returned from up ahead and gave a bark.

“Have you found the dwarven scouts?” Dirk asked.

Another bark.

“Good,” said Dirk. He turned to Krentz. “You should dismiss him for now. We’ll have enough explaining to do without a ghost wolf complicating matters.”

Krentz sent Chief back to the spirit world, and they continued on with Raene leading the way.

“Hail!” she called out. “I be Raene o’ Ky’Dren, daughter o’ Ky’Ell! Show yourselves!”

Krentz studied the surrounding rock formations. They were coming to a bottleneck in the quartz and limestone shelves. Stairs had been carved into the passage to allow for faster travel. On each side of the dark passage, carved walls rose up forty feet. Like the stone faces that watched over the land, these too had been masterfully carved with runes and portraits.

Up ahead two dwarves barred the way. They held long halberds at their sides and stood so still that at first Krentz had mistaken them as statues.

“Hail, Raene o’ Ky’Dren,” said one as the group approached. He and the other guard simultaneously slammed their fists to their chests and gave a bow.

Raene reached the top of the stair and stopped before the landing and guards. “I have two guests with me. Dirk Blackthorn of Eldalon and Krentz of Elladrindellia. I wish to see my father as soon as possible. Can you tell me where he is?”

The guard on the left, a tall black-bearded warrior with more than a few old scars on his weathered face, looked Krentz up and down. He did nothing to hide his scowling disdain.

“We cannot allow an elf into the mountain.”

The other guard, a younger male with a tightly braided yellow beard and eyes full of the eagerness of youth, lifted his chin as if to accentuate the point.

“I be yer princess,” said Raene, stepping up onto the landing that they held and eyeing them both coldly. “If I say they be allowed passage, then they be allowed passage.”

“Your most highness, it is the will of the king that these orders are upheld,” said the older guard. “Forgive me tongue, but I only be doing me duty. They shall not pass.”

Raene pointed to the northeast, toward the dense ocean of greenish fog and dark clouds slowly creeping toward the mountain. “There be an army o’ thousands o’ undead marching on Ky’Dren as we speak. Dirk and Krentz have information and weapons that will help us to turn back the unholy tide.” She turned back to Dirk and Krentz and nodded.

Dirk unsheathed his sword and spoke the word that would cause it to shift into a glowing spirit blade, simultaneously Krentz pulled back on her shimmering dragon bow. The song of the dragon rang out, and a glowing arrow formed out of thin air.

Raene looked back at the astonished guards and spoke the word that would change her mace. “These be spirit weapons. They pass through everythin’—stone, steel, earth, flesh—and strike at the very spirit, sever the soul o’ their victims. These weapons be needed against the undead beasts.”

She spoke the word once more, and the mace turned back to cold steel.

“There be no time for this shite,” she went on. “Let us pass, else face the wrath o’ me father.”

The guards glanced at each other and seemed to come to a silent agreement. Finally, they stepped aside. “Yer father be in Tsu’Dar. He arrived just yesterday on account o’ the scourge ye mentioned.”

Raene offered them both a nod and gestured for Dirk and Krentz to follow. When they came to the door, they were allowed passage grudgingly. The dwarves eyed Dirk and Krentz dangerously.

The northeastern door was situated on a natural shelf overlooking the Shierdon border. It led to a tunnel lined with torches that ran for a half a mile before opening up to a wide chamber lined with pillars and boasting high, arched ceilings. This room, as Raene explained to them, housed the railway.

Tracks ran north, south, east, and west into dark tunnels marked with the names of their destinations above the entrances. Wooden rail cars like long, narrow, roofless wagons sat on the tracks. Others came and went along the twin rails taking up each of the tunnels. Raene led them to the rail leading to the tunnel with the name Tsu’Dar above it.

“Make way for your princess!” said Raene as she shouldered past the dwarves waiting to board the latest rail car.

The dwarves, mostly miners covered in dirt and dust, regarded her with surprise and reverence, but when their eyes fell upon her company, they narrowed.

Dirk and Krentz boarded the railcar without incident, however, and Raene instructed the driver to make all haste to Tsu’Dar.

“Yes, me princess,” said the driver, who sat in a separate compartment at the front.

Dirk and Krentz sat with Raene on the two benches lining each side, and the driver disengaged the locking mechanism. He then began to wind a crank set before him. Slowly, laboriously, the car screeched its way along the rail. The going was tediously slow until they entered the tunnel, and the pitch of the rail aimed downward. The driver put a pin in the crank and locked it, letting the momentum on the decline pull them forward.

The car rumbled down the track, gaining speed as it went. Soon they were rocketing through dimly lit tunnels and caverns at such break-neck speeds that Krentz was gripping the rail before her tightly and glancing at Dirk with growing apprehension. Upon seeing this, Raene only laughed. “Ye ain’t seen the best o’ it yet.”

She was right.

Suddenly Krentz was weightless. Her stomach flipped as the car shot down a steep decline and leveled out, zipping down the track faster than a sprinting horse. The car shook so badly as to cause her teeth to chatter. It took turns so sharp that Krentz thought at any moment they would flip off the track and fall to their deaths in the deep darkness. She soon realized the need for such a long drop as the track leveled out and began a long, steep climb. It seemed as though they wouldn’t make it, but just as the car had nearly stopped dead, they crested the top and continued down again. Three consecutive bows in the rail brought them to a near straightaway that went on for miles.

A half hour later, they arrived at the Tsu’Dar station and were led to the chambers of the king promptly by the waiting guards.

Raene paused before the door to her father’s chambers. She hadn’t seen him in six months, and her leaving hadn’t been on good terms. The last time she had seen Ky’Ell, they had argued heatedly over her being allowed to fight alongside the males.

“Wait here,” she told Dirk and Krentz. “Me father and me got some things to work out.”

“Take your time,” said Krentz.

“Good luck,” said Dirk.

Raene nodded thanks and let out a pent-up breath. Before she lost her nerve, she opened the door and went inside.

One of the guards had announced her arrival to the king. She found her father waiting for her just inside the long, wide room. He stood before her, just as imposing as he had always seemed to her. His scowl turned her legs to jelly and quickened her heart, yet she strode forth bravely, purposefully. She stopped before him and slammed her fist to her chest, bowing low. “Me father, me king. I have returned to Ky’Dren with bad tidings.”

Ky’Ell said nothing, but his eyes spoke of anger, disappointment, and shame. “Leave us,” he said to his standing guards.

He stared down at Raene as the dwarves shuffled out of the room. She expected a swift backhand, a berating, anything but what happened next. Ky’Ell’s eyes pooled with tears, and he began to cry. He wrapped his arms around his daughter and lifted her off her feet, planting a big kiss on each cheek. “I thought ye dead,” he said as he put her down.

“I went after Zander,” said Raene, hardly able to speak. “I be sorry, father, but I wanted to avenge Ky’Ro’s death.”

“Did ye find the demon dark elf?”

“Aye,” said Raene, head bowed. “I fought him and failed, me king. I failed.”

Ky’Ell gave a weak laugh. “My brave, brave lass. Runs off to take on a necromancer single handedly and returns to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry, father. I—”

“Never mind none o’ that. I drove ye away. I see that now. I should have understood how the death o’ yer twin brother would affect ye so.”

“You’re not mad?”

Ky’Ell laughed and squeezed her face gently. “O’ course I’m mad. I was furious when I found out ye left. Then…then I was afraid. I thought I’d never see ye again, Eeny. Bah, but how can I stay mad at ye, aye? I just be glad ye be home.”

He hugged her again and stubbornly wiped at his eyes. “Now what’s this about bad tidin’s?”

“First, ye need to meet me friends,” said Raene.

She returned to the door and let in Dirk and Krentz.

“What’s this?” said Ky’Ell upon seeing Krentz.

“This be Dirk and Krentz. They’ve been my companions these last seven months since the fall o’ Eadon.”

Raene told the long story of what had happened since she had left. Ky’Ell was mystified by the tale of the trinket, and impressed when she relayed how they had hunted the necromancer and killed hundreds of his undead minions. When the tale turned to Volnoss and the barbarians, the king’s eyes widened. Raene showed him her enchanted mace, explaining how it worked and how it had been forged by Dirk in the spirit world. She ended the telling with Gretzen’s warning of a terror of dragons that would attack northern Ky’Dren.

Ky’Ell was silent for a long time as he took it all in. Finally, he let out a pensive breath and shook his head. “It be quite an adventure ye’ve had, eh?” To Dirk and Krentz he offered thanks for looking after his daughter.

“She has looked after us as well,” said Krentz, to Raene’s surprise and delight. “She is as fierce a warrior as I have ever seen.”