Chasing the Dragon (10 page)

"Come on," Karthor said after accepting his explanation.

They started down the corridor and, after a few steps, started jogging. They slowed when they realized they weren't sure where to go. "Was it the third or fourth passage he went down?" Karthor asked.

Carson shrugged. He opened his mouth when they heard a roar and the clash of steel against steel ahead of them. "Neither," Carson said. He pointed and charged ahead, the priest right on his heels.

Using the noises to guide them, they ran through several hallways and passed servants who looked surprised and fearful. They few guards they encountered were easy to overpower in the chaos.

They burst into a garden and found a group of southern soldiers pushing their way through the paths in the tropical greenery. They could hear the sound of battle without the echo of walls and ceilings at last.

Karthor opened his mouth but Carson rush forward, making him pause. The hunter struck out, stabbing one guard in the back of the thigh and smashing a second in the head with the pommel of his other sword. Karthor nodded and went after another one, dropping the surprised man when his mace cracked against his skull.

The guards figured out in moments that they'd been flanked. Someone cried out from the front of the crowd, distracting them. Carson swept the curved sword from the hands of another guard and jabbed his sword into his shoulder hard enough to feel it grate against bone. The guard fell to his knees and cried out for mercy.

The other guards threw down their swords, surrendering. Carson counted their number at eight and frowned. They wouldn't stand for having their heads cracked for long and they didn't have time to tie them up.

"Alto!" Karthor cried out now that the guards had given up.

"Here," a ragged response came from the far side of the garden.

Karthor and Carson pushed their way through the men, being none too gentle when they saw the guards show surprise. Surrendering to three men wouldn't sit well with them for long.

They found their friend and leader bleeding from several cuts. He was standing and leaning against a wall, though breathing heavily. A fire burned in his eyes that spoke of strength beyond what his body should have had left to give.

"Jakar ran through this door," he said with a jerk of his head towards the closed door beside him.

"Well, break it down," Carson said. "Big strong guy like you."

Alto coughed and nodded. He turned and kicked the door, only to stagger back. He tried his shoulder next and nearly collapsed when the door held. "You want to try it?"
he gasped.

Carson frowned and turned back to the garden. He sheathed his blades and rushed over to where a statue of a large cat sat amid some grass and flowers. "Help me with this," Carson said.

"Hold a moment, let me tend your hurts," Karthor offered. "You're bleeding a lot."

Alto shook his head. "No time," he snapped. He squatted down and dug
his fingers into the soft dirt underneath it. They heaved together and picked up the heavy statue, and then staggered over towards the door. They swung the stone cat back and forth between them and then drove it into the door. The iron-bound door cracked but held. Two more strikes and it swung open, the iron guides securing the wooden bar falling to the floor.

A short hallway led to a staircase down, complete with a closed door at the bottom of it. "You should have grabbed your armor," Karthor told Alto as the warrior tried the door.

"I should have done a lot of things," Alto said. He pushed against the door, budging it but not opening it. He scowled and stepped back half a step so he could kick it open. The door pushed free, allowing a flask to fall from above the doorway.

The glass bottle tumbled end over end as it fell. "What—" Carson started to ask when it struck the floor and shattered the glass. Flames burst out of the bottle, knocking Alto back into the ranger and sprawling them both onto the stairs as the flames swept over them. Karthor cried out but was far enough away to shield his face as the dying fires met and passed him.

Carson pulled his legs out from under Alto and rolled over. His face tingled and the skin felt tight. He reached up and hissed when his fingers touched the skin. He turned, distracted by the grunt from the priest behind him. Karthor swatted out some fires on his sleeves and his hair looked curlier and shorter. The ranger realized he could smell burnt hair and he reached up to feel for his own hair. He gasped, surprised at the feel of it. It seemed wiry and as though he had tiny pebbles mixed through it.

"Alto!" Karthor hissed as he rush
ed down the stairs to the still supine warrior.

Carson turned and saw that Alto's left cheek was blackened and cracked open and his shirt was burnt so badly
, entire patches of it were missing. Alto's sword had slid down the stairs and rested near his feet. Thoughts of complaining about his own burns disappeared when he saw the disabled warrior.

"He needs his sword," Karthor said. "Put it in his hand while I heal him."

"Can you heal that?" Carson rasped. He coughed. The flames had dried his throat out too.

"If Leander wills it," the priest mumbled before he began to chant and channel his magic.

Carson reached down to grab Alto's sword when he looked up and saw a guard step around the open doorway and then jump back in surprise. He scowled and raised his sword. Carson straightened and drew his swords, spinning as he did so on the stairs to dodge the overhand chop the southern guard levied against him.

He smacked the guard
's sword aside with one of his blades and then thrust his other sword into the man's side, just under his arm. The guard fell back, gasping and stumbling as blood ran down his side.

"Alto's sword!" Karthor hissed.

Carson saw the fight had gone out of the guard. His face was white and he'd dropped his curved sword. Carson shifted both swords to his left hand and knelt down to pick up Alto's. The hilt felt hot in his hand. Hot enough he nearly dropped it. He picked it up anyhow, bearing the discomfort.

"Here," Carson said after he turned and pressed the sword into the warrior's hand. Alto's fingers closed about it almost instantly. Carson looked up at him and saw his eyelids flutter open. The blackened skin on his cheek was already flaking away, fresh pink skin showing beneath it.

"You're lucky, my friend," Karthor told him. "Leander likes you. I have no idea why."

Carson smirked at the priest's attempt at levity. Alto ignored him and rose up slowly to his feet. The warrior looked at the dark stain on the floor where the ground had been burned by the flames. He looked up to where the guard lay on the ground
, clutching his wound and gasping for breath. Carson stepped aside as Alto moved past him through the doorway.

"
Thanks," Alto told the priest. He swung his sword in a circle, rotating his wrist, before he stepped through the archway and into the small lobby. Carson hurried to follow behind him and nearly ran into the warrior when he paused to put the wounded guard out of his misery.

A large archway opened into a room decorated with gold and silver filigree along the walls and ceiling. Tapestries depicting dragons either in battle or resting among scenes of victory and treasure decorated the walls. Divans lined the walls and a small pool rested in a dais in the middle of the room.

"You are persistent," Jakar said from where he stood between two armored knights. Other guards wearing red pants and sashes across their bare chests stood on either side of the archway. "Normally an admirable trait, but in you it's proving most troublesome."

Alto glared at
him. "I'm going to kill you," the warrior promised.

Jakar chuckled. "Persistent and single
-minded."

"No," Alto corrected him. "I'll hear what you have to say first."

"What I have to say? You foolish boy, there's nothing more to say. You've been ridiculously lucky but that luck ends now," he promised. He turned to the others and said, "Kill them."

"I meant what you have to say while you're begging for the pain to end," Alto said, nonplussed by the approach of the armed guards. "After I butcher your men and the coward
s beside you who dare to call themselves knights."

Carson swung his swords back and forth to loosen his arms. He heard Karthor whisper behind them
and end it with, "Leander be with us!" A sense of calm filled him, and then doubled when he saw the guards of the Order of the Dragon glance at one another uneasily.

Alto's sword flashed across as the first man charged from his left. Carson turned to the right even as he was distracted by a flash in the corner of his eye as Alto's blade cleaved across the man from shoulder to hip, cutting him apart. Carson barely recovered in time to raise his swords in an X to block the scimitar that swung at his head. He shook the force of the strike off and tried not to wonder if Alto's sword was glowing.

Carson kicked the man he fought in the gut, knocking him back and freeing his swords in time to launch a pair of horizontal cuts that drove another guard in red pants back. The first attacker returned but Carson followed his sword and spun out of range from the cut. He completed his spin and lunged back in, thrusting one blade through the man's sash and into his chest while the blade in his right hand deflected the second guard's scimitar.

He spun and thrust, staggering the second guard by piercing his thigh. His other blade knocked the scimitar down so that the blade in his right hand returned from the side an
d chopped into the guard's neck far enough to end the fight.

A third guard hesitated when he saw Carson's aggressive fighting style. He stood his ground until Carson lunged towards him. The scimitar hit the ground and the guard turned and ran for a side passage. Jakar sneered at the man and called after him.

Carson turned back and saw that Alto had killed all three of the guards he fought as well. He stood there, his chest on display as it rose and fell with each breath. The last shreds of his burnt shirt had fallen away.

The two knights approached, one towards Alto and the other at Carson. Carson frowned as the fully armored figure approached him. The knight had a sword and shield, as well as plate mail covering him from head to toe. He was still frowning and wondering how to hurt the man when the knight swung his sword at him.

Carson knocked the blade aside with one blade and struck out instinctively with his other. It clanged off the knight's cuirass. His other sword was bounced off the knight's pauldron and then Carson stumbled backwards as the knight pushed his shield into Carson's chest.

The ranger collected himself and parried the follow
-up strike from the knight. His blades struck against armor but were denied. He stepped back, gaining himself some time, and then found he had to circle around the knight to his right as his opponent advanced on him. He heard a muffled chuckle from inside the helmet.

"Go ahead and laugh," Carson said, drawing the knight after him. "You're heavy and slow
. I can run circles around you all day."

The knight lunged forward, forcing Carson to leap away and parry the strike at the same time. The knight came after him
, only to stagger and fall to one armored knee when Karthor's mace crashed into his helm from behind.

The knight shook his head and swung his shield, forcing the priest to back up. Carson leapt in and hammered his blades at the knight, trying to poke through soft points in the armor. The knight rose and turned so that both men were in front of him. Carson kept striking out, forcing the knight back step after step until he judged he'd gone far enough.

The ranger shifted to his right, pulling the knight's attention and creating an opening for Karthor to step into a swing that crashed into the knight's shoulder and spun their armored foe back to his right. Carson dropped both his blades in a desperate gamble and jumped into the knight, grabbing his left shoulder and twisting it even as he brought his body to bear against his off-balance foe. The knight teetered and took a step, only to have his leg stopped by the rock that served as a wall for the pond in the room.

The knight crashed into the small pond with Carson on his back. He thrashed in the water, spraying it across the room, but Carson stayed on the back of the heavily armored warrior. In moments
, the knight stopped struggling and a few final bubbles burst free from the surface of the water.

Carson rose up, soaked through, and shook his hands to air
-dry them as much as he could. He looked over and saw Alto yanking his sword out of the side of the knight he faced. Alto's heavier sword fared much better against the knight's armor, it seemed. Carson grabbed up his blades but watched as the knight fell back to a knee but raised both sword and shield up. Alto kicked him in the chest beneath his raised defenses and knocked him onto his back.

Carson turned and saw Jakar edging towards the hallway the guard had escaped down earlier. The ranger shook his head and took off at a run towards him, his wet boots finding poor purchase at first. Jakar yelped and turned to run, only to have Carson crash into him and sending them both tumbling to the floor.

Carson lost his swords in the crash, fearful he might kill Jakar and lose Alto's only lead. They rolled apart and Carson scrambled to right himself. He rose up on his knees but Jakar kicked him in the side, forcing him back to the ground. Carson ignored the ache in his side and the sudden emptiness in his lungs and tried to rise again.