Fate Rides Wicked: Volume I of the Lerilon Trilogy (28 page)

Tych reacted on instinct. He spun to his left, bringing
the staff to bear like a club, and smashed the evil magician
in the upper arm, sending him sprawling. The wand flew
from the sorcerer’s hand. He got to his knees and
scrambled towards it, but he felt Tych’s staff about to
discharge and dove to the right. The magician just avoided
being toasted by the line of fire Tych laid along the ground.
A look of desperation crossed the face of Tych’s opponent.
His hand came up and fired a dart at the Prince.

Tych caught the dart in the staff. During the second he
looked at it, the sorcerer initiated a spell. As Tych turned
back, he realized he had to act. His moment of indecision
on which spell to cast cost him the staff, as the sorcerer’s
spell yanked it from his hand. The evil man now held the
staff. With a horrible grin, he fired a fire stream at the
hapless warrior, frozen by his sudden loss of armament.
Tych dove too late and found himself in an inferno, only
the magic armor under his cape prolonging his survival
time.

The Prince of the Endarils had never before moved with
the speed he did at that moment. His hand came up and
grabbed the clasp on the cape. He ripped it off his neck and
swung it out of the circle of flame. He drew Gaylin and
coiled to jump through the magic flame.

Suddenly, a lightning bolt struck him and his knees
collapsed in weakness. The force would have killed him if
not for his strength and magical nature. Still, he tried to
stand and couldn’t, the flame catching his hair on fire. He
tried hard to remember the teleport chant, a desperate
gamble at relief. An image of a pond, next to a waterfall,
came into his head as he struggled to find the spell.

Without warning, Tych found himself standing on a
small green patch of ground next to a pond and mountain
waterfall. Still burning, he dove in. He swam down, using
his ability to breath underwater to get as much water on top
of the magic flame as possible. For a few minutes the fire
continued to burn, causing him great pain. Then, like a
candle being blown out, it vanished.

Using his newly discovered skill, he brought the image
of the castle up as accurately as possible and concentrated
on the teleport spell. Almost the second he thought about
it, he found himself standing ten feet from the burning
circle. The sorcerer had made his way back to the door but
turned. Again Tych used his new skill, this time focusing
on a meteor storm and pointing at the magician.

A single meteor about the size of a watermelon flew
from his hand, and then split twice, so that eight exploded
around the sorcerer. The evil magician fell, seriously
burned and surprised. Tych watched him for a moment,
conjuring up the words for a powerful force fist spell.
Slowly, his enemy tried to stand. Tych yelled, “NO! You
are done living! Go to the endless layers of the abyss!” He
threw his hand in the direction of the sorcerer and energy in
the shape of a fist as tall as the magician slammed into his
enemy. The force of the hit lifted the man off his feet and
sent him flying backwards, where a tree impaled him
through the center of his chest.

The endaril began walking towards the human, but then
shock from his burns caught up with him and he fell to his
knees. The ground began to shake and the castle began to
collapse. He stared helplessly as his eyes crossed and he
fell forward. The castle came down on top of Lendril and
the sorcerer swung in the breeze. In Unlak, the sun moved
across the sky, only an hour away from setting.

Among the circle of powerful beings in and around Li,
Corl stood in high rank. Few living on Li could match him
and with his endarilan life span, he seemed to be living
forever. He sat up in his tower half of his time, studying
with an eye on the village. The rest of his time passed in
quiet meditation on long walks in the forested part of the
valley. But for the danger posed by Rangdor, his life gave
the impression of peace and all who looked at him saw no
concerns in his manner. He knew, however, of one: he had
not found a female endaril to share his life since the death
of Morg’s mother in a forangen raid.

This had bothered him recently, as Cert had a young
endaril courting her and the village had settled into a quiet
summer routine. Often he heard giggles and looked out his
window to see lovers taking a walk or scurrying into the
trees. Not a day passed in which he didn’t see bathers
frolicking together.

Today he walked in the forest with a heavier heart. As
he came to a grove, he sat down on a log and stared at the
ground. He knew the life of magician often meant not
having a lover, but since his queen died he longed to share
his life again. Morg only found Greentree because he had
to and, fortunately, he had fallen in love with her. Unless a
magician needed a queen, the chances of being able to take
the time to find the right person proved to be few.

“Hello, Corl,” said a voice and the wizard looked up. A
smile crossed his face. Cantrel, an endarilan village
woman, stood at the edge of the clearing. “I happened to
pass by here and saw you. It seems this is my lucky day.”

“Hello, Cantrel. Come, have a seat.” The woman’s jetblack
hair and dark blue eyes suddenly captivated the
wizard as he watched her move over to the log. He shook it
off, blaming his current condition of self-pity.

She said it with such surety that the wizard could only
respond, “How could you tell?”

“The way your head was hanging when I came by and
the look in your eyes as I crossed over here. You’ve done
the same thing to me for three centuries. I envied your
queen.” In the endarilan way, unless specific permission
came from the surviving person, the name of a dead lover
was never mentioned near the widow or widower.

Corl turned to look at her and smiled. “I’m flattered
and you’re very beautiful.” The wizard stood. “I must go.”
With a chant he vanished. Cantrel tried to make him stay
but he vanished before she could touch him. With a shrug
and a sigh, she continued her walk back to the village.

Tych lay unconscious, but his eyes had not closed. As
the sun began to pass below the mountains, a single ray
passed through the trees and hit him in the eye directly. As
always, fate, which had both burned him and put out the
fire, saved him. He woke with a scream and rolled away
from the beam, for fate had also burned out the retina in his
eye and left him blind on the left side.

Still, burned, partially blind and in pain, he stood up
and looked around for Lendril. He drew Gaylin, having
experienced its ability to hear faint sounds from a good
distance. He heard the faint sounds of cries for help
coming from the rubble and ran to them. Concentrating on
a telekinesis spell, he focused on the pile from which the
sounds came. Slowly the debris began to lift off the ground
and as he got the hang of it he put it with some other
material.

With caution, Lendril stood and rubbed the back of her
head with her left arm. Her right fell limply to her side and
she grimaced. One of the other two women also got to her
feet. Without waiting for introductions, Tych walked over
picked up Nandel’s staff. “Let us get out of here,” he said,
and he returned to them.

Plotef, the city Governor, watched the sun as the last
rays vanished one by one. The members of the expedition
reached almost imperceptibly for their weapons. The
bowmen lifted their weapons and drew back. Suddenly,
four figures appeared in the middle of the bristled weapons.

The queen began to cry with joy. The king had arrived
earlier and came into the circle with a cloak. He wrapped it
around his wife and held her. Plotef kneeled down beside
his wife and felt her breath with his hand. Some soldiers
called for a cleric and others ran to their command. Tych
took a piece of cloth from his pouch and wrapped it around
his head so that it covered his eye.

The king released his grasp on his wife a little and
looked at Tych. “I am King Randolph. How can we ever
repay you?”

“Since you can’t return what I have lost, give me
command of your armies and send them east of the
mountains and north to the field of scars. There, three
human armies and soldiers from all the other races are
gathering.”

“Because I owe you my wife’s life, I will grant this.
May you succeed in whatever you do so that the sons of my
people return one day.”

Aquendar came forward, removing the last chain. Tych
gave him the evil look from his one good eye. “You have
some explaining to do soldier.” Aquendar only nodded.

The cleric came and after casting some spells and
applying potions to Plotef’s wife, she came around and
smiled at the sight of her husband. Plotef ordered a
stretcher and the priest turned his attention to Lendril.
Once her arm had been healed, he came towards Tych.

The prince stopped him by raising his hand. “No, I
wish to keep it for a while to remind me of the power of
fate. In my life, fate rides wicked. I can’t forget that.”

Efrenbont’s trees had been almost entirely conifers,
Unlo had almost no trees to speak of, but Rambestar lived
in the shade of a green, tall, leafy covering. The sharp
inward curve of the coast of Unlo funneled the wind inland
and then the mountains pushed it north and south. This
brought strong weather but few seeds.

The expedition gladly entered the shade of Rambestar,
leaving behind a scorching hot summer day in the fields of
Unlo. A road wound its way from Unlak to Rambestak and
they traveled it with comfortable speed. After camping a
few miles south of the Unloan capital, they had spent most
of the morning riding for the border. Tych hoped to reach
their destination by nightfall.

However, without warning, Flandroke pulled them up
short. He conversed briefly with the horses then looked at
Tych. “They smell danger, and not from humans.”

“Draw your weapons. We’ll ride on. Make sure the
horses understand we must ride through whatever we face.
I leave it to your judgment, Flandroke, if exception must be
made to this.” He turned in his saddle to the others, all
readying the best weapons to use from a horse. “Are we in
agreement on this?” Everybody nodded or verbalized
agreement. The Prince turned back to the pemilon. “Let’s
do it.”

Flandroke spoke to the horses and in moments every
member used one hand to hold on tight and the other to
keep their weapon ready. Tych could feel his horse getting
nervous underneath him, even at their high speed. Yet, the
forest seemed quiet.

Suddenly, flame licked the road behind them and a
shadow passed by overhead. Flandroke pulled them to an
instant halt and Tendelbro and Nandel flew off their horses.
“Is that big enough to stop for?”

Tych paused in thought, but only for a moment. He
answered, “Lendril, stay here with me. The rest of you ride
on and we’ll catch up with you later.” The two endarils
walked their horses off the road and as soon as the fallen
riders mounted again, the expedition rode on.

The warriors dismounted and looked to the sky. A
large, winged figure finished a circle and came diving
down. In a moment the red dragon set its legs down lightly
on the road fifty feet away. The red looked almost exactly
like the gold except its forehead sat at a ninety degree angle
to its snout and a single curved horn protruded from the top
of its head, pointing forward.

“Ah, it seems this will be a good day for me. I get to
eat humans in the morning as an appetizer, then endarils for
dinner. I hate your race more than all others. If not for
you, the red dragons would rule the lizard world.” The
beast stood up and opened his wings as far as space would
allow. With his neck fully extended, his head scraped the
bottom branches of a tree, and since all the branches had
been cut on the roadside for almost fifty feet, he rose high
above the road.

Tych lifted his hand. “Stop,” he said and the dragon
hesitated. “Before you cook us for your early dinner, tell
us your name so we may sing of its majesty in the
afterworld.”

With this the dragon seemed to be still for a moment.
“Ah, you wish to know who is about to eat you. I am
Arfelimon, the last red dragon with the guts to prey on
intelligent creatures. I...”

Tych knew once the dragon finished his tales of
greatness, the battle would favor the beast, even with his
powers. Most spells that severely wounded humans would
do only a little damage to dragons unless they hit the right
spot. He knew he didn’t know enough about the giant
lizards to know which spells would work in the place of the
others. For a moment he wished with all his might to be a
dragon.

Arfelimon breathed and Lendril dove away, but the
flames licked against the scales of Tych, the gold dragon.
At his mere intense desire he had transformed into what he
wanted to be. Suddenly he held the knowledge of his
opponent that every gold dragon possesses and he smiled
inside at the fact that he stood taller than the red.

The Prince felt only slightly burned but still knew
strength deep in his bones. He had grown up learning the
limitations of an endaril, but the dragon’s could only be felt
as a faint, nagging warning. Realizing the danger in this,
he breathed back, sending a cloud of toxic gas towards the
red. He knew with the shortcomings of using a form for
the first time he would have to be aggressive.

While the red sat blinded by a cloud and in shock from
the shape change, Tych sprang up and over his opponent.
He wrapped his long tail around the neck of Arfelimon as
he passed and with one strong stroke of his wings lifted
him into the air. The red reached up and clawed at the tail,
but Tych hung on until it hurt too much to keep a grip. He
had been dragging his opponent across the trees, which had
torn the red’s wings and damaged his scales. When Tych
let go, the lizard fell through the branches and slammed to
the ground. Arfelimon woke from his stupor of surprise
and launched from the ground.