King Of Souls (Book 2) (52 page)

Jeremy hurled the pent up spirit orb as flames licked the dragon’s throat.

The dragon’s upper jaw disintegrated in a thick spray of blood and bone. The sorcerer stared wide-eyed at Knight Jeremy Brooks.

A second ball of spirit leaped from Jeremy’s palm hurtling toward the sorcerer’s head.

Jeremy’s attack struck the sorcerer's head blowing it apart. Chunks of brain and flesh sprayed in a wide arc across the palace courtyard.

The spirit ball continued skyward sailing through the blue morning sky. It rolled in a high arc before disappearing above the palace rooftop.

On the street between the palace and the citadel, dozens of painted-white boards slid open. Long lines of archers and a half-dozen ballista arranged in a long trench appeared from hiding. Longbows raised in the archers’ hands and aimed for the dragons attacking the palace’s outer walls.

Danielle extended her palm toward the trenches and willed forth a surge of nature energy.

An explosion of waxy green foliage erupted through the snowdrifts. Short plants with small green leaves spread like a thick carpet over the four streets surrounding the royal palace.

Danielle’s legs wobbled, and she paused long enough for her body to catch up.

Archers lining the street released the first volley of arrows into a dozen sorcerers perched on the palace wall. The ballista nearest Danielle fired a wave of steel-tipped harpoons on the dragons beneath them.

Arrows clattered off the dragon’s thick scales. But, the high-pitched wails coming from two sorcerers proved the archer's arrows had connected. The sorcerers slid from their saddles falling like rag dolls against the palace walls.

The riderless dragons beat their wings lifting off the palace walls. They climbed and retreated eastward over Freehold.

The remaining dragons leaped from the walls and hovered a dozen feet above the palace’s empty courtyard. Behind the palace’s southern wall, a steel harpoon jutted from a dragon’s flank. The beast let loose a teeth-rattling screech beating its wings furiously trying to escape.

Blood poured from the dragon’s wound while the sorcerer riding atop him cracked his whip against the dragon’s side.

Danielle’s chest tightened. She knew, like Thoth, these dragons didn’t want this fight, but she had little choice. They’d slaughter everybody in Freehold otherwise. Her shoulders sagged, and she dropped her head turning away from the dragon’s death wails.

As if sensing her apprehension, Jeremy spoke behind her, his voice filled with compassion. “You’re doing them a favor Danielle. Better to die than lead a life of torture and slavery.”

She nodded as he squeezed her shoulder.

The dragon spun in tight circles beating its wings in desperation. High-pitched wails ripped the air as it strained against a thick steel cable tethered to an iron eye hook embedded in solid stone.

The air surrounding the dragon filled with arrows converging on the sorcerer whipping it. The sorcerer stiffened with a wide-eyed look of shock engraved on his face. His hand spread open, and the glowing command rod clattered against the dragon’s bloodied scales. It fell into the green thicket covering the snow-covered streets.

A steel tip sprouted from the sorcerer’s throat. A second shot pierced his eye and two more tore through the burlap robe covering his chest. His body pitched forward before tumbling sideways and falling into the greenery below.

“Jeremy, where’s Sir Alcott? He should’ve arrived by now.”

Behind the palace’s central spire, a booming roar shook the stone walls surrounding Danielle. A dragon, colored like an evening sunset, swooped above the archers and ballista lining the street. His mouth opened and a fifty foot spray of fire burst forward laying waste to a dozen archers and two ballista.

The surviving archers dove into the ice trenches. They scrambled and slid the painted-white boards over their exposed heads. Boards covered by the same waxen plant littering the streets, palace walls, and the palace courtyard.

Jeremy tossed a bright spirit orb toward a muddy brown dragon pounding its tail against the palace’s steel gates below. “I don’t know where he is, and I’m not leaving you to find him,”

Three more dragons strafed the city streets. Columns of flame poured over the green leafy ground cover. But as the fire retreated, the vegetation appeared almost whole showing only thin wisps of smoke.

“It’s working!” Jeremy said. “The plants are holding!”

Danielle grinned as exhaustion swept over her body. Creating the fire-resistant ground cover had consumed an enormous amount of energy.

A loud boom shook the central tower rattling the rafters. Debris rained down on Danielle, Jeremy, and the tower defenders. Spirit shields flared as splintered wood and jagged stone ricocheted in wild directions.

Sir Alcott’s head popped above the staircase. Stone and wood from the tower’s top floor disintegrated revealing clear blue sky above. The old scholar tumbled across the tower floor as a wagon sized stone tipped inward from the shattered wall.

Jeremy lunged toward Sir Alcott pushing him aside. He gasped a moment before the boulder slammed into his weakened spirit shield. Energy crackled, and Jeremy’s shield shattered unable to contain the boulder’s full energy.

The massive stone crushed Jeremy’s legs, and he screamed his face twisting into a mask of pain and horror.

“No!” Danielle leaped forward and pushed against the boulder, but she couldn’t budge it.

“Help her!” Denny said as he threw aside the longbow and joined Danielle driving his shoulder into the boulder.

Sir Alcott stood and stumbled over to Jeremy kneeling near the knight’s face.

“I can’t feel anything Sir Alcott,” Jeremy said, his voice trembling.

Sir Alcott tightened his jaw and laid his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Stay awake lad. Do you hear me! Don’t you go to sleep!”

Outside the broken tower, dragons rained fire across the palace’s outer walls.

“We’ll help you m’lady!” The Ayralen teenager said moving in beside Denny and the barrel-chested Meranthian man.

The men grunted straining to lift the heavy stone from Jeremy’s legs, and it creaked forward an inch.

Jeremy screamed, his face warped in agony. “Please…” His husky voice shook with desperation.

Danielle’s limbs felt like limp biscuits as she pushed on the enormous boulder. She glanced over her shoulder and icy fear clawed her back.

Dragons sent a blaze of fire through the palace windows igniting the floor beneath Ronan’s quarters. “Move back!” Her voice betrayed the bottled rage that threatened to spin her out control.

The men leaped away as Danielle shifted into a monstrous ice bear barely able to fit inside the cramped room. She roared as a month’s worth of frustration and setbacks spilled from her core. She wedged her shoulder under the stone and tossed it forward freeing Jeremy’s legs.

The boulder teetered to a stop blocking the stairway as Jeremy screamed a second time his face wracked in agony.

Danielle shifted into her human form. “Fix him Alcott!”

Dragon roars washed over the courtyard. They swarmed the palace like a pack of wild jackals fighting over the last shred of raw meat. Fire and streaks of unchecked lightning filled the air like some macabre summer light show.

“I’ve healed men all along this tower Danielle. I’ll do what I can, but I’m drained.” White mist drifted from Sir Alcott’s hand before seeping into Jeremy’s open mouth and nose.

Jeremy’s rigid posture eased, his eyes slipped shut, and he drifted into a deep sleep. But, his legs remained mangled and useless.

Sir Alcott stooped before dropping to his hands and knees. His eyes closed and his breaths came in short haggard pulls while he flirted with the edge of consciousness. “I’ve stabilized his back and eased his pain. For now, it’s all I can give him.”

Danielle’s thoughts shifted to Trace, flying above Freehold gloating and content. He stood on the brink of achieving his every goal. He’d leveled her beloved country, murdered her father, and now threatened her brother’s life. Rage, white and hot, flashed behind her eyes and power bubbled upward seeping through her skin as if begging for release.

The tower’s defenders froze and stared at Danielle as if a strange alien presence had taken command of her senses.

Rivulets of unchecked green energy warped from Danielle’s skin flashing in wild directions. Tangles of green vines grew beneath her feet. They lifted her a dozen feet off the floor until she settled on the jagged stone lip of the tower’s wrecked frame.

Dragons swarmed the palace grounds coming from every direction. Three hammered the palace rooftop and ten swooped over the dug-in ice trenches. Still, a half-dozen more roasted defenders fighting from the guard towers.

Danielle’s mind shifted entering a place of deep primacy. A place her conscious mind had never visited. A place birthed of nature’s power and raw brutality. She pulled on an ocean of unchecked energy. Dark green rivulets of energy streamed across the palace grounds like a river current cresting its banks. She sought out anything she might use as a weapon.

A grim smile twisted her lips, and she bellowed with a voice rising from deep inside the earth’s core. She found her tools buried inside the courtyard’s snow-covered garden. She found more growing along the palace’s outer walls.

Fledgling pines, planted last fall at her brother’s urging, beckoned for Danielle’s attention.

The baby trees greeted Danielle’s mind like long lost children. They called to her as if she’d finally woken from a century’s deep slumber. She pulled on primal power bursting from her mind like a spring flood and channeled it into the pines giving them what they sought.

Thirty pine trees shattered their snow blanket growing at rates staggering to any watching. They stopped after reaching heights approaching one hundred feet tall. Long branches canvassed the palace grounds. The surrounding buildings stood dwarfed by an incredible array of pine trees. The sharp tang of pine resin as thick as a mountain forest filled the crisp morning air.

The dragons paused their attack. They craned their long necks skyward gawking at the towering pines. Confused looks passed between their sorcerer handlers.

The dragons flew high among the treetops lashing their tails at long widespread branches. Every remaining dragon drifted through the pine forest searching the trees for hidden enemies.

Danielle felt no pity for her despicable act to come. They’d showed no mercy and deserved none in return. She closed her eyes and stretched out her mind seeking the tree’s thick roots. She found each pine’s entry point and sent nature energy racing up tree trunks. Danielle didn't stop until she’d touched every swaying pine in the majestic forest.

A dragon roared, and fire leaped from its throat igniting the nearest treetop in orange flame.

Calm settled over Danielle’s thoughts as time slowed. She opened her eyes and raised her arms skyward.

Dark green energy arced between Danielle’s open palms. She screamed a roar so primal the earth beneath the palace district shook. She smashed her palms together compressing the raw energy into a combustible force.

The pine tree’s rattled and the earth groaned. Dragons scrambled to fly free, but the forest had different ideas. Limbs shifted and grew stretching toward wings, legs, and long pliable necks. The trees locked down both dragon and rider.

The sorcerers beat the dragons with glowing command rods, but they no longer controlled their own destiny.

Danielle’s faze froze in concentration as every pine tree exploded.

A forest’s worth of wood, resin, and pine needles hurtled outward at mind-numbing speeds. In an instant, death found both dragon and rider.

The forest disappeared swallowing the invaders under a shower of jagged splinters and sticky pine resin. Freehold’s sky fell silent. Pine needles fluttered downward burying bite-sized pieces of bone and flesh under a blanket of pine.

Danielle’s body went numb as exhaustion overcame her body. Behind her, she felt the tower defenders’ strong hands catch her as she teetered.

Atop the tower’s twisted wreckage, Sir Alcott appeared scooping Danielle into his arms. Buoyed by the surrounding men he descended before easing Danielle to the wooden floor.

Outside, cheers erupted from those lining the street. Archers slid back half-charred boards still covering the ice trenches. Jubilant roars filled the streets and courtyard as Freehold’s citizens celebrated victory.

Danielle’s teeth chattered as she pulled her cloak tight around her body. A bone-deep chill spread through her limbs despite her layers of thick wool and the day’s brilliant sunshine.

Sir Alcott stripped his cloak free and covered Danielle. His face showed none of the joy expected by a man who’d just helped save his country from a foreign invader. He’d celebrate a given day’s five o’clock hour like discovering a long lost friend. But now, his expression appeared sour and muted.

“Why aren’t you celebrating?” Danielle’s teeth chattered as she tucked Sir Alcott’s cloak around her shoulders.

Sir Alcott shook his head. “I didn’t see Trace among them.”

“He’s a coward.” Danielle said.

“No. I don’t think that’s it.” Sir Alcott’s gaze drifted over Freehold’s northern wall. “Those dragons weren’t carrying any shaman.”