The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (19 page)

Galdric decided to wait no longer. They had the Sword-bearer trapped—King Torin himself, perhaps, though it did not matter. An Illychar now wielded the Sword, and would soon be made to turn it over. A weapon with which to slay this dragon, if any could. A means to redirect their fortunes in this war.

With the blood coursing through his veins, he could scarce feel the ache of worn joints and the scars of old wounds earned throughout decades of physical contest against nature’s minions. He was a young man once more, though time-tested and battle-hardened. His sword was strapped across his back; a loaded crossbow hung in a shoulder harness beneath one arm. Even if it came down to bare-handed combat, he was ready. His entire life had been in preparation for this moment.

The dragon’s hide felt like boiled leather stretched over plates of studded iron. Though his spiked gauntlets could not penetrate, their scrape and claw helped him to scrabble up the scaled shoulder. His personal guard were right behind him, struggling to keep pace. The archers now held their fire, and likely stood gaping in disbelief—awed by his strength and his resolve.

He settled into position. The monster squirmed beneath him, but he gripped a spine for balance. Blocks rolled and tumbled from their broken mound, loosened by the dragon’s struggles. His new target lay only paces away. The human Illychar had made no move to cut himself free; he simply sat there, Sword in hand, smirking. But Galdric sensed the rage behind that false smile, knew the fury demanding release.

The Parthan king drew his crossbow from its sling. Flush with exertion, he slid aside the safety latch. He felt the wrenching, rolling motions of the serpent pinned below him, and attuned himself to their chaotic rhythm. He then raised his weapon and took aim.

The Sword flashed first, a horizontal swipe that cleaved the tip of the spine in front of the bearer. The dragon wrung itself in torment, twisting violently to one side. More than half of Galdric’s men tumbled from their perch. Some landed upon the boulder mound, while others slipped into the tar pool. The king himself dropped his weapon and wrapped both arms around the nearest spine. The crossbow dangled by its stock, tied by a thong to its sling, but the bolt fired and was lost.

He had no chance to reel the weapon in and reload. The dragon’s reaction to that tiny bite from the Sword made its earlier thrashing seem like gentle nestling. With its current spasms, Galdric was certain the creature would sever its own spine. A favorable outcome, to be sure, especially when he lost his hold and went tumbling. He nearly caught himself as he skidded down the beast’s wing, but a whipping flap sent him over the edge. He dangled for a moment, grasping at a clump of hair, then dropped with a sucking splash into the black sludge below.

He landed feetfirst before slumping back on his seat, arms thrust back to arrest his fall. Drawing breath, he considered himself fortunate. While some of his men drowned in the thick, oily pitch, its two-foot depth came only to his chest.

A fairer fate may have been to share theirs, he realized, as he tried to move and failed. Already, he felt the tar oozing through the seams in his armor. He lay beneath the dragon’s wing, facing toward its tail and the ruin of the courtyard gatehouse. He looked to the nearest side wall. Castleguard were trying to throw ropes and extend poles to those like him who still had a chance. But unless he were to grip one or the other in his teeth, he saw no way to take hold.

Some of his men were shouting desperately—both those mired and those attempting a rescue. Galdric kept silent, fighting to remain calm, though he felt their panic. That panic only intensified when the cries reached a sudden crescendo. He did not have to turn his head to know what had happened; he felt the reverberations through the earth, and heard the grating, rumbling clatter. Tar sloshed around him in slow-moving ripples that stilled almost instantly. The heavens shook with a mind-shredding roar.

A shadow fell over him. Galdric looked to the faces of his soldiers—those clinging uselessly to ropes and anchors at the dragon’s tail end. An unnatural stillness gripped them. He saw the truth in their eyes before he turned to face it for himself. As he twisted his head, still topped with that plumed helm, he found the dragon’s black teeth mere inches away, its flaming eye glaring down at him.

He thought to lie back while he could, to duck his head and let the sludge take him. Make the beast root through the tar for its meal. But he would not go to greet his wife in shame. Instead, he faced that eye squarely, seeing his own reflection, and refused to look away.

No matter the outcome.

The blackness snapped at him, serpentine swift. He caught its foul stench, and felt a crushing pressure around his throat. Then the pressure was gone, and even darkness lost claim.

T
HRAKKON SNEERED AS THE COMMANDER’S
headless corpse sprayed blood atop the ooze. He wasn’t sure what the soldier had done to merit such a swift and painless end. Better to have left him to starve and be dragged from the pit later as an Illychar. But he had grown weary of the other’s tricks, and was content to see him gone.

Even so, he might have taken another piece of the dragon in reprimand, were he not wary of pushing the beast too far. Though he had incited its wrath, he did not wish to draw it.

“Enough!” he bellowed, and Killangrathor seemed to agree. While enemy missiles rained anew, the creature again tried to pull its hands from the tar. When it could not, it lowered its head like an animal set to gnaw itself free.

Instead, dragonfire streamed. With a thunderous pop, the air above the sludge burst into flames, ignited by the intense heat. Thrakkon closed his eyes, hunkering against the singeing blast. When he forced them open again, he was enveloped by an oily black smoke. It filled his lungs and caused him to
choke. The tar itself was afire now, bubbling as it burned. Entrapped enemies shrieked and wailed, flesh and armor melting. The rest scattered, unable to withstand the wash of heat.

Thrakkon might have joined them if he could. The dragon’s body shielded him from the roaring flames, but he could feel his own flesh broiling. The Sword was of no protection. Were he to remain much longer amid that fiery pool, he would be nothing but a roasted husk.

“Up!” he commanded, and laid the naked edge of the Sword’s blade against Killangrathor’s flesh.

The dragon howled and beat its wings, fanning the smoke into black curtains. It reared back, hands tearing free of the heat-softened mineral pitch. Soon after, one foot and then the other pulled away. For a moment, the creature lurched and twisted in midair, shaking free of the feeble rope strands that sought to anchor it. Hovering above the flaming courtyard, it sprayed fire upon the battlements. It directed another stream below for good measure, incinerating a clutch of soldiers hiding within an alcove, then carried itself and its riders clear.

“There!” Thrakkon shouted, pointing to a squat tower built atop a nearby plateau. As usual, Killangrathor seemed to know what was expected of him, and chose to obey. Trumpeting its arrival, the creature settled down to roost.

Through scorched and stinging eyes, Thrakkon peered down upon the thick black column rising from the ruined courtyard. Beyond that lay the broken swath they had cut through the city’s heart. There and elsewhere, tiny figures raced through the streets, fleeing the tide of Illychar welling up from below.

Beneath him, Killangrathor cleaned himself, using fire to melt tar residue from hands and feet. Thrakkon ignored the beast while continuing to survey the damage. Much of the city remained unscathed. Should he so choose, the butchery and destruction might continue for hours. But he saw no need. The thrill had already faded, tempered by the ease of his conquest. Besides, Killangrathor had proven an unwieldy weapon. Using the dragon to flush out survivors would be like using an axe to pick one’s teeth. His lesser brethren were perfectly capable of finishing off this particular carcass, and better suited to doing so.

Time now to bring another to its knees.

But which? This land was full of cities whose walls could be laid low—not one of which held any particular value over the rest. A few might hold out for days or even weeks, but he knew how his brethren worked, how insidious and relentless their methods. Whether or not he paved the way, all would fall before their onslaught.

He considered one target in particular: Whitlock, the stronghold of the Entients. If there were any who might attempt to rally and defend this doomed flock, it would be those who considered themselves the shepherds. But Whitlock was buried somewhere within the Aspandel Mountains; though Torin
had once been granted entry, he would not easily find it again. Nor would it be an easy task to penetrate its many unknown wards.

A challenge he meant to undertake, surely. But not yet. As of now, there was only one target that mattered to him, one people whose slaughter could slake his hunger for vengeance. For it was not the pitiful men laying claim to Pentania’s shores who had defeated his kind so long ago, or condemned him and his brethren to millennia of entrapment. Those who
had
hid now across the ocean, believing themselves safe.

They were not.

It was the only move that made sense, the primary reason for which he had risked so much in unearthing Killangrathor’s remains, and dared now to harness the beast. For all the power, all the glory, all the dominion he meant to claim henceforth for himself and for his kind, he would forever be haunted knowing that
they
still lived beyond his thrall.

The sooner they fell, the sooner he would have his revenge.

When finished cleaning his feet, Killangrathor stretched his great neck around to pick at some of the ropes and chains still caught upon his spines.

“Leave them,” Thrakkon commanded.

The dragon glared, ravaged lips curling to reveal those giant obsidian teeth.

“We can use them, provided you have strength enough to bear a few more in our hunt across the seas.”

Killangrathor answered with a crackling snarl, and let the tangled lines be.

“Good. Then what say we leave this carrion land to its crows and vultures? I have a taste for Finlorian flesh.”

The dragon straightened. A wave of knotting muscles rode up its back, causing its spines to bristle. Its wings stretched and its head reared. As its gaze fell upon an army of flesh-wearers massing beyond the distant city wall, it hissed in hateful warning.

“I see them,” Thrakkon soothed, tightening his grip on the Sword. “Come. Let us bid proper farewell.”

“M
ARISHA!”
A
LLION SHOUTED, SEARCHING DESPERATELY
amid a sea of Parthan troops. “Marisha!”

He’d been at her side, pinching the artery in a soldier’s leg as she cleaned the wound, when an alarm had sounded. A clutch of Illychar had broken through one of the warding flanks. Though far from the city, well behind friendly lines, their camp was under attack. Leaving another to assist her, Allion had raced off to answer the call to arms, bidding her remain until he had returned.

But that minor skirmish had escalated into a heated battle. When finally it had ended, he had returned to find Marisha gone. According to the sergeant whose platoon now occupied her ground, an even larger Illychar force had been sighted in the immediate area, moving swiftly through a series of forested ravines. It was only a matter of time before they sought to scale this or another nearby ridge. Marisha and the others had been ordered to displace, and had headed south toward better protection.

Allion had obtained precise directions before setting off in lone pursuit. But the tracks he followed took him headlong into another battle. He hadn’t waited for this one to conclude, firing only a few shots while begging after the healing caravan. A junior officer had gestured vaguely to the east, back toward the city. Anticipating no better lead, Allion seized upon the one given.

But the caravan he’d found had been the wrong one. After that, everywhere, it seemed, another conflict or dead end had awaited. Marisha could not simply have disappeared; Allion assured himself of that much. Even so, panic ate at him. He had vowed not to let her out of his sight, and was left to curse himself for doing so.

Before long, he had begun to catch wind of terrible rumors. The city had been breached. The enemy was inside her walls. The bulk of the divisions was mobilizing to respond. Any who could not join in battle were being ordered to secure a retreat.

The hunter had needed but one guess as to which group Marisha would have joined. Though unarmed and unarmored, she would be at or near the center of the conflict, working to save as many as she could.

“Marisha!” he yelled again. His voice was growing hoarse, but he dared not lower his cries. Soldiers jogged forward on either side, but he pushed past their staggered lines, scouring their columns. His neck ached from twisting back and forth. His legs felt like lead, and his lungs burned. Sweat and
grit clawed his eyes. But he would not stop looking—not while he still drew breath.

The terrain rose beneath his feet, then leveled off onto a broad steppe. He caught sight of the city, off in the distance, and his chest tightened. Through hazy curtains of smoke and dust, he saw that at least some of the rumors were true. Atharvan’s mighty gatehouse was a mangled heap of iron and rubble. Giant clefts had appeared in the outer wall, through which black bodies surged like floodwaters. From within the city, screams climbed columns of smoke to the merciless heavens.

For a moment, he wondered if the other rumors—the impossible ones—might also be true.

But he did not have time to dwell on it. Beneath those floodwaters, an entire sea of Illychar awaited, and was even now streaming toward them. Allion’s legs nearly buckled when he realized how near he was to the front lines—with but a range weapon and a hunting knife. He would have stopped and fallen back had he known for certain that Marisha might not still be ahead of him, and armed with even less.

Instead, he carried on, pushing forward, shouting her name. Those around him misunderstood his purpose and lifted shouts of their own, hurrying pace to match his stride. Before he knew it, the hunter was but a speck of foam upon a cresting wave, borne high and chained to its rush.

Though shielded behind the foremost ranks of his comrades, Allion was tossed backward by the initial collision. Bodies hurtled past one another, weapons raking, flesh ripping. A whirling funnel cloud—a goblin—forced a seam to the hunter’s left, leaving a spray of blood in its wake. Elves filled the gap and spread forth in jagged lines, cutting deep with their flashing blades and their rictus sneers.

The men of Partha surged forward, however, pushing from behind, squeezing those in the front. Allion tasted dirt and blood as he was jostled to and fro, and it was all he could do to keep his feet. The crush bore him one way, then the next. Were he to fall, he might be trampled before he ever had the chance to rise.

As it was, he could scarcely breathe, pressed from all sides. He clenched his bow, useless as it was in these tight quarters, and thought back to his first battle, the Battle of Kraagen Keep. There, he had been little more than an observer, an untested youth who had been shoved gratefully to the outer ranks of the tumult, where his skills might serve a purpose. Here, caught in the thick of it, he could do little but wait for his turn to fall.

An ogre lumbered near, and bodies went sailing. It wielded a cudgel of twisted oak taller and heavier, Allion guessed, than the average man. The weapon leveled a cluster of soldiers, creating a void in the press. The knot in which the hunter was entangled stumbled in that direction. Several at the edges toppled, unable to maintain their balance. The ogre strode forward, its great foot crushing their skulls and smothering their screams.

Allion twisted and fought, trying to worm his way clear. A friendly blade
sliced his arm. Another might have claimed his head, but he managed to duck, spilling the arrows from his quiver in the process. He continued to find his breath only with labored gasps while, all about, swarming soldiers rocked with the effort of keeping the enemy at bay.

Entrenched within this frenzied bloodbath, he gave little thought to the dark cloud that stole the sun from overhead. It wasn’t until heads began to turn as one and a common shriek arose from both enemies and allies that he wrenched his neck and gaze skyward.

This time, his legs
did
buckle. That weakness saved him. For as he fell to the earth, a hurricane wind gusted overhead. Those who remained standing felt not only the wind, but the massive claws that raked past, smashing and skewering bodies, grinding them into the earth or else carrying them away like the teeth of a giant plow.

Just like that, the surrounding press slackened. Blood fountained around him from those who had been decapitated. Bodies and weapons lay scattered like storm wreckage. Most of those who had survived were on their knees, staring at the monster that continued to cut its way through the battlefield, ridged tail sweeping after.

Killangrathor.

Allion had heard the rumored cries. It was a new enemy that had opened up the city—a dragon, some had said. But the hunter had refused to believe them. Even after seeing the ruin of Atharvan’s outer wall, he had told himself that it must be something else. There
were
no dragons, none save the one he and Kylac had slain.

Killangrathor.

The truth paralyzed him as he watched the mighty beast lift free of the steppe. Crushed bodies rained down as the dragon released those caught in its grip and shook free of those impaled upon its claws. Beneath, a gory swath lay across the battlefield like a great, oozing gash. Scores, perhaps hundreds, dead, in less time than it would take to fell a deer with a clean shot to the heart.

Killangrathor.

He knew it even before he saw the creature’s face—revealed to him as it came around for another strike. Once again, those trapped in the path of the monster’s swooping assault were given no chance to disperse. Like the prow of a great ship crashing through the ocean’s waves, the dragon plowed indiscriminately through the ranks of men and Illychar alike, shredding bodies, scattering limbs, casting souls deep into the realm of the dead. Allion watched on hands and knees, without blinking, without breathing, while others dispersed or cowered around him. Others might flee, but Allion knew there would be no escape. Returned from its self-imposed death sentence, the world’s most awesome living creature had come to settle a score.

It had come for
him
.

So it seemed even after the winged titan barreled past, off to his right. It may not have seen him this time, but surely it was combing the field, seeking him out.

The field itself had already been reduced to utter chaos. The Parthans who had gathered to assault were fleeing in waves, or else rushing for the nearest boulder or ravine that might provide some semblance of cover. The Illychar looked every bit as confused. Many cheered the dragon’s efforts, despite the number of their own slaughtered by its gusting strikes. Even these, however, did so while dashing for safety, unwilling to risk being swept aside during the next pass.

Allion alone seemed unable to move, knelt there amid the carnage while those around him scrambled away in all directions. His gaze remained fixed on the dragon, which swerved high before turning back with a whip of its serpentine neck. The spiteful lock of its jaw, the sneering expression, the fluid and mind-numbing power of its movements—all were as Allion remembered them. Had there been any doubt, there was its flesh, savagely scarred—clear evidence of the acids that had claimed its life. Its wings were like a moth-eaten shroud, riddled with holes and tears to the point that flight should have been impossible. Yet Killangrathor flew anyway, as if refusing to acknowledge this limitation.

When it comes to the functioning of an Illychar
,
the physical condition is less important than the mental…

Darinor had told them as much, weeks earlier, following the ambush of those goblin Illychar on the plains of Partha. It was then that Allion had first begun to fathom the depth of the horror they faced.

Only now did he know what true horror was.

The dragon looked ready to swoop again, but instead lowered itself with slow, steady wingbeats. Allion managed to peer around, feeling suddenly naked and exposed. There were plenty of dead and wounded heaped up around him, hiding him. Beyond that, friend and foe mingled chaotically—fighting, yes, but mostly seeking retreat. A sizable force of Parthan soldiers continued to press toward the city, as if to hide among the Illychar ranks, but for all intents, their counterassault had been broken.

His eyes fell upon a massive, bloodstained cudgel, and he wondered how much more merciful his death could have been. Alas, the ogre that had wielded it was nowhere to be found.

Killangrathor roared, and Allion fell forward, covering his ears. The beast’s stench washed over him and caused his leg to ache—the one he had broken in the monster’s lair. Though his eyes were clenched, he could see the dragon’s hateful visage, those flaming eyes fixed upon him. His body shook as though it might crumble into pieces.

“Brethren!” a voice hailed, and despite his terror, Allion froze in confusion. Surely, it was not the dragon who spoke.

“I give you rein upon this land!”

Somehow, the hunter turned his neck and opened his eyes. Faster than his thoughts, his gaze found and locked upon a line of riders clinging to Killangrathor’s back. The one in front held aloft a radiant sword.

“May your fury be relentless! Your vengeance swift!”

No.

“Let your darkness cover its shores!”

It cannot be.

“As thick, as engulfing, as that which claimed us!”

Torin.

“Let none be spared, and know that none shall be!”

Allion wanted to wail in tormented denial. But a numbness had stolen through his veins, turning muscles to sand and rendering him mute. Thaddreus. Thaddreus was the one said to have taken the Sword. Torin was safely buried. He had paid his price already. Killangrathor might have risen, but not Torin, not—

“There are victories yet to claim! Glories yet to reap! Go forth, my brethren, and take what you will, while I carry our reprisals to the ends of this earth!”

No. This was not his friend, but some maniacal impostor. Torin was not one to crush an insect without provocation, while this one…this one wielded its power like some demented—

“Bear my name!” the fiend shouted. “With every kill, every coil claimed, remember the name of he who gave you your freedom! The name of your lord!”

A ruse. A trick of the mind—

“I am
Thrakkon
! Itz lar Thrakkon! And my age has come!”

Killangrathor roared again, and spewed fire upon the wind. The grating rumble wracked Allion’s spine, yet still he did not look away. He would not do so until he had convinced himself of his eyes’ mistake. Tears bled from their corners, drawn by raking breezes, but the image before him remained unchanged. And so he stared, fraught with denial, gripped by nightmare, determined to make it all go away.

Another roar welled up from those below, as hundreds and then thousands of Illychar took up a common cheer of bloodlust. It resonated across the war-torn land, rising up from ravines, echoing upon the mountain slopes. Allion could sense their summoned courage, their stirred frenzy, and knew that what tiny measure of hope remained to those of his world was lost.

The Sword twirled in the impostor’s hand, a movement he had seen Torin execute countless times. The fiend then pumped his sword arm into the air, as if to remind all whose victory this truly was.

Finally, the Illychar calling itself Thrakkon jerked on a leather hold tied to one of the dragon’s spines like a horse’s bridle. Somehow, Killangrathor sensed that pull, and responded. The creature lifted higher into the air—ravaged wings flapping, its neck and tail writhing. Claws twitched as if anxious to claim more victims of its own, and its mouth snapped shut like a spring-loaded trap. The grinding of its teeth was like that of stones in a rockslide, and reverberated in Allion’s bones.

The creature faced west and began to straighten. But a shout from its lead rider caused it to coil and turn to the east. With a final survey of the battle
field, the titan propelled itself toward the Skullmars, spurred by the savage cheers of its Illychar brethren and by the cries of terror from the fleeing Parthans it passed overhead.

Allion traced its departure in mute horror, watching it dip now and then to swipe at the combatants below. Whenever it did, bodies flew like ocean spray, and the waves of those nearby receded. Even after it had lifted away, high above the city and off into the mountains, the hunter stared after. A part of him recognized that he was still in danger, but the greater portion did not seem to care. As the sounds of battle drew nearer, he told himself that he must flee. Yet his mind would not focus; his body would not respond.