Offspring (The Sword of the Dragon) (2 page)

Netroth: neh—troth

Nostravium:

nah—stra—vee—um

Osira: oh—sigh—ruh

Poonie: pooh—nee

Razes: raze—ez

Resgeria: rez—geer—ee—uh

Vectra: vek—truh

Veil: vale

Vortain: vor—tane

Yimshi: yim—she

A
fter Prince Brian fell to the traitors, the dragon prophet arrived on the battlefield … too late
.

The white dragon’s teeth knifed into Clavius’s body as it raised him high off the ground, breaking him in half. The traitor’s sword clattered to the ground as the dragon’s claws raked the earth, breaking stones as he faced the next traitor: Letrias.

Auron stood nearby, unable to move; his mind begged him to escape while the moment allowed, but his body refused. The dragon’s lips parted, dripping the blood of Auron’s former accomplice onto the stones. Flames roiled in the dragon’s half-open mouth, and Letrias’s eyes widened with fear.

Letrias dropped his sword and spread his hands. Energy sizzled along his palms. His lips trembled. “You are not all-powerful, Albino. Hermenuedis is more than a match for you … and he has taught me”—bluish light amassed between Letrias’s fists—“how to wield mighty
power
!”

The energy shot from Letrias’s hands in the form of bolts that sped toward the dragon’s chest. But the energy passed through the scaled creature’s body as if it was not really there, as if it had no physical presence.

Dark clouds rolled overhead, joining each other until the sunlight faded.

Albino the dragon spoke. “I will waste no more breath on you.” He drew back his head and fire streamed from his mouth.

A cloud spiraled to the ground and a dark humanoid entity passed from the heavens to the earth, landing betwixt Albino and Letrias. He crouched for a moment, then straightened like a bird prepared to take flight. The wind played along the Art’en creature’s back, ruffling the feathers of its voluminous, furled wings. Auron swallowed, recognizing the wizard Hermenuedis.

The Art’en held out a black sphere that absorbed Albino’s flames, swelling to the size of a boulder.

The white dragon’s hard gaze riveted on the wizard, and Hermenuedis flapped his wings as the flaming barrage slid him backwards. The dragon took a step toward the Art’en.

The Art’en wizard would lose this battle … and the white dragon would come after him next. Auron turned and ran. His sword grew heavy in his hand and he dropped it like a lead weight.

The dragon roared and the ground quaked. As Auron fell, he glanced back.

Albino rose in terrible majesty and flung a black dragon down the slope, its dark body digging a rift in the hard earth. So, Valorian had joined the battle.

Auron stumbled to his feet and raced eastward. For five days he fled. The sky remained cloudy, and rain pummeled him night and day. Eventually he found shelter on the forested slopes of a mountain. That night he fell into an exhausted sleep. But something cold pressed against his throat. He opened his eyes. The tip of a stone dagger played at his throat.

A familiar face stared at him over the blade. The clouds must have thinned, for moonlight fell through the trees. “Letrias? You’re alive! How did you survive?”

Letrias clamped a hand over Auron’s mouth and withdrew the crude weapon.

“Silence, Fool!” Letrias’s gaze darted about the trees. “Someone has been following me.”

At that moment a fair-skinned man with blond hair stepped from behind a tree. Letrias bounded to his feet, prepared to run. The man raised a hand and said, “Stay in thy place. I know who thou art, Letrias. And I know thy companion Auron.”

“I don’t know how you found me, but I’m warning you—” Letrias eyes widened, and Auron’s own body froze in place. There was nowhere he could look except at the stranger.

The man’s body glowed with holy light. It hurt to look at him. The heavenly being’s eyes blazed like small suns from his glorious face. Spotless white robes covered the man from head to toe, and his hair radiated light as golden as Yimshi’s rays.

“God, the one and only ruler of the universe, has seen thy wickedness and the innocent blood you shed. Thy deeds will be returned upon thy heads. This night He has sent me to deliver a message and a curse, for in turning from his holy law you have brought His wrath upon yourselves.

“Thus says the Lord: ‘I tarry for the redemption of the wicked, I plead for their souls. They shall not find rest—for wrath abides upon them. Age shall not change their bodies; they shall see the years pass and remember their sins until they repent or fall upon the sword of the righteous. I am the Lord. I Am forever.’”

The angel vanished. Letrias ran into the forest.

Trembling, Auron stepped to a tree and leaned his forehead against the rough bark. He should have listened to Albino and followed after righteousness; now he had fallen beyond redemption. Killing the prince should have secured for him a place at the side of the all-powerful Hermeneudis. But, if what he’d last seen of that wizard’s battle with Albino was any indicator, the wizard would be fortunate to escape with his life. He scraped his skin along the bark, warm blood dripping down his face. He should have stayed on the side of the prophets.

A hundred years passed. In his heart it felt longer. Believing himself to be beyond redemption, he let the power of guilt solidify his rebellion against God and harden his conscience.

At the end of the hundred years he set out, eastward, to find the last remaining wizard, that pupil of Hermenuedis: Letrias.

“Letrias, a stranger has come to the valley.” The stump of a man cowered before his master and bit his thumbnail.

Letrias regarded the man in silence. His slender figure would have deceived any stranger into believing him weak, but in his hand he held a metal staff. At its head the dark metal separated into several bands that wrapped about a small orb. He clanked the staff on the floor and calmly eyed the penitent figure. “Do not let your lips quiver, Mazmodel. Tell me what you know.”

“Forgive me, mighty one … I”—the little man bit his other thumbnail and kept his gaze to the floor—“the stranger reported he knew you—a long time ago.”

Letrias looked over Mazmodel to the massive chamber doors, then stepped down to the man’s level. “Place your hands on the stone.”

Trembling, the little man positioned himself on all four limbs with fingers splayed.

Letrias walked forward and landed his booted foot on Mazmodel’s hand. The man cried out, but Letrias stepped past him, not even glancing down. “Ah, Mazmodel.” Letrias laughed. “You must always be ready to give me a quick answer. Otherwise, if your usefulness is at an end, I will have no choice but to remove you from my protection—and your daughter as well.

“Now, tell me, who has come to my valley.”

“He said his name is Auron.” The little man’s lips trembled. He spat on the floor as if to ease tension.

Letrias lifted his staff. It thrummed a deep tone that filled the room, and harsh, unintelligible whispers joined in—an otherworldly, evil sound that bespoke condemnation. Letrias laughed and faced Mazmodel. The evil he had fostered in his soul these thousand plus years had given him what he’d always desired: power.

Mazmodel’s body rose off the floor until his limbs hung loose in mid-air. His toes dangled two feet off the stone. Tears sprang from the man’s eyes.

“So, Auron has returned to me.” Letrias smiled while the power of his staff continued to hold his servant a prisoner. Swift-flowing lava spilled from a nearby hole in the rock wall, flowing through a channel carved at the wall’s base to his side. The molten rock curved against the back wall and streamed past him on the other side, forming a perfect U of hot liquid glowing orange-yellow.

Forcing all his fingers into his mouth, the little man stuttered, “I … I, he … he is … Auron wants—”

Letrias angled his ear toward the chamber’s twin doors. A familiar presence entered his perception, and a smile creased his face. His leather clothes creaked as he lowered his staff to the floor. “And I had thought he, too, was dead.”

Letrias let the staff’s power drop the little man to the stone floor. Perspiration rose on the man’s forehead and dripped down his cheeks. He took his fingers out of his mouth and licked his lips. “P … please, Master, I … I … I … you pr … promised”—he choked on his words—“promised me home.”

A chorus of muffled hissing and unintelligible words arose in the shadows behind Letrias. “Home? You were warned against mentioning this in my presence.” Letrias sighed. “Your fate is in my hand, Mazmodel. As is your daughter’s. You are my trophy—though a disappointing one you have proven to be. You are my trophy of war, a constant reminder that piece by piece Subterran is falling into my palm. But your pleas weary me.”

At that moment the chamber doors lumbered open. Two wizards wielding scythes entered, their bodies garbed in heavy black leather. They stood aside as four broad-shouldered men shuffled inside bearing a man on a litter. Each of the litter-bearers held a wizard’s staff and wore black cloaks.

Letrias addressed Mazmodel without looking back at him. “If the whole land of Nostravium is filled with idiots such as you, my followers will feast on their corpses.”

The staff’s head glowed harsh-gray, and energy blasted from it into the little man’s chest. Letrias ambled over to the litter as Mazmodel’s body crumpled to the floor.

Letrias glanced at the litter and the man that lay on it. Auron’s sand-encrusted face returned his gaze. “At last you have come. Welcome to the Valley of Death!” He frowned. “What has it been, Auron? Only a thousand years? Age has not touched our bodies, nor has time dulled my memory. Xavion is long dead and forgotten, and his master has not appeared, nor have I heard rumor of him in all this time.”

He leaned on his wizard’s staff, letting his dark eyes return Auron’s weary gaze. “If you have come to serve me, then I will save your life.”

Auron coughed and then growled, “Didn’t I come all this way?”

Letrias said not a word. He played his fingers along the staff’s smooth surface.

“For these thousand years I have searched for you, Letrias. I have not forgotten your promise to teach me … to teach me as Hermenuedis taught you.”

Letrias stood back and swung his staff through the air toward the litter. The wizards holding it stood still as stones. Auron’s eyes opened, and he started to cry out. The staff knocked him full in the chest, causing him to spit bile, and the litter shattered into billions of tiny fragments. Auron crashed to the stone floor.

“Do you want power, Auron? Or do you seek to evade the fate God decreed for you and I?” He knelt in front of the man. “A war is beginning—no, it has started already—a war against all who embrace the Creator and his prophets. And we know whose side must win if we are going to survive.”

Auron struggled to his feet, and Letrias rose before him, looking down upon him. Auron seemed so weak. No, Letrias decided, he was pliable—ripe and ready to receive instruction. This former member of the Six had potential in the ranks of wizardry.

Grabbing Letrias’s shirt-front, Auron sought to steady himself. But Letrias captured him in the powers of wickedness and suspended him in the air as he had Mazmodel.