The Judge (16 page)

Chapter 35

Connor braced himself for the impact he knew was coming. He could practically feel the bolt collide with his skin and burn his flesh. He would be thrown into the air like he had been before. But instead of the pain he should have felt, a cool breeze touched his skin.

Morrigan had appeared next to Katie and both sorceress and apprentice extended their hands, creating a barrier from Julie’s attack.

Forces of magic collided with dangerous intensity as the air sizzled and shimmered all around them.

Julie let out a scream of frustration as her anger was turned from Connor and directed at Morrigan.

“She’s made her choice, Julie,” Morrigan said as she held the barrier in place. “Neither Connor nor myself turned her from you. You did that all on your own. If you want someone to blame, then you have no further to look than a mirror.”

Connor sensed that this was his time to go as the sorceresses squared off for a battle that would be talked about for years, decades to come. He almost wished he could stay and witness history but he knew there were more pressing matters to deal with.

Connor left Katie and Morrigan with a nod and ran to find Vercin. He took in the defenders’ situation even as he knew what he had to do next. The Elites defending the palace were putting up an amazing fight. To have been so vastly outnumbered at the beginning of the battle and still be holding on was amazing.

But their numbers were dwindling. The Elites from Vercin’s army were too many. The war was continuing to rage all around him but he knew they were still vastly outnumbered. Even if they did win, the loss of life they would pay for the victory was something Connor refused to accept.

You have one last move to make. Once last chance to save lives. But what if things go wrong? What if you do more harm than good?

While Connor’s mind ran though the possibilities, a group of Karnag inmates who looked more like pirates than soldiers spotted him. There were three of them, and as soon as their orange eyes saw Connor, they grinned with wicked pleasure.

No words were said as they charged at the Judge. Their intentions were obvious. The first man was lanky and swung with a long sword. Connor opened himself up to the power once again. Not just the Elite gene but the animal inside that set him apart as a Judge. Connor parried the blow with his axe and stepped in, sending a fist to the man’s crooked jaw. The fist Connor used held his knife, pointed blade down. Very easily he could have sent the steel through the man’s skull but he chose not to.

Without pausing, Connor moved on to the next attacker. In one fluid motion he dropped his knife and hit the man square in the chest with an open palmed strike. The man shot from the ground and flew across the battleground.

Connor stood, daring the next man to come at him. The last Elite stood wide-eyed in a crouched stance with a knife in his left hand. Earrings clattered around his ears and he bit his lower lip with stained yellow teeth. A moment passed as the two men stared at one another. The next thing Connor knew the man had dropped his knife and started running in the opposite direction.

Connor spared a moment to smile before he was brought back to the dire situation by shrieks of pain. He didn’t know where the howl was coming from but he knew he had to stop the fight. Life was being lost by the second, and that’s when he made his decision.

Throwing enemies out of his way and dodging blows, Connor made his way up the left stairwell were Miyanda and her men still held the wall. There was no doubt their numbers had dwindled. Miyanda had defended her assigned area of the wall at great cost to herself and her men. Deep cuts crossed her abdomen and left arm. Blood trickled down her left temple.

“Miyanda!” Connor shouted above the noise. “It’s time!”

Miyanda nodded and pointed toward a steel case that stood by a lit torch. Connor pushed two more attackers off the wall, sending them plummeting to the ground below as he made for the chest. Dropping to his knees, Connor reached inside for the bow and arrow.

The arrow was wrapped with a small cloth around the point that Connor wasted no time in dipping into the fire. The gas-soaked cloth caught faster than the eye could see and flamed bright.

Although the clouds were yielding to the sun’s bright rays, the arrow would be visible to anyone who was watching. Far from an experienced archer, Connor notched the bow and drew the string back like he had seen in movies.

The oak bow was strong and fought against his grasp as Connor drew the string to his face. His left arm was completely straight. His right hand pulled back on the string as far as he dared.

Connor said a silent prayer.
Please let this work. Please know what to do and help us.

Then the arrow was away. The flying flame punctured the sky at an incredible speed. Like a comet reaching for the next level of the heavens, it arched upward. Higher and higher is sped until its forward momentum was exhausted and it came down in a perfect arch to land somewhere far below.

It’s done,
Connor said to himself. Somewhere Pete and Joe had seen the flame and would release the dragon.

Chapter 36

After firing the arrow, Connor waded into the thick of battle once again, still looking for Vercin but stopping and helping whenever he could. It had only been minutes since the arrow was loosed from the bow. Connor was dispatching a group of nasty looking enemy soldiers wearing tattered black and white striped clothes that reminded Connor of patients in an old school insane asylum.

These men gnashed their fangs and attacked with wild howls and strikes. They had given in to their Elite gene. They had chosen to let their animal rule them. As a result they were stronger, but the attacks that came at Connor were sloppy and far from strategic. Only rage pushed these men forward.

Connor dodged and parried blows. It was in the middle of the fight with these men that the monster’s first roar was heard.

Connor lifted his red eyes to the heavens. An unspoken peace treaty agreed on by all combatants passed, as everyone paused from the fight and searched for the origin of the terrible noise.

The roar came again. It shook men from the outside in. Connor could practically feel his bones rattle as the intensity of the monster’s bellows increased.

A brief moment passed as all eyes searched for the creature or whatever was making the alien sound. Then shouts broke out from both sides—cheers from the defenders and gasps of astonishment from the attackers.

All eyes witnessed the impossible as strong leathery wings beat the afternoon sky. The animal was only a speck at first but within seconds all could see what bellowed the fury of war. A dragon. A dragon had come to join the fight.

Even though Connor had witnessed Spero in his true form, his breath was still stolen by the violent wonder of the creature. As the dragon approached the battle, the fearless inmates of Karnag started to fold. The men Connor had been encircled by looked at one another and ran. Attackers begin to shy away from the fight and head back towards the gate they had once been so eager to enter.

Spiro’s form grew larger and then impossibly large as the beast flew toward the sound of battle. The behemoth hovered in the sky for a moment before it bellowed another roar and landed next to Connor with a force that shook the very ground itself.

Connor stumbled from the impact, even as he reminded himself there was no reason to fear the animal. Fear, however, had a mind of its own. An uneasy feeling still sat deep within Connor’s heart as he looked into huge serpentine eyes. The dragon looked at him as if for direction, lowering its long, scaled neck to Connor’s height.

Connor took a deep breath. He was reminded of how this species of dragon was the most clever. It had survived its kind’s extinction because it had adapted. It was the most intelligent of all species of dragon.

“I don’t know if you can understand what I’m saying, but we need your help.”

The dragon gave him a blank stare. Its cocked his head to the side like a dog when it was given an order it didn’t understand.

Oh, this is crazy. It’s an animal. It has no idea what I’m saying.

As Connor searched for an answer to his problem, help came in an unexpected form.

Some of the Karnag inmates had started to run, others began to back away. The bravest of Vercin’s army edged forward and formed a circle around the creature. Connor was surprised to see Christof as one of these men.

The relative to both Randolph and Faust inched forward, a long spear in his right hand. He led a group of his own family. Black-eyed Elites who brandished steel armor and swords.

In that moment, Connor knew what Christof was trying to do. He was trying to earn favor with his master. Inching forward, sweat pouring from his hairline, Christof drew back the spear and hurled it through the air.

Both blade and shaft flew at an astonishing rate. The weapon hit the dragon named Hope perfectly in his chest, the exact area where his heart would be.

The spear clanked off the dragon’s scaled skin with a metallic sound that sounded more like it had struck steel rather than flesh.

Spero turned its attention from Connor to the men surrounding them, shouting a roar of anger. Yellow eyes glaring, the dragon raised its neck high. From his spot next to the dragon’s side, Connor began to feel warm.

Heat was emitting from the dragon in with blazing intensity. Christof and his followers stood wide-eyed as the dragon lowered his head and opened its huge jaws. Fire spouted forth like water from a broken fire hydrant. Flames burst through teeth and tongue as the dragon drenched its enemies in flames hotter than Connor could fathom.

Twisted steel armor and skeletons with burnt flesh dropped to the ground where Christof and his men had been just seconds before. 

Now the dragon knew why he had been summoned. Wings beating into the air even as ages of primal instinct took over, the dragon’s large dark green mass rose from the ground and Connor knew the tides of war had changed.

Those with any sense ran from the beast. The enemies that chose to stand and fight were torn apart with jaws and claws the size of their own bodies. Heat permeated the air as the dragon made short work of its attackers.

The day was almost won but Connor knew there was still one man capable of turning the nearly accomplished victory into defeat.

Connor’s black robe flew around him as he ran from the battleground in the courtyard to the wall. Pockets of resistance were still scattered around the courtyard but the defenders were pushing back. In some cases, even taking prisoners. With the arrival of the dragon, most of the inmates of Karnag fled or surrendered.

Connor ran up the stone steps to the left of the wall, where he found Lu drenched in blood. Connor ran to his side with a look that said what a hundred words couldn’t. Lu grinned at him.

“Don’t worry, it’s not my blood—well, most of it isn’t, anyway. Are you okay?”

Connor let out a sigh of relief as fatigue settled into his muscles and bones. He was beyond exhausted but he knew that this was not the time for rest. He needed to find Vercin and end the battle for good.

“Have you seen Vercin?”

Lu jerked his chin toward the courtyard. “I saw him fighting in the courtyard when the dragon arrived. He was making his way to the palace gates but Randolph and a group of monks stopped him, I think.”

Connor turned his eyes on the scene below. It wasn’t easy to make out individual people even with his Elite eyesight. He squinted as he tried to make out his nemesis’ form through all of the swirling and turning figures below. 

He grunted in frustration as once again he failed to make out the tyrant king. What did catch his eyes however, was the crackling magic exchange that was still taking place between the three sorceresses.

Warriors on both sides, even the dragon, had given the women a wide berth in the palace courtyard. The battle of magic was taking place to the left of the palace doors. Smoke rose as the combatants sent sizzling energy and lightning bolts at one another. Every time two magical forces of power collided, a loud snapping noise would explode.

Connor could see Morrigan bending under the amount of pressure Julie was putting her under. Katie ran to stand between the women but she was no match for her mother, who sent her reeling backward to Morrigan’s side.

Katie was swatted out of the way quickly as Julie focused on her real enemy. Even though she was thrown, Katie refused to give in and ran again at her mother. Over and over Julie pushed her away and over and over Katie tried to get between her and the dangerous magical strikes directed at Morrigan.

Morrigan and Julie both floated inches from the ground. Sweat poured off Morrigan’s brow as she clenched her jaw, countering any strikes of magic sent against her, and at the same time pushing the fight with attacks of her own.

As Connor moved to help Morrigan and Katie in whatever way he could, the fight came to an unexpected end.

Katie pushed forward once again but this time instead of trying to be a human barrier between the two women, she shot off a bolt of sizzling electric magic at a section of the wall above her mother’s head.

Stones fell and mortar plummeted to the floor below. Julie raised a hand and shielded herself with a wall of energy from the falling debris. This was the opportunity Morrigan needed.

Morrigan took a huge breath, allowing a ball of red and brown energy to grow between her hands. As she did so, she seemed to grow in size. Connor was yards from the women now. He witnessed first hand as the sky darkened and Morrigan Hayes grew like a shadow on a long wall. Releasing her breath, Morrigan shrank back to size. The ball of energy launched from her hands broke through Julie’s shield and caught the sorceress square in the chest.

Connor witnessed Katie scream and run to her mother’s still form. Smoke rose from her black robes like an extinguished fire. Morrigan fell to her knees, exhausted.

Connor ran to comfort Katie, unsure if her mother had been killed or simply put out of the fight. That’s when he heard someone screaming his name. It was Laren.

Connor wished at that moment that he could be two, three people at the same time. He wanted to comfort Katie, help Morrigan to her feet, and run to Laren but he was only one man. Without another second of hesitation, he took off at a sprint towards the screams.

“Connor! Connor!”

He reached Laren even as her screams stopped. She was kneeling beside a broken and bloodied Randolph. She gently cradled his head in her lap. The doors to the palace had been broken inward and hung off the entrance at awkward angles.

Connor skidded to a stop beside Laren and Randolph. He looked at Laren with a worried expression.

Laren wasn’t a crier. Even now as she held Randolph she didn’t cry but her green eyes were swimming in tears. Tears she refused to shed.

“Con—Connor…” Randolph took a painful breath.

Connor looked down on his friend reaching for his hand. Randolph’s eyes were beginning to lose their brightness. A thin line of blood fell from the corner of his mouth. His chest was all but caved in.

“I’m here. I’m here, Randolph.”

“Connor—Vercin, he’s made it—he’s made it inside. I tried to stop him.”

“Shhh… it’s okay.”

“I’m—I’m sorry for—”

Connor could feel water form in his own eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I couldn’t have asked for a better man—a better friend to stand by my side today.”

Randolph smiled weakly as he struggled to breathe. “Stop him, Connor. Stop him for both of our families.”

Connor wished he had more to say. He wished he could come up with some words that would give more comfort to Randolph in his darkest hour. Instead of words, only rage made itself available.

Anger boiled to the surface. Connor gave Randolph’s hand one final squeeze and stood.

“Stay with him?” Connor asked Laren.

She nodded, still refusing to cry.

Connor left the woman he loved and the friend he was sure to lose that day behind. He entered the palace though the broken doors.