Whill of Agora: Book 02 - A Quest of Kings (13 page)

Dirk was brought high up into a castle tower. It was, he assumed, the king’s own dwelling. Upon entering the room, Dirk was pushed forward, and the guards closed the door with a slam. The king strode from the shadows of the vast room and spoke but a word, and every candle within burst into light. The king shimmered and distorted, and before Dirk stood an imposing Dark Elf.

Dirk’s senses screamed for him to run, that he should not be here. He had judged horribly in his plan. Dirk knew that before him stood the legendary Eadon, the very Dark Elf that had sent so many assassins after his dear Krentz.

“I see that there is no point in playing games with you…What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.”

Eadon chuckled. “Very well.”

Dirk felt a strange presence within his mind, a stabbing blade of ice that numbed his resistance instantly and caused his mind to cry only surrender.

“Dirk it is then,” said Eadon as the blades of ice receded, and Dirk let out a groan and grimace, instantly furious for the trespass on his mind, but also equally afraid of the implications.

“Yes, even now you are contemplating the fact that I can steal from your mind anything I wish. So rather than go through the painful process of tearing my answers from your simple mind, how about you simply answer me truthfully?”

Dirk looked to the window, gauging the distance between it, himself, and Eadon. The Dark Elf followed his eyes. “Go ahead; give it a try. It should be good for a laugh at the least.”

“What is it you want to know?” growled Dirk angrily.

Eadon moved to a cabinet and opened one of the glass doors. He withdrew a bottle of dark liquid and proceeded to pour two glasses. He held a glass up to the candlelight and moved it slowly, causing the liquid to swirl gently. He strode to Dirk.

“Eldenberry wine from the vineyards of Drindellia,” said Eadon. He brought his nose to the glass and took in a deep inhale. A subtle moan escaped him.

“This one is six hundred years old. I froze it in time, so to speak; I can almost remember the year when I smell it.”

He handed Dirk a glass. Dirk eyed the Dark Elf and smelled the wine; he lifted it to his lips and emptied the glass. The wine was delicious, but he hardly noticed. Eadon took a sip from his glass and marveled. “The pleasures in life never cease.”

When Dirk did not reply, Eadon added, “Nor does the pain.”

Still Dirk remained silent. Eadon returned his and Dirk’s glasses to the cabinet bar. “You will not beg for your life, will you? You will not grovel or plead. You will die defiantly. There is nothing I can do to you that you are not prepared for—of course, I think that I could
think of something. But when you are more than five thousand years old, torture loses its appeal. I would much rather come to a conclusion that we can both agree upon civilly. I would rather not take your mind; I would rather it was given freely. If you work with me, for me, I will keep your beloved Krentz alive.”

Dirk flinched at the mention of Krentz; he did not bother trying to hide his emotion. Nothing could be kept from Eadon it seemed.

“Did you not know that she had been captured? It is true, my Dark Elves found her not three months ago. She is my prisoner.”

The Dark Elf turned and looked out of the window. “If you please me through your actions, then I will let you both live, and I will let you be free, forever untouched by anything of my creation, untouched by the Dark Elves. You will be given a pass for all of eternity.”

Eadon turned and walked slowly toward Dirk. “What say you, Dirk Blackthorn?”

Dirk set his jaw proudly, thinking of spitting in the Dark Elf’s face. If it was his own fate on the line, he would have done so already, but the life of Krentz was on the line. With effort, he swallowed his anger and rage. “I will do what you ask, for the life of Krentz.”

Eadon only smiled.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Fire Off Yonder a
Ways

R
oakore traveled into ever-warmer skies long into the morning and afternoon. He had passed the border into Uthen-Arden long before the sun had come up. He had traveled many miles, but he was becoming weary of the hours of tense inactivity upon the great Silverhawk. His legs were sore and his back stiff, and he could sense as much from Silverwind.

A smoke caught his eye to the south, and he began to steer his hawk in that direction. She let out a low hiss and attempted to veer back on course.

“Bha, bird, I be wantin’ to know what be over there. See, something’s ablaze, and it ain’t no campfire,” said Roakore as he pulled on the reigns.

Silverwind reared her head, nearly throwing Roakore from his saddle. If not for the strap across his lap, he would have fallen to his death.

“Listen here, bird, you’ll be doin’ as I be sayin’!”

Silverwind let out a squawk and began a gut-turning dive toward the ground. Roakore became weightless, and his complaint was swallowed as they dropped like a stone. Silverwind leveled out no more than ten feet from the ground. Roakore was bathed in pollen as her wings passed over a field of dandelions. He barely had time to scrape the flowers from his tongue when Silverwind turned sideways, causing him to be battered by a series of branches.

“That’s it! Let me off you, ye blasted, crazy bird.”

Silverwind immediately obeyed and landed. Roakore huffed and puffed incoherently as he fumbled with the strap that held him. As soon as the latch sounded, Silverwind took to the air once again, leaving Roakore to hold on to the saddle for dear life. Silverwind caught air and leveled out but quickly dive-bombed straight for a small pond. Roakore was left holding on only by the saddle straps, legs flailing. Silverwind abruptly turned in a full circle as she leveled out above the water. Roakore let go and fell with a splash into the pool.

The great weight of Roakore’s ax sunk him straight to the bottom. It was not a very deep pond, maybe ten feet, but it was deep enough for a Dwarf to drown. Roakore frantically kicked off the bottom and almost broke the surface before the weight of his ax dragged him down again. Finally, after another attempt, he loosened the strap that held his ax to his back and swam with his last
breath to the surface. He broke out into the afternoon air with a gasp.

He finally made his way to the shore and fell upon his belly, gasping for air. A soft, cherubic chuckle fluttered over the water and fell upon Roakore’s ears. He turned his head with a jerk; his eyes darted to the tall grass upon the opposite bank. Roakore looked for his Silverhawk. He saw nothing of the beast but heard its telltale cry in the distance.

“Good riddance then beast.” He swore to the heavens.

Again the chuckle echoed over the water. Roakore looked again to the grass but saw nothing. It sounded like the laugh of a child, but Roakore could not tell whether it was Dwarf, human or Elf. Whichever it was, it was a little girl.

Just then Silverwind landed upon the edge of the pond between himself and the sound. She looked upon Roakore for a moment with her one-eyed gaze then ignored him to drink from the pond.

“Bah! Who needs ye, bird? I’ll get to Del-Oradon on account o’ me own feet!” yelled Roakore across the pond.

Again the chuckle sounded and caused Silverwind to coo. Roakore looked to the grass and, upon picking himself up, began to walk toward the noise. With his first step came an end to the laughter. Roakore cocked his head and listened to the wind for a moment. He
heard nothing but the faint breeze upon the tall grass and reeds. And then the wind changed, and upon it rode the telltale stench of the Draggard. It was unmistakable, a mixture of death and dragon dung.

Roakore crouched low and retrieved two of his hatchets. He looked to the pond, thinking of his ax. He was about to summon it when the girl’s laughter was replaced by her blood-curdling scream.

Roakore bolted around the pond in the direction of the terrified child; his strong legs pumped him along at the pace of a swiftly galloping stallion. Silverwind took flight as Roakore’s stone bird left his hands and whirled to life, zipping straight ahead of him and high into the tall grass. The grass was mowed down by the weapon, cut down at four feet. The stones finally stopped as they hit the chest of a Draggard.

The scales upon the beast’s chest audibly shattered as the creature was thrown back into the grass dead. Roakore then saw five more Draggard and a terrified, dirty little curly haired human girl of no more than three. Roakore’s blood boiled and rage filled his every fiber at the thought of these beasts touching the child. Roakore may have been tougher than Elven steel and more powerful than two bulls, but he had a soft spot in his heart for children, a tenderness and love equal in strength to that of his greatest rage.

Roakore lifted a hand as he ran, and the wet sand upon the lapping bank of the pond rose like a snake
with no tail and struck out at the Draggard’s faces. The sand traveled with such speed and force that the closest Draggard, who had not had time to raise an arm or turn its head, took the full assault in the eyes. The millions of minute stones that made up the sand buried themselves in its eyes and packed into its skull until it exploded. Time seemed to slow for Roakore during battle, as did his opponents, and he went into a fighting trance.

As the remaining four Draggard covered themselves from the onslaught of the lethal sand serpent that constantly battered their heads, Roakore let loose his twin hatchets. Even as he leapt into the air and over the girl, his weapons twirled through the air with great force, embedding themselves into the heads of two of the beasts. Roakore landed on crouched feet not three feet from the remaining two Draggard as the sand stopped and fell to the grass.

He hacked at the monster to the left of him with both blades aimed at the knee and hip. With a crunch, they contacted and the beast reared. Instinctively, its tail whipped around and shot at Roakore’s chest, but he had already backed out of reach and engaged the Draggard to his right.

Roakore fought the beast unarmed, his hatchets still buried in the other screaming Draggard’s leg. The beast lunged forward with its tail to stab Roakore in the chest, but before it could, the furious Dwarf caught it and
cracked it like a whip, causing the beast to spin where it stood. With the Draggard’s back to him, Roakore growled and ran up the scales of the monster and onto its back. It thrashed and reached behind it with its long claws but could not reach Roakore. Growling louder now, Roakore held on to the thickest spike upon the scaled beast’s back with his left hand and punched it in the side of the head with his right.

Roakore’s knuckles were huge and knotted like wood due to his spending three generations of men punching hard stone as part of his daily personal training. That was exactly why he trained as he did—you never knew when you may have to smash the skull of a Draggard with your bare hands—and the training had paid off. After the third blow, the Draggard’s skull cracked, and it lost its feet.

Roakore fell with the beast and rolled, remembering the other monster. He rolled out of the way not a second too soon as the Draggard jumped five feet into the air with one leg. Its eyes were enraged with pain and hate, claws reaching to fillet skin. Before Roakore could make the beast regret its courage, the huge claws of Silverwind buried themselves in the monster’s shoulders. Silverwind crushed the Draggard with her great weight and decapitated it with one peck of its sharp beak.

“That was me kill, ye traitor!” Roakore roared.

Silverwind gave out a defiant squawk, but the girl did not giggle. She stood at the water’s edge, whimpering
wide-eyed at Roakore. Roakore held his arms out non-threateningly and tried to calm the child as he walked forward. To his surprise, she ran to him and buried her face in his strong shoulders and soft Silverhawk cloak. Just then, he felt a jabbing on his armor.

He twirled with the child and raised a fist, swiftly bringing it around at his attacker. His fist stopped a hair from a small boy’s face.

“Let my sister go!” The boy hollered in Roakore’s face.

Roakore’s expression went from one of rage to a wide smile. “Ye got a lot o’ heart, eh, boy? I could crush ye like a bug, ‘n’ still ye attack.”

The boy put up his fists defiantly. “My father could crush you, Dwarf!”

“Does that be so?” asked Roakore.

“It be!” answered a man’s deep voice from behind him. He turned to see the speaker and met a large fist to the face. The girl was snatched from his grasp with the other hand as Roakore slammed onto the ground, hard enough to take his breath had he not known how to take a fall. He quickly got to his feet and shook his head then felt his chin.

“Heh, you got one hell o’ a punch, human. Almost as hard as me grandma o’ three hunr’d years, reminds me the slap I got for tryin’ to sneak a biscuit at before dinner.”

The man put down his daughter and squared off with Roakore. The two males stared each other in the eye, waiting for one to strike.

“Loo da.”

The men both stiffened at the noise, neither breaking the gaze.

The little girl tugged on her father’s pants and pointed. “Loo da! You be goo.”

The man put a hand upon his daughter’s shoulder and gently put her behind himself; she did not struggle but only said louder, “Loo da. He may ugly sleep.”

The man dared break eye contact with Roakore for a quick glance at the dead Draggard. “Does she speak the truth?” he asked.

“Do they look like they be sleepin’?” retorted Roakore.

The man looked again. “They are dead.”

“Well then, she be tellin’ the truth.”

He looked to his son. “Did this Dwarf kill these Draggard?”

“I do not know, Father. I found her a moment before you did.”

Roakore lifted his arms and walked over to the water and crouched to wash the blood from his hands. “Who in the hells ye be thinkin’ killed them beasts? Eh? Ye thinkin the tot done killed em with cuteness? Did ye not notice the hatchets buried in them two’s heads?”

The tall man looked from Roakore to the Draggard; he kicked the nearest beast. The man was tall, nearly
twice the height of Roakore. He was a giant among men, as wide at the shoulders as Roakore was tall. His massive muscles tensed and bulged beneath the fabric of his shirt with every move. Roakore guessed he could best a half a dozen men single-handedly. He hadn’t been lying when he said the man hit like his grandmother—she was a strong Dwarf.