Whill of Agora: Book 02 - A Quest of Kings (20 page)

The Dark Elf laughed, and Abram knew he had failed. The Elf had read his every thought. “Of course we know who you are; your faces have been projected to us by our great master, Abram of Arden.”

He looked then to Rhunis. “And the great dragon slayer, the scarred-knight Rhunis.” The Elf eyed the scar that covered half of Rhunis’s face. “You know, we have ways to mend that.”

“I like it just the way it is, Elf. I did not almost die for it to have it replaced.”

The Elf ignored him. “How rude of me indeed to not introduce myself to such esteemed guests as you. I am Sarrazon.”

Rhunis and Abram nodded their heads in greeting. “We have a saying, ‘well met.’ But it is not warranted at this juncture,” said Abram.

Sarrazon laughed at that. “You are in good spirits for one that has just handed himself over to the enemy, one that will soon be in the hands of the great Eadon.” Abram was not listening; he had closed his eyes and shut out the room. His mind screamed a name, in the hopes that the Elf had indeed reached the city and, by slim chance, was near. Sarrazon heard it and leapt to his feet. Abram hardly noticed as he continued to mentally scream the name and project with all his mental might.
Zerafin!

Sarrazon extended a hand, and a shock wave of energy hit Abram and Rhunis so hard that they were
thrown back to slam into the wall. Abram’s concentration was broken. Sarrazon strode toward then, blade drawn. In his other hand, a ball of lightning swirled and crackled.

Zerafin was a few miles from the city when he heard the faint calling of his name upon the wind. He tapped into a ring upon a finger and focused on the sound.
Zerafin!

The mental cry of Abram jolted him in his saddle. He reared his horse and focused on the location of Abram. Once he had found it, he dismounted and addressed the others. “Into your groups, your missions are known; I go now to aid an ally. I will meet my group shortly.”

With that, he unsheathed his sword and tapped into its great energy. He raised it to the sky and mentally projected the blade into the air; it went, and his body followed.

Zerafin flew high and fast toward the city. Like a comet he was, as he flew over it, honed in on Abram’s location, and crashed through the roof of the building from which the cry had come. Zerafin tucked his body and twirled through the wreckage. Creating a force field of protective energy around him, he landed on his feet, smashing the table at which Abram had just sat. Before he had entered the room, he had used his mind sight to determine the numbers he faced. Ten he
counted. Abram and Rhunis’s auras he recognized at once; the other eight were Dark Elves.

Zerafin landed and, at once, cast wards of protection over the two humans. Simultaneously, he let out a blast from his right hand; the shock wave threw the eight Elves back a step. The Elves recovered quickly and attacked as one with their blades and spells. The eight blades came at Zerafin, along with a myriad of spells. With but a thought, he brought a cylindrical wall of stone up from the floor and around himself and coated it with a spell to deflect all attacks back toward the sender. As soon as the energy attacks of the Dark Elves hit the energy barrier, Zerafin made the stone shield explode. It blasted out in a shower of projectiles of all sizes and a cloud of dust. As the Dark Elves moved to defend, he sprang forth with unnatural speed and decapitated the closest, simultaneously incinerating the head with white-hot flame, which shot forth from a ring upon his left hand.

The Dark Elf closest to the pyre scrambled to think of a defense and was forever quieted as Zerafin caused the stone below the Elf to throw him forward, and he met Zerafin’s blade, Nifarez. The sword cut through all defenses and was pulled upward, splitting the Elf in two from the chest up. Zerafin then hit the defenseless Dark Elf guard with a blast that blew its body into a million pieces.

Zerafin had gauged the power of all in the room by then and had determined the guards to be of lesser
power than he, greatly. Though one of them, their leader presumably, seemed a powerful foe. Even without mind sight, one could see a lack of fear within that Dark Elf’s eyes. With the great power within his blade Zerafin easily defeated the remaining dark elves, all but the leader. Sarrazon knew his foe to be beyond him and smartly ran for his life as Zerafin battled the others.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The White Dragon

E
adon eyed Whill from across the room. Night had fallen on the city, and the world was silent. Through one window the moonlit rain clouds seemed not to move, as if a curse had been laid upon the kingdom. This chamber Whill knew well, for it was the very same in which his father’s spirit had avenged his life.

A multitude of torches burned upon the walls, as did dozens of candles scattered here and there. The many sources of light and shadow cast themselves as a cloak upon Eadon’s face. A dead man lay at the Dark Elf’s feet, the pool of blood creating a scarlet canvas for the dancing light of the candles.

Whill returned Eadon’s stare. “I will not fall for your tricks, old one. This and every other victim’s death is on your hands. I will not be coaxed by you,” he said as he turned to spy on the unmoving clouds.

“I can see that,” answered Eadon as he wiped the blood from his dagger and sheathed it. “Would you
die then? Rather than learn how to live? Have you not learned to fight, to defend yourself? Have you not taken the innocent lives of the slave men?”

Eadon waved a hand, and the corpse caught flame. The flame burned white hot until only ashes remained. Whill hated that nothing was sacred with this Dark Elf, and nothing was secret. His memories, thoughts, and emotions could be seen as easily by Eadon as Whill’s own face.

“You are projecting, Whill,” Eadon sneered.

Whill turned to look upon the hated Elf. “Why play these games if you know my mind? Why not make me a puppet?”

“Puppets I have, young friend. Students are a much more rare acquisition; a worthy student, of strength and power and wanting, is rare indeed,” Eadon explained. “You will take the lives of men and Draggard, but not use their life force?” he asked.

“It is not a practice of the Elves of the Sun,” answered Whill.

“Ah. But you are not an Elf. You are not bound to their ridiculous laws. Why do you limit yourself? Simply to cling to some misguided doctrine?”

Eadon strode toward Whill and offered him a glass. Whill took it. They eyed each other as they drank. Whill was not worried about it being poisoned. What would be the point? He returned to looking out the window.

“You are set to die soon, yet you do not care?” said Eadon as he replenished his glass.

Whill answered without taking his eyes off of the city, the kingdom of his forebearers. “No.”

“But what of Avriel? You would leave her in her current state? You would not attempt to save her?”

Whill did not answer.

“You would give up without a fight?” coaxed Eadon.

“I have fought!” hollered Whill. He mentally chastised himself for letting Eadon get under his skin. “I have fought, and I have lost. I will not be tempted to your side. I face my death in peace; I do not fear death as you do.”

Eadon’s nostrils flared, and his eyes flashed for a quick moment, and the look was gone. “You cannot be convinced, I see. Perhaps there is another way. Come, I have something you must see.”

Whill watched as Eadon walked to the chamber door but did not follow. Eadon gave Whill a look that dared him to disobey, and finally, Whill followed.

Eadon led Whill through the castle corridors and halls. They came to a large iron vault door. The door, like the one within the vaults of the Ebony Mountains, held something profound for Whill. He could feel it. Whill knew, also, that Eadon’s last game piece was Avriel’s soul. He stared at the door and shook his head slowly.

Eadon cocked his head and smiled, as if proud of Whill’s deduction of that which lay beyond the door. Whill shook his head more vigorously and took slow steps back.

“No. I will not play your gods damned games any longer!” He faced Eadon and charged at him. He stopped and screamed in Eadon’s face, their noses nearly touching, “I will not be a part of your twisted games any longer!”

The white dragon awoke from its slumber. It spread its wings and growled, bending low, stretching. Instantly, the beast’s senses alerted it to prey. It turned and eyed the nervous goat chained to the wall ten feet away.

The dragon was hungry, and it was glad for the meal, though the meal lacked the thrill of the hunt. It longed for the open skies and long-stretching forests full of prey. Never had the dragon flown, nor had it hunted in the forest or upon the fields, only within the realm of dreams.

The dragon sighed, a puff of smoke emanating from its snout, and pounced upon the goat. It took its time, eating one leg at a time and enjoying the satisfying crunch of the bones under the pressure of its strong teeth.

It stopped in its feeding when it heard a ruckus outside of its cell. The dragon growled low in its throat when it recognized the voice of its hated maker. The dragon wanted nothing more than to feel the Dark Elf’s bones between its teeth. Eadon had created it, but
he had also imprisoned the beast. Though it had only hatched a week ago, it had been forced to grow to full size in that short time, through Eadon’s dark magic.

Though the dragon had never left the cell in its short life, it knew a great many things due to racial memory. Dragons were unique in that they were born with a vast amount of knowledge, passed down through the millennia.

The dragon knew a great many things, and it recognized Eadon as a hunter of its kind and the creator of the Draggard. It had tried to kill Eadon as soon as it had attained the ability to breathe fire. But Eadon had easily avoided the flames and had made the dragon pay dearly for its attack.

There was another with the Dark Elf outside the massive door that kept it locked within its cell, perhaps a minion of Eadon’s. The dragon readied its fire glands and watched the door.

Spittle riddled Eadon’s face as Whill screamed, and his was a face of distilled rage. Eadon moved to backhand Whill, a blow that would have broken the young man’s jaw had it not been blocked. Whill brought his hand up as quickly as a cat’s paw and blocked the blow and grabbed Eadon’s wrist. The two shared a stare for many moments, neither moving. Eadon’s face was a picture
of calm, while Whill’s was one of hatred and grim determination without a hint of fear.

Something within Whill’s mind snapped. He had never wanted to hurt someone as badly as he did at this moment. He saw only red as the many possibilities of what lay beyond the door flashed through his mind. The rage drove him beyond reason, shores away from sanity. His mind dove into the deepest caverns of his psyche, the shadowed corners of his darkest side. He returned to that place within his mind where he had kept all of the pain and memories of his torture. There they had been kept locked up by Whill’s subconscious, as to not haunt him until he went mad. In his moment of murderous rage, Whill threw open the gates holding that side of his scarred mind at bay. Power surged through his body; he felt a change within, a shift.