Wizard's Sword (The Battle Wizard Saga, No.2) (26 page)

Dmitry watched as Sig laid his head on the table. He waited a few minutes before he walked over and nudged Sig′s shoulder. No response. He nudged him again, still nothing.

The waitress walked up with the check. "Crap, just my luck. Who′s going to pay this?"

Dmitry took it. "I′ll get that." He pulled out two fifty dollar bills. "Will this cover it plus your tip?"

Her face brightened and she gave him a hundred watt smile. "Dmitry baby, it will cover all kinds of things." She patted his butt.

He grimaced. "Maybe some other time. I need to get my little buddy home. He′s had too much to drink. If anyone asks about him, don′t say he passed out and I took him home. We need to protect his reputation."

"If someone asks in the next ten minutes, before I get off work, I′ll say I don′t know."

"Perfect." Dmitri said with a smile. He grabbed Sig′s arm and threw it around his waist, holding on to his forearm with the opposite hand. He grabbed Sig′s belt, lifted him out of the chair, and lugged him, feet dragging, the short distance to the front door and around the corner of the building.

Out of sight of the door, he threw Sig over his shoulder and carried him. He′d left his trunk unlatched. After a furtive look around, he shoved Sig into the trunk and slammed it shut.

Now, to dump the little pain-in-the-ass at the stairs to the cellar like Father commanded. His brothers will take care of him. He shuddered at the thought of his brothers.

The Dark Mage′s shiny dress shoes clicked on the uneven stone floor as he strode down the hallway, glaring at trolls sprawled in various poses in the chamber at the end of the hall. He passed an open door in the stone lined passage. His nose wrinkled and his stomach lurched at the smell, but he marched on. He must maintain a sense of command and superiority when dealing with trolls. If he let it slip, he could end up like the carrion in that stone cell.

As the Mage entered the large chamber, one of the three trolls belched. He didn′t know which one. They all looked alike. Eight-feet of lumpy, knotted muscle, with hands the size of shovels hanging past bowed knees. Misshapen heads with faces even their mother didn′t love. They had random patches of hair about their bodies, shoulders, back, ears, noses — everywhere but on top of their heads.

His brothers made the homely Dmitri seem movie idol handsome. The Mage usually tried not to think of them as Dmitri′s half-brothers. If he did, that made them his stepsons. He couldn′t go there.

He intended for Dmitri to have the strength and endurance of a troll and the magic of a mage. Instead, he had the smell of a troll and the strength of a wizard, but no magic. That wasn′t entirely fair, the child had his uses, and the football trophies he won were a nice touch in the library.

The half-brothers constantly mistreated Dmitri. Their dislike was inversely proportional to the affection their mother showered on Dmitri. A frightening creature, she was as big as the largest son was, and meaner.

He shuddered. If the spell he had used to have his way with her had failed…

When he entered the chamber and stalked to the barred cell, the trolls drew away. Good, they still feared him.

He looked through the bars. The Stromgard boy lay in a heap in the middle of the cell, still unconscious.

Snapping his fingers, he waved at the biggest. "Open the door."

As he opened it, the big troll blubbered. "Little brother Dmitri put him on the stairs and called to us. We didn′t go upstairs."

"Good, you better not or you know what happens don′t you?" He fixed him with a look between a sneer and a smile.

The gigantic oaf ducked his head down and up. "Yup, yup."

The Mage held his hand out and wriggled his fingers. "Give me the key." He took the key the troll placed in his hand and walked slowly into the cell. He stopped and nudged the boy with his foot. No reaction. He kicked him and stepped back, still nothing.

Kneeling down, he reached fingers inside the neck of the boy′s shirt and felt for the chain. He found it and pulled on the chain until he saw the sword medallion. Extending a single finger, he slowly moved to touch it, and snapped his hand back. Nothing happened.

His thumb and finger closed on it. It caught when he tried to pull it off. Grasping the boy′s hair, he lifted his head and pulled the chain over. He released the hair and the head smacked on the flagstones. He straightened, tensed to drop the medallion at the slightest danger.

He looked at the trolls. "I stole his magic when he was a baby. This is the last of it. Without this, he′s safe. It will be like guarding a baby."

He peered closely at the medallion cupped in his hand, eyeing the intricate details. With growing confidence, he turned and walked out of the chamber, into the hallway. After two strides down the hallway, a burning pain stabbed at his hand. In fear, he threw the medallion away from him, toward the stairway leading upwards. The medallion landed and slid back toward him, then past, toward the chamber, stopping three feet from the doorway.

Intense pain radiated from his palm. He saw a cruciform shaped blister forming in his palm.

He muttered a spell and gestured at the amulet. It didn′t move. Driven to anger by pain and frustration, he muttered the spell again and gestured toward the chamber beyond. The smallest troll slid across the stone floor through the doorway. He scrambled and scratched at the floor to no avail. He kept sliding until he reached the sword amulet. The Mage′s bared his teeth with a hiss, his magic worked, but not on the medallion.

When the troll stopped, the Mage, cradling his injured hand close, pointed with the other. "Pick it up. Bring it here."

The troll picked up the medallion, stood, and walked toward the Mage. After three paces, he roared, dropped it, and jumped back. The sword amulet slid back toward the chamber and stopped in nearly the same spot, in sight of the boy in the cell.

The troll clutched his hand and whimpered. Tears rolled past the wart next to his nose, through the patch of hair sprouting next to the scar by his mouth, and dripped on the floor.

The Dark Mage said through gritted teeth. "Pick it up again."

The troll stared at it fearfully and then back at the Mage. He looked ready to run.

"Pick . . .  It . . . UP."

The troll stooped to grasp it. With closed eyes, he ducked his head and hunched his shoulders, holding the medallion out to the Mage.

"Does it burn you?"

The troll opened an eye and shook his head.

The Mage turned, stomped down the hall to the stairway, and turned back. He muttered a spell, and gestured again. The troll holding the medallion slid across the floor again. He began roaring as he continued to slide. It turned into a shriek His hand smoked, and burst into flame. He shook his fist, yelped, and unrelentingly slid toward the stairway. Halfway there, he ignited.

The Mage threw an arm across his eyes and dodged into the stairway. Intense fire blackened the stone ceiling and walls for ten feet in every direction.

The troll crumbled into a pile of ash. The medallion slid out of the pile back toward the chamber and stopped again in the same spot.

The Mage stepped out of the stairway, still cradling his hand, walked around the pile of ashes, and picked up a broom leaning against the wall. With his uninjured hand, he swept the sword shaped amulet into the chamber and hurled the broom after it. "Hang it on one of those pegs and then clean up this mess out here," He hissed at the trolls.

He didn′t realize the amulet and the boy′s body were so attuned. He needed to research how to break the bond. Meanwhile iron bars separated the boy from the amulet, with the trolls thrown in for good measure. Even the remaining two trolls were more than effective protection against a boy, especially a boy with a demon guardian to prevent him from practicing magic.

He turned, slammed the door behind him, and climbed the stairway. First, he must relieve the pain in his hand. Perhaps a dragonroot spell.

Sig jerked awake and clutched for his medallion. Gone. He looked around frantically. Eating Italian food in the Game Room formed his last memory. Now he lay on a stone floor surrounded by stone walls and ceiling. The fifth side, incredibly, was floor to ceiling iron bars. It was the dungeon, from Mom′s vision.

An aching feeling of loss had awakened him.

Huge creatures from his nightmares stood on the other side of the bars. They weren′t looking at him; they stared to his right at something out of sight.

A voice hissed, "Pick . . . It . . . UP."

A scrapping sound followed and then a roar that rose to a scream. The feeling of loss intensified. He scrunched his eyes against a flash of light. Smoke billowed, carrying a smell like burnt pork. It gagged him.

What in the world had he gotten into? If this is a dream, he′d never eat three-meat lasagna again. Hell, he′d become a vegan.

The aching feeling of loss decreased. Something shiny flew into the room. The eyes of the creatures from his nightmares followed the arch of the object until it landed on the floor in the middle of the room. He stared at it with them. Aðalbrandr!

Something else followed and landed next to the medallion. A broom? Someone outside the room shouted something he didn′t catch. A moment later, a door slammed.

The creatures moved hesitantly toward Aðalbrandr. Sig stared at them. If they were people, they were the ugliest he had ever seen. They weren′t only ugly; they were huge. From where he sat, they appeared at least seven feet tall. Their oversized heads towered to within less than a foot from the ceiling.

One of the beasts warily pinched the chain between a massive finger and thumb. Holding it away from its body as if afraid it would burn him, he hung it from a peg on the wall opposite Sig′s cell. The other picked up the broom and trudged out of the chamber into the next room, where the flash of light had originated.

Sig stood. He felt weak. His eyes drooped. Maybe he should lie down again.

The hulk that hung the medallion followed the other into the next room. Sig stepped over to the bars and pressed his head against them to see what his captors were doing. They swept something up and dumped it into a trash bag. One slung it over his shoulder and trudged out of sight. The other returned and looked about the chamber and then walked toward Sig, who backed away from the bars.

The brute grabbed the bars and pressed its face against them, looking Sig up and down. The other one lumbered back from his task and joined in looking Sig over.

Sig stood in the middle of the cell. He reached up. The ceiling was much taller than the standard eight feet. It had to be at least nine feet. That made the monsters well over seven feet, close to eight feet tall. He stepped further back from the bars.

The bigger one wrinkled his nose as if sniffing at Sig. "You beat up Dmitri?"

The creatures looked at each other and brayed like donkeys. Were they laughing?

Their exposed teeth seemed to be carved out of two-by-fours. They were the same yellowish color and grainy.

When they turned their laughter towards him, their breath smelled like a cloud of garbage. He wrinkled his nose and breathed through his mouth.

The smaller one reached toward him through the bars. Sig stepped back again. Its long arm almost reached him.

"You little shit, you beat up our baby brother? Dmitri is useless, but beat up by a midget? Never live this down. Even Momma be 'shamed."

"Dmitri is your brother?"

"Half brother. His daddy just left."

"I didn′t see him. Who is he?"

The big one′s eyes darted about. He hesitated and then said, "The Dark Mage, our Master. Momma′s boyfriend."

Sig tried not to imagine what their mother looked like. "Why am I here?"

They looked at each other and shrugged. "The Master wants you here. He said you safe. He already took your magic away, long time ago when you were baby boy."

"How did he take my magic?"

They shrugged. "He made magic spell?" Clearly, they weren′t the brains of the outfit.

"What are you going to do with me?"

"We would eat you, but he won′t let us, only the little girl."