Excerpt II

Fergus III

   The two men crawl back through the tight space into the stone corridor. The two Fergus had killed lay trampled on the ground . A muffled voice echoes to their eyes.

   “Sounds like Olrich is making a speech.” Piato says softly.

   The pair press themselves against the corridor’s walland slink silently back into the chamber, careful not to be seen. As they pass along the outer edges along the chamber’s walls Olrich comes in to view upon the overhang overlooking the dragon.

    “Now! Now is the time!” Olrich declares to the crowd of hooded figures below him. “We’ve bided our time long enough! For months we have scurried in the shadows, most of you living in this very cave! Well tonight we fulfil the final stage of our scheme! Bring forth the offering!”

    His hands shoot open fist into the air, his fingers stiff and together. A woman, no older than 20 summers, is forcibly dragged to the end of the long narrow overhang. Her heels dragging on the harsh stone ground as she struggled to resist her relocation. The woman’s dirty blonde hair clung to her forehead drenched in sweat, her skin shiny and slick.

   Terror was etched upon her face. She wailed and struggled as the men either side of her grip her arms. Her hands and feet are bound together. Alvrid and Piato look on in horror. They increase their pace and Piato finds a foothold, allowing them to climb unseen to the level above. As Piato climbs Fergus checks their backs and sees Alvrid’s lifeless body lying motionless on the ground at the foot of the mound of gold coins. He is saddened by this and loses focus.

   “Ferg!” Piato whispers sharply, snapping him from his forlornness. He stretches out his hand and Fergus grabs a hold, being helped up. Fergus looks Piato in the eye.

   “I’m going to kill them all.” he says. Piato nods without a smile.

   The young woman is lay on the ground directly over the dragon. Her restrainers hold her feet and hands respectively, the latter being held above her head.

   “Please!” she screams. “I’ll give you anything!” she writes in futility as her captors watch solemnly. Olrich kneels beside her and holds his hands, palms down, over the woman.

   “Obscured one! We beseech thine majesty!” he calls. The crowd of hooded men started to chant loudly. The asynchronous polyphony filled the chamber, making Fergus’s ears vibrate and tickle.

   “Accept this offering, black one!” Olrich continues. “And bless this husk with your presence again! I am your conduit!” the small twisted man is handed a dagger. Clearly ceremonial, Fergus thought. The blade to elaborate to be any good in a fight. The hilt and pommel was made of a single piece of red stone, the latter carved to look like the face of a snarling demon. Deep elaborate engravings were carved all along the thick hilt, Olrich’s fingers struggling to reach all the way around it.

   “‘Sbrydion anllad! Der ymlaen!” Olrich slams the dagger into the woman’s sternum and then drove it deeper still using his bodyweight, a splash of thick dark blood hit his face. He let out a vicious grunt and his face was alight with wicked glee. The woman coils inward and shrills. Fergus had never heard such a cry from a woman. It reminded him of poor Jinny. He imagined her helpless and injured. Was this some other’s lady love, he wondered.  She wheezes hard for air, trying to roll to her side to protect her wound. Tears roll down her face as she pleads again, her words barely intelligible. Olrich and his two minions hold her in place, Blood fills her mouth and soon she is sputtering but grunts and gasps.

   “Cythreuliaid anghofiedig! Clyw fy gorchmynion!” Olrich lets loose the hilt of the dagger, lifting his hands again. The chamber is filled by wild gales, blasting in from each entrance. Now only twenty feet behind the ceremony, A chilling dread overwhelms Fergus. He watches on as the deafening cheers and chants create a wall of sound, paralyzing his mind.

   Piato charges passed his frozen comrade, driving his shortsword into the armpit of a hooded figure. He screamed like the young woman, Fergus thought snapping from his haze. Piato spins backwards, driving his blade under the chin of his previous victim’s alerted neighbour. Another hooded man swings his club into the chest of Piato sending him to his back, his cushioned doublet absorbing most of the force.

   Olrich looks behind him and shrieks an inhuman sound, like that of an angered hawk. The burly men holding the limp young woman stand and clamber towards Piato and Fergus. A hooded man stands above Piato and raises a filthy cleaver high before slamming it downwards. Piato moves his head but too slowly, the rusted blade separating his right ear from his head. He wails in agony and Fergus drives his axe into the back of his companion’s maimer.

   Fergus kicks the man away and draws his sword-breaker in his off hand. Without checking on Piato he begins to swing his axe in a berserker rage. The remaining hooded men on this level try to plunge their blades into his belly and ribs but are deflected by his breastplate, leaving them open to being cut down. He chops upwards into a club heading for his head, dragging the hapless attacker onto his notched blade. He rakes it out of the gurgling man and abandons his axe, stuck in the club.

   SHUNT

   Something powerful blows him backwards. Fergus sees one of the burly men heading towards him, drawing a mace from his belt. As the disfigured behemoth drives his weapon into the ground Fergus rolls aside and scrambles to his feet. He falters and is push kicked onto his face. The burly man drives his mace down again, this time finding its target. The blow dents his armour and rattles his bones. He looks to the side and sees Piato clutching the side of his head, shortsword drawn and pointed to the other burly man as he limps backwards. Another blow crashes onto Fergus, this time to his helmet.

   The crowd of hooded people on the lower level watch on as Olrich and the young woman’s corpse are bathed in a chartreuse light, glowing down from the opening in the chamber’s ceiling. As Olrich continues to call profanities and forgotten words into the ether the dragon begins to stir. The sliding of coins and golden pots rolling down the mound of wealth drew everyone’s attention. Piato is knocked upon the other side of his head in his distraction and left slumped against a wall. The two burly men turn and then kneel toward Orlich.

   “Boed i'r ŵyl waed hon roi ffafr i mi! Gwelwch fi yn gyfartal, Tadau Dinistr!” The twisted man stands and his cloak dances in the powerful winds filling the chamber. He turns to face the fallen mercenaries. The burly men drag them to Olrich.

   “Do you see know? Resistance is death and I am the lord of death.” Olrich says, his voice strange and disturbing as if another spoke through him. He faces the edge again, “Dewch, asiant aileni!”

    The chamber falls silent momentarily before the legs of the dragon lift and find their feet. It’s movement is janky and clumsy and unnatural, like that of a marionette. Suddenly, Fergus catches faint stirs in the golden coins. He sees Alvrid, running up the mound, clutching his side. As the dragon lifts his head he leaps with all his might and grasps the hilt of his beloved sword, still wedged in its neck.

   The dragon roars at the battered mercenaries and lingers with a deathly gaze before climbing like a lizard towards the hole in the chamber’s ceiling. It squeezes through and the loud flaps of its wings are heard as it flies off.

   Olrich then walks past Alvrid and Piato, addressing the burly men. “I must return to the city at once to dispatch of the dragon and ensure the king sees me doing it. Burn these two.” his eyes gleaming the same chartreuse as the light earlier.

   The dark messiah turns to leave and in that moment a loud boom filled cavern, the ground shaking and segments of the walls breaking away and falling. The crowd of hooded people began to scatter and shriek as many are crushed below large boulders from the caving in ceiling. They trample and shove each other trying to reach the exits but they collapse, crushing several and trapping the rest.

   In this chaos Fergus rips the mace from the hand of the burly man beside him and swings it for his exposed face. The abomination’s skull cracks and flexes inward, held together by the skin on his face. He reaches to grab Fergus about the throat but he drives the knobbled pommel of the mace into the wretched man’s remaining eye, spraying hot blood onto his face and into his mouth. The clamoring wretch drops to his knees, Thick stinking blood oozing from his face onto the ground. Fergus finishes him off with a mighty blow downward to the back of his head. The burly man jerks and slumps to the ground. The second burly man charges Fergus as he is unaware, tackling him to the ground. As he horrid man pressed him into the ground he screamed in his face like a wild beast, smashing his head onto the ground. In that instant, A large rock falls upon the assailant’s head, killing him instantly and trapping Fergus beneath the combined heft. Piato wearily gets to his feet and leaps into the boulder trapping Fergus, freeing him to shove the burly man’s corpse from him.

   They both stand, weaponless. Olrich raises his hands and charges a bright aura between them, coiling his arms back as if getting ready to throw it. Both mercenaries start charging towards him, Piato taking the lead. As Olrich throws the aura with all his might towards the men Piato stops dead and blocks Fergus’s path, both being blasted backwards.

   Piato lay convulsing on the ground. His violent jerks punctuated by the sound of his jaw snapping open and shut. Fergus looked on in horror as the chamber collapsed around him, His only remaining companion writhing in agony. Olrich falters and places his hand on the wall, looking weary and exerted by attack. The chartreuse glow in his eye waning.

   “I’ve wasted too much energy on you two!” he exclaims before turning to leave the chamber once more. Fergus thinks to go after him but cannot bring himself to leave Piato. He grabs his fallen brother and throws him onto his shoulders, the poor soul’s convulsions seeming to be stopping.

   He follows Olrich along the corridors, both being slowed by falling debris.

   “Give it up!” Fergus calls. The pathway opens up into a massive black chamber, a single winding stone walkway leading to either end and demise guaranteed for anyone that was to fall from it. Olrich stops and turns, summoning another bright aura in his hands. Fergus drops Piato to the ground and sprints on strained painful legs. Before Olrich is able to conjure his power Fergus shoves him with a mighty shunt of his shoulder before dropping at the edge of the walkway. He watched Olrich’s chartreuse eyes illuminate his fall, before the bulbous  back of his head collides with the ground below with a wet slap.


* * *

Alvrid VII, The last dragon rider.

    Alvrid winces in pain as he is dragged against the edge of the cave’s ceiling. The dragon’s other-worldly shrieks ring in his ears as a sudden gust of wind hits his face. He opens his eyes to naught but navy skies and incandescent star formations as they climb skyward, White and gold gradients were spattered all upon the sky. The majesty of the nightly heavens had never been witnessed with such reverence, he thought as he clung to his sword’s hilt with white knuckles.

   The dragon levels out, allowing Alvrid to look below. Crude and familiar shapes made up the canvas below him, denoting landmarks and places he recognised. Seemingly oblivious to his presence the dragon flew onward to its destination.

   The gigantic spires of Reign’s End extend to the sky in the distance, almost as high as they were. Seeing the city triggered a determination within him. One hand trembles as it releases the hilt of his sword. Alvrid begins to climb the beast’s neck, snatching onto the dragon’s thick scale-plates, each one as wide as a breastplate and as jagged as the caves wall’s. He drags himself along the neck, pressing himself against it as tightly as he could. The winds were rapid and freezing, whipping him in his raw red face.

   Alvrid unsheathes his mail breaker and uses it as a climbing pick, clawing his way towards it’s head. Alvrid couldn’t help but notice how hollow the beast felt below it’s scales as he placed the blade between each one.

   He reaches the head and pulls himself to sit atop it. Clasping at the solid crest upon the dragons head he was reminded of the lauded men of yore. Noble and brave men stoically charging a dragon’s den, for no reason other than to ensure their children didn’t burn in their beds. Alvrid’s eyes began to well, he was unsure if it was from the icy gales striking his tender face or the pangs in his chest.

   He looks down at the glowing chartreuse eyes of the creature he was riding. He noticed Crosstown burst into life as they passed over head. Like panicked ants being soared over by a bird, he thought. The mercenary realises there isn’t much time and points his short blade to the sky. As he looks to the dragon’s eyes once more to take aim the lidless sockets go dim. Confused Alvrid stabs his sword into the empty orifice, poking it out the other.

   The dragon tilts downwards, it’s wings lull and become dragged by the wind. Alvrid sees they are heading straight for the city’s walls. He grips at the dragon’s head tightly, bracing himself and closing his eyes. He takes a long hard breath inwards through his nose and hears the increasing volume of the screaming people below. The rush of wind in his ears grows in intensity and his fingers feel as though they are being wrenched from their grip before a sudden crash. Stone cracked in his ears and then he sensed nothing.