Dragons Shining (13 page)

“Then why must you leave?” asked Tom.

“Because the hunt will not end until I am found or I am killed, even if Kirkland can get rid of this set of hunters. Everyone around me is now in mortal danger. This is real, Tom, as real as it gets. The one who hunts me is the Prince of Darkness himself, Satan’s son Belaros. Belaros has left Hell, and is in our plane. He intends to enslave all peoples of Cotera like he has those men you saw tonight. There are thirteen others like me sent here to help stop him.”

Suzy gasped, but the others were incredulous, not believing him.

“I am tired, and my arm hurts, so I think I will retire. Consider what I have said, for it is the truth. Sleep with your sword this night, Tom. You too, father. Mom, you and Suzy should stay in the center room tonight. If you hear fighting, bar the door.”

With that, Owen went through the halls to his room and closed the door. He really was tired, and his arm really hurt. He made a decision, and began a singsong incantation. First he sealed the room, and then he bit down on a leather glove as he uttered the spell. Sparkles ran down his left forearm into the splint. The broken bones in his arm sealed together, the bruising and lacerations vanished, and the tendons knitted together around the bone. Owen broke out in sweat and groaned, nearly passing out. Then he remembered that he had not eaten anything.

He was very hungry now, so he unsealed the door and went into the Kitchen where Tom was munching on a pair of cold fried chicken legs and a wing. “There is a breast in there, if you want it.”

“Perfect”. It was a nice big chicken breast, just what Owen needed.

“So you aren’t kidding about this Belaros, are you?”

“No, Tom. You know I love it here, and I wish my future would be simple and satisfying here in Fable’s Arch. I have never wanted any more than that.”

“And forty brigands in black armor have changed all of that?”

“Some of those brigands are vampires, Tom.”

Tom choked on his Chicken. “Who told you that?”

“The wizard Albrite. We spoke to each other in our minds.”

“So you really are a wizard?”

Owen recited a short spell in his mind, and Tom’s chicken suddenly warmed to the touch, and his too. “It’s better warm, huh?”

Tom nearly dropped his chicken leg, but not quite. He took another bite.

“Hey that’s handy”, said Tom after swallowing. After thinking for a moment, he said, “I guess you could cook someone like that, huh.”

“Uh huh. Nasty way to die, eck.” Owen had been taught a thousand ways to kill, except the idea of actually doing it made him queasy.

“Well I don’t think you should go, no matter what, Owen. We need you here, and if you can help defend the town then that’s all the better! Why go off and leave your friends. You know we will all stand by you.”

“I detest the thought of fighting and killing, Tom. But I would kill ten thousand soulless men and orcs before I would see this town destroyed because of me. I am not yet strong enough, but I swear to you my brother, if Fable’s Arch comes under the demon’s hammer I will return with all the might of the Dragons to defend it.”

“Dragons?”

“You haven’t heard have you, then? Of course you haven’t. I am to be the new Dragon King.”

Owen went back to his room and removed the splint. “No sense pretending anymore”, he thought. He pulled his sword and bow from under the bed and fell asleep with his sword and sheath under his arm.

Owen was ripped form his dreams of vampires and blood by a monstrous roar, swords clashing and the shouts of men. He felt the house shudder as he bolted down the hall with his sword held at the ready. He met Tom on the way and they entered the living room shoulder to shoulder.

There he saw the nightmare of his father going down under the fangs of a large vampire with blood read eyes. The thing had his father’s sword through its chest but was not affected by it. It sunk it’s fangs into his father’s neck, but coughed up blood as Owen’s sword punched through its brain. Owen saw another dark form, three of them in the room. One swung at Owen with a black sword, and Tom took the blow on his sword. That vampire and Tom went after each other as Owen drew his sword out of one vampire and met two lightning attacks by the other two. He could barely block their blows, and the vampire he thought he had killed was wobbling back to its feet.

“This is too much”, he thought. Owen spoke words that could not be heard but only felt, and
pushed
one of the vampires through the wall onto the porch in a shower of glass and splinters. Owen could hear fighting outside, shouts and the vicious growls of some angry beast.

Owen parried the vampire, dodged a feeble swing from the brainless vampire. He knocked the healthy one’s sword aside with a double handed blow, then spun with lightning speed, and it’s head flew and bounced against the wall. A surge of power entered Owen as he absorbed the dead vampire’s life energy.

Tom was falling, having been stabbed through his right shoulder by one of the elf vampire’s dual blades. The elf vampire raised his other blade to end Tom, and did not see Owen’s sword whistling in from behind. A second vampire head flew bouncing into the hall, and he heard Angie scream. More power flowed into Owen’s rage.

The wounded vampire took another feeble swing at Owen, and lost its head for its trouble. Owen glanced back to see Angie batting a vampire’s head out of the hall with a bat. He was almost giddy with power from the dead vampires.

He ran through the hole in the wall where the window had been, expecting more vicious fighting, to find Gander standing there with dark, dismembered forms all around him. There were some heads scattered about. The ‘horse’ was panting and a nimbus blue light played around its form. The glamour was gone from him, and he stood there in all of his peculiar, deadly beauty.

Ender and Purdy kneeled back to back, heaving and panting, resting on their bloody weapons.

Owen counted a total of four dead vampires and nine dead ‘men’. Blake and Akron were dead, and Karl was sorely wounded.

Owen dragged one of the mortally wounded soulless over and knelt by Karl. He had a pike through his chest and was pinned to the ground. Owen uttered words and snapped the pike above Karl’s chest. More words that could only be felt, and the pike turned to blood while the soulless corpse shriveled. The blood washed over Karl’s chest onto the ground and hissed into smoking steam. Owen lifted him and carried him over to the porch speaking words of power. Karl writhed and moaned, but then was silent as Owen laid him on the bench.

Tom had stumbled out on the porch and saw this whole procedure. He watched, stunned, as Karl drew a deep breath and sighed. The wound in his chest was gone, leaving only a ripped mail breastplate, which Owen had removed. Owen looked up at him and Tom caught a glimpse of something deep and powerful, beyond anything human. He shivered, remembering the words “Dragon King”.

“It’s still just me, Tom.” He walked over to Tom, placed his hand under Tom’s shirt, and
spoke.

Tom felt his flesh crawl, his muscles and tendons weave together, and the tissues, veins and arteries crawling back together. He started to jerk, but Owen held him with a grip of iron. Tom screamed in pain, and then it was suddenly gone.

Owen let go and went inside to tend his father. He still had an excess of power burning through his veins after healing his father, while Suzy and Angie watched in awe. He had drawn the vampire’s poison and flung it burning into the fireplace. “Their blood is poison. Try not to get it on you. Burn them.” He dragged the dead vampires and their heads out into the yard.

“Ender, Purdy, will you ride with me? I am worried about Baird and Heath, and your other men.”

The two guardsmen had recovered their breath. “Is Karl going to be ok?” asked Purdy.

“Yes, I was able to get to him before he died. He will be fine in a day or so.”

“Just like Jason healed Rolph”, said Ender. “Yes. I will ride with you, Owen, and that reaper of yours”, he said, motioning toward Gander.

“Me too”, said Purdy.

“Oh that reminds me”. Owen walked over to Gander and put the glamour back on. Gander woofed and shook his head. “
No sense scaring people in town, boy. I will take it off when we leave.
”

The three saddled up and galloped toward Fable’s Arch. Owen had his sword on his back and his bow on the saddle.

They galloped through the edge of town and down the lane to Baird’s cabin.

“By the Maker”, exclaimed Purdy. There were burned and exploded bodies and parts everywhere. The porch was covered with blood and dead men in black. The main force had struck here.

Owen heard groans from inside. They dismounted and ran into the cabin with swords drawn, but nothing lived inside except bloody and broken Baird. Dafford was dead and lying across Baird. His last act had been to save the Wizard from instant death. Dafford’s sword was still imbedded in the last vampire’s severed head.

Owen knelt by his dying master, ready to heal him at any cost. “
No, Owen. This is too much for you. I am over 10,000 years old, and not readily healed. Listen to me. Take the Ring.”

Owen took the large Emerald ring from Baird’s finger.
“Place the Ring on the third finger of your left hand.”

When Owen had done so, Baird shivered and died. As he died, a bright green spirit rose from his body and was sucked into the Emerald ring. The ring glowed with pulsing power, and then dimmed as if covered by a veil.

“Yes, Master. I remember. If I can find one of the soulless alive, I will do it then.”

“Good luck then. Look into the red chest in my bedroom. I have gifts for you there. The swords are Elven, made by the greatest mage of all time, an elf who transmuted by his own volition long before I was born. The elves gift these to you, gifts beyond any price, for as long as you wish to keep them in the Maker’s service.”

As Owen made his way over corpses into Baird’s bedroom he asked,
“transmuted?”

“Yes, he is the Elves guardian. He is the one who controls the walls of magic around the Elven heartlands. None can pass without his consent, or face the wrath of one with all the power of an angel.”

Owen opened the red chest and saw the most exquisite two star metal swords lying upon jewel studded, dried blood colored star metal sheaths. The golden sword blades were covered with red runes that seemed to crawl upon them. There was a widening of the long, thin blades at their base, just before the grip. The barest of golden guard flared so as to catch an opponent’s sliding blade. The grips looked they were covered with Wyrm skin, black as soot. Large red rubies were fixed into the golden pommels of the swords.

Owen lifted one from the chest and marveled at its balance and weight, He picked up a light cloth from Baird’s dresser and dropped it upon the blade edge. The cloth was severed and floated to the floor in two pieces. He quickly extracted the swords and the shoulder harness that held the sword sheaths.
“I bet these are much stronger than steel.”

“Yes, Owen. They are one hundred percent ensorcelled star metal, and will adapt to you as you grow. These and armor to match were gifted to the Dragon King ages ago. Kragon returned the swords when he acquired Soul Taker, his own alteration of the Elven master’s hand and one half gift.”

“They are beautiful, and with perfect balance”
.

Owen arranged his hand and one half sword to hang on his back along with the two Elven swords. Dafford had trained him to use double swords as well as single, and there were situations better for one than the other.

When Owen exited the bedroom, Ender whistled. “Let me see the swords. Look at the runes, are they are moving?”