The Dragon Knight's Curse (The Dragon Knight Series Book 2) (15 page)

The day before the fancy dinner, a vibrating house jostled me awake. I had a late training session the night before, but the pounding mirth coming from downstairs meant I wasn’t going to experience a full morning’s rest. Going down to the lowest floor had me smelling the various dishes some of the pirates had heated up in the kitchen.

Walking within sight of the dining hall had me spotting the little princess Elisa, the ever wary Bell, and my business partner sitting among my usual group. The princesses’ refined garbs marked them as ladies of import, but their jubilant manner blended well with the rambunctious swashbucklers. Most of the current laughing and witticisms originated from the fearless Elisa trying to strictly instruct the uncouth pirates on table manners.

Lucetta was the first to spot me. Possibly afraid I was going to stand there the whole time, she pulled me into the merry fray. I was at first genuinely depressed that I wouldn’t be able to add to what everyone else seemed so naturally good at—even Ghevont was unintentionally funny—but Clarissa helped force out some form of amusement from me.

“Tell one of your jokes, Mercer!”

The entire table suddenly became silent, the only sound being their necks pivoting so that their eyes fell on me. I marked this instance as the first state of embarrassment I had ever felt. I reminded myself that I had slain worse things than humiliation and said, “What does the sign of an out-of-business brothel say? Beat it, we’re closed.”

The bawling laughter tickled my eardrums. It arose from the fact that I told a joke at all rather than the stupid joke itself, but I felt encouraged enough to say a couple more, including one about sagging breasts being mistaken for nuts. Odet didn’t seem to be all that perturbed about her younger sister hearing these inappropriate one-liners. Anyway, seeing Elisa’s scrunched face made me think that most of the jokes had gone over her head, so there was little harm done to the pristine mind.

There came a point when the single collection began fragmenting into smaller ones and intermingled with the others. When Odet’s cluster walked into mine, she and I broke into our own group.

“I thought you’d still be with Owen,” I said.

“I was, but he requested some time alone. It’s odd, with his father under suspicion, he’s become the effective head of his family. It’s an unexpected pressure.”

“Have you told him your part in this?”

“That be a little overwhelming at this point.”

“So he believes his mother could still be innocent in all this?”

“I didn’t want him having too much false hope, so I told him I knew the evidence was damning. Of course, as any son would, he still hopes it was all one big misunderstanding.”

“At this point, I wouldn’t mind if this all turned into one big misunderstanding, too.”

My unrealistic desire for such a notion held even less water when the air and ground rumbled around us twenty minutes later. Seconds after that and snarling animalistic screeches and booming roars came from every direction. Human screams and detonations of spells erupted in the near distance.

I told Ghevont to keep hidden with Marcela in the deepest part of the home. The older princess instructed her sister and Bell to stay with the scholar as well. Bell protested the idea of Odet leaving, but the royal wouldn’t hear of it. She needed to get back to the palace.

Lorcan reassured the bodyguard, saying, “Your lady is now an honorary member of my crew! And we defend our own with our lives. She won’t get a scratch with us around!”

Before we left, Bell had Odet put on her oversized leather cuirass over the princess’ unarmored torso, since the only defensive items she wore were her tall leather boots and the leather gauntlets hiding under her jade sleeves. We then ran to the stables to get on our anxious horses.

Going under the clear blue skies also cleared up some questions as to who are enemies were. A large shadow swooped far above us, heading directly for the large crystal spire topping the highest palace tower. The blocker of sunlight was only a blurry silhouette that looked a bit like a thin spider with four furry wings, but this was enough for Aranath to identify it.

As the creature dove toward the palace walls, firing a greenish electric flare from its mouth, Aranath said, “That’s a bazeeba. An eidolon.”

After telling Odet this, she saddled her horse and said, “That’s one of the eidolons involved in the valkrean abductions… Gods, is that what the Advent were doing all along? Gathering valkrean to use their eidolons in this attack?”

“But shouldn’t that be impossible?” asked Clarissa. “Eidolons only follow a valkrean’s orders.”

“But we already know the Advent can control people using corruption,” Athan pointed out. “We fought some.”

Looking at me, Clarissa said, “So they experimented with corruption to control valkrean? But why? I thought they wanted to raise a dead god, not attack a nation.”

Instead of answering the vampire, Odet snapped the reins of her horse and steered him in the direction of her home. The princess knew the answer, as did I. The Advent were indeed still interested in obtaining power, and Odet’s family had a link to one of the most powerful known eidolons in any realm. The Advent were after her mother.

Our horses charged the streets, their riders pushing them to reach the palace gates as fast as their hooves could go. I saw several more winged eidolons nosediving over Western Ecrin, two of them joining the bazeeba in its attack of the palace grounds. They indiscriminately fired caustic spells on anything that moved. The oscillating impacts created shockwaves felt as far as Voreen. Human incantations from below tried bringing them down, but they were either too slow to hit the swift creatures or the hardy eidolons simply brushed off the attacks.

A ground-based eidolon was easy to spot a thousand feet behind us. It looked like a walking hill that stood twice as tall as the community of manors surrounding it. Four think legs of stony skin supported a tortoise-like frame. Its small, spikey head didn’t appear to offer much in the way of facial features, but as we moved farther away from it, it was too difficult to know if it had any face at all.

Going by the outbursts of chaos that thumped the ground and quaked the sky, there must have been more summoned beasts wreaking havoc across the city, but they were not within sight.

When our stamping herd entered a hundred yard clearing of grass that separated the palace’s outer wall from the nearest neighborhood, another stony eidolon crossed into view. It appeared to be heftier and taller than the last, and it used that bulk to push against the first barrier in the way. The eighty foot wall and the enchanted metal gates it encompassed held firm for now, but large cracks were already forming where the beast had slammed into it. Guardsmen shot arrows and spells from higher up, but its hard skin-shell shrugged them off like it would raindrops. The defenders also couldn’t concentrate their fire as much as they wanted to due to the eidolons above, who would decimate a line of soldiers with a single attack if they didn’t evade it or create a ward spell quickly enough.

Down below, some sixty soldiers who wished to attack the massive eidolon’s stumpy feet had to contend with about four dozen hound-sized, lizard-like animals, though their glossy skin looked more like silvery fish scales. They darted with great speed and their bulging eyes would target a soldier or horsemen before spraying a yellow goo at them. This sludge would either blind someone or stick their feet to the ground, making them easy targets for the lizard-fish to bite down on head or limb with their needle-like teeth.

Through the bedlam happening on all levels, what caught my attention the most was seeing who stood directly underneath the giant eidolon. I would have initially missed him were it not for the sharp streams of flame he blared out at any soldier who managed to get within his wide range. His fire-wreathed halberd was all I needed to see to confirm his identity, but his long white hair and nimble movements likewise reminded me of the Advent cultist from the Qutrios attack.

Three of the lizard-fish saw the newcomers and began to fire their sticky spit at us, but Odet cast her crystal shield over a wide area to prevent it from catching anyone. Proving his worth as a captain of men, sea or not, my father barked a few succinct orders that sent his crew flanking the princess’ faster horse. The pirate crew next spread outward from the main assembly to make certain no foe reached the center squad, which consisted of Odet, Clarissa, Lorcan, Lucetta, and I. This strategy created a hole in the battleground for us.

Seeing our intrusion had the Advent fearlessly dash up to my group. A spinning line of his fire impacted Odet’s shield. She resisted it for a moment, but the heat was far too powerful to withstand for long. Her crystalized ward shattered, startling her horse enough to make it rear up. She slipped off the animal and let it go its own way. Knowing I was no horsemen made me do the same. The next thing I saw was a wall of fire. Like a waterfall breaking on a boulder of glass, Odet’s recast shield diverted the infernal blitz. The giant eidolon next made a noise that sounded much like a dying whale and crashed its enormity against the wall, sending debris and a handful of soldiers tumbling to the ground.

When glare and bellowing subsided, I saw the Advent stop fifteen feet away from us and give the princess a little bow. “Your highness, it will be honor to be the one that kills you.” He gave a glance to the three horsemen flanking him. “But it appears I am outnumbered once again! Why do you always surround yourself with such scary friends? I know! Does one of you want to join my side?” Then, looking at me, he asked with grave seriousness, “How about yourself? Your corruption will fit well with us.”

Aranath growled. “How does he sense your corruption?”

I didn’t get the chance to ask. Lorcan used a swing of his sword to propel a slash of air at the Advent, which he proceeded to seamlessly counter with a flame that burst forth from the pole end of his weapon. The explosion of dusty smoke hid him from everyone but the princess and I. He used the debilitating cloud to sprint, not to Odet, but straight at me. I expected to dodge blasts of fire, but he focused on pure speed. The halberd’s tip clashed onto a defensive Aranath, and before I had a real chance to deflect his next swing, his weapon’s staff swung and struck my ribs, sending me to the ground. I barely rolled out of the way from a downswing. His sheer speed and mastery over his weapon made him little more than a haze to me.

Not wanting to hit me with an errant spell or knife, Lorcan and Lucetta dismounted their horses and tried coming to my aid. Strangely, the Advent used a steady stream of combustion spells to keep them and everyone else back so that he could continue to focus his heatless strikes on me. At one point, when my father came close to adding his blade with my own, one of the fish-lizards mindlessly closed in on him. His wife’s warning had him escape some incoming spit. Clarissa used a ball of water to trip up the beast enough to allow Lucetta’s scimitar to pierce its flat head.

It was at this instant that the Advent struck the ground with his halberd, causing an opaque smoke to overwhelm us. I recognized the action from my first meeting and was prepared to counter it. I summoned a pile of explosive stones and triggered them. The blast wave pushed away the smoke in time for me to see his smiling face rushing at me. I used my slashing sword to push away the halberd’s spike, but the axe part gave me a nice gash in my lower ribs. However, the halberd was not his main weapon this time.

The Advent clutched a new weapon he had obtained from somewhere within his cloak—a glass-like dagger that carried a familiar dark purple hue. He lunged this knife at my open chest. I saw Odet’s shield form in front of me, and while it slowed it some, it wasn’t yet strong enough to stop the dagger from making a wound deep enough in my chest for it to stick to. The Advent leapt backward, looking quite satisfied with himself. He turned away from me and made his way to my father.

I was confused at his sudden disinterest from me, but as I went to pull away the crystalline dagger, a surge of acquainted pain clenched every muscle and nerve in my head. It was as though each of my teeth ruptured at the same time and now someone was pulling out my tongue with their bare hands. I think I screamed, but I didn’t hear it. I may have shed blood from my eyes, but I didn’t feel it. All I sensed was the dagger adding new corruption to my soul, using my blood as its link.

My sight blurred as another tortured convulsion constricted my stomach and forced me to expel vomit and humanity. The corruption’s takeover was quick, for I already recognized a sick form of pleasure coming from the agony. I overheard Odet yell a muffled form of my name, the name I gave myself when I thought I had freed myself from my oppressors. If her voice was the last sensible sound I ever heard, then I suppose there were worse ways to go.

Odet

I hardly saw it through the smoldering dust, but something dark glimmered in the Advent’s hand. Assuming it to mean nothing but misfortune, I cast my shield in front of Mercer. The Advent was too quick for me to completely fabricate the singular ward, but it slowed his thrust. The Advent, however, still had the strength to stick it in his right shoulder. I dispelled the ward and expected the relentless enemy keep up his assault, but he instead hurdled backward and turned his attention to Mercer’s father.

As I tried gaining a new bearing on my surroundings, somebody howled in heartbreaking pain. I knew it had come from his direction, but I couldn’t believe that spectral sound came from Mercer. When my eyes went to confirm what my ears heard, they saw Mercer’s body twitching and his mouth expel a bloody mix of yellowish bile and half-digested food.

“Mercer! What’s wrong?! Mercer!”

I started running up to him, but stopped when every hair on my body crawled in the opposite direction. A perceptible shift in the air’s weight fell over me when it became thicker with a foulness I did not recognize. Mercer’s jerking body then became entirely still, as though he had died standing at his feet. I couldn’t help thinking this was indeed the case. A signal of life expressed itself when he took a deep inhale, but another sign that contradicted both sacred life and warm weather came out of him when a frosty mist left his lips.

As I cast my shield in front of me, I said, “Mercer?”

He responded like a rabid animal who had heard his prey whimper. The blood vessels around his eyes were pronounced and dark, and a tear of blood had slithered down his cheek. He transformed into a wild blur as he came at me with speed equal to that of the Advent. I had the time to make my shield as strong as my skill could make it, but his blade carved through it as easily as a fine drape. I was still far away enough to avoid its slash and the next, but each wild swing cut the distance more and more.

He was quick, but his senselessness made him somewhat predictable, giving me a small opening to unsheathe the long knife I had tucked within my boot’s shaft. I used it to repel a swing, but my body’s bones quivered violently from the impact. When I raised my knife for another deflection, the next swing knocked it out of my hand. The corrupted Mercer then slammed his body into mine, getting me flat on my back and pinning my legs under his own as he sat up.

Just before he slammed the point of his sword down, Mercer’s torso and arms became wrapped in water. The envelopment of liquid tried to push him off of me, but I actually felt an outpouring of his dark prana resist Clarissa’s spell. The spiteful prana iced some of the water and gave him the strength to continue bringing down his blade. The best I could do was cast my shield, but the sword’s point pierced through the magical glass effortlessly. I shrank the ward to focus its power around the blade, but all I managed to do was redirect its path from my heart to my left shoulder. Bell’s cuirass provided no resistance at all.

The steel’s point punctured my left shoulder. Despite bracing for it, nothing prepared me for the bitter, raw pain that snapped one of my shoulder’s tendons. I cried out, but an oddly pleasant burning sensation just below my neck dulled the blade’s bite. It took a second to realize it was my grandmother’s crystal. An even stranger sensation occurred from the sword skewering me. A scorching power far different from Mercer’s corruption began intermingling with the crystal. These two influences prevailed over the impression of pain the physical frame of the sword still tried to bring. They churned and flowed in both me and Mercer. I shut my eyes tight.

When I opened them next, a sky of absolute darkness reigned unconditionally. Mercer was no longer above me and no battle was taking place. In fact, nothing was happening around me. The darkness simply continued for a long way. My natural reaction was to think myself blind, but when I turned my head far enough, a kind of horizon with a soft red glow eventually appeared. Despite it being too far away to provide any real illumination to my unnatural expanse, it still made me feel better.

My teeth unconsciously chattered when my brain realized I was someplace very cold. I expected to see my breath in the arctic temperature, but no fog formed. I noticed two other conditions as I tentatively sat up. First, I laid in half an inch of water, water that perhaps should have been frozen in the glacial air. Second, a pinching pain ran up and down my left side from the still open wound the crazed Mercer gave me. I couldn’t tell whether I was bleeding or not.

Fear ran amok in me. Was I dead? Or was I on my way to being corrupted?

Startling me further was a deep, growling voice that asked, “Do you wish to save Mercer?”

I didn’t know where to look. Each word, each letter seemed to come from a different direction. “Y-yes.”

“Behind you, girl.”

I looked to see an unconscious Mercer on his back, the real Mercer, except his body laid deeper in the water than mine had been. Only his face and chest remained clearly visible. The rest of his submerged body rippled with the water. I carefully walked up to him, hoping I too didn’t sink in the deeper water. When I didn’t plummet to his level, I kneeled beside him. He wasn’t breathing.

“How?” I asked the invisible entity.

“The holy prana you carry.”

I took hold of the crystal and snapped it off the necklace. It was glowing with a soft blue light. “I-I can’t really control its power yet.”

“I can aid you in that endeavor, but you must first release it.”

“Who are you?”

“There’s little time, girl. Release it and I can rein in his corruption enough to pull him out of this place. Place the crystal on his chest and begin channeling your prana into it. Do not react when the power is released, for I will manipulate it from there.”

I laid the crystal down and placed my hands over it. It took a moment to calm my anxieties enough to connect to the holy power stored in the crystal, but once I did, I let every emotion in me fade. At that instant, the crystal blinded me with an outpouring of blue light. The voice growled to remind me to not lose my nerve. My eyes were shut, but a gasp of breath lifted my hands and rang my ears.