The Gems of Raga-Tor (Elemental Legends Book 1) (33 page)

With a quick glance at her pursuer, her palette securely in hand, the girl dashed off again. The tree trunk hissed and a small spot of mystical blue light glowed brightly against the dull bark. It grew rapidly until it spilled out onto the forest floor where it formed a beast of incredible size and apparent strength.

Eris pulled up mid-stride as sorcerous terror streaked though his heart as fast as the apparition blocked the path before him.

Whether it was demon-spawn, illusion, or something else entirely, he didn't know. The one thing he did know was that it stood in his way and was not going to let him pass.

The creature, which seemed nothing more than a mass of glowing blue light, towered over him and snarled, revealing white fangs. It stood on two massive, bowed legs and its four arms swung a pair of swords and a pair of battle-axes.

Eris swallowed hard. How could he ascertain if it was an apparition, or a thing with substance? If it had substance, he was going to be greatly overpowered. He drew his sword slowly and glanced over his shoulder when he heard Raga catching up to him.

The beast turned its head and growled at Raga. Its huge shoulders shrugged and one arm waved a blue sword at him.

“Raga, what is it?” Eris shouted as he clutched his sword in one hand and the silver dagger in the other.

“I don’t know. Just kill it. The girl is getting away,” Raga shouted back as he stopped some distance from the beast. This form of magic that he had never seen before intrigued him.

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re damned incompetent, sorcerer,” Eris shouted, angrily, and took a step backward. He didn’t like the look of those four weapons swinging in his direction. One sword whistled as it went by telling him that if the beast didn’t have substance before, it did now.

The creature, still somewhat translucent, advanced on him. Eris ducked beneath the arc of an ax and raised his sword to fend off a strike by the following sword. The blue-light weapon passed through his sword and nicked him on the shoulder. A pulse of sizzling energy raced down his arm. His hand trembled from the strange power and nearly caused him to drop his sword.

“Now is not the time to play the fool! Help me!” Eris shouted to Raga and rolled away from the sweep of the opposite ax. His back swing passed through one massive thigh unstopped by either flesh or bone.

“It’s not Red Vale sorcery,” Raga said.

“Just what does that mean?”

With a sudden roar that shook the ground, the beast leaped toward Eris’ escaping form. Its thick, blue tongue licked at its sharp, slavering fangs. Drops of spittle fell on the snow turning it into spouts of hissing steam.

“Not everything is elemental magic. It’s an aberration, like Morengoth. Like…like her.”

“Then make a fireball…something,” Eris shouted as he dove for cover behind a boulder. He fought to control his rising panic. How could he destroy something his sword had no effect on? It galled him that his sword was a useless as Raga.

He peered around the boulder just as Raga sent a fire bolt hurtling toward the beast. He dropped his head to the pommel of the sword in exasperation. The fire did nothing to slow the beast. It only glanced in Raga’s direction.

“Is that the best you can do?”

“I told you, it’s not elemental, and my powers are not what they should be. You’ll have to think of something else.”

“Why me? You’re the sorcerer!”

“Eris, look out!” Raga shouted, but Eris was already scrambling away.

Both axes hurtled down, passed through the boulder and sank deeply into the ground. Wet pine needles exploded in all directions. As the needles fell on his neck and hands, Eris felt latent energy prickle his skin.

The beast roared and swung its broad face around looking for its quarry.

Eris ducked behind another rock and considered the information he had. Steel and rock didn’t slow the beast, but it had made all-too-real contact with his flesh. He glanced at his shoulder and saw that the wound, though bloody and oozing at the edges, had been neatly cauterized. The energy-propelled pine needles made red prick marks on his skin.

A thought came to him. Rock and steel weren’t alive as he was and a bold plan took shape. He needed a very large tree. If Raga wasn’t going to help, then he was once again at the mercy of his own ideas, which, up until now had saved his skin more than once. He had to act fast before the fear grinding in his gut ate away his resolve.

He quickly surveyed the surrounding area and picked out the biggest tree. Gripping his sword tightly, teeth clenched, he ran from his hiding place toward the tree. The creature roared and bore down on him. The earth trembled with its heavy footfalls. It drew both axes drew back preparing to strike as the swords circled ominously. It prepared to cleave the puny man in two with one massive stroke.

“Eris, what are you doing? You can’t kill it with a sword,” Raga shouted, but he ignored him. It took all of his courage, his resolve to stand his ground in front of the tree and not run in terror. He made a mock parry with his sword and hoped his assumptions were correct. His breathing was quick and shallow, but his eyes remained steadily focused on the movements of the four blue weapons.

Slowly, pretending to be trapped, Eris backed toward the tree. The beast growled in satisfaction. It gave a mighty roar and brought both axes to bear. At the last possible moment, Eris dove and rolled to the left over the arc of the ax, but beneath the sword’s slower strike. He lay flat on the ground and raised his head to watch the result and hoped his reasoning was correct. If not, it was going to be a long day.

With a resounding thud, the axes sank deeply into the tree. The creature's furious bellow was cut short. A moment of silence and then violent hissing as the tree absorbed the full force of its energy. The beast was drawn into the tree's trunk slowly at first, then faster and faster.

A loud pop made Eris look up just in time to see a pinecone forcibly ejected from a branch. Cones exploded off of every branch. The oblong projectiles scattered seeds in every direction as they whistled through the air. The creature’s energy dissipated through every branch and twig and sent down more needle stingers.

Eris covered his head with his arms as the cones slammed into the ground all around him and sent up explosions of snow and mud.

“Ow! Damn!” he grunted, as one of the last cones slammed into his shoulder. He lay still until the sounds of whooshing and thudding ended. Slowly, he lifted his head from the snow and looked cautiously around. He was covered in pine seeds and needles. The beast was gone.

He got to his feet and brushed needles, seeds and mud from his clothing. Not that it mattered much. He was already soaked, muddy and cold from scrambling rock to rock. He walked around the base of the tree now void of cones and great drops of water dripped as its snowy coat was melted away. Two black, burned gashes still smoked on the trunk where the axes struck and all around the snow was pockmarked by the blasted cones.

A writhing blue blob caught his attention. It was all that was left of the creature. Now that he had time for curiosity, he sheathed his sword and knelt beside it. Using the silver dagger, he gave it a little poke and was surprised when it gave a weary, sibilant hiss and withered down into an opaque spot of color, a little patch of paint. This was strange magic indeed. He wondered if the silver blade could have reduced the beast as easily as it did what was left of it.

Thinking of creatures, he wondered just what it was he was chasing to have magic such as this. His eyes scanned the clearing looking for Raga, but couldn’t find him. He reached back to rub his throbbing shoulder and looked down at his leg that continued to bleed.

“Where is that useless sorcerer?” he muttered, untying the green sash from his waist and retying it around his leg. Raga owed him not only for making him ruin his sash, but also for having to use it as a tourniquet bandage in the first place.

“Raga! Where are you?” Eris shouted. No answer. Only a few startled birds squawked and flew away.
To the pits with him
, he thought as he sheathed the silver dagger in his boot. Raga could either find his own way back or stay out in the elements all night. At this point, he didn’t care. What good was it having an elemental sorcerer around if useless was the best he could do?

The late-afternoon shadows lengthened and the forest’s shadows darkened, as did Eris’ mood. He found it harder and slower going to track the girl’s trail as the gray light made every unevenness in the snow appear as a footprint. Any bright glimmer of light through thin branches gave him pause thinking another of her monsters had been unleashed to guard her path. But there was nothing, only silence and shadows. Abruptly, the footprints stopped.

Eris stood at the end of her trail, puzzled. He walked a big circle looking for signs of her passing, but found nothing. He didn’t think the girl could disappear, or she would have done it sooner. He wasn’t even sure if Raga could do that. He squatted down and leaned with his back against a tree trunk to think and listen.

He remembered her wings, but it seemed the trees were too close together for her to be able to fly, nor did he think they were strong enough to lift her weight. She wasn’t very big by any means, but she did have substance as he recalled from the brief moment he held her.

He closed his eyes and let the frenzy of the chase and the fight calm. He let go the wariness of the warrior and felt for the oneness with the nature around him, for the silent, patient form of the hunter. It wasn’t long before he heard faintly, so very faintly, the sound of her weeping. He listened intently. The sound didn’t diminish and he knew she had stopped running. Perhaps now, without the bumbling interference of Raga, he would capture her.

He pulled the white hood of his cloak back over his head and let his acute hearing lead him to her. It was dusk when he reached the edge of a glade glowing with the light of a mystical spectrum. The perimeter was surrounded by a multicolored array of glowing sentinels. Fantastical creatures and strange plants, all very likely as deadly as the blue creature, stood a silent vigil in the cold, gray light.

Eris knew the girl was close, but the sounds she made seemed out of place. They seemed far off, or rather, higher than he expected. His gaze traveled upward into the branches. By the faintest light, he saw a tenuous, nearly camouflaged pathway suspended through the branches. He smiled a tight, confident smile. She was as good as his now, but first he had to rid the glade of a few unwanted guardians.

Quiet as a mountain lynx padding toward its prey, Eris crept to a glowing pink flower that didn’t appear overly vicious. Slowly, he reached out with the silver dagger and touched the flower’s stalk. Like the remains of the blue creature, it let go a sibilant sigh and melted down into a puddle of paint. With the stealth and deadly intent of an assassin, Eris moved around the glade disposing of as many of the artistic guardians as he felt he could without arousing her attention.

Satisfied that he had terminated as many as he dared, he returned to the base of the tree from which he had seen the pathway. He removed the cloak and clenched the silver dagger between his teeth. He squatted, jumped and caught hold of the highest branch possible and easily pulled himself up to a sturdier branch. His dark clothing camouflaged him in the receding light.

He moved easily through the great pines as he had climbed trees such as these in his childhood and felt at home in the fragrant, prickly softness of the needles. He used the suspended path only when he had no other choice, as it seemed incapable of supporting his weight. Closer and closer he came to the girl. She was quiet now, but he knew it wasn’t much farther. A few more cautious steps and he saw her outline against the light burning in her refuge.

Her home was little more than a platform with three walls constructed of branches lashed together. The roof was made of more branches overlain with a thick layer of fibrous marsh grasses and now a thin dusting of snow. She had a pile of moss and pine needles covered with fur that made her bed. Rough planks formed a crude table and she had a log for a chair. A small candle burned on the table and cast its light on a few earthen pots stacked in the corner. On the wall just above her head, Eris spotted the lethal palette hanging on a peg.

Seeing the girl alone, so frightened and vulnerable brought forth Erisa’s scorn and anger from deep in his heart. How dare he think to carry out his cold and calculated plan? The girl had fought bravely, with cunning, and what right did he have to remove her from her home? No! Eris thought fighting furiously with his conscience. This girl meant nothing to him. Like him, she was merely a tool in the grand farce the gods were playing with them all. She would gain for him what he and Raga so desperately sought. In the end, Morengoth, after his fashion, would make her his queen. What more could she ever ask for? The image of himself chained and prostrate before the wealthy and powerful Sultan of Reshan flashed in his memories. What more, he had to ask.

Damn it all!
He pushed a balled fist under his chin and stared for a long time at the prize of his hunt. He had sworn an oath of honor to carry out this task. If anyone should suffer guilt, it should be Morengoth, not him, as he was only doing what the Dragon King could not.

What honor was there in enslaving an innocent to one of greater power, Erisa railed at him. But the cold, steely emotion that was still the greater part of him drowned the indignant words in the calculated formation of a plan.

He edged as close to her as possible before the sturdy branches turned to twigs. He pulled a dagger from one bracer and put the silver dagger into the empty sheath. With careful aim, he hurled the dagger directly into the center of the palette. The palette split and clattered to the floor.

The girl screamed in terror and Eris leapt. He landed solidly on the platform next to her. His arms encircled her, pinning her arms tightly to her body, and he lifted her from the log. Beneath his feet he felt movement as the floor groaned and cracked loudly.