Claws of the Dragon (5 page)

CHAPTER 11

Leaving Bayzog and Sasha wasn’t easy. It was one of the hardest things Nath had ever done. On foot, he led his horse, a fine dapple-grey steed, toward the exit through the outer walls to the north. Brenwar was with him, leading a small chestnut horse, and Ben walked beside him, sending him off. Facing the stiff winds and some spitting rain, Nath swiped the hair from his eyes and took relief in knowing that Bayzog, Sasha, and Ben would at least be safer in the city than with him.

Ben was seeing him off. “Don’t be so quiet, Dragon. It’s not like you.”

“Aw, you’re making me feel like an old man,” Nath said, smiling at him.

The older warrior raised an eyebrow. “Man, you say?”

“You know what I mean. Sorry, Ben, I’m just worried about Bayzog and Sasha.”

“I’ll be looking after them as best I can.”

They made it through the first line of exterior walls that surrounded the city. A group of workers were making repairs on a busted section of wall.

Brenwar grunted. “I’ve got to get word to Morgdon, keep those walls from being crooked.” He handed Ben a scroll of wax-sealed paper. “This will take care of it.”

“Oh, yes,” Ben said, taking the scroll, “After all, nothing in this world is straight that isn’t dwarven.”

“You got that right.”

Winding through the maze-like formation of walls, they finally emerged. The distant snow-capped mountains of the north lay ahead. Nath wondered if Selene was out there somewhere, and if she was safe.

“I guess this is it, Ben,” Nath said to his friend. “I’d be lying if I said I was glad to leave you here, albeit in safety.”

“I can’t say that I blame you. Of course, even a stone is better company than Brenwar.”

“Don’t you mean a bearded stone?” Nath said.

“Ha ha!” Ben laughed. “Dragon, you know I’d come, and I wish I could, but I made a promise to someone that I wouldn’t leave them.”

“Someone who?”

“I have a new betrothed. Her name is Rebecca.”

“Ben!” Nath said with excitement. “That’s great. Why didn’t you tell me? I’d like to meet her.”

“She’s in Narnum now, and her journey doesn’t bring her back until next week.”

Shaking Ben’s hand, Nath said, “I’m happy for you, Ben. Very happy. It’s not often that a man can find true love. It seems it has struck twice with you. I can tell.”

“Thank you.” Ben unslung his quiver full of arrows and unsnapped Akron from his back. “Here.”

“No, Ben, you keep it. You’ll need it to help defend the city.”

“Dragon, I’ve a feeling that you’ll need it more than me. Besides”—he stuffed the magic bow in Nath’s hand—“it’s always been yours. I was only protecting it while you were gone.”

“It couldn’t have been in better hands,” Nath said, trying to pull it free of Ben’s grip.

The older man held it tight. “Sorry, Dragon,” Ben grimaced. He held the bow firm. “Boy, this just isn’t very easy.” He closed his eyes and with a gasp, he released the bow. Opening his eyes, he said, “That really was as hard as I thought it would be.”

Nath pushed Akron and the quiver back into Ben’s hands. “Farewell, Ben.”

“I’m going to miss you, Dragon.”

Nath climbed onto his horse, and Brenwar did the same.

The dwarf said to Ben, “Well, don’t get all misty for my sake, Ben. Just deliver that letter.”

Ben slapped Brenwar’s horse on its hindquarters and sent it off in a lurch. “Goodbye, Brenwar!”

As Nath rode off, the last thing he heard was Ben’s voice, shouting with cheer from the top of the outer wall. “Dragon! Dragon!”

***

It rained the entire day’s ride north. The harder it rained, the louder Brenwar sang. Black beard soaked with water, he sang one ancient dwarven tune after the other. And the songs weren’t too bad either. They lifted Nath’s spirits.

“You like this, don’t you,” Nath said in a loud voice that carried through the heavy rain.

The dwarf kept on singing.

“You know,” Nath started to say, but he stopped.

No one would hear them coming over the rain. Instead, as the horses clomped through the muddy hillside they climbed, he held his tongue.

Let Brenwar be happy. He deserves to be.

Brenwar stopped singing. “What? Did you say something?”

“I said, do you think you could sing something in Elvish?”

Brenwar wrung water out of his beard, shook his thick head, and started singing in Dwarven again.

Nath continued to lead the way over the sloppy hills that met with a forested mountainside. Ducking under heavy branches and weaving through the trees, he searched for shelter. Night would soon fall, and even though neither he nor Brenwar required much rest, getting out of the rain until it passed seemed like a good idea.

Half a mile up the mountain, he came across a large rocky overhang. Water poured off it like a waterfall. Nath ducked under it and took a breath. The space was big enough for four men and horses. Brenwar followed him in and shook the water from his rain-soaked face. Nath wrung out his long red hair.

“Why are we stopping?” Brenwar said. “It’s not even dark yet.”

Nath slid out of his saddle. “I need a moment.”

“A moment? What’s a moment?”

Nath flipped open a saddlebag, removed a pair of orange fruits with a stem, and tossed one to Brenwar. The other one he fed to his horse. He scratched behind the horse’s ears. “You’re a fine steed.”

The dapple-grey horse shook his head and nickered.

Nath froze. His nostrils widened. Something foul lingered in the air. His hand fell on Fang.

Eyeing him, Brenwar started to speak.

Nath put a finger to his lips.

Brenwar readied his war hammer, Mortuun the Crusher.

Golden eyes peering into the deep black where the rock jutted from the ground, Nath spied a small cave opening.

Silvery eyes flashed within. Scales slithered over the wet earth, and the hooded head of a great snake slipped out. It was bigger than Nath, and it reared back to strike. Its black tongue flicked from its mouth.

“That’s an awfully big snake,” Brenwar grumbled.

Two more monstrous snakes slithered out and flanked them. Venom dripped from fangs as big and sharp as a dragon’s.

“Pardon,” Brenwar said, shifting in his saddle, “I meant snakes.”

CHAPTER 12

A green lily dragon half filled a wooden cage big enough for a large dog. Its snout was bound shut with leather cords. Its torn wings were folded tight on its back. Its scales shined like green pearls in the moonlight.

“I say we eat it,” said an orc. He was large, as most orcs are. A tangled mess of greasy hair covered his bare back down to the waist. He poked the dragon with the back of his spear. He licked his split and puffy lips. “I’ve never eaten dragon before. They smell delicious, like baby deer.”

“Leave our treasure alone,” another voice said. It was a gnoll. A huge wolf-faced man taller but slimmer than the orc. He wasn’t alone. The party of poachers was made up of orcs, gnolls, and the much smaller yellow-eyed goblins. There were nine in all. “Once we sell it, you’ll be able to eat all you want and more.”

The orc at the dragon cage grumbled in his throat. Sounding a bit stupider than his gnoll counterpart, he scratched his head and added, “Are they worth more alive or dead?”

“Alive,” the gnoll said, filing his long fingernails with a sharpening stone.

Unlike the others, the gnoll had more flare on him: shiny breastplate made for a large man, heavy axe on his hip. All of the others—gnoll, orc, and goblin alike—carried spears or smaller weapons.

“Now get away and don’t pester it anymore.” The gnoll walked over and eyed the dragon. “It may lie quietly, but don’t let it fool you. It’s thinking, not dreaming.”

A goblin hopped over the campfire. “Dragons dream?” The filthy humanoid’s necklace of animal bones rattled around his neck. He was feisty, even more so than his ornery kin. “How do you know they dream?”

“I know,” the gnoll assured him. His chin was up in an attempt to be dignified.

“You don’t know that,” the goblin retorted. “You’re just saying that. Think you’re smart?”

The gnoll huffed on his fingernails and dusted them off on his bloodstained sleeve. “Of course I’m smart. That’s why I’m the leader. And was it not my trap that caught the dragon?”

Fingers fidgeting at his side and glancing around, the goblin said, “It was luck. Strange fortune. You set no trap at all. The dragon was sleeping.” He pounded his chest. “And I saw it first! Told you about it, I did.”

The gnoll bared his canine teeth in a snarl. His blades whisked out of his sheaths and found a new home under the goblin’s greasy chin. The leader then said to the wide-eyed goblin, “Perhaps you don’t want to share in my good fortune, then. The less of you, the more for me and the rest.”

Everyone in the poachers’ camp’s eyes were on the gnoll. The two goblins that remained drew the crude hand axes at their sides. Their feverish eyes had murder in them.

The gnoll pressed his superior blade harder into the goblin’s neck. He marched the little monster backward. “You do realize that if I kill you, I have to kill all of your kind.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I like the nine. Three gnolls. Three orcs. Three goblins. It’s a fortunate number. But minus one goblin, we have eight. Unlucky. Minus two, we have seven. That’s the luck of a human’s number.” He spat. “Bad luck for gnolls. So that means I need six. I like six, but nine is better. Twelve, too big to control.”

Gaping, the goblin continued to back away until he stopped a couple feet from the hot coals of the fire. Sweat beaded and dropped over the creases of his brow. Stammering and flapping his hand, he said with a crooked smile, “Nine is good. Nine is good. You say dragons dream, I believe it. Dragons dream. Yes. Dragons definitely dream.”

“Mmm, you know, now that I think about it,” the gnoll said, rubbing his chin and glancing skyward, “I don’t think dragons dream. So, it seems we are once again in disagreement.”

The goblin’s mouth fell open.

The gnoll cocked his sword arm back. “Six is my favorite number.” He started to swing.

“Dragons do dream,” said a voice out of nowhere.

The gnoll froze and turned.

A shadowy hooded figure emerged from the woodland.

Every poacher in the camp readied their weapon. Narrowing his wolfish eyes on the figure, the gnoll said, “We don’t share our fire with strangers. We kill trespassers.”

“Oh, I’m not here to share your fire. I’m here for the dragon.” Selene revealed her face. “And zero is my favorite number.”

CHAPTER 13

Sliding his sword out of his scabbard, Nath backed up his mount. “The horses, Brenwar. We need to ride out of here.”

“I hear you,” Brenwar replied. Imitating Nath’s, his mount started backward.

The snake flanking it struck. The reptile buried its fangs into the horse’s hindquarters.

Throwing the dwarf from the saddle, the horse bucked and instantly fell down dead.

The snake flanking Nath’s dapple-grey steed slithered after him. It coiled its hooded head and struck.

Fang’s blade flashed quicker than the blink of an eye and shore the snake’s head clear off.

Nath hopped off the saddle and scared his horse away. “Get!”

The middle snake, bigger than the rest, reared up right before Nath’s eyes. There was deep hypnotic power in the massive cobra’s eyes. Deep and evil, its hooded face swayed back and forth. Drops of burning venom dripped from its mouth.

“You think you’re faster than me, do you?” Nath said to the snake—whose body was thicker than his leg. “Belly crawler, beware. I’ll cut you down like your dead brother over there.”

“You need to cut them both down!” Brenwar mumbled. His entire body was encircled by the cobra that had killed his horse. His eyes bulged in their sockets, and his face purpled. He spat out his next words. “Quit trying to make friends with that lizard, and kill it!”

The great grey-black snake hissed. Its tongues flickered.

“You’ve given me no choice,” Nath said, brandishing the glimmering blade of Fang. He spoke in the ancient Snake tongue, unknown to most. “Crawl back inside your hole or die, Snake.”

Head reared up eye to eye with Nath, the giant snake struck lightning fast.

Nath banged the tip of its nose with the flat of his blade, driving the reptile back. “I told you I was fast,” Nath said in an ancient warning. “My next blow will be fatal.”

The snake’s eyes bore into him like ancient black pearls of evil. Its head feinted with short strikes and then recoiled.

“Quit playing games with it!” Brenwar blurted out. His face was beet red, and he screamed. “Nothing crushes a dwarf!”

Nath’s sure feet slipped on the wet rocks.

The cobra struck. Dripping fangs bore down on Nath’s neck.

When Nath snapped his arm up, the cobra’s jaws clamped down hard on it. The snake’s teeth broke off on Nath’s black scales. Toothless, the reptile struck again and held on, chomping down hard on Nath’s arm like a vice.

Nath started laughing. “Look at this, Brenwar! It busted its teeth on my scales. I should have known.”

“Grrrr!” Though Brenwar flexed with all his dwarven might, the snake that constricted him did not give. “Will you get this thing off me?”

“Certainly,” Nath said. Dragging over the snake that was clamped down on his arm, he picked up Brenwar’s war hammer and clobbered the lizard in the head.

Its diamond-scaled body eased its all-powerful grip.

Puffing for breath, Brenwar squirmed out of the scaly locks, plucked Mortuun from Nath’s grip, and whacked the snake again.

“No! No!” cried out a scratchy voice.

A small shambling figure squeezed out of the snake hole. It was a dirty little man with a full head of scraggly brown hair and a partial beard. He wore strange robes made of snakeskin and had a belt made from snake skeletons. “Don’t kill any more of my pets. Please.”

Brenwar slammed the man into the ground. “Why? They tried to kill us, and they did kill my horse.”

Blue eyes blinking, the odd wilderness man said with desperation, “They were only protecting me. Just as a dog protects his master.”

“We posed no threat,” Brenwar stated.

The snakeskin clad man let out an inhuman hiss. The cobra released Nath’s arm and slithered away. “See! See! I control them.”

Holding the little middle-aged man by the scruff of the neck, Brenwar shook him. “Can you bring back my horse from the dead too?”

“Er … no,” the little man said.

Nath sheathed his sword. “Who are you?”

“Ipsy the Snake Charmer.” The scruffy man blinked a lot. “Ipsy the Hooded.”

Brenwar toyed with the cobra-like hood hanging from Ipsy’s strange robes. “He’s a druid.”

Fingers scratching at the air, Ipsy said, “I prefer woodland seer. Well, if one is being particular, I’m very keen on Ipsy the Hooded. Really draws the attention of the women in small villages.” He winked at Brenwar. “What is your name, dwarf? Black Beard?”

Eyeing Nath, Brenwar shoved Ipsy to the ground and stepped on his back. “Druids can’t be trusted, and I don’t like the stink of this little man. Can I kill him?”

“Kill me?” Ipsy squeaked. “No, no, that would be fatal. It would bring a great curse upon you for the entirety of your days. Please.” He eyed Nath’s arms and changed his demeanor. “Er, how did you come across those scales? Are you cursed? A demon?”

Nath remembered a few other encounters with druids, in days gone by. They came in many shapes and forms. Men or women, they could be anyone from a halfling to a bugbear. They were loners, hunkered down in their territory, somewhat aloof to everything that was going on in the rest of the world. In a way, Nath envied them. But one and all, they were squirrely as a dryad or a fairy. “Let him up, Brenwar.”

“This weird little man owes me a horse.” Brenwar nudged his boot toe into the druid’s ribs.

“Ow!” Ipsy whined. Gathering himself to his feet and eyeing Nath’s arms with avid interest, he stretched out his eager fingers. “May I touch them?”

Flattered, Nath started to say yes.

But Brenwar cut in. “No.”

“Let the flame-haired man speak for himself,” Ipsy said to Brenwar. He pleaded. “Please? Please? You are so fast. I’ve never seen any man faster than a snake. And those scales. I marvel. They must be harder than steel.”

Wary, Nath fanned out his yellow-gold fingernails on his clawed hand. “And sharper than steel as well.”

With an awe-inspired gasp, Ipsy ran his grubby fingers over Nath’s scales. “How is this possible? You are both man and dragon.”

“It’s a long story and one that you don’t need to trouble yourself about.” Nath watched the snake slither back into the hole. “You need to be more careful with your pets. And we are down a horse thanks to you. How do you propose to replace it?”

Ipsy’s eyes enlarged beneath his unibrow. “Being a druid, I have no personal belongings. And if anything, that horse has been freed from a life of slavery.” He sneered. “I should suggest that you free your mount as well.”

“And let it starve to death? I think not.” Nath closed in on the druid and glared down in his face. “Now, tell me, how will you compensate me and my friend?”

“I have nothing.”

Brenwar hemmed the little man in from behind and growled, “Everybody has something.” He slapped his hammer head in his hand. “Especially when their life depends on it.”

Ipsy swallowed the lump in his throat, raised a finger, and replied, “I have knowledge.”