Flight of the Dragon (The Chronicles of Dragon, Series 2, Book 5 of 10) (Tail of the Dragon)
Authors: Craig Halloran
Flight of the Dragon
The Chronicles of Dragon, Series 2, Book 5
By Craig Halloran
Flight of the Dragon
The Chronicles of Dragon, Series 2, Book 5
By Craig Halloran
Copyright © 2016 by Craig Halloran
Amazon Edition
TWO-TEN BOOK PRESS
P.O. Box 4215, Charleston, WV 25364
ISBN eBook: 978-1-941208-75-5
ISBN Paperback: 978-1-941208-76-2
Cover Illustration by Joe Shawcross
Map by Gillis Bjork
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded, photocopied, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Publisher's Note
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
“Let me bust him up.” Brenwar had Mortuun shoved in Rybek’s face. The evil warrior was bound up with his hands behind his back and sitting on the stone floor. There was a victorious sneer on his face. “I’ll remove the snide look from his jaw forever!”
Rybek’s broad shoulders heaved with his chuckles. His dark eyes moved back and forth between Nath and his company with nothing but a taunting look in them. His voice was a dark rumble when he spoke. “Look at you. Look at all of you! You’ve fought so hard and lost. Now your father is lost. What a fool! Eckubahn will have been ready for his ploy, and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Balzurth was dead already.” His nostrils flared. “Victory. I smell victory. The world of dragons falls.”
Brenwar cocked back his elbow and made a fist. The leather of his gauntlet squeaked. “I’ll show you victory!”
“Enough, Brenwar. You’ll get your chance to question him later.” Nath was standing by the sacrificial slab of stone, tending to Ben and Bayzog. Both man and part-elf looked about as bad as he’d ever seen them. Ben’s face was burned. Laylana, Laedorn’s elven daughter and a fine warrior, was treating the red blisters on Ben’s cheeks with nimble fingers. Sasha and Bayzog were reunited. Bayzog lay in his wife’s arms, eyes closed, with a wheeze behind his breaths. His hair was almost all white, but some of the color had returned to his face. Nath watched Sasha stroke her husband’s cheek and looked into her soft eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him sleep before.”
“It takes much to get him to rest,” Sasha replied with a faint smile. “Don’t feel responsible, Nath. He’s going to make it. He just needs his rest.”
Nath nodded back. Moving away, he picked Rybek’s sword up off the cold stone floor. It was a magnificent weapon. The steel was smooth and polished so fine that he could see his reflection in it. The leather on the handle made for a fine grip, and the weight was near perfect in balance. He thumbed the edge. There wasn’t even a notch in it. He cast his eyes down at Rybek. “I bet you could chop down a stone tree with this.”
Broad jaws clenching in his hard-featured face, Rybek nodded sideways at Brenwar and said to Nath, “No doubt it could chop down this stump of a man.” He leered. “In time, I’ll chop you down as well.”
Brenwar popped Rybek in the forehead with his knuckles. The back of the man’s head smacked hard into the column of stone with a
crack
.
Eyes squeezed shut, Rybek shook his head and spat.
Nath said to Brenwar, “What did I say?”
Puffing through his beard, Brenwar said, “I can’t help that. It’s instinct. Nobody threatens a dwarf.” He swung his war hammer from side to side. “Just let me knock his head off. We don’t need him to find your father.”
Nath held his left hand up, palm out, and flipped Rybek’s sword around with his right wrist. He shuffle stepped and jabbed. Parried. Twirled.
Rybek’s eyes followed every precise and quick move.
Nath swished the blade through the air in a masterful display of the swordsman’s craft. “It’s an amazing blade, no doubt.” He chopped into the stone column just above Rybek’s head. Hunks of stone and dust fell on the man’s tattoo-covered head. “It really can hew through stone.”
“Just imagine what it could do to a skull,” Brenwar added. “Heh-heh.”
“You need to leave my blade alone, Nath Dragon.” There was an edge in Rybek’s voice. “Put it down.”
Nath started banging the flat of the blade hard against the pillar. The sound echoed through the Temple of Spires. “Why, do you fear I might break it again?” With two hands, he smacked the blade hard into the stone.
Bang!
Rybek winced.
Nath struck the stone again.
Bang!
“Stop that!” Rybek shouted.
“Oh, I see someone is very fond of his blade.” Nath squatted down and said in Rybek’s ear, “Do you fear I might warp it?” He held it out for Rybek to see and turned the blade from side to side with his wrist. “It’s still straight, for now, but I notice an imperfection.”
“There is none.”
“I disagree.” Nath ran his fingernail over a hairline fracture just above the middle of the blade. “See that? It’s where I broke it before. It’s where I’ll break it again.”
“If you break that blade, you’ll kill us all,” Rybek said.
“I’m curious, Rybek. How did you manage to mend this sword so well?”
“You fool. Eckubahn did it with his bare hands. Such power he has, it’s unrivaled. There might be a crack in the steel, but believe me, it’s stronger than ever.” Rybek’s dark, hollow eyes caressed the blade with a passion only a warrior could understand. “You and that cleaver of yours could never break it again.”
“Is that so?” Nath asked with an unbelieving tone. He rose back up to full height. “I really find it hard to believe.” He waved Rybek’s sword back and forth like a conductor’s baton. “It’s out of balance.”
“It was made for my hand, not yours.”
“I see.” Nath rested it on his shoulder. “Why don’t you tell me where my father is, Rybek? It would be the right thing to do.”
“I’ll tell you when you are dead.” Rybek glanced at each person in the room. “And that goes for the rest of you as well. Including the women.”
Brenwar launched another punch.
But Nath caught the dwarf by the meat of his upper arm. He changed places with Brenwar and turned loose a punch of his own. His fist connected with Rybek’s jaw, snapping his head to the side. “You overestimate my capacity to show mercy.”
Rybek’s tongue fished through his mouth. He spat a bloody tooth out. “Perhaps I do. But mercy is your weakness. It’s your father’s, too. Eckubahn preys on it even as we speak.”
Nath had to have some measure of faith in his father for knowing what he was doing, but the risk was so great, and his mother had warned him about his father taking those risks. He couldn’t just stand around and hope his father’s plan would work out. Deep down in his gut, he knew his father needed help.
Strength comes in numbers.
He stuck the sword tip first into the stone between Rybek’s legs. “As evil as you may be, you still fight by the warrior’s code of honor. How about one last fight, metal against metal? I win, you tell me where my father is. You win, I die.”
Rybek lifted his head, sneering. “I’ll take it.”