Offspring (The Sword of the Dragon) (52 page)

Oganna advanced onto the ramp. He pointed his staff at her, its head twisted into blades around a small white globe. Too late, she realized his intent. A wave of energy rippled against her, throwing her down and throwing several megatraths to the floor.

“He is mine!” Vectra spat. She and her companions charged onto the ramp.

Oganna struggled to rise but invisible bands forced her shoulders down. She could hear Razes cackling as he backed down the ramp, just out of Vectra’s range. “You are such loathsome creatures.” He waved his hand, and the other giants collided with the megatraths and knocked them into the street. Now nothing stood between her and him.

The wizard sauntered up the ramp, stepping over bodies. “So this is the mighty and beautiful princess of the Hemmed Land. Too bad your father isn’t around to save you from me—he’s
busy
elsewhere.”

In Yimshi’s light his black armor shimmered. Oganna stared in horror. Every surface of his apparel had been outfitted with protruding blades. Even the back of his leather gloves were barbed with razor-sharp metal. She struggled to rise and fought to lift her sword. The bands holding her broke, but she felt too weak to stand.

Razes twirled his staff in a circle, built speed, and brought it to bear against her head. The impact nearly knocked her out. Blood ran down her face. Pain knifed from her skull to her nose. The wizard swung again, and she cringed, unable to stop him.

An enormous sword slipped in front of her and parried the wizard’s blow. Gabel stepped over her and snarled at his nemesis. “Seeking to add yet another crime to your sins, Razes? Does it please you to see the innocent suffer?”

“Ah,
Your Majesty
.” The wizard mocked a bow. “So, you have survived the purging of Burloi. I should have guessed that you would come back.” He spun his staff around his waist. “The Valley of Death has made me strong. Very strong.”

Gabel took a step toward him. “If you are referring to the dark magic you wield, then you are mistaken, for it has allowed you to do terrible things and taken from you that which is most important: your soul. This power has consumed you and
you
are a slave to
it
, not the other way around.”

Razes grinned. “You are the one that has nothing, Gabel.” He spread his arms. “Look around you, old man. I have everything.”

“Everything? What you have is the support of a blind mob that destroys everything in its path.”

“Ah, but even a mob can serve a purpose.” He thumped his staff against the stone floor. “Just to show you how
good
of a person I am, I will give you one last chance to join forces with me. If you refuse me, then I will cut you up
before
I set to work on your little lady friend. Now step aside and prove your new allegiance by watching her die.”

Gabel’s knuckles turned white as he held the sword more firmly. “You have killed all the people that I loved, Razes. Except for this little angel. Your corruption ends here.”

The wizard guffawed. “You could not end it before—”

“Don’t act so confident, you slime pit! When you beat me, you had your apprentice with you. Now it is as it should have been—just you and me!” Gabel circled left. His eyes resembled cold steel, and every muscle in his body tensed. Oganna could only imagine the hate that swelled in his heart as he slashed viciously at his adversary. He stabbed his sword into stones, and they blew up in the wizard’s face.

Oganna sat in shock. Gabel’s sword had powers. Why had he not mentioned it to her?

Razes leapt out of the way, pointed his staff in the king’s direction, and hit him with a blinding flash of light. He laughed as Gabel stumbled, and despair crept into Oganna’s heart. The wizard spread his arms. “Are you having trouble with your eyes, old man?”

Gabel staggered closer to Razes and then sank his sword into the wizard’s leg. His gaze shifted to the wizard’s face. “Sorry, my mistake, I guess I wasn’t stunned by your blast after all.”

Screaming in pain and anger, the wizard grasped Gabel’s neck and raked his blades down the length of his chest. Blood pooled on the stones as Gabel dropped his sword. Razes brought his knee up, driving its blades into the king’s abdomen. He let him drop to the floor. “Did you
really
think you stood a chance, old king?”

Still weak and a little dizzy, Oganna struggled to her feet and held her sword. Avenger’s blade turned crimson, and the silver garments covered her. She looked upon her fallen defender with all the love she could have given a second father, and tears flooded her eyes. Gabel’s eyes looked back at her from his mutilated face. They were sad, yet fulfilled, then as they closed forever, he murmured, “There
is
great potential in you, Princess Oganna. Don’t let anyone tell you differently, little lady.”

Gathering her last strength, she darted behind Razes and stabbed wherever his body presented a target.

“Is that all you can do?” He dodged her blows and thwacked her sides with his staff. She felt Neneila fall limp under her shirt.

Razes growled at the sky and hit his wounded leg with the head of his staff. The wound cauterized, and he thrust his blade-ridden fist at her.

She stumbled, and then stood still. Desperately she tried to understand why her senses seemed impaired. Why couldn’t she attack him? An oppressive darkness crept over her. At last she recognized the spell he was using against her. Her mind was in a panic. His power bound her, reached inside her, and stole her will. Then it struck something else, a residual strength innate and untamable: her dragon side.

With all her will she pushed back and fought against the spell. “Depart!”

The force of her refusal threw Razes backward, and he screamed in frustration. “You little imp! Resistance is useless.”

Oganna cast fire from her blade, but his staff absorbed it. She struck with lightning, yet his staff resisted, and he remained unharmed. “Your powers cannot match mine. I have been trained by the greatest of wizards in all deadly arts. Now, witness my power.” He stretched his hands to the sky. Far above lightning flashed in the clouds. The wind whipped through the city and swirled the clouds until they spun far above. Lightning flashed, zipped beneath and into the clouds, then spiked toward the earth. The bolts wove through one another, gathered speed, and headed toward the place where she stood.

The bolts blasted against her head and shoulders, but she pulled the first one down and wrapped it around her body as a shield so that the other bolts entwined themselves about her, then simply dissipated. “How little you know of the power of good.” She gazed up at Razes and frowned. “It
will
overcome you.” Thereupon she pummeled him with blows from the Avenger. On every side she poured her fury like rain and sought to find a weakness.

Razes blocked her sword, and the head of his staff slipped past her defenses, landing blows on her thighs, shoulders, and then her chest. She gasped for air, drew back Avenger, and charged him with her blade aimed for his chest. But Avenger’s point clinked against his armor and slid over it. She widened her stance, seeking to rebalance herself.

Raising his staff above his head in both hands and pointing it at her, Razes sneered. Black and red energy blasted from the staff’s end, striking the ramp at her feet. The stones trembled and cracked. They crumbled into dust beneath her, and she fell. A moment of weightlessness and a glance downward; the ruins of stone buildings rose to meet her. Her spine impacted a large stone block, snapping her head toward the ground. Every muscle in her body burned as she tried to raise her head. She screamed.

Razes leapt down after her, and his staff appeared to absorb the shock of his fall. “Poor, poor thing.” He clacked his tongue and held the razors on the back of his hand against her face. “What a pity.”

Her vision blurred, and she breathed in rapid, short bursts that seemed void of air. She glimpsed his evil face as he sliced into her skin. The pain compared to nothing she had ever experienced. If she could have cried out she would have, but she had run out of tears. Before she lost consciousness, she felt his staff crush into her face and then chest. No longer could she feel pain.

Specter had been grappling with his adversary through the night inside a ruined building. Now in the daylight he gritted his teeth and drove his blade into the Reaper’s leg, pushed him against the stone walls. Death fell again, and this time Specter fell upon him and tore his scythe out of the Reaper’s boney fingers.

He lifted his face toward the sky and laughed as the Reaper squirmed beneath him. Its feet and hand transformed into smoke. “Oh, you cannot run forever! I have seen the wickedness you and your kind would unleash on this world, and I loathe you. Now with the help of God, I bring you to a just end.”

Holding the scythes tightly, he clubbed the Reaper’s skull until cracks spread through it. He hammered the scythes into the skull in quick succession. Fury filled his arms, and Death’s skull broke into a thousand fragments.

Something exploded on the ramp above, and he stood to his feet, holding the Grim Reaper’s headless body in his hand. Oganna fell off the ramp, and Avenger slipped from her hand. She crashed into a ruined building, stirring a cloud of dust.

A giant arrayed in armor unlike anything Specter had ever seen dropped after her. The giant raised a wizard’s staff in its hand and crouched over the dragon’s offspring. He held his blade-ridden fist against the young woman’s lovely face and viciously cut it open. Oganna’s body collapsed and, in the stones beside her, Avenger’s blade ceased to glow.

“Master! Let me finish her.” A dark-featured human stumbled up the heap of stones to the ruins, leaning on a dark staff.

Razes glanced down at the man and laughed. “You have a lot to learn, Auron. You fell at the hand of a girl? Wait until Letrias hears of this.” He stood aside and pointed at Oganna. “She’s all yours.”

Specter roared with rage and dragged Death’s carcass into the sunlight. He raised his scythe and faced the giant, rolling the Reaper’s remains down the rubble. The carcass slid to Razes’s feet.

The giant picked up the carcass, and his eyes narrowed.

Specter caused his cloak to render him partially visible and set his feet in the debris, frowning at Auron. “Rise, traitor!”

The man spun, glanced at Specter, and stumbled back. He pointed the staff at him. “W … what? Who are
you
? I do not know you.”

“Think again, Auron. You know me better than your new master knows you.” He slipped the hood off his head and smiled. “Brian’s blood stains your soul, and now I will exact retribution on you so that none will forget the cost of shedding innocent blood.”

“No!” Auron’s lips trembled, and he shook his head vigorously as Specter advanced, rattling his chain mail. “I saw you fall. I saw you die.”

“Hmm.” Razes laughed and kicked his pupil toward Specter. “It looks like you have a fresh opportunity to prove yourself, Auron.”

“This man—he died long ago—I saw him die.” He stepped back. “Master, do not make me face him. You must slay him now, before he brings death upon us both.”

Razes shrugged his enormous shoulders. “Very well.” He swung his staff, but it passed through Specter as though he were a ghost.

Specter swung his scythe, cutting the traitor’s arm. Auron screamed and then struck back with such speed that his staff cracked Specter on his cheek, and he fell into the rubble.

Auron sprinted after him, thrusting his staff into Specter’s mid-section. But Specter kicked the man in the chest and, when he had fallen, laughed. “God has shown me favor today, Auron. Your master cannot touch me while your traitorous debt remains unpaid. Did you believe escape from the Creator’s retribution would be possible? Were you fool enough to rank yourself above the will of Providence?”

The traitor stood and swung his staff at Specter’s legs. Specter blocked it with his scythe’s handle. “You can never beat me trading blow for blow, Auron. Or have you forgotten?” He spun, cutting the man’s side with his scythe blade.