Spirit Blade: Book III of the Dragon Mage Trilogy (37 page)

“She was a good person,” said Harran gently. “She was an honourable soul.”

As another tear fell from Kazin’s cheek, it landed on Amelia’s lips. There was an imperceptible twitch that Kazin missed. He was about to stand up, when the blue-cloaked mage opened her eyes. But instead of blue, the eyes were bright fluorescent orbs of red. The red hue slowly faded, however, to give way to the blue pearls Kazin had been so fond of.

Amelia smiled. “What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!”

Kazin cried out jubilantly and held Amelia close to hide his tears of joy. “You’re alive!”

Amelia returned the embrace and waited for Kazin to regain his composure.

Meanwhile, Sherman was slow getting to his feet. Galado was no quicker, having been stunned as well. The swords both lay on the ground nearby. As they both stood up, Galado charged the big warrior, knocking him over. A fist fight ensued, as both big men fought to incapacitate the other in order to get to the swords first. Sherman was the stronger of the two, but his wound was giving him trouble, so Galado pummeled him in the side. Sherman collapsed in pain and Galado made a break for his sword. He didn’t reach it as an arrow from Olag pierced his leg. He went flying and landed with his hand just out of reach of the swords. Crawling forward, he just about managed to get a grip on one of them when Sherman pounced on him. The two men grunted as they rolled on the ground.

“Can’t you do something?” asked Olag. He was unable to get a shot away with the men so close together.

“That would be dishonourable,” said Zylor. “This is Sherman’s fight. I will not take that from him.”

“What about our guests?” said Harran as he came up to them.

Zylor looked where the dwarf pointed. He readied his weapon. “That is where I come in,” he said. The commotion that Sherman and the orb had created had drawn the interest of a group of orcs. They were approaching in the hopes of a fight.

Olag had already started firing arrows into them. “I’m sure glad I have unlimited arrows. But my arms are beginning to ache.”

Galado laughed as he was on top of Sherman. “I’m free at last! I am no longer bound to this body. It was that damned sword all along!”

The combatants rolled a few more times and Sherman managed to get a foot in between them. Then he shoved Galado aside with a kick that made his side scream in agony. Oblivious to the pain, Sherman took his sword from the ground and lunged at Galado as he was getting up. Seeing the warrior lunging toward him, Galado’s evil spirit exited the body just in time. The sword pierced Galado’s chest, and he grabbed hold of Sherman’s shoulders. The fierce expression softened as Sir Galado once again got hold of his original body. With the evil spirit gone, he had full control of himself again.

“Sherman!” he rasped. “Forgive me!”

Sherman saw the recognition in Galado’s face and held onto him. “It’s not your fault, Wilfred. You were possessed!”

Galado shook his head. “I stopped him, Sherman. But in so doing, a spirit far more powerful has taken the warlock’s body! You must stop it. It will destroy us all!” Sir Galado gurgled and blood appeared at the corners of his mouth. “I - I have caused all this trouble just to give you the sword. You forgot -,” his voice faded and Sherman gently laid the soldier down.

“You did what you thought was right, my friend. It was I who forgot the sword. It was me who caused all this to happen.”

Sir Galado raised a hand to touch Sherman’s face. “Stop the warlock. Then all will not be in vain.” He coughed once and his hand fell to his side. His eyes glazed over and he breathed his last.

Sherman closed Sir Galado’s eyes and then closed his own to hide the pain. “I will stop the warlock, my friend. You can count in it.”

No one noticed as the evil spirit who once controlled Sir Galado moved over to the ogre on the ground nearby. With unusual stealth for such a large creature, the ogre rose and drifted off into the night. The rest of the companions had been too busy fighting the orcs who had come upon them. They were just finished dealing with that threat when Amelia spotted Sherman’s wound.

“Sherman!” she cried, running over to him. She only spared Galado a brief glance before tending to his wound. She immediately applied a salve and chanted healing spells. Then she wrapped the wound in some cloth from the clothing of the sword-woman Sherman had killed earlier.

“Now what?” asked Harran as he wiped the gore from the orcs off his axe with more cloth from the sword-woman.

“We should give Galado a decent burial,” said Sherman. “He was a good man.”

“With all the problems he caused?” asked Olag.

Sherman glared at him. “You mean the evil spirit who controlled him.”

“Is the evil spirit dead?” asked Harran.

“I’m not sure,” said Sherman. “It might have left Sir Galado’s body before I killed him. The sword didn’t react like it did with the others.”

“The ogre is gone,” said Harran, looking around.

“Then the quest is not finished,” said Zylor. “That spirit must be slain.”

“The spirit is still out there,” confirmed Amelia.

“How do you know this?” asked Olag. “You didn’t consult your orb.”

“The orb is gone,” said Kazin.

Amelia nodded. “In a manner of speaking. When the two spirit blades clashed, the orb exploded. Now it seems the orb lives within me. I can see what it shows me. I can see bits and pieces of the future. It seems we can correct the future if we act quickly. There is still time.”

“Then we will continue until the threats to history are eliminated,” said Kazin. “But first I’ll see to it Galado’s body is not disturbed.” He chanted a spell and Tyris appeared within his orb. “Tyris, I need you to guard Galado’s body. Can you do that?”

“Of course,” said Tyris. “I will send some of my fiery minions to do the job. They will be there momentarily.”

“Thanks,” said Kazin. He looked at the others. “We’ll begin our search for the evil spirit once Tyris’ friends get here.”

“No,” said Sherman. “The evil spirit can wait. We must stop the warlock.”

“Is that part of the mission?” asked Olag.

“It is,” answered Sherman. “Sir Galado told me before he died that an even bigger evil spirit controls the warlock.”

“Sherman’s right,” said Amelia. “The warlock should be dead now. Every minute he lives he has the power to change history even more.”

Zylor regarded the transformed red-haired mage suspiciously. “Then we will have to destroy the warlock.”

Amelia smiled at the minotaur. “Zylor, in order to make things right in the future, we will need to split up once again. Because Sherman is in no condition to travel on foot right now, he can ride on Kazin with me. After Tyris sends her flame creatures here to guard Galado, you will need to lead a group to track Galado’s former evil spirit into the battlefield. Because you are a minotaur, you will not be hindered by the orcs. But be aware - the evil spirit will not hesitate to control numerous different bodies as it goes.”

“How will we find it?” asked the minotaur. “We no longer have your orb as a guide.”

Amelia pointed to Galado’s sword. “The spirit blade the evil spirit has been using will sense its presence. The spirit was bound to it since it came from the time travel place. That same blade will seek to send the evil spirit back to where it came from.”

“Why couldn’t my spirit blade do that?” asked Sherman. “It’s the same blade.”

“Your blade was newly created,” said Amelia. “It hasn’t encountered the evil spirit yet. It won’t for generations to come.”

Zylor picked up Galado’s spirit blade and held it aloft. Sure enough, it had a slight blue shimmer to it. The glow deepened when Zylor pointed it a certain way. “It’s brighter in this direction,” he said.

“That’s where to begin your search,” said Amelia.

“How did you know that?” asked Harran.

“I see how things are going to happen,” said the mage. “Some things, anyway.”

“This should definitely make the job easier,” said Zylor.

“I’ll go with you,” offered Harran.

“It might be easier if you used the invisibility ring,” suggested Kazin. “You’ll find it easier to pass through the enemy ranks if they don’t see a dwarf wandering around.”

Zylor passed the ring to Harran.

“I get to play with this for once!” said the dwarf happily. He slipped the ring onto his finger and disappeared. “Interesting!”

Zylor turned to Olag. “Coming?”

Olag was taken aback. “You want me along?”

Zylor grinned. “Sure! I could use a good back up on this job.”

“Uh, OK,” said Olag. He looked a bit embarrassed.

Tyris’ flame creatures were seen running in their direction, burning some orcs in the process.

“That settles it!” said Kazin. He transformed himself into a dragon and Sherman and Amelia climbed onto his back. “Good luck!” called the dragon as he lifted off.

Chapter 35

T
he warlock took delight in the wind as it whistled past his ears. Below, the battle had commenced in full force. Though it was still dark, he could see torches and fireballs on both sides and could tell that his forces were more numerous and in a good position to win the war.

In the air, he could see dragon fire and other magical exchanges as the human dragon riders battled his own forces, and the wild dragons attacked any dragons with riders, regardless of which side they belonged to. Without their own dragon riders, these wild dragons were driven back by the dragon riders who used magic in conjunction with the flames of their dragons. As wild dragons spewed fire on the forces battling below, the warlock noticed how the little fire creatures worked. As the dragon flames reached the ground, the fire creatures absorbed the dragon flames and grew in size. As they did this, the humans who were nearby did not feel the effects of the dragon flames. All of the energy was simply being absorbed by the fire creatures. Every dragon attack made the fire creatures bigger and stronger and capable of protecting more people each time. But even this was not likely to stem the tide of monsters that threatened the meager human forces.

Curious to see other facets of the battle, the warlock used the darkness to steer his mount south to see how things were faring on that side. He flew over and noticed a small, scattered guard of humans on that side of the encampment. Most of them had obviously been called to the main battle to engage the enemy there. Some of the sentries were pointing south and the warlock peered ahead to see the torchlight of an approaching army. As he neared, he could see it was his diversion army in conjunction with a sizeable army of trolls. Saliss had come through! He had roused the trolls and was marching on the human army as instructed. The size of his army would easily overrun the southern sentries in the human encampment. This was too good to be true! The warlock laughed in glee. The war was his! There was no way the humans could counter that, even with superior dragon power. He glided low to his reinforcements and saluted Saliss. The lizardmage commander spotted him and waved back, not knowing that his boss had changed - not in body but in spirit. But the spirit who now controlled the warlock was far more powerful than an ordinary spirit. It knew the warlock’s thoughts; it knew his desires and plans; and it could cast magic that was for more powerful than the puny humans he now fought.

Suddenly a wild dragon came shrieking out of the sky above him. Too late to dodge out of the way, the warlock created a magical shield and waited for the wild dragon to spew its fire. As expected, the dragon tried to roast the dragon with its flame. Only it failed to do any damage to the rider or his mount. Veering away, it shrieked in dismay.

Now it was the warlock’s turn. He steered his mount to pursue the wild dragon. He commanded the dragon to increase its speed to maximum. The dragon complied and gained on the wild dragon. When he was close enough, the warlock commanded his dragon to fire its flame. But the wild dragon veered to the side and easily avoided the blast of flames.

Still pursuing, the warlock gained on the wild dragon again and commanded his dragon to fire again. As he anticipated, the wild dragon veered to one side to escape the flames. That’s when the warlock cast his own fireball - which was almost as powerful as his dragon’s fiery breath. Not expecting this tactic, the wild dragon did not move out of the way in time. The warlock’s fire engulfed the back of its body.

Shrieking in agony, the wild dragon plummeted to the ground. The warlock howled in delight.

But his joy soon turned to dismay as the burning dragon crashed headlong into the middle of the warlock’s army of reinforcements. The burning dragon obliterated a large swath of trolls, as well as some orcs and lizardmages. “No!” shrieked the warlock. He swore and pounded his fist into his dragon’s neck hard enough for it to notice and look back at him in fear.

As he flew, the warlock spotted some smaller aerial creatures in the south who approached in a wide formation. As he neared, he could see they were too small to be dragons. What they lacked in size, they made up for in numbers. Before long, he saw that these creatures were pegasi, and they were being ridden by elves.

The warlock frowned. Where had they come from? How many were there? Without coming up with an answer, the time came to engage them in combat. Bracing himself and shielding all but the front of his dragon, the warlock commanded it to fry everything in sight. The dragon flames were devastating. A dozen pegasus elf riders went down in the first blast. Laughing again, the warlock lowered his shield so he could blast the enemy with lightning bolts. Elves and pegasi went down in droves.

The elves could not get close enough or go fast enough to get a shot in at this combination of destruction.

The warlock was so engrossed in his destruction of the pegasus elf riders he wasn’t ready as an ice bolt struck his dragon’s tail. With a shriek, his dragon rolled sideways to evade this new attacker. The warlock turned to see a white ice dragon on his tail ridden by a female human mage.

Reacting quickly, the warlock urged his mount to do a sharp turn while setting up his shield once more. Then he maneuvered so that he had a good view of his adversary. He waited for the white dragon to blast at him with another ice bolt. This time the icy breath was deflected aside. The warlock canceled his shield long enough to blast the white dragon with a lightning bolt. But his bolt was deflected aside by a magical shield that the human spell caster had in place. She had used the same tactic he had.

The two dragons passed one another and the human spell caster looked like she was about to cast a spell of her own, but she held off as a swarm of wild dragons flew into the fray. Both combatants were drawn apart as they contended with this new threat. The warlock contended frantically with three dragons; one red dragon and two green ones, while the white one had to deal with two black ones.

The warlock used a combination of magic and dragon flame to ward off his opponents and then looked around for the white dragon, but it was lost in the darkness. With that threat momentarily neutralized, the warlock prepared to go after the pegasus elf riders again. But a sudden blast of lightning struck his dragon’s belly and the warlock noticed too late a new foe appearing from below him. Manifesting itself out of the gloom was a large bronze dragon ridden by a mage with a pointed hat kinked near the top. Another lightning bolt was unleashed by the mage, but the warlock raised a shield just in time. The bolt was deflected aside.

At the same instant the warlock’s shield had been canceled by a ‘silence’ spell cast by the human mage. The reason for this became clear when the mage and his dragon did not slow down and charged right into him. Both riders were jolted as the dragons struck. The dragons began tangling face to face and clawed and bit at one another viciously. Both spell casters could not cast any spells in this position and the warlock suddenly realized that this was the human mage’s tactic all along. With magic neutralized, it was up to the dragons to determine the winner of this fight. The bronze dragon was bigger and stronger, but the warlock’s dragon held its own. The only problem now was since neither dragon was flying, they both began to fall while embraced in this epic struggle.

Finally instinct told the dragons to part and both of them frantically flapped their wings to gain altitude. Had they fought only a few seconds longer, they would have both crashed into the ground.

The warlock tried to get his mount to pursue the human mage, but his dragon was too intent on gaining altitude first. As it happened, one of the warlock’s lizardmage commanders had seen his predicament and had moved in to tangle with the clever human mage and his dragon. How the human mage didn’t lose his hat during the entire altercation was a mystery.

With that threat being dealt with, the warlock looked up to see a large number of wild dragons coming in his direction. They were drawn to his magic, which was more powerful than anyone on the battlefield. In hindsight, the warlock realized he had brought this on himself. His magic had done this. Well, he thought, it couldn’t be helped now. He needed his magic to drive the dragons away. Now that he was far enough away from the human mage with the pointed hat, his magic should work again.

He didn’t notice the battalions of sword wielding elves and centaurs who marched into the fray below him. They had been successful in their southern battle against the trolls more quickly than anticipated because the trolls had split up on two fronts to fight both the elves and humans. This was thanks to the warlock’s desire to have the trolls involved in his war with the humans. This evidently resulted in the trolls’ ranks being thinned sufficiently to allow the elven forces an easy victory. Now the brunt of the elven forces headed north to eliminate the other half of the troll army. Because the earthquakes were somewhat less noticeable in the south, they had made good time. But soon they would see more battle than they expected when they saw the massive army of monsters.

*      *      *      *      *

Kazin moved to a comfortable altitude and glanced back at Amelia. “Which way do we go?”

“Just keep going straight ahead, Kazin. You’ll probably spot him before I do.”

Kazin was suddenly jarred sharply from below. “Ooof!” He felt a shock at the contact.

“What happened?” asked Amelia in concern.

Kazin was jarred again and he twisted to see what had hit him. He only caught a glimpse of a tail. “A dragon is attacking me but I can’t see him!”

Then something collided with Kazin’s right wing. Another spark lit up the area of contact. “Hey!” he cried. A small dragon was seen retreating out of range.

This time Kazin braced himself and waited, all of his senses on alert. Then he saw it swooping in on his tail. Kazin twisted to get a claw in front of him and he successfully scratched at the wild dragon as it tried to snap at his tail.

“Ow!” cried Kazin as the dragon made contact. He felt a piercing pain in his skull but shook it off. Then the wild dragon swerved and zoomed in with its claw extended. With incredible speed, it raked the claw across Kazin’s wing. The electric jolt caused both dragons to twitch away in pain.

“What’s going on?” shouted Sherman. “I can barely see the dragon!”

“It’s tiny!” yelled Amelia. “Should I put up a shield?”

Kazin tried to increase his speed, but the little dragon outran him. It tried to claw Kazin’s tail, but the moment it got close there was another electrical shock bigger than the last time.

“Ouch!” cried Kazin. The small dragon also shrieked and backed off a bit.

“What’s going on?” asked Amelia.

Kazin suddenly groaned as he realized what was happening. “Oh, no! Not again!”

“What is it?” asked Sherman.

“It’s Filbar,” said Kazin. “This isn’t good.”

“Filbar?” asked Amelia. “You mean -,” she looked behind her but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. “Oh, no,” she repeated.

“What do we do?” asked Sherman.

“I’m not sure,” said Kazin. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the dragon approaching from the left. He turned so his back was to the beast. “Use magic to slow him down!”

Amelia rattled off a spell and completed it slightly before the little dragon was about to collide with them. Sherman raised his sword because he had an opening in which to strike. He was about to drive his sword into the dragon’s knee when he recalled Kazin’s limp. As far as Kazin was concerned, he had always had a limp. But Sherman knew Kazin had never had a limp until this quest had started. He knew whatever had altered the past had caused his limp. Was it his sword? Was it the Sword of Dead that caused Filbar to have a permanent limp, only to be transferred to Kazin later on? Most injuries could be healed, but damage done by his sword would probably never heal. To strike now would have repercussions in the future.

The hesitation Sherman experienced proved to have unexpected results. Filbar, although slowed by magic, still had enough momentum to collide with Kazin. Another electric spark emanated from the contact point of the two dragons and the ground below shuddered with the impact. With Kazin sideways, Sherman lost his hold and fell off. He plunged downward with Amelia’s screams in his ears.

“Get lost, Filbar!” shouted Kazin angrily, batting the little dragon away with his wing. The spark from that motion made Filbar pause in his assault. Kazin took the opportunity to dive downward to try to catch his friend before he hit the ground.

“What?!” cried Filbar. “I know that voice!” He tried to follow Kazin down but his body was still affected by Amelia’s ‘slow’ spell.

“Just take your orb and get lost!” yelled Kazin. “If you don’t leave us alone, I’ll steal that orb from you right now!”

Filbar shrieked. “No! You can’t have my orb! I’ll hide it! I’ll never let you have it!” He turned and fled, but only as fast as an ordinary dragon, because he was still under a ‘slow’ spell.

Meanwhile, Kazin gained on his friend and caught him out of the air with his right claw. He curved his claw around Sherman’s body as gently as he could, considering the warrior’s wound, but even then Sherman cried out in pain.

“Sorry!” cried Kazin. He flew to a spot away from the battle and put the warrior down as gently as he could.

Amelia hopped off and immediately used magic to take away Sherman’s pain while redressing the wound. The repair was done quickly, and the companions climbed back on Kazin’s back. Kazin made a mental note to keep Sherman from fighting too much while they were up in the air.

“Let’s try again,” said Kazin. He leapt into the air.

They had hardly gone very far when a handful of wild dragons surrounded them. Kazin shielded himself and left an opening for Amelia to cast some spells at one of the dragons. Her slow spell sent one of their opponents spiraling away to safety. A second dragon attacked Kazin with its claws extended but struck the invisible shield and bounced away. It was a large black dragon, larger than Kazin, and it shrieked in anger as it was foiled in its attempt to do damage close up. A third dragon, a green one, bounced off Kazin’s other side and flapped its wings to pursue him further. The black dragon belched flames at Kazin but the flames merely bounced harmlessly off the shield. The black dragon shrieked again and swerved away to rethink its attack. Meanwhile, Kazin made a swift move to give Amelia an opening to cast another spell. She waited until the right moment and cast some sort of distortion spell at the green dragon. It reeled and flew off in a daze.