Lord Kharrion's Wrath
D
eath waited out in Darkling Swamp, Wick knew. Crocodiles and poison snakes and large snapping turtles. Then there were dryads and banshees that lived in the cypress trees knotted in the center.
Three piers ran out into the water, proof that someâwhether elven or human from Calmpoint and Deldal's Millsâfished or hunted there.
Kulik Broghan and Ryman Bey made for the middle one.
Wick turned and looked back the way he'd come, hoping desperately that rescue was just behind him. Instead, there was no one. He tried to rein the horse in, but it was in the grip of sheer terror and wanted to join the others.
“Look!” one of the Razor's Kiss thieves yelled. “It's the halfer!”
Two of them drew bows and nocked back arrows. Two others wheeled their mounts around and rode on an interception course.
Lacking the strength to pull the frightened horse's head around, Wick slid his weight over to the right stirrup, dropping down as one of the arrows whizzed over his head and the other pierced the saddle pommel a scant inch from his hand. He let go the pommel when he was almost on top of the other horses.
As skillfully as he could, Wick hit the ground and rolled, hoping to take away some of the brunt of the landing as well as stay a moving target. The air rushed out of his lungs when he hit, and he lost all control, skidding across the rough ground, losing skin and collecting bruises as he went.
Fortunately, he ended up in brush. There were hundreds of scratches involved, but he could hide almost immediately. Resisting the impulse to lie still until he was certain he was of a piece, he scrambled through the brush and tried not to leave a trail or anything moving behind him.
“I don't know what you hope to do here, halfer,” Kulik Broghan said. “You don't have any magic, and you don't have any sword skills that can stand up against the armed men and goblinkin that are here with me.”
Wick didn't answer. He was terrified and didn't know what he could do, either. But he hadn't been able to leave Quarrel alone to her fate. He found a safe spot near the water under a tall copse of cypress trees and stood in water up to his knees, hoping that no snakes or crocodiles were nearby.
“You found Boneslicer and Seaspray when we couldn't,” Kulik Broghan taunted as he stepped down from his horse and walked to the end of the pier with the sword in his hand. “So we have your cleverness to thank for that.”
Don't mention it
, Wick thought.
Ever!
“We had searched those areas for years. I like to think that we would have eventually found them.”
Wick took cover and prepared to move. “Why would you want to unleash Lord Kharrion's Wrath now?” He moved, six feet away from where he'd been standing, and listened as arrows cut through the brush where he'd been before.
“Are you still alive?” Kulik Broghan asked.
Wick didn't answer, knowing better than to give the archers another easy target.
“If we'd gotten him,” one of the archers said, walking along the ouside of the brush ringing the swamp, “you'd have heard him flopping around in there.”
“Unless you got him in the heart and killed him immediately,” the other archer said. He circled in the other direction.
“We had the two weapons,” Kulik Broghan said as he held Seaspray out to the swamp, “but we couldn't do what Craugh managed to do in tracking Sokadir down. Nor could we have brought Sokadir out to us the way Craugh did. We knew he would trust Craugh enough to come forward. All we had to do was remain hidden long enough for that to happen. Then we could make our move. As we have done.”
Wick knelt in the water and felt a snake slide through the water next to his leg.
“As to why I am doing it,” the wizard went on, “it's to unite the goblinkin once more. After he'd destroyed Dream the first time in his search for the vidrenium, Lord Kharrion learned that Oskarr had come into possession of the enchanted ore only after the Battle of Fell's Keep. When he saw the weapons being used there, he knew what had occurred. So he brought in a traitor to act against the defenders there, made them all sick so there was hope that those weapons would fall into his possession. We took Seaspray, but we missed Boneslicer and Deathwhisper.”
Behind Kulik Broghan, Quarrel tried to push herself to her feet. In the pale moonslight, Wick saw that the bandage he'd put on her arm had soaked through with blood. He felt torn as he looked on, feeling the need to do something, but not seeing his way clear to doing anything.
“Now,” the wizard said, “everything is within our grasp again.” He shouted powerful, terrible Words.
In the middle of the swamp, fierce bubbling took place and a sulfurous stench rent the air, boiling over the normal fecund stink of the swamp. Incredibly, Kulik Broghan droned on, and
something
rose out in the middle of the Darkling Swamp.
Wick thought back over all the references he'd read to Thalanildim. After his adventure with Shengharck when he had returned to the Vault of All Known Knowledge, Wick had read a lot about dragons. Much had been written about Thalanildim, but he had never learned where the great dragon's final battle had taken place. Nor had he ever learned who had finally destroyed Thalanildim.
But now the remains of the great dragon dragged themselves up out of the muck and the mire. Wick had no doubt that what he was seeing was a dragon, and it was the biggest dragon he had ever seen. It was also the most fearsome. Shengharck had been more than a hundred feet long from nose to tail, but Thalanildim was twice that.
The dead dragon stood on its hind legs and towered above the tallest trees in the swamp. Mud and dead plants clung to its body, which was malformed and mostly skeletal. Water and muck dripped through the holes of itself where flesh and dragon scales were missing. In life, Thalanildim had been beautiful. Its scales had been deep ermine with a bronze belly and gold-tipped claws. Now it was mud brown and black as though scorched by a horrible fire.
Thalanildim kept the bat wings closed about itself, but Wick saw several holes through them, as if rats had been at it while it had slept in death. Its head was shaped like a pickaxe, the jaws, the narrow end, and the horned head covered in broken horns.
“Who are you that calls Thalanildim?” the dragon demanded in a cold, empty voice. The moonslight showed the empty sockets where its eyes had been.
“I am Kulik Broghan, a wizard.” The man stood at the end of the pier and held Seaspray in his sparking grasp. The sparks reflected in the dark, troubled water.
“You have no right to disturb me.” The dragon eyed him with its hollow gaze.
Ryman Bey, guildmaster of the Razor's Kiss, stepped back.
“I come offering a gift.” Kulik Broghan held up the sword, still showering sparks.
“What gift?”
“Would you,” the wizard asked, “like to live again? To wreak your vengeance on humans, dwarves, and elves as you once did?”
“My time is over. I was killed. By a human.” The dragon cocked its head to the side. “He was also a wizard. His name was Craugh.”
Fourteen hundred years old
, Wick thought in disbelief.
How has a human, even a wizard, lived so long?
“Craugh,” Kulik Broghan stated, “still lives. He's here in this place.”
The dragon unfolded its wings. It curled up one claw at the end of a foreleg. “I would have my revenge, human, no matter what the price.”
“Then agree to my binding, and to serve me,” Kulik Broghan said, “and I can grant you your vengeance.”
Bowing, the dragon said, “I submit, my liege, and acknowledge your sovereign power over me.” Then it straightened, standing tall and formidable again. “Now give me what I seek.”
Horrified, Wick watched as Kulik Broghan spoke more Words andâ
twisted
âSeaspray in his grip. Metal screamed as he wrenched it from the shape Master Oskarr had beaten it into a thousand years ago in his Cinder Clouds Islands forge. The hilt crunched and folded and bent, and the blade stretched and wrapped around itself.
“No!” Quarrel cried out, pushing herself weakly forward. “Don't! Please!”
But Kulik Broghan didn't halt his cruel ministrations. In only a short time, Seaspray had been crushed into a ball of metal.
“There,” he cried, proud of what he had wrought. “This is only part of what was created to bring you renewed life, but it'll be enough for now. There are two other pieces. You'll have to claim them.” He held the metal ball up.
Thalanildim staggered forward through the swamp, sloshing up tall waves of muddy water and muck. The undead dragon bent down to take the metal ball.
“My own dragonheart was destroyed,” the fearsome creature said. “Craugh saw it shattered to pieces, never to be formed again.”
“Then you should shatter him,” Kulik Broghan stated, smiling.
“Yes,” Thalanildim said, fitting the metal ball into the center of its hollow chest. Dark purple light suddenly filled the undead dragon's body. Some of the dead scales folded back into place and looked near indestructible again, but there were still many gaping holes.
“Yeeeesssssssss!”
it cried joyously. It curled its foreclaws into fists. “I have missed this feeling! For years I have lain in the bottom of this swamp, no longer able to go, no longer able to enjoy the savagery of the hunt! Now ⦠now I am renewed!”
The Razor's Kiss thieves, including Ryman Bey, as well as the goblinkin drew back from the undead thing.
Thalanildim opened its beak and screamed, and the Forest of Fangs and Shadows shivered in fear of the terrible noise.
“No!” Quarrel shouted, pushing past Kulik Broghan and reaching toward the dragon. “I will have that sword!”
Looking at the misshapen ball magically suspended in the dragon's chest, Wick didn't believe that even Master Oskarr (if he were alive) would be able to return the sword to its original shape. But as Quarrel reached for it, the metal ball quivered and tried to pull loose from the mysterious force holding it prisoner.
Swinging its head around, Thalanildim glared at Quarrel. “Foolish human,” it snarled, lifting one of its clawed feet to smash down on her.
Quarrel dodged to one side, leaping into the swamp as the massive foot came down. Kulik Broghan stepped back, narrowly avoiding the foot and the claws as they smashed through the pier and reduced the end of it to a collection of broken planks.
Then a blazing green lightning bolt exploded against the dragon's chest, rocking it back on its heels.
Glancing to the left, Wick saw Craugh, Brandt, and Hallekk riding horses,
followed by others. Evidently they'd been able to gather some of the stampeded mounts and get control of them.
Then Kulik Broghan cast a wall of invisible force that bowled over the three lead horses, toppling Craugh and the others from their mounts. The horses in the rear leaped over the downed animals and rushed on.
Wick looked to where Quarrel had gone under the dark water and didn't see her. He couldn't help wondering if the dragon's stomp had injured her. Before he knew it, he was in motion, running rapidly through the swamp. Thankfully, his dweller balance and agility stood him in good stead as he ran across the slick, soft bottom. When a log in front of him opened its eyes, then its great cavernous mouth, he leaped over it, barely avoiding the crocodile's snapping teeth.
He landed on the other side, moving as fast as he could, his heart thundering in his chest and his ears. He thought only of Quarrel, not knowing how many of his friends were already dead, knowing that Cobner had been suspiciously absent.
“Craugh!” the dragon screamed.
Wick wasn't certain if the undead creature recognized Craugh or the wizard's power. He leaped again, this time over the splintered remains of the pier. A shadow drifted over his head and he glanced up to see a giant foot descending toward him. He threw himself forward again, trying in vain to get out of the way, knowing that he couldn't get the course change he needed on the slippery mud.
I'm going to die! Squished flatter than a sheet of parchment
!
I hope it doesn't
â
Then Quarrel leaped up from the water, coming straight at him in a dive, looping her uninjured arm around his head and shoulders. Together, they splashed into the water and the foot missed crushing them by inches.
Quarrel caught Wick by the shirt front and pulled him from the swamp. “Get up!” she yelled. Terror had widened her eyes, but she was still functioning. “We have to get my sword!”
We?
Wick thought, watching her charge after the dragon as it stalked toward shore with steps that shook the earth and quivered through the water.
We are not dragon slayers. Well, there was the one, but that was
â