Book of Kinsey: Dark Fate (The Dark Fate Chronicles 2) (32 page)

The old priest rubbed at his clouded eyes with the back of his hand and tried to remember how he had come to this spot. He remembered being thrown from his saddle after Murr had been slain. He had toppled to the ground to land on his back, but that had not been the blow that rendered him unconscious. He had gotten to his feet to follow the king...

King Thorn!
The moments just before Sargon’s blackout flashed before his eyes in sudden, crisp detail. When he had recovered from his fall, he had hurried after Thorn and Nerok’s charge on foot. He caught up with them in time to see the heartbreaking end of Nerok’s life and Thorn’s fall. When the giant stood over the king, mocking him, Sargon had crept closer, looking for an opportunity to help. When the giant’s wicked black blade had reared up, Sargon abandoned his caution and came darting in, snagging up a discarded shield as he ran. Praying fervently to Dagda for the preservation of Thorn’s life, Sargon had dove atop his friend, holding the shield aloft. When the sword fell, there had been an almighty clang, and all had gone black.

Frantic, Sargon rolled over to see if his king yet lived.

Thorn’s face was a bloody mess. Even the enchantments held by the carcodium runes had been insufficient to stop the blow that had thrown Thorn to the ground. The nose guard was bent and pushed deep into the crushed cheek. His nose was twisted at an odd angle, and the skin was split in several places. Fresh blood bubbled from one nostril, leaving a bright-red trail down the king’s gray moustache and beard as his chest rose and fell slowly.

“Thank Dagda,” Sargon choked in relief. He glanced around to see if there was an immediate threat.

Forces clashed nearby but kept their distance from the black-clad giant and his feasting drake. The piles of bodies surrounding them provided a temporary circle of protection and somewhat hid Sargon and the king. The giant hobgoblin himself was still engaged with a pair of dwarven warriors.

Sargon took in a sharp breath as he realized the pair was Horus and Jordin. They worked in tandem, one drawing the giant’s attention to one side while the other lunged in to attack. The giant laughed and swatted away their attempts, seeming to hardly care.

“Dagda shelter and strengthen ya, my brothers,” Sargon muttered, turning back to Thorn. He could do nothing to aid his friends, but he might be able to save the king.

As gently as he could, he pried the nasal out of the king’s cheek and worked the helmet off. Sargon’s hands trembled with fatigue, but when he placed them on Thorn’s face and began to pray, they steadied.

Comforting and familiar warmth began to build within the old priest as he prayed, and he knew from the accounts of others that his eyes would be alight with Dagda’s golden glow. When he uttered the last words of his prayer, the power of his god surged through his hands into Thorn’s unconscious body. The vacating power left a void within him, and weariness flooded in.

Sargon wavered and almost collapsed. He clenched his jaw and shook his head against the creeping darkness, forcing it away. Long habit guided his tired eyes and worn hands as he examined Thorn once more.

Blood no longer flowed down the king’s beard, and his broken nose had regained its shape. The shattered cheek was once again round and strong. Thorn remained unconscious, but he looked as if he were in the embrace of true sleep instead of gripped by a trauma-induced blackout.

Sargon murmured a word of thanks to his god as he rolled off the king. The priest looked around wearily, thoughts numb. His eyes settled on the giant sword-wielding hobgoblin, and to Sargon’s horror, he found his first prayer had gone unanswered. Horus fought alone.

Sargon watched helplessly as the young warrior fended off blow after blow with a battered shield until finally a powerful sweeping strike from the hobgoblin flung Horus into the air. The dwarf warrior landed hard and rolled bonelessly to a stop near Nerok’s lifeless body. There he remained, unmoving.

Sargon stared at Horus’s body in confusion. His mind pushed away the possibility of the warrior being dead in spite of the dreadful way he lay. All around him, the chaos of battle and faces stretched in agonized masks of death turned into a shifting milieu. A sudden scream of challenge pulled him away from his bewildered study of Horus.

Jocelyn stood weaponless, shouting at the giant. It turned away from the fallen Horus toward her. Rough, gritty words that Sargon could not understand came from the thing’s ugly mouth as it beckoned to her. Jocelyn raged at the monster and charged. The hobgoblin’s haughty sneer widened, and it hefted the giant black blade aloft, ready to end the maiden’s life.

“No!” Sargon yelled in powerless frustration.

An unearthly howl tore the air of the clearing, burying every sound of battle or pain in its all-consuming wail. The giant hobgoblin’s leer twisted into a snarl as it jerked its attention away from Jocelyn and searched for the source of the sound. Jocelyn’s headlong charge faltered to a stop as she clapped both hands to her ears and fell to her knees. Combatants in every direction on both sides of the conflict dropped their weapons and clawed at their ears, desperate to escape the sound. Even the drake that had ignored everything to gorge itself on the flesh of the great bear’s body hissed in fury and clawed at the sides of its head.

Sargon, too, agonized under the assault and pressed his hands over his ears in a useless attempt to escape the rising pain in his head. The terrible cry persisted, bending mind and soul to seemly endless torment. Sargon struggled to block the sound, screaming in agony. “Dagda, preserve me!” he shouted, invoking his god. Instantly, the rending torment lifted. The awful howl continued, but the mind-numbing pain, the soul-wrenching agony that it had inspired ceased as surely as if it had been subject to the slamming of a heavy door. Understanding rose as quickly as the pain abated. He knew what was making the horrible sound. More precisely, he knew who.

Searching the staggering multitudes that surrounded them, Sargon found the prince. He stood atop a fallen boulder, towering above the masses, with his mighty head lifted to the heavens. His ruddy mane, reminiscent of a lion’s, flowed down his back to touch the base of a long, wolfish tail. Dagger-like teeth filled his open maw, and clouds of steaming breath poured into the air as the mind-shattering roar continued. Polished steel and carcodium covered almost every inch of the Dakayga save only the hands, feet, and head. The gleaming metals pressed tightly against the powerful, thick body but moved like a second skin. There was no tapestry in any hall of Mozil or any lost chamber in Rhazidan that could hope to capture the true depth of power, rage, and majesty that stood before Sargon now. The dwarven people’s holy warrior had finally come—the myths banished to the winds by Kinsey’s thunderous call.

A quiet hum rang in Sargon’s ears as the prince’s wail came to an end and overlay the muted cries of the stunned dwarves and goblin-kin. All eyes were fixed upon the gleaming form of the Dakayga as he looked back imperiously from his perch.

Moving with swiftness that Sargon could scarcely believe, the prince sprang from the boulder in a blur of motion directly at the stupefied hobgoblin giant. A resounding crash of metal on metal filled the pulsing silence left from the Dakayga’s howl. The giant flew away just as Horus had done moments earlier, disappearing into the milling throngs of dwarves and goblin-kin dozens of feet away. The great, black, quillioned sword fell with a ringing clank to the stony earth. Kinsey snarled after the hobgoblin, gathering himself to follow, when Jocelyn stumbled to her feet in front of him. She staggered back with eyes wide and clenched fists still pressed to her ears.

“Thank Dagda,” Sargon breathed. He attempted to struggle to his feet in the brief moment of calm but was beyond exhausted. Healing the king had truly taken the last of his strength. All that was left to him was to watch. And pray.

The prince looked down at Jocelyn, momentarily distracted. One of his clawed hands slowly reached out to her in a gesture of comfort. Jocelyn came to a swaying stop and lowered her trembling hands from her ears. She looked up at Kinsey with pride and awe. A moment of understanding appeared to pass between them, and then Jocelyn screamed.

It was no surprise to find Jocelyn here, and yet Kinsey found himself unable to take his eyes away from her. Of course she would have been amongst the first to rush to the king. The headstrong woman was wonderfully loyal and insane.

She stared up at him as her hands slowly fell from her ears. The bronze in her eyes picked up the green lightning that still flickered in the menacing clouds above, giving her stare an eldritch flair as she studied him. The same rock-solid confidence she had displayed those weeks ago in her mad gamble graced her dirty face now.

Something caught her eye, for she looked past him suddenly and screamed. She burst into motion, bending to snatch a spear from the ground and dash past him, still screeching at the top of her lungs.

Kinsey spun, furious energy coursing through him.

The drake had recovered from the Dakayga’s battle cry. Its massive, arrow-shaped head had coiled back to strike, jaws agape. Bits of viscera clung in the teeth, and blood mixed with saliva dripped from the flicking tongue. No hiss of warning escaped as it launched itself forward, quick as black lightning.

Jocelyn hurled her spear as the head snapped forward. The ragged shaft sailed through the air and struck home, piercing the soft inner cheek of the drake. A keening hiss broke from the monster and it whipped its head back away from the pain. The drake thrashed and spat in a convulsing heap. The multiple legs scrabbled at its armored head in a chaotic frenzy, attempting to dislodge the spear. Jocelyn cast about on the ground, rummaging through the corpses for what Kinsey could only assume to be another weapon. The great black reptile quickly tore the spear free. Heavy jaws snapped several times, showering the ground with spittle and blood while bold emerald eyes focused on the scurrying form of the dwarven maiden.

Kinsey perceived everything so much more vividly now than he ever had as a man. During those few moments of struggle, he could hear the individual scales slide past each other as the drake thrashed, even beyond its hissing and tumbling. Smells floated thickly in the air, but his keen nose separated them, and he knew them for what they were. He could smell the vile stink of the hobgoblins and their smaller goblin cousins. The blood of dwarves and monsters wafted heavily in his nostrils, but his mind identified it all, including the acrid smell of the drake’s blood that was part pickling barrel and part jungle snake. His sharp eyes picked out thick bands of muscle curled along the monster’s scaly neck as it found Jocelyn and coiled to strike again.

The rage within him stoked to new levels and he snarled, leaping at the creature. Soil and stones exploded away as he sailed through the air nearly thirty feet to slam into the unsuspecting reptile’s side. Kinsey gave himself to the righteous fury and tore into the drake with his Dagda-blessed claws. Scales and flesh littered the air as the prince released his wrath upon the monster that had helped lay his grandfather low.

A shriek of pain filled Kinsey’s ears as the drake convulsed and twisted wildly in an attempt to escape him. It rolled and coiled upon itself, legs scratching, but could not dislodge the werebeast.

Kinsey’s claws sank into the drake’s flesh, and he clung to the writhing reptile with all his strength. His tearing hands exposed a glistening white band of tendon, and he drove his head forward, locking his mighty jaws around the living tissue. Kinsey dangled from his locked jaws, and unleashed all four of his clawed limbs on the exposed side of the monster. Muscle and bone flew away in bloody chunks, and the agonized keening of the great beast redoubled with the fresh assault.

Crushing pressure suddenly closed around Kinsey’s chest and waist as he continued to dig in a frenzy at the reptile. He could hear the moaning of steel and carcodium as the metals that encased him were put under immense pressure, but the armor did not fracture. The serpent had finally managed to twist its neck around and strike home. Jagged teeth had fastened tightly onto Kinsey, and the drake swung its body like a giant whip. The tendon to which Kinsey clung stretched and tore free, allowing the drake to pull him away from the gaping wound.

As Kinsey was borne aloft, the giant serpent flexed its great jaws. Devastating pressure began to overwhelm the mystic runes etched into Kinsey’s armor. With a creak and a whine, the magical protection collapsed. A howl of pain escaped Kinsey’s demon-like maw, but he was far from helpless even held as he was. He bit and clawed at the scaly muzzle that trapped him, trying to tear his way free.