Authors: Marie Andreas
New Title 1 (31 page)
I was distracted from my terror as we started toward a wall of gates. As we got closer, it was clear they were pens full of people. What shocked me was how silent they were.
A few feet closer to them and I saw why. Every single man, woman, and child was standing perfectly still, spelled. All of them had terrified eyes. They were clearly aware of what was happening, but none of them moved. None of them
could
move.
“You have us, let them go.” I still hadn’t heard any screams of battle outside the mine, so I had hope our people were still alive and working their way forward.
“That was my assistant’s idea. He still has so much to learn. You can take a darkling, give him magic, but it is far more difficult to get them to think.” Jovan looked at Glorinal like one would a trained dog. “But it did get you both here without a fight, and I do so hate fighting. Takes so much energy you know. Tends to make me thirsty.” He was right next to a low section of the pen and he reached out with one hand and pulled over a minotaur at least a foot taller than himself. With the ease of someone taking a sip of water, Jovan laid his hand on the minotaur’s face and dug his fingers into the flesh. In less than a second the minotaur was nothing but a dry husk laying on the ground.
“And that, my boy, is how you feed. Don’t forget you still have much to learn.” He turned back to us. “But the deal was for you two and the chimera artifact. You didn’t forget it, did you?”
Again, Alric tried to refuse to answer, but again, Jovan won. “I buried it.” Alric was shaking so hard at this point, I was afraid Jovan was killing him inside.
“I know.” Jovan reached behind a pile of crates and pulled forth a bloody and familiar bag. “Three of your guards tried to stop mine, but they didn’t fare well.” He held up the small black figure and smiled. “This will make the master very happy. Once we get it and the gargoyle united, the piece will be complete. If you thought the destruction our misguided syclarion brother tried to create was fun, wait until we get these pieces together.”
A rapidly approaching wall of sound came from the outside. Our people had made their move. I just hoped they could take out enough of the guards to make it matter.
Jovan slid the chimera into his tunic and waved to the guards still in the mine. “Go help them, I refuse to waste more energy on this.”
I turned toward Alric but found he was being pinned against the wall about a foot in the air. He was pulling at an invisible something holding his throat.
Jovan had one hand extended towards Alric, but wasn’t touching him. “I agreed to bring you two in to amuse my assistant, but now I don’t wonder if you both might come in handy for the long trip home. I have so many…needs.” He paused and tilted his head, then peered closely into Alric’s eyes. He then slowly turned toward me.
“Oh dear. This one doesn’t even know what is right there in his own mind. Buried under too many years of bad breeding.” He was beside me in an instant. I tried to shiver as he caressed my face, but I couldn’t even do that. “To think that idiot syclarion was going to kill you. You. The master has been looking for you for a very long time, its part of why he sent me here. It’s why he saved the dark elven bastards like him.” He pointed toward Glorinal, but didn’t bother looking at him.
I was looking at Glorinal, so I saw his face turn red, and his eyes go flat and dark before he spoke. “Our master said no such thing. I will keep her for my bed, nothing more.”
“Worm,” Jovan flicked a hand at Glorinal and Glorinal staggered back into the wall as if punched. “Your mewling little dark elves clan was nothing more than a pack of inbred animals, waiting to be wiped out. The master saved you for one purpose—to find her. His long lost concubine.”
Jovan partially turned away from me, muttering a guttural-sounding spell. Glorinal’s face went from red to purple and his sword had run through Jovan before he could draw another breath. Jovan’s spell, and anything he knew about me and this mysterious master, died on his blood-frothed lips.
Glorinal didn’t look sane as he slid his sword out of Jovan’s body, then plunged it in again. “I told you never to call me worm. Never.” The sickening sound of the sword going in again and again echoed horrifically through the mine.
Then all hell broke loose as the spells holding Alric and the people in the pens released with Jovan’s death. I scrambled away from Glorinal, but Alric charged two guards who had come back inside. I had no idea how strong his magic was, but he could still fight. He disarmed the first guard, then ran him through with his own sword. The second guard had a better stance, and took longer to subdue, but Alric sliced his throat within a minute, then ran for the locked up Beccians. Some of our people who had been outside came running in as well and he yelled for them to help him unlock the pens.
Glorinal was still stabbing Jovan’s bloody remains, when I started for the entrance myself. Glorinal was in front of me in an instant.
“Not you. Never you. I will keep you for myself. You will be my concubine, and we will destroy the master and free my people. You will learn to enjoy it, or not, I don’t care. But shame on you for not telling me you were the—”
He stumbled forward as Alric threw a knife at his back. He’d moved at the last instant so the blade went into the fleshy part of his arm. Glorinal yelled as he spun and pulled out the blade. With the entrance blocked, I ran further into the mine looking for weapons. The people in the pens were moving, but not quickly. Glorinal might not be the mage Jovan was, but I was pretty sure he could stop them from escaping if he was paying attention to them. I needed him focused on me.
Unfortunately, Glorinal was advancing on Alric, who was still too close to the escaping people. I rounded a corner, then stuck my head back into the main cavern and yelled as loudly as I could. “You miserable, impotent
worm
. I couldn’t be your concubine, you don’t have the necessary parts.”
Glorinal’s face had been going back to normal, but it flashed red again as he ran toward me and reached out a hand in my direction. I felt the spell licking like flames at my feet, and my heart started racing, not out of fear, but because of whatever he was trying to do to me. I tripped backwards and fell over a pile of gear.
I saw Glorinal frown and I felt the spell weaken. Alric had followed and threw his own spell at Glorinal, knocking him to one knee. Glorinal swung back to him, releasing me completely.
I rose to my feet and looked around. Jovan hadn’t been able to really hurt me, his first spell had been blocked. But Glorinal would have killed me in minutes—what had changed? I looked down and saw a busted empty bottle with a very familiar label. Dragon bane. I knew it somehow put me into berserker mode, but did it also strengthen my natural immunity to magic?
I looked back into the main area and saw that while the people from the pens were gone, Alric was losing the battle. His magic might have been coming back, but it wasn’t strong enough yet for someone like Glorinal. They were better matched as swordsmen, but Alric was starting to buckle under the spell assault.
I kicked a few packs over to see if anyone else was drinking the stuff and found an intact bottle in a crumbled sack. This was either a very good idea, or a very bad one. Without another thought I opened the bottle and poured it over my head.
The burning across my skin felt welcoming this time, and that almost scared me more than the fight in front of me.
Then energy slammed into me, and I found myself running toward Glorinal before I realized it. My hands reached out like claws and a part of my mind pointed out I still didn’t have any weapons. But the burning part of my mind didn’t care.
Glorinal screamed as he saw me, but then reached out and swung Alric directly at me.
I grunted as his body hit mine, and it was all I could do not to rip him apart. I kept screaming at myself that he wasn’t our enemy, but the red part of my mind disagreed.
I shoved him away as hard as I could and turned to focus on Glorinal. Only to slam into an invisible wall.
“I see what he meant, what they all meant. You will be glorious when you lay with our master. But I will have you first.” A spell like cold water slammed into me and I felt the fire start to go out. The spell was followed by images of what Glorinal intended to do to me. I dropped to my knees and threw up.
Alric recovered a bit and flung a knife and a spell at Glorinal’s back. This time both hit, but Glorinal didn’t go down. “You infant, you can’t even realize you’re dead, you’re all dead. I am all that matters!” He raised the chimera he’d stolen from Jovan’s body in the air and lightening crackled from it, directed at Alric. Alric rolled out of the way and a burning crater was left where Alric had been. He got to his feet, but his left arm hung uselessly and he was shaking where he stood.
Rather
we
were shaking.
Whatever Glorinal and the chimera were doing, the walls of the mine weren’t up for it. I found a dagger on the ground, then fused it with the power from the dragon bane, and threw the power-charged dagger toward Glorinal’s heart. Time didn’t slow this time, but like Slim Jankins, Glorinal went flying into the air as the dagger hit him.
He slammed into the far cavern wall with enough force to crack it, but I didn’t take the time to see if he was getting up. The walls were shaking heavier now and I had to dodge boulders crashing from the ceiling to get to Alric.
I grabbed his good arm and pulled him toward the entrance.
“No, we can’t let him keep it.” The weak pull he gave to try to get away told me how bad off he was.
“Don’t be stupid, this place is coming down—now.” I gave a sharp pull, then pushed back toward the cavern, and Glorinal, with the remains of whatever power I had from the dragon bane, and flung us out of the mine.
A moment later, it completely folded in on itself and we were surrounded by dust.
It took a good ten minutes for the dust to settle, then the yelling began. Fortunately, the yelling was from our own people as they surged toward us.
Hands lifted both Alric and me to our feet, and they stayed with him when it was clear he couldn’t stand on his own.
Covey and Harlan ran over and grabbed me.
“Thank the gods!” Covey hugged me.
“That thing is dead, right?” Harlan was tattered and bruised. He and Covey had probably been in with the rest of the prisoners, but most likely both of them had fought back.
I stared back at the collapsed mine behind us. Dust was still billowing out of the collapsed mine. No one should have been able to survive that. No one. But I couldn’t lie.
“I don’t know. I really don’t.”
Alric pulled away from the people holding him up and shook his head. “We’d better hope he’s dead, and the obsidian chimera was destroyed with him. I translated your last scrolls, Covey.” The bruising on his face was nothing compared to the terror in his eyes. “The gargoyle and the chimera are part of an ancient weapon. There are more pieces, at least four more. Separately they are deadly, together they are catastrophic.” He turned to me, but I couldn’t read what was in his eyes this time. “They destroyed the Ancients.”
The End
A book is usually written by one person, sometimes two if they are co-authoring. A book is usually read by one person, sometimes two if one is reading to another. But in between the writing of the book and the reading of the book are whole armies of folks helping to make it shine.
I’d like to thank Jessa Slade and Khriste Close for editing magic. For my most awesome team of beta readers: Lisa Andreas, Colleen Conniff, Lynne Facer, Patti Huber, Lynne Mayfield, and Sharon Rivest. Any errors still lurking in this book are completely the fault of Crusty Bucket, who sneaks in at night and moves letters around.
My cover artist, Aleta Rafton, for another wonderful cover.
A shout out to all my Scaper friends who may have come into my life from a TV show, but have become so much more than that. Your craziness, kindness, and creativity definitely influenced these books. A special thank you to Jean Orrico for her business wisdom and guidance.
Thank you for joining Taryn, Alric, and the faeries in the second book of the now six book series—The Lost Ancients. We all really appreciate when folks come to play in “our” world, and hope you enjoyed it too.
This series will continue with THE EMERALD DRAGON, then on to at least three more books—possibly more if the faeries go on another bender!
I really appreciate each and every one of you so please keep in touch. You can find me at www.marieandreas.com.
And please feel free to email me directly at
[email protected]
as well, I love to hear from readers!
If you enjoyed this book (or any book for that matter ;)) please spread the word! Positive reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and blogs are like emotional gold to any writer and mean more than you know.
Thank you again, and we all hope to see you back here in THE EMERALD DRAGON!
Marie
(Umm, Garbage Blossom says she knows where you live, so don’t be late picking up the next book. ;))