Fate Rides Wicked: Volume I of the Lerilon Trilogy (8 page)

“That is what we are here for. Pleftor has determined
that the storm outside is magically created. Working
together, we’ve discovered the truth of this. We’ve also
found evidence that it may destroy every ecosystem on the
northern plain and perhaps reach into the kingdoms.”

“We do not have enough of the right power gathered
here to counteract a Rangdor-generated storm. I’m afraid,
Morg, that we must take this defeat.” The look of gloom
on Corl’s face deepened until it seemed to suck the light
from his eyes.

“We need the help of dragon kind.”

“NO! We cannot ask such things of a race we almost
destroyed.” Rage had replaced despair.

“Father, do not deceive us. We know of your special
relationship with the dragons. This storm can be ended but
the dragons are the only race suited to do so. Their hunting
grounds are in danger. As your son, your king and a fellow
magician, I beg you.”

“I will discuss it with the one I know, but alone.” Corl
picked up the Staff of Two Magics. “Remember, we can
expect nothing we ask of them to be done, but I will try.”
After a moment of concentration, he vanished.

On his natural rock platform, the wizard chanted. A
quarter of an hour passed. The chant became a song.
Another fifteen minutes went by. Then suddenly, as if out
of nowhere, a huge, golden lizard appeared in the sky. A
fifty-foot wingspan beat back the clouds as two tons of
scale-covered body bore down on the valley. With a
graceful, gentle swoop, the creature pulled up in front of
the platform and became a man. Only the endarils knew
this secret, that dragons could take whatever humanoid
shape they chose.

Corl bowed in a deep sign of respect and the dragon
responded. “Thank you for coming, my friend.”

“What is the reason, king of wizards, for bringing me
out in a storm such as this?”

“The storm is the reason. I now ask for the favor I gave
to be returned. The storm is magical, the work of Rangdor,
and we need it ended before it wipes out every creature in
the northern plain.”

“What you ask is no small task. What, personally,
motivates you to call on your favor for such a thing?”

“He who can save this planet is out there in that storm.
He is facing a battle with powers beyond even his
remarkable strengths.”

“The second question I must ask before I may consider
this is, what might I be motivated by?”

“The destruction of your hunting grounds by he who
would kill all that is good.”

“You have satisfied me, greatest of all wizards. It will
be done.” The dragon ran to the edge and leaped, once
again taking on his natural shape. With several broad
sweeps of his wings, he passed through the clouds and
vanished. Corl once more concentrated and returned to his
tower. After his students were satisfied, the endaril put his
staff against the wall and climbed into bed. He fell asleep
quickly and his dreams were filled with death.

Tych came up sputtering. Something clung to his
armor and in panic he fought to free himself. He went
under again by its force, his hands tearing at it. His
survival had been purely by instinct, but now he needed
strength. The cold water that had helped slow his
metabolism, held something that wished to feed on him.

He kicked free and darted towards the surface of the
deep river. Something hit him in the head and, thinking it
was debris, he grabbed it. Another of the vine-like arms
wrapped around his legs and pulled. As his head sank
below the surface, he realized that he also held onto a leg.
The realization that two lives were in danger shocked him
into clear thinking. With his free left hand he reached for
his dagger at his belt. The river had taken it!

His mind raced. He looked at the vines that had grown
tighter around his ankles. His sword still hung at his side
but he did not want to release the other person to get at it.
As this thought crossed his mind he realized that the body
he held might be armed. He pulled it closer and then, in
one quick turn of the body, he saw the face. He grabbed
Lendril’s belt with his left hand with all the might he could.
Then, with his right, he freed her axe from its scabbard.

Suddenly his ankle slipped for a moment and he
gasped. The water flowed in and out of his lungs like
oxygen. After a moment of surprise, he tried breathing.
For reasons beyond him, it worked. With the strength of
his newly discovered ability, he pulled his chest down to
his knees and sliced. The water blunted the force of the
axe, but after several chops, the vine fell apart. Another
one snaked out to replace it, but with a kick the prince had
them both out of reach of it and in the current.

Swimming on pure adrenalin, Tych brought them to the
opposite shore. On the sandy patch there, he dragged
Lendril onto her side. As he bent over to help her empty
her lungs, he caught a lone vine approaching under water
out of the corner of his eye. He removed his sword belt and
tossed aside his backpack. Taking one of his daggers from
his pack, he dove back into the river.

Almost the moment he broke the surface a vine grabbed
him around the waist. With the blade outstretched, he
allowed himself to be pulled towards the owner of the
tentacle. Down he went, passing through a hole in the river
floor. Finally, he reached the lair of the beast.

Nothing he had ever imagined matched the ferocity of
the creature in the river. As it drew him towards its mouth,
he faked death until the last moment. Then he struck out
and landed the dagger in the eye of the predator. He pulled
it back out and raised it to strike again when, suddenly, he
found himself caged by a row of teeth.

Lendril stirred on the shore, coughing and sputtering, as
Tych drove the blade into the roof of the beast’s mouth.
The water around him filled with deep-green blood,
blinding him to his surroundings. The tongue whipped up,
tossing him towards the awaiting throat. Again he held
onto the dagger.

A mighty swallow grabbed onto Tych and yanked him
down the creature’s throat. Frantically, he began stabbing
out in every direction. Now he could taste the blood going
down with him towards the stomach of his foe. In
desperation, he tried to open the floodgates of energy in his
mind. Fear began to creep in and with a mighty battle cry,
the wells of power opened.

Lendril meanwhile sat up and saw the blood and air
bubbling to the top. With tears coming to her eyes, she
came to her knees and looked deep into the water. Slowly,
not wanting to see the conclusion, she picked up Tych’s
things and turned towards the forest. A few feet into the
trees she sat down, exhaustion taking over.

Suddenly, a cry of pain, freedom and glory shattered
the still forest. Looking towards the river, she saw Tych
twenty feet above the surface. He seemed to hang there for
a moment, and then he fell. On his way down he put his
hands above his head and split the bubbling river with a
dive. As his head came above water, the hole in the
riverbed sucked the path of the water down, until the bed
down-river dried up. Tych went down with it, unable to
fight.

Lendril yelled in horror and helplessness. She
screamed his name in dismay and jumped up. Then she sat
back down, weariness overwhelming her. Ignorant of
Tych’s ability to breath water, tears began to roll down her
cheek.

Suddenly, a tall, dark-skinned man rushed by and
launched his muscular frame into the churning water.
Lendril detected the faint scent of electricity in the air and
turned her head to watch the river. Long, agonizing
minutes passed and despair once again began to fill her
soul.

With a yell of triumph, the black man broke through the
surface with Tych under his arm. He climbed onto the dry
bed and walked to the shore, Tych limping next to him with
support. Lendril stood and met them on the dry land. Tych
collapsed and she bent over him, adrenalin once again
boosting her. Frantically, she began removing the armor
from his upper body.

Taking bandages from her pack, she ripped off his
padded shirt and began wrapping the white cloth around his
torso. The bandages became pink and then red. She
struggled to pull them tight but no strength remained.
“Help me pull them taught over the wound or he’ll die.”

The man bent over and yanked with such force that
Tych sat up in shock and pain out of a deep stupor. The
man looked sheepishly at Lendril then loosened the
bandages until Tych fell back to the ground. Quickly she
taped them.

The stranger spoke. “Can you walk?”

“I doubt I would make it very far. Besides we have no
reason to trust you, human.”

“I’m not human, I’m a dragon. If not for me, the storm
would still be raging and you both would be dead.”

Lendril noticed for the first time that the rain had
stopped. She had been too weary and wet to notice this or
the absence of wind. “Tell me, then, why should we trust
one who considers us an enemy.”

“I have long been at peace with the endarils. They have
served my master and I well.”

“So then you are owned by a human?”

“No, my master is Buhlaht, the King of the Dragons. I
served as one of his guards. He remains to this day one of
the greatest forces to be reckoned with, but not nearly what
this man will be.” He gestured towards Tych with an open
palm.

“You cannot possibly know who we are.”

“You, my beautiful endaril, are Lendril di Rutif, and he
is Tych di Corl, Prince of the Endarils, banished for crimes
he did not commit.”

“How do you know all this?” Lendril tied the last tie on
Tych’s armor and sat down.

“That must wait, for here we are in danger and the
forest has ears. I must take you to the safety of my lair.”
With this the dragon seemed to blur before Lendril’s eyes
and then a gold dragon stood there. Standing on the legs
protruding from his torso, his head towered to thrice
Lendril’s height. His wingspan was over fifty feet. Shiny
gold plates covered him from head to tail but for a small
spot between his arms where his neck and body appeared to
meet, if at all. His neck and head were half his height, and
horns protruded over his eyes.

Lendril stood on wobbly legs and collected their
belongings. “What is your name?”

“Doleof.” He reached down with his clawed hands and
picked up Tych, then turned his long neck and placed the
prince on his back. Lendril screamed in pain as she
scrambled up the tail behind Tych.

“Let’s go, Doleof.”

Doleof raised his wings to keep them on his back and
with a powerful push lifted his body off the ground. With a
bellow to frighten anything lurking in the woods, he
entered the trees. Lendril soon fell asleep on Tych, already
soundly snoring.

Even stranger than Tych, since he was endarilan and
unusual things always happen to them, was the human
wizard, Nandel. Like the two moons that swung overhead
as he walked through the forest, he seemed eternal. Three
thousand years earlier, in the island kingdom of Uctar, on
the other side of the world, he had been born at the exact
moment when the two moons, Hift and Nuvi, eclipsed in
perfect alignment. The gods placed upon him good favor,
or bad depending on point of view, giving him everlasting
youth until the two moons once again met. This event took
place only once every ten thousand years, and then his
aging would begin again.

He wore a long green cloak, in the style of the thrandril
wizards, and his right hand gripped a gnarled staff. His
brown hair hung to the nape of his neck in back, but stood
only an inch long on the rest of his head. A short beard
highlighted his brown eyes. A long sword slapped at the
left side of his fit body. His strength lacked but that is not a
problem when you are one that stores power in his very
bones.

The mossy floor became a dirt trail winding upward
into the mountains. He’d walked across the valley floor
towards his home in the Efres since feeling the wells of
energy drain. For the first time in years, since before the
death of his last wife, he felt joy. He knew that if all went
as planned, and he had decided to make sure they did,
magicians would no longer be outcasts.

He had been on a mission to the Kingdom of Unlo
when he “felt” Tych. The kingdom sat between two larger
ones on the western side of the Efre mountain range. Its
terrain was mostly flat with few trees. His goal had been to
restore peace to a town torn by the strife of political unrest,
but this took precedence.

He had walked about four hundred yards up the trail
when he felt a strange presence. Nandel stopped and
smelled the air. The scent of death filled his nostrils, but
another one was present. At first he could not identify it,
then it made him act. He turned and sprinted to his right,
trying to get as far away from the trail as possible. He
tripped and fell into the moss and branches. His head hit a
rock and all went black.

Nandel stirred. A face came into view that he did not
recognize at first. “Welcome, magician, to the home of
The Thirteen. I trust you are comfortable,” it said.

Nandel tried to speak but a gag prevented it. He
noticed his hands were bound. “You don’t think we would
allow any spell-casting, do you?”

They had placed him on his stomach, and now with a
grunt he flipped himself over and sat up. “Don’t get too
aggressive or you won’t see another day, mortal.” Fear
turned towards the cave entrance and Nandel recognized
the smell. “Come in, my comrades, our prize is awake.”

Twelve shorter men entered. Worry leaned over
Nandel and the wizard suddenly feared he might never
survive. “Remove his gag, Impatience, so that he may
speak.”