Michael Mathias - The Wizard and the Warlord

Phen didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe at the sight of the hairy naked dwarf. The skeleton stepped heavily into a swing of its silvery blade. Oarly met the blow with his axe and cleaved the thing’s sword arm completely from its body. Phen felt the wave of relief wash over him. When the skeleton bent down to try to get the sword with its other hand, he strode up to it and kicked it with a heavy marble boot. The skeleton’s legs crumbled, and it half fell into the pool. For a long time it thrashed about menacingly, but it was obviously no longer a threat.

“Where are your clothes?” Phen asked.

Oarly looked down and realized that he was naked from the waist down. “Bah!” he growled and stalked off toward the narrow passage.

“There are two more of those skeletons back there,” Phen said. “We’d better hurry, before the ice I put them in melts.”

“Aye, lad,” Oarly said. “If ya hadn’t scared me shitless, I wouldn’t be needing to get my clothes back on now, would I?”

Phen took a step back. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Oarly so mad before. He had to fight to hold in his mirth.

“Look,” he said, holding up the egg-sized emerald for the dwarf to see.

Oarly looked at it, gave a nod, then continued his tirade. “We got buckets full of jewels left over from that blasted dragon’s lair. I got scars from getting that treasure. What good is one more jewel, lad? I just don’t understand.”

“This one is magic. You played like you were dying in that lair, Oarly. You made me cry when I thought you’d died.” Phen turned toward the larger tunnel. He could hear the skeletons’ loud, scraping approach. “If I made you shit yer britches a dozen times, we still wouldn’t be even.”

Oarly’s anger vanished. He even barked out a laugh. He knew he’d made the boy cry like a babe. He pulled his boots on and grabbed the flask he’d dropped. Most of it had indeed spilled onto the fire. He still drained the last few drops.

“All right, lad, let’s see what you’ve stirred up, then.”

Together they charged off into the larger cavern. One of the skeletons had pulled itself in two, and the torso was trying to drag itself along the floor by its arms. Seeing that, Oarly gave it a wide berth. Phen took a long stride and planted his heavy foot on its rib cage. The thing rattled and then grew still. Phen leaned down for a closer look at its jeweled eyes. The rubies looked like onyx pebbles now that the power in them had been extinguished.

“You don’t even need me, Marble Boy,” Oarly chuckled. “That blade that slashed across your body didn’t even scratch your robe.”

“Stop calling me Marble Boy,” Phen yelled. He hated that. He hated that he sounded like a little child in a play yard over it, too. “I won’t be Marble Boy for long, Oarly. You can wager on that.”

“Awww, lad, you just don’t know,” the dwarf replied, pointing down at the serpent-covered third skeleton lying still at the bottom of the moat. Somehow the little eel-like creatures had survived the freeze. They wiggled and squirmed through the melting slush as if nothing had happened. “You will be Marble Boy forever.” Oarly laughed heartily and clasped Phen around the waist in a brotherly hug. “As long as you live, you’re doomed to be remembered as the boy made of marble who rode the red dragon and saved us at the Battle of O’Dakahn. Only if you somehow manage to magic yourself into a king, or a god, can you shake such a nickname.”

Just then a loud splash erupted from behind them in the entry cavern. Both of them turned and started quickly back toward it. If it was the serpent then they were possibly trapped between it and all the little ones in the pool. As they ran, Phen gave the emerald to Oarly and fumbled for Loak’s ring. It was hard to get it back off of the medallion chain and onto his finger while holding the dagger. He almost dropped it. Finally he put the dagger between his teeth and slipped on the ring.

The opening of the big tunnel wasn’t blocked off yet, but they could see that the entry cavern was filled with the slithering green glow of the serpent.

“I’ll look,” Phen said.

“Extinguish your light, fool,” Oarly hissed. “It’ll see you, if it hasn’t already.”

“Oh.” Phen had forgotten about the light spell entirely.

Suddenly the place went dark save for the continuously moving glow that radiated off of the serpent. Phen eased down to the big cavern and looked. The serpent was in front of the smaller tunnel, intently flicking its tongue as far as it could reach. Phen felt the jewel on the medallion around his neck begin to tingle and knew instantly that the serpent would sense it.

“Out of the tunnel now, Oarly,” he yelled. “Stay against the wall. We can’t let it trap us inside.”

The great head of the serpent lunged at Phen’s fountaining jewel, its huge, toothy maw opening wide as it came. Phen realized then that being invisible before this sinuous monster did absolutely no good, but by the time the thought finished in his head, he was covered in a cloud of fresh fishy smell, and the serpent’s mouth was closing down over him.

“For Doooon!” he heard Oarly scream, but Phen was yanked off his feet and the world turned into a dark, spinning frenzy.

Telgra’s eyes fluttered open. The puffy clouds she saw in the sky weren’t twirling about crazily anymore. In a panic, she glanced around. There were no shiny-armored kings riding winged horses of flame. There were no talking statues trying to greet her. There was only Dostin and Corva and the open sea. She lay back for a moment and felt relief, but then the memory of the great spell, and the horrible sounds she’d heard, came flooding back into her mind like a torrent.

“Where is my father?” she yelled, trying to sit up again.

“Give her another sip please, Dostin,” Corva said. “I’d do it myself but-”

Telgra saw the nuances of the look on Corva’s elven face and the wounds on Dostin’s. She felt a deep ache in her shoulder. Not sure that she was ready to hear the answer to her question, she sipped from the flask Dostin offered. After a moment, she slipped back into a dreamy sleep.

When she woke, the starry sky wasn’t bobbing and weaving. She looked around and saw that she was in a camp. Waist-high grass teaming with noisy insects surrounded a trampled-down circle, blocking her view of what was beyond the immediate area. A pale blue flame flickered in the center of the encampment. It gave out little warmth, but its soft light was welcome.

A snore from a few feet away was coming from the plump, round-faced monk. Telgra stretched but immediately regretted it. Her shoulder was sore. She inspected it and found a trio of ugly purple scars that had recently been healed by elven magic. The way the ache still throbbed deep inside her body, she knew the wound had to have been healed more than once.

Inspecting the area, she found most of a single sail dinghy jutting up into the sky over the grass nearby. She vaguely remembered being at sea in it. By the way it swayed and rocked, she knew it was sitting in water. Her nose told her that the water around her was brackish. The whole area smelled musty, like half-rotted vegetation.

A loud splash exploded through the night. It came from not too far away. A grunting, huffing noise, like someone running, more splashing, and then the distinct sound of an elven bow loosing arrows quickly. Without knowing she’d done it, Telgra scooted herself precariously close to Dostin. She was tempted to wake him. A deep-rooted fear was taking hold of her. It wasn’t the fear of the moment. She was a capable mage and forester. She was more than able to defend herself against most any man or beast. It was the fear of what had happened to the fiery tree grove, to her father, Brevan, and the other elves. It was the fear of the reason she was sitting in a marsh camp that was far, far away from the Isle of Salaya.