Beyond Dagothar (The Oraclon Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  He detected a movement beyond. Closer than the last. He raised his head to speak.

  "I will not sire...seek another." Again there was movement on the stones. The trespasser grew bolder, the crackles of rocks informed him that the dragon was entering his cave. Then did the words of an unusual speech echo into the cavern.

  "Where is the tablet?" rasped a course feminine voice in high draconic, but of a very odd dialect.

  Navaniz's eyes widened in astonishment at the recognition of her words, a deluge of lost memories washing over his mind, thoughts contending with the sudden realization that she was an underworld wyrm. Thousands of years flashed through the terrain of his mind. The mare continued.

  "Long are your years...the Broken Moon returns, old serpent. The Deep has a new Warlord. Here you lie a decrepit snake molting decay as the Uprising returns. Give, wyrm, you have nothing left to protect...where is the tablet?" Another series of stones popped.

  Her words were icy, direct, more of a command than a question. The tablet. The archaic dragon let his mind take him back to Daethalon, the center of Caedorian civilization long ere Poltyria ever came to be. The Caedorians were a race of honorable humans that he had lived among in Arborealm when he had served the Protectorate with the rangers of Borderealm, called whisperstriders in those days. The old days.

  Navaniz shuddered in resignation. There was no way he could fight this mare. A thousand years ago he would have chased her from his domain. Not now. Over five centuries ago a Poltyrian knight, a dragonslayer, challenged him to one-on-one combat under the Heroic Code for possession of the tablet. But because the last priest of the Temple of the Broken Moon had commissioned him long ago to conceal the tablet, the very key to the Oraclon itself, Navaniz had kept the crystal clear tablet hidden and safe with him all these years since the fall of Daethalon in the Minion Wars.

  He honored the valor of the Poltyrian knight and met him in combat only to realize quite suddenly that the knight was dead serious about getting his hands on that tablet. A dual that began as amusement rapidly turned into a struggle for his life. The human severed one then the second of his wings at the stilts, two of his right talons, an entire finger on his left claw, the last nine feet of his great tail, all the while being strangely immune to his acidic breath weapon.

  Seeing the twitching of his severed tail, Navaniz backed away from the knight and dug under the pile of antique treasures as he struggled to catch his breath. Moving coins, gems and statuettes out of the way in his search of the tablet, he reasoned that since men commissioned him to protect it, why fight a man who came to retrieve it? Navaniz found the Oraclon tablet and handed it to the much smaller human.

  The slayer thanked him politely, bowed respectfully which totally impressed Navaniz and then began talking out into the open air to someone the dragon could not see. Nor smell or otherwise sense.

  Navaniz began to suspect magecraft. He looked back at his wriggling and dying tail.

  The human's voice changed in pitch and intensity and Navaniz realized that something was wrong with the knight's planning. That perhaps the knight had not faught him fairly at all.

  Then the human began to plead desperately and a raw anger filled the dragon. To exhibit such fear after severing his fingers was an affront. Suddenly Navaniz realized that the man was expecting someone to teleport him out of the lair...which explained how the dragonslayer had so suddenly appeared.

  Seconds passed and still the knight despaired. Navaniz, still in pain but hurt worse in his ego, inched forward. The tablet was still in the man's grasp.

  A blink.

  That was the amount of time that passed between standing in front of the dragon and then finding himself crammed into its mouth, through his throat and into his burning hot belly. Navaniz swallowed the knight, armor, weapons and tablet and burped.

  And since that unfortunate day about five and a half centuries ago the enchanted armor had remained stuck in his stomach without decaying, with the tablet, both undigested. Since then his right back leg pained him constantly.

  Navaniz the Bold stood upright as best he could, a few vintage coins from kingdoms long passed dropping from his underscales. Acid bile was thick and vaporous about his jaws. Over a thousand years had passed but he was still a wyrm of Daethalon sworn to protect the Order of the Broken Moon. Though the Caedorians were gone he knew they still lived on through their Caerean descendants. He would uphold his pledge.

  The words of this female wyrm came back to him. A new Warlord... He recalled the Uprising very well. In fact, it occurred in the same year he lost his wings to the slayer. A Taran Warlord had for years made war in the underworld uniting the races to invade the surface world. He had nearly succeeded in killing off humankind. As he was about to slaughter the third Poltyrian army, the Fey Alliance armies met the Warlord's hosts in a disastrous battle at the already Ancient Battlefields of Ghul-run.

  The Warlord seeks the tablet.

  Navaniz the Bold narrowed his eyes as his chest inflated. He will never get it.

  As if sensing what was going on in his mind, more rocks popped as she crawled hastily into the lair. In the darkness inside the mountain lair, their draconic eyes unimpeded by the shadows, the two wyrms collided noisily in an explosion of old coins and cobblestones. Navaniz had no time to dwell on his surprise.

  A Scarlet Wyrm!

  She was faster, stronger, heavier, younger and more determined than he. His acidic breath weapon would be of little use against her purplish scale armor. The scarlet dragons even of old were but few in number, the royalty of draconic society. They had vanished long ago from the surface world and their continuance in the Deep had only been a tradition related to him by his ancient friend and sire, Laer'garoth the Old, widely remembered as the Dragon-Chronicler. Like so many other unbelievable things taught to him in those days, Navaniz now realized this to be true. It had been at least twenty-four centuries since anyone had seen a scarlet dragon under the sun. Once rulers of all wyrmkind, these purple draconags were mostly immune to magics, fire, acid and gases, were the most cunning and lethal of dragonkind.

  He was too lost in bewilderment to feel the mare's saborlike teeth penetrate his neck scales. In the short struggle his treasures had been strewn about. Large specimins of agate and opals were uncovered from the bottom, a few emeralds, one huge sapphire and a bracelet of shiny metal like electrum.

  "The Warlord demands the tablet," she hissed through teeth that were half embedded in the black dragon's flesh. "Do not make your end an ignoble one." A hint of gloating in her words. She used her weight to shove Navaniz's head to the cavern floor, his neck pinned in her unyeilding jaws.

  As he felt her inflating he slightly grinned in spite of the pain and discomfort, though it was more like a wince. With the strength of pride he knew he was going to keep his secret, his oath. A film of moisture blurred his vision.

  She unleashed a stream of incendiary acid far more powerful than his own bile into his neck wound as he thrashed about wildly in burning agony, a pain far worse than swallowing the armored dragonslayer who had been clutching the tablet. Navaniz's lifeless body collapsed and the scarlet mare searched the cavern for the object described to her. She flipped over the carcass of the old black wyrm and burrowed into his treasures, scattering them about.

  Elated with her kill and satisfied that the despicable dragon of Daethalon did not possess the tablet, Neferina exited the cave and looked down upon the sea of green and brown trees that was the outskirts of Dimwood. She spread her wings and dropped off the ledge to begin soaring over the tree tops, flying in the direction to where she knew she would find the Taran Tyrant.

  It mattered little to her if he had the tablet or not.

  The war with the Draconarch over, the Elmlord

  Guardians departed Dimwood. In a fertile plain

  to the south the ancient race of treants sank their

  roots...the centuries passed. Later they were joined

  by Thalleus and the cen
taurs who came to call

  them the Wandering Elms.

  Book of Bark and Battles,

  stories of woodlands of high

  antiquity, Caedorian author

  unknown

  Wandering Elms...southern Darkfrost Peaks

  Luey looked back through the lichen-carpeted elms, turning his head. He peered back in the direction he had come. As a Caerean he was a woodsman, and as a Borderealm ranger he was most alert in the woods. Like others with his experience one developed a keen intuition for when things were very wrong. His eyes searched the treescape carefully.

  One of those times was right now.

  Lucretius had never travelled so far away from Borderealm. He nor anyone he knew outside a couple other rangers had ever ventured so far west in the outlands. These lands told ancient tales. This wood was a place of legend. Not one story or account related that it had ever been visited by a human. Cavin nor Josiah had been here. The faery king, a yak-centaur named Thalleus, was known to Josiah only by description given to him by other faeries of his acquaintance in Everleaf.

  Before arriving to this unsettling wood of very great and aged trees he had flown over the open plain of northern Shannidar avoiding the southern edge of Dimwood. Still he had looked down upon patrols of hornback orcs and at a very high altitude he flew over a whole underworld army on the move during the brightest part of day. As he watched his drake's shadow pass over the marching orcs, goblins, dusk giants, ogres, seige engine trains, cavalries of lizardlike creatures and flat-headed beasts, Lucretius realized that they would not look up to investigate because of the brightness of the sun.

  Patrolling the skies but at a much lower height were clouds of winged goblins and dark elves riding bat-dragonoid things, but none dared hazard a look up to see him. He veered off toward Wandering Elms and upon descending below the tree canopy he frightened up an antelope that he quickly brought down with his pipe.

  Luey always marvelled at how peaceful the animals looked when he shot them with his poisoned darts. They fell asleep to die. They stumbled in ragged steps, curled up to slumber and never woke up.

  The ranger grabbed his glaive and left his hungry mountaindrake to feed on the hapless antelope. His own drake was unlike the others the rangers rode. The Hadatchi of Splinterdark, known as the wild elves, bred a species of drakes kin to mountaindrakes but speckled in white and black very much like painted dairy cows. As he walked through the large elm trees he immediately noticed that the whole area was silent. No bird calls. No insects. Even from over a hundred feet away the ripping of flesh by the drake was the only sound. Luey stared at the drake pondering this. The creature stopped chewing to blink at him stupidly before resuming its meal.

  An eye for the inordinary, he noticed the signs around him that told that this forest was very carefully tended. Sculpted. Proportion and symmetry seemed to be by design rather than nature. Usually he could pass over a forest floor without leaving much of a trace, but not here. Soft moss and spongy grass pressed into the light soil. As he walked he inhaled the thick humidity of the lush forest and wondered if the stories were indeed true...that trees in Wandering Elms really wandered. It was told that some of these trees were actually alive and could talk. He didn't doubt it was possible, for the great tree god Elderboughs known to Josiah and the bards of Arborealm could talk but not move.

  He was not surprised to hear the sound of many hooves. They issued from the east and were growing loud. Thunderous. It was no surprise either that his presence was known, and so quickly. No doubt his descent into the forest had been witnessed. Luey waited, staring toward the east trying to see what was coming. Horses were no threat because he was here to find centaurs. Because the sound of running horses seemed to get louder but not closer he stood still, perplexed.

  Lucretius looked down at the soft turf. How could hooves be so loud here?

  A voice, rich and noble, deep and very close, startled Luey from behind.

  "Sir Knightshade would not have allowed us this advantage."

  The ranger turned to look up at an enormous blue-skinned yak-centaur with a manlike upper torso and bearded face with a head protruding mighty, scarred horns. The blue-eyed faery king smiled at him. He wore a silver and steel breastplate and iron helm with hornports, the tips of those curled horns dipped in gold. His coat was a shiny, deep blue of very fine, short hair. He wore thick iron bracers on his muscular arms and silk sashes were tied around his four massive legs. Hung carefully from his shoulder was a shortsword, a faerycraft weapon called Equistae, a blade said to cleave asunder the hardest stone. Slung over his wide back was a nine foot long composite bow of some strange wood. Quivers of wolfskins were full of feathered arrows with straps moored to his massive flanks.

  Behind and beside him were smaller brown and white-haired centaurs, all of the equine breeds, the size of horses holding spears and bows. Luey knew that so numerous and heavy a crowd could never have crept up to him without the aid of enchantment.

  "Well met, King Thalleus. My name is Lucretius. You obviously know I am a ranger. But you will be hard pressed to convince me that you and yours simply walked up behind me...come now."

  "Ah, wily ranger, the ways of the wood are to be learned, not taught," Thalleus laughed. "We tend the trees, Lucretius. Do you think they would not tend to us?"

  "Josiah warned me about you. Says you talk your enemies out of battle! This I believe." Luey returned the smile and all of the centaurs seemed to relax. Humans were intruders here. This was holy ground to the faery races. But his words were all in jest, for all knew that Thalleus was a valiant warrior, many thousands of years old and a veteran of the horrific Battle of Ghul-run.

  The ranger took a good breath and then spoke slow and clear, the centaurs pressing around to hear.

  "I was not aware you knew Cavin Knightshade. That he visited Wandering Elms was not known to us. He has disappeared. He missed Conclave. Two months ago Josiah went in search of him in Dimwood on his way to Talan Dathar. But Josiah had to turn around after discovering an underworld army cutting down a road through the forest. An invasion force, at least, one of its hosts. Josiah Arrowloft is now First Ranger."

  "Ah, the last bowmaster."

  "No, King, there is another. Not an Arrowloft. Michel was adopted by Josiah's grandfather and raised in the order."

  "I see. Well, whomever Jebrael deems worthy shall be worthy indeed." This response intrigued Lucretius. A mystery that a faery king so far away would even know Josiah's grandfather's name, and even compliment him.

  Thalleus and the other centaurs listened intently as Luey related everything he knew about the road-clearing force in Dimwood and the army he flew over earlier. Thalleus informed him that they had been watching many bands of roaming orcs giving chase to groups of goblins from Darkfrost. Already several crowds of goblins and some of their orc pursuers had died trying to enter the forest. Luey told them that Michel and been sent to Shannidar to aid the Ayr and Thalleus pledged that his warriors of the Elms would oppose any more underworlders that tried to cross the plains, any that came out of Dimwood or emerged from the foothills of Darkfrost Peaks.

  They clasped arms and Luey walked back toward his place of descent as the centaurs retreated deeper into the wood. It was time to move onward to his next assignment and he had some miles to cross before it got dark. The Borderealm ranger retraced his steps back to where his speckled drake feasted upon the kill. About two hundred feet away from his steed he looked and saw that it was unmoving.

  The antelope was barely eaten.

  Luey's hairs stood on end. His awareness intensified, stretching far into the trees around him, amplified by the absolute absence of any noise from the animals of the forest. Dead silence. The ranger realized that he was not alone.

  Almost a mile away deeper in the woods Thalleus spun around with his centaurs and galloped maddeningly back toward Luey's position, over seventy warriors brandishing their weapons, following their king.

  The faery king had h
eard the whisper of the trees.

  Raw instinct had Luey raising his glaive defensively, a sudden reflex saving his life as two black-bladed curved scimitars struck hard the metal-reinforced shaft. A dark elf with abyssal eyes leapt out from behind a tree, its body encased in murky green armor. But in Luey's mind the elf was more like a spider, unblinking.

  He and the underworld assassin stood face to face as Luey's legs strangely grew weak and a sharp pain tore through his stomach...and he looked down to see that the elf had two more arms. Like a spider. Armored hands pulled out the two curved daggers that had been buried in his gut. He watched the four-armed dark elf sheath the two scimitars and two daggers all at the same time.

  Four arms. He had been tricked into raising his glaive. He dropped to his knees, aware that a second black elf was standing behind him. Painlessly, Lucretius calmly watched the whole forest roll over and spin. When he blinked he found himself looking through grass pressing against his face. He felt adrift as memories of his brother Abdias flashed through his mind.

  Both Aelvatchi headhunters lifted out of the trees astride their foul wingmordhs into the safety of the sky as the keepers of Wandering Elms galloped closer, too late to rescue the ranger of Borderealm.

  Thalleus discovered his head several feet from his body.

  The faeries know the tale, though it be told

  best by the wyrms. Some fifty-two centuries

  before the Battle of Ghul-run a young dragon

  was unjustly injured by a titan. In the Titan-

  Wyrm War that spread across the whole of

  Dagothar, the dragons of the world fell upon

  the titans in Bholbash Valley. Defeated, the

  titans fled to a large cavern system in Devil-