Doom of the Dragon Read online

  The others stared at him, then glanced at one another.

  “From way you talk, it seems they are losing,” Erdmun said gloomily.

  Skylan flushed in anger. “I did not say that.”

  “But it’s true,” said Grimuir.

  Skylan was silent.

  “Then Joabis be damned,” Sigurd said in grim tones. “Let him fight his own battles.”

  “I agree, Skylan,” said Keeper. “This god of yours brought us here against our will and now wants us to fight Aelon. I don’t like it.”

  “Joabis was not the only god involved in this,” said Skylan. “You said yourself Gods of Raj brought you here. They have joined forces with him. I told you. Joabis promises to give us back our lives—”

  “And we all know what a promise from the God of Liars is worth—goat piss!” said Grimuir, sneering.

  “This is one promise he will keep. I will see to that,” said Skylan, resting his hand on the hilt of his sword. “And Torval will back us.”

  “If Torval still lives,” Sigurd muttered.

  They sat in silence, all except Bjorn, who had been mulling things over. “I have a question. Why is Aelon attacking Joabis? What threat to Aelon is a god who spends eternity swilling ale?”

  Skylan had known this question would come up and he had wondered how to answer. He trusted his own men and he trusted Keeper, but he worried about those who might be out there in the smoke-filled darkness, eavesdropping. He was going to ask his friends to wager their very souls on this battle, and they deserved to know the truth. Seating himself at the table, he motioned for them to draw near.

  Keeping his voice low, he spoke: “Vindrash gave Joabis one of the spiritbones. It is hidden on this isle. Aelon discovered the secret and now he is searching for it. Aylaen has three of the other spiritbones. Joabis has promised to give us this one in return for our protection and we know where to find the fifth. Once we have all five, we can use them to drive out Aelon and restore our gods to power.”

  “What if someone asks us why Aelon is attacking this wretched god?” Erdmun wondered. “What do we say?”

  “The truth. Joabis may be a drunk and a liar, but he is Vindrasi,” said Skylan proudly. “He is one of us. Of course, Aelon fears him.”

  The others grinned and nodded.

  “I will put it to you plainly,” Skylan continued. “Joabis says Aelon will attack at dawn. We can spend the remainder of eternity here, drinking and heaving up our guts, or we can fight for our gods.”

  “A worthy wager,” said Grimuir. “I’ll take it. What about you, Sigurd?”

  “I can fight a hundred of these hellkites single-handed,” Sigurd replied. “But I’ll need help to destroy an army.”

  “I’ll fight,” said Bjorn. “And so will my brother.”

  Erdmun jumped up and ran from the table again.

  “Keeper, will the ogres fight?” Skylan asked. “Tell them Joabis and the Gods of Raj have promised to restore their lives.”

  “I will answer for them,” said Keeper. “They will fight.”

  “Good. What about the Cyclopes? I have never met a Cyclopes. What are they like? According to legend, they are humans with three eyes. Is that true?”

  “We have no idea,” said Bjorn. “We have never seen one ourselves. They fight the ogres in a different part of the hall. We know they are here only because Keeper told us about them.”

  Skylan looked dubious. “They are in this hall and you’ve never seen them?”

  “It’s a big hall,” said Sigurd defensively.

  “Big as eternity,” Keeper affirmed.

  Skylan sighed. “Very well. Go talk to them, Keeper. Tell them that I need to confer with their war chief—”

  “They will be a problem,” said Keeper. “The Cyclopes have no war chiefs. They are fiercely independent. No Cyclopes tells another what to do. In battle, each warriors acts as he sees the need to act.”

  At first Skylan thought the ogre was jesting, and he was annoyed. They had no time for jests. Then he realized with shock that Keeper was serious.

  “No war chief?” said Skylan. “Without a chief, every fight would end in chaos. How do these Cyclopes form a shield wall?”

  “They do not fight in a shield wall,” said Keeper. “You must understand. Cyclopes consider warfare wasteful. They can fight, if they are forced to do so, but they have no love for battle. Their tactics are simple. Each knows what to do without being told. Their archers fire from a distance, felling the enemy with arrows, then, once the majority of their foes are dead or wounded, the foot soldiers finish them off with clubs and spears.”

  Sigurd made a crude derisive noise. Skylan agreed with him.

  “These Cyclopes are obviously cowards who fight without honor.”

  “We might not have honor, Vindrasi, but we Cyclopes have what is more valuable,” said a woman, speaking from the darkness. “Common sense.”

  Sigurd and Bjorn both stood to face the stranger. Grimuir had to shove himself up from the bench, but he managed to get upright, though he swayed on his feet. Skylan rose, his hand on his sword and turned to the speaker.

  “Step into the light where I can see you,” he said. “What are you doing here? I was told your people stay in the back of the hall.”

  As the woman came to stand beneath the flaring torch, Skylan and the others stared at her in silence, struck speechless. Perhaps there had been a time far back in Vindrasi history when his people had encountered the race of humans known as Cyclopes. If so, that time was long forgotten.

  The woman’s skin was black as jet. She had long black hair that she wore in a myriad of small, tightly bound braids. She was slender, long-legged, dressed in a long leather tunic and leather boots. And she had three eyes: two large and lustrous brown eyes, one on either side of her nose where eyes should be, and a third eye, round and white-rimmed with a red iris, in the center of her forehead.

  She gazed at them with all three eyes; all three appeared disdainful.

  “I heard from the ogres that there was a Vindrasi here who was not dead. I came to see for myself.”

  “This woman is Dela Eden,” said Keeper. “My people would call her a shaman of the Gods of Raj.”

  He leaned close to whisper in Skylan’s ear. “Dela Eden is not a war chief, but as near to the mark as you will come. Her people have chosen her as spokesman. While you talk to her, I will go fetch the ogre godlord and shaman.”

  As Keeper started to leave, Skylan grabbed hold of him.

  “What does she see with that third eye of hers?” Skylan asked uneasily.

  Keeper looked at him, astonished, then burst out laughing. “The third eye is not a real eyeball. It is painted on the forehead of every Cyclopes when they reach the age of majority at sixteen.”

  “We call this eye, ‘the world eye,’ Vindrasi,” said Dela Eden, overhearing. “It gives us the ability to see into hearts and minds.”

  “Is that true?” Skylan asked Keeper. “Can she see what I am thinking?”

  The ogre shrugged. “I do not know from personal experience. Many of our people believe that to be true. You must find out for yourself.”

  Keeper departed, leaving Skylan and the others with Dela Eden. The torchlight gleamed on round rings of gold that hung from her ears. Her movements were graceful and sinuous. When she walked, she seemed to flow like a wave on the ocean.

  He could now see for himself that the third eye was painted in white with a red iris and black pupil on her shining black skin. The technique was remarkable. The eye looked disconcertingly real and Skylan could almost feel it piercing his skull.

  “If you want me and my people to join you in battle against the Faceless God, you would do well not to insult us,” said Dela Eden. “True, we do not like fighting. No civilized race does, but we are not cowards.”

  She spoke with a slight curl of her lip. Her scornful gaze swept over Sigurd and Grimuir and the others who had ranged themselves around Skylan.

  “Our tac
tics are highly effective, as the ogres know from sad experience,” Dela Eden boasted. “You need us in your battle against the Faceless God—”

  “Why do you call Aelon by that name?” Skylan asked, interrupting.

  “The god wears a thousand faces, appearing to mortals in whatever guise Aelon believes will enable him to control them. The god can be male or female, old or young, man or beast. Aelon came among us as a dragon.”

  “A dragon?” Skylan was amazed.

  “Our people have long revered dragons,” Dela Eden explained. “The dragons use the portal in our mountains to travel back to their world, the Realm of Fire. The Faceless God did not fool us, however. We knew the truth at once.”

  “How?” Skylan asked, skeptical, thinking she was bragging.

  Dela Eden grinned and tapped her forehead. “The world eye, Vindrasi. We see the truth about a lot of things.”

  Skylan had noted that even when Dela Eden turned to look with two eyes at something else, her third eye seemed to be always looking at him. He quickly changed the subject back to a more comfortable topic: war.

  “Your tactics may be all that you claim, Dela Eden, but what good are your warriors to me if they will not obey my commands?” Skylan asked.

  Dela Eden gave a rippling laugh. “We Cyclopes are not sheep to be driven by the snapping of the dog at our heels. We know what needs to be done in a battle and we do it. For example, our arrows will be particularly effective against the serpents, since these creatures can be killed only by piercing the heart. We also know the secret of making flaming arrows that rain fire down on the heads of our foes.”

  “You have fought these serpents of Aelon before,” said Skylan.

  “Never,” said Dela Eden. Her third eye seemed to shimmer. “But you have fought them.”

  “You are trying to impress me, no doubt, by pretending you can read my thoughts,” said Skylan dismissively, “but you are only repeating what you heard me tell my men about the serpents while you were eavesdropping on us.”

  Bjorn nudged him in the ribs. “You didn’t tell us anything about piercing their hearts. She is reading your thoughts.”

  “Let her read my thoughts,” Sigurd growled. “I’m thinking I’m not going anywhere near these three-eyed freaks.”

  Before Skylan could argue, Keeper arrived with an ogre godlord and his shaman. Skylan was glad to see them. Although they had long been enemies of the Vindrasi, at least they could not see inside his brain. He turned to greet the godlord and the shaman, then stopped to stare.

  “I know you!” Skylan exclaimed. “Bear Walker and Raven’s-foot!”

  The ogre godlord was hard to forget. He was the tallest ogre Skylan had ever seen, standing over eight feet in height, and he wore a distinctive bearskin cloak with the paws as clasps. The shaman was likewise memorable, a skinny ogre with legs like a heron’s, who wore a black feather cape and carried a gourd he used to work magic. He had once worked his foul magic on Skylan, stealing the Vektan Torque from him.

  The godlord appeared equally amazed to see Skylan. “I remember. You kept the body of our friend, Keeper, on board your ship. You tried to keep our ship from sinking.”

  “And then the kraken attacked us,” said Skylan. “But what are you two doing here in the afterlife? I saved you both from the Aquin prison. The Aquins promised to take you safely to land.”

  Bear Walker shook his head. “I don’t know anything about an Aquin prison. All aboard our ship either drowned or were killed by the kraken. Our bodies lie at the bottom of the ocean.”

  The shaman squinted at Skylan then turned to the godlord to mutter something Skylan couldn’t hear.

  “What did he say?” Skylan demanded.

  “Raven’s-foot says you must have encountered the Gods of Raj. They were testing you. He says you must have passed the gods’ test, because when you died they brought you here with the rest of us,” said Bear Walker. “Raven’s-foot doesn’t like you, but since our gods accept you, so will he.”

  Skylan didn’t believe such nonsense. Why would the Gods of Raj test him? He concluded that the ogres were lying. Undoubtedly they didn’t want to be beholden to him for saving their lives.

  “How did you die, Vindrasi?” Bear Walker asked.

  Skylan didn’t want to take time to explain that he was both dead and not dead. “Never mind. We have more immediate worries. The god Aelon is going to attack this island at dawn. I need all your warriors to help defeat him. Joabis promises that if we defend his island against Aelon, he will give us back our lives.”

  Raven’s-foot drew Bear Walker aside and the two were soon deep in conversation.

  Skylan waited impatiently. All he could think about was that Aelon was planning to attack at dawn and Aylaen and the Venejekar were sailing ever closer.

  “Bear Walker?” he called. “Do you and your ogres stand with us?”

  Raven’s-foot scowled, but Bear Walker ignored him. “The ogres will stand with you, Vindrasi.”

  Skylan looked at Dela Eden. “What about the Cyclopes?”

  “We will fight with you, Skylan Ivorson,” Dela Eden answered with a grin and a shake of her head that made her earrings flash. “Just not for you.”

  Skylan turned to Bear Walker and Raven’s-foot.

  “Tell your people I am grateful to them—” he began.

  He was interrupted by the astonishing sight of the hall evaporating around them. Walls disappeared. Tables and mugs and benches vanished, and he was standing on a sandy beach beneath the stars and a black dome of a sky. Keeper and Bear Walker and an army of ogres stood with him, along with his men and Dela Eden with her Cyclopes.

  The sky was clear and cloudless. No moon shone this night. Waves lapped on the shore. Men and women were streaming toward them, their voices shrill with panic.

  “Aelon is coming!” they cried.

  “Where?” Skylan demanded.

  They pointed to the east. Skylan could see a fiery glow light the sky. The revelers did not stop, but kept running, racing past Skylan to disappear into a grove of trees that seemed to spring up out of the sand to conceal them.

  Skylan watched them flee in disgust. “The glow is only Aylis, the Sun Goddess…”

  His words trailed off.

  “Your goddess is gone,” said Dela Eden in grim tones. “She has fled the heavens. The light you see is the New Dawn. Aelon’s New Dawn.”

  A ball of fire, bright and glaring, rose from the sea, heralding the arrival of the Faceless God. Aelon rode in a chariot of burnished gold drawn by four winged serpents. Four more serpents flanked the chariot, their long, sinuous bodies rippling in the air, their silver scales red in the light of the fiery new sun.

  He held a shining sword in one hand and a fistful of spears in the other. He flung a spear to the ground, then another and another, splitting the earth, opening huge cracks in the ground. What seemed at first to be hordes of vermin swarmed out of the cracks, then Skylan saw that these were hellkites.

  He could not count their numbers.

  Skylan watched their ranks grow, then turned his back. “They crawl out of the ground like worms,” he said to Bear Walker and Dela Eden. “I have a plan of battle—”

  “Good for you, Vindrasi,” said Dela Eden, walking off. “I’ll be with my people.”

  “You haven’t heard the plan yet!” Skylan said.

  “I don’t need to,” Dela Eden called over her shoulder. “Whatever it is, we know what to do.”

  Skylan made a mental note to keep well clear of the Cyclopes.

  CHAPTER

  12

  Aelon soared above his army in his chariot, bellowing commands to the hellkites below. Their shiny obsidian armor, forged in the bowels of hell, glistened in his light. Armed with spears in their right hands and shields marked with serpents in their left, the hellkites obeyed the god’s commands and formed into ranks.

  “I was right,” said Skylan, watching. “Aelon is not using the shield wall against us.”

 
“The hellkites are forming into phalanxes,” said Keeper. “That does not bode well for us.”

  The hellkites stood shoulder to shoulder, with those in the front row holding a solid wall of shields that protected the men in the rows behind them who were armed with spears and short swords. The ranks of the hellkites increased, forming row after row, bristling with spears. The sheer weight of numbers would break through his defenses.

  “The phalanx has a weakness,” said Skylan. “Acronis described it to me.”

  Observing the swelling ranks of the hellkites, Keeper shook his head. “We face an army of the damned led by a god. And you talk of weaknesses. Do you never despair, Skylan?”

  “To despair is to lose hope,” said Skylan. “So long as I breathe—and even when I don’t—I will always have hope.”

  Skylan formed the Vindrasi warriors into the traditional shield wall comprising warriors standing shoulder to shoulder in long rows. Those in the first row were armed with battle axes, war hammers, swords. Each warrior carried his shield to protect his neighbor, standing with shields overlapping.

  The warriors in the back rows were armed with spears, as many as each man could hold, in addition to battle axe, war hammer, or sword. Their spears were used against the enemy and to bolster the courage of any in the front row who might think of running.

  According to Skylan’s plan, the ogres under the command of Bear Walker formed into a shield wall on the left flank of the Vindrasi. Skylan had fought against ogres before and held them in high regard, for the ogres were fierce, brutal warriors. They painted their heads and faces when going into battle to look more fearsome and each ogre carried a shield as big as Skylan and spears by the fistful in their huge hands.

  Keeping one eye on the foe, who were still forming ranks, Skylan took the opportunity to see what the Cyclopes were doing. Hundreds of Cyclopes were taking refuge far behind the shield wall, all of them milling about in seeming confusion. Some of the Cyclopes were armed with small bows made of wood and horn and sinew. Other Cyclopes carried lead-tipped wooden clubs and spears.

  “What are you doing back here far behind the shield wall?” Skylan asked Dela Eden. “The battle will be up there.”