Paragon Dracus: The Legend of Vanx Malic Book Six Read online

  He found himself suddenly glad that Pyra was its guardian.

  In the hands of evil, this could. . .well, no, Vanx changed his mind. The Paragon had more wealth than any villain could need, back on Harthgar, and the power of a dozen or more dragons himself. This fortune wasn’t at risk, at the moment. The Paragon wanted dragons to torture and turn. It wanted the tears of dragons, or more precisely, the power they contained, not something so base as wealth.

  They were going to need some--

  “We’re going to need some bait,” Zeezle said as he and Chelda came jogging up through the area of the cavern Pyra had flown through. Apparently, Kelse wasn’t allowed in Pyra’s lair, or was smart enough to wait outside.

  The two slowed their gait and finally went still when they saw it all. Vanx saw the realization come over Zeezle. This was the place his friend had dreamt of finding his whole life. Chelda was wide-eyed and clearly dazzled by all the sparkling magnificence. Vanx saw that the whole of the cavern was illuminated mostly by a single white fire burning just above a pit of bubbling silver liquid near the center of the grand space.

  Pyra’s head came out, and she flicked her tongue at Zeezle and Chelda before withdrawing. She then let out a call, and just about the time Zeezle and Chelda made it over to where Vanx and Gallarael were standing, Kelse’s dark green head eased into the cavern. The green wyrm’s movements were slow, and she kept her luminous yellow eyes focused low to the floor before finally settling in to help make a plan.

  “Bait?” Zeezle asked, and everyone looked at Vanx.

  Vanx looked up at Pyra. After all, it was her island.

  “I havess more than a few troublesomesss suitors,” Pyra hissed a laugh. “The Paragon seemsss to prefer the tearsss of the bluesss and greensss, or ssso I have been told.” She paused and gave out a shrieking, high-pitched call. “What wouldsss yousss do with thisss bait?”

  Vanx started to speak, but Zeezle was already saying the same thing he was about to say. The full-blooded Zythian was as articulate as one could be, so it wasn’t irritating. Zeezle explained how they could use an unwilling wyrm by tethering it, so that it could fly only so far from a certain point. As he listened, Vanx realized it wasn’t that great of an idea, for even if they cut the tether when the Paragon drew near, as Zeezle had just suggested, if the shapeshifting bastard were to see the line, he’d know it was a trap.

  Zeezle looked at Vanx as if this would remove his obvious doubt, a doubt Vanx hadn’t shared aloud. “But if we have a wyrm brave enough to draw the Paragon to where we want him, a whole swarm of dragonkind could attack it at once, while we use the larger silver-tipped spears we brought, to stick it deep.”

  “That’s a plan,” Chelda said. “If one of mighty Pyra’s suitors is willing.”

  “Pffft,” the giant red dragon snorted. “I have kindreds waiting to warn usss of hisss approach, and my suitorsss, too, are gathering in the valley where he last fed. Your bait is eager to earn my approval.”

  Pyra pulled her head up and curled it around her body.

  “Feedsss and ressst,” she hissed, and the sound echoed around the fantastical, twisting opulence around them.

  Kelse withdrew her head so quietly that Vanx barely noticed her departure.

  Zeezle handed him some cheese and bread. After Vanx ate it, he found himself sitting shoulder to shoulder against Gallarael, until sleep overtook him.

  Chapter Eight

  The king saw the wizard and the wizard did sneer

  “You might be a king, but your enemy is here.”

  “Yes,” said the king, “but my fighters are true.

  My enemy will fall before this night is through.”

  - The Weary Wizard

  Russet wasn’t pleased when Moonsy told him his sister and Vanx had gone to Dragon Isle, but he was more angry that he wasn’t hunting with them, than he was about their absence when he needed them.

  As the remainder of his group gathered themselves in the sward at the fringes of the Heart Tree’s larger radius of turf and splattered silver, he stood staring at the waist-tall, female elf sitting atop Vanx’s dog, Sir Poopsalot. The guilt and pain of having just killed his father was momentarily wiped away by the eerie wonder of this strange place.

  He couldn’t imagine the stern General Gloryvine Moonseed in bed with big Chelda. No, well, he could, and had, but it was no less surreal an idea than anything else happening.

  Moonsy’s intimidating escort ranged in size from shin-high to armored child-sized elves, and a two-hundred-foot-tall living tree that was standing in the woods within easy reach of them all. A handful of sprite medikas came fluttering in and began tending to the wounds of those who were injured. One of the white-clad, glassine-winged little creatures even took a moment to wipe away the grime from Russet’s face, so that his tear streaks weren’t so pronounced.

  Russet sensed that there were a few dozen more sets of eyes on them that they couldn’t see. He understood the caution of the fae completely. He’d already sworn to himself that his first act as the king of Parydon — after some sense of normality was restored — would be to make the whole of Saint Elm’s Deep off-limits to any uninvited kingdom man.

  “Sorry you had to do such a deed.” Moonsy frowned after hearing the tale of how Russet had undazed and then killed his father’s body, making him the official King of Parydon.

  “So, you don’t know when they’ll return?” Russet let out a long sigh after hearing her update. He couldn’t believe his group had lost a quarter of their number to that fargin’ wizard, and that Vanx wasn’t here to give him advice. There were still refugees in Andwyn that needed to be taken elsewhere. And that last wizard and his terrible acid-spewing black wyrm were still out there, too.

  “Sergeant Lonny, take Fibble and Sprikket over to the palace and get me a head count of healthy men. There has to be—”

  “There are two hundred seventy-four healthy men; seven, maybe eight gargans, but if their horn is blown, a few hundred more of Chelda’s folk will come running.” She seemed to swell with pride as she spoke. “The men, by the way, are hard to keep fed, and there are two score wounded.” Moonsy listed the information as if giving a report to a commander, but she shrugged when she was done, instead of saluting. “Oh, and two skmoes just arrived yesterday, saying that all the men of their clans are going to Orendyn to fight for Vanx, or you, or whomever.”

  That was good news. The few skmoes Russet had known were hearty and fearless, if a bit smaller than most men. Getting them all to Andwyn to bolster the defense Russet was devising in the back of his mind was another matter.

  He looked to Master Kruuga, who’d just lost a member of his order. The three Zythian wizards were upset and grieving, and Russet thought that if he could channel that emotion into rage, they would be unstoppable. But where was the enemy?

  It miffed him even more after he thought about it awhile. A coordinated surprise attack on Dragon Isle would be perfect, especially with the aid of the dragons.

  He could only do what he could do, though.

  “After we rest, we will take more men and try to save those women and children left in Andwyn, who are not under the daze,” Russet shrugged right back at Moonsy. “We’ve been at it for days. We really don’t have time for rest, but we will be useless without it. Please don’t let us sleep too long.”

  “Go to the palace.” Moonsy put her hand on his shoulder in a show of respect and understanding. “I will send a pot of stew and some tins over.”

  After King Russet drank a tin cup full of chunky, herb-rich stew, he settled against a wall in a corner of Vanx’s half-destroyed palace and cried himself to sleep. Killing his own father had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. More than anyone, right then, he wanted the comfort of his half-sister, Gallarael. But once he was asleep, he was suddenly being shaken awake by the small elven general.

  He hadn’t been asleep long, or had he? He wasn’t even sure where he was.

  “Shhh,” the elf hiss
ed. “Sorry, you’ve only been out half the evening.”

  “That isn’t what I meant when I said not too long.” His words came out sharper than he intended. The look on her face, as he gathered his wits, was one of true concern, though, so he tried to smile as he got to his feet and pulled on his britches. Were Vanx and Gallarael back? Was that black wyrm melting his men with its spew? He doubted the latter, for the night was dead silent, which in itself was alarming, considering they were standing in a partially-walled palace in the middle of a forest.

  “Pwca says he can tell Vanx what he needs to know to banish the Paragon, like the Hoar Witch did.” She smiled as if she understood he didn’t understand magic, spirits and devils all that well.

  “Pwca is the turd with the rats?” he asked, as he remembered standing knee-deep in human gore while trees full of ghouls and more rats than he had ever thought existed helped them defend the Heart Tree.

  He knew enough to know that Pwca’s information wouldn’t come freely. “What does he want? What could that little shit know?” Russet still wasn’t fully awake, but he was getting there. His blood was simmering, and his need for sleep more of a demand, but he let his ire fuel his mind and followed the small warrior to treat with a true devil.

  “He took the Hoar Witch from the dungeon, remember,” Moonsy said, her voice a little louder, now that they were outside and away from the others, who were still resting. “That evil witch managed to keep the Paragon and his Trigon of wizards away for thousands of years. Maybe that ratty tingle-turd learned how she did it.”

  “I wish Vanx were here,” Russet mumbled, and he thought he heard Moonsy agree, but then they parted some high grass. Spread out under the yellow moonlight was a squirming carpet of red-eyed rats. Behind him, he also heard that some of the men, and maybe even Master Kruuga, were waking and asking what was going on.

  Evil was in the air, he was certain. He felt it now, and he imagined those coming up from behind were feeling it, too.

  Maybe one in a score of them was larger, a true dire rat; and riding the largest of the dire rats was the brown potato-sized devil that looked just like a fat man’s Yule feast turd.

  Russet decided he was dreaming; he was still asleep in the crystal palace, probably snoring like a legion of ogres. Then Pwca’s rat hopped and leapt its way to a place before him. When the little greasy thing opened its oversized mouth and greeted him as the new King of Parydon, he knew this wasn’t a dream.

  The feeling of evil that came over him was nothing he could muster, not even in the recesses of his dreaming mind. Of that, he was sure.

  Pwca was there, and this was real.

  Now he was wide awake.

  Chapter Nine

  A battle they did fight

  across the land and in the sky.

  Against dragons and dark demons

  By the thousands they did die.

  - The Ballad of Ornspike

  The sleek blue drake that had insisted he be the one to draw the Paragon Dracus into the trap was as magnificent as he was eager. Vanx was unsure what would happen when a hundred dragons, three with riders carrying arrows and spears tipped with Heart Tree cuttings dipped in silver, attacked the unsuspecting shapeshifter.

  Gallarael was on the ground in her changeling form. Unlike the Paragon, she could only change into one other creature; the Paragon could change into anything it could conceive, and over and over again, at will. Vanx had witnessed it with his own eyes. Gal was but a beetle to a fat crow compared to the big radiant beast, but she was deadly, and capable. Vanx wasn’t sure she could do anything from the ground, though. She was definitely safer there, and the fact that he cared about her safety so much, he decided, might be a problem.

  His thoughts were interrupted when Pyra informed the dragons, and their riders through them, that sentries had spotted the dragon eater coming low and fast toward the island.

  The blue positioned himself before Pyra and asked her if she would quicken his seed should he be her champion this day. Vanx almost laughed when he understood her response.

  “If youss survivesss the Paragon and we defeat it,” she growled out a begrudging roil of smoke from her nostrils. “Only then will I even consider it.”

  “Then it will be done,” said the drake.

  Vanx understood this nearly silent conversation between dragons, and he thought maybe Zeezle, through Kelse, and Chelda through the lighter colored, sea-foam-green wyrm she’d chosen to ride, had heard it as well, but he couldn’t be sure.

  The next thing he knew, Vanx was holding on as Pyra banked away to go hide. Over his shoulder, he watched the blue drake start winging its way toward the Paragon Dracus and a, most likely, dismal fate.

  Vanx saw Kelse fly low and nearly disappear into the forested valley floor after she landed. He also saw that Chelda’s wyrm was heading over the ridge, where Vanx knew the sea met the sugary white sand in a magnificent hue that would camouflage them nearly perfectly. He remember Sir Earlin dying at the wooded edge of that beach from an attack by some crazed tree swingers, and then worried about Gallarael again.

  Pyra soothed him. “Theysss do my biddingsss, too,” she hissed into his mind. “They feed off of dragonsss ssscraps. They will do as my kindred demandsss of themsss. They will not harmss your love.”

  “She’s not my love,” Vanx defended, but Pyra only chuckled at him.

  They entered the side of the mountain where Vanx had entered the first time he’d come to the island. It was there that Pyra lay down and disappeared like the other dragons. Only, she looked just like one of the lava flows on either side of them. Even her scales glowed, and seemed to flow as they rippled and lifted down her great length. Vanx soon found himself sweltering, despite the spells he’d cast to keep his core cool enough to survive Pyra’s heat.

  He’d been studying the Hoar Witch’s spell book. He’d mastered a few of the harder spells, and with the help of the Zythian wizards, had learned quite a bit more than even he’d expected to learn about spellcasting.

  A roar unnatural to the island came, when the Paragon saw the blue drake and started his pursuit. The blue was fast, but not as fast as the longer, wider, dactyl-like thing into which the Paragon had shifted.

  Pyra’s suitor passed over where Chelda should have been, and then the top of the ridge, with the Paragon right on its tail, but then the Paragon disappeared completely.

  No, Vanx saw that the Paragon was the size of a dove now, but still radiating raw, blue-tinged power.

  The dove spun and dove back toward where Chelda and her wyrm were coming to help spring the trap. Chelda looked confused that there was no giant blue beast being attacked when the dragon carried her over the ridge, then the dove hit her head to head, knocking her backward off of the dragon. The flash of their impact was so brilliant that it bright-blinded Vanx.

  The Paragon shifted into its most dragonly form and was already twisting the light green dragon’s wings off. Before the wyrm’s teardrop even fell, while it was still pooling in the pain-racked dragon’s slitted eye, the Paragon chomped its head off, teardrop and all, and dropped the body as if it were waste.

  “You thought to trap me?” the Paragon’s voice boomed, causing many of the hiding dragons to stir.

  Vanx saw Chelda’s big body hit the trees badly, and he winced. Tears welled in his eyes, and he willed Pyra to go fight this bastard, and get it over with, but the mighty queen of dragons balked, staying perfectly still where she was.

  “If we attack now, they will all die,” Vanx said out loud. “But it may be our only chance.”

  “This is not the time,” she responded. “Sssurprise has been taken from ussss.”

  Just then, the Paragon darted his long neck down and snatched a dark green wyrm from the valley. The only relief Vanx felt about this whole new situation was that it was too small to be Kelse, and that Chelda’s gargan bones were probably as thick as the limbs into which she’d just crashed. Otherwise, this was a mess, and about to get messier whether
Pyra wanted it to or not.

  Chapter Ten

  They hunt and kill wild ogres

  and they live right from the land.

  You’d be better to screw the Lord’s fat wife

  than to cross a Highlake man.

  A Highlake Mountain Man.

  - Mountain Man

  “Just to have a chance of thwarting such power, you must know the creature’s true name,” said Pwca in a deep voice that was entirely too large for a creature the size of a shit to be speaking with. “Aserica Rime knew its true name. She scribed it on a stone and hid the stone near the base of the hot spring’s trickle, back when it was more of a waterfall.” Pwca stopped and resituated himself on the dire rat he was riding. Beside him, Russet heard Sir Poopsalot growling low at the devil. Moonsy put her hand on the dog’s collar and kept him beside her, petting him. “With the namestone, that witch banished the Trigon wizards and their leader from this Octrant. That banishment would have lasted for eternity, had the get of her get not come and killed her soul. He will be the only one who can read the stone, for he is the only one among you with witch blood flowing through his veins.”

  Pwca found Russet’s gaze and locked onto it. Russet was finding it hard to discern how the devil saw what it did, for there were no apparent eyes, and it was speaking from a mouth full of tiny triangular teeth that ran around the top quarter of its body. He was grounded by the fear Pwca and his rat horde exuded, and he was certain that this was no trick; but what he didn’t know was what the thing wanted from them in return.

  The witches around Parydon Isle, where he’d grown up, sold love stones for very high prices, and these stones were magicked in a similar way. He’d heard of a curse stone, and even a banishing stone. The key was knowing something's or someone’s true name. While he was finishing the thought, he heard one of the Zythian wizards say something similar to Master Kruuga behind him.