An Alliance of Mortals, page 37
part #6 of The New Earth Chronicles Series
The emissary stopped shouting abruptly and spun around to glare at Sarah.
“What are you up to, little one?” she asked angrily as she floated in midair. “Making one last attempt to save your friends? Well, it won't work! I do not fear water, you fool!”
“Maybe not,” Sarah muttered. “But you might fear what water can become.”
She swung her wand around and pointed at Cathulos and the entire contents of the pool rose like a watery tornado and slammed into her.
As soon as the emissary was drenched in liquid, Sarah muttered a keyword that she had memorized earlier and Cathulos was encased in a sphere of sparkling energy, a magical shield, trapping her and most of the water in a translucent globe.
“What are you doing?” the creature screamed furiously. “This thing will not hold me!”
“It's not supposed to,” Sarah said.
Taking a deep breath, she brought her two hands together sharply. The round shield shrunk until it was barely large enough to hold the emissary. She was totally surrounded by water and she shrieked in rage, an odd bubbling sound of muted fury. She looked like a goldfish stuck in a tiny fish bowl.
Then Sarah pointed her wand at the trapped demon and a beam of silvery light shot from it and hit Cathulos and the water that she was trapped with inside of the sphere.
And it froze the entire globe into a solid mass of ice.
“Now!” Sarah cried. “Magnus, Malcolm, Hallic! Attack her now!”
Magnus ran past her and swung his tomahawk at the frozen globe that had settled heavily on to the ground. With a loud crack, the sphere burst apart and one of Cathulos' arms snapped off like a dry twig from a dead tree.
Hallic leaped out of the shadows and swung both of his daggers into the helpless creature and her other arm and part of her shoulder shattered like glass.
Finally, Malcolm stalked toward her, stopping to snap the end off of a stalagmite with a powerful wrench of his strong arms. He moved to stand over Cathulos, whose eyes were now running red with thick fluid. Within their depths, a spark of awareness watched him approaching with fear.
He raised the stone spike high over his head and glared down at the creature.
“Take a message back to your masters in the Void,” he growled at her. “We are waiting for them. All of the mortal races are united against the Darkness now and you, Emissary, had a hand in accomplishing that. I'm sure that the Chaos lords will be pleased with your fine work.”
And with that, he plunged the stalagmite directly into her chest. There was an ear-splitting wail and Cathulos' body splintered into a thousand pieces. A shadowy mist rose from the remains, hung in the air for a moment and then dissipated like smoke.
A silence descended over the cavern and Sarah tried to catch her breath as her fear slowly faded away.
“Wow. What do you know?” she said with some surprise. “We did it.”
“Yes, we did,” Malcolm said with a wide smile. “As a team. That was some amazing work, Sarah. You are more powerful than I had expected. Thank you.”
She shook her head.
“Don't thank me. We all did our part.”
“Before we do a full review of this entire adventure, could someone get me out of this damned pile of stones? The sunlight is becoming quite uncomfortable.”
They all looked over at Antoine, who shrugged helplessly and rapped his knuckles on the rocks holding him in place.
Sarah giggled and both Hallic and Magnus grinned. Malcolm ran over and quickly pulled away enough stones to free Antoine. The vampire hurriedly moved away from the beam of sunlight into the shadowy depths of the cave.
They heard him let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank you all. You did quite well. That...creature was very strong. If the dark gods send more like her against us, we could be in great peril.”
“I doubt that they will,” Magnus told him. “It takes a great deal of energy for the evil gods to send something through the barrier that separates the mortal realm from the Void. And remember that they are still in a war against the lords of Light. If they expend too much of their power, they will become vulnerable to their enemies.”
“Interesting,” Antoine said. “I did not know that.”
He moved closer to the group, carefully avoiding the light, and looked at Hallic.
“Cathulos seemed especially hateful toward your people,” he told him.
“Yes, I noticed. And I cannot tell you how much pleasure that gives me,” Hallic replied with a wink. “Shandon will be pleased as well. It means that we are a threat to the Darkness. They are worried about us and that may give us an advantage.”
“Perhaps. We'll see.”
Malcolm looked around at the cavern and then nodded at Sarah.
“Are you strong enough to get us back to Caladur?” he asked her. “I've had just about enough of this place. The stench of the goblins will probably take days to wash off.”
She smiled up at him.
“Yes, I can Gate us back. Everyone gather around. It's time to go.”
Antoine moved out of the shadows and joined the others as they stood closer to Sarah. She took one last look at the melting ice and blood that had once been Cathulos and grimaced as she raised her wand.
“I'm so glad that we all survived,” she said, her voice thin with exhaustion.
“We didn't just survive,” Hallic told her lightly. “We won. And that is something we can all be proud of. Well done, everyone.”
With a graceful wave of her wand, Sarah opened a Gate and the group of five vanished, leaving nothing behind but silence and a fading sense of malice.
Epilogue
Several days had passed since the raid on the goblin stronghold and life in Nottinghill Castle had returned to normal. When word got out that the agent of the dark gods had been defeated by a multi-racial group of fighters, the population had been thrilled and had celebrated joyfully.
Malcolm, Magnus and Sarah had been treated like heroes, a status that made all three of them uncomfortable. But as Tamara had pointed out, the remnants of the human race had had very few victories in recent years and this one had raised their morale significantly.
“So no matter how you feel about it, please allow the people to have their moment,” she told them. “God knows it won't last long.”
When it was revealed that Malcolm was no longer a werewolf, it caused some consternation. The big man was surprised to learn that many of his fellow warriors had actually admired his abilities. He wasn't really sure how to feel about that.
He was standing on the wall above the main gate one night when Sarah approached him. It was about a week after the raid.
She was wearing her usual baggy clothing and her eyes shone in the darkness as she walked up to him.
Malcolm was wearing full armor, as he was on duty, and it clattered loudly as he turned to watch the young woman approach.
“Hi,” Sarah said brightly as she joined him. “How are you?”
The big man shrugged and looked off across the shadowed fields below the castle.
“Fine, thanks. You?”
“I'm good, thank you. How are you adjusting to your new status?”
“My new status?”
Malcolm frowned as he looked down at her.
“You mean as a rock star after our little adventure last week? I'm doing my best to ignore it, honestly.”
Sarah laughed and rapped sharply on his armor.
“No, silly. I mean how are you coping as an 'ordinary human being'? No more werewolf. No more supernatural powers. Now you're just Malcolm Deschamps, warrior. Do you miss it?”
He sighed and rested his forearms on the stone parapet. His braids swung gently in the night breeze and he pushed them out of his face impatiently.
“I didn't think that I would,” he admitted softly. “Back when Aiden and I were infected, we were desperate for a cure. Simon managed to find a way for us to control our affliction, but we were still werewolves. Once I gained the ability to use my powers at will, I made peace with my condition. And now, I will admit that I miss having that advantage.”
He looked down at his body and chuckled.
“Of course, I'm still the man that the Change made me. I'm big and strong and I have a grasp of military tactics and the ability to use any weapon like a master.”
He smiled at Sarah.
“That should be enough, don't you think?”
“Maybe,” she replied. “But you went through so much pain and hardship in the early days after the dragons returned. You earned the abilities you gained from that curse. I can understand how you would miss them.”
“Thanks. But life must go on, I suppose. We are still threatened by the dark armies. That didn't change just because we destroyed Cathulos.”
He turned and looked down into the darkened courtyard, now empty of civilians as everyone had retired for the night.
“And speaking of the show going on, what happened to Antoine? He deserves as much praise and gratitude for his role in the raid as any of us, and yet I haven't seen him since we got back.”
Sarah pulled out her wand and spun it absently between her fingers.
“He went back to Paris,” she said with a frown. “That confrontation with Cathulos did something to him, injured him more deeply than I had realized. When we got back, he took me aside and said that he was going home to heal.”
Malcolm looked alarmed and she quickly shook her head and smiled.
“It's okay. He's fine, or at least he will be,” she reassured him. “But he said that only in the catacombs of Paris could he truly regain his strength. Don't ask me why. I don't know. But Antoine said that he would be back in a few weeks, maybe a month, so I will take him at his word.”
“And Magnus went to stay with the elves?”
“Are you surprised?” Sarah laughed. “He is deeply connected to nature and the elves are as well. I think that they remind him of his lost people. Magnus is no warrior, you know that. But he did what he could in those goblin tunnels. Now he just wants to live in peace for as long as he can.”
“War is coming,” Malcolm warned her. “We'll have to take the fight to each of the goblin tribes in turn, if we mean to secure this world for the mortal races. Magnus' peace may be short-lived.”
A pair of guardsmen walked by on patrol and they saluted Malcolm smartly as they passed. He nodded back at them and looked at Sarah again.
“Will you be there when the dwarves decide to move on our enemies?” he asked her. “You don't have to fight, you know.”
She slipped her wand into a pocket and frowned at him.
“Malcolm, I've been fighting since I Changed in the ruins of my home town. That is how I survived when so many other Changelings perished. Of course I'll fight. The alternative is to stand on the sidelines and let others do it for me. And that's not going to happen.”
“I'm glad to hear that,” the big man told her. “You are a formidable young woman, Sarah.”
She chuckled.
“Stubborn is more like it, I think. Good night, Malcolm.”
“Good night, my friend. Sleep well.”
High above the castle, just below the scudding clouds that raced across the sky, a massive winged creature stared down at the human settlement. It was a dragon.
Its silver body reflected the moonlight that occasionally broke through the rushing clouds and its huge sapphire eyes keenly observed the castle.
“They have done it,” the dragon rumbled, twisting its serpentine neck around to stare at the figure sitting on its back.
Its passenger wore a flowing black robe that covered it from head to toe.
“They have broken the leadership of the goblin armies,” the beast continued. “Now those creatures will fall on each other, each tribe seeking dominance over the others. It is what you were hoping for, is it not?”
“Yes, but it was a slim hope at best. I am pleased beyond words that the three races have formed an alliance. Shandon's dwarves will roll over the goblin armies like an avalanche. And the humans and the elves will do their part as well, I'm sure.”
“And will you finally step out of the shadows and reveal yourself to them?” the dragon asked curiously. “Your forces are gathered and well trained. Now they only wait to be unleashed.”
“No, Argentium. Not yet,” the dark figure replied. “We must save our strength for larger prey. The war that the mortal races are about the embark upon will be long and bloody. They will suffer heavy losses and some of their leaders will perish. So says the Amber Seer and her prophecies are rarely wrong.”
“All the more reason to lend them your aid, don't you think?”
The rider was silent and Argentium twisted his neck around again to stare at his passenger.
“Simon, how can you stand back and let your friends die, knowing that you could have saved them?”
The figure pushed back his hood and his long black and silver hair whipped wildly in the high winds. His eyes, one blue and one brown, locked onto the dragon's.
“If the lords of Chaos learn that I live, they will know that I am coming for them. My one advantage over them is the element of surprise. Take that away and our war will be lost before it has even begun. I cannot let that happen. We've sacrificed too much over the past two decades to make such a fatal mistake now. So no, I won't intervene on Earth. Yes, some of my friends may die. Sadly, that is a part of war. But while they are taking the fight to the goblins and their allies, the dark gods will be watching the conflict closely. If their forces lose, as I believe they will, that will be a considerable blow to the Chaos lords and their confidence. And while they are off balance and vulnerable, we will strike.”
Argentium snorted, two small jets of flame shooting from his nostrils.
“Do you truly think that you can defeat even one god, let alone the entire pantheon? Surely that is hubris of the highest order.”
Simon laughed and pulled up his hood again.
“Of course it is. But if you were a god, would you expect such an attack? I know that I wouldn't.”
The dragon straightened out his neck again and began to flap his vast wings faster.
“I suppose that we'll see soon enough. Shall we go home?”
“Yes, I've seen enough. Besides, Kronk is making dinner for me and he gets upset if I'm late and he has to reheat it.”
Argentium rumbled with laughter and lifted his head. The dragon and rider shot up through the clouds and disappeared, leaving the humans far below unaware that they had had an unexpected visitor.
And across the world, the five tribes of the goblins began to forge new armor and weapons as they prepared for war.
The End
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