I've been working on book 3 of Dragon Souls. I don't have a definite name for the book yet, so for now it's book 3. I had to look back at his chapter to write the chapter I'm working on, and I realized that this would be a good one to share. The first chapter is posted on the blog, too. You can find the link to it on the Wednesday Writing tab above. Here's chapter 2
Chapter
2
Erroyle
rushed to the gates. Nervous dwarves
stood at the ready with bows and pikes.
She snatched the bow from one of the closest dwarves before he could put
up a fight. He grabbed her wrist as she
reached for his full quiver of arrows. Fayern
raised a hand to halt the foolish young dwarf.
He released her and nodded to the dwarven prince behind her. Erroyle was glad for the acquiescence; she
would have killed the dwarf had he not. The
poor dwarves had been through enough.
She didn’t want to fight them, but she would not allow anyone to get in
the way of her and Cal. She needed to be
with him. She needed to feel his love,
his acceptance, his nonjudgmental gaze.
She had never felt that kind of love from anyone but her father. Her own people ostracized her because of her
Gaian gift. Knowing the emotions of
others was more of a curse than a gift, really.
Her purple eyes marked her as different, and her people feared her for
it. Only the boy had loved her without
prejudice. He did not fear her
gift. After ten thousand years she had
finally found someone to love her as she was.
She was not going to let him be taken away.
Erroyle
looked back at the dwarven prince and nodded her appreciation as she picked up
the quiver of arrows. The prince was probably only a few centuries
old, but in his short life, he’d aged more than any dwarf his age. Deep creases from wrinkles of worry and
stress wore out the corners of his eyes, and around his nose and mouth. He had no beard, which was beyond strange for
a dwarf, but that wasn’t the only thing strange about the dwarf. He was tall… tall for a dwarf, anyway. About the average height of a man, but built
twice as wide. His brown hair was
prematurely graying at his temples, and swooped back in a tangled mess just
above his shoulders. His grey eyes were
tired. This was a man who knew he was
about to lose everything he loved. Erroyle
promised herself she wouldn’t let that happen.
She would save the dwarves on her way to save Cal.
A massive beam of
the door splintered inward, affording them the first view of their
pursuers. Erroyle wasted no time. She grabbed four arrows, placing one between
each finger, and drew back the string.
In a whoosh they were away. Through the freshly made hole, four dark
creatures cried out as each arrow sunk deeply into their skulls. Before they hit the ground Erroyle loosed
eight more arrows. In a span of
seconds, the battering team was down, with the wicked battering ram lying
heavily on their dead carcasses.
For
the first time since the siege of the inner sanctum, quiet rang through the
cavern. Erroyle could almost see the
wave of relief was over the dwarves’ faces.
She felt no joy. She knew all too
well it would only be a matter of moments before other dark creatures continued
what their fallen comrades had started.
She grabbed another quiver from a nearby dwarf, hers having been
partially used up, and ran to the opening.
She knocked two more arrows from the first quiver, stripping the
feathered blades off the inner parts of the shafts and fired at two onrushing
orcs. They fell dead mid stride. The others behind them paused, not wanting to
join the growing heap of bodies. Erroyle
didn’t wait for them to advance, five more arrows zipped through the small
crack in the massive door, and five more orcs went down.
Finally,
she was able to see what she was looking for; one of the orcs was shouting for
others to press forward and pick up the battering ram. He was their leader. Before he could turn back to look at the ram,
an arrow burst through his skull. The
orcs in front pressed backwards to get away from the new threat. For a brief moment there was chaos in the
ranks of the churning dark hoard.
Erroyle
looked back to the dwarven prince, pleading to him with a glance to let her out. He shook his head sadly, and then nodding his
consent. A feeling of elation washed
over her as she was finally given her chance to get back to her beloved
Cal. She fired twenty more arrows
through the small hole just to ensure the chaos continued long enough for her
to slip out among the orcs without them seeing her walk through what would
appear to be solid rock. Once through
the magical wall Erroyle ran down the passage to her left to circle around the
massive wooden gates. The passage was
riddled with dwarves, but her nimble gate carried her past them. Sometimes using a wall, shoulder, or head to
keep her forward momentum, she made it to the front before the orcs had
regrouped.
Dropping
the bow and quivers of arrows, she loosed the two massive swords from her back…
Cal’s swords. She would return them to
his hands if it was the last thing she ever did in this world. The massive blades were light as feathers in
her hands because of the fallen dwarven king’s magic. The blades were as tall as she was. Each blade resembled a dragon’s maw agape
with the blade protruding like a blast of fire from its mouth. They were sharper than any weapon she had
ever wielded, and laced with magic to penetrate even shields of dark magic. They were fitting swords for a powerful
warrior such as her, but they were his.
They belonged to her beloved.
They would be his once again.
She
kissed each blade, and then quickly darted out, through the magical opening,
and into the sea of back filthy bodies.
Before she even touched the ground she had taken the head of three
orcs. As soon as she landed, she spun,
extending the swords to their full length, and cutting down a dozen other dark
clan soldiers. The area around her was cleared, and the invading hoard drew
back, away from her. They had fought her
outside of the main gates, and once again in the main hall. None of the Dark Clan soldiers were eager to
repeat the encounter. More chaos erupted
as those around her tried to flee back behind the ranks of others, all the while
they were trying to stay away from the crack in the gate which had mowed down a
few dozen of their comrades in a matter of seconds. The chaos brought a smile to the beautiful
elven princess’s lips. She would enjoy
exacting revenge on these dark creatures.
Before
they could regroup Erroyle was moving, pressing them back farther. She spun, lunged, kicked, flipped, spun
again, and rolled. Each movement cut
down the enemy. Not a move was
wasted. The magnificent weapons cut
through anything they made contact with; be it metal or bone. She pressed the enemy clearing thirty paces
between them and the door they so desperately wanted to breach.
To
her surprise, Erroyle heard the door creak loudly as it opened. The dwarves came pouring out to meet their foe. She felt a sense of pride for them. She knew they were hurt, every last one of
them, but they pressed anyway. They
would not be slaughtered in retreat, but rather fight the enemy head on. Erroyle would ensure they lived to boast of
their bravery.
She
ran at the cowering orcs and darkinder.
The short darkinder proved to be a bit troublesome as she had to strike
up and down, but none of the enemy put up a fight. A blur of bodies passed before her eyes. The way the elves trained to fight, they
never stood still. Battle was an elegant
dance. Every limb was used in fluid
motion to cut down their enemies. Erroyle’s
golden armor had sharp protrusions on the heels, toes, knees, elbows, and
shoulders, so if she made contact with an enemy she would always draw
blood. She spun and flipped and kicked
and rolled, pressing ever forward.
Hundreds fell before her. She was
covered in blood, none of it hers. The
grips on her magnificent swords would have been slick with the sticky substance
if it weren’t for the magic. Her hands
held true to the grips, and she continued her onslaught.
Some
orcs tried to attack, but were slashed down mid swing, or before they could
even raise a sword. The large trolls and
ogres took more than one blow, but they too fell like reed before the
fire. Erroyle saw only red. Her rage had blinded her to anything
else. She needed to get back to
Cal. Time passed, a wake of bodies lay
behind her and yet she pressed on. She
vaguely heard the roar of battle behind her as the dwarves slaughtered any of
the Dark Clan who managed to slip past her destructive assault. Erroyle had only one goal in mind; to make it
out the front gate.
A
large ogre was suddenly before her. He
was glowing in an eerie black light.
Just before she rolled out of the way of his massive club, she saw the
source of the incandescent black glow… a dark elf. For the first time she recognized that she
was fighting living creatures. This was
a cousin. She knew him from thousands of
years earlier. His name was
Aorilalie. He had played with her sister
when they were younger, before the dark elves had abandon elven society and
turned to evil. Aorilalie had been one
of the many suitors of her sister. He
had loved Erai once. Erroyle felt
conflict in her actions for the first time.
How could she kill someone she knew?
A
sharp pain jolted her out of her memories.
A blade had nicked her just below her protective armor breastplate. A small trickle of blood oozed down her hip
from the scratch on her side. Rage
replaced her conflict. She turned and
took the head of the orc who had cut her, and then turned back to the large
ogre, just in time to roll out of the way of his massive club. In the middle of her roll, she extended her
blade, severing the ogre’s hand. The
club fell with a loud thunk to the floor.
Erroyle used her momentum to leap up to the ogre’s knee. With one foot she jumped off the knee and
onto its back. Standing with one leg on
each shoulder, she swung her sword behind her and down, taking the ogres head,
all the while keeping an eye on Aorilalie.
His eyes widened in surprise that her weapons could penetrate his dark
magic shields. As the Ogre began to fall
to the earth, she jumped off his back, flipping in the air, taking the heads of
two more orcs along the way, and landing two feet in front of the shocked dark
elf. Without a moment’s pause, she
slashed criss-crossed with each blade, like a massive pair of scissors, cutting
the dark elf in two at the middle.
The
dark elf fell forward, grabbing onto her shoulders for support as his bottom
half fell helplessly to the ground. The
look of horror and pain filled his eyes as he looked desperately into hers. A feeling of revulsion washed through her as
the young elf, whom had once courted her sister, hung desperately to her as if
he could somehow hold on to his now forfeited life. He moved his mouth to speak, but as his
insides fell out of the severed bottom half of him. He found he was without air to make the
words. She saw him mouth the words, “I
should have known better than to fight you.” But only a whisper escaped his
lips, and then the fingers relaxed and he slunked lifelessly to the ground.
Errolye
looked down in shock at the bloodied dark mass at her feet. Fresh blood oozed down her pristine golden
elven armor… his blood. She felt
sick. She looked back at the river of
dead bodies in her wake. Thousands lay
lifeless on the ground… at her
hand. She thought she might throw
up. She remembered Cal crying himself to
sleep after his first battle. How he had
said he murdered the dark clan. She
remembered how distraught he was. She
had felt his pain and anguish through her Gaian gift. She had felt his guilt at murdering so
many. She had felt his sorrow over their
lives, his worry for their families left without mother, or father. He had had his innocence shattered that
day.
Erroyle
looked back again at all of the bodies bathed in a sea of blood, and then again
at the one at her feet, the one she knew from the time he was a baby. She had killed so many, and yet she didn’t
feel the anguish her beloved had felt that day.
Perhaps it was the millennia of war and death. Perhaps she was not as sensitive as the young
human. Perhaps she was justified in her
killing, but either way she just didn’t feel guilt. She felt sick at having to slay a childhood
friend, but no guilt. He had chosen his
path. She would not have slain him if he
weren’t trying to invade the free world.
The
enemy were all around her, frothing at the mouths wanting to get to the object
of their hate, but held back by a fear of her wrath. She sneered at them, backing them up a foot
or two, and then she looked back into the main hall of the dwarven
stronghold. She was standing in the doorway
of the main gate, now battered and splintered into pieces on the floor. Across the hall, at the back wall, she saw
the last of the dwarves, fighting their way into an escape tunnel. The young dwaven prince, Fayern , was looking
back at her, a sad worried look on his face.
--------------------
The
fighting lasted all day, all night, and late into the next day. As Fayern limped dumbly out in the open
fields of the dragon plains he couldn’t help but feel small and insignificant. What he had seen had scarred his already
injured psyche for life. Few had
survived; mostly women and small children.
Even the young boys had taken up arms in the end to defend their mothers
and sisters, only to fall at their heels as they fled the swarming mass of dark
clan. All of Fayern’s men had
fallen. All except, to his never ending
shame, him.
He
shook his head sadly. Why? Why had his father left him to this
fate? Why had Mother Gaia shunned her
beloved earth-dwellers? Why hadn’t Sky
Father stopped the slaughter? What had
the dwarves done to deserve such a horrid fate?
He
looked around at the bloodied dwarven women marching along with him in their
small, sad procession. Some carried
small children on their hips. Some, not
more than children themselves, carried motherless children on their backs. Fayern’s good arm held a hastily crafted
crutch, the other hung limply at his side dripping the occasional drop of blood
from his nearly severed shoulder muscle.
Even now, away from the fighting, he was not much help to his
people. The soldiers kept most of the
danger away from him during the battle, until the last fell, and then the women
tried to protect him. He had fought
vigorously to stay at the enemy front, but his people insisted on throwing
themselves between harm and their ruler, costing more unnecessary lives. In the end, his retreat was the only way to
get his people to retreat. He had shed
his own blood, but not before others laid down their lives before him.
The
safety of the few remaining dwarves was not because of Fayern’s efforts, nor
was it by some divine intervention by their beloved Mother Gaia or Sky
Father. It was, in fact, because of the
elven princess.
Princess
Erroyle fought like a demon. Just as the
Dark Clan was breaking in through the great doors of the inner sanctum, the
elven princess ambushed them from the side.
True to her word, none saw where she came from. Most didn’t see her until her blade ran them
through. She wielded Fayern’s birthright,
the swords of the royal family, to free his people; something Fayern could not
do even if he had the weapons. Perhaps
that was why his father had left them to the boy. Perhaps the old king knew that this would be
their final stand, and if his line somehow survived, it would only be at the
great cost of life from others.
Fayern
shook his head. “Curse you Father,” he
said, under his breath. “Curse my royal
line.”
“Highness,”
asked a young woman at his side. He
hadn’t even noticed her until that moment.
“Oh
nothing, lass,” he said, trying to smile.
The swelling in his face forced a tear out of his eye in the effort.
“It
not be dat bad, Highness,” the young woman said. “We be alive, an’ dat be reason to be
thankful.”
“I
suppose you’re right, lass,” Fayern said.
The woman was of
low ranking among the dwarves; perhaps a cook or house-lady, so even if Fayern,
had lived among his own people, wouldn’t have cause to know her. Living away from his people made the lack of
familiarity even more forgivable. His
father knew all the dwarves by name.
Fayern had been sent away to live with the humans when he was but a boy
three hundred years ago. He did not have
the accent of his people, and certainly not the accent of the young woman, but
he did have a slight gruffness of dwarf mixed in with his well-practiced human
tongue. The result was that Fayern did
not fit in in either world.
“Highness,
do ya think she’ll be alright,” the woman asked.
“I’m
sorry,” Fayern held out his hand as if to ask her name.
“Vaylehia,
Highness. Er juss Vayle, if it be
pleasin’ yer majesty.”
“Vayle
then. Vayle, I’ve never seen a living
creature move the way that elf moves.
She must have killed a thousand orcs and half again as many trolls and
ogres. I don’t think the Dark Clan could
stand against her if they gathered all their forces to do so.”
“It’s
so romantic, if’n ya think about it; her goin off to save her man like dat,”
Vayle said as her jolly cheeks flushed red.
The
girl (for that was how Fayern saw her now, as a silly girl) was obviously
trying to take his mind off the horrific thoughts of the slaughter of his
people. There was nothing romantic about
what had happened in the dwarven city.
Especially what had happened at the end, as the last of the dwarves made
it to the exit tunnel.
Fayern
shuddered at what had almost happened to his people at the end. He tried to smile again, squeezing another
tear out of his swollen eye. “She’ll get
her boy back. I’ve no doubt. That woman could do anything she wanted. I could scarcely believe what she managed in
the city, but having seen it, I’ve no doubt that she’ll get her boy back.”
Vayle
looked down at the ground. “An’ what
about da last bit?” She looked up
suddenly into Fayern’s eyes. “You don’t
suppose dat Mother Gaia sent dem do you?”
Fayern
Shuddered again. “I couldn’t possibly
know,” he said, a haunted look settling in his blank gaze, as he relived the
horrific event. “I’m just glad we
weren’t in the city when they came through the wall.”
Vayle
wiped away a tear of her own; hers was not from a swollen eye, though. “I know dey be da enemy, but dat be about da
most horrific way of dyin’ I can imagine.”
Fayern
nodded sadly. “No less than they
deserved, though; always nipping at our heels, not letting decent folk live in
freedom. They’re animals, young
Vayle. You mustn’t let yourself be moved
to compassion for them. They’d have
killed every last one of us if the princess hadn’t fought us out of our corner. They’re evil, wicked, nasty. They want
nothing but death and destruction, chaos and suffering. I think I shall be happy knowing they aren’t
spending a night of drunken celebration in our ancestral home.”
Vayle
seemed uncomfortable thinking it good that the Dark Clan had been burned the
way they had. She walked quietly in the
waning light of day. Marching… To
where? Fayern hadn’t had time to think
yet. He simply walked north, away from
the battle. Away from their ancestral
home. Away from the wicked Dark Clan who
had invaded. Away from the smell of
their burning flesh.
Fayern
shuddered again at the thought of what had almost happened to the few survivors
of his people. He vividly recalled the
lava creatures breaking through the thin walls of the hollowed out volcanic
mountain. Creatures which had fallen to
myth and legend until that moment were suddenly real. With them came the lava, of course,
super-heated because of their mere presence.
It flowed unabated into the vast cavern.
Fayern had to run up the old lava shoot his people were using as an
escape tunnel to avoid being burnt himself.
He only had enough time to look across the cavern at the elven princess
fighting back the enemy at the main gates.
She saw the lava coming, and though he had reassured Vayle of her well
being just moments before, he couldn’t see how she could have gotten out of the
way fast enough to avoid the molten rock.
Hoping
to lighten the mood, Fayern forced another smile, which pressed out another
tear, which he gingerly wiped away from his rapidly swelling cheek as he spoke,
“So Vayle, which family are you from?
What did you do in the old city?”
The
young dwarven woman brightened up again, and her cheery cheeks blossomed
red. “Oh I be juss a nobody,
Highness. I worked in da bakery by da
ol’ smitty.”
“Well,
a baker could be the means to survival for our people, young Vayle. You aren’t a nobody anymore. You are a very important dwarf.”
Vayle
blushed profusely. “I begin yer pardon,
majesty, but it be you dat be important.
We be needin’ a leader now more dan ever.” She looked around and the hundred or so
dwarves. “And we be needin’ men more dan
anything.”
Fayern
looked around and the battered dwarves.
He could only see about ten males, most too young to father
children. Hopefully there were more he
couldn’t see, but somehow he doubted it.
“That may be true, but right now we need to make it through the next
couple of days. Most of these people
will die of infection if we don’t get them cleaned and stitched up.”
The
world started spinning for Fayern as the wound in his shoulder continued to bleed
freely. He needed to be stitched up or
he’d be dead right along with them. He
had to push forward, though. The farther
away from the scene of the bloody battle they got, the better he’d feel. Nausea washed over him as he thought of the
destruction of his people. Were there
enough left to restart the race of dwarf?
“Majesty?” The young girl was pressing the back of her
hand to his forehead. “My lands, yer
cold as night, an’ sweating sometin’ fierce!”
She pulled back his tunic to see the gaping gash in his shoulder. “You’ll bleed ta death if’n we don’t get dat
sewed.”
Fayern
tried to push her away, but in the effort he lost his balance and fell to the
ground. His groggy head heard only
muffled noises as the young girl tried to rouse him.
“Curse
you, Father,” he managed, just as the world went black.
