Valandra: The Dragon Blade Cycle (Book 2) Read online

  Behind us, packed shoulder to shoulder, are amassed two hundred Valandrian soldiers supplying additional strength to the one hundred Belleran forces. Although, I’m sure Queen Sabine would insist that one hundred Belleran fighters equaled two hundred Valandrian soldiers any day.

  Three hundred strong, we go up against an army with nearly twice as many forces, all of which are already dead. Not quite ghosts, not quite reanimated corpses like the draugr death-lords of legend, the army of the dead is wraithlike.

  They’re solid when they need to be, they’re ethereal when they need to be, always caught in a state of chaos—torn between two worlds. And without enchanted weapons to aid us in cutting them down they’d be all but unstoppable.

  As fate would have it, however, we have fortified and enhanced our weaponry with the mages’ help. Not only that, but if necessary we can call on a Juggernaut—an ancient war machine brought to life through the magitek of the elves, dwarves, and mages. A suit of living armor designed specifically for the killing of supernatural things.

  Not since the first Great War has there been a battle of this size, and never with the odds stacked in the enemy’s favor.

  At least when King Pelos led the united realms against the army of the dead the first time, he had the advantage of having an entire battalion of Juggernauts along with eight thousand soldiers. We have only one Juggernaut and three hundred soldiers—most of whom have never even tasted battle.

  “Arianna.” The Queen beckons to me. Without taking my eyes of Ashram, I hear her say, “It’s just as we discussed.”

  I do not reply because I need all my energy focused on the fight.

  From the corner of my eye I see the queen raise her sword. Her steed snorts, as if it knows what’s to follow, and then the bugle sounds.

  With a roar The Sisterhood races forward onto the battlefield. The slight slope of the dell gives them an added boost of speed and everyone charges forward. Everyone, that is, except the Queen and me.

  “Steady,” Sabine says, making sure her steed’s nerves do not get the better of it. “Steady.”

  I swing my leg up and over the saddle and slide off Merrium. Patting her on the neck, I say, “It’s time, my friend.” Merrium huffs and then nibbles on my hand.

  Turning toward the battlefield, I see both armies meet midway upon the dell. The clash of steel can be heard ringing all throughout the valley. I wait with bated breath to see if the magi’s spells worked. And after a moment of turbulent chaos and the splatter of blood and dirt, I sigh out in relief. Our forces cut down the spectral warriors as easily as if they were still part of the living.

  “Now,” Queen Sabine says in a low, autorotative voice. The thin strands of her voice cut through the roar of the battle and pierce my ear and—like the cock’s early morning crowing—my mind wakes up, my body becomes alert, and everything around me comes into such tight focus that it all seems to slow down under the exacting scrutiny of my senses.

  I draw out the Moon Blade, and raising it high, I spin the blade about in the air and summon a massive swirly vortex. It picks me up and launches me high into the sky. Thrusting my blade forward I use the wind rush technique to attack at a forty-five-degree angle. My target…the black knight…Ashram.

  Airborne, I glide through the sky as though I were a falling star screaming toward the earth from the heavens. Rapidly, the entire battlefield shrinks away beneath me as I soar toward my armored opponent. It’s only a matter of seconds and I’ve cut across all the remaining distance and meet Ashram head on.

  A spray of sparks ignites between our clashing blades and explodes outward in every direction in a dazzling display of hot white embers that dim to orange and then fade from existence. Ashram blocks my attack, yet the force of my blow is powerful enough to knock him off his glowing-eyed demon steed.

  Ashram tumbles to the ground and rolls twice before he throws out his spiked gauntlet and digs his clawed hand into the fertile soil. Scratches grow out from his fingertips as he slows his momentum. Skidding to a halt, Ashram looks up at me and it almost seems as though he’s shocked by the fact that a mere girl my size could send him reeling backward.

  Vexed by my out-staging him, Ashram growls and then stands back up. Throwing out his arm, he draws his massive blade which is longer than a man is tall and which radiates a black aura as thick as ink. He cuts the air with his blade. In the same instant, as he extends his metal plated arm, he tosses back his cape back which catches on the wind and begins to thrash frenetically. Slowly, he turns his iron mask toward me and glares at me with narrow slitted eyes. Although I can only see darkness behind those slits, I sense a red burning hate welling up in him.

  Ready for anything, I shift my stance to better counter his, but he doesn’t attack. Instead, he merely stands there looking at me as though he’s uncertain as to how to proceed.

  “You’re wise to keep your distance,” I say. “I’ve learned a few tricks since last we met upon the battlefield.”

  “Mere tricks,” he growls in his thick demonic, layered voice, “will not be enough to save you.”

  “Perhaps,” I say, injecting a false sense of confidence to try and throw him off. “But you’ll recall I wasn’t the one who lost so miserably the last time we faced off.”

  “Lost?” he asks in a bemused tone. “Is that what you think happened?” I don’t respond. Instead I just hold out my sword and point it at him, daring him to try me. After a brief pause, he continues. “You only banished us back to the underworld. I assure you, it was not due to any skill of yours. Rather, we were standing on consecrated ground. If I had known that Bellera was built upon the ashes of El Lunaria’s corporeal form, shed when she joined the celestial realm, I would have altered my plan of attack accordingly. You, Mistress Arianna, simply lucked out.”

  With lighting-fast speed, Ashram lunges at me. I deflect his blow. But it’s enough to cause me to slide backward ten feet, my boots tearing skid marks into the packed sand below my feet.

  Ashram towers above me by at least half a body’s length, if not more, and looks down at me menacingly. His black cape with ragged tears at the ends flaps casually in the wind as a bloody battle rages on behind us. Never have I felt more fear than I feel now, but I swallow hard and fight back the stomach clenching feeling that compels me to clutch myself and scream out in fear.

  I clench my jaw, I grind tooth against tooth, and use my most powerful wind attack to hit Ashram back with equal force.

  He blocks my attack and staggers back, looking surprised that such a petite creature such as myself should hit him with such an unassailable force.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” he says from behind his black iron faceplate, “if you care to defeat me.” Ashram takes a step forward but then there is a flash of green energy and a miasmatic puff of yellow smoke.

  Suddenly Zarine stands between us. Ashram stands straight up. I imagine a puzzled expression on whatever face he has beneath that monstrous mask he wears.

  Zarine ignores Ashram, as if he’s no real threat. Instead she turns to me and says, “Arianna, you must come with me!”

  “What?” I ask, bewildered. “Out of my way, Zarine,” I growl. “Lest you desire to be cut down where you stand.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” she says in a rather annoyed tone. Then, without so much as a care about the violence and bloodshed swirling all about us, she reaches over and grabs my wrist and pulls me to her. Placing two fingers on my forehead she whispers an incantation. “Battuere departus expeditor!”

  “Wait!” I say, looking back at all the soldiers engaged in the heat of battle. Bethriel, who is the nearest to my position, cuts through an enemy wraith in time to look up see Zarine and me become entangled in a green ball of energy. I reach out toward her, as if to ask for her help, but fore I can mouth any warning, there is a crackling sound, and in a flash of green light. The mysterious light grows hot all around me. In an instant, it flares white hot, and Zarine and I are translocated
to a distant mountaintop.

  A blizzard rages all around me, and ice crystals prick at my exposed skin. “What have you done?” I ask in complete dismay.

  Zarine looks at me coldly, then turns toward the mouth of a cave, which is lit by torches, and enters it without me an explanation for what she has done. And I can’t help but worry about my friends, who now face off against an impossible enemy, and I…their best hope for defeating Ashram and his dead army…stolen away from them amid the height of the raging battle.

  Turning back toward the vista of snowcapped mountains stretching into the distance as far as my eyes can see, I put away my sword and take a step toward the bluff’s edge. Snow crunches beneath my feet as my hair whips wildly in the frigid air. Gazing at the jagged peaks stretching out before me, I realize I’m not even in the same realm anymore.

  By the intimidating height of the distant mountains, my guess is that I stand in the heart of the Alloran mountain range. If I’m not mistaken, this is Mount Valoron, the tallest mountain in all the realms. The Alloran mountain range divides the sister cities of Bulgoroth, of the north, and Algoroth, of the south. Only a narrow pass, known as The Shard, links the cities directly.

  The Shard is winding and treacherous. Especially when it is packed with brittle ice and delicate snow. To traverse it would take more than two days. Two days I don’t have. But to go around the mountains would take weeks.

  A shiver shoots up my spine. It forces me to cradle myself and rub my arms for warmth. Realizing any attempt to make it back to the war is useless without Zarine’s help, I turn and head into the cave, intent on getting answers.

  3

  Deep within Mount Valoron, I feel the humidity of the tunnel grow thick and the temperature rise until it is balmy. The walls drip with condensation. The torches guide me into a large cavern wherein a turquoise pool heated by the mountain’s fiery core acts as a cleansing chamber.

  Zarine steps out from behind a large row of columns and, for reasons mysterious to me, has changed into a thin black dress. It is translucent, and scarcely veils the parts of her underneath which are suited for a more private affair. I look away in modesty and grumble, “Whatever this is…whatever you’re doing, there’s no time. There are people dying on the battlefield as we speak!”

  “More will die,” Zarine replies. Her eyes are fixed on me with half lowered lids as she gazes at me in all seriousness. “Regardless of if you fight alongside them today or tomorrow, or a week from now, there will always be another fight. Another war. More will always die.”

  “So then send me back!” I shout. The adrenaline from the battlefield still surges through my veins and I must shake my hands out to prevent them from trembling with an overabundance of excitement.

  “You don’t understand, Arianna. I brought you here so we could put an end to the fighting once and for all.”

  I give her a sharp look and hope it conveys my exact level of skepticism. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look around you,” she says, fanning her hand across the pool and toward all the columns to either side.

  She’s right. This place is unusual in some way that I can’t quite put into words. The columns are ancient and seem to be carved from the surrounding rock itself.

  Each column has fixtures chiseled right into it that allow for a series of oil lamps to be hung vertically upon each column. There are eight columns in total, at least twelve lamps on either side of them. As such, the combination of light given off by each pillar is enough light to fill the entire chamber.

  Although the architecture seems dwarven by nature, the ornamentation carved into the rock along with the ancient runes running along the base of the pillars appears elfin. Yet I’ve never known the elves to burrow so deep into the recesses of any mountain, and the runes do not belong to any of the elfin races of the twelve kingdoms.

  Could this be a joint venture between the two races? But what could compel two groups who mistrust one another as much as the elves and dwarves do to join in something like this?

  “What is this place?” I ask.

  “It’s called Lake Dysporia. Its waters fortify the body with the warmth of this world and safeguard you from the cold of the next. You’ll need it for where you will be going.”

  “I wouldn’t need it at all if you hadn’t brought me into the middle of the Alloran mountains and the snow-peaked top of Mount Valoron!”

  Zarine looks up at me with her dark-painted eyes and stares for the longest time before answering. “No, you do not understand. It’s not for the journey back to your home through The Shard that you must be fortified against. It’s the journey after life which you will need to be ready for.”

  “What are you talking about?” I feel threatened by her vague and ominous talk. But I need to know what she’s planning. “What are your intentions with me, exactly?”

  Zarine wades part way into the glistening pool of blue and green and looks up at me. “I was wrong to mislead you, Arianna De Amato. I understand why you do not trust me. But time is of the essence.”

  “Exactly! Which is why you need to send me back right this instant. If you hadn’t abducted me, Ashram would already be lying dead at my feet and the army of the dead would be a smoking heap of waste upon the battlefield. All you have done is ensure that there will be countless victims. The blood spilt today will be on your hands, Zee.”

  “Arianna. Listen to me. There’s something you need to know. When I arrived, however, all the Highborn wizards were stuck deep within a trance. I tried to free them from it but their minds were so involved with the vision that I couldn’t free them without destroying their minds. Then, when I touched the Arch Magus, I glimpsed the future.”

  “The future?” I echo, being sure to sound less than convinced. “You saw the future?”

  “I saw one possible version of the future, yes. Although it was just a sliver of a much larger whole, what I saw was…” Zarine’s voice trails off and she looks down as if a terrible curse has fallen upon her and she carries a heavy burden. “I saw the world burning. And upon a throne of skulls and bone, and the burning remains of a thousand warriors, sat the High Priestess of Death, resurrected from her thousand-year purgatory.”

  “And did she look upon you with her diabolic black eyes?” I ask.

  “You’ve seen her?” Zarine gasps.

  “In a dream,” I answer.

  “Then it’s worse than I thought,” Zee informs me.

  “So, assuming it’s as bad as you think it is, wouldn’t stopping Ashram be a bold first step toward defeating the sorceresses dark magic?”

  “I’m afraid it will only delay the inevitable. Unless you kill whoever is resurrecting Ashram, then he’ll just keep on waging war until everything is decimated.”

  “Even if I believe you, what does any of this have to do with me?”

  “Are you familiar with Dragon’s Eye crystals?” Zarine asks. I nod, yes, and she continues with her explanation. “They are said to only form when a dragon is dies. When a dragon dies, its heart hardens around that which gives the dragons the power to harness fire. It forms a crystal.”

  “I’m aware of Dragon’s eye crystals, yes. What of them?”

  “Each crystal contains enough energy to destroy entire villages, nay, entire cities. The dwarves learned to harness the power with their machines, called Juggernauts, and the ancients used them to cleanse the world of the supernatural. For you see, the light of the crystals can vanquish any dark spirit from the Nether Realm.”

  “The Nether Realm? I thought that was just a myth. Just an old wives’ tale about the afterlife.”

  “The afterlife is quite real, Arianna. I can assure you. The thirteen orders of mages in Koroth have guarded the gateway for centuries. It’s the only direct way in or out.”

  “So, what does the afterlife have to do with Dragon’s eye crystals?”

  “Because, I believe the dark sorceress, Daeris Darkthorne, is mining these crystals to create an army of Juggern
auts to invade Koroth and open the gateway to the Nether Realm. Meanwhile, she is using Ashram and the army of the dead as a distraction, to keep us distracted from her true goal.”

  “That’s all very fascinating, but…”

  “Have you ever heard of The Eye of Halcion?” Zee asks, interrupting me.

  “I’ve heard tale of the greatest of Dragons, one mightier than all the rest. As legend has it, in the time of dragons, Halcion, the largest, most ancient and wisest of all the dragons, learned to speak directly into the minds of men. It was then that the great time of peace between dragons and mankind began.”

  “Right. But that is, I’m afraid, only part of the story. Not long after the truce between dragons and men, dwarves discovered how to harness the power of the Dragon’s Eye crystals at the heart of every dragon’s fire chamber was discovered. And the lords of Valandra, realizing this newfound power would give them the advantage over all the races, the race of men hunted the dragons to extinction for the crystals. The most powerful of all the dragons was Halcion. And he was hundred for over a hundred years. But nobody ever found him or his crystal.”

  “And you think that’s what Daeris Darkthorne is after? The Eye of Halcion?”

  “I’m certain of it. With the eye of Halcion, Darkthorne could open a portal to the Nether Realm indefinitely and release every demon from the void, including worst of them all, the fire demon, Vulcanus.”

  “She wants to release a fire demon?”

  “She obsessed, you might say.”

  “Of courses, she is!” I quip. I point a skeptical finger at Zee. “And how do you know all of this?”

  “Because,” Zee says, looking me straight in the eyes. “It’s what I would do. You see, Daeris Darkthorne was my master.”