Very true Darthel, very true.

The next portion deals with a small matter of revenge and politics, on a slightly DRACONIC level if you will...:-E:-E

 

₰₰ Seventy eight ₰₰​

The lone human walked through Ashabenford in the dark of the night, the only illumination came from the twin moons low on the horizon. Guards, Constables and many companies of mercenaries failed to notice his passage, and the few who actually did only looked at him for a moment before the warding magic which surrounded him confused their thoughts and erased all trace of him from their minds.

He came to the home of High Lord Cronus and silently ascended the stone stairs to the outer porch and halted at the great pair of iron-bound doors. He looked at it and shook his head, then smiled and held one hand out before him; his palm glowed with a faint azure fire, and then did the door, only many times more brilliant with flames only the strange man could see.

“Pathetic, they call these door defenses ‘heavily and perfectly protected by magic,’ while all I need to do is thus…” He pantomimed the motions of opening a pair of doors, and the great magical defenses on the doors slid into slumber, the portal silently opened to permit him passage into the great hall beyond.

None saw the pair of jackalopes who watched from the shadow, determined to witness the events to come…

₰​

“Marcus,” Snow Cat gently called out, she was in a state of shock as she looked upon her brother. His mighty wings mended by healing magic, as had his most grievous of injuries; yet she sensed the lingering pain and hurt to his body, mind and soul. He was hurt worse than she had suspected, and knew come what may, Marcus will not be flying for some time.

“He will be fine Snow Cat,” Hanna said to her. Currently in her human form, Hanna limped her way over to her co-mate and embraced her in a strong hug. “He had the perfect cushion to land upon between him and the rocks, though I have to admit, this is the first time I have ever heard of a husband falling on his wife, instead of falling for her…”

Snow Cat looked Hanna over; appalled by the bruises she wore. Her hair was disheveled and blood still coated her cloths and one arm. She shook her head, unable to accept that Hanna had come that close to being killed and could not find the words to say.

“Snow Cat, most of the blood is from the other Knights I have been helping treat,” Hanna said with a tired smile, “the healers would not let me near Marcus, and he did not protest in the least; that alone can tell you how bad his injuries were,” she paused and noted the injuries to Snow Cats arm, the damage to her armor and cloak, and general messy state. “I’d help with the arm Snow Cat, but my mystical strength is exhausted for the time and I can’t sleep until Marcus awakens.”

“No, Hanna you are going to get some sleep,” Snow Cat ordered her co-mate. “Go and curl up next to Marcus and you will be fine. Dragons have incredible recuperative abilities; inside three days he will be fine; you remember the stink I raised with all of you after the Gray Renderer? I kept telling all of you I was fine after the second day, which alone should be proof enough for you Hanna.”

“I will do that then Snow Cat,” Hanna said and asked the healers around Marcus for a blanket. Moments after she leaned against Marcus and wrapped the blanket around her, she fell into a contented sleep.

Snow Cat talked with the healers, “Let her and Marcus sleep. They will recover all the faster with a good rest. If anything changes with them for the worse I am to be notified at once, I’ll probably be with Master Roerich or in my own private wagon.”

She searched for Roerich among the Knights who remained behind, only to learn he had gone forward not long before to Broken-Bridges. She shook her head in disgust after she retrieved her magical bow from Dame Lae’lion who invited her into her private tent to talk…

Two hot cups of jasmine-mint tea had Snow Cat about as relaxed as she could be, short of a hot soak and a set of new clothing. “I’m sorry for being such a sight Dame Lae’lion,” she said as her tail swished and thumped against the leg of her chair, “I want to thank you for helping Marcus and Hanna, and for retrieving my bow, if that ever got lost, I don’t know what I would do…”

“Snow Cat, I have come to consider you as a friend,” Dame Lae’lion said, “and while I am only human, I hope you will come to me or Dame Foxglove if you need to talk. Especially now that Roerich is occupied with this ‘gaggle of demonic merchants and politicians’ – to use his words,” she smiled as Snow Cat laughed at the often issued complaint Master Roerich used around her, “and keeping the expedition together. I have never seen one man take on so much, and what he would do without you I have no idea.”

“Dame Lae’lion, you are a knight and a military commander,” Snow Cat said to her with a warm smile as she sipped her tea, “you are used to making decisions, taking orders and then carrying them out. Its not much more different with Roerich, save that the High Vale entourage we picked up in Essembra, has overinflated ideas of who has to listen to them in the end.”

“That’s the universal bane of all soldiers, the politicians.” Dame Lae’lion said with a smile, “but they have their own role to play in matters. We soldiers often just clean up their messes; unlike Brother Hart who stays out of politics completely…” She looked at Snow Cat who had broke out in near-hysterical laughter so fierce she rolled out of her seat and hit the floor rump first.

“You have to be kidding me,” Snow Cat declared as tears flowed from her eyes, “he is in politics of the Dales deeper than anyone can imagine. You know the legends of Brother Hart?” She waited to continue until Dame Lae’lion nodded; her curiosity peaked by Snow Cats reaction. “Brother Hart is all of that, and much more for he has lived for nearly three thousand years that I know of, he was one of the original group of heroes who saved the elven-kingdom; and I have that from the elf-king himself, I was a guest of his court ‘to learn proper manners and such’ on the orders of Brother Hart.”

“Now then, if an elf-king listens quite willingly to any non-elf making a ‘suggestion’ and carries it out without any hesitation,” Snow Cat turned deadly serious at this point, “tell me how much power and influence they have in the world of politics…and try growing up as an orphan save for your dragon brother in his shadow?”

₰​

High Lord Cronus looked at the maps that covered his desk and smiled. His forces were in place to block any moves from Shadowdale and Daggerdale to the north. War will soon come between Essembra and Mistledale after the eastern flight of dragons dispenses with them; to the south is Crossing. That will be the place where all changes and will be decided, Crossing, a place Master Roerich and all the Heartland River Expedition will reach all too soon.

“Despite my best efforts to coordinate eliminating them, Roerich and his band of fools refuse to die,” Cronus said, scowled and smashed his fist upon his desk. The great mass of oak shattered in two, and collapsed in a cloud of dust and paper.

“At the least, the battle of Broken-Bridges has thinned out the wolf-were’s from the expedition,” he said to no one in particular. “Not to mention that those infernal Shades of the Abbey of the Sword are gone for good; there is no coming back for them. Although I have to wonder who led the army of orcs and such against Roerich and his forces, the ambush for the Knights was too well planned…”

High Lord Cronus felt a momentarily flicker of alarm, a feeling of being watched by a hunter that is close by and prepared to make his kill. “So Brother Hart, have you come to make good on your claim to kill me by your own hands if I struck out at my mother?”

He looked off to one corner and noted the point of shadow that stood out for its uttermost darkness and smiled; aware of whom he faced at last. He lifted the cold-iron mace he carried on his hip and willed the unholy magic in its depths to come to life…

The strange man emerged from the shadows and saluted Cronus with his sword that dripped liquid blackness. “Hello Lord Cronus, I am Father of the Darkness, last surviving Shade of the Abbey of the Sword. I commanded the army that was annihilated by Snow Cat when I should have won. I assumed it was you who had betrayed us; and so I have been proven right, it is time for you to fall Cronus.”

High Lord Cronus lifted his mace in salute and closed with his adversary, “You Shade are the last of your old order, and I will enjoy exterminating you completely.”

With a roar and a blur of motion both adversaries charged and struck out to slay…

Mace and blade crossed in a holocaust of sparks and noise time and time again, both spun and danced, dodged and struck in a whirlwind of motion and fury. Neither could gain position over the other, despite an endless set of traps within traps within traps, cunningly set parries and feints combined that were matched with equal skill.

High Lord Cronus’s bodyguards burst into the room with weapons drawn, ready to slay the intruder who dared to assault their liege lord. Their jaws hung slack as they watched Cronus and Father of the Darkness clash at speeds that defied the imagination; for long minutes the battle ebbed and flowed, the dance of death perfected by both who knew they at last had met their equal…

Then one made a fatal slip and lowered his guard for an instant of time…

And so the battle ended as only one stood standing.

High Lord Cronus watched the body of Father of the Darkness slump to the floor after hitting the wall, a trail of shadowy blood left behind. He turned to his bodyguards and declared, “This assassin was sent against me by Master Roerich,” he told them, knowing they would believe his lies, “and it is a supernatural being, one that walks from shadow to shadow; you are not at fault. Drag its carcass out of here and have the mess cleaned up.”

“Redouble all the guards around our government offices, and around the supply bases, troop formations and the like, and have my war leaders meet me in the great hall on the hour,” Cronus said. The Shades had harassed Roerich and then perished as he had planned, along with Lotus and her dark-elf forces, and even the four Draco-liches performed as expected: they died.

Cronus had calculated the survival of the Father of Darkness into his plans; though he had hoped the ambush set for the Knights of Essembra, would have rid him of their presence once and for all. No matter what, the death of the Father of Darkness now gave him an excuse and pretence to summon more allies to his side, to further his plans to discredit Roerich and the Sisters of Essembra, and expand his magical control of his troops yet further until they were bound to him mind, body and soul.

He still hoped though, that the flights of dragons would exterminate his enemies completely…

“Yes, let the dragons exterminate them first,” High Lord Cronus declared, “and if they happen to survive, they shall be little more than pawns in my grand game of chess. No matter what, when they pledge themselves to my cause, I will bind them to my iron control. Soon Essembra will be ruled by me, and thus by my liege Night Shade.”

₰​

The gathered dozen and five count of dragons – acid-spitting blacks, forest dwelling greens that killed with magic and poison gas, plus two massive fire-breathing reds – growled in anger and indignation. They heard and watched the entire battle between High Lord Cronus and the Shade, and heard his words of the dragon flights being manipulated, and soon to be magically dominated – contrary to the promises of Night Shade.

Umbra Death, the great green who led the flight looked from the fading image to the human who had informed them of the treachery of High Lord Cronus. “Contrary to what I expected Brother Hart, you have spoken the truth; as legend says you always do. Night Shade has broken his promises and sworn oath to us, one and all, and permitted his servant – High Lord Cronus – to manipulate us for his own gain.”

“Indeed, the two of them have played you badly,” Brother Hart declared, perfectly at ease among the mightiest of dragon-kind in the Dales. The dragons understood that, even if all struck hard at the same instant, Brother Hart would survive and obliterate them in short order. “And per the honor of all dragons, which High Lord Cronus has violated in arranging the final deaths of the Draco-liches, you are free of any oath of allegiance to him or Night Shade.”

“What do you demand of us in return Brother Hart,” asked Sand Heat, the smallest of the two red dragons, his body radiating waves of incandescent heat which rippled the air.

“I demand, nor ask anything from you, for it is not my place to do so,” Brother Hart said, his merest glance chastised the upstart dragon into terrified silence. “You are all free to do as you wish, so long as you do not upset the balance of the dales; that is my domain, and any who upset the balance, as always, will answer to me.”

The dragons nodded at him and in turn departed for parts unknown save for Umbra Death who asked a question of Brother Hart, “What effect will it have if I pass on this information to my fellow dragons in the other two flights even now advancing from the east and west? Will they listen and avoid being slaughtered? And what of Night Shade who will not remain long in his fortress to the north?”

“In answer,” Brother Hart said, “Pass the information to them, and let them choose what to do. They shall live or die by their own intentions. As for my old foe, I expect him to come in the fullness of time, and in the fight one of us will fall…”

Umbra Death looked at him and shook his head in sadness, “Brother Hart, you were there when I hatched over a thousand years ago. Out of the honor shown to my family that day, and for the honor of all dragons, I shall do one more thing…” He explained in exacting detail his plans, and grinned when Brother Hart nodded in approval.

₰​

“So Brother Hart involves himself in politics, but on a much grander scale than anyone really suspects?” Dame Lae’lion asked. “And what of Master Roerich and the Sisters of Essembra, how do they fit into things? Or for that matter even the Knights of Essembra?”

“All things interact on one level or another, no matter the sphere of influence or manner of being: orc, human, elf or dragon. Knight, magician, priest or merchant or whatnot, all of it is interlinked and strives to better itself in the world in one way or another – good or bad, law or chaos. Ultimately that is all which matters to Brother Hart, he even manipulated me into believing the first child I birthed had perished, and now I know I will have to face him in final battle in the days to come…”

Dame Lae’lion gasped in horror as she fit the pieces together, “High Lord Cronus….”

“Yes,” Snow Cat said; her voice full of bitterness and disgust. “Brother Hart plays his games for his own weird philosophical reasons. And in this matter, there is only one I can think of – his old foe and twin brother Night Shade. Two hundred years ago their ancient war changed when Night Shade became something abhorrent to this world. And the next time he and Brother Hart face off, they will probably kill each other and take half the Dales with them.”

Dame Lae’lion shook her head, unable to fully accept that such a grand game had been played on them all, “My stars Snow Cat, he has used you, Marcus, Master Roerich and the rest of us all along – he knew the expedition and all would form to unite the Dales again…” she quitted up.

“For the most part yes,” Snow Cat said, “or to the best I can understand. But I doubt for Marcus to fall in love with Hanna, or me with Master Roerich…” she blushed as a coy little smile crossed her face and her eyes shone with an inner beauty.

“When Master Robinson gets back I assume you and he are going to celebrate in a proper manner?” Dame Lae’lion asked, and got a firm nod in response as Roerich entered the tent. “Well, at least the encampment will have some fun serenades tonight from your passionate screams…” she said to Snow Cat, whom blushed and squealed in embarrassment.

“Snow Cat I’m so glad you are alright,” Roerich said to her as he gave her a great hug, “if not for you and Marcus and Hanna, all of us would be dead by now. I got back here on the fastest horse I could borrow; the man it belongs to wont miss it for a day or two, the charm I put him under should last that long...”

“Now I have seen Marcus and Hanna, and I have talked with the merchants and expedition leaders; we will not move forward for another week or so until the bridges are fully repaired.” Roerich smiled at her, “and you, Marcus and Hanna have fully recovered. I believe you would like a bath or such?”

Roerich swept Snow Cat up into his arms, and told her words of love and desire so fine that she squealed.

So bold and blatant were the words he said that Dame Lae’lion blushed and gasped, completely shaken by their intensity, and longed for someone to say the same to her. She blushed even deeper as Snow Cat and Roerich chuckled at her discomfort before they disappeared into the night.

A moment later Dame Lae’lion whirled about to confront the source of an unknown chuckle, and startled at the sight of a jackalope that had laughed at her discomfort before it vanished in a blaze of golden light and fire.

₰₰ Seventy nine ₰₰​

Roerich smiled as Snow Cat locked her hands around the back of his neck and shifted around within his arms. She brought her lips up to his cheek and began to gently kiss it, one molten-iron hot peck at a time in just the right areas to drive him mad with desire. She smiled and rubbed her cheek against his, the heat of her body clear and hot as it flowed into his flesh; the soft fur tantalized and enticed in ways only a feather-touch could cause in any human body…

She delicately shifted one ear forward to stroke and tease, the edge of his ear. She made a faint tap-tapping that reminded him of a softly falling springtime rain. He felt the soft warmth of her breath on his skin, the delicate rise and fall of her bosom that belied the white-hot passions which burned in her heart and soul; every smell of her lithe form enticed and beckoned, called and offered, implored and pleaded, and nearly drove him mad with desire for her right then and there.

Her tail swished around and thumped gently on his thigh and thus revealed the inner desires of herself; the very same desires which blazed within the depths of her liquid emerald-green eyes.

“So we have to walk across the encampment to reach the bathing tent?” Snow Cat asked. Her voice was a soft melody of lust, drive and raw desire for him she did not bother to conceal. “Or I should say, you are carrying me all that distance?”

“No, I actually had another idea if you so desire,” Roerich said to her, his voice filled with mysterious intent. “I will show you if you desire me to do so…”

She smiled at him and laid her head against his shoulder as he adjusted his grip on her to free up one hand. Then came the snap of his fingers and opened her eyes as her armor, cloak, weapons and clothing vanished, shifted in space and time back to her private wagon.

Her eyes flared wide in shock and she growled at Master Roerich, not at all pleased to be left bare-bottomed naked and thus exposed to the chilled night air and view of everyone in sight. “Blast it Roerich,” she said as she put her arms over her bared bosom, and touched not fur or skin, but a garment of purest silk and thread-of-gold that covered her from neck to toe.

₰​

Reaper, Foxy, Wolf and Dancer watched as Roerich and Snow Cat passed them by as they sat around a small fire. The love the two held for each other was manifest for any save the most dense-brained to see, and all four of them gave a small string of howls – or in the case of Foxy, more like a series of scraggly yips, as she is not a wolf-were.

Reaper lifted a mug of ale to them in salute, and wished them long life, many children and much happiness in the years to come. “Those two are absolutely made for one another,” he said and smiled at Foxy, the lady who had agreed to be his mate. “As are you and I my dearest, I am so fortunate to have found you; or it could be you found me and it just took me so long to understand the obvious…”

Pearl, Chester and Renault, magicians of the High Vale diplomatic escort joined them and brought out bottles of fine brandy they had ‘borrowed’ from the diplomats.

“We felt like celebrating, and wanted to know if we can join you?” Pearl asked as she handed out the bottles of brandy. “Reaper, Wolf, and Dancer and by extension Foxy, all of you and the wolf-were’s have much to be proud of,” Pearl said until she stopped to open the bottle and make a long pull from it, “if not for you and your folk we would never have gained a victory over the enemy…I just wish I was there…”

“No you don’t Pearl,” Foxy said, her voice filled with pain and anger. “We fought hard and long, time and again the hoards advanced, organized beyond anything I had seen to date in my career with the Pegasus Archery Company. I gave Sgt Kenneth my official resignation from the company today; the tribes of the wolf-were’s need me to help them train more magicians.”

“Besides which I have more personal reasons,” Foxy said as she put her hands over her stomach and smiled at Reaper. “One of which will be in the world around six months from now…”

The small gathering, wolf-were and not, cheered and howled at having a real reason to celebrate.

₰​

Badger stood watch to the east of the encampment, high upon the highest of the five-hills. Bow in hand, one he had pried from the grasp of a dead orc, his eyes swept the horizon, then just above it and the forest below in an unending search for any enemy or monsters prepared to swoop down on his brethren and friends below.

“All clear from this end,” he shouted back to the other lookouts as the call carried from one end to the other at ten-minute intervals. A reckless, mongrel-haired cur of a wolf-were he may be most of the time, yet when it came to battle or the welfare of his tribe, all else took second place. So few remained of his group, as they had held the key eastern defenses at Broken-bridges and faced the strongest, most determined and skilled of the enemy…

“And we paid the price for it as well,” he stated to no one in particular.

“So many have followed us from the High Vale and the forests to migrate to Shadowdale,” he said, and shook his head in despair, “we just want a new home and community to be a part of; and now so many will never be there…”

He looked up and spotted a black spot of darkness moving against the evening sky just above the encampment.

His keen eyes discerned the sleek, serpentine shape that flew on silent wings of death…

“Sky Drake,” he shouted out as he raised his bow, an arrow of glistening black-death already produced by the magic endowed within it. The alarm passed and other sentries began to grab bows and spears and slings to try and take the thing down…

Twang!

Everyone on the hilltop watched the arrow streak after the drake, hit, and drop it from the sky…

“Let’s get back to our posts,” Badger said, “there may be more of them in the area…”

₰​

“What’s that Roerich,” Snow Cat asked as she watched the sky-drake fall out of the sky, a lone arrow lodged in its throat. She pointed to it when Roerich looked in the wrong direction and grunted in satisfaction as it made the last descent of its life to the earth.

“That is that then,” he said and returned his full attention to Snow Cat. “We’re here my beloved cat-girl, I hope you enjoy it,” he said and indicated with a nod to a glowing doorway which appeared before the two of them. It silently opened, and soft glowing lights of blue-gold and white danced warmly and welcomingly just beyond the doorway…

“What, what is it Roerich?” Snow Cat asked, her curiosity roused about such a place, and she wondered if he was teasing her for some reason. “I have never seen anything like it before?”

“It’s a variation of the ‘Palatial Palace’ magic so common among the Wizards of Thay. I figured we could use some time to ourselves,” he leered at her, which set her to giggling, “away from the rest of the folk around us; and uninterrupted by any merchants, politicians or the like. Captain Laurence knows how to reach me if an emergency arises.”

He carried her across the doorway and kicked the door shut with his boot heel. In the real world the door faded away, and thus allowed Roerich and Snow Cat some peace and quiet in the small universe he had created for the two of them.

₰​

“Here it to all who fought and died at Broken-bridges,” Reaper declared as he lifted his second brandy bottle of the evening, completely unfazed by the strong spirits. Pearl, Foxy, Wolf and Dancer joined in the toast, and the three which followed. Other wolf-were’s joined them for a time, passed on information about this or that tribe mate who had been injured or their families of the fallen.

“It’s going to be a generation or more before we recover our losses,” Wolf stated. That sobered everyone in an instant, and caused heads to be lowered in prayers for the dead.

Reaper looked at Chester and Renault, passed out on the hard ground around the fire, and grinned. “How about we strip them naked, cover them in feathers and paint their bodies with red and blue berry juice and then declare that they had been ‘given a vision by the gods’?” he asked of Pearl and Foxy.

“How about we have them join Badgers tribe?” Pearl countered, though Reaper’s idea sounded better by the moment. Her stomach growled loud and long, “Does anyone have anything to eat?” she asked.

“If the gods will it, I will cook the next thing to fall out of the sky…” his words ended in a shriek as the dead Sky drake landed upon him. Pearl and Foxy screamed in surprise while Dancer and Wolf chuckled, long used to the bazaar fortune of their leader.

“Pearl, I know you were mated by Snow Cat and Roerich not long past,” Wolf said, and then laughed as she blushed, “but Badger, despite all his antics, is a grand provider for his tribe, as you can see…” he held one hand out towards the dead drake.

“Let me go get my stuff to cook it for you Pearl. Somehow I doubt Reaper is in much of a mood to do anything other than go and chew Badger out.” Wolf got up and departed to get his knifes and other items; Dancer simply shook his head in disbelief and moved to pull Reaper out from under the drake’s carcass.

“Dancer, let me help out with that,” Pearl said and fought against the alcohol in her system to focus and cast a fairly simple spell. She pantomimed lifting a great weight with her hands, willed the magical forces to gather and raise the drake’s corpse into the air. Foxy and Dancer grinned and cheered as the drake rose, along with a disgruntled Reaper who had his arms crossed over his chest as he floated in mid-air.

Reaper lifted one hand and pointed to the ground. He meant for Pearl to place him on his feet so he could walk away from the drake, instead he shook his head and sighed as she released the spell to the winds of the world. Reaper crashed to the ground in a heap, and yipped in outrage and wounded indignation – not to mention a slight wounded to his tush.

Anything else Reaper tried to say was muffled by the Sky Drake’s carcass as it fell upon him for the second time this night. Again and again this pattern repeated – Pearl used her magic to lift the drake, along with Reaper then accidently dropped them both to the ground; Dancer returned at some point and laughed, then praised Pearl for her creative use of magic to tenderize the drake’s meat.

Dancer gestured at the drake and asked of Pearl, “Now then, which portion do you want for your dinner? Mind you, I claim the brains for my own fee; they make a most excellent stew…”

Dancer stopped speaking and looked at Foxy as Pearl fled into the night to empty her suddenly upset stomach.

“Welcome to my world Pearl,” Foxy said with a grin.

₰​

Snow Cat lay upon her stomach, the piled pillows softer than any she had felt or held before. She looked at her lover, Master Roerich and smiled as he rolled onto his side gently stroked her cheek with a finger.

“This place is so nice Roerich,” Snow Cat said, “It shows a master touch in crafting, and any other spell caster would die of envy if they could see us in here. Would it be too much to ask if you could teach me this magic if we ever have time in the future?”

“Snow Cat, I have a surprise for you back in your private wagon,” Roerich said, “and it truly is private anymore as Hanna seems to spend so much time with Marcus. It is a spell book of some of the most advanced magic that I have learned. Do with it as you wish, and do not be shocked with some of the secrets you find in it.”

“Are they all like the ‘Draconic Holocaust’ you bestowed to me before the last battle?” Snow Cat asked with a trace of fear in her voice.

“No, not even a tenth of them, many have greater ability for creation, defense, building and the like,” Roerich said as he kissed her on the forehead. “No matter what, given the time we will spend here while Marcus and Hanna heal up, you have at least a week to practice…” he said no more as Snow Cat buried him under her body and resumed their amorous studies for the night.

 

₰₰ Eighty ₰₰​

High Lord Cronus scowled as he listened to the continued reports of his scouts south of Crossing. “Three weeks have passed and Master Roerich is nearly a third of the way to Crossing; nothing seems to be able to stop him since the victory they won at Broken-bridges…they stayed still for a week to heal from the battle, and now had no opposition for two more…”

“Broken-Bridges,” Cronus said and recalled the attack on him by Father of the Darkness, an attack he claimed to his fellow Lords of the Dales as having come from Roerich, and with the blessing of Essembra and the dragons who make up the Sisters of Essembra.

He had declared Roerich to be subject to the same embargo he maintained upon Essembra. Tied to this was the threat of Roerich being declared an outlaw and enemy of Mistledale if he refused to turn back or turn to the west as Crossing…an event whose time of decision will occur within the next six to eight weeks, depending on the weather and such.

The dragon flights…he shook his head at that disappointing matter…

The three flights dissipated, all of their members having declared to Night Shade that any allegiance owed to him was done. Thus Essembra and Master Roerich had been spared and left him to prepare for a full scale war with them, before or at the same time he dealt with Master Roerich; he had made generous offers to each of the dragons on their own to work with him if they would, most had said ‘no’ by eating the messengers.

“No, Brother Hart is behind this,” Cronus said, as he walked the nearly empty battlements of his home, “many of the monsters and nightmares in the southern woods are gathering. The four Draco-liches are even now in the process of regenerating their new bodies; and there are still the other contingents of Night Shades forces led by the priests of Shar…”

“My assassins, agent provocateurs and support to dissidents among the Dales are beginning to bear fruit as the native Lords and Ladies are made to be fools before their people,” Cronus said as he ran down the mental list of all that he had going on at the time. “More mercenaries are arriving here in Ashabenford by the day; and with the legions provided by my liege, we can soon strike and strike hard from Crossing, assuming that somehow Roerich reaches that far…”

“Time is what I ultimately need,” Cronus declared and tapped his fist on the stone before him, which shattered under the hammer-blows. “Time and pressure, unrelenting pressure across the dales and with Master Roerich; time to turn the dales on their heads, such as with the recent rebellion staged in Scardale to the south-east…and time for the four Draco-liches to return in full measure…”

Of course none of the other Dale lords knew that he had arranged the violent overthrow of Scardales old Lord, and now had a secret alliance with the new one…and thus access to the nations on the northern and southern shores of the Sea of Fallen Stars via its excellent port.

“Night Shade has not spoken with me for some time.” Cronus muttered, “Has he been countering another bold move by Brother Hart? I hope he approves of my successes and plans, no matter what Roerich must fall…”

“Tell me of your next plans, spare no detail of any size, for I already know much,” Night Shade suddenly said in a magical contact with Cronus. He listened as his servant and lackey explained the grand strategy he had been employing and all probable contingencies for emergencies and opportunities that suddenly arose.



“Very good High Lord Cronus,” Night Shade declared, pleased and delighted at the cunning and ingenuity of his servant. “Some of the southern dales, and in Daggerdale as well, are having the common people turn upon their Lords and Ladies; we may still win against Roerich in the end, for after he is turned away at Crossing he has three choices – turn westward on the long route to Shadowdale, turn back in shame and disgrace, or do battle with you to seize crossing…as you have planned. Make only one change to your overall strategy…”

“Essembra, what shall come of it my liege?” Cronus asked.

“Seize it or destroy it as you wish, continue your assassination of the Sisters of Essembra and their agents; just understand this is on your efforts, I cannot supply any direct aide beyond what I have, I must not have Brother Hart enter the fray ahead of time,” Night Shade declared and ended their discussion.

High Lord Cronus sensed that something with Night Shade had changed. He had grown more powerful and less afraid of Brother Hart, almost confident from his tone that when the final battle came between the two, that he, Night Shade would stand victorious in the end.

“Indeed, one small change in my overall strategy as Night Shade commands,” Cronus declared, “An assault from three different directions. And we are the distraction for Roerich, excellent.” Privately though, he figured a slim chance for that change to the plans to fail. No matter though, for soon he will have the means of offense to crush Roerich and Essembra at the same time.

For soon he will have the rejuvenated Draco-liches added to his armies. They will enable him to recruit four or more flights of dragons to assist in striking down his enemies. Brother Hart had already dispersed by some means three flights of dragons and drakes, yet many more remained in the region than the bravest of dragon-hunters could have imagined.

Also, there were a few allies now entering the great river from the sea. Given a few days, they will make life even more difficult for Roerich. All he needs is time, at least one more month of time. And Brother Hart cannot interfere in the least for as a lawfully elected Lord of Mistledale, any interaction he has with dragons is well within his rights…

“Time,” Cronus reiterated, “that is the main thing I need. More time, and I am running out of it.”

₰​

Cloud Dancer, Star Gazer, and Harvest, three of the oldest Sisters of Essembra listened with apprehension and confusion at the latest reports of their agents and spies. After the messenger had been dismissed Owl silently turned to them and mulled over the situation as well, then, unable to come to any conclusions, looked at her three fellows Song Dragons…

“The three flights of dragons have turned back, renounced their allegiance to Night Shade and are departing for the open wilderness. Brother Hart sent a message that stated he ‘had a discussion’ with them, and ‘showed them the truth of the situation,’ which is as clear as dense stone to what he means, as usual with him.”

Harvest stepped forward and asked, “What of High Lord Cronus? Scardale now is allied with him, though that is known only to a few. We have heard Cronus is dispatching agents and assassins. He seeks to stir up more and more trouble with the common folks of the Dales, make the lords and ladies who rule appear incompetent and deal death whenever he can. Many of his scouts and spies have been found out, captured or eliminated; if he sends raiders or marches in force…”


“Which he will find does him no good as we have enough strength in the Sisters to stand against him,” Star Gazer declared, “Even with the handful of the Knights still here, we have our own half-dragon forces to help in the defense of our home. And with all of the Sisters present…’

“There may be more,” Cloud Dancer said before Owl could answer, “before we consider our strength as more than adequate to defeat High Lord Cronus, recall that four Draco-liches fought against Roerich at Broken-Bridges. What if he has gained their phylracies and thus commands them after their ‘revival.’ The debt of honor he could claim will add their strength, and any other flights of dragons he can call to his side, to Crossing or an invasion of Essembra.”

That caused a murmur to flow through the group, all had been informed by Snow Cat (via Owl), of the battle of Marcus, Hanna and Snow Cat against the four Draco-liches the first time around. A second such battle, over the skies of Crossing or Essembra will cause much death and devastation.

“Star Gazer,” Owl stated with a quiver in her voice, “Cronus’s assassins have already scored their first success and have ended the life’s of Mist Catcher, Deep diver, Honored Mother and Reaver of the Deep Waters. Before this meeting I found out that Rainbow Eyes has perished…” she choked on her words, the loss of her own son hit her hard; she was glad her daughter is safe in Daggers Fall, the capital of Daggerdale.

She thought her daughter to be safe, but in due time she will realize the depth of that mistake.

₰​

In the far northern lands Night Shade walked the halls of his fortress, only the hollow echo of his footsteps accompanied him. He had recently completed one of his most detailed of magic rituals which had elevated him to nearly unprecedented levels of power and abilities; yet he still remained troubled, for Brother Hart still evaded his ability to detect and locate – by mundane and magical means.

Also, the children of Brother Harts still lived, along with Master Roerich, who has become a constant thorn in his side…

Master Roerich had proven to be a formidable foe in his own right; combined with the awakened abilities of Snow Cat, all but unstoppable. Marcus and his were’dragon mate Hanna are nearly as formidable in their own ways…the combined defeat of four Draco-liches proved that.

He decided its time to test them in full, first with Roerich, for the man was a rightfully feared former Red Wizard from Thay…for he has demonstrated command of the legendary Phoenix-magic.

“Cronus stated he needed more time,” Night Shade stated, “So it is time he shall have.”

“The weather control magic will take four or five days to reach full effect over the region.” Night Shade declared. “Roerich has stopped the advance near the three tributaries and is using the time to repair the bridges to rest and conduct the sundry list of maintenance the expedition needs. Thus it will be the perfect trap for them, the river to the west, the tributaries ahead, and my ‘little alteration’ to Cronus’s plans from the Eastern points of the compass…three armies should be more than adequate…and if not, I will go and join in the battle…”

₰₰ Eighty one ₰₰​

“So what do you think Snow Cat?” Master Roerich asked her as she examined the new dragon-saddle he had commissioned for her. “The magicians who created it have enchanted it to withstand blows, fire and acid better than the last one you had. Hopefully there will be no more Draco-liches or massive battles in store for us until we reach Crossing. At that point, anything may happen…”

Snow Cat paused in her examination of the saddle, straps and buckles and other gear as Marcus growled. “It’s not that bad brother,” she told Marcus, “besides, the old saddle had nearly worn out anyhow; we go through the things every couple of years. At least, unlike my own armor, it does not cause you to itch. Besides, I and Hanna wanted to have that artist make a painting of you, and these sketches have to be done…”

“Marcus, I had thought you would be glad for a short break,” Master Roerich said, “we spent a week patching you and the bridges at “Broken-bridges.” The last two weeks we have pushed even harder than I really desired.”

“The expedition is nearly one-third of the way to Crossing, and with no opposition; right now our dray animals are tired, everyone else is, and we need time to…” Roerich snorted in disgust and laughed, “You already know all of this. So why not indulge your sister and soul-mate a bit, after all, you three are among the heroes of Broken-bridges…”

Roerich looked over Marcus and the current garb he wore aside from the dragon-saddle and grinned. Snow Cat noticed and gave a grin in return as her eyes danced with laugher over the garb her brother wore for the portrait.

“One chuckle or smart-arsed response from you Roerich and I’ll do my ‘I greet you with incineration’ routine,” Marcus said in jest to Snow Cats lover, “but on the matter, are the forces stationed behind us on the route strong enough to deal with any raiders? Eight way-stations are now being built, which are eight more companies from the auxiliaries we will not have at Crossing; and maybe another five or six left behind as we approach…”

“Crossing,” Snow Cat said, her voice filled with concern, “it always comes back to that place and the choice we will have to make at that time.”

Roerich came over and took hold of Snow Cats hands with his and looked at her, “Snow Cat, as I have stated, the actions we take at Crossing will be dependant on the actions of High Lord Cronus.”

They turned at the sound of icy snow being crunched under hard boots, and saw that High Vale Councilmen Justinian and Brenner, the High Vale Representatives and Sgt Kenneth’s full diplomatic escort walked towards them.

“Great, just great, more trouble from that gaggle of peacocks – not Justinian or Brenner, I can deal with them, just the rest of the political idiots,” Roerich shook his head.

Snow Cat kissed him on the bottom of his solid jaw, “Marcus is concerned as to what we will do if Cronus holds Crossing and keeps us from heading through Mistledale. He is the Lord of the Dale by the selection of the people. We may have to turn down the western trail after passing over the river, and that will leave all of the way-stations vulnerable to his forces. Not to mention Cronus can turn on us after we cross…”

“Master Roerich, I apologize for having overheard the conversation between you, Snow Cat and Marcus, but I wish to know,” Councilman Justinian said, “are we going to use the western route at Crossing or force our way through to Mistledale?”


“Let me settle this once and for all,” Master Roerich said, his voice stern and cold, “in the past I stated that we would use the western route from Crossing if Cronus denied us passage through Mistledale. I will not start an open fight with a lawfully elected lord of the dales.”

“I want this noted and honestly understood,” Master Roerich said, his voice stronger than steel, and his rage barely contained, “if Cronus directly assaults our expedition, or his allied beasts do, then I will do all in my power to end his reign…as at that point he has broken the merchants pact of the dales in regards to permitting safe conduct of merchant caravans in times of peace and war.”

“If he wants war, then we will give it to him,” Roerich declared. Almost everyone shook in fear at the deep and long growl that came from Marcus as he nodded in agreement with Roerich; none doubted his hatred for the High Lord Cronus when they looked upon Marcus’s eyes that glowed white-hot with true indignation.

₰​

“Hello everyone,” Sergeant Kenneth said to his friends, “I guess Marcus, judging from the scowl you have, you are none too pleased with having your portrait made?” he said with a nod of his head at the artist who prepared his sketch tools.

“Yes Kenneth, but its only due to Snow Cat and Hanna desiring it to happen…” Marcus stopped at a soft little noise from his sister. He looked and saw the stern expression on Snow Cats face, her crossed arms and her one foot that tapped as primordial power flared in her liquid emerald-green eyes. He sighed and continued, “Let me amend that, they won another game of chess against me. And as my due punishment I have to pose in this getup…how humiliating can you get…”

Sergeant Kenneth laughed at the sight of Marcus, a dragon clad in an oversized plume helmet set with Valkyrie wings, greaves on his limbs and a thick bronze breastplate which glistened in the light. “Better you than me dear Marcus, I face your sister in another chess match tonight with the rest of my unit; as usual I imagine I will lose big time…”

“Kenneth,” Snow Cat said with an impish grin, “why you guys keep insisting on playing ‘strip chess’ is beyond me. I keep making a nice profit selling all the men’s clothing back to them; the ladies get theirs back for free.”

Sergeant Kenneth sighed as he noticed the High Vale Councilmen wave for the escorts to rejoin them. “Excuse me everyone, but duty calls. I have grown so tired of just guard duty and want to see some action,” he said to them. “See you at tonight’s game Snow Cat,” Kenneth told her with a leer-filled grin, “and we’re looking forward to seeing that shapely body of yours as Master Roerich does…”

“What!” Snow Cat shouted in outrage. Marcus chuckled over the matter and that caused Snow Cats fury to be redirected at him and away from the good Sergeant.

“Something tells me he has a trick up his sleeve for our next game…” she said to no one in particular.

“Well, I imagine you will counter it,” Roerich said as he walked up to her; he lifted one hand towards Kenneth, “though I imagine a slight change of wardrobe may make an impression…after all, there are matters of a man defending his ladies honor.”


He snapped his fingers…

Everyone save for Sergeant Kenneth chuckled or laughed, for the good Sergeants uniform transformed into silk robed bedecked with fur trim and bespeckled in the flowing coloration of a peacock. The air around him erupted into hedonistic music of the most erotic styles heard by anyone.

“Now them Marcus, the ‘armor’ you wear will dissipate inside the day when the magical that created it fades. I have to say though,” Roerich paused and then looked at Snow Cat, “if we send him into battle that way none of our foes will face him, they shall die of laughter long before the need to go claw to claw occurs…”

Marcus gave off a long, low, deep growl of resignation that resonated for miles.

Snow Cat and Roerich laughed long and hard, she fell into his arms and held on to him as she rested against his chest. “Come on Marcus you should know better by now, never jest with an arch-wizard such as Roerich happens to be…”

Marcus leaned his head down and said, “By the way Master Roerich, has Snow Cat found the time to tell you she is pregnant with twins…” he grinned, unsure as to which was more enjoyable: the shock on Roerich’s face, or the outraged screams and hammer-blows directed at him by Snow Cat. He laughed again when the artist began to cry out for him to hold still so his sketches would not be ruined…

About this time Sir Robinson and Dames Lae’lion, Winter-glove and Foxglove came close enough to hail Master Roerich and hear the jest made by Marcus of Snow Cat being pregnant. The women laughed at the look on Roerich’s face as well as the discomfort of Robinson; then Snow Cat delivered a kick to Marcus’s posterior that sent it into the air, and him ‘going turtle’ for his own protection…

₰​

“Sometimes I wish to be a dragon, to know their view of the world,” Dame Lae’lion declared, “But now I see that their sense of humor is something else.” Dames Winter-glove and Foxglove agreed with her, thoroughly bemused by the whole hilarity of the moment.

“So Marcus is jesting about Snow Cat,” Sir Robinson said, “I have known him for some time and he seldom tells a joke, but when he does, it often has the desired effects…” he indicated the tirade being unleashed by Snow Cat at Marcus.

“True Sir Robinson,” Dame Lae’lion said with a smile, “but who is to say it’s not true,” she placed her arm within his, “about Snow Cat being pregnant? For that matter, how about me or Pearl or Foxy or any other of the ladies on this expedition; does it matter if they are or are not?”

Dame Lae’lion laughed at the look on Robinsons face from her bold talk and she unhooked her arm from his, and then walked towards Snow Cat to try and calm her down. She felt the eyes of Roerich linger on her lithe body as she strolled along, swaying her hips ever so slightly to enhance the desire that raged in his heart and loins.

 

Ah, alas we get to see snow cats dragon form.
If what I saw in my minds eye is close to what she looks like she makes a beautifully powerful dragon.

 

Thank you, just one thing to consider with Snow Cat...her journey of self-discovery is far from concluded.

 

₰₰ Eighty two ₰₰​

He held out his staff and polished the fine wooden surface and ran his hand over the worn surface. Nearly three hundred years of battle, time, travel and other stresses had left marks on the surface. Within the depths of the fine wood, he sensed the immense power that waited his command to create wonders and awesome destruction as he willed. Many a time the great staff had been enhanced by his magic, new abilities added…

But the day he claimed it as his own, that was the day he chose to leave his homeland of Thay for good and head elsewhere to begin his life again.

“Ghost-flame was always so proud of his abilities: the mightiest of intellect, arrogance beyond all others, and the confidence of the most narcissistic ever on this world.” Roerich shook his head and stood up, took the staff into both of his hands, and executed a routine of iron-disciplined attacks, parries, blocks and the like worthy of the monks who taught him centuries ago.

Those routines, his mastery of magic, the magic inherit in his Red Wizard robes and various vests; have aided him in survival in countless battles. Many a rival had sought his death as he ascended in the ranks of his order of the Red Wizards, where the surest route to promotion was by assassination of the one above you. Such was not his way though, for Roerich managed to retain most of his integrity during his apprenticeship and into his master-level studies of magic.

His teacher and mentor for most of the time had been a mongrel eared cur of pure arrogance, spite, genius-level intellect and anger beyond reason. He had been one of the most powerful magicians in Thay when he and Roerich finally came to blows…

“His own arrogance undid him in the end,” Roerich said as he replayed the events of that night, “How could he have NOT expected me to answer the call from the fire-bird. Ghost-Wind dared to assume he could hold one of the great Phoenix’s; creatures that embody all that is good, holy, sacred, and pure and keep it from contacting one of like heart and mind who could aid it…”

Roerich went into another combination of moves and routines with the staff. Attack and defense combined with the usage of battle magic; each spell he used were of minor power that produced ghostly lights, harmless yet of use for keeping his skills honed to a razors edge…

Such as Marcus discovered on the eve of the assault on Hap-tooth Hill…

Such as Ghost-Wind had discovered so long ago to his final regret…

Going through the most advanced and difficult of maneuvers he knew, the very air itself danced and tingled with magical power. Images of flame-birds flew and sung around him in patterns of ghostly gold and iridescent flames that emerged from nothingness, existed for a moment to declare their songs of love, life, holiness and sacred duty to law and justice. In the next instant they dissipated in a blaze of harmless fire to birth another generation of them.

Roerich remembered the day he had discovered the bird and what Ghost-wind planned to do to it…

₰​

He had heard the telepathic plea for help from the great firebird and spent most of the evening and night hours searching halls and chambers of Ghost-winds great fortress. The image that flashed into his mind, a chamber that a magician trained in Thay - usually used for the summoning and binding to their command of mighty evil spirits, demons and devils from other realities and dimensions, was one he did not recognize.

However the resonance of the birds’ telepathic ability grew ever stronger the closer he drew. So it was only a matter of time, before he found the last flight of darkness-enshrouded stairs that led into the depths of the earth. His mentor and teacher had placed cunning traps of magic and mundane that most could never have defeated, and he had done so only with extreme difficulty and care.

“One hundred landings times’ one hundred stairs separated each, in a chain of ten spirals from top to bottom,” Roerich said as he reached the bottom. He knew the count was part of a structure which would amplify magical power to an immense scale. Once he stepped on the final landing, then passed through the great archway of obsidian blacker than the heart of the deepest cavern, he sensed the accumulated power which steadily built within the structure.

The chamber was of a pentagram design some thirty paces across on a side. The central floor was engraved with a chain of complex sigils, glyphs, hieroglyphs and images of darkened beasts and concepts so horrendous his mind cringed before them as madness threatened to engulf him completely.

Then he gazed upon the purest of flame and light he ever could have imagined existed anywhere in the wider cosmos. Bound in chains and fetters of black ice which doused the sacred fires which defined its very existence, the mighty Phoenixstruggled to stand before him, defiant and proud as if prepared to face death eye-to-eye with its murderer.

Roerich gazed into those brilliant eyes that looked into the depths of his soul, and the majestic bird bowed its head in a sign of respect. He pulled a pair of thick leather gloves from his belt; ones enchanted to withstand the greatest of cold and ice, and donned them as he stepped forward to the chains of black ice. As he pulled on the first one he howled as the deadly cold of eternal nothingness seared past the gloves and tore into the very stuff of his soul…

He held on and gritted his teeth as the pain mounted by the moment, determined to free the Phoenixno matter what. Alas, despite his best effort, he could not even make the slightest scratch in the chains and he had to free himself of them to survive and recover his strength while he struggled to find a way to undo them…

The Phoenixwatched him as he walked around it, examining each pattern on the floor for some weakness. But the work of his mentor had been thorough with each one of them. Roerich looked at the firebird and explained step by step the various magical spells of nullification and cancellation he would attempt; this was mostly so the bird would not panic and inadvertently incinerate him when it won free…

Then he spotted the stone altar which held upon its surface a staff prepared for a dark ritual which would endow it with immense magical force. His eyes flared wide as he at last understood the depths of madness that his mentor had reached; the man planned on sacrificing the Phoenix, and have the spirit and power of the firebird transfer into the staff…thereby giving the wielder immense power beyond imagination.

He looked the Phoenixin its eyes and motioned with his hand at the altar and the staff. “Is that idiot madman going to do what I think he is going to do?” Roerich asked of the firebird.


The great bird nodded, its eyes filled with sadness from it being held captive.

“Fine then, that blasted black-arsed madman has gone too far,” Roerich growled as his eyes flared with the pure righteous indignation of one whose cause is just and true. He looked at the Phoenix and explained, “I have a way that might, emphasis on might, melt the ice and sunder the enchantment that holds you in place. The flame is going to burn hotter than…” he rolled his eyes to the heavens as the Phoenix tilted its head in the avian gesture for ‘consider what you are saying.’

“You’re a being of fire, so of course the flames will not harm you in the least,” he said and face-palmed himself as he chuckled in disbelief at missing the obvious. “Knowing Ghost-wind he has the chains set with a magical series of alarm spells; if that happens I cannot guarantee being able to stop him quick enough to free you. But on my word and honor and life, I will fall before I let him touch you.”

The firebird looked at him and nodded, then put one leg forward and tapped the shackle that bound its foot. Two more times it did this before Roerich understood the message. He only needed to focus on the weakest spot of the chains and bindings…and he would use the staff to ensure it happened…

He raced over and picked up the staff, felt the magical might which slept in its depths and willed it to come to life in all its potential. He sensed each of its abilities and spells carried within the staff, and then sensed the mightiest of magic as well…one that would probably cost him his life.

“So be it then. So long as the Phoenixis freed,” he declared to no one in particular. He returned to the side of the firebird and crouched so he could angle the staff for the one perfect strike he needed to make.

“You understand what is about to happen?” he asked of the firebird.

“Yes I do Roerich. I know much that is yet to happen in your life. Do as you intend, I will be here to ensure all is accomplished…” the mighty Phoenix said to him by its telepathic abilities.

“It’s been nice, to have seen one of your kind,” Roerich stated, unable to comprehend the prophetic message it had communicated to him.

With a shout he called out the mightiest magical spell he then commanded: ‘The Final Strike.’ This spell caused all of a magician’s mystical reserve to be channeled into an focused bolt of pure magical force. Normally such a spell destroyed the selected target at the expense of the casters life; this time though he channeled all of that great force into the staff…

And called forth the grandest power of the Staff of the Magi he swung at the black ice…’Retributive Strike.’

Time flowed in slow motion for Roerich as the staffs silver-shod head crashed into the ice, ablaze with purest of power and light which erupted as the staff shattered in his hands…

Then the entire cosmos erupted into the most beautiful flames and energy he had ever seen in his life. His very body and soul flared with life and power, and then they were consumed completely, annihilated as the mighty Phoenix cried out in victory and freedom…

His last thought was of his own victory, having sacrificed all for the benefit of the great firebird, who will deal with Ghost-wind as justice and honor demanded.



An eternity and a moment passed in which Roerich awakened for a second time in this world, his scarlet robes and white vest ablaze with holy power and potential he assumed came from him being dead. When he shifted his arm, his hand clutched the shattered staff…and a roar of pain surged across his body…

“Nope, somehow not dead,” Roerich said, “Unless I have been judged and condemned to eternity in one of the hells for trying to free the firebird. Guess I failed after all…”

“No Roerich you did not fail, nor have you perished completely,” the Phoenix said unto him telepathically. “The sacrifice you willingly made allowed me to gain my freedom and destroy my captor and all of his mighty minions. His fortress is completely destroyed…”

“Then how can I be alive…” Roerich felt the knowledge surge into his mind and tears flowed down his cheeks as he lay there for some time. The great firebird had restored him to life; its fires of rebirth had imparted a kind of immortality and great wisdom beyond measure as secondary gifts. He would never die of old age, nor suffer most normal diseases, sickness and the like.

Two other gifts had been gifted to him – the staff had been restored, and endowed with the magic of the great Phoenix. The second gift was a chain of magical spells which allowed him to command the sacred fires of the celestial realms as the firebird did by its mere existence.

He finally pulled himself to his knees and then stood up and he looked around the chamber for the Phoenix.

The great bird was gone, and when he ascended the stairs again, Roerich found the entire fortress, mountainside and all living beings consumed by the righteous justice delivered upon them.

Within the week to follow he decided to leave Thay for good after he dealt with a few other problems in the land. Once the thirty or so vilest and dark-hearted magicians of Thay had perished, he headed west and then to the north, towards a land of legendary beauty and peace called The Dales.

There, free of the troubles of Thay and its magicians, he hoped to find peace at long last.

Unfortunately though a rather irate inhabitant of the Dales somewhat objected to his presence…

₰₰ Eighty three ₰₰​

Roerich smiled at the memory when he arrived in the dales after leaving Thay behind for good. All he wanted and sought was to have a place to call home, a place to practice his magic and to be left alone. So it happened to be he found a wild grove of trees next to a large pond and a chain of bubbling springs.

He decided it would be a fine place for his home, and within the day, assisted by his magic, his small cottage had been erected and fully furnished.

Of course Brother Hart had not taken kindly to an ‘evil, vicious, villainous, despotic Red Wizard of immense power’ that had taken up residency near his favored fishing hole. Mind you, the man did not fish, but it still was his favored site.

Brother Hart had decided to handle the matter in his traditional style with ‘evil magicians’…

Straight forward annihilation by the simplest, quickest, and messiest of means possible…

There had been no warning at all as Roerich fished in the pond for his dinner when the tempest of lightning shot from the heavens. White-hot bolt after bolt rained down at him, each one capable of crushing any dragon it hit, yet they failed to harm him – let alone hit him; which infuriated Brother Hart to no end as he emerged from the woods.

Roerich had held his hand out and summoned the staff to appear within his grip. It did so in time to absorb the next dozen spells that Brother Hart unleashed at him: swarms of poisonous insects, elemental forces of fire and acid, cold and earth that sought to tear flesh and crush bone and muscle. Each spell unleashed was more powerful than before, enhanced by the massive esoteric lore possessed by Brother Hart.

He remembered the great anger which blazed in the man’s eyes from Roerich refusing to stand still and just die.

“Damn you Red Wizard, this is my land, my home, and I protect the Dales from all of your kind…” Brother Hart shouted as he sent forth from his hand a cone shaped blast of pure force that annihilated everything in its path out to two-hundred paces…

Everything but Master Roerich who had deflected the mighty forces away from him; and he looked upon the mighty Brother Hart with his own eyes ablaze in pure indignation…

“Now it’s my turn,” Roerich said and moved with speed and skill Brother Hart had clearly not anticipated a mere Red Wizard would have. Five bolts of azure fire hit Brother Hart and dragged him into a hazy, mist filled maze of magical force that would hold him for a few minutes of time. “Wonderful beginning to my time in the Dales,” Roerich scowled as he leveled the staff before him, “one day here and already the insane magicians have come out of the woods…”

Then the magical maze shattered in a flash of iridescent flame and light while a roar shook the world for miles around. Roerich watched the ascending column of fire formed into a gargantuan dragon of living spirit and mind energy…

“Oh crud, this is not good,” Roerich said as he knew then and there he faced a truly ancient Force Dragon.


The battle carried on, spell versus spell, claw and fang against staff; no matter what occurred though, Brother Hart could not gain the advantage over Roerich.

“Stop fighting me dragon, I am not your enemy,” Roerich shouted time and again as he used his magic and his battle skill to try and contain the dragon, as he did not want to harm it unless it became necessary to save his life. Each moment that passed only served to enrage the dragon to ever higher levels of anger and determination to destroy Roerich…

Then came the moment everyone who has faced a dragon, and lived to tell about it, dreaded as the great beast reared on its hind legs and inhaled. As the massive chest expanded Roerich held his hand and shouted ancient words of sacred power; and shook his head as the golden chains bound themselves around the dragons’ mouth and body, and then slammed it hard unto the ground.

The dragons’ breathe weapon, a holocaust of fire, ice, sound, electricity and acid that mixed within the depths of pure destructive might detonated in its throat. Smoke frothed out of its ears, nostrils and mouth as the world shook to its foundations…

Roerich walked up to the dragon and shook his head. “Dragon, let me be very clear on this matter, I am not your enemy and will defend myself again if you attack. The next time I will fight back with all the force I command and only one of us will survive…”

Then the world lit up as bright as the morning sun.

The great Phoenix that Roerich had freed appeared and ‘explained’ to Brother Hart not to harm Roerich. The sight of one as mighty as Brother Hart cowed by the Phoenix spoke volumes; for all know the legends of the man know that Hart is seldom intimidated by anything.

After that the two of them became good friends…

₰​

Roerich looked at his great staff and felt as if its powers would soon be needed.

Soon after, a magical communiqué arrived: it was a request for a secret meeting in the far woods. His curiosity peaked; he decided to honor the request in which he come alone…

No matter the source of the magical message, true or a trap, Roerich made sure to prepare a series of magical defenses and contingencies for one of Snow Cats ‘just incase’ emergencies.

“Indeed, just incase it turns out I wind up facing that abomination Night Shade, in the flesh,” he said to himself.

Snow Cat joined him later in the wagon, the chill wind announced her arrival as the wagon door flew open and she struggled to close it again. He helped her close the door tight.

She shivered so bad that even her thick overcoat and cloak had proven to be no defense against it; which caused Roerich no small measure of concern as he listened to her describe the – relatively speaking – chill night air had suddenly become charged with magical potential, then the temperature plummeted, rose, plummeted again and went back to how it was for a time.


“I think we had one of those drifting wild-magic zones flow over the encampment,” Snow Cat stated, “if that is the case, we need to figure out how to do battle with our magical capacities limited or checked. No one is safe, spell caster or non-spell caster, when magic is unleashed in those areas…but we have been here less than a day and already I’m sensing some great magical storm gathering.”

“It sounds like you have an idea on how to counter it,” Roerich said. He too had sensed the grand magic being worked, and worked by one whose skill was beyond even his comprehension. “I hope it works for if we are stuck here for some time, especially as Sir Roerich has gone forward to check out the three tributaries…”

“I do have an idea,” Snow Cat said, “I just want to get warmed up, though Kenneth and his men are feeling the cold right now...” she gave Roerich a wicked grin of pure delight that caused him to laugh.

Roerich’s grinned and asked, “So what happened in your chess game with him and his men?”

“As anticipated Kenneth had a plan,” she said with a smile, “he and his men – the women sat around and watched with big grins on their faces - challenged me to play ten of them at one time.”

“Ten opponents at once,” she rolled her eyes to the heavens, “so of course I won all the games in a very short amount of time, and now we can spend the rest of it together if you wish…”

“So tomorrow you will sell their clothing back to them via Councilman Justinian?” Roerich asked.

“Of course,” she said, somewhat offended, “how else would I make some profit off of it? The gemstones I have are for trade and buying any off change goods that will sell well in Shadowdale. Not to mention the occasional bribe and such needed on the way.

The gems for trade I carry will make enough money for me at the end of the journey. Shish, I am a merchant as much as a Draco’were; I wind up handling most of the investments for me and Marcus. Hanna has her dowry coming at the end of the trip and my own wealth is not lacking at all…” she described her own fortunes, which would make even a Dwarf King, green with envy…

“Snow Cat,” Roerich shook his head in disbelief, “I have seen great stuff before but you can buy out most small kingdoms or one of the Dales. How did you come by so much wealth?”

“Remember Roerich, I hunted dragons when I was part of the elven-court,” Snow Cat said as she began to pull off her clothing. “I got to keep the greater portion of the wealth from each one I took down, and it became a good beginning for the trade business…”

“Now then,” she said to Roerich as she sat on her knees upon the bearskin rug and ran her fingers through her snow white, amber-highlighted hair. She smiled as Roerich sat down next to her, “I asked if you wish me to spend the night here…”

His fiery kiss answered her question.
[FONT=&quot]
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₰₰ Eighty four ₰₰​

The sleek owl flew long and low into the night, his eyes bright and glistening as the twin moons entered their half-full status. Hours passed as he wove among the trees and over creatures great and small, and detoured far to the east to evade an encounter with many monsters and other dark horrors which marched toward the river route at a relentless pace.

Earlier in the evening as he and Snow Cat slept a mysterious communiqué has arrived, the voice familiar and yet not. The message requested a meeting with its sender at a place deep in the woodlands, one far from help and filled with danger.

Finally, he arrived at the place and wondered what or whom he would meet.

The owl flapped his wings to stop his flight and was consumed in a flash of golden fires, in the midst of them stood Master Roerich.

He knew all of his defensive wards, magic that heightened his senses and located foes and threats alike remained in place, strong as ever and yet the stranger somehow appeared before him without being detected. The man held up a hand to indicate he had no hostility in mind.

“Master Roerich, it is good to see you again,” Brother Hart declared, “I hope Snow Cat and Marcus are doing well, and I have come to congratulate you on your chain of victories…”

“Brother Hart, damn you to hell for all the pain you have caused Snow Cat recently,” Roerich said and turned to leave, “if I had known it was you who wanted this meeting I would never have bothered to come here.” His rage detonated, anger worthy of his distant dragon ancestor boiled forth, “All of that has happened has been due to your manipulations, your game with Night Shade, all that you have done to Snow Cat…”

“Enough Roerich,” Brother Hart said as the man started to walk off, still filled with righteous rage, “stop right there and listen to me or…”

Roerich stopped but did not turn around, “Or what? Will you cut me down on the spot for refusing to be one of your pawns on the chessboard? Or strike me down for daring to stand up to you and defy your very will, or due to me having fallen in love with Snow Cat?”

“As a matter of fact yes, that is exactly what I have come here to do. She is more valuable to me, and so is Marcus, I have invested too much over the centuries to make another set like them…” Brother Hart declared.

With that statement Master Roerich knew what, or more likely whom, he faced as it most certainly was not Brother Hart. The old man would never have spoken of his adopted children in such a manner. “So be it then, if its battle you want, then it s battle you shall have.”

Roerich lifted one hand clenched into a tight fist, and activated a contingency spell he had prepared for such an emergency. He whirled around and unleashed the small orb which blazed in his hand at his nearby foe; which, as it shrieked after his foe, he willed his magical staff to appear in his hand, then chuckled as it did, his grip tightened hard till his knuckles bled white in his rage.


Master Roerich watched with grim satisfaction as his foe – Night Shade, or one of his creations screamed as the gathered forces of the ‘Hell-Ball’ detonated with primordial force.

Night Shades body was savaged by sound so shrill that muscle pulped and bone shattered, acid that hissed and steamed as it ate away at flesh and clothing, fire that burned and consumed, cold that froze all it touched with temperatures few could survive for long and white-hot lightning which burned, crackled, fired nerves and sought to still his heart.

Added to this maelstrom was the magic that tore asunder the darkness which made Night Shades very life and existence possible. Few beings could have survived the combined magical forces, but the abomination, the nightmare given life and form that is Night Shade managed it…

Roerich leveled his staff at Night Shade, aware that his foe was far from finished, as he had learned long ago in numerous desperate battles against such creatures as his foe had become.

He shouted a command phrase which unleashed from the Staff of the Magi.

Night Shade screamed in inhuman rage as the illuminating fires of truth, justice, law, holiness and goodness tore into his black heart and soul. His very being was flayed and laid bare before the light, the emptiness of his existence shown to the world and the cosmos.

Desperate for respite from the flames, terrified for the first time in centuries the form of Brother Hart held by Night Shade shattered, shifted, flowed and reformed into that of a badly scarred and horribly disfigured dark-elf whose eyes were twin pools of darkness that stretched unto infinity…

Hands held outward Night Shade unleashed a massive chain of amethyst colored lightning at Master Roerich which consumed all life between him and his foe. His snarl of rage grew all the fiercer, his anger ever hotter as that first bolt, then the second and third sent at Roerich were absorbed into the staff as if they never existed.

“Come now dear Night Shade,” Master Roerich said as he began to advance on his opponent, “you should know I would anticipate your moves. Some times you beasts are all too predictable.”

“We shall see,” Night Shade contemptuously declared as he prepared a spell to blast Roerich into the next world…only to be catapulted into a massive boulder by a blast of lightning Roerich had unleashed. Before he slid even an inch, two more blasts of lightning – heightened to triple-strength by the esoteric knowledge of Roerich – cleaved the stone in half and rent massive damage on Night Shades body.

Night Shade leaped to his feet and released a spiraling wave of darkness at Roerich who stopped it with the tip of his hand, and returned it full force at its caster…

Night Shade fell to the ground on his back and cringed as the annihilating wave of nothingness passed over him. He rolled and spun back to his feet with both hands alight in amethyst flames as his next spell accumulated greater and greater strength…

Roerich proved the quicker: four great blasts of flame struck Night Shade in the chest, and detonated into a holocaust of heat, pressure, flame and force that Roerich had amplified to three times their normal strength; then followed a barrage of glistening darts most called ‘magic missile’ which never missed their target…


Nor did they this time, as the ten missiles tore into Night Shade, his howl of pain redoubled as a second barrage slammed home an instant later, followed by three sun-bright blast of lightning which bodily flung Night Shade for thirty yards and into a great oak. The tree trunk snapped and crashed down upon him, and he lay still from then on…

Roerich, long experienced in the art of magical warfare took no chances and unleashed a chain of enhanced fire spells that embodied the concepts of holiness and goodness. He did not cease until the body was consumed to a state of fine ash born aloft on the wind and still hesitated to accept his foe had been so easily defeated.

Then he understood what had happened, this was not the real Night Shade, but an aspect of his being, akin to the dolls guided by the hands of a master puppeteer and thus used to lure him out and test the extent of his powers.

“And like most old fools I walked right into it,” he said as he remembered flying around the monsters and other horrors that still marched on towards the river route. He quickly resumed the owl-shape and flew off into the night, determined to get back before any other chaos happened…and to scout out the route of the monsters…

The final inventory of what kind, their strength and the like did not leave him very happy…

He knew that when the expedition crossed the three tributaries, these beasts will stand in the way, and the sheer damage they can do will be immense.

 

A lesson in humility for Sergeant Kenneth...

₰₰ Eighty five ₰₰​

Roerich looked around at all of the expedition leaders who attended the meeting.

Marcus, Hanna and Snow Cat sat to one side with Sir Robinson, Dames Winter-glove and Foxglove against the two dragons who had agreed to act as wind breaks. Other members of the caravan guard, High Vale diplomat guard and many auxiliary commanders slowly arrived over the next few minutes.

Roerich explained in concise details as to what happened with his fight against the aspect of Night Shade. The mention of the number, variety and strength of the monsters and nightmares he spotted and inventoried gave all present pause and reason to have major concerns for the future.

The discussions that followed focused on what can be done to counter the threats, safeguards for the camp and the need for more scouts to penetrate deeper into the woods and the river-route. Some suggested forming parties of volunteers to hunt the most dangerous monsters before the expedition arrived at their locations.

“One thing we know for sure is the warning Snow Cat gave us long ago is true,” Captain Laurence said with a sigh of resignation. “For any being to create an aspect of themselves means they are of incredible ability and power; even the legendary arch-wizards of ancient Netheril could manage only one or two in their lifetime. And here Night Shade had managed it with absolute ease.”

Sergeant Kenneth and his men sighed as the High Vale diplomats grumbled and whispered among themselves, some of them wanted to turn around then and there to return to Essembra. Councilman Justinian silenced them and watched as the wolf-were Badger entered and silently whispered to Master Roerich.

“Thanks Badger, you may as well stay so I don’t have to repeat this more than once.” Master Roerich said.

“It looks like we are staying here for a time,” Roerich began. “As most of you know, a good portion of the Knights of Essembra went forward as a unit to inspect, secure and guard the three tributary bridges. They are a half-day ahead of us, and the region is covered in steep hills as we have here. Badger was sent back to give to us a message as a great wild-magic induced storm is coming, a blizzard of horrendous strength.”

He paused to let the words sink in and continued, “Yes, which is why the temperatures have been going crazy as of late. We have only a few hours to prepare, so secure the heights firmly, get all the encampment doubly tied one to the next for the defensive regions…” he issued instructions to the different commanders present and then dispersed them to their tasks.

“Snow Cat,” Roerich said, “get up with Captain Laurence and see if you two can find some means of implement your ‘crazy idea over the weather’ we discussed earlier.”

“One thing too, our supply status is still good,” Master Roerich said, “redouble our effort to gather any forage, foodstuffs, game, fuel and whatever else we need from the woods before it hits. We’re only a third of the way to crossing and those monsters are closing on us by the hour, so we have a lot of hard fighting to do.”

The meeting finally broke up after a few more questions and suggestions, while Snow Cat remained behind to embrace Roerich as the strain of the non-stop battles showed on his face. She stood on her tippy-toes and kissed him on the lips; her tail thumped against his thigh and revealed to him her heightened desires.

“I’m glad you made it back in one peace,” Snow Cat said, “and tonight I want to make love to you and for you if you will let me Roerich.” She ran her hand through his hair and kissed him again and again as another messenger came up, informing Master Roerich that some of the merchants demanded an explanation of this latest delay.

Master Roerich sighed and shook his head. “I wonder how many will become frogs or rabbits by the time this meeting is finished,” he said to Snow Cat as she grinned and gave him a suggestive little wave of her hand. “Go on you little Manx-cat, I have to take care of this mess and will see you say, at your place tonight?”

Snow Cat nodded and turned around. As she walked away she paused, looked back at him and suggestively waggled her hips while she teased her one finger across her lips.

“I’ll be there soon enough Snow Cat,” Roerich said to her, “and the next merchant to interrupt me will be dealt with in a most impressive manner.”

₰​

“How did the meeting go Master Roerich,” Councilman Brenner asked, “I know how demanding some of that gaggle of geese can be. Jamos and his brood of idiots constantly harass me in the High Vale for ‘this little favor’ or ‘that little favor.’ I just want to shove them into the sea and watch them go under…”

“How true, it would save us a lot of troubles at time,” Councilman Justinian said as he joined Roerich near a cook fire for a round of whisky – which, as per his normal custom, Roerich declined.

“The complaint session,” Master Roerich began, “went on for some time. Jamos and Forge-band are the most annoying of people. One barely stopped talking and griping then the other one would begin again…’ He shook his head in disgust, “I finally had to convince them to shut up…”

“This would explain the smoldering wagon, which went up in flames not long ago…” Pearl, on guard duty for the Councilmen tonight, stated as she looked in the direction of the ruined wagon. “Standard diplomatic rules with magicians – warn once then boom.”

“Something akin to that,” Roerich said, “but the difference is in this case that those two idiots turned out to be agents of Cronus or Night Shade. They tried to strike me down with magical spells and a wand that Captain Laurence is examining; it produces a ‘wild magic’ field on the enemy of its wielder…”

“For all the good it did them,” Pearl said with a smile.

“Pearl, you have never faced a magician in battle,” Roerich said in deadly seriousness. He snapped his fingers and watched as she gasped and shuddered in absolute terror at what he had just done. His fingers snapped a second time and her eyes widened as she shook her head, utterly flabbergasted.

“What, how…” Pearl tried to say to Roerich. The High Vale Councilmen and diplomatic escort looked at each other in confusion, aware that something had occurred but unable to comprehend what it was…

“Pearl, all I did was to generate an area of null-magic around your being. It cut off all interaction with the natural magical potential inherent in the world; thus rendering all of your spells and items of magic on you as useless as a stone at the bottom of a lake,” Roerich declared.

Roerich turned and looked at each member of the expedition that was with him, then back at Pearl, “Learn this lesson well young lady. You have immense potential, and that potential will lead other magicians to seek you out to do battle spell to spell; the null-magic I used on you is a fairly simple one any competent magician can employ. I know over thirty variations of it for personal combat; such is standard for War Weavers and those of us from Thay.”

“How can you beat such an opponent armed with this magic?” Pearl asked, her voice quivered in terror.

“Simple,” Master Roerich stated as he looked her eye to eye, “you use your brains and learn to fight with other arms, or bare handed, so as to have one extra edge the other magician may not have suspected. Use your mind and the wisdom and common sense people have…that may keep you alive.”

“It sounds like you have personal experience in that wisdom Roerich,” Justinian asked.

“Yes I do, back in Thay,” Roerich said. “Many a Red Wizard fell before I left that land once and for all.”

“Pearl, and you too Councilman Justinian,” Master Roerich declared, “I’ll get a copy of the null-magic spell to you and the diplomatic guard within the next couple of days. And if anyone of your magicians wish, I’ll set it up with Captain Laurence to provide instructors in unarmed combat and up-and-personal no-holds-barred action that works in real life…”

Sergeant Kenneth contemptuous snort caused heads to turn towards him.

“Is there a problem good Sergeant,” Master Roerich said with a voice colder than the grave. He already knew from long experience leading caravans what was to come…

“Master Roerich with all due respect, I have fought around enough magicians, even war-mages who specialize in battlefield magic, to know that few can stand more than two or three seconds against an amateur warrior. A seasoned one such as me can finish off an arch-mage in close quarter battle with few problems…”

Almost everyone gasped when Roerich fully extended his right arm to one side and his staff appeared in his grip from this air. “Draw your blade then and let’s find out,” Roerich said, determined to end this problem here and now, “you claim you can put down an arch-mage in close quarter battle, I am such an arch-mage, so let’s find out how true your boast really is…”

Kenneth gulped, his eyes showed the depths of terror that came with the realization he had just challenged a real arch-mage to personal battle; a challenge that had been accepted. Something inside of him snapped, a frustration at not having a greater portion of the glory the others had earned fighting on the front lines as he was stuck in the role of babysitting the High Vale politicians.

Kenneth drew his long sword and assumed a basic stance – blade held before him with both hands, feet spread apart for balance, and he growled at Roerich, “Fine then, let’s be on with it….”

Then battle was joined…

₰₰ Eighty six ₰₰​

Kenneth roared in rage and charged flat out, determined to bowl the man over and end the fight before it even began. He crossed the short distance in three heartbeats, sword to his left side to deflect the expected blow from Roerich’s staff as he shoulder slammed the man in the chest…only to discover Roerich has anticipated that as well…

Roerich ducked under the blade and rolled onto his back, caught the off balanced man with both feet on his abdomen and groin. He continued the backward roll and flung Kenneth head over heels to the ground some ten paces away…

Gasps filled the air as Roerich regained his feet in a blur of motion and entered into a half-crouch, his staff held horizontal above his head as he waited for the next move of Kenneth.

Roerich moved with controlled grace and conservation of his energy as he shifted to a fully upright stance, and balanced on the balls of his feet. The crowed began to grow larger as word of the confrontation spread through the encampment, and the inevitable wagers were placed; many expected Kenneth to win with ease, as he is a arms master of great repute within the High Vale…

Master Roerich though demonstrated a true mastery of the martial arts. This was evident to anyone who looked at how he shifted from stance to stance for he moved with economy of motion and action. His eyes never strayed from Sergeant Kenneth as the man struggled to his knees. Roerich twirled his staff before him with one hand as he waited for the Sergeants next move; and many knew that as good as Kenneth was with a blade, he faced a true master in Roerich…

₰​

Kenneth had seen Master Roerich fight against Marcus before the battle of Hap-tooth Hill and knew the man was good, but he never suspected just how good the magician was in close-up battle until this moment. He cursed himself as he shifted to his knees for having allowed this fight to occur, as he knew this, plus the total ease Snow Cat beat him in their chess games, will make him more of a laughing stock among his men.

His back and rump stung from the hard end to his flight upon the unyielding ground. The injury to his pride and ego though was larger than he assumed, for now he needed to beat Roerich just to maintain his standing with his men.

He scowled and watched the calm, iron-hard glare of Roerich – a glare that showed the man will end the fight one way or another - as he retrieved his sword. He whipped it through a simple attack routine as he tried, and failed, to bluff and intimidate the veteran arch-mage; no matter how good he gave, Kenneth knew Roerich could end this fight at any moment he so chose to do so…

More cautions this time around, Kenneth held his blade horizontally before his chest and began to circle around Roerich. The magician met him turn for turn, never once did he show the least weakness or fault that could be exploited in his defensive movement; which left for Kenneth only one overall strategy – he would have to force a breach in those defenses and score the winning hit.

With a double feint of high right – high left and forward lunge he struck, each blow intercepted perfectly by Roerich’s staff. The true attack came as he forced Roerich to move his staff ever higher, and thus expose for a crucial moment his abdomen and groin, to the savage kick Kenneth struck out with…

₰​

Master Roerich stepped back and caught Kenneth’s inbound kick with a one-handed clasp of his ankle. One quick blow with his staff sent the good Sergeants long sword into the sky, followed by a gentle shove that sent Kenneth backward. Roerich executed a short leap forward with a spin, and caught the man by the belt with one hand while he planted his staff upright into the ground with the other.

He continued his spin as he lifted Sergeant Kenneth – armor and all – over his head and whipped the man about in a blur of motion. People gasped and gawked in slack-jawed amazement as Roerich whipped Kenneth around him in a series of attack and defense routines as if the man were a practice blade or a staff…never had anyone seen such a perfection of routine carried out before, and even Marcus gasped in admiration when he worked his way forward to see the confrontation.

Sergeant Kenneth screamed as if his life was about to end, and screamed all the louder as Roerich tossed the man high into the air and calmly retrieved his staff. Kenneth screamed again as he reached the apex of his flight and began to return to earth for the inevitable bone-crushing finish of his flight. He said his prayers to his patron deity and bid his ancestors and friends to prepare a place for him among the warriors who watched from the halls of Valhalla.

Master Roerich though had other plans, for he leaped high into the air and caught the Sergeant, landed on his feet and spun around. In this way, he shifted and dissipated the energy of Kenneth’s fall to spare the man’s life and drive home his final point of the confrontation…

“Kenneth,” Master Roerich said to the unharmed but clearly terrified man, “as I pointed out to Pearl in matters of magic, so you have learned in this confrontation. Know your limits and within those limits master all you can for your life may depend upon it. I spent fifty years learning how to fight from a number of monks and martial arts masters from the Far-East…and if you think I am good, you should see what one of their Grand Masters did to me quite routinely…”

Roerich smiled, “The mountain top one kicked me onto from five miles away was one of the more embarrassing of them. I’ll tell you the others at a later date if you are interested.”

Councilman Justinian came over to Roerich and Kenneth, “Master Roerich and Kenneth, thank you both for the demonstration and lesson for our men. I’m glad you both agreed to stage this ‘matter of honor’ to show just what we can learn from one another.”

“It has been my pleasure Councilman Justinian,” Master Roerich said, “though I think I went a little too rough on the good Sergeant.”

Kenneth smiled; glad for the out that Councilmen Justinian and Master Roerich had given him, both to regain the respect of his men, and to save his own honor from his own stupidity in having challenged Roerich. Then he remembered something and gasped…

“My sword, what happened to it after you flung it into the air Master Roerich?” Kenneth said with some alarm, as he hoped that no one was harmed or killed when it came back to the ground. He slapped the empty scabbard with one hand…and gasped again in sheer consternation to find the scabbard was not empty after all…

“How…how did this happen?” Kenneth said as he looked upon a thoroughly bemused Roerich.

“It happened when I was spinning you around like a top,” Master Roerich said, “I figured you should not lose such a fine blade as you have and thus timed the spins to line up the scabbard to catch the blade when it came back down. No harm or anything to you or to it.”

“Now then, if all of you will excuse me I am going to go to my wagon and spend the night with my dear Snow Cat. And I don’t want anymore interruptions such as I have had today,” he looked over the gathered crowd who quickly nodded in agreement, terrified and in complete awe of the sheer ability that Master Roerich possessed.

Master Roerich had just turned to leave when another interruption occurred…

₰​

“Why?” Roerich declared through gritted teeth, one hand clenched tight as he contemplated simply annihilating this latest irritation then and there.

“Master Roerich! Master Roerich!” called out Charon, dealer in alchemy items and precious gems. He ran at a fast pace towards the man, his lungs strained to provide enough air for his elephantine-shaped body that was more blubber than muscle and bone. “Master Roerich I must insist at once you stop this needless nonsense of this worthless prattle and demonstration with third-rate warriors. There is a mouse in my wagon and I demand you have the guards hunt it down…”

BLAM!

People watched the brimstone clear as the thunderous retort carried across the encampment. Marcus at first gave off a faint chuckle that rapidly became a cascade of draconian-laughter, joined by many others as it became clear that Charon had been turned into a ferret.

Pearl walked over and picked up Charon-cum-ferret and placed him in her belt pouch before she turned and gave Roerich a wicked grin. “I figured I would save you the time and give the good merchant a means of taking down that mouse on his own…” she said to Roerich.

Roerich smiled back at her and chuckled, “At least some lessons young lady you have learned fairly quick; now then, barring any more interruptions I am off to spend my time with Snow Cat…she has more than earned it with all this mess we have had to put up with lately…”

People watched Roerich shake his head and give off an exasperated, haggard sigh that told them volumes of how much strain the man truly is under.

Marcus looked over at Hanna as she approached in her sleek dragon-form and motioned for her to come close. When she did, he whispered into her ear a plan to ensure that Snow Cat and Roerich would have their time as a couple uninterrupted – as no sane, and few insane, beings want to challenge a dragon, let alone two, standing watch over their relatives.

 

Another great addition.
I only saw two small goofs peace instead of piece, and crowed instead of crowd.

 

₰₰ Eighty seven ₰₰​

Roerich climbed into the wagon, and then, with a great deal of effort, managed to pull the door shut behind him as the winds suddenly howled with ever growing force. He could make out the faint cries for help, pleas for this person or that one to have mercy shown or provided, plots of murders long achieved and whispers of what may come down from the future…

To anyone not familiar with them, the winds would appear as an ill omen of pending doom and despair; and given the recent confrontation he had with the aspect of Night Shade, it very well could be an omen of complete destruction for the Heartland River Expedition.

“Ghost winds, great, that’s all we need is for the dead to show up and make their presence known,” he said and shook his head. “I wonder if were going to have a haggle of Banshees show up or something even worse before this nightmare of a storm ends.”

He removed his coat and looked towards the bearskin rung on the floor as Snow Cat giggled with her melodious voice. It reminded him of soft glass bells as they rung in the breeze, and a mountain brook that bubbled along its way. The sight of her nude body thrilled him to no end and he drank in the entire picture of beauty before him as he slowly made his way to her side…

Flat on her stomach, both legs bent at the knees as they gently rested against her lower back, she turned her head slightly and smiled. Both hands lay under the mass of pillows upon which she rested her head, the soft snow white, amber-highlighted hair cascaded down over her shoulders and hid her bosom from his view. Her tail gently swished side to side, and then thumped twice on the rug next to her, inviting him to come on and sit down already.

Roerich hesitated, unsure if Snow Cat had something in mind as she looked at him with eyes so full of fire and passion that he momentarily suspected a trick, or that a demon was before him. “Uh, my dear, I left something back at the meeting site, I have to go and get it…” he said and then knew it was the real Snow Cat from the fury filled tantrum she threw – complete with swears, curses and insults in a dozen languages that would do an irate drill instructor proud.

₰​

From the shadows two sets of eyes swept the grounds around Roerich’s wagon and monitored the outstandingly varied curses and invective language of Snow Cat. Both gazed upon the other and chuckled in response, all too familiar with the temperament of their cat-girl companion.

“She can be a handful can’t she be Marcus,” Hanna asked of her soul-mate.

Marcus though paid no attention as he sensed something unusual, a kind of emptiness from within the magical forces of the world around him. It resonated within his being as wrongness, a hollow sound and feel that set his teeth on edge – and it moved, slowly and deliberately, so he could track it with ease.

He looked at Hanna who instantly tensed, on alarm for whatever Marcus sensed. “Hanna go around the other side of Roerich’s wagon, if you see anyone approach who is armed or the least bit suspicious kill them without any hesitation…” He disappeared into the shadows after she moved off.

₰​

“I had to be sure Snow Cat,” Roerich said as he sat down next to her and struggled to calm her down, “we have to make sure Night Shade or his minions don’t send anyone after you, Marcus or Hanna. So the…” he never got to finish the sentence.

“Damn Night Shade to the depths of Hades for all I care right now,” Snow Cat said, “I want to make love to my mate and forget about everything else for one night. Blast it and all around me; every time I dare to dream of something and try to have it happen, it seems something always is coming up to interfere…” She pulled her knees to her bosom. She wrapped them with her arms and rested her chin on them as she began to softly rock and sway and the first tears began to fall.

“Snow Cat, what is bothering you so badly, you seldom get this emotional about anything,” Roerich asked of her, as she was terrified of something. “I know there was another attempt on my life tonight,” he told her as he wrapped his arms around her waist, and then pulled her against his body.

“What has happened Snow Cat, please tell me,” he said to her as gently as he could.

“Nothing has happened Roerich,” she said to him, “I’ve just been feeling the strain like everyone else. I want to spend some time with you as we did back in that magical house you created. I’m just tired; to the core of my body and soul I am tired and have not been feeling well lately…blasted stomach of mine…”

“Thanks for telling me Snow Cat,” he told her and kissed her on the lips. He considered the matter for a time and then asked of her, “Snow Cat, I know you cannot have children, so we can eliminate that factor. Could the wild magic storm be causing this problem? Or is there more? Or just the unending strain of the journey, if you want to go hunt some beasts or something, we have plenty in the area…”

She drew him close and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, then gave him the longest kiss of their all too short relationship. His hands began to caress her body in such a means as to quickly send her into a gasp-filled frenzy of heated bliss. She shuttered and clutched her stomach as the strange feeling of sickness returned with no notice.

“Has Marcus or Hanna had the same problem?” Roerich asked of her, “If they have, then maybe we can work together and find a cure for it. Or is there more going on that you suspect but do not want to say anything about to me?”

“No, it’s just that lately I’ve been getting queasier and, feel a kind of wrongness when I cross areas of the woods around us. Marcus has sensed it before, so its something we dragons can feel, due to us being such magical creatures…I don’t know how to explain it more than that my love…”

Nor did she try to, for the two began their most intimate dance of life and love…

₰​

The shadows moved as the raiders breached the encampments security with contemptible ease. Any of a ten-score of guards could have been slain instantly and no one would be the wiser, yet this night another person was their target – Master Roerich. They had instructions that if his consort Snow Cat was present, they were to slay her as well.

Each one carried non-magical arms, armor and clothing due to the wild magic fields which crisscrossed the area. In addition, to ease them passed magical alarms and defenses, each carried a night black stone which generated a field of ‘dead magic’ out to fifteen paces. All spell users and magical goods within its area of influence would be cut off from the world’s natural magical forces until they left the field.

Step by step they closed on their target, and heard the gentle sobs from a distance of the cat-girl consort as she complained of having so little time with her mate, Master Roerich.

One assassin rolled his eyes to the heavens and gestured with a hand that Snow Cat must be insane. The others nodded as humor danced in their eyes, and then hands went to poisoned blades as the cat-girls complaints shifted to the sounds of passion…

They never heard the one who followed them from close behind…

₰​

Master Roerich lay back on the pillows and struggled for breath as his body grew more and more heated. One groan and grasp followed the previous one, and his eyes nearly crossed over into the others socket. He never dreamed Snow Cat could pleasure him so well; always he sought to give her the most pleasure in their nights of lovemaking before his own needs.

“Oh my, that is so…” he tried to say, the remainder of his words passed into history as a chain of gasps and grunts wracked his pleasure-filled body. Smoke burst from his ears and nose as Snow Cat continued her master work of the Karma Sutra.

He struggled to look at Snow Cat who stopped her work on his manhood and smiled at him, her eyes filled with love and wild lust that demanded to be satisfied. “I guess no one told you Roerich, with dragons who can be in human, or in my case, cat-girl form, our dragon mating-times can cause us to get rather – uninhibited shall we say, for a few months afterward. Besides, you have pleasured me so often and forgotten your own needs I thought it past time I returned the favor to you.”

She bent back down to resume her work.

Roerich felt her lips press along the tip of his manhood, her tongue touching each area that drove him mad with delight as a tsunami of flame and pressure that crashed into his excited mind. No matter how often he tried to get Snow Cat to let him do the same for her she never relented or listened; her mind was made up and he just had to lay there and enjoy it…

And she made him enjoy it, a nibble here, a peck of her lips there, a caress by her furry cheek and mighty strokes of her hands kept him alive and maddened as she brought him to the edge of his endurance, eased him back down and then returned him to there over and over and over.

“How did I get so fortunate to find you Snow Cat,” Roerich asked.

₰​

The assassins gathered in the shadows near Roerich’s wagon and prepared for the final charge to glory and to success. Their bosses, the priests of Night Shade who commanded them and other forces to the east, would gift them with riches, honors and make them princes of the conquered dales…

Or so they had been promised, but now would never obtain as Marcus stepped from the shadows and growled at the ten assassins. The magical dead zone had caught his attention when the assassins passed his sleeping area and he followed. True to form, idiots such as these overrated their own worth and fell to the all-encompassing aura of fear that an enraged Marcus generated.

They dropped their blades and fell to their knees, knowing from the white-hot fires in Marcus’s eyes that there will be no mercy shown. They began to sing as one, “Unto you lady Shar, goddess of the darkness we now return…”

So they did, enveloped by a holocaust of the Clinging fire which consumed their bodies completely.

He called Hanna over and had her take the black dead-magic generating stones to Captain Laurence for later examination. Then he considered, “I wonder if we can use them to counter the wild magic storm…hmmm,” he shrugged and resumed his watch over Roerich’s wagon, as he explained to the local sentries what had become of the assassins.

₰​

Roerich howled in delight as he hit the point of no return and hit his release. He felt his life seed surge forth and pass on deep into his beloved Snow Cat; whom promptly began to gag and choke as she struggled to clear her mouth and throat of his seed.

“Hang on Snow Cat,” he stated and with a simple spell called forth a golden goblet filled with cold water. He gave it to her, and then summoned a second goblet into existence, one filled with hard whisky thirty-years-of-age at her request.

“Sorry about that having happened Snow Cat,” he said with genuine regret, “I should have warned you…” he shushed as the iron-hard cold of the night air flooded the wagon when she opened the door and stuck her head outside. He saw her startle and then the reek of burned flesh and bone and brimstone filled the air, which told him and Snow Cat that Marcus had just eliminated another threat to the expedition.

Snow Cat closed the door with some effort after she spoke to Marcus.

She came over to Roerich and lay down next to him and pulled the bearskin over the two of them. “Don’t worry about it, some idiot half-orcs tried to raid the encampment and made it this far with some crazy help Marcus will tell of us later on. Right now let’s get some sleep,” she turned her head to look him in the eyes, “just one more thing, I have to agree with you, next time we do this, you pleasure me and your seed goes inside of me down there and not into my mouth…”

“At least this time I did not bite my lover’s manhood off like last time,” Snow Cat said as she drifted off to sleep. Roerich looked at her with some alarm and wondered if she was joking or not.

₰​

Far to the east of the Heartland River Encampment three leaders gathered in a sheltered cavern to make their final preparations; for warfare would soon come to the region.

Each one was clad in dark-clothing and carried a sheathed blade at his hip, while a magical mace swung from the other and remained within easy reach if it was suddenly needed.

Each one a Priest of the dark goddess Shar, and employed by Night Shade…

Caesar, Cyrus and Corinthian looked over a scale sand-map made on the floor, and presented their ideas to the overall battle strategy. Section by section, detail by detail, one upon another, they strove for hours to hammer out the final plan and their individual parts to crush the Heartland River Expedition.

This was the ‘minor change’ their liege made to High Lord Cronus’s plans and effort. He will hold the attention of all others at Crossing and Mistledale. They would be the ones to end the threat of the expedition.

Caesar looked at his fellow priests, and nodded his approval to the final plan, “As it should be done, we attack from three angles, and smash them against the river. The storm of Night Shade will hold them in check, and the wild magic areas will make their casting of battle magic even more dangerous to them than us. By strategy and by skill and cunning we will win out where they have to depend mostly on magic for their edge…”

“Come the night of the twin new moons, we attack, twenty five days from tonight, weather permitting of course,” Caesar declared and the three priests departed to join the armies of Night Shade.

“Will our liege’s storm hold out that long?” Corinthian asked as they exited the cavern.

“It will last as long as he deems it to be needed,” Cyrus stated. “Do not lose faith in him or the other bands of assassins we have dispatched to infiltrate the expeditions defenses. Harass and wound, one small slash at a time that from a poisoned blade will wear them down for the fatal thrust.”

“Our lady Shar will see us through,” Cyrus said in all sincerity, “we, all three of us, will be victorious and put that fat tub of lard High Lord Cronus to shame once and for all.”

“That alone will be worth it,” Corinthian said with a wicked grin.

₰​

“Yes, Corinthian, it will be worth it as your first band of assassins has perished. But my band has arrived with the help of my magic. Send them south of the wild-magic-induced storm and have them travel north to infiltrate the Heartland River Expedition; perfect assassins, and none will be the wiser as most are magicians and skilled warriors fit to replace a few here and there.” High Lord Cronus said with a smile as the image generated by his spell of ‘far-seeing’ vanished.

“Somehow I doubt that Master Roerich will lose the coming fight,” Cronus said, “That one all too many have underestimated; and thus they have perished for good.”

 

To all readers of my story here - depending on how in-depth I get into the CAW 16 stories, the posting of new sections of the saga may go to every other day until the reading phase is finished.

Thank you for your understanding.

 

₰₰ Eighty eight ₰₰​

“We’ve been here for ten days Snow Cat,” Sir Robinson said, “and of the three tributaries we have been unable to bridge the first one at all. Besides the wild magic hampering our efforts, each night some beast or such comes forward and mauls the structure emplaced the previous day. That is why I asked Roerich to have you, Marcus and Hanna come here. No one has seen or been able to find what is doing that…”

He waved his hand at the northern stonework span of the bridge, a magically created and strengthened slab of worked granite nearly one-hundred feet long and thirty wide. A massive ten-foot square chunk had been bitten out of the hard stone, the edges, which Snow Cat has already seen, smooth as anything to the touch.

She and Sir Robinson looked up at the purple-black clouds which clawed their way southward as thunder roared and lightning speared its deadly paths from horizon to horizon. “More wild-magic weather, which is all we need just now. Monsters are literally coming out of the woodworks and beginning to test our outer defenses; we even have signs of a Renderer or three may be in the area,” she said.

Sir Robinson blanched at the thought of facing such brutes, as Snow Cat and Marcus had discussed at length with him most of their battle with one in the Tangles. “One would be bad enough; I would rather face a great old fire-breather of a dragon, such as my mother,” Snow Cat giggled at that, “than one small Renderer…”

“Can you and Marcus do something about whatever is damaging the bridge,” Sir Robinson asked.

“I’ll see what we can do,” Snow Cat said, “but understand, we are being shifted all over the place. It’s bad enough that someone has managed to cripple the Rods of Snow Melting and Rods of Snow Parting; those items have aided our speedy advancement immensely, now it looks as if agents of Cronus or Night Shade are still at work within the expedition beyond the idiots who tried to assassinate Roerich the other day.”

“So if they are not working as planned, then we are going nowhere fast,” Robinson said.

“Exactly,” Snow Cat responded with a nod as she adjusted her cloak.

Suddenly she stiffened; a move which caused Sir Robinson and his bodyguard, to draw swords and ready shields. Each one looked around for the threat that Snow Cat had to have spotted, and then laughed as the truth was made evident – she cursed and howled as she struggled with her bow to scratch the latest itch induced by her magical armor.

“Yes I know,” Snow Cat said with a considerable degree of embarrassment. “Why in the world Brother Hart had to make it from poison Ivy…”

The laughter redoubled from the Knights as the itch returned and drove Snow Cat to new levels of frustration, effort and anger in her quest to end it. Finally, frustrated to the limits of her patience she walked over to Sir Robinson’s Battle-titan and spoke to it; amazed Robinson watched as the beast gracefully clenched its claw and massaged Snow Cats back at the source of the irritation.

“Well I have to admit, I never imagined he could do that so well,” Robinson said and nodded at Snow Cat who had all but melted away as the itch was relieved. “Now if I can just get a lady to respond to my touch like that, I may finally get some attention…”


“If you are serious about gaining the attention of a lady in that manner Sir Robinson,” Dame Lae’lion said to her commander as she set her bow back into its saddle-sheath. She tapped her Battle-titan on the shoulder and smiled at it as the beast nuzzled her cheek with its nose and licked her face. “Bleach!” she said with a laugh more of embarrassment than disgust.

“Seriously though Robinson, if you want to gain the attention of a lady that way, you might start by asking her what she wants you to do…and especially when you discuss matters of pure intimacy beyond ‘rut, rut, rut’” Lae’lion said and laughed at the shocked expression on his face. The other lady Knights joined in as the blush on Robinson’s face grew redder by the minute.

“Great, maybe I should have become a monk. Take a vow of celibacy, and just study books all of my days,” Sir Robinson declared while he shook his head. “Oh no, I just had to go and defeat a nice little old dragon bent on burning down a town or ten, and cause no end of mayhem across the land…”

Snow Cat smiled, looked at Dame Lae’lion with a wicked gleam in her eyes and looked back to Sir Robinson. She snapped her fingers twice, and joined the laughter of the Lady Knights as Robinson’s armor and clothing were turned into the homespun cowled robes of a monk, his great sword transformed into a massive tome and writing quill.

“Oh why do I put up with this,” Sir Robinson said as he moved over to his Battle-titan.

“Your armor and other gear are fine, they will return to their original shape in a few hours or if you need them in a crisis,” Snow Cat said. Robinson nodded, understanding her attempt to relieve the growing dour mood that had infected the expedition as of late. Other auxiliary leaders had begun the same effort, more to keep morale and spirits up and to relieve frustration and tension since the duel between Sgt Kenneth and Roerich.

“So how are you, Hanna and Marcus fairing against these blasted sky-drakes and other airborne brutes we have been dealing with,” Robinson asked, “Lae’lion and Badger, when he is here, have been culling them down but even we can only do so much…though poor Reaper, he has a propensity to have drakes land on top of him…”

Sir Roerich looked askew at Snow Cat at she snickered at his comment about Reaper, “What is it Snow Cat, is there more I need to know about that matter…”

“Yes there is,” Snow Cat said, “Badger has been trying to impress the second love of his life, a lady he holds in high esteem and wishes would become the second wife of his family. In the case of poor Reaper, that is Badgers kind of a joke, drop it on the boss and pretend to be reckless and stupid…”

A messenger ran up to Sir Robinson as Dame Lae’lion leaned over to whisper to Snow Cat, “So which lady has caught the eye of our deadly friend Badger? Is it Pearl by some chance as Foxy caught the eye of Reaper?”

Snow cat gave Lae’lion a coy grin and let the laughter in her eyes come to the fore, “Oh no my dear lady of the Knights of Essembra, Badger is interested in you.”

Snow Cat could not hold back her laughter when Dame Lae’lion screamed out in shock, outrage and a certain degree of frustration for having missed such an obvious effort by Badger to impress her by deed. The other Lady Knights joined in the laughter while Robinson looked upon them as if all women had gone mad.


“Snow Cat,” Sir Robinson said as soon as he dismissed the messenger, “it looks like we have more Sky Drakes in the region and other land-bound drakes in the region…” Snow Cat nodded to him, aware of that fact.

“Marcus and Hanna are hunting them now,” Snow Cat stated. “So we will see what they can do while I try and find the brute doing this…hmmm,” she pointed to the mangled bridge. “Who knows, maybe we can make an ally out of it instead of having to kill it like everything else,” she had a sudden hunch of what they faced, and if she was right, it could solve several of the expedition problems, or alleviate them, to one degree or another.

“By chance would this ‘ally’ you speak of happen to have anything to do with a new tunnel found a few hundred yards that way,” Roerich pointed to the east, “that descends under the riverbed and has slime and such in it? The same kind of slime and muck as we found on the bridge before it evaporated with the rising sun?”

“Yup,” Snow Cat said and turned to the direction Robinson indicated, “all of you stay here. These negotiations are going to be tricky and take some time. I’ll be back in a few hours, and everyone is to stay away, especially Marcus. Make that emphatic for him as a Delver is nothing to sneeze at…”

₰​

Master Roerich looked over the orderly encampment of the Archendale and Deepingdale forces. The men and women, soldiers and laborer and servants alike worked on the defenses, weather-proofed structures and dealt with the thousand other details of daily camp life. Several hard-as-stone Sergeants worked squads and platoons in new tactics and techniques, anything that may give them the edge for the next big fight and keep them alive.

Roerich sighed and wished once again that he was only in charge of his original caravan, and not the Heartland River Expedition.

Dame Winter-glove smiled at him, “So Master Roerich, what do you think of our little world within a world of the expedition? Some of our magicians thought Marcus looked so fierce the other day, they crafted the two new statues in imitation, and I say they have succeeded,” she nodded at the two massive dragon statues which had been cut, smoothed and polished by gifted magicians.

Each one showed Marcus reared up on his hind legs, wings spread out and in the middle of a full battle cry.

“Of course they made a few extra changes,” Roerich commented as he indicated the massive plumed helmet on the dragon-statues heads. “I’ve had to listen to no end Marcus’s griping about that artist doing the sketches. And if Marcus sees these, I will not be held to account for any ‘accidents’ of the ‘I greet you with incinerating fires’ kind occur to them.”

“If it teaches a lesson or ten in humility to our younger magicians,” Dame Winter-glove said with a coy smile, “then all for the better. Besides, if it helps keep up the morale and spirit-de-corps for our soldiers, all the better as well.”

“Also,” Dame Winter-glove said, “I informed Marcus about the statues this morning,” she chuckled as Roerich sighed, shook his head and saluted her before continuing his inspection of the encampment. She watched him with some concern; for she had seen men such as him take on too much and collapse under the strain. Even with Snow Cat to help him, there had to be something she and the other leaders could do.

₰​

“Wonderful,” Roerich muttered to himself as he approached the encampment area of three auxiliary companies, in the middle of them was a greater statue of ‘Marcus the Centurion.’ It had been created of blue-ice illuminated by white light from within…

“I’ll be fortunate if he does not incinerate the entire camp,” Roerich said as the dragon statue of Marcus, who reared on his hind legs, plumed helmet slid down over his eyes, gigantic shield held in his left claw, and a sword in his right. All of the goblins and orcs on the ground around him appear to have laughed themselves to death.

He moved on to another sight of three auxiliary companies and discovered they have erected twin fortifications of thick snow and ice. One platoon from each unit took a turn as defender of one fortification, another tried to assail the place; snowballs flew as the men and women went about the task with relish. Their officers watched with keen interest, and acted as neutral referees who kept matters in hand and not too violent.

The next camp of three auxiliary companies delivered him to a sight that caused him to smile and shake his head at the same time. Six platoons of thirty to fifty soldiers each moved with near perfect coordination as they hauled massive tree trunks thirty or more feet in length to be used as firewood. The songs they sung as each platoon passed Roerich had him laughing to the point of tears, each one more ribald and scandalous than the one before, as each group sought to outdo the other.

Here and there he passed sentries and squads of local reserves of soldiers, archers and magicians who discussed the different lands they came from, mundane stories of this hero or that insane relative, and one group of magicians giving one another detailed recipes for making fine cakes from scratch.

Such was the delight he found this day, and for a short time the heavy burden upon his shoulders felt a little bit lighter.

Then a messenger sent by Snow Cat arrived, saluted, and gave him a detailed ‘do-not-mess-up-under-threat-of-becoming-a-ferret’ message.

Roerich listened to the details of how Snow Cat had found and dealt with the creature that damaged the first tributary bridge. Construction would continue as quickly as possible, plus a new tunnel was being dug by the creature, a Delver – that shocked Roerich who had never heard of one being this close to the surface.

“Sir, Lady Snow Cat also detailed the need to have at least one or two auxiliary units push forward once the weather permits.” The messenger, a young squire with the Knights of Essembra, continued “so that the area between the first and second tributaries can be fortified and secured. She also stated that for a short time she will stay forward with the Knights and other laborers to provide extra security. If Lord Marcus and Lady Hanna arrive back in the encampment here, she asked you to send them forward at once.”

“Fine then,” Master Roerich said, “go and find a place to rest and return to the Knights as soon as you can.”

The young squire saluted and departed, while Roerich debated how to use the sudden alliance with a Delver to the expedition’s advantage.

Right now though he had to meet with Captain Laurence and see what progress they are making, if any, on stopping the storm.

 

₰₰ Eighty nine ₰₰​

The quartet of sky-drakes wove and dodged in the air as they raced for their very lives. Faster and faster they beat their wings, sleek emerald-blue scales glistened like diamonds in the sunlight and still they could not shake their foe who matched them maneuver for maneuver, and still closed the distance at a speed faster than any dragon should be able to fly…

True, any normal dragon, but Hanna, their pursuer, had cast the magic of ‘Haste’ she had learned from Marcus and grinned as her world continued to blur on past. The drake’s frenzied cries grew all the louder as she swept above the quartet; and inhaled as her sleek mottled-hide chest expanded from the effort…

Blam!

In a blaze of white-hot death Hanna unleashed her lightning breath that arced between three of the drakes and killed them instantly. She ignored the three drake carcasses which plummeted to the ground so far below to keep tabs on the lone drake which remained.

Move and countermove, climb and dive, whirl and spin in a desperate dance of death that the last sky drake sought to win just to survive. Hanna watched it swing hard to its left, fake to its right and then dive into a small grove of woods as she began to shift her body around, having fallen for its feint.

“Nuts!” she shouted, and knew what was coming next as she turned to face the wooded grove. The sky drake flew straight up at her from the woods and breathed: the bolt of lightning slammed head on into Hanna and was repulsed by her counter-lightning shield.

Hanna unfurled her wings to break and instantly halt her forward momentum. Her claws came up and leveled with the advancing drake as she shouted out words of power and wove the threads of magic to conform to her will and wishes.

Blam!

The blast threw Hanna across the sky and left her dazed and nearly blinded. She pumped her wings to gain room to fly as the forest approached from below, and was joined by Marcus a minute later.

“Hanna, are you alright,” he asked her and began to examine the areas of her sleek frame that smoldered or were burned by the large spell blast. He concluded the injuries were superficial and would not impede her actions in any way.

“What happened?” Marcus asked and listened to her explanation of trying to cast a lightning bolt spell.

“Wild magic, you happened to cast it in such an area, the same forces there – that of chaos gone rampant over the laws of magic, has been influencing this weather longer than it should…storm after storm.” Marcus looked over the shattered wooden grove as he and Hanna swept past, higher in the air than normal to avoid any strange effects of the warped magic.

“Oh no I wiped the whole area flat!” Hanna decried, shocked and embarrassed that the entire grove had been flattened. “I didn’t mean to do that…” she began to say until Marcus chuckled.
A small forest wyrm, a youngster of only forty feet in length emerged from the wreckage and growled up at the two dragons. Then it returned to foraging in the immediate region, and decided a nice sized log would be a good start.

“What did it say Marcus,” Hanna asked as she watched her soul-mate grin and smile at her.

“The forest wyrms are very remote cousins of dragons, and they can speak our language to a degree,” Marcus said and indicated the forest wyrm which calmly crunched on a massive pine tree. “That one normally feeds on stuff that only exists on the ground, and it thanked you for ‘your generous gift of the sky-drake-thing that you killed.’

“Your welcome,” Hanna called out to the forest wyrm which lifted its head into the sky and nodded.

₰​

“Captain Laurence, how are the efforts going?” Master Roerich asked as he approached the magicians who labored to tame the wild magic-generated storm. None of them suspected it was caused by the unholy and corrupted magic of Night Shade.

“Not as good as I had hoped,” Laurence said, “the wild magic which causes these storms is hampering our own efforts. More important, the wild magic is growing in strength. Even with the guidance you and Snow Cat have given to try and ‘deflect’ the storm away from us have met with only limited effect.”

Oak, one of the assistant magicians shook his head, “We had hoped to use the dead-magic creating zones that Marcus and Hanna found, but that failed completely. Dead-magic zones created by those strange gems, and they cannot even stop an area of wild-magic…”

Roerich nodded at Laurence to walk with him as they discussed the storm, the encampment and the sundry daily details that needed to be covered.

Laurence looked at Roerich and shook his head, “Until we can stop this storm, we either fight our way through it or stay put for the winter. The problem is only going to get worse, as the Rods of Snow Melting and Snow Parting have begun to deteriorate from the wild-magic. We have only one-in-ten, of the original batch left, and no new ones can be made until we clear the area…”

“Yes I kind of figured that would happen, and we are beginning to enter into the first truly cold months of winter,” Roerich said. “Its time we call for volunteers to hunt them down, just as Marcus, Snow Cat and Hanna have begun.”

“There is more to it than that,” Reaper said as he walked up to the two men. “A mutual friend we have back in Essembra,” he signed with his hand their agreed upon mark for Owl, leader of the Sisters of Essembra, “Our enemies are even now sending probes and raids on the outer borders of Battledale and Essembra, assassins are already eliminating many agents and soldiers of the Sisters of Essembra…”

Reaper paused for a minute, breathed and exhaled, “several of the Sisters, the true dragons, have fallen as well, the orders ranks are being thinned by the day and they fear the last Song Dragon of their order will perish before the winter is done…”

Reaper went on with the story of the flights of dragons that Brother Hart had managed to dissipate. He gave the account of the known strength of High Lord Cronus’s forces based at Crossing and Ashabenford – the capital of Mistledale.

Master Roerich shook his head and sighed as he wondered how to deal with the news of so many foes ahead of them at Crossing.

“So we may wind up facing those Draco-liches after all, and other flights of dragons that Cronus can gather,” Master Roerich said, “which is in addition to all the other stuff coming in our direction…Cronus is holding most of his elite troops back to face us at Crossing or soon after we turn to the west if it comes to that?”

“Where is Brother Hart and for that matter what is Night Shade up to?” Roerich asked.

“We had speculated Night Shade had hidden his armies here,” Captain Laurence said as he gestured with his hands at the forest, “in the woods along the river-route. And yet aside from Hap-tooth Hill and Broken-bridges, there are no great armies to be found…”

“Which leads to the question,” Reaper stated as his eyes flared red like twin pools of molten iron, “if the armies are not here or with High Lord Cronus, nor behind us as Hap-tooth Hill has been flattened and our back covered by the new way-station garrisons…”

“Then where are they,” Master Roerich asked as he considered the alternatives. “West is the river; north of us are the three tributaries, which hem us in completely. Even with the Delver at work on the tunnel, and the first bridge soon to be completed over the first tributary, which still leaves us two more that have to be built for the expedition to advance in strength…”

Roerich looked at Captain Laurence who nodded and departed to see to certain matters around the encampment.

“Master Roerich what has happened?” Reaper asked.

“We have eliminated ever probable route an army could come from –North, South and West.” Roerich said and waited for Reaper to put the facts together. When he did, Reaper nodded, “I will have my wolf-were scouts set out with some warriors in support and scout to the east. We will hunt monsters and the enemies at the same time the encampment digs in hard and fortify the whole area in depth. Master Roerich; remember; the wild magic affects them as well as us…”

“It’s too bad you cannot twist it to your advantage and turn chaos into an asset instead of a bane…” Reaper said as he departed to assemble his forces.

Roerich contemplated for a moment the last words of Reaper, and nodded as a plan came to him on how they can turn the wild magic areas upon an enemy. He felt to the depth of his bones battle will be joined in a few days, maybe weeks at the most, and that this storm of all storms was being used to hold them in place.

If he knew who watched and listened from far to the north of Daggerdale, Roerich would have died of sheer terror on the spot…

₰​

In his great mountain fortress Night Shade watched the conversation between Reaper and Master Roerich with true alarm in his cold, empty, and merciless heart. If Roerich has truly figured out a way to turn the wild magic into an asset, and thus hinder his last three armies outside of Cronus and Mistledale, then the matter has gone on for far too long.

Brother Hart has vanished from the Dales, and thus shown himself to be a complete coward…

He made his choice, it was time to accelerate his plans and deal with the Heartland River Expedition once and for all. And if worse did come to worse, if he somehow fell in the final battle, he had taken precautions to ensure his rebirth in the most dramatic of means…

So it was the few remaining troops in his great fortress watched their liege and their god, the great dragon known as Night Shade sweep along the great halls and out into the night, his presence a wound of darkness and corruption all sensed as he started his long flight to the south.

“First I shall destroy the communities of Daggerdale and thus gain yet more in strength and power,” he said as he climbed into the evening skies. “Then I shall tear apart Brother Harts beloved Shadowdale and annihilate all that dare to stand against me as I tear the Dales apart who refuse to surrender to me or to High Lord Cronus…”

“There are none who can stand against me, not in my evolved form and with my abilities I now possess in full measure,” Night Shade declared. “It will take a few days to reach the Dales, but then the slaughter shall begin and I shall rule in the end.

Soon enough though he will come to understand that his choice to ensure the destruction of his enemies, has freed another to deal with him once and for all…

In the end, there shall be only one…

Or so Night Shade assumed...

For he had made one final mistake that will cost him beyond measure in the end...

 

₰₰ Ninety ₰₰​

Snow Cat looked into a small field of mirror-like motes that shimmered gold and blue. She waited patiently for her friend to answer her question, determined to have the answer no matter how much effort she had to put to obtain it. Too much rested on the answer if it turned out the ‘message’ of Owl to Master Roerich had instead been sent by their enemy Night Shade or one of his minions.

“Owl I’ve already said the question six times,” Snow Cat growled, her patience finally worn down to uttermost limit of her control. She struggled to keep the magical fibers of her far-speak spell together long enough to hear Owl’s reply – hopefully this time loud and clear instead of in a cacophony of trumpets and wild love cries of cannibal men who fled their mates that wanted them for dinner.

“Snow Cat my dear,” Owl said with a wry grin as she spoke like an old school teacher, “In part I am violating my own edict of providing the information. Essembra is our concern, and has to be now that the High Lord Roerich continues his assassination of the true dragons of our order. But as to why, one main reason, I cannot bear to let my friends go into harm and I stand by and do nothing when I can.”

“Owl, I heard about the loss of Rainbow Eyes,” Snow Cat said, “the song of all dragons mourned when he fell. One of such pure heart and intention, such imagination and uncommon wisdom will grace the generations to come by the song. Right now we have this thrice-blasted wild magic weather to deal with…the spells twist and warp at random as you know. The simple fact I needed to speak with you made me consider the risk to be well worth it.”

“Did you find the thing chewing up your bridges?” Owl asked, “I assumed something like that would be worth the risk, or has dear Marcus come up with a new recipe for roasted Iron Tusker or something else?”

“The problem with the bridges, or I should say one of the problems, has been solved,” Snow Cat declared with a bit of draconic pride and smugness. Owl laughed herself silly and fell out of her chair on the other end of the viewing field, which also amused Snow Cat to no end.

“It turned out to be a young Delver who drifted too near the surface,” Snow Cat said, “It turns out that the very stones our magicians have been hardening and shaping for the bridge have a, according to the Delver, ‘hot and spicy flavor’ that it loves.” She rubbed her temple with both hands, and wished the latest headache would pass sooner than later…Marcus had sighted a hoard of land-drakes and she wanted to go hunting.

“You still get those headaches from speaking with elemental beings of stone?” Owl said, truly concerned for her friend. “Though given that the speech of the Delvers that is akin to an avalanche of boulders and an earthquake in one, I never could have imagined one describing stone and the minerals inside of it as having a ‘hot spicy flavor.”

Snow Cat giggled as Owl rolled her eyes to the heavens. “Owl listen, I never knew a Delver could describe one stone in so many interesting ways. They are actually fascinating, and I hope to talk more with it if I can find some way to keep my brains from wanting to explode…” she massaged her temple again. “Delvers communicate not only by voice but by deep, bone-shaking, sounds that carry through dense stone like sounds in the oceans.”

“So how much in gemstones did you have to bribe it with to guard the bridges? And what about when the expedition moves on its way?” Owl asked as she grinned, knowing her old friend’s ways all too well.


Delvers, great creatures from the dimension of elemental earth are immense in size, the youngest of them larger than Marcus and nearly five times as tough. They have thick, barrel-like body, narrow head and single dark-eye, four massively strong limbs help propel their stone-hard bodies along the tunnels they dig or forge with acid that consumes stone and nothing else in mere seconds.

Delvers are the great tunnel crafters in the depths of the earth, and by extension have allowed the numerous races of intelligent beings that live there to thrive.

One thing is common to all Delvers – here Owl shook her head in disbelief – is a fondness for gems, rare minerals and metals such as gold, silver, copper and the like. Some mining-obsessed species, such as dwarves, actually hire Delvers to lead them to rich veins of metals in return for a portion of the recovered ore.

Owl thought the Delvers were a form of dragon, a kind of distant kin like the Forest and Path Breaker Wyrms, which caused her to chuckle. Then she watched Snow Cat as she rubbed her throbbing temple with greater force.

“It cost enough of the finest rubies and emeralds, but Roerich will not miss them, or the gold bricks I threw in as a bonus to ensure the bugger will stay here after the expedition passes,” Snow Cat said as she debated weather a good slam or ten of her head on a stone would ease the pain.

“I got the Delver to cut a new tunnel that our forces can use under the three tributary rivers. It won’t be easy going, but otherwise we can shift a few of our forces between the tributaries to fortify the key hills and wooded areas,” Snow Cat said as she shifted her hands to her stomach, suddenly queasy.

“Sorry Owl that has been happening a lot lately; too much stress and…” she looked at Owl who looked on with some concern.

“What is it Owl?” Snow Cat asked.

“Snow Cat I’m worried about you,” Owl stated, “you’ve never bothered to use another persons funds with such little regard as you have with Master Roerich’s. After all, you may be his lover, but…”

Owl startled when Snow Cat suddenly broke out into a fit of laughter, and exploded in uttermost shock when she learned the truth of the matter a moment later...

₰​

“So what do you think Dame Lae’lion of the new ‘guardian’ Snow Cat has arranged to protect this bridge?” Sir Robinson said. “Or for the matter the new tunnel its cutting, or should I say, eating, through the stone beneath the riverbed? It just seems rather,” he paused, “unnatural, to have a few hundred feet of stone hanging over ones head that could collapse at any moment…”

“I think the Delver is quite interesting, one can imagine the knowledge it has,” Lae’lion said to him with a true smile on her face as they walked the area, “the tunnels are quite safe to use once they are established from end to end; the main problem is the limited size. We can only mount two wagons side-by-side, through them and it will be a somewhat of a tight fit at that…”


“Right now, Snow Cat wants to use them to establish a garrison between the first and second tributaries, and I think that will be some good advice,” Dame Lae’lion said. “Right now we need to learn what is ahead of us as well as further into the forests. The reason why, before you ask Sir Robinson, is one of common sense for our very survival.”

She looked at him and calmly stated, “The Delver, from what Snow Cat explained, has detected a ‘large, long, steady flow of sound to the north-east, east and south-east. All three sources cover a large area and are on a path that converges in this very region…”

Sir Robinson looked at her with alarmed understanding, “And you think we have the missing armies of that blasted Night Shade…”

“I imagine Master Roerich has figured out the same, or he will once we tell him,” Sir Robinson stated.

“WHAT!” Owls roar of surprised indignation carried across the area. Sir Robinson and Dame Lae’lion raced with several of the Knights and their men-at-arms to see what triggered her violent reaction. When they entered the tent that Snow Cat had borrowed, they looked with some confusion as she grinned and laughed at the image of Owl having been floored, literally sent to the floor in shock, for the second time this day.

₰​

High Lord Cronus looked at the men and women who manifested themselves as palm-sized images. His spell of ‘mass far-speaking and viewing’ allowed him to communicate with dozens of agents at once, though in this case it was only for a triple-hand count of assassins he had placed within the Heartland River Expeditions camps.

“Each of you is to commence the plan, target specifically Roerich, Marcus and Hanna, the various unit leaders among the expedition, and any other key figures,” he stated. One of them he looked at with an especially hard glare, “Do not miss the chance to take down Snow Cat directly if it presents itself; or use the wiles you have to enlist a third party to do the same…”

“Understand again,” High Lord Cronus told all the assassins, “I will reward success generously. An honestly made effort at a target that cannot be taken will not be punished; gross incompetence and willful failure will, assuming you are still alive, be dealt with by summary execution by me or by a Draco-lich…”

He saw the fear in the eyes of one extremely special assassin. His message was received loud and clear: do not fail.

 

₰₰ Ninety one ₰₰​

Snow Cat crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow as she watched Owl regain her footing. “Does that give you a satisfactory answer to the problem? Or do you want me to describe in complete detail what the two of us did that night after we got…”

Owl held her hands out before her to silence Snow Cat. “Have you told Marcus or even Brother Hart…”

“Damn him to the depths of Hades for all that he had done to me over the years,” Snow Cat howled with such force that many people cringed, or stood still as they were cowed by the absolute rage that enveloped them. No one, not even Sir Robinson or Dame Lae’lion had imagined the anger Snow Cat could have for her father…

“Brother Hart has lied to me about my only child having died” Snow Cat said and sat down on the ground, pulled her knees to her chest and locked her arms around them. “How many other things has he lied about…”

“Snow Cat,” Owl said, genuinely concerned about her friend, “he, he did that to you…I must have heard it wrong…”

“No, you did not hear it wrong Owl,” Snow Cat said, her contempt for Brother Hart complete and absolute in equal measure to her hatred for the man she had called father.

“Snow Cat, what…” Owl said.

“You know my past Owl, of how I had birthed early in my life a child who supposedly died soon afterward?” Snow Cat asked of her friend who nodded. The story was one of loss and tragedy commonly told of Snow Cat across Battledale and the western and north-western dales.

Sir Robinson and Dame Lae’lion gestured for the men-at-arms to leave the tent at once and for them to forget anything they have heard. Robinson whispered to Lae’lion he will wait outside, while she and the Lady Knights remained inside to help Snow Cat if they could.

Dame Lae’lion nodded and Robinson departed as Owl answered Snow Cats question…

“Yes, Snow Cat the babe perished, I remember hearing Brother Hart say as much to Snowflake on more than one occasion…” Owl’s eyes flared wide in shock as the truth dawned before her, and then her face became filled with rage toward Brother Hart, “you mean the babe lived and Brother Hart never told you…”

“Yes, that is exactly what happened,” Snow Cat said softly as tears began to flow down her face, “one more of a line of betrayals that I have only begun to discover concerning Brother Hart…”

“The magic is dissipating Snow Cat,” Owl said to her friend as the image began to dissipate, “please let me know if I can do anything for you…” then the field of light faded once and for all.

Lae’lion sat next to Snow Cat and placed her arms around her friend’s shoulder, “Snow Cat its going to be fine, we wanted to congratulate you. To be a mother, even here in the middle of a snow storm, is warming news for all of us…”


“Wait, wait, what do you mean?” Snow Cat said as she looked at Dame Lae’lion with some confusion.

“Is that not what literally floored Owl? You, being pregnant or such, or have I guessed wrong?” Dame Lae’lion stated in some confusion. She was one who hated to guess wrong on most important matters, for as a Knight, such a mistake on the battlefield meant people died who should have lived.

“No Dame Lae’lion, I am not pregnant,” Snow Cat said as she chuckled. “What floored Owl is the news that I and Roerich got hitched awhile back. I have not told Marcus yet, and I’m not sure how to do so…”

“Snow Cat,” one of the other lady Knights advised her, “you just tell him. I imagine the shock on his face will be amazing to behold. Just think, he will stammer and stutter as he looks like a wet-fish slammed him in the face and then he will whoop in delight and pick you up in a bear hug…before he goes to Roerich and does the ‘I greet you with incinerating fires’ routine.”

Lae’lion looked at the Knight, Sandie, and asked, “It sounds like you have some personal experience in such matters? Is there something you have kept secret from me and Sir Robinson; remember that we are your leaders in the order of the Knights of Essembra…”

Lady Knight Sandie blushed and nodded, and the other ladies understood at once why – she was expecting.

Snow Cat laughed at the suddenly serious tone in Lae’lion’s voice. “Sandie, I’m glad to hear that for you and your husband. I hope the two of you will be happy to the end of your days…”

“Wait a minute,” Lae’lion said with a start, unable to process the sudden revelation of Sandie being hitched. “Is this a joke or is there more going on?”

“Dame Lae’lion,” Snow Cat said as she regained control over herself, “I was there when Hanna married her and her husband Deep Oak not long ago. Five other Knights,” she pointed them out from among the gathered ladies, “were married at the same time. Its not often we have seven weddings done in one ceremony…’

“Seven, seven weddings in one shot and I missed out on the celebrations and such?’ Lae’lion said with pure outrage that suddenly swept across her entire being. Then something occurred to her, “who was the seventh, as we only have six of them accounted for…” she looked over at Snow Cat who blushed and sheepishly looked down at the ground.

“I had proposed to Master Roerich some time back and he accepted,” Snow Cat said, “we decided to keep it a secret, and pretend to be lovers for the sake of the expedition.”

“It will be fine Snow Cat,” Hanna declared as, in her human form, she entered the tent, walked over next to Snow Cat and plopped down. “Marcus and I just arrived and he went off to talk with the Delver you have digging that new tunnel…good idea, but I would suggest dealing with Marcus about you being hitched so he does not assume Roerich is taking advantage of you. Otherwise he is likely to go into his ‘I greet you with incinerating flame’ routine again with Roerich.”

“Snow Cat, it sounds like your brother is honorable but as hot-headed as Sir Robinson, or any man, can be when their kin are affected in some way,” Daniela, another of the Knights present, said with a laugh that flowed among all the other ladies present.


“True, very true,” Snow Cat said as she shook her head and debated how to tell her husband that he was, after all, going to be a father. “The only difference is that Marcus is a true fire-breather,” she winked at Hanna, “not to mention a lot better looking…”

“Well, there is that,” Dane Lae’lion declared.

The other ladies broke out in a riot of laughter that caused their nearby Battle-titans to roar as well.

“At the least paying the Delver for the tunnels and guarding the area after we leave did not cost me much,” Snow Cat said with a wink at Hanna. “I can’t wait until we get to Shadowdale Hanna, you have got to see the size of the dowry Marcus will have to, by custom of the dragons, surrender to you as your own personal hoard.”

“Oh, then I guess you should know something then Snow Cat,” Hanna said with a gleam of pure mischief in her eyes, “Since you are married to Master Roerich, and thus entitled to, by custom of the dragons, half of his ‘hoard,’ he had prepared a dowry for you.” She smiled as Snow Cats eyes widen in comprehension, “yup my dear co-mate, the gems and gold you gave to the Delver was from your dowry…”

The wild laughter of Hanna was subsumed by the roar of indignation from Snow Cat.

₰​

“My Liege and master,” the spymaster of High Lord Cronus said as he bowed down before his master.

“Speak and tell me of how our activities go,” Cronus ordered the man, “tell me everything and leave not one word of the truth out. I depend on you to be honest, and your honesty keeps you alive.”

The spymaster commenced to detail all the successes to date against the Sisters of Essembra, “thus six more of the true dragons, three-score of their agents and many other followers and supporters within Essembra have been liquidated. We have identified a number of their agents working to gather more and more information on the area of Crossing and the roadway between there and Ashabenford. I would request your leave to eliminate or capture them for interrogation…”

“No, have them harassed and hunted, but not captured save for one here and there,” Cronus declared. “I want them to find our forces and reveal all to Master Roerich via the Sisters, or at least until the last Sister is dead at our feet. Continue on our other activities…”

He listened to his spymasters’ reports of the southern dales coming undone, the people near open revolt in the lands of Deepingdale, Archendale and Harrowdale. “Arson, bribery, intimidation, assassination and the usual tricks of the trade my Lord Cronus. The new Lord of Scardale is working to keep up the pressure on Tassledale, Harrowdale, and Featherdale. We are between pressures on the inside, terror strikes from the outside, and calls for the Lords of those three dales to abdicate, nearing success. I estimate one or two months before they come down.”

“Very good then,” High Lord Cronus declared. The main armies of Night Shade still advanced against Master Roerich’s expedition. When they failed, as he anticipated they will, he will strike hard and fast if the Heartland River Expedition had been weakened enough…otherwise he will wait for them to come to him.

₰₰ Ninety two ₰₰​

In the hidden caverns deep beneath Mistledale High Lord Cronus and a handful of his most trusted and fanatical of guards travelled. Hour after hour they maintained a steady pace along stone paths worn smooth over many generations; the only illumination they had for guidance was a series of soft, blue-white lights that danced and floated overhead and to the sides of the party.

Silence ruled across the caverns, nary a whisper of a mouse, rat or even a lone drop of falling water was to be heard. For here death and darkness ruled, and even the soft light seemed diminished and doomed as they neared their destination…

High Lord Cronus silently gestured for his bodyguards to stay in place and remain absolutely silent unless the direst of threats appeared. They nodded and assumed a crescent shaped formation, blades drawn, to ensure that any intruder who sought to harm their liege lord from behind, would have to face and defeat them first.

To ensure that they would have some advantage over the monsters which roamed the area, High Lord Cronus cast a virulent dark blessing upon all of them. Each of his guards became stronger and quicker, their endurance grew to equal that of a bear, skin toughened to be akin to iron plate, and each gained insight into the actions of any foe by being able to foresee its actions and words a few seconds ahead of the present time stream.

“Do your duty my soldiers, for there are many threats, and to die for the Dark Goddess Shar is the highest of honors anyone can achieve,” High Lord Cronus reminded them before he departed into the heart of darkness.

₰​

The lone man watched High Lord Cronus pass his sheltered nook within the stone wall by mere inches. It would have been so simple to reach out and end the existence of Cronus once and for all, to correct the mistake he had made all those years ago, but such is not his way.

He has come to monitor and learn, to see if the balance has been changed in Mistledale, to learn where he can or cannot interfere. For above all things, even with the four regenerating Draco-liches mere yards away from him, their unholy bodies that corrupted the very air and stone, the balance has to be maintained…

Thus he cannot, by the druidic code he swore so long ago to uphold, strike out to destroy them or High Lord Cronus who deals with them as a lawfully elected Lord of the Dales.

With but a thought he activated a spell cast hours earlier and phased into the stone wall, then walked close to the meeting of High Lord Cronus and the quartet of Draco-liches to learn what he can learn…

And the simple plan crafted by Cronus and proposed to them caused him no end of alarm.

For as Brother Hart knew, Cronus had found the one means to gather other dragons to his side, and there is not one iota he could do to stop him. He was glad though that Owl had passed on his message, under her name, to Snow Cat and Master Roerich…

“I hope Snow Cat is happy with him,” Brother Hart said to himself, “I never meant to harm her…but some things had to be done, no matter the personal cost…”

₰​

The four great Draco’liches Furnace, Volcano, Pale Death and Midnight watched and listened to High Lord Cronus and his latest offer. Each of them respected the man for his true heritage as a dragon, of a sorts, and the honor he shows within the code of all dragons; he never demands or instructs them, only presents his offer and then allows them to make a choice as they see fit.

Right now the offer being put before them included two of the simplest of desires any Draco-lich could hope to have fulfilled: revenge over the three who slew them mere weeks ago, and the promised reward of the entire Heartland River Expedition as due recompense for their efforts.

The other matter is that, under the code of the dragons, honor binds them to High Lord Cronus for his efforts to restore them fully to unlife, and for having made them more formidable than ever before.

Furnace looked down upon High Lord Cronus and nodded his head, “We have discussed this matter at some length Cronus. All four of us have agreed to serve you, for the time and within the limits of our agreement, so our mutual enemies will be eradicated once and for all.”

High Lord Cronus smiled and nodded his head unto them one and all, “As you will, so it shall be. Have you all considered the probability of bringing other dragons to our side, willingly and with no coercion, no magical means of domination or the like to compel them, to fight our enemies as well?”

“Yes we have,” Midnight declared, “We will summon one or more flights of dragons and unlike those that the druid Brother Hart had dissipated, these will be unaffected by his efforts. For the code of the druids he follows will not allow him to interfere with our efforts, as we are allied with you, a Lord of the Dales.”

“Exactly as I had figured and planned,” High Lord Cronus declared, “I estimate twenty more days and you shall be at full strength in your new bodies. And for that matter, if you wish to feast on the men waiting near the entrance of this chamber, I have enhanced their combat ability enough to provide a interesting challenge for each of you…if you’re interested…”

It turns out they were, and the hunt through the caverns went on for many an hour until the last bodyguard of Cronus was hunted down and devoured.

₰​

Brother Hart shook his head in disgust at the casual disregard for any life that High Lord Cronus showed for his own subjects. In the end Cronus only cared for Cronus and for his needed revenge over his birth mother Snow Cat…

“Once again, I should have ended that ones life when he had been born instead of allowing him to live,” Brother Hart spoke to himself as he shifted through layers of stone and emerged upon the surface of the world. The high trees and thick undergrowth of the ancient forest confirmed his aim was on the mark…he was in the woods to the east of the river-route.

While Snow Cat will no longer speak to him, probably never will again for that matter, due to all that has occurred concerning her lost child…he still could make some amends that will help her and the others in their journey on the river-route.

₰​

High Lord Cronus returned to his personal chambers and debated the current plans and all contingencies. He felt in his gut that no matter how prepared or strong his forces; Master Roerich and his allies will win through to Crossing and there they will clash…

“I would prefer that they are annihilated outright by Night Shades armies, yet Hap-tooth Hill and the fight for Broken-Bridges has shown they are not to be underestimated, not in the least,” Cronus stated as he checked over the latest intelligence reports from across the Dales. Mercenaries continued to pour in from Scardale and he will soon outnumber the expedition by at least five to one in numbers alone…

If the Draco-liches manage to bring in one or more flights of dragons…then the monsters he has added, which included a dozen Gray Renderers and other nightmarish horrors soon to confront Roerich if they make it past the three tributaries…of course, if worse comes to worse, he can always bring in a few demons to add to the fun…

Then there was that minor detail of some special creatures that travelled up the river at this time, and very soon they shall add a few pleasant headaches for Roerich…all of which was part of his grand strategy…

Use unrelenting pressure and force both large and small, combined with the great storm caused by his liege, and grind them down until they were destroyed.

Soon enough his perfect assassins will strike, and with the usage of Dragons-bane he had supplied to them, rid him of Marcus and Snow Cat…especially that one…for as much as he wished to crush her with his own hands, if her death crippled Roerich, all the better then.

Even better, he had recently dispatched a second assassin, one unique in many ways, to ensure success in the event his first band is detected and destroyed.

 

To those PM'ing me about the story...

First - thanks for the compliments and critiques and 'suggestions' of what to have Snow Cat do; though I have to say the one is very anatomically impossible save between a pair of droids or such.

Second - yes, Snow Cat and Roerich are hitched as in MARRIED!

 

₰₰ Ninety three ₰₰​

Snow Cat awoke to the chill dawn and struggled to clear the song of all dragons from her head. The dreams of the previous night lingered, ones of old wars and bloodshed, battles with beings ancient and dangerous beyond all understanding. Some were of nightmares given life, beings of pure thought and madness personified in ways and images she could not, nor should not, comprehend.

The soft glow of dying coals in the small fire pit cast eerie shadows around the interior of the tent as she tried to determine what was different. For only moments ago she sensed a powerful entity present with her; one that did not represent a threat but that pierced her magical alarms with ease.

She held the bearskin fur over her naked body and strained to focus her half-sleep-filled eyes on what appeared to be a cloth-wrapped bundle near her magical bow, cloak and armor. Her curiosity was peaked when she made out the bundle to be arrows, and magical ones at that if her senses were right; she stood and went over to the bundle, and confirmed there were sixty arrows of masterful crafting, each one powerful as any legendary shaft, and endowed with magical abilities she did not understand at this time…

She would examine them later in detail, for the sight of five small books in the bundle drew her attention, and she gave off a start – and dropped the bearskin – as she observed that they were spell books. Each one held nearly one-hundred unique spells, some of which she knew, but most utterly new to her…

Then her rage erupted as she recognized some as the handiwork of Brother Hart. She almost cast the whole lot of books and arrows into the flames, but understood as well when she found the note a moment later, that it was a peace offering unto her and due to, as the note said…

“Snow Cat, you and Marcus and Hanna are in extreme danger as the forces of Night Shade approach from the north-east, east and south-east are approaching. I will not interfere with the matter as you and Marcus have shown to be more than capable of taking care of yourselves and I have caused you far too much grief and pain and anger than I ever should have.”

“Use these wisely Snow Cat, and use your Draco-were heritage wisely as well, there is still much for you to learn from the song of all dragons if you seek and dare to dream of all you can become. But that alone is for you to choose and do or do not as you deem fit.”

“Snow Cat, in my long life you and Marcus have been the greatest joys I have ever had next to Snowflake and our soon to be born twins. This may be the last time we communicate in any way, for the final battle between me and Night Shade is nearly at hand. As you have learned, he is my own twin brother; and has become a true abomination greater than before, and he even now prepares to grow yet more powerful. So it is I pass on this warning to you all, and wish you best in your life Snow Cat…and love as you live, and enjoy your time with Roerich, as fate has a way of changing everything in a blink of an eye.”

Snow Cat shook her head in denial, the anger and rage she felt gone in an instant with the last words she read again and again. Brother Hart sounded as if his pending battle with Night Shade will end in his death or the death of both combatants…

₰​

In the high mountains of the north Snowflake watched and listened to the reactions of Snow Cat, Hanna and of Marcus. Snow Cat cried and wailed for some time while Hanna and a few of the female Knights tried to comfort her; no matter what they could not comprehend the depths of pain and emotional turmoil she now had to go through.

“Snow Cat, by the standards of dragons who have lives measured in centuries, or even in millennia,” Snowflake stated, “you are still a youngster.” She shook her head, and wondered at the pain Brother Hart had inflicted on his dear daughter for a third time, even though he had been honest with her about the pending battle with Night Shade.

“You have spent most of your life dear girl as a cat-girl who was terrified of her dragon side, now you have most of it opened for you, but still harbor fear of the awesome power at your control,” she said. Her smile grew a bit as she recalled the scene of Broken-bridges when the Force Dragon who is Snow Cat appeared and dealt the final blow to save the wolf-were forces of Reaper.

“I still do not understand why Brother Hart chose to let you know of the enemy coming; the Delver has warned the Knights and Master Roerich has figured it out as well.” Snowflake shook her head, unable to decipher this action that the druidic oath she so recently took prevented Brother Hart from undertaking…

She startled as a flash of light momentarily illuminated the area as a lone figure teleported into the cavern.

“Brother Hart,” she said and rushed up to him and swept him into a crushing bear hug.

“I am glad you are alright, every time that you leave I fear it is the final time when I will lose you,” she said to him. “But I have to know, why, just why did you warn Snow Cat of the enemy and thus break you vow of the druidic order…”

“Because Snowflake, its time for me to be free to deal with Night Shade once and for all,” Brother Hart said to her after he gave her a long kiss on the lips. “All things are coming together now. Night Shade unleashed the wild magic storm over the river-route, and has now stirred from his mountain fortress, and thus I can now deal with him one on one. It will take us a few days of flight before battle is joined north of Daggerdale…”

“And of Cronus, what can be done about him?” Snowflake asked.

“With High Lord Cronus, I made my mistake long ago in letting that one fall under the sway of the Priests of Shar, and thus ultimately under Night Shade.” Brother Hart shook his head, “I cannot interfere with Cronus, and thus Snow Cat, Marcus, Hanna and Roerich will ultimately need to do so,” he said to her. “Now promise me this Snowflake, please promise me, not to interfere with them or with my battle. I need you to stay safe for the sake of our children…and for the sake I love you as well.”

“I promise you,” Snowflake said as tears streamed down her eyes. “I will listen to you always within the song of all dragons my love, and will wait for the day we are reunited in the celestial heavens of the next world.”

She stood on the edge of the high cavern entrance as Brother Hart transformed into the great Force dragon, a being of pure iridescent fire born of the spirit and the mind, and disappeared off to the east. He gave to her a final roar filled with draconic love that also said a final farewell.

₰₰ Ninety four ₰₰​

Deep in the ancient forests the great beast ascended the crest of a snow covered ridge and scanned its kingdom. He had ruled this portion of the woods for years beyond count, and none have successfully challenged him for well over a generation. He snorted once; the hot vapor of his breath turned to steam and dissipated unto the soft wind which flowed amidst the trees and shrubs.

Yet this day he sensed a contender has moved into his domain, and soon combat will be joined.

He turned his massive bear-like head from side to side as acidic drool flowed down his tusks. His eyes flared red as molten iron in rage, the light reflected on the twin spiraled ram-horns that flowed with symmetrical grace from his skull. The great beast moved its multi-ton, twenty foot length mass of muscle, bone, knobbed-hide and massive-furred coat with a grace and nimbleness which belied its clumsy appearance.

It ruled this land, and even though a new contender approached, so silent it barely heard the ghostly steps as it passed over the newly fallen snow, it knew no fear.

It is the Wooly Thoctar, a beast that even a Gray Renderer respects.


₰

High over the forest canopy Marcus and Hanna flew in a graceful, economical snake-like pattern. In this means they can cover the largest amount of territory, hopefully to find game for the encampment. Of course, as far as Marcus is concerned, if one or more enemies showed up, all the better; he has not had a good fight for some time now…and Hanna could yet use more practice.

Hanna struggled to pull alongside of Marcus and she pointed with her left fore-claw to the woods ahead and to the side, then signed to him, “Large herd beasts ahead and to the left, they have not noticed us yet and are at rest along the hot springs I smell. If we circle wide and low around that large gathering of trees, we can get in one or two passes to take some down before the herd bolts.”

Marcus quickly calculated distances and the terrain, then smiled at Hanna and nodded for her to lead the first strike. He chuckled, amazed at how fast a were-dragon such as Hanna could master the art of flight and of aerial combat and come up with new tactics that complimented their strengths. When Snow Cat joined them in battle, mounted on Marcus or Hanna – she still did not want to fight in her dragon-shape unless given no choice – the trio became nigh unstoppable.

As they closed on their prey, the natural patterns on Hanna’s and Marcus’s armored hides shifted, flowed and swirled to better match the terrain and skies about them. One more advantage that made them the ultimate of predators that few could challenge on the hunt…

Though Marcus noted Hanna as she looked off to their right and he spied a felled tree being gleefully munched on by a small Forest wyrm. Slowly, silent as death, they swung around the large cluster of trees and began to descend to their quarry with the low sun to their backs.

It is the way of the dragon in battle, strike from above and behind, catch your prey at its most vulnerable moment…which reminded Marcus to do a quick check to the back to ensure another dragon or such was not coming at them.


He detected no threat from behind or anywhere else in the skies and resumed his over watch as Hanna began her attack run on the large beasts below. He nodded in approval as she suddenly angled to her left where ten or so of the beasts lounged at rest on the ground, close together; the beasts startled and looked around at the hills and forest as Hanna broke with her wings, inhaled and unleashed her lightning breath…

Seven of the large deer perished in the holocaust of electrified death that enveloped them.

Three survived and stood their ground, heads raised high and proud to show off their twelve-foot wide razor-edged antlers. They reared upward on hind legs and bellowed a challenge to Hanna; for they knew no fear, and would not run or surrender without a fight to the death…

A fight Hanna ended before it began when she cast a spell and unleashed a blue-white blast of lightning which instantly took them down. She beat her wings and climbed higher into the sky and passed Marcus who gave her a nod of approval and prepared for his own attack run…

He glanced back over his shoulder to once again look for a foe that was not there, and shrugged his massive shoulders as he lined up to strike at sixteen of the gigantic Axe-bane deer. Each of the ten foot high beasts that he fell would provide many a feast in the colder months to come…

Unfortunately for Marcus the attack that took him by surprise did not come from above and behind out of the setting sun…

Instead it came from below and in an instant he was encased in thick, nigh-unbreakable webs and pulled down into the forest before Hanna had time to react.

₰​

The Wooly Thoctar brayed a challenge to its unseen foe as it pawed the ground. It turned to face the footfalls that drew ever closer. Yet no sign of its foe could be seen, smelled or felt on the breeze; for a time it wondered if the footfalls were little more than echoes akin to its great brays that thundered off the hills and mountains during the time of the yearly rut.

Then the footfalls stopped, and for long minutes only silence could be heard…

It pawed at the ground, unsure if a foe is there or not, for while its conscious mind said no, something told it there was imminent danger…then it spotted the small rabbit that hopped across the snow, and the small bundle tied around it that made soft footfall sounds as the rabbit dragged it along…

It knew then and there its reign had come to an end…

Twang!

The single arrow from Snow Cats bow took the beast at the base of its skull and unleashed a life-ending blast of electrical force. She watched as the Wooly Thoctar stood for a moment, snorted once and passed from this life as its massive body fell onto its side.

Snow Cat pulled back the hood of her cloak and returned into full visibility as its magic deactivated.


She walked up to the dead Wooly Thoctar and gently touched its thick fur. “I’m sorry your majesty, but I need to feed the others and your time had come to an end. You have thus made room for another descendant to rise and rule in your stead; and may you find your place in the home of all beings such as you in the next life.”

Snow Cat heard the soft pop-popping of an arrow being regenerated by her magical quiver.

“Sometimes old one,” Snow Cat said to no one in particular, “I wish I had never discovered the extent of my dragon side. I dreamed of being normal, and choose to be me. In the last few weeks I have chosen to dream and follow through with the dreams and now am at peace with both sides of me; cat-girl and dragon in one, a true Draco-were…”

She shook her head as she looked over the beast’s corpse. “Yet even with all that Grinder showed and taught me in the song of all dragons, and all I have learned since then about being a dragon, I still have doubts about that side of me: am I a dragon who is a cat-girl, a cat-girl who is a dragon, or the best of both in one body. Or for that matter, am I something new in the world as is Marcus?”

“I can only be myself in the end,” Snow Cat said as she prepared to dress out the corpse, “that is all I can be…”

She grimaced as she began, “Whew! I thought these things smelled bad on the outside…”

₰​

“Marcus!” Hanna screamed as she watched him disappear into the woods below.

She dove for the spot where he had been pulled through the forest canopy, determined to do battle at his side with this unseen foe. The instant she cleared the canopy top she bounced into a tree and leaped to her side, to avoid the massive network of webs that hung like vines for as far as she could see…

The webbing marked the nest of Giant Spiders, ones large enough to hunt down the great Axe-Bane deer, not to mention any dragon that grew too careless while on the hunt…such as Marcus. Three of the spiders, each some eight to twenty feet across, shot forward and screamed as they perished under the consuming lightning that Hanna struck out with.

Hanna heard Marcus scream in rage and frustration, unable to claw and savage his way free of the webs that held him captive. More spiders emerged from the webs and converged on Hanna from all sides, from above and from below…she was boxed in…

Marcus roared a second time and this drove her to new heights of anger in her own right.

“Death take all of you monsters!” she shouted and unleashed the ‘Swarm of Steel’ spell upon the spiders and their network of webs. Instantly a sphere of razor-sharp blades appeared and mauled the spiders into masses of flesh and goop that best is left to ones imagination. The blades shredded the webs and parts of the trees, but left a gap large enough for her to race forward and attempt to locate her mate…

Which became much easier as a holocaust of the Clinging fire engulfed the forest around Marcus. The very few spiders which survived being incinerated were dispatched in short order by Marcus, as he shredded or impaled them on the iron-hard, razor-sharp projections along his side and joints, or on the twin frills that ran down his back.


Marcus grinned as Hanna landed near him, and that looked at her funny as she grimaced…

“Hanna what is it?” Marcus asked of her as he quickly checked himself over for any injuries he may have missed in the all-too-brief and enjoyable battle. “Has one of them gotten me somewhere? Or is one still alive and in need of another dose of fire?”

She shook her head and closed her eyes, then tapped the top of her head with her tail to inform him of the problems location.

Marcus looked upward and grimaced, and then broke out in a sheepish grin. “Oh, yes I can see how that would be a bit of a problem…” he said to Hanna.

Hanna settled down on the ground and drew her forepaws to her chest. “Only you Marcus could stand there a few feet away from me and declare that his ‘crown’ of a giant-spider stuck to his head is a ‘bit of a problem.’ And people wonder why at times I still get confused by true dragons such as you…”

She shook her head when Marcus tried to remove the carcass with whacks of his forked tail, but the razor-edged prongs failed to penetrate the spiders hide. “Okay hot shot, how are you going to get it off your head now? Or will you simply ask for some help and let me…nope, guess not…” she said with a massive sigh.

Marcus lowered his head at a nearby boulder and charged. He slammed into it with enough force to sunder the stone in twain. Unfortunately it also rendered Marcus unconscious for some time, and the spider remained in place atop of his head…

Hanna sighed again as she heard, and then saw Snow Cat rejoin their party. She had behind her a floating disk of blue-gold light that floated about three feet above the ground. Atop it lay the dressed carcass of the Wooly Thoctar and the ten dead Axe-Dread deer.

“I got lucky on my hunt and bagged the Thoctar and found the ten deer you took down. Even with the spells to levitate large items and even make them lighter in weight, it took a great deal of effort to load them on the floating disk…” Snow Cat hushed as she saw Hanna shake her head and nod in the direction of Marcus.

“Oh brother,” Snow Cat declared after seeing Marcus laid out cold, “great, just great, now we have to lug his carcass back as well.” She suddenly got a wicked gleam in her eye and gestured to Marcus with one hand, “Hanna, do you want to have a bit of fun with him?”

Hanna listened and agreed to Snow Cats plan.

Ten minutes later the two of them headed back to the expeditions main encampment. The two floating disks followed close behind like devoted puppies. On the first the bounty of their hunt, while on the second rested Marcus, completely encased save for his nostrils in a new cocoon of spider silk. Atop his head rested the dead spider like a macabre crown complete with a court jester’s cap.

The two women, dragon and cat-girl, laughed; Marcus mumbled and sighed from within the captive webbing.

 

₰₰ Ninety five ₰₰​

“Master Roerich, how much longer must we put up with this nonsense of another army on the march?” Orica declared in his high-pitched, whiney, utterly nerve-rending voice. Master Roerich gritted his teeth and debated how good of a rooster the man would make before he had him plucked, roasted and displayed as his evening repast…either that or he would make the man into a small ferret that would have better uses and a lot less of the irritating noise.

For five days the same merchants interrupted the defense councils he held to coordinate and plan for the armies of Night Shade. All of them, some sixteen total, along with the High Vale Representatives - Xavier, Winter-Hawk, Lady Flame, Cutter, Lady Night-hound, and Red-lance – made an hourly interruption and reissued their non-stop demands over this or that grievance or other trivial matters. Today was a new low for them, as all six showed up as one, demanding that their needs be met first and foremost before all others.

Roerich pounded his fist on the table and actually growled with enough force that everyone backed up, suddenly swept up in a primordial terror only experienced near an enraged Snow Cat or Marcus. People gulped, shook in place or ran off in mind-numbed terror as they beheld the amber fires which lit up Roerich’s eyes…

Except for Orica, who paid not one bit of attention and kept on with his whining demands…

“Master Roerich, again I have to demand you get this expedition going so we can get to Ashabenford, or unto the area of Shadowdale. I have contracts to fulfill and goods to purchase, mistresses to woo and many other things of more interest than more monsters on the march….” Orica said, until he realized no one listened, let alone heard, his non-stop complaint.

Hanna had used her priestly magic to enshroud the man in a sphere of silence.

“Now then can we please get back to this matter so we can finish and I can go and get some rest?” Snow Cat said as she rubbed her temple to ease the headache she got whenever Orica neared. The foul smell of the mans cologne made her want to retch and gag, such a foul odor she had not smelled since her last battle with a muck-dwelling hog that had been blighted with massive tumors and sores.

Between the message of Brother Hart, the story told by the Delver and the calculations made by Master Roerich and Captain Laurence, more than ample proof in her opinion of an armed force on the march. The thirty odd auxiliary commanders and the present Knights of Essembra concurred. The only differences being: how soon the enemy forces will arrive, and whether to meet them in the field or behind solid defenses.

“I and Marcus had gone far to the east of us for the last three days, and you well know that more sky-drakes and other beasts are advancing.” Snow Cat sat back down and shook her head. Her sheer exhaustion showed on her face, “We’ve been hunting, along with many of us, bringing in what game we can before Night Shades forces arrive…and have no doubt, they will arrive sooner than we expect.”

“I know we have reports of some large shapes and shadows being spotted to the south-east of us, one of them turned out to be a Wooly Thoctar which will keep us fed for a few weeks,” Hanna said.

Dame Foxglove looked at Hanna and Snow Cat, “Could this thing be another Gray Renderer or one of its kin? We have been warned lately by Owl, for a second time, that High Lord Cronus – May he be roasted by Marcus – has at the least six or seven of the things under his control between Crossing and Ashabenford. Her personal agents are taking no end of risks to keep us informed.”


“I don’t know anymore, the blasted thing is keeping out of sight, like a ghost or such,” Snow Cat answered him as she leaned forward and clutched her head. The pain throbbed for some time, and nothing she did could ease it, “As soon as I and Marcus get rested up I’ll head out to see if we can find it. And since we’re on the subject, what about the problems we have had with the food and water reserves being tainted or other raiders pressing our defenses?”

“So far it’s only been minor problems, we have secured them completely. Our priests have united to provide us with extra provisions and drink; or as much as their magic can provide.” Captain Roerich looked at everyone in turn, “We still have to keep the hunting and foraging parties going for as long as we can. Right now, until we can get this wild magic-induced weather to break, and hear back from Reaper and his wolf-were tribes scouting to the east, we are not going anywhere.”

“Now then Dame Lae’lion,” Roerich said, “How are the bridges coming about and the defenses between the first and the second tributaries? Anything unexpected, or special, going on that we need to be concerned with?”

Orica; still enshrouded by the sphere of silence, danced and pranced about, his unheard protests and demands completely ignored by everyone. His anger grew red hot and he decided another course of redress had to be done while the opportunity presented itself.

“No, nothing special that at least I am aware of,” Dame Lae’lion said as she smiled. “The Delver has aided us in cutting stone slabs for our magicians to emplace with their magic of telekinetics. It has finished the tunnel between the second and third tributaries as well; I have pushed one auxiliary company to that area and they are establishing a preliminary encampment.”

“The middle encampment between the first and second tributary is being reinforced and the high hills to the east of the river-route fortified. Soon enough we will have a solid pair of way-stations established of thick stone and other defenses; they will be nigh impenetrable as the defenses we have around us in the main encampment. Once we deal with the three armies, then it will take about a week to finish bridging the third tributary…”

“How about the wild magic-induced storm,” Councilman Justinian asked. Dames Foxglove and Winter-glove also made the same inquiry. “The efforts to date have been an unqualified failure, but we still had to try. Then a few days back you stated an idea that sounded completely crazy – alter and command the underlying structure and order of chaos?”

“Nutshell version Councilman,” Snow Cat struggled to say as she struggled to interact with the meeting she so dearly wanted to end. “Chaos is different from wild-magic. Wild-magic is more like rolling a mass of dice. You have an idea of how they will land, can predict the variables and combinations that can generate, but the part you cannot control is which face of the dice will come up in what combination…hence structure and order in a system with a number of variables, i.e. the dice. So it is with the wild-magic, it is limited chaos within a larger structure of order.”

Snow Cat failed to sense the approach of Orica as he moved behind her, his hand reaching down to his side…

“And by that we have managed to find a means to control and to one degree or another, manipulate the wild-magic areas to aid in the local defenses,” Master Roerich declared. “One other thing though, the storm itself is the result of other magic, and I am now positive it has been caused by Night Shade. The threads of magic have defied every effort to undo or negate; so we have to…”

Sergeant Kenneth screamed out a warning as Orica lifted a poisoned stiletto-blade…


Snow Cats shrill scream from the dagger stuck in her shoulder was only rivaled by the holocaust of lightning Master Roerich struck Orica with. So powerful was that blast it catapulted the man’s very dead corpse out the tent wall and across the encampment for nearly two-hundred yards.

Through the hole in the tent he spied two other people – magicians – who grinned as they raised hands aglow with amethyst fires. Both men, magicians and priests of Shar, knew the dark amethyst fires could not be stopped or even dispelled…

Or so they thought until Roerich snapped his fingers and sundered their connections to the magical potential of the world around them.

Both of his foes gasped and stood slack-jawed in terror at Master Roerich as his hand came up…

Roerich reintroduced them to the magical forces of the world as he unleashed. A blast of lightning, enhanced to triple normal strength by his esoteric knowledge, tore them asunder and cast their mortal remains over a mile away unto the river.

Roerich turned his clenched fist at the High Vale Representatives’ and scowled as if he expected them to strike out at any moment.

Sergeant Kenneth’s men had formed an outward circle of shields and drawn blades around Councilman Justinian. Each of the representatives was hit hard by the diplomatic guard, wrestled to the ground and had wrists and ankles secured by strong rope. Mouths were gagged and one guard sat on top of the representatives; the knife held to their throats guaranteed no more foul play or words of interruption would happen from them.

₰​

“Hanna, how is she?” Roerich called out as he heard the pain-wracked screams of Snow Cat. A quick glance showed her and five other people in a desperate struggle to hold Snow Cat still; yet despite their best effort, they could not pin her in place long enough for Hanna to magically purge the poison from her body.

Marcus roared in the distance as he sensed the depth of danger his twin sister was in. Master Roerich shook his head and looked at the High Vale Representatives with a heated rage that rivaled Marcus’s.

“Hanna, speak to Marcus at once before he tears into this tent,” Roerich asked of her, “or he will arrive in such a rage I will not be able to stop him from killing these idiots here – excluding you Councilman Justinian, I know you had nothing to do with this.”

“I already have Roerich,” Hanna said as she managed to remove the serrated blade. She blanched when she saw the bluish-green venom that dripped down its length. “Roerich, the blade has been poisoned, and if I had to take a guess based on the smell, it’s Dragons-bane, and since Orica has been present at the meetings where Snow Cat has had those severe migraines…but not the other meetings where she was fine…”

“It means we have more assassins in the encampment,” Justinian said as he indicated the spot where the two other assassins had tried to strike.


Sergeant Kenneth entered into the tent and shook his head, “My stars, what’s happened to her, I never knew anyone of dragon blood could be affected by any poison…”

Kenneth spotted Hanna and the others struggling with Snow Cat, and then he spotted the envenomed blade. The smell reached him a moment later, and left him to gasp as he instantly recognized what it truly was…

“Damn its Dragons-bane,” Kenneth stated, his estimate confirmed by a nod from Hanna. “Sandell get over here, men come on and help out…she’s been poisoned by Dragons-bane. In short order they held Snow Cat securely in place, and the healer came over and managed to purge most of the venom from her body; the wound closed, but would leave a large, jagged scar for years to come.

“That’s the best I can do for her,” Sandell stated to Hanna and to Roerich. “The Dragons-Bane venom is now gone from her system but the physical damage done will leave her in bed for at least a week. Which will not make her very happy…based on the last such incident I had observed.”

“The Pegasus Archer Company has dealt with dragon-kin such as wyverns and drakes often enough that we do use Dragons-Bane. But only with the Commanders approval and none is with us on this journey, Councilman Justinian can confirm this Master Roerich,” Sergeant Kenneth declared.

Master Roerich nodded and ordered some of his guards to carry Snow Cat to her wagon, and for Hanna to stay there with her. “Thanks Kenneth, I had suspected after our little duel you would have been extremely angered over its outcome,” Roerich said, “glad to be wrong for once…”

“We all have our differences Master Roerich,” Kenneth said with a self-depreciating chuckle, “in my case it was I needed my ego to be flattened and you and Snow Cat managed to do it. I’m just glad I could help…if you will excuse me I’m needed with the politicians…” he said as Councilman Justinian left the tent.

“Let me know if you need any incinerations done,” Roerich called out to Kenneth, “get me or Marcus; we will love the chance to deal with the ones who dared to harm Show Cat…”

“Assuming Pearl, Foxy or the others don’t kill them first…” Kenneth said as he left the tent.

₰​

Later that night Roerich was awakened by Captain Laurence.

“Master Roerich we have found the remains of several merchants, guards, four magicians and of Orica in the wooded hills to our south.” Laurence shook his head in disgust and disbelief, “the remains of the false-Orica was discovered to be some kind of gray-skinned, hairless, genderless, human-like creature that I have never seen before…”

“Doppelgangers,” Roerich said with a scowl.

Laurence slapped himself across the forehead, having missed the simplest and most obvious of answers. For the creatures called Doppelgangers are shape-shifters, able to imitate their victims completely to the smallest detail and mannerisms.


This ability made them natural spies-for-hire, and makes them the most unscrupulous of nigh-unstoppable assassins. Many a city-state, guild, priestly order and even entire kingdoms have fallen into ruin after one or more such brutes infiltrated and finally rose to rule those lands.

“No wonder they managed to breach our defenses with such ease; and yet they cannot be from those who sent the dead-magic stone carrying ones awhile back,” Roerich said to himself as the meaning dawned before him, “Cronus sent these and he has others within our ranks to cause chaos and sap morale and sow discord and distrust….and that means Cronus is playing a larger game within that of Night Shades…”

“Cronus has now made this battle between us and Night Shade a part of his business. He has directly assaulted the recognized head of a caravan and military expedition,” Captain Laurence stated. “And thus he has violated the station he holds as a lawfully elected lord of the Dales…”

Roerich whirled on Laurence, his eyes ablaze with fire that made the man cringe and all but whither away as he imagined what fate lay in store for High Lord Cronus.

Master Roerich clenched his fist and scowled his words, “Cronus wants war with us. So be it then, we shall give him his war as soon as we get free of this weather and defeat the armies that are closing upon us…”

Both men turned to face Hanna as she approached, and she paused when Laurence’s hand moved to the hilt of his fine long sword.

“Master Roerich and Captain Laurence we have to stop suspecting everyone of being an assassin.” Hanna scowled and scolded them both, “Right now we have received a message from Foxy, and she wanted me to convey it to you both since Snow Cat is asleep and in no condition to do any walking of any kind.”

“It took a considerable effort to get the entire message,” Hanna stated and sighed, “But the gist of it is this – three armies, complete with drakes, wyrms, a slew or two of monsters and beasties. Each army has at least five legions of orc-kin, ogre-kin, and goblins. They are coming in from the north-east, east, and south-east. We have about five days to be ready before they are upon all of us…”

“Hanna, how is Snow Cat?” Roerich asked.

“Sleeping and she will for a day or two from what I gave her. The healers of Kenneth’s unit tell me that will be the best for her,” Hanna stated with a stern look at both men. “I have some of the Knights of Essembra guarding her now so Marcus can calm down and get some rest…oh, and Master Roerich, Snow Cat said to tell you, ‘our old friends of the court have said yes.’ I assume you know what that means?”

Master Roerich grunted and nodded, but the information would help the expedition much later, and a few other friends a lot sooner than that.

“Five days,” Roerich said, “five days until battle is joined in full and we are outnumbered beyond belief…we need to have a major miracle or three to pull this off. This battle will make Hap-tooth Hill look like a cake walk in comparison…”

Master Roerich had no idea that another battle, one greater than he could have imagined, is about to commence far to the north…

 

Brother Hart v Night Shade: opening horror

₰₰ Ninety six ₰₰​

Anther’s Dell, the northernmost community of Daggerdale, the place where civilization ends and the true wilds of the savage mountains begin. For over five centuries it has existed, a small bastion of peace and order where merchants and miners come to trade, business is conducted and thievery is all but non-existence under the stern but impartial Constables.

It is a place which has seen war and peace, plague and promise, destruction and creation and all else across the board. Many people who visit choose to stay and settle among the toughened folks and take up homes within the great stone houses, each one a miniature fortress within the fortified town as a whole.

The people of Anther’s Dell planned to use the thirty-month long winter to prepare for a grand spring and all of the trade which will come with it. They all knew it would be a time of prosperity and celebration such as most have never known; a time when grand weddings will occur and all who pass in the cold and dark months will be remembered in story and song for time immemorial…

Or so it should have been…

For just an hour after the sun settled beyond the high mountains to the west, doom called on Anther’s Dell, and ended the five centuries of existence inside of ten minutes.

Perched on the highest building, Night Shade reared upward on his hind legs, and stretched out his full hundred foot frame. Both wings of absolute darkness spread wide as he held both fore-claws outward to his sides. His dark and unholy magic drew in scything bolts of amethyst lightning enlivened with small orbs of blue-white ghost light…each orb surged into his body and merged with his soul, and he grew ever stronger as he absorbed the life forces of all living beings destroyed by his lightning.

His tail flexed from side to side and leveled many of the strongest of homes and shops in the now dead town, as he lifted his head high and roared in triumph. Stone tore and shattered, melted and flowed like the shed tears of a giant; buildings cracked, shuddered and groaned until they finally collapsed under the unnatural force which struck them down.

The very ground tore asunder and divided into great ravines and chasms. Wooded crags and rocky knolls gave off ghostly moans and wails, in protest of the profanity and corruption that assailed them. Trees rotted and died, or turned to petrified stone cast into shapes unknown in the natural world – a testimony to the madness made real within Night Shade.

Cisterns of water boiled and steamed, while frozen ponds and the surrounding streams turned red with blood as they dissipated into deadly mists of green and gray death. The very skies themselves turned darker than the midnight darkness of cavern miles beneath the earth; massive blasts of thunder shook the land for tens of miles, echoed off the mountains and hills, and announced to all who heard that a new king had come to claim his home among the Dales…

The king and conqueror known to all as Night Shade, no longer a Draco-were as his twin Brother Hart has stayed, but something much stronger after he was infused with the pseudo-reality of the Far Realm.

The new king of the Dales roared again and again, until his strength had become unmatched with the souls he had absorbed. Then he took to the skies and headed southward for Dagger Falls, the largest community in the area, and ripe for the harvest.

₰​

Countess Star-Dancer looked into the cold evening skies and wondered what had disturbed her slumber. She had found no intruder within the thick and stout stone walls of High Wind Tower, the home to her order of elf magicians who valued their privacy more than anything else. Yet this night, as she moved along the halls whose windows were frosted over by the winter chill, she could not shake the disturbance which rippled through the natural world.

Four guards on patrol, their chain armor and tabards alive with the golden light of magical power paused and saluted their leader as she passed. Their Sergeant, mere paces behind set his staff into the crook of his arm and bowed to Star-Dancer. “My lady, is there a matter we may help with or should watch out for? You appear to be troubled by something…most unusual, if I may be so blunt…” the Sergeant said unto her as politely as any courtier could accomplish.

Star-Dancer actually laughed, glad to have a moment free of the dread that had grasped her heart and threatened to shake her apart in abject terror. “Very well put Sergeant, you do justice to your teachers back in the real High Courts of the elves. But to answer your question, yes there is something bothering me, a great wrongness within the world itself to the south-east of us. It is distant and moving into the human lands of the Dales…”

“But…but…that would…” the Sergeant stammered, as did his men, “that would place it near the edge of our very homeland. Surly our High Mages within the courts and elsewhere have already detected this threat and are preparing to eliminate it for good…are they not?”

Countess Star-Dancer shrugged her shoulders, unable to honestly answer the Sergeants question. For five hundred years she has led the order, and was accounted as one of the greatest of High Mages among the elven-kingdoms; and yet so strong was this darkness that she dreaded the thought of confronting it in battle, even with a hundred fellow High Mages at her side.

“Sergeant, I have to say this much, the darkness and wrongness I have sensed are beyond the abilities of a whole realm of High Mages. I have sensed this kind of madness, malevolence and utter unholy power and evil once in my life; two-hundred years ago when Brother Hart of Shadowdale and the one known as Night Shade did battle with one another. Even the mighty Force Dragon Grinder would be hard pressed to stop this force of evil if he still lived in the realm…”

The alarm bells across the upper towers rang loud and clear as sentinels screamed out what they assumed would be their final words, “Dragon to the north and coming in fast!”

Caught completely off guard, magicians and soldiers alike raced for arms and armor to confront the great beast. All of them knew the towers magical wards and defenses, interconnected rooms and halls designed to channel and slow attackers, as one knows their own hands. Each defender knew the upper floors had to be held, for if they gave before the dragon, then the defense became that of buying enough time for the servants, and families of the Order to escape through the underground tunnels.

Countess Star-Dancer raced up the innermost stairwell between contingents of archers and spearmen, their armor alight with magical might. When she joined them on the outermost battlements, she gasped as the dragon came into sight – the brilliant iridescent fires of its body revealed it to be one of the legendary Force Dragons, and one greater than even the legendary Grinder who fell two-hundred or so years past.

“Oh my stars,” Star-Dancer said. She had no idea of how to stop the great beast should it decide to attack.

₰₰ Ninety seven ₰₰​

“How do we even harm such a creature,” Captain Hammurabi asked of Countess Star-Dancer. “Can we even harm it if it attacks? I have never seen such a beast, even when the courts had their tails saved by Snow Cat all those years ago; now this…we are dead…”

The very air around the defenders seemed to hold its breath, for nary a sound could be heard by anyone, save for the thundering of their own heart as they struggled to tame their growing terror of the dragon. Moment by moment the great dragon of iridescent fires and misty appearance winged closer, the ground below illuminated in a whirlwind of colors and light and shadows that danced and writhed with each beat of its massive wings.

The dragons twin eyes, each wider than a horse-drawn wagon or cart, locked onto Countess Star-Dancer and pierced her to the depths of her soul.

She quailed before that eternal gaze and understood how insignificant she truly was in the grand order of the world; her lips turned dry and she struggled to breathe as her heart raced with such force she expected to pass into the next life at any time.

Completely undone, Star Dancer collapsed to her knees and began to quake as great sobs wracked her body.

Then and there, she understood that the day had come when she would be judged for some unspeakable crime she had committed against the greater cosmos. Her last regret, as the dragon began to circle the tower, was that so many innocents would perish due to whatever mistake she had made…

“I am sorry everyone,” she sobbed, “I am so sorry for having caused this…”

₰​

Star-Dancer looked up at the dragon in confusion and wondered if her mind had finally shattered. For she swore that the dragon spoke unto her via a magical mind-to-mind communiqué, “What, I don’t understand how that dragon can know me…” she said.

“Have no concern dear Star-Dancer for it is I Brother Hart,” the dragon proclaimed.

“I head southward to intercept and crush, if I can, the source of the corruption and wickedness you have sensed. This is my fight, and mine alone; alert the elven courts so that they may be on watch if I cannot defeat the one known as Night Shade,” Brother Hart stated, and continued…

“If I am victorious I will return and discuss things with you as we used to do in your youth; if not, then I give to you my farewells old friend, and it has been a pleasure to have known you for so long of a time,” and with that, the magical communiqué ended.

“Brother Hart,” Star-Dancer said as she looked up at the Force Dragon when it silently circled the tower once, twice and then a third time before it roared a solemn goodbye to an old and valued friend. It aligned its flight to the south and disappeared into the night.


“Brother Hart is going to fight the darkness, to deal with his old enemy in one final confrontation…and we can do nothing to help him…absolutely nothing…” Star-Dancer declared.

“My lady,” Captain Hammurabi said to her, “I’ll go and alert our king and his minions, the Lords of Daggerdale and Shadowdale need to be warned as well…or do we do nothing?” He spread his hands apart and shook his head, unable to comprehend the power of dragon-fear that still held his, and many of his men’s, heart in a vice-like grip.

As Star-Dancer regained her feet she looked at Hammurabi and nodded approval for his plan. “Warn the courts and the two Dales, plus one more thing, alert Snow Cat to the far south, go through Owl of the Sisters of Essembra if you have to: if her adoptive father falls, she will face the combined might of High Lord Cronus and Night Shade in battle.”

“My lady how could Countess Snow Cat, even as good of a magician, and archer as she is, face such a terror as that which could stop Brother Hart?” Captain Hammurabi asked.

“By herself no, for she has only recently learned of her full heritage and begun to understand,” Star-Dancer told her captain, “but with the help of Marcus and his mate Hanna, plus that of Master Roerich, they may have a chance. Nothing will be the same in the near future, nothing, for the Dales have changed and are changing, all that remains to be seen now is which side – light or dark, law or chaos – comes through in the end.”

“But cannot Brother Hart defeat this Night Shade in battle?” an archer asked of Star-Dancer, “He is the most powerful and oldest force of the balance in the Dales, and for that matter is older than the Dales. How could he not be able to defeat him…he is Brother Hart after all…”

“Probably he will be able to defeat Night Shade in the coming battle,” Captain Hammurabi declared as he had two of his soldiers help Star-Dancer to her quarters. “Understand something though, great changes such as that of Night Shade entering into this world and the Dales in particular, can only be counterbalanced by an equal force.”

He continued, “The battle of such beings is legendary and the destruction wrought is often immense; consider the lands to the south of Thay, home of the Red Wizards. The great region known as the Sea of Dust is the last permanent remains of such a battle…”

Captain Hammurabi looked at his soldiers and shook his head, “and now such a battle has come to the Dales and maybe our homeland in the deep forests. Daggerdale and Shadowdale do not have much time; but no matter where the battle is waged, or the corruption of Night Shade spreads, change will come in measure beyond all we can imagine…for when Brother Hart and Night Shade join in battle, one or both may fall, and the dales they do battle in will be no more.”

Hammurabi looked to the route taken by Brother Hart in his Force Dragon shape and shook his head.

He did not tell anyone of the message passed onto him by Brother Hart as he departed…

“Hammurabi, my friend and cousin,” Brother Hart had said, “Guard Snowflake and her children to the best you can. Until another takes up the balance of the Dales in the future, you and all other dragons of our kind will be needed. Do not try to force Snow Cat to do anything against her will; I have hurt her too much by keeping some information from her. She is her own being and has her own destiny now…”

₰₰ Ninety eight ₰₰​

“Lord Morgan, have you received the same warning from Countess Star-Dancer?” Rendell Monde, Lord of the lands of Daggerdale, asked his southern neighbor. “We do not have much time before our city is hit, we have a trail of devastation advancing southward by the minute; the beasts mere presence seems to change the very world around it and infest it with a corruption not of this world.”

The city of Daggers Ford resounded with alarm bells and horns blaring, the clarion call for the army, constables and militia to assemble and prepare for battle with all due haste. In addition to them, companies of adventurers and heroes, powerful priests and magicians, common citizens and visiting merchants with their guards have all committed to the coming battle, though only the few closest advisors of Rendell Monde understand how futile their efforts will be in the end.

Rendell Monde already has seen in his magical mirror the devastation wrought in the north.

The gathered might of Dagger Ford had little chance of slowing the great beast, and none of actually ending its reign of terror.

“Yes we have,” declared Lord Morgan to his old friend via the magical mirror that linked their two lands for such times as now. “Star-Dancer has also informed us that Brother Hart is on his way to stop this dark beast. We have assembled small parties of our greatest heroes and adventuring companies, they should be arriving near Dagger Ford within the next couple of hours…”

“Thank you my friend; the people of Shadowdale always have helped us when we needed it,” Lord Monde said with a heavy sigh, “and now we need it more than ever. Just be sure to keep enough strength in Shadowdale to deal with the dragon if we fail…”

Lord Monde looked his friend in Shadowdale fully in the eyes, and conveyed the full measure of the situation, “This is no mere dragon, it is some kind of being from another dimension or even the Far Realm. It is a force of madness and nightmares given life. You must get ready in Shadowdale, we cannot hold it off for long when it gets to the…”

Monde looked off to the window and blanched in terror at what he beheld…

“What it is Lord Monde, what is the matter?” Lord Morgan stated with a great deal of alarm.

“Our doom has arrived,” Lord Monde stated with the sudden calmness that comes over many who know that death has come to escort them into the next world. The alarms began to fall silent one by one, and cries of true terror and panic sounded from all quarters of Dagger Ford; Lord Monde knew the time of Daggerdale as a home for many of his people has come to an end.

“Lord Monde, Lord Monde,” Lord Morgan called again and again to his old friend, truly terrified for the first time in countless ages…

An unholy roar echoed to the north of Dagger Ford. The sheer malevolency and power of it shook the ground for tens of miles, and a great wall of darkened clouds swept forward with unearthly speed. Great arcs of black and amethyst lightning clawed their way between the pillars of darkness and doom, while the cries of the damned were born on unholy winds of terror for all to hear.


Lord Monde just shook his head as the great shape emerged from the clouds. “Heaven above help us, for all of us shall soon join our ancestors in the land of plenty which await us,” he began to recite the ancient chorus and prayer of his faith, and asked for his ancestors to welcome the remains of his soul when his body breathed its last and his time on the world ends.

Monde’s bodyguard took up the prayer as well as he donned his helmet. He looked at Lord Morgan’s image in the magical mirror one final time as he strapped his great shield and took up his magical spear, smiled and gave his friend a final nod of farewell.

“Lord Monde, what has happened? Has the dragon changed course for the elven woods or for Shadowdale?”

“No Lord Morgan,” Lord Monde declared, “The dragon is here at the walls of Dagger Dale and has commenced its attack. So then my friend I have to go and do my duty for my people. Until the next world my friend…use the short time we can buy you wisely; get ready or get out of there. Daggerdale ends this hour, and I intend that we will be remembered for giving you the time you need.”

With that Lord Monde turned and marched off with his bodyguard unto their final battle…

₰​

Lord Morgan watched the image in the mirror fade and he gulped.

For he knew that as soon as the dragon had finished with Dagger Ford, it will turn to the southwest and hit Shadowdale; and there will be nothing he and his men can do to stop it…

Though as with Lord Monde, he had to try.

“Captain Horus-Re,” Lord Morgan said as he turned to face his court of the freemen of Shadowdale. “Call up the full militia and begin the evacuation of all non-combatants to the deepest shelters. Have our magicians take as many as they can to the southern Dales. All heads of the families are to be advised, we have set funds aside for them to begin new lives with in the other Dales; they are the future for Shadowdale to rise again from the darkness now at work on Dagger Falls…”

The members of his court gasped and understood just how dangerous the matter had become.

“Yes, all of you understand now. I will go and do my duty as your Lord, and buy you as much time as I and the armed forces of Shadowdale can.” He looked at his military leaders, “this is to be volunteers only, all who wish to leave for the sake of their families are free to do so and no dishonor will fall upon them. Remember, those of us who stand against the dragon must hold off until the last of us falls before it; for the children and those who cannot fight, we need to buy them time….

“Unless Brother Hart can finish the beast, this will be the last day Shadowdale exists,” Lord Morgan said.

₰₰ Ninety nine ₰₰​

The great dragon looked over the ruins of Dagger Ford and closed his eyes in grief over all that had died. His head bowed low and his great shoulders sagged as if burdened by some massive weight; he cried out unto the heavens and the earth, he cried out for the balance which has been torn asunder, he cried out for the dead and those generations who will never see the dawning of their first day.

He cried aloud for the loss of so much life and for justice to be delivered at the ends of his claws and teeth. He cried out most of all, for his two adoptive children Snow Cat and Marcus; for his beloved Snowflake, and for the unborn twins whom he will never see.

Brother Hart, the great Force Dragon whose body glowed with iridescent fires of spirit and mind, walked along the silent roads through Dagger Ford. He forced himself to look upon each desiccated corpse, human, elf, dwarf and animal alike; each one drained of their life force to feed the unending hunger of Night Shade.

Here he spotted the wreckage of a house, the roof torn asunder by unholy lightning, the stone walls melted as wax before the heat of a forge. There, along a side avenue, lay the wreckage of the market and a cluster of overturned wagons, a last line of defense for nearly three-score warriors; just behind them lay the shattered mass of bodies – men, women, children, young and old, that they sold their lives to try and buy them time to escape.

Alas the hunger of Night Shade for the life-force of the living overwhelmed them, and none escaped.

Scene after scene played out before him as he looked into house and store, barn and covered wagon. As far as he can tell, not one inhabitant of the community had escaped the wrath of Night Shade.

Near the center of town Brother Hart stumbled across the desiccated corpse of Lord Rendell Monde. He and his personal bodyguards had made their stand before the Shrine of the Defender, the patron saint of protection and guardianship among the heavenly realms. From what he could see and smell, Lord Monde and his men fought hard and with fullness of heart as they did their duty to hold off Night Shade…

But there had been no escape for those he gave his life to defend. Even the deep shelters of stone beneath the shrine held no life, just the lingering aura of death magic employed by Night Shade.

“So much loss, so much devastation for the sake of mere greed and the thrill of destruction, that is all in the end the madness of Night Shade represents,” Brother Hart declared.

Then came the hardest moment of his journey through the dead city: he came across the scent of a youngster that Night Shade had deliberately hunted down in an hours-long game of cat-and-mouse. Where the hunt had ended, he found the bloodied rag doll that had witnessed the final terrified moment of her existence.

Something deep within Brother Hart’s mighty draconian heart snapped. He grew enraged beyond anything he has in his centuries of life; and even his legendary restraint flew to the winds, his eyes blazed with righteous indignation that told all that he will not hold back against Night Shade.

He reared on his hind legs and roared a roar of pure primordial rage and anger. His roars grew ever louder as his anger boiled ever hotter within his body, and he declared that the madness of his twin brother would end…


“NIGHT SHADE, I am coming for you!!!” Brother Hart roared, the raw, primordial declaration flowed out across the landscape, and cleaved through the song of all dragons.

All of dragon-kind knew that a set of legendary twin dragons, both born of the same egg, will soon do battle, and thus change their world forevermore.

“Then come my dear, dear Brother, for I am nearly to your home of Shadowdale,” Night Shade communicated to Brother Hart with a spell of far-speaking. “Come you arrogant fool, let us be done with this battle so I can go and annihilate your precious children for all of time. Then I will destroy the Dales, the elven-kingdom and all others who refuse to acknowledge my sovereignty across the northern shores of the Sea of Fallen Stars.”

Brother Hart was on the wing towards Shadowdale before the message was completed.

₰​

“Oh no, no this cannot be happening,” Owl said about the devastation she observed. Before her, in a great field of golden-silver light, she beheld the uttermost devastation one could imagine inflicted upon Daggerdale. Then she sobbed, and the tears of loss and pain began to flow. She had enacted this magic of far-sight in response to the desperate communiqué of Holly, her youngest child who still – she had to stop and correct herself now – who had lived at the time of the attack.

She had caught the image of Holly as she rushed a band of children and elderly humans to shelter, and turned to do battle against the horror of Night Shade. The great dragon had torn her limb from limb before she could even begin to transform into her dragon-shape; and the final scream of Holly was for her mother to come and help her…

“I’m sorry Holly, I’m so sorry I sent you there. I had assumed that Daggers Ford would be safe from Cronus and the army he is preparing to march on Essembra.” Owl looked away from the image and surrendered herself to the overwhelming grief and pain of her last child having died before her very eyes. Then a flare of light and fire caught her attention and she gasped as the great Force Dragon landed and walked through the ruins.

“Brother Hart?” she shook her head in disbelief, but she knew it to be him.

She watched the sadness grow upon him as he walked amidst the wreckage and death; then he wailed a great challenge to Night Shade and took to the air a moment later.

“Owl my dear,” Brother Hart communicated to her via his magic, “I ask of you to prepare for any refugees from Shadowdale. That nightmare which my brother has become is on his way there, and I cannot get there in time to stop him from destroying the dale I so love. I will need the refugees out of the way to end the madness of Night Shade once and for all…’

“We’ll be ready Brother Hart, and farewell my friend, I will seek you in the song of all dragons when we next meet,” Owl said as the magic faded. She raced to find her fellow Sisters of Essembra and tell them of all she had seen and agreed to do, for they had much to accomplish and next to no time.

₰​

In the lands of the High Forest, thousands of miles to the north-west of the Dales, the eldest green dragon shook in absolute terror.

His name is Emerald Death, and is undisputed sovereign of the eastern forest for a hundred days of travel; none but the bravest or most foolish would challenge him. But now, as he feels the song of all dragons erupt in a cacophony of flame and power, of corruption and battle, of holiness and heavenly might laid bare, he perceived that two of the truly elder members of dragon-kind were closing in for battle.

He all but jumped through the ceiling of his cavern home when someone knocked and asked for his permission to answer. He recognized it as his soul-mate Passions Kiss, and bade for her to enter along with their brood; he seldom allowed anyone into his home, for the massive hoard of gold and silver, gems and jewelry and plunder of a thousand years of life was considerable temptation for any other dragon.

Emerald Death watched as Passions Kiss led the half-dozen little ones, just months from the egg, into the huge cavern where they gazed up upon their father. Each one resembled their mother though, being of a deep forest green color rather than the liquid emerald-green of his side of the family. He grinned as they awkwardly waddled forward and, as instructed by their mother, bowed down before him and said “Papa!”

Emerald Death nodded to them and told them to go and play, but stay close to him and their mother. He noted that Passions Kiss had tensed, ready to spring to her youngsters defense if need be, when he raised one forepaw for her to calm down and talk with him.

“I know you hear the song as clearly as I do, but do you understand my lady what is happening in the far off Dales?” he asked of his mate.

“I have no idea, but thank you for allowing me to bring our children here,” Passions Kiss said, the terror in her heart evident to his keen senses. “All I know is that the song began to turn wild and untamable some time ago; and now it dances with power and might, it burns and blinds those who seek answers within it too deeply. What great corruption has entered this world to do this to us?”

Passions Kiss looked upon her mate as he remained silent, and she wondered if he had decided to kill her for being a coward. “If you’re going to kill me, and I know I have no chance against you due to the great differences in our age, please spare the children,” she lowered her head in submission, “I will not resist in the least if you will grant me that last wish…”

She startled when he rubbed her cheek with his nose and gently placed his forepaw over his.

“I will not kill you my soul-mate,” Emerald Death declared, “two of the legendary elders of our kind do battle, and they are twins of the same egg. When they are finished, the world will change, and there is no telling what will come with the next dawn. I am terrified of other dragons who may go mad and come after our own children, that is the reason I told you to bring them here…”

He looked over at the six little ones playing and wrestling with each other, oblivious to the fact that given a chance, every other green dragon in the world would love to kill the three sets of twins hatched from the same clutch.

 

Brother Hart v Night Shade: unto the death and rebirth

₰₰ One hundred ₰₰​

Nestled among the forested hills and crags of north-eastern Shadowdale are the communities of Trail End, Providence, and of Half-High Hill. Each is less than a decade in age, settled by determined colonists who thrive in the challenge of life at civilizations edge. Strong walls, thick-stoned homes and shops line the main road and the central markets that are arranged in an interlocking pattern of defense to ensure any would be invader will pay dearly to conquer each community.

Their militia, and regular army archers and soldiers, priests and magicians had been alerted to the approach of Night Shade. Each one committed themselves to the death match to come, and accepted that their time on the world has ended – but with each minute they could delay the terror of Night Shade, more time would be gained by the others in the dale to make good their escape, or for the main army to make its stand.

The problem was, they ran out of time before their efforts could be finished…

₰​

No great storm preceded the arrival of Night Shade, for he chose to waste as little time on them as he deemed necessary. He still wanted to leave a clear trail for Brother Hart to follow, and to keep him enraged beyond all reason and common sense…he will fight Brother Hart this very night, but it shall be on his terms and his terms alone!!!

Night Shade hovered high in the night sky and drew forth of his mystical strength, focused his will on the three communities and commenced to cast a mighty spell…

The inhabitants of Trail End, Providence, and of Half-High Hill watched as the stars in the sky shifted, danced and merged into three distinct trails of fiery mist. There was no warning, no time to scream or pray, no time to shake heads in a final denial as death descended upon them from on high…

The three small comets slammed into the ground with such force as to instantly annihilate each community. The three holocausts unleashed finished off all life for over a mile in a vortex of heat, pressure, sound and hurricane force winds.

Out to three times that distance the immense forces wrought a massive earthquake that caused the communities of Weavers Den, Warm Springs, New Hope, Havens Rest, and three mining communities of dwarfs and gnomes to become twisted rubble and a charnel house of death beyond measure.

₰​

Lord Morgan watched from the highest tower of his home as the debris cloud ascended unto the heavens, and he knew Night Shade had arrived.

“My Lord, what does that signify?” Captain Horus-Re asked of his liege, “What sign from the heavens is it and what does it mean for us?”


Lord Morgan sighed and shook his head, “You ask, what sign from the heavens is it, and what does it mean? What it means Horus-Re is that Night Shade had arrived and Brother Hart cannot save us. We have to now and go and do our duty to the folks of the dale, to buy them time to flee and live, while we stand and die for them."

Captain Horus-Re bowed his head to Lord Morgan and turned to the nearest drummer, “Sound the alarm for the army and the militia to gather here at the castle and in the town proper. Send runners to remind them we have to hold at all costs, for the sake of their children and kin, there must be no retreat…”

Lord Morgan interrupted and added to the instructions, “Tell those of the town I and my bodyguard will make our stand with them. I will not cower behind walls of stone when one of my citizens is exposed to harm out in the open…we will meet our enemy head on, and where one stands all shall stand, where one goes all go, and where one falls, all shall fall...”

Lord Morgan looked at Horus-Re and smiled. He clasped his friends shoulder with his hand and said to him, “Until we stand together in the next world my friend; we will stand together in the ranks of the celestial armies and fight evil for eternity to come. That of course assumes I manage to avoid being killed in the next life after my mother learns her beloved son lost the kingdom she loved so much…”

“Until then my Lord,” Horus-Re said, and then he and all others turned to face the source of a mighty roar that told a very simple message…

The enemy, Night Shade, was upon then and no more time remained…

₰​

Night Shade stood tall and proud over the smoldering wreckage of Shadowdale – the town and the castle of late Lord Morgan. He roared in triumph and declared that no one can stop him from domination of all the Dales and any land he wished to claim as his own. None are like him, a dragon born of this world, a Draco-were twin of Brother Hart, and now so much more after he joined his flesh and soul with an entity from the Far Realms, and become so much greater…

Exactly as the defenders of Shadowdale found out…

The valiant, determined, and ultimately futile resistance of the army and militia had lasted for less than an hour; the castle fell first to his usage of spell and claw, until it had been reduced to molten rock and debris that will glow from the infernal heat for years to come.

The town below fell before his whirlwind frenzy of devastation, none could harm him in the least, and many died with horror on their faces as he finished them off.

Even fewer citizens of the town and castle had escaped, and those he intended to finish off before Brother Hart arrived. For each one represented another cause of grief, and of pain, to be inflicted upon that ones soul…

The very soul of iridescent fires whom even now closed for battle…

₰​

Snow Cat struggled with sleep as she tossed and turned, the song of all dragons blazed, burned, boiled and flowed with massive power and discord. She had sought to discover more of her heritage from Grinder, the one whose life-essence had given her form due to his manipulation of Night Shades magic.

She wanted his help to master the latest magic provided to her by Master Roerich, her husband.

Try as she might, she could not contact him. Nor for that matter could she reach through the song of all dragons unto Marcus or Hanna, nor Owl or any other of the Sisters of Essembra; the great song in which all dragons were connected for eternity howled in pain and disharmony, and she understood…

Brother Hart and Night Shade were about to join in mortal battle…

A battle that would end in the death of one or both, and for a moment she beheld a sight that shook her to the core of her being: the rising white-hot column of flame that unfolded into the glorious Phoenix as it ascended unto the heavenly realms.

She awoke to a scream of primal terror which all but shattered her hearing, and tore at her body, still in the process of healing from the Dragons-bane poison. “NOOOOO!” that voice wailed, a voice filled with anguish and terror, of loss and hopelessness, a voice filled with despair beyond anything she had ever heard before…

Her voice…

She sat up and covered her face with her hands and began to sob uncontrollably.

Master Roerich appeared a moment later in a blaze of golden light and flame; for he heard her scream and deemed it worth teleporting to her side.

“Snow Cat what is it? What has happened?” he asked of her as she collapsed against his chest. He said nothing more as he wrapped his arms around her and gently stroked her hair. No matter how he tried he could not get an answer from her, and wondered what great event was occurring even then, as the song of all dragons called out to him as never before. His dragon-heritage was far removed from the true dragons such as his beloved Snow Cat, but he felt a dramatic change was in the air…and what he sensed faintly, Snow Cat heard loud and clear…

He hoped the blaze of power and chaos within the song of all dragons did not scar her forever more…

₰₰ One hundred one ₰₰​

The few survivors of Night Shades attack cowered in caves, basements, in thick groves of trees and anywhere they could find shelter. They prayed for vengeance to come to the murderer of the dale and of their kin, for they all knew that the chances of escape to the southern dales were remote; many expected to never see the sun rise again over the hills and woods to the east.

Night Shades victory cry shook the ground, sundered mountains and cleaved the earth for miles; bridges and buildings that survived his invasion twisted, melted and collapsed. The very air itself distorted, bent, and turned into a foul morass of poisonous, sentient clouds of vapor. One by one, these sentient clouds opened eyes of pure darkness that displayed malevolence beyond comprehension; then they silently drifted off and commenced the hunt for any prey they could find.

He commenced to cast a complex chain of spells to summon creatures of darkness, chaos, corruption and sheer evil into the world. The very fabric of reality cried out in pain so horrendous that any mortal being nearby would have perished. Night Shades unholy bent, twisted, deformed and tore asunder reality as amethyst flames erupted from the ground; each pillar of flame formed a dimensional gate for the beings of darkness to enter the world.

And such an army he called forth…

The first to enter were the Night Wings – gigantic flying manta-rays of living darkness, and powerful enough to do battle with a Cloud Ray and win. Over six-score count of these malevolent rays joined in a graceful dance of death as they circled around Night Shade and then climbed high into the nighttime sky.

Next came undead from the realm of shadows, and they emerged by the hundred-count: great skeletons and zombies who moved with speed and grace of great warriors. Ghostly wraiths, shadows and specters, beings who hungered for the warmth and life-essence of the living, passed through the gates and began to assemble in vast ranks before their king.

Then emerged the demons – hulking vulture-demons who walked upright like a man, frog-shaped demons and four-armed terrors with the head of a jackal and crab-like claws in place of hands; scores of arrow-demons, ones with six arms and carrying three powerful compound bows formed in rank after rank and grudgingly pledged their service to Night Shade.

“My army, tonight we begin our conquest of the Dales and the surrounding lands,” he declared to the host of undead and demons. “But first, in honor of your great abilities, and for the sheer pleasure of the hunt, let us go and find the last pathetic remnants of humanity in the dale. Exterminate them completely after you have had your fun with them…”

The undead skeletons and zombies beat weapons on their shields, as the spectral undead wailed and moaned in honor of their liege. Each of the demons cheered at Night Shades command for them to hunt, to inflict terror and pain, and to shed the blood of mortals…

Night Shade roared for a second time, and thus declared to the survivors of his attack he is now on the hunt.

₰​

Amidst the bundled, haggard survivors men and women took up arms and tools, turned and hugged close kin, wives and husbands and children goodbye. In ones and twos, fives and tens across the dale they would make the final stand – hopeless as their cause is, to try and buy enough time for their families to escape. Most of them though understood there are no hopes, no escape, and no rescue from the terror that has claimed their home.

But they must try to flee or fight.

For this is their home, destroyed though it is, and they must make the effort, so some can return in the centuries to come and reclaim it from the darkness.

Any priests who had escaped with these groups cast their last magical blessings and defenses upon the few who would fight; then most chose to take up arms and shields, determined to stand and die with them as the creed of their faiths demanded.

One band of soldiers, members of the Royal Guard who had been charged to get Lady Laurel and her infant child out of the dale to Essembra, shook their heads and cursed as the vast army of Night Shade began the hunt.

“There will be no escape for us Huntsman Eric,” Lady Laurel said and began to sob as the Huntsman nodded his head. “Angels of the heavenly realms please here this plea, we do not know what we have done wrong to so be punished; but we ask for help to repel the darkness this night…”

The Huntsman and the Royal Guard appreciated her prayer, but acknowledged in their hearts and minds that no miracle will arrive to save any of them…

Even though that is what happened…

₰​

The very heavens themselves cried out as a great dragon appeared above them, its body ablaze with iridescent flame born of the spirit and the mind; a dragon, and a champion for the forces of justice and goodness whose eyes blazed with righteous fury and indignation for the carnage he beheld.

“Run all of you and do not look back, do not hesitate or stop, for vengeance has come this evening and I will stop Night Shade at all costs. Flee south through the druids grove of Brother Hart, you shall escape the notice of our shared enemy and of his minions, do not stop until you reach the southern dells and safety.” the great dragon – none other than Brother Hart himself – said unto all of them via a magical ‘mass communications’ spell.

Hart knew that the grove would become a magical gateway, transporting all who entered into another grove just outside of Essembra in Battledale. He had alerted his fellow druids and the Sisters and Knights of Essembra that they would soon arrive.


He watched for a moment as the people thanked him and fled with their families, having abandoned all else for the chance to escape with their lives. Soon enough he sensed the perversion and uttermost depravity and unholy corruption of his twin and mourned for the loss of so many people; then he used that sense of loss to fuel the fires of his rage and fury, and stoked them to unprecedented levels as he prepared to fight his last battle in this world.

Two hundred years ago he made a critical mistake; he had banished his brother, when he should have killed him outright and ended the menace for all time.

Two hundred years, in which time he had hoped and dreamed that peace really had come, and that his brother would stop the explorations into the Far Realm. Instead, he observed first hand the madness that is his brother; and the madness that has corrupted Cronus – the child of his beloved Snow Cat.

Even though he will fall this night, pass onto the heavenly realms with a clear heart, he had learned the lesson of Grinner the Force Dragon. He had prepared for one to inherit all of his knowledge and power, should she choose to accept it – and without any obligations, for it shall be his final gift.

“NIGHT SHADE I have come for you!!!” he roared, to ensure that his brother would come and engage him in battle…

“Arrogant, hypocritical fool, you actually came to try and save your precious Shadowdale and the insignificant people who once inhabited the place. Behold then my weak-willed twin, this home of yours and the land to the north, Daggerdale, is nothing but a land of the dead; the life energy of countless thousands has strengthened me beyond even your ability to imagine, let alone hope,” Night Shade telepathically sent to him.

“What can you possibly do to harm a mighty force of darkness such as me?” Night Shade asked as he spread his wings to take the battle into the skies. His mighty army had dissipated to the wind on the hunt for those who had escaped, but he will not need them.

“What can you do dear brother?” Night Shade asked, smug in the knowledge even Brother Hart cannot harm him…

He discovered a moment later, to his eternal amazement, just what Brother Hart could do…

₰₰ One hundred two ₰₰​

The blast of pure annihilating force slammed Night Shade squarely in the chest; the iridescent fires sundered his armored hide. Muscles and flesh were consumed, bones shattered or were reduced to powder, organs burst and blood boiled and flashed into steamy mist. The wound continued to spread and threatened to devour all of the physical form of Night Shade as he screamed as never before in his life.

A second great blast, followed by a third catapulted Night Shade over two yards away and rendered yet more damage to his body. One wing vanished under the unrelenting holocaust of force, as did most of his left hind leg and the night-black scaled tail he was so proud of…

The ground shook as Brother Hart landed only feet away from his wounded brother. His eyes grew brighter than the sun at high noon as he advanced to finish off Night Shade, but he knew the fight was far from over at this time…

‘You asked you infernal monstrosity,” Brother Hart said as he carefully approached. He watched as the massive damage his breath had wrought began to flow and dance with shadow-stuff; bones grew and muscle and hide knit themselves back together within seconds, as did the destroyed leg, tail and wing.

Hart knew that Night Shade could shake off such damage and much, much more before being seriously hurt. But even this ability, granted to his brother by the forces of the Far Realm, had its limits, and the reserve had been seriously drained…for now…

Then Night Shade rolled and whirled onto his feet, looked with fury at Brother Hart and chuckled.

“You can do nothing to defeat me you fool!” Night Shade called out to Brother Hart and circled around with his brother, each tensed and on guard for the first mistake they can take advantage of; for in dragon-on-dragon combat, the first mistake an opponent can exploit to full effect will often end the battle instantly.

“I am more powerful than you could imagine! I offered you the chance for true power and immortality all those years ago brother, but no, instead you choose to become the guardian of the Dales,” Night Shade declared, pure contempt and scorn filled his words.

“That’s because some of us understand dear brother,” Brother Hart declared as the iridescent fires of his body stoked to ever higher levels, “the price that power-mad idiots such as yourself are willing to pay for so-called power when it means your immortal essence is corrupted.”

“You no longer hear the song of all dragons, my dear brother,” Hart said with scorn in his voice, “as you no longer are a true dragon, or even a Draco-were; you are a thing from another dimension, one who has become a figment of power, an illusion of shadow-stuff upon the face of this world. I exist to fight such monstrosities as you have become, to prove that the light is mightier than the darkness…”

Night Shade scowled, his anger rolled off of his form in waves of primordial power that made the very heavens and earth hold still. The long, low, resonating growl he emitted as his anger built to primordial heights of rage shook the foundations of the world, and extended for miles in all directions, across sky and forest, river and the mightiest oceans where in the depths all life fled and scattered as if Armageddon had arrived.


“You have lost your beloved Shadowdale, and all that your useless ideals and code of honor stood for,” Night Shade declared as his eyes became pools of infinite darkness that no light escaped from. “In short my dear brother you have lost everything in having failed to stop me; I murdered two dales, and now I will turn on the elven kingdom due to your interference and then I will kill your children if Cronus – another of your greatest failures – does not do so…’

The laughter of Brother Hart halted Night Shade in mid-gloat.

“You already have sent an aspect of yourself to do battle with Master Roerich who soundly defeated it,” Brother Hart declared with a laugh. “I witnessed that battle, and also learned of it first hand from Roerich who is, as you already know, an old ally and friend of mine. Thus I know the truth of you my brother; you are the emptiness of the night, the fallacy of life given the appearance of animation and existence…”

“In short brother, I still have won, for you have defeated yourself,” Brother Hart chuckled and knew that he had succeeded in goading his brother to strike…which is exactly what he had planned.

In a blur of motion Night Shade leaped forward and struck with his mighty claws and teeth as he attempted to overwhelm Hart with brute force. The iridescent fires of Brother Harts body, combined with the great magical defenses he had enacted earlier in the night, deflected or absorb the impact and the unholy corruption which accompanied them.

Brother Hart rolled with the impact, inhaled deeply as his majestic claws seized Night Shade, and then breathed a blast of pure sound. The mighty force was deflected by the Counter-Sonic shield of his foe, one of many such mighty magical defenses that rivaled Brother Harts.

The two great dragons grappled, clawed and bit at one another as they rolled head-over-tail among the ruins of the town. Finally they went over the high cliff of Skull Cragg and into the waters of Lake Defiance, which had been twisted and corrupted into an unholy morass by the presence of Night Shade, and disappeared into the darkened depths.

The waters churned and frothed as both great dragons battled in the dark depths. The tempest they unleashed sent great cascades of water hundreds of feet into the atmosphere, while blinding arcs of electricity and clouds of poisonous and acidic mists clawed and swirled from its surface unto the surrounding land.

Mighty blasts of concussive force and hammer-blows swept the waters of Lake Defiance over the hills which had confined it for millennia. Then the combatants neared the surface and danced in a great cloud of iridescent fires and unceasing darkness; neither of the dragons – Force or Shadow, could gain the edge over the other as they leaped out of the water and landed on the boulder strewn shores.

Brother Hart reared on his haunches and leaped at Night Shade, and discovered that his foe had cast an illusion that replicated his form. “Where is he…” Hart began to say as he turned his head this way and that in search of Night Shade…

Only to be grappled by two great hand-shaped fields of corrupted magical force. Once, twice, three times he was slammed into the hard granite cliff of Skull Cragg. The mighty blows stunned Brother Hart, and the unholy corruption burned and gnawed away at the purity of the Force Dragon as it ate away at the iridescent flames of mind and spirit energy.

₰₰ One hundred three ₰₰​

The magical hands lifted him upward and smashed him over and over into the cliff with such savagery that the stone itself spider-webbed and fractured. Brother Hart managed to focus his mind and will for an instant, in which he shouted a word of mystical power; both hands disappeared as the magic that sustained them ceased to be, and he regained his feet.

“Where are you, you cowardly brother of mine!” Brother Hart roared as he twisted to look up at the cliff top, the one likely spot for an ambush. “Come down here you coward, come down…” Brother Hart heard the faint snap of stone from stone as a portion of the stone cliff liquefied under Night Shades magic, and flowed as the acidic brew hissed and steamed.

Brother Hart ignored the acid and the sulfuric-ladened mud; for a Force Dragon is impervious to such forces of nature…he turned back to the lake, having estimated his brother still hid within its depths. “Fair enough brother, if you will not come out and do battle, then my job is all that easier in destroying you…” he said and cast three mighty spells: Sun fire Holocaust.

Each one called down a brilliant column of white hot flame that encompassed and personified all goodness, law, order, holiness and all that is sacred. Above all these concepts and philosophies, one ruled absolute: justice.

Lake Defiance and the confining crags around it ceased to be, reduced to particles of light and brilliant energy as all was consumed. Brother Hart’s wounds healed and he was purified of the corruption that had crept into his system; and became stronger than before – one of the blessings for all beings of goodness provided for by the magic…

Most would assume Night Shade had perished, but he knew otherwise, for the song of all dragons sounded the disharmony represented by his brother all too clearly. Brother Hart kept his preternaturally keen senses on alert, and detected the first units of Night Shades army of darkness beginning to return to aid their king and lord.

He turned his head and watched the top of Skull Cragg as a chain of hammer blows commenced. “Oh Hades,” Brother Hart screamed as the entire undermined section of the cliff – over two hundred feet of dense stone, dislocated and fell upon him an instant later. More stones rained down upon the heap of debris that emerged amidst clouds of dust and churned snow and ice; from beneath the wreckage, nothing stirred.

“And so it ends for my idiotic brother…” Night Shade declared from atop the jagged edge of the cliff. The raw stone steamed and smoldered as hot gases rose in columns unto the heavens. He grinned and looked over the burial cairn of Brother Hart as the last cloud of dust dissipated, and shook his head in slack-jawed denial…

For the pile of debris was far too small to have contained the corpse of Brother Hart…

Then he caught the distinct smell of sulfur and brimstone…

“Oh nuts!” he shouted a moment too late, for he sensed the quartet of embers that rapidly closed upon the torn cliff side. The four fireballs, enhanced by Brother Hart to triple their normal fiery strength erupted just below Night Shades head, neck and chest, but failed to inflict any damage upon him; but they did succeed in igniting the collected natural gas which flowed from the torn rocks.

For an instant of time, a second sun dawned over Skull Cragg as the intense forces savaged Night Shade. He was tossed across the ruined town, and landed with the grace of a large boulder.


Brother Hart grinned and ended his invisibility spell, “Nice to see some of the old tricks still work. Short-ranged teleport, invisibility and a nice quartet of super-charged fireballs; add some explosive gas and, boom, no more problem.”

He flapped his wings and landed on the smoldering remains of Skull Cragg, now reduced to little more than a lump of molten stone. He headed at a fast gallop towards the town ruins, determined to find and finish off his brother while he could. Or if worse came to worse, he will enact the power which Roerich had mastered so long ago…

To stop Night Shade, to prevent the death of Snow Cat and Marcus, and allow his children and Snowflake to live in a more peaceful world, he will do whatever it takes…

Even if the ultimate price demanded for that peace is his life.

₰​

High Lord Cronus and his court advisors watched in a large shimmering field of golden-white light the battle between Brother Hart and Night Shade.

They watched as the two great dragons played a game of cat-and-mouse amidst the town ruins. One would goad the other with words, false sounds, feints and distractions while they maneuvered for a quick strike with deadly spell or to engage with claw and teeth.

Time and again great bolts of white-hot lightning, brilliant flame and holocausts of acid flew and sought to rend and tear flesh and muscle, crush organs and break bones. Sometimes the magic was negated by the formidable counter-shields and wards each dragon had emplaced around himself, sometimes it scored home.

Even when both dragons roared, reared, then engaged in claw-to-claw combat – in which the earth shook, stone and wood shattered, and the very air reverberated under the hammer blows – little lasting harm was done.

Time and again High Lord Cronus yelled and cried out when his liege lord Night Shade smashed an attack or a damaging spell home. His court advisors and bodyguard cheered along with him, and moaned and groaned whenever Brother Hart seemed to gain the upper hand.

Then Brother Hart staggered as Night Shade slammed his head with a tail strike that crushed bone and sent the great dragon to the ground. Night Shade unleashed a barrage of amethyst-fires upon Hart, who screamed and writhed as the corrupt flames consumed his flesh and bones, and the iridescent fires of his existence dimmed bit by bit…

Then Brother Hart lay still and moved no more…

Night Shade roared in triumph, as did Cronus and his court, and then he approached the smoldering corpse to ensure the death was permanent…

Only to understand Brother Hart had faked his death when those twin pools of white-hot righteous indignation opened…Brother Hart struck hard and fast, and did not show any iota of mercy…

₰​

Night Shade staggered as Brother Hart smashed him in the side with his mighty tail, and pierced the magical Greater Stone Skin defenses.

The iridescent light and flame of spirit and mind, that which personified a Force Dragons existence, tore a great gash into his hide, a wound which festered and burned as golden fires continued to writhe and consume the shadow-stuff it encountered.

Night Shade roared in pain and anger, and for the first time since the battle began he grew afraid, for he had consistently underestimated Brother Hart…

Night Shade screamed as Brother Hart unleashed a relentless assault of claw and bite, tail strikes and magical blasts of lightning and flame, bursts of sunlight which burned and sound which rendered his flesh and muscle to bloody pulp. His mighty regeneration ability prevailed over most of the damage, but step by step, he knew that Brother Hart finally had gained the upper hand…

₰​

In the far southern deserts of the Sea of Dust, a conclave of Sand Dragons had gathered to watch and wonder at the great battle between Brother Hart and Night Shade.

The image played before them in the depths of a huge slab of black obsidian. Not one sound was made among the thirty-five dragons, most of whom had seen five-centuries or more of life, were captivated by the battle that was waged in Shadowdale.

Anyone who looked closer would notice that each dragon shook in sublime terror as a tail twitched or swayed in nervous apprehension, one drew his tail about himself as he settled on the ground and his forepaw tapped upon the ground. Here one showed a nervous twitch of the eye. There another showed the same twitching on the lower lips.

Hot blasts of air and smoke escaped their lips and nostrils, the intense furnaces of their bodies stoked hotter and hotter as the anxiety and fear grew. For they did not know, if the winner would lash out at the Sand Dragons here in the Sea of Dust and seek to dominate or annihilate one and all.

Thus they had gathered in the high cliffs and caverns of stone to shelter their young. If Brother Hart or Night Shade came and desired battle, then battle they shall have, for the sake of the dragon twins who even now played and frolicked under the watchful gaze of the most powerful Sand Dragon known: Blazing Sun.

Two centuries ago Night Shade and his minions had raided the area and captured many of their eggs. None of them survived his corrupting magic, and all vowed they will never let it happen again: they will go down into death before allowing their children and eggs to be seized.

“Never again, I will never allow my children to be killed or taken,” Blazing Sun declared as he felt the surge of power and magic that ended the battle in Shadowdale. He shuddered and staggered, stunned by the vision of a great Phoenix as it ascended unto the heavenly realms.

₰₰ One hundred four ₰₰​

Night Shade felt the last of his defensive wards and shields collapse before the relentless hammer blows of Brother Hart. His mystical reserves completely exhausted, the great power granted to him by the forces of the Far Realm had finally ceased to be effective, and he knew the end game had arrived…

He prepared for the moment to come of his death…

And soon after, what shall be his greatest of triumphs; for he had cast a contingency spell that will transfer all of his knowledge, power and abilities unto another, and allow him to rise again…

Or so he thought, for in his arrogance, he had sealed his own fate…

₰​

Brother Hart lifted his forepaw and focused all of his strength, passion, frustration and power into this last blow which ripped into the chest of Night Shade.

Both dragons screamed as the forepaw pierced the shadowy non-existence that held Night Shades existence together, his true heart born of the Far Realm and not the one of muscle and flesh. The absolute corruption and perversion flowed into Brother Hart’s body, sought to crush his will and consume his mind and very existence as the iridescent flames began to dim…

Night Shade unleashed a final defiant blast of amethyst-tinged shadowy flames which burned and gnawed at the spiritual and mind energy which defined a Force Dragons existence. But in the end it was to no avail, as the two of them knew their battle was over…

“Kill me now brother and I will still live on, you do not have the power to stop me…” Night Shade said as his voice began to fade; the infinite darkness within his eyes began to dissipate.

“Once again dear brother, you have gambled all and are proven wrong,” Brother Hart said as he triggered his mightiest of magic, the only one which would ensure the corruption in Shadowdale was annihilated, along with his brother. The night lit up with the purest of heavenly flames as the spell activated, fueled to its fullest abilities by the willing sacrifice of Brother Hart’s very life.

And so came into the world: The Phoenix Force.

Of Brother Hart and Night Shade nothing remained as the great fire-bird formed and rose on a brilliant column of flame and spiritual might. The holy fires spread out in rippling waves which consumed and purified the land, devoured all of the undead and demonic forces, and freed Shadowdale from all of Night Shades corruption and darkness.

Of the dead souls claimed by the unholy magic of Night Shade, the Phoenix gathered the soft blue-white orbs within its wings. It held its place in the sky for a moment as one last orb of pure golden holiness – the last living essence of Brother Hart – paused and looked for one last time on the world he had called home for such a long time, and then joined the rest, and the Phoenix slid between layers of reality and carried them all unto their eternal reward in the next world.


The first golden fires of the sun climbed over the battered and torn land as a new day dawned at long last.

A single bird that had survived the madness of the past night looked at its ruined home and wept, then cheeped out a song of eternal hope and life, assured that in the fullness of time; spring would return and bring with it a new beginning for all.

Yet for many, the passing of the great dragon twins marked the end of an era, and the start of an unknown chapter they were reluctant to face…

₰​

The ending of Brother Hart and Night Shade hit all of those with the remotest trace of dragons-blood hard and left them stunned by the image of a great Phoenix rising into the night.

Roerich managed to hold onto Snow Cat as she screamed and shook in sheer terror and grief, her loss so very profound that none save another dragon could understand. Tears cascaded down her cheeks as the whirlwinds of the song called out in a communal dirge of mourning for the loss of one so great in the world as Brother Hart. She felt a portion of his being, that part which belonged to the song of all dragons, merge into the song for the rest of eternity, yet even this could not ease the massive wound in her heart and soul.

Her mighty wails and cries became a song of remembrance for the one who had done his best to raise her and Marcus. She all but crushed her husband in a mighty embrace and buried her head into his shoulder in a vain effort to find some comfort – for the final act of Brother Hart had already appeared for her, the sum total of all his knowledge, power and abilities as a truly ancient Force Dragon, and a gift she had willingly accepted.

Snow Cats song merged with that of Marcus, and in due time, that of Hanna’s and the nearest forest wyrms who knew a great loss to their kind had occurred.

Within the expeditions grounds, all of the ‘experts’ who assumed they knew all about dragons understood then and there, they really knew nothing. For even the most hard and jaded of hearts and souls were moved by the force and power of the mournful dragons and their kinfolk.

It was a view into a grander world that most knew they could never belong to.

₰​

Marcus ascended the nearest hillside and faced the morning sun where he rose on his haunches and roared loud and long, then began to recite the ancient prayers and hymns of the dead, something reserved only for the loss of the greatest of their kind. Marcus carried this out across the morning and into the afternoon, and declared to the world at large of the man whom he called father, and how much he will be missed…

Hanna joined in with Marcus, and soon the larger woods on both sides of the river echoed with the cries of a hundred Forest and Path Breaker wyrms. This rippled out across the length, breadth, heights and depths of the world until all of dragon-kind cried out in a song of mourning for the great loss that has befallen their species.

People within the many communities near these dragons paused, and wondered in amazement, awe and terror at this revelation of dragon-kind.

₰​

Dame Lae’lion felt the mourning deep within her soul, and felt something stir; for a moment she felt a kinship with the dragons and the wyrms that cried aloud in the forest and in the camp. She had no idea why this strange feeling occurred, but she determined that once Snow Cat was well enough to do so, she would speak with her about it at long last.

That night as she slept, her dreams were troubled as never before, as she too began to dream of dragons. In the song of all dragons, which began to open before her, she began to understand so much more of herself than ever before…

₰​

In Ashabenford, High Lord Cronus screamed as the entirety of Night Shades strength, knowledge, power and very life-essence poured into him in an instant; he fought with all of his might and willpower to avoid complete annihilation of his being. That had been the final plan of Night Shade, so that in case of his death; his conscious mind and soul would replace that of Cronus, and he would live once again.

Yet he had failed in one critical area: for he had assumed the dual nature of Cronus – dragon and mortal left the man vulnerable. Instead it granted him a will stronger than a mountain, and thus all that was Night Shade, now fully belonged to High Lord Cronus, and made him more powerful than most could imagine…

For a time silence reigned in the great hall as all looked upon their transformed High Lord…

Cronus descended the staircase from his throne to the main floor and shouted, “Behold my people, the gods have granted me power to defeat our enemies for all of time! We have asked for a sign to know our enemies in Essembra, and in the Heartland River Expedition will be destroyed; we have that now, so prepare all of you my commanders, a new day dawns for us as Night Shade punished the folk of Shadowdale and Daggerdale and gave his life to destroy Brother Hart…”

“And so we now are free to focus on the remaining enemies we have – and conquer the dales who will not join us in alliance as has Scardale,” High Lord Cronus declared. His troops, whipped into shape and fanatically devoted to him, beat their shields with blade, spear or mace, while the rest of his court cheered.

The dragon-men, half-dragons and dragon-kin acknowledged his sovereignty as they bowed down before him, and declared “Hail High Lord Cronus, the king of dragons!”

“Twenty days from today we launch the attack on Essembra, and there is to be no mercy shown,” Cronus declared to the continued cheers and cries of glory from his people. “Once Essembra lies in ruins, and the many Knights and Sisters of Essembra are destroyed, then we will turn on Master Roerich and rid ourselves of him once and for all.”

“Twenty days, and we launch the attack,” High Lord Cronus reiterated and then departed for his personal chambers.


He had much to do, and not much time to do it in, for he expected the three prong attack by Night Shades forces to end in utter disaster.

He counted it to his good fortune that he had mercenaries stationed to the south and east of Crossing, and he would bring them into action. Plus, by the time Roerich hit Crossing, he would have the four Draco-liches and hopefully one or more flights of dragons recruited to his side.

And of course, the beasties from the river should arrive just as the battle between Roerich’s forces and those of the late Night Shades armies under Caesar, Cyrus and Corinthian have been concluded …

₰​

“It is confirmed my fellow brethren,” Caesar said as he entered the field tent occupied by Cyrus and Corinthian.
“Lord Night Shade perished in the final confrontation with Brother Hart. Our liege was delivering justice upon those of Shadowdale and Daggerdale who stood in opposition to him, who stood alongside Master Roerich and his forces…”

His two fellow priests shook their heads, and sighed at the loss of their liege lord Night Shade.

Caesar looked at his companions and co-commanders over the three armies, “Now comes a question we have to ask; do we go to work with High Lord Cronus, who now claims to be the rightful successor to our fallen liege? Do we strike out on our own? Or do we continue the advance, crush Master Roerich and the Heartland River Expedition, and then go after that bloated windbag Cronus?”

Caesar, Cyrus and Corinthian looked at one another and instantly agreed – Roerich first, then Cronus, and then the rest of the Dales.

Of course Cyrus never bothered to mention one small complication to the plan: he had made a private deal with the ‘tub of lard, High Lord Cronus,’ in the event disaster occurred. After all, one cannot collect on the wealth promised by Cronus if one does not survive a battle guaranteed to slaughter ones comrades-in-arms.

“Besides which,” Cyrus stated to no one in particular, “power is better established in ones own hands than when it is divided between three sets of hands. And of course, if Cronus meets with an accident…”