Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

doing.

However, as the Aramite pulled back his weapon for another vicious cut, a tree branch suddenly got in the way of his sword arm. Cursing, the hooded attacker pulled his arm around, but his swing was ruined. He sidestepped the tree, but then another branch caught him in the face.

“Dogs of war! What is-” The rest became unintelligible as yet another branch shifted, despite the direction of the wind, and struck him soundly in the unprotected throat.

Upturned roots caused his advance to falter. As he stumbled, the raider almost dropped the box, but at the last moment, he managed to retain his grip. That was his only success, however, for now he could not manage to lower his sword arm. Worse yet, the blade itself was now tangled in a mesh of smaller, intertwined branches above the raider’s head.

Cabe allowed himself a slight smile at the sight of his handiwork. His adversary had blundered directly into it. In fact, it had almost been too easy. The warlock had never truly been in danger. It was an odd sensation, so easily defeating the threat. Cabe kept expecting some last-second trick by either the trapped leader or some henchman still in hiding, but inside he knew that no trick would be coming. Each passing second left the raider more and more hopelessly entangled. Already he could no longer move.

One time I garner a quick and easy victory and I can’t be satisfied with that! He tried to shake the doubts away, but failed. Sighing, Cabe decided to simply ignore them. The doubts could not take away the fact that he had won.

Walking over to the imprisoned leader, Cabe reached out and pried the box from his helpless hand. “Thank you.”

His prisoner said nothing.

Cabe looked close, utilizing his enhanced vision to study the one before him. He did not recognize the man, but he had the look of an officer. Aramite officers were, to his bitter recollection, deceitful monsters with sadistic streaks. One of them had killed the Gryphon’s firstborn. That one was dead, but Cabe knew that the lionbird would find this one of almost as much interest.

“Tell me about this box, wolf raider.” He held the offensive artifact up close to the Aramite’s scowling face.

There was a peculiar look in what Cabe could see of that ugly visage. With a rough, humorless laugh, the leader replied, “You’ll have to find out about it on your own, spellmonger. It’ll be my last gift to you and yours.”

It was too late by the time the warlock reacted.

With a gasp, the imprisoned raider began to shake. His entire form convulsed, so much so that he almost shook free of the binding branches. That was not the man’s intention, though. Cabe tried to counter whatever spell was upon the raider, but the same defensive measure that had prevented him from directly attacking blocked these spells as well. What it did not block, however, was the thing killing his prisoner, which to Cabe meant that the source lay somewhere within the Aramite’s body.

“Drazeree!” muttered the warlock, calling upon a legendary and possibly blood-related hero/god of the age of the Vraad. What Cabe witnessed now was worthy of the foul Vraad and possibly would have revolted even a few of them.

The guards had spoken of the assassins literally crumbling to ash. He could only assume that this was the same spell, for it seemed unlikely that anyone would devise two such similar horrors.

The Aramite grew ashen-faced. His clothing, with the exception of the cloak and the armor, appeared to crackle and break. The raider laughed, but the laugh quickly became a gurgle as first the man’s teeth and tongue, then his entire jaw, fell away.

Without warning, the decomposing figure slipped free of the branches and slumped to the ground. A terrible mound of gray flakes formed around his diminishing body. Now, there emerged no sound from Cabe’s hapless prisoner. The appalled spellcaster doubted that the man was still alive. The graying skin crumbled off of the raider’s face, followed without pause by the skull and hair.

Cabe turned away, too sick to his stomach to watch the final moments. In little more than the blink of an eye, he had watched a living creature be reduced to dust.

By the time he had recovered enough to look again, all that remained of the leader was his cloak, partly tangled in the tree branches, empty bits of black armor . . . and an unsettling mound of dust. He forced himself to sift through the remains, but there was no sign of what had protected his adversary from his spells or what had finally killed the wolf raider. In fact, there was not much of anything. No clues. Nothing.

Then it was that Cabe Bedlam recalled the other hooded figures. His stomach recoiled, but he had no choice. He suspected what he would find, but that did not mean he did not have to look.

It proved to be as he had feared. Of the others, even the drake who had fallen for his trick, there remained nothing but bits of armor, metal objects, the mysterious cloaks, and foul piles of ash.

Had they willingly let this be done to them? He could hardly believe so, despite what the leader had said, and despite the words that had given credence to the notion that the Aramite had been responsible for this entire plot. He was aware that he was grasping at straws, but too many things had fallen into place easily while others had not.

The warlock studied the carved exterior of the box as if it could give him some of the answers he craved.

To his surprise, it gave the two most important answers of all. Both he desired, but one he would have preferred not to have known.

The box was what he had feared it would be. An artifact so ancient but still capable of the evil for which it had been created. Exhaling, the weary sorcerer cautiously touched the front. At least it had not been designed to confound. Opening it would be the easy part, possibly the only easy part from this point on.

Cabe turned the box so that it would open away from him. Then, taking a deep breath, he pressed the lock and lifted the lid back.

The scream shattered the night and almost caused the warlock to drop the box. A black cloud burst forth from the box, a black cloud darker than night.

“I am free! Free!” A mocking laugh followed, a laugh almost as horrifying in its own way as the shriek preceding it.

The black cloud sprouted long legs and a tail. A head, at first twisted and unidentifiable, grew from the front of the cloud, while at the same time the tail rose in the back.

Darkhorse coalesced before him, the shadow steed’s hooves more than a yard from the earth below.

“I am free!” he roared. The eternal looked down and the ice-blue orbs that were his eyes widened at the small figure below and before him. “Cabe!”

“Darkhorse, I-” He had no chance to finish his statement, for the shadow steed was suddenly whirling about in the air, eyes seeking. “Where are they, Cabe? Where are those misbegotten vermin who have dared reintroduce me to my worst nightmare? I will draw them in and let them taste eternal emptiness! Where are they, Cabe?”

“They’re dead.”

At first the shadow steed did not believe him. He snorted and darted toward the nearest cloak, not yet realizing what it represented. Kicking it aside, the eternal studied with confusion the ash beneath. “What is this dust?”

The spellcaster closed the box and placed it in the folds of his robe. He would deal with the box in prompt order, but first he had to calm the maddened stallion. “That’s all that’s left of them, Darkhorse. I saw it happen to the leader.”

“No! I will not be denied! I cannot be!”

He kicked at the cloak, then trotted to one of the other piles. Watching the huge form dart about in the darkness, Cabe was torn between letting things end here or voicing his beliefs. To him, the box was the deciding point between taking the struggle here at face value or seeing the wolf raider and his men as the pawns they might be. In the warlock’s eyes, the Aramite and his henchmen had died so that someone else would remain anonymous.

Unfortunately for that someone, Cabe had not fallen for the ploy.