“By your words do I know where to seek my vengeance for this runt Elgo’s wrongdoing: Kachar is where I shall go, for there will I find King Aranor, sire to the presumptuous one. There, too, shall I find the foul-beards who robbed me of my pleasure, and they shall know that what is mine is mine, and that includes the revenge I am owed.
“But first I shall take that which is my due: the stolen bed of Sleeth.”
Kalgalath cast forth his awareness, and below the castle he sensed the gold. And as Elyn watched in helpless desperation. BOOM! Black Kalgalath whelmed his massive tail into the main tower, shattering it at the base, and slowly it toppled outward, crashing like thunder down into the bailey, brick and stone smashing asunder, and inside could be heard the screams of the dying. The Dragon slithered up over the wrack and onto the ruin left behind, moving forward into the remaining part of the castle, his mighty claws rending and tearing, shattering the structure as he went, his power, his strength, beyond measure. And always there came the shrieks of those caught within the bursting halls and collapsing walls, and the sobbing and moaning of those trapped within the rubble. At last he stopped his advance, and down dug the great Drake, ripping aside the stone floor, blocks sent flying, slabs tumbling, stone plates shattering upon impact.
And then the treasure was exposed unto the daylight, gold glittering in the Sun, jewels sparkling, a hoard revealed. And Kalgalath was well pleased by its volume, though he wished for more. And he cast his awareness forth into the prize, but no small silver horn did he sense. Andrak would be disappointed, though the thought of the Mage being thwarted gave pleasure to the Dragon.
Reaching down with a great webbed claw, the black Drake grasped a clench of the trove and raised it up before his eyes, gripping it in his left clutch. It glittered in the sunlight, and felt smooth, pleasurable to his clasp. Tilting his clawed foot, he allowed the treasure to cascade from his webbing and fall back into the trove, and gold struck gold, a chinging music. But how to bear the hoard back unto his lair?
Turning, he came face to face with the Human that had stood atop the wall. Grim visaged, she bore a bow fitted with fletched arrow. Letting fly, the shaft sped at Kalgalath’s eye, but ere it struck, the nictitating membrane flashed downward o’er long slitted pupil, and the bolt crashed into the crystalline layer and fell harmlessly to earth. Kalgalath’s brazen laughter rang forth, and he offhandedly slapped her aside. She was hurled backwards into a ruin of a wall, whelming into loosened bricks that toppled upon impact, cascading, crashing to the floor, Elyn fallen among the rubble. And she moved no more.
Slithering out from the wreckage, the Drake made his way to the barbican, and metal shrieked as he reft aside the portcullis as if it were no more than an insignificant hindrance. And he slid under the arch and to the iron gates and whelmed the midpoint of the rightmost one, buckling the cladding and splintering the interior wood, shattering the great bar. Hurling aside the broken beam, twice more he smote upon the thick plating, hammering it concave. He eyed his work, and then ripped the incurved metal from its hinges, and stripped away the ruptured wood and the outer cladding from the ruined gate. Retaining the inner plate, Black Kalgalath dragged the thick concave sheet behind as he slid back unto the shattered tower, leaving the great iron dent lying in the forecourt.
When he slithered once more to the trove, the Human was gone, but it mattered not. Reaching down and scooping up two clawed grips of riches, the Drake awkwardly made his way to the bent metal, placing the wealth within. Sliding back, the Dragon reached down into the treasury and grasped more, returning to the curved plating and depositing the plunder. Trip after trip he made, transferring the trove from the wrecked treasury to the great iron dish, until it was done.
Again the Dragon cast out his senses, and once more affirmed that there was no small silver horn within his purview. And he laughed at what he knew would be Andrak’s rage.
The hiding Humans did not escape his attention, for he detected many cowering or trapped within the wreckage or fleeing across the plain. And so he spewed forth fire, blasting the places where he knew these cringing creatures huddled in fear, setting structures aflame, slaying horses, scorching the land.
Looking about, the Drake saw wreckage and flame and death, and was well pleased with his handiwork. And clenching the treasure-laden iron plate with grasping talons, hind claw as well as fore, bellowing a deafening roar, once again he took to wing, his great black leathery pinions straining up into the air, haling the massive trove into the sky, struggling to gain altitude, moving eastward all the while.
And to the end, from the safety of the hiding place where she had dragged the Princess, Mala clasped the unconscious Elyn unto her bosom and watched Black Kalgalath, the Destroyer, the Pillager, wreak his havoc and then fly away, hatred in her eye.
CHAPTER 28
Mid and Late Fall, 3E1602
[This Year]
In an ebon fortress wreathed about by shadows and twists and edges and veerings and mumblings and whisperings that mazed the unwary mind, a dark Mage loomed above a potent token of power: silveron it was, but not to the eye; yet for those with the talent to see, it seemed to pulse with a life of its own. It was a hammer. It was a warhammer. It was the Kammerling. Lying in clutter upon the table.
The Mage stood in concentration, preparing to See. Slowly, he turned his outer eyes inward, and his inner eye outward, his eyes rolling upward, backward, cornea, pupil, iris disappearing, turning inward, until nought but black peered outward, for the sclera of this Mage’s eyes were ebon as jet. And he spoke a word of power, invoking Vision. And now he could see that which had been concealed from the ordinary eye, for the inner eye perceives the hidden, the unseen, the invisible.
The Mage reached forward with his dark hands, palms outward, and lightly touched the fringes of the Kammerling’s intangible aura. “They live,” he hissed.
Angered, the Man, the Elf, leaned back in the tall high-backed seat and closed his ebon eyes and forced his fists to unclench, and slid his hands along the length of the twisted wood of the arms of the chair, arms that ended in claws, upturned and clutching. Placing his grip in that of the throne, he mumbled a word or two.
Across the dark jagged crests atop ivory mountains he flew, images reversed: Light was dark; red was green; violet, yellow; blue, orange. . all was turned opposite. O’er red and violet plains and scarlet hills, orange lakes and vermilion forests, grey and dun rivers and variegated rocks he sped, seeking quarry. And though the Sun stood on high, still Andrak sped onward, for sunlight had no hold o’er his etheric being. At last he came unto a rudden wood about which pulsed a dark luminescence that he could not penetrate. Standing just within the perimeter was a great ebon Wolf. . yet no Wolf was this; instead it was a Draega, a Silver Wolf. And the Wolf turned its auric eyes upward and stared directly at the dark visitant, seeing the true shape, the true colors of the ethereal Mage. And the Draega showed no fear, for fear was not to be found within this silver being of Adonar.
About the warded wood hurtled the Mage, testing, probing, yet he could not pierce the barrier. And he was certain that the two he sought were within.
Raging in impotence, he retreated, fleeing above the antithetic ’scape, following the tenuous strand backwards, retracing his flight, coming at last unto the ivory fortress atop the white hill, speeding through light-filled halls and up into the luminous chamber where his bright self sat within the pale emerald chair.