Son of the Dragon (The Netherworld Gate Book 3) Read online

  Talon watched in silent horror as Basei turned on her. His left hand reached out and grabbed her by the waist. His steely, talon-like gauntlet wrapped around her and he brought her up to his face.

  The boy couldn’t hear what she was saying now, as the shouts and screams around him drowned everything out. Then, the god spoke in a voice like thunder.

  “Your goat means nothing,” Basei said in a terrible growl. “A meager plea for protection from a woman and her fragile son.” Basei dropped her, then plunged his sword through her chest. Talon squeaked when his mother fell to the dirt. Basei then turned and set fire to everything, and everyone, around him. Humans, orcs, animals, and buildings were hewn down and burned. Ash and embers filled the air as blood spilled over the ground.

  Had the winch holding the bucket not given way in that instant, Basei might very well have seen Talon as well. Fortunately for the boy, he was dropped down into the cold water and spared the horrid fate that consumed everyone else. Occasionally he saw flames or smoke wash over the top of the well, but Basei never found the boy.

  He waited in the water for a long time, too afraid to move even after the ground stopped quaking and the smoke above began to thin.

  After hours that seemed to drag on for years, Talon gathered the courage to leave the well. He wasn’t entirely sure Basei was gone, but all had been silent for so long, that it seemed a good time to escape the well. Talon began to climb out of the well. He slipped more than a couple of times, but eventually made it out, pulling himself over the stone wall of the well and dropping down onto the dirt. He startled when he nearly bumped noses with an orc. He pushed up from the ground and scooted back toward the well, but breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that it was only an orc’s head that had spooked him. He looked up and saw the smoldering ruins of his home. Ashes floated down like falling leaves as glowing embers rose up over the rubble.

  Then, even though everything in his heart was hoping he had not seen his mother die, he turned his head and saw her body. She was lying in the dirt, cast aside by the god she had worshipped.

  Talon went to her, crying and sobbing uncontrollably. He knelt down beside her body and saw the matted hair stuck to her face with blood. Why had this happened? What had gone wrong? They had made the appropriate sacrifice. They had come to Basei looking for help, but they were repaid only with ruin.

  Talon’s heart broke in that moment. As he watched the dirt swallow his mother’s blood, it reminded him of how his father had died only days before, murdered by a faithless cur that had called himself Talon’s friend.

  Anger rose into the boy’s veins. The fire of hate replaced the fear and sadness. He turned and saw his father’s sword. He took the blade in his hands and looked down at his mother once more. After imprinting the image on his mind forever, he surveyed the smoldering village and clenched his jaw.

  The young child made the trek back up the hill to the shrine.

  The priest came out to meet him. This time the priest’s somber expression was gone and replaced with one of confusion as the priest arched his brow and stared at the sword Talon carried. The priest held his hands up and tried to speak, but Talon was beyond listening.

  The child rushed the old man and plunged his father’s blade into the priest’s stomach. The old man doubled over and fell to the dirt, coughing and choking. Talon pulled the blade free.

  “You said he would give me strength!” Talon shouted.

  The priest looked up with wide, brown eyes and put a bloody hand in the air. “Please, have mercy!” The priest crawled backward, up the steps and scooting along the stone to lean against the altar as Talon followed him.

  “Please, you must understand…” the priest contorted violently and fell forward onto his left hand while his right clutched at his stomach.

  “Did Basei give mercy?” Talon screamed hysterically. He then lifted the heavy sword up slowly over his head and brought it down hard on the priest’s neck. The bone cracked, but Talon had not the strength to sever the man’s head with the blow. The priest’s body fell limp and the head hung awkwardly from the gaping wound. Talon lifted his sword again and let out a feral yell as he came down for a second chop. This time, the priest’s head came free and rolled away across the stone. Blood splattered across the front of the altar and then poured from the wound, to gather in the same basin at the foot of the stone altar that the goat’s blood had pooled in.

  Talon breathed heavily, tears filling his angry eyes. He knew he couldn’t destroy the stone building, but that didn’t stop him from drenching the statue of Basei in oil and setting it ablaze.

  “I will find you, and I will kill you,” Talon swore.

  He turned and went to leave the building, pausing only a moment to look down at the puddle of crimson liquid that had gathered around the priest’s body. As he looked down, he saw his face in the reflection, the light from the fire nearby lending the image an ethereal quality. Then, his face grew and changed form until he saw his own eyes staring back at him from behind Basei’s spiked mask.

  Talon reached up to pull off the mask. In that instant, a cold rush of air swirled around him and he was back in the cold, dark chamber where he had been before the vision of his past had begun. He was no longer the little boy, but the man he had become in the twenty-four years since that dreadful night. He turned to his right and saw Jahre’s ghost standing before him.

  “What are you doing?” Talon hissed.

  Jahre shrugged. “I am trying to find the boy I once knew in the man before me.”

  Talon shook his head. “That boy is no more.”

  Jahre held up a finger. “Allow me to show you something else,” the elf sage said.

  Talon would have protested, but he didn’t actually have a choice. In life, Talon was the stronger of the two, but in death, the opposite was the case. The assassin was frozen in place, helpless as Jahre whisked them both through space and time.

  “I have told you before that you were not supposed to be there,” Jahre said. “You were not supposed to see what your father and I did.”

  “But I did see,” Talon growled.

  Jahre nodded. “I understand your hatred for Basei. I lived it with you just moments ago, but there is something that I hope will change your mind about me.”

  “There is nothing you could do that will change my hatred for you,” Talon said.

  Jahre shrugged and held his arms up in the darkness. A swirling light of silver and blue spun around them. The two spirits were drawn into a vortex and dropped into another one of Talon’s memories, only this time, Talon and Jahre stood nearby, watching the scene unfold instead of reliving it inside Talon’s body.

  They were standing back in Talon’s home. Talon’s father stood near the hearth, and Jahre was with him.

  “Come closer,” Jahre told Talon. “I want you to hear everything this time.”

  “I know what was said,” Talon replied.

  Jahre shook his head and used his magic to pull Talon’s spirit close as he approached the living memories. “You remember only what you heard as a boy. That is not the same thing as remembering all that happened.”

  Talon cast his head back and glanced at his former self.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Talon’s father said in a hushed snarl. “You know you aren’t allowed here since the Mage Wars ended.”

  “This is more important than that,” Jahre said quickly. The old elf turned back to smile at Talon.

  “You must go!” Talon’s father shouted.

  “No, I must stay!” Jahre insisted. “The time has come. We must do it now.”

  “Now?” Talon’s father shook his head as he shouted. “We can’t do it now, I have a family now. My boy is only seven. I can’t come with you now.”

  “By Icadion’s beard you will listen to me!” Jahre shouted as he jabbed a finger in Talon’s father’s chest. “You knew this was going to happen. You can’t back out of it now.”

  “But you said it wouldn’t b
e until he became a man.”

  Jahre nodded and pressed on. “I made a mistake.”

  “A mistake?!” Talon’s father fumed and turned away as he put his hands to his temples. “Using too many eggs in cake batter is a mistake, this is a catastrophe! You told me that I would have twenty years. I have not even had half of that and now you say today is the day? Go and do it yourself!”

  Jahre moved in and backhanded Talon’s father in the chest. “You know I can’t do that. You also know I can’t control my visions. I see what I see. Sometimes they change. I do the best I can to use the information I receive, but it is not perfect.”

  “You said I was to have another child,” Talon’s father snarled as he stepped in close to Jahre.

  Talon stiffened when he heard those words. He most definitely had not remembered the argument in such detail as he now saw it playing out before him. He watched for the next hour as the two continued their shouting match. Then Jahre said something that took the fight out of Talon’s father.

  “You gave me your word,” Jahre said. “You pledged whatever I would ask, whenever it was asked of you. I explained the bargain to you many times, and gave you several opportunities to withdraw your support. Will you stand by your word now? Or will you cast the world aside because you lost thirteen years?”

  Talon’s father nodded as tears ran over his cheeks. “I will go with you. Will you promise to save him?”

  Jahre nodded. “You ask that which is already pledged. He is your son, but he is my grandson. I will do everything within my power to help him achieve his destiny.”

  “In your dreams, does he still stand upon a razor’s edge?”

  Jahre nodded. “I will not lie to you. The fates have not shown me a guaranteed success. However, I will do whatever is necessary to save him from destruction.”

  “Then let’s go.” Talon’s father turned and offered a single nod to Talon’s mother and then departed the house with Jahre.

  Jahre’s spirit turned to Talon’s spirit. “What was it that caused you to run after us?” Jahre asked.

  Talon smirked and pointed to his father’s sword. “My father never left the house without his sword. I thought he would need it.”

  As the two spirits stood and watched, Talon’s mother rushed in and sat with the young Talon on the bed, stroking his hair and telling him everything would be alright. His mother started to cry, and then Talon looked up and saw his father’s sword still hanging on the hook on the wall.

  Talon wriggled free from his mother and yanked the sword down from its hook and ran for the door.

  “And there it is,” Jahre’s spirit said. “The cruel twist of fate that I had not foreseen. In my visions, your father had indeed always been wearing his sword when we left to meet with Khefir. I suppose this alteration is what set you on your current path.”

  “Where are you going?” Talon’s mother called out.

  “Father needs his sword!” Talon shouted.

  “No, Talon come back!” his mother screamed.

  “No, he is the captain. He can’t go outside without his sword! If the orcs come again he will need it!”

  Talon was out the door in a flash. The two spirits moved along with him, walking through the slammed door and easily keeping pace with the running boy who was chasing his father down the path leading toward the meadow near their house. Even as a spirit, Talon could only faintly make out his father’s outline as the sun was beginning to drop below the horizon.

  “Talon!” his mother called from behind.

  The young boy shook his head. “Orcs attack at night.” The young Talon sprinted as fast as he could.

  “Come,” Jahre said suddenly. He snapped his fingers and the two spirits caught up with the living memories of Jahre and Talon’s father.

  “Are you certain today is the day?” Talon’s father asked.

  “I am,” Jahre replied. “You know if there was any other way, I would pursue it.”

  Talon’s father turned and smiled kindly to Jahre. “You have always been strange, father. For that I have both hated and loved you. Still, if you say that my boy is the one who can stop the End War, then let’s get on with it. I don’t want him chasing after us and discovering what we are about to do.”

  “I love you,” Jahre said through tears as his voice caught in his throat and his shoulders slumped downward.

  “And I you,” Talon’s father replied with a terrible sigh. “Get on with it then.” Talon’s father turned and put his back to Jahre. “Make it quick.” Talon’s father then dropped to his knees. Jahre pulled a curved knife from his belt and plunged the blade deep into Talon’s father’s back. Then the elf pulled his hair back in one hand and raised his knife to Talon’s father’s throat.

  Talon still felt the same wave of anger come over him that he had as a boy, but now it was mixed with confusion also. His father had not been betrayed as he had thought as a boy. He was a willing sacrifice.

  “NO!” the young Talon screamed from behind in the brief moment before the knife made contact with his father’s skin.

  From the spirit’s close vantage point, Talon saw that his father turned around and put his hand out to stay the young boy. A spark leapt from Talon’s father’s hand toward the ground.

  “No, Talon, stay away!” his father said in a strained voice. “It’s alright, stay back!”

  “I have to finish it,” Jahre said decisively. The elf sage slit Talon’s father’s throat and spilled his blood upon the dirt.

  “You see,” Jahre’s spirit said to Talon’s spirit as he pointed to the spark on the ground that Talon’s father had ignited. “It was your father who called upon the vines to stop you.”

  Talon’s spirit watched the spark enter into a thick, green stem and then disappear into the ground. A moment later, a vine appeared out of the ground and wrapped around the young Talon’s ankle, thrusting him to the ground. Talon fumbled his father’s sword and struggled against the vine as it coiled multiple times around his leg like a massive, wooden snake. As the vines held the young boy, the elf sage continued his ritual.

  “Your father knew what he was doing. He was buying your soul,” Jahre’s spirit said.

  Talon looked back to the living memory of his father and felt the same crippling pain and fear as he watched the knife plunge into his father’s heart. The living memory of Jahre chanted an incantation, summoning forth a god from the underworld.

  Talon watched as a black hole ripped through the air above his father. Through the hole stepped an immensely large figure. His feet were shod with burning coals. Ash fell from his feet as he walked, but the being seemed to feel no pain. His legs were massive, muscular limbs that were each larger than Jahre’s entire body. The being’s left hand emerged to grab onto the edge of the hole, and Talon could see skin hanging loosely from the exposed finger bones of the decaying limb. The arm itself was still encased in skin, though it appeared pale and dead. A hooded vest covered the being’s torso and head.

  “Khefir,” Jahre said respectfully. “I herewith present my offering, as we agreed.”

  Khefir reached up with his rotting hand and pulled back his hood. The young Talon ceased struggling against the vines which held him and froze instantly when he saw Khefir’s yellow skull. Black orbs looked down to Jahre and then to Talon’s father. Long, coarse white hair rustled in the evening wind behind Khefir’s skull. Khefir’s jaw bone freely moved and clicked as he spoke. “I accept your offering,” Khefir declared. He stretched forth his hand and pointed to Jahre’s knife. A black spark leapt from Khefir’s exposed index finger bone to the knife and the blood thereon began to glow. “See that you do not disturb me again, wicked elf,” Khefir threatened.

  A group of massive, black tendrils burst through the ground, heaving dirt and grass through the air as they reached up and wrapped around Talon’s father. Then, they pulled him into the dirt as easily as if he had been made of water. Afterward, Khefir returned through his portal and the black hole resealed.
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  Jahre looked to the ground where Talon’s father had been and then he turned to face Talon. “Go home, boy,” Jahre said. The elf stretched his hand out and the green vines released their hold. Talon remained on the ground, petrified. Jahre approached and picked up the sword Talon had dropped. He pulled the blade from its sheath and examined it for a moment.

  “If this was all prearranged, you could have been nicer,” Talon’s spirit said to the ghost of Jahre.

  Jahre’s ghost nodded. “Perhaps, but I was never to see you again. I thought it better to teach you a lesson.” Jahre’s specter turned and narrowed its glowing eyes on Talon’s spirit. “The world was going to be a harsh place for you. I gave you the best advice I had at the time. If you realize now who I am, then you will understand that I gave the same advice to your father. Come, let’s finish watching. Reliving the memory in full will help you understand that I am not your enemy.” Jahre’s ghost pointed back to the scene and Talon begrudgingly turned his gaze toward it.

  The young Talon was frozen with fear. His eyes were wide, glued to the blade that the elf now held.

  The living memory of Jahre stepped closer to the young Talon and spoke. “I once told my son something, and now I will tell you the same thing,” Jahre hissed. “If you want to protect those you love, you will need to be faster, stronger, and smarter than your enemy.”

  Jahre flipped the sword over and plunged the point into the dirt next to Talon’s face. The blade sliced over the young boy’s cheekbone. Talon recoiled away quickly. He leapt to his feet and charged forward, hands outstretched for his father’s sword.

  “Faster, stronger, and smarter,” Jahre hissed again. Then he was gone.

  Talon ripped the sword free and hacked away at the air. He swung furiously until he had exhausted himself. His chest heaved for breath, and his shoulders slumped under the weight of the sword.

  “You were wrong,” Talon’s ghost said. “I still hate you.”

  Jahre nodded and snapped his fingers. The two of them were instantly back in the dark chamber where they had started.