Lusam: The Dragon Mage Wars Book Five Page 26

  The ogre laughed mirthlessly at his words. “Is that your excuse, spoguk, for standing by and watching whilst the faeries killed me and took my honour, as well as that of my tribe? Because you thought they were good?” There was no humour in its low threatening voice as it snarled the words at Lusam. “Now we will die together, spoguk—without honour. But first I must restore the honour of my tribe before I die, or my forefathers will never allow me to enter The Sacred Hunting Grounds. So do nothing to bring us to the attention of our enemy, or you will have condemned me both in life and death, spoguk.”

  Lusam could clearly see the sweat beads running down the ogre’s face, and it was at that moment he also noticed the small pool of blood on the ground below it. Images of the tiny blue creature sinking its teeth into the ogre’s back flashed before his eyes, as did the look of shock and horror on the ogre’s face when it happened. And it was all because he had distracted the ogre from the fight.

  “I’m sorry,” Lusam said in a low voice.

  “Your words are meaningless now, spoguk. Leave me be to complete my task, whilst The Keeper still grants me the strength to draw breath.”

  Lusam knew the ogre had been bitten a long time before he had, and couldn’t even begin to imagine the amount of pain it must be in now. His own leg felt like it was being held above an open flame, and the pain continued to slowly spread up towards his groin. He watched the ogre’s massive arm and leg muscles spasm and convulse with the poison. He barely noticed the almost imperceptible movement of the ogre’s finger, as it used its thick claw-like fingernail to cut through the coarse rope binding its hands. A momentary thrill of excitement washed over Lusam, but it was quickly replaced by a sense of fear and dread when he realised that the ogre was just as likely to kill him, as free him. Especially after what it had just said.

  “What do you need to do to restore the honour of your tribe?” Lusam asked, trying to buy himself some more time. The ogre stopped working on its bonds and turned to face him. It stared at him for a long time with its orange-red eyes as if deciding whether to answer him at all. Lusam could tell by the defeated look on its face that it no longer truly believed it could succeed in doing whatever it had planned.

  “I must return the Soul Stone to my tribe or they will lose much honour amongst the other tribes,” the ogre said, looking past Lusam at something in the distance.

  “Where is it now, this… Soul Stone?”

  Again the ogre locked eyes with him, before looking beyond him once more. “I saw them take it inside that hut over there,” the ogre said, nodding towards the largest structure in the centre of the village. Lusam turned his head to take a look and the world around him spun once more. Panting through the pain, he managed to open his eyes and see the mud hut in question. The hut itself was unremarkable, but Lusam noticed that it was guarded by two of the small blue creatures. A quick glance at the surrounding trees also revealed several more faeries on lookout duty high in their branches above. Even if the ogre managed to escape its bonds, there was no way it would even reach the hut, let alone retrieve the Soul Stone and return it to its tribe.

  Lusam was just about to point that out to the ogre when he was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of pain shooting through his insides. He gasped loudly and tried to stifle his cry, but found that he had to release it as a controlled whimper instead. He bit down on his tongue to stop himself from screaming out and the taste of blood began to fill his mouth. He expected the ogre to berate him for his weakness, but instead, the words it spoke next were born of kindness, even if it was the last thing Lusam had wanted to hear.

  “When I free myself, I will end your suffering. Even a spoguk like you doesn’t deserve to die like this,” the ogre said in a low voice.

  Lusam shook his head vigorously, but no doubt the ogre simply interpreted it as yet more involuntarily muscle spasms. The new pain in his stomach was truly horrendous. Far worse than the pain in his leg had been, and at the time, he’d thought that was as bad as it could possibly get—how wrong he was. In desperation, he reached for his magic once more so that he could at least dull the pain. But it still remained beyond his reach. Panic began to consume him. He knew that he was about to die. He could hear his heart thundering in his ears and suddenly realised that the faster his heart was beating, the faster the poison would spread around his body.

  Lusam attempted to slow down his rapid breathing, and memories of the days he had spent with the High Priest suddenly came flooding back to him. On one of his many visits to the High Temple, Lusam had discovered the High Priest in deep meditation, and later he had offered to teach Lusam the technique. He said it was a form of mediation passed down from High Priest to High Priest, and one which in generations past had allowed the newly appointed High Priest to survive reading the Guardian book they were sworn to protect.

  Lusam could hear the High Priest’s words clearly in his mind: Breathe in the light, and exhale the dark. Centre your mind so that you exist only outside the constraints of your physical being. Nothing exists except the light which you breathe in. All pain, worry and doubt are exhaled with the dark…

  Although he never achieved the level of meditation that the High Priest hoped he would, he had at least begun to understand the basics before having to leave for Thule to rescue his mother. He just hoped that the basics would be enough to keep him alive.

  Lusam closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths as he had been taught by the High Priest. Normally he would have been sitting comfortably in a chair or on a cushion on the floor, not painfully strung upside down by his wrists and ankles from a pole. It concerned him a great deal because the initial part of the meditation process relied on him being aware of his own body’s contact points, and if he thought about those too much now, it would surely prevent him from achieving his goal. He decided to skip that part entirely and move directly on to monitoring his breathing. He began to feel the sensation of inhaling the light, and exhaling the dark. The pain subsided a little.

  Each time his mind wandered, he gently returned it to the sensation of breathing in the light. All other perceptions and sensations he allowed to flow around the light which was now his mind. A short time later the pain was all but forgotten and he was at peace within himself. He could still sense the world around him, and even the conflicts within his own body. But now it felt like he was outside looking in, instead of inside screaming to get out.

  With his mind now free of the pain, Lusam noticed something very strange; his magic was now almost within his reach. He had assumed that the faerie bite was responsible for his inability to use magic. But if that was really true, his magic would surely be getting further away from his grasp as the poison continued to spread throughout his body. The only conclusion he could make, was that it was the poison from the dart which had restricted his ability, and not the actual faerie bite.

  Lusam centred his mind once more and reached for his magic. It felt like he was attempting to bend the very laws of nature, but on his fifth attempt, he succeeded in reaching it. He grasped at a thin strand of his power and pulled it towards himself. He then wasted no time in locating and removing the dart-poison from his body. With each heartbeat, the poison lessened and his ability to access his magic increased. He knew the ogre was still out there trying to escape its bonds, and at any moment he could feel its hands around his throat—or even worse. But he dared not leave his meditative state until he had also removed the effects of the bite from his body. If he did, he feared blacking-out with the pain, or at the very least, screaming out and alerting the faeries.

  He worked as fast as he could to neutralise the poison within his body, and when he was finally done, he emerged back into the real world with an audible sigh of relief.

  “Oh… I thought you were already dead, spoguk,” the ogre said in a weak voice. Lusam turned to face the ogre. It looked terrible. Its skin had turned a pale shade of grey and it shook uncontrollably. Sweat glistened over its entire body and its mouth had started to foam sli
ghtly around the edges. Its eyes rolled in their sockets and its head lolled from side to side as it tried to focus its eyes on Lusam.

  Lusam could clearly see that the ogre wouldn’t survive for very much longer, and that filled him with a strange sense of guilt. He knew that he wasn’t the one who had poisoned it, and even if he hadn’t distracted its attention and allowed the faerie time to strike, it would still have succumbed to the smaller creature’s attacks eventually. But somehow he still felt responsible for the outcome, and deep down he knew he would always regret not trying to help it live—even if it was an ogre.

  Two things about the ogre had stuck in his mind. The first was the misplaced kindness when it said that it would help him die swiftly, rather than let the poison take him slowly and painfully. And judging by the way the ogre looked right now, that would have been a blessing indeed if he hadn’t been able to cure himself. The second was the strong sense of honour it seemed to have, towards both itself and its tribe. And Lusam was willing to bet that it would do just about anything to see that honour restored, even if it meant not killing him for what he had done.

  Lusam sighed heavily and turned back to face the ogre. He just hoped that he wasn’t about to make a fatal mistake. He might, if he was lucky, have enough magic for them both to escape the faerie village. But he certainly didn’t have enough magic to fight off a fully-fit ogre as well. On the other hand, if he did leave the ogre here to die, he wouldn’t have a clue which way to run even if he did escape. He had no idea where he was now in relation to where he had been captured. For all he knew, he could end up running headlong into far more trouble than he was in right now. Like it or not, he knew that the ogre was his best chance of survival, and also his best chance of gaining any information about the Guardian book.

  “My name is Lusam, what’s yours?”

  The ogre’s head turned unsteadily towards him and fixed him in its wavering gaze.

  “Vultog,” he replied weakly.

  “It’s good to meet you, Vultog. I’m sorry for getting you into this situation, it was never my intention. I’m not from around here, so I didn’t know the faeries were dangerous.”

  Vultog grunted in reply, but Lusam couldn’t tell if he had accepted his apology, or a grunt was all he could manage.

  “Vultog, listen to me carefully. I can get us both out of here and help you get back to your tribe, but I need your word that you won’t try to attack me after I free you.”

  Vultog’s eyes took a moment, but they eventually focused on Lusam’s face. “Too… late… poison… kill, Vultog… soon… I… travel to… Sacred… Hunting… Grounds… ” he said, gasping through the obvious agony.

  “No, Vultog, I can cure the poison. Look at me, I’ve already cured myself,” Lusam said in a hushed voice. Vultog’s eyes slowly focused on Lusam once more, but he simply stared at him. Lusam wasn’t sure if Vultog could comprehend what he was actually telling him, or if his mind had already succumbed fully to the poison. He was about to try and remove some of the poison from him and try again when he eventually replied.

  “How?” Vultog asked, weakly.

  “Magic,” Lusam replied.

  “What… is… magic?”

  Lusam took a breath to try and explain but suddenly realised that he didn’t know how. How could he possibly explain what magic was or how it worked to someone who had never even heard of it before? At least in his own world, people knew of magic, even if they didn’t believe in it.

  “Never mind, that’s not important right now. What is important though, is that you swear on your honour that you won’t attack me when I set you free. If you do, I won’t be able to protect us against the faeries and we’ll both end up right back here. Only next time it won’t be possible for us to escape and we’ll both end up dead for sure. Vultog, I want to help you restore your honour and that of your tribe’s, but you must first swear not to attack me.”

  Vultog met Lusam’s eyes and weakly nodded his head. Lusam would have preferred to hear him say the words, but given the condition he was in, he accepted his gesture instead. He was acutely aware that neither the faeries or Vultog possessed any magic within them, which meant he could not simply drain them of power to kill or incapacitate them. Any future battle would involve using his own power reserves, not gaining more power by syphoning it off his potential foes. And right now, he had very little of it to spare.

  “Alright, I will start to cure your poison now, but don’t try to escape just yet. I can sever our bonds instantly when we are ready to go. Do you understand?”

  Vultog grunted and nodded his head.

  Lusam attempted to send out a thin tendril of power towards Vultog, but he found that it was far more difficult to bridge the short distance between them than it should have been. At first, he couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t until he recalled some of the knowledge that he had gained from Lamuria’s Guardian book that it started to make any sense to him. In his world, magic was in plentiful supply. It was found in all living things, and to a lesser extent, it could also be found within inanimate objects, too. But here, in the hidden realm, it was a different story entirely.

  Nothing alive—that he had seen at least—contained any magic whatsoever. And what little magic did exist within the realm, seemed to be incredibly sparse compared to his own world. And therein lay the problem. To successfully create a line of power, a mage must use the elements of magic already present within the air around them. He or she would send out a small amount of their own power, then literally use the magic in the air between the two points to maintain the desired connection. But here, in this strange realm, that same magic was far less concentrated, which, in turn, meant it took far more effort for Lusam to bridge the small gap between himself and Vultog.

  Eventually, Lusam managed to make a stable connection, but not before having to give up three times and try a different route through the air between them. He could see the pain instantly ease in Vultog’s face as he slowly neutralised the poison within his body. It had spread much further than it had his own, and quite frankly he was amazed that the ogre had survived at all.

  A few minutes later and Lusam had removed all of the toxins from Vultog’s body. He had been staring directly at Lusam for most of the process, and his orange-red eyes had made him feel very uncomfortable. He half-expected Vultog to snap his bonds and try to kill him, but instead, he surprised him in a different way.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  Lusam smiled and nodded. “You’re welcome. Now, what does this… Soul Stone of yours look like?”

  “It’s a Dohhi sized red gem, set into the handle of my knife,” Vultog replied.

  Lusam had no idea what a ‘Dohhi’ was, but he immediately recognised the description of the knife, and also clearly remembered the magic that the gem contained. When he had first seen the knife in Vultog’s belt he had intended to take some of that magic for himself. But now that he knew it was so important to Vultog and his tribe, he wasn’t sure that draining any of its power was still a good idea.

  Lusam considered his options very carefully and quickly came to the conclusion that, for now at least, all he had to do was defend himself and Vultog against the faeries’ tiny poisoned darts. And as long as Vultog kept to his word and didn’t try to attack him, creating a weak magical shield capable of stopping the tiny darts shouldn’t be a problem, even in his weakened state.

  “Once I retrieve your knife, which way will we be running?” Lusam asked quietly.

  “My village is half a day in that direction,” Vultog replied, nodding towards the northern treeline.

  Lusam nodded. “Alright, listen to me carefully. When I free you, I need you to run north, straight into the forest and wait for me there until I get your knife…”

  “No, you have no armour and your skin is too thin. The faeries will fill you full of their poison long before you make it to the hut,” Vultog said, cutting him off mid-sentence.

  “No, Vultog, they won’t. I hav
e a shield,” Lusam replied.

  Vultog gave him a strange look as if the poison had somehow damaged his mind. “What shield? I don’t see any shield.”

  Lusam chuckled. “It’s invisible, so you can’t see it. But trust me, it’s there and it will protect me against the faeries’ darts. But we might still have a problem after I rejoin you in the forest. I’m still very weak, so I won’t be able to maintain my magical shield indefinitely. The sooner we can lose our pursuers, the better. Oh, and one other thing. I need you to stay as close to me as possible. The further away from me that you are, the harder it is for me to protect you against their poisoned darts, and the more magic it drains from me.”

  “And what happens if you run out of this… magic?” Vultog asked, sceptically.

  “Well, if I run out of magic entirely it will kill me. But we don’t have to worry about that because if I use too much of my magic, I’m likely to black-out and the faeries will kill us both with their poison anyway.”

  Vultog grunted. “Then we’ll head north-west, towards The Serpent’s Mouth. That will give us the best chance of evading the faeries.”

  “What’s The Serpent’s Mouth?” Lusam asked, hoping that it didn’t actually involve any kind of snakes.

  “It’s a small tunnel that twists its way through the core of a long rocky ridge. There’s a large boulder at the opening which can be rolled into to place to seal off the entrance. The faeries are not strong enough to move the boulder, so once we’re inside, we should be safe.”

  “Should be?”

  Vultog grunted again. “The Serpent’s Mouth is only ever used as a last resort, because many dangerous creatures often use it for shelter, too.”

  “What kind of dangerous creatures? Do you mean like bears and wolves?” Lusam asked, not knowing if he really wanted to know.

  “I know not of this ‘bear’ creature that you speak of, and a wolf would not fit through The Serpent’s Mouth. It is the smaller, but no less deadly creatures that we must avoid, such as the death spiders and fire beetles which make their homes there.”