Page 18 of Storm Dragon
Instinctively, he inhaled deeply. The air tasted of fresh turned soil and cool, damp air. He was still in a hole in the Earth, but no longer buried. Gone was the dank, rotten stench of rotting skin around his throat, being eaten away by the thick silver shackle that had encircled his neck for hundreds of years.
Unwilling to trust his own instincts, the Guardsman held completely still. Attempting to open his mind, he found every pathway blocked and locked tight. There was no escape. His mind was held in place with the horrible taint of Black Magic and pure evil.
Another breath and his senses were overcome by a bitter and rank odor that reminded him of rotting tomatoes left too long on the vine. “Deadly Nightshade,” the name floated through his mind.
A quick inhale through his nose, and he was subjected to the oppressively sweet, almost sour stench of what he immediately recognized as Mandrake. The Elven bitch had used it when she and her minions attacked Ruairí and the other Enforcers. He would never forget that horrid stench, nor the way it invaded his mind, allowing the Sorceress to manipulate their minds and force them to hallucinate whatever she desired.
But she was dead. He knew she had been killed at the hands of her own Cabal because of her greed and lies. He had heard the Wizards and Hunters on the ship that brought him across the ocean laughing about it. They celebrated until the sun came up, singing, dancing, and drinking to the demise of the Elven bitch.
“So, who is doing this? Who knows the ways of the Bitch? It cannot be the other members of her Cabal. They were massacred several days before I was lowered into the ground. It was another celebration that lasted nearly two days. Who could it…?”
Another flash of light, more thick black smoke, and then came the foul, thick odor of decaying peanuts. Whoever was digging him up was most definitely trying to mess with his mind, and they were using the most potent of all plants- the Thorn Apple.
Ruairí would never forget the hours he spent with his mother in her greenhouse learning the ways of Herbology to heal and protect. Maimie O’Clery had not only been a Dragon Queen, but one of the most skilled Botanists the Paranormal world knew at the time.
Trying to remember the ways she’d taught him to combat an onslaught of evil Herbology, images of his dear, sweet Tamsyn flashed front and center in his mind. She was beaten and bruised, lying in a pool of her own blood. Her chest was barely rising and falling as she struggled to breathe- and her sister was lying beside her.
Figures in long, black robes, their faces covered just as they had been on that fateful night so long ago, stood on a circle made of black ash while holding black candles and swaying side to side. Their taunting chant was spoken in the language of the original Shifters, of the Blessed Ones who built the Refuge on the Isle of Skye, the Founders.
“NO!” The word reverberated and shook the confines of the Guardsman’s mind. It had come of its own volition, from the depths of his heart and soul. There was no way the Founders would be attacking Tamsyn and Peaches, or any Shifters who were not a threat. It was simply impossible and unfathomable.
“Trickery…”
But that was as far as he got before all thought was once again driven from his mind as another wave of agonizing pain tore across his chest. Mouth flying open, the sound of the bones in his jaws cracking and breaking as a wordless scream flew from his lips. Eyes flying open, he was immediately blinded by a flash of light rivaling what he vaguely remembered to be the rays of the sun.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Ruairí opened and closed his mouth, trying to catch his breath. Ignoring the wretched pain of the jagged edges of his broken bones rubbing against one another, he searched for air to soothe his burning lungs. Little by little, he found scant whiffs of precious oxygen. It didn’t matter that it was polluted with more of the Herbal Black Magic. He had to breathe to survive, and he had to survive to kill whoever had dared to hurt his Mate and her sister.
Fighting against the silver shackles still restraining his wrists and ankles, Ruairí was sure he heard chanting. Not the rhythmic intonation of many voices as he had experienced centuries before, but of just two.
The first, the lowest voice of the pair, was gravelly. Its texture was rough like coarse sand stuck in the shaft of his boot, abrading his skin with every movement- only this was all over his body, eating its way into his soul through his ears. The man, for he was sure it was a man, perpetually strained to speak and even more so when he was chanting. The pitch possessed a husky, raspy quality, proving to the Guardsman that the evil Wizard’s throat and vocal cords were constantly irritated as a byproduct of the nasty Herbology he practiced.
The other voice, the higher, more nasally, and infinitely more irritating, was clear, but inundated with hate, loathing, and such copious amounts of Black Magic that it resonated and echoed from the depths of her black heart. It was everywhere and nowhere and slithered like a great snake bringing poison to the Guardsman’s heart.
Whether it was a hallucination or reality or a combination of both, Ruairí was sure both of those voices had been there on the night he and the others of his Force were bewitched and kidnapped. It was as clear as the nose he thought was still on his face, and he opened his mouth to issue that accusation when a wave of ghastly and unholy Mysticism flooded over his lips and into his nose. Weaving its way into the depths of his body, the Black Magic was on a mission; it was searching for something. It was…
A shrill accusation cut through the chanting like a buzz saw through a tree trunk. “I told you it could not be gotten this way, you stupid, worthless, waste of skin and bones.”
Were there more than two? There had to be. The woman was talking, but he still heard multiple voices. How had he missed…?
Then he felt it, more of the thick, suffocating smoke of the Mandrake, and… Yes, there was no doubt about it. He was not imagining it. There was liquid dripping from over him. Drop by diabolical drop, it fell onto his chest, popped, sizzled, and burned as if he’d been touched by a lit match.
Then it stopped. He literally exhaled. But it was all for naught. The drip-drip-pop-sizzle followed by the stench of burning flesh moved to his forehead. They were clouding his perception, his mind, his very consciousness.
Using every speck of Magic he could muster and some he was sure he pulled out of thin air, Ruairí focused on his surroundings while fighting the horrid effects of the Herbal Magics. Listening with all that he was, he counted, “One, two.”
Two heartbeats, no more. His captors were playing a game. They wanted him to think there were many. They were scared of what he might do if given even the slightest advantage. Clenching his fists, Ruairí was ready to fight even as he felt what was left of his right mind floating away on the black fog of evil herbology.
Slowly inhaling through his nose, careful not to let his captors know he remained conscious, the Guardsman relaxed his hands just as a whirring sound floated overhead and a heavy disc landed with a thud in the center of his chest. It took less than a second for the skin beneath the amulet to start to burn, less time for it to sizzle, and even less for his captors to stop chanting and cackle in unison, “That will hold him.”
Blocking out the pain, refusing to give in to it and pass out, Ruairí focused on the voices of his jailers and the ambient sounds all around. The stomping footsteps grew softer as the man moved away. Then the creak of rusted metal had birds squawking and flapping their wings, and then a loud bang silenced everything, and what he recognized as an engine started.
The ground shook, and petrol fumes replaced the stench of Black Magic and evil Herbology. Then the female screeched, “Stop! Stop you fucking idiot! Stop the fucking truck!”
More metal squeaking and slamming, followed by screaming voices and the thwap of someone being slapped, was the prelude to the female snarling, “I’ll do it myself! I’ll spell him to the cave since you’re too…”
“NO!” The man adamantly objected. “You. Will. Not. This fucking, Lucifer-forsaken mountain is alive with Shifters. We can’t fight them all. Grandmother’s books said…”
Another whack, thwack, smack, and the male was howling in pain as the female raged, “I don’t give a flying fuck what that old hag’s book said. I am Hettie V. Zanderghast, and I get what I want!”
