Clash of Heroes: Nath Dragon meets The Darkslayer Read online

  CLASH OF HEROES

  Nath Dragon Meets the Darkslayer

  Part 1

  ***FREE EBOOKS***

  Craig Halloran has published over 30 books that include 6 series. The beginning of each series has a free eBook. So, if you came across this book while looking for some deals take a look at the list below. Also, contact him via email or website as he routinely makes great deals on all of his books. He’s got a little bit of everything in the Epic Fantasy and Dragon filled worlds, Urban Fantasy, not to mention Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers too.

  #1 Bestseller Anthologies- Epic Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery

  The Darkslayer, Wrath of the Royals, Series 1 (6 books)

  The Darkslayer, Bish and Bone, Series 2 (6 books)

  #1 Bestseller Anthologies– Epic Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery/Coming of Age

  The Chronicles of Dragon: The Hero, the Sword, & the Dragons (10 books)

  Dark Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Supernatural Thrillers/Shifters & Werewolves

  The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files – Smoke Rising (#1 Free Dark Fantasy)

  Zombies/Post-Apocalyptic/Genetic Engineering

  Zombie Day Care (3 Book series)

  Facebook – The Darkslayer Report

  Twitter – Craig Halloran

  www.craighalloran.com or www.thedarkslayer.com

  [email protected]

  NATH DRAGON MEETS THE DARKSLAYER

  PART 1

  Copyright © December 2015 by Craig Halloran

  Amazon Edition

  TWO-TEN BOOK PRESS

  P.O. Box 4215, Charleston, WV 25364

  ISBN eBook: 978-1-941208-42-7

  ISBN Paperback: 978-1-941208-43-4

  THE DARKSLAYER is a registered trademark, #77670850

  http://www.thedarkslayer.net

  Cover Illustration by Joe Shawcross

  Edited by Cherise Kelley

  Map by Gillis Bjork

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded, photocopied, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Publisher's Note

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  CLASH OF HEROES

  Nath Dragon Meets the Darkslayer

  Part 1

  Introduction

  Before diving into this one-of-a-kind adventure, I wanted to cover a few things. First, you’ll be bouncing between two worlds, Bish and Nalzambor. Second, you will be dealing with two different time lines from each series. Nath Dragon begins this journey at some point in series 2, Claws of the Dragon. Venir, the Darkslayer, is in part of his life that occurs before Series 1 begins. This is after he gets the armament, but before book 1, Wrath of the Royals, begins. Third, well, there isn’t really a third, but be prepared to be reacquainted with some familiar faces. My, my, my, what will happen when Brool and Fang clash?

  Battle-savvy regards,

  Craig

  CHAPTER 1

  Nalzambor

  Reaching down, Nath extended his scaled arm, clasped Brenwar’s thick wrist, and hauled him up onto the rock.

  “I could have handled it,” Brenwar said.

  “Oh, I know, I just wanted to move a little faster,” Nath replied.

  “You don’t need to hold up on my account.” Brenwar, built like an anvil, stood proud in his dwarven breastplate, combing his powerful, meaty fingers through his black and grey-peppered beard. “I’ll catch up. I always do.”

  Nath took a swig of wizard water from his flask and offered it to Brenwar. “That’s only because I let you.”

  “Har.” With his skeleton hand, Brenwar snatched the flask from Nath and guzzled it down. “Ah!”

  “You might want to save some, just in case the journey turns out to be longer—”

  “Don’t you go and worry about me!” The dwarf stuffed the flask into Nath's chest and resumed his climb. “I’m fine.”

  Shaking his head, Nath watched Brenwar march up the hillside.

  They were in a peculiar area of Nalzambor, several miles south of the Shale Hills, where the landscape was still green and coated in spring flowers. In was a nice sunny day in the beautiful land, the kind Nath was most fond of. The critters scurried in play and searched for food. The birds chirped. The river rapids cascaded over the rocks in the canyons far below.

  Nath rubbed his forearm. His black scales glinted, seeming to soak up the sun with vibrant energy. Energized, Nath followed after Brenwar.

  The pair had been tracking for days.

  Weeks ago, a caravan of elves and dwarves had been attacked while moving the mystic Thunderstones from the home of the elves, Elome, to the home of the dwarves, Morgdon. After using them in the final battle of the last great Dragon War, the two races—after months of heated debate—had agreed to exchange custody of the Thunderstones on designated years. The first transport year had turned into a total calamity. The heavily armed envoy had been taken by a superior force of gnolls, goblins, ogres, orcs, bugbears, and even giants. The elven and dwarven forces were wiped out, and by the time the message of the fallen troops and lost stones reached the leaders' ears, the enemy was long gone, their tracks scattered in all directions.

  Nath sighed.

  Many of his and Brenwar's friends had died that day. The loss was heavy. Jolting. Deflating. The funerals lasted more than a week in celebration of the brave dwarves and elves who had died in a valiant battle.

  As soon as Nath arrived on the scene, he had been able to picture what happened. The caravan had been outnumbered ten to one. Heavy footsteps were all over the bloodstained road and grass, the wagons toppled and torn apart.

  As they all gathered there, the elves and dwarves had formed search parties, assigning Nath and Brenwar their own: a trail of goblins. Over a dozen had scurried through the highlands and hills. It seemed unlikely that goblins had put anything this big together, but he and Brenwar had reluctantly agreed.

  “They leave their stink on everything, don’t they?” Brenwar stood on a bed of pine needles, inspecting a tree. A small broken branch was pinched between his fingers, and his nose was crinkled.

  “I haven’t gone a moment without a whiff of them yet.” Nath kneeled down. The goblin trail was getting more recent. They were closing in. “We should catch up with them in another day or so, don’t you think?”

  “Aye, but it seems like a lost cause. Goblins couldn’t have pulled off that raid. I think they were just paid to hit and run. Cheap hired hands. Probably paid in sandstone coins. Stupid, smelly things.” Brenwar kicked the tree, rustling the branches. “They’ll pay. All of them.”

  “We're after the stones, not blood.”

  “If we were after the stones, we wouldn’t be hunting the goblins. I can’t figure why we were given this task. It makes me want to spit through my beard.”

  “The goblins are just as clever as the others. Truth be told, I can’t figure any of them being able to harness the stones' power. They aren’t capable. Someone else is behind this.”

  “Who else could it be other than the titans?” Hefting his war hammer, Mortuun the Crusher, up onto his shoulder, Brenwar started moving on.

  “The titans are trying to run things, but they can’t run everything. No, not at all. There’s plenty of other forces that would want those stones.” Nath ducked un
der the branches and headed after Brenwar. “Humans, perhaps.”

  “Men couldn’t control those ugly goons. Not in a century or a millennium.”

  “We can at least eliminate the possibility that they have them. Who knows, it’s possible they don’t even understand what they have.”

  Waving his war hammer over his head, Brenwar replied, “Well, they aren’t going to be ready for what they are going to get. I’ll tell you that much.”

  Nath chuckled. It didn’t help the grim feeling that had set in, though. When he’d been younger, the unknown had been exciting, but the older he got, the more danger filled it became. People died. Friends were lost. And now, great power was in the hands of another unknown enemy.

  Let’s just eliminate the goblins as suspects and move on. Hopefully the others will have tracked down the perpetrators when we return.

  After a short night of rest and another half day of travel, their trek led them across a broad stream that was very familiar.

  “Say, Brenwar, do you remember the last time we passed through here?”

  Stomping through the knee-deep waters, his friend said, “No.”

  “Aw, of course you do. Sansla Libor. You know, the winged ape? He chucked you through those trees. Ha! Now that was astonishing.”

  “Are you going to talk, or are you going to track?”

  Nath didn’t reply. Instead, he resumed the lead.

  The goblins, though crafty, weren’t too hard to follow. They were bold and often traveled in heavy numbers so it wasn’t likely anyone would mess with them. It was past midday, just when the sun crested and started to dip, when Nath's boots landed on the edge of the Shale Hills. Aptly named, they were covered in black fragments of stone from one massive hillside to the other. Still, underneath was fertile soil, and trees burst out of the ground like flowers.

  Standing beside him and staring up the hill, Brenwar said, “Odd.”

  Nath nodded and kept on the trail. By the end of the day, he found himself staring at a very familiar cliff face lined with caves and crisscrossed with stone footholds. The rows of openings made out a pattern of skulls with vines and ivy oozing down the sides. He glanced over and found Brenwar’s eyes on his. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Aye, we should have killed him.”

  CHAPTER 2

  It was clear. The goblin trail led straight for the cliff face full of caves. Nath led the way, traversing the narrow trails, following the signs to the bottom of the ancient and abandoned mountain city. It had been here, decades ago, where they had crossed paths with a vile necromancer named Corzan. Nath’s memory was as clear as yesterday. He’d bound the mage up in Elotween, the elven twine, and left him to his own fate. Perhaps that had come back to haunt him. Perhaps he’d come back to haunt Corzan, assuming the man was still alive.

  “Do you want to take the other way in?” Brenwar was facing a valley where the mountain waters crashed into a lake below. It was there they had slipped in undetected the last time.

  “No doubt they’ll be expecting someone.” Nath hooked his clawed hands into one of the footholds in the rock. “And I didn’t even see any guards posted. It’s possible this was just a pass-through. Or hideout.” He started his climb. “Maybe they moved on.”

  “Moved on or not, I don’t care. I’m taking them down. Just go.”

  One foothold at a time, Nath made his way up the sheer cliff. There were staircases, narrow and busted, that could have been taken, but Nath liked to climb. He liked to outdistance Brenwar and get a clear look at things before the dwarf got there. He’d never say so, but it was for Brenwar’s safety. The battle-hardened dwarf had lost a fraction of a step over the years. Forty feet up Nath went until his head almost crested the top of the wall. Brenwar was huffing it twenty feet below him. “I’m gonna take a peek,” Nath said.

  “Don’t you dare!”

  With the ease of a lizard, Nath slipped over the wall and looked down. Bones of a dead goblin lay on the broad landing, but nothing else was present. Just a long, narrow roadway and several cave openings. There were two more levels above, and those stairs looked far easier to climb, though they were smooth and eroded. His nose twitched. The oily stench of goblin sweat and death lingered near. Reaching over his shoulder, he slid Fang from his sheath.

  “I heard that!” Brenwar yelled from below.

  Nath peered back over the wall. “Do you want them to know we're coming?”

  “Yes.”

  Nath reached down to help Brenwar up over the wall.

  The dwarf pushed him away. “I don’t need your help.” He unslung his war hammer and took a big whiff through his nose, narrowed his eyes, and said with a fierce grin, “They’re in there, all right. I can smell the fear in them.”

  “That’s not fear. It’s just stink.”

  “No, it’s fear. They know Brenwar’s coming.”

  Nath slapped him on the shoulder. “You’ve made your point.” He gazed upward. “So, do you want to start bottom up or top down?”

  Brenwar pointed his axe toward the nearest cave. “There.”

  Nath shrugged. “Fair enough.” In stride and sword ready, he headed toward the nearest entrance. The last time they’d been here, there had been goblin guards posted everywhere, but now, both the mouths of the caves and the roads from one cave to the next were abandoned. Other than the rotten smell and the stiff wind, they had no company.

  Eyes narrowed, Nath eased his way inside the shadowy mouth of the first cave. In moments, his eyes adjusted. “Doesn’t seem like they’ve done much decorating since the last time I was here.”

  Brenwar grunted.

  There was still enough light outside to show the outlines of the inner city within. Nath had been in dozens of places like this in his two hundred and some years of life. Grand cities carved out of the heart of a mountain. Rooms. Roadways. Throne rooms and cathedrals. Just like a castle, but only cut out from within. The dwarven city of Morgdon was much like this, but according to Brenwar, this here was a cruder work from long, long ago. Where they stood now was a wide-open expanse, probably an old courtyard or marketplace. Its makings were timeless and abandoned.

  “Follow the stink, I guess,” said Nath.

  Brenwar agreed, “Aye.”

  Tracking goblins on stone wasn’t easy if they got too far of a lead. Eventually their scent, like that of most things, would fade. Following his nose, Nath ventured deeper into the mountain city, peeking through one opening and another, until they were standing in the pitch black and Brenwar bumped into him. His sight was strong in the blackness, and Brenwar’s dwarven senses weren't half bad either, but Nath didn’t want to overlook anything.

  “How about a little light, Fang?” he asked.

  The great blade glimmered with a very faint light.

  “Thank you.”

  They ventured deeper into the city. Little had changed in the decades since Nath had been there. Far from a marvel, the inner sanctum was one dreary room after the other. Alcoves abandoned. Wooden tables and chairs rotting. The strange thing was that it had been abandoned at all. It was livable. Cold, dreary, but livable. But that was common in Nalzambor. There were fallen cities and temples throughout the land, places that time and war forgot for whatever reason.

  Spending little more than an hour, they finished checking the rooms.

  Brenwar started into one of the passages that led deeper into the city. “I’m thinking there’s another side to this city. We never went that far last time.”

  Something ate at Nath. He said to Brenwar, “Let’s go back. We didn’t even check the throne room.”

  “We got a good enough look at it when we passed. I say we keep going.”

  Nath was already moving, however, traversing the rough-hewn corridors. Fang’s soft light led him to the throne room. The giant urns where fire had burned were still on either side of the throne made from large blocks of stone. He scanned the balconies above, but there was only darkness. Not even the slightest s
cuffle caught his ear, only Brenwar’s breathing and the soft squeak of the leather that held the buckle on his breastplate armor.

  “Still nothing,” Brenwar said.

  Nath approached the metal cage that was big enough to hold a small dragon. A blue streak dragon had been imprisoned there, and last time, Nath had come to rescue it. Now, the empty cage sat there as a silent reminder of the evil in the world. Nath had thought he defeated it, but he knew in his heart there were still people that would poach dragons. Kill them. Sell them. Enslave them.

  Brenwar eyed the cage and turned to Nath. “Nothing here. Let’s go.”

  “I suppose.”

  Suddenly, the nape hairs on Nath's neck stood up. Fang’s blade brightened. He whirled toward the throne just as all of the urns burst into a new fiery light.

  A formidable figure appeared on the throne, tall and long, in dark-grey robes that hid his feet. Hairy fingers clutched the arms of the great chair. Long fingernails emanated arcane power. The man’s face was lean, strong chinned, and hairy.

  “Corzan!”

  CHAPTER 3

  Corzan sat unfazed, with a look of delight in his large dark eyes. He bounced his fingertips together. “I assume you are looking for the Thunderstones, eh?”

  “No, we’re tracking down a bunch of murderers!” Brenwar blurted out.

  The necromancer rolled his eyes. “Oh my, I shouldn’t be surprised you brought that two-legged goat with you. Really, Nath Dragon, or should I say Dragon Prince? Shouldn’t you be keeping a better class of company by now?”

  Brenwar started to storm forward.

  Nath caught him by the arm and held his friend back.

  Corzan was way too poised, a game master waiting to make his move. And there was an air about him that hadn't been there decades ago. Power radiated from him.