Scourge of the Dragons by Cody J. Sherer Page B

for
several moments before lowering his hands from his eyes. All five
of the Knights had been killed and there was a man backing out of
the largest of the tents. Mariah grabbed him from behind and placed
her sword at his neck. He stiffened, but made no move to break
free. The guardswoman dragged him toward the fire before throwing
him to the ground.
    “Where is the young man?” She asked.
    “You can have that cursed thing. He is not
human, that is for certain,” Ansom replied.
    “Explain yourself.”
    “I will not deny that I treated him
violently, but he is a spawn of the scourge. We injured him to the
point where he could not see. It is a technique I learned long ago.
Take a man’s sight and he will feel powerless. Your friend would
not reveal the information about the scourge, so we pressed harder.
We threatened to hurt the girl and he broke down. He fell to the
floor in tears. Something changed inside of him and he began to
fight back. We didn’t think much of it at first. His first attack
on Goraine was too weak to do any serious damage, but he was
determined. He moved quicker than either of us expected and before
I knew it, the Knight was on the floor.”
    “Julian?” Amber called out as she exited the
tent.
    “Yes, we’ve rescued you,” he called
back.
    “Mark my words, that boy is trouble!” Ansom
yelled.
    Everyone went silent as Kade exited the
tent. He staggered forward as he held his hands over his eyes.
Julian clenched his fist as he stared down at the man responsible.
He pushed past Mariah and punched Ansom in the face. His opponent
quickly retaliated with a punch of his own. The guardswoman
motioned for Amber to assist Kade before she broke up the
fistfight. She pushed Julian back before smashing her hilt against
the torturer’s forehead. Kade stumbled up to the others with the
help of Amber. Julian placed a hand on each of their shoulders.
    “We’ll get you both to safety. Mariah will
know what to do,” He said.
    “You best let me go, the last thing you want
is for the Knights of Ardevale to arrive and see that you’ve taken
one of their allies captive,” Ansom said.
    “Not likely.”
    “No, he’s right. We don’t need to draw any
unnecessary attention,” Mariah said.
    “We can’t just leave him here,” Amber
said.
    “I never planned to.”
    *
    Wrotan grabbed his head as the fog came
back. He sat up and looked around. There were several figures
moving just past the mist. His vision cleared as he stood up.
Hadrin and the others were all staring at him. Ungaroth brought his
head in close to examine the hunter. They all had strange looks on
their faces. He rubbed his eyes as what little was left of the fog
dissipated. The dragon snorted as it pulled back. Wrotan shook his
head before turning to the others.
    “What happened to me?” He asked.
    “We were hoping you would know. You freaked
out and then Ungaroth told us that it wasn’t you,” Alandra
replied.
    “Very strange,” Wrotan said as he turned to
Erlkan.
    “What?” The elf asked.
    “You said that it was strange.”
    “But I didn’t say that.”
    “Who said it?”
    “Nobody said it,” Hadrin said.
    “This is most interesting. Isaack never told
us that this was a possibility,” Ungaroth said.
    “What is a possibility?” The hunter
asked.
    “The ritual is complete. You are now the
champion of the night dragons, but something more has occurred. Our
connection to the scourge has changed you. You are now attuned to
anything that has been scourged. I, too, heard Erlkan’s
thought.”
    “What about before? That was more than just
hearing a thought. How did I change locations?”
    “You did not change locations, you changed
bodies. Explain what happened from your point of view.”
    “Everything went foggy and then I was on the
ground. There were two men talking and one woman pleading with
them. The mist left, but my vision was still blurred. I fought off
the one man and then I returned here.”
    “Isaack and I