From alt.pub.dragons-inn Wed Mar 15 09:02:01 1995 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:8199 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!warwick!news.coventry.ac.uk!cc_sysk!ajf5 From: The Harvester of Souls Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: Quest for the Dragonblade (excerpt). Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 12:50:43 +0000 Organization: Coventry University Lines: 101 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: cc_sysk.coventry.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Sender: ajf5@cc_sysk Norlic One-eye , the Barbarian chieftan eased himself back in the chair , drawing deeply from his pipe , which had been hollowed from the thigh-bone of an ogre , and surveyed his audience slowly. He cleared his throat and rubbed his shaven pate thoughtfully. "Where to begin?" he asked himself. "I know you all want to hear of the Dragonblade , and the quest , but it's so complicated , I don't know how to start." "Tell us of Jalek the Uniter!" An elf , sitting over the way shouted. "Jalek? Aye , Jalek." he smiled for a moment. "That'd be a good place to begin. Thank you sir elf." The elf bowed. "To imagine Jalek takes a lot of doin' , he was , still is , many things , all at once. There was never a more honourable man that I knew yet I can't really put him into words." He paused a moment for thought. " Ah , but I could tell ye a tale to show him up well." He looked around for approval , and noting the rapt attention of the audience , he began: Norlic crouched silently in the shadow of a huge boulder , squinting against the light of the sun. He drew a deep draught from his water-skin and looked around him. No sign o' the leathery bastards that had ambushed them but he didn't like taking chances , especially not with dragon-men. They were huge , bigger than he'd expected , standing like men but scaled and winged like the dragons of legend , with the ugliest lizard-face he'd ever seen. Jalek had been gone for more than an hour too , he'd taken the elf-ranger Quelynas and the dwarf Terrik and gone off to scout the area , leaving Norlic to watch their camp in case the dragon-men doubled back or had allies. So much for that! Norlic muttered to himself. He was getting hot and uncomfortable out here and was annoyed about missing a battle. "Ah , " He said aloud as he heard the creak of a harness off to his left , followed by the rasp of a sword being drawn. "It looks like the battle has come to me." Carefully , he reached behind him , to the huge battle-axe was strapped to his back and eased over his shoulder , gripping it in both hands. Cautiously , he edged around the boulder , back to the camp. Three lizardine forms crouched among the packs , talking to one-another in strange tones , hissing and growling. Two were blue and one green he saw , dressed in outlandish armour over iron-hard scales weilding short curved swords. Norlic smiled , three dragon-men to himself! He cocked his axe back over his left shoulder and charged them. "You charged three dragon-men on you own?" A dwarf cried in astonishment , almost spillling his ale. "Surely you stood not a chance!" "Aye , three of 'em!" Norlic grinned. "You forget that I am a barbarian." The first of the dragon-men , fully three times Norlic's height , didn't have time to react as the barbarian's axe struck it's thigh and clove through the blue scales with a deafening ring. The beast squealed in agony and dropped , clutching at it's injured limb. Norlic ended it's misery with a downward sweep of his axe. Everything suddenly went bright blue and he was thrown some distance away from the camp , he lay where he landed for a moment , his limbs jerking beyond his control. The remaining blue had breathed at him , hitting him with a bolt of pure electricity! He rose shakily and reminded himself to be more careful in future. The two dragon-men stood about thirty paces away intently watching him , the green was preparing to breath , if he let it , the dragon-man would engulf him in a cone of poisonous gas and kill him. He growled , hefting his axe and cocking it over his shoulder , he launched it right at the dragon-man leaping behind a boulder the moment he let go of the polished haft. He rolled to his feet and ran out of the range of the attach he knew would come. It didn't. Instead there was another scream of pain them silence , the enchanted axe had done it's work. But now he was unarmed with anothe blue dragon-man out there. If I could try to sprint over to the body of the green....the harsh flapping of leathery wings behind him told him that wouldn't be likely. He wouldn't be able to take many more electrical bolts. The clash of steel on steel told him that he wouldn't have to. He span around to see Jalek emgage the creature. As always , the sheer speed of the swordsman dizzied him , Jalek's attacks came in blurs of silver that the dragon-man couldn't hope to counter. And already it was tiring , violet blood oozing the dozens of tiny wounds Jalek had inflicted on it. But Jalek wasn't tiring , the lithe swordsman wasn't even working up a sweat. Norlic watched in disbelief as ther dragon-man stumbled with exhaustion and tripped , just where Jalek had wanted him to. Jalek thrust a sword through each of the beast's eyes the battle ended. "You took your time gettin' here!" Norlic called. "Sorry , we ran into the main force , five blues , three greens , and a brown. They won't be throubling us again" Jalek shrugged. "Nine? You slew nine dragon-men?" "More or less , " Replied Jalek , confused at Norlic's shock. "Thee were three of us." "A canny fighter is our Jalek!" came a gruff cry as Tallek the dwarf walked up the trail , a broad grin creasing his weathered face. " Only left two o' the scum each for me an' the elf! Sure an' he's gettin' greedy!" "Only seven..." Jalek shrugged. "Seven dragon-men!" A bearded warrior cried from the bar. "I do not believe it!" "This is Jalek the Uniter!" Retorted the elf who had spoken earlier. "He has never been beaten in battle by man or otherwise!" Norlic simply smiled and enjoyed his ale as the elf and man argued about the supposed virtues of Jalek the Uniter. If only they knew what Jalek was really capable of! Ah , well , he thought , refilling his pipe. That'll wait till tomorrow. Keep posted for later instalments and tell me weather you prefer my SCI-FI of fantasy ? _ _ /-\|_/-\|\| THE HARVESTER OF SOULS.