Space Pirate Charlie: The Dragon Mage Book 2 Read online

  With their attention firmly fixed on the Zomoki their master had bound just outside the building, Charlie seized the opportunity and snatched the slaaps and konuses from the table and retreated back to the shadows, slipping out the window and taking up a hiding place behind a dilapidated storage container.

  Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here.

  He slipped a slaap onto his hand, lacing his fingers through the familiar holes of the weapon.

  No charge. Shit.

  He tried another with the same result. Two more were likewise possessing only the faintest trickle of power––just enough to test integrity but no more.

  Oh, come on, he grumbled to himself, sliding the last slaap onto his hand. This one, though very weak, at least had enough of a charge to cast a few times. He hoped it would be enough.

  He then repeated the process with the konuses. He had grabbed a dozen of the much smaller devices, and every last one of them possessed only a fractional charge.

  Twelve of them, he mused, an unconventional idea popping into his head. Well, it’ll either blow my arm off, or it’ll work… maybe.

  As quietly as he was able, he slid all of them to his wrists, six per side, taking care to tie them together with a piece of fabric torn from his tunic so they wouldn’t jingle against one another as he moved. It’ll have to do.

  Peering around the edge of the building, he counted eight guards and seven of the stocky factory worker creatures. Ara was bound at the far end of the clearing, her golden collar pulsing brightly, holding her firmly in place. She could move, but not much. Regardless, the visla’s men stayed well clear of her.

  “Fifteen to one. I guess there’s no sense strategizing too much,” he said with a little sigh. “Probably just going to get myself killed anyway.”

  Charlie began running through all of the spells in his arsenal in a sing-song rhyme, the mnemonic trick refreshing his memory, as he hadn’t been training the spells since he transitioned from gladiator to house slave.

  “Well, no time like the present,” he said, breaking into a run.

  The first two men he fell upon didn’t know what hit them.

  For the record, it was a big wooden club.

  After that, bedlam ensued as the minimally armed gladiator tore into his opponents with reckless abandon, his club swinging in tandem with his fists and feet. He was desperately trying to save the few uses in his slaap, hoping to make them count. The konuses were so weak he doubted they’d do much, even stacked as they were.

  The guards, to his benefit, were relying on their conventional weapons, uncomfortable with the situation and reluctant to discharge their slaaps in so dense a group of their own men.

  Charlie, however, was used to fighting in such chaotic conditions, and a few carefully aimed spells took down three of the guards in quick succession before his slaap was no more than a powerless chunk of metal on his hand.

  He discarded it immediately and tried to pull one from a fallen man, but the relentless onslaught of both guards and workers prevented him from retrieving it, forcing him instead to fall back, swinging his club high and low. The fake-out head attacks opened up the midriffs and knees of the nearest two attackers, but the others were quick to fill the gap left as they fell.

  Unlike the old martial arts movies he had enjoyed watching back on Earth, these alien fighters did not wait and take turns attacking. They moved on him as one, and Charlie found his blows met by counterstrikes more often than not.

  Nevertheless, he had reduced their numbers significantly. This was a blessing and a curse, in that he had more room to fight now, but so too did they have a clearer shot on him with their slaaps.

  Instinctively, Charlie cast defensive spells in quick succession, blocking their attacks while closing the distance enough to wield his club with efficacy. Of the fifteen, only four remained, and of those, only two were guards. The rest lay scattered on the field, battered, broken, and in some cases, dead.

  This wasn’t a casual bout. This was for keeps.

  Another worker fell to Charlie’s club, but still another managed to flank him, lunging in with a rather wicked-looking short sword.

  The blow should have skewered him, but the attacking guard fell to the soil, the blade barely scratching Charlie’s skin. A black-hilted dagger jutted from the side of his head.

  He spun to catch glimpse of a cloaked figure rushing into the fight. Whose side he was on, however, Charlie couldn’t tell, as the man seemed intent on fighting anyone in his path. The remaining guard and worker both fell to the man in quick succession. He then aimed his assault at Charlie, moving with such speed and power he found himself using every last bit of his training just to keep pace.

  Faster and faster their hands moved, punching, blocking, deflecting minor spells.

  Charlie feinted a high kick, then threw a stink spell in the hooded man’s face. A flash of pale flesh filled Charlie’s field of vision, then stars as a fist caught his nose, sending him flying.

  Charlie recovered and was back in the fight in an instant, pressing the mysterious attacker with a quick combination of blows. Despite moving the man back, he couldn’t help but feel almost as if he were being toyed with.

  From the corner of his eye, Charlie saw a stunned guard had recovered and was rushing at them both, a small sword raised high for a killing blow.

  “Effian Zina!” Charlie thought, casting the bastardized spell with all the force he could pull from the stacked konuses.

  They were all barely charged, but somehow, the combined power of them swelled up, driving the improvised spell and blasting the poor man in half.

  Charlie didn’t have time to marvel at what had just happened. The cloaked attacker moved close and grabbed both of his wrists, uttering a spell he had never heard before.

  “Floxzan horaxia,” he hissed. Charlie felt the little power remaining in his konuses drain from the devices as if they were popped water balloons.

  Rather than allow himself the luxury of being startled by the complication in his situation, Charlie did what any good Earthling would do. He fought dirty, head-butting the hidden face beneath the cloak, following with a hard punch-kick, driving the man backward and very nearly knocking the wind out of him.

  His hood had fallen back from the blow, and Charlie finally got a good look at his opponent, just as he drew a dark blade from the scabbard hidden beneath his cloak.

  A Wampeh. And one that looked strangely familiar.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a booming voice said, the pale man’s long black hair blowing from the force. “Drop it.”

  In the course of fighting, Charlie had managed to drive his opponent backward, right into Ara’s holding space. The Zomoki now loomed directly over him.

  “I said, drop it.”

  The Wampeh looked up at the enormous head––and the sharp teeth her massive jaws sported––and complied, dropping the sword to the dirt. He looked back at Charlie and smiled, his pointed canines somehow bright, even in the dim light.

  “You know, I could have killed you a dozen times,” he said. “But overall, not a bad showing.”

  “You’re a cocky one, aren’t you? And it was nine times you could have landed a killing stroke, by my count,” Ara corrected him. “And I can’t help but wonder why you didn’t.”

  The Wampeh turned his gaze to the golden-eyed dragon. “So it’s true. You do speak. I’d heard tales that a very few of your kind still possessed this ability, but had long doubted them.”

  “You’ll find my kind can be quite surprising,” she replied.

  “Uh, Ara? What’s going on?” Charlie asked.

  “Ara?” the Wampeh said, actual shock flashing across his face. “Your name is Ara?”

  “I only call her that. Her real name’s kind of a bitch to pronounce,” Charlie said.

  “You’re Aranzgrgghmunatharrgle?” the pale man said, his eyes wide with awe.

  “How did you––?” Charli
e asked.

  “Legend said you died hundreds of years ago. None held even the slightest hope you were still alive. All believed you dead.”

  “A belief I wish to have continue,” Ara said.

  “Of course, Wise One,” the Wampeh replied, bowing his head slightly.

  “So, you do not wish to test your mettle against me, then?”

  “My fangs would never pierce your scales,” he said, meeting her gaze. “And even if they could, I would never try.”

  Something in the way he spoke to her, that strange, almost reverence in his tone, made Charlie believe the man was telling the truth. He held her in high regard, for some reason, and Charlie suddenly had the sneaking suspicion the strange man was far older than his physical form suggested.

  Ara sniffed the air, studying the Wampeh, cloaked in deep gray, a slight shifting pattern to the material.

  It must be enchanted, Charlie noted as the man’s form shifted, making him hard to focus on despite being right in front of him. The face, however. That he saw clearly.

  “I know you,” he said, realization dawning on him. “You probably don’t remember. It was nearly three years ago, back in the bazaar of some small world with a blue sun. You were fighting a group of armed men, and it looked like you were losing. But when a visla appeared you suddenly cast a killing spell out of the blue, taking down all the others, leaving him broken.”

  “He was a mester, actually. A visla would have been far more work,” the Wampeh corrected.

  “You-you drank his blood. I saw it,” Charlie continued.

  “Yes, I did. And you, Charlie Gault, saved my life that day when you shouted a warning and distracted the miscreant attempting to skewer me from behind. I owed you my life.” He retrieved his dagger from the head of the fallen guard, wiping the blade and tucking it back into its sheath beneath his cloak. “And now we are even.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I know many things.”

  “Wait a minute. Was that you racing toward the estate the other day when the bundabist escaped?”

  “You saw me?”

  “Only a glimpse.”

  “Hmm,” he said, perplexed. “Most intriguing. But yes, I was infiltrating Visla Maktan’s grounds that day and needed a distraction.”

  The beasts’ escape suddenly made far more sense.

  “You opened the pens. That’s why both of her locking spells failed.”

  “Again, correct,” he said. “I was preparing to take the visla if opportunity presented itself. Sadly, you triggered my trap before I could lure him to it.”

  “Trap?”

  “Yes. Just the other side of the low wall you so valiantly vaulted just now.”

  “You crossed the visla’s perimeter?” Ara asked, leaning in to see the burns on his neck better. “That shouldn’t have been possible.”

  “It was rather impressive, I must admit,” the pale man said. “He misused a defensive spell and somehow drained much of the power from his collar. Quite clever. Unfortunately, it was a far different spell he ran into while heading the other direction the other day.”

  “That’s why my neck was untouched. It wasn’t the perimeter spell that shocked me during the hunt at all.”

  “Correct. It was a very specialized spell. One designed to disable Yoral Maktan long enough for me to dispose of him while his guards were preoccupied. But then you stumbled into it. An unpowered man in a trap meant for a most dangerous visla. And yet, somehow, you survived. It is most curious.”

  Charlie hadn’t realized just how close he had apparently come to dying. Prior to the most recent near-death experience, that is.

  “You said you were here to dispose of him. You’re an assassin,” he stated plainly.

  “Among other things.”

  “Was it you who brought me to my room, then?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “But if subterfuge is so important, why admit all of this to me?”

  “Because you are aligned with the Wise One, which says much for your character. And also because we have overlapping interests, as I think you’ve discovered.”

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Charlie muttered.

  “A wise saying. Did you come up with it?”

  “Uh, yes. Yes, I did. Just now, in fact.”

  “Very catchy. I shall appropriate it––with your permission, of course.”

  “Knock yourself out. But you’ve got to help me out here. I mean, I get it that Maktan is not the best man around, but why kill him?”

  “Do not be deceived by his niceties. Visla Yoral Maktan is a key member of the Council of Twenty, and that alliance of powerful systems is oppressing the hundreds of others in the galaxy. They have even gone so far as to overthrow peaceful rulers on the most distant of worlds. Those worlds that were content to be as they were, not a part of the Council’s rule. It is terrible, yet something few have heard of.”

  “Because of the distance, of course.”

  “No. Because they have killed all who voice their discontent. The Council of Twenty intends to control all of the systems, taxing them heavily, while providing little benefit for the residents. Their men fight for coin, and if the vislas aim them at a peaceful world, their mercenary forces have no qualms with striking first and asking questions later, if at all.”

  Charlie looked at the man with a quizzical expression on his face. Here was a stone-cold killer, a man who drank the blood of his powered enemies, and yet he was fighting for what seemed like a noble cause. The dichotomy made his head spin a little.

  In any case, the Wampeh was on his side. At least for the time being. And having a vampiric assassin watching your back was the kind of plus that puts your other concerns a bit more at ease.

  “You’re not what I expected,” Charlie said. “But I think I’m glad to know you, um…?”

  “I am called Bawb,” the Wampeh replied.

  “Bob?”

  “Yes, Bawb.”

  Charlie grinned. “You’re a deadly vampire space assassin, and your name is Bob?”

  “Is there a problem?” Bawb asked, a curious look in his eye.

  “No, no problem. It’s just, I expected something more, I don’t know. More badass, I guess.”

  “You can call him Geist, if you prefer,” Ara said.

  The Wampeh’s eyes flashed at the name.

  “Yes, my Wampeh friend, I know who you are,” the mighty Zomoki said. “Your reputation precedes you. The deadliest assassin in thirty systems. In, out, and never seen.”

  “An exaggeration, of course,” Bawb said. “And only thirty systems?” he added with a sly grin.

  Ara let out a rumbling laugh. “Oh, I like this one. But more talk later. At the moment, I need your help, Charlie.”

  “That’s what I’m here for. But what can I do? It looks like the visla has you pretty well pinned down.”

  “Yes, the incantation is a strong one, but I believe you can break it. The way you drained its bond before.”

  “But I don’t even have a konus. Mr. Geist here drained the weak ones I salvaged, and all of these guards only have combat slaaps.”

  “And about that, the use of a dozen konuses like that should have torn your arms clean from your body, yet somehow, you once again remain unscathed. I think there is potential within you, Charlie. But now is not the time to tap into it. Now is the time to help release me.”

  She turned her gaze to the Wampeh. “Bawb, would you be so kind as to lend Charlie your konus?”

  The pale man pulled up his sleeves, revealing ornate, armored armlets running from wrist to elbow. He pulled the konus from his wrist and handed it to Charlie.

  “Fully charged,” he noted.

  “Thanks,” Charlie said, slipping it onto his arm. It had been so long since he’d worn a proper konus, he had forgotten how good it felt. Suddenly, channeling his unconventional spells didn’t seem too far-fetched.

  Ara leaned her massive head low, allowing Charlie to w
rap his hands around the glowing band on her neck. Bawb, the Geist, watched with fascination.

  “I noted him doing something similar in the bout on Gilea. But what spell is this?”

  “It’s a konus magusi spell,” Charlie said, the collar flickering as he said the words before he even began to focus on his casting.

  “A simple defensive spell? It should not have any effect on that collar. Fascinating.”

  Charlie turned his attention back to his task at hand. Or in his hands, as the case may be. Slowly, he began the spell, channeling it from within, his lips moving silently. Ara refrained from comment. Just this once, she’d not correct the action if it helped him release her sooner.

  The collar’s glow began to fade, the magic restraint lessening more and more, until the collar finally returned to the dull illumination of its normal resting state.

  “That’s enough, Charlie,” Ara informed him.

  He looked up from his task. “Holy shit, it worked!”

  “That it did,” Geist said, taking the konus Charlie held out to him and sliding it back over his wrist.

  “Thanks for that.”

  “Anything to help Aranzgrgghmunatharrgle,” he replied, pleased to have been of assistance to one he so revered. “You should know, there appeared to be an unpowered konus of substantial design near the smelting molds. Perhaps it might be of use to you,” Bawb said, then turned toward the darkness.

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  “I need to find and kill the visla before these men are discovered. He is already very heavily guarded. This incident may make him nearly untouchable.”

  “Except for the Geist,” Ara noted.

  “Perhaps. But easier is far preferable to difficult, is it not?”

  “Indeed,” she agreed.

  “But he’s always by himself. Why, just the other day he took me for a walk out on the grounds. We were totally alone. Why didn’t you just strike then? I know you were already here by then.”

  Bawb the Geist, deadliest assassin in thirty systems, simply laughed. “Oh, Charlie. He was most certainly not alone.”