“Let’s get out of here,” Yaz said.
As they marched toward the exit, Yaz paused to pick up his staff. Cork came over with the dark-skinned man and said, “This is Moz. Thanks for helping me save him.”
“I’m glad I could save someone.” He held out his hand. “Name’s Yaz.”
They shook and Moz said, “I figured. Callie told me all about you and your mission. She’s Tonia’s superior in the bardic order. I didn’t know your father long, but he seemed like a good man.”
“He was the best I’ve ever known. I left your little dragon on the rim of the pit. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding her.”
Moz nodded his thanks and they resumed hiking. As soon as they stepped out into the village Moz froze and stared at a distant building. “Son of a bitch.”
He took off like a shot from a crossbow, running full speed out of sight. Yaz and Cork shared a look of confusion.
A moment later Moz reappeared, dragging an old man in a green robe by the scruff of the neck.
“Who’s that?” Brigid asked.
Yaz shrugged. “Another cultist I suppose. Moz must have eyes like an eagle if he spotted him from so far away. I didn’t have any idea he was there.”
“Moz was a ranger,” Cork said.
That explained it. Yaz had read about the legendary warriors. They had a bad reputation in Carttoom, but that was to be expected given that they served Rend.
When Moz reached them, he shoved the old man forward. “This is the leader of the Scaled Society.”
Yaz stared at the man, trying to decide how best to kill him. Nothing too quick, that was for sure.
He must have read Yaz’s intentions from his expression. “Do what you like with me. Nothing matters now that Leonidas has activated the final spire. All the dragons will be enslaved once again by that child’s gift. I deserve to be punished for my failure.”
“You deserve to be punished for what you did to my father.”
The old man stared at Yaz. “Your father enslaved dragons. He deserved the punishment he got. I only wish I could have fed him to the black dragon before she flew away.”
Yaz’s fist crashed into the cult leader’s head, sending him to the ground. “Unless you have some use for this pile of refuse, I’m going to break his arms and legs and leave him here to starve to death.”
Moz shrugged. “Do what you will. I’m sure he’s earned it many times over.”
Brigid put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t. Show mercy. Show you’re better than him and his followers.”
Yaz snarled. “You should thank her. Brigid just saved your life.”
The old man shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.”
A final hard punch sent him to dream land. It was better than he deserved, but Yaz needed to get going. His mother was waiting.
Epilogue
Leonidas couldn’t stop smiling as his ship soared away from the swamp. He’d done it. At last the final tower was activated. Now all he had to do was take Ariel back to the central tower. From there she should be able to command every dragon on the continent. The world was now his for the taking.
“Boss?”
He turned from the rail to find Shade and Rondo approaching with Polymus’s head. A few feet away, a headless corpse of some unlucky cultist lay on the deck staining the wood red.
Leonidas gestured toward the body. “A gift.”
“That will serve,” Polymus said. “Lift his trunk vertical then place me on the stump of his neck.”
Shade jerked the body into position while a grimacing Rondo gingerly settled Polymus into place. Slowly the flesh mingled, fusing head and body into a whole. The arms twitched and when they did Shade dropped him before shuffling back.
“That’s nasty, Boss.”
It was, but also fascinating. Polymus was truly immortal. Somehow, Leonidas would pry the secret out of him. Then he only had to feed the potion to himself and the girl and he could rule the world forever. It was a lovely thought.
Domina emerged from below deck with a pair of cages. He’d prepared messages for his agents in both Rend City and Carttoom City for when he emerged victorious. While it would certainly be satisfying to burn both cities to the ground, he would prefer not to damage his empire any more than necessary. He would give both kings a chance to pledge their loyalty to him before sending in his dragons. Perhaps they would be smart enough to surrender. Given the arrogance of kings, he doubted it.
He opened the cage doors and the pigeons took off, one north and the other east. His first imperial missive was on its way. It was a glorious day, the first of many.
With surprisingly little magical prompting, Tolin revealed everything he knew about the Dark Sages. Callie was thoroughly disappointed. She knew more about the organization than he did. She shouldn’t be too surprised. The less the weak-willed fop knew, the less he could reveal if caught. Clearly his master held him in as little regard as Callie.
As she pondered whether asking further questions would be of any value, Tamsin said, “There’s a pigeon coming.”
Callie brightened. Maybe this wouldn’t be a complete waste of her time after all.
Tamsin held out her hand and the pigeon fluttered in through a small window and lighted on her wrist. It had a small scroll tube attacked to its leg which Callie removed. As she read her heart raced. She read the message a second time just to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood.
“Gods above! We need to get to the palace, now.”
“Please don’t make me go,” Tolin said. “The king will have me executed.”
“You betrayed the nation,” Callie said. “What did you think was going to happen if you were found out? Grab him and let’s go.”
They dragged Tolin through the halls of his mansion, ignoring the shouted protests from his wife and questions from the servants. A guard was waiting outside, his sword drawn and ready. Unfortunately for him, sometime in the past he’d broken his leg. A hiss from Callie snapped it again, sending him to the ground. If there were other guards watching, that display was enough to convince them discretion was the better part of valor.
On the plus side, Tolin’s mansion was only a ten-minute walk from the palace. The soldiers on duty outside knew Callie well enough that they let her right in without questions she wasn’t anxious to answer at the moment. There was no way King Rend was available this early so Callie made her way to the entrance of the throne room in the hopes that Malik had reached his post.
A brisk walk down a long, carpeted hall followed by a left turn brought them to the throne room doors. As she’d expected they were closed. Happily, Malik was indeed perched on his tall stool out front ready to greet any early petitioners. His grim, black-robed form was oddly comforting to Callie today.
The seneschal took them all in with a long look and sighed. “Do I want to know?”
“Probably not, but you need to.” Callie looked around again, but it was just them. “Tolin here works for the Dark Sages. This morning he received a message by pigeon ordering him to tell King Rend he had one week to surrender and swear allegiance to the new Dragon Empire. I have a copy of the message if you want to see it.”
“I assume there’s an ‘or else’ attached,” Malik said, seeming unperturbed by the news.
“Yeah. If the king refuses to surrender, the capital will be burned to the ground by dragon fire.”
Malik raised an eyebrow, about as drastic a reaction as she’d ever seen from the man. “How credible is this threat?”
“Very, considering he has Ariel.”
“So be it. I’ll alert His Majesty. You all can wait in the throne room. I doubt you’ll encounter anyone, but if you do it goes without saying that you should keep this news to yourself.”
Malik unlocked the throne room doors and Callie led the way inside. Once everyone was through, he locked them again.
“What now?” Tamsin asked.
“Now we wait.”
Lucky for them
, they didn’t have to wait long. Barely fifteen minutes after Malik left, the king burst out of the rear entrance that connected to the royal residence. Red faced and furious, he had a bare sword in his hand. He took one look at Tolin and stalked over.
“I trusted you!” the king roared. “You worthless, miserable traitor! I’d kill you right here only I don’t want to ruin the carpet.”
Tolin fell to his knees. “Have mercy, Your Majesty. I had no choice but to obey. If I hadn’t, they would have killed me.”
“Better to die with honor than live without it. I’ll have you drawn and quartered later. Callie, how serious is this threat?”
“As serious as it gets, Your Majesty. Will you yield?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Malik is already summoning my generals to prepare battle plans. We’ll have to evacuate the civilians, of course. Plenty of them won’t like it, but too bad. Better than being burned alive. I’ve even ordered a messenger sent to Carttoom. I doubt the bastard will see reason but given that this outfit operates out of his territory, hopefully he’ll come around.”
Callie nodded along as the king spoke. She’d missed this side of him. The last time she’d seen King Rend this energetic and focused was during the last war. Pity it took another one to bring him around.
Callie’s stomach twisted as she thought about it. They were at war again. She’d hoped not to see another one in her lifetime.
So much for that.
With the help of the enchanted sleigh, Yaz, Brigid, and Silas reached the base of the Central Mountains in a few days. The peaks towered above them, white-capped and jagged. The wind howled, driving snow into his face. He ignored the discomfort. After losing his father, it meant nothing to him. Whatever it took, he was not losing his mother as well.
They’d left the dragonriders behind to help protect the new village. There wasn’t room for them in the sleigh and they’d only slow Yaz and the others down. Calvin hadn’t argued. When he looked at Yaz now, fear tinged his expression. Even Burke, who had never regarded him with anything but disdain kept his distance and refused to meet Yaz’s gaze. Not that he blamed them after what happened in the swamp.
And so it was just the three of them again. Yaz had reviewed his memory of the atlas and knew exactly where to find the pass they sought. He stared hard at the mountains. They wouldn’t stop him.
Nothing would stop him from saving his mother.
The Dragon Empress
Prologue
High Sage Kranic, no former High Sage thanks to that bastard Leonidas, paced and snarled to himself. He was in the main lab of his private citadel, a fortress built in the Central Mountains of matching stones fitted so well it was nearly invisible until you were right on top of it. Beakers bubbled over heat stones, filling the air with pungent, spicy smells that tickled his nose.
He’d spent a small fortune and three years building the place so he’d have somewhere safe to plot his overthrow of Most High Black. And what had all that planning got him?
Nothing! His spineless fellow high sages abandoned him at the first sign that Leonidas wasn’t going to just stand aside and let him take over. What did they think, that the most high was just going to roll over and play dead? Granted it was partly Kranic’s fault. He’d assumed the mind control potions he’d snuck into their meals would hold against the Black Ring’s power. That error had been a serious one.
But not fatal since he’d managed to escape. To escape and flee like a bandit freshly broken out of jail. It was pathetic for a man of his stature. He wanted to break something, but the equipment in the lab was too valuable to waste. A single figure bustled around behind him, watching the chemicals’ progress and tuning the stone’s heat. His chief of research, a short, balding man in his fifties named Malcom, an alchemist of only marginally less skill than Kranic himself, had been working to solve the flaws in their weapon for years. And while the project was making progress, Malcom claimed it wasn’t ready.
Kranic didn’t care. His spies had finally found out Leonidas’s plan. Unfortunately, they found out too late for Kranic to do anything to stop it. Leonidas now had the power to control dragons. Combined with the power of his ring, the man was virtually invincible. Only the weapon had any hope of defeating him. It might not be perfect, but it would have to do.
“Malcom, wake it up,” Kranic said.
“I beg you, High Sage.” Malcom trembled as he spoke. “I haven’t worked out all the flaws. It might be unstable or even nonviable. Hele—”
“I told you never to speak that name in my presence.”
Malcom quailed. “My predecessor burned all her notes before fleeing with the prototype. I haven’t been able to recreate them fully, much less fix the flaws in the original design.”
Kranic stalked over so his massive frame loomed over Malcom. “You watched her working and have had nearly twenty years to replicate her work. If you haven’t done it by now, why should I believe you’ll ever succeed?”
“Hel… She was a genius. A once-in-a-lifetime talent. I don’t sell my abilities short, but I am realistic. I may find the breakthrough tomorrow or it might be five years from now, but I will find it.”
“Unfortunately, we are out of time. Five years from now we’ll all be Leonidas’s slaves. Win or lose, our time is up. Wake the weapon.”
Malcom bowed his head. “As you command, High Sage.”
Kranic followed him to the rear of the lab where a large cylinder covered by a dark tarp waited. Malcom tossed it aside revealing the thick, heavy glass underneath. Floating in the vat was a sandy-haired boy of perhaps thirteen years. His ribs showed clearly and his cheeks were sunken and hollow. Only a simple pair of cut-off trousers covered him. His eyes were closed, giving him the appearance of sleeping peacefully.
That last was an illusion. The chemicals in the vat kept the boy unconscious just as the nutrients swirling in the liquid maintained his physical form. It was an incredibly complex balance that had taken years to perfect. Just the maintenance fluid would have been a discovery worthy of a career. Kranic couldn’t have cared less beyond the fact that it served his greater goal.
Malcom dragged a three-rung ladder over and climbed to the top. From within his black robes he pulled out a small vial that dangled from a silver chain. He lifted it over his head, unscrewed the cap, and poured the contents into the cylinder.
Soon enough they’d know if the work they’d put in over the past nineteen years was going to pay dividends or if they were doomed to serve as Leonidas’s lapdogs for the rest of their probably short lives.
The boy’s peaceful-seeming slumber gave way to fits of twitching and muscle spasms. His thrashing grew strong enough the liquid sloshed out of the top of the cylinder.
“What’s wrong with it?” Kranic asked.
“The weapon has never been awake. The process of becoming conscious isn’t a peaceful one, much like childbirth.” Kranic grimaced but said nothing else. As long as the weapon worked, he didn’t care what it had to do to become functional.
He was staring into the agitated fluid when the weapon opened its eyes and stared back at him. Then the boy smiled.
That expression held not a hint of sanity.
Kranic barely had time to step back before the cylinder exploded outward, showering him with glass and chemicals. He staggered, his skin stinging from exposure to the mixture.
“Malcom, what…?”
His chief assistant hung suspended from bands of darkness that wrapped his neck, arms, and chest. Matching power crackled around the weapon as it hovered six inches above the floor.
Though it had Malcom trapped, it stared at Kranic, the same deranged smile twisting its features.
“Do you know me, boy?” Kranic asked. “I am your master.”
The weapon clenched its fist, crushing Malcom to pulp. “Master? What does that mean?”
Kranic straightened to better show his full height. He towered over the weapon yet somehow felt like he was the smaller one.
&nb
sp; “It means you have to do what I say.”
“Why?”
Kranic’s heart raced. The obedience programming must not have taken. “Because I made you. You belong to me.”
The weapon turned to look at what remained of Malcom before letting the mangled corpse fall to the floor. “He made me. I watched him when he thought I wasn’t looking.”
Kranic swallowed hard. “He made you at my command. He served me the same way you must serve.”
The weapon cocked its head. “I don’t think I want to. I think I want to crush you like I did Malcom. How much more blood will I get out of your giant body? Won’t that be an interesting experiment?”
Kranic took a step back. This was a greater failure than he’d ever dreamed. At worst he imagined the weapon would be nonviable, like all the earlier efforts. He’d only vaguely considered that it might turn out to be a mad, uncontrollable monster.
Black energy gathered around the weapon’s hands.
With the speed of long practice, Kranic grabbed a vial from the pouch at his side and threw it at the floor in front of the weapon’s feet.
It shattered, filling the area with thick smoke.
Kranic ran.
He dashed across the lab toward the exit. The door barely slammed behind him when it exploded into splinters.
“Don’t you want to play with me?” The weapon’s mad laughter followed him down a long hall as he ran.
Suddenly, being Leonidas’s loyal subordinate didn’t seem so bad. He stumbled on an up-curled corner of carpet, staggered into the wall, and darted down a side passage.
He didn’t have far to go to reach his safe room. He’d enchanted the chamber every way he could think of. If he made it, there was no way even the weapon could force its way inside.
Hopefully.
Ahead of him waited the dark steel door. Behind him came more crashes and cackling. The weapon appeared to be enjoying smashing his few decorations. Kranic was happy to make the sacrifice if it bought him time to get out of sight.
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