The Chronicles of Amberdrake

by Loren K. Jones

  * * *

  The daemon sniffed the dead man and decided it didn’t know him. Growling, it stalked forward on the pirate’s trail. It caught them in a clearing, and the hardened killers screamed as they saw death emerge from the gloom. Attacking the grouped men, the daemon joyfully slaughtered them. Heads and entrails fell on the forest floor as Petrof and his men died. When there were no more breathing bodies, the daemon headed to the beach.

  Petrof’s ship sat at anchor three hundred paces off shore. The daemon looked at it, then entered the water. Drake learned a valuable lesson the hard way: Daemons do not swim. Stalking back and forth, and growling in frustration, the daemon walked the beach, looking at the ship. And the sailors on the ship looked at it. Finally, the daemon stalked back into the forest.

  * * *

  “What was that, Lamin? What was it?” a man asked the first mate.

  “I don’t think I want to know. But it couldn’t swim, that’s for sure. It tried, but couldn’t,” Lamin said as he watched the beach. He had been watching for the captain’s return, but now he watched for the creature.

  “I hope the captain finishes up soon and returns. I’d hate to see them run afoul of that thing,” another man said, giving voice to the thoughts of most of the men who had seen the daemon.

  * * *

  Drake was again human when he found Captain Vidosic and his crew. “Captain, there are only a few men on that ship. We can take it if we’re clever.”

  Captain Vidosic looked at Drake and nodded. “We heard screams from behind us. Petrof and his men are on our trail.”

  Drake nodded, not telling him that they were on the trail in a bunch of pieces. “We can circle back this way, Captain.” Drake led off, circling away from the killing ground.

  The men on the ship saw a group lead a bound prisoner out of the forest and into one of the boats. The prisoner struggled and fought, but ten on one made him a sure loser. The boat launched from the shore and quickly made its way to the ship.

  “Did you catch Vid, Captain?” the mate yelled, and saw the prisoner again begin struggling. The boat pulled up to the ladder, and Captain Vidosic was hoisted aboard. “Well, Vid, I guess the first thing you’re going to lose is your eyes.”

  The prisoner looked at the mate and smiled. “Wrong again,” he said as his untied hands snapped forward. A knife slid into Lamin’s heart and he died, confused by the turn of events.

  The rest of the Gull’s crew quickly killed the five remaining pirates, throwing their bodies overboard. Drake approached Captain Vidosic.

  “Well, Captain, it would seem that you have a larger ship now.”

  “Indeed, Laird Drake. And you? What do you have?” the captain asked, looking at the laird questioningly.

  “A story for the fireside, Captain. A very good story for the fireside.”

  * * *

  Servants brought in a meal and served the queen and her guests where they sat. After they had eaten, Saunder asked, “What about the Clan of Amberdrake’s Children? You told us that you didn’t intend for Amber to found it. What was your reaction when you found out?”

  “I learned to make beer and run an inn.”

  “You did?” Rochelle asked in a stunned tone.

  “Let me tell you about when I tried to go home to Chanders.”

  Adventure 9 A Family Patron?

  AMBERDRAKE FLEW INTO THE DARENDIAN EMPIRE once again. He had been gone from the Empire for fifty years this time, and he was anxious to see the familiar sights of home. He decided to land near Greater Westport. Chanders will wait a few more years until I can go home as a rich man.

  Westport, both Greater and Lesser, sits on the mouth of the Brightslash River where it empties into the Antenian Sea. Greater Westport, the richer side of town, sits on the bluffs overlooking the bay and is home to the city’s upper class, as well as the upscale inns and Trading Houses. Lesser Westport sits at the water’s edge and is home to the common folk, the docks, and the shipping warehouses.

  Amberdrake was again impersonating a laird, this time calling himself Standral Emverson. I love keeping my father’s name alive. He also loved being a rich laird. “Poverty sucks mud,” as the saying went. He had collected quite a stash of coin over the last few decades. Five hundred Shreverston gold crowns weighed down a sack that he had looped around his neck. The weight was considerable, but for a dragon the size of Amberdrake, not excessive. For a man the size of Standral Emverson, it was all he could manage without a cart. When he magicked his clothes into being, he added extra pockets and pouches to hold all the gold. Still, he would be glad to find a place to lighten his load.

  Entering Greater Westport was an easy task. It was a major trading port, and they were used to strangers. After answering a few cursory questions from the guards at the gates he received directions to an inn that served the minor nobility. The Silver Unicorn Inn was not all that impressive a sight when he first approached it, and he almost passed it by. Then something caught his attention. Attached to the sign, in a corner of the frame, was a gilded carving of a dragon. It was a puzzle he decided to investigate further. I don’t remember ever visiting Greater Westport as Amberdrake.

  The innkeeper, Chanbern Olstenson, explained the carving, and the explanation almost stopped Standral’s heart. “That is a carving of my family’s patron, the dragon Amberdrake. Almost three hundred years ago he rescued one of my ancestors and gave her the means to found our line. The family has twenty inns, all totaled, and we run a minor Trading House from the Empire all the way around the continent to a place called Free Harbor.”

  Standral felt his knees start to go weak. Amber’s children and grandchildren, generation upon generation, and all of them treating me like some kind of family idol. “I need to sit down.”

  Chanbern lightly held his arm and guided him to a table. “Are you well, Laird? Can I get you something? Beer? Ale? Wine?”

  “Yes, please, beer would be fine. I’m just a little tired.” Standral took a few deep breaths. He’d known, way back then, that he was giving Amber a small fortune. He’d wanted it that way. But he hadn’t thought it would last beyond one or two generations.

  Chanbern returned with a beer and placed it on the table in front of him. Without thinking, Standral pulled out a gold crown and tossed it on the table beside the mug. Chanbern stared for a moment, then gingerly picked it up. “Laird, I am going to have to see a money changer to get your return.”

  His words shook Standral loose from the spell that the revelation had put him under. “I’m going to need room and board for a few weeks. Most of that will be yours in the end, and probably more as well.”

  Chanbern blinked again, then smiled. “You will have the best room we have, Laird. By the by, what is your name, sir? You didn’t say when you entered.”

  “I am Standral Emverson, from up around Chanders.” He sipped his beer, and was pleasantly surprised. “This is very good. The best I’ve tasted in a long time.”

  Chanbern’s chest swelled with pride as he said, “My greatest accomplishment is my brewing. That recipe has been handed down for generations, and each generation we manage to find a way to make it a little better.”

  “Well, I don’t see how you could do much better than this. This is truly excellent.” Standral continued to enjoy the beer, and Chanbern excused himself to see to his other customers.

  Once his surprise began to wear off, Standral noticed something odd. There weren’t many people in the common room. The time of day might explain it, but he had the feeling that there were never very many people here. That, plus the fact that the inn looked rather shabby, was confusing. He decided to stay around for a while and see what was happening.

  One of the serving girls, a buxom lass named Heather, led Standral to his room. He was pleased, though not impressed. The room was not all that big, measuring ten cubits square. Most of the space was taken up by a large bed in the center of the room. What was left was filled with a wardrobe and chest of drawers. Heather hung
about for a few moments, but Standral was not in the mood to play games just yet. I have some serious thinking to do. And I have to unburden myself of all this gold. I barely made it up the stairs. He magicked a hiding place into the wall over the bed and deposited all but one hundred and fifty crowns.

  Chanbern had said that his family owned twenty inns and a trading house. After more than two hundred and seventy-five years, that wasn’t unreasonable. But that they openly displayed the carving of Amberdrake, and claimed him as their family patron, was almost beyond belief.

  Night fell before he ventured out of his room again. The main room of the inn was still surprisingly empty. He began to ask Chanbern why when the answer came through the door.

  “We warned ya, Chan. We told ya ta close down, or pay up. Ya ain’t closed, so put ta gold on ta table.” The speaker was an emaciated skeleton of a man with a broken nose and a nasal twang to his voice that grated on Standral’s nerves. He was backed by three large men, each dressed and armed like a private guard.

  Chanbern stood straight and tall, facing the man. “I told you, and your boss, that I will not submit to threats. Do you think you can force me out of business? My family has been standing up to peons like you for hundreds of years. Go back to your master, little man.”

  The scarecrow hissed in anger and snapped his fingers. Two of the men jumped forward to grab Chanbern. Standral didn’t wait to find out what they were planning to do. Seeing the trouble coming, he had stood and cast a spell to freeze the men in their places. Then he calmly walked forward and addressed the little man.

  “Chanbern said he was not going to submit to you. Just exactly what part of ‘piss off’ didn’t you understand?” He moved into a clear space so all of them could see him and began weaving a spell in the air. Filaments of blue power formed into a binding net that held the men tight. Chanbern stood off to the side and watched in fascination as the men that had come to put him out of business were put out of business themselves.

  Standral gave the men a crooked smile and said, “Now waddle on back to your master and tell him that Chanbern will not submit to him.” He pushed the men toward the door and laughed as they stumbled along.

  “That was unwise, Laird Emverson. Those men work for Grandine, the Ice-Laird. He has been branching out lately, and the protection racket is his newest enterprise.”

  “Those men are going to have a hard time explaining what happened. Those filaments will disappear without a trace in a few moments.” Standral chuckled, then returned to his interrupted meal with Chanbern in close attendance.

  “Laird Standral, thank you. But it won’t do any good. In the end, he will take the Unicorn, legally or illegally. He has already begun buying up debts, and all he really has to do is buy up everything I owe.”

  “What if someone else buys your debts first?” Standral looked Chanbern in the eye when he spoke, and saw a flicker of hope.

  “It would take a rather rich man to do that, Laird Standral. I owe more than sixty gold crowns all totaled.” Chanbern was still hoping, but Standral could see he didn’t really have much hope at all.

  “I think I am about to become an innkeeper,” Standral said as he stood and motioned Chanbern to follow him to his room. Once there, he produced one hundred Shreverston gold crowns. “This should more than cover it, if you are in the market for a partner.”

  Chanbern was standing slack-jawed at the sight of all that gold. “How? I didn’t realize you were so rich, Laird Standral. But why? Why are you willing to help me?”

  “I have a number of reasons, my friend. Some are personal, but the one you should be most aware of is that I hate thieves. All thieves. I have an especially dire hatred of drug lairds. Ice is the greatest scourge to hit these shores in generations.” Something in his face must have convinced Chanbern.

  “Very well, Partner. Welcome the clan of Amberdrake’s Children.” They clasped forearms for a moment. “This calls for a celebration.”

  Chanbern led Standral back to the main room and called for one of the serving girls to bring out a special bottle of wine. When the girl looked at him questioningly, he explained, “Laird Standral Emverson has just bought half of the Silver Unicorn.” The girl’s eyes went wide at that, and she hurried away.

  “She probably thinks you’re a madman, Laird Standral.”

  “She could be right. And please, stop calling me laird. If we’re going to be partners, then familiarity is called for.” Standral smiled and laughed.

  “Very well. This has been quite a day for me. I do have a question or two, if you don’t mind?” When Standral nodded, he continued. “I know you’re a Mage, but what rank are you?”

  “Adept. Perhaps a little beyond. If I had wanted to, I could have destroyed those men with a flick of my finger. Why?”

  “We need new Anti-Pest, Anti-Rot, and Anti-Fire spells. One of Grandine’s threats was to burn me out if I refused. The others are just old.” Chanbern paused as the girl returned. “Standral, this is Athanta. Athanta, this is Laird Standral Emverson.”

  The girl was a pretty little thing, and she smiled warmly at Standral. “Welcome, Laird. Does this mean Grandine is out of luck?”

  Chanbern laughed. “Standral is a Mage, Athanta. We don’t have to worry about Grandine anymore.”

  “In time, no one will have to worry about Grandine, or his people. I told you, I don’t like drug lairds or thieves. In case you were curious, that is where my money came from. Disposing of thieves and cashing in the rewards.” Chanbern’s eyebrows climbed into his hair line as Standral spoke.

  “You prey on thieves? No wonder you have so much money. Some of the biggest thieves have very large prices on their heads.”

  Standral smiled. “Some have very large stashes of money of their own as well. Not all thieves operate in cities. The money I just gave you came from some pirates operating off the Southern Islands. Specifically, One-eyed-Petrof.”

  Chanbern sat back and stared. “One-eyed-Petrof is one of the nastiest pirates there is.”

  “Was.” Standral took a drink of his wine and smiled. “He died about two years ago of an acute stomach ache.”

  “Stomach ache? How could stomach trouble kill a man?” Chanbern asked as he looked at Standral with a strange expression on his face.

  “Two cubits of steel are hard to digest. The rest of his crew got off easier. The sharks were more merciful than I would have been.”

  Chanbern burst out laughing, startling his girls and the few customers that had ventured in. “Stomach ache indeed! Well, that answers that question.”

  * * *

  While Standral and Chanbern were enjoying their new friendship, the skeletal little man was begging for his life. “Laird Grandine, please. There was nothing I could do. The man was a Mage, I tell you. He trussed us up and sent us on our way with magic. There was nothing I could do!”

  “Fool.” Grandine strode around the room, stopping to kick one of the other of the men who were kneeling on his floor when he came within range. “One man, Mage or not, will not stop me.” He turned and snapped his fingers at one of the guards by the door. “Fetch me Shobart.”

  The man returned within moments with an emaciated man in tattered robes. “You sent for me, Great Laird?” the man asked. His hands trembled visibly with the effects of Ice withdrawal.

  Grandine motioned to a glass dish on his desk. “Steady yourself, Mage.” Shobart didn’t wait for a second invitation. He fell to his knees beside the desk and carefully laid out a line of the drug, then snorted it hastily, lest Grandine change his mind.

  The drug took effect almost immediately and Shobart’s hands quit shaking. “What do you require of me, Great Laird?” he asked in a respectful tone, never taking his eyes off the floor.

  “There is a Mage in the Silver Unicorn. I want him dead.” Grandine waved at the door, dismissing Shobart before he could answer. “There. Now, once this fool who is helping Chanbern is gone, I want that inn burned to the ground, with him inside. A lesso
n is in order. I will not be defied.” He looked at the men who were still kneeling on his floor. “As for you, I do not tolerate failure.” A flick of his wrist, and the guards by the door ran their swords through the back of each man, killing the weeping skeleton last. “Clean up this mess.” Grandine left the room without looking at the dead men. They were not the first men he’d had killed, and they wouldn’t be the last.

  * * *

  Shobart hobbled quickly toward the Silver Unicorn. Grandine’s generosity was all that kept him alive anymore. Ever since he had let himself believe he could use Ice with impunity because of his magic, he had been tied to the Ice Laird with the unbreakable strings of addiction. The cravings became so bad within two days that he had almost committed suicide several times. Grandine controlled his supply, and in turn controlled him.

  The Silver Unicorn was not a far walk, and soon he was bracing himself for the confrontation. He was an Adept, even weakened as he was, and only another Adept could stand against him. Chanbern didn’t have the resources to hire much more than an Apprentice or Journeyman. This shouldn’t take long, and then Laird Grandine will reward me. He always has.

  * * *

  Standral felt the presence of the other Mage almost immediately. His head came up like a hound scenting the breeze and he said, “Trouble! There is another Mage here. Another Adept. Get your heads down, this could be messy.” Taking a defensive stance, he readied himself.

  Shobart attacked the inn itself first, blasting at the walls with bolts of pure red energy. Standral countered with shields of green energy, canceling out the effects of Shobart’s bolts. Shobart screamed in fury as his attack failed. He was sure he was more powerful than any other Mage in Greater Westport, or the surrounding area. Chanbern couldn’t have hired a more powerful Mage. He simply couldn’t have.