by N M Zoltack
When Claws and Swords Collide
In the Eye of the Dragon Book Five
N. M. Zoltack
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Epilogue
Other Books By N. M. Zoltack
About the Author
Copyright © 2021 by N. M. Zoltack
ISBN: 9781727163681
Cover Artist: Joewie Aderes
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For all those who believe in the fantastical.
1
Queen Sabine Grantham
The site of the battle was located too far to the south for the Ruling Queen of Tenoch Proper Sabine Grantham to observe, and her knuckles whitened as she gripped the windowsill of the library, her fifth attempt to locate a position where she might see the fight. While a good part of her wished not to see such turmoil and violence, another part—a larger part—knew she needed to learn what happened the moment it occurred.
A messenger would take far too long to reach her.
No, she must find another perch for her to witness the event.
For so long, the familiar castle of Tenoch Proper—could she even still call it that?—had become a prison to her.
No, she was queen. She wore the crown. It was her mother who had been imprisoned in the bowels of the castle.
“And she can rot there,” Sabine murmured to herself with a scowl.
“My Queen?” a maid asked timidly from the corner.
Sabine forced herself not to flinch or betray any hint of emotion. Her mother had perfected a mask over the years, various masks in fact. Any man could see Greta’s face and only noticed precisely that which Greta sought for them to see, no more, no less.
As queen, Sabine needed to master that even more so than her mother had.
“I will have…” She paused to consider who she could trust.
For a time, she had trusted Advisor Aldus Perez, trusted him far too much, but that trust was long gone. Honestly, she had been a fool to trust him at all, but her mother had always claimed that men could be easily led this way or that, so long as one knew which way to direct them. While Sabine had enjoyed a bit of control over the man, he remained a mystery concerning his allegiance. He had served as an advisor to King Jankin Rivera, Sabine's husband, for a brief time. That marriage had secured her the crown, and she was the acting head.
But only until Jankin’s daughter, Rosalynne, found herself a husband.
The war between Tenoch and Vincana, however, proved it impossible for Rosalynne to secure herself a match. At one time, Sabine had thought of the younger queen as a threat to her rising power. As such, Sabine had thought to marry someone to cement her crown onto her head, to solder it on, if one would.
She had sought Marcellus Gallus, hoping that a union with someone hailing from Vincana would strengthen her position greatly.
Instead, her greed had brought about the war the two continents fought now.
“War does make for strange allies, indeed,” she murmured, thinking about how her only true possible ally at the moment was none other than Queen Rosalynne herself.
“My Queen?”
She glanced over at her maid. The poor young girl looked positively confused.
“Where is the other queen?” Sabine asked.
“Oh, I thought you knew, My Queen. She and a few guards have left the castle.”
“To do what, pray tell?”
“To observe the battle.”
Sabine closed her eyes a moment. Maybe the younger queen did not consider Sabine an ally after all.
“I will do the same,” Sabine announced. “Fetch my guards… including Thorley Everett.”
“Ah, I believe Thorley has left.”
“With Rosalynne? She gives, and she takes away.” Sabine pushed away from the windowsill and shook her head, her blond hair shifting over her shoulders, nearly reaching her elbows.
Rosalynne originally had Thorley under her employ, as one of her guards, but she had sent him to watch over Sabine in an obvious and clear ploy to watch over and spy on Sabine.
The more she thought of it, the more Sabine was no longer so certain the younger queen was an ally.
Only as a matter of convenience.
Which meant no true ally in any sense of the word.
The maid lowered her head. “I will see who can escort you.”
“Thank you,” Sabine called, but the maid had already scampered away.
Sabine had enjoyed riding on horses a great deal back in her hometown of Etian. She smoothly rode at a brisk trot, five seemingly random guards trailing behind her. She hadn’t wanted that many to leave the castle with her. After all, she did not plan on being anywhere close to the battle, and the castle needed protection in case the vile Vincanans decided to use this battle as a diversion. Perhaps Sabine was being selfish by wishing to see battle when she already knew Rosalynne had left the castle. One of them should be there at all times.
But when she saw the other queen with her guards standing atop one of the two plateaus near the junction of River Zim and Arlingway River, Sabine rode her horse faster. Head high, shoulders back, Sabine opted for the other plateau, the one closer to the battle.
The horse was a dream, altho
ugh not the one Sabine usually rode. It handled the climb up the plateau with relative ease, and the moment Sabine glanced down at the field, her stomach lurched, and she wished she had remained behind.
The battle was horrific. Men slaughtered men. Their armor glinted, casting bright light this way and that, but instead of gazing upon the silver, her eyes seemed to locate each splatter of blood.
And then, a rolling darkness covered the entire battlefield. The ground shook, trembling beyond belief, and Sabine had to work to control and calm her mount.
A blaze of fire pierced through the massive fog of darkness, and then Sabine watched in dawning horror as not one, not two, but three dragons rose from that darkness.
Worst of all, one of those dragons three flew off, away from the battle and heading straight for the castle.
2
Former Councilmember Now Prisoner Greta Grantham
Rage. That was the one emotion Greta Grantham felt more than any other. Rage, disgust, contempt, fury…
Her daughter was nothing more than a spineless, worthless, repulsive, arrogant fool. Greta had made her, had even done all she could for her! After all, if Greta had wished, she was certain she could have seduced the king instead of pawning off her skamelar of a daughter onto him.
Why hadn’t she? Why, one had to only take one look at that vile king. He had been a gluttonous mess, a man so massive he could hardly stand. The glos pautonnier, gluttonous scoundrel that he was, deserved no better than the parasite Sabine was.
Although Greta did have to admit that Sabine had surprised her. She wouldn’t have thought her daughter capable of locking her away.
Not that Greta intended to be behind bars for long. She would find a way to free herself.
She had seen some of the guards stroll by. Thus far, they had all ignored her, and she previously preferred it that way. After all, one of them was a monster of a man whose scowl would make wasps fly away in alarm. The gap between his teeth was rather huge but not nearly as large as his belly. Still, he needed to eat double the amount he did currently if he wished to be as large as the former king.
Now, however, she required assistance. If she could perhaps speak with Piers Chatelain, the guard she had sent to spy on Sabine, then she could arrange to speak with the one person she did trust.
At least she was still able to wear a gown. Her hand went to her hair. Her locks seemed to have held up nicely so far. Her white and blond strands had been twisted into an elaborate style, and her maid tended to use as many pins as she could to maintain every strand into place just so. No matter what Greta did, anything at all, her hair would not move.
She was the mother of a queen, and she would not tolerate being locked away any longer.
With careful, even steps, she moved to the bars. Wrinkling her nose at the thought of touching the bars, she instead peered to one side and then the other.
A guard headed her way, not looking in her direction. He was as thin as the other one was fat. His nose hooked like he was part bird, and his eyes were small and beady.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said formally.
The guard flared his large nostrils as he turned to eye her. His lips were thin, a slash across his face, and a pale line at that.
As the guard said not a word, she smiled at him. “What is your name? You look like a very fine and capable guard.”
His nostrils flared again, and he narrowed his tiny eyes to the point that she could hardly see them at all. “Pate Callow.”
“Pate Callow,” she repeated, forcing her smile wider. “That is indeed a very lovely name.”
“Ma’am—”
“Oh, no. Please don’t ma’am me. You can call me Greta.”
“I… I shouldn’t.”
“No?” She laughed and lightly touched her hand to her chest. “I can decide who can call me by name.”
“My… My lady…”
Greta reached out through the bar as if to touch him and then drew back, pretending to be innocent and timid, as she had years ago before she had reached twenty years of age. At the time, she could have had any man she had set her sights on. She had fallen in love, though, and more’s the pity for her and any other women who would allow themselves to be ruled by their heart instead of their brain.
“You do not know why I am here or who I am, do you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Things have been…”
“So very terrible as of late, I know. Truly, I know this more than most. You see… I have been sabotaged. Another has committed terrible, wicked, despicable acts against the crown, and he is pinning the blame for them all on me. My own daughter threw me in here!”
“The only woman who could throw her mother in here…” He blinks a few times, his eyes finally wide enough for her to discern their hue—a murky green color.
“Yes, I’m afraid Queen Sabine, my own flesh and blood, threw me in here! As if I could do what I have been accused of! But you believe me, don’t you, Pate? Can I call you Pate?”
Greta reached through the bars, and this time, she reached for his hand. He wore bits of armor here and there but not a full set, and his hands were gloved, not covered in gauntlets. She squeezed his hand and lowered her head in shame.
“I… Yes, of course… You can call me Pate.”
"Thank you, Pate." She squeezed his hand again and then forced herself to touch the bar anyhow. It was disgusting and slimy, but she ignored that, putting on the face of one who is both shy but desperate. "Pate, do you think maybe you could accompany me somewhere? I know you cannot allow me to be free, but I assure you that I can prove my innocence if only given a chance to."
“Oh, well, I’m positive you couldn’t have done anything terrible,” Pate says.
Her smile turned genuine. “You—”
“But I can’t be doing that.”
He was nothing more than a hedge-born degenerate.
But she continued to smile. “Certainly not, naturally no,” she all but cooed. “I shouldn’t have asked. Please forgive me for that oversight. I am merely… Well, I am desperate, you see.”
“You’re one of the only women to ever be down here,” he says.”
“Women just aren’t capable of great violence,” Greta murmured.
The vision of Noll falling down the stairs after she had first beaten him sprang to mind. The prince, the only son of that monstrous man Jankin Rivera and the youngest of his three children, had been a bit of a simple-minded fool who had a terrible habit of sneaking around and dropping eaves and listening to conversations he shouldn’t have. Whether or not he even understood what he had overheard didn’t matter. The young man never knew when to keep his mouth shut, and Greta had done what must be done to ensure her daughter remained the queen, for the time being at least.
Sabine had not the nerve to do it herself. The young woman was weak, in Greta’s opinion. If only she would have taken after her mother more… but no. Sabine could and would take the fall for the war. She and Rosalynne would then war against each other, and Greta would engineer things such that both queens would wind up dead.
At least that had been Greta’s goal. Now, however, there was a minor inconvenience, what with Greta being behind bars. Once the queens were no longer distracted from the war with Vincana, they would reveal Greta’s crimes to everyone. She must get ahead of them and prepare to take what was hers.
Namely, the crown.
All along, she had intended for the crown to be on her head and hers alone. That would still happen.
This was merely a setback, a mildly irritating one. At least Sabine hadn’t made a spectacle while bringing Greta down to the prison, but yes, her daughter had been the one to lock Greta in this cell. Two guards had accompanied mother and daughter, not a whole troop of them at least.
Sabine’s wish to keep this secret of Greta’s would prove to be her undoing.
“If you could,” Greta said timidly and then shook her head. “I suppose I shouldn’t even ask this of you. I do not
wish to concern you nor to get you into trouble.”
“What is it?” Pate asks.
“Well, I was only thinking… if I cannot leave my cell—which I understand entirely—perhaps you would be so very kind and considerate and lovely enough to go and fetch…”
For a moment, Greta paused and considered asking for Tiberius Davis. That traitor guard deserved to have a fate worse than death for betraying her. She knew he was loyal to himself first but that he was also intelligent enough to align himself with the winning side.
And he had thrown his lot in with the two queens instead of her.
Yes, Greta had no crown of her own, but she was the one who helped to pull the strings that controlled both queens, even if they did not see that, even if they would never admit it.
After all, Piers Chatelain might not have betrayed her, but he also had not helped her cause at all. For weeks, months even, he had followed Sabine, yet he had learned nothing of importance.