Spine of the Dragon

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Riding fast, their party entered the outskirts of the Furnace. They passed the shadowed canyons of the ever-growing camps, fenced-in clusters of squalid homes. Most of the arid wasteland was uninhabitable, but with the last tatters of magic, Voo and her wreths could make any place habitable. She would need vast numbers of workers and fighters to sweep across the land that humans had tended for them as stewards. It remained to be seen whether King Adan Starfall would decide to cooperate.

  During the long war, wreth armies had an inexhaustible workforce of humans, for they could simply create more of them whenever they chose to. The endless battles had broken and drained the land itself, yet they had only succeeded in wounding the titanic dragon.

  Voo’s ancestor Rao had fought Ossus, cornering the great beast while a contingent of frostwreths also attacked the dragon. Badly hurt in their bloody battle, Ossus had crawled deep underground to hide and heal, rippling the landscape into the sharp mountain range called the Dragonspine.

  But wounding the dragon had not achieved their goal. Ossus needed to be killed, and the frostwreths had to be destroyed, so that Kur would take the sandwreths with him to the new perfect world he would create afterward.

  Ahead, Voo saw the giant fortress of sand and stone her wreths had sculpted. Peering into the shimmering heat, she admired its smooth towers, high walls, and spiky crystalline crenellations.

  Amused by her thoughts of history and legend, she let her creative magic flow and fused hunks of sand into an image of the dragon that shifted, then faded into crumbling grains. Beside her, Axus also participated, fashioning sand figures of wreth armies, making them clash against each other in slow powdery engagements. Then, with a sweep of his hand, the mage wiped them all out.

  Voo gathered sand again, depicting the final face-off between herself and Queen Onn, with sandwreth armies butchering frostwreth armies in the surrounding mountains. Voo and Onn had already dueled among the crags of the Dragonspine, queen against queen. Swinging her sword, Onn had chopped off a length of Voo’s golden hair, and Voo had retaliated, slashing the frostwreth queen’s face. As the battle intensified, the two women—and their armies—nearly wiped each other out.

  Her force decimated, Voo’s soldiers had dragged her away from the remaining wounded frostwreths, while her mages raised a powerful barrier so they could fall back and take their queen to safety. Both sides had retreated in tatters, exhausted at the end of the war.

  Only a handful of surviving human workers had huddled in hiding places, where Voo had expected them to starve or die of exposure. Retreating to the seared deserts, she and her armies had placed themselves into cycles of spellsleep for centuries, leaving only a few sentinel wreths to keep track of the world.

  Now Voo had awakened for the last time. She was ready to fight.

  With a sneer, she flung out one arm in a slicing gesture, and all of the sand figures were not only flattened, but turned into a sheet of hot glass in the desert.

  “That is what we will do to the rest of the world when we succeed, level it and start over,” she said. “Then Kur will finally come back for us.”

  31

  THE Scrabbleton mines smelled of sulfur, and Elliel sweated as she swung her pick and cleared the rubble. She had burrowed through hundreds of feet of solid rock, following veins of useful ores, precious metals, and unexpected gems. It was honest, hard work, requiring just enough concentration that her mind didn’t wander to dangerous thoughts.

  A person without a memory had time to create a new legacy. In this mining town, she wasn’t likely to accomplish great deeds, but did every person need to be a hero or leave an epic life story? Wasn’t it possible just to be a normal, quiet person with a quiet life? Her days were peaceful, if unremarkable. She had a room at the inn, a meal every night, and she knew what the next day would bring. That was enough. She didn’t need to be a fearsome Brava warrior—just Elliel.

  Because of her accidental find of dragonblood rubies, other miners now wanted to work near her, hoping for more of her luck. Klenner, one of her usual mining partners, was at home recovering after an unexpected rockfall smashed his left hand. In his place, a young man named Jandre had joined her and Upwin in the tunnels.

  “I heard a story about Bravas,” Jandre said loudly enough to be heard over the sound of picks and shovels. “Two wealthy noblemen each had a bonded Brava, and each one thought his was stronger, so they challenged their men to fight.” He swiped perspiration from his forehead. “Do you know this one, Elliel?”

  “I don’t know many stories about Bravas at all,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t keep talking.

  Undeterred, Jandre continued, “The nobles placed high wagers. In the town square, the two Bravas fought each other, hand-to-hand, for hours. The crowds grew. More wagers were made. The Bravas inflicted terrible damage on each other, but they used their wreth magic to minimize the injuries. Can you work healing magic, Elliel?”

  “Never tried. I try to avoid serious injuries in the first place.”

  “The Bravas fought for a full day, with their nobles growing more and more agitated, wagering larger sums as the day wore on. Finally the opponents stopped, battered and bloody, and held each other up. Instead of fighting, they faced the crowd and spat blood. ‘Bravas will fight to defend the Commonwealth,’ one said. ‘Bravas will give their lives to defend the konag and the people,’ said the other. ‘But we are done fighting for your amusement.’” Jandre grinned in the lantern light. “Both Bravas broke their bond to the nobles that day, claiming a higher code of honor, and they walked away, supporting each other.”

  Elliel broke away more rock. “A good story.” At one time, the tale might have resonated with her, but now it was just a distant story.

  “Do you think it’s true, though?” Jandre pressed.

  “Who am I to judge what is true or what isn’t? I am no longer a Brava.” She moved her lantern closer to see the distinctive greenish-brown smear that indicated copper ore. “This is what I know to be true: If we work together we can fill a cartload with this ore and send it back out.”

  The two miners came to help with the digging, carrying lanterns that spilled bobbing circles of light in the tunnels. Elliel struck the wall with her pick, loosened chunks of ore, and knocked the rubble to the floor. Upwin and Jandre shoveled it into a wheelbarrow.

  With her next blow, though, a large section of the wall fell away with surprising ease, revealing an unexpected empty pocket. Grabbing her lantern, she shone it inside, and the light reflected back at her with startling intensity, sparkling from a forest of quartz crystals that lined the curved wall of a small, hidden chamber. What a strange discovery.

  Upwin shouldered up close. “You found the unexpected again, Elliel.”

  Jandre grinned. “That’s why I wanted to work with her, though I was hoping for rubies instead.”

  The men shoveled away the rubble while Elliel widened the gap with her pick. After more of the wall crumbled, she reached inside to pull out a handful of milky-white crystals. “Pretty. Are they valuable?”

  “Just quartz.”

  “Sometimes mothertears are found with quartz,” Jandre suggested. The eager young man picked up one of the heavy buckets of rock. “We’re all working together. If you strike any spurting red liquid, like when you found the dragonblood, we split the bonus, right?”

  “As you wish.” Elliel had no objection to sharing. In fact, she had found that, despite her independent nature, the quiet sharing of work or reward brought her a faint feeling of pleasure. Jandre trudged back down the tunnel while Elliel enlarged the opening to the quartz-lined hollow.

  She sensed the rumble building in the mountain before she heard it. Her lantern’s candle flickered as an errant breeze whispered through the wide crack she had just exposed. Instantly alert, Upwin set down his pick. “Tremors again!”

  The shouts of frightened miners and the clatter of dropped tools came from adjacent tunnels. The floor shook, and powder dusted down from the cei
ling. Upwin grabbed his lantern and turned to run.

  A severe shock split the wall in front of Elliel, and quartz crystals tumbled out like glittering projectiles. Part of the ceiling collapsed, and a boulder crashed down, but she dodged it as her lightning-fast Brava reflexes took over.

  The sound inside the mountain grew until it was as loud as the roar of a waking dragon. Steam hissed through new cracks in the walls. What if Ossus was indeed digging himself out from under the mountains?

  Elliel braced herself and searched for a way out. They were so deep inside Mount Vada that even at a dead run, she wouldn’t be able to make it to the surface fast enough. Upwin bolted up the passageway, and farther along the tunnel, Jandre screamed and his lantern winked out as tons of rock fell, crushing the young miner.

  Great slabs of the wall in front of her collapsed inward to reveal a small natural cavern encrusted with crystals, and the room held more than quartz. She now saw metallic ribs—artificial ribs—in reinforcing arcs that held up the rock walls and curved ceiling. Hoping for better shelter, Elliel leaned into the small chamber as rocks fell around her. Her lantern’s glow ricocheted off the angled facets of quartz.

  Inside, she was astonished to see a tall, pale man tucked in among the crystals, as if embedded in the quartz. He stood motionless, either asleep or dead. He had strange features, a wide face and large almond eyes, a mane of dark hair, and gray garments that camouflaged him against the quartz.

  The metal support girders bent and groaned. The crystal ceiling cracked, and shards rained down. The stranger began to slump forward, released from whatever bonds had held him in place. A boulder slid down, breaking his femur like a stick of wood, and tumbling quartz crystals tore his skin.

  Dropping her lantern, Elliel scrambled toward the mysterious man, instinctively trying to save him. Maybe it was her subconscious Brava instinct. When she extricated the man from the debris, he was bleeding, and he stirred—alive and in pain! He blinked his large eyes, and a low groan came from his lips as she shoved the rock aside to free his broken leg. She had to help him. She draped the man’s arm over her shoulders and dragged him backward into the main tunnel, although that offered no safety either. The rumbling and crashing continued.

  Holding him up in spite of his broken leg, Elliel pulled the stranger along with her, but the exit was impossibly far away. The tremors continued. Rocks pattered from the ceiling, and yawning cracks spread along the tunnels. As she staggered along, the stranger tried to help with his good leg, but his efforts supported little of his weight.

  She could see an intersection ahead. Two miners ran up the tunnel yelling, their own lanterns like dancing lights. “Wait!” she shouted. “I need help!”

  But they didn’t wait. No one would survive if they didn’t get out before the tunnels crumbled. Dragging the stranger along and dodging rubble, she came upon Jandre’s crushed body. Seeing the dead miner kindled an even greater urgency to get this stranger out—and to save both of their lives.

  The wider tunnels were braced with wooden timbers, which meant she was not far from the exit. The rumbling had gone on for minutes now. She pressed on, somehow finding incredible strength.

  The dark-haired stranger gasped, clinging to her. He opened his eyes blearily, and couldn’t fathom where he was.

  With one final aftershock and a loud, grinding groan, the ceiling broke and rocks began to slide down in front of them. Elliel put on a burst of speed, running toward the collapse. Though she knew they would likely be buried in it or trapped behind it, she could see no other way out. Their escape would be entirely blocked.

  But as the ceiling fell, the stranger moaned, and she felt a tingle through his skin. The air glowed in front of her eyes, and an invisible force shoved aside the falling rocks, leaving a narrow path clear for them.

  Elliel didn’t question what had happened. She ran onward, pulling him into the outer tunnels, where panicked miners continued to run for the entrances. Like a miracle, she saw blessed sunlight ahead, though it was hazed by rock dust and steam that gasped out of the shafts. Elliel realized she was crying.

  Not giving up, she pulled the man along, and he clung to her. Her throat burned from the effort, from the sulfur fumes, from the dust. She struggled out into the daylight and felt a warm satisfaction to know that she had saved this exotic stranger, whoever or whatever he was.

  32

  SO that King Adan could reach Norterra as swiftly as possible, Shella din Orr offered five well-traveled Utauks to guide him out of the wilderness. The hearty tribesmen found a much shorter, and more private, route than the main road.

  When they finally came within view of the walled city of Fellstaff several days later, the Utauks bade him farewell, and Adan rode ahead alone. Sensing an ominous undertone in the air and a brooding gray chill across the sky, he thought of Queen Voo’s warning about the frostwreths. He hoped he had arrived in time.

  Troubled workers toiled on either side of the main road outside the city, adding barricades even as the dusk darkened. Stonecutters hauled wagons of rocks and scavenged building blocks to fortify the outer walls. Trenchers dug deep to expand the defensive moats. Adan felt a chill. His uncle was obviously making military preparations.

  Once past the gate and riding through the streets of Fellstaff, he saw numerous black banners hung from the chiseled stone walls. The remembrance shrine, the bell tower, and the castle itself in the middle of the city seemed to be draped in mourning. Lanterns were lit in the streets as the dusk deepened. He slowed his horse to a walk, pulled the Utauk travel cloak around his shoulders, and inhaled the sharp chill in the air. No one recognized him as the king of Suderra, since he wore common riding clothes.

  As he brought his horse up to the castle entry, which was also draped in black, he faced a pair of guards standing in wary welcome. They wore leather chest armor, mail hauberks, and greaves. Each man held an ash spear with a jagged iron tip. Such weapons were mostly considered ceremonial, but they looked deadly now. The two men greeted him with flinty, challenging expressions. “You arrive late in the day, sir. We’re about to close the castle gates for the night.”

  “Then I have arrived just in time. I am King Adan Starfall from Suderra, and I need to see my uncle on urgent business.”

  The guards were surprised, but not shocked. One of them was obviously relieved. “Aye, I think he’ll be glad to see you. We may need Suderra’s help.”

  The other said, “Is the south in danger as well, Sire? Terrible changes around here. Tragedies.” He shook his head.

  Adan felt a greater urgency and dread. “Take me to Kollanan. Quickly!”

  Inside the castle, black window coverings filled the chambers with unnecessary shadows. Torches burned in holders on the walls, and the smells of pitch and smoke were not comforting.

  His larger-than-life uncle met him in his private study, where his famous war hammer hung above the mantel. Kollanan rose to greet his visitor. “Adan Starfall, how I wish I were seeing you under other circumstances.” His normally neat beard looked unkempt, his gray-streaked hair disheveled, his eyes haunted. He wrapped Adan in a surprising bear hug. “Young nephew, I’m glad you came. How did you know?”

  When he squeezed back, Adan could feel the weariness and weight that filled his uncle’s bones. His voice came out hoarse. “I come with news of my own, Uncle. I fear neither of us will take much joy in each other’s stories.”

  “No joy,” said a woman’s slightly accented voice. “And great danger for all of us.”

  Queen Tafira was seated in a high-backed chair facing the fire. Long gray skirts hung down to her slippered feet, and her hair was tied back in a black ribbon. “Our daughter and her family are dead, our two sweet grandsons murdered.…”

  “The entire town of Lake Bakal is wiped out,” Koll added in a harsh voice. “I can’t believe I am saying this, but we are being attacked by an enemy from legends. I’ve seen them with my own eyes.”

  “I know.” Adan looked deep into hi
s uncle’s gray eyes. “The wreths.”

  Koll looked as if he had been struck with his own hammer. “How do you know about the wreths? They came out of the north, white and deadly. They engulfed an entire town, people we knew. Our poor…”

  Adan spoke into the sad silence. “Down in Suderra, wreths came from the desert wastelands, but they didn’t attack us. Their queen warned me of a great war to come, and she said that the Commonwealth would be caught between a hammer and an anvil. She told us the frostwreths would be coming from the north, and I rode hard to warn you.” He looked away. “I’m too late.”

  “Too late for our daughter,” said Kollanan, “but this is just beginning. We’re preparing defenses across the kingdom, and I sent a letter to Conndur, asking him to rally the entire Commonwealth army. My eight vassal lords are building fortifications, learning how to get ready for war again after all these centuries.”

  * * *

  For the next day, Adan, King Kollanan, and the Brava Lasis discussed strategy and defenses. They decided to head north, swiftly and discreetly. Koll wanted them to see firsthand what the frostwreths had done to Lake Bakal.

  The three men rode hard through golden forests of aspens and birches, but within a day the surrounding trees were skeletal and bare. They saw no travelers at all. Villagers, woodcutters, huntsmen, and traders seemed to be avoiding the road, or maybe they had all been killed.

  Sitting astride his black warhorse Storm, Koll squinted ahead through naked trees interspersed with thick silver pines. “I wonder how many other settlements have been emptied or destroyed. The frostwreths might have spread widely already.”

  The air held such a biting chill that the horses snorted steam and Adan hunched under a heavy cloak of bear fur that Kollanan had given him for the ride. He said, “Suderra is always warm and dry. I’m not accustomed to this.”