When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  Anuit glanced at the barmaid who poured drinks for the men, and blurted without thinking, “What about her?” A rush of nerves heated her cheeks.

  “What? No. Eww! I’m no quirk.” Seredith stared at Anuit. “Don’t say mean things.”

  Anuit pushed out a laugh. “I was just teasing. I don’t know why I said that.”

  “So do you think they’re cute?”

  Anuit put her nose in the air. “I don’t have time for them. Sorcery is much more interesting.”

  Seredith bumped Anuit playfully. “I know. I can’t wait until I can summon an incubus.” She closed her eyes and sucked air through her teeth.

  Anuit gasped. “How horrid! You know you can’t do that with them. Too risky.”

  Seredith just grinned.

  A wolven captain threw open the door to the tavern, interrupting their wordplay. The man-wolf stood naked in a heavily furred and powerfully muscled humanoid form. He carried himself upright on his back legs, but stooped forward, as if pulled over by the weight of his massive shoulders. He had a wolf’s head, with pointed ears and a thick mane bristling from his neck. He scanned the room, quickly homing in on the duke’s table. He shifted into human form as he hurried to the duke, his clothing, armor, and weapons emerging from the vanishing fur. The wolven curse had been engineered for the purpose of war long ago, and it absorbed and integrated the form and properties of anything the person wore when shifting into wolven form.

  “What is it, Kaern?” Montevin asked in a low voice.

  Anuit leaned forward to listen.

  “Something is wrong.” Kaern knelt to converse in hushed tones that only those at the table could hear. “The Imperial Guards have abandoned their posts at the checkpoints.”

  Montevin narrowed his eyes.

  “All checkpoints,” Kaern emphasized.

  The duke stood. “Put the watch on alert,” he ordered. “Put the word out to the lords and covens to convene the Defense Council.”

  “Understood, my duke.” Kaern saluted and hurried away to carry out his orders.

  The duke left immediately, followed by Hylda and Marta.

  “I wish they’d let us come with them,” said Anuit.

  Seredith placed down her ale. “Well, they won’t, so we might as well go home.”

  “Or we can at least finish our drinks.”

  * * *

  An hour later, the duke’s dwarven secretary, Hylda, sat at a recorder’s desk with quill and logbook behind the duke, ready to record the council’s meeting. The duke had ostensibly hired her for her organizational skills, precise attention to detail when it came to paperwork, and her ever-present smile, which charmed even the orc warriors in the city.

  But Hylda knew the real reason the duke had hired her was because of her secret identity as a paladin of the Light and the ranking Kaldorite officer in Windbowl. The Kaldorite paladins—philosopher-warriors who did not profess submission to any god—represented a direct ideological threat to the Archurionite Church. Becoming the duke’s personal clerk gave her intimate access to the city’s inner workings, in exchange for giving him insight into the Kaldorite order.

  The leaders of the four largest covens were present, along with the Academy’s Senior Wizard Aiella, Captain Kaern, and the senior city councilmen. Kaern made his report, indicating that his men had followed the shift-change procedures as normal. Each shift lead would check in with their Artalonian counterparts, and the watch would begin. Authorized travelers and merchants were allowed to move through the borders when cleared by both sides. Tonight, however, the outgoing sergeants had made their requisite contacts prior to shift change, but the incoming ones had gone to the meeting rooms and had never been joined by their Artalonian counterparts. They’d dared not venture forth across the border to see what had become of the Imperial officers for fear of provoking a military response to a perceived act of war. The local agreements were quite clear. And being on the wrong side of the border without the proper papers meant they would be imprisoned, never to return home.

  Duke Montevin ran his fingers over his short, neat beard. “Clearly our greatest threat right now is what we don’t know. I would hear your thoughts.”

  Hylda kept silent. To the larger council, she was just a secretary. She would give the duke her thoughts as a Kaldorite afterwards.

  “Send sorcerers into their land,” said a red-bearded man, one of the coven leaders. “It’s the one thing the Artalonians truly fear. We can go beyond the checkpoints. If we’re caught, they’ll want to deport us, not imprison us; they won’t want to keep sorcerers under their watch. And we don’t carry the political implications of being a military force.”

  “I’m not sure we should trust the matter to sorcerers,” a councilman said.

  My thoughts exactly, thought Hylda.

  The councilman continued. “Whether we see them as military or not, Artalon certainly would. We also don’t want to give cause to disrupt trade. We should heighten our guard and wait and see.”

  “Of course we will increase the watch,” Captain Kaern snapped. He crossed his legs and leaned back. Even in his human form, he growled when he spoke. “But doing nothing more than that is foolish. We need to know why they left. It’s troubling.”

  “I agree,” said Montevin.

  “Send your agents.” Marta spoke softly, but everyone turned to listen. “Your wolven are effective at not being seen. Distract attention by placing sorcerers at the guard posts, but without us crossing the border. If the Artalonians are watching, I promise you that demons at our sentry points will draw attention away from your agents.”

  The duke thought for a moment. Then: “Captain Kaern, make the necessary arrangements. This council is concluded. Aiella, Hylda, please remain behind.”

  Marta glared at Hylda as she left. For all she knows, Hylda thought, I’m a secretary. I think that’s all she knows. No, it was perfectly reasonable she stay behind. And Aiella was the duke’s lover. Only a matter of time until he married her. Marta was simply jealous.

  The duke waited long enough for the others’ footsteps to fade. “Thoughts?”

  Hylda arched an eyebrow. “I think it unwise to put your agents—your best demon hunters—outside of Windbowl while you place sorcerers and their minions in the guard stations.”

  “Captain Kaern is no fool. There are still enough wolven among the guards. Besides, I trust Marta more than the other coven leaders.” When Hylda kept her silence—it’s no use arguing, we’ve had that discussion too many times—he moved on. “Any news from your sources?”

  “Nothing,” the paladin replied. “I’m expecting Arda soon. She’s spent many years on missions inside the Empire. Hopefully she’ll be able to tell us more.”

  Aiella cleared her throat. “There is another matter of concern.” She resettled herself restlessly on her chair, frowning, and straightened her maroon dress even though it didn’t need it. “I tried to enter the faerie realms last night but couldn’t. I can’t sense them, even now. It’s as if they’re not there.”

  The duke leaned forward. “The Otherworld might simply be out of phase. It’s been known to happen.”

  Hylda raised her eyebrows at the duke’s apparent arcane knowledge. I guess it’s to be expected, considering he’s sleeping with her.

  “That is true, but rare,” Aiella conceded. She leaned back in her chair. “Still… such a phase shift usually precedes a decrease in ambient faerie energy, but my scrying revealed unprecedented levels here in Windbowl and the surrounding lands.”

  “The Otherworld vanishes at the same time the Imperial checkpoints are abandoned,” Hylda remarked. “I know I’m not a wizard, but I’m guessing that’s not a coincidence.”

  “Something significant has happened,” Aiella said. “I don’t know what it is yet, but I fear it will change all of our lives.”

  Hylda shrugged. “Maybe for the better, yes?”

  Duke Montevin snorted. “Hylda, your unyielding optimism is the reason I hired you.�
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  3 - Incident on the Border

  Arda did not come that night or the next. Attaris brought the elven woman home, bundled her in blankets, and laid her on his sofa near the hearth. Arda’s delay troubled him, but he could do nothing about it. He didn’t want the elf to wake up alone in a strange house without him there, and his healing rune seemed to have no effect. As far as he could tell, there was nothing wrong with her. She seemed to be sleeping and simply would not wake up. Wondering if she had been cursed, he kept the hearth fire lit and tended her as best he could.

  On the third evening, three deliberate knocks sounded from the front door in loud succession. Attaris poked the fire log and went to answer it. He opened the door, expecting his friend. Instead of looking up to see the darkling paladin, he found himself staring at eye level into the radiant face of a dwarf woman with dark honey-orange hair.

  He stuttered for a moment in surprise.

  She didn’t give him a chance to recover. “Well then!” she exclaimed heartily. “Your friend’s not much with words, is he?”

  “What?” he stammered. “I say now! Who are you?”

  Clear laughter he recognized rang from behind the dwarf woman, and Arda stepped into the light. She was just as he remembered, short chestnut-brown hair falling to the bottom of her neck, just touching her shoulders, and wispy bangs between her darkling horns. Solid jet-black eyes, with no discernible whites, pupils, or irises, peered at him from an otherwise fair-skinned face. Darklings were an offshoot race of humans, and appeared human in all ways except for demonic horns, monochromatic eyes, and long narrow tails—marks of a hereditary curse from infernal pacts their ancestors had made millennia ago. Even though the darkling dynasties had long since faded into the dust of history, their descendants were forever cursed with the mark of their mistakes. She wore her typical brown leather duster, and a matching three-pointed, wide-brimmed cavalier hat—a tricorne—fitted for her horns hung down her back from a leather thong around her neck. A single-edged long sword was strapped to her back, and he suspected her usual pair of pistols hugged her hips underneath the duster.

  “It’s okay, Attaris.” She grinned. “Hylda’s a friend.”

  Hylda’s bubbling laughter joined in. “So,” she said. “Are you gonna keep standing there like a ninny and leave us in the cold, or are you gonna invite us in?”

  He blushed a deep red and stood to the side. “Please, ladies.” He gestured for them to enter.

  Arda raised an eyebrow when she saw the elf asleep on the sofa. She whispered, “Sorry, I didn’t realize you had a guest.”

  He sighed. “No need to whisper.” He waved his hand in the direction of the long wooden table. “I’ll explain, but first let me put supper on the table. Have a seat.”

  * * *

  The light-made-flesh lay awake for a while before she could move or open her eyes. She heard voices around her, fuzzy at first but gradually coming to clarity as she listened. She became aware of the scent of food. Her stomach twitched in response, feeling hunger for the first time. I don’t like it one bit! Her own thoughts rose above the sea of memories floating through her mind, and she clung to that sense of identity.

  She opened her eyes but remained still, naked beneath a bundle of wool blankets in front a hearth of warm flames that lapped gently over two thick logs. The voices she’d been listening to weren’t from her head, she decided. They came from somewhere behind her in the room.

  “I just found her in the snow,” the male voice said. “A troll spotted her first and was going to take her. I think he had been searching for her. He acted as if he expected her.”

  “In all my travels, I’ve never seen such an elf,” said a clear voice. A woman’s voice.

  “A troll, you say? All the way out here?” Another woman’s voice, this one bubbling. “There might be more then, if they are looking for her.”

  “Aye.” The man’s voice again. “But why? And who is she? And where is she from?”

  “Those questions will most likely have to wait,” the clear one said, “until she wakes up.”

  “What if she doesn’t?” he asked. “What if she’s… cursed?”

  “We’ll have to see. However, there’s another matter we need to discuss. There’s a reason I brought Hylda to see you.” After a moment of silence, the clear-sounding woman continued. “Something is very wrong. Two days ago, I was on my way here. I was already a day late, but I saw something I couldn’t ignore. An airship fell from the sky.”

  “Fell from the sky?” the man asked. “Who would attack an Artalonian vessel? Or what?”

  “It was not attacked,” the clear-voiced woman continued. “Its runes died. The magic keeping it afloat failed.”

  “Oh, how horrible!” he said. “The crew?”

  “All dead from the crash.”

  “Wait. What do you mean its runes died?”

  “It means,” she answered, “that the God-King is no longer a god. The runestones he grants to his worshippers no longer respond to their prayers. I checked the border towns. All of Karanos’ runes are dark. Even the Templars have lost their magic, and their swords remain unlit.”

  The elf felt a certain apprehension, and sadness. She did not understand why, but her heart ached with worry as if she had left something undone. Guilt. Somehow, she had failed the world. Are those my memories? she asked herself, recoiling from those thoughts.

  “Modhrin still answers my prayers,” the man said thoughtfully. Then he added: “Two nights ago… that’s when I had the strangest dream. The Archdragons are dying, the dream said. And then I found her. I believe my god led me to find her.”

  The Archdragons are dying? Sorrow filled the elf that she gasped slightly. The others in the room didn’t seem to hear. No. The Archdragons are already dead.

  “That was the night the guards reported finding the checkpoints empty,” the bubbling voice called Hylda added. “The duke called an emergency council.”

  “Were you there?” asked the man.

  “You know Kaldorites don’t operate openly here.”

  “Many in Windbowl don’t,” he said. “But were you there?”

  There was a long pause. Finally, Hylda replied, “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “They were all there. The guard captain, the wizard school, the city council, and the coven elders. They are worried the Shadowlord might invade.”

  “I don’t think that’s likely,” the clear voice said. “Artalonian culture relies completely on its religious magic. They would not invade without it, unless the Shadowlord acts alone. His attention has always been towards Dragonholm. If his magic has finally failed, I would turn my concern there.”

  “The Black Dragon hasn’t stirred in more than eleven thousand years,” mused the male voice. “I wonder…”

  A chill ran through the elf woman’s spine. Fragments of a thousand voices roiled through her mind. Their broken memories disoriented her, but they all surged with fear and anger at the mention of the Black Dragon. You failed! they accused. The Black Dragon lived because of you! You sentenced the world to a thousand years of misery until they finally killed him. And us with him.

  Who am I?

  She could not answer that question. She came from a place of thought, and a place where music was the air you breathed, where light, color, and sound were flesh and bone, rock and tree. She remembered nothing clearly except the freezing water and ice, and then being here in front of the hearthfire. It was much nicer and warmer here.

  Everything else in her mind eluded her, like shattered dreams that had been smeared together into an inconclusive whole. She knew things about this world—different races, a vague sense of history, people’s dreams—but she didn’t know how she knew them. Stark images of two dragons, one black and the other green, swept through her thoughts. She trembled.

  “Strange enough an elf comes to Windbowl, an elf and a troll,” Hylda said. “Stranger still what Aiella said after the council. She has lost contact with
the Otherworld, yet she says the faerie energy surrounding the city has surged. It must all be related. The only agreement the council reached was that we need more information.” Hylda sighed. “I had hoped Arda would know more. News that the Empire seems to be unraveling isn’t comforting without knowing the why of it. Damn it! The Order has never been able to establish a presence in Artalon itself. We need that now more than ever. Do you think the Fae Court moved against the God-King? Maybe Aaron destroyed the Otherworld, and it took all his power to do so. That would explain the dead runes. I think—”

  Oh Aaron… That thought came from a green presence deep inside her. Sorrow. More guilt. The briefest of images, a flash of leaving the elf who loved him—a different elf—to die.

  “I think,” interrupted the clear voice, “we can continue this conversation later. Your guest has awakened, Attaris.”

  The elf slowly ceased trembling and sat up, the wool blankets falling to her lap to reveal her white breasts decorated by red stripes. She turned to face them. A dwarf man sat at the far side of the table. He had a full orange beard that extended to his lap beneath the table, framed by a thick, equally long, braided mustache. Another dwarf sat beside him, this one a woman with similarly honey-red hair and a radiant face that seemed perpetually joyful. The third was a darkling woman, with horns swept back and brown hair cropped short that tousled away from her face. Her eyes were a solid jet black, and she held herself with grace and poise, arms clasped in front of her on the table.

  The dwarf man blushed and dropped his eyes to the floor.

  “Interesting,” remarked the darkling. “Your eyes glow. Pretty.”

  The honey-haired woman grinned. “You might want to hold that wool up over your bosom. I’m not sure Attaris can take it.”

  “Who are you? Where am I?” the elf asked. She wasn’t sure what the woman meant and didn’t care if Attaris could take whatever “it” was. She spoke with the calm custom of authority, assuming nothing more than to be answered.

  “I’m Attaris,” the dwarf man said, rising. He met her eyes, and then looked away. He obviously felt uncomfortable, but he made an effort to be hospitable. “Servant of Modhrin the Storm Lord, at your service, and whose house you happen to find yourself in. These are my friends, Arda and Hylda, paladins and ladies of the Kaldorite Order. And you? What’s your name?”