When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  Aradma opened her eyes in the waking world, sitting slumped forward on the edge of her bed in the duke’s tower. Marta grinned over her, and Seredith stood to the side.

  Beneath the pain, an inner strength stirred. The green light of the Dragon beat steadily in her heart, and the Fae voices receded. The red marks on her face pulled away and retreated to her neck, leaving her silver cheeks and eyelids unmarked. The stripes on her body receded to only cover the outer sides of her limbs, sides, and hips.

  The incubus, Ariontes, leaned casually against the chamber wall, arms folded over his chest. “Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.

  “The blood of the Green Dragon flows in her veins,” Marta said. “After all these years, I have another chance.”

  Aradma clutched her chest, feeling a deep ache in her heart. There was no hole, no wound that flowed with blood. It had all been in her mind.

  She looked up at Marta with venom in her eyes. Before she could say anything, the door burst open, and Duke Montevin rushed into the room at the same moment Arda appeared crouching in the window.

  * * *

  Arda finally reached the window, drenched in sweat. Twice she had nearly fallen, losing her grip but catching herself just in time. As she approached, she feared the worst, for the screams had faded away.

  She pulled herself up, poking her head above the windowsill to survey the room. First she noticed the horned man with cloven feet by the bed.

  Fuck me! A demon.

  The old woman, Marta, stood over the elf, who sat on the edge of the bed, slumped forward over her knees. The elf looked as if she struggled to wake from a long sleep. She blinked her eyes, as if her vision were blurred.

  “The blood of the Green Dragon herself flows in her veins. After all these years, I have another chance.”

  Arda hopped up to crouch on the windowsill. She drew her pistols from her hips and aimed one at Marta, the other at the incubus.

  The duke threw open the far door. He took one look around the room and then roared at Marta, “BETRAYER!” His eyes flared red and his form shifted. Hair burst from his skin, and he fluidly transformed into a powerful wolven, his body absorbing his clothing into the lupine fur. “BETRAYER!” he roared again, in a deeper, guttural voice.

  Marta moved with unexpected speed, pulling a dagger and stabbing Lunarin in the side. “Wolven,” she spat as Lunarin fell forward. “I should have known.”

  The fiendish man behind Marta caught Lunarin in his arms. An inky shadow lengthened from the wall to the bed. Arda pointed and fired both pistols at him. Two bullets, each charged with the Light, found their mark and buried themselves in his neck. He howled in pain, but he stood his ground, still holding Lunarin.

  Fire condensed around the duke’s lupine hands, and he gathered a globe of burning flame.

  “You’re too late,” clucked the crone, her full attention on the duke. “I need your protection no longer, Duke of Windbowl.” She stepped into the shadow.

  The blond woman and the demon carrying Lunarin quickly followed her. Arda fired two more shots, but the weird darkness obfuscated her targets, and they disappeared into its blackness. The duke howled in rage and hurled the orb of fire. The shadow shortened and returned to its natural length, and the four of them were gone.

  The fiery orb sailed across the room, straight towards the window in which Arda crouched.

  Aiella, standing behind Montevin, saw the paladin and shouted, “No, not her!”

  Montevin’s eyes widened in surprise, finally seeing the darkling crouched in the window.

  Arda reacted instantly, diving backwards into the open air behind her, away from the fiery orb. Fuck fuck fuck! She hoped Attaris still had his wind tunnel going.

  She fell, pistols still in hand. For a moment, her heart caught in her throat, thinking she had missed the vortex of wind. Then she hit the cushion of air, and her descent slowed until she gently floated down towards the ground. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Above her, Montevin jumped on the window ledge, his clawed hands holding the stone frame. His head was silhouetted by the full moon above in the clear sky. He howled into the night, and the chilling note of rage made Arda shiver.

  As she descended through the cloud cover, she lost sight of the duke. She heard other wolf voices rise to join his, at first one, and then a multitude. She knew that howl from her travels.

  The pack had been summoned. A wolven Hunt had begun.

  8 - Bloodcraft

  Attaris anxiously peered up into the dark cloud. He heard the howling but could see nothing. He held his breath until, finally, he saw Arda gently descend, held by the runic vortex of wind. She came to rest softly on her feet, a grim look on her face, and holstered her pistols.

  “That did not go well,” she stated dryly.

  “What happened? Where is Lunarin?”

  “The duke’s witch took her. The one called Marta.”

  “Took her? We have to find her!”

  “They went through a portal. There’s no telling where they are now. There’s more. The duke is wolven.”

  Howls rang out over the city.

  “And he calls for the Hunt,” Attaris said. “Marta betrayed him.”

  Arda nodded. “I’m not sure what there is to do at this point but wait for events to unfold. The trolls return tomorrow morning.”

  Between wolven in the streets and trolls threatening the city, Attaris had a bad feeling that things were not about to get any better.

  The Storm Lord seemed to share his sentiment. Thunder rumbled from the mountains, and a biting, chill wind picked up, whipping at them until they pulled their cloaks tight.

  * * *

  Anuit bolted upright when she heard the howls in the streets. She and every sorcerer in the city knew what this meant. One of them had betrayed the city’s trust, and the Howl of the Hunt had been given. The wolven now had one singular goal: find and purge all sorcerers. Expunge the threat to the duchy. The cancer would be rooted out.

  She only had minutes to react, if that. There would be wolven on their way to her house even now. Marta and Seredith weren’t home, but she could not afford to wait. She prayed they remained safe. She bolted the door shut and ran to the back of Marta’s bedroom. With a touch, the levered flagstone opened the hidden door to the underground caverns. She hoped with all her might that the secret had held true, that the duke had never discovered their underground network.

  The door shut behind her, sealing her in total darkness. This posed no problem, for her early training in magic had taught her the ability to see in the absolute pitch of night. The tunnels around her revealed themselves under a dim violet hue that a sorcerer’s magical sight could see. She moved quickly through them, putting distance between her and her home as rapidly as she could.

  She made her way towards Marta’s secret chambers, where she and Seredith spent many hours training. Nearly twenty minutes passed before she reached her destination. A strange green light emanated up the corridor, and she could hear an exchange between Marta and Seredith. Something felt very wrong. Belham appeared at her side, summoned by her worry. She stopped and peered around the doorway.

  * * *

  Seredith’s heart pounded in fear. She had never guessed Marta meant to harm the elf, much less stab her. The duke had seen Seredith’s face and marked her among the betrayers. His rage revealed his own wolven nature. She had no choice but to follow her mother through the shadowy portal.

  She stepped through, behind Ariontes, who carried the body of the unconscious elf.

  “Mother, what have you done?” Seredith cried. “You have doomed us all!”

  Marta stopped in her tracks and turned to face her daughter. She took Seredith’s face in her hands, and looked her straight in the eyes. “Seredith, my daughter. You must trust me. This elf is our salvation. From everything. From wolven. From the Empire. Maybe even from the Archmage…” She trailed off for a moment, and fear passed over her eyes. Seredith had never se
en her mother look vulnerable before. Hunted. Then the moment passed as quickly as it came. “There is no time to explain, but I need your help.”

  Seredith searched her mother’s eyes, finding only earnest concern. She tasted bile. I will not cry, she told herself. “What must I do?”

  “Lie on the table and prepare to leave your body. I have another task for you.”

  “What’s going to happen to the elf?”

  “We need a small amount of her blood. She will recover, have no fear. Lay down and prepare yourself.”

  Seredith nodded, burying her apprehensions. She lay back on the table and closed her eyes, relaxing and loosening the bonds between her spirit and her body.

  “Macthogos, now is the time,” she heard Marta say, and the great demon appeared at her call. Something in Marta’s voice changed. The tone of urgency and alarm resurrected Seredith’s suspicions. She tried to open her eyes, but the demon reached into her body, as he had done before, and scooped her soul out of its physical housing. Her spirit eyes opened to the room, and she floated above the table, looking down on them all. She tried to rush back into her body, but Macthogos blocked her way.

  Marta looked up at her floating apparition, eyes glittering in deadly glee, all pretense of concern gone. “Foolish child to have trusted so easily,” she said. “It’s always the same.”

  Ariontes stepped out of the shadow into her field of view.

  “You know what to do,” Marta said.

  The incubus nodded. He took ropes and leather straps and tied the elf’s ankles to the ceiling, suspending her with arms dangling over the cauldron.

  WHY? Seredith shouted in her spirit voice.

  Marta paused, and then looked up at her. “Because when we die, our souls die. There is no life after death, and I would live forever,” she said. “Her blood has the essence of the Green Dragon. I expended the last of my supply of lesser dragon’s blood when I took this body. It’s fortuitous that this elf came when she did. The Green Dragon’s essence is Life itself, infinitely more potent. It will bind my soul to your body and sustain it forever.”

  Seredith’s soul shivered. ‘This’ body? How many times? How many daughters?

  “I’ve lost count, but you will be the last. Take some comfort in that your soul won’t survive to suffer remembering.”

  Marta turned her attention away. Ariontes poured water into the cauldron. The crone uttered a word of magic, and the fire under the cauldron lit. The water boiled with unnatural rapidity. As the water heated and steam gathered, she produced a bundle of foul smelling herbs tied around what looked like strung-together human bones. She released this into the cauldron, and the water grew black and murky, bubbles popping with viscous sluggishness.

  Green blood from the stab wound trickled from the elf’s chest down her arms in webbed lines. They pooled on her fingertips, and then dripped into the concoction. The fresh scent of spring fields filled the room, mingling with the putrid undertones. The bubbling liquid turned from black to a muddy green.

  Marta drew her dagger and sliced open Seredith’s blouse and skirt, then cut away her undergarments to expose her skin to the air. She dipped a chalice into the cauldron and poured the green fluid over the girl’s naked body. Seredith’s soul shuddered. The liquid seeped into her body’s skin, as if absorbed by a sponge. Seredith felt the path between her soul and body slam shut. She let out a silent cry of agony from her spectral lips over the loss from this greatest possible theft.

  Marta dipped the chalice again, and this time she drank from the cup, grimacing as she swallowed.

  “Your blood is suffused with life, but it begs for a soul to fill it.” She was so accustomed to lecturing, even now she continued the habit. “But it no longer recognizes your soul as its own. My blood now runs with the same essence. When our blood touches, my soul will be pulled in to fill the stronger vessel.”

  Marta moved over beside the young woman’s body. She took her dagger and pricked a tiny cut in the center of her chest. A stream of bright red blood, glowing with a strange green luminescence, slowly began to rise against gravity. The light grew and swirled until it formed a soft, silent vortex that encompassed Marta and her prized body. When the light grew to fill the room in a ghostly green hue, Marta tore her own blouse open. She cut between her hanging breasts, allowing her blood to flow. The green light caught her blood, and it too levitated outwards, slowly making its way to the center. The two sanguine streams hovered like liquid serpents, searching and probing. They stretched out through the swirling light, seeming to sense each other.

  * * *

  Anuit hid and listened. She observed the boiling cauldron and saw Marta’s two demons standing at the room’s perimeter. She froze in shock at the sight of the old crone pouring green liquid from a chalice over Seredith’s naked body, and continued to watch, unable to move, as Marta cut Seredith’s chest and then her own. Listening intently to Marta’s droning, Anuit stared in horrid fascination at the slow, floating streams of blood that searched for each other.

  She jolted with shock as her mind fitted the pieces together. The elf-suffused blood, Seredith’s unconscious body, Marta’s soliloquy, and now the two sanguine streams all shouted the magnitude of Marta’s betrayal. She only had seconds to act before she lost Seredith.

  Instinctive rage took her. She rushed forward from the shadow and reached into the Void to channel the Dark as Marta had taught her. She opened herself to the shadow and hurled a stream of dark energy. It sliced through the glowing streams of blood before they touched, splattering them on the far wall. The vortex of green light faded from the room, and the remaining blood fell to the ground.

  Marta whirled at her, screeching with rage. “You stupid cunt!” Her face contorted into such a mask of demonic rage that Anuit no longer recognized the woman. Marta’s mouth twisted, and spittle dripped from her lips. “I should have killed you ages ago!”

  Ariontes sauntered behind the crone, and Macthogos pulled out a great, gleaming ax from the ether.

  Anuit tore open holes in reality, yanking Bryona and Khiigun into existence. She eyed Marta’s demons briefly before her mouth twisted into a cruel smile. “Kill,” she said, and then turned her attention to the old crone.

  Marta darted her hand forward, and a bolt of shadow shot forth. Again, Anuit’s natural talent took over, and she instinctively threw her arms forward to block it, projecting her shadow into the oncoming bolt. The two streams of power met in the middle, colliding into a dark sphere that stayed suspended for a moment before each woman was thrown back on the ground.

  “How is this possible?” Marta spat, struggling to sit up. “I kept you contained. Made you weak.”

  Anuit lifted herself up from the floor, ignoring the pain in her bottom from falling on the hard stone. “I’m just that good.” She reached out with the shadow again, forming a shield barely in time before Marta’s energies, a million obsidian-black blades, slammed into it.

  Anuit stepped back, forced to the defensive. Marta screamed and flung each hand forward, alternating one after the other. With each thrust of her clawed fingers, more dark daggers appeared and stabbed Anuit’s shields, sending shockwaves into Anuit’s mind.

  “Remember your necromantic power,” Belham whispered into her ear. “Your talent is strong, and that’s why the Lords of Dis recognized you—but you can’t match her with the techniques she taught you. She’s had too many years to master her art. Reach out to the dead souls around us. Through them, you can tap far deeper into the Dark than even she can imagine. Remember what you saw through the pain last night.”

  Anuit recalled the clarity won through her agony. She brought the omnipresent soul dust back into focus and seized its strands with her mind. Her connection to the Dark opened wide, and an ocean of shadow rushed through her, suffusing her being with power. She couldn’t help but laugh. Her shield pushed out and solidified, no longer shaking. The shadow knives bounced away effortlessly.

  “No!” Marta screamed, pan
ting heavily as the constant channeling took its toll on her. “What is this? I never taught you such power!”

  Anuit smiled. “This is your end.” She opened both her palms to the crone and unleashed a pure black stream of negation, fueled by the wisps of Windbowl’s dead.

  * * *

  Seredith hovered in the room. She had felt herself start to dissipate when Marta began the ritual. Her body was closed to her, and soon her spirit would simply dissolve. But then Anuit interrupted the rite. At the first attack, Seredith felt her mind snap back into sharp focus. Her body craved a soul, and it reached out to the only thing it could find—her. But her body was closed to her soul—it was no longer hers. The Green Dragon’s essence pulled her in, but the magic of the rite prevented her from settling. She screamed in agony that none in the room could hear as she was forced and bound to a body that wouldn’t receive her. The physical heart sputtered and died, unable to take the stress of the magic. She screamed again. Her body died, but she was bound to it through the green magic in its still blood. It would not release her spirit to death. She surrendered her struggle and fell back into the corpse.

  She opened her dead eyes and found she could see. With dread, she realized she felt no heartbeat. She did not breathe, but she found she could bring air in and form words in the softest of whispers.

  “Oh Anuit… what have you done?”

  * * *

  Aradma awoke to find herself suspended by her feet from the ceiling, hanging over a steaming cauldron. Her arms were webbed with small trickles of her green blood, which fell from her fingertips in little drops.