When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  I hope there is more game in this land than this, Ghost intoned. I could eat all of this myself and still want more.

  There will be more, Tiberan said. Let us go to their town first.

  “Did you really come all this way just to warn us of an enemy?” Henriki asked him. The man’s blue eyes studied him with intensity.

  “We came to warn you,” Tiberan replied, “but we also came to the Ice Plains to find a new life for ourselves.”

  “What is this enemy you speak of?” Henriki asked.

  “Troglodytes,” Tiberan said in a low voice. “Servants of the Black Dragon in ages past.”

  A dark shadow took Henriki’s face. “We have no enemies,” he said. “Our ways are not the ways of the rest of Ahmbren. The people of the Nine Realms do not trouble us, and we don’t them. Our stories are different. The line of our ancestors live in the halls of Modhrin. We care not for other gods or foreign stories, yet the tales of the Black Dragon are known to us. They bring memories of a dark time from before the Nine Realms. It was because of the Black Dragon that we cut ourselves off from the world and put our faith in Keruhn. Modhrin watches over our dead, but it is to Keruhn we look throughout our lives.”

  “The Horned God of the Hunt,” Tiberan stated.

  “More than that,” Henriki answered. “God of the Hearth as well. Our lives center around the hearth fire and the warmth between kith and kin. It is what keeps the cold at bay. The Black Dragon threatens to devour the warmth and light of the hearth fire.”

  “Did you know that the Black Dragon has been slain?” Tiberan asked.

  Henriki shook his head. “No. But then if this is true, why do his creatures trouble the surface?”

  Tiberan had no answer. An unease crept over his heart as he considered Henriki’s question. Why would the troglodytes surface? If not the Black Dragon, then what else drove them up? Was there a greater danger in the depths that displaced them, or did something on the surface call to them?

  He looked over at Keira. She could understand nothing of what was said, and so she sat quietly at the fire’s side next to Ghost, wooden spit in hand and eating the fire-roasted rabbit. Ghost had not waited for them to cook. He had already finished his, and looked longingly at the rest of the bounty being distributed to the wolves. Tiberan smiled as Keira slipped Ghost a second hare.

  “You say you seek a new home,” Henriki prompted.

  Tiberan nodded.

  “You will find us welcoming,” Henriki said, “if you adopt our ways. You seem to have a wild spirit in you that gives you insight into the nature of animals. This could be valuable to us. I think you are of the Hunters Circle.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” Tiberan said, “but I do feel at peace when hunting.”

  Henriki nodded. “That is good. Our way of life depends on hunting. Caribou, walruses, seals, and sometimes the whales in the White Sea. We also fish, if that’s where your talent takes you, both with nets and spears. You must choose your Circle… either the Hunters or the Hearthmakers. Your companion,” he gestured towards Keira with his rabbit spit, “I’m not sure where she fits. She has attributes of both.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She is clearly a hunter. But she is a woman, and that suits her to the Hearthmaker Circle.”

  “You have a woman in your number,” Tiberan pointed out.

  “Yes, but after the Hearthmaker Circle confirmed her hunter’s soul. Your friend has yet to be tested.”

  Tiberan grinned. “I suspect she is more of a hunter.”

  Henriki nodded. “We will see. That is not for us to decide. The hearthmother, my mate, will determine this matter.”

  “You are the huntmaster?” Tiberan asked.

  “No,” Henriki replied. “What an odd question. The huntmaster and hearthmother rule the tribe together, but they are not mates. That is a personal matter. I am the hunter with whom the hearthmother chose to make a hearth. Huntmaster Illeski has a different hearthmaker as a mate.”

  They sat in silence while Tiberan considered his words. The Glavlunders felt very different from the Vemnai, yet like the Vemnai they had strange ways whose implications he could not yet fathom.

  “So, then you are not mates,” Henriki finally added. “You are both hunters.”

  Now it was Tiberan’s turn to think that was an odd thing to say. “We are not mates,” he confirmed.

  Ghost glanced over at the seelie. She is no longer a pup, Ghost sent.

  Tiberan glanced back at him but did not respond.

  That night, Tiberan and Keira slept nestled up to Ghost in between them. Their sleeping rolls weren’t as thick as the Glavlunders’, but since the hunting party didn’t pitch any tents or shelter, neither did Tiberan or Keira. Keira shifted into wolven form to add her fur against the night’s cold, and the three of them huddled together.

  When Tiberan awoke the next morning, he found that Ghost had moved out from between them in the night. Now Tiberan slept with his arm around Keira’s wolven form, and Ghost lay on the other side of her. Her coat of fur lay soft and warm against his skin, and they had snuggled close together in their sleep. Tiberan sat up slowly so as not to wake her. He noted, however, that he had not had the disturbing dream of Klrain torturing the Green Dragon’s dreamwalker in the Otherworld. Strange that tonight of all nights he had slept peacefully.

  He heard a snuffling sound nearby. With a start, he sprang to his feet. The Glavlunders let out a cry of alarm, each grabbing their spears. A great white bear had sauntered up to their campsite, lured by the scent of the hares. The wolves growled and came to their masters’ sides, but the bear loped unconcernedly towards the hunters.

  Henriki cried out, “Hold your spears firm!” He raised his own spear to hurl at the bear.

  “NO!” Tiberan shouted. He rushed forward, throwing himself in between the Glavlunders and the white bear. The beast rose at the sight of him, standing on hind legs and raising its front paws.

  Tiberan reached out to the bear with the green light of his soul. The animal stopped for a moment, lowering its paws. It still stood tall on hind legs as it looked down at him.

  Tiberan felt the bear’s essence, and the beast opened his eyes in wonder as its awareness and intelligence increased through the bond they shared.

  Will you fight and hunt at my side? Tiberan asked him through the link.

  The bear dropped to all fours and approached the elf. He lowered his nose, letting Tiberan place his hand on his forehead.

  For this gift of thought, he felt the bear’s words, I will follow you into a yeti’s den.

  The Glavlunders stood amazed, saying to one other, “Look, our suspicions are true! He commands the beasts of this land!”

  Another said, “If he can command the beasts, he can have them lay down for the hunt.”

  Tiberan turned and chastised the man. “I will not hunt a friend that I bond, nor will I bond a creature that I have marked as prey,” he said. “Would you betray your friends in such a manner?”

  The man frowned and withdrew at the admonishment but did not respond.

  “Your words are wise,” Henricki said. “And even more now, I am convinced that you will be welcome in our tribe. The huntmaster and hearthmother will wish to speak with both of you.”

  Keira had risen, watching while still in wolven form. He could feel her wolf aspect calling to him, tempting him to connect with her again. After the last unbidden glimpse into her inner thoughts, he refrained from doing so.

  Cloudpaw, Tiberan said to the bear. I think this is a good name for you.

  Cloudpaw, the bear agreed.

  May we ride upon your back, Cloudpaw?

  The bear lowered himself. We will be nobler than the wolves.

  Tiberan hopped up on his back. He held his hand out to Keira. “Cloudpaw has agreed to carry us on his back so that we don’t have to walk while these Glavlunders ride.”

  Keira shifted back into human form, and the opportunity for him to link with her
spirit dissolved once more. She took his hand, and he lifted her in front of him, circling his right arm across her waist.

  Henriki laughed. “You will make a great hunter!” he exclaimed. “Maybe even greater than the huntmaster himself! We will see.”

  With that, the Glavlunders broke camp and mounted their wolves, and they continued their journey to the village of Glavlund together.

  10 - Kindling

  Anuit nestled beside Arda underneath the covers in the dark hours of the morning just before dawn in Artalon. She listened to her rhythmic breaths and watched the sleeping face of her lover, free from any care or worry. The pink in the scars had receded, and now they were just raised white ridges that raked across her lovely face. Anuit didn’t care. Somehow, it made her love the paladin more.

  Arda slept on her back. Her darkling horns prevented her from sleeping on her side, which meant Anuit slept cuddled into her, and not the other way around. Arda would lie down and extend her arm, and the sorceress would slide in and lay her arm across Arda’s belly.

  Anuit always rose earlier than the darkling. She liked the quiet moments before dawn, when she could watch her lover sleep. Her heart still thudded with joy when she thought of the two of them together. In spite of everything else that had happened that summer, the loss of friends, she was still happy. She supposed she should have felt guilty for her happiness, but she couldn’t help it. She was in love.

  The human woman propped herself up on her elbow and leaned over, kissing the round point of Arda’s nose. The paladin twitched. Her face spread into the relaxed smile of contentment, but she did not awaken.

  Anuit was about to lay back down and doze off again when she saw a shadow move on the balcony beyond the apartment’s large glass doors. She sat upright and used her sorcerous sense to feel the darkness out there, but she could detect nothing unusual.

  She saw it again, and for a moment it stepped forward to the glass doors and peered inside. Anuit gasped. She stared into the face of Seredith, but it wasn’t the Seredith of today. It wasn’t the undead revenant that had secluded herself in the upper apartments of Windbowl’s castle. She was looking into the blue eyes of Seredith as she had been when she was alive, young and beautiful, with long blond hair.

  The apparition—if apparition it could be called, for it appeared to be solid—walked away to the balcony’s edge, out of sight.

  Anuit threw off her covers and bolted from the bed. She slid the glass door open, letting the late summer night’s breeze into the room to tug at her nightgown. She walked out onto the balcony, but it was empty. Whatever she had seen had vanished.

  She moved to the balcony’s edge and looked out over the sea of skyscrapers that rose high above her from the ground far below. The sun was just about to break over the horizon now, and pink and purple light dripped across the sky into the kaleidoscope of glass and zorium buildings.

  “What’s wrong?” Arda stood naked in the doorway. She liked to sleep in the nude when it was just the two of them at home and not too cold, a habit Anuit couldn’t bring herself to adopt. The paladin’s tail swished curiously behind her. She knew Arda was still upset about abandoning Aradma, and now over how little progress they had made here. The darkling had buried her frustration, however, and didn’t let it rule her moments now that decisions were made.

  “Nothing,” Anuit replied. “I thought I saw something. It must have been a morning dream.”

  Arda joined her at the balcony rail. They had taken one of the midlevel apartments in God Spire two months ago when they’d left Windbowl on the magic carpet and come to Artalon. Since then, the floating gnomish city of Cloudmoore had appeared over the center of the city. Hundreds of gnomes had descended into the towers to repair the lift systems and water works. They had even been so kind, at Kristafrost’s insistence, to furnish the apartment Anuit and Arda had claimed and include the large bed in which they spent their nights.

  Arda leaned forward and rested her elbows on the balcony’s rail. The two of them watched the first rays of dawn splash through the city. The glass and copper-hued zorium towers caught the light’s rays and reflected them through the the streets below. It really was a beautiful city, when it didn’t have mad wizards, religious zealots, or vampires ruling its streets.

  Anuit wondered at Arda’s complete air of comfort with her nudity. The paladin had nothing to hide, she realized. She was pure in the Light. Anuit, however, had everything to hide. She was ashamed of the demonic essence that now lived inside her. She unconsciously wrapped her nightgown tightly around her body.

  She is pure in the Light, she revisited the thought. I am not pure… Kaldor said the Dark was in me, and there is no going back. I must learn to be pure in my own element… pure in the Dark. But what does that mean?

  Arda glanced at her and smiled, banishing the sorceress’s troubling thoughts in a single moment.

  The whir of a gyrothopter approached, and Eszhira descended on one of the gnome’s small, two-seated aircraft. Its blades whirled above her head, and she leaned back on its leather chair, holding the handle-grips in front of her and maneuvering with foot pedals. She landed on the balcony platform. Her black hair was fastened back into a bun, and she pulled off leather goggles, revealing her gray eyes with luminescent purple striations. Her skin matched the charcoal gray of her eyes, covered by indigo whorls.

  “Good morning,” she said, raising an eyebrow at Arda. “You really should put some clothes on. No telling who’s flying about these days.”

  “You shouldn’t be snooping onto private balconies,” Arda laughed back at her. “If you’re going to barge in like this, you get what you deserve.” The paladin nonchalantly stepped back into the apartment for a few moments and then returned wearing a bed robe.

  “Any luck?” Anuit asked.

  Eszhira shook her head. “No. They still won’t let you into the upper apartments.”

  The gnomes had been quite hospitable, fixing up all the towers not only for Arda and Anuit, but also for the Hammerfoldian Army led by King Donogan, which had arrived a month ago. However, the gnomes had closed off all the upper levels of the towers—those rooms and offices from which the sidhe administrators had run the Artalonian Empire on behalf of the God-King. For maintenance purposes, they said. Of course, this cut off Anuit’s and Arda’s access to the Imperial apartments and throne room, which made any realistic attempt at finding the location of the real Stag Throne a challenge.

  Eszhira reached into one of the gyrothopter’s side compartments and brought out a small bundle of wrapped paper. “I brought you some breakfast,” she said. She handed the bundle to Anuit.

  The sorceress took the paper and opened the top wrapper. The scent of four hot crescent rolls filled with chocolate wafted sweetly under her nose. She looked up at the bottom of Cloudmoore floating in the sky above God Spire. She could hardly make out any details other than it was a large, circular structure. Their apartment was halfway up the half-mile-tall tower. The gnomish city floated hundreds of feet above that.

  “How can they make so much in a floating city?” she wondered aloud.

  Eszhira only grinned and kicked on the gyrothopter’s engine again. “You have fun. I’ll find you later!” And then she was off. She was the only nongnome allowed in Cloudmoore.

  Arda was instantly at Anuit’s side, pulling open the paper wrapper. “Good,” she remarked. “She brought four. I’m starving.”

  “Two are mine,” Anuit reminded her.

  Arda grabbed two crescent rolls and chuckled. “I wouldn’t dream of stealing yours,” she said. “I know how you get when you’ve not had enough to eat.”

  “I don’t eat that much,” Anuit pretended to pout.

  They returned to the balcony ledge to watch the sunrise as they ate their rolls in silence.

  “I wish we had coffee,” Anuit remarked as she finished.

  “I miss Kaldor too,” Arda agreed. She slipped her arm around Anuit’s shoulders.

  “I guess we’d
better get ready,” Anuit said. “More searching through the lower apartments today. Attaris will be expecting us soon.”

  Arda placed a finger on Anuit’s lips and then kissed her. Anuit could taste the chocolate on the tip of Arda’s tongue.

  “Attaris can wait,” Arda said. “There’s running water. I’m not going out until we’ve had a bath.”

  Anuit grinned and followed Arda back into the apartment. Previous thoughts cast aside, she pulled off her nightgown and let it fall forgotten to the floor at the doorway’s edge between balcony and bedroom.

  An hour later, a frantic knocking rang from their apartment door. “Open up! Arda, Anuit! Are you blasted going to sleep all day?” It was Yinkle’s voice.

  Anuit, already dressed, hurried to the door. Arda was almost ready, buckling her gun belt and pulling it tight around her waist.

  Anuit opened the door to Yinkle frantically jumping up and down, rodent eyes widely glimmering. “What are you two doing?!” the ratling asked furiously. Then she paused, whiskers twitching. “No, wait. I don’t want to know. Go look out your window.”

  Anuit stepped out to the balcony’s edge again. She gasped. Hundreds of colorful zeppelins came out of the east across the water, flying high in the sky.

  “You didn’t see them, did you?” Yinkle scolded them excitedly.

  Well, they hadn’t been exactly looking out the window for the last hour…

  “No,” Arda stated dryly.

  “What are they?” Anuit asked.

  “My people!” Yinkle chirped. They gestured dramatically in the air as she stood up on her tiptoes, rat tail flourishing behind her. “The Kallanistan Sky Navy!”

  Arda’s lips pressed together. “That’s not all,” the paladin stated.

  “What?” Yinkle asked.

  “Look at the sea.” Arda pointed down to the watery horizon.

  Yinkle stood on her tiptoes, but wasn’t tall enough to see over the balcony’s ledge. “Damn it, I can’t see,” she muttered. She hopped up and perched on the ledge’s rail.