Trail of the Black Wyrm - Chris Pierson

by Dragonlance

  Glancing around, they yanked their blades from the dead bull-men, sheathed them, and stripped off their armor. In moments they wore the archers’ breastplates, bracers, and greaves. Shedara also took their bows and arrows, but Eldako kept his own. No one would notice. With luck no one would see anything but the armor and his horns. They dragged the corpses down the alley, next to the dead dog, kicked a few rats away, and heaped trash on them. Then, hearts thundering, they made themselves walk out of the alley again and turned back toward the arena.

  They got in with no trouble. The size of the place amazed Eldako. There were nearly as many minotaurs in its stands as there had been riders in Chovuk’s whole, vast horde—and the seats were still only three-quarters full. Silently, they chose an empty post around the edges of the sands. Eldako strung his bow, nocked an arrow, and waited.

  An hour passed. The seeming spell grew weaker. It would hold out for a day or more, but they were past being able to hold it if they committed violence. From now on, they would get one chance to fight, and then they would be elves again.

  The plan could never work. But it had to.

  Every now and then, Shedara caught sight of one of the others. A few had also taken positions around the edge of the ring. Others were in the stands. Quivris stood near the emperor’s box. Some she couldn’t pick out from among the crowd, though; she wondered if any had been caught. If they had, they were dead by now. She knew well enough that an elf spy would simply be killed on the spot. She’d seen it happen. She’d lost friends that way.

  She was still lost in those grim memories when brass trumpets blew. All eyes turned toward the arena’s great doors as they shuddered open, and she caught her breath. A band of guards escorted Forlo and Hult out onto the sands and made them kneel before the emperor’s gallery while Rekhaz pronounced their sentence. Shedara stared, trembling with anger. Forlo looked all right, though Hult had had a rough time of it. He was battered and bruised, stripped to his clout, and his braid was gone. Eldako sucked on his teeth when he saw that, rumbling deep in his throat. He knew the Uigan’s ways, knew what an insult that was.

  A runner brought the captives’ swords, planted them in the sands in the middle of the ring. Hult and Forlo took them up. The trumpets blew again. Shedara held her breath, her hands clenched into fists, and held still as the long, gnashing worms—she knew them as horaxes, though Eldako muttered a slightly different word—came skittering across the sands.

  Eldako kept his fingers tense against his bowstring as he watched the fight, ready to draw and loose at any time. But he didn’t shoot, even when both swords broke. Shedara held her ground as well, as much as she wanted to leap into the fray and help. It wasn’t time—and besides, she had seen Hult and Forlo fight. They were both more than capable … she hoped.

  Soon she was proven right. Hult killed one of the horaxes with his bare hands, ripping its armor off and stomping it to death. He ran to help Forlo, who was being gnawed on by the other beast. Together, they pulled free. Then Hult screamed, and even from halfway across the arena Shedara saw his fingers fall onto the sands. The minotaurs, rapt with bloodlust, cheered so loudly her ears rang. Eldako shut his eyes, his lips tight against his fangs. Shedara knew he was thinking of the Green, keeping his calm. The horax’s mandibles locked around Hult’s ankle. He screamed and fell. Forlo tried to help but couldn’t pry the pincers loose.

  Eldako had told Shedara there was no better archer in Northern Hosk than he. She wasn’t sure if this was just boasting, but as he brought up his bow and sighted along the arrow, she prayed to Astar. The merkitsa’s face turned blank, all emotion draining away. There was only him and the arrow and his target. Lost in that serenity, he exhaled and loosed.

  The shaft flashed through the air. It hit the horax and killed it instantly. And the spell lifted. He was a merkitsa again, the stolen armor hanging loose on his body.

  A heartbeat later, there were elves everywhere—or so it must have seemed to the bull-men, as startled guards and commoners alike drew blades and bowstrings and attacked those near them. Fifty minotaurs died in the time it took to draw two breaths. Chaos followed.

  Eldako nocked arrow after arrow—he’d had time to make new ones on the journey to Kristophan—and loosed them at the minotaur archers. A half dozen of the Silvanaes joined him. Between them, they made short work of the guards, picking them off before they could do more than launch a few weak shots at Forlo and Hult. Two of the Silvanaes fell as well, one run through with a spear and the other with an arrow in his throat. Eldako leaped down onto the sands and aimed his bow up into the crowd. There were armored guards up there too; he started shooting them, one by one.

  The Silvanaes were outnumbered by thousands of enemies twice their size. The plan should have failed. Against an arena full of minotaurs, thirty-three elves should have had no chance. But it wasn’t a fair fight, either. The elves didn’t drop their bull-man forms all at once, but gradually, slowly enough to let the thought sink in, all over the arena: any minotaur might actually be an elf in disguise. The bull-men started eyeing one another suspiciously, not sure who might draw a blade and attack next. Masses pressed anxiously toward the exits.

  As for Shedara herself, she didn’t move yet, didn’t raise her bow. She waited, holding her minotaur form. It pained her to watch her people die, but she had a role to play in this, and fighting wasn’t her job … not yet, anyway. She kept back, clutched her arm, and pretended to be hurt while bedlam erupted all around her.

  At last, Quivris made his move. The warden of Armach had held his form long enough to push right up to the imperial box, appearing to the confused bull-men to be one of Rekhaz’s personal retinue. Now he drew his sword and thrust it through the breast of one of the emperor’s courtiers, then whipped it around and extended it toward Rekhaz before anyone knew it was happening. As he did, his form dissolved into the scarred elf, the brother Shedara no longer knew.

  The emperor stared at him, his eyes narrow with fury. The tip of Quivris’s sword hung, perfectly still, a hand’s breadth from his throat. Elven steel glistened in the sunlight, the dead courtier’s blood running along its edge. Quivris’s blade was enchanted, one of the finest in Armach, an heirloom from the old kingdom across the sea. It could cut through stone as if it were water. Rekhaz didn’t seem to care, didn’t seem in the least afraid. Shedara watched as his gaze shifted from the blade to her brother, and his lips curled back to reveal his pointed teeth.

  Rekhaz laughed, reaching for his own weapon, and Quivris stabbed at him. But he was no longer there—with an agility Shedara never would have expected from one so huge, he twisted aside, and the sword only grazed his shoulder. Bright blood sprayed the imperial box, and a hush fell over the arena.

  The emperor had been bloodied.

  Now Rekhaz was on the attack himself, whipping a jeweled, broad-bladed sword from his scabbard, batting Quivris’s blade away, then leaping back and grabbing a battle axe from the huddled corpse of one of his guards, a warrior who’d taken one of Eldako’s arrows through his forehead. He waved the surviving courtiers away, grinning as though he enjoyed himself. All eyes in the arena were now on the battle between Quivris and the minotaur emperor.

  Rekhaz hurled himself at the warden of Armach, bringing the weapons down and across, an attack that ought to have carved any foe into pieces. But Quivris was nimble too, throwing himself backward, then spinning his sword in a tight arc that lopped off the axe’s head, sent it spinning out onto the sands. Rekhaz’s eyes flicked after it, then he pounded Quivris in the side of the head with the broken haft.

  Shedara saw her brother reel, saw him stagger, and yearned to go to him. He was going to die up there. Rekhaz was a master swordsman. But she had a duty. Without her, the plan would fail. It could survive the loss of Quivris—maybe—but if she shirked, all this would be for nothing. And they would probably all be killed. So she stayed where she was, sick at heart, and kept waiting.

  Quivris spat blood and tried to regain his bal
ance. Rekhaz sneered, dropping the broken axe and shifting his sword to a two-handed grip. He swung it at the elf’s neck, but Quivris ducked again, and the blow missed. He came up again, parried another cut, then swept his foot around and kicked the minotaur—hard—in the side of the knee. There was a crunch, and Rekhaz howled, stumbling sideways.

  The ancient elven blade snapped around, its swing reversing in the blink of an eye. It struck flesh, just above the emperor’s wrists. More blood flowed, and the jeweled sword clattered to the floor of the imperial box … with Rekhaz’s hands still gripping it.

  Rekhaz bellowed in agony. All around the arena, minotaurs cried out in outrage as he fell to one knee, staring in disbelief at the stumps of his arms. Quivris didn’t hesitate, stepping in to lay the edge of his sword against the emperor’s throat.

  “Be still!” he shouted, even as nearby minotaurs pressed close. “If anyone makes a move toward me, your new emperor loses his head too!”

  It worked. The other guards and courtiers, many of whom had been shoving toward him, all froze. Rekhaz’s eyes burned with rage as he glared up at the elf who’d bested him. Quivris smiled a glittering smile.

  “You know I’ll do it, don’t you, Your Majesty?” he asked. “And I’ll enjoy it, too. So stay where you are, or I’ll start with your horns.”

  Rekhaz glowered, but did not rise.

  “You’ll never escape,” he rumbled through gritted teeth. “You’ll die before you can leave this city. Your head will be on a spike before the city gates by nightfall. And then my armies will crush your kingdom and make ashes of its forests.”

  Quivris shrugged. His kingdom had already fallen. Then he raised his voice so that it carried across the arena. “People of the League! Your emperor is our hostage! If you don’t want another interregnum, stand down!”

  It was enough: all eyes, spectator and guard alike, were locked on the imperial box. No one noticed a lone minotaur archer step forward, onto the sands—no one but Eldako, who was watching for it. It was Shedara’s turn: now she ran toward the center of the ring, where Forlo and Hult stood, dumbstruck and bleeding, by the remains of the horaxes. She shed her minotaur form as she ran, and smiled as she saw the stunned recognition on the gladiators’ faces.

  She didn’t see the second archer, one she’d thought to be dead, rise to his knees and take aim at her—not until Eldako shouted for her to get down. She threw herself into the dust, felt the wind of the shaft passing overhead, then twisted in time to see Eldako pull and loose. The archer clapped a hand to his chest, where a dragon-nocked arrow appeared, then pitched back onto the ground.

  “No one else interferes!” Shedara shouted, rising from the ground. “Not if you want your emperor left alive!”

  Nobody moved.

  Shedara ran the rest of the way to Forlo and Hult. “Hello again,” she said. “Didn’t think we’d leave you to this rabble, did you?”

  “But …” said Forlo. “How? Where—?”

  “Explanations later,” she said. “We’re still in a lot of trouble. Take off your armor.”

  “What?” Forlo asked.

  “No questions. Take it off. Now.”

  He stripped, shedding plates and chainmail until he wore only the padding underneath.

  “It’s all about weight,” Shedara said. “I can only carry so much, and all that steel’s more than I can handle.”

  “Oh,” Forlo said, unbuckling his greaves. “I see—wait, carry?”

  “Hold still.”

  She spared quick glances at Eldako and her brother. Then she began to gesture, drawing in the moons’ power. The magic swelled around her as she spoke words to shape it. The air surrounding her body began to glow a soft, golden color. Another guard lurched forward. Eldako put an arrow in his eye. The glow around Shedara grew, and she raised her voice to a shout—then grabbed both Forlo’s and Hult’s arms at once. There was a flash and a sound like ice breaking on a frozen lake, and then everything vanished.

  When the world returned, they were no longer in the arena—but they were still in Kristophan, in a courtyard several blocks away. Shedara handed her shortsword to Forlo, and one of her long, fighting daggers to Hult. Then she drew a pair of slim knives and looked around. The plaza was deserted, a little square with a garden and bubbling fountain in its midst. She nodded toward a shadowy colonnade.

  “Hide,” she whispered. “Quickly.”

  “What happens now?” Forlo asked.

  “We wait,” she said. “The others will be along.”

  He looked dubious, but did as she asked.

  The plan was for everyone to hold their positions until she and the others vanished. Then they were to get to the sands by the imperial box, make their way out together with Rekhaz as hostage, and find Shedara. It was mad, a desperate plan. She wondered how many more of her people would die. She wondered if any of them would make it. If half an hour passed without any sign, she was to continue without them. She wasn’t sure if she could do that, just leave Quivris and Eldako and the rest.

  Forlo asked questions. She gave answers while inspecting their wounds, explaining who the elves were and telling how they’d convinced Quivris to help. Hult’s ankle was in bad shape—he wouldn’t be able to travel without help. Forlo’s face darkened when she mentioned their promise to stop the shadows, but he didn’t contest her decisions. After that, they stayed quiet, listening to the tumult from the direction of the arena—there would be rioting in the city tonight, no matter what happened. There would be death.

  Half an hour came and went. Shedara blinked back tears. Motioning for the others to stay put, she crept to the mouth of the alley, moving from shadow to shadow, and peered into the street.

  Half a dozen soldiers were standing there, crossbows raised, pointing back toward the arena. She turned to look down the dusty street, and had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out when she saw them: her people, stopped in their tracks. Eldako was still with them—and so was Rekhaz, Quivris still holding a sword to his throat.

  Shedara swore under her breath, then turned and waved to Forlo. He crept forward. Hult tried to follow, but his injured leg wouldn’t let him. Forlo stopped next to her, saw the crossbowmen, and nodded. He raised two fingers, pointed, then slashed his hand sideways.

  She wasn’t completely sure what that meant, but all right. “Now,” she murmured.

  They bolted from the courtyard’s mouth. She threw one of her knives as she ran, and it hit the nearest minotaur in the stomach. He howled, his crossbow clattering to the ground, then went down. He bumped the bull-man next to him as he fell.

  Then Forlo was upon them, yelling a war-cry in the minotaur tongue. That startled them, and two turned to face him. He cut them down. Shedara, meanwhile, pounced on another, who dropped his arbalest and was reaching for a spiked mace when her knife opened his throat. He crumpled.

  Two minotaurs remained. One shot at the elves. Shedara heard a voice shout in pain—and then arrows answered, from Eldako and the other Silvanaes. The last of the crossbowmen collapsed.

  The elves came forward, arrows nocked, looking around for more signs of trouble. Shedara tried to get her throwing knife back, but the blade was bent, so she left it in the minotaur’s body. She turned to the Silvanaes, counted them, and felt sick to her stomach. There were only nineteen.

  “So few,” Shedara said. “The others.…”

  “Are dead,” Quivris replied. “Eleven lives lost, to spare two.”

  She shook her head. “Brother, I’m sorry.”

  He said nothing.

  “What about him?” Forlo asked. “Do you need him anymore?”

  Everyone looked at Rekhaz. He wasn’t in the plan, once they were clear of the city.

  “We mean to release you, Your Majesty,” said Quivris. “But you must swear not to take any action against Armach, or you will not go free.”

  The emperor was silent a moment. Then, his lip curling, he spat in Quivris’s face.

  “I take no oaths fo
r elves,” he said.

  Quivris nodded, wiping his eye. He stepped back, turned, and handed Forlo his sword.

  Rekhaz’s eyes widened. He whirled and tried to run, sending two elves flying. It wasn’t enough; he hadn’t taken three steps before Eldako and four others put arrows in him: two in his left knee, one in his right, and two more in his back. With a roar, the emperor slammed into the marble wall of a building and crashed to the ground.

  Forlo stepped forward, weighing the elven blade in his hand. “What do you think, Rekhaz?” he asked. “Would you rather suffer or die fast?”

  The emperor glared at him, his face contorted with agony. Blood leaked from his snout. “To the Abyss with you, traitor,” he hissed.

  Forlo didn’t reply. He stared at Rekhaz a long time. Then, his eyes as cold as a corpse’s, he stabbed him through the chest.

  And twisted the blade.

  Chapter

  10

  KRISTOPHAN, THE IMPERIAL LEAGUE

  Bastard.

  You used me. I was retired. I’d earned it. But you wanted my help, so you pulled me back in when I had no choice.

  You were in charge of the League’s armies. Its defense was your responsibility. But you were too busy chasing the crown, and you wanted to punish me. You could have dispatched whole legions to fight the Uigan, but you gave me only a handful of men. We should have died that day. You wanted us to die. Once you had my oath, my name supporting you, you threw me to the wolves.

  And when it was done, when I had the temerity to survive, you had me arrested. Had me brought here. Would have beheaded me, if I hadn’t demanded to fight on the sands. And when you did let me fight, you made sure my sword would break. You did everything short of cutting my throat yourself.

  Coward.

  My wife is out there. My unborn son is out there. The statue too. I should be looking for them, not here, nearly getting ripped apart by horaxes while you drink wine and laugh. My family is in danger, and I’m here for your petty vengeance, your power games. And it’s your fault. If they die, it’s your fault.