Dragon's Blood

by Catherine Banks

  Table of Contents

  DRAGON’S BLOOD

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MORE FROM CATHERINE BANKS

  CONNECT WITH CATHERINE BANKS

  DRAGON’S BLOOD

  CATHERINE BANKS

  Dragon’s Blood

  By Catherine Banks

  Cover by: Canvas Covers

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Catherine Banks

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, by photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of the book.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  “There are no suitable men in this town,” Elianora complained as she pulled another weed from the garden.

  “Your standards are too high, Eli,” I accused her. She was older than me and yet she was still a maiden. Most looked down on her and if she didn’t find a husband soon, she would stay a maiden forever.

  “I don’t see a ring on your finger,” she chastised me. “What’s your excuse?”

  She had me there. I had been approached by many men, most wealthy enough to get me out of the mud permanently. I couldn’t marry a man just because he had money. My parents had been in love and after seeing the women who married for status and how miserable they were later, I knew I didn’t want that. I would marry for love and nothing else.

  “I just haven’t found my soulmate yet,” I said. I plucked a tomato from the plant and set it in my basket with the others. We had a small garden that gave us enough for our food and to sell to earn a bit of spending money.

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Soulmate. Pah!”

  “Ma and Da were soulmates.”

  “They were in love, but that’s as far as it went.”

  “Maybe you don’t believe because you think you’re better than your soulmate,” I teased her.

  “He wouldn’t be my soulmate if he were beneath me.”

  “Maybe Mr. Abers was your soulmate.”

  She pretended to vomit. “I will gladly give up my soulmate if that is the case.”

  We laughed and returned to our work. Elianora and I were only three years apart, but sometimes it felt like I was the eldest instead of her. She was always getting into trouble and didn’t know when to shut her mouth. Just two days ago she had been in an argument with a guard over something stupid. If it weren’t for me, she would have been thrown into jail.

  “Afternoon, Miss Elianora and Miss Tanya,” a deep voice greeted.

  I turned and frowned at the guard approaching us. He was tall, thin, and terrible with a sword. I wasn’t sure how he had even made it past guard training, but Marcov was very resourceful if nothing else.

  “Marcov,” I greeted. “What do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”

  Elianora stood there silently as she watched us. She had a crush on Marcov and I knew it, but she refused to admit her feelings to me.

  He turned and faced her. “I was sent to summon you and bring you back to the castle.”

  “The castle?” I asked fearfully. “Why?”

  “It’s alright Tanya,” she told me with a smile. “I’m not in trouble this time.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe the King has grown tired of your crimes.”

  “The Prince requested her, actually,” Marcov informed me.

  “The Prince…” I felt my eyes widen and I stared at her in shock. “Eli!”

  She laughed and kissed my cheek. “Don’t wait up, little sister.”

  Marcov bowed to me and then led my sister towards the city and the castle at the top of the hill. When had she met the Prince? We were rarely apart and normally she would have told me something as important as meeting the Prince. And to think she had talked about no suitable men in the town! That lying brat.

  I went back to tending to the garden and made myself a small meal. Even though she had said it wasn’t a bad reason that she had been summoned, I was still worried. We tried to keep a low profile, but the King knew who we were since Pa had been his personal guard, and it seemed like he kept tabs on us. We had been visited by guards more times than I liked to count. We had been punished a few times with whippings due to stealing items when we were young and our parents were gone, leaving us practically empty-handed. The King had given us a small plot of land and a small amount of money to start the garden and informed us that there would be no help in the future and he had only done that out of respect for Da.

  Despite Eli’s wishes to splurge on things like pretty dresses, I kept us on a tight budget and we had a good amount of money saved. I almost had enough for me to leave this place. There was a town we had visited as children where the people were happier, there was more food, and there were more men my age. It had been my goal since my parents were killed to move away from Dalma and go to Prunc. Despite it being a better place to find suitors, Eli had never wanted to go with me no matter how many times I tried to convince her. Now it made sense. She had been flirting with and holding herself back for the Prince.

  The day turned to night and still she didn’t come home. I hoped it was only because they didn’t want her walking home in the dark, but the ever-worrying part of me began to think it was something else. I went to sleep praying for the best. Perhaps tomorrow we would hear bells announcing their engagement.

  Business was slow and I couldn’t keep my mind off my sister. It was already half day and she hadn’t returned home or come to help me sell our crops. Where was she? Was she okay? Knowing her, she was probably having the time of her life, eating, drinking, and partying while I was here worrying about her.

  I leaned against the wall of the building I was standing in front of and folded my arms across my chest. Stupid sister.

  “Hello, Tanya,” Tomlin said with a smile. Tomlin was the local religious fanatic. He was constantly trying to convert me.

  “Tomlin,” I greeted him with a smile.

  “Where’s your sister?” he asked.

  “Off for the day,” I said, keeping my smile on. No need to let anyone else know she was summoned by the Prince.

  “Will you tell her I stopped by to see her?”

  “Sure,” I said suspiciously. “Can I tell her the reason?” I asked.

  “Oh, she knows,” he said with a smirk. He walked away and waved. “Have a nice day.”

  “What was that about?” I asked myself out loud. Had she gotten mixed up in the crazy Order of the Crow? They were known for pulling stupid stunts and burning churches down. Was this why the Prince had summoned her? Was she involved with them and had done something bad?

  “You seem out of sorts t
oday,” Giselle, a kind old woman who sold the jewelry she made, said.

  “Just worrying like always,” I said with a sigh.

  “Normally older sisters would worry about the younger ones, not the other way around.”

  “That’s because they didn’t have Eli as a sister.”

  “I’m surprised you’re here, girl.”

  I looked at her in shock. “Why is that?”

  “Well rumor is that your sister got locked up yesterday after attacking the Prince,” Giselle said softly.

  What?! “That can’t be true,” I said nervously. “She would never attack the Prince.”

  “Rumors are often untrue, but they do stem from truth normally.”

  Oh no. That idiot had better not have done something so stupid. I packed up my produce, rushed home to put it away and then ran as fast as I could back through the city and towards the castle. Please don’t let her be right. Please let the rumors be false.

  The street grew steeper and my legs warmed as I ran up the incline. Da had made sure that we were physically fit and had forced us to run these paths all of our childhood. I had stopped doing it when he died and now I wished I had continued the exercise. Guards looked at me curiously, but none stopped me as I climbed the streets and entered the main gates to the castle. I stopped to catch my breath and looked up at the balcony where the King was standing and staring at me. I stood up straight in shock and sucked my breath in.

  “Bring her to me,” the King ordered the guards.

  I stayed perfectly still since I didn’t want to give the guards the wrong impression of my intentions and exhaled in relief when Marcov approached me ahead of the other guards. He wrapped his hand gently around my arm and tugged. “Come on, Tanya.”

  “I was already coming to talk to him,” I whispered.

  “Obviously, but we’ll just follow the King’s lead and I’ll escort you in.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked him.

  He turned away from me and said, “For once, I do not know.”

  A guard didn’t know what was going on? This wasn’t good at all. Dammit Eli, what have you done now?

  We stepped into the castle and guards eyed me curiously. Most had purchased from me and everyone knew everyone here with it being such a small town. They had to know that I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  We entered the main chamber and the King was sitting on his throne with the Prince standing next to him. Well, at least the prince wasn’t dead. I walked up to the throne, as far as we were permitted, and then dropped to one knee in a bow. “Your Highnesses,” I greeted them.

  “Do you know what has happened?” the King asked me.

  I shook my head. “I only know my sister was summoned by the Prince yesterday and then heard a rumor that she was in trouble today, so I came to find out if she was alright.”

  The Prince refused to look at me. I looked at his neck and my pulse tripled its pace when I saw purple marks on his neck and the edge of a bandage under his shirt on his chest.

  “Your sister was summoned by the Prince to eat and drink with him. However, she had an ulterior motive. Did you know she was part of the Order of the Crow?”

  “What? No!” I said in alarm.

  “She attacked my son after calling him a ‘sinner’. She said it was her duty to clear the royal bloodline of such soiled persons,” the King told me calmly.

  He was awfully calm for having his son attacked by a crazy woman. “She’s never spoken about the Order to me before,” I said. “I can’t believe that she would harm anyone, let alone the Prince.”

  “Whether you want to believe it or not, it did happen. The punishment for attacking a member of the royal family is death by public hanging.”

  I knew that. Everyone knew that. It still hurt to hear it.

  “There has to be another way,” I begged him. “There has to be something that I can do to save her from death. Please.”

  The King stared at me as he stroked his beard and then finally after several minutes of silence he said, “If you complete a task for me, I will spare your sister’s life, but banish her from my realm.”

  “What is the task?” I asked him happily. I would do anything to save my sister.

  “I want you to bring me a dragon’s head,” he said with an evil smirk.

  “What?” I asked in shock.

  “A dragon’s head. I want you to travel to Mlira, slay a dragon, and bring me back its head. If you do that, I will release your sister and you two will be free to leave Dalma.”

  “Sir, that’s an impossible task for most men,” Marcov said softly.

  “And?” The King asked him.

  “Surely you don’t expect a girl, untrained in any combat, to slay a dragon?”

  “She isn’t untrained,” The King told him while looking at me.

  How did he know?

  “Her da trained her up until his death. She’s probably better with the sword than you are, Marcov.”

  Da told me to keep it quiet and I had, even from Elianora. How had the King found out?

  “It’s impossible,” Marcov said.

  “Are you questioning me?” the King asked him.

  “I’ll do it,” I said before Marcov got killed over nothing.

  The Prince’s head whipped up and he stared at me in shock. “You will?”

  “I’ll do whatever I have to in order to save my sister,” I told them honestly. “May I obtain supplies from your stores?” I asked the King. I didn’t want to spend my money even though I probably wasn’t coming back.

  “I’m feeling generous today, so I’ll grant your request. Marcov, take her to the supplies and let her take whatever she feels is necessary. I’ll even give you a horse.”

  I bowed as low as I could and said, “Thank you, Your Highness. May I see my sister before I go?”

  “No,” he said with a deep scowl. “I will not risk you freeing her.”

  I was proud that he thought I was capable of such a thing and also sad that I couldn’t see her. I didn’t press my luck with him though.

  I followed behind Marcov and when we were almost to the door the King said, “Tanya, don’t fail.”

  I turned and smiled at him. “I won’t.”

  Marcov led the way, mumbling incoherently to himself and held open the door of a building I had never thought to see the inside of again. The first time had been a joke, Elianora and I had snuck in and rearranged the gear and left before anyone had come back. Unfortunately, a guard on the wall had seen us leaving and we were caught. That was the first whipping we had received.

  Men looked at me questioningly, but I refused to look at them or answer their unspoken questions. Marcov grabbed a bag and handed it to me. “Take whatever you want, Tanya, and as much as you want.”

  I went down the rows of supplies and took two to four of everything from socks, daggers, canteens, and even found a bow and quiver of arrows to my liking.

  “What’s going on here?” Hugo, the head of the guard asked.

  “The King is sending her on a mission and has allowed her to take supplies from here,” Marcov informed him.

  “A mission? Why would he send Tanya on a mission?” Hugo asked.

  “It’s none of your concern,” I told him as I pulled on a new pair of boots and checked their fit.

  “When will you return?” Joff asked.

  I looked down at my clenched fists and said, “If I survive, I’ll be back in a couple months.”

  “If you survive?!” they all yelled in shock.

  “Marcov, will you take me to the stables so they don’t think I’m trying to steal there as well?” I asked him, hiking my bag up on to my shoulders.

  “What about your garden?” Joff asked.

  I hadn’t even thought about it. “Some of it might survive, but most will probably die off. You’re all welcome to harvest what you can and keep it for free,” I told the few men who were present.

  “Tanya,” Hugo whispered, “what have you gotten yours
elf into?”

  “Her bumbling sister is the issue,” Marcov snapped. “That idiot has gotten her sister and herself killed this time.”

  “You’ve never had any faith in me,” I accused Marcov.

  “Tanya, I love your spunk and you’re quick and smart, but this is…”

  “Nothing is impossible,” I told him.

  “Your da always said that,” Hugo said with a sad laugh. “I miss that man.”

  “Me too,” I told him honestly. “It was lovely chatting with you boys without handcuffs on, but time is of the essence, so I’ll be off.”

  “Don’t go,” the Prince said from the doorway.

  I turned and frowned at him. “What?”

  “Don’t go,” he pleaded. “For all that is holy, don’t go on this suicide mission. Your sister wouldn’t want you to die along with her.”

  “If I don’t try to save her, then I deserve death.”

  “You did nothing and don’t deserve this,” he said angrily. “Don’t go.”

  “You don’t understand,” I told him angrily. “She’s all I’ve got! She’s my only family! I can’t let her die if there’s a possibility of saving her.”

  “If she were out here right now she would be telling you not to go,” he said adamantly.

  “If she were out here right now, I wouldn’t be going. Did she really attack you?”

  He glared at me and said, “I don’t have to answer to you.”

  “Must be nice,” I snapped. “Not having to answer to anyone. Not having to be forced on a stupid mission for your king’s amusement.”

  “Tanya,” Marcov snapped. “That’s enough. Let’s go get you a horse.”

  I marched past the Prince and followed Marcov in silence. That stupid boy doesn’t know the first thing about family or sacrifices.

  “Here, take this horse,” Marcov said as he opened a stall door.

  I looked at the lanky colt in front of me and asked, “Is he broken?”

  “He’s very well broken,” he assured me. “I’ve trained him myself.”

  “Is this your horse, Marcov?” I asked him knowingly.