The old man watched him for a while before turning back to the table and resuming his carving of the sphere.
Fes stepped out into the hallway and made his way along the hallway. There was still no sign of Alison. Had she gotten hung up somewhere?
At the next door, Fes unlocked it and peeked inside but found the room empty. There was a wall of shelves, and on those shelves were items that appeared to be dragon relics. Fes approached slowly and ran his hands over them, looking for signs of warmth, but there was none.
Either these weren’t actual dragon relics, or they were inert.
He ran his hands along one of them and didn’t feel the same striations as he felt on other dragon relics. None of them had the same shimmery color. Either that was difficult to forge, or not all dragon artifacts had that same shimmery color to them.
Fes turned away from the shelves. There wasn’t anything else in the room. It must be a storeroom for dragon replicas.
When he went into the hallway, he hurried to the next door. This one wasn’t locked. When he pushed it open, he was facing a small kitchen, little more than an oven with pots hanging over it. Three men sat on stools, chatting softly. When they saw Fes, they jumped from their seats and lunged toward him.
Fes reacted, jamming his dagger into the chest of one, spinning and cutting into the shoulder of the next, and slamming the hilt of one dagger into the man’s forehead. All men fell before making a sound.
These men were dressed differently than the man he’d seen in the first room. They wore dark leathers of the mercenaries and were armed with swords. Carter’s men.
The kitchen was sparse. There were cabinets, and when Fez sorted through them, he saw nothing but a few bags of grain. A counter had dried bread stacked on top of it. Coals glowed in the hearth along one wall. The air smelled of flour and that of roasted meat, so he suspected there had been some baking and cooking done here recently, though when?
Fes gathered the swords and brought them over to the hearth. He dumped the swords into it and kicked the coals, sending them glowing a little more brightly. If the men came around, he didn’t want to run the risk of them grabbing the swords and coming after him.
Back in the hallway, he paused, listening for the sounds of anyone else who might be out here. Where was Alison? By now, she should have found a way of following him, and the fact that she hadn’t troubled him. Could Carter have come across her?
No. He wasn’t even certain that Carter was here. Whatever this was seemed to be something other than the plan that Carter had for the priest.
Fes tried another door and found it empty like the others.
How many rooms were in this building? How many places would he have to check before finding where they had brought the priest?
If he was even here.
When he pushed open the next door, he hesitated.
It was a vast, open room that reminded him of the common room of a tavern. A dozen men were inside, and they looked up the moment that Fes pushed open the door.
He swore under his breath.
A dozen. Could he really manage a dozen?
He didn’t have much choice. The alternative was backing up, and the door hadn’t been locked, which meant that he would be unlikely to lock it from the other side.
He lunged forward.
Fes’s mind went blank, but the anger didn’t boil up within him—not as he needed it to. He kicked, striking one man in the knee, dropping him, and he spun around, ramming the hilt of his dagger into his temple. Another came toward him, and Fes pushed on a chair, sliding it underneath his legs, knocking him down. He kicked him as he fell, connecting with the side of his head.
That was two.
Something slammed into him, and he staggered forward, struggling to catch his breath. When he spun around, he faced three attackers, though they were more cautious than the first two had been.
Getting hit sent his anger boiling within him. He would use that. He had to use that.
Fes dropped and rolled, kicking out as he did, and caught one man in the ankle. He brought his hand around, jabbing his knife into the next man’s thigh before slicing with the back of the other blade along another man’s leg, cutting his tendon. He fell with a scream.
Five down.
Seven left. Seven men and they converged on him all at one time.
It was more than he could manage.
The door crashed open, and Fes used that distraction to lunge at the nearest man. He stabbed, catching the man in the gut, before spinning and crashing into the next. Someone grabbed his arm, and he threw them off, shaking and thrusting with his dagger. He kicked out, lashing at attacker after attacker, and then the attack was done.
Fes looked around. The dozen men were all lying on the ground, most unconscious, though a few of them were bleeding heavily and probably wouldn’t survive. He pushed back irritation tinged with anger and swallowed the lump in his throat.
Why did it have to be like this? How could he attack like this?
“That was… impressive.”
Fes spun around, half expecting to see Carter or one of her men, but Alison stood with her sword unsheathed, watching him with amusement glittering in her eyes.
“Where have you been?”
“I’ve been trying to get through this place. It’s like a maze. I broke into a room and got jumped, and barely made it here when I started to hear the sound of your fighting.”
Fes sighed. “It is a maze. They’re making dragon relics.”
“Replicas?”
Fes nodded.
“Why would they be making replicas here? We’re so close to the dragon fields.”
Fes shook his head. “It has something to do with Carter, I’m sure of it, but I’m not entirely certain what.”
“You think it has anything to do with who she’s working for?”
“I don’t know. I think fire mages would know if they were given a forgery, but others might not. There are enough who want dragon relics, even if they’re inert, that replicas could be valuable.”
“I didn’t find any evidence of Talmund,” she said.
“I found a man who I think had seen him, but I can’t be certain.”
Alison looked at him. “If there’s a man who might be helpful, then we need to go question him.”
Fes looked at the fallen men once more. Killing had always been so easy for him, but why? Maybe it was what Alison and Talmund said about him, and maybe it did have to do with his heritage, but what was it?
“I’ll show you to him,” he said.
Fes led her back to the room where he’d come across the priest. When he checked the door, he found that it was cracked open and the man who had been inside working on the forgeries was gone.
“He was here,” he said to Alison.
Alison made her way into the room and looked around. “Where’s he gone?”
Fes leaned over the table, looking at the contents. There were the replicas that had been crafted by the man, but nothing else. He peeked out the window. In the distance, he noted movement.
Alison joined him at the window. “You let him get away?”
“I didn’t let him do anything. He happened to climb out. How was I to know?”
“What was he working on here?”
Fes patted his pocket where he had put the dragon pearl, along with the claw. He was reluctant to reveal that he had taken them from the man, not sure what Alison might do.
“Fes?” she asked, turning to him.
He shot her a hard look. “They had him making replicas.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Fes reached into his pocket and pulled out the dragon pearl, showing it to her. He held on to it, not willing to release it to her.
“Is that—”
“Yes. It’s real.”
“That’s what they’ve been working on?”
“At least here.”
“If they have authentic pearls, we need to get them
back to the others.”
Fes didn’t know what they would do with the pearl, but he knew how valuable it would be to Azithan. “I’m going to hold onto it for now.”
“You can’t think to give it to him.”
“And why not?”
“You give him too much power. And you fail to recognize how dangerous he is. You got caught up taking his jobs, and I don’t think you paid any attention to the consequences.”
Fes turned his attention back to the window. It was time for them to get out of there, not continue to argue. “Let’s get going.”
“You don’t want to evaluate anything more in here?” she asked.
“What else do you think there is here? I can tell there’s nothing of value.” He didn’t go into how he could tell. “We don’t have any use for replicas, and I’d like to catch up to the forger,” he said.
“And how does that help us with Talmund?”
“It gets us more information.”
She stared at him for a long moment before letting out a long sigh. “Fine, Fezarn. I’ll do what you suggest this time, but more is at stake than you realize.” Her gaze lingered on the pocket where he kept the dragon pearl. Would they have issues about that?
They chased the man out of the dragon base. When they finally caught up to him, he looked at Fes with a mixture of resignation and disgust. “What do you want from me?”
“Answers,” Fes said, grabbing him and dragging the man with him.
Chapter Sixteen
“Where did the priest go?” he asked the old man. They were at the edge of the dragon base with the buildings rising nearby. Fes wasn’t comfortable remaining there too long, but he needed to decide what to do with the forger. Where were the others? They had gone deeper into the dragon base but then had disappeared.
Alison had gathered the horses and now paced nearby, making a steady circle around them. Every so often, she would pause and glare at the old man, almost as if believing that the irritation in her gaze could convince him to say something more than he already had.
“I wasn’t there for what happened with the priest,” the man said.
“But you were there for the rest of it,” Fes said.
“I was hired for a task.”
“Making replicas.”
The man nodded.
“Who hired you?”
“Does it really matter?”
“It matters,” Fes said.
“I didn’t get his name. He was a hard man, and he had angry features, so I knew to be cautious with him.”
Fes glanced over at Alison. That wasn’t Carter, but who could it have been? Someone working on her behalf? Someone else? Maybe it was even Carter’s employer. That would be valuable to learn, especially if it meant he didn’t have to worry about her beating him to assignments in Anuhr. “What else can you tell me about him?”
“I’m afraid nothing that will be of much use to you. All I know is that he asked me to make copies of a few items that he had in his possession.”
“Like the pearl.”
“Like the pearl. And the claw. And…”
“And what?” Fes asked when the man didn’t elaborate.
“He said there would be other items, but he wanted to test me first. He wanted to see how capable I was at making replicas. As if he needed to test me. I am the best north of Anuhr.”
“North of Anuhr?”
“There are a few within the city with some skill. Fools will pay far too much for what they believe to be authentic replicas. I’m happy to oblige them.”
“How did you learn to make them?” Alison asked.
Fes frowned at her for a moment but realized that he was curious too. Maybe if he understood the key to making dragon replicas, he might be better equipped to identify them. Knowing when something was a forgery would be beneficial.
“The key is getting the striations just right,” the old man said. “When you’re dealing with a dragon bone, you have to look closely. Sometimes you need a magnifying glass, though not always. Most of the time, you need to go by feel. Sometimes you can even add a touch of heat. Certain metals hold heat, but you have to be careful encasing the bone around them.”
“How do you make the colors?”
The man frowned at him. “The colors?”
Fes nodded. “When you have a true dragon artifact. How do you replicate the colors?”
“There are no colors when it comes to dragon relics. The bone is ivory, and the claws are a deep brown that’s almost black. Even the pearls have no color to them.”
Fes frowned, thinking about the dragon pearl that he’d taken from the forger, as well as the one that he had seen in the merchant tent. Both of them had colors shimmering around them. Fes was confident that they did and was sure those colors weren’t imagined.
The man shook his head and smiled. “As I was saying, the key is matching the striations. Someone skilled at identifying an artifact will know whether the striations are accurate or not.”
“How do you make the striations as accurate as possible?” Alison asked.
“It is a delicate touch. It’s like making art.” The man held up his hands. They were twisted, but he tapped them together quickly. “I have been at this a long time. In all that time, I’ve learned to trust what I can feel. Even if my eyes were going to fade—which they haven’t—I can still feel where the striations on the relics can be found. If I can feel them, I can copy them.”
“What’s the key to copying a pearl?” Fes asked. “That’s what you were doing when I found you.”
“A pearl is a very different trick to master. Each pearl has a different texture to it, a smoothness, and most have swirls of darker bone mixed within them. It makes them incredibly difficult to replicate, but I can do it. I might be the only one who can fool the emperor himself when it comes to replicating a dragon pearl.”
Fes doubted that, especially if the emperor was a fire mage, as it was rumored. In all the time he’d worked for Azithan, Fes had never met the emperor. He looked over at Alison. “We should bring him with us.”
“We don’t need a forger.”
“Forgery?” His mouth twisted as he said it. “Not a forgery. I make replicas.”
“Fine. You make replicas.” She turned to Fes, lowering her voice as she stepped closer to him. “Whatever he is doesn’t change the fact that he is going to stay here.”
“And if Carter comes and realizes that we’ve talked to him?”
“There’s too much risk in him coming with us.”
“Think about what he can teach you. This is a man who claims to be one of the best at this skill. Don’t you think that there is value in having someone like that with you? Your rebellion could make replicas, pass them off as the real thing and—”
“We aren’t after replicas. We are looking for actual relics.”
Why was he even arguing with her? He didn’t care whether the rebellion had the necessary funds to continue with their war on the empire. “Maybe having someone like him who can help you identify when a relic is a forgery or not would be beneficial.”
“We have someone.”
“You had someone. The priest is gone.”
Alison frowned. Finally, she stepped away from Fes and waved at the man as she raised her voice. “Come on then.”
“Where are you taking me?”
She glared at Fes a moment. “You can’t stay here, not with what happened.”
“But I haven’t been paid!”
“I doubt that you will be paid now,” Fes said. “We left a dozen or so bodies in there, and you would be welcome to stay with them if you want, but I thought that you might prefer to come with us rather than remain with the dead.”
The man’s eyes widened. “A dozen? You killed a dozen between the two of you?”
“He did most of the killing,” Alison said. “He doesn’t need much help, at least, if you listen to him tell it.”
Fes groaned and shook his head. “Don’t get her started. She
’s still angry that I was more interested in money and stability than I was in her.”
The man looked at Alison, looking her up and down for a moment. “Then you’re a fool.”
Alison laughed. “I think I might like this man.”
“I wouldn’t send you away. I’m old enough and have enough money that I’m not after more.”
Alison smiled. “I definitely like this man.”
Fes could only shake his head as he climbed into the saddle and waited. Alison shot him an angry expression and pushed the old man toward Fes. The man looked up at Fes expectantly until he reached a hand down to pull him up.
They rode out of the dragon base and up the hillside that was concealing the caravan. When they reached the top of the hill and crested it, the rebellion waited.
The man gasped. “What is this?”
“This is your support.”
The man stared at the people before turning his attention back to Fes. “The rebellion? Oh, I want nothing to do with this.”
“Neither do I,” Fes muttered.
“But you’re with them!”
“Only because I have no other choice.”
They rode into the encampment and Fes looked around, searching for signs of the others who had gone with them. How many had returned? No one else had waited in the dragon base while they had finished, and he didn’t know whether that meant that they had found trouble or if they simply chose not to remain behind.
“Where are the others?” he asked Alison, pitching his voice low.
“They should be here.”
“What if they came across the same sort of trouble that we did?”
“Then we should have heard or seen signs of them,” Alison said.
Fes wasn’t certain that they would. He turned around, looking back toward the dragon base. There was something there that troubled him. They had found a dozen men and survived the attack, but would others have survived?
It depended on how skilled a fighter they were. Fes didn’t know enough about any of the rebels, other than that Micah had a confidence about him.
He lowered the forger to the ground. “Wait here,” he said and peeled off, kicking his horse as he headed back toward the dragon base. At the top of the hill, he paused. The base was more extensive than he remembered, and they had only investigated part of it. Beyond the first rise where they had come to the building with the forger, there was another section that was almost as large as where they had gone in. The rest of the rebellion must have gone deeper into the base, but where were they?
Dragon Bones (The Dragonwalker Book 1) Page 18