by Aaron Pogue
Oh, it is well concealed. She gave a cruel laugh. It lies beneath a human town out on the plains. Who would ever think of such a thing?
“Who indeed?” Daven answered, distracted. He cast his attention back to Pazyarev on high, searching the dusk-dark horizon for any sign of threat, but there was none. Daven frowned at the dame. “How came you to this place?”
The same as you, I came by habit. This was my home, you know.
“But how did you surprise me? How did you pass unseen by Pazyarev?”
It is my knack, she said, as though that were sufficient answer.
“Your knack?”
She laughed within his mind. Allies though we are, I take some comfort knowing the Dragonprince does not yet hold all our secrets. But I will tell you this: no man or monster sees me when I wish to pass unseen. Pretend it is a kind of magic. That suits human reasoning.
“You hide?”
I hide, and that keeps me alive. It is a powerful knack. That is why Pazyarev once prized me so. It is how I passed unnoticed when you placed him as sentry. And it is why I alone lived when the twisted swarms came against Vechernyvetr.
Daven felt the full force of her grief and horror at the things she’d seen. He walled it off as he had learned to do with Vechernyvetr, then gathered his wits to make a plan.
“Vechernyvetr isn’t dead?” he asked, confirming.
They were careful not to kill him. No. They dragged him off. He is a prisoner.
“But why? Is there another secret I have missed? Dragons don’t take prisoners.”
You are right in this. I do not understand these swarms’ behavior. But I would know if he were dead. He suffers much, but he is alive.
“Within this lair you spoke of? The one under a town?”
That is where I saw him last.
“And you can take me there?”
I am no one’s beast of burden!
Despite himself, Daven laughed at that. “Vechernyvetr once told me something much the same. I do not need you to carry me. I simply need a guide.”
She considered him for some time, and he could feel the sharp edge of her suspicion in the back of his mind. At last she dipped her head. I will do this thing. But I would ask a respite first. Some wretched little man has injured me.
“Rest, then. Heal your injuries. And I will make my plans. It would be well to strike at dawn.”
~
Six leagues south of Cammin, the town of Pemmes lay in blackened ruins. It had once been larger than Cammin, larger than Auvillan, but warehouses and shops and homes had all burned down to rubble. Stone foundations lay cracked and broken. Pre-dawn shadows clung to the abandoned streets like shrouds, but Daven did not look with human eyes. He peered past the memory of civilization and into the earth below.
All he saw was darkness—a deep and primal darkness. A dragon’s lair. At last, in all this blighted land, at last he found an active dragon’s lair. He spotted half a dozen tunnels leading up and out, writhing black tendrils beneath the grainy earth, and the largest of them—the lair’s main entrance—yawned within the heart of a caved-in town hall. From a hundred paces out Daven smelled the sulfur stink, the sear of smoke and soured flesh.
Stealthy as he could, he approached each of the other tunnels and dropped one of Lareth’s crystal beads in the rubble there. Then at last he went to the town hall. He crouched for a moment against a section of its outer wall, scanning the main tunnel’s mouth for any sign of motion. He waited.
Why do you tarry? The dame demanded. She flashed by overhead, a reflected spark of the fast-approaching dawn. Go to your task! He is here. I can feel his pain!
Daven almost argued, but he had no good reason left to delay. His plan was simple enough. He meant to destroy this monster in its lair and rescue Vechernyvetr while he was there. He took one slow, calming breath, then he glanced up toward the dame again.
“Hide yourself. I go.”
Even as he watched she faded from his sight. But Pazyarev was still there, blacking out the sky. For three heavy heartbeats Daven stared up at the monster he had tamed. Then he caught another great breath, shut his eyes, and opened the earth beneath himself. He sank six feet down—not far enough to breach the dragon’s lair, but far enough to hide him from sight above. Far enough to protect him from the blast.
Pazyarev struck, and the hammer of his flame smashed into the town hall’s ruins hard enough for Daven to feel the shock. Living fire boiled and rolled through the tunnel, down into the caves beneath. Daven’s special sight could not reveal the brood’s reaction, but his imagination supplied a solid guess. No broodlord could ignore such an affront.
For good measure, Daven landed Pazyarev on the village green. He bent the Elder Legend’s neck down low, and roared a challenge that shook the earth around him. Then he unleashed another blast, closer now and longer, and this time even Daven felt the heat of it.
Then the broodlord answered. An elder near as large as Pazyarev burst from the cavern’s throat and piled directly into Pazyarev’s breast, teeth and talons tearing. More came behind that one—dozens more—and from the other exits more broodlings converged on Pazyarev.
Hundreds of drakes and dragons crashed upon the Elder Legend, and Daven spent all his concentration to keep the great beast alive within the brawl. He swung a tail thick as a fortress tower and crushed drakes to pulp. He closed his enormous maw around the elder that had led the charge and crushed its breastbone in one bite.
But he paid in blood and pain. There were too many, and soon Pazyarev was forced to flee. He sprang away, crushing sky beneath his mighty wings, and fled toward the north. The broodlord’s minions followed, hounding Pazyarev, and Daven felt the stab of every wound the monster took.
He walled it off, hiding himself from the pain, and focused entirely on the flight. Large as Pazyarev was, Daven wasted no effort on evasion, but invested himself entirely in speed and power. He tore north, soaring high above the plains, and it was only moments before he passed above the poor, ruined Cammin.
Daven tore his attention away from the sight, returning to his own body. He clenched his fists and licked his lips then stretched one hand before him, toward the distant, roiling nothing of the dragon’s lair, and opened a path through living earth. Ten paces, twenty, and then he broke through into the entry tunnel.
The stench nearly crippled him. He’d lived in dragons’ lairs before, but he’d never encountered one so foul as this. In the open air above, the stink of smoke and flame had masked the carrion rot, but within the cramped passage it bent Daven double.
He summoned up a gust of wind to aid him, a searing flame to light his way, and a Chaos blade to work his gruesome trade. He steeled himself and pressed on. Forward and down into the darkness.
Leagues away, Pazyarev at last stopped running. In full view of Cammin’s wretched survivors, the great behemoth rounded on the beasts that gave him chase and answered them with great violence. His fire cut a swath through the swarm. His tail smashed them from the sky. A monster that had once gathered to itself a brood twice this size unleashed the force that had made it possible. He wrought havoc in the skies over Cammin, and the broodlord’s dragons died by the scores.
And he was only the diversion. Daven stalked the cavern’s dark corridors like a thief. He found a sleeping dragon, wounded in the raid on Cammin, and he executed the beast before it could wake. He found a treasure hoard within one sprawling cave, and another hoard farther down. In all, he found wealth enough to shame even Pazyarev’s, treasure robbed from all the ancient, empty dragons’ lairs that dotted the mountainsides.
But he found no broodlord. He cast his focus to the distant battle, searching for some sign of the broodlord there, but he found none. Back under ruined Pemmes, he pressed on, deeper and deeper into the hollowed earth, until at last he stepped into a cavern that echoed in its vastness. It breathed with that foul stench of death and decay. It shimmered in Daven’s mind like the heat haze over a torturer’s brand.
He knew this p
lace. It struck him like a blow. He knew this place. He knew the stench of it. He knew the pain. It was an old, familiar memory. An unwavering darkness in the back of his mind. He’d never been here—he’d never been anywhere as dark as this—but he recognized it all the same.
He lowered his blade and damped his flame and, almost afraid, he called out in his mind, “Vechernyvetr? Are you here?”
I am. The answer came back weak and halting, and it brought pain that crashed through even Daven’s strong defenses. Daven fell to one knee, and Vechernyvetr went on. I am here. And I am not alone. You should not have come for me.
Dragonfire rolled out to light the vast cavern, but it was not the violent blast of an attack. The stream of sickly flame merely seared the cavern floor, but it revealed the chamber’s gruesome secret.
This cavern was like no lair Daven had ever seen. Despite the piles stored down other tunnels, there was no gold or silver here to comfort the broodlord. The main chamber was barely large enough to accommodate the bulk of an elder, though Daven had seen several of them in this brood already. Instead of one great hall to house the swarm, the outer walls of this room were carved into countless nooks—dark little caves that nagged at Daven’s memory for half a heartbeat before he understood.
Cells. They were prison cells. The heart of this broodlord’s lair was a prison. There must have been hundreds of cells along the cavern’s edges, and nearly every one was occupied. He saw men and women and children—and also skeletons and corpses. The whole dungeon reeked with the stench of their imprisonment.
And those were not the only prisoners in this place. At the source of that line of dragonfire, Daven recognized the creature that had become his friend. Vechernyvetr lay prostrate in his own cell. Another nook beside that one held an elder brown, and another on the same wall held a half-dead drake. In all there might have been a dozen dragon prisoners to complement three score humans.
These cells boasted no bars, no iron grates, but there were guards aplenty. An army of fearsome drakes patrolled the cavern’s floor, and the broodlord made good use of them. Vechernyvetr’s little cave was too small for him to rise, but he couldn’t have regardless; more drakes packed every spare space in the room. They climbed and roiled over Vechernyvetr like maggots on a corpse. And everywhere they found his flesh they tore at it. They snapped with powerful jaws or tore with razor talons.
While the tormentors kept to their grim task, the horde of warden drakes stopped in their patrol at the burst of firelight. Almost as one they turned to Daven and showed him their cruel fangs.
Some brave soul seized that moment of distraction to attempt an escape. He was a young man, perhaps five years Daven’s junior, but he seemed brave and strong and fleet of foot. Yet the poor fool did not know the secrets of a dragon’s lair—the intimate sense with which a broodlord could feel everything happening within its stronghold.
The boy went ten paces before the nearest drake turned and pounced with a perfect precision. The beast knocked the boy to the ground, closed its jaws carefully around his right leg, then jerked its head with a sharp, restrained twist that surely dislocated the prisoner’s leg. The drake could more easily have killed the boy, but the broodlord clearly had plans for him. Daven trembled at the thought while the drake patiently dragged its screaming victim back to his cell.
All of this happened in the space of one short, sharp burst of dragonfire. Vechernyvetr relented now, his flames guttering, until the only light left in the room came from the meager fireball in Daven’s hand. It reached just far enough to shine off dozens of glittering eyes, to glow off distant razor teeth. The warden drakes stood watching Daven, waiting.
Now one came forward to greet him, and Daven was glad of the sword in his hand.
As I said, Vechernyvetr repeated, you should not have come. But there is a bright side.
Daven wanted all his attention for the horde of drakes, but Vechernyvetr spoke with such great pain that Daven had to answer him. “What bright side?”
When the dragonlord destroys you, he will need me no more. It will be nice to die at last.
“No one is dying here! Your dame showed me the way. She waits for you. And Pazyarev—”
Ah! There was a mighty foe. I only wish this were another one like Pazyarev.
Daven shifted, raising his guard as the drake moved within striking range, but he needed to know more. “What is this one?”
Before Vechernyvetr could answer, the drakes torturing him redoubled their efforts. Daven felt it even through his mental barricades, and he nearly lost his balance. Vechernyvetr whimpered and gave no other answer.
But the drake that had come to Daven dipped its head in what could only be a bow, and the voice of the broodlord insinuated itself in Daven’s mind. I do regret such heavy-handed tactics, but I have heard what sort of trouble you two can get up to. I can’t afford to leave you uninterrupted.
Daven sneered. “You will see soon enough what I can do on my own. Send your drakes against me and watch them die.”
You think I want you dead? Then you are not paying attention. Does it hurt to be so stupid?
Daven didn’t answer that. Instead he gathered his focus as he had done at Cammin. There were more drakes here, and he could not hope to kill all the ones burying Vechernyvetr, but he could strike a mighty blow nonetheless. He stretched out his will, imagining the spears of living earth that would slaughter all these beasts, and he stabbed his sword into the air with a victorious, “Hah!”
Resistance met him like a hammer blow, and pain exploded in his mind. Daven hit his knees. The earth remained unmoved.
The messenger drake showed its teeth in an enormous yawn. You truly thought your tricks would work in the very heart of my lair?
Gasping for breath, Daven answered. “They have always worked. In dragon lairs all across the Ardain.”
The broodlord laughed. I am like nothing you have seen before.
“What are you?”
I am the dragonlord.
Daven had asked it before, but that calm, cultured voice made him ask again. “Are you a man?”
I am neither man nor dragon, but I will be the king of both your races. Or I will be your death.
“Where do you get such powers?”
Enough questions! It is time I showed you to your chambers. Will you go like a gentleman?
In answer, Daven lunged. With one perfect strike, he drove his Chaos blade through bone and brain and left the messenger drake a corpse upon the cavern floor. The other drakes unleashed an angry hiss that filled the cavern and buzzed in Daven’s brain, but they did not yet attack.
Another messenger came forward. When he spoke, the dragonlord sounded bored. Surely you know that I can cripple you?
Daven killed this drake beside its brother. The others began to close on him, then, a slowly tightening circle, and the broodlord spoke again. You waste your effort and earn yourself an ugly future. You cannot kill all my drakes.
“I’ll be glad to try.”
And even that would earn you naught, the monster went on. It was a clever ruse to lure them off, but I have whole flights of broodlings returning to the lair. For all your prowess, you cannot hope to survive such a force.
The threat was no surprise to Daven. He’d had no attention to spare, but ever since Daven stumbled into this grim cavern, he’d sensed the swarm disengaging from their distant fight with Pazyarev. Pazyarev chased them, now, while they fled back to their lair. They could be here soon, and massive as he was, Pazyarev couldn’t follow them into the tunnels.
Daven rolled his shoulders. “You’re right. I cannot hope to survive them. But I will not be your prisoner. And I will carve a swath of destruction through your brood before I die.”
The dragonlord answered him with a feral growl, and the warden drakes charged upon him.
An unexpected burst of fire met their charge—another blast from Vechernyvetr—and it bought Daven time enough to dive aside and put his back against a wall. He skewe
red the first drake that reached him and dealt a vicious gash to the flank of the second, but even as the others hesitated outside his range, Daven saw through Pazyarev’s eyes the dragons of the swarm diving toward the outer tunnels. He watched them disappear into the earth, scurrying down to overwhelm the famous Dragonprince and end his reign beneath this ruined village.
The broodlord’s voice rang triumphant in Daven’s head. I will not kill you. But I will not leave much of you unmangled. You never should have come here!
But Daven paid him no attention. All his focus was on Pazyarev, and on the rubble of the village. He counted half a dozen heartbeats after the last of the serpents had disappeared from sight, and then he blasted the rubble above with one fierce, crushing burst of dragonfire.
The dragonlord laughed again. Your tamed brute cannot reach me! But that had never been Daven’s intent. In the wake of the blast, there came a flash of weird green fire. And another. And another. Everywhere Daven had dropped one of Lareth’s delicate glass beads, green light now flared, unfolding into a gateway portal.
Caleb himself came charging through the first, his massive black blade at the ready. Garrett Dain came through another, but then Daven could not keep track of all the men pouring out into the ruined town. Dozens of them came. Hundreds. Every man among the Captains of the Hunt, expert dragonslayers, and they sprinted down the tunnels after the harried adults that had survived the fracas with Pazyarev.
Daven bellowed his own victory, spearing another drake while his hunters came to rescue him. “You’re finished!” he cried toward the dragonlord. “You never should have taunted me. You sealed your fate when you threatened my friends.” He killed another pair of drakes then broke away, rushing to Vechernyvetr. The dragon saved him with another burst of flame, and Daven repaid the favor with an assault on the scurrying tormentors.
“No one does such things to friends of mine!” Daven growled. “No one, man or monster, threatens my family. You never should have come here!” Daven struck and struck against the tormentor drakes until the few survivors broke and fled.
Then Vechernyvetr stirred. Daven felt his pain like a distant, throbbing thunder, but the midnight dragon spread its tattered wings and shook off the corpses of his torturers like so many old cobwebs. He flexed his talons and lashed his tail and came out into the cavern as though he, too, meant to do battle.