by Matt Forbeck
Espre peered around at the darkest corners of the dimly lit room in which Burch had deposited her. Strange machinery hung throughout the room, from both the walls and the ceiling. Much of it seemed like interlocking rings of steel that bore etchings and demarcations, measurements of something that the shifter couldn’t understand. Then he recognized them.
"Those markings, they’re just like the ones on the spheres outside,” he said.
Espre’s grip on his arm loosened. "Maybe they control the spheres,” she said. "That way the dragon can simulate the positioning of the planets, the planes, and the dragonmarks.” Burch gave out a low whistle. "All the better to figure out parts of their damned Prophecy.” He patted Espre on the head and said, "Hide.”
With that, he started hauling himself back up the rope— toward the dragons and his friend.
As he climbed, he used only his arms, knowing that pushing on the rope with his legs would only slow him down. Hand over hand, he pulled himself up, wondering if he could reach the next level in time to do any good—or whether or not his efforts would matter at all. Maybe he was just racing toward his death.
He felt a pang of regret at leaving Espre by herself in the chamber below, but he knew she’d be all right. If a dragon found her, she’d be just as dead with him as without him—or at least that’s what he told himself.
When he reached the edge, he heard Zanga talking and the dragons snarling at each other in their terrible tongue. He knew only snatches of the language, enough to offend a dragon in its own language but not enough to know which way the conversation had turned. The tone of Frekkainta’s growls, though, said all he needed to hear.
Burch popped his head over the edge of the hole and spotted Zanga standing between the two dragons. She’d thrown back her shimmering Shroud of Scales and stood weeping at the red dragon’s taloned feet. As the shifter crept over the lip and unlimbered his crossbow, Zanga said something about selling out Espre in exchange for her life.
Burch pointed his weapon at the Seren shaman and took careful aim, looking for the right angle through which he could bury a bolt in the woman’s head. Before he could pull the trigger, though, Kandler lowered his head and charged straight at her.
Burch hurled himself forward too, although at an angle that would take him behind the red dragon. If he could put enough space between his path and Kandler’s, he might be able to find a clean angle at the Shroud of Scales again. He just hoped he could manage it before one of the dragons killed his friend instead. With luck, he’d be able to do it before the dragons bothered to take notice of either himself or Kandler, and they could find someplace to hide before either of them got killed.
As he scuttled to his left, though, Burch couldn’t see a good angle at all. Any bolt he loosed stood just as good a chance of bouncing off a dragon’s scales as it did of hitting Zanga. Worse yet, the best angles he could find skated so close to Kandler’s back that they put the justicar in more danger than the Seren.
Then Zanga caught Kandler’s movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned to look at the onrushing man, his lethal fangblade held high. She opened her mouth to scream, and Burch knew that any hope for killing her quietly and slipping away had been lost.
The shifter stopped and planted his feet. He found his angle. It passed right between Kandler’s left arm and his neck. The bolt would fly true, but if the justicar moved even an inch in the wrong direction he’d end up with the shaft in his chest or neck instead.
Burch summoned up his most commanding voice, the one he’d used on the battlefield during the Last War. He hadn’t employed it often. He preferred to work from cover, alone, when he could, but it had proven enough to herd soldiers into battle and to face nearly certain death.
"Down!" the shifter bellowed.
As the words left his lips, he counted off three heartbeats.
On the first, his shout reached the ears of everyone in the room. Zanga’s eyes flew wide. The crest atop the red dragon’s head twitched, and the silver dragon’s gaze flicked in the shifter’s direction.
Kandler kept running.
On the second beat, Zanga turned to look in Burch’s direction. As she did, her shroud fell away from head, gathering around her shoulders and framing her neck. Burch’s finger tightened on his crossbow’s trigger.
Something that seemed like a smile curled the corners of the silver dragon’s lips. Amusement glinted in the creature’s eyes.
The red dragon’s nostrils wrinkled back as if she had smelled something repulsive and rotting. The one eye of hers that Burch could see swiveled toward Kandler, but her monstrous skull did not move an inch.
Kandler raised his sword higher and bent forward as he ran even harder toward his goal. It seemed that he would let nothing come between him and killing Zanga—not dragons and not even a shout from a friend.
On the third beat, Burch pulled his crossbow’s trigger.
As the bolt whizzed through the air, Kandler left his feet and dived forward, thrusting his sword before him. The justicar would fall short of his goal, but Burch’s desperate shout had gotten through to him just in the nick of time.
The bolt skimmed right past Kandler’s left ear, nicking away a lock of hair from the side of his head as it went. A moment earlier, and it would have buried itself next to his shoulder blade and perhaps punctured his lung. Instead, it proceeded unimpeded toward its target.
Zanga’s eyes grew even wider as she saw Kandler dive to the ground. She never saw the bolt itself. It traveled too fast and presented too small a profile for her to spot it until it slipped under her upraised chin and through her throat.
Only the bolt’s feathers kept it from passing completely through her. They caught on her larynx and crushed it as the bolt’s tip stabbed out through the back of Zanga’s neck.
Burch didn't bother to reload his crossbow before slinging it across his back. He knew it wouldn’t do any good against the dragon. Even if he managed to find a soft spot amid the red beast’s scales, it would be little more than a bee’s sting against such a creature.
Kandler skidded along the floor on his chest. Before he could even come to a stop, Zanga collapsed before the red dragon, her treacherous words caught in her throat, blocked by the wooden shaft that now lodged there.
Burch reached behind him for the rope that led to the safety of the chamber below—however temporary that might be. He could not wrench his eyes away from his friend, though, whom he saw skitter to a halt in the shadow of the two dragons.
Kandler did not scramble to his feet. He pressed his fists down on the stone floor before him—one of them still wrapped around the hilt of his fangblade—and pushed himself up on to his knees. As he did, the red dragon turned toward the justicar, her nostrils flaring, smoke curling from their edges.
Burch’s mouth went dry. He knew that the dragon could swallow Kandler whole. In less time than it would take him to slam another bolt into his crossbow, his best friend could be gone.
The crimson creature growled, ruffling Kandler’s hair in her fetid breath. Even from where he stood, Burch could smell brimstone billowing from the beast’s mouth. The scent made his eyes water.
Kandler staggered to his feet and brandished his blade before him. Burch smiled. Even faced with certain death, the justicar refused to beg for mercy.
"I have the dragonmark,” Kandler said, his voice raspy. "The others are worthless to you. Kill me, and let them go free.”
Chapter
50
The red dragon snorted at Kandler. The justicar felt her sulfur-scented breath envelop him, burning his eyes. He fought the urge to cough, instead clearing his throat with a low grunt.
The dragon snarled, and Kandler wondered if his knees would give out on him. Instead, he wiped his eyes with his off hand and met the creature’s gaze. He weighed his fangblade in the other hand and wondered if he could leap high enough to drive it into one of the beast’s great, yellow eyes.
"He is my guest,” Greffykor said, "as are his c
ompanions. They are under my protection.”
The red dragon rumbled out a hoarse, bleating noise. Kandler realized she meant it to be a laugh.
"You may be a queen in your own land,” Greffykor said, "but this is my domain. Mine alone. You hold no sway here.” The red dragon rumbled again. As she did, she raised herself up on her rear haunches and spread her wings until they blotted out the bit of sky that Kandler had been able to see through the tower’s top. She arched back her neck and bared her teeth, preparing to strike.
Greffykor bent his own neck forward and down, showing deference to the larger beast. As he did, the crimson creature’s spiked tail came whipping around on the side opposite Kandler and smacked into the silver dragon’s face.
Kandler jumped back at Greffykor’s head lurched toward him. Hot blood from the silver dragon’s slashed face splattered along the floor and across the justicar’s legs.
Greffykor flinched as the blow struck him, causing him to close his eyes. When he opened them, he saw Kandler standing right there before him, his fangblade held high in his fist.
The silver dragon grunted at the justicar, and Kandler felt the creature’s frigid breath wash over him. Then Greffykor straightened himself up and glared at the red dragon.
"You have made your point,” the silver dragon said.
Kandler cursed himself for not taking the opportunity to strike at the red dragon when he’d had the chance. Now, with the thing looming over him like a building, he had no hope of harming it. He would have to bide his time and keep looking for the right chance to attack.
The red dragon turned its attention to him again and growled.
"She wants proof,” Greffykor said in a brittle tone.
Kandler gaped at the silver dragon. "Of what?”
"Your dragonmark. She wants to see it.”
Kandler grimaced. "Tell her she can pry it off my hairy ass.”
The red dragon drew back her lips, and her long, sinuous tongue flickered out from between her rows of terrifying teeth.
"She can understand your language,” Greffykor said. "She refuses to sully her mouth with it.”
Kandler pursed his lips. If he could get the creature angry enough that she would incinerate him with her burning breath, she would never know if he really had a dragonmark or not, but to do that, he would have to get her closer.
"All right,” Kandler said, tugging at the collar of his shirt. "She’ll need to come closer to see it.”
He slipped his hand with the fangblade in it behind his back. He hoped the red dragon would see it as some form of deference to her.
The monstrous creature folded her wings back against her body and lowered herself onto all four legs once more. Kandler’s arm tensed behind him until it felt as taut as a loaded catapult. He ached to unleash it, to let it whip around and bury his deadly blade into the dragon queen’s flesh, but he forced himself to wait.
The red dragon squinted down at Kandler, and he realized that each of her eyes stood as tall as Espre. They seemed like such large targets that he didn’t see how he could avoid them, much less miss them, but they still hovered just out of his reach.
"It’s not very large,” Kandler said as he tugged at the edge of his shirt, pulling it down past his collarbone. "You’ll have to get closer.”
He tried to keep his voice even, dull, even flat. He just needed the dragon queen to get a few more feet closer. If he tried to leap for her now, he might slice her across the end of her nose, but he wanted to plunge his blade into her eye. Half blinding her would trigger the kind of rage he needed to inspire in her. Nothing less would do.
The red dragon’s head stopped moving downward. Her tongue lashed out toward Kandler’s face. Only his combat-trained reflexes prevented her from flicking out an eye.
The silver dragon opened his mouth. "For a human, you are a terrible liar.”
Kandler whipped his sword around in a vicious arc. It caught nothing but air.
The red dragon sat back on her haunches and rumbled at him again.
Then she threw back her head and roared.
Fire erupted from the dragon queen’s snout and billowed up to the tower’s open top like fireworks exploding into the sky. Kandler backpedaled, nearly stumbling as he went, keeping his sword before him like some sort of talisman that could ward off such all-powerful evil, even though he knew it would be exactly that useless.
A cry of triumph went up from behind the dragon. Kandler peered past the creature and spied Sallah and Xalt racing away from the creature’s rear as fast as their legs would carry them. Sallah’s fists were empty, but Xalt tried to cover their retreat with a crossbow aimed at the dragon.
The dragon queen thrashed her tail, slamming it to the left and right, howling in pain as she did. Even with the thing moving so fast, Kandler could see something was wrong. The end of the massive tail bent at an odd angle, dangling downward.
When the tail swished in his direction again, Kandler saw that the tip of it had almost been chopped off. There, stabbing out of the top of the tail, hung the culprit: abright-bladed sword that blazed with a silver light.
Kandler halted for a moment. If Sallah had managed to harm the dragon, then maybe he could hope to as well. As he adjusted his grip on his fangblade, he watched the dragon queen pound her tail on the floor, trying to dislodge it.
Greffykor turned to the justicar and spotted him standing there, just before the hole that led down to the lower level. The silver dragon shook his snout at Kandler and gestured him away with a quick sweep of one claw.
Kandler understood. The dragon queen hadn’t been hurt—not really. To it, Sallah’s sword felt no worse than a thorn in a lion’s paw.
The observatory’s floor shook with the force of the dragon queen’s throes, but Kandler saw that these came not from a creature that was wounded but angered. The red dragon’s outburst was little more than a tantrum thrown by a beast used to getting its way in all things—instantly.
Greffykor growled something at the dragon queen, and the red dragon froze. She glared at the silver dragon with hate-filled eyes then swung her tail around to her right, the side closest to Kandler.
He could see now that she could not reach the end of her own tail—at least not without undergoing some back-bending contortions. The blazing sword sat there in her tail, crackling away but not burning her scales a bit. A rivulet of blood trickled down from the wound, but it clearly seemed more of a nuisance than a threat.
The dragon queen snarled at Greffykor. Keeping his head low, the silver dragon crept toward the crimson tail, the talons on one of its hands extended toward the offending piece of burning metal. Greffykor snatched the blade free from the dragon queen’s flesh with one sharp move, and the red dragon howled in pain and relief.
Kandler reached for the rope that down the hole, and he began to lower himself down it. As his eyes became level with the floor, though, he stopped and watched.
The dragon queen growled at Greffykor, and the silver dragon nodded in response. "Of course,” he said, "you are both gracious and wise in your mercy. I do not wish for you to have to trouble with destroying my home to find these vermin. I will roust them out for you and present them to you as my gift.”
Chapter
51
Kandler wrapped the rope around one leg and then slid down it fast enough to make the fabric in his pants grow hot. As he hit the floor of the chamber below, he spotted Burch and Espre peering out from behind one of the gigantic sets of rings that cluttered the chamber from floor to ceiling.
"Hide!” Kandler said as he sprinted toward them. He had no idea how long it would take Greffykor to come around looking for them, but he had no intention of leaving any of them standing out where the creature could see them.
Espre started for Kandler, her arms held wide, fear and joy warring on her face. Burch grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back behind a cabinet that looked large enough to hide an entire wagon inside it. She started to protest but gave up when
she saw Kandler coming straight for them.
Kandler didn’t hear the dragon come into the room behind him so much as he felt it. The beating of the creature’s wings made barely a sound, but it displaced so much air as it descended into the gigantic chamber that the justicar could feel the increase of pressure in his ears.
He charged forward, convinced for a moment that the creature might land on top of him and crush the life from him. Burch and Espre disappeared behind the cabinet in front of him in the blink of an eye.
Kandler hoped that the dragon might not have seen the pair in the dimness, so he peeled off to the right instead of joining the others. He spied one of the massive, demarcated rings hanging in the air before him, nearly but not quite touching the floor. As he passed it, he reached out and grabbed it, swinging himself behind it.
The ring moved as Kandler’s hand touched it, and the formerly dim chamber leaped to life. The runes carved into the metallic rings began to glow with the light of dying embers. Each ring glowed with a slightly different hue, ranging from reddish to bluish and every color in between.
Kandler released the ring in his hand and stepped back. It had started to hum beneath his fingers as he held it, and he had hedrd a single note ringing in his ears. It had wavered and warbled in some kind of pattern, so regular that it seemed like it might be trying to communicate something to him—or to a creature with a larger mind.
The justicar stared at his tingling hand for a moment and decided not to touch any of the rings again.
Then he heard the dragon snort.
"Such devices are not meant for your kind,” the silvery creature said. "The Prophecy is too much for you. Even a dragon can only conceive of a fractional aspect of the whole. For you to attempt to do so would cause your brains to leak from your ears.”
Kandler took a half-step back from the ring in front of him, but he kept it between himself and the dragon.
"You need to turn the girl over to me,” Greffykor said. "I will present her to the queen. With luck and a bit of well-placed flattery, she may then deign to leave the rest of us alone.”