“Why would he leave his weapons?” Imogen asked, frowning.
Ben stopped in his tracks when the thought hit him. He went to his pack with a sense of certainty. The coin he’d found the day before, the one he’d put into his pack, was gone.
“He took my coin,” Ben said.
“He’s in town, drinking and whoring,” Hound said. “And the bastard didn’t even invite me.”
“You’re probably right, but he’s still putting us all in danger,” Cyril said.
“Enzo is well connected in Rogue City,” Imogen said. “He’ll have people looking for us all over the place.”
Cyril sent his drone into the sky.
“Oh … this is interesting,” he said, drawing everyone’s attention with the tone of his voice. They all gathered around the screen as it focused.
The Warlock was standing in the middle of the road, a few hundred feet from the main gate to the inner city.
“What’s he doing?” Imogen asked.
“Looks like he’s challenging the priest,” Cyril said.
The street around the Warlock cleared, but a few people got on nearby rooftops to watch. The main gate opened a crack and a single Dragon Guard strode out. He reached the Warlock and started speaking. The Warlock smiled as he tipped his staff forward, blackness flowing out of the dragon’s claw and into the Dragon Guard. The man struggled for a moment, but then went calm. The darkness continued to flow. When the Dragon Guard went to one knee, the darkness stopped.
The Warlock looked up at the top of the wall and laughed, the Dragon Guard taking up a position to his right.
The gate opened wide and a dozen horses thundered forth carrying fully armored Dragon Guard armed with dragon-fire rifles. The Warlock stood his ground, shadow springing forth from his staff and forming a vague, filmy sphere of indistinct energy surrounding him.
The leading three riders fired, jets of orange flame streaking out before them and washing over the sphere protecting the Warlock. Fire raged over its surface. Laughter erupted from within.
The moment their fire ended, his began. He thrust the dragon’s claw toward them and a cone of flame exploded, roaring, thrumming, and howling down the street, igniting everything in its path, filling the width of the street and extending for two hundred feet before him. The Dragon Guard fell, horses and riders burned black in a matter of seconds. When the flame was spent, the Warlock waved at the gatehouse. A volley of arrows came off the wall. He deflected them with his magic, laughing at them anew.
A small orange-red sphere streaked off the gate tower straight at him, reaching him in less than a second and exploding in a ball of fire, completely engulfing him before rising into the air in a black cloud of smoke.
The Warlock stood, unscathed, though somewhat smudged by the attack. He called out to the priest, taunting him.
The gate opened and fifty Dragon Guard began to advance. The Warlock smiled again, raising his staff and sending darkness at one on the leading edge. The man went to his knees, falling to the dirt and clutching at his throat, struggling against the magic coursing through him. After a moment, the man calmed and the darkness stopped flowing.
His comrades backed away from him while he regained his feet. The Warlock directed his darkness at another man on the opposite side of the advancing formation. The first man attacked the man nearest him, feinting high and then sweeping his feet out from under him. In the moment of stunned confusion that followed, the possessed Dragon Guard killed the other with a sword-thrust to the throat.
The second possessed man was up now, sword drawn. He stabbed one of his fellow Dragon Guard in the back of the knee, dropping him to the ground with a shriek of surprise and pain. The formation began to lose cohesion as Dragon Guard started to turn on each other.
The Warlock waded into the melee, using the dragon’s claw on the end of his staff with deadly effect. He cut a swath through the Dragon Guard, facing only those that got in his way before vanishing into the keep.
“Well, I’m sure glad we pissed that guy off,” Hound said.
Once the Dragon Guard killed the two possessed men, they managed to regain some semblance of order.
Flames erupted from the top of the gatehouse, drawing everyone’s attention. The priest and the Warlock traded fire, each absorbing or deflecting the other’s magic.
Suddenly, a mountain lion leapt off a wall, hurling itself at the Warlock. Both went tumbling to the floor, separating an instant later as if driven apart by some unseen force. When they came up facing each other, the Warlock sent darkness into the cougar. It took only a few seconds before the cat rolled over and began purring.
The Warlock pointed his staff and the cat leapt at the priest, landing on his chest and toppling him to the ground before tearing out his throat with one snap of his jaws. Blood gurgled forth while the priest died, the Warlock drawing what remained of his life force out of him, using the energy to heal a few minor injuries.
Dragon Guard arrived on both sides of him a few moments later. The Warlock bowed mockingly and jumped off the gatehouse, gliding easily to the ground on a shimmer of shadow, landing at a leisurely pace and vanishing into the alleys of the outer city while the Dragon Guard scrambled to organize a response. The cat left the inner keep as well, vanishing into the city, only an occasional shriek of terror to mark its passage.
Not long after, a detachment of Dragon Guard left the keep and fanned out into the city while the rest of the inner city closed and locked all of their doors and manned all of their battlements. The place was shut tight. A few minutes later, a number of birds left the towers, all flying east.
“The Warlock complicates things,” Cyril said. “We should avoid him.”
“Let’s hope we can,” Imogen said.
“What do you suppose he was after?” Hound asked, rubbing his broad chin.
“I think he was trying to call out the dragon,” Cyril said.
“What?” Hound said.
“The dragon is coming here?” Imogen asked.
Cyril nodded. “He’ll come in person to avenge one of his priests.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and the Warlock will kill the dragon,” Ben said.
“Or the other way around,” Cyril said. “At the moment, I have a grandson or two to worry about. Give me a few minutes.” He sat down, cradling the egg in his lap, his eyes closed, his breathing regular and steady. After nearly half an hour, he opened his eyes and stretched his legs before getting to his feet.
“Frank’s alive, but he’s been taken. Looks like he’s in a warehouse.”
Imogen stood quickly. “Can you show me the city?”
Cyril projected a holo-screen and brought up an image of Rogue City.
“There, that area,” Imogen said, pointing to a dark and largely abandoned part of town. The image focused.
“Enzo has a warehouse right around here.”
The image focused again.
“This one … see the men at the door?”
“All right,” Cyril said, sending the drone toward the building. It moved quickly, arriving directly above the warehouse in a matter of minutes. He carefully searched for a broken window and floated inside. It was a large building, easily thirty feet tall. The room the drone entered was completely empty, save a few stacks of pallets in one corner.
It moved to the other end of the building and projected an image of Frank tied to a chair, blindfolded and gagged. A man was sitting in front of him, backward on a chair, talking to him even though he couldn’t respond. Another man paced back and forth.
The drone moved closer, activating audio recording, remaining high in the rafters.
“Boss is sure taking his time with this one,” the pacing man said.
“Probably letting him sweat,” the seated man said. “He’ll be here soon enough and we can get started. I for one, am looking forward to it. Aren’t you?” he asked Frank, laughing loudly when he tried to respond around the gag.
Cyril scanned the interior for
a nearby broken window and left the building, calling the drone back to him.
“Time to go,” he said, gathering his things.
Imogen looked at John and asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Better … thank you.”
Ben was packed and outside waiting before anyone else was ready. Frank was a pain in the ass, but he was still his brother, and he was about to be tortured.
A few minutes later, they were on the move through the forest, circling the town so they could enter through the abandoned area and avoid the Dragon Guard patrols that were searching for the Warlock.
Chapter 31
They stayed a few hundred feet outside the markers. Cyril kept his drone a thousand feet overhead, watching in all directions at once. Ben found it disorienting, so he didn’t watch, focusing instead on moving quickly.
“Stop,” Cyril said, just loudly enough for everyone to hear him. “Dragon Guard, half a mile that way, looks like a routine patrol along the marker line.”
After the patrol had passed, they continued on, coming to an abandoned house just outside the markers. At one time it had been white, with a picket fence. Now the wall around the front door was broken in and the roof had buckled, coming down onto the porch. The rest of it didn’t look all that stable.
Cyril stopped for a moment to send his drone into town and plan his course. Within a few minutes, they were inside the markers and heading up a street between two rows of uninhabited houses, all falling down from neglect.
A dog barked at them from a backyard. They kept moving. Two more dogs came out of an alley and ran behind them, barking, but keeping their distance. Three more came out, followed by half a dozen more, all racing to catch up with the pack.
“This is a problem,” Cyril said. “Face them. Don’t let them circle us.”
“One blast from Bertha and they’ll scatter like mice.”
“And the Dragon Guard searching for the Warlock will come straight here.”
“Right,” Hound said.
A pack of twenty dogs had gathered, all snarling and snapping but not advancing since everyone had stopped, facing them with weapons drawn.
Homer positioned himself directly behind Ben so he could look between his legs.
“That’s a lot of dogs,” he said.
“Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.”
A particularly large dog, bristling with aggression, stepped out of the crowd, barking at Ben, snarling and snapping as he inched closer, threatening to attack with every part of his being.
“Hold,” Cyril said.
Ben ignored him. His mind was focused on the threat advancing toward him.
“That’s the one,” Homer said. “Kill him and the others will run away.”
The alpha dog.
He locked eyes with the animal and leaned into a challenging posture, leading with the point of his sword. The alpha barked more viciously, charging forward, snapping at him. He brought the tip of his sword into place in a blink, catching the dog in the mouth and thrusting forward when the animal lunged. His blade drove out the back of its head, killing it instantly.
The others barked and yelped, a few whimpering, all of them losing confidence and backing away, barking more out of fear now than threat.
“God, I hated doing that,” Ben said, cleaning his blade.
“Why?” Homer said. “Did you see how big he was? You know he wanted to eat your liver, right?”
Ben looked at Homer and shook his head.
“Come on,” Cyril said, guiding them with the aid of his drone. He avoided a gang of thugs by taking them a few blocks out of their way, cursing under his breath when a street kid saw them and vanished into the underbrush along a nearby building.
“He’s just a kid,” Ben said.
“He works for someone,” Cyril said. “We need to get indoors.”
Several blocks at a jog, everyone looking over their shoulder, brought them to the last block of houses butting up against the warehouse district.
“Three blocks this way,” Cyril said, staying close to the buildings as he led them toward Frank, everyone following in single file and making an effort to remain silent. A few blocks later, Cyril stopped beside a warehouse, motioning for everyone to remain still while he focused his drone.
Halfway down the two-hundred-foot-long building was a single door guarded by two men. Several horses were tied up nearby. The loading doors on either end were closed and locked. The door on the opposite side of the building was unattended.
Cyril sent the drone inside and found Frank, still tied to a chair, but without the gag and blindfold. Enzo sat facing him, leaning forward with a smile. Frank had been beaten, though not too severely.
“This will only get worse,” Enzo said. “Just tell me where she is.”
“I told you already, she’s in a house near the whorehouse where you found me.”
Enzo got up and hit him. He took a moment to adjust his leather glove before he backhanded Frank again and sat back down.
“If she had come into town, my people would have told me,” Enzo said. “So, where is she?”
Frank’s head lolled forward.
“You’re trying my patience,” Enzo said. “I can let my friend with the knives have a go at you if you’d like.”
Frank shook his head.
“Where is she?”
Enzo grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back so he could look him in the eye.
“Tell me where she is or I’ll start cutting on you.”
“All right … all right,” Frank said. “There’s a house outside of town.”
“Good … where?”
“I might be able to find it on a map,” Frank said.
Cyril closed the holo-screen and withdrew around the corner, well away from Enzo’s men. Ben continued to watch the feed while one of Enzo’s men went to a horse to find a map.
“We need to take those men quietly,” Cyril said.
“I can take one,” John said.
“Maybe we can distract the other one,” Ben said.
“What did you have in mind?” Cyril asked.
“I’ll go around the building and tap on the wall. Maybe he’ll come to investigate.”
“When he does?” Cyril asked.
“I’ll take him down. Once he rounds the corner, you take the other one.”
“All right, we’ll give it a try,” Cyril said.
Ben smiled and headed off toward the back of the building. He reached the far corner and peeked around. Both men were still at their post and both looked bored.
Ben stepped back and tapped the butt of his sword against the wall three times, waiting and watching the men through the drone feed.
Both looked his way, then at each other. They shrugged but did nothing. Ben tapped again. Both looked at each other again and then headed his way. He hadn’t expected that. He ran to the back corner and waited. When the two guards reached the front corner, Ben tapped again. Both men drew knives and continued around the corner toward him, out of drone view, heading for the back of the building.
With Homer right beside him, Ben sprinted the length of the building and around the corner.
“Hurry, if we run, we can get behind the other building before they come back,” he said in passing as he raced across. Cyril motioned for the rest of them to follow, maneuvering the drone into position to see the two guards.
He was the last across. “Don’t change plans on the fly,” he said to Ben. “It makes me nervous.”
“Things happened,” Ben said.
“They always do. Let’s get to the back door,” Cyril said, leading them along the wall, stopping to peek around the corner before continuing on. He studied the lock on the door for a few moments before quickly picking it, yet another skill that Ben didn’t know his grandfather possessed. Then he sent the drone back inside the building to scout the positions of the people in the room.
There were four men plus Enzo and Frank. Two had knives. One ha
d an axe and a knife. The last had a crossbow. Enzo was armed with a thin short sword. Frank was unconscious, his face looking even more severely beaten.
Cyril showed everyone the room on his holo-screen. John pointed at the man with the crossbow, nocking an arrow. Hound pointed at the man with the axe, hefting Frank’s tomahawk with a wry smile. Cyril pointed out the two with knives and motioned to Ben and himself. Ben nodded.
Cyril checked one more time, lining everyone up to enter quickly before opening the door.
John was through in a blink, arrow up and away before anyone in the room had even registered their presence. He turned and moved along the wall toward the end of the room where Frank was being held, nocking another arrow.
Hound was through next, rushing into the large room with surprising speed and hurling the hatchet at the startled axe man with terrifying force. It whipped end over end, burying the entire blade into the man’s chest. The thug toppled over backward and crashed to the ground.
Enzo and the other two drew and faced the oncoming threat. Ben was in next, running toward the men surrounding his brother. The nearest moved to engage. Ben pressed cautiously, waiting for the man to strike—a rushed and clumsy thrust with a long knife. Ben moved sideways, grabbing the man’s wrist with his left hand, yanking his arm out straight and pulling him slightly off-balance, before cleanly driving his blade through the man’s bicep in alignment with the muscle, pulling his blade straight out a second later.
The man screamed. Blood sprayed across his tunic and the floor as he flopped over, wailing in tortured agony. Ben stepped past him.
Cyril reached his man a moment later, feinting left, driving right, thrusting his sword into the man’s heart and withdrawing it an instant later, passing the man without a second look on his way to Enzo.
When Enzo raised his blade to face him, Cyril swatted it aside like it was a minor annoyance, slapping his sword down onto Enzo’s shoulder and drawing the edge up against his neck.
“On your knees or I’ll bleed you where you stand.”
Enzo looked around wildly, his eyes landing on Imogen. After seeing the look she gave him in return, he slowly went to his knees, his whole body trembling, a stifled whimper escaping him, followed by a flinch.
The Dragon's Egg (Dragonfall Book 1) Page 30