DRAGONSGATE: Preludes & Omens (Bitterwood Series Book 6)

by James Maxey

  Bigmouth had reached the shadows and couldn’t be seen at all. She couldn’t let him escape, and now that he was aware of her he wouldn’t be foolish enough to let himself cast more shadows. He also had to know that, from her vantage point, she’d notice if he recklessly crashed through brush or grass. But, from high above, she might never hear if he simply walked away slowly, taking care with his path.

  Despite the risk, she had to go to the ground. Yes, he was fast, but at close range she would be faster. While a hundred feet was more than enough space for an attentive foe to dodge an arrow, at point blank even fast reflexes wouldn’t let something the size of an earth-dragon get out of the way.

  She dropped into the shadow at the corner of the house, about thirty feet out, listening closely, her arrow nocked, the bow drawn. Unlike a longbow, the pulleys of a sky-wall bow allowed her to hold a drawn arrow for as long as she needed without feeling strain. She would make this arrow count, assuming he was still there.

  Which, she realized, he was. She could hear him breathing. His acrobatics in avoiding her arrows had winded him. He was very close to the wall, catching his breath, standing perfectly still, waiting. Her brow furrowed as she studied the darkness, looking for any tiny glint of light that might reflect from his eyes, or the faintest change in the density of the shadows that might show his limbs or torso.

  “I see you,” she said, bluffing. “Surrender and I’ll spare you.”

  “How generous,” said Bigmouth.

  She released the arrow, pinpointing his location by his voice.

  The shadows moved. The arrow stopped a foot from the wall, seeming to hang in mid-air. She thought she’d hit him, until Bigmouth chuckled.

  Anza’s mouth dropped open slowly as she realized he’d caught the arrow.

  The arrow moved toward her, still in her unseen foe’s grasp. She floated back a step, drawing her sword.

  “You must know little about the training we go through to join the Black Silence,” said Bigmouth. “Our masters routinely shoot at us with bows. If we don’t learn to dodge, we die. Eventually, they bind our legs. To survive, we learn to catch. You never stood a chance.”

  “I see things differently,” she said, unimpressed by his boasting. He’d fled the house to avoid danger. His courage was nothing but bluster. “I have a sword. You’re unarmed.”

  Bigmouth chuckled again. “I’ve already slipped the caps off my poisoned claws. You’d already be dead if I wanted you dead. Lucky for you, I know who you are.”

  Anza said nothing, still straining her eyes to make sense of the seemingly formless shadows before her. Only the arrow he held showed the precise location of his arm. She couldn’t even be certain if he held it in his right talon or his left. The combination of chameleon shading and deep shadows was more than even her keen eyes could decipher.

  “They call you Anza,” said Bigmouth. “You’re Burke’s daughter. He’s the genius behind these new weapons you humans have been so proud of. I can’t believe he was so stupid to send his own flesh and blood into my grasp. You’re a prize of immeasurable value.”

  The arrow moved toward her another step. She tensed, raising her sword.

  “Do you wonder how I know so much about you?” asked Bigmouth. “Burke might be a genius, but he’s surrounded by men who’d sell out their own mothers for a jug of whiskey. Men who your father has entrusted with secrets reveal all once their tongues are loosened by drink. And once I learn their secrets, all men can be controlled with the right incentives. Just as your father will no doubt prove cooperative should he wish to see you ag—”

  Anza struck. The night before, she’d been goaded into attacking by Bitterwood and as a result had lost the element of surprise. Bigmouth perhaps was attempting the same tactic, but unlike the confrontation with Bitterwood, she now had wings. Her normal attack speed was something few foes could counter, but with his arrow-catching swiftness, Bigmouth was likely her match. What he couldn’t know was that her wings could carry her far swifter than an arrow. With her sword held before her gripped in both hands, she grunted as she drove the tip into his shoulder, driving through to the hilt, her momentum knocking Bigmouth backward even though the muscular earth-dragon outweighed her by two-hundred pounds or more. Her blade bent against the rock wall behind him and she drove her forearm hard into his throat for a final push, bashing his head into the stone. She immediately flitted backward, reaching for her tomahawks as Bigmouth rebounded from the wall, flailing wildly as he slashed the air before him with his poisoned claws, then sank to his knees.

  With a groan, he grabbed the blade in his shoulder and pulled, but the bent blade refused to draw free. He breathed heavily, but rhythmically. Anza knew the sound well. It was the way her own breath sounded as she shut off her own pain.

  “We’ve much in common,” she said. “I, too, am well versed in the art of poison. The compound that coats my blade will kill you in moments, but there is an antidote. Tell me everything you know about the location of the guns and perhaps I’ll give it to you.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Bigmouth said.

  “And you’re bleeding,” she said. “The poison is nearly irrelevant. You’ll bleed out before it takes hold.”

  “Fah,” said Bigmouth, shaking his head. “This scratch?” He rose to his feet. His left arm hung limp but he held his right talon in a menacing pose, the claws like sharp spikes.

  Anza carefully rose a few yards higher, far beyond any distance he could possibly jump. Bigmouth’s skin had settled into a uniform deep green, almost black, still difficult to see, but not impossible. Perhaps pain prevented him from employing his camouflage, or perhaps he no longer worried about hiding himself since the blade jutting from his shoulder would be visible, and his blood spilling on the ground would mark any path he might use to flee.

  Or might there be another reason he chose to be seen? His eyes. They weren’t really fixed upon her, but gazed at the sky beyond. What if he remained visible because he wanted to hold her attention?

  She spun around, confirming her suspicions. A trio of sky-dragons approached her in the dark sky, gliding in utter silence, the closest perhaps twenty yards away. The glint of iron helmets revealed these to be valkyries. Each carried a long spear in her hind talons. The nearest rose swiftly, throwing her spear at the center of Anza’s chest. But Bigmouth wasn’t the only combatant trained in handling missiles. She slashed out with her tomahawk with perfect timing, striking the spear point when it was only arm’s length from impact, knocking it aside. Unfortunately, she’d never performed this maneuver wearing wings. The deflected spear punched through the thin metal of her left wing with a sound that made the metal cry out like a shriek. In the aftermath, the hole threw sparks and the smell of hot metal reached Anza’s nostrils. Then, despite her willing the wings to carry her swiftly higher, she started to slowly drop toward the ground. She’d experienced this before; even the slightest damage to the wings would remove them from her control and carry her gently to earth. She was a sitting duck as a second valkyrie flew straight at her, holding her spear tightly in her hind-talons, seemingly intent on driving it straight through Anza’s heart with her full momentum.

  Anza reached behind her and grabbed the edge of a wing. With a grunt she tore free of the silver disk adhered to her back. She dropped, no more than ten feet off the ground, as the valkyrie slammed into the still floating wings with a sound like clashing cymbals.

  In almost any other circumstance, a ten foot drop would have been easily managed. Stay loose, keep her knees bent, roll forward, and spring back to her feet. Unfortunately, with her mangled leg, the long practiced motion proved less than graceful. The pain was like white hot lightning flashing through her skull. She rolled forward, but instead of springing to her feet wound up on her hands and knees, sucking air, fighting to clear her head.

  She heard the flap of a sky-dragon’s wings and raised up on her knees, as a valkyrie raced toward her. Without thought, through muscle memory alone, Anza hur
led her tomahawk and buried the blade directly between the valkyrie’s eyes. The sky-dragon turned into a hurtling sack of meat, hitting the ground a yard in front of Anza, tumbling limply toward her. Anza fell to her side, avoiding the worst of the sky-dragon’s mass, but had no way of avoiding the seemingly endless blanket of the wing that fell over her. She kicked and clawed to pull herself free, reaching open air, looking up at the last second as a shadow fell over the edge of her hand.

  Above her stood Bigmouth, carrying the spear that had punched through her wing. With a grunt, he drove the butt-end of the shaft into the back of her skull, and Anza’s world went dark and quiet.

  SHE WOKE as she was trained to wake, silent, still, her eyes closed, offering no hint that her unconsciousness had passed. She kept her breathing steady as she let her senses expand. She didn’t need her eyes to gain a wealth of information about her surroundings.

  First, her wrists were bound behind her. The itching of her wrists told her she was only held with hemp rope. Second, her belt had been removed, as well as all of the sheaths and holsters strapped to her legs and upper arms that held her small armory of blades. However, she was still dressed. The dragons probably had no clue that the buttons on the front of her buckskin vest concealed tiny razor disks. Nor had they removed the small, seemingly innocuous steel ring she wore on the middle finger of her right hand.

  She was on a wooden floor, covered with grit and grime. The wooden planks carried the creak and shuffle of everyone in the room currently on their feet. Most were dragons. She could hear the clicking of claws distinctly enough. But there was also a softer tread, a human in boots.

  Then the human spoke, in a voice she knew well. Thorny.

  “I wish I could tell you Burke would give in,” said Thorny. “But, no matter what you’ve heard, Anza’s not really his daughter. He’s not going to give up Dragon Forge to save her.”

  “Then why should we keep her alive?” asked a sky-dragon, female, a valkyrie. “She killed Kysette in front of our eyes. That she’s still breathing is an insult.”

  “You’re looking at this all wrong,” said Thorny. “Look, I’ve known Burke for damn near twenty years. He thinks I’m a friend, but he doesn’t have a clue what friendship is. The way he orders me around, expects me to do stuff without even a thank you, it’s kind of like I’m a slave, only he doesn’t even have to feed and clothe me.”

  “Or give you whiskey,” said a deep voice. It was Bigmouth. If he was feeling any weakness from his injury he hid it well. It was a shame she’d been bluffing about the poison.

  “All I’m saying,” said Thorny, “is that Burke has never thought of me as an equal. While he expects me to run errands and occasionally help organize his papers, he’s never treated me as a confidant. He doesn’t trust me enough to tell me how he makes gunpowder, but Anza might know. She’s by his side more than anyone.”

  Even though only Thorny, the valkyrie, and Bigmouth had spoken, they weren’t the only ones present. There were at least five earth-dragons, and a second valkyrie. But she could also tell there was one more human in the room, someone big, his breathing steady, resting on the floor beside her. She inhaled deeply, though carefully, still not letting on she was awake. The smell confirmed what she’d guessed. Beneath the stink of dragons, and the boozy aura that permeated any room Thorny stood in, she smelled the sweat of a man who’d fought hard earlier, a scent she recognized. Stonewall was also a captive.

  “Then let’s rephrase the question,” said the valkyrie, responding to Thorny. “If this girl knows all you say she knows, why do we need you?”

  “I’m the best spy Bigmouth has,” said Thorny.

  “Or perhaps the best spy Burke has,” said the valkyrie.

  “You don’t think I haven’t thought of that?” asked Bigmouth, sounding a little insulted. “Of course he’s spying for Burke. He confessed it all the first night I met him, once I got him drunk enough. This makes him the perfect tool for feeding Burke whatever lies I want him to believe. At this point, Thorny’s in so deep he’s got no choice but to do anything I tell him. The humans would string him up like a pig if they found out the truth.”

  “You don’t need threats to make me hate Burke,” said Thorny. “For twenty years he’s bossed me around, making me build stuff for him. I must have hammered in half the nails that held together that damned tavern of his. I’d tell him I needed to rest and he’d just cuss at me until I worked harder. He worked me until I broke. I owe that bastard nothing.”

  “You expect us to believe you’d betray all mankind?” said the valkyrie.

  “Have you met mankind?” asked Thorny.

  “I still say we kill him,” said the valkyrie, sounding as if she’d turned toward Bigmouth. “We should tie up loose ends. Kill the man and the girl as well. Let it be a mystery as long as it can what has happened to them and to the weapons. We’ve created a secure shelter at the Nest for a team of biologians to figure out how these guns function. Vulpine made a serious error in taking the last captured gun to the College of Spires. No one can possibly recover the guns from the Nest. Still, the more time we give the biologians to figure out how these items work, the better.”

  “I can tell you how they work,” said Bigmouth. “My enforcers have experimented with the shotguns. We can load and fire them easily enough.”

  “Can you make more gunpowder?”

  “No.”

  “And now there are these new mysteries,” said a second sky-dragon, another valkyrie, sounding as if she was on the far side of the room. “These wings the humans wore. How can they possibly function? We heard reports that winged humans had been seen during Vulpine’s seige of Dragon Forge but gave the rumors little credit. If humans can now fly—”

  “Not many of us,” said Thorny. “We’ve only got a few sets of the wings. They’re old technology, from the Human Age, we think. Most of ‘em have stopped working, and Burke can’t fix ‘em, since we don’t know why they worked in the first place.”

  “I’m more interested in how those iron spheres do so much damage,” said Bigmouth. “With a hundred of these, a squad of valkyries flying above the range of a sky-wall bow could make short work of any human resistance.”

  “I can tell you how they work,” said Thorny.

  “Stop!” barked the valkyrie.

  Anza cracked her eyes, knowing that whatever Thorny was doing, everyone in the room would be looking at him.

  Thorny stood next to a heavy wooden table. He was guarded by two earth-dragons who stood on either side of him, battle-axes at the ready, looking prepared to lop off his head if Bigmouth gave the word. Bigmouth stood on the opposite side of the table, next to a valkyrie, the one who had thrown her spear at Anza. Other earth-dragons were scattered around the room, and the second valkyrie stood next to the door, a spear held in her fore-talons.

  Thorny’s wrinkled hand was stretched before him, motionless over something on the table Anza couldn’t see from the floor. She suspected the table must have held at least one grenade, and perhaps her whole arsenal.

  Thorny cleared his throat. “I’m not gonna do anything stupid. I want to show you how you work one of the grenades. They’re really easy once you know the trick.”

  “Trick?” asked Bigmouth.

  “Yeah,” said Thorny. “I mean, you saw the damage these things can do. You can’t just run around with them primed. You’ve got to load ‘em up with powder at the last second.”

  “Load them how?” asked Bigmouth.

  “You unscrew that knob at the top. But you can’t make it turn until you pull out that pin. It’s a safety feature.”

  “Show me,” said Bigmouth, picking up the grenade and handing it to Thorny. Anza noted that Bigmouth’s movements were stiff. His wounded shoulder had been bandaged, but it obviously still caused him pain. Her own injury could no longer be felt. Her leg below the tourniquet was completely numb.

  The valkyrie practically choked on her own spit as Thorny took the grenade, making a
yawping noise as she thrust out her fore-talon and snatched the grenade away. “Are you insane? He’ll kill us all!”

  “What? And kill himself?” asked Bigmouth, with an amused glint in his eyes. “You plainly know nothing about the survival instincts of men. You valkyries can go your whole life without meeting a human since you don’t allow slaves in the Nest.”

  “Unlike earth-dragons, sky-dragons value their young,” said the valkyrie. “Letting a human near the fledglings would be like a human inviting wolves to stand guard over their cradles.”

  “You fear men because you don’t understand them,” said Bigmouth. “Whereas I know them well enough that I’m building an empire directly beneath Burke’s nose, with money, supplies, and weapons willingly given to me by his own men.”

  “You trust men too much,” said the valkyrie.

  “I trust them not at all,” said Bigmouth. “I master them. Your analogy with the wolves and cradles shows a woeful ignorance of the way the world truly works. Men long ago tamed wolves. The once wild beasts willingly stand guard over infants, and slobber gratefully over the tiniest morsels of praise given to them. So it is with men. A thousand years of slavery have bred out their willfulness. Thorny’s too tame to betray me. He’s a dog, clever enough to walk on two legs. He knows that, if he pleases me, there will be a new jug of whiskey for a reward. You do like your whisky, don’t you Thorny?”

  “Yes sir,” said Thorny, casting his eyes downward.

  “Give him the grenade,” said Bigmouth, fixing his gaze on the valkyrie.

  The valkyrie narrowed her eyes and looked for a moment as if she might go for Bigmouth’s throat. A long second passed, then another, and finally she handed Thorny the globe.