The Dragon's Fury (Book 1)

by D Mickleson

  She sighed theatrically but Triston was no longer listening. He believed he could hear strange noises behind the grate, like scratching or scraping. The sound was faint, but much nearer than the booming noise earlier. Above him, he saw the Seer glance at the grate.

  A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth.

  “I was so disappointed. I found no evidence of magic, and your father was, well, if it must be said, boring. He’d lately married a village girl, your mother probably. How he droned on about her! But I seduced him in the end. I thought he would open up to me. I believed he would confide in me. But no,” she sighed again. “He seemed suspicious of my motives, if you can believe that. I asked about the rumors, but got nothing but silence. I hate silence.”

  Abruptly she raised her hand with a flash of emerald, and the grate behind him began to rise with a terrible, ear-splitting screech. Triston had been staring at the grate before, dread finding a foothold after all despite his wrath, but now he turned his back on it. He decided at the last moment that he didn’t want to know what was coming. The Seer could kill him, but he would die like a man, not a frightened mouse in a snake cage scrambling around pathetically to delay its inevitable fate.

  The screech ground to a halt, but was at once replaced by other noises. He heard a scuffling. Something hard was scraping and banging against the rock. All at once, a terrible roar filled the chamber, reverberating against the pit wall and within Triston’s aching head.

  “And now I know it was I who was fooled,” she went on in a whisper scarcely audible above the ringing in his ears. “How it angers me. Your father kept his secret from me. Somehow he passed this thing on to you, passed it right through my fingers. How, I may never know. But one thing I do know, boy,” and now her voice rose to a fever pitch, “is that you are going to tell me what I want to know, and you’re going to do it now!”

  Her eyes blazed green as the ring flared, and Triston’s legs, working against his own will, began shuffling backward toward the open grate. Another roar rumbled behind him, and the banging grew wild. Slowly, inexorably, his own control overthrown, his feet forced him to face the creature.

  The monster his sight revealed to his unwilling mind appeared as a nightmare violating the waking world. Terror seized him. His feet began to creep forward. He was dimly aware of a desperate voice pleading, “No!” over and over, and realized it was his own.

  The fiend wore the form of a great lion, but all out of proportion, with paws like dinner platters, claws like foot-long spikes. A vast head nearly as tall as Triston, and far heavier, was crowned with a mane of shadow from which no light escaped. But here the lion shape ended, for the hideous beast—or demon to Triston’s eyes—spread enormous, bat-like wings from one end of the opening to another, folding and doubling back in the confined space, straining against the stone walls. Behind it, a tale like a scorpion’s, luminous red as iron in a forge, crashed and banged against the stone, creating a rain of shattered rock.

  But to Triston nothing of the lurid vision before him appeared so hellish as the monster’s eyes. In their crimson glow, he saw reflected plainly, even as panic took him and reason fled, a malicious intelligence he he’d seen in no other beast, no matter how predatory, but glimpses of which he’d often seen in people, even those who appeared soft and weak. The only thing keeping back those fiendish eyes was the grate, which the Seer had only raised halfway.

  “Say hello to Ashannatar, my dear,” she shouted above the monster’s clamor. “Ash is a manticore, the only one in Corellia, I believe. They say the emperor has hordes of them, but I think one will suffice for our purposes, don’t you?”

  “What do you want from me?” Triston shouted at the top of his lungs. “I told you I know nothing!”

  The release of the Seer’s will came as suddenly as its onslaught. He took three falling steps backward, then collapsed to the floor. Rising, painlessly this time as adrenaline coursed through him, he faced the Seer, hating himself that he had shown his fear.

  “I’ve had enough of this,” she said softly. “You know what I want, what I must have. The Fury. You know the emperor would not have sent his stooge to Wyrmskull if the Relic did not exist. You know Trinian possessed it once upon a time. You have shown impressive magical talent, more than a novice could dream of. And yet you stand there and insult me with lies like your worthless father.

  “Now, I’m giving you one chance. Just one. Tell me where this thing lies hidden and I swear you will live. You can go back to your pathetic little life in your pathetic little village, no harm done. Or you can end up as half-digested refuse on the floor of Ashannatar’s cage. The choice is yours.”

  His answer came calm and even. There was no hope he knew, only a choice to face death with courage, or without it. “Look into my eyes,” he said. The Seer, seeming taken aback, perhaps by the earnestness of his voice, locked eyes with him. “I. Inherited. Nothing. Got it, you stupid witch? NOTHING.”

  She continued to stare. Her face remained impassive, but Triston believed he saw, for the first time, doubt creep over her countenance. “Liar,” she whispered. Then, “LIAR!” she screeched, and her head and hands trembled.

  The attack was fiercer than ever, but Triston had braced for it. His body spun around to face the roaring fiend. Just as before, seemingly with a mind of its own, his right leg lifted and shifted forward. Closing his eyes and concentrating his entire mind on resisting, so much so that he felt the struggle as an actual force pushing against his brain, his leg stopped as though he were stepping on an invisible stair. Then slowly, very slowly, it returned to the ground.

  He heard her shriek behind him, and the command came again with such ferocity he felt it would tear his knee apart. His foot jerked up, his body lurched forward, but the leg obeyed his own will and refused to move. Off-balance, he fell with a thud like a sack of grain.

  “How are you doing that? I’ve never seen—but never mind. Let’s see how well you resist Ashie’s claws.”

  The ground seemed to be moving beneath him. He was sliding along the rocky floor, straight toward the manticore. The beast was in a frenzy, filling the pit with the echoing wrath of its roars as it strained at the half-open grate. Triston scrambled with his legs and one good arm, but could only slow the steady approach of an agonizing death. Lifting his head, he saw the manticore’s eyes on him, and the hunger there, the pleasure of the meal his mistress would surely give. The maw of the beast opened wide, and saliva dribbled from a double-row of razor teeth. The tongue was black and forked.

  “Excuse me, mum. I might have found something.”

  Found something.

  Found something? The soft-spoken words cut across the fiend’s thunderous furor like a bolt of lightning. Even as Triston waited to be torn and ravaged, he turned his attention to the Seer’s servant.

  The sliding stopped.

  “Found what, Palpo? I don’t care about mood-enhancing roots or hallucinogenic mushrooms. I’m rather busy at the moment if you haven’t noticed and—”

  “I understand, Grace, it’s just that—see this?”

  There was a long pause in which Triston strained his ears to hear them above the scrabbling and snarling of the manticore. He was close enough now that the fiend could nearly claw him under the grate. Every now and then along his back, which was facing the creature, he felt a rush of wind and a hot shiver, as though a massive swipe had missed by a fraction of an inch. Triston tried to crawl away, but whether due to his injuries or some lingering command of the Seer’s will, even as her attention was diverted, he was forced to lie still.

  The Seer’s silence lengthened, then, “Where did you find this?” she asked sharply.

  “In the boy’s things, mum. Just lying there with all the useless junk.”

  “Indeed? How completely satisfying. You’ve done well, scribe.”

  Triston lay astonished. Of all the things he’d seen and heard this day, that the Seer believed she’d found something among his things to sate her l
ust was the most bewildering. Was this something else Alden had planted in his bag?

  But his confusion was cut short by a sudden, terrible pain, as the tip of a knife-like claw ran across his back and arms. The beast roared with delight, and immediately he felt a hot wetness pulsing from his lacerated wrists.

  “Do you know, Triston, I believe you may have been telling the truth after all.”

  He opened his eyes, and through the pain in his back, looked across the torchlit distance at the Seer. “Caught on, have you?” he growled through clenched teeth.

  “I suppose you don’t know how to read,” she said. It wasn’t a question. It was a declaration of victory.

  “No,” he lied automatically, though he knew of no reason why he should. He was focused on his wrists, which he had suddenly become aware were loose. The manticore’s claws had cut more than flesh when they ran down his back.

  He stood, and new life coursed from his heart into his limbs, even as his lifeforce bled, beat by beat, from his badly mangled left wrist.

  His hands were free.

  This new reality, a beautiful, wonderful reality, brought hope to his leaden limbs and benumbed heart.

  The Seer frowned at him, surprised to see him rise, but more so that his hands were untied. “My, my,” she said. “Ash caressed your wrists I see. He’s a feisty one. Well, your usefulness to me is at an end so . . . I’m very sorry, but it does seem cruel to deny my pet his daily meat.”

  The ring came up, and Triston once again felt the force of her will beat upon his consciousness. Against the rushing tide of thought emanating from her mind, he took an unsure step forward. Then another. The Seer’s eyes bulged. Furrowing her brow in fierce concentration, she cried in a commanding voice, “Halt!” The emerald light strengthened, filling the chamber with an eerie glow.

  Triston walked on, his pace actually quickening. The Seer’s power was all around him. He was an island in a sea of enchanted malevolence, but he no longer felt like wave-tossed cargo. Even as he reached the far side of the pit, he knew what had happened.

  Hope had filled him. His bonds were cut.

  For the first time, he saw a clear way forward. As long as he dwelt on that hope, his own will was impenetrable. The foment crashed all around, but he stood on firm ground.

  The moment he reached the pit-wall, the Seer’s ring-hand fell, and her will broke. “Amazing,” she said, breathing hard and staring. Her words came in breathless stints. “You. Would have. Been great. Magically.” Then the familiar smile returned, and her musical laugh rang out. “It’s too bad no one will ever know it.”

  She pointed her ring at the grate, and the iron bars flew up with a deafening crash.

  “Your Grace, no!” shouted Palpo from the back of the room. “We don’t have the men to control him!”

  The manticore bound from the tunnel into the middle of the pit, roaring his exultation, and the shaking of the shadowmane was like the oncoming of night. The torch, still held aloft by the Seer, sputtered and flared. Darkness came and went as it faltered, and Palpo wailed, writhing on the ground.

  “Silence fool!” she shouted. “Do you think I can’t control this hellion? But first he must catch his prey.”

  She watched in ecstasy as the creature turned his flaming eyes on Triston. The torch flickered out and night fell. The glowing eyes pounced. The Seer stood hunched forward, expectant.

  Light blazed up again as the torch flared, and now it was her turn to scream. Triston stood beside her, and she saw her death in his eyes.

  “Did you think I couldn’t climb an eight foot wall, Your Grace?” he scoffed with cold laughter.

  Below them, Ashannatar roared and bounded around, looking for a way up. Triston had few thoughts to spare the horrid creature, but he was relieved to see that the narrow pit proved too confined a space for his vast, leathery wings, which instead of aiding him only served to trip him up as he raged pointlessly beneath them.

  “Triston, I, I . . . what do you want?” the Seer whispered, her voice scarcely audible. “I have gold. Whole rooms of it. Please.”

  He stepped forward, never taking his eyes from hers. “My father didn’t commit suicide. You killed him.”

  She opened her mouth, and her lips moved silently, but no words came. He read the truth clearly in her eyes and she knew it.

  She gave a vicious snarl and the ring flared emerald, but this time no onslaught followed. Instead, the iron door at the back of the room, the only way in or out apart from the beast’s tunnel, clanged shut with force enough to bend its hinges. At the same time, far off and very high, a great bell tolled three piercing notes.

  A summons.

  “Fool,” she hissed. “Kill me then. It won’t save you. Every Guardian under my command is on his way and you have no escape. Take your revenge if you wish but it will be the last thing you ever do. Or you may let me live, and I in turn will spare you when my men arrive. Think well, son of Slendrake. Your entire future depends on what you do now.”

  Triston looked at her slender form, her exposed neck rising and falling with small, quick breaths. So soft, so vulnerable. His sword waited for him on her table just feet away, and she no longer wielded power to hinder him. He imagined his father. His mother had never told him exactly how he’d died, only that he’d taken his own life. Maybe he was poisoned, maybe stabbed in the heart or slashed at the wrists, his body cleverly arranged to look as if he’d killed himself.

  Justice was his to take, by right, by duty.

  He raised his good arm and sprang at her. Screaming softly, she shielded her face with her arms, but no strike came. With deft fingers he grabbed the torch from her and stepped back, loathing her presence.

  “Open the door,” he said in a deadened voice. “I’m leaving.”

  The Seer looked up, and the fire of hope blazed in her eyes, mixed with cunning. With a sudden swiftness she ran back behind the table and turned to face him, leaning forward defiantly. “You won’t kill me boy. You’re too weak.” She picked up his sword, holding it unsteadily with two hands, pointing the end at him as though to ward him away. “My men will be here any moment. It’s too late for you.”

  The manticore’s scrambling and scuffling had grown louder as the creature desperately sought a way out of his pit of captivity. He gave a terrible roar, but the monster’s ferocity couldn’t match the look of hatred in Triston’s eyes.

  “Open the door or I swear on my mother’s grave you will regret it with every drop of blood in your body.”

  “Ha! Don’t burden me with idle threats, child. You are weaponless. Do you hear the tramp of armored boots above? The men who come for me will bear your lifeless form from this place.”

  “So be it.” Triston held out the torch before him, as one readying a careful toss. The Seer opened her mouth in derisive laughter, thinking the gesture pitiful, but suddenly, even as the blazing light arced toward her, she looked down at the table, and her laughter turned to a scream.

  “Noooooooo!”

  She dropped the sword and reached out to stay the flaming projectile’s progress with fingers that clawed at the air.

  Too late. The torch landed on the wooden surface with a soft thud right where Triston had aimed. For one fraction of a second, Triston’s eyes met hers.

  Then she was gone.

  An eruption of vapor flew straight up into her snarling face with a sizzling hiss, and she disappeared behind a cloud of yellow steam. A hideous scream rose out of the ground behind the cloud, then abruptly died in a choking gurgle.

  Triston backed into the far corner opposite the door, holding his good arm over his mouth and trying not to breathe. Looking, he saw with relief that the noxious fume that had been Alden’s Hellcaps was only slowly spreading, leaving him precious seconds of fresh air. He knew there wasn’t a moment to lose. If the Seer’s men didn’t kill him, his torn and tattered arm would. Even now he felt the blood pouring from livid rents in his arm, the very heart pumps necessary for life driving the life
force out of his body.

  At that moment a huge form leapt into view. With a crash of thunder the manticore finally gained the summit of the landing and slid into the yellow haze. The creature reeled, jerking its head away in revulsion and springing out of the sickly air toward the door. A small exhalation escaped Triston’s lips at the ghastly sight, and the manticore was immediately aware of him. They stared at each other, great yellow orbs boring into small eyes wide with abhorrence.

  The creature, however, was no spirit, but a thing of flesh and blood, subject to the same compulsions as all living things on this earth. His heightened sense of smell revolted at the toxic draughts of ignited Hellcaps which filled his lungs. He needed air, fresh air as he had not tasted in long years of confinement.

  Shaking his mane and exhaling with a reeking blast, he turned and sprang away. Hardly slowing for the fear-rooted Palpo lying forgotten on the floor, he scooped up the scribe in his great fangs, smashed through the iron door, and bounded out of sight.

  TEN

  THE HIGH FANE

  Flight is but a fancy. This Fane, my stone husband, binds me ever earthward.

  The people need their Seer.

  —Begunda the Righteous, Seer 1151-1195

  In the waning light of the smoldering wreckage that was once a wooden table, Triston examined his wounded left arm. He’d reset the dislocated shoulder, but the bleeding couldn’t be stopped with a push and a snap. He knew what he needed to do, but it wouldn’t be pleasant. Glancing around at the charred and smoking pile at his feet, he found what he sought.

  No, this would not be fun at all.

  Extending his left arm, he took in the torn skin and streaking blood in the lurid firelight. Pain erupted through his shoulder and up and down his spine as though the damaged limb already knew what was coming. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, but the action he knew would save his life would not come.

  Hurry! There’s no time to waste.

  Urgency pulsed through his brain like the manticore’s roar, drowning out other thoughts. The Seer had sounded the alarm; for all he knew an avenging army of Guardians would appear at any time. With a yell into the dust-filled air, half scream, half growl, he lifted a flaming brand, dead wood on one end, blazing life on the other, and pressed it against the wounded wrist.