Dragon Red: A Fire Unfed (The Dragonlords of Xandakar Book 2)

by Macy Babineaux

  Marko pulled back the pillow and tossed it down on his father’s dead legs. Karth’s eyes were still open, and even though he was gone, they still shined with hatred. His mouth was a snarl, the black liquid now dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. That look would haunt Marko until the day he died.

  He turned away, swallowed, and took a deep breath. He thought he might throw up, but he stifled the impulse. The act might help the case for the show he was about to play, but his first act as king should not be to retch like a sick little boy.

  When he had calmed himself, he cried out to the guards. They rushed into the room, spears raised. Their eyes fell first upon their king, slain in his bed, then to the floor, where Hamryk lay with Marko’s dagger deep in his throat.

  “The owl killed my father,” Marko said, the mixture of pain and grief coming easily into his voice. “I drew my dagger and held it to his throat. I wanted answers.”

  The guards had now turned their eyes and the tips of their spears to him.

  “And did he say anything?” one of the guards asked, his voice laced with skepticism.

  “He told me everything,” Marko said. “That’s why I didn’t call you at once. I let him spill his fat guts.” He looked over his shoulder at Hamryk’s body, the pool of thick red blood still spreading on the floor.

  “Well?” the other guard asked.

  “He was a spy for the Nightshadows,” Marko said. “He had been for years. Search his chambers.” He didn’t say what they would find. Better for the palace guards to find everything themselves. But Marko knew what would be there. In a hidden panel under Hamryk’s bed they would find reagents for making poisons, another vial of what had been used on his father, and a black signet ring with the seal of the Nightshadows engraved upon it.

  They would find these things because Marko had put them there. The plan had required yet another trip to the Dark Bazaar before returning to the sandstone palace. But finding his way into Hamryk’s chambers and planting the evidence had been trivial.

  One guard nodded to the other, who went to sound the alarm and rouse more guards. The king was dead. They would want answers. And they would find them.

  “I will escort you to your chambers while we conduct the search,” the guard said.

  “Of course,” Marko said. “But before you do your duty, would you allow me the courtesy of saying goodbye to my father? The owl-mage stole that from me.”

  The guard’s eyes softened a bit. He nodded.

  He’s believes me, Marko thought. That’s good.

  Marko actually didn’t want to look at the twisted death mask of his father’s face again, but it was part of the show. So he walked to the side of the bed, stepping around the pool of Hamryk’s blood. He bent over and gently kissed his father’s forehead.

  “Goodbye, father,” he said, lowering his voice enough to seem respectful, but loud enough for the guard to still hear. “I will do what I can to honor your memory.”

  Then he stood and offered his wrists to the guard, in case he wanted to place him in shackles.

  “There’s no need for that,” the guard said, his voice gentle with sympathy now.

  Marko let the guard lead him from the room, relieved to be away from the stench of death. And as he walked down the hall ahead of the guard, he let a smile play across his lips.

  14: Thalia

  They flew east once more, Thalia riding on Kals’ back, her arms tight around his neck. Once he had regained his memories, he had nearly become frantic.

  They had to hurry, he had said. They had to go. She wanted to know what he knew, but all he would say was something about his brother betraying him, betraying them all.

  At least his attitude towards her had not changed. She still didn’t know if he had remembered some woman from his past, perhaps even a wife. But there had been no discussion about Thalia coming with him. It had been understood, and that had made her heart swell with joy, despite whatever was troubling Kal so much that they had to fly to the sandstone palace immediately.

  The great red wings flapped furiously. They were flying faster than ever, faster than Thalia had thought possible. The wind rushed over her, threatening to pull her from his neck. But she held fast, putting her head down against the wind. Only once in a while did she look up, but after they had reached the mainland all she ever saw were endless white sands.

  She thought about him lying there on the shore of the lagoon, his naked body wet and shining in the sun. The image made her heart thump hard in her chest, blood rushing into her cheeks. But she had also been afraid. He would look up at her and ask her who she was. Or worse yet, he would know who she was and not care. She had just been some stray that he had picked up along the way, a nuisance to now be discarded.

  But when his face had turned up to look at her, she caught that same look in his eyes and everything had been all right again. He not only recognized her, he cared for her. Despite knowing that, she still didn’t want to get her hopes up.

  Kal had said that his brother had betrayed him. That probably meant that he was the cause of Kal losing his memory and ability to shift in the first place. He hadn’t said any more. There wasn’t time. But that left Thalia to wonder if this other brother were even bigger and stronger than Kal.

  Once they reached the desert throne of the red dragons, there might very well be a fight. She didn’t want to be in the middle of it, but she also didn’t want to be anywhere else but by his side.

  She felt the vibrations of his voice as he spoke, the first time since flying up and away from the Emerald Isle.

  “There.” That was all he said, the word rumbling up from inside him. Thalia opened her eyes, squinting against the rush of air. She looked out ahead of them, at first not seeing anything.

  Then the slender minarets of the sandstone palace began to take shape far ahead. They were obscured by swirling winds, filling the air with white sand.

  “Is it a storm?” she yelled. But she knew the answer to that. She’d never seen a sandstorm, but the rising winds and blurring sky told her all she needed to know.

  “We can stop,” Kal said. “Wait for the storm to pass.”

  “No,” she yelled. “I’ll be all right. I’ll just keep my head down.”

  She closed her eyes and pressed herself as flat as she could against him. But as the gritty sand began to swirl around them, propelled by the savage winds, she felt it begin to bite into her skin. Tiny sharp grains went up her nostrils each time she tried to breathe. And she wasn’t the only one being affected.

  Kal was having a difficult time flying in a straight path. The wind rocked them as he flew, jolting them back and forth, up and down. The sand became so heavy in the wind that the midday sun was nearly blotted out, day becoming as night.

  The storm was hellish, but she didn’t say anything. She would endure anything for him. But soon she felt him begin to descend. The storm had just seemed to rise up out of nowhere, and it was far too fierce to allow them to continue.

  Maybe that’s how sandstorms work, she thought, still squeezing her eyes shut. When it rained in the forest, she could usually smell it on the air well ahead of the actual drops falling. If she were out collecting berries or sweetroot, she could often make it home before the rain started.

  But maybe in the desert there were no signs. The storm had certainly seemed to appear suddenly, from nothing.

  They landed on a flat patch, but the wind was even worse lower to the ground.

  “Climb down,” Kal said, his voice thundering so that he could be heard above the storm. “I’ll shelter you with my wings.”

  She was in no position to argue. Everywhere her skin was exposed stung with the relentless onslaught of the sand. She let go of the scales on his neck and let herself slide down off of him. Her feet hit the sand and she squinted, trying to shield her eyes from the wind with her hands.

  Then she felt him move to surround her, his wings wrapping around to form a small protective cave. The howl of the wind die
d down to a whisper, the sand now beating against his scales. She sighed with relief and felt like crying. She was shaking all over, but Kal was around her now, shielding her from the storm.

  Thalia peeked through the small gap between his folded wings at the violent torrent of the sand-filled wind, and what she saw made her breath catch in her throat.

  Shadows were moving toward them, the outlines of people, very close now. They walked in a line, and from the gap she was looking through she could only see five or six. But it was possible there were more, walking in a long line or even closing in a circle around them.

  “Kal?” she whispered.

  “I see them,” he said.

  Then, as the shadows solidified into human form her heart lurched. The men walked in a line, but it was only the one in front she cared about. Was this some kind of nightmare?

  He was bald, wearing pale green scaled armor. His nose was pierced with a bone stud. He was a snake shifter, the man who had led the monsters who destroyed her warren and killed everyone she loved.

  She started to shake uncontrollably.

  “Thalia,” Kal said, speaking softly. His deep voice echoed in the hollowed chamber he had created with his body to surround her.

  She heard him, but didn’t hear him. His voice was far away. All she felt was fear, her unblinking eyes fixed on the snake man walking toward them.

  “Thalia!” he said, firmer this time. That snapped her out of her daze.

  “It’s him,” she said.

  “I know,” Kal said. “But you need to listen to me. We don’t have much time. I need you to shift into rabbit form and dig down into the sand. I need you to hide. Do you understand?”

  She heard the words, but no, she couldn’t make sense of them. There was no hiding. She was going to die. She knew it.

  “Thalia!” he snapped.

  “Yes,” she said, unable to stop shaking. But he had gotten through to her. “Okay. What are you going—”

  “Just do it,” he said. “And whatever you see or hear, stay hidden.”

  He was going to save her life all over again. Though this time there were far more than two of them. Still, he was a dragon, wasn’t he? He couldn’t get hurt. Not now. Not when they were just starting to—

  She realized she was drifting off again. The men were close, and they might have already seen her. She closed her eyes and changed, her dress falling away as fur sprouted across her skin, her ears grew, and her body collapsed into its new compact form.

  “You are Kaladon Wildfire,” the man yelled over the howling wind.

  Thalia dug frantically with her front paws, kicking up sand. Then she burrowed under, laying her ears flat so that only her nose stuck up, just enough to breathe. Before she went completely under, she saw Kal let out a little burst of fire, turning her dress into ash.

  He doesn’t want them to see any sign of me, she thought. And they wouldn’t, not with her buried under the sand as she was.

  Kal was apparently satisfied that she was well-hidden, because he unfurled his wings and raised his head.

  “I am,” he said. “And you are Sayak Sunscale.”

  Thalia could see that they were indeed surrounded, dozens of snake shifters standing around them in a circle.

  The man smiled a reptilian grin. “You met some of my clan in Hartwood. What were you doing there?”

  “Is that why your clan has surrounded me in the middle of a sandstorm?” Kal asked. “To chat?”

  Sayak laughed. “No, no,” he said. “We came here to capture you. I was just curious.”

  Capture him? How did they even know where he was, or that he was on his way back home?

  “I was going for a stroll,” Kal said. “A rather long one. Why were you there? Not enough innocent lives to destroy back home?”

  The man laughed again. “You’re much funnier than your brother,” he said. “I thought he was supposed to be the clever one.”

  “What do you know of my brother?”

  “Maybe you aren’t as quick as him after all,” Sayak said. “He hired us. To harry the common folk of Xandakar. He told us to be as ruthless as we liked, and he paid well.”

  Thalia trembled beneath the sand. This didn’t make any sense. Why would Kal’s brother send the snake clan halfway across the continent to murder whole villages?

  “He also paid us to stop you,” Sayak said. “He said that he poisoned you, made you lose your memories. But as insurance he slid a sliver of enchanted moonstone under one of your armor’s scales. It was enchanted by Mola, our shaman.”

  He nodded to a wrinkled crone holding herself upright with a gnarled wooden staff taller than herself. Her skin looked dryer than the wood or the sand around them, her face ancient and wrinkled. But her eyes were black and bright.

  “We knew where you were every step of the way,” Sayak said. “We have no idea why you went where you did. Though when you started to head back this way, we figured maybe you had started to remember. It’s what your brother warned us about. Mola used her dark magic to make this storm, to bring you down.”

  “And now here we are,” Kal said. “All caught up. What would you do with me now that we've come face-to-face?”

  The men raised spears and bows, arrows notched. Would any of those weapons even pierce Kal’s armor?

  “We’ve been paid to subdue you,” Sayak said. “I believe that was the word your brother used. But he didn’t say we couldn’t have a bit of fun until he got here, as long as you’re still alive when he arrives.”

  “Sorry you wasted your time,” Kal said. “I’ll take my chances in the storm.”

  He flapped his wings, and Thalia felt the sand blow over her. She shook enough off to watch what happened next.

  Kal pushed up from the sand, meaning to launch into the air. But Sayak yelled and the arrows and spears began to let loose.

  At first Thalia thought the men were just poor shots. The arrows flew well over Kal’s head and wings. He must have thought so too.

  But then she saw him slow, his wings seeming to become tangled in something she couldn’t see. Then she saw the light shimmering off strands criss-crossed over Kal.

  The arrows and spears had some thin but terribly strong rope attached to them. They didn’t mean to hit him with the tips of their projectiles, but to create a net overhead that would keep him from escaping.

  Thalia watched in horror as Kal stopped ascending and started to fall back down, flailing like an awkward puppet. She saw an orange glow form at the base of his long neck, then move along its length. Kal began to open his jaws.

  But Sayak stepped forward, taking from his belt what looked like a trio of shiny brass balls, each hanging from its own rope. In a smooth series of motions he raised his arm and spun the balls so that they spun overhead. Then he let them fly at Kal’s head.

  The weapon whirled through the air, the ropes twirling around Kal’s jaws and snapping them shut with a loud clack. She saw with dismay that the men were driving the shafts of their spears deep into the sand, anchoring them.

  Kal fell back down to the earth, slamming hard enough to throw up a fresh wave of sand and make a noise that sounded like thunder. Thalia winced.

  Once he was down, the men moved in quickly but cautiously, cinching the thin ropes tighter so that he was forced to curl up. Sayak took one of his men’s spears and stepped up to Kal’s neck. He put the tip of the spear at the base of Kal's throat.

  “I’ve never killed a dragon before,” Sayak said. “But lore has it there’s a soft spot right around here.” He pushed the tip of the spear up under the scales and Kal flinched. Thalia could almost feel the tip of the spear at her own throat.

  No, she thought. Please don’t. She wanted to spring up out of the sand and help him. But that would probably only get her killed. So she watched helplessly.

  The storm had died down and was almost gone. She could see and hear everything much more clearly now.

  “Or,” Sayak said, “You could shift into human f
orm. Then there would be no need to kill you. Not yet.”

  Thalia saw Kal struggle against the ropes binding him, his jaws trying to open against the weapon wrapped around them. He snorted, black smoke puffing out of both nostrils. The air smelled like burning coal. She could see the anger and frustration in Kal’s eyes. But it was over. He had lost.

  Sayak pushed the spear forward just a tiny bit, and a trickle of blood ran from under the red scale.

  Kal relented. He began to shrink, his claws withdrawing, his jaw shortening. Soon he was a man again, lying curled in the sand. Once his transformation was complete, half a dozen men fell on him, kicking him and hitting him with the shafts of their spears. Kal tried to curl up and cover his head, but the men were relentless, hitting him in any open spot they could find.

  Sayak let the beating go on for a few minutes, then he cried out. “Enough.” The men stopped immediately. “Bind him.”

  The thin strands of rope had loosened once his body had become human. Now, bloodied and bruised, they secured his hands and feet.

  Sayak picked up a strand of the thin white rope and held it up as his men tied up Kal. “Do you know what this is?” he asked.

  Kal looked up at him and Thalia struggled not to let out a whimper. One of Kal's eyes was swollen shut. The other still blazed with contempt, but he didn’t say a word.

  “Razor silk, they call it,” Sayak said, dropping the strand and letting it float to the sand. “There’s a mage deep in the swamps down south who raises the spiders who make it. They’re as big as wolves, those spiders, and black as midnight. When he’s ready to harvest, he pins them down with long silver needles through all eight of their legs. He says the pain makes the silk stronger. Not sure I believe that. Then he sits behind them with a great spindle and draws this stuff out of them.”

  Thalia had never heard such a story. The idea made her skin crawl.