Sorcery (Dragons & Magic Book 3)

by Dave Higgins

  “See you tomorrow,” Stephanie called over her shoulder as she dashed out the door.

  Peony shivered and dived into the bed. The cold sheets clung to her exposed limbs. Pulling them up under her chin, she hugged herself to get warm.

  She hoped her second day as ruler wouldn’t be so boring.

  * * *

  She was jerked from sleep by rough hands grabbing her. A scent like a privy mixed with hot metal seeped through her befuddled mind. For a moment, she thought it was a nightmare, but then adrenaline rushed through her and she knew it was real. The hands yanked her from the bed, a shadowy figure clutching each limb.

  “Guards! Guards!” Peony screamed.

  Torchlight spilling in from the corridor illuminated her kidnappers as they carried her across the room, revealing four men in smocks with hoods pulled low and scarves over their faces. A fifth led the way with his sword out.

  She threw herself around, trying to break free; but they were too strong. “Guards!”

  The carpet gave a splutch as they carried her through the door. A breath later, she noticed both guards sprawled on the floor, blood seeping from their unmoving bodies.

  She swallowed hard against the roiling in her stomach. She’d never seen anyone violently killed before. It wasn’t like when children played at being dead. Somehow she could tell they were lifeless, no longer humans.

  “Guards!” There were more than two guards in the castle; some of them had to be alive.

  The fifth man sheathed his sword, then pulled a vial from his pocket and yanked Peony’s hair. When she gasped, he poured the contents into her mouth.

  She spluttered, but the man put his hand in front of her mouth before she could spit the bitter liquid out. Everything turned fuzzy. The corridor wavered around her as the men resumed their furtive advance.

  “Peony!” Stephanie sprinted around a corner in her nightshirt. She wobbled and danced in Peony’s vision.

  The fifth man pulled his sword and strode toward Stephanie. Peony tried to stay awake, but her vision shrank to darkness.

  Chapter 7

  Headache

  Hundreds of hands shoved Peony, rolling and tossing her about until she felt sick. She tried to fight them, but her arms and legs wouldn’t respond. Then, all at once, everything fell away.

  A whiff of damp tickled her nose, followed by a squeezing sensation in her forehead. She focused on the ache, dragging herself free of her nightmare. Puzzled by sensation of hard boards beneath her and an odd rasping sound, she eased her eyes open.

  And regretted it at once. Light speared into her head, igniting the squeezing into stabbing and throbbing. Blinking through the pain, she considered the dust swirling above her; the chambermaids would be in serious trouble when her mother noticed how dirty the room was. And why hadn’t Stephanie woken—?

  The man with the sword…. Stephanie coming around the corner…. Peony’s stomach twisted. Had he killed her? They’d killed the guards without remorse. Adrenaline surging, she sat up.

  Rough wool tangled her arms. Someone had dressed her in tunic and hose. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?

  Sunlight crept between the gaps in a boarded-up window, revealing plain wooden walls and floor. The room was empty of furniture, only the fireplace in one wall indicating it had once been someone’s home. A young man lay nearby, his muscular chest rising and falling with each snore.

  She shuffled further away, leaving a trail in the dust. Propping her back against the wall, she peered at him. He seemed to be sleeping, but she didn’t trust that, not after what had happened. Not that dwelling on it would help, with danger so close by. With her palm against the damp wall, she levered herself to her feet and crept to the closest doorway.

  A short hall led to a door with a boarded-up window beside it. One hand rubbing her aching head, she padded forward and grabbed the handle.

  The door refused to budge. In the dim light, she made out the tips of nails poking through near the frame. Someone had nailed it shut, trapping her in with whoever the man was. She pressed one eye to a gap between the boards on the window, trying not to squint against the pain of direct sunlight.

  A slow-moving river flowed almost below the window. A stone wall held up the far bank, and beyond the wall a hundred people stood watching the house. Passing cups and plates to each other, they smiled and chatted like a crowd waiting for a show. Which probably wasn’t a good thing.

  Following the hall the other way, she found a kitchen at the rear of the house. Part of the inside wall had rotted and fallen. Through the gap, she saw the sleeping man hadn’t moved.

  She ignored him for the moment and walked to the back door of the house. Sure enough, it was nailed just as shut as the front door had been, and the windows at the back were boarded-up too. Someone wanted her stuck in the house with the man.

  She peered through a gap in the nearby window. The river flowed past the other side of the house too, and even more people lined the bank. She wasn’t just shut in; she was on an island of some sort.

  Her mind flitted through possibilities. If this was going to be a show, then there had to be something wrong with the man. She’d read of men who changed to beasts in the moonlight, but it was daytime outside. Perhaps he was insane, and they were waiting for him to kill her in some gruesome manner.

  This might be her only chance. He was far too big and muscular to beat when he woke, so she had to kill him now. She pulled a board from the wall.

  It came away easily enough, then crumbled to soggy fragments in her hand. What else was there?

  Her frantic gaze caught a rusty, bent nail lying nearby. It was old and tarnished, but still sharp. She could poke a hole in an artery and he’d bleed out before he woke and hurt her.

  Returning to the living room, she eyed the man. He could be faking; but if he was, he was as good an actor as she was. Her groaned and twitched, on the verge of waking. Her time was running out. If she didn’t take her opportunity, it would be gone forever.

  She knelt beside him, holding the nail between her fingers and brushed her other hand along his neck, feeling for a pulse. The stumble on his jaw scratched and tickled her fingers and she couldn’t help looking at his face. Despite his ridiculous thin moustache, he was handsome. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, but his hair was already thinning. His eyebrows were wispy and arched even in sleep, curved like long raindrops toward the centre of his brow.

  He let out another groan and exhaled, sending her reeling back. His breath stank worse than anything she’d ever smelled before.

  “What did he eat?” she muttered to herself, waving her hand in front of her face.

  “Kippers.” The man opened his eyes. “But that was yesterday.”

  She scrambled back from the man as he sat up, rubbing his head. He looked around him and then got to his feet, wobbling a little as he stood. After digging his fingers into his crumpled brow, he stared at her. “What’s going on?”

  “I should be asking you.” She felt her confidence grow in response to his confusion. “I was drugged, kidnapped, and woke up here.”

  “They did it. They warned me; I didn’t think they’d go through with it, though.”

  Peony struggled upright. She barely came up to his chest. His broad, muscular chest, like a wall draped in wool.

  Confusion washed away those thoughts that had fought free of her headache. Taking a breath, she decided the only way through the situation was to break it down, the way her father always told her. “Let’s go back to the start. I’m Peony Moldi, Princess of Green Moss. Who are you?”

  “Rauger Witty, hunter.”

  “You said someone did it? What’s it?”

  He nodded. “It’s because I objected. They couldn’t stand it. It made them realise how evil what they were doing was.”

  “What were they doing? What was evil?”

  “The sacrifice.” Rauger met her gaze.

  Before she’d untangled his words enough to react, something
whumped onto the roof above them. This wasn’t going like her parents’ adventures; she was supposed to be the rescuer, not rescuee. “Is it a dragon?”

  “Worse. It’s Imperatis Erud’s minions.”

  Peony frowned. “Who’s Imperatis Erud?”

  Rauger’s eyes widened. “You don’t know? How could you not know?”

  She glanced up as heavy footsteps strode across the roof. “Let’s skip that and get to the part where you tell me who’s coming to get us.”

  “Imperatis Erud is a mind mage. His minions suck the wits from the wisest people and deliver that knowledge to him, leaving behind empty shells in their wake.”

  “I’m no wise woman.” She scowled at the ceiling. “I don’t have any knowledge.”

  He held his hand up. “Regardless, if we don’t find something to defend ourselves with, we’ll soon both be empty shells with no minds inside.”

  Someone wrenched boards loose from the front door. Peony cast about, looking for any sort of weapon. Unless their opponents were deathly allergic to chimneys or dust, there was nothing.

  “What’s that in your hand?” Rauger asked.

  She looked at the bent nail and blushed. “Nothing, just a nail.”

  “Give it here.”

  She hesitated for a moment, but it was no use to her now he was awake. And it didn’t seem like he wanted to attack her. Deciding to trust him, she reached out and dropped the nail into his palm.

  He held it in his right hand and reached up with his left to an amulet around his neck. Closing his eyes, he muttered, “The smallest pebbles can break the greatest walls.”

  Dust motes swirled away as the nail stretched and twisted. Moments later, he gripped a metre-long iron sword. A rusty sword with no edge and a bend halfway down.

  The front door of the house burst open, and three heavyset men wearing rough purple tunics sauntered in.

  Peony backed behind Rauger, who held his weapon ready to face the men.

  The men ignored the knives on their belts, pulling out cudgels instead. If they were going to drain her mind, they didn’t want to kill her first. Not that being bludgeoned would be any easier to ignore.

  Rauger swept his nail in front of him.

  With typical henchmen’s grins, the men fanned out as they stepped forward.

  Peony looked around the room again. If the men had stayed together, Rauger might have held them off; but each step they took forced him to swing wider. It was only a matter of time until he couldn’t defend both sides at once. And as soon as he was unconscious, they’d turn on her. She needed to join the fight.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she dived for the gap in the wall. Jagged wood scratched her flesh and tugged at her tunic, but she wriggled through. She hadn’t searched properly last time; she might have missed something. She didn’t have Rauger’s magic charm to grow anything, she needed something she could use as it was.

  Not bothering with the rotten boards in the wall, she ran to the dresser. Flinging the lower cupboards open, she discovered they were all empty. From the stiffness of the hinges her captors had stripped the place ages ago. She yanked the top cupboard open. Instead of the expected resistance, the left door came off in her hand. Pitching forward, it smacked her on the crown, before bouncing off her shoulder.

  She threw it aside and rubbed her head. Squinting against yet another ache, she looked into the cupboard. There was nothing there; nothing to use as a weapon.

  She glared down at the cupboard door lying on the floor. She’d been hit on the head for nothing.

  Then it struck her, metaphorically. If the cupboard was bare, she’d fight them with the cupboard itself. She picked up the door in both hands and sprinted along the hall to the living room.

  The men had Rauger backed into a corner. They couldn’t spread wide enough to flank him, but his sweeps were already less emphatic.

  She sneaked up behind the thug on the left and brought the cupboard door down on his head as hard as she could. With a dull tonk, the door juddered in her hands.

  To her surprise, the man collapsed. She’d never swung anything at a person in anger before. She’d only expected it to distract him.

  The two remaining henchmen glanced at her with wide eyes.

  Rauger roared and surged forward, ramming the point of his nail into a thug’s stomach. Before the last opponent could react, Rauger wrenched the nail out and launched a flurry of blows.

  The thug backed away, swinging his cudgel with one hand, while going for his knife with the other.

  But he didn’t make it. Nail gripped in both hands, Rauger lunged forward, planting the end in the man’s throat.

  The thug dropped his cudgel, hands grasping for the nail. Then, fingers slipping free, he folded backward. Gurgling, the man curled around his maimed throat.

  Peony fell back in fear, the stench of blood and bowels raising bile in her throat. The fury in Rauger’s eyes scared her more than the cold, dispassionate attack of the men.

  Then, as soon as it had appeared, the rage vanished, and he seemed calm again. The nail shrank, brown and orange flecks cascading to the floor as rust ate the metal away. As it crumbled to dust, Rauger dropped it. “That’s the price of the charm, it destroys whatever it changes.”

  She nodded, unwilling to trust her voice to reply. She was afraid he’d hear the tremor of her words.

  “It’s not over,” he said. “Orped the Piper, one of Imperatis’ mages, will be nearby. We need new weapons.”

  Peony held her cupboard door out to Rauger. He shook his head. Instead, he gathered a dropped cudgel from the ground. Stepping around the spreading blood, he took a knife for his left. She tossed the door aside and hurried to pick up her own cudgel and knife, gripping them.

  “Orped needs us unconscious to draw out our minds,” Rauger said. “So he’ll try to get close and knock us out. As long as we don’t mind killing him, we have the advantage.”

  She nodded with a conviction she didn’t feel. She’d never killed so much as a chicken, and Rauger expected her to stab someone?

  “Am I interrupting?” A man in a flowing purple cloak stepped through the front door. His hood concealed most of his features, leaving only the lower half of a grizzled beard visible.

  “Get behind me.” Rauger gestured to Peony.

  She didn’t hesitate. She’d take an opportunity if she could, but Rauger outmatched her in an open fight.

  As Rauger stepped toward Orped, the mage pulled a club from the folds of his cloak. Unlike the short cudgels the henchmen had used, Orped’s was knotted at the end and looked capable of cracking a skull.

  Rauger held his knife in front of him, cudgel tucked back, ready to strike.

  Twisting his wrist as he stepped forward, Orped swung his club past Rauger’s blade and smacked Rauger in the stomach.

  The hunter’s breath whooshed out and he staggered away, knife wavering.

  Orped pressed his advantage, dashing forward and clubbed Rauger on the temple. The hollow tonk sounded frighteningly loud.

  Weapons hanging loose, Rauger swayed back then fell onto his stomach.

  Before Peony could even see if he was still breathing, Orped rounded on her. She dropped her cudgel, face crumpling and tears burning her eyes. “Don’t hurt me, please. Don’t hurt me.”

  As Orped advanced… she retreated… until her back hit the wall. Still he came on, his club held lightly at his side. Now he was closer, she saw his eyes were deep red; as if every blood vessel in them had ruptured, turning the whites to scarlet. “I’ll do anything you want. Just please don’t hurt me.”

  A cloying sweetness drowned the scents of death as Orped strolled closer until he pressed against her. “Anything?”

  She brought up her left hand, the one with the knife, and stabbed Orped. The point sank into something, but she wasn’t sure what; so she pulled it back and did it again.

  And again. And again.

  His stupid mouth flapped, making his stupid beard wobble up and dow
n. Eyes wide, he took a step back.

  She stabbed him again, but the blood coating her hand made it too slick to keep a grip on the knife. So she changed hands.

  Sweeping her arm wide, she drove her blade into his left eye.

  Orped’s remaining eye rolled up as he collapsed into the folds of his purple cloak.

  She watched the knife as it slipped from her fingers and rotated end over end to the floor.

  How could she have done that? She’d always thought of herself as a good person, but she’d stabbed another human being. And she felt nothing.

  She bent over Orped’s body and wiped her hands. Wiping and staring, wiping and staring until every last trace of the blood was off them. After pushing him onto his back, she checked to make sure he was dead and then shuffled away.

  The sound of Rauger’s fingers scrabbling on the boards in front of him broke her reverie. She rushed over and rolled him onto his back, checking his eyes. The pupils were the same size, so he wasn’t seriously injured; but he seemed disoriented. He was likely concussed and unable to help her for a while.

  She’d have to deal with the next steps on her own. Orped and his three henchmen were dead, but someone would come for them soon. She didn’t want to kill anyone else, not if she could help it. Going back to Orped’s body, she took his knife from his belt but ignored the flute hanging beside it. Then she went to the front door and looked out.

  A wave of panicked muttering swept the crowd as more and more of them noticed her. She ignored them and looked around her. The house sat on an enormous raft, with a rope holding it to each bank. The raft shifted as she moved around the house, but not enough to slow her down. She hurried to the nearest rope and sawed at the thick fibres.

  Little pockets of the panicked crowd gained purpose.

  She hacked faster. As the last strands of rope snapped, the raft swung around.

  The house drifted closer to the other bank, making the outraged people seem to loom up. She ignored them and rushed to the other rope, sawing at it as quickly as she could. If the raft moved nearer, it would be only a moment before one of the braver people jumped onto it.