by Martha Carr
The Drow Grew Stronger
Goth Drow™ Book Four
Martha Carr
Michael Anderle
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2020 Martha Carr and Michael Anderle
Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design
http://jcalebdesign.com / [email protected]
A Michael Anderle Production
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US Edition, August, 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-1-64971-109-0
Print ISBN: 978-1-64971-110-6
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Free Books
Author Notes - Martha Carr
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Connect with The Authors
Other Books By Martha Carr
Books By Michael Anderle
The Drow Grew Stronger Team
Thanks to the JIT Readers
Angel LaVey
Daniel Weigert
Deb Mader
Diane L. Smith
Jackey Hankard-Brodie
John Ashmore
Kerry Mortimer
Larry Omans
Paul Westman
Peter Manis
Veronica Stephan-Miller
If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!
Editor
The Skyhunter Editing Team
Dedications
From Martha
To everyone who still believes in magic
and all the possibilities that holds.
To all the readers who make this
entire ride so much fun.
And to my son, Louie and so many wonderful friends who remind me all the time of what
really matters and how wonderful
life can be in any given moment.
From Michael
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
To Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
To Live The Life We Are
Called.
Chapter One
This can’t be real. None of this is actually happening right now, is it?
Cheyenne Summerlin stalked through the corridors of black stone, blinking at the bright code scrolling across the walls. Grimacing at the distraction, she reached behind her ear and ripped off the silver activator coil. The code flickered and disappeared with the buzzing pinch that still made her eyes water. She jammed the activator into her coat pocket and kept moving.
Beside her, L’zar Verdys moved with long, purposeful strides away from the Heart at the center of Hangivol. The drow thief stood tall, his hands clasped behind his back and a daring, infuriating smirk on his dark-gray lips.
“Look at this,” he muttered, gesturing toward the crowd of snarling magicals gathering in the wide archway of a branching corridor on their left. “They look happy, don’t they?”
Cheyenne stared expressionlessly at the Crown’s servants and attendants cramming into the archway, who were shoving each other against the black walls. “Happy enough to jump out and try to rip us to shreds.”
“Oh, they could try, yes.” L’zar raised his eyebrows at the sneering, hissing magicals glaring at them, a multitude of races, skin colors, and facial features. He didn’t even bother to lower his voice when he passed a foot from the archway. “Then they’d find themselves at the foot of the deathflame with nothing but oblivion to greet them there.”
A slavering rat-faced skaxen drew her head back and spat violently at L’zar. The drow’s fingers flicked toward the furious servant in a fraction of a second, sending the foamy wad of spittle flying back toward its owner, where it landed with a grotesque smack. The skaxen screamed and reeled away from the corridor, clamping both clawed orange hands to her eye and pushing through the crowd to withdraw the way she’d come. No one else said a word.
L’zar clasped his hands behind his back and kept up his brisk but unhurried pace through the Crown’s inner fortress in the center of Ambar’ogúl’s capital. “You know, for the first time, I think I like the way things are headed in this place.”
On the other side of Cheyenne, Ember Gaderow snorted. “Because no one can do anything to stop you.”
The drow chuckled and cast the fae girl a sidelong glance. “They wouldn’t have been able to anyway. The only difference is they know it now. It’s about time the willing slaves in this place pulled their heads out of their beloved Crown’s ass and opened their eyes to the truth.”
And he thinks the truth is that he’s much better than she is. I’m still not buying it.
Cheyenne and Ember shared a quick glance, and the fae girl shrugged.
They followed L’zar down too
many twisting corridors for Cheyenne to count until they finally stopped at two broad metal doors the same black as the walls, stretching a full twelve feet up to the equally black ceiling. The drow turned toward his daughter and her fae Nós Aní and dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Ladies, I believe our reception awaits.”
“What are you talking about?” Cheyenne stopped when he slammed both hands against the doors and pushed them open into the room beyond. The Crown might not be able to do anything to him, but I sure as hell can.
L’zar marched into the room as the massive doors thumped against the walls. Dozens of low black metal tables lined the wide, tall room, each of them with matching benches like picnic tables. Every surface was cluttered with every type of magical and non-magical weapon imaginable, daggers, maces, clubs, swords, throwing stars, axes spears. Mixed in with these were the same floating metal orbs the Crown had sent out into the city’s multiple rising levels, both for the affluent and the lower-class citizens alike, to keep her not-so-loyal subjects in line. Cheyenne’s fingers slid around the cold metal coils of the activator in her pocket, but she didn’t need to put it on again to know that these pieces of weaponized tech were dead. For now.
Standing around all the tables and benches, either cleaning the weapons or testing them or simply hefting them in their hands, were at least fifty O’gúl soldiers, all orcs. Some looked like they’d been a part of the fight in the Heart’s courtyard less than twenty minutes ago. Others were fresher-looking as if they’d joined the party in the weapons room and had missed all the fun before Cheyenne returned her drow coin to the altar. All of them glared at L’zar, practically skipping down the center aisle between the metal tables toward the double doors on the opposite end of the room.
The first orc they passed thumped a metal club against his meaty palm and snarled. “Nilsch úcat.”
L’zar looked quickly at the orc and feigned insult, leaning away and placing a mocking hand to his chest. “Who, me?”
“Nobody wants you here, Weaver.”
“She’ll grind you to dust before the end.”
“Blood and fire, nilsch úcat.”
“The next time any of us see your face, it’ll be in the halls of the unmarked dead!”
The snarling, growling curses flew faster from the orcs’ mouths, growing in volume until they were all shouting after L’zar, spit flying from between their protruding tusks with the force of their hatred. The drow didn’t change his pace across the room, meeting many of the soldiers’ gazes and dipping his head in approval, grinning as if they were congratulating him for his efforts instead. One orc at the far end of the room got so worked up, he swung a wickedly sharp ax back in a wide arc and sent it crashing into the metal table in front of him with a roar. Sparks flew, and the table dented significantly beneath his blow. By the time L’zar reached that table, the orc’s chest was heaving as he scowled at the drow, thick spit flying in strands around his tusks.
L’zar stopped, looked the orc over from head to toe, and dipped his head. “Nice arm.”
The weapons room echoed with unintelligible curses and O’gúleesh obscenities. Cheyenne and Ember stopped behind L’zar as his gaze wandered over the other set of doors in front of him. The halfling turned to glare right back at the enraged soldiers and raised an eyebrow. “They’re gettin’ worked up over this. Over you.”
“Ah.” L’zar passed his hand over a section of the metal doors, then looked over his shoulder at his daughter. “This is nothing. Wait ‘til we get outside.”
Great.
Cheyenne glanced at Ember, who flinched when another orc pounded some heavy metal weapon into a table or a bench with an echoing clang. Then she looked at the halfling with the ghost of a smile. “Even you’re not this much of a sore loser.”
“At least we can make that distinction.”
An unseen heavy metal lock slid aside within the doors’ mechanism, and L’zar pressed his hands against the metal surface before leaning back to peer at the screaming, roaring soldiers behind them. “You only have a fortnight. Don’t waste it.”
Then he shoved open the doors, and the mid-afternoon light from the open streets of Hangivol’s inner circle spilled into the weapons room. The instant L’zar, Cheyenne, and Ember stepped outside, the orcs launched their weapons at the heavy doors that were slowly swinging back inward. The blades smashed into the slabs, glancing off with deafening echoes of metal on metal. A spear struck the door and stuck fast, the shaft quivering at the impact. The deadly blade of a war ax stuck into the very edge of one slowly closing door a second before a black metal dagger whistled through the air, spinning hilt over point as it passed through the last four inches of space between the doors and sailed over Cheyenne’s shoulder.
On instinct, she slipped into drow speed and turned slightly to snatch the suspended dagger from the air. When she returned to normal speed, the doors of the Crown’s fortress shut with a resounding boom behind her. She scowled at the dagger in her clenched fist.
L’zar glanced at it and raised his eyebrows. “Feels like you just reached into a frozen body and ripped out an icy heart, doesn’t it?”
“Quit saying crazy shit like that.” Cheyenne chucked the dagger at the ground and stuck her hand in her jacket pocket to hide her urge to wipe it on something.
“Honor, Cu’ón!” A drow man in a dark-blue, shimmering suit cut at weirdly sharp angles lifted a fist in the air and shot a blast of silver and black light toward the magical dome stretching high above the entire city of Hangivol. The spell raced toward the dome and the gray-filtered light and crackled against the shielded wall with a muted hiss.
L’zar met the other drow’s gaze, stepped forward on his heel with the toe of his borrowed Earthside shoe pointing straight up, and spread his arms in an exaggerated bow.
The other drow chuckled as his cry of recognition was taken up by the dozens of other drow stepping out of dark, shimmering doorways. They each sent a blast of their magic into the dome until the filtered light dimmed beneath the hissing crackle of impact and the dark streaks of magic racing across the curving wall of the shield for every citizen of Hangivol to see.
Cheyenne’s mouth popped open at the sight of so many other drow gathered in the square outside the Crown’s fortress. She immediately forced it shut again but couldn’t help but stare at all the glowing eyes and bone-white hair and slate-gray skin like her own. They were all well-dressed, standing tall and dipping their heads toward L’zar and his daughter as the Cu’ón led the way through the square. I had no idea there were this many.
A drow woman with white hair falling past her hips, wearing a gauzy dress so low-cut it might as well have been a halfway-open robe, grinned at Cheyenne. The feral hunger in the drow woman’s gaze made the halfling look quickly away. Apparently, L’zar’s not the only one who’s mastered that look.
The drow in the low-cut dress slammed the heel of her fist against the closest wall with a metallic clang. One by one, the other drow took up the weird greeting, wordlessly striking dark fists or open hands on the metal walls, doors, and doorframes. It wasn’t nearly as unruly and chaotic as the other times O’gúleesh had gone full-creepy on Cheyenne by banging on metal. The magicals here struck over and over in a slow rhythm as they grinned at the two drow and the fae crossing the square to make their way to the outer rings of the capital.
L’zar threw his head back and laughed. Then he stepped sideways away from Cheyenne and spread his arms again, gesturing toward her like a crier clearing the streets in front of some medieval lord. “The Aranél returns!”
The other drow took up the cry.
“Honor, Aranél!”
“She is seen!”
“Mór úcare!”
Cheyenne frowned when she heard the last one. “Why are they calling me that?”
“That’s what you are.” L’zar grinned. “Cheyenne, the Weaver’s daughter. Dark child returned. Princess of Ambar’ogúl!” The drow spread his arms and pranced across the squ
are, turning in a slow circle as he moved and laughing back at all the drow who’d come to see them both.
Ember grimaced. “He’s much crazier than I thought.”
“Tell me about it.” Cheyenne frowned at her father and snorted when he delivered bow after exaggerated, moronic bow to the drow in every direction. “The loyalists called me that. Mór úcare.”
“I’m guessing that’s the ‘dark child returned’ part.”
The halfling scrunched her nose and watched her drow father’s crazed antics as they reached the other side of the square. “And Aranél is ‘princess.’ They keep throwing these words around in front of me, and I’m too dense to pick up on any of it.”