Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (14 page)

‘You were saying—’ Ben began.

Before Kalina could reply, a familiar sound tore through the still night air: a screeching
kyyyrrrrk
that battered their eardrums. Back in the direction of Refuge, something had stirred.

‘Oh no, no, no,’ Ben moaned, holding his weapon out in front of him, point down like he no longer wanted it. ‘I told you that it was after me and the sword!’

The Blade of Banos glittered in the moonlight, except for some dark spots where the bloodsteel was dulled by stains. An odd tangy smell hit Kalina’s nostrils.

‘It's not the sword it can sense,’ she told Ben. ‘It can smell the blood of its young on the blade.’ She took the sword out of Ben’s loose grip and hurled it into the river.

‘Now run!’ she ordered.

Kalina sprinted off along the path. Ben snapped out of his daze and tried to catch up. ‘Run where?’ he shouted after her, breathlessly.

‘I know a place!’

They ran downriver at full pelt for half a mile, and made it to the grove of willow trees just in time. Kalina and Ben collapsed in the damp dirt at the foot of Mena’s Mirror just as the dragon landed on top of the willows. The trees bent and creaked, but the branches were woven together too tightly for the dragon to get its claws down to them. It continued roaring and flapping around outside for some time.

Ben sat with his head in his hands. He looked defeated already. ‘What are we going to do, Kal?’ he said. ‘Trees aren’t going to protect us for long.’

Kal knew that they were doomed, yet for some reason she was calm. Maybe the terror had run its course. Maybe the sanctuary of Mena had a soothing influence.

‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘and we’re not going to be able to sneak out of here either this time, that’s for sure. Ben, you need to think back over everything you’ve ever read or heard—try and remember anything from history or legend that might be relevant. There must be something in one of your old stories that can help us.’

Kalina couldn’t believe what she was considering, but it was do-or-die time now.

‘If you ever want me to show you where your ancestor is buried, then I need to know how to kill this dragon.’

V.vi

Sabotage

The black rock tunnels were tight and suffocating. Kal’s mouth was bone-dry; the last time that she had tasted water on her lips was when she and Rafe were climbing the mountain. Gron Darklaw’s sharpfin supper had been succulent, alright, but heavily salted. She tried hard not to think about what it would feel like to gulp down cold clear spring water; dreaming of it would just make her feel worse.

And now she was lost. The twisting, turning tunnels all looked the same. There was noise and heat coming from all directions. It had been impossible to remember the route the guards had followed when she was being carried along, hung between them like a piece of meat, her nose sometimes scraping the ground. Somehow she had to find a way to stop Darklaw’s men from sailing off to murder the new governor. But how was she going to do that? There was no time to make her way back to the mainland to warn anyone. She could think of only one thing that would cause the hobgoblins to call off their attack.

She had to do what Rafe tried and failed to do; she had to kill Gron Darklaw.

If she could ever find him! Kal continued on, taking the passages that led down deeper into the mountain. If Darklaw wasn’t still on his little island, then maybe she could sail his boat out to the swamp. Or if the boat wasn’t there, then there was that main tunnel up from the lava lake that all the other routes branched off from. Kal stopped for breath at a Y-shaped junction and brushed her damp fringe out of her eyes. If, if, if! But in her favour was the fact that Darklaw didn’t know that she was coming. A surprise blade in his back would take him down easy enough!

A stinging hot wind hit Kal from out of the left passage. She could hear echoes of shouts, and the clamour of machinery, as if there was a large open space down that way. She could also detect a faint pale light. Kal decided to take a look. What she discovered at the end of the tunnel wasn’t another big cave or chamber, but an immense shaft.

The gold mine was more than a hundred yards across. Far above, several shafts of sunlight filtered in from cracks in the mountain. The natural light was barely enough to reach down to Kal’s level, though, and below her the shaft disappeared into a darkness that was scattered with pin-prick flashes of torchlight. The walls of the shaft were smooth dark granite, criss-crossed with grey seams of quartz that caught the sun and glittered.

On Kal’s side of the shaft, a wooden scaffold hugged the wall; an intricate lattice of ladders and platforms that was crawling with short, hunched goblins on their way up and down the mine. They ignored Kal as they trudged to work. Were they happier now under Darklaw’s regime than under Benedict’s? Did they even know or care that the mine had changed hands?

As Kal watched the goblins, she noticed that the scaffold served another purpose: it supported a network of metal pipes that were attached to the underside of the wooden boards that the miners walked along. The pipes were about eighteen inches thick and ran in and out of caves and tunnels in the walls of the shaft; in other places they were bolted vertically to the rock; and here and there Kal spotted cast iron junction boxes where three or more pipes intersected. She put a hand on the pipe that ran along the wall on her level; it was hot to the touch, too hot to rest her palm against for more than a second.

The pipework seemed new. Was this some innovation of Darklaw’s? Further along the scaffold she saw a goblin at a junction box turning a heavy iron wheel, like the sort found at the helm of a ship. As the goblin turned it one way, a hissing head of steam was released from a pipe above the goblin’s head. As he then put his weight into turning the wheel back the other way, a loud clanking sound started up. Kal looked up and saw the arm of an enormous crane swing out over the shaft. A wide platform was descending on chains. As it passed her, Kal could see that it was empty now, but would no doubt return filled with rocks. It seemed that Darklaw had harnessed the heat of the mountain to mine deeper and more efficiently than ever before.

Kal could only shake her head at the intellect and innovation that was wasted in a man like Gron Darklaw; a man who in other circumstances would have been an asset to the Senate … to humanity, even. Instead he channelled his keen mind into plans of death and destruction.

When the goblin at the controls had moved on, Kal ran along the scaffold and past the control wheel, until she came to a new tunnel that led away from the shaft and back up into the mountain. This one had a track for minecarts, so surely it would lead her back to more recognisable territory, if not directly to the mine entrance. There was a cart waiting, linked to the tracks by a long chain. A metal pipe also ran up the side of the tunnel, and there was another control station with levers as well as a wheel. So the goblins no longer had to
push
the minecarts—perhaps Darklaw’s new regime wasn’t entirely to their detriment after all.

Kal laughed to herself as she briefly considered riding the cart up the track, but that would surely throw the only advantage she had—that nobody knew she was loose—out of the window. Even so, she couldn’t resist a peek into the cart. It was loaded with fist-sized chunks of quartz that sparkled with gold. She took one and weighed it in her hand. The concentration of gold looked unusually high—maybe as much as half the weight of the rock. Idle thoughts crossed her mind: could she somehow complete her mission
and
escape the island with a few chunks of quartz? Ben would never have to know …

She kicked herself mentally and hurried on up the tunnel. What good was gold to anyone if you were dead? Kal tried to put all thoughts of gold and riches out of her mind and attempted to focus on finding Darklaw. Soon enough she reached a wooden bridge where the minecart track passed over a wide thoroughfare below. Gron Darklaw and a squad of his hobgoblin soldiers had just passed underneath. He was briefing them as they walked; as they continued up the main tunnel, Kal could just about make out talk of map coordinates and schedules. Two of the men were rolling barrels of pitch along behind the rest of the squad.

When they had disappeared out of sight, Kal prepared to drop down off the bridge and follow them. But she couldn’t help thinking of what she had seen back in the gold mine.
Don’t think about it
, she told herself.
It’s a stupid idea!

But what if she couldn’t create a chance to kill Darklaw? What if she just had to abandon the plan and run? She was only one person against an army after all—so why shouldn’t she take the easy option?

Kal cursed under her breath as she made a final decision. ‘Sorry, Ben,’ she muttered under her breath as she turned and ran back down the track to the shaft.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Kal came back up the track with a heavy sack over her shoulder. When she reached the main tunnel again she dropped down from the bridge and stashed her load in the shadow of a fold of rock.
Now to take care of Darklaw.
She needed to get close to him, but not so close that he could smell her this time. Just close enough to put a dagger in his back, and then make her escape amid the confusion that would hopefully follow. Kal slipped off her sandals to silence her approach—she often went barefoot, so her soles were toughened—and then hurried up the tunnel.

She found Darklaw and his men in a cavern that opened out onto the swamp. The slight hint of a breeze that brought in the rotten egg smell of the mangroves was a welcome relief. Three small galleys, their low masts almost scraping the cavern roof, were docked in deep rectangular channels that had been cut into the cavern floor. Kal dropped behind a stack of barrels and spied through the gaps. Darklaw was about thirty feet away with his back to her. It was a fair distance for a knife throw: any further and a quick and clean kill would be impossible.

The big man was still wearing his black tunic and hose from dinner, but he now carried his cruel bastard sword at his back. His squad stood rigidly to attention in front of him, their unruly wildness held in check by Darklaw’s commanding presence. They stood in silence in front of the ramp up to one of the galleys, waiting to board. Darklaw’s next-in-command looked nervous; he was looking anxiously around the cavern as if waiting for someone. A small rumbling tremor hit the mountain, but the men were so used to it, and so disciplined, that they ignored it.

‘You are two men short, Gurik,’ Darklaw growled. ‘Who is missing?’

‘Fug and Jeg, Sir,’ the hobgoblin replied. ‘They were last seen taking a prisoner—’

Kal’s window of opportunity was about to slam shut if she didn’t act now. In one movement she stood up from behind the barrels and let fly with one of her daggers, almost falling forward as she put her weight behind the throw. She knew her aim was good as soon as the dagger left her hand: the eight-inch blade was heading straight for the back of Darklaw’s neck. There was no time for him to avoid it …

… except that he did. At the last moment he casually tilted his head to one side, and Kal’s dagger flew past and instead struck the one called Gurik right between the eyes, killing him instantly. Darklaw didn’t even turn around as he proceeded to issue orders to his men. ‘Seal the exits!’ he barked. The hobgoblins started to run in all different directions at the same time Kal did. Three blocked her escape into the swamp; on impulse she ran over to the nearest galley and prepared to dive into the dock.

Kal pulled up short so fast that she fell onto her back.
It was a dry dock.
The gates out to the channel through the swamp were closed—if she had dived she would have cracked her skull on the rock ten feet down. When she picked herself up and turned around, she found the squad of troops surrounding her in a wide semi-circle. Darklaw himself stood with them, a grim look on his face.

He drew his bastard sword, the same sword that had felled Rafe. ‘It pains me to say it,’ he sighed, ‘but there comes a time in every relationship where you just have to cut your losses and put an end to it.’

‘Didn’t you notice that’s what I’ve been trying to do!’ Kal shot back.

One of the soldiers came hurrying over. ‘Sir, we found this hidden just down the tunnel.’ He dropped Kal’s heavy sack at Darklaw’s feet.

Darklaw’s yellow eyes narrowed and he hissed. ‘You would not only kill me in cold blood, Moonheart, but you would steal from me, too! That which I would have gladly given to you freely! I misjudged you: you have no honour, no shame and no pride. I was a fool to pursue you!’

Kal spat at the floor between her and her nemesis. As if in answer, the mountain began to shake once more.

Darklaw was so incensed that he couldn’t even speak. He kicked at the sack and spilled the contents all over the cavern floor.

But it wasn’t gold-flecked rocks of quartz that spread out between Darklaw and Kal, but variously-shaped pieces of cast iron: levers and handles, wheels and bolts.

Darklaw’s face froze in surprise as he stared at the debris. The mountain continued to shake.

‘What have you done?’ he said to Kal in a low voice.

‘Ended your invasion,’ she replied as the ground buckled beneath them and chunks of rock began to fall from above.

V.vii

Flames

The dragon landed at the edge of the treeline. With its jaws it gripped the trunk of a thick oak, then wrenched the ancient tree back and forth until its roots were pulled from the earth. The dragon then smashed the whole tree down, breaking it in two. Holding it in place with a foot, it attacked the branches with its teeth, ripping them from the trunk four or five at a time.

Kalina watched the show from just inside the entrance tunnel to the willow grove. ‘What’s it doing?’ Ben asked from within.