Hush (Dragon Apocalypse)

HUSH

BOOK TWO
of the
DRAGON APOCALYPSE

JAMES MAXEY

SOLARIS

First published 2012 by Solaris

an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

Riverside House, Osney Mead,

Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

www.solarisbooks.com

ISBN (ePUB): 978-1-84997-370-0

ISBN (MOBI): 978-1-84997-371-7

Copyright © 2012 James Maxey

Cover Art by Gerard Miley

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Also by James Maxey

Books of the Dragon Age

Bitterwood

Dragonforge

Dragonseed

The Dragon Apocalypse

Greatshadow

Hush

Witchbreaker
(coming soon)

For Dona and Jesse,

explorers of abstract realms.

CHAPTER ONE

A DANGEROUS SPLINTER

A
PRINCESS, A
shape-shifter, and a ghost walked into a bar.

The room fell silent as all eyes turned toward the princess. The bar was the
Black Swan
, the most prestigious saloon in the boat city of Commonground. While the house wasn’t as packed as it would be come midnight, there were scores of hardcore gamblers crowded around the poker tables. Ordinarily, you could march a two-headed tiger through the joint and the players wouldn’t glance up from their cards. They made an exception for the princess, known in these parts as Infidel, who was much more dangerous than a tiger, no matter how many heads it might have.

Infidel was an imposing figure as she stood in the doorway with the evening sun providing a backdrop. The first thing anyone would notice about her was that she wore her three decades well, with sculpted curves, generous platinum curls, and enigmatic gray eyes. The money-hungry men in the room wouldn’t linger long on her face, however. She was dressed in the priceless Immaculate Attire, crafted for Queen Alabaster Brightmoon nearly three centuries before. Formed from the hide of the last unicorn, the legendary armor was milky white and trimmed with silver. The enchanted leather clung to Infidel’s body like a second skin. Slung over her shoulder was another famed artifact of the Silver Isles, the Gloryhammer, glowing with a pale white light.

Despite her impressive armaments, it was Infidel’s reputation that brought the room to a standstill. On her first night in this bar, ten years ago, she’d ripped the arm off a bruiser twice her size. The whole town soon learned that the young woman possessed magical strength and skin so tough that swords couldn’t scratch her. Of course, even as her fame grew, her beauty tempted many a fool to a place an unwelcome hand upon her. Commonground possesses an unusually high population of one-armed sailors.

I say this as the biggest fool of all. My name is Abstemious Merchant, though everyone in Commonground called me Stagger. For ten years, I was Infidel’s constant companion, moon-eyed in my adoration, but far too cowardly to confess my love. Yet fate can be kind to fools and cowards. Beneath Infidel’s white leather gauntlet, on her left hand, she wears a ring of woven gray hair. This is my hair. I wear a matching small braid of platinum-hued locks. These serve as our wedding bands, since at the time of our betrothal there were no jewelers handy.

Fate’s kindness, you see, is balanced by a wicked sense of humor. In this unfolding joke, I’m the ghost. In death, as in life, I follow her everywhere.

As a phantom, I’m unseen and unheard. If I could have spoken to Infidel, I would have advised her to wear a cloak and cowl into this place, despite the tropical heat outside. Wearing the Immaculate Attire in this city of thieves was the equivalent of walking through a lion’s den wearing a suit sewn from steaks. Worse, someone in this town might be smart enough to ask why she was bothering to wear armor at all. She’d recently lost her magical strength and invulnerability. If word spread, her former enemies would turn out in droves. Plus, as her husband, I wasn’t thrilled with the way the skintight armor accented her breathtaking assets. For supposedly Immaculate Attire, the outfit certainly lent itself to dirty thoughts.

Infidel’s silver-trimmed boots clicked on the polished oak floor as she walked across the room. Ordinarily stone-faced poker players openly gawked and drooled, though I tried to assure myself they were hungering for the Gloryhammer in all its refulgent splendor. Glorystones are fragments of the sun. They’re rarer than diamonds and twice as hard. The Gloryhammer is literally priceless; all the gold in the world couldn’t buy it. The Tower clan, a family of famous knights, had passed down the weapon for generations. Alas, the last surviving man of the line had recently been reduced to soot. Infidel now owned the hammer, under the legal precedent of finders, keepers.

Infidel didn’t look back at the gawking crowd as she arrived at the bar. Battle Ox was bartending. Battle was a half-seed, meaning his mother had visited a blood house to imbue her yet-to-be conceived child with animalistic traits. If the magic was done properly, a half-seed ox child would be big, strong, and tenacious. Do the magic wrong, and you get Battle Ox – a full blown minotaur with horns wider than his considerably broad shoulders.

In the more civilized parts of the world, an infant born with a bovine face would have been put to death as a horrid abomination against nature. In Commonground, Battle’s visage seldom merited a second glance. Despite the name inflicted by the pun-happy denizens of Commonground, Battle was a rather gentle vegetarian. While he would willingly eject a rowdy patron if the need arose, his true calling in life was drawing beers with perfect heads of foam. My mouth watered at the smell of the amber fluid.

Battle nodded at my wife. “A lot of people here won’t be happy to see you back” he said, in his gruff, bass voice. “Odds were running ten-to-one that Greatshadow would fry you.”

Infidel leaned on the bar. “How did anyone know we were going to slay the dragon? The mission was a secret.”

Battle shrugged as he picked up a glass and a towel. “The Black Swan started taking bets on the outcome of your dragon-hunt the second you left town. The volcano’s been belching lava for the last week, so we figured Greatshadow is still alive.”

“Well, maybe he is and maybe he isn’t,” she said. “The Black Swan will get the full details. Tell her I need to see her. Now.”

Battle put down the glass he was cleaning. “You ever learn the word ‘please’?”

“Don’t mess with me. I’ve got one hour to get back to the
Freewind
and don’t have time to waste. I’ve got something the Black Swan needs to see immediately.”

Battle shook his furry head. “No can do. She’s already in a meeting. Going to be a lot longer than an hour.”

Infidel unclasped the top three buttons of her leather armor and peeled it back, showing the top of her cleavage. Battle’s eyes bulged.

“You see this?” Infidel pointed to a black speck the size of an apple seed that nestled in the ampleness of her décolletage.

“Uh...,” said Battle, his mouth hanging open.

“This is Menagerie. What’s left of him.”

Remember the shape-shifter who came into the bar with us? Menagerie used to be the most feared mercenary in Commonground. A blood-magician of unparalleled skill, Menagerie could turn into any of the scores of animals that used to decorate his tattooed flesh. Menagerie had barely survived our dragon hunt. Since shape-shifting into tick form, he’d yet to change back into a man. A telepath of our acquaintance informed us that Menagerie had been so traumatized by his brush with death that his mind was shattered.

Battle couldn’t know any of this, of course, but Infidel didn’t have to produce any further explanations. Men are willing to believe almost anything while they’re looking at a woman’s breasts.

“I’m the only one that can hear him since he’s latched onto me,” she said, while his eyes were fixed on her. “The Black Swan has a potion that will change him back to human, and he has to drink it within the next five minutes or he’ll die. Do you want to tell the Black Swan she’s lost her most valuable employee because you were too timid to interrupt a meeting?”

Battle frowned. No, no he did not want this, was what I was seeing in his eyes. But he also looked as if he had his doubts. Infidel wasn’t particularly gifted at lying. If Battle asked any follow-up questions, Infidel would probably be in trouble.