The Princess's Dragon (38 page)

Tolmac had once known a great fighter, a human with the skill to kill a man with his bare hands and the wisdom to avoid doing so. This man belonged to a people that respected Tolmac’s kind, and the man treated him as though his presence was a great honor. That man was a highly regarded warrior in his lands where he taught many others his art.

On a whim, Tolmac assumed the form of a human and went to learn the methods this great teacher taught. It was the first and last time Tolmac ever took human form. He learned many things from his instructor: he learned to use his new body as a weapon, to move in silence, to fight with honor and courage, and, lastly, to grieve as humans do. In the end, the man, now old and dying, told Tolmac that it was his honor to teach a dragon his humble art.

Tolmac could only reply that it was his honor to learn, not in the least surprised that the man had seen through his human form.

Tolmac had never been close to that warrior, not as he was with Ulrick, but he remembered that human as being the first he ever respected, and so it was this reason and his memory of the man that inspired Tolmac to take on his former teacher’s youthful form when he once again assumed the appearance of a man.

He looked at Ulrick, struggled a bit to remember how to form the words he wished to speak with fleshy lips, and finally bit out, “You must transport us back; I will need rest after the shape-change.” Ulrick smiled triumphantly, raised his staff, and called out, “Two trips back to Ariva, coming right up. Give us a hand, Ethelda!” A strong wind swept through the lair, picked up both men, and sent them flying at high speed toward Terroc’s Ring and the Valley of Ariva.

Over a cycle later, the spires of ice known for so long as Aquea’s Teeth shattered, firing shards into the Frozen Sea for miles around as the sound of a sonic shriek of rage reverberated through the waters, disintegrating any living creature within range. Aquea had returned and discovered Tolmac missing.

Once again, the fire god had escaped the clutches of the water goddess.

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CHAPTER 23

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This was the place. Lord Derek received a lucky break when he crossed the border into Halidor. In the small border town of Halinden, one evening spent listening to the gossip in the town’s only tavern led him to a man by the name of Black Jack. Th is man, according to

rumor, had received a fat purse of gold to steal away one of the royals that lived in Ariva. Th

e purpose of the kidnapping wasn’t mentioned, but the speculators assumed it was for ransom since the attempted invasion didn’t proceed as expected.

Derek kept his face concealed by his hood, and his body language warned anyone off, including the overly friendly tavern wenches. When he hunted down Black Jack, he discovered that the man earned his name from a lifetime spent living in the underground, performing odd jobs that may or may not be legal, depending on the amount of gold offered. He was a big man, formidable and strong, but he proved no match for Lord Derek, and the Warlord soon had his answers about where Sondra’s captors held her. Black Jack didn’t survive the interrogation, but he welcomed Morbidon’s reaper with open arms, more afraid of the brutal and lethal warrior than of death itself.

Derek learned that Prince Onian himself had ordered Sondra’s kidnapping and had specifically requested the youngest princess. It seemed that the prince believed that Sondra was a habitual shapeshifter, and he felt he could force or coerce her to join with him and use her dragon strength and magic against her own homeland.

Derek still didn’t understand how Sondra had become a dragon, but based on what he’d learned about Prince Onian, if she couldn’t do it again, things 228

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would not go well for her. That was the thought that harried him through the dying of the sun and into the night as he spurred his mount on to the prince’s country estate, a poorly maintained castle half a cycle’s ride from Halinden.

Fortunately for Derek, the prince wasn’t expecting an attack or rescue attempt within the borders of his own kingdom, and indeed the roads remained remarkably clear of guardsmen or soldiers. A small group of bandits did provide a brief delay but soon discovered it was in their best interests to flee in terror from the furious madman on horseback as he slaughtered them as effortlessly as he might swat a fly. After that, nothing impeded him.

He arrived at the weed-choked and overgrown castle grounds. The castle itself was little more than a dilapidated manor home, not actually a proper fortress, and Derek nearly sighed aloud in relief. The sun would be reborn in only a few hours, and he needed to find the princess and hopefully escape this gods-forsaken place before then.

Derek surveyed the area. A sickly yellow light barely illuminated the entrance to the manor, cast by the flickering flames from two sconces framing the iron-studded front door. He averted his eyes from the source of the light to avoid ruining his night vision and instead used its wan glow to seek out the sentries he suspected patrolled this area. Sure enough, he saw the first one stalk past, barely taking note of his surroundings, obviously bored with his sentry detail. Derek waited until a few minutes later, and another came by, moving stealthily, his head swinging from side to side as he searched the shadows. He also kept his eyes averted from the light of the entrance, and Derek grinned in anticipation. This guard might provide a challenge—something he was looking for after all the worry and frustration he’d suffered on his long, lonely ride.

He remained motionless as the guard passed after carefully scrutinizing the weeds and scrub brush that Derek crouched behind. Derek suspected that any movement or misjudgment on his part would send the guard crying out an alarm. Fortunately, he wasn’t spotted, and he prepared to attack, drawing his sword and moving out of his crouch, when another man appeared from the darkness, and in a blur of arms and legs, took the guard down as quickly and silently as the shadow he at first appeared to be. Derek fell back into a waiting crouch, surprised but unwilling to reveal his position before he evaluated this new threat and the purpose of the other man’s attack on the guard.

He struggled to discern the figure in the darkness. At first glance he might mistake the man for a woman because he wore his dark hair long, nearly down 230

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to his waist. It seemed to absorb the meager light from the entrance, but there was no mistaking his build. Though he was not as muscular or as large as Lord Derek, he moved with a lean, masculine grace that spoke of years of training and skill. He wore a long loose robe over equally loose trousers in a style Derek had never seen before. The man wore no armor and carried no weapon, but Derek had just seen him take out an alert and efficient guard without any sign of effort.

Derek waited to see what the man would do next, his grip still firm and steady on his own unsheathed blade, and his shield at the ready. The man paused, listening for the other sentry, and then dragged the unconscious guard to a clump of weeds, tucking him into the bushes with appalling ease.

He melted back into the shadows again when the second sentry came crunching by, his boots crushing dead foliage without a concern for stealth or caution. Derek would flay alive one of his own guards for such lazy and reckless behavior while on shift. The second sentry went down faster than the first at the skilled hands of the unknown man, and he didn’t bother to drag this one into the weeds. It seemed that he’d determined, as had Derek, that the prince did not feel the need for much caution this far into Halidor’s borders and had set only two patrols.

The man moved toward the entry but stopped and slowly turned, the light limning the edge of his features while concealing them in shadow. The hair on the back of Derek’s neck rose as he swore that the man’s unseen eyes pinned him where he crouched, supposedly well hidden. He froze and felt a deep chill at the flash of a red glow from where the man’s eyes should be, before the man swung soundlessly back to the door and entered stealthily, using a key he must have removed from one of the sentries.

Derek took a moment to regain his composure and push away his unease, telling himself that the man had not seen him, and the flash of red had been a reflection of light. Derek rose quietly from his crouch, for a moment envying the man his flawless silence as his own armor creaked gently despite how well he oiled and cared for it. He then took another quick survey, saw no movement, and heard only the song of the night insects. Convinced he was unwatched and unnoticed, he followed the man, pleased to discover the door still unlocked.

Just inside the door, Derek found another guard unconscious. It appeared the shadow man moved with more speed and less caution now as Derek searched the entry hall, his eyes gliding over the yellowed spidersilk walls,

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decaying staircase to the upper floors that didn’t look fit to hold his weight, dust and debris piled in corners like a filthy snowdrift, and scarred wooden floors which hinted that a basement lay below this ground level.

He ignored the upstairs, figuring the prisoner would be kept most likely in the basement; it was the first place he would check. The empty feeling of the obviously once grand manor house with its crumbling stone towers filled Derek with a sense of depression, an echo of the hopeless atmosphere that overlay the place. From what Derek knew of Prince Onian, this place suited the dictatorial heir to his father’s throne. The man had no use for luxury, as long as he had access to power and complete control over people.

Derek moved slowly over the floor, testing the boards carefully and hoping no creaks alerted anyone occupying the basement to his presence. He kept his mind off the fear of what Onian might be doing to the princess as he slowly crept over the floor and down the left hallway, eschewing the right wing and the center great hall littered with broken furniture and tattered hangings, in the hope of finding steps to the lower floor. Halfway down the hall, he came across another unconscious man and figured he was on the right track. A new fear assailed him as he wondered why this shadow man seemed to seek the same thing he did.

Derek continued down the hall, passing several splintering iron-bound wooden doors, before he found what he sought, at the very end of the long hall, where the moth-eaten red spidersilk carpet ended: the wooden floors gave way to a stone staircase that spiraled down. Light from sconces on the steps filtered into the murky shadows of the hallway. Here, two guards slumped against the wall. When Derek passed them he realized that neither of them breathed, yet there wasn’t a mark on them to explain what killed them. He noticed that neither guard had had a chance to draw his weapon or protect himself with the shields now rolled against the wall. The shadow man moved quickly and with deadly efficiency. Still, if Derek must meet the man in combat, at least he would not be taken by surprise, and the man would find him far more formidable than a few bored guards pulling a night -shift detail.

Again, he pondered what the shadow man sought as he continued down the stairs, his own leather boots barely making a sound on the narrow stone steps. The heavy atmosphere of the basement level seemed to suck up any sound and swallowed the light just a few steps from each torch sconce.

The basement steps led from a narrow stairwell to a wide-open stone 232

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floor cluttered with crates, bins, and barrels. Most appeared new and well kept, though some farther back were broken open and spilled out their contents of grains, rice, and rotting vegetation onto the relatively clean stone floor. A few desiccated mice corpses curled in the corners and against the walls of the room, and only a murmur of voices emanating from much deeper into the basement broke the stifling silence.

Derek followed the sound, his sword held close but ready to swing, his shield arm up as he slunk toward the other occupants, wending his way through a maze of boxes and clutter. He begrudged every sibilant sound his movements made. Though they sounded barely audible even to him, he imagined that each soft scrape or leathery creak exploded into the heavy silence like wizard fire.

As he moved closer, the soft murmurs of the people at the end of the basement grew louder and he realized that the underlying susurration he’d heard was chanting. Over the chanting he heard a strident, arrogant voice speaking very good Arivan with a cultured Halidorian accent.

That had to be the prince; Derek didn’t believe his chosen guards would speak fluent Arivan. It was still difficult to make out what the man was saying, and he wondered where the shadow man had disappeared. His hunch said the shadow man sought the same thing he did, and he would rip the man apart before he would allow Sondra to fall into his clutches.

Derek aimed for the final stack of crates, and he moved with agonizing caution as he focused on the people on the other side, hoping that he heard the princess among these men and praying that she remained unharmed. At the back of his mind, he felt the time slipping away from him and knew that his caution must be tempered with speed or some guard or servant might discover the fallen sentries.

Just as he lifted from his crouch to peer over the crates, an explosive din erupted amongst the people in the basement. He heard men grunting, the sound of steel unsheathing, and the distinctive thud of flesh meeting flesh in a flurry of kicks and punches. Suddenly, the chanting changed, growing frantic and increasing in volume. Derek felt sweat break out on his face. His stomach churned and he had to physically brace himself against the crates to avoid responding to the compelling sound of the chants. He heard a triumphant laugh from the prince, more steel unsheathing, and then a sound that made his heart stutter—a piercing female cry.

Derek jumped up; shook off the strange sensations caused by the chanting,

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and froze at the tableau that met his eyes. The princess stood chained to a wall, battered and dirty in a simple maid’s uniform. A series of runes were drawn around her; candles flickered and glowed where they sat strategically placed amongst the runes. At her feet, the shadow man crouched, locked in some internal struggle, his expression fierce, his unusual almond-shaped eyes glowing with a fiery red light, his waist-length black hair flowing around him, and his fists clenched in concentration.