“Morning,” he said cheerfully. “Just you?”
“Marcus is missing.”
“Where did you lose him?” He stood on the pedals, frowning.
“He went to the palace and broke in, I think,” she started. “Can you get me inside?”
“If he got caught stealing, they’ll chop off his hands for sure,” he returned grimly. “The Queen’s man would have hung him. What was he after? Gold, jewels?”
“A scroll.”
“He risked his life for a piece of paper?” Evril was agape at the idea.
“It’s a very important piece of paper,” she defended. “A friend’s life, his very existence waits on it.”
“How much is it worth to you? I mean, how much would you pay for it?”
“Why? Do you know something that can help us?”
“Maybe. Meet me here in two hours.” He pedaled off and was gone in the early morning crowd of people on their way to market, work or worship. She saw that there were a great many soldiers out on the streets and that they were questioning everyone but especially children. Roelle disappeared into the sanctuary of the library.
*****
Marcus sat on a metal cot that hinged off the wall when in use and folded neatly back into it when not. He was fascinated at the simplicity of it and the relatively clean and comfortable cell. True, the walls and floor were stone but he wasn’t manacled to it and he had a cushion on the cot. Also his own chamber pot that flushed to remove wastes. He spent some time playing with that and the guards watched him indulgently.
“Our King has brought some new ideas with him,” the younger Dales man said. “Lucky for you. See that rust colored stain by your foot?” Marcus looked down. “That’s the blood from the last occupants who pissed off the former Queen. She had both hands, both feet and finally his head removed. And he didn’t have no fancy pot to piss in.” Marcus swallowed and waited. He knew a few spells he could perform without the regular components but suspicioned if he tried without the proper protection, he’d be fried. No one had searched him and he still had several lock picking slats in his boots. He couldn’t use them while he was being watched.
He knew when shift changed; he heard the handing over of keys and exchange of gossip, the different voices of new men. It wasn’t long after that a jangling individual approached his cell and motioned for him to get up and stick his hands through the bars. Where he was promptly manacled. Two more guards opened the bars, unlocked him, pushed him out and placed wrist cuffs and anklets on him. Punched him once in the belly so that he fell over breathless and then dragged him down the stone corridor that was the cliché of all dungeons – dark, guttering torches, dank, smoky and with a hulking figure waiting in the light at the far end. He could hear screams and clenched his legs together so he wouldn’t pee his pants. Resolved not to say anything about Raven, Roelle or the quest.
The man at the end was a giant of a brute, even larger than Murphy. Marcus had heard Raven’s nightmares and knew what a Thrid looked like and he was very much afraid that this hulking beast was one. His courage faltered as he was dragged into a torture chamber and locked into a four-point restraint on the wall.
“Oh Unicorn,” he whispered and barely heard the guard tell the torturer.
“No maiming, no limb tearing and no killing, the king ordered,” the guard said and with a squeamish look on his bland face, hurried out of the room. It wasn’t too long after that, screams that curdled the blood echoed down the halls and the other prisoners in the cells prayed fervently that they weren’t next.
Chapter 20
I didn’t like carrying the two of them, he fidgeted and she was cruel, using me to show off. I burned and killed so many of her enemies that it numbed me. Finally, she had me set down on a vast plain that surrounded the city of Minsk and the leaders came out to surrender. Ryan’s army was vast but he only used smaller shock troops. I was astonished to learn that many of them were Marines from shadow earth that he had managed to transport here and like Amber, none of their automatic weapons worked. Nothing explosive would detonate. They had mastered instead, crossbows and ballistas and the like. But it was the devastation wrought by me that made the city elders give up.
Minsk was the second-largest city on that side of the range and ruled by a King. His War Generals had advocated battle but after I destroyed half their legions in one blow without a scratch, they had ceded defeat.
They rode out on golden horses, the King and his last Ministers, his Generals and the Crown Prince who was no more than a boy. I was suddenly frightened at the look in Jasra’s eyes when she spotted the golden haired youth. His face was pretty enough to be a porcelain doll and I could see he was afraid but hiding it. I rustled my wings and Jasra jerked the chain she kept tethered to my neck collar. The party stopped some distance away from me, their mounts skittish and terrified at my scent and size.
“Get down and walk,” she commanded and they did so, the King with evident pain in his knees and back. At his side, a worn sword bumped him. Even from this distance I could see the nicks and dents on the steel edge. The General stepped forward as if to protect one or the both of them.
“Caldor, General Amaranth,” Ryan stated. “Unconditional surrender are the only terms we will accept.”
The King nodded, his visage worn and weary. His son had his golden looks and sea green eyes with dark lashes of almost feminine allure. Both were dressed in deep purple tunics, navy wool breeches and high boots. Silver spurs, usable swords and a belt of golden links. The boy carried a bow and a quiver full of arrows hung from his saddle.
“You can have everything in the city, Jasra,” he said wearily. “Just don’t burn any more of my people with the vicious beast.”
Jasra laughed. “It’s not the beast that’s vicious, Caldor,” she sneered. “But me. Raven–.”
“No,” I said and backed up. “No. I won’t kill a child, not face-to-face. You can’t make me do this.” I reared up and hissed at the child’s mount sending the terrified horse galloping off as if its tail was on fire. In seconds, it was gone and one of their soldiers went after them. When Jasra tried to send hers, I swept them aside with my tail. She beat me with the chain and as it struck my scales, the magic infused in the links burned me, burned holes through to my flesh. She pinned me to the ground with lances so that I was like a bug on a mounting board. I cried out in defiance and she slew the king herself. She stood over me with his blood dripping from his own blade and his head hanging from her hands. “Raze the city,” she commanded. “Hang the Royal family, the Generals and the Officers. The treasury is yours, Ryan. Take slaves if you wish but I don’t want one brick standing on another once we leave here.”
“The Dragon, Jasra?” He asked.
“He’s beginning to be more trouble than he’s worth,” she spat.
“You need him against Random’s forces,” he reminded.
“I need him obedient,” she retorted. She paused. “There were rumors that a talisman of power was in the hands of Caldor’s family. Find it.”
“What does it look like?”
“It’ll be something like a crown or collar. Perhaps a necklace with an odd stone and it’ll be in the treasury with other important items.”
“What about the Dragon and the child?” Ryan asked.
“Neither one will get far.” She opened her bag and pulled out a twist of paper which she popped into my face. I breathed deep of the yellow pollen and felt my will falter under the influence of the drug.
Before night fell, I saw Jasra’s men come back and heard their whispered conversations over the campfires. The Army had camped outside the fallen city, most near my prostrate form as if they feared the darkness more than me. She did not feed me, nor shrink me and the lances that skewered me to the ground were magicked, draining more of my spirit than I could replenish this far from Amber’s soil.
She had soldiers drag human corpses near me as if to mock my hunger pangs but not even if I were starving to death
would I eat of humans knowingly. Cannibalism was one taboo I would not break.
They mocked me all through the night and I was unable to rest, unable to do more than thrash my tail on the ground. Dawn brought the Red Witch’s man to my side and he held his blade casually in his hand as he stared down at me. “Are you ready to yield, Dragon?” He asked quietly.
“I will not kill anymore,” I whispered. “Though you end me for it, I will not kill anymore.”
“You have no choice, you must obey the will of the spell or perish.”
“Then I will perish.”
“She will destroy all that you care for.”
“What do you care?” I retorted. “You’re as bad as she is.”
“I do not want her to die, Dragon and if she persists in this revenge scheme, she will die. Random or Luke will grind her into the ground even with you under her control. If I turn you loose, will you flee this place?”
“I cannot flee, I am bound to her side unless she releases me. Or–.” I paused.
“What? Or what?”
“She dies and breaks the bond.”
“Not gonna happen. I’ll see you dead first,” he promised. He grabbed the chain and twisted it so that my slack was down to inches. He ordered the soldiers to pull out the lances and showed them how to twist them between the upper joints of my wings so that I was unable to open them, tied all four legs together and last, muzzled me.
Using a team of horses (six in all) they dragged me to the front entrance of the city Gates and attached the chain to a massive steel bolt embedded deep into the bedrock of the mountain. There, they left me. Like Cerberus tethered to the Gates of Hell.
Every day, the soldiers threw more bodies over the walls in front of me. Men, women and children. I burned their corpses in a funeral pyre those I couldn’t reach and dug graves for those that I could. For each and every body, I made a mark on the wall of stone so that somewhere, someone knew of her atrocities.
Slowly, I starved to death as my mind fractured over the need to obey her and the desperation not to give into that need.
Eventually, I became too comatose to move and the soldiers grew bold enough to use me for an outpost. Riders came in from other villages with messages of surrender to Jasra. Once they heard of Caldor’s death and Minsk’s destruction, many folded. Her armies grew immense and many came to see the Dragon that she had humbled.
Even children no longer feared me, they clambered over me pulling at my scales and horns. Some tried to pry scales loose but their knives broke on my hide. Unless one was lucky enough to find a spot were Jasra’s magicked lances had pierced. Those areas had not healed and were vulnerable.
I had been lying on the door sill of the main gate for three weeks when I smelled something that just managed to pique my curiosity. I opened my eye (covered with the third eyelid so the brats couldn’t damage my eye) to stare at a youngster dressed in an old cloak. He was holding the reins of a large pony that an old man was riding. He was blind, gray-haired and filthy. As were both of them.
“Let us pass,” the boy said and flipped his hood down. I saw sea green eyes, fair skin and brown curls that looked as if they came from a pigsty. Smelled like it too but I recognized those eyes and his scent, even under the filth. Standing before me was the child that had escaped Jasra’s wrath and his companion was one of Caldor’s Generals, no less.
“Go away,” I hissed. “If you’re caught, you’re dead.”
“You risked your own life to save mine,” the child shrugged.
I gaped. Which in a Dragon was a scary sight as it exposed my teeth to all. He was not a ‘he’ at all but a she–Caldor’s daughter and the last of his line.
The soldiers that remained near me laughed at my feeble display of arrogance warning her that although I might be feeble, I was not toothless. That she was in danger.
“He does not eat humans,” she retorted. “If you knew your Dragon Lore, you would know that.”
“Dragon Lore? What do you know of Dragon lore?” I recognized this guard, he was one of those that had served between Ryan and Jasra. I wondered what he had done to merit babysitting duty with me, ignoble task at that.
“I come from Lehte, we study the Creatures of Chaos there,” she returned. “This man is one of the last teachers left alive. He fled from the war only to meet it head on.”
“Well, get going before the Dragon mauls you. Although, I doubt he has the strength left.” The soldier stepped close and poked me with his sword, jabbing at the spots where the lance had skewered me. Over the weeks I have been tied here, they had discovered where I hurt most and mocked me. Fresh blood stained the tip of his point. I barely moved.
“It’s starving to death,” she said in horror. Looked around but I had incinerated the last batch of corpses even though I was nearly out of flames.
“Tegan, get down please,” she said and pulled the old man’s robes. Before I could blink, she’d cut the throat of the pony and blood splayed across my face nearly blinding me. The fresh scent of blood and meat roused me and instinctively, I snapped, devouring the beast in two gulps.
The soldier yelled and went after the pair with his lance but I managed to grab both of them tossing them behind me and covered them with my wings. “Come get them if you dare,” I hissed standing up to my full height. Smoke puffed out between my teeth and nostrils but only I knew the emptiness in my fire pouch.
“I thought you said you wouldn’t kill humans,” the guard stuttered and backed up.
I roared and he nearly fell over. “I won’t eat you, fool. I never said I wouldn’t kill you.” I lunged and he ran so fast that he never saw my forward movement become a full-fledged flop onto my belly and face. Behind me, the pair climbed over my splayed wings to approach my head. I felt the edge of a wineskin slip between my gums and rich, raw red wine slid harshly down my throat. Enough so that I could feel my tissues absorb it. Mundavian red from the border of Moravia. I opened my eye and stared into the girl’s face.
“Who are you?” She barely heard my whisper. She laid her hand just above my eye ridge and I saw the tattoo of a star on her wrist.
“My name is Lyndseye, it means the Lost Star. What’s yours?”
“Raven. You better turn around and run before he brings his buddies.”
“We came to rescue you, sir Dragon.”
“Prince.”
“What?”
“Prince Dragon. My father is the King. I’m sorry I ate your horse. I like horses but I was so hungry. I am so hungry, I could eat a horse. Another, I mean. Are there any more? Horses? I won’t eat you, you know. I can’t. It would be like eating myself. My kind. I’m not really sure what kind I am anymore. You should run. And the blind dude, too. Know what it means to be blind. Blind in one eye.”
“Hush,” she said and did things to my collar. “We have only a little time to free you. It will be dark soon.”
“Can’t free me. I’m chained to this rock and to the Red Witch. She spelled me,” I explained.
“Linz, he’s delirious. Are you sure he’s strong enough for this?” The blind man spoke and I looked at him. His eyes were now a sharp, piercing green laser.
“He has to or we’re all doomed. Prince Dragon, I gave you an antidote to the Atarax pollen but it will only work for short while. We have to be away before that.”
“Shrink me,” I thought and thought I said it. Spoke again and this time, she understood me. She said she was no mage or wizard but the spell was a simple one and I told her how to reverse it. She stood over me and said the words twice, catching me in her hands as I dwindled to the size of a finch. Carefully, she bundled me inside her hat and tucked me into her bodice next to her heart. I could hear the reassuring thump of it and the heat from her body dragged me down into a warm dark place.
Chapter 21
Evril poked her in the back, no mean feat when she was leaning against the wall of a bookstore as she waited for his return. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the shop. It was
filled with books, scrolls and magazines, tables and chairs to read at of which several were occupied with scribes transposing letters for clients who could not read or write. They barely looked up at the pair. “He’s in there. Got caught by the King and in the King’s own study. Fine thief your friend turned out to be,” he said disgusted.
“Will they…hang him?’ Roelle’s face was white.
“No. Nor chop his hands off. Our King Luke expressly forbade it. Still, they put the torturer to him. So far–hey, are you all right?” Evril caught her as she fainted, dragged her to the nearest chair (which was occupied but he dumped out the rear end that was in it) to place the girl as comfortably as he could. Ordered one of the clerks to fetch the bookbinder and some cold water. Roelle came to only seconds later to find a crowd of worried faces surrounding her and Evril patting her cheeks with cool cloths.
“My bag,” she muttered, ashamed at her weakness. “Ammonia spirits work better.” She dug into her pack to pull up the vial of orange glass, unstopped it and took a whiff. The pungent odor of ammonia cleared all of the heads and stuffy noses, too.
“Sorry,” she muttered and the bookbinder patted her hands.
“Bad news?” He asked kindly. “Evril always did have a knack for delivering it badly. I’m Evraign, the idiot’s uncle.”
“Roelle. My…friend was caught in the Palace.”
“And you asked Ev for help rescuing him?” At her open-mouthed stare, he shrugged. “I can help you more than he. I have plans and papers on all the Palace buildings. We were with the resistance before our King Luke defeated Jasra.”
“Oh,” was all she said.
*****
They were deep into the forest and on their fifth day before the company reached the first clearing. It had been rudely hacked out of the wood with axes, and comprised only about an acre in size. Grass had just barely begun to grow and the horses cropped it down to near dirt in minutes. Weathered stumps were all that remained of the trees and new saplings had started to encroach on the edges. Old campfire rings dotted the center but there were no structures of any kind, not even a rude lean-to.
The squad could have continued but both the General and Corwin decided to camp giving the men and horses a break from the monotony of trees, trees and more trees.
Black Dragon of Amber Book Two: The Road to Amber Page 12
