The Curse of the Phoenix Crown

by C. L. Werner

  There would be a reckoning for this. Rundin swore by the rage of Grimnir himself that the elgi would be made to atone for this atrocity. ‘By the blood of my ancestors, the tall-ears will pay!’ he roared. Around him, the stunned warriors of Kazad Kro muttered similar oaths.

  It was Furgil who drew their attention away from the burning earth and back to the sky. ‘One of the drakk,’ he shouted.

  Indeed, one of the dragons, perhaps as stunned and confused by the explosion as the dwarfs, was soaring above the devastation. Its flight kept it from the three airships that had been away to the flank of Kazad Mingol, but not beyond the range of the last of King Snorri’s companions.

  Nadri’s Retribution, Rundin read in runes upon the ship’s hull. The skryzan-harbark was away to the dragon’s flank when her crew loosed its missiles at the wyrm. Staggered by the conflagration, shocked by the sudden annihilation of half their fleet, the aim of the artillerists wasn’t precise. Only one of the bolts struck the drakk, a glancing shot that exploded against the beast’s wing. Rundin saw the injured wyrm swing away, then start to slip from the sky as the green fire gnawed through its leathery pinion.

  ‘They’re leaving!’ one of Rundin’s warriors cried out. It was true. No doubt stunned and horrified by the destruction they had inadvertently wrought, the airships were in retreat, withdrawing back towards the south and the mountain holds. The elgi and their dragons were likewise gone, driven off by the ferocious display. Only the injured wyrm remained, slamming into the burning ground.

  ‘Then let’s finish the job they started,’ Rundin snarled, hands tightening about the haft of his axe. Furgil gave his friend a grim nod. The faces of the skarrenawi warriors were no less fierce.

  ‘Khazuk!’ they cried as they hurried after Rundin onto the hellish plain.

  There was a dragon that needed killing.

  The wyrm was a grisly sight when the dwarfs reached it. The fire from the airship’s bolt had scorched its left wing clear to the bone, and shreds of leather and sinew flapped as the beast thrashed and flailed. Splashes of green flame continued to smoulder against its side, gnawing at its thick scales like acid. Sluggish reptilian blood oozed from dozens of wounds, sizzling as it dripped onto the blackened earth. The elgi rider slumped in his saddle, either stunned or slain by the drakk’s travails.

  Once the dragon would have been an awesome, even terrifying sight. Over sixty feet long from its fanged snout to the end of its bifurcated tail, clothed in dark scales as thick as armour plate, sword-like claws tipping each of its talons. It was the sort of beast that crawled through the oldest legends, dared the boldest heroes. It was a monster birthed in the epic sagas of the most ancient days.

  Now it was neither awesome nor terrible to Rundin and the dwarfs who followed him. It was nothing but a vessel into which to pour their hate and fury, an enemy to be destroyed as the first small measure of the debt they would claim from the elves.

  ‘Khazuk!’ Rundin shouted as he charged across the smouldering ground. Soot covered his armour, the exposed flesh of his face and hands was blistered and raw, every breath he drew scorched his throat, but his hate would not be denied. This wyrm would die and it would die by his axe.

  Even through its agony, the dragon sensed Rundin. It reared back, its jaws gaping wide. Rundin flung himself flat as the drakk exhaled a gout of fire. The stink of charred flesh, the screams of burning dwarfs smashed against his senses. Then he was up again, swinging his axe, flinging himself at the monster.

  Rundin’s axe slashed deep into the beast’s jaw, ripping away a great flap of scaly flesh. Reeking reptilian blood gushed down his arms as he worried the blade against the dragon’s jawbone. Wailing in pain, the drakk lurched back, throwing its head high and dragging the dwarf after it. Rundin found himself suspended in midair for a moment, then his blood-slick hands lost their grip on the axe embedded in the brute’s jaw. Howling in protest, he crashed to the ground.

  Rundin scrambled as the dragon brought one of its huge claws stamping down, trying to crush him beneath its foot as he might have crushed a bug. He could see the elf rider, aware now of his peril, trying to direct the monster. For an instant, the eyes of dwarf and elf locked. He knew well the look in the eyes of his foe, that expression of hate so immense it transcended the urge to live. It was the gaze of the warrior who doesn’t expect to survive the battle but asks only that he send his enemy into the shadows first.

  Before the elf could goad his dragon back to the attack, he was in turn attacked. A hand axe slammed into the rider’s side, shearing through the singed ruin of his cloak and glancing from the charred mail beneath. Outrage flared across the elf’s lean features. He swiped his hand through the air. In response, the dragon swung out with its claw, swatting the lone dwarf who had hurled the axe at its rider. The strike threw the dwarf through the air, sending him tumbling across the smouldering ground in a tangle of crushed armour and broken bone.

  Something inside Rundin shattered as he watched the dwarf who had saved him die. It was the last gesture of friendship Furgil would ever make. There was nothing he could ever do to make amends to the ranger. All that was left was the honour of avenging his sacrifice.

  Uttering a howl more bestial than the dragon’s own roar, Rundin leapt at the monster. He caught hold of the reptile’s horned snout, swinging himself onto the top of its muzzle. The dragon whipped its head back and forth, trying to throw the dwarf loose, but Rundin only tightened his hold, smashing one of his boots into the beast’s nostril and digging his foot into the opening. Other skarrenawi were attacking the monster now, running at it from every quarter, hacking at it with their axes, bashing it with their hammers and mauls. A particularly telling strike against its burning side caused the dragon to forget the dwarf clinging to its snout for a moment. As it turned to deal with that enemy, Rundin seized the opportunity to reach down and rip his axe clear from its jaw.

  The dragon reared back, hissing in pain as Rundin freed his weapon. While it was still shrieking, he brought the axe slashing across its eye. Muck spilled from the stricken orb, ribbons of jelly clinging to the head of Rundin’s axe. He pulled back for another blow.

  In that instant, Rundin felt his shoulder explode in pain. He looked over to see the elf standing on the dragon’s snout, his sword piercing the dwarf’s flesh. There was such a look of murderous fury in the elf’s eyes as Rundin had never seen before. As he met that gaze, however, he noticed the blood streaming from the rider’s left eye, the same eye as his dragon.

  A cruel smile crept beneath Rundin’s beard. Maybe he could use whatever magic bound elf to dragon. Viciously, he kicked out with his foot, feeling something snap inside the drakk’s nose. The elf lurched back in sudden pain, his hand flying to his own nose.

  An instant’s distraction was all Rundin needed. As the elf reeled, he swung out with his axe, chopping through his enemy’s sword arm. The mutilated elf screamed as his body hurtled earthwards. The empathic bond between him and the dragon caused the beast to rise up, shrieking anew in its agony.

  Rundin held tight, watching as the elf was crushed as the dragon came slamming back down. The beast shrieked again as its master was pulverised beneath its weight. The dwarf dug his foot into the brute’s nose again and glared into its eye.

  ‘You’ll join your master soon enough,’ he snarled at the beast. Glancing down at Furgil’s shattered body, Rundin released his hold on the dragon’s horn. Both hands gripping his axe, the full weight and momentum of his armoured body behind the blow, he brought his blade slamming down between the dragon’s eyes.

  The dwarf was sent flying as the dragon bucked beneath him. He slammed onto his back a dozen yards away. He could feel the ground shudder as the dragon started after him. The reptile couldn’t close the distance, however, before its great bulk slumped against the earth. Blood and brains gushed from the gash in its skull, oozing around the dwarf axe driven into its head.


  Rundin glared at the dead monster. Only dimly did he hear the jubilant cheers of his surviving warriors. It was no mean feat to slay a dragon, much less one of the terrible beasts the elgi had brought from across the sea.

  To Rundin, however, it was a hollow triumph. It didn’t make up for all the dwarf lives he had seen extinguished this day. It didn’t make up for Furgil. It would take much more blood – both elgi and drakk – to fill that emptiness.

  If the War of Vengeance were to last another hundred years, Rundin didn’t think he could ever spill enough blood to balance the scales.

  Chapter Two

  The Legacy of Princes

  237th year of the reign of Caledor II

  What is the secret?

  That question had long plagued Thoriol of Tor Caled. It had haunted his thoughts and dreams for years, feeding his feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. He’d tried to escape – how he had tried. He’d embraced the anonymity of a simple archer, fled across the great ocean to the distant colonies of Elthin Arvan in a fruitless quest for peace.

  Destiny was not so easily cheated. The blood of his line seemed to call out to its own. When he’d reached Tor Alessi, his father was already there. Almost alone among the asur nobility, Prince Imladrik had tried one last time to end the war between elves and dwarfs. Morgrim Bargrum and his army wouldn’t be dissuaded. After a few days, the dwarfs laid siege to the city.

  Unknown to his father, Thoriol had been one of the warriors defending the walls of Tor Alessi. When the dwarfs smashed their way through, Thoriol had been wounded trying to hold the breach. But for his father, he knew he would have died like so many others. It was Imladrik who’d commanded the best healers and mages in Tor Alessi to attend his son’s injuries. Thoriol still felt the sting of shame at such preferential treatment.

  Resentment had coloured his last meeting with his father. That memory stabbed deep into Thoriol’s heart. While recovering from his wounds in the tower Imladrik had spoken with him. At the time, Thoriol had refused to listen, refused to understand. Imladrik’s fears about Tor Caled, about the future of their line, had rung hollow to him. All of Imladrik’s talk of duty and the obligation of noble heritage had seemed meaningless. Thoriol could see only the advantages and privilege of his highborn status, things he felt himself unworthy of.

  Thoriol looked about the room in which he sat, studying the finery of the appointments. Gold and jewels glistened at him from every quarter, set into the delicate woodwork that edged each window and door, inlaid into the feet of silk-cushioned divans and satin-lined footstools. Decanters of wine rested atop a silver-armed bar cabinet, each fashioned from diamond, pearl and ruby. Lush rugs were spread across the floor, their intricate designs woven by master artisans in Eataine employing thread from lands beyond the Capes of Dusk and Dawn. Nowhere in all of Kor Evril was there such finery as that within the Dragontamer’s halls.

  ‘Dragontamer.’ Thoriol whispered the word, letting it fall like bitter venom from his tongue. His ancestor had been the Dragontamer, mighty Caledor himself, who roused the dragons and forged the alliance between drake and asur. That talent had passed to Imladrik, the one the dragons called kalamn-­talaen: the little lord. The one the asur had titled Master of Dragons.

  How desperately his father had hoped the same affinity coursed through Thoriol’s veins. The last time he had been in Kor Evril it had been to accompany Imladrik into the Dragonspine, to attend the awakening of one of the drakes. Thoriol had tried to commune with the dragon as she took wing, tried to employ the ancient dragonsong to establish harmony between their minds. For a brief moment he had dared to share his father’s hopes. When the connection failed to manifest, when the dragon rejected his communion, Thoriol had seen the disappointment in his father’s eyes. In that instant, he knew there was nothing he could ever do to live up to his legacy.

  Now the Master of Dragons was gone, killed by Morgrim Bargrum, the same warlord whose army had besieged Tor Alessi and whose warriors had nearly slain Thoriol. For this feat, Thoriol understood that the dwarfs had bestowed upon Morgrim the title ‘Elfdoom’.

  The desire to avenge his father was a cold fire deep within Thoriol’s heart, tempered only by the understanding that he had neither the skills nor resources to bring about such a reckoning. He was the heir of his father’s house, but that was all. He was no great leader of armies. He was no dragon rider. Even the scholarly skills and political acuity of his mother, Yethanial, were beyond him.

  The young asur prince looked longingly at the decanters of wine. There was solace there, the peace of forgetfulness and oblivion, if only for a few hours. He shook his head, well aware of how hollow such an escape was. The bottle offered only the illusion of peace, a dull delusion to take the edge from a painful reality. He would find no answers there, only a deeper kind of shame.

  A sharp knock on the chamber door drew Thoriol’s eyes away from the bar cabinet. A steward appointed in the livery of Tor Caled appeared as the door swung inwards. In a crisp, sharp voice, the servant announced the elf who followed behind him. ‘Lord Caradryel of House Reveniol.’

  The visitor was a tall, blond-haired highborn, his features handsome but edged with a determination that bespoke either great boldness or great pride. Over the past few years, Thoriol had come to appreciate that Caradryel possessed both qualities in abundance. The prince had taken service with Yethanial, acting as her agent among the great houses of Ulthuan. Sometimes his duties extended as high as the court of Caledor II or as low as the seclusion of the king’s nephew.

  ‘My Lord Thoriol,’ Caradryel greeted the prince with a courtly bow. As he straightened, he passed a gloved hand across the breast of his tunic, smoothing the rumpled silk.

  ‘My Lord Caradryel,’ Thoriol replied with a modicum of civility. Despite the trust his mother had invested in the silver-­tongued dignitary, Thoriol couldn’t shake his dislike of the highborn. The two of them couldn’t be more dissimilar. Thoriol found the privileges of nobility something of an embarrassment. Caradryel revelled in them, savouring each moment, relishing all the ornamental foolishness of courtly courtesy and noble tradition. They were like the moons – Thoriol dark and brooding, Caradryel bright and brilliant.

  ‘It is always an honour to be received with such munificence in Kor Evril,’ Caradryel said as the steward closed the door behind him.

  Thoriol arched an eyebrow at his visitor’s remark. ‘I extend no more courtesy to you than I would any other guest.’

  ‘I am certain of that,’ Caradryel said. He plucked at the sleeve of his tunic. ‘You know, I have an entire wardrobe devoted solely to these visits.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Thoriol sank down in one of the divans and waved his guest to seat himself. ‘I was unaware that you anticipated your time here with such ardour.’

  Caradryel glanced around for a moment, then took a chair that afforded him a view of both the prince and a window looking out upon the mountains. ‘There is a distinct atmosphere about this place that never quite abandons a garment once it has been exposed to it.’ He smiled and bowed his head in apology. ‘It isn’t every circumstance where it is appropriate to go about smelling like dragon.’

  ‘You should discuss your wardrobe with my mother,’ Thoriol suggested. ‘I am sure she has other errands she could entrust you with.’

  Caradryel maintained an attitude of affability, letting the slight slide off him with the practised indulgence of a diplomat. Instead, he simply smiled and raised a hand to his neck. ‘I fear I am not here as an agent of Lady Yethanial,’ he apologised. Gingerly, he lifted a gold necklace from beneath his tunic. Fastened to the chain was a ring of emerald and diamond. Thoriol’s eyes fastened upon the ring, gazing on it for an instant in undisguised shock.

  ‘This visit is at the request of King Caledor II,’ Caradryel announced. He allowed Thoriol a moment to recover from his surprise at seeing the royal signet. ‘I was summoned to the Phoenix
Tower three days ago during a visit to Lothern. The king, your uncle, has expressed his desire that you should join his court.’ Caradryel raised his eyes to the ceiling, as though trying to recall the king’s words from memory, though Thoriol was certain they were as vibrant in the diplomat’s mind as though set there in letters of fire. ‘He feels that you have spent too much time pining away in the Dragonspine. He believes that your place is with him.’

  A scowl of resentment crept onto Thoriol’s face. ‘Where he can better keep his eye on me,’ he growled. For a long time there had been friction between the king and Imladrik, suspicions that the younger brother desired the crown of the elder. Yethanial believed such suspicions had been behind the king’s command that Imladrik return to the colonies – an order that had ultimately resulted in his father’s death.

  Caradryel shook his head. ‘I know you don’t care for me. The reasons why don’t matter. I know you believe me to be duplicitous and opportunistic. Perhaps such judgement isn’t entirely baseless. I have become so accustomed to courtly intrigue that I suppose it has seeped into my very bones. Your father’s strength was his ability to command. Your mother’s lies in her knowledge of lore and history. My strength is bound up in empty flattery and courtly lies. I would ask that you accept that I’m quite talented in my arena.’

  ‘I will concede that you are well versed in intrigue,’ Thoriol said, wondering what point Caradryel was trying to make.

  ‘Then perhaps you will also understand when I say to you that there are few asur who can deceive me,’ Caradryel said. ‘Something, some gesture or word, something said or unsaid, will always suggest their true motivations. I tell you now, Thoriol of Tor Caled, it isn’t suspicion behind the king’s request. If Caledor was suspicious of you, he wouldn’t send me in secret to ask you to join him. He would do as he did when he sent your father away. He would come to Kor Evril with his full entourage. He wouldn’t ask in secret, he would command it in public.’