Dragon Forge: The Draconic Prophecies - Book Two

by James Wyatt

  Having found a destination, he set off as quickly as his legs would carry him.

  In his office the next day, Kelas leaned over his glowing crystal. Nara was smiling this time, a smile that reminded him of when she’d first taken him under her wing as a new recruit. He was pleased to bring her good news—very good news.

  “Queen Aurala has agreed to send troops into the Reaches. A full force.”

  Nara laughed, a cackle of raw delight. “So all Thuel’s talk of peace is undone, and I am vindicated at last.”

  The mention of Thuel made Kelas’s face fall. “Thuel is having me watched,” he said. “It’s getting harder to move around.”

  “Stay where you are, then. Do you still have agents you trust?”

  “I’ve never trusted an agent,” he said, echoing her teaching from so many years ago. Even as he said it, though, he thought of Haunderk. Reliable as the orbit of the twelve moons—but trustworthy? “Never. But I don’t think any of them are reporting back to Thuel.”

  “Use people outside the Eyes for anything important. But make sure the agents have things to do as well, or a traitor might report back that you’ve grown suspicious.”

  She wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already put in place, but it was comforting to hear his old mentor confirm his judgment.

  “And all is running smoothly at the forge?” she asked. “The dragons?”

  “The dragons are still cooperating. Their king is studying the shard while it’s not in use, but so far he seems content to stay and observe the situation as it develops.”

  “Why? If you’re giving him access to the shard, what’s to stop him from taking it and going back to Argonnessen, taking his dragons with him? Then we have no forge, and Aundair has no weapon.”

  “If he decides to take the shard, there’s little we could do to stop him in any case. I think he’s staying because he wants to see what happens. He’s very interested in what the Prophecy has to say about all this, and he’s going to stick around to see it all come true.”

  Nara frowned. She didn’t like being told there was nothing to be done—she wanted plans and backup plans constantly prepared. Kelas had some ideas about what to do if the dragon-king did leave with the shard, but he was confident it wouldn’t come to that.

  “What about the excoriate?”

  “The Thuranni is keeping him in a great deal of pain.”

  “Better to kill him. He must not escape, Kelas. You know that.”

  “Yes.” Gaven was physical proof of the power of the Dragon Forge. The Cannith heirs at the forge were already under close watch, as the people most likely to have qualms about their work. Jorlanna went along with the plan despite serious reservations. If Gaven escaped to show the dragonmarked Houses what Kelas was doing, the Dragon Forge would be leveled in a matter of days as every resource the Houses could muster was brought to bear against it.

  “When will Jorlanna and Wheldren go to the queen?”

  “In the morning. If all goes well, they’ll bring the queen to the forge the day after tomorrow for a personal demonstration.”

  “I think you should accompany them for the demonstration.”

  “Me?” Kelas said. “Why?”

  “I want to hear the queen’s response from your mouth, first of all. And it will bring you to the queen’s notice.”

  “That’s exactly what I was hoping to avoid.”

  Nara grinned. “One of Thuel’s subordinates taking such initiative without his knowledge or approval—it makes Thuel look bad.”

  “Does it matter?” Kelas asked. “Queen Aurala’s opinion won’t be important for much longer.”

  “It matters to me. I want Thuel humiliated as quickly and as greatly as possible.”

  “Very well,” Kelas said. “I will bring the queen to the Dragon Forge.”

  “We can’t stay here, Gaven,” Cart said patiently. “Kelas knows about this temple. He ordered it preserved. Which means that Malathar probably knows about it as well. They’ll find us here.”

  “They’ll find us if we go running across the hills,” Gaven said. “I’m ready to fight that damned dragon-king and get my dragonmark back.”

  Ashara’s ministrations had removed Gaven’s wounds and the numbness that lingered behind Phaine’s pricks and jabs. Now they were enjoying a good meal Ashara had prepared with food she brought from the camp, and it was starting to restore Gaven’s strength as well, after weeks of near-starvation. Another artificer with excellent cooking skills…. Gaven shot Ashara a sharp glance.

  She didn’t seem to notice. “You’re not even close to ready,” she insisted. “One full meal isn’t enough to fortify you after all this time.”

  “You’re a changeling,” Gaven said, watching her face carefully for her reaction.

  Her surprise seemed genuine. “What?”

  “You faked your death at Starcrag Plain, took on a new face and rejoined Haldren. You’re Darraun.” Gaven was on his feet, pointing a trembling finger down at Ashara, who looked up at him incredulously. Of course she was surprised—surprised to be found out.

  Cart put a hand on Gaven’s shoulder. “Gaven—”

  “You don’t fool me,” Gaven continued, ignoring the war-forged. “Cooking was your mistake.” His certainty gripped his mind like a fever, and he felt unsteady on his feet.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” Ashara said, getting to her feet, “I carry the Mark of Making.” She pulled back the arm of her shirt to make sure he could see the lyre-shaped tracery clearly, swooping across her upper arm. “That’s a difficult thing to imitate.”

  “But you’ve done it before. You piloted the airship, you faked the Mark of Storm and even fooled the elemental.”

  “You’re mad,” she said, and turned away. “As crazy as they said you were.”

  Cart placed himself between them. “Gaven, I think you should sit down and finish your meal. We need to get out of here.”

  Gaven whirled to put his back to Cart and Ashara. “Fine,” he said. He sat down and returned to his half-finished meal.

  The storm faded quickly, leaving the sky a richer blue with its passing. Aunn carefully marked its location in the mountains, though, and he hurried on well into the evening, hoping that the end of the storm did not mean that Gaven was dead. He slept fitfully and rose before dawn, hurrying on toward the cut in the mountains etched against the slowly brightening sky.

  He wasn’t sure what reaction he could expect from Gaven. As far as the Storm Dragon knew, Darraun had died at Starcrag Plain—assuming that Gaven had found the body he’d made to look like his. If he hadn’t … well, that might be worse. Gaven would believe that Darraun abandoned him, fleeing with Haldren, or perhaps chasing Haldren. He finally had to admit that he didn’t know what Gaven would think. But he knew that he’d misled Gaven, lied to him, and that he had to rely on the half-elf’s forgiveness.

  Rienne, on the other hand—he was sure Rienne would forgive him. Rienne had seen him at his most vulnerable, weak from piloting the airship and tormented by his dreams, unable even to remember the name he’d chosen. And her first question had been, “Are you all right?” She had been all concern and care, not a hint of anger or condemnation. Rienne would welcome him back, glad just to see him alive.

  It wasn’t until the third day, as the ground started rolling toward the foothills of the Blackcaps, that he began to wonder why he was seeking Gaven at all. Gaven and Rienne had struck him as two people he could trust—potential allies, perhaps his only possible allies, in warning Aundair and the Reaches about Kathrik Mel. But they knew he wasn’t trustworthy. Why should they help him?

  He had no one. Except for the single evening he’d spent with the eladrin, he had been alone since leaving Maruk Dar. Everyone he had trusted or relied on up to that point was dead: Farren, Vor, Sevren, and Zandar. Kelas had betrayed him, and he had betrayed everyone else, including Gaven and Rienne. He would have to complete his mission alone.

  Besides, he reasoned, the
storm had appeared in the mountains and since disappeared. Three days had passed, meaning Gaven and Rienne could already be three days away from the mountains in a different direction. What hope did he have of finding them in that enormous swath of wilderness and farmland? They might have traveled north to the forest along a path parallel to his own, or deeper into the Blackcrags. Or they might be bound for Arcanix, west on the shores of Lake Galifar, or Cragwar, in Breland to the southeast. The spires of Vanguard Keep rose above the middle of the plain. They could have gone there, or perhaps they were prisoners in the fortress outpost.

  By the dawn of the fourth day, he had convinced himself that his journey wouldn’t be in vain. The storm had been a sign of more than Gaven’s distress, he decided, but some indication of destiny. He felt that his destiny was bound to Gaven and Rienne in some way he didn’t yet understand, and that fate would draw them back together after their long separation. Proof would come soon enough—he was close to where he had seen the storm, close enough that he could no longer see the cut in the mountains that had been his landmark.

  The sky, brilliant blue for days since the storm faded, started clouding over again in late morning. A shadow fell over the sunlight, and Aunn looked up to watch the unnatural storm take shape, just off to the east. Dark clouds appeared in the air like steam churning up from a boiling pot, writhing in the air like a living thing. They swirled outward to coat the sky, whirling around the vortex where they had appeared. A boom of thunder nearly knocked him off his feet, and rain began to fall into a canyon just east of Aunn’s hilltop vantage point. He hurried down toward it.

  As Gaven ate the last of his meal, Cart came to sit beside him. The warforged sat in silence for a moment, his face turned toward the blue crystal and the snarling demonic figure that framed it. He waited until Ashara was at the far side of the ancient temple, busy with the pack she’d brought from the camp.

  “Darraun was a changeling?” Cart asked quietly, still looking at the crystal.

  Gaven cursed himself. He’d forgotten that Cart didn’t know, and he’d violated the changeling’s trust.

  It doesn’t matter, he told himself, if Darraun really is dead.

  “He was.” He wasn’t sure how much else he should say, or wanted to.

  “So perhaps he’s not really dead,” Cart said.

  Gaven felt his pulse quicken. Even in more lucid moments, he had half-wondered the same thing while building Darraun’s cairn—why didn’t he wear his true face in death?

  “He can disguise himself,” Cart continued. “Why not disguise another corpse to look like him?”

  “But why would he do that?”

  Cart shrugged. “Why did he do anything? Why was he spying on the Lord General … on Haldren? Why did he help Haldren escape from Dreadhold in the first place?”

  “He …” Gaven drew a blank. “I don’t know.”

  Cart glanced over his shoulder at Ashara. “I don’t think she’s a changeling,” he said. “But I would have said the same thing about Darraun. How can we ever know for sure?”

  “No, you’re right,” Gaven said. “I think I wasn’t quite in my right mind. Raving.”

  He knew he hadn’t been raving. But it occurred to him that Ashara might somehow be listening, and he wanted her to think he’d abandoned his suspicions. She’d be more likely to slip up.

  Cart got to his feet and helped Gaven stand.

  “I need to go back to the forge,” Gaven said again.

  “I didn’t rescue you just so you could go back and be captured again—or killed,” Cart said. “My goal was to get you to safety, and I’m going to do that.”

  “It’s still all about duty, isn’t it, Cart? You’re always working on a clearly defined task, one after another. You can’t think about taking on another task until you’ve completed that one you set for yourself. But I’m telling you I don’t want to go to safety. The forge is where my enemies are, and they have something that belongs to me.” He ran a finger over the tender skin his dragonmark had left behind.

  “I’m not a machine.”

  “Of course not. But you’re also not flexible. The world doesn’t conform to our plans. People never do what we want them to. You have to live with that.”

  “Or you have to convince them that they’re being stupid and stubborn, and show them why your way is right. I’m not an idiot and I’m not naive, Gaven. I’m perfectly capable of changing plans midstream when I need to. But only when a better plan comes along. And going back into Malathar’s claws is not a better plan.”

  Gaven clenched his fists at his temples. “I’ll do it alone if I have to.” His voice resounded in the chamber, uncomfortably loud. “I need her back.”

  “Her?” Ashara spoke for the first time.

  That was it. Gaven’s hands dropped to his sides and his shoulders slumped. He was being stupid and stubborn, he realized. It wasn’t his dragonmark he wanted back. It was Rienne.

  “Rienne,” he said. “I need her back. I need her more than my dragonmark, more than revenge on Phaine and Kelas and the damned dragon-king. I—”

  Cart put up a hand to stop him, turning his head toward the entrance. Then Gaven heard it as well—a rumbling like distant thunder, echoing in the tunnel that led out of the temple.

  Cart stepped cautiously to the tunnel mouth, and Gaven circled around to the other side, staying out of the opening. Just as they started to peer into the tunnel, a hiss like the threat of an enormous serpent roared in the tunnel, then a spray of thick, black liquid gushed out at them. Gaven jumped back out of its way, but Cart shouted in pain. The warforged fell down, frantically wiping at the liquid that clung to his body. It bubbled and smoked, warping the metal plate of his face and searing the wood in his neck.

  Ashara rushed to help Cart, so Gaven risked a look up the tunnel. It was long but straight, sloping up to where he could just make out the light of day beyond. A hulking black shadow blocked his view of the light, though—the source of the acidic spray. Another dragon.

  Faint echoes of voices outside told him that some of Kelas’s soldiers were there as well. Rage burned in Gaven’s chest. These people and that dragon had taken everything from him—Rienne, his dragonmark, his freedom. He tried to channel that rage and release it, to send a blast of lightning back up the tunnel at his enemies. Nothing.

  “Gaven, get back!” Cart said.

  Gaven heard the dragon’s deep intake of breath and leaped back away from the tunnel mouth just in time. More black acid sprayed out past him, spattering on the stone floor. Some reached as far as the blue crystal, and Ashara gasped as it burbled and disappeared into the azure pool.

  “Get away,” Cart said. Ashara had repaired some of the acid’s damage, but his neck still looked seared and warped.

  Gaven leaped past the tunnel mouth and crouched beside Cart. “We’re trapped,” he said.

  “We’re under siege,” Cart answered, “but it could be worse. We can’t get out, clearly. But they won’t come in because we’d fight them right here, three of us against each one of them who came to the tunnel mouth. It’s a waiting game.”

  “One we can’t win,” Gaven said. “They’ll starve us out, if nothing else. Or send the dragon into the tunnel first.”

  “They won’t wait here forever,” Ashara said. “I have a feeling something will take their attention off us before long.”

  “What do you mean?” Cart asked.

  “The Dragon Forge.”

  CHAPTER

  41

  So this is how Gaven felt in Dreadhold, Rienne thought. Trapped in a cage. She looked through the barred window of her cell, out onto the bustling streets of Thaliost, and wondered if Gaven had a window in Dreadhold. Probably not. She felt the morning sun warm her skin, and realized that she had no idea what Gaven had experienced. Twenty-six years in a prison far worse than her bare cell—it was still beyond her comprehension.

  The worst part was that she didn’t know where Maelstrom was. They’d taken the sword
as soon as they took her into custody, and when they led her to her cell the guard carrying it had gone a different way. She’d been tempted to break free of the guards and seize the sword, fight her way free, but she couldn’t imagine a conclusion to that course of action that didn’t make her situation worse than it already was.

  The morning wore into afternoon, casting the tower’s shadow across the town below her window. A guard brought her a passable meal sometime between midday and evening, and shortly after that a man came to see her. He dressed like a nobleman, all frills and frippery, but he walked like a soldier, intense and direct. He’d probably received a noble title as a reward for his service in the Last War, and tried his best to act his part in an alien world of diplomacy.

  He looked down at the identification papers in his hand, then back up at her face. “Lady Alastra?”

  “Yes.” Best just to answer his questions, simple and direct.

  “I’m Padar ir’Hollen. The borders of Thaliost are ultimately my responsibility, and the soldier at the docks report to me. Were you mistreated in any way while in our custody?”

  “No, and I thank you for asking.” Rienne liked this man’s approach—he was direct, he didn’t bother with titles except to make sure she knew he was a noble. She’d never heard of the ir’Hollens, of course, and Padar might very well have been the only member of that recently formed noble house.

  “Lady Alastra, I’m sure you can appreciate how seriously I take my responsibility for our security, particularly now. Since Aundair’s attack, we have been even more concerned with possible breaches of our borders.”

  “I do understand. But the attack in the north was the action of a rogue general, not the Aundairian government.”

  “So Aundair claims. But if that’s true, he had a remarkable amount of support from the army.”

  “Along with his flight of dragons, yes.”

  Padar’s eyes went wide. “You seem to know a great deal about that battle.”

  Rienne drew herself up proudly. “I helped defeat that rogue general.”