Dragon Forge: The Draconic Prophecies - Book Two

by James Wyatt

  “You what?” Padar’s mouth hung open after his question.

  “I was there. I fought one of the dragons Haldren brought with him. I fought in the midst of the horde of monsters that rose from the earth. And as the battle wore down, I found Haldren and his—and the woman with him and I fought them. I’m no pretty noblewoman sitting in my estate, weaving and gossiping, Sir Hollen.”

  “I can see that,” Padar said, scratching his head. “But now I’m far less sure how to deal with you.”

  “You’re making it too complicated. It’s really quite simple. Bring a scribe from House Sivis back here with you. Question me about my destination and purpose, have the scribe draw up traveling papers for me, and send me on my way.”

  “Why don’t you tell me your destination and purpose now?”

  Rienne had spent the morning formulating her answers to those inevitable questions. A fugitive following a vague sense of impending danger to the west would not quickly endear herself to any border authority. “I’m bound for Daskaran.” As the other major town in the north of Thrane, Daskaran would give her a reason to leave Thaliost without raising the question of why she didn’t sail on to Flamekeep—Thrane’s capital gave better access to most of the nation. “My family wishes to forge an agreement with the ir’Cathra family there—they own mines in the Starpeaks and we can help them distribute the ore.” As mundane as possible, not something that would arouse attention.

  “From battling monsters to negotiating trade agreements? You are versatile.”

  “One reason my family values me.”

  Padar looked at another paper in his hand. “Your family is located primarily in Stormhome, correct?”

  “That’s right. Our ties to House Lyrandar give us an edge in our shipping deals.”

  “And you sailed from Stormhome? Before arriving here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I assume you purchased a regular fare on the Lyrandar galleon—the, ah, Windborn?”

  Rienne forced her face to keep smiling as she cursed herself. She was a stowaway as well as a fugitive, and she had failed to account for that in her morning planning. “Of course,” she said, as though it were nothing.

  “It’s strange that the Windborn carried no record of that purchase. Did they not check your papers when you bought the fare?”

  “They did check my identification papers, but I’m afraid the young man was somewhat distracted. He never did ask about traveling papers, and he must have forgotten to record me in the passenger manifest.”

  “I see,” Padar said.

  He studied the papers in his hand once more, then stared at Rienne too long. She had the sense he was imagining what might have distracted the young Lyrandar agent, and his eyes made her uncomfortable.

  “Well, Lady Alastra,” he said at last, “I will need to discuss this situation. Perhaps I will bring a Sivis scribe with me when I return.”

  And perhaps not, Rienne thought as he disappeared down the corridor.

  When the sun went down, Rienne’s cell plunged into near-total darkness. Only shreds of light from the streets below reached her window, everbright lanterns and the lamps carried by the night watch—not nearly enough to let her see the walls, the bars, or even the cot she sat on. Sleep evaded her, so she sat and tried to focus her mind, find some rest in meditation at least.

  “Where is he?” A gruff voice jolted her from her stillness, and she sprang to her feet.

  A halo of light filled the far end of the corridor and lit the angry face of Ossa d’Kundarak. The dwarf stormed toward her, another pair of dwarves trailing at the edge of the light. Ossa wore her usual scarlet shirt beneath a heavy breastplate of cured leather, but it was wrinkled. Wisps of hair escaped the tight braid coiled at the back of her head, her face was drawn, thinner than Rienne remembered. She exuded a frantic energy that bordered on madness. The search for Gaven had not been good to her, Rienne thought.

  “Where is he?” Ossa repeated when she reached the bars of Rienne’s cell.

  Rienne fought back a surge of anger. The last time she’d seen Ossa, the dwarf held a dagger pressed to her neck. But anger wouldn’t help. She had to calm the dwarf, placate her as much as possible. Somehow, she had to get out of this prison, and an angry Ossa would make that impossible.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I don’t believe you!” Ossa seized a bar and thrust her face right up to it. “You’ve been with him since Vathirond.”

  “We parted company more than two weeks ago. He was captured, and his captors took him away. He could be anywhere.”

  “Who captured him? The Thuranni? Everyone else is dead.”

  “Everyone else?” There had been another one, a Tharashk bounty hunter with Ossa in Stormhome.

  “Does that surprise you? You heard he killed a Sentinel Marshal. And I would have thought you knew he killed Bordan. Bordan was a good man.”

  “Bordan? We saw Bordan in Stormhome. Gaven fled, and I got the airship.”

  “Bordan outpaced me in following Gaven. I found him dead on the beach, then saw your airship pass overhead, on your way to pick him up.”

  Bordan dead on the beach? Why wouldn’t Gaven have told her?

  Ossa sneered. “That troubles you? What did you expect, traveling with a fugitive? I told you in Vathirond he was dangerous.”

  “You don’t know him.” Rienne thought she did, after all this time. But he hadn’t told her about Bordan.

  “Of course,” Ossa continued, “in Vathirond I had no idea how dangerous he was. He was involved with Starcrag Plain, wasn’t he? Shall I add those dead thousands to the list of his crimes?”

  “What? No—he prevented the death of thousands more. He closed the chasm where the spawn of Khyber were spilling out. Without him, the monsters would have overwhelmed—”

  “He tried to clean up his mistake, then? Closed off the passage he opened?”

  “He didn’t open it!”

  “What might have been merely a clash of two armies became a bloodbath. And witnesses say the chasm opened about the time a certain airship appeared at the scene.”

  “A clash of two armies with dragons on both sides! It was the Prophecy—”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence. He’ll answer to that charge as well, when we recapture him. Now where is he? Who captured him, if that part of your story is true?”

  This interview was not going the way Rienne had hoped it would. Ossa was no less belligerent—more so, if anything. She had to go back to being helpful. “It wasn’t a Thuranni that captured him. It was a dragon.”

  “A dragon.” It was a challenge, not a question.

  “In Argonnessen.”

  “So that’s where you’ve been hiding all this time.” Ossa clearly didn’t believe a word, and the dwarves standing behind her shared a laugh.

  “That’s right. We sailed to Argonnessen then walked into the interior. We found a city there, and that’s where Gaven was captured.”

  “So Argonnessen has cities now? My dear Lady Alastra, it seems your lover’s madness has warped your own sense of reality.”

  The truth wasn’t working, Rienne saw. It was time for a well-crafted lie.

  Rienne choked back a cry of despair and fell to her knees, burying her face in her hands. “Oh, why am I still trying to protect him?” she wailed.

  “It will go better for you if you don’t,” Ossa observed. Rienne could hear the hope in her voice. The dwarf thought she’d broken Rienne at last.

  “He left me,” Rienne sobbed. “He went back to that elf trollop.” That was a risky lie, she realized. Senya had escaped the Starcrag Plain with Haldren—if she’d been captured and Ossa knew about it, her story would collapse.

  “Where?” Either Ossa believed her, or she was trying to trap Rienne in her lie.

  “Stormhome.” She and Gaven might have been seen together there, before boarding Jordhan’s ship.

  “Where did they go from there?”

  “I don’t know.
They took a ship—I think they persuaded or forced some Lyrandar captain to take them off somewhere.” If she could make Ossa believe that Gaven had left Khorvaire, moved beyond House Kundarak’s reach …

  “And where have you been all this time?”

  “I stayed in Stormhome.”

  “Have you seen your family? Gaven’s brother?”

  Ossa would have had both her family’s estate and Thordren’s house watched. “No. I lay low, mostly kept to the wharves.”

  Rienne risked a glance at the dwarf. Ossa had passed the lantern to one of the dwarves behind her, shrouding her face in darkness, and she rubbed her temples with two thick fingers.

  “Look at yourself,” Ossa said at last. “I don’t know whether to hate you or pity you. You wasted your youth following Gaven around. He went mad and ended up in the care of my House, and what? You tried to settle into a normal life, but you never stopped pining for him, did you?” Her voice dripped with scorn. “He escaped and you ran to him, ready to start following him again. And then he runs off with the elf trollop instead of you.”

  Rienne felt a weight in her chest. She had to remind herself that Ossa’s words weren’t true—Gaven hadn’t gone off with Senya again.

  “I can’t punish you any worse than you’ve already punished yourself,” the dwarf added. “Go ahead and live your pathetic life.”

  Rienne swallowed hard as Ossa turned and led her silent dwarves back the way they had come. Ossa’s words weren’t true—at least not the last part. But the rest still stung.

  Morning brought another meal, and another one in the mid-afternoon. The guards shrugged off her questions, and then another night fell. Two more days crawled past. Exhaustion finally allowed her to sleep on the hard cot. When her stomach told her it was time for the afternoon meal on the fourth day, she watched as footsteps approached the corner of the hall. Padar emerged around the corner, turned and told someone else to wait, out of sight, and then approached her cell.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Alastra,” he said. “I am sorry that your stay here has stretched on so long.”

  “You brought a scribe?” Rienne’s eyes darted back down the hall, eager to see the means of her deliverance.

  “The situation has proven much more complicated than I had any reason to expect. Not exactly a routine case of missing traveling papers. Your family’s ties to House Lyrandar initially made our government reluctant to touch your case.” He referred to a sheaf of papers in his hand—an increasingly irritating habit. “But then we learned you’ve been connected to an excoriate who also happens to be a fugitive from Dreadhold. So House Lyrandar wants nothing to do with you.”

  Rienne’s hands went cold on the iron bars.

  Padar swallowed and continued. “House Kundarak, as you know, involved itself. But they decided to lay no claim on you, and the other Houses have followed their lead. That accounts for the delay. In fact, I’m somewhat amazed that we received responses from all the Houses so quickly.”

  “So what now?” Rienne asked. Her voice sounded more desperate than she intended.

  “Now, in the end, your case turns out to be a routine matter of missing traveling papers after all.” Padar smiled weakly. “I did indeed bring a scribe from House Sivis to complete your traveling papers. He is waiting downstairs.”

  Relief washed over her and she sank down on her cot. “Thank you,” she breathed.

  “In addition, it appears that you still have at least one friend in House Lyrandar.” Padar turned and called down the hall, “You may approach now.”

  Rienne stood again, went to the bars, and looked down the hall. A young guard appeared around the corner first, a halberd in one hand and a heavy ring of keys in the other. Another man followed, a broad smile lighting his weathered face.

  “Jordhan!” Rienne laughed with raw delight. Only Gaven’s face could have been a more welcome sight. “You’re back!”

  As he approached, Rienne thrust her hands between the bars, and he took them in his own warm grasp.

  “Only just,” he said. “The return journey was somewhat harder without the Storm Dragon’s help.”

  The guard’s keys rattled as she unlocked the cell door. Rienne relinquished Jordhan’s grasp long enough to let the door swing open, then threw her arms around his waist and held him tight. She hadn’t realized how cold she’d been in the cell until she felt Jordhan’s warm embrace.

  “If you’ll follow me downstairs,” Padar said, “I’ll get your belongings and we’ll settle the matter of your papers—and the fine, of course.”

  “Of course.” The fine would probably be outrageous, but she didn’t care.

  CHAPTER

  42

  Cart and Ashara insisted that Gaven get more rest while they waited out the siege, waited for the distraction Ashara predicted or some other change to the game. Gaven didn’t think he could sleep, knowing that a dragon lurked in the tunnel, and soldiers beyond, but he was wearier than he had realized.

  Nightmares troubled his sleep, dark whispers of despair and malice. He saw Ashara change form, taking on Darraun’s laughing face and mocking him for being so duped. Malathar’s flaming breath enveloped him and bony claws tore at his flesh. Kelas held the bloodstone containing Gaven’s dragonmark, and the mark slithered out of the shard to wrap itself over his skin as he cackled in triumph. Rienne wept in a dungeon somewhere in Rav Magar, calling out for him. Cart stood against him, shielding Ashara/Darraun from his attack. A hideous, undead Haldren bombarded him with fire. He woke, over and over, in his cell in Dreadhold.

  When at last he truly awoke, he thought at first he was still in Dreadhold. Ashara’s slow breathing behind him was out of place, though. He sat up and saw the blue crystal, framed by a snarling demonic figure, then turned to see Cart, standing right where he’d been when Gaven fell asleep, just to the side of the tunnel mouth.

  “Any change?” Gaven said.

  “I hear thunder,” Cart replied.

  It stung Kelas to kneel before the queen, but he had to keep up the act a little longer. Baron Jorlanna and Arcanist Wheldren had persuaded her to come and view the Dragon Forge. He had to act as though he appreciated her condescension.

  “Welcome, Your Highness,” he said to the ground. “May I present to you the Dragon Forge—the instrument of your victory in your western campaign.”

  The queen deigned to address him directly. “Show me.”

  Hiding his grin, Kelas rose. Queen Aurala stood at the center of the arcane circle, right where Malathar and Gaven had appeared weeks ago. She had a reputation for great beauty and in her younger days had a reputation for toying with her suitors and playing them against each other. Kelas had never understood that. She was too thin, too fair-skinned. Her blonde hair was fine. She looked fragile, easily broken. Her silk gown, fur-trimmed cloak, and delicate jewelry contributed to the impression that she was weak.

  Soon she will be broken, Kelas thought with satisfaction.

  With that thought in mind, Kelas led the little procession down into the canyon. Three of Aurala’s bodyguards followed him, then the queen, Jorlanna and Wheldren, then four more guards. The air tasted thin, and Kelas’s mind felt stretched. So much rode on this day, but he was prepared. He had accounted for every possibility. Malathar was out of sight in a nearby canyon—his presence would have been too alarming to the queen. Phaine had vanished when Gaven escaped, either in shame or hunting the excoriate, it didn’t matter. One of Malathar’s dragons, the black one, had gone in search of Gaven, and the others four ancient ones had long since left the area. Only three small dragons remained, safely hidden beneath the forge, fueling it with their breath. Nothing could go wrong.

  He led the queen into the narrow entrance to the Dragon Forge. He felt the guards behind him tense as steam and flame roared along the walls, but he strode on to where the glorious dragonshard lay couched in its elaborate mechanism.

  “The Dragon Forge has harnessed the power of a dragonmark,” Jorlanna said to the quee
n. “Now it can use that power and amplify it—”

  “Please, Baron,” Kelas interrupted. “Let Her Majesty see for herself.”

  With a pull of a lever, the dragonshard came alive with the light of a sun, drawing the lines of Gaven’s dragonmark on the walls and ceiling of the forge. Jorlanna’s people sprang into action at the device’s controls, but Kelas could see only the dragonshard. He placed both hands on its smooth, warm surface and felt a thrill shiver through his body. He caressed it with his fingertips—he imagined it gave way to his touch, ever so slightly, like the skin of a lover.

  Thunder rumbled overhead, then a sharp crack. He tore his eyes from the dragonshard and nodded to Arcanist Wheldren as rain began to pelt the metal roof.

  “Your Highness,” Jorlanna said, “the Dragon Forge has created a terrible storm above us. Now we’ll send the storm to the northwest.”

  Wheldren had drawn a circle in the air, and it shimmered to life like a mirror. “Your Highness,” he said, “I invite you to gaze through this window to where your troops are gathering near Varna.”

  With a quizzical look, Queen Aurala stepped to the circle in the air and peered into it. Kelas smiled broadly. He could taste his success. He heard thunder rumble in the northwest, and the pounding of rain on the roof stopped.

  “Greetings, Your Highness.” The voice came through the window, and Aurala drew herself up in surprise. “I am Arcanist Fillian of the Arcane Congress. I will now direct your gaze south, across Lake Galifar.”

  The queen looked closer. Kelas knew what she was seeing—a hint of a dark cloud, growing quickly as it charged away from the Dragon Forge and across the lake. Soon it would be pouring devastation on the Eldeen troops defending Varna. Kelas counted slowly, barely daring to breathe.

  Fifteen seconds, thirty. Aurala shifted impatiently, and Kelas bit his lip. Forty-five. A rumble of thunder came through the window, and the queen brought her face as close as she could to the magical window. A mighty crash startled her, but she shot a faint smile at a guard on her right. He had her.