The Living Night: Box Set

by Jack Conner

  With just a little hesitancy, Jean-Pierre stepped forward and drew the beautiful dagger out of his waistband.

  “Is this what you want?”

  Gethraul snorted, a crash of thunder in the stony chamber. “It is not what I want. It is what I shall have.”

  “Don’t play games with him, Jean-Pierre,” Kharker said.

  The dragon arched a scaly eyebrow. “I know that voice.” Now both large azure eyes were open. “You’re the one that trapped me.”

  “One in the same.”

  Gethraul lifted his great head, swinging his long neck around so that he could face the Hunter squarely. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t eat you now.”

  “Because if I hadn’t hunted you down and trapped you, you’d be dead now.”

  “Not good enough.” The dragon opened its mouth …

  “Then how about this?”

  Suddenly, the dragon’s massive body jerked in what must have been a painful spasm, and the long neck sent the head smashing against the rock wall. When Gethraul’s head came back, one side oozed blood.

  Damn. Danielle hated this psychic dominance crap—but then, what had she expected? It had been her plan.

  When Kharker released Gethraul from the spell, the leviathan roared so loudly it would’ve split a mortal’s ears, and opened his mouth wide. A burst of flame bubbled up from his throat, but the other kavasari seized the dragon mentally and stopped him, and the flame died. The great being shuddered, and Danielle found the strength to begin hating herself for what she had set in motion.

  Quickly, Francois ran up to Gethraul and Danielle could tell the two were communicating telepathically. It only lasted maybe two minutes, but with the immensity of Geth’s body twisting and twitching all the while, it seemed like hours.

  Finally, the Ambassador lifted a hand to the other members of the coven to halt the psychic barrage, and the dragon stayed still, exhausted and bitter but knowing it was beaten. It struck Danielle that she might have been the only one not to assault the dragon when it had threatened Kharker. Jesus, what hypocrisy. Her plan, and she couldn’t even carry it through. And Kharker could’ve died! But why should that matter to her? Because she needed him, she told herself, denying any possibility that on some level she might actually like Kharker.

  “It’s okay, Geth,” Francois was saying. “We’re not here to hurt you, but please don’t try to kill any of us or we’ll have to defend ourselves.”

  The wyrm growled. “He didn’t have to bash my head into the wall.”

  “Kharker. Apologize.”

  “Hell with that,” responded the Hunter. “He was about to roast me! I’m sorry if teaching him a lesson hurt his ego, but the only thing larger than Geth’s horde is his ego, and a target that big’s easily hurt.”

  Gethraul lifted his lip, exposing long sharp teeth. “You said if you hadn’t trapped me, I’d be dead, and I resent that. You can’t tell me that dragons don’t still live aboveground.”

  “Damnit,” said Roche Sarnova. “How many times must we explain that you and the others here are the last of your kind? You. And them. No more. NO. MORE.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You’ll get your chance to see the outside world again very soon, but only if you agree to allow us into your mind. We need you, Geth. And your friends. If you defeat our enemies, I promise that your kind will fly free again, with the sun at your backs and the mountains below.”

  The leviathan folded his forelegs in front of him and laid his battered head upon them. Much like a dog, thought Danielle.

  “Explain,” commanded Gethraul.

  Silently, the dragon and Sarnova conversed for several long moments before Gethraul’s eyes widened and he nodded, almost eagerly. When the exchange was complete, the wyrm said, “Yes, I will do this thing. But first, I have two demands.”

  “What are they?”

  “One, that you—” Gethraul indicated Ruegger “—apologize for firing that rocket into my innards.”

  Ruegger nodded. “Had I known you to be a friend, I wouldn’t have fired at all.”

  “Well, I suppose I wasn’t acting very friendly that night, was I? Francois gave me quite the chewing out when the deed was done. I promise not to let myself get that carried away again.”

  Ruegger said nothing, just looked over at Danielle and took her hand, for which she was glad. Somehow her plan had slipped through her fingers and had become something all its own, something she was no longer in control of.

  “Second,” said the dragon, “I want my damned dagger back.”

  The next dragon the coven sought out was a black dragon named Nakara. His shadowy scales glistened almost wetly in the torchlight and the dancing of the flames sent ribbons of color flowing down his flanks. In his utter blackness—even his underside was black—he seemed even more colorful than had Gethraul. The only thing about him that was not black (other than the inside of his mouth) were his eyes, which were a striking purple.

  As with Gethraul, the coven found him stretched on his great horde, but, like his more lithe and sinewy frame, so too was his horde smaller than that of the green dragon. Also unlike the first dragon, Nakara was far from asleep; instead, he lazily sculpted a nearby stalagmite, using his tight cone of fire as a chisel.

  Danielle noticed many other such carvings jutting from the ground or hanging from the ceiling. When the ebony wyrm noticed the coven and ceased his sculpting, Danielle caught a glimpse of the half-finished piece: it was a sun, a round disk spiked by horns representing its rays; made out of dark mineral deposits, it was blackened even further by Nakara’s flame. So, Danielle mused, dragons could be artists, too.

  This time, Roche and Kharker approached the dragon together, letting Mauchlery take a back seat.

  “Well met,” called the gravelly river of Nakara’s voice. “The Dark Lord, here to set me free at last!” The dragon gave a bitter laugh, as if this were a joke he shared with Sarnova every time the Dark Lord visited. Then the dragon’s eyes narrowed as he studied Kharker, and to Danielle’s surprise, Nakara smiled. “The Hunter! Is that you, after all these years?”

  “In the flesh, my friend. Now even stronger than ever.”

  “I can tell. I smell kavasari.” The dragon cocked its great black head sideways at Roche. “Don’t tell me it’s finally come.”

  “You’ll have to come up with a better joke next time I see you, when you’re running free aboveground,” Sarnova said.

  “Free? Not hunted and killed, like my brother?”

  Danielle thought she understood. This one’s brother had been killed for bounty, which is why he considered Kharker a friend. Maybe even a savior.

  “No,” said Roche. “Free and safe. I’ve tried long and hard to win the support of my Council to approach humanity, announce ourselves and to petition for our own country where all magical creatures could be free, but that only created war. My nation is at the current time torn in two, and even in the half I hold as my own I’m riddled with too many spies to count, not to mention some other difficulties. I’d hoped to keep you and your race out of it, but now we’ve tacked on two more serious enemies, both of whom have their own armies, and we need your help.”

  “To fight three armies.”

  Kharker stepped in. “We hate to ask it of you, Nikky, but with the Castle in the shape it is, we can’t possibly fend off three armies, two of which are embedded in the Sabo.”

  “The Sabo would never allow that.”

  “Do you remember Junger and Jagoda, the Balaklava?”

  “Their art was always a little too macabre for me, but they did have talent. A shame they were such evil things.”

  “Well, they’re chalgids now, and they’ve killed and resurrected the Sabo. As well as creating some big monsters and a large number of zombies, they seem to have committed themselves to destroying the Castle.”

  “Kharker, you can count on me. I owe you.”

  The third dragon they went looking for was Dam
ara, Ladrido’s friend. Danielle was interested to meet a dragon that had befriended a sorcerer-cursed vampire, and she was disappointed to find Damara’s lair vacant.

  “Where is she?” asked Danielle.

  “Likely in the Field of Play,” Sarnova said.

  “The what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Francois and Roche led the way through the large corridors until the coven emerged into an immense cavern, higher than the Meadow and with a sorcery-constructed sun in one corner, beneath which flowed a river dwarfed by the size of the cavern. Around this river grew tall grasses and large solitary trees. Beneath two of these, dragons rested peacefully.

  The true spectacle was in the air. A full half-dozen dragons, of different sizes and colors and breeds, tossed and turned and played games with each other in the air, sometimes drifting near the magical sun and at other times letting their games carry them to the far end, the darker end, where massive slabs of stone that rose a hundred feet high blocked the view of the ground beyond. The cavern was gigantic, but Danielle could see by the dragons’ cramped flying style that even this was too small for them. Probably they were used to winging through the clouds.

  “See her?” asked Kharker, straining his brown eyes.

  “No,” said Francois. “She might be in another lair, fraternizing like she’s notorious for. Or perhaps she’s over toward the dark side.”

  “Is that the lover’s lane for dragons down here?”

  “They don’t have our standards, Lord Kharker, as you should know. They care very little whether they’re seen in the act or not.”

  Despite herself, Danielle smiled and glanced over at Ruegger, who seemed equally amused. She wasn’t sure she wanted to catch two dragons “in the act”, but it certainly brought interesting pictures into her head.

  “Why does it matter what order we go in?” Ruegger said. “There are dragons resting under those trees, much closer to us than whatever’s over on the dark side. Shouldn’t approaching one of them work just as well?”

  “No,” said Roche. “Damara, as well as being the most flirtatious dragon around, is also the most powerful telepath.”

  “The dragons are telepathic?”

  “Amongst themselves, yes. Most of them only have the power in weak doses, just to receive messages but not to send them prolifically or with much force. But both Gethraul and Damara are powerful with it. We’d hoped that by going to Geth first, he might spread the word and make it easier for us to approach the others, but apparently he’s too surly for that—I base that on the fact that Nakara didn’t know we were coming and none of these others are paying us any more than passing attention. At any rate, we’ve only got about ninety minutes till the speech and we can’t do that until the dragons are on our side and the zombie Byron is either laid to rest or at least relieved of his weapon. If he’s not, there will be no speech. We’ll have to call it off, and Maleasoel—using that Red fellow, the zombie—made it quite clear that if Francois doesn’t publicly surrender while giving the speech, she’ll attack, and her allies with her. So … the speech must be given.”

  “I didn’t think we were going to surrender under any circumstances,” Jean-Pierre said. “What difference does it make whether the speech goes on or not?”

  Roche and Francois exchanged a glance, and they seemed to decide it was the Ambassador’s turn to speak.

  “Jean-Pierre, when you took Kharker away from us, Roche and myself had a little talk. We’d spoken before of a vote, of getting our subjects’ opinions on the war before proceeding with it, and when you stole Kharker from our company we started talking about it again. We decided that we’d hold a vote at the speech tonight. A vote given telepathically, so that no shade will have to speak his thoughts before his peers. A sort of secret ballot, if you will. They’ll relay their opinions, yea or nay, to a human standing beside me in the tower. Once they’ve finished, I’ll gather their votes from him and will know, once and for all, where our subjects stand on the issue of the Undead Jerusalem.”

  “Yes,” said Roche, barely concealing a smile. “It’s something I’ve wanted for a long time. If our subjects say to continue the war, we will. And if the majority speaks against it, we’ll surrender. That is why the speech must happen, Jean-Pierre.”

  The albino nodded. “Then let’s find Damara.”

  To Ruegger, Sarnova said, “On our way over to the rocks, will you check up on your mortal friend and see whether or not Byron’s been located? We can’t very well give a speech in the Upper Courtyard if we’re fixing to be nuked.”

  Ruegger nodded, and the coven had almost reached the first of the gigantic stone wedges when he said, “Harry’s gotten Cloire’s support, and your soldiers are helping them to scour the battlements surrounding the Upper Courtyard. He says they’ve found nothing yet. If they don’t come across Byron soon, Harry says they’ll proceed to the further battlements, the higher ones. He says that a shot from there would be trickier, but it would save Byron from the explosion. Harry doubts the Balaklava give a rat’s ass about him, other than that he’s their tool, but all spots must be searched. I told him the new information, that the speech must proceed at all costs, and he says that they’re doing everything they can. I suggested he and Cloire split up, each taking half of their allotted soldiers and search for Byron separately.”

  They reached the first block of stone and entered the dark side of the chamber, what Kharker had called the lover’s lane. Danielle wondered what would happen if they came on a dragon that didn’t appreciate being interrupted.

  The seven kavasari passed four gigantic mounds of stone before they found Damara, resting side by side another dragon—Gethraul.

  Damara, diminutive compared to the mighty Geth, was, even to Danielle’s eyes, shapely and alluring. The she-wyrm stretched long and lean, just plump enough to be healthy-looking, and possessed eyes of the deepest burgundy. Her scales were a pastel violet and the horns along her spine and head matched her eyes. Light teal freckles dotted her side. Though facing the dragon from the front, Danielle could tell Damara’s tail was entwined with Gethraul’s.

  The big green dragon just looked placidly at the coven, as if they’d already bored him, but his mate’s eyes shined with curiosity. She addressed Roche Sarnova directly:

  “So we’re getting out of here, finally?”

  “That you are, Damara, if you can help us defeat three armies.”

  She issued a soft laugh, surprisingly feminine, and said, “We’ll do whatever it takes. I just wanted to hear it from you first.” So saying, she closed her eyes and raised her pastel head like an antenna. After a moment, she glanced back down at the coven. “I’ve sent out a gathering call. Come. Geth and I will escort you out.”

  More swiftly than Danielle thought them capable of, the two dragons rose from the ground and flanked the seven kavasari. Ruegger clutched Danielle’s hand as the great beings escorted them back out into the main area of the Field of Play. Even now, the dragons tumbling about in the air were slowing, then settling to the ground, and the ones slumbering by the river lifted themselves up and ambled over. It wasn’t long before dragons, more than a dozen of them, poured out of the large tunnels in answer to the summons. Among them was Nakara, and from the way three other wyrms grouped around the shiny black one Danielle could tell he’d already been putting out the word.

  Within minutes, the coven of seven was surrounded by nearly thirty dragons—twenty-six, she heard Ruegger whisper. It was a sight and a feeling she would never forget. Their powerfully regal presence nearly overwhelmed her.

  Encircled by the giants, Roche Sarnova climbed onto a large boulder and addressed them:

  “Friends, thank you all for gathering. What I am about to tell you is very important. If you’re willing to help us, you will have carved out a true home for yourselves—and for others, as well. I won’t lie to you. The mission itself will be dangerous. Some of us will most likely die. But if we’re successful ... if we win ... you will
be free!”

  Chapter 6

  Junger and Jagoda smiled at Laslo as they stuffed his torso (they hadn’t had time to let him regenerate completely) into the hollow of the blunt limb on their new Collage.

  “There, now,” said Junger. “How do you like it?”

  The mad priest winced as entrails from the bottom of the hollow plunged into his own guts, thus plugging him into the collective consciousness of the Collage. When the senses of the nearly complete creature reached him, he gasped, then smiled.

  “The Word of God will be powerful indeed.”

  “We thought you’d like it. Now try some simple movements. Take a few steps, flex your arms.”

  The dark assassins watched as the Collage went through the paces and were reminded of training that first ghensiv-zombie how to utilize the Collage—Sonia, the one they secretly feared Captain Raulf D’Aguila had garnered potentially dangerous information from. But whether he actually knew what they feared he knew ... well, it was pointless to worry over, they both realized that. What was done was done.

  Suddenly, the great tail lashed around and Junger and Jagoda were faced with Kilian and Loirot, both in beast form. They snapped and growled and looked thoroughly menacing, and the assassins clapped. Now for the completion of this Collage, the third prong on the tail—whether to use the lackluster werewolf-zombie or Kiernevar. It was the only thing they’d put off, and only because they wanted to see how the lunatic turned out now that he’d had Laslo’s blood.

  “Keep practicing, Laslo,” Junger called over his shoulder. “We’re going to find the final piece.”

  The assassins scanned the chamber for Kiernevar, but he was nowhere in sight, so they summoned a blood-slave that had been present when Kiernevar fed from Laslo and asked where the lunatic was.

  “Last I saw, he was just leaning against a wall, looking down at his hands,” the zombie said.

  “Nothing else?”

  “Well ... maybe. I did see someone go off down one of the halls, but I wasn’t really watching. Could have been him, could of not.”