Realms of the Dragons vol.1 a-9

by Коллектив Авторов

  When she reached his boat, some distance away from where she had saved him, she floated there for a moment, hoping the man would simply roll off of her and back into his small vessel. But she could feel his even breathing as he just laid there. Not wanting to hurt him by bucking him off, she sighed inwardly and cleared her throat.

  "You are safe," she said in Common.

  Choreal tripped over the words because it had been some time since she'd had opportunity or motive to use the language. Her voice was slightly raspy and sounded like rocks scratching against themselves.

  She wondered if the human might have lapsed into unconsciousness and was about to say something more when she felt him push himself up to a sitting position. The sensation of his hands on her carapace was strange and foreign, and she found she couldn't decide how it made her feel. She felt herself bob upward slightly as she was free of his meager weight. He slid into his boat.

  For a few moments, both regarded each other warily, she from the safety of the water and he crouched behind the thin hull of his boat.

  Chorael finally turned to move away when the shivering man rose from his squat and said in a shaky voice, "You saved me."

  "Yes," Chorael finally answered.

  "But I thought that-" he started and she cut him off.

  "That we are monsters?" she asked. "I could say the same about you. It's what I heard."

  She turned some more but the human called out to her, "Gregoire. My name is Gregoire. Do you have a name?"

  Chorael was growing a bit exasperated and started to reevaluate her decision to help him. Having found his voice, the human seemed determined to use it. She realized it had been better when he had been retching water and silent.

  "You couldn't pronounce it even if I told you," she said. "Now, you have enough to tell your tavern cronies tonight. I wish you good fortune and good even."

  "Is there any way I can thank you?" he asked.

  Chorael looked him over, from his tunic and pants, which upon closer inspection were of a finer weave than many fishermen sported, to his small boat that also looked slightly sturdier and more solid the most fishing vessels on the lake.

  "You have nothing that I would desire in payment."

  She started to swim away from the tiny boat slowly, so as not to capsize it and dump the hapless human into the water for a second time. He called out to her again.

  "Are you sure?" he asked.

  Chorael was torn between entering the soothing darkness of the depths and her growing curiosity with the man who didn't seem to want her to leave. Her curiosity finally overcame her desire to leave and she circled back to him. She could see that he was carefully coiling up a line from the water. A sharp tug from that line might have been why he'd found himself in the lake.

  "There is one thing," she told him.

  "Anything," he replied eagerly, excited she had returned.

  "Tell your brothers to leave us in peace," she replied and hoped that her request, coupled with the fact that she had saved him, would negate any desire he or his friends might have to capture one of her kind in the future.

  "Of course," he agreed and continued to coil up his line.

  Chorael cocked her head some at the sight of it. It struck her as odd that the line was thicker than most she had seen and realized it was almost like rope.

  Too heavy for fishing, she thought.

  Then it struck her that he seemed slightly out of place as a fisherman, clothes and gear just a bit too fine. And he had been so eager to talk to her when most might have been just too stunned by their near-death to say a word. Almost as if he was distracting her.

  She quickly scanned the waters for any other vessels, fearing a trap. But she couldn't see any other boats anywhere else on the water. With a sinking dread she realized that she was not the prey that night, but something else was: her eggs.

  Without another word, she plunged into the water and swam furiously back to where she had laid her clutch. Chorael once again pulled her lumbering body across the sandy bank. She didn't need to go much farther. In the bright moonlight, there was no mistaking the desecration that lay in front of her.

  Her carefully buried mound had been haphazardly dug up and her eggs unearthed. All but one was gone and the one that remained was hopelessly ruined. Whoever had dug them up had been careless and crushed part of the egg underfoot. Nutritional fluid bled over the sand and Chorael could see the undeveloped head of her child peek through the broken shell. She crawled over slowly, her body shaking of its own volition.

  With a trembling claw, she reached out as though to caress the skull of her only remaining child. As she did so, Chorael realized that the human had been a decoy, meant to lure her away from her eggs. That was why he had the line, so that he could pull himself out of the water as she had approached him. Maybe he had figured that she would attack him, but had been caught unaware by her actions. Or maybe the cold had simply affected him more than he had anticipated. She didn't know and she didn't care. All she knew was that he had stolen her future from her.

  With one final glance at her baby, Chorael hissed, "And I helped him!"

  She scrambled back into the water and tore after Gregoire like something possessed. And as she bore down on his tiny vessel, Chorael felt something alien grow inside of her. Her white-hot anger burned even brighter and seemed to be stoked by an other-worldly force. Vaguely, she wondered if it was the Rage that she had heard of and realized if it was, she no longer cared.

  Chorael saw the outline of the human's small boat above her and she pushed straight up toward it, building momentum with each stroke. First her head and her upper body burst through the bottom of the vessel and she briefly saw Gregoire. She thrashed her head and torso from side to side, and the tiny ship was torn asunder as though an explosion had ripped through it. Chorael, diving back under, swam in a slow, deliberate arc, sweeping her clawed hands through the dark water. With measured strokes, she circled back to the boat and her fate.

  Little remained of the vessel after her fierce onslaught. Rising up from the depths, she easily pushed her way through the flotsam that bobbed and bounced along the lake's surface. Like fallen leaves, the splintered timbers and planks were simply an annoyance to her and not even noticeable as they slapped and smashed against her blue-green carapace. Her keen eyes were fixed on one target alone and it filled her vision, bounced back and forth, echoing off of her lenses until it was all that she could see. Swimming in a broken fashion, Gregoire was not even a league away. Chorael smelled his blood in the water and nothing had ever seemed as sweet to her as that moment did. She savored it, reveled in it and she felt the Rage grow stronger. Every stroke she made pushed her old life farther and farther away. She no longer resisted it, but let the fires grow, burning her up from within, melting her cold heart and finally consuming it.

  The dragon turtle bore down on the hapless hunter like an avenging angel. He turned in her direction and Chorael could see that he knew he was doomed. All else was lost to her but the single man floating in front of her, leading the way like some glowing beacon. Chorael cut through the waves deftly and she imagined what sounds he would gurgle when she sank her sharp, beaklike mouth into his vulnerable torso. They would be music to her, no matter what. She sped forward.

  As she neared the betrayer, the man who raided her nest, Chorael did not see that his comrades-inarms, those who had actually removed her eggs, had — launched boats of their own and had circled back around. Moving quickly in two separate vessels, they flanked the dragon turtle. Normally, her sharp vision would have picked them out easily even if the moonlight hadn't have been so bright. The double lenses in her eyes allowed light and images to bounce back and forth within the occipital chamber and grow more intense. But the Rage had gripped Chorael and the only other image she saw besides the hunter barely treading water was the image of her defiled nest; the broken shells and shattered dreams. She had no idea that her own death was so near at hand.

  Unlike his b
oat, the ships of his cohorts were well equipped for dragon hunting. As Chorael bore down on Gregoire, his assistants launched spears and harpoons into the air. Chorael, consumed with vengeance, didn't see them and made no move to dodge them. One after another of the iron tipped lances struck her carapace, piercing the tough shell. Somehow, the hunters managed to pull her back and stop her inches from Gregoire.

  Chorael, denied her vengeance, reared up and thrashed madly against the tethers. Chorael released a spew of burning steam but disorientated and lost in her bloodlust, struck no one. She screamed out and the sound echoed off the lake for miles and miles around. Every other living thing grew silent at the sound of her death throes. The water grew slick with her blood and Chorael grew weaker and weaker. As her outer lids grew heavy, she turned to face Gregoire. The last sight she saw was his fearful face bathed in a red haze. Then her eyes closed forever and her lifeless body bobbed between the two boats like a marionette.

  Dargo's eyes were not made for tears. Even if he had been capable, they would have been dwarfed by the lake itself and lost all meaning. Still, in his heart, he wept for Chorael and the final fate that had been served so undeservedly to her. She had merited better, though even he had warned her of the folly of aiding the damned humans. Nothing but tragedy could have come from their meeting and he was right, though he wished otherwise. And he had seen more tonight than the death of his beloved sometimes-mate. He had seen firsthand the true measure of the Rage and what it could mean to his people. He arrived only in time to watch the hatred and anger wash over the gentlest spirit he had ever known, and see what folly that madness had led her to.

  Was this to be their fate as well, he wondered? To be blinded by fury to the point of death or destruction at the hands of the hated humans? Or even worse, to be enslaved by them until they achieved the freedom that only twilight offered a dragon?

  No, he told himself with a growing anger that surprised even him in its sudden ferocity. I will not allow it even if it means slavery of a different kind.

  He resolved himself to speak with the remaining council members about the offer Sammaster made to their kind. With the only truly dissenting member of their group gone in such a horrific manner, Dargo was certain there would be no other opposition to the lich's offer. If he had been more of a philosopher or a sage, the dragon turtle might have pondered over the twist fate had taken when it made the staunchest opponent to Sammaster become the greatest example for those remaining to embrace his offer instead of facing pointless death. However, philosophy was not his strong suit. He was simply one who had watched his love meet destruction in the flames of the Rage and was determined to lose no one else to it, no matter the cost.

  With one final glance at the surviving humans as they hauled away Chorael's body, Dargo dived deep into the lake. To all the surface world, his retreating form looked like nothing more than moonlight dancing on the waves.

  Deeper and deeper he dived, determined to find the others before another moment was lost. The dragon turtles would embrace the Cult of the Dragon and find some salvation in it. And as he dived on to the black depths at the heart of Lake Thaylambar, he felt his heart grow cold and icy as though a never-ending winter had taken hold and no spring would ever thaw again.

  PENITENTIAL RITES

  Keith Francis Strohm

  6 Ches, the Year of Rogue Dragons

  Candle wax dripped like blood in the crowded chapel.

  Drakken Thaal scratched at his rough gray robe and gazed at the congealing liquid with barely concealed annoyance. The acrid stench of incense blanketed the air, nearly choking him, while a stinking mass of human and elven bodies pressed in on all sides. From a distant loft, deep-throated voices warbled out unappealing harmonies. A sharp shake of his wickedly horned head brought little relief from the incessant sound-though it did elicit several disapproving comments from members of the crowd nearby. Slowly, he turned to face the nattering imbeciles and let the full weight of his black-scaled visage fall upon them. He smiled at the fear in their eyes, pointedly revealing several rows of cruelly barbed teeth. It would be a simple thing to grab each of them and-

  By Ilmater's Tears, Drakken cried silently, what am I doing?

  He stopped his forward movement, bowed low, and softly growled an apology. Before the stunned crowd could react, he pushed past them, stopping only when he reached the relative isolation of a shadowed apse.

  Something was wrong.

  Looking out from the recesses of his darkened vantage, Drakken's eyes fell on the shroud-covered corpse resting upon the main altar. Arranoth Fen, Sub-Prior of the Monastery of the White Willow, and the only brother who had championed his request for sanctuary within the monastery's sacred walls, lay stiff and lifeless, wrapped in a stark, thrice-blessed cerement and surrounded by his Ilmatari brethren who stood vigil as the cleric's spirit traveled at last to rest in the crook of the Crying God's arms.

  Perhaps the truest friend he had ever known lay dead-and Drakken felt nothing at all.

  No, not nothing. For to say such a thing would be a great lie, and though he had been many things in his cursed life, he had never been a liar. Something stirred in the soundless depths of his heart, a familiar, slumbering beast slow to awaken, yet driven by hunger. It scented the air, waiting patiently-ever so patiently.

  Drakken felt fear and disgust, and truth be told, not a little anticipation. When he'd first come to the monastery, five years and a lifetime ago, he came as a warlord. Born of a father so monstrous he was disemboweled by the claws of his own people and a mother too weak to bear him into the world and live, he grew up shunned, until he had learned the measure of his own power. It wasn't long before he had gathered an army of bitter men and monsters and used his draconic heritage to lay a path of wrack and ruin in his wake. Hatred had been his driving thirst, and though he had tried to slake it in the blood of innocents, it would always return more insistent than before.

  Until the day he heard the weeping of a god and found himself kneeling before the gates of White Willow Monastery.

  Since then, he had spent his time in service to Ilmater's chosen. Though at first a difficult adjustment, Drakken had found a measure of peace and stillness within the simple rhythm of monastic life and the aching purity of the brethren's worship. He often rose in the middle of the night, that silent hour when the breath of the world was stilled, to gaze upon the Icon of the Broken Deity. There he encountered, in the midst of Ilmater's wounds, a kinship with his god, a humbling sense of his own brokenness. It was in those rare moments that he felt most beloved and impossibly, most whole-as if his wounds were somehow bound up with those of the Crying God.

  All of that seemed so far away.

  Prayer and peace, stillness and song-it all tasted like ash in his mouth, and had since the nightmares began. Each night for the past month he'd been chased from sleep, waking with a bloodcurdling roar upon his frothing lips. The memory of past acts, or the hope of future atrocities? It was difficult to tell. All he could remember of those nocturnal visions was the metallic taste of blood. Though he'd gone to Brother Phenotar for a draught of sleeping herbs, the mixture did little to stop the nightmares and in fact, seemed to bring them into greater focus. The past night, he had dreamed in vivid detail of his clawed hands wrapped around Brother Arranoth's throat. When he awoke to begin the day's labor, word had spread of the sub-prior's death-along with the rumor that the elder brother's passing had not been a natural one.

  Blessed Ilmaterwhat is happening to me?

  Breathing became more difficult. Reaching out, the half-dragon pressed a scaled hand against the flowing stained glass of the apse window. Desperately, he tried to join his voice to those of the congregation, who echoed softly the prayers of the Ilmatari brethren.

  No sound emerged.

  He cast about for help, but everywhere he looked the penitent saw only the slow, measured spilling of wax, as candles spent their life keeping shadows at bay.

  By the time the abbot's summon
s found him, Drak-ken was drowning in blood.

  "Troubling," Brother Meremont, Abbot of White Willow, said, his long fingers steepled beneath an angular jaw.

  A fire burned fitfully in the austere stone room. Drakken watched the play of light and shadow accent the abbot's well-lined face. Thin, graying hair and a tightly groomed goatee gleamed like burnished silver in the flickering illumination; eyes the color of moon-mist regarded him carefully from deep pools of darkness.

  The half-dragon sat uneasily on his high-backed chair, waiting for more. Yet it was the fire's voice, hissing and crackling, that alone spoke into the silence. Drakken could hear within its susurrus the burning sound of his own condemnation.

  Though gentle, the abbot had insisted that Drakken share whatever had been burdening him-for his disturbance at Arranoth's Vigil earlier had not gone unnoticed. Beneath the elder cleric's kindly gaze, the half-dragon had felt compelled to speak. The tale had come slowly at first, gallingly so. The cruel warlord who had ordered the death of thousands with a few bitter words found his tongue heavy with the weight of doubt. The abbot, however, had proven a patient listener. Stumbling phrases became halted sentences, which in turn became a torrent of language, as the struggling penitent spoke of his growing frustration and anger, his confusion, and finally, the nightmares culminating in the vision of Arranoth's murder by his own hands.

  The abbot held his gaze a moment more, extending the awkward silence. Drakken gripped his armrest so tightly, the wood groaned in protest. At last, the elder cleric rose slowly from his seat and walked to a shelf of carved stone, tracing a gnarled finger absently across the faded gilt lettering of several leather-bound books.

  "No doubt you heard the rumors surrounding the Sub-Prior's death." The abbot's rich baritone echoed in the room.

  Drakken nodded, finally releasing his iron grip upon the chair, and said, "Of course-"