The Dragon of Ankoll Keep

by K S Augustin

  Desire? For a man? With a start, she shifted and Ankoll looked in her direction with a sad smile, dropping his backpack on the ground and settling, with a sigh, on a fallen log nearby.

  “What happened?” she asked, although the answer was obvious. But it stopped her mind from following pathways she did not want it to tread.

  “I killed men.” His voice was bleak. His words, hanging in the chill night air, were heavy with misgiving. “Their thoughts were hateful and the act of violence toward you was unforgivable, but I still killed them. The dragon’s blood was hot within me and I killed without conscience, seeking only vengeance.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she said quickly.

  “Perhaps I could have believed that when I was forced into dragon form for half of every month. But, this time…this time, when I saw that man strike you, I wanted to become a dragon so I could punish him.”

  He wanted to become a dragon? He wanted to punish the men for mistreating her? Gamsin was filled with conflicting emotions—a sudden joy that she’d finally found a champion, mixed with the growing realisation that, for better or worse, she and Ankoll were now bound in a way that would be difficult to sever. She’d always prided herself on her isolation and now, it seemed, she’d unwittingly cleaved to a man who was a mass of contradictions. Strong yet vulnerable, terrible yet compassionate.

  “I should have told you,” Gamsin said quietly, “but I didn’t realise you’d divorced yourself so well from the world. Maybe in your time, sorcerers were more common and had the trust of people, but now they’re blamed for every mishap that befalls a person.”

  She picked up a stick and poked the fire, waking the embers that were now half-grey with ash.

  “Where I come from, in Mishlow City, they’re regarded cynically as mere pickpockets and petty conjurers—insects with outgrown reputations. But, out here in the villages, they are hunted whenever a crop fails or a prized cow suddenly dies.”

  Ankoll nodded. “We did this to ourselves. Even as a young sorcerer I could see where this was leading us. Was even filled with such hubris myself. We battled and duelled with no regard for those around us. We used and discarded lives like playthings, confident in our superiority. It was only a matter of time before we were taught a lesson.”

  “We think of sorcerers like you as elements of myth.”

  “There were never very many of us in the world,” he agreed obliquely.

  “Did they all disappear?” All except you?

  “Over the last few hundred years, I have kept to myself, pursuing my studies. Sorcerers are wary of displaying the full range of their skills—each use of magic sends out its own ripple—and I was a most junior practitioner. There were none I trusted enough to call a friend. But,” he looked up into the deep night sky, “I can still feel traces of them in this world. So, no, I don’t think they disappeared. But perhaps they’ve retreated to some sanctuary far away.”

  “And Beltrin?” He, after all, was the reason they were on this quest. So they could find the master sorcerer and have all of Ankoll’s curse lifted from him.

  “He’s not with them. His trace is stronger, nearer.”

  Ankoll pulled his backpack toward him and unbuckled the top flap, pulling a crumpled shirt from within.

  “I’m glad you rescued your things,” Gamsin said with a touch of humour. “I have become too used to herbs in my cooking.”

  “I rescued it before the—I set the stable on fire.” He secured the flap and paused. “So you say people in this time don’t believe in sorcerers anymore?”

  “Only as harbingers of random disaster.”

  Gamsin watched him shrug into the shirt, admiring the play of muscles and the faint outline of his ribs as his body stretched.

  “I have never asked this question directly of you before but I always thought you came to Ankoll Castle to search for books on spells and enchantments. If it wasn’t to steal my magic secrets—which was what I’d first assumed—why did you come to Ankoll Castle?”

  Gamsin was glad the darkness hid the blush that heated her cheeks.

  “I…I was in some trouble in Mishlow City,” she finally said. “And I needed to leave quickly. I heard an old sailor talking about a dragon at Ankoll Castle and how it had accumulated a lot of treasure over the centuries.”

  “Of course,” Ankoll murmured. “Even better than magic is treasure.”

  “I didn’t believe him,” Gamsin objected. “Not really. I just thought that if there was a small purse of coins hidden somewhere in the castle…”

  Ankoll laughed, a rich sound in the thin, cool air. “You underestimate me, Gamsin Thief. I do indeed have treasure.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You do?”

  “A considerable amount. I have it hidden in a chamber beneath the keep. It’s pretty to look at, but of little use to me.”

  Too late. The knowledge had come too late when her fate was already entwined with his.

  He cocked his head to one side. “But you don’t want an entire chest of gold and pearls, you say? Only a purse? What would you do with only a handful of coins?”

  “As long as they’re gold, I can do a lot,” she replied. “I can buy my own cottage by the sea. Raise some animals. Live in peace.” Her voice was wistful.

  “That is your dearest wish?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not power or palaces?”

  “It’s been my experience that power and palaces only attract unwanted attention.”

  “A wise observation. And would anyone share this cottage with you?”

  “I have no blood kin.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of kin.”

  No, of course he wasn’t. In all honesty, since meeting Ankoll, her thoughts had dwelled more on her companion than her aspiration. And, to her chagrin, she’d even caught herself over the past week somehow imagining him with her at her dream cottage.

  “I…haven’t thought about it.” Liar!

  “I see.” There was laughter in his voice. “Perhaps after we find Beltrin, I can find some appropriate way to thank you for your help.”

  Did this mean he would give her enough money to purchase her dream? Gamsin could picture the details in her head, honed to perfection through constant imaginings—the cottage built from thick logs with an inside fireplace and two rooms. Enclosures outside containing chickens, some cows and two pigs. A small walk to a grassy cliff that overlooked a blue-green, sun-kissed ocean. It was an image that had consumed her for the past few years so why, then, did the thought of finally achieving it all make her feel miserable?

  “We should get some sleep.” Ankoll’s voice broke into her thoughts. “The villagers will be occupied with firefighting for the rest of the night but we should still start early tomorrow.”

  “Of course.”

  It took another week of riding for Ankoll to narrow Beltrin’s location to the Twilight Ranges. They were a sharp, craggy ridge of mountains farther east from Mishlow City than Gamsin had ever dared to travel, and she eyed their graphite peaks with misgiving as she and Ankoll approached.

  “It looks so barren,” she commented. Except for small drifts of snow that softened the uppermost peaks, the rest of the mountainous range was black and stark, unrelieved by the hue of vegetation. “How does anyone live there?”

  “We are still far away, at least a week’s ride. It will look a little more habitable as we get nearer.”

  Gamsin merely grimaced.

  The insubstantial dreams that had previously plagued her were becoming more frequent. And more substantial. Now at least she knew what she dreamed about and it was…sex. With Ankoll. Always with Ankoll, only with Ankoll. And she had the feeling that he knew all about it even though—she was embarrassed to recall—it was usually she who initiated their…lovemaking?

  Gamsin let Ankoll and his horse lead the way along the narrow path to the ranges while she followed her train of thought.

  She hadn’t questioned him further at the time, but the comme
nt from Ankoll after that fateful fourteenth night at the top of the keep had stuck with her. He had assured her she did not mate with him yet here she was, after weeks of travel, following his back as his horse picked through the rocky path toward the ranges. A man’s back, not a dragon’s. Which meant that something had happened to help lift the curse… Something she could not remember.

  Maybe they had mated, but not in the way she’d expected. Another faint recollection pulled at her—words about trust and intimacy. Maybe, she thought with growing conviction, Ankoll had found a way to mate with her without the involvement of their physical bodies. She felt in her bones she was right. And maybe that mental link between them was somehow still open, which was why she kept on recalling faint dream images of them having sex.

  Of course it didn’t hurt that she found him attractive. Her gaze slowly roamed his figure, from his dark hair to the broad shoulders that stretched the material of his shirt and down to a trim pair of hips and a deliciously pert pair of buttocks that swayed in time to his horse’s gait.

  Gamsin groaned, hoping he was far enough ahead of her not to hear, relaxing when his usual off-key whistling drifted in the air toward her.

  There were attractive men in Mishlow City, too. Just because she’d been raped twice didn’t mean she couldn’t admire beauty, but that was always as far as it went. Gamsin was happy to admire from a distance then let it go and move on with her life, convinced that she would spend the rest of it blessedly free of the complications a man brought.

  Until Ankoll came along.

  Was it because he was a sorcerer? Yes, maybe that was part of it, she conceded. After all, who else but a practitioner of magic could break through the physical reserve that still held her fast? But could he have even reached a level of psychic intimacy with her if she hadn’t been taken by his other characteristics? By his warmth and enthusiasm? His cheerfulness and compassion? And of course his cooking skill was no mean prize in itself.

  She grinned, then froze, lifting her fingers to feel the expression on her face, the smooth enamel of exposed teeth and the tightness of her cheeks. She had never grinned before in her life. Smiled, grimaced, frowned, cried, yelled, ranted, but never grinned.

  He had done this to her. And Gamsin still wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  “Something is not right.” Ankoll lifted his head, like a hound sniffing the wind. “I feel another presence.”

  It was nighttime and they had reined in their horses near the top of a foothill overlooking a rude assortment of houses. Due to the steepness of the land, the buildings were built strangely, with their rears resting against the rocky slope and long stilts at the front holding them level. There were occasional rope bridges leading from building to building and timber ladders that emerged from inside them, snaking down in haphazard fashion to the boulder-strewn earth below. Large torches, positioned near every building and bridge, flickered in the evening breeze, illuminating the odd village in yellow-tinged bursts of light. People moved about the elevated compound with purpose.

  Gamsin lowered her voice, picking up on Ankoll’s obvious unease. “You mean, besides Beltrin?”

  “Besides Beltrin,” Ankoll agreed.

  “But I thought you could detect all sorcerers?” Her voice was still hushed.

  “This one wants to remain hidden. And this one is no sorcerer.” He turned the horse back the way they’d come. “Let’s camp away from them for the night. There is something about this I don’t like.”

  They backtracked for half an hour before setting camp behind a nest of large boulders and, much to Gamsin’s surprise, Ankoll asked her to start the fire.

  “It’s not going to be easy,” she told him. “There’s grass here, but little wood to sustain a flame.”

  “Whatever you do will be enough. But make sure it can’t be seen from afar.”

  It took her a while, but she finally managed to get a meager flame going. It was more for psychological comfort than cooking or real warmth. Even among the shelter of the rocks, the choppy wind bit at her small patches of exposed skin. She burrowed farther into the thick fur cloak Ankoll had parcelled out when they began their trek into mountainous country.

  “It’s an uncommonly severe night tonight,” she remarked, trying hard not to shiver.

  “No colder than normal for this part of the world.”

  “We haven’t been this cold before.”

  “That’s because I’m not using any magic tonight.” He looked at her openmouthed expression and smiled. “I’ve been keeping the excesses of the night at bay since we started into the ranges,” he explained. “But tonight I believe that would be an unwise move.”

  “That presence you sensed?”

  “Yes. It’s waiting. I can feel it reaching out for any wisps of magic. It may have tracked us last night but, if it doesn’t detect magic again, perhaps it will think we’ve moved away from the mountains.”

  “You think it’s evil?”

  “I know it cannot be trusted. Whatever it is.”

  “So we have to spend the night as mortals do.”

  Ankoll’s laugh was quick and sharp. “Indeed. And no special dishes tonight.”

  Gamsin smiled. “I wasn’t hungry anyway.”

  “A pity. I am, but not for food.”

  She heard him shift then his voice was right next to hers, and a thrill ran through her body.

  “You’ve been remembering your dreams.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Do you have anything you would like to ask me?”

  “They,” Gamsin licked her lips, “they’re real, aren’t they? We really have,” she hesitated, “mated, haven’t we?”

  “Perhaps I would have called it that before.” Ankoll pulled her closer to him, nestling her head under his shoulder. “Mating. But it has become more than that for me. Your strength has already saved me twice, and mixed with my desire is deep feeling. There is great compassion in you, young Gamsin, if you would only open your eyes and see it.”

  “I’ve seen compassion get people killed,” she answered, her voice bitter. “Men have lost their fortunes through compassion, women their husbands, children their parents. Maybe in your time compassion had value, but the world has changed much over the centuries. Compassion is not worth a copper coin anymore and is nothing I want or need.”

  “You say that and you may even half believe it, but there’s a part of you that knows that’s not true. If you had no compassion, you would have ransacked my keep and fled while I was still in dragon form. Or questioned me more artfully about rumours of a treasure hoard.” He withdrew his arm and moved above her, the small flame throwing the side of his face into relief, turning his eyes into pin-sharp glitters. “But instead, your compassion—your gentleness—stayed to succour me, as it continues to do. You yearn for meaning in your life. Purpose. Intimacy. As do I. You yearn for me, Gamsin Thief, as I yearn for you.”

  Gamsin’s first instinct was resistance as he bent down toward her, then her hands moved from stopping his chest to grabbing his shirt and pulling him toward her. For the first time, for the hundredth time, her lips met his. The strange sensation of the unknown and known made her dizzy. She had never touched his lips before yet already knew the feel of their tender fullness and the insistence of his mouth. His tongue urged her lips open while his hands burrowed under her cloak, stroking her breasts and bringing her nipples to erect peaks. She gasped, allowing him to plunder her mouth, reveling in the heady sensations that swamped her.

  Her hands ran, trembling, over his body, recollection crashing down on her. He, too, liked to be rubbed across his nipples. She did so and he hissed with pleasure before kissing and nibbling at the side of her neck. Her skin prickled with goose bumps and she shuddered against him.

  Gamsin had never been touched like this before—with affection and caring—as if her response was as important as his, and her body opened under him. She couldn’t wait to get her clothes off, obliv
ious of the cold around them, her body burning with an intense desire to have him inside her.

  In the frenzy of hands and tongues, tugging and pulling, she found herself half-naked above him, straddling him with the fur of the cloak still wrapped around her. Their eyes locked as, with his hands on her hips, he guided her up and onto the tip of his penis.

  There was a quick clench of panic then she consciously relaxed. She had already made love—made love!—to this man before and there was nothing to fear from him.

  She was slick with wetness when he slid into her, but she still panted as the size of him stretched her and she fell forward, her hands resting on his chest. Now it was her turn to move as she took the initiative, withdrawing then settling on him, impaling herself deeper with each stroke. They’d done this in their dreams, but it felt so much more distinct in the flesh, as if the shell of a silk cocoon had been torn from her, freeing her to enjoy the myriad sensations of a man moving within her, giving and receiving gratification while she writhed above him.

  She wanted to throw off the fur and feel the cold nip at her body and cool it of its unnatural fever. She wanted to lift her head and roar the cry of a female animal, powerful and pleasured. Then she felt his thumb against her groin, sliding between the lips of her sex, fondling her slippery engorged nub and she opened herself even further, thrusting forward against his touch and clawing his shoulders with her hands. His hand kept up with its insistent rhythm as she rode him, baring her teeth, slave to a compulsion as old as humanity.

  When she climaxed, she couldn’t curtail the cry that emerged from her throat. Waves of orgasm enslaved her, engorging her breasts and sex, driving Ankoll to a frenzy so that he, too, cried out as he emptied into her.

  She felt herself carried upwards toward the night, the wind—no longer freezing—caressing her body. The pleasure was receding and a sense of peace and purpose was taking its place.

  Something, someone, was holding her hand and when she turned her head, she saw Ankoll rising up next to her. He looked misty and insubstantial, a pale reflection of his physical form, and Gamsin wondered whether she appeared the same to him. They floated above their small camp, swept over the hill and headed down towards the village, bobbing from building to building, house to house, while the people of the village went about their business, ignoring them. They skimmed shops and residences before being pulled upwards, to a larger building set back from the others and farther up the slope.