Fall of the Dragon Prince
Page 37
Son like father, his promises waited on promises unfulfilled.
Terith gripped the dragon’s reins and rose up in his saddle.
So be it. If I am to fall, then I shall take many with me.
Terith lowered Nema’s fruit dragon to just above the treetops. Cresting a divide, a canyon opened beneath him. To his left the Outlands ended at a sheer cliff that dropped into the swamps of the deep.
Terith blinked back fatigue and emotion and angled Cymr to glide out over the lip of the canyon. Several other dragons glided through the canyon. It was the season for hunting food for their hatchlings. Nema’s yellow-green dragon was but one among many that flapped their wings in the light drizzle.
Terith let the dragon down not far from the final cliff that separated the Outlands from the Montas realm. He dismounted. The exhausted dragon ducked into the shade of a broad fern and made itself scarce.
Terith walked a dozen paces to the edge of the precipice. The dragons circling the canyon were not wild. They each bore a rider.
If these are Pert’s missing riders, then . . .
Terith’s eyes searched in the ivy of the opposite wall of the canyon for signs of movement. Toran’s trail itself was not visible beneath the ivy and below the fog line, but perhaps passing movement would be detectable.
All at once his eyes pieced a pattern of insignificant puffs of haze rising out of the fog at intervals, blending with the fog.
Greenwood torches.
A column of soldiers was moving along the cliff just below the fog line. In a mix or horror and dismay, Terith realize the Outlanders had been on Toran’s trail since at least that morning.
He looked to the gaps between the megaliths where vulnerable bridges stretched unseen across the canyon below the fog level. But small detachments of guards, crossbows drawn, were stationed on the megalith tops.
Neutat lay beyond a rise only five miles to the east.
How do I stop them?
Terith’s mind spun, watching almost helplessly as the troops marched into the realm of the Montas, his realm.
Anger and fear boiled up in him. Suddenly two wingtips appeared in front of him quickly followed by the slender jaws of a velra. A gust of fire blasted him backward. Terith’s eyes and face were seared through the gap in his face guard. As he fell back, his exposed skin at the gashes in his leather cried out as though it were still immersed in the blaze.
Terith forced himself to his feet, but the barrel-splintering force of the heavy tail of the dragon met him halfway, sending him back a half dozen paces. He landed on his side, reeling with sharp, new pain. Blackness gathered around him. Terith tried to stand up but couldn’t find the strength in his legs nor air in his thunderstruck lungs.
Its dragon fire spent, Nema’s mount Cymr beat the air as he took to the sky.
Pert dismounted from his velra and stood in front of him, solitary, arrogant, and supreme.
At a gesture from Pert, an unseen force closed on Terith, squeezing his chest and throat, lifting him from the ground.
Pert’s demonic power had somehow increased, as if he were gaining strength with every life he took.
“Traitor!” Terith forced through his pinched windpipe.
“I told you I would take it all away,” Pert said menacingly.
“You can’t,” Terith said. His feet reached helplessly for the ground a few inches away.
“You’re dead. The Montas is mine. These savages will take the inlands, and nobody can stop any of it—especially you.”
Pert drew his knife and put the tip to Terith’s neck, slit the tie to his dragon-wing cloak, and yanked it away.
Terith tried to move his arms, but the dark awakening billowed stronger, squeezing him until the pain forced him to the edge of unconsciousness.
“You are nothing more than a flesh-eating maggot that crawled out of the scum,” Pert spoke through gritted his teeth. “So back to the deep with you!”
He grabbed Terith by the throat and hurled him headlong over the edge of the cliff. Pert shrieked with pleasure, screaming at the sheer delight of finally defeating Terith.
The air rushed in Terith’s ears, louder and louder. He tumbled at the edge of consciousness, the sight of his cloak drifting down far above him passed vaguely in his mind.
He collided with the cliff and then pinwheeled limply into a crush of leaves, rocks, water, and darkness.
And those words echoed as the life drained out of him.
Not the deep!
Chapter 26
Erdali Realm. Citadel of Toran.
The latch on the door clicked softly as of someone discretely leaving.
“Verick!” Reann called.
He had left without saying goodbye.
Reann pulled back the curtains of her bed and looked about for something to wear. There was nothing but the fancy gown she had worn the night before. Reann struggled into it, did her best to cinch the ties in the back, and put her feet into the soft and familiar leather slippers, a remnant of her former life.
Reann opened the door to find two sentries posted. Reann darted past them down the hall.
“He said she’d do that,” the taller one mumbled to his fellow.
“Now what?” the other replied.
Reann hurried down the stone steps of the circular stair. Verick wasn’t in the dining hall.
The stables—gotcha.
She smiled as she hurried out the great double doors of the castle and grabbed his arm as Verick rode his horse out of the stable gate.
Without a word he pulled her into the saddle in front of him.
“You left without saying anything,” Reann accused.
“You were sleeping.”
“As you should have been,” Reann replied breathlessly. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Wherever you wish, my lady.”
Reann grinned at the thought. She was a princess. She could have whatever she wanted. What she wanted most was time with Verick.
“Take me up to the quarry,” Reann said, with a glint in her eye. “I want to see my kingdom.”
Verick nodded and his horse trotted quickly to the gate.
“Open the portcullis,” barked a sergeant. “It’s the princess, Reann.”
Word of Reann’s revealed identity had spread quickly.
“Good morning, your highness,” said the gate guard smartly. His eyes sparkled as if he had been given new life.
As Verick’s horse stepped quickly through the streets of the lower village, curious villagers poked their heads out of shutters. The most nonplussed was the old cobbler who looked as though his eyes would fall out of their gaping sockets.
“You will make me some respectable boots, won’t you?” Reann called as she passed. A chuckle rose in her, until both she and Verick were laughing as his horse sped to a canter toward the foothills north of the citadel.
A half hour later the horse slowed at the top of a tall hill. Reann jumped off and, lifting the edges of her dress to avoid the dirt, scampered to a lookout. Morning sunlight bathed the plains of Erdal, where the two tributaries of the great Erdal River joined near the citadel. Verick looped the reins on a pine bough and followed Reann.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, gazing over the green vineyards and endless fields of young wheat.
“It’s yours, I suppose,” Verick said.
“As far as the plains reach,” Reann said. “The coastal mountains in the south belong to my adopted brother, the witch’s son—I didn’t tell you Toran adopted him.”
“I knew you were holding something back,” Verick said.
“Well your notes helped.”
“Glad I could make them easy to steal.”
Reann, blushing, exchanged a glance with Verick.
“He’ll have his hands full with the
Witch Queen,” Verick said. “She’s called back her merchant ships. I think she means to invade.”
“My worst problem used to be dishes,” Reann muttered. “Now it’s her.”
“What about the other heirs?” Verick asked.
“Trinah hasn’t yet claimed her throne, but a document I found mentioned that the heir of the Montas realm was born on the day of Toran’s victory against the Outlanders. We should be able to find him easily.”
“If he survives the Outlander invasion.”
“He’ll survive,” Reann said. He’s a son of Toran. He has to.
Verick inclined his head conceding the point, but showing his understandable doubt. “The Montazi are strong. And what about Dervan?” Verick asked. “Is there an heir of the desert realm?”
Reann nodded.
“How will you know him?”
Reann spoke with a sureness in her voice that surprised him. “He has my father’s sword.”
The two strode carefully over piles of sharp rocks, broken remnants of the white rock quarried for the walls of the castle.
“Not the best location for a fortress,” Verick commented, gazing down at the valley.
“What do you mean?” Reann asked.
“Out in the plain, vulnerable to marine attack—it’s about the worst location you could imagine.”
“It used to be up here,” Reann said thoughtfully. “Before Toran moved it.”
“He moved it?” Verick said, surprised. “I can’t imagine why. The hill offers a longer range for catapults, no surprise attacks, access to springs, wood—it’s superior in every way.”
“Why does a king move his castle?” Reann wondered.
“Why does a dog bury a bone?” Verick said amicably.
“So rivals don’t find it,” Reann said without a second thought. She stopped, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest.
There is something under that castle.
Acknowledgments
As with any novel, there are always many thanks to give. My super positive, creative wife, Amanda, is the one who convinced me I could do it. Sarah E. Starbuck, then a precious teenager and my first actual reader, got me on the right path with refined criticisms on my early work, such as “You have subject-verb agreement issues, big time.”
Many thanks to my children and their voracious appetites for bedtime stories that kept me on task and thinking outside the box. To my critical readers Andrea, Megan, Mark, and Stanley for their thorough eyes and time, I can’t thank you guys enough. Warm thanks to my brilliant editor Kenna Blaylock and the incredible team at Jolly Fish Press. Lastly, I credit a handwritten note on my tenth grade writing project from my English teacher Mr. McConkie. In that note he chastised me for not doing my best, forever searing it in my conscience until, ten long years later, I had the courage to write with my heart.
Dan Allen is a newly discovered fantasy and sci-fi author. He is chief technology officer at a tech startup, a father, and a husband to his drummer-artist wife. Fall of the Dragon Prince is the first novel in Dan’s epic fantasy series The Forgotten Heirs. He has designed lasers for the government and sensors for cell phones, lit a three-story electron accelerator on fire, chased a flying stool across a high magnetic field zone, and created nanoparticles in a radioactive lab. He lives in the mountain west, where the desert touches the mountains and the sky.
For more fun and ideas, follow @authordanallen on Twitter and watch for forthcoming releases on JollyFishPress.com.