I stood there for a few seconds getting my bearings (or my courage), then took a deep breath and marched resolutely forward . . . only to trip over Sabrina’s outstretched leg and fall flat on my face into a plant that I really hoped wasn’t poison ivy or something with fingers. I have no idea if I can still get poison ivy since I’m dead, but I wasn’t really interested in finding out. I scrambled back to my feet and whirled to face the grinning cop.
“What the hell was that about?” I demanded.
“Do you have a plan, Brainiac?” she asked.
“Yeah. Go in the cave. Kill dragon. Carve out dragon’s heart. Go back to the palace. Get the magic plant from Faerie Queen. Eat another faerie chick. Save your cousin. Make trolls stop beating up gay men in my city. Go home. Drink beer. Did I leave out anything important?”
“Maybe how we’re going to accomplish the whole ‘kill dragon’ step,” she said, looking around us as if trying to find something. “Look at the mouth of that cave. Can anything as big as Milandra described get through that opening?”
I had to admit that it looked pretty small for anything dragon-sized. The cave opening was about ten feet tall and maybe a little wider than that. Certainly not as big as I would expect for a dragon’s lair. “Okay, you’ve got a point. So what’s your plan, General Patton?”
She waved an arm at the forest around us. “We explore the whole area carefully, make sure there isn’t another entrance or escape route for the dragon, and then plan our assault.”
I hate it when she’s right. I hate it even more because she’s always right.
“Okay,” I said. “That does make a lot of sense. Why don’t I go this way, you and Greg go that way, and we’ll meet back here in about thirty minutes to make a plan.”
“Sounds good to me, but why are you going off alone?” she asked.
“It’s not that I’m going off alone, but to be brutally honest, I’m not the most graceful thing in the forest, and neither is Greg. If he and I split up, then anything that hears us will wonder why there are two rampaging elephants rummaging in the forest outside a dragon’s lair. Hopefully the noise will be so distracting that any beasties will decide to leave us alone instead of attacking.”
“Hey!” Greg protested. “I’m stealthy. Like a ninja.” He leaned on the trunk of a tree, which proved to be rotten and toppled over, taking my pudgy vampire ninja to the ground in a crash.
“Yeah, you and Kung Fu Panda, bro.”
I headed off into the forest as quietly as possible, which really wasn’t that quiet. I’m a city vampire, despite spending my college years at Clemson, which is about as rural a college as you can get and still have big-time football. I don’t spend a whole lot of time in the great outdoors, mostly because there’s never anybody to eat out there. The wilderness is wild, man. I’ll stick to places with delivery.
I wandered around for about ten minutes until I came to what looked like the front of the cave. Now that looked like something a dragon could get into. The opening was easily fifty feet wide and thirty feet high. The ground in front of the cave mouth was packed hard and smooth, like something really, really big and heavy used this entrance often. I looked up and saw Greg and Sabrina coming around the other side of the hill.
“I guess this is probably the front porch,” I said when they reached me.
“Yep,” Sabrina said. “Now what do you think about a frontal assault, Braveheart?”
“Might not be my best idea ever,” I admitted. “What does your plan smell like, Sun Tzu?”
“Actually, it’s Greg’s plan.” She waved at my partner, who was bringing up the rear as he fought his way through more of those ass-poking thornbushes. I’d never been so grateful for a long hauberk as when I walked through those woods. And yes, I know what a hauberk is. I played D&D.
“Then we’re doomed. I’m pretty sure we don’t have the cheat codes for this boss fight, gamer-boy,” I said as Greg sat down heavily on a boulder.
“Maybe not, but I’ve still got a pretty good idea for how to make a dragon trap,” he panted.
“I’m all ears, bro,” I said.
“No, Jimmy, you’re usually all mouth. But I’ll take it. I saw this in a movie once, so I know it’ll work.”
My partner’s faith in the world of make-believe is eclipsed only by his encyclopedic knowledge of bad movies. He pulled a dagger from his belt and started to sketch out a diagram in the dirt.
“You and I get up to the top of the cave mouth with our swords. Sabrina goes back around to the back door and sneaks in with her bow. She shoots the dragon in the butt with a few of those nasty arrows, and when it comes running out the front door, we jump on its head and kill it. If we each go for an eye, we should be able to stab straight into the brain and drop the beast without any fuss or bloodshed.”
“At least on our part,” Sabrina said.
“Yeah, shedding a whole lot of dragon blood is sorta the plan,” Greg agreed.
I hated to admit it, but it sounded pretty solid, especially the part where Sabrina stayed back and didn’t get in the way of the teeth and claws part of the fight.
“What about the whole fire-breathing thing?” I asked. “Won’t the dragon just turn around in the cave and roast Sabrina?”
“I’ll have to scout it out. Hopefully there’ll be a crevice or a crack in the wall I can hide in.” She didn’t seem too concerned about going into a cave to shoot a dragon in the ass, so I figured, let her go for it. I was the one volunteering to jump off a cliff onto the same dragon’s head, after all, so I didn’t have a whole lot of room to talk about good decision making.
“All right, boy genius. Do we do this now, or wait ‘til dark?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I have no idea if dragons are nocturnal or diurnal,” Greg replied.
“Since I have no idea what that second thing means, I guess I don’t know either,” I said. I’m not really an idiot, but Greg is really well-read and likes to show off in front of girls. I do too, but I do most of my showing off by hitting things very hard.
“Diurnal means that a creature is active during the day,” said a new voice directly behind me.
I jumped about eight feet in the air and landed eye to very, very large eye with the golden-scaled head of a dragon.
Apparently dragons can move very quietly when they want to. I scrambled backward, and out of the corner of my eye saw Greg and Sabrina doing the same thing. I tried hard to stay directly in the monster’s field of vision as they moved out to flank the creature’s head.
“Good afternoon, heroes. I am Tivernius. Welcome to my forest. I do wish you would put that away, my dear. I would prefer not to incinerate you quite this close to my home. After all, only we can prevent forest fires.”
Sabrina put down the bow and the arrow she had been trying to slowly draw, and Greg and I sheathed our swords.
“Thank you. Now please, come into my home and we can continue this conversation in a more civilized setting. I give you my word that I will bring no harm upon you as long as you do not attack me.” With that, the head the size of a Mini Cooper pulled back into the cave on a long, scaly neck.
We stood there for a moment looking at each other until finally Sabrina started walking toward the mouth of the cave. “Where are you going?” I almost shouted.
“I’m going to do as he asked,” she said. “If he wanted to kill us, we’d already be dead. He caught us completely flat-footed, and let us off the hook. I’m going to give him the courtesy of a conversation before we fight, at least.” With that, she leaned her bow and quiver against the cave mouth and followed the head into the side of the hill.
I looked at Greg, who shrugged back at me and followed her. I waited there for just a moment before I realized that they were in no hurry to come to their senses, and followed my friends into the dragon’s lair.
Chapter 17
The passage was long and deceptively winding. We walked for a solid five minutes down the tunnels until the passageway opened
into a huge room that made Milandra’s great hall look like a college dorm. The ceiling vaulted high above our heads, at least fifty feet into the air, and at a glance, I figured you could have fit a couple of football fields in the room with space left over for at least half a racetrack to boot.
Everywhere around us was opulence decked in gold. The floor was made up of marble slabs set in place and lined with gold. The walls were covered in enormous tapestries in amber, gold and orange hues. The ceiling, almost high enough to have its own weather, was sculpted to look like there was a canopy of trees, all covered in golden leaves.
I was almost disappointed not to see a huge lizard lying sprawled on piles of treasure, but there was no huge pile of booty. No fire-breathing monster running its talons through piles of gemstones, no priceless works of art carelessly piled around the room. There was just a sparsely, expensively decorated hall, with a large table near one wall. Seated at the head of the table was a tall, well-built man who rose when we entered and beckoned us to him.
Something about him looked familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. He was dressed entirely in shades of gold, with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. He wore golden chain mail, which must have weighed a ton, but he stood and moved with the grace of a ballet dancer. A long sword hung at his belt, and judging by the way his biceps bulged under his armor, he knew how to use the thing. At a glance he looked to be in his late twenties, but something in his eyes made him look far older.
“Come, my guests. Sit, be welcome, and I will have food summoned.”
We sat at the table, and our host took his chair at the head of the table. “Welcome. Thank you for agreeing to join us. Now, please, what can I do to help you?”
“I’m sorry if I’m missing something, pal, but wasn’t there a dragon in here a few minutes ago?” I asked, sipping from a goblet that appeared in front of me, full of rich red wine. The wine had a coppery tang to it, as though there was a little blood mixed in. I wasn’t going to complain, but I had my concerns for Sabrina if we were all drinking from the same carafe.
“I am sorry, my friend. I should have realized that you were not from our land. I am Tivernius. I am the dragon.”
I looked sharply at the man and could see just a faint hint of scale at his eyebrows. As I looked closer, I saw that the golden tinge to his complexion was more than just a reflection off his armor, he actually had golden skin. I shook my head and reminded myself that we were in Faerieland, after all.
“Sorry. I thought you’d be bigger.” When in doubt, quote Roadhouse. It’s a philosophy that has served me poorly for many years, but I’m too stubborn to change it.
“We have multiple forms, my vampiric friend, just as you do,” Tivernius said.
“Huh?” Greg said. “We don’t have multiple forms, we’re just vampires.”
“Then you have been poorly taught indeed, or are very young for your kind, not to have discovered your other shapes,” said the dragon-man, a little surprise coloring his voice. “But it is not for me to teach you. Why are you here? Are you also here for my head, like the others that Fae-witch has sent in the past?”
“Well . . .” I looked for a delicate way to put it and couldn’t come up with one. “Milandra did send us, but I’m really hoping that we can come to some type of non-violent agreement.” Mostly because I couldn’t think of a single way that we could fight this guy in dragon form that didn’t end up with my femurs being used for toothpicks. I thought we might have a chance at him in human form, but then I looked at his arms again and that sword, and I wasn’t so sure.
“And how do you suppose we do that, vampire? She sent you here, didn’t she? And she told you that the only way to get her help is to bring back my head? She’s been doing this for months, ever since the last time our negotiations broke off.”
“Actually,” Sabrina interjected, “we’re only supposed to bring back your heart. She didn’t say anything about your head.”
“Well, isn’t that just perfect,” the dragon-man fumed. “She refuses to marry me. Then she sends bounty hunters and assassins to rip out my heart. Like she hasn’t done a good enough job of that herself.” He stood up abruptly, toppled his chair over backward and paced back and forth at the head of the table.
We all jumped to our feet, hands on sword hilts, as I fully expected to be flambéed at any moment.
“Well, maybe . . . nah, I got nothing. Sorry,” Greg said after thinking for a minute.
“What were you going to say, vampire?” Tivernius picked up his chair and sat back down. He put his elbows on the table and leaned forward, running fingers through his shoulder-length blonde hair. The dude really did have a serious gold-tone thing going on.
“I was just thinking . . . nah, it just doesn’t work out.” Greg tried to start again, but gave up.
“Spit it out, bloodsucker. I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I’m just so frustrated by the whole thing that I don’t know what to do.” He leaned further forward, his chin in his hands. If I didn’t know that he could turn into something big enough to swallow bison whole, I would have thought he was just another schmuck with girl troubles. As it was, he was a schmuck that could level entire city blocks with girl troubles.
“Well, why don’t you tell us the story? Maybe we can come up with something to help,” Sabrina said. “After all, we’re here, and we don’t really want to try to carve your heart out, and we’re in no hurry for you to barbeque us or whatever, so what harm can come from it?”
“That sounds like a fair idea, young human. Have some more wine.” He waved a hand and two carafes appeared. The larger red carafe for Greg and me, and another carafe of white for Sabrina.
“Stay outta the red, Sabrina. Just trust me,” I said, filling my glass.
She gave me a look, but didn’t say anything.
“It all began at a party,” Tivernius began. “I attended a ball in the lands of House Cintharion, a neighboring realm to Armelion. The King of Cintharion was ailing, and he wanted me to meet his daughter, in hopes of building an alliance marriage. But she was a harpy with a terrible disposition and a huge nose, and I wasn’t interested. I may weigh seven tons and have scales, but I have my standards. She was a truly unattractive human, not in appearance but demeanor, entitled and possessing a ridiculous sense of self-importance. So I was standing at the bar being miserable, because that is where one stands at a party to be miserable, when Milandra walked in.”
“Cue harp music,” I muttered, earning myself a sharp look from Sabrina but a chuckle from Tivernius.
“Exactly, vampire. The moment I saw her, I was awestruck by her beauty, her carriage and her very rightness. Even at her young age I had never seen anyone so suited to rule. She was not yet queen but already the most regal thing in the room. I introduced myself, and we spent the rest of the night talking about everything under the sun and moon. We connected on a deeper level than I have ever connected with any living being, human, faerie, sanguine or dragon.”
“I was in love, if you can imagine. Me, who had seen seventeen centuries without ever giving my heart to another creature, completely smitten in one glance. And by a faerie, one of the most capricious races in all the realms. It was inconceivable, but we continued to correspond, and to build a relationship, and we began making plans to marry.”
“Wait a second,” I interrupted. “You were going to marry Milandra?”
“Yes, of course,” answered the dragon. “We were very much in love.”
“But she’s a faerie. And you’re a lot of things, but faerie isn’t on the list.”
“Don’t be speciesist, vampire. It’s petty. Any creature of magic can control his or her form, and we can all intermarry if we choose. And what creature is more magical than a faerie, unless it is a dragon? We are magical, we are immortal, and we were in love. Why should we not marry?”
“You’re immortal?” I asked.
“Yes. I can be killed, if anyone is brave enough and skilled enough, but I will never d
ie of natural causes. By the way, you’re not.”
“I’m not what?” I asked.
“Skilled enough. The three of you never had a chance to kill me. That’s why you’re down here sitting at my table. I’m as safe from you as I am from old age.”
Tivernius leaned back in his chair and sipped his wine while I processed all this. “Okay, so you’re in love with Milandra, and she’s in love with you. And you guys are planning a wedding. And then suddenly something goes wrong.”
“All true,” he said.
“So what happened? Why aren’t you living over there with Milandra in faerie/dragon bliss or whatever?” Greg asked.
“She became queen. I attended her coronation ball, we danced, we laughed, we kissed. It was glorious.” The sappy dragon’s voice trailed off into blissful memory. I cleared my throat.
“Then within a matter of days, she turned cold. She would not speak to me, would not return my messages, would not receive my visits. Nothing I did would persuade her to allow me back into her presence, even for a moment so that I might understand what offense I have given.”
“So, she dumped you?” Sabrina asked.
“Not only that, but it was then that she started sending these so-called heroes to murder me. Month after month, year after year, fools like you come to my home and attack me without warning. I kill them all, but still more come. I grow weary of this. Perhaps I should let you kill me and end my suffering.”
“Okay. That makes it a lot easier on us,” I said, standing up.
Sabrina put a hand on my wrist as I reached for my sword. “If you touch that sword I swear to God I will stake you in your sleep,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Look, I love a good romance as much as the next guy. Which is to say not at all. But anyway, I don’t mind the lovey-dovey crap as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the important stuff. Like saving your cousin’s life. We’re on a deadline, remember?”
The Black Knight Chronicles Page 28
