The Dragon's Fury (Book 1)

by D Mickleson

  Alden’s smile twisted bitterly. “You mean the people who were cheering on the minotaur a minute ago while I was chained and defenseless? Who gives a damn about them?”

  Triston stared for a couple more seconds as the raging beast trampled its way into the shrieking mob. He noticed several legionnaires still on their feet, fighting futilely against the tide and shaking their fists at Alden.

  “Come on,” Triston said. “Let’s find a place to disappear until morning.”

  Alden nodded grimly, his eyes narrowing dangerously as he too looked down at the struggling soldiers. “Yeah. I know a place. Follow me.”

  They delved into the crowd at a run. The remaining Ironwood legionnaires had spread out, but escaping the plodding soldiers in this sea of pandemonium was all too easy for the nimble young men. They ducked and weaved, sometimes edging forward forcefully, sometimes even crawling under merchants’ stands and tents. Once they even dodged through a troupe of stilt-walking jugglers on another makeshift stage. All but one of the startled performers managed to keep his balance. Before long they’d left their floundering pursuers far behind.

  After a time they drew near the city square. No rumor seemed to have reached the revelers here of the chaotic events of the escaped minotaur, and no guards of any kind were visible. They relaxed their frantic flight to a steady walk, mingling with the throng, only the occasional glance over the shoulder showing their unease.

  As his mind cooled and the shock began to fade, the pain in Triston’s injured arm grew. He tried not to think of it, knowing how much depended on keeping a cool head. They were still far from safe and for all he knew, every Guardian, legionnaire and city guard in Luskoll was now looking for them

  “This way! In here,” called Alden a couple minutes later, pointing at a narrow doorway hung with long strings of maroon beads.

  Triston followed him through a dark entryway into a parlor thick with oily smoke. Dimly lit candles, red rose in hue and scent, burned here and there on dainty tables and curving sconces. Alden picked his way through the room with confidence, Triston close on his heels, looking around curiously. The room narrowed on the other end, stretching into a shadowy hall lined with many mirrored doors and heavy crimson draperies. The air was very still and quiet, but strange noises, creaking floorboards and whispered conversations, seemed to emanate from the very walls. The bustle and noise of the carnival apparently left far behind, Triston nevertheless felt a growing claustrophobia as he followed Alden deeper and deeper into this . . . wherever they were.

  “What is this place? Who lives here?” he ventured into the silence.

  Alden gave a wry smile. “Just for the night,” he said with a guilty shrug. “Because we have no other choice.”

  Comprehension dawned like a slap of cold water.

  “Really Ald? Every strong arm in Luskoll’s after us and you want to—”

  “Shut it. We’re here.”

  The darkling corridor took a sharp left turn, opening onto a spacious chamber, richly appointed with a blood-red carpet soft underfoot. The furniture was polished oak adorned with a rainbow of plush cushions and pillows. Vessels of bronze and silver graced the woodwork, and above all, blazing lamps gave off a sickly-sweet scent.

  Squinting in the sudden burst of light, it took Triston several seconds to notice the woman standing behind an oaken counter near the middle of the room. She may have once been beautiful, certainly her features were proud, but the thick layer of rouge and blush plastered onto her face to mask her age also hid whatever loveliness remained to her.

  They stopped and waited a few paces away, Triston cursing Alden in silence as the seconds ticked by. At last the woman looked up, casting a stern eye on them. She frowned dubiously as though uncertain if they would do. Looking them up and down, her eyes lingered on Triston’s dirt-smudged face, his bloodied arm, and Alden’s frayed and tattered jerkin.

  “Are you lost?” she asked haughtily.

  “No, we need a room right away,” Alden told her. “I’m, uh, Lord Virilian, and this is Lord . . . Sarconius. Your best, Madam, if you please.” Then, taking in Triston’s scowling face, added, “But just the room. No women for us.” He turned to Triston. “It’s only safe for you and me if we’re out of sight and the sooner the better.”

  The madam raised her eyebrows so high at these words she left permanent cracks in her plastered make-up. “Well, to each his own I suppose,” she muttered. “I have the perfect accommodation for your, er”—she eyed them suspiciously—“lordships, and as it’s carnival week the room’s available at the moderate price of only twenty-five silver pennies.”

  “Right,” said Alden, frowning. “How much have you got, Trist?”

  “This is ridiculous. I’m not paying—”

  “Damn! Those dogfaces cleaned me dry,” said Alden, pulling out empty pockets. “I swear I’ll finish off every last one of them if it’s—” Abruptly he stopped short, looking up at the madam with a hasty smile. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll just have to open up a tab. I swear I’m good for it. And I’ll pay you double next time I’m here. All right then? Fine. If you could just fetch the key . . .” His words trailed away under the madam’s withering gaze.

  “Or better yet,” she responded through clenched teeth, “you can leave now and come back with the silver, your lordship.”

  Alden faced her without expression, but Triston knew him well enough to recognize the anger in his darkening skin.

  It usually meant someone was about to die.

  Abruptly he rounded on Triston. “If money’s what we need—wait, your bag. All our stuff!” Viewing Triston in a full light for the first time since Fort Ironwood, he gaped at his bloodied wrist and disheveled appearance. “Trist? What happened?”

  Triston didn’t know where to begin. He struggled for words as the events of the last twelve hours ran through his memory. Suddenly a hot rush filled his head and he shoved Alden with all his strength, knocking him to the ground.

  “My gear? That was your big plan?” he shouted.

  “Get out! Both of you! I won’t suffer fools in my establishment.”

  Alden rose to his feet and faced him, Triston pleased to see a shadow of shame pass over his features. “If they search me, they won’t find a thing,” Triston went on coldly, ignoring the madam. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”

  “Trist, I . . . damn! They weren’t supposed to search you. Why did they?”

  Triston shook his head as if to ward off everything that was happening. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He paused for a moment, letting his cool return.

  “Are you deaf? I said get out!”

  “Look, Ald. We’re even. Let’s just forget about it.”

  Alden nodded gravely. “You mean because I just rescued you from the minotaur and the dogfaces?”

  “What? No! Because I stopped you from slaying the witch when you had a chance, back at the fort. Wait—you rescued me?” Triston felt the blood rush right back to head at the injustice of it. “I rescued you!”

  Alden frowned confusedly. “It was my sword and my plan that saved us. What did you do?”

  Triston made to shove him again but Alden, not to be taken at unawares a second time, leapt backwards, inadvertently crashing into the madam’s desk and toppling it with her underneath.

  Their argument forgotten, the two young men hurried to free her. She rose, shaking with rage and refusing their proffered arms. Her wig had flopped under a nearby end-table, revealing a few strands of gray hair plastered to a scalp ripe with age-spots.

  “Enough,” she said, her voice trembling. “Enough.”

  Without another word, she turned her back on them, disappearing with a swish of silk into the shadows of a hallway in the rear of the room.

  Alden slouched onto a poofy armchair with a sigh of contentment.

  “At last. So tell me, what did happen with our beloved Seer?”

  Triston slumped onto a wooden chair nearby, glancing in the direc
tion the madam had gone and wondering if this day would never end. He turned to Alden, who was watching him eagerly.

  “Go on then,” he urged.

  “OK. Basically she thought I had a Relic of Power from my father, so she sicked her manticore on me to get it and I ended up blowing her up with your Hellcaps.”

  Alden showed no sign that Triston had said anything extraordinary, only eyeing him searchingly. “She’s dead then?” he asked quietly.

  Triston shrugged wearily. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. I wasn’t quite in my right mind when I left her lying there.”

  Alden leaned forward in his armchair, the intensity in his gaze matching the burning lamps above. “Tell me everything. Everything, from Ironwood to the Fane.”

  Triston turned back to the hallway, which was still empty and quiet, then, in a resigned voice began relating the events of the day. He was surprised to find how absurd, how increasingly impossible, the tale was. With each word he expected Alden to silence him with an incredulous wave of the hand, but his friend made no move or sign, only listening at the edge of his seat. But when Triston told of the Seer’s gloating when the scribe searched his things, Alden suddenly leapt up.

  “Let’s see it then. Show me what you’ve got on you.”

  “Nothing. That’s just it. I’ve got nothing. Here, I’ll show you.” Triston cleared a porcelain vase off a little table and emptied his pockets onto it. “See, silver pennies and some rubbish. That’s it.”

  Alden looked down curiously at the table. “What’s this doodling say?” he asked, picking up the worn parchment and turning it this way and that.

  “What? There’s no doodling. Give me that!” Triston made a grab for it, but Alden jerked his hand away, backing up towards the desk without taking his eyes off the vellum fragment.

  “Are you telling me you don’t know what this says?” he said with relish, grinning. “But I thought you could read.”

  “I can. It doesn’t say anything. Give it here.” Triston made a sudden lunge, but Alden was too quick, maneuvering behind the desk with the grace of a dancer.

  “Old Arloon gave you this, right? And he mentioned your old man?”

  Tristan froze. “So?”

  Alden gazed down at the skin, twisting around to shield it from Triston’s view.

  “If this came from him, well, it seems the rumors were true then. Sorcery. Black magic of the worst kind.”

  To his surprise, Triston felt nothing but amusement at Alden’s antics. The familiar rankle over his father’s legacy was gone. The anger was there, to be sure, but it was no longer directed at Trinian.

  He didn’t abandon us. He didn’t want to die.

  Triston folded his arms across his chest. “Keep it then. It’s just a scrap of leather. I meant to throw it away.”

  Alden shrugged. “OK,” he said, folding the vellum and place it in his tunic’s inside pocket. “But seriously, we should probably be going now.”

  “Why? I thought you said we needed to wait—”

  “That was before I found out you killed Her Grace. We’ll never get through the main gate now without being spotted. Don’t lose heart just yet. There’s another way we can try, but we’ll have to—”

  “There!” came a shout behind him. “Just kill these two, and your time with Desdemona is free.”

  Triston and Alden spun around to see the madam standing just within the light near the entrance to the hallway.

  Out of the shadows strode a tall man, blond-haired and gray-eyed. He was clad in shining armor of purest white, lined with silver at the seams which flashed as he moved under the lamps. A silver crest gleamed on his breastplate, a tall ship riding proud above a storm-tossed sea. The man faced them with a sneer, his eyes lingering for a moment on the sword in Alden’s hand before turning to the madam. “My time and . . .” he said, dragging out the last word.

  The madam wrinkled up her face, looking like she’d just swallowed a pint of lemon juice. “Your time . . . and that of all your men,” she spat out with some difficulty. “Just do the job, and don’t get blood on the upholstery.”

  “Of course not,” he said with a small bow, drawing a two-handed broadsword and turning to face Alden. “I needn’t have even geared-up for this. You, boy, drop your weapon and kneel, and I promise you won’t feel a thing. Otherwise, this may hurt.”

  Alden raised one eyebrow. “Tell me officer, what is a king’s man like you doing away from Court? Does His Majesty attend the carnival?”

  The man straightened up in surprise. “So, Meridian, I see you’re somewhat versed in the ways of Corellia.”

  “Born and raised,” answered Alden brightly.

  “Well, you were born a bastard then. And now, you’ll die one.”

  With a snarl the man raised his weapon, stepped forward and swung down in a wide, sweeping arc at Alden’s knees. Triston glanced around for something to use as a weapon, but there was no need.

  The fight was over almost as soon as it began.

  Alden dropped his sword as the man swung, leaping lightly up as the weapon passed underneath with a whoosh. As he jumped he grabbed a finely-wrought arm of the chandelier above him with both hands. Whooping with glee, he kicked out hard, his iron shod boot meeting his attacker’s face with a crunch.

  The man collapsed to the floor in a heap, his two front teeth flying from his bloodied mouth to disappear in the plush carpet. Landing softly, Alden strode to where Triston stood holding the sword he’d just retrieved. “The weapon, if you please.”

  “I’ll hold on to it.”

  “Fine. You do it.”

  “We’re not killing him.”

  “What’s the matter with you? He was going to—”

  “This is one of the king’s men, right?”

  “So?”

  “Well, as I already have the Guardians after me, and you have every legionnaire in Corellia chasing you, we don’t need any more enemies.”

  Alden stared, his eyes alight with wrath. Seconds passed. Slowly a smile spread on his lips. “Good thinking. All right, let’s go.” Blowing a kiss at the madam, whose look of terror turned to outrage at the gesture, he ran from the room, Triston close on his heels.

  Outside, night had come in earnest. The brisk air refreshed them after the cloying perfume of the brothel, and the moon’s silver orb shone clear and bright, joined by a few of the brightest stars. The lesser stars, however, remained veiled in a haze of city lights, for though the sun slept, the torch-bearing crowd was thicker than ever.

  Alden and Triston pushed their way through the throng, trying to look at ease. The occasional city guard could be spotted here and there keeping a silent vigil, like a rock at sea, while waves of merrymaking crashed and broke all around. Mouthwatering aromas of baking bread and spiced meats, and other smells foreign to Triston’s sheltered experience tortured his senses and reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since a hasty breakfast at dawn.

  Alden was more interested in a coil of rope dangling from the side of a nearby huckster’s stall. When the man turned his avid attention on a group of well-to-do ladies passing by, he casually unhooked the coil and concealed it beneath his tunic in an obvious lump.

  “What are you—”

  “Come on, Trist. Right over here.”

  The narrow street opened before them into a vast space teeming with revelers.

  “Hey you. Guess who? It’s eight thirty-two.”

  Triston looked around in surprise at the enchanted owl Beaky as it assumed its frozen form once more.

  “Ald,” he whispered fiercely, “this is the city square, the very last place we want to be. Crawling with guards. We need to get out of here.”

  Alden gave him a wink and a grin, pointing at the pool which spread out at the owl’s feet. When Triston frowned uncomprehendingly, he traced with his finger the waterfall which fed the pool.

  “Not afraid of getting a little wet, I trust?” he said bracingly.

  “This is your way out? The watercou
rse?”

  “Leads straight through the city wall and out into the countryside. It’s perfect.”

  Triston considered this for a moment. “Not bad, actually. So how do we—”

  “Get up there? Right this way.”

  Alden followed the aqueduct’s dim shadow away from its frothy outflow. The stone watercourse ran along an elegant colonnade which supported it’s gently sloping course down from a row of tall buildings at the edge of the square.

  Fighting against the flow of the crowd, all of whom seemed to be making for the heart of the square, they eventually reached a wrought-iron fence before an imposing marble edifice. A sign above a double door read, “Imperial Trading House,” and one below that read, “Luskoll Offices.” The watercourse sloped down from the roof above and ran on out of sight toward the city wall.

  “All we have to do is climb,” said Alden with an easy laugh.

  He hopped the fence without so much as a glance behind him. Looking around furtively, but finding that no one was paying them any mind, Triston followed suit. When they’d reached the base of the building, Alden made for a drainpipe which ran down one corner. He immediately began a caterpillar ascent, hugging the pipe with both arms and legs while undulating upwards.

  Triston followed after him, beginning to feel they might just escape without further trouble. The pipe was strong and sure, and with grooved joints at whiles to provide a footrest, the climb was almost fun.

  He was only a few feet from the top when what he’d secretly feared began. Unseen voices below began to shout. The milling throng roared beneath him. Cheers, jeers and hoots rose up like a cry from a victorious army, echoing off the walls of the enclosed square and shaking the drainpipe upon which he clung for dear life. Had they been discovered, or what was happening? Struggling up the remaining distance, he swung his leg over the top and leapt to his feet, facing the assembly below in defiance.

  But no one was looking his way. No one except Alden, who gave him an amused smile. From this vantage, Triston saw at once the reason for all the uproar.

  Down by the Firefount still awash with purple radiance, there floated a towering figure. It looked like the ghost of a king of giants rising up out of ancient legends to strike awe in the hearts of men. The prodigious form stared down at the overawed crowd with regal majesty, his upraised sword piercing the night sky. Slowly, very slowly, he hovered toward a vast, empty pedestal waiting beside the Firefount.