The Dragon's Fury (Book 1)

by D Mickleson

  “A whole lot better than your chances with the princess,” offered Owain loudly behind him, drawing many curious glances.

  Alden closed his eyes, gripping his steak knife and muttering about various methods of torture, drawing more stares and an elbow to the ribs from Triston. “You can dangle him from the highest tower when no one’s looking,” he whispered when the other guests had looked away. “Just don’t make a scene here. I want to work on Alfrich again tonight, get him to see things our way. Don’t you two mess it up.”

  When everyone had had their fill and more, and the first stars were peeping through the rustling boughs above, King Stentor led his daughter onto the lawn. There they danced beside a fountain while minstrels played and all the court looked on. After the first song, the king retired to a chair prepared for him, holding his stomach with one hand as though in pain. But many others flooded the dancing lawn. The princess faced a siege of suitors, every bachelor at court, and to Triston the scarcely perceptible furrow on her brow belied the smile she bestowed on each new partner.

  Stepping behind the encircling spectators, Triston found the Lord Chamberlain standing aloof. He was watching the dancing with a hard look on his face. It was not until Triston stood directly before him that he saw the man’s eyes glistened with the first stirrings of tears. “My lord, is everything all right?”

  “Ah, Triston,” said Alfrich, his reverie broken. He smiled, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his face. “Yes, yes. I’m quite well.” But his voice faltered as he spoke, and he shook his head. “Actually, I’ve been better. This blasted girdle isn’t helping. I loathe formal wear,” he chuckled, shifting uncomfortably in his silken layers. “You’d think after fifty years at court I’d be used to it, but alas, some things only grow worse with time! It’s the dancing, though, that brings the ache. My son should be out there reveling with the others. Are you all right?” he ended, glancing at Triston and seeing him staring strangely.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Sorry,” said Triston, faltering in his turn. “It’s just . . . your ceremonial knife. Is that dragonbone? It has a faint shimmer so . . . I was just wondering. I don’t mean to pry. Not too many days ago a dagger just like that gave me these,” he said, indicating his scarred cheeks.

  “Ah yes,” said the chamberlain, looking down at the shimmering hilt, then at Triston’s face. “It was thoughtless of me to wear it tonight, but I’d forgotten that detail from your tale. I should have worn my jeweled dwarf dagger. but I’ve had much on my mind. You’ll forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. So why isn’t your son dancing with the others?” At this, the chamberlain’s friendly face fell into lines of sadness, and Triston regretted the question. “Sorry. You don’t have to—”

  “He’s gone. Lost. Lost in the service of His Majesty. He was Captain of the King’s Guard not long ago.” He sighed heavily. “And my best friend.”

  Triston apologized many times for bringing up the matter, but Alfrich dismissed his remorse with a wave. “I ought to get over it,” he said, “but it’s like I said, some things just get worse with age. So why aren’t you dancing?”

  “As to that,” said Triston, a quick glance revealing Alden cutting a wide but elegant swath down the lawn, Princess Abigail matching him step for step, “something’s come up. You might already know what, or rather, who I mean.”

  Alfrich’s eyes also followed Alden and the princess, but the rest of his body seemed to go rigid at Triston’s words. “Of course I noticed,” he whispered finally. “But it doesn’t mean that”—he glanced around to make sure no one was listening—“that Captain Mugwort is up to anything. He may have a perfectly good reason—”

  “To miss the council and Princess Abigail’s birthday? Lord Chamberlain, could you and I not at least check with Athtome to see if anyone’s entered the catacombs?”

  “The librarian is here at the party. He’s right over there. And as my place is beside the king and princess tonight, I’m afraid it’s out of the question—”

  “Then will you not provide for me to go?”

  “It would be suicide—”

  “I’ve been through worse. I say it is suicide to stand by and let a traitor steal it.”

  Alfrich winced at Triston’s bluntness. He didn’t speak for some time, his eyes on the dancers, a wooden smile fixed on his face. Suddenly Triston felt something cold and hard placed in his right hand. His fingers closed on a tiny, bejeweled key. At once he dropped it in his pocket, not looking at the chamberlain.

  “I’m honored by your trust, sir,” he said, staring forward at Alden and Abigail. They bowed and parted, both their faces shining with exuberance.

  “Honor me by using well that trust,” said the chamberlain, walking over to stand beside the king, clapping with the rest as the minstrels began a new tune.

  Triston lured a triumphant Alden away from the lawn party with a whispered word offering a chance to meet Mugwort in the catacombs. “She likes me, but yes, Wartface needs to be dealt with. Have you noticed how he looks at her? And why must the king always place them next to each other at meals? I hope we meet him down there. Let’s go,” he whispered back enthusiastically.

  Leaving Owain to chat up a buxom serving maid two years his senior, they darted through the shadowy courtyard and into the castle with battle in their hearts. Bloodprice remained locked in the armory, but many displays of crossed swords were mounted above the frequent suits of armor which lined the corridors. In no time, they were armed with blades and an oil lamp.

  The marble halls were empty and dark but for a few servants with downcast eyes, and the library itself was unlocked. Triston made straight for the ironbound door in the back of the room, opening it with Alfrich’s key and trimming their lamp to a pale, cat’s-eye glow. When they’d tip-toed forward past the archives to the beginning of the sloping descent, Triston turned to Alden, his words softer than wind on the grass. “If we see someone, we watch and wait only. And feel with your heart for a Relic’s spirit.”

  In the lamp’s amber glow, Alden screwed up his face with confusion. But he only shook his head. “Get going while the party lasts. It’s already late.”

  They crept onward. The tilting masonry of the hall soon gave way to smooth-carved stone punctured by living roots which clung to their bent heads and shoulders with damp fingers. The path wound to and fro, always sloping downwards, but taking what they believed was an easterly course under the castle grounds. After an anxious time of creeping ever onward, their ears straining for footfalls or voices ahead, the path forked. They halted, peering into the gloom doubtfully.

  “Over here,” said Alden after a silent deliberation. “It continues on eastward and it’s wider. The other way smells awful. Come on.” He led the way, Triston doubtfully following. He’d expected to feel something by now, a sense of an ancient presence as in Magog’s tomb. But so far only darkness and an odor of decay met his senses. Neither path had seemed right to him, but they could only press on into the shadows ahead.

  They met another fork. This time their choice only led to a dead-end, a hollowed-out chamber bearing two sarcophagi beneath a statue of a winged seraph. Taking the other way, they came to a third fork almost at once. Again, one way led to a sepulcher, the other onward. The path began to branch every few yards, and they came upon tomb after tomb, each burial place seeming more elaborate than the last. One sarcophagus was plated with gold, its sheen unlovely in the grim murk. Another stood upright, carved in the likeness of a man with rubies for eyes.

  The last tomb was blocked by a great stone wheel beneath the ragged, mounted head of an enormous raven. Its eyes shone red in the darkness. Carvings above the ghastly visage in a language Triston recognized as Old Corellian gave them both shudders, and they eagerly put the raven behind them. As he walked on, Triston imagined its eyes were following them.

  They didn’t get far. Triston was just thinking maybe the Relic wasn’t here after all, as he discerned no spirit presenc
e, and maybe no one else was here either. Suddenly voices and laughter echoed up from the tunnels below, a shocking, brazen clamor in that hallowed place. Light leapt along one wall ahead and shadows of men like silhouettes of giants seemed to reach up to seize them. Triston and Alden froze for one moment, both gauging the strength of the approaching company. They made noise enough for dozens, but even with Alden, five or six was too many.

  They fled. The crimson glare of the raven mocked their flight as it drew nearer, until Alden, leading the way, pressed his back to the stone wheel and heaved. The eyes went dark but the stone rolled easily away. They rushed inside, rolling it back behind them just as a squad of men came into view in the downward passage.

  Triston snuffed out his lamp. Together he and Alden crawled forward into the pitch black on all fours. Intent on masking the noise of his shuffling hands and knees, Triston banged his head on something hard. Gritting his teeth in pain, he traced his fingers over the object, guessing after a moment it was some kind of marble or limestone statue. He’d just crawled behind it when the wheel rolled back and torchlight flooded the chamber.

  “Don’t know, but the captain said to be on the lookout for anything strange-like,” said a gruff voice. “And I say those red bird-peepers never go out. Something’s up.”

  “But this one’s forbidden, Burt. Don’t you see the warning? Archoi ren arthedos. What’s it say, Ragnar?”

  “I don’t know. ‘Death awaits within,’ or some such like that.”

  “Course death waits within. It’s a bloody crypt now, isn’t it?” said a wheezy voice farther back. “Come on there, Burt. Have a look-see and let’s get on. There still might be some chow left at Her Highness’ to-do if we hurry.”

  The torchbearer, Burt, stepped forward, but stopped suddenly with a sharp intake of breath. “Oy! What’s that behind the statue? Look boys! Told ye something’s wrong. All right. Show yourself if you know what’s good for you!”

  Triston jumped up, drawing his blade and trying to hold a steady hand as he faced down the startled guard patrol. He stole an anxious glance at Alden, who’d been crouching behind an ornate sarcophagus whose jewel-embedded marble sparkled in the torchlight.

  Now Alden was standing tall, sword drawn. He looked as calm as a fisherman at dawn beside a placid lake. “I don’t suppose you have any more magical toys up your sleeve, Trist?” he asked casually.

  Triston shook his head, not risking a second glance at Alden. “Not this time.”

  “Then we’ll have to take them the old-fashioned way.”

  A ringing of steel filled the chamber as seven swords leapt into the hands of the guards. “I might have known!” gloated Burt in front, sizing up the two of them. “Magic toys! So that’s what you’re after is it?” He looked around at his men. “They’re looters, men. Nothing but grave-robbers, like the captain said.” He spat. “Plague take you, thieving bastards. All right men! We have our orders, special for these two. Four on him after me. He’s supposed to be a real doozy. Ragnar and Olaf on the smaller. Have at ‘em.”

  Burt rushed forward, torch in his left hand and longsword in his right, four stout men in mail shirts clinking behind him. Triston held his stolen blade at the ready as two armored men bore down on him. All was lost he knew, but he might take one down with him before the other cut him to bits.

  A grinning Alden emerged into his peripheral vision. Burt went down with a flash of fire-reflecting steel and a gush of blood in his exposed neck. The torch fell and flared. At the same time, an explosion of popping noises erupted all around, followed at once by five surprised yelps of pain. Heavy thuds echoed off the ancient stonework as mail-clad bodies slumped to the ground.

  All fell silent but for the sputtering of the torch and twitching of Burt. In the wavering light Triston saw one guard still standing in the doorway. He seemed rooted to the spot by shock and fear, gaping down at his fallen mates. Alden seized the torch just before Burt’s oozing blood smothered the flames, the light growing as he held it aloft.

  Triston’s sharp eyes beheld a strange wonder, and terror of the chamber took him. Six bodies lay huddled, but only one bled. The others seemed still and whole, as if asleep, as if no harm was done to them. Except . . . no. Now he saw them. Tiny silver darts protruded here and there, wherever there was a patch of exposed flesh. As Triston stared at the nearest corpse, for the moment too stunned to speak, his mind dimly registered that the tiny puncture wound in the man’s neck shimmered with a faint emerald sheen.

  “Poisoned darts. A booby trap,” said Alden, for once sounding as horrified as Triston felt.

  “Aaaaahhhhh!” cried the remaining guard, dropping his sword and running from the chamber.

  Alden looked at Triston for instructions.

  “C-crawl I think. That’s why we didn’t . . . why we’re alive. We crawled.”

  They didn’t so much crawl as slide on their bellies, roughly forcing aside the entangled limbs of their fallen foes. In the dim and shifting light Triston found no sign of where the darts had come from. No holes, airpipes or drawstrings were visible in the walls. He shuddered as he slithered.

  At last they were free. Alden immediately raced up the passage after the fleeing guard, torch in hand. Triston walked behind, feeling his way in the darkness, remembering Magog’s cave. There too, he’d wandered in unbroken night. But unlike that harrowing journey, no spirit or presence seemed to dwell in this place, not even in the deadly raven sepulcher. But Mugwort must have his men down here for a reason. There must be something worth guarding, or why order the patrol? He remembered the Old Corellian from the archives, and pondered again what was meant by “vault” or “cavern.” If not the catacombs, then where?

  Soon, or perhaps not so soon—he’d lost track of time—a bobbing light ahead revealed Alden returning. “It’s done,” he said, sounding satisfied.

  “What’s done?” asked Triston blankly, his thoughts slow to return from their dark wanderings.

  “The guard of course. No charge against us will see the light of day from him. Now let’s get out of here.”

  “But what about Mugwort? We never found him. Do you think we should keep looking—”

  “No. I think we should be in our beds, asleep, when word of this breaks out. Let Mugwort explain to Stentor why his men are poking around in forbidden areas.” Alden put an arm around Triston and together they hurried up the winding passage. “Maybe the king will hang him on the spot,” he added hopefully. “Whoa. Is that—you’ve got some of that green stuff on your neck.”

  Triston froze. “What, the poison? Can you . . . can you wipe it off or something?”

  “I’m not touching it.”

  Taking all the care he possessed, hardly daring to breathe, Triston rubbed his shirtsleeve over the place Alden pointed on his neck. The emerald ooze on his sleeve glistened innocently in the orange torch glow. “I guess I’m safe as long as it doesn’t enter the bloodstream.”

  Alden raised his eyebrows. “Yeah. Maybe. I’d burn that shirt if it was me.”

  Despite his weariness, Triston lay in restless, half-waking dreams for hour after hour. He watched as the sliver of the dying moon sunk behind the horizon outside his window. He didn’t sleep as far as he knew. But his semiconscious thoughts ran up and down shadowy passages chased by screams of dying men, or stood-by helpless as places dear to his heart burned to the ground, or gazed up at a night sky ablaze with stars. Finally, a vast, serpentine shape blotted out the lights.

  Eyes, too, seemed to hover above him in the darkness. Burt’s, rolling madly in the throes of death. Alfrich’s, brimming with memories of a lost child. Sarconius’, blinking away sea-spray as he watched the dawn paint an undulating dragon prow with silver and emerald brilliance. The sea-serpent’s, aflame with a crimson glow, a warning. And all the while an unsettled feeling grew in him, like he’d forgotten something, like someone had given him something important but he’d stowed it away instead of using it. And the red gaze flared.

  Sudd
enly he sat up. Someone was banging on the door. He rolled out of bed as it burst open and an officer walked in. “Please dress and present yourself for inspection by the Lord Chamberlain at once,” said the man.

  He beckoned through the doorway, and two men-at-arms entered. “Search his belongings and furnishings with all speed.” Then, as Triston stared in sleep-eyed torpor, Alfrich stepped under the doorframe and the three guards stopped searching and saluted.

  “Ah, Triston. I thought you’d be up and doing by now,” he chided. “Well, it seems there’s been an . . . incident in the catacombs. His Majesty has ordered a thorough search of the castle to help catch the perpetrators. If you’d join me in your sitting room when you’re ready, I just have a few questions.”

  Triston pulled on his trousers and tunic in a rush and hurried out to join Alden and Owain. They were sitting in awkward silence while the chamberlain stood beside them, looking grave. In a loud, stern voice, he asked them many questions. Where were they last night, why they left the party early, what they knew about a pair of ceremonial swords which had gone missing.

  Alden answered every question, assuring him that they’d been sleeping in their rooms the entire night and knew nothing about the swords’ location. The guards emerged from their rooms bearing reports of no suspicious findings. Alfrich nodded, then ordered them to continue looking elsewhere and report to him in one hour. When they were alone, he turned to Triston, eyebrows raised.

  “You had a busy night, young man. The king’s in quite a state. The late queen’s tomb violated! But you’ll be relieved to know, as far as I can tell, no evidence ties you to the scene of the crime. As I’m heading up the investigation, I don’t foresee any problems. Uh, my key, if you please?” he added in a lower voice, holding out his hand. Triston reached into his pocket and handed it over.