The Dragon's Fury (Book 1)

by D Mickleson

  Sarconius smirked at him. “Emperor Dominus? You still think I serve that old fool?” He stepped forward, his eyes rolling over the king’s attendants hovering behind him, and his smile broadened. “I assure you, Majesty, the man to whom I owe fealty is far beyond the likes of him.” He laughed again, sounding truly entertained. “Far beyond. Now, you will tell me what I want to know or one of your little friends dies right now.”

  Slumped to the floor in pain, Triston gazed at the petrified group apprehensively. Could he save them by telling Sarconius what he knew? Wouldn’t that just make matters worse?

  He knew two of them by name: Lord Strungent gripped the king’s chair, glaring at Sarconius with eyes like daggers; Agatha hugged herself beside him, watching the weeping Abigail while silent tears ran down her own cheeks. Behind these were two lords whose names Triston did not remember. They stood beside the same doorward who’d protested Triston’s interruption of the King’s Council. And crouching at the very back, whimpering, was the fat lord Owain had tripped over earlier that day.

  The king gazed in stony silence at Sarconius, and the Meridian lord nodded gravely, still smiling. “You,” he said. “Pork-stains. Come here.”

  There was a high-pitched squeal from the back of the group.

  “Nooo! P-please!”

  But Sarconius gestured impatiently with a wide sweep of his hand. The man stumbled forward, gibbering incoherently, a wet spot growing on the front of his violet trousers. “Do you see that man, fatty?” said the lord, pointing at Stentor. “He holds the power of life or death over you.” He struck the man hard on the back of his head, and a second, more piercing squeal erupted from his open mouth. The man began taking great, heaving breaths, gulping at the air like one who was drowning. “Beg him for your life, porkchops.” He struck him again, and the man fell to his knees. “Grovel.”

  The wretch crawled forward and clutched at Stentor’s feet, weeping. He mixed shrill, babbling pleas with high-pitched sobs. The king was shaking his head, holding his hands over his daughter’s ears and not looking at the man.

  Triston had seen enough. “I can tell you what you want to know.”

  “What?” said Sarconius and Stentor together.

  “What do you know, boy?”

  “Triston, this is treachery!”

  Triston continued to watch the blubbering lord, feeling on the verge of vomiting. “It’s not a betrayal if I’m saving your life.”

  Stentor pointed a stern hand at him. “I order you as your sovereign to let us die rather than betray whatever you know. We must at all costs—”

  Sarconius punched at the air and the king’s head jerked backwards into the chair, his lips swelling before their eyes. “Of course you would know where it is. Strange powers, yes. Very well. Tell me then, or he dies.”

  Triston looked at Stentor. Terrible, yelping screams erupted from the miserable man groveling before them. Stentor shook his head once, and Triston closed his eyes. The man’s shrieking reached an ear-splitting crescendo, sounding almost inhuman for a moment. Then they heard the sound of bones snapping inside him. Suddenly he fell silent.

  In a flash, Abigail was on the floor beside the corpse. Her neck was pressed to the ground as if an invisible boot were crushing her. “Speak, Triston,” demanded Sarconius, his eyes hungry as he stared down at the princess, “or she’s next. And I promise her demise will not be so swift and painless as the beached whale there.”

  Triston didn’t even consider refusing him. “I know where the Serpentaugrum is. And . . . yes. I think I just realized something else too. But I’ll only help you on one condition.”

  Sarconius’ face flushed with victory and he laughed. “This is no negotiation, fool. You’ll lead me to the Relic, show me what I need to know, and then die by my hand. And you’ll do this without begging for mercy and pleading and wasting my time. Now get up.”

  “No.”

  “Get up or I’ll burn her alive.”

  “I’ll get you the Relic, but you have to let her go first.”

  “And why would I do that when her suffering”—Abigail screamed, and Triston, looking past the sorcerer’s gloating face, saw her fingers bending back on themselves at unnatural angles—“is the best weapon I have to control”—

  “It’s in the Dwarven Turret. I’ll lead you there. Just stop hurting her.”

  Sarconius straightened up, grinning triumphantly. Triston hurried over to kneel beside Abigail, who lay gasping and holding her fingers.

  “Come along, everyone,” said Sarconius, clapping his hands. “We’re off a-hunting, and everyone’s invited, royalty included.”

  One of the unknown lords stepped in front of Abigail, trembling as he addressed Sarconius. “I implore you to let the girl remain with her father. I will go in their stead—”

  “No. You won’t,” chuckled Sarconius, loosing a fierce gesture into the air between them. A black and smoking hole erupted from the man’s chest. A gush of blood doused the flames that for one moment had appeared in his riven flesh. He gawked confusedly for a few seconds at the wound, then fell in a heap onto his fallen comrade.

  A silence filled the room. Then Stentor stood and stepped past Sarconius toward the door. Triston was grieved to see the broken, crumpled mien of his once proud bearing. He held out an arm to receive Abigail, who had risen unsteadily. She dashed to his side, looking as one who wandered in a nightmare from which there was no waking. “We will go,” said the king gruffly, his voice breaking. “Everyone, do what he says. I command it.”

  Sarconius bowed with a flourishing gesture. “A paragon of prudence, Your Majesty. Triston, lead the way. We’re right behind you.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE SERPENTAUGRUM

  Silence your tongues. We beseech with our deeds and receive exactly what we ask.

  —Metheithel, “The Deathbed Sermon,” 989

  Night shade cast an eerie pall over the deserted corridors. Triston, leading what felt to him like a death march to the upper levels of Whitecastle, seized the first torch he passed. Its cheerful glow only his gloom. They hadn’t gone far when a hunched and hooded figure hobbled into view around a corner.

  “Who’s the hag?” Sarconius demanded of Stentor. “Clearing the castle was a condition of our parley.”

  “Which was supposed to be a peaceful discussion of terms. But she’s just a poor charwoman who goes about helping as she may. Too deaf I would think to heed my summons. Let her be.”

  Sarconius eyed the king suspiciously, a smile spreading on his lips. “You, hag. Come with us. And keep up or you’re dead.”

  The Seer made a pathetic shriek of fear, but once her back was turned to Sarconius, she eyed Triston with a look of grim satisfaction.

  “No,” said Triston, turning from her to face the Meridian lord. “We don’t want her along. Trust me.”

  “Another friend of yours, Trist my lad? Good. One more weapon in my arsenal. Now move it!”

  They reached the winding stair leading up to the high turret and began the assent. Sarconius ordered everyone ahead of him and promised to roast anyone alive who dawdled on the way.

  By the time they reached the tower room, everyone but Triston and Abigail was red-faced and breathing heavily. Lord Strungent held out an arm to a wheezing Agatha, the aged governess looking ready to faint on her feet. Strungent clutched at his side with his other arm, wearing a grimace of excruciating pain. The doorward, who’d climbed the stairs in full armor, was bent double by the door, dry-heaving. Beneath her cloak, the Seer’s chest rose and fell rapidly, each ragged breath like a death-rattle. But her eyes glowed with expectancy.

  Mugwort wasn’t winded at all, possessing the insuperable advantage of not needing to breathe. At a silent command from Sarconius, the fleshthrall jerked forward to where Stentor was holding Abigail to his chest. The princess’ eyes were closed tight as she held fast to her father. The thrall’s gray hand ripped them apart.

  Making strange, slimy sounds in the back of
his throat that might have been laughter, he held the princess to his own chest. She writhed so that she faced away from him, but he gurgled louder, placing his chin on her shoulder and two hands on her stomach in a grotesque mockery of a lover’s embrace.

  Sarconius chuckled. “Fido almost has a mind of his own. Did he love you once upon a time?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to face Triston. “Well, here we are. Where is the Serpent Relic?”

  “In there,” he said, his voice hollow with pain as he looked on Abigail’s ashen face.

  He was pointing at the Dwarfglass. Around the brazen artifact there shone, to his dragon eyes, a blue mist. It was less dense, less bright than a human spirit, but far larger.

  “The Relic must be inside.”

  Sarconius and the Seer both turned toward the glass, and two sets of eyes narrowed. The lord spoke slowly, thinking out loud. “Ancient records rumor that he who bears the Fury will see this thing from afar. Yet I see nothing but a brass scope.”

  Behind Triston, the Seer gave out the tiniest cough of disdain, but no one else appeared to have heard the noise. “I’ve read the original in this very castle,” said Triston. “He with the Dragoneye shall behold the Leviathan locked in the . . . vault, I think.”

  Again the Seer made a small noise of disagreement, but Sarconius’ incredulous retort drowned her out. “And you’re saying that you possess such sight? You, though the Relic rests around my neck?” He stepped toward Triston, his right hand outstretched. “If I find you’ve been wasting my time, boy—”

  “Use your head, old man,” said Triston in a voice far bolder than he felt. “You know I don’t want to see my friends tortured. I’m not the one wasting time, so just shut up and let me get you that Relic.”

  The lord’s eyes widened. His upraised hand twitched, as if ready to strike. But a smile spread on his face, a promise of future pain. “Very well, my boy. To work, then.” He turned his attention to the Dwarfglass. “I know blasting it open won’t work—I loathe dwarf-made artifacts. Magical resistance,” he spat. “What do you propose—”

  “It’s a puzzle I need to solve.”

  Sarconius locked eyes on Triston. “Do it then.”

  Triston strode to where Mugwort held Abigail, leering down at her bosom with drooling relish, and took the princess by the hand.

  “What are you—” began Sarconius.

  “I need her. She knows the constellations and she’s better at working the gears than me.”

  After a pause, Sarconius nodded at Mugwort. The creature made a petulant face, but loosened his grip. As Triston led her away, Mugwort’s hand jerked out at her back. Suddenly the fleshthrall shrieked in pain, and he let his outstretched arm fall with a whimper. Sarconius laughed.

  Triston led Abigail by the hand to the Dwarfglass. Her breathing and expression were calmer than he expected. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Why are you helping him?” she whispered. “You should just let me die.”

  Triston bent nearer, feeling the lord’s impatient gaze on his back like burning beams of light through a magnifying lens. “I can sense his emotions, a little anyway. Through the dragon connection I mean. I’m in tune with Magog and Magog’s in tune with him. I’m telling you, he’s in a real rush to get out of here. He won’t stay long. I don’t think he’ll linger to torture you. He just wants to kill me and get out of here with the Relic.”

  “But—”

  “That means you can live through this if I cooperate.”

  “Trist, no. He’ll be too strong if he has both—”

  “Pardon the intrusion, my little lovebirds, but I’d better see some action or someone’s going to die.” Sarconius looked at the frightened group huddling around the king’s bent shoulders. “You,” he said, pointing at Stentor. “You’re next, Majesty. I’ll have you off this tower if that Relic isn’t in my hands in mere moments.”

  Triston spoke to Abigail loudly enough for all to hear. “All right. I think I’ve got this thing figured out. You know those dwarven constellations you mentioned earlier?” She nodded distractedly, staring back at her father and looking ready to cry again. “OK. I need you to point this glass straight at the Beached Whale constellation.”

  Abigail turned back to him. “What? Why? Trist, I don’t think—”

  “Don’t you see?” he interrupted. “The beached whale. The trapped leviathan. They’re the same thing. And now that I think about it, I’d guess heofon should read sky, not vault or abyss. The dwarves who hid the Relic were hinting about their constellation.”

  Abigail was shaking her head. “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but Trist, I can’t point the glass at the Beached Whale. It’s a winter constellation. It won’t appear for a few months at least.”

  Triston closed his mouth abruptly, too flabbergasted to speak. He’d been so certain this was the answer that would lead to the Serpentaugrum. Now, just like that, his hope for his friends was lost. All was quiet behind him, but a surge of dread at what Sarconius would do next took hold of him. “But . . . you . . . earlier,” he managed at last, pointing toward the opening in the wall.

  Abigail started shaking her head again, sorrow glistening in her eyes. “I was just trying to impress you. Where I pointed wasn’t the actual location of the constellations.”

  “Oh.”

  The harsh voice of Sarconius bristled with malice just feet behind them. “This was your plan? Point the glass at a constellation? And you think that is all it would take to hide a Relic of Power for hundreds of years? Idiot! You think no one has pointed the glass at that constellation all this time?”

  Hot shame flooded Triston’s face, but the sorcerer left him no time for self-recriminations. He raised two hands suddenly, and on the other side of the rotunda, King Stentor lifted off the floor. His body hovering higher and higher off the ground, the king at first waved his arms and legs wildly. But after a few seconds his shock wore off and he merely hung limp and silent, a broken man on the verge of death. He stared fixedly at his daughter as she ran to him, an unspoken farewell in his tender gaze.

  With a wave of Sarconius’ arms, the king soared out of the turret, dangling like a hanged man twenty feet over the edge. “Now, dragon boy,” roared Sarconius, “GET. ME. THAT. RELIC!”

  “Just a minute. Just a minute! Don’t drop him! I’ll get there.”

  “Dragoneyes. See with the Dragoneyes,” came a throaty voice behind him in a whisper so low he wondered if he’d actually heard it. He looked, repulsed to see the Seer’s oozing face an inch away. Sarconius, standing nearby, must have heard something, for he turned abruptly and eyed the Seer.

  “Be off, hag,” he said, and with a punch in the air sent her flying backward to slump against the wall. He didn’t appear to give her another thought, turning to Triston with a demonic glint in his eyes. “Give me a reason, just one reason,” he said, spittle splattering Triston’s face, “not to cremate every one of you alive this very moment.”

  “Hold on. Just hold on! I need more time.”

  “More time? Fine. You have ten seconds to get me what I want or I let kingy fall and when he hits bottom he’ll be no more than a heap of slime to fertilize his gardens. Now move, boy!”

  Triston glanced at Abigail. The anguish etched on her face as she watched her father dangle smote his heart. Reluctantly he turned toward the Seer, who was lying motionless like a heap of rags against the wall. Dragoneyes, he thought to himself.

  Dragoneyes.

  No sooner did the word form in his mind than everything changed. The blue spirit hovering like a cloud around the Dwarfglass brightened. Looking around, he noticed the human spirits too had intensified, Abigail’s so dazzling he had to avert his eyes. From high above, a glint of gold flared out.

  Looking up, his pounding heart was overcome with amazement. The domed ceiling had vanished. Where white marble flecked with gold had arched over them, a canopy of stars now shone overhead. They blazed forth with such magnificence that Triston
had a strange sensation he was beholding the galaxy at the moment of creation, when all the starry host first graced the inky void.

  But no. Looking more closely, he realized to his astonishment that the marble canopy remained. Its alabaster luster was a dim shadow now compared to the gleaming gold embedded within. He gave himself completely to the Dragonsight, and the brilliance grew until each fleck glowed like a tiny sun.

  “So beautiful. I have to have every piece, every grain. It’s all mine.”

  He realized a figure was shaking him, a shadowy body inside which a white light radiated. Triston lowered his gaze, confused. At eye-level, the gold spangles shone fewer and farther between, like the evening horizon when the earth’s reflected aura blots out the lesser stars. “Triston! Triston!” a dreamlike voice called out to him. “He says you’re out of time. He says you’d better explain what’s happening or Daddy’s dead. Triston, can you hear me?”

  “Daddy’s already dead,” he muttered. “Left us. Years and years ago.” The silhouette released him. Someone sobbed. A girl.

  And then a thousand thoughts and memories flooded back to him, clouding the dragon sense but not blocking it completely. Triston looked at Abigail, unconsciously taking her hand. “If the gold dust truly replicates the heavens, then I might find the Beached Whale up there somewhere.”

  “I’ve heard enough,” snarled the foul blotch behind the girl. “Your Majesty, farewell.” The little spirit hovering in the air outside began to drop. Abigail screamed, but Triston’s shout was like a dragon’s roar. “HOLD!” And the spirit once again stalled in midair.

  “You’d better start making sense boy,” barked the harsh voice. “It takes effort for me to uphold him and my patience is long gone.”

  Triston didn’t address the blotch. He was too difficult to see amidst all the light. Speaking to Abigail’s radiance, he said, “The turret walls and ceiling are dusted with gold. See what I mean?” He could tell she was nodding slowly. “Well, to a dragon’s eyes, each speck shines like a star. I think we’re supposed to find the Beached Whale somewhere in the canopy. If we point the glass at it, maybe something will happen.”