The Dragon Thief (Sorcery and Sin Book 1)

by Justin DePaoli

  It was better that he didn’t hear, because the words were not meant for his ears. Not then, anyhow.

  “You’d do well to remember,” Baern said, blinking away the stinging wind, “that dragons are a threat to us all.” He glanced at Gynoth until the necromancer acknowledged him. “Even you.”

  “My cooperation the last time this happened didn’t convince you of that? Pity.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “Wise man. But you needed me. And you need me again. Isn’t that why I’m here now?”

  Snowflakes, thick and fluffy, fell onto Baern’s lashes. “It was not a choice I made lightly. Do not make me regret it.”

  Gynoth grinned. “I understand. You don’t want the boy to go away. Very kind of you.”

  “Eternal servitude to the dead is not something he should experience.”

  Gynoth fell sideways into Baern as he staggered through the deep, heavy snow. The Keeper gave him an unfriendly shove, righting him. “You’ve got it all wrong, Keeper. The dead serve their master, not the other way around.”

  Baern grunted. “A matter of perspective.”

  “I suppose. I should end his life. You know this.”

  Baern stopped. A strange sensation to feel your skin broiling when howling winds engulf you and a gelid cold floods your veins, but Baern felt like he was cooking, as if he’d stepped into a furnace.

  “I won’t,” Gynoth said. “But I should—for that move you pulled in Tactin’s Fist. You know what happens if Silderine goes under, and yet—I suspect out of spite—you allowed her decision.”

  “Hah! You think if I told that stubborn woman no, she’d have listened? Fat chance. And as you can see”—Baern swung his arm across the entirety of Silderine—“it’s a moot point.”

  Gynoth snorted. “You know as well as I this kingdom is not abandoned. You did this because—”

  “I don’t trust you. The stability of Avestas is important, and allowing you free comings and goings disrupts that stability. The way will be sealed again, and you can reign over your dead puppets all you like—far away from the living.”

  Gynoth set his jaw and plowed toward the gate.

  Elaya released her grip on Lavery when Baern waved him down. He ran, which is never a good idea in snow that comes up to your shins. His face soon met the snow, but that didn’t seem to deter him. He jumped back up, shook his head and ran once more.

  She sighed and looked to Adom. “What do you think?”

  “I think the place is ripe for the pickin’. Or takin’.” After a brief self-reflection that included muttering the phrases ripe for the pickin’ and ripe for the takin’, he said, “Y’know, pickin’ seems to make more sense on the whole, but you don’t pick a city. Confounding.”

  Elaya blinked. “Wow. All right. I don’t like this, but Baern’s right: we can’t stay up here forever. The easiest entry would be straight through the gate, but if it’s a trap…”

  “Then we’re sittin’ ducks,” Adom concluded.

  “Exactly. So the original plan remains: we separate into five battalions. Four scale the walls, the other marches through the gate. Pass it down, and let’s get going.”

  Adom hollered to Tig, who sat on a horse holding a hoe from which flapped an oily rag for quick and easy identification. “Keep with the plan!”

  Tig lifted the hoe in acknowledgment and relayed that information to Kaun, and on down the line the message went till the last of the Eyes lifted his hoe.

  With a palm on her chin, Elaya cracked her neck. She waited for a few more moments until Baern, Laythe and Lavery had walked through the open gate, unhindered and unharmed. Then she nodded to Adom and led her assault on an empty, deserted Silderine.

  Seemingly deserted, at least. Nothing came this easy.

  A narrow band of relatively flat land snaked itself along the edge of the bluffs and the Silderine paths and roads that chewed into them. It spun away from the city proper, tunneling into the mountain.

  Lavery was sandwiched between Laythe and Baern, though this did not feel very safe; the tunnel had pilfered all light and he felt like he was wading into the void. For the first couple hundred paces, he shivered something terrible as the wind hurled itself inside and seemed to loiter unrelentingly. But then it stopped—the gusty drafts, the wailing, it all ceased to exist.

  Lavery had gone too deep. This was a place where nature could not venture. The cold had lingered here for generations, stale and ancient. Light hadn’t dawned here in equally long.

  Not natural light, anyhow. There was an eerie milky glow sledding along the walls and it became brighter with each step Lavery took. The light at the end of the tunnel, he thought naively.

  To be fair, that light did originate at the end of the tunnel, but when Lavery saw its source, he wanted to leave. He wanted to run the other way. Sprint as fast as he could, till his legs wobbled and knees buckled.

  “Baern,” he said, voice trembling. His hand went to the hilt of his new sword.

  “It’s quite all right,” Baern said. “This is the seal, Lavery.”

  When Lavery had learned of the seal, he’d imagined a sheer wall of rock.

  Rock empowered with sorcery, sure, so maybe some queer texturing and etched designs (things he’d heard go hand in hand with sorcery), but not… not this.

  A panel of slate stretched from the snowy floor to the icy ceiling. Burned into the slate were faces shielded by hands, heads that were turned away, eyes sealed shut by sheer terror. There were twenty—no, thirty of them, maybe more. Each was sliced and diced in some manner, allowing light from the other side to pour in.

  “Those are the faces of brave men and women,” Baern said. He closed his eyes and paid them a moment of respect. “Without them, this seal does not exist. Without them, Avestas as we know it may not exist.”

  Lavery heard a grunt from the other side. Lots of them. Snorting too, and clawing. He looked to Baern.

  “They know you’re here,” Baern said, tapping the crown. “When I bring this seal down, they will pour out and do anything you tell them to. You are their god, Lavery. Do you understand this?”

  Lavery straightened himself, puffed his chest out and nodded confidently. “Yes.”

  “Assist Elaya in taking Silderine if she needs you. Otherwise, you and Laythe will prepare for the arrival of the clutches. Listen to him; he knows what to do.”

  Another nod. Then, confusion. “Where will you be?”

  With a smile more glum than happy, Baern shagged Lavery’s hair. “I’m the Keeper of this seal, Lavery. It exists with me, it dies with me. Don’t worry, though. It’ll be quick.”

  He produced the vial of clear liquid from his pocket.

  Lavery lunged forward, throwing himself into the Keeper. “Baern, no!”

  “I’m sorry, Lavery.”

  “There has to be another way.”

  Baern slid his thumb along the cork, not yet popping it. “Thirty sorcerers stood here six hundred years ago. Not your run-o’-the-mill sorcerers, either—these guys and gals had power that, frankly, none should have. The Twin Sisters thought the same, though that’s an entirely different story. Anyways, when they brought this seal down, they bound me to it. And they blessed me—maybe cursed, depending on your point of view.

  “I stopped aging that day. And given my expertise in the restorative realm… well, death in of itself was unlikely. Do you see why I was chosen as the Keeper? It’s been difficult; some days I think no one should live forever.” He paused, reflected. “I’ve thought that often recently. I’m happy to go, Lavery. Happier still that I will be leaving the world in good hands.”

  Baern embraced Lavery, pushed him gently away by his shoulders and said, “It’s been a pleasure.”

  There was a pop. And a wail from Lavery as he jumped and attempted to smack the vial from Baern.

  There was a glug. And soon, as he hit the floor, a thud. After six hundred sixty-three years of life, Baern Ellis departed the living world.

>   Lavery collapsed to his knees, hot tears dripping down his cheeks. No time to mourn, though. Not with a wall of slate shattering before his very eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Adom almost jumped out of his skin. “What the hells was that?”

  “If I had to guess,” Elaya said, “probably the seal being unsealed.”

  “Sounded like the world was caving in.”

  “It might be.” She watched from one of the lower roads as hundreds of freed slaves and villagers scoured the city. Some raced up the zigzagging trails, while others pulled themselves up to the higher paths by jagged handles of rock, forgoing the roads altogether.

  “This is one elaborate trap,” Adom said, keeping pace with Elaya.

  She stopped before a tall obelisk carved from slate. There were twenty or so spread throughout the city and they served as dorms. Daughters slept there, as many that could fit. The men slept where they could, typically in shallow hillside nooks and beneath idle carts.

  “Doors are open,” she remarked. “They’re never left open.”

  “Y’know,” said Adom, “if this whole dragon business is true and the Daughters ain’t impervious to the nastiness of dragon breath… well, what I’m sayin’ is, maybe they—”

  “You’d know if dragons passed overhead. Nothing is destroyed. Not even a weathervane.”

  “That ain’t what I was gettin’ at; you need to let people finish their thoughts.” He paused purposefully and waited.

  “Well? Finish your thought.”

  “Thank you. I will. Forget about the dragons actually being here, or havin’ been here—maybe they’re close. Daughters get word that there’re some winged beasts spreadin’ havoc across, let’s say… the Roost, couple hundred miles out. Think they’re gonna wait and see if they’re next? Makes sense, right?”

  Elaya inched her way into the dorm. The candelabra hanging from the low ceiling were still lit, and barely any snow had blown in. Both signs pointing to the likelihood that this place hadn’t been without the presence of Daughters for long.

  “You don’t understand the Daughters,” Elaya said. “They’d rather die here than endure elsewhere. They would never retreat, no matter the threat.”

  “That’s stupid,” Adom held.

  “Maybe.” She backed away from the dorm and pulled the iron doors shut. The familiarity of the straw beds that lay inside, the smell of blood that filled every cranny and streaked every wall—it brought forth memories she never wished to recall.

  The night before she’d left Silderine forever, a slave had misstepped and snapped his ankle, useless for the foreseeable future. Enforcers had demanded he be punished. Punishment often meant death, either the purposeful kind or the oops-three-hundred-lashes-was-too-much-for-him-to-handle kind.

  Enforcers had brought him into Elaya’s dorm, told the Daughters he was a spy from the small nearby kingdom of Ilkgarn. The sound of his screams as ninety Daughters had filleted him, as they’d popped bones out of sockets and smashed teeth from gums, as they’d sawed off a nostril and rived the webbing of his toes…

  Aya… El… Elaya.

  Elaya heard the faint call of her name. And was she being shaken?

  “Elaya!” Adom barked.

  She gasped, as if she’d been underwater for far too long. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be here anymore. Let’s keep moving.”

  They passed a redoubt and another along their meandering path up the zigzagging slope. Some of her faster freemen had already made it halfway up, though it seemed they were racing rather than searching for signs of life. In fact, she heard some of them laughing, giggling even. This was a game to them.

  Elaya understood why. Their bellies were full and they were clothed in warm furs and heavy wools. They had swords to defend themselves from an enemy that had seemingly vanished into the netherworld, and no taskmaster or yeoman barked orders at them or threatened them with the whip if they didn’t hurry. Of course they were enjoying themselves; this was the closest they’d been to happiness in perhaps all their lives.

  Rarely do you go as far north as Silderine and encounter anything but frigid apathy from inhabitants there, along with a longing for the Blue Coast and sunnier days. But when all you know are chains and the hopelessness of life beneath the fist of a tyrant, or the punishing misery of impoverishment and the insatiable hunger and pernicious diseases that accompany it, you welcome even the coldest days and gloomiest skies if it means you’re free, well-fed, and sheltered.

  She found herself smiling as a few freemen broke free from the others, the race now intensifying. She wondered what they’d do when they got to the tip-top and saw the enormity of Silderine’s fortress. It stood upon a plateau, beneath an overhang of permanently iced-over rock. It shared its walls with the mountain and aspired to be as desolate and bleak. Gargoyles perched upon its gable, and the faces of demons with slithering tongues were carved into its twin towers.

  Elaya had never seen the inside of the fortress. To her knowledge, none of the Daughters had. Somewhere in the belly of that fortress were the remains of the Twin Sisters. They were said to be tall, with long black hair, meaty noses, and strong chins. They were, according to the preachings Daughters and slaves received every morning, the most beautiful and most identical twins that had ever existed.

  “Er,” Adom stammered. He elbowed Elaya. “You seein’ what I’m seein’? ’Cause I’m seein’ doors opening.”

  Elaya squinted. Her hand instinctively went for her pommel. “Shit. Tig!” She cupped her mouth and hollered for her mercenary again. He was up a couple roads. “Tig!”

  The burly bearded man looked back, mouthing huh?

  “Pull them back! Back!” she screamed, gesturing wildly with her hands.

  After Tig gave her a thumbs-up and reared around, she heard, “Get fookin’ back here, ya lugs. Fookin’ retreat.”

  Some of the freemen obeyed the order, but others looked at Tig and continued climbing.

  “Undisciplined,” Adom said. “Could’ve told you that was gonna happen.”

  “Dammit, Adom.” She pointed to the edge of the plateau. “Daughters are coming out.”

  Adom rubbed his neck. “Er, they’re naked. They are, aren’t they? I’m not seeing things? I see boobs, Elaya, and lemme tell you, I’m fairly proficient at spottin’ those.”

  They were naked. Not even a pair of socks on their feet and no swords around their waists. Absolutely nothing except pale flesh and short crops of hair. Behind the Daughters gathered the men—slaves—and they too were naked.

  The march of bare-bodied Daughters and slaves from the fortress continued, until a mess of limbs and anatomies were packed so tightly together that not another finger, nipple or limp penis could fit.

  Actually, that apparently wasn’t entirely true. A figure shoved itself between the ranks, up to the plateau’s edge. She wore a long braid of hair across her shoulder, black as a raven’s plumage. Her ribs were showing, jagged and protruding. Her arms reminded Elaya of a bird’s legs, so brittle and thin that they might snap with the smallest amount of pressure.

  “Daughter Elaya,” the woman crowed. An enforcer—Elaya knew her face, but couldn’t recall anything else. Her voice was high-pitched and crackly. “I never got to congratulate you. And you are so worthy of my compliments. Fleeing Silderine, abdicating your Daughterhood—neither of those impress me. But enduring despite casting aside the religion that birthed you, despite denouncing the almighty Sisters… that is a lofty achievement. Tell me, how is it living in hell?”

  The brutal northern wind whipped and tossed her words, both enlivening and dulling them.

  “I’ve come to put an end to the Twin Sisters,” Elaya said boldly. “I’ve come to kill them. Daughters, slaves, listen to—”

  The woman shrieked with laughter. “You cannot kill a belief. You may try to sequester it, plunge it into the water and hold it to the bottom of the ocean, but all you do is embolden and invigorate it. Daughters and the unworthy who sta
nd with them, tell this damned woman and all the damned who follow her what the Twin Sisters mean to you.”

  Every daughter and slave, in one voice, chanted, “Sorcery is a sin that has tainted this world, therefore”—we are all sinners, Elaya thought, finding herself following along with the well-known mantra—“and only by the grace of the Twin Sisters are we permitted to exist, and by their benevolence we will pursue the sorcery that infects this world with immorality, and we will vanquish it. We will purge the sin from these lands and from our hearts.”

  They paused and slowly sang a chilling hymn.

  The Sisters birthed us

  And filled us fat

  They clothed us warm

  And hardened our bones

  The Sisters will come

  The Sisters will free us

  Sorcery is a blight

  Sorcery is an evil

  Sorcery must die

  And by our hands it will

  The Sisters will come

  The Sisters will free us

  They are the gods

  They are the goddesses

  They are the almighty

  They are pure

  I will give my life for the Sisters

  I will give my life to be free of this sin.

  “Make good on your vows, Daughters and children of the Twin Sisters. Know in your hearts that they will break your sinner’s chains should you offer them the greatest sacrifice of all: unyielding faith that they will return. Go now, and return them.”

  A single Daughter at the edge of the plateau held out her arms and threw herself off.

  “Whoa, whoa,” Adom said, stepping forward.

  Another Daughter followed. Two more, ten. Twenty. They plunged from the steppe unafraid and tumbled the same, relaxed and at peace.

  Elaya watched the first handful splatter onto the rocks below. Some were impaled by spears of ice, while blunt boulders and rocks splintered the skulls of others and spewed brains and blood that the snow drank eagerly.