Bruce Blake - Heart of the King

The boy raised one eyebrow. “I knew I’d see you, Da.”

Therrador laughed and pulled his son back into his arms. Over the boy’s shoulder, he saw the man and the woman with the baby approach. The ghost woman was nowhere to be seen.

“Thank you for returning my son,” he said fighting back the threat of tears. “But who are you?”

The man pulled back his cowl and removed his mask as a gust of snow-laced wind blew his blond hair across his fair face. His expression looked calm and in control compared to the woman, whose sunken eyes cried out with desperation and fear. She looked like a woman who’d been through much.

“We are friends of Khirro's, your Majesty. Loyal subjects of the kingdom.”

Therrador nodded, accepting the man’s words.

What choice do I have?

He stood and took a step back from his son.

“I have to go, Graymon. The kingdom is in need of my sword.”

Tears welled up in Graymon’s eyes instantly, his bottom lip quivered, but he didn’t let himself cry. He sniffled and wiped his arm across his eyes to prevent tears spilling down his cheeks.

“You can be my brave little hero, can’t you?”

Graymon nodded twice and sniffled again. Therrador ruffled his hair, conscious of the thumb missing inside his gauntlet, though his son would neither feel nor see its absence. But if it came down to a matter of trading his thumb for his son’s safety, the choice was an easy one.

Therrador laid his hand on Graymon’s shoulder as he turned his attention to the dragon rider.

“What is your name?”

“Athryn,” he replied and bent his head in deference.

“Athryn. Take the woman and the children to safety. I have a witch to kill.”

He gave Graymon a tap on the back, sending him back to the magician, but Athryn shook his head.

“No,” he said. “We will all be accompanying you.”

“Impossible,” Therrador snapped, suddenly angry and unused to being disobeyed. “I am your king. Do as I say.”

“I am sorry, but I cannot.” Athryn’s voice remained calm, smooth, and its tone drained any more argument from Therrador. “Their roles in this are not yet complete.”

Therrador looked from the man, then to his son finally returned to him, and his heart sank with a certainty that the boy would be taken away again, and he felt like there was nothing he could do about it.

***

The woman rode through the battle, hewing and chopping men with her long sword without regard for what colors their armor displayed. She muttered spells to freeze them in their place or transform their muscles to jelly, she touched them with the glowing tip of the staff and turned them from the living to the living dead.

She stared straight ahead, her eyes on the ruby dragon as it burned her troops with its breath, cut them down ten at a time with powerful swipes of its tail. Arrows and spears bounced off the beast’s scaly chest. The blades of the soldiers who got close enough to swing their swords at it shattered against its ruby plate, and they lost their lives under its wicked talons for their effort. Its emerald eyes flickered with fire, anger and hatred; its pointed teeth gnashed the air.

Sheyndust had seen the dragon once before as it guarded the Necromancer’s keep in the haunted land of Lakesh, but then it was a statue. She hadn’t attracted its attention because she didn’t need the entrance concealed beneath its belly-the ancient texts she’d discovered in Poltghasa at the cost of a hundred lives had revealed another entrance, one only possible for a powerful magician to divine and use. And use it she did when she entered Darestat’s keep to steal his secrets for raising the dead, but as long as he lived, she would merely be able to animate the corpses, not truly bring the dead back to life. She’d learned the limits of her powers when she brought the assassin from the fields of the dead-once and no more, as long as Darestat existed. With him still alive to any degree, she wouldn’t be the most powerful magic user in the world; she wouldn’t be the true Necromancer.

Here, finally, was her chance to defeat him and claim her prize. With him gone, nothing would stand between her and limitless dark magic, and she would claim the world as her own.

Thirty yards from the ruby dragon, the Archon reined her horse to a stop and slid out of the saddle. Snow melted under the soles of her bare feet; mud squished up between her toes and she felt the blood in it, her flesh tasted death in the muck of the battle.

Sheyndust tossed her sword aside-it would do her no good against the beast-and set her feet at shoulder width, braced the butt end of the staff on the ground. With her arms spread, she tilted her head back and allowed the falling snow and winter wind to caress her, flap her dress around her, embrace her.

She lowered her chin and stared intently at the dragon.

“Necromancer,” she said. The word started small, a whisper, but swelled as it crossed the field of battle, building until it crashed into the dragon’s side like a wave breaking against a rocky shore. “It is I, Sheyndust. I have come to claim your life.”

The dragon’s head swiveled toward her on its long neck and gouts of smoke belched from its nostrils as though it scoffed at her words. Its massive tail slammed the ground, shaking the earth with its impact, then it reared back on its haunches, wings spread threateningly, and filled its lungs.

For an instant, the Archon saw a tiny flame flicker at the back of the dragon’s throat. She planted her feet and braced herself, leaning forward slightly on the staff as the dragon came back down on all fours with a shuddering thump and extended its neck, jaws agape.

She watched the fire swirl toward her. It seemed to move slowly, the orange and yellow and red of it churning and slithering as if possessed of life of its own. She felt as though she could have avoided it if she desired. She didn’t.

The conflagration engulfed her; she threw her head back and closed her eyes, drinking it in as she felt its heat on every inch of her flesh, felt it penetrate her and touch her soul. She smiled. She laughed. When the dragon’s breath ended, she still stood in the same place, staff in hand, her clothes burned off her. Smoke rose from her pale, naked, unburned flesh and the earth around her scorched dry. She opened her eyes, lowered her head, and looked into the eyes of the dragon.

“Is that all you have, Darestat?”

Her laughter echoed across the battle field, and the living men-Erechanian and Kanosee both-stopped to look at her. She felt their eyes on her naked flesh, felt the lust flowing out of them, feeding her.

The dragon’s roar filled the air with acrid smoke and unbridled hatred; it took a lumbering, ground-shaking step toward the woman. She pulled the staff out of the mud and held it out in front of her with both hands, the glowing knobbed end pointed at the dragon. Her lips moved shaping ancient words in a language dead practically before the world began, words she and the Necromancer could speak and no one else, and her only because she’d stolen them from him.

Sheyndust slammed the staff down onto the ground, and green lighting jumped out of it, conducted from corpse to corpse as it followed a jagged path to its target. It hit the last fallen man closest to the beast, then leaped the distance to the dragon, slamming into its chest and making the great creature stumble. The dragon threw its head back and howled as the green light gathered in its translucent ruby chest, swirling into a ball that expanded and grew. Roiling, collecting, killing.

The green light swelled until it filled the dragon’s chest, spilled down its legs, along its tail, into its wings. The beast roared in rage-filled pain and drew a breath deep into its lungs. Its neck extended, but instead of breathing deadly fire, the green death inside it exploded outward, shattering the dragon.