Michael Mathias - Kings, Queens, Heroes, and Fools

Before the great bridge to Wildermont was destroyed, Locar had been the main center of land trade for Westland and most of the continent. Now, it was the one civilized place for the breed giants to live. Only a few hundred of their kind had chosen to remain in Westland. Men inhabited the city of Locar too, but the zard stayed well away. There was a base sort of revulsion there. The zard hated the breed almost as much as the breed hated the zard. If not for Queen Shaella’s demand that they leave each other alone, Bzorch would have had zard-men pulling his wagon long ago.

Sitting in a big wooden throne in the lobby of a commandeered manor, Bzorch was contemplating why his kinsman, Vachen, had recently crossed the river to fight with the skeeks against the Valleyans. He had already dismissed the idea of having men pull his wagon chair around. As usual, Cozchin was thinking a few moments behind him.

“Is he going to live?” Bzorch asked as he rose to his feet.

The question threw Cozchin off for a few moments because he was still turning arguments for keeping the human wagon team in place through his primitive mind.

“Vachen?” the bewildered brute asked.

Bzorch was nearly ten feet tall, and as intimidating as a breed giant could be. He was the alpha of his kind and exuded dominance. The title that Queen Shaella had bestowed upon him, for his help destroying the bridge to the east, had little to do with the firm control he asserted over his people. Cozchin, at just over eight feet tall, was trembling as he looked up to meet his brooding lord’s gaze.

“Yes, Vachen!” Bzorch snapped. His one, long caterpillar-like eyebrow formed a sharp ’V‘ over his deeply set eyes. One of his lower fangs was jutting up over his upper lip when he wrinkled his snout into a snarl.

Cozchin took a reflexive step back and spoke more quickly than he would have liked. “Lost his arm. He swears that the sword that wounded him was the same sword that old King Balton used to banish us.”

“The rumors are true then,” growled Bzorch. “Shaella said Ironspike found an heir.” He started striding back and forth before his wooden throne while he continued to think. If he could capture the sword and its wielder he could increase his favor tenfold. If he presented Ironspike to the Dragon Queen, he was quite sure she would let him hand-pick a team of bug-eyed skeeks to pull his wagon cart anywhere he wanted to go. The idea made him smile and growl with mirth.

“Go find that big sneaky bastard Graven and send him here,” Bzorch ordered. “Then see if Vachen can get one of his skeek friends to swim a trolley rope across the river north of Castlemont. After that’s done, kill Vachen and those nasty skeeks he brought back.”

“What are you going to do?” Cozchin asked, now enamored with the prospect of killing zard-men.

“I’m going to send Graven over to Wildermont to sniff around. Put the tower men on alert. I want all movement across the river reported. If Ironspike is really over there I will have it."

“Wheen the High King heers of thes ye’ll find yee’re in a fix,” Princess Rosa chirped indignantly. “He well come for me, you knew.”

“My dear Princess, you’ve hit the anvil squarely,” Cole responded with a hint of mockery in his tone. “The High King is exactly who my queen hopes to attract with such lovely bait.”

“Wheen he comes, yee’ll regret thes affront.”

Cole laughed, poured a dollop of water haphazardly over her face, and then tied the filthy sack back over her head. He gave a whistle and the covered tinker’s wagon they were riding in lurched forward.

It’s just a dream, Rosa said to herself as she sat up. Looking around, she realized that it had been just a dream. She wasn’t jostling along in the back of the wagon with a pale-skinned wizard, but neither was she lying in the down four-poster bed in her mother’s Seaward palace. She was in a circular chamber at the top of one of the Dragon Queen’s lofty towers-the same place she had been for days and days on end.

She had all but given up on High King Mikahl’s rescue. The first few days she half expected him to come swooping in on his magical horse to save her, but night after night she cried herself to sleep, each tear carrying away with it a small amount of hope.

He was afield in Valleya, she knew, dealing with her uncle, King Broderick. She understood that he might not even know she had been taken yet. If he did, he couldn’t possibly know where she was being held. These realizations became clearer as the days wore on. It occurred to her that, if she really was bait, then Queen Shaella would eventually have to dangle her in front of her prey in order to draw him there. The longer Rosa spent in the tower, the less she was sure she wanted that to happen. Even without her dragon, Queen Shaella was a powerful force. Rosa didn’t want Mikahl to become a victim too.

A soft humming sound told Rosa that the strange lift was coming up through the hole in the center of the plank floor. Food and wine would be on it. She would have to get it from the lift quickly or it would go back down, and she would go hungry. Several times she had been tempted to climb onto the platform and ride it down, but fear had kept her from it. Surely the Dragon Queen had her slimy lizards guarding the tower’s exits.

To her surprise, it was more than just food on the lift this time. The hard but beautiful looking woman who’d tricked a dragon and stolen the greatest kingdom in the realm was standing there looking at Rosa with a curious smile on her scarred face.

“He’s going to keel yew, jest like he deed Pael,” Rosa snapped, surprising herself with the heat of her voice.

“I’m sure he will try, love,” Queen Shaella responded. In her hand she held a pair of heavy shears, the kind saddlers use to cut through thick leather strapping. The jab about the demise of Shaella’s father didn’t seem to faze her.

“He’s close, you know,” Shaella taunted. “Your hero and that kingdom-less fool Jarrek have been harassing King Ra’Gren as of late. Ra’Gren had to kill a hundred of his Wildermont innocents to quell their meddling. He beheaded them himself, right in the market square at O’Dakahn.” She spoke of these things as if she were talking about a poorly chosen gown that a rival lady had worn to the ball. “The question is will this glorified squire come for you at all?” Shaella stepped off the lift and strolled her way around the ill-kept room where her father used to keep his messenger hawks and pigeons. “A king has to think about his people first, you know,” she laughed. “If he has a kingdom left to rule that is. This one might just decide that your life isn’t worth it.”

“Yeer wrong!” Rosa shouted, with new tears rolling down her cheeks. She hoped Shaella was wrong, but couldn’t find much confidence in the thought.

“Don’t worry, dear,” Shaella said, taking Rosa’s hand in hers. Before the young Princess could pull away Shaella cut half of the little finger from Rosa’s right hand off with the shears. Rosa squealed in agony and clutched at the missing digit. Blood surged freely out of the wound and down her arm. Shaella laughed and quickly pocketed the finger she had snipped. “With this little bit I’ll make sure he comes and finds you.”

Rosa retched while trying to wrap part of her dress around the bleeding stump. She’d never felt this helpless in all her life. The room began to spin around her. Pain throbbed through her arm into her shoulder. Then her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she fainted on the floor.

In the empty plane of blackness that held Gerard, he savored the taste of the creature known as Kraw.

Days ago he had approached the great hell-born demon and was mocked when he asked for its help. Gerard’s pent up hate, and his ill-formed dragon-born instincts overwhelmed him then. He attacked Kraw viciously. The devilish thing rained blow after blow down upon Gerard’s plated skin to little or no effect. Kraw’s demonic spells of hellfire and lightning did even less damage. Gerard tore into the demon like a starving dog into a plate of fresh beef. His own magical attacks of blinding white light, and his terribly sharp teeth and claws overcame the devil in a matter of moments. Soon, Gerard was wallowing in a great lake of thick black blood, and relishing the feel of the tingling power his soul was absorbing.