Jeff Crook - Dark Thane

A low, murderous chuckle seemed to answer her suspicions. Two figures slunk out of the alley opposite, one short and powerfully built, the other taller, leaner, and obviously female. “Indeed, we are still around,” the shorter figure laughed as he advanced toward Tarn and Crystal. His female companion followed just behind and to his right, sword drawn.

Tarn rose to his feet with a roar. He snatched his sword from the pavement and lunged toward the two. Crystal spun her spear around into an attack stance. “So the two of you murdered him,” she shouted angrily. “Let’s see how you fare against the king and his woman.”

The tall female dwarf lifted her sword and charged. The shorter figure only laughed and raised a hollow tube to his lips to shoot a poisonous dart. His cheeks puffed out and he expelled a breath of air in a sharp cry, however, as his companion’s sword unexpectedly cleaved through his shoulder, ribs, and heart to wedge itself in his spine. His dart, weakly blown and knocked askew, bounced off Tarn’s hauberk and fell with a ping to the paving stones.

Already dead, the shorter dwarf fell between the strange female and the king. Crystal circled to her right, spear ready for throwing or thrusting at this turncoat. Dumbfounded by this turn of events, Tarn waited. He knew that Daergar were treacherous, but he sometimes forgot how treacherous they could truly be, and this could be a trick. The dead dwarf had fallen, face up, and Tarn recognized him as one of Jungor’s most trusted advisors—Ferro Dunskull. But the female dwarf was a stranger to him.

“Why did you kill him?” Tarn asked.

“He betrayed me,” the female dwarf answered simply. “I’ve waited a long time to avenge my companions. Now was a good time.”

“If he betrayed you so, I am surprised he allowed you behind his back,” Tarn said. “Ferro Dunskull was never one to make a mistake about his friends.”

“He thought I was someone he could trust,” she answered. She folded her arms across her breasts. “The price I paid for that trust has only fanned the flames of my revenge.”

“I thank you for saving us.” He stamped his boot over the tiny silver needle, shattering it and driving its point between the paving stones.

“My only thought was vengeance. I am sorry your friend had to die, for he was not part of my designs,” she said, nodding toward the body of the Klar captain.

Tarn’s face darkened. “Yes, my friend. And what are those designs?” he asked suspiciously.

“Our fates are intertwined, Tarn Bellowgranite. I was hired to kill you by this dwarf, but he betrayed me before I could finish the job,” she said.

“I knew it—Ferro was working for Jungor!” Tarn cried excitedly. “If you will tell your story before the Council, Jungor’ll be exiled for the traitor that he is!”

But the female dwarf only shook her head and laughed. “They will not believe me,” she said.

“Why not?” Crystal demanded. She stepped closer, threatening the Daergar with her spear.

“Because I am not a dwarf,” Zen answered. Both Tarn and Crystal stepped hack in alarm as the female dwarf transformed into a gleaming, seven-foot-tall sivak draconian.

“I killed the woman Marith Darkforge so that I could take her form and get close to Ferro. My revenge is now complete. What happens next is no concern of mine. I only want to get out of this madhouse,” Zen said, his voice a reptilian growl.

“No, you killed Ferro in my presence for a reason,” Tarn said, sheathing his weapon. “You wanted me to see you do it. You could have murdered him a dozen times before now, I imagine.”

“Yes, it served my purpose to gain a powerful ally, should I need one,” Zen acknowledged. “Only a king or a thane can order the gates of Thorbardin opened, and I’m sure that Thane Stonesinger won’t oblige me once he learns I have killed his assassin and exposed his plots to the king.”

“Tarn, you can’t let this monster go free,” Crystal urged in a low voice.

“Be quiet, woman!” Tarn snapped, then immediately regretted his words.

Crystal grew livid. “How dare you! I am not some scullery maid to be ordered about.” Glaring at him, she cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted for the guards. Her voice carried down the length of the street. Several gate guards paused in their patrols and stared, pointing.

Hurriedly, Tarn said to the draconian, “I will order the gates opened, but there is a price.”

“Tarn!” Crystal said in surprise.

Tarn ignored her. “You can take Ferro’s form and get close to Jungor, am I right?” In answer, the draconian swiftly shrank, his silvery skin taking on the pale hue of the Daergar’s flesh. In moments, his appearance exactly mimicked that of his victim.

Tarn nodded appreciatively, but Crystal gasped in horror. “Tarn, you can’t mean to do this,” she said, catching him by the arm. “You can’t mean to hire this monster to stalk your rival.”

“As long as Jungor is around, the people will never leave the mountain.”

“This is wrong, Tarn. Jungor tried to have you murdered, and so you have decided to return the favor? What of your precious laws, Tarn’s celebrated Laws of Redress? Will you now cast them aside?”

While they argued, Zen conducted a swift operation on Ferro’s corpse with the heel of his boot. Soon, the dead Daergar’s face was an unrecognizable, bloody pulp. He removed the dagger that Ferro had intended to plant on Tarn’s murdered body in order to implicate the Daergar thane. It was only a small blade, but deadly. He slipped it into a hidden pouch in his cloak.

“This is our way,” Tarn said, his anger rising. “So it has been for thousands of years in Thorbardin.”

“It’s not my way,” Crystal returned cooly. “And it won’t be the way of our son. The Law is the same for both king and commoner, or it is no law at all.”

A company of twenty guards arrived at that moment. Their captain stared in wonder at the two bodies lying at the edges of the street, then at the king. Tarn glared at Crystal, but said nothing. She stepped close to him and fiercely pleaded, “You mustn’t sink to Jungor’s level. I beg you. For Tor’s sake! Let’s just gather what we can, take those loyal to us, and leave this place.”

Finally, Tarn relented. “But I do not care to expose the draconian yet,” he whispered back. “I may yet need his assistance.” Crystal sighed but nodded in agreement. She turned to the guards.

“Ferro Dunskull and his accomplice have attempted to murder the king. Arrest him,” she said. The guards surged forward and swiftly pinned Zen’s arms behind his back. He didn’t resist them. Instead, he focused all the hate of his draconian being onto the one who had betrayed him. Not Tarn—who turned his head away, but Crystal. She shuddered to look into his black, soulless eyes as the guards wrapped his arms in tough cords of mushroom fiber. She knew at that moment that this creature would stop at nothing to kill her.

“Do not take him to the fortress,” she declared, as they started to drag him away. The thought of the draconian locked up within the same walls as her family filled her with terror. “Imprison him in one of the first level dungeons.” Nodding, the guards started in the other direction. Half the guards remained behind to escort the king the remaining distance home and to see to the bodies of the dead.

Jungor’s fist struck the table, splitting it down its length. Glassware and crockery leaped into the air and crashed down, spilling their contents.

“It all comes of trusting a Daergar,” Hextor Ironhaft yawned. He righted his glass, then motioned for a servant to refill it and clean up the mess.

The news had interrupted their breakfast. Jungor hardly looked at his food. Not that he ever ate much; he drank copious amounts of mushroom brandy, and took little else for nourishment. Since his disfiguration in the arena, the Hylar thane had lost weight, his already predatory features gone thin and gaunt. The flesh of the right side of his face looked as lifeless as wax that had melted and then hardened into a hideous mockery of flesh.