Land of Dragon

6

The Corpse



 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’ve always known you were idiots, but I never expected Aaron to

be the greater of the two.”

Treylen didn’t hear Marziel. He was too focused on making sure his friend’s head was tilted so he didn't choke on the blood running from his mouth. The five of them, assassins and their dragons, waited in a rough stone chamber deep beneath the palace.

When the guards had first brought them, dragging Aaron, who’d been in and out of consciousness, Treylen had worried that they were heading into the dungeons. But then he had smelled the unmistakable odor of dragons just before the caves appeared. They were wide chambers on either side of the hallway, with small alcoves carved into the walls where the assassins slept. Bone and coins piled the ground under the dragons’ nests. The dragons snoozed at the center of these rooms while their bondmates served the court in the Palace above.

Another hallway passed more alcoves, and they headed down a spiraling staircase which led them to a plain room with a low ceiling. A lone candle on a wide, stone table illuminated bare walls. The guards had hoisted Aaron onto the table and left him there, then returned with a bucket before leaving again.

Aaron roused long enough to vomit more blood into the bucket. He had cut off so much of his tongue that there wasn't enough to bite down on and slow the blood, if he even had the presence of mind to do so. He made a few wordless noises, then drifted off again. Marziel rolled him onto his side then instructed Felicity to sit over him and hold him in that position. He set the bucket on the floor so the blood running off the table dribbled into it.

“Will he be all right?” Treylen asked the question that Rime had been repeating into his head since the ritual.

“No.” Marziel stood in the doorway with his back to the room, watching for something.

“Should we try and stitch his tongue up while he's out?” “No.” Marziel waited.

Treylen spat blood into the bucket, then sat on the stone table, and held his tongue in his teeth. In his mind, he did his devotionals and sent his pain up to his queen. The room was silent except for the tapping of Marziel’s boot and the low whining from Felicity.

“It took you long enough,” Marziel spoke to someone in the hall. He backed into the room then hurried to Aaron, taking a rag from his kit and wrapping it around his hand.

The bottom fell out of Treylen’s stomach as the queen’s shadow ducked into the room with an unnerving grin on his face, and a glowing brand in his hand.

“It's not every day we see such devotion. How I yearn for the old times.” “These aren’t the old times, you withered elf.” Marziel snatched the brand

from the shadow’s hand and hurried to the table. “Watch your tongue, assassin.”

“I’ve other tongues to watch. Treylen, take his arms. Would the queen’s shadow deign to hold his feet?”

The shadow didn't move, just loomed in the doorway like a scarecrow.

There was something else he carried—a bundle under one arm.

Treylen held Aaron’s arms while Marziel wedged the hand he’d wrapped in rags into his mouth, then guided the glowing iron between his teeth.

There was a sizzling and Aaron came too, fighting against Treylen’s grip and letting out gurgling shouts. Felicity was kicked off the table, and Rime leaped away and hid into a corner.

Marziel cursed and pressed it down again, then Aaron went limp. Marziel withdrew the iron and let it clatter on the floor.

“Did it work?” Treylen rolled him back so the blood ran out of his mouth. “He’s chipped a tooth, but the bleeding has stopped.”

A chill gripped Treylen’s heart as the shadow leaned in behind him to whisper in his ear, “You will relay his assignment to him when he wakes.”

Treylen hadn’t seen the man move. He lowered his head. “Yes, Shadow.” “Good. You’ve trained one of them well, Marziel. If only you were so

pliant.”

“You’ve only yourself to blame for that.”

“You showed such promise, too.” He shoved Aaron’s legs aside and set the bundle on the stone, opening it.

The corpse of a dragon rolled onto the table. Treylen shrank away, but the dragons crept forward, sniffing at it. It was long dead, rotten, and partially chewed upon. Cold radiated from it as if it had been packed in ice.

“What am I to make of this?” Marziel looked it over, keeping a hand on Aaron to hold his head steady.

“This came from Midden. The last of the rebels were forced from the mountains and fled to Ketaresk, bringing this with them.”

“Was it alive when they found it?” “I am afraid we don't know much.”

“Does this mean Ketaresk still stands?”

“They do. Though our ally has lost the west of the peninsula. The great cities still stand. The eastern ports, and the southern isles. The isles nearest to Kysik are, of course, under Jaul control.”

“That explains why we haven't heard from them,” Marziel said. “If Jaul was successful in its efforts to blockade the ports of Ketaresk, that could be the end of our trade shipments.”

In the past, trade ships from Ketaresk had sailed up the western coast into one of the city states that lined the coast of the salt crescent, then over the mountains to Iverna. As Jaul had conquered more of the coast, the shipments grew less frequent. The queen had her spies in the northernmost ports and they ensured that shipments still arrived across the great desert. The Salt Pass was a narrow trail through the mountains east of Queenseat, just wide enough for a caravan to enter. The shadow waved the concern away.

“We have been without Southern spices before; we shall prevail without them for as long as need be.”

“That doesn't explain why we haven't been able to send a rider to them.

Not even a messenger bird.”

“But this may…” he gestured to the small corpse on the table. “You don't think…?”

“And your encounter with the traitor Apogee corroborates it. How rueful it is when our protégés disappoint us…” The shadow flicked a finger at Rime who was sniffing a bit too closely to the dead dragon, and he scurried away.

“Is this the assignment then?”

The shadow’s eyes glittered. He bundled the dead dragon back into the cloth then pulled a sheet of parchment from his sleeve, unrolling it on the floor to reveal a map. It appeared to show the mountains north of Queenseat, though like before, Treylen had rarely seen such a map in such detail. That sort of information was closely guarded.

He ran his finger around the illustration of a small volcano. “These parts of the Dragon Lands may as well be inaccessible. Your traitorous apprentice and her bondmate could have reached it, but the feral dragons do not take kindly to such intrusions and the dragons there nest much higher in the mountains.”

He dragged his fingernail down from the heart of the mountains, back to Iverna valley. A small line of blue ran between the mountains to Lake Iverna.

At the place where the river originated was a narrow ravine; at the top of it was the drawing of a shrine with the words Coal Abbey written beside it. Just below was a village labeled Wetherdin, wedged into the ravine.

“Here is where the dragons’ eggs are first gathered. In recent years, the eggs have been fewer. It is my suspicion that someone within Wetherdin, or even the abbey itself, has been smuggling them out. The season draws near, and the search for the dragons eggs is soon to commence.”

He reached out and ran a finger under Treylen’s chin again tilting his head up to meet his eyes.

“Your assignment, and your companion’s, should he live to accept it, will be to infiltrate the town of Wetherdin to root out the traitors in our midst. Wetherdin is a mining town, overseen by a few select families who lodge at the top in spring and summer. You are to get in with them, but don't neglect the underlings. The miners may be simpletons but none are above suspicion in the eyes of our queen…” He looked from Treylen to Marziel and then back. “I have seen all manner of treachery through the ages. There's no such thing as an honest working man or nobility too proud to be corrupted by self- interest. Now, you will go directly. Take what you want from the armory here, and see that your friend is fit to lift a pickaxe before your cart reaches the mines. I trust you’ll brief them on the politics, Marziel?”

“Yes. Take your leave, shadow.”

“I’m always watching you. Don’t disappoint me again.” He grinned at Aaron on the slab. “At least someone from the abbeys knows his place. Send him back to us in one piece. The queen is quite fond of that one.”

The shadow slipped away, taking the bundle with him. Marziel watched

the doorway, and Treylen listened, but his footsteps made no sound and there was no telling whether the man had really gone or if he still loomed just in the hall.