Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3) (53 page)

For a moment none of them spoke; then the dragon that had killed Grandsir said,
You will not bring the godling to us?

"No," Arlian said. "Perhaps you can live your own lives far from here, if you harm no one; a treaty can be made, perhaps, and we will thereby tell Ithar not to seek you out. But I will not let you kill him."

Then die.
And the second dragon surged forward, smashing its shoulders through the stone wall of the Grey House as if it were paper, and spraying flaming venom from its jaw.

49

Vengeance Considered

Vengeance Considered

Arlian dodged the gout of burning poison as best he could, but the flame singed his hair and sleeve and left his eyes stinging. He ducked sideways, into the corner by the hearth. The dragon tried to turn its head to pursue him, but could not maneuver in the cramped quarters of a human kitchen; Arlian was able to get to one side of its jaw, where it could not turn its head far enough to strike at him with teeth or venom, and the other dragon could not attack him without going through its companion.

That did not stop the dragon's claws, though; a taloned foreclaw smashed through the stone wall and struck at him.

He struck back with the spear, meeting the blow halfway; the obsidian spear-point tore through scale and armor, punching entirely through the dragon's foreclaw, slowing the attack to a mere shove.

The dragon screamed with rage, filling the kitchen with a fog of sparks and toxic vapor, as it tried to twist around to get a look at its foe.

Arlian, meanwhile, tried to pull the spear back out and realized he could not; instead he dove forward, grasped the jagged black spearhead, and pulled it through instead, as the dragon thrashed and squirmed.

Where is he? Help me!

He carries my spawn,
the other replied uncertainly.

The spear came free, and Arlian climbed up on the monster's

pierced claw, then scrambled up its foreleg.

Get off!

Arlian had had experience at this—there had been occasions when a dragon or two awoke before he and his men could thrust a spear in its heart. Those dragons, though, had been old and weak with age, and sluggish from their deep sleep and the winter cold. This dragon was young and strong, awake and angry, its blood hot with tire and magic. It jerked and struggled, and at one point would have Bung Arlian aside had he not bounced off a jagged chunk of wall and regained his grip at the cost of a backache and an immense bruise.

His right shoulder was still stiff, as well; he could not raise that hand up to grip properly.

Still, he was able to crawl up the dragon's shoulder and onto its back, and there he raised the spear in his left hand—and jammed it against the ceiling before he could bring it up to a vertical position.

But then the much-abused ceiling gave way completely, crumbling around him; stone glanced from his head, shoulders, and back, and the spear swung upright. He jumped to his feet, grabbed the shaft in both hands, and thrust it down into the dragon's back.

The dragon screamed and thrashed, and Arlian's feet went out from under him, but he kept his grip on the spear, the added weight only drove it deeper into the beast, and his knees scraped on black scales again. He could feel the throbbing of the dragon's heart as a vibration in the spear, deep and strong, slower than a human heart but faster than any other dragon's he had ever felt.

He moved his hands up the shaft, squeezed, and thrust downward again.

Thick dark blood welled up around the shaft, then spurted up on his hands and face, and the dragon collapsed beneath him.

Bravely done, child.

Arlian turned to see the other dragon still watching, still making no hostile move. He took a shuddering breath, then asked, "Will you attempt to kill me now, or will you continue to let me live for the sake of your offspring?"

I think that Fate chose its agents well.

"What?" He coughed as he pulled the spear from the already-decaying body of the dead dragon.

What would I gain from your death? I came to destroy a godling, to preserve the freedom of my race; you have made that impossible. If Fate is working to restore the gods then it is nearing its goal. Oh I could eat your soul, and
I would surely relish so rare a person as yourself but then my own child would
be lost.

As it finished this speech it began to withdraw its head. The collapsed kitchen ceiling was gone, and Arlian could see that the house above was entirely gone as well; he could see the dragon rear up its long neck and spread its gigantic wings.

"Wait!" he called.

He knew it was madness. He knew this was utterly insane. The

dragon had just said it would let him live. It had just agreed to depart, to give up its attempts on Ithar—and he was calling it back.

But he had a reason, a reason he had lived with since boyhood. This was not just any dragon. This was the dragon that had killed his grandfather. This was the dragon he had sworn vengeance upon a hundred times over the years. This was the dragon he had dreamed of for more than twenty years—and had dreamed of killing for more than twenty years. This was the dragon whose poison had robbed him of his humanity, replaced his own heart with obsession and hatred.

He had let it live once, in the cave in the Sawtooth Mountains, for the sake of a greater good, but now, here, there was no such reason for restraint.

The dragon, however, did not wait. It sprang upward, wings flapping, and the wind from its ascent knocked Arlian from his perch atop the dead dragon's spine; he tumbled and slid down the rotting black flesh to the broken flagstones of the kitchen floor, his head whacking hard on the stone.

He lay dazed for a moment, staring up at swirling smoke and streaks of fire against a background of thick black clouds.

With the dragons gone and the kitchen open to the sky much of the smoke had cleared away, and after a moment his head cleared, as well.

He sat up.

The Grey House was a ruin; scattered fires were still burning here and there in the wreckage. The dead dragon towered before him. filling half the kitchen, all of the kitchen yard, and a portion of the demolished stables, but its flesh was already shrinking and falling away, exposing corners and edges of bone.

Arlian remembered what the dragons had said about killing gods; he would want to save some of those bones, just in case.

Over the crackling of the flames he could hear screaming, roaring, crashing, shouting—the dragons had obviously not yet all departed Manfort. Some might have abandoned the hunt, but others apparently had not; presumably there were factions among the dragons, as among humans, and at least one faction still fought.

And the dragon that killed his grandfather was still out there. It might be flying back to the Shoulderbone, or to some new, as yet undiscovered lair. It might be wheeling to attack the Duke's soldiers, or digging for Enziet's escape tunnel.

And Arlian intended to And it and kill it. He had sworn as much over and over. The beast had let him live when it could have killed him, but that didn't matter—he had to kill it. He bad to.

He could not get out through the kitchen yard; the dead dragon blocked that route completely. He would have to go out through the rest of the house. He turned, and stumbled toward what remained of the arched doorway into the passage to the dining hall.

The little corridor was surprisingly intact, but the dining hall was gone—and he discovered then that there was more than one dead dragon in the wreckage of the Grey House.

This one had been dead a few minutes longer, by the look of it; the catapult bolts that bristled from it were sagging, twisting the rotting skin, dropping free. The stinking mass nonetheless formed an impassa-ble barricade. He retreated to the kitchen and tried another door.

That one was blocked by fallen stone.

He tried every possible route, and all were barricaded by either debris or decaying dragon. He looked up at the fetid remains of the dragon he had slain and considered trying to climb over, or at least clamber up its skull to get up atop the piles of stone, but then another thought struck him.

The dragon he wanted had surely gone by now—but so had Black

and Ithar and the rest, and the hidden tunnel was a way out of this ruin.

He could help Brook out, as well.

With that, he turned, shoved aside a few blocks of stone, and found the cellar stairs. "Brook!" he called—or tried to; the smoke and strain had finally gotten to his throat, and he could not manage much more than a croak.

No one answered. Arlian swallowed, trying to clear his throat, as he staggered down the stone steps.

At the bottom he called again. "Brook!"

"Ari?"

He turned, and saw her in the shadows, rolling her chair forward slowly. "Yes," he said.

"What's happened? Are the dragons coming?"

"I don't think so," he said. "I think we should find that tunnel and get out of here—the house is a ruin."

"Are you sure? We won't be leading them to Ithar?"

"They can sense him—but they know they can't reach him in the tunnel. As long as Ithar is underground he's safe."

"Then we need to warn them!" she shouted. "They'll bring him out at the other end of the tunnel if we don't!"

"Oh," Arlian said, suddenly feeling extraordinarily stupid. "They might." He looked around the cellars. An oil lamp was mounted on a wall bracket by the stairs, and Brook held a thick candle, but beyond that everything was dark—if the dragons had broken through from above anywhere, Arlian could not see it. "Where was the entrance?"

"I don't know," Brook said. "That way, maybe?"

Arlian peered into the gloom in the direction she indicated, and tried to remember where he had last heard Black's voice. "Maybe," he said. He moved behind Brook's chair and pushed.

The two of them searched the cellars for what seemed like hours, investigating every dark corner and disturbed cobweb, before finally stumbling upon the butcher's cupboard with the double latch. Releasing the first latch let the cupboard door swing open, revealing a tin-lined interior where a rack of hooks held nothing but dust; releasing the second latch let the entire cupboard swing forward, revealing a door-sized opening in the stone wall behind it.

As they searched, the house and city above them gradually quieted.

When they finally inspected the butcher's cupboard for the third time they could no longer hear anything but their own breath and a distant muttering.

Had Brook not finally noticed the child-sized fingerprints on the mechanism, they might never have discovered this entrance.

"It was fortunate that your daughters are inquisitive little creatures,"

Arlian remarked as he stepped cautiously into the opening. "I doubt an adult would ever have found that second latch." He held up a candle and studied the passageway.

It was, indeed, a tunnel, dark and cool and smelling of stone, its walls seamless black. It measured perhaps four feet wide and six feet high; Arlian had to stoop slightly to avoid hitting his head on the arched ceiling. It did not, however, lead directly away from the cellars, as he had expected; rather, it paralleled the cellar wall, extending out of sight in both directions, offering him two choices.

And to his surprise and dismay, the cobwebs had been torn away and the dust on the floor smeared by many feet in both directions. He knelt, candle in hand, and studied the footprints.

There appeared to be more ot them to the right, and those were pointed in both directions; to the left all seemed to head away from his present location.

"Ah," he said. He stood up and explained to Brook, "They went that way at first," pointing to the right, "but then turned back for some reason and came back and went on that way," pointing to the left.

"The tunnel was probably blocked," she suggested.

"Probably." He pushed her chair over the sill into the tunnel and turned her to the left. "Come on, then."

"Hello!" she called into the darkness ahead. "Black? Kerzia?"

No one answered, and Arlian pushed the chair forward into the gloom.

The tunnel seemed endless. There was a bad moment when they

reached an intersection where a side tunnel ran off to the right, but a quick look at the undisturbed cobwebs in that direction convinced Arlian and Brook to continue straight along the passage, following the footsteps of the others.

Then, abruptly, Arlian stopped. "Listen," he whispered.

Brook leaned forward in her chair, then smiled and shouted, "Here!

We're here!"

"Mother!" a distant voice replied, followed by the sound of running feet. Arlian made out a dim light, far down the tunnel but nearing rapidly.

A moment later Amberdine was climbing into her mother's lap,

while Dirinan clung to Brook's leg and Kerzia stood nearby. Behind her Ithar slept in his father's arms, and beyond that Arlian could see Stammer, Venlin, Lilsinir, and three or four others.

"What happened?" he asked Black.

"I would ask you the same," Black replied, with a crooked smile.

"Your tale first, then mine."

Stories were exchanged. Black's party had chosen to turn right at first, and had followed the tunnel for some distance before emerging into the burning ruins that they had only with effort identified as the remains of the Citadel. The defenses had been demolished, and the main structures burned to the ground; dragons were everywhere. Black had immediately turned the party around and led them back down the tunnel, through an opening in a structure so thoroughly devastated that he could not say with any assurance how the tunnel had originally been concealed.

There had been some argument about whether or not to return to the Grey House, but the consensus had been to continue down the other way—a decision that had been assisted significantly by the discovery that they did not know how to open the butcher's cupboard from the back; there was no obvious mechanism.