Journey Of Thieves (Book 5) (8 page)

My mind was drawn back to the present by a disbelieving snort from the enemy before me.

“A convenient story,” he said. “But I’ve heard better and from lips I trust more than yours.”

“Whose would that be?” Past the initial shock, I was angry now. “Who invents such an evil charge against me? For I will stand any other insult but never the lie that I turned against Brig.”

He did not give the name of my accuser, but a flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. Off his guard, his features no longer twisted in fury, his resemblance to Brig was striking. It was as if I had turned back time and stood looking at the man himself, twenty years younger than when I knew him. It was a sight to make my eyes sting and my throat tighten.

I wasn’t aware of lowering my bow until I saw the youth reach surreptitiously for the dagger at his belt.

“Don’t do it,” I warned, training my arrow again at his heart. For a tense moment we stayed like that, he with his hand on the knife’s hilt, me holding my breath, sweat trickling down my back as I prayed he wouldn’t draw the weapon. Could I shoot him if I had to? Could I put an arrow through Brig’s flesh and blood?

My expression must have said I was prepared to.

Slowly, reluctantly, he drew his hand away from the weapon. “So what happens now? Is this the part where you murder me, as you did my father?”

I didn’t rise to the bait this time but ordered him to disarm very slowly and to toss me his waterskin. He obeyed, and after collecting his things, I backed away.

“Here’s how this is going to play out,” I told him, slinging his waterskin onto my shoulder to join my own. “My destination is a two-day journey across this wasteland. With an injured leg and no water, you’ll never make it that far. Even if you were foolish enough to try, you’re unarmed, and I would shoot you down the first time I caught you following me.”

His eyes glittered with hate. “So you leave me to die in this desert?”

“There’s nothing stopping you from binding up your leg and limping back to the river. It’s a kinder option than you would have given in my place.”

“If our positions were reversed, you would be dead by now and my father avenged.”

He was either stupid or made fearless by his hatred of me. I didn’t have the patience to deal with either possibility. “Your accusations are growing tiresome. I cannot make you believe that I had no hand in Brig’s death, but I advise you to reconsider the trustworthiness of your source. Ask yourself what motive the one who hired you might have for lying about my past and seeking my destruction. What is he afraid of, that he is so eager to ensure I never return to Ellesus?”

“Ridiculous,” he sneered. “A respected member of the Praetor’s council has nothing to fear from the likes of you.”

“Praetor’s council, you say?” I mentally shuffled through my limited knowledge of the Praetor’s advisers. My only glimpse of these exalted people had been on the occasion where I had made my ill-conceived attempt at assassinating their ruler. I had failed miserably and, in the end, had been forced to join the very man I had hoped to kill. There had been councilmen present for that, but none of them stood out in my memory. None had cause to act against me now.

My enemy looked annoyed at his slip. “Kill me if you want, but I’ll tell you no more than that. I’ll never disclose the name of the one who hired me.”

“Then maybe you’ll give you own?” His bravery reminding me of Brig, I softened slightly. Maybe he had more than appearance in common with his father.

He scowled, and I thought he would refuse me this piece of information too, if only to be obstinate.

But it seemed he had used up his store of defiance. “Martyn. I am Martyn.”

“All right, Martyn. I have only one question more for you. How did you come to possess my bow?”

“Everyone knows of the famous bow belonging to Ilan of Dimmingwood,” he said. “Your precious forest outlaws fished it out of a stream and were saving it in your memory. When I went sniffing around the outlaw band, looking for answers about my father’s fate, I soon learned of the bow. People say it’s the only weapon that can defeat you. So I took it, thinking it would be a fine irony to destroy you with your own bow.”

“And so you nearly did.” Privately, I was amused by the nonsensical idea that I was some unnatural being who could only be killed by a magical weapon. But I sobered, remembering this young man might be ignorant but he was still an enemy it would be unwise to turn my back on.

“For your father’s sake, I am leaving you alive. That is more than I’ve ever done before with someone bent on killing me. I won’t ask why you are suddenly so concerned with Brig’s fate, when none of his kin seemed interested in him while he lived.”

He tried to protest, but I cut him off. “You should tear off a bit of your cloak and wrap that wound tight before you lose any more blood. Then take yourself back home, wherever that may be. You have no honest quarrel with me, and I want none with you. But make no mistake. The next time I lay eyes on you, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

I glanced at the sky where the sun was dipping behind a ridge. “And now I have a long way to go and not many hours left until dark. Good-bye, Martyn, son of Brig. I hope we do not meet again.”

I left him there, sitting on the blood-spattered sand and looking after me in confusion. I offered up a silent apology to Brig and tried not to wonder what would become of his son.

Following Calder’s map, it took me two more days of travel to reach the mountains. I never saw any sign of Martyn following me and wondered with a pang of guilt whether he had successfully retraced his steps to the river or if he was dead by now.

It was a rough climb up the mountainside. The air here was as dry as that of the desert I had left behind, but temperatures dropped the higher I went. I saw snow on the slopes above and hoped I would not have to go that far. I wasn’t equipped for cold or for scaling steep peaks. Luckily, my map showed the Drejians’ fortress at a lower level.

I had only been climbing for a day when I found myself on a craggy bluff overlooking a familiar prospect. It was exactly as the map showed, a place with high rock walls on three sides and a hill of shale on the fourth side leading up to a pile of boulders.

One of those tall rock walls was an entrance to the Drejian stronghold in the side of the mountain. The stone gates were high and wide. It was impossible to imagine them being opened by any outside force. Certainly it would take more strength than mine to budge them.

Equally intimidating were the two statues on either side of the gates, soaring rocks carved into the rough resemblance of winged men. I doubted Drejians were as tall as these were depicted, but even allowing for exaggeration, they were a fierce-looking enemy.

Fortunately it was not the Drejians I had come to face.

I had no sooner had the thought than my eye caught movement from below. Pacing before the entry to the Drejian fortress was a creature now familiar to me. Massive and black scaled, she was not just any dragon but
the
dragon. Micanthria. Just as I remembered her from the attack on the high field in Swiftsfell.

Memories of that day flashed through my mind. Again I heard the screams of the villagers, saw Myria’s blackened corpse. Heat raced through my veins to rival the flames of the dragon. In my hatred, it was hard to think of anything but the need to destroy the creature before me. But some rational part of me knew I mustn’t give in to the desire for vengeance yet. I had been no match for Micanthria then, and I would be none now. Not while she was on her guard.

So I bided my time and waited until daylight faded and the moon rose high in the sky. I watched while the dragon patrolled her ground, watched when she finally settled down to gnaw on the carcass of some large wild beast she must have killed earlier. When she had eaten her fill, I feared she would resume her watchfulness. But instead, she lay down against an outcropping of rock, lowered her head, and was still.

Now that it was safe to move without great danger of detection, I crept closer, scrambling as speedily as I dared down the side of the ridge. I was cautious, crossing near the mouth of the Drejian stronghold, but I needn’t have been. There were no warriors in sight. Supremely confident in the strength of their dragon, these people apparently felt no need to post any other guard. It did not occur to them anyone would be foolish enough to come looking for a fight with Micanthria.

The immense bulk of the dragon loomed before me, a blue-black mountain of teeth and claws. I only had to get near enough so that I couldn’t possibly miss my shot. It almost seemed too easy as I readied my bow and looked for the most vulnerable point to target. The head was best, I decided, drawing near. I would aim directly between the eyes.

I was so close I could almost have reached out and touched the creature, when a piece of gravel crunched loudly beneath my boot, breaking the silence of the night.

I froze, holding my breath, as one giant fiery eye snapped open to fix upon me.

In the back of my mind, a voice screamed at me to loose my arrow, but my numb fingers refused to obey the command. I stood paralyzed beneath the dragon’s hypnotic stare. For a long, silent moment, the world seemed to stand still.

Then so quickly I barely saw it coming, Micanthria lashed out with one giant wing, catching me in the chest and throwing me a dozen yards to the side. I crashed into the ground with painful force and rolled, my bow knocked from my grasp and lost somewhere behind me.

I lay sprawled on my back, waiting for my head to stop spinning and for everything to come into focus again. Before I could regather my thoughts or my strength, hot dragon breath blasted over me, and I looked up into the gaping jaws of the beast. My hands moved to the knives tucked up my sleeves, even though I knew they would be little more than sharp splinters next to the gleaming row of huge teeth lowering toward me.

From nowhere, a thought slipped into my mind, as if Myria herself were tapping me on the shoulder and whispering what I must do. Instead of drawing my knives, I gripped the dragon-scale augmenter on its chain around my neck. Drawing on my rusty magical skills, I scoured my mind of all its fear and dread. I pushed these powerful emotions outward, away from me, and rolled them in a great wave to crash over my enemy.

Micanthria, poised to devour me, hesitated as the wall of magic hit her. Her eyes widened, growing glossy and dazed. If not fear, she was at least feeling confusion, and it was enough to distract her. Using the opportunity, I crawled from beneath her jaws and ran. A steep hill of shale sloped before me, and I scrambled desperately up the incline. My concentration broken, I felt the magic that held the dragon in confusion seeping away. Dissolving.

My fears were confirmed by the sound of pursuit from behind. The dragon was so much larger than I that it took her only a few strides to catch up to me. Her claws anchored her firmly into the side of the mountain while I struggled to keep my footing on the steep surface. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her long neck stretch toward me, saw the approach of her great maw, filled with teeth glinting like ivory daggers.

I reached the summit and ducked between a pair of boulders, just in time to escape her reach. She was too big to squeeze in after me, but enraged, Micanthria butted her head against the rocks. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before her powerful blows would break apart my flimsy shelter.

But to my surprise, the attack did not continue. The dragon stopped smashing at the rocks and went strangely silent. After a moment, I gathered my courage and peered out to see what she was doing. To my horror, the dragon had reared and drew back her head. From around her jaws came a fiery glow, like flames about to burst out of the mouth of a giant oven. I watched her inflate her lungs, knowing I was about to be incinerated.

And then something happened. An indistinct shout sounded in the distance, a cry of challenge. In the next second, Micanthria arched her back and screamed in agony at some unseen attack. Eyes blazing, smoke billowing from her nostrils, the dragon rounded on her new foe.

It was then that I saw him at the foot of the rocks below. Martyn.

It couldn’t be. In the moonlight, I could just make out his blood-soaked, bandaged leg. But he seemed not to feel the injury as he stood tall and brave with my bow in his hands.

When Micanthria wheeled on him, I saw the arrow protruding from her broad back. It could not have pierced deeply, having struck between her thick, gleaming scales. But it was obviously hurting her by the way she writhed her shoulders and flexed her wings in a futile attempt to dislodge it. Infuriated by the pain, she galloped down the mountainside.

Martyn never had a chance to dodge as she slammed her powerful wing into him. She caught him with the bone-spiked tip of her wing, and it punched through him like a spear. Then his limp body was tossed through the air to land in a motionless heap.

It all happened so fast I could only look on, stunned. My life had been saved by an enemy, and I had no time to wonder why. All that mattered was that Martyn had bought me time, and I must use it well.

I clenched my dragon-scale augmenter in my fist and tried to remember Myria’s lesson, tried to remember how to draw on the skill my mother had excelled at. Sweat popping out on my forehead, I gritted my teeth and summoned lightning.

It was a small bolt of lightning I created, weak compared to the charge a more skilled magicker might have produced. But it shot through the air in a crackle of blue light and struck true against the base of a tall tower of rock nearby. The lower stones exploded in a shower of splinters and shards. The heavy rocks above suddenly had nothing to stand on and collapsed, rolling end over end down the mountainside.

Micanthria looked up, but in the path of the rockslide, she had only time to roar and spread her wings. Before she could take flight, the massive chunks of rock rained down on her with crushing force. In seconds, she was buried beneath the rubble.

I didn’t wait for the last rock to come to rest before rushing down the slope. Only when I stood atop the mountain of debris with the dust settling did I realize the dragon buried beneath was not going to come bursting forth again. She was thoroughly dead.