Lost mark 3 The Queen of Death: (31 page)

"Is your mother part of the Chamber too?” Monja asked.

The dragon-man’s eyes widened and turned a blazing yellow. "She does not concern herself with such things. She knows only that she must kill the bearer of the dragonmark. The Prophecy makes it clear that this will happen.”

"And who interprets the Prophecy for your mother?”

The dragon-man’s smile spread wide enough to show several rows of wicked teeth.

Te’oma stifled a gasp. The dragon-man had twisted the Prophecy to his own unfathomable ends. If she could get away from the ship, she might be able to use that to her advantage.

The changeling fingered the knife at her belt, but she knew that the dragon-man would slay her before she could clear the blade from its sheath. Perhaps his mind wouldn’t be protected quite so well though. If she could reach out with her psionic powers before the creature could muster his defenses, she might have a chance to stun him. Then he would be at her mercy.

Te’oma’s breath caught in her chest as the dragon-man transfixed her with his stare. At that moment, she knew that he understood what she meant to do. Still, he hadn’t done anything to stop her.

Desperate, Te’oma focused the power of her mind into a mental whip and lashed out at the dragon-man with it. She hoped to feel it curl around his mind, draw tight, and then squeeze it until it split. Instead, her efforts struck a mental wall that might as well have been built from iron.

The dragon-man’s expression did not change. If anything, he looked bored at Te’oma’s feeble attempt to do him harm.

The changeling drew back her mental resources again, forming them into a sharp-edged wedge this time, hoping to stab it through the dragon-man’s defenses. Before she could strike, though, she felt the dragon-man’s wall lurch forward and smash her down.

Te’oma’s knees buckled as her mind gave way. She fell to the deck, unable to feel the wood beneath her as her mental protections crumbled beneath the dragon-man’s crushing attack. The world became dark and began to spin.

"Stop!” Monja’s voice seemed to be calling out from a distant tower. "She is no threat to you. Killing a harmless creature is cruel.”

Te’oma felt the pressure in her mind ease up, and she realized she'd stopped breathing. She forced air back into her lungs with a cough that felt like it might tear out her throat. Her eyes watered, and her head wobbled on the end of her neck.

When Te’oma's vision finally cleared, she sat back on her haunches and glanced up at the dragon-man. He stared down at her, his face as expressionless as a mask.

"Go,” he said. "If you wish. Mother won’t listen to you. She won’t even talk to you. She considers your kind a lower form of life.”

"My kind?”

"Non-dragons.”

Te’oma shivered and turned away. She spied the top of the rope ladder still hanging over the gunwale, and she scrambled toward it. She knew that moving fast would make no difference. If the dragon-man wanted to kill her, she would be dead before she reached the rail.

Despite that, she lurched for the ladder and let herself fall over the railing. She slid down the ropes fast enough to leave burns on her hands, but she didn’t feel them. Her feet slammed into the landing platform, and her knees buckled. As she pushed herself to her feet, she smelled brimstone from where the red dragon had passed just moments before. '

Te’oma glanced up at the airship and breathed a silent prayer of thanks that she could not see the ship’s bridge from here. She didn’t think she could bear the dragon-man’s penetrating gaze, not so soon after he’d nearly smashed her mind flat.

She turned toward the observatory. For a moment, she considered spreading her bloodwings and flapping up toward the top of the place again, but the thought of drawing any attention to herself made her shiver. Far better, she thought, to creep into the place like a cockroach, hoping that no one of any import—no dragons—would notice her.

Chapter

49

Stay here,” Burch said as he dropped Espre gently on the floor. "Something’s wrong.”

"Kandler’s not following us,” the girl said. She grabbed at the shifter’s arm before he could scurry back up the rope. "Don’t leave me here.”

Espre peered around at the darkest corners of the dimly lit room in which Burch had deposited her. Strange machinery hung throughout the room, from both the walls and the ceiling. Much of it seemed like interlocking rings of steel that bore etchings and demarcations, measurements of something that the shifter couldn’t understand. Then he recognized them.

"Those markings, they’re just like the ones on the spheres outside,” he said.

Espre’s grip on his arm loosened. "Maybe they control the spheres,” she said. "That way the dragon can simulate the positioning of the planets, the planes, and the dragonmarks.” Burch gave out a low whistle. "All the better to figure out parts of their damned Prophecy.” He patted Espre on the head and said, "Hide.”

With that, he started hauling himself back up the rope— toward the dragons and his friend.

As he climbed, he used only his arms, knowing that pushing on the rope with his legs would only slow him down. Hand over hand, he pulled himself up, wondering if he could reach the next level in time to do any good—or whether or not his efforts would matter at all. Maybe he was just racing toward his death.

He felt a pang of regret at leaving Espre by herself in the chamber below, but he knew she’d be all right. If a dragon found her, she’d be just as dead with him as without him—or at least that’s what he told himself.

When he reached the edge, he heard Zanga talking and the dragons snarling at each other in their terrible tongue. He knew only snatches of the language, enough to offend a dragon in its own language but not enough to know which way the conversation had turned. The tone of Frekkainta’s growls, though, said all he needed to hear.

Burch popped his head over the edge of the hole and spotted Zanga standing between the two dragons. She’d thrown back her shimmering Shroud of Scales and stood weeping at the red dragon’s taloned feet. As the shifter crept over the lip and unlimbered his crossbow, Zanga said something about selling out Espre in exchange for her life.

Burch pointed his weapon at the Seren shaman and took careful aim, looking for the right angle through which he could bury a bolt in the woman’s head. Before he could pull the trigger, though, Kandler lowered his head and charged straight at her.

Burch hurled himself forward too, although at an angle that would take him behind the red dragon. If he could put enough space between his path and Kandler’s, he might be able to find a clean angle at the Shroud of Scales again. He just hoped he could manage it before one of the dragons killed his friend instead. With luck, he’d be able to do it before the dragons bothered to take notice of either himself or Kandler, and they could find someplace to hide before either of them got killed.

As he scuttled to his left, though, Burch couldn’t see a good angle at all. Any bolt he loosed stood just as good a chance of bouncing off a dragon’s scales as it did of hitting Zanga. Worse yet, the best angles he could find skated so close to Kandler’s back that they put the justicar in more danger than the Seren.

Then Zanga caught Kandler’s movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned to look at the onrushing man, his lethal fangblade held high. She opened her mouth to scream, and Burch knew that any hope for killing her quietly and slipping away had been lost.

The shifter stopped and planted his feet. He found his angle. It passed right between Kandler’s left arm and his neck. The bolt would fly true, but if the justicar moved even an inch in the wrong direction he’d end up with the shaft in his chest or neck instead.

Burch summoned up his most commanding voice, the one he’d used on the battlefield during the Last War. He hadn’t employed it often. He preferred to work from cover, alone, when he could, but it had proven enough to herd soldiers into battle and to face nearly certain death.

"Down!" the shifter bellowed.

As the words left his lips, he counted off three heartbeats.

On the first, his shout reached the ears of everyone in the room. Zanga’s eyes flew wide. The crest atop the red dragon’s head twitched, and the silver dragon’s gaze flicked in the shifter’s direction.

Kandler kept running.

On the second beat, Zanga turned to look in Burch’s direction. As she did, her shroud fell away from head, gathering around her shoulders and framing her neck. Burch’s finger tightened on his crossbow’s trigger.

Something that seemed like a smile curled the corners of the silver dragon’s lips. Amusement glinted in the creature’s eyes.

The red dragon’s nostrils wrinkled back as if she had smelled something repulsive and rotting. The one eye of hers that Burch could see swiveled toward Kandler, but her monstrous skull did not move an inch.

Kandler raised his sword higher and bent forward as he ran even harder toward his goal. It seemed that he would let nothing come between him and killing Zanga—not dragons and not even a shout from a friend.

On the third beat, Burch pulled his crossbow’s trigger.

As the bolt whizzed through the air, Kandler left his feet and dived forward, thrusting his sword before him. The justicar would fall short of his goal, but Burch’s desperate shout had gotten through to him just in the nick of time.

The bolt skimmed right past Kandler’s left ear, nicking away a lock of hair from the side of his head as it went. A moment earlier, and it would have buried itself next to his shoulder blade and perhaps punctured his lung. Instead, it proceeded unimpeded toward its target.

Zanga’s eyes grew even wider as she saw Kandler dive to the ground. She never saw the bolt itself. It traveled too fast and presented too small a profile for her to spot it until it slipped under her upraised chin and through her throat.

Only the bolt’s feathers kept it from passing completely through her. They caught on her larynx and crushed it as the bolt’s tip stabbed out through the back of Zanga’s neck.

Burch didn't bother to reload his crossbow before slinging it across his back. He knew it wouldn’t do any good against the dragon. Even if he managed to find a soft spot amid the red beast’s scales, it would be little more than a bee’s sting against such a creature.

Kandler skidded along the floor on his chest. Before he could even come to a stop, Zanga collapsed before the red dragon, her treacherous words caught in her throat, blocked by the wooden shaft that now lodged there.

Burch reached behind him for the rope that led to the safety of the chamber below—however temporary that might be. He could not wrench his eyes away from his friend, though, whom he saw skitter to a halt in the shadow of the two dragons.

Kandler did not scramble to his feet. He pressed his fists down on the stone floor before him—one of them still wrapped around the hilt of his fangblade—and pushed himself up on to his knees. As he did, the red dragon turned toward the justicar, her nostrils flaring, smoke curling from their edges.

Burch’s mouth went dry. He knew that the dragon could swallow Kandler whole. In less time than it would take him to slam another bolt into his crossbow, his best friend could be gone.

The crimson creature growled, ruffling Kandler’s hair in her fetid breath. Even from where he stood, Burch could smell brimstone billowing from the beast’s mouth. The scent made his eyes water.

Kandler staggered to his feet and brandished his blade before him. Burch smiled. Even faced with certain death, the justicar refused to beg for mercy.

"I have the dragonmark,” Kandler said, his voice raspy. "The others are worthless to you. Kill me, and let them go free.”

Chapter

50

T
he red dragon snorted at Kandler. The justicar felt her sulfur-scented breath envelop him, burning his eyes. He fought the urge to cough, instead clearing his throat with a low grunt.

The dragon snarled, and Kandler wondered if his knees would give out on him. Instead, he wiped his eyes with his off hand and met the creature’s gaze. He weighed his fangblade in the other hand and wondered if he could leap high enough to drive it into one of the beast’s great, yellow eyes.

"He is my guest,” Greffykor said, "as are his companions. They are under my protection.”

The red dragon rumbled out a hoarse, bleating noise. Kandler realized she meant it to be a laugh.

"You may be a queen in your own land,” Greffykor said, "but this is my domain. Mine alone. You hold no sway here.” The red dragon rumbled again. As she did, she raised herself up on her rear haunches and spread her wings until they blotted out the bit of sky that Kandler had been able to see through the tower’s top. She arched back her neck and bared her teeth, preparing to strike.

Greffykor bent his own neck forward and down, showing deference to the larger beast. As he did, the crimson creature’s spiked tail came whipping around on the side opposite Kandler and smacked into the silver dragon’s face.

Kandler jumped back at Greffykor’s head lurched toward him. Hot blood from the silver dragon’s slashed face splattered along the floor and across the justicar’s legs.

Greffykor flinched as the blow struck him, causing him to close his eyes. When he opened them, he saw Kandler standing right there before him, his fangblade held high in his fist.