Raven's Hand (23 page)

Another stone removed and was tossed aside.
Evelyn spied what appeared to be human flesh—a limb, a leg,
perhaps? Emboldened by the discovery, she worked at an even more
frantic pace now. In moments, she saw that the bloody limb was
indeed a leg, but it belonged to a man. The surrounding tattered
clothing was black. Undoubtedly, this was her assassin lying dead
beneath the stones. This could also mean that Raven was nearby;
entombed like her servant and deceased.

She cleared the rest of the rubble from
Kane’s body. He was battered and bloody, but his chest still rose
and fell. He was alive. His fingers, though gnarled and torn, began
to move. Evelyn could hardly believe her servant had survived such
a calamity.

She knew that she had removed nearly a ton of
stone from off his body. It was an impossibility, to say the least.
However, Evelyn had long known that her bodyguard was not a normal
man. There were too many ways in which he surpassed mere mortals,
though she had never asked him why, and he had never said.

“Kane!” she said urgently.

The assassin did not react to her voice. She
called again and again, but he remained unconscious. Evelyn stepped
toward his body, waving her wand over him. It vibrated in her hand.
The runes glowed brightly, although Evelyn had not initiated any
spell. The Malkind wand was reacting to Kane somehow.

Electrical charges began to dance between the
tip of the wand and various parts of Kane’s body, dozens of them
connecting and dissipating again. His body began to jerk and spasm.
His eyes suddenly flew open, and he sat upright. The runes of the
wand extinguished then, and the flow of power between the assassin
and her Malkind instrument ceased.

Evelyn wasted no time with sympathy. “Where
is the girl?”

Kane worked his jaw and rotated his neck at
odd angles, the joints popping. He did the same with his fingers
and then stretched to pop his back. The wounds, though bloody, were
already beginning to heal themselves. Evelyn watched as his
lacerations sealed. She didn’t bother to question how.

“Where is she?”

Kane looked up at her wearily now. “She has
escaped with the boy,” he said testily.

“The boy was here?”

“I had assumed you were going to kill him,
Mistress,” he said, his tone not a little accusing. “However, he
materialized in this chamber instead and used the sword against me.
The girl also aided him with her power, causing this destruction to
the room.”

“Not only the room,” Evelyn said, “but
practically the whole palace. How could you let them escape?”

She began to pace the floor.

“I attempted to stop them,” Kane explained,
extricating himself from the floor to stand by her. “However, I
believe you wanted the girl alive.”

Evelyn stopped momentarily. “Well, of course,
I want her alive. I must have her alive in order to complete the
ritual! You must get her back. There can be no delay.”

“If your guards have not discovered her and
the boy already, then they have almost certainly gotten away from
the palace,” Kane said. “They’ll be in the city, most likely.”

“Then I’ll issue a warrant for their
immediate arrest,” Evelyn responded. “The gates will be closed
posthaste.”

“I’m not sure if you understand this already,
Mistress, but I believe we must have a traitor in our midst. The
Cinderman attack upon the city—”

“Of course, I realize already,” Evelyn
snapped. “Judah and his savages could not have breached Rainier’s
walls. Someone within the city had to let them through somewhere.
However, I have no time to search for traitors while the girl is
loose. I must have her for the ritual.”

“I think the answer to the question of
traitors has already been answered.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Isn’t it a bit too coincidental that the boy
happened to be among the soldiers on the way to the palace and he
happened to be the one to extricate her from the armored carriage
and run with her?”

Evelyn considered Kane’s words, tapping her
chin. “Yes, that is suspicious. All the more reason why he must be
caught and killed and the girl returned to us.”

Evelyn called for a servant; one of those
waiting timidly in the corridor outside. Not a second later, one of
her stewards, Jessup, appeared inside the destroyed temple, bowing
at the waist upon approach.

“Yes, Mistress?” he asked.

“Alert the captain of the watch of the girl’s
escape with the boy, Killian Radden-son,” she said. “Rainier’s
gates must be closed indefinitely in order to prevent their escape
from the city. Our citizens must be warned not to hide them upon
pain of death. I want them both found. The girl must be kept safe.
The boy should be killed on sight.”

Jessup bowed deeply at the waist again. “Yes,
Mistress,” he said. “It will be done as you command.”

He left her presence immediately.

Evelyn turned back to Kane. “And what about
you? Are you fit for duty, or do you require a physician?”

Kane nodded slightly to her. “I am well,” he
said.

“Then why are you still standing here?” she
asked. “The girl and that renegade are missing. What are you going
to do about it?”

“First, I intend to secure the only piece of
leverage you have in this situation,” he said.

“Leverage?” she asked. “What do you
mean?”

“The young man’s father chose to remain as
your guest in the palace until you decided his son’s fate. At some
point, the boy will seek out his family. When he realizes where his
father is, he will doubtless attempt to rescue him. We need only to
let his whereabouts be known to the commoners. The word will spread
quickly enough.”

“And he will come to us,” Evelyn mused.

Kane nodded. “And where the young man is, the
girl will not be far behind.”

Judah crouched upon the flat rooftop of a
local Malkind church, watching the palace. The castle dwarfed all
other structures around it in the city. It shone as the crown jewel
of Rainier. No doubt it also served as a poignant reminder to both
Rainier’s citizens and its rivals of the longstanding fortitude of
its great house. House Rainier had long reigned among the families
of the kingdom. However, Judah was one of the few who knew this
tradition was about to end disastrously.

The grinding and cracking of stone could be
heard at his perch, as well as half way across the city. Something
terrible was happening at the palace. Judah watched as plumes of
dust vented here and there about its structure. Then, quite
suddenly, there came a rending that toppled part of the building.
It simply collapsed.

Briefly, Judah picked out the terrified
screams of people inside. The gaping hold allowed their cries to
resound in unison for those close enough to hear. Then, as the
shattered masonry came crashing down upon them, those cries were
silenced.

Judah allowed himself a smile of satisfaction
at this new and unexpected development. He had no idea what might
have occurred to cause such damage. He had felt no initial shaking
in the city or residual tremors. And it seemed likely that the
building would not have suffered so dramatically due to any problem
in its foundation, since it had stood strong for several hundred
years. No, something was going on inside the palace. Some power had
been unleashed.

For a moment, he wondered if his
Malkind-possessed benefactor had decided to unleash the power of
that indwelling spirit. Could it be possible that Kane had changed
his plan in order to attack House Rainier on his own? It seemed
unlikely to him.

Then, nearly ten minutes later, Kane saw
something else unexpected. Riding out through the palace courtyard
was the young girl; the Daughter of Eliam whom the queen so prized
as a bond for her son, the Rainier prince. She had been necessary
for the ritual of bonding that would make young Nathan his ailing
father’s successor upon his inevitable death.

Yet, here she was, riding at an increasingly
breakneck speed beyond the courtyard gate, out into the city,
seated behind a young man of apparent commoner status. A rescuer,
perhaps? Or was he simply some palace servant who for whatever
reason had decided to get involved and help the girl escape
Mistress Evelyn?

The poor fool
, Judah thought.
When
the queen catches him, she’ll have him fastened between four horses
and his limbs torn off.

“But where could she be riding to?” he
muttered to himself.

He smiled.

“To the only place a true Daughter of Eliam
would go,” he said. “To the temple in the Brine Wood and its
priestess.”

He turned suddenly to several of his
Cindermen who waited with him. There were two like unto wolves and
one similar to Judah in the form of a lion. They remained ten paces
behind, ready to fulfill their master’s desires upon command.

“We have work to do,” Judah said to them in a
quiet yet menacing tone.

“My lord?” the lion like Cinderman asked.

“There is a change in plan,” Judah answered.
“We will not be waiting to attack the walls of Rainier as
previously assigned. I mean to destroy the Temple of Eliam in the
Brine Wood. The girl from the carriage—the Daughter of Eliam—seeks
refuge there.”

“And Eliam’s priestess, my lord?”

Judah smiled. “Her dead god will not save
her. She will die by my hand.”

Shalindra stroked the muzzle of pale, almost
luminescent dragon scales. She stood leaning upon Horatio’s head—a
head that was still a little taller than her, though it rested upon
the ground in the cool grass at her feet. The scales here at
Horatio’s snout were perfect for petting, since they were the most
sensitive on his entire body. Apart from here, the pale scales were
as tough as plate armor.

Horatio purred at her touch, a deep rumbling
emanating from deep within his great body that vibrated through the
ground, tickling the soles of Shalindra’s bare feet. “Eliam’s plan
is working, Horatio,” she said in conversational tones.

Steam vented from a crack in the bare rock
not far away. This area of grass where Horatio lounged was one of
many spaced out among the otherwise bare ground beneath this long
dormant volcano. It had not erupted in nearly a thousand years, but
had become a favorite spot for dragons to make their dens and raise
their young far from the kingdom where men dwelled. Here in the
wilds of Titan, the dragons had free range whether land or sea or
sky. Only the boldest humans ever made it this far, and only if
they hunted dragons.

It had been such human hunters that had
brought Horatio together with his mistress. On a clear day, he had
been flying in pursuit of men who had killed his mate and taken the
priceless eggs from their nest. He had come back to the volcano to
find her butchered corpse robbed of every item precious to the
black markets. The eggs also had been taken in their pristine
condition, a prize to be sold to the highest bidder.

Horatio had taken up their trail and crossed
the sulfur lakes in order to find them. He had attacked their
caravan, searching for the eggs and vengeance for his mate. When he
found the master of the caravan, he also found the eggs. He had
been ordered to stop his attack, or the man would destroy the eggs
with explosive charges; the same kind often used against dragons to
blast through their tough hides and kill them for sport.

He had been left with no recourse. Horatio
had drawn down his terrible anger, and the men had captured him in
a net. He had been taken upon one of the same great wagons that
carried the remains of his mate. The stench of her body had been in
his nostrils the entire journey back toward the kingdom of men.

Or so it had been, until their caravan passed
near the Brine Wood. A young woman with dark skin, wearing sand
colored robes had met them that day. She had brought down the wrath
of the Creator upon those men. When all was said and done, their
carcasses hung in the branches of the trees to be picked apart by
carrion birds, while the remains of Horatio’s mate were burned to
ash by his own fire. The eggs, unfortunately, had been too long
outside the nest. When it became clear that they would never hatch,
Horatio had reluctantly burned them also.

The lady with the dark skin, however, had
spoken to him kindly, and she also understood his thoughts. Horatio
had never met anyone like this person. When he discovered her
identity as the High Priestess of Eliam, Creator, he had pledged
himself to her service for her valor on his behalf. The two had not
been separated since that time many years ago.

Now, however, there was an uncertainty in her
voice—not the words she said, but in the tone. Something was about
to happen that had Shalindra unsettled, and Horatio did not like
it. For anything that could unsettle the Creator’s great servant
must be truly terrible.

Still, he waited as she stroked his delicate
muzzle; her dark skin contrasting with the pale white of his
scales. These scales had the ability to absorb and reflect the
colors of Horatio’s environment, allowing him to blend quite well
and become virtually invisible to the eyes of his prey. Were
someone to look up and find him flying high upon the wind, they
would see only passing clouds or blue sky reflected from his wings
and belly.

There were many dragons in the world, though
for safety’s sake they remained far from the dwelling places of
humans. Yet, Horatio knew of no others like himself. He and his
mate and the brood they had undertaken together had been the last
of his kind. Now, only he remained.

Tears rolled down Shalindra’s cheeks,
pattering lightly upon his muzzle scales. These he felt, causing
him to become anxious for her. His purring stopped and a deep moan
took its place, building within him. She patted him more
urgently.