The Wandering Dragon (Children of the Dragon Nimbus) (28 page)

“Time to get this over with. I see a gap in the wall to start our escape hatch.”

Lukan gestured a finger across his lips. They needed silence.

Gerta pulled her dagger—the one that had helped transform his staff into a crutch—and slid the blade between two planks. The wood groaned loud enough to wake the soundest sleeper.

Lukan quickly stuck his staff into the opening and leaned on it. “Give me a place to stand and a long enough stick and I can move mountains,” he grunted.

The wooden plank splintered vertically and hung drunkenly from a single supporting peg where it met the roof.

Questioning whispers greeted them from the inside.

Gerta returned reassuring words in the rapid patois of Amazonia—mostly the same language that Lukan spoke but more clipped with short vowels and dropped endings. Then she moved to the next plank. Pressure from the inside released that board more quickly. And a third.

Then a horror-filled shriek from the people inside. They shrank back from the hole in the wall.

“What?” Lukan demanded.

Gerta pointed behind him.

He whirled to face the open maw of a black snake twice as long as himself and as thick as his thigh. Its eyes gleamed a bright, sparkling red. Venom dripped from its hand-length fangs.

M
ARIA DIPPED A clean rag into the bowl of beta arrack. She dribbled the amber liquor onto Robb’s brow, his wrists, his chest, and his feet, trying to bring down the fever that burned within him. The spirits evaporated almost immediately with little effect on the magician’s body temperature. When she wiped his skin with another rag doused in water, the cloth came away stained a dark brown.

Something strange was happening. She’d never encountered this illness before. Where did it come from? Was it contagious? The guards and servants stayed away from this room, making superstitious warding gestures if they had to linger at the doorway to hand her a cask of spirits or a pitcher of water.

For once, Geon and Bette found other errands than to watch the sickroom door closely.

No longer embarrassed at the sight of a man’s naked body—he wasn’t a man anymore, merely a patient in dire straits—she moved her wet cloths farther up Robb’s legs to his knees. Someone had told her once that the back of a person’s knees held a core of heat. If so, she needed to cool that part of him as well as the more obvious points.

As she twisted his left leg to reach the back of the knee she stilled. Long streaks of brilliant red edged in black stretched up to nearly his groin. A closer look showed chafing on his inner thighs, right where a saddle would rub him raw, nearly pulsed with malignant fire.

She spread beta arrack across the streaks.

Instantly Robb eased his thrashing. Almost a sigh of relief.

“We went to the farm, my lady,” the short and skinny guard, Bobbeh, the one Robb called Scurry, said from the doorway. Nervously he rubbed his hands together. “He was alone with the king when they inspected the barns.”

“No,” she gasped. “He wouldn’t.”

Scurry said, “He was fine when we mounted up a few moments later. By the time we left the halfway stable, he was limp with fever. I had to help him into the saddle. He could barely hold onto the reins.”

“Was . . . was the saddle leather stained?”

Den shrugged, making him look more than ever like a bulky badger full of determination and obstinacy. “Maybe. ’Twas an old saddle, dark and worn.”

“Thank you for telling me that. This disease is not contagious. It comes from close contact with the snakes, not from touching another sick person. Will you sit with him a short while? I must speak to His Majesty.”

“Don’t know what I can do to help.” Bobbeh moved a few steps inward. His partner Den remained on the landing.

“Bathe as much of him as you can, with the spirits first and then clear fresh water. If he rouses at all, make him drink three sips from this mug. No more. He can have water if he can take more drink. But only three sips of the medicine every hour.”

Bobbeh nodded and took her place on the stool beside the bed. Maria hurried as fast as she could to the king’s private courtyard. He’d left orders not to be disturbed while he entertained Princess Rejiia there. Maria wanted to disturb that arrangement.

“Your magician is dying,” she said quite loudly the moment she spotted Lokeen sitting on a stone bench, leaning against the back idly. In front of him, Rejiia pranced and sang a wistful tune, kicking at flower heads and flicking water droplets at the king from a decorative fountain.

Her servants puttered in the dirt in a back corner of the yard, by the wall. Maria noted how they always remained out of Lokeen’s line of sight. Their constant watchful presence bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

Lokeen jerked more upright. Rejiia kept dancing as if she hadn’t heard. Or didn’t care. Her servants crept closer, no longer pretending to be occupied. “He can’t be dying. I still need him.”

“He burns with a mysterious fever. I have tried everything I know, and he does not respond.” There was one other thing, but far too dangerous. She’d never prepared hellebore before. Maria faced her brother-in-law, not bothering to hide her contempt. “The chafing on his inner thighs allowed the miasma to poison his blood. I think the saddle was painted with venom.”

“Of course it wasn’t. Who would dare try such a thing?” Lokeen dismissed her with a vague wave and returned his attention to his betrothed. He was hiding something.

Maria tuned out Rejiia’s efforts at enticement. The melody was almost visible as a swirling cloud of dark mist sparkling redly from within. It engulfed the king but did not spread to Maria. She thought she heard a whisper beneath the melody:
You don’t need the magician, you have me. Let him die. Let him die
.

Maria turned too quickly. She stumbled. Her twisted left leg nearly collapsed. She caught her balance on the nearest branch. A long thorn in the shape of a spearhead stabbed her palm and she squealed. Dark red blood welled up quickly. She could only stare at the painful wound blankly.

Geon steadied her with a strong arm and handed her a clean handkerchief. He grimaced. Or was that his attempt at a smile?

For a brief moment she suspected he offered her sympathy as well as support.

Whose side did he defend, in truth?

A voice in the back of her head whispered
(You know what you have to do.)

Fire. Now. Chess, burn that building now!
Lukan screamed with his mind, hoping against hope that Chess was mentally receptive.

Nothing happened.

He sensed Gerta moving, guessed she’d backed away, if she was smart. Instead he felt the prod of a dagger grip in his right hand. Staff to his left. Knife to his right. This felt familiar.

He’d trained with both Robb and Marcus to ride a dragon to do battle with the snakes. Though he’d never actually gone hunting with them, he knew the principles.

The snakes carried a bubble of magic around them, preventing mundane weapons from penetrating their bodies. Or their eyes.

But the dagger was mundane. He needed enchanted obsidian, knapped so sharp it almost didn’t need magic to slice through the bubble.

“Knife blade good and true

accept my power through and through

fly fast and free

stab deep and clean

Stargods make it be.”

Not much of a spell, but with ley line magic held deep in his body and mind he prayed it would work.

It had to work or he died.

Before he could think about it, he flung the knife straight at the open mouth, seeing it sail between fangs and embed in the soft tissue of the throat before it actually did.

The Krakatrice screamed around the long blade, a sound to split eardrums and drive the mind into paralysis. A sound that grabbed his heart and tried to crush it.

Lukan wanted to sink to his knees and bury himself into the Kardia to escape the sound.

And the sight of the great snake undulating toward him. It flung its head back and forth trying desperately to dislodge the knife. Venom sprayed all around with each movement of its head.

Then the back wall of the barn erupted in flame. Long shafts of green and gold streaked along the dry wooden planks, hungry for more, diving inward and upward. It stopped abruptly when it met the slate roof. Resenting the confinement, fire dove back down and through the wood, gobbling chunks whole and turning them into nurseries for more flames.

A second fireball arced overhead toward the roof of the farmhouse, a full story taller than the barn.

Chaotic voices erupted from the center of the compound as guards and snakes fled toward each other.

Lukan didn’t want to think of how the fire-maddened and frightened snakes would greet their captors. Their instincts demanded blood. They’d take it from whoever was nearest.

The wounded snake screeched again. It shrank away from the fire. It rammed its head against the ground trying to rid itself of the knife, only driving it deeper and deeper into the brain. Its skin crisped and crackled in the heat of elemental fire turned loose upon the world.

Holding the staff before him as a ward, Lukan backed away.

Fire leaped from barn to storage and over to the slave quarters in two blinks of the eye.

Ragged men and women broke through the hole in the back wall, more willing to brave a few flames and one wounded snake than a bevy of angry and bloodthirsty ones in the forecourt.

Gerta fell face first beneath the onslaught of trampling, fleeing feet. Lukan thrashed and beat the mob away from her with his staff.

One man, about his own age, paused to help him keep the frightened and confused from stepping on the felled woman. Lukan didn’t care where the slaves took themselves. He needed only to make sure Gerta lived.

“Verdii! If ever you wanted to help me, now would be a good time. Now would be the right time for a storm,” he called desperately into the air, the ether, and into his heart. “The fire and the creek won’t contain the Krakatrice long. A little rain would be nice.”

“How about a lot of rain?” Gerta asked, spitting dirt and rubbing her ribs as she rolled and sat up without assistance.

(A little rain?)
Verdii’s voice came into the back of Lukan’s mind.
(A little rain is easy. You need more? I’ll need the help of my siblings
.
)

Lukan nearly cried in relief. He just might survive this day.

A long, searing stab of fiery pain raked the back of his calf.

In its death throes, the Krakatrice impaled his calf with a long venom-spouting fang.

S
OUSKA DROPPED A tiny spoonful of the fever medicine between the lips of the headman—Stanil, she had to remember his name. He thrashed and fought swallowing. Lily reached over and pinched his nose closed. Souska tried again to get a few more drops into his mouth. Lily massaged his throat. At last the precious brew slid into him.

“We have to do more,” Souska cried. “He was the only one who didn’t sicken. The rest of the village is getting well. Why now?”

“Why indeed?” Lily chewed her lip as she dribbled cool water on his brow. “Mistress Maigret taught me that if you let your eyes cross a bit and go out of focus, then look behind the left ear, you can see a person’s aura. The color gives clues to emotions and signature colors.”

“I know how to find an aura,” Souska grumbled.

“Did you know that it can be visible around the entire body, and the color and intensity changes around wounds and the core of illness?”

“That makes sense. Can you do it?”

“I was hoping you could. I have little practice and do not trust what I see yet.” She hung her head in shame. In a family full of strong magicians, she was the one failure—not really a failure, just a pale shadow in the wake of the rest of her family.

Souska rapidly reviewed every magical lesson she’d ever had. It was all a blur. What had Lukan said? Something. He’d tried to instruct her through the process. His words touched her more than anyone else’s ever had. She learned more in one short scrying conversation with him than in hours and hours in the classroom. She knew how. But could she do it?

“When I first came here, you worked some magic. Not much. But you at least tried. Why not now?”

Lily looked away, swallowed deeply. “Death enhanced my talent. I’m afraid that if I use her gifts, it will bring me closer to her. Too close. I may invite her to take my patient. Now breathe, Susu. Breath deep.” She ran a moist cloth over the sick man’s face. It came away a dark rusty brown.

Why was he sweating old blood?

Stargods, this disease was different. And yet the same.

She didn’t have much time to lose.

She counted her inhale, hold, exhale, hold. Slowly, deeply. Repeat. Her anxiety calmed. She could do this. She had to. A bubble of panic again.

“Don’t think, just breathe,” Lily coached. She frowned in worry as her clean cloth showed even darker than the previous one. The white spot on her forehead pulsed pure white. Was that the touch of Death?

“Breathe with me, Lily. Breathe as if your life depended upon finding a trance. Death is near.”

Lily looked shocked. Her hand reached tentatively toward the touch of Death, but at the last second she jerked it away. “On my count: in on three. That’s it. Slow and smooth. Let me worry about the count. Breathe. Feel the air. Find the Kardia.
Breathe
.”

Souska breathed. She let her mind and her gaze drift. The world titled slightly to the left. Colors brightened. The headman’s aura snapped into view. Pale yellow and brown all over. And . . . and . . . and a big black splotch on his left foot.

She ripped the seam of his trews from the knee down. He wore tightly knitted woolen stockings. The work of a loving wife. She almost wept that whoever had made those lovely socks was dead, along with a dozen others. She took more care rolling down the stocking and tugging it off his cold feet.

“There!” Lily gasped. “That gash on his foot.”

“From the ox-shoulder shovel he used to dig a firebreak around the field. The shovel was covered with tainted dirt when it slipped and cut him.”

“That’s the source of his infection. But how do we cure it?” Lily asked, staring up at Souska with bewildered eyes.

“We make him bleed. Cut the gash anew, a little longer and wider, but along the exact same line. Then we squeeze out the infection.”

“That won’t be enough.”

“It’s a start.”

Lukan’s breath came rapid and shallow. The pain faded in importance along with his fear. He’d been bitten by a Krakatrice. How long did he have to live?

(Death is neither the end or the beginning. It is between. It is.)
The voice sounded like a lecture rather than reassurance. No dragon introduced himself. But the voice sounded very similar in cadence and resonated in the same place in the back of his mind as a dragon.

The world tilted and spun around Lukan. His senses scattered, aware of bits and pieces of everything and none of it made sense. Like trying to piece together bits of broken shell from a dozen eggs to make one whole one before the yolk spilled out.

A flutter of green remained steady, as steady as it could, moving up and down. Up and down. He fixed his mind on that one bit of color in an all white world. Up and down.

Why wasn’t there a breeze?

(Because you are a part of the wing.)

Up and down.

Where was he?

(Where you belong. For now.)

“Am I in the void?” Up and down. Iridescent shimmers against the white. Blue, red, yellow flirted with the shifting light. Now here. Now not.

A sense of movement came into play. He soared between the green that beat up and down. The muscles of his back worked to create the strong push down followed by an easing as air drove him back up. Down and up. Or was it up and down.

His direction shifted. Around and around. A huge circle. A flash of colored wings. Circling and circling again, high up. Very high up. Circling, creating a vacancy. Air rushing to fill the center of the circle.

Cool air. Refreshing air.

Moist air.

Wetness to counter the streaks of flame. Fire aimed at the center of the circle. Men running and screaming. Fire attached to their backs and gnawing inward. Writhing black lines, thick and thin, long and short, twisting and turning, avoiding the fire, working against . . . pain. What would cause their pain?

So akin to his own. Something sharp and burning demanded his attention.
If I can feel the bite wound, I am not dead.

Pain, writhing forms. Fire and rain . . .

Rain that shriveled the blackness into knotted contortions.

“I’m not ready to die. There are things I must do!”

(Death or Life?)

“I can’t let the Krakatrice win!”

(Then do not die. Your choice
.
)

He tumbled down and down and down, the churning air buffeting him in all directions at once.

And then he landed. Breath whooshed out of him. His head hurt, and blackness crowded inward.

“What do you mean there are no matriarchs!” King Lokeen yells at his much beleaguered guard captain.

I cease my dancing. I have woven all the spells I know to bind the king to me with lust. Besides, my feet hurt in these ridiculous hard slippers with the pointed toes and heavy jewel crusts. They force my feet to conform to them rather than supporting and soothing. I have blisters already. By morning I won’t be able to wear
any
shoes at all.

If the power Lokeen promises me were not so great, I would not bother with him.

The captain—my captain now—turns red-faced with a mixture of exasperation and fear and . . . deceit. I can read him very well now. I know what he feels, just as I’m sure he knows my own reaction to the king’s desperation.

There is a matriarch, but he doesn’t want Lokeen to have her. He wants me, me and my coven, to bond with the Krakatrice through the newborn female. Yes!

“There has to be a matriarch somewhere. Otherwise we’d not have any eggs,” the king continues his tirade. “Go hunting yourself. I must have a matriarch to keep my clutches coming.”

“Your Majesty, I have sent my most trusted hunters to the far reaches of Mabastion and the interior that no one claims but all wish to harvest. All the nests they have found are ancient, the eggs dormant. We bring them back to life when exposed to sunlight and warmth. The matriarch that laid those eggs did so a thousand years ago,” my captain says. He sounds meek but I know the defiant stiffness in his bow.

“That cannot be. It cannot be!” The king begins foaming at the mouth as he jumps up and begins beating his fists upon my captain’s chest. “I’ll feed you to the males in the dungeons. The matriarch is in hiding until my pets mature enough. Your blood will help them grow.”

“I think not,” I sneer at my fiancé. As much as I gain power from hearing the death screams within the dungeon, I need my captain. Let the king sacrifice another. “The dwarf has royal blood. Feed her to the Krakatrice. Your son as well. He has magic in his music. Your pets will relish his blood . . .”

“Never!” Lokeen gasps, totally appalled at my suggestion. “The people will rebel and tear down this castle stone by stone if I harm a royal woman in any way. She is sacred. As for my son . . . he remains useful.”

“But I shall give you daughters. Many daughters. Daughters who can marry into the royal families of all Kardia Hodos. You will rule the entire world through them. You have no need of a wastrel son.” I half-sing those words, lulling him into accepting my alternative.

He says nothing, only gapes at me, drool sliding down his chin. “May the Great Mother forgive you,” he whispers.

I have important things to do,
Lukan said, not sure if he thought the words or spoke them. His ears roared so loudly he heard nothing else.

The young slave knelt beside him and ripped his trews from ankle to knee along the seam line. “I need a clean knife and water. Beta arrack if you have it!” he shouted to Gerta.

Chess appeared out of nowhere, running full tilt up the slight slope from the creek. “My knife is clean. I ran it through a white flame,” he panted, proffering the hilt of his small eating knife.

The slave nodded and examined the keenness of the blade with his thumb. A bit of red welled up. He sucked it a moment until the tiny wound closed.

“Before . . .” Lukan swallowed around a very dry mouth. “Before I lose my senses, promise me that you will report this incident to my brother. Summon him. If you can’t get through, you will carry this news to Prince Glenndon of Coronnan. If you can’t get to him directly, his bodyguard is Frank. Frank’s father is Fred who is bodyguard to the king. Their family has a house on Green Lane behind the palace. Glenndon has to know what is truly happening here. He’s the only one who can fix this.”

“You aren’t going to die,” the slave said with a determined glint in his eye.

“But I’ll be sick. Too sick to finish this. Glenndon can finish this, if not himself, then he knows who can. Promise you will summon him, Chess!”

Chess and the slave nodded. “This is going to hurt.”

“Then, best he clamp his teeth on this,” Gerta said. She pressed her dagger sheath against his mouth.

“My staff,” Lukan choked out. Darkness crowded his vision and the faces around him blurred.

“Fine. Chew on your staff, but bite hard.” Gerta guided his left hand that clutched the staff already so that his essential tool of magic rested across his teeth. Her hand never touched the wood. Smart girl. The grain had begun to twist into a smooth braid, his magical signature. No one else could touch his staff without burning to the bone.