Dragon Princess

  “Much more prosaic. Disrupting the main feast day of one of the Seven Dark Lords of the Underworld tends to be talked about in arcane circles. Especially the part about the entrails.”

  “That was amusing.”

  “Your swashbuckling rescue of the fair maiden made me think you were the man for this job. Perhaps I was wrong.” He tugged at the flask, and I pulled it away.

  “Hold on a minute there.” I sniffed the flask. “What did you say was in this?”

  “Don’t concern yourself.”

  I never claimed that my judgment improved with intoxication. But the smell curling up from the open flask was more wretched than the Mermaid’s Milk; it cut through my sinuses like an angry troll with a dull axe. I set the flask down on the table and said, “I don’t think I’m drinking that.”

  “Oh, drinking it isn’t necessary.”

  I looked up at Elhared, who seemed to be suddenly glowing as everything around us became painfully bright. I felt woozy, and clutched my stomach. “I don’t feel so good.”

  I pitched forward, but I don’t remember ever hitting the floor.

  • • •

  Cheap as it was, Mermaid’s Milk did not skimp on the hangover. The axe-wielding troll inhabiting my skull had disposed of his weapon and contented himself with gnawing on the backs of my eyeballs. I groaned myself awake and cautiously opened my eyelids slightly.

  I saw flickering candlelight and my skull-troll started kicking my temples in time to my pulse.

  Given my profession, I have awakened in places far worse than I found myself now. The surface I’d been sprawled upon seemed to have been designed for the purpose, there was a roof above me, and the general character of the chamber suggested that it was meant for human habitation despite how disorganized it might seem at the moment.

  I slowly pushed myself upright, and my fingers sank into several layers of brocade fabric that buried the chaise I’d been lying on. The fabric was rich and showed some glints of golden thread, but my motion pushed out a small cloud of dust that made me sneeze.

  The skull-troll loved that.

  After the pain receded and I could focus through my watering eyes again, I tried to figure out where exactly I was. The chamber was stone and windowless, lit by thick candles in iron sconces entombed in what seemed several decades’ worth of wax deposits. Shelves climbed up three of four walls in a chaotic ascent toward a vaulted ceiling. The shelves held a variety of objects: books, jars of herbs, powders and liquids, yellowing skulls of human and other origin, loose sheets of parchment, wood carvings and small metal tools.

  Frankly, my present location wouldn’t have been much clearer if Elhared had written “Wizard’s Lair” across the ceiling in glowing mystical runes.

  The hangover left me in a foul mood, especially after such an abbreviated bender. There was a copper’s worth of fermented herring and seaweed-flavored goat’s milk sitting abandoned in a tavern somewhere. I felt cheated.

  I rubbed my temples and called out, “Your ‘medicinal preparation’ leaves something to be desired.”

  From beyond a doorless entry into an adjoining chamber, I heard Elhared’s voice say, “Nonsense.” He strode into the room and looked me up and down. “You’re awake. You’re sober. Why don’t you get to your feet?” An air of impatience infused the man, and I almost expected him to say, “Time is of the essence,” or some other nonsense. Instead, he just stood there, allowing me to realize that I was making a wizard wait, one powerful enough to wrangle a cushy job from a royal court. It might only be the Lendowyn royal court, but at some point I needed to break my streak of pissing off people who could do me serious harm. I pushed myself up off the chaise with a groan and another cloud of dust.

  “Good man,” he said with another surreal smile, and slapped me on the back, guiding me into the chamber he’d just come from. If the room I had awakened in had said “Wizard” in no uncertain terms, the room Elhared led me to sang a wizardly aria. Torches joined the candlelight, along with smoldering brass braziers that gave the room the scent of a burning herb garden. Glyphs, runes, and circles had been drawn on the flagstone floor in dense chaotic patterns made of chalk, salt, paint, and some other materials I didn’t examine too closely. I made sure to follow Elhared’s steps exactly across the unmarked portions of the floor. He led me across to a stone altar too reminiscent of the one I’d seen in the ceremony honoring the Dark Lord Nâtlac.

  That was probably paranoia. After all, most sacrificial altars do share some basic similarities: waist-high stone, generally coffin-size, anchors for restraints, depressions in the upper surface that tended to bear rust-colored stains. No reason to think this one had anything to do with Nâtlac.

  That thought wasn’t as reassuring as it should have been.

  Fortunately, the only thing on the altar at the moment was a small cache of military gear: helmet, armor, a broadsword, that sort of thing. On the wall behind the altar, a tapestry hung, the brocade showing an unnerving portrait of a dragon sitting on a huge pile of gold and gems mixed with human bones.

  “So, Francis—”

  I sighed and rubbed my temples.

  “Sorry, Frank. How do you feel about saving a princess?”

  I looked up at him. “Yeah, I think you mentioned that right before the floor hit me.”

  “Yes,” he gestured at the tapestry as he walked around the base of the altar. “Princess Lucille, King Alfred’s only child, has been taken by an evil dragon.”

  “What? Hold on a minute.” I looked up at the tapestry and the giant lizard embroidered there. If I squinted, it appeared that the dragon was picking pieces of knight out of its teeth. I looked from that to Elhared. The wizard didn’t look insane. Then again, he was a wizard, and they were not renowned for mental stability. “You just said ‘dragon.’”

  “A small one.”

  “You’re asking me to rescue a princess from a small dragon?”

  “King Alfred the Strident has pledged a great reward for whoever saves his daughter from the dragon’s clutches, and returns with her and the dragon’s head.”

  “And I’m sure that will make some warrior knight very happy.”

  “Frank, you can’t tell me you are uninterested in a reward from the king?”

  “I’m more interested in living to spend it.”

  “Oh, the king is offering something much better than material wealth.” Elhared reached up and took hold of one side of the tapestry and walked across behind the altar, drawing it aside. Hanging on the wall behind the tapestry was a life-size portrait of a stunning young woman, statuesque without being arrogant, youthful curves filling out her gown in dangerous places, amber-blond hair framing an expression that was half amusement and half seductive pout. “The Princess Lucille,” he said unnecessarily.

  Being a royal portrait, it had to be false advertising. But it served Elhared’s purpose by making me picture myself saving her from some distress. Hell, it made me picture a lot of things.

  I decided not to ask the old wizard why he kept a picture of his boss’s beautiful young daughter down here hidden behind an altar.

  “The king,” Elhared said, “is offering his daughter’s hand in marriage.”

  Of course he is. “You know, hypothetically speaking, I’d prefer gold.”

  “This reward is preferable to any material compensation, a peerage—”

  “I can be quite creative with gold.”

  “—and a spot in the Royal Court of Lendowyn. I doubt that Grünwald would care to disturb the peaceful relations between our kingdoms for something as petty as a few misplaced entrails.”

  He had me there. A spot in the royal court would put me out of reach of most of the people who wanted my hide. Even in a court that couldn’t afford to pay out actual rewards to mercenary princess saviors. And, believe me, offering the princess as a reward might make for a good ballad, but it was a sign of financial desperation.

  I looked away from the princess’s portrait and to Elhared.
I decided that his smile was rather creepy, especially since I didn’t know if the grin went with the mention of a hypothetical marriage to the young princess, or to the entrails reference. “Let’s continue with the hypothetical,” I said. “Your princess was abducted by a giant flying carnivorous fire-breathing lizard—”

  “A small one.”

  “—A small flying carnivorous fire-breathing lizard.” I tilted my head at the tapestry bunched up next to him, where the embroidered dragon was still visible. “Sounds like lunch to me. How do you know there’s any princess left to rescue?”

  “Do you know anything about dragons?”

  “Almost as much as I know about princesses.”

  “You must know of their avarice.”

  I shrugged. “I know, nesting in piles of treasure and suchlike.”

  “Well it should be obvious that a dragon that can fly off with a hundred stone’s worth of bull on the hoof—”

  “I thought this was a small one?”

  “—isn’t after its next meal in our royal waif. She’d barely be an appetizer.”

  “Then why snatch her?”

  “The same reason anyone abducts a royal personage.”

  I sighed. “Ransom.”

  “Of course.”

  “And the reason King Alfred doesn’t pay up?”

  “It’s the principle of the thing, dear boy.”

  “And an empty treasury?”

  “Sometimes it is necessary to be frugal.”

  I rubbed my temples trying to push back the hangover-troll who felt on the verge of chewing his way out of my skull. “Aren’t a bunch of other wannabe dragon-slayers on this job, or is this invite only?”

  “No the king made a public announcement a fortnight ago, and I’ve seen a dozen hopeful young men ride out the city gates in their quest for glory.”

  “Sounds like you got it handled. Why do you need me?”

  Elhared slid the tapestry back, covering the portrait. “You might guess my motives aren’t completely altruistic.” The wizard has an agenda? Color me shocked. “You understand Lendowyn is not a particularly rich country.” Sort of like how Mermaid’s Milk is not a particularly pleasant beverage. “Well, a court wizard is something of an extravagance. Since there is a poverty of heirs as well as finances, and I do require a significant fraction of the kingdom’s wealth to support my work, it behooves me to do what I can to ensure that the next-in-line to Alfred’s throne is well aware of how much return the crown gets from that investment.” Translation, I’m skimming the treasury under the king’s nose and the next monarch better be indebted to me.

  “I see.”

  “I’m sure you do. You seem reasonably intelligent.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You still seem unsure.”

  “Of course I am. You want me to go slay a dragon! I’m a thief. I don’t slay things.”

  “Then think of it as stealing the princess back.”

  “I don’t think that helps.”

  “Ah. But I have something that will help. Something those dozen fools of King Alfred’s do not have.” He stepped behind the altar, facing me, and picked up a broadsword with an ornate golden handle in a somewhat worn leather scabbard. He held the hilt with one hand and with the other drew the scabbard so the blade was revealed.

  The black blade burned with an unearthly light that infuriated hangover-troll who began trying to kick his way out of my head through the bridge of my nose. I gripped the troll’s point of attack and squinted to see a somewhat blurry image of black iron engraved with blood-red runes that glowed as if the metal beneath were molten. I could even feel heat rising from the blade.

  “Okay, magic sword, I get it. But you realize I’m not a swordsman, right?”

  Elhared sheathed the blade. “This is Dracheslayer. Forged by blind dwarves in the diabolical heat found at the bottom of the Earth’s Wound in the darkest land of Grundar. When it senses the blood of its adversary it will practically wield itself. You’ll handle it as easily as that dagger on your belt.”

  He tossed it at me and I staggered back with the sudden weight as I caught it. “You have magical armor as well?”

  “Afraid not, one priceless anti-dragon artifact pretty much maxes out the budget.” He reached down and lifted an armor chest piece from where it rested on the altar. “This should be sufficient.”

  “You want me to go into battle with a dragon in used leather?”

  “It’s quite serviceable scale mail. Barely used. Only two squires have died in it.”

  “Don’t people generally ride to the rescue of a princess in full plate?”

  “Oh, you don’t want that kind of hassle. All the fittings involved, you need two assistants just to get it on you—this is much more convenient—”

  “And cheaper.”

  “—and you won’t need to ride anywhere, the dragon’s lair is less than a day’s walk.”

  “You know where the dragon and the princess are?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “And these dozen knights?”

  “Oh, I’m sure one or two must have run into the dragon at some point.” He set down the armor. “But they didn’t have Dracheslayer.”

  I hefted the sword in my hands, every instinct screaming “bad idea.” I think even the hangover-troll joined in the chorus, bellowing his objection. I hadn’t seen such an obvious setup since the Thieves’ Guild of Grünwald told me, “No problem, abandoned temple.”

  How do you gracefully tell a powerful wizard to shove off? To all appearances, Elhared could give the priests of Nâtlac a run for their money in the ancient mystical darkness department. Also, turning down a request to aid the king’s daughter? Let’s just say it seemed less than wise to have another house of royals after my head.

  Not good.

  Elhared cleared his throat.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “I should mention, in addition to the princess you will also get first pick of the dragon’s hoard before it’s repatriated to replenish the Lendowyn treasury.”

  I had to wonder, did I look like a rube who would get drawn into any questionable enterprise just on the promise of some treasure?

  To hell with it.

  “Fine,” I told him. “I’m in.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I was still recovering from my hangover when Elhared the Unwise threw a bearskin cloak over my shoulders and dragged me in front of King Alfred. I tried to protest. I wasn’t in any state to meet royalty. I still had a month’s worth of back roads to wash off me, I hadn’t shaved in days, and for some reason I expected that I looked like a drunk someone had peeled off the floor of a dockside tavern.

  Elhared told me I looked the part of a barbarian prince.

  The wizard dragged me into the throne room where the king was receiving envoys from some kingdom of even less note than Lendowyn. When the envoys were done, and the herald waved us on, Elhared shoved me forward and presented me as Sir Francis Blackthorne of the Northern Wastes, here to serve the kingdom and rescue the princess.

  The king eyed me with a sigh and muttered something about scraping barrels. He was a very large man, intimidating in a way that made me suspect he had been absolutely terrifying in his prime. He looked at me with steely gray eyes in a way that made me suspect that he wanted to go out and deal with his daughter’s kidnapper himself. “The Northern Wastes, eh?” he asked.

  At this point, I really couldn’t contradict Elhared without causing myself even more problems. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Then why do you have a Delharwyn accent?”

  “I travel a lot.”

  “That is quite a distance.”

  “Well, you see, uh, my parents were traveling merchants from Delharwyn.” I paused, and steeled myself. “Mordain, actually, before the Duke’s war. They had a shop, but they heard rumors of the coming annexation and fled with their goods. Of course, having their shop nationalized in a proxy war left them with no love for the southern nations—”


  I kept going in that vein. While I normally prefer stealth, there have been enough times I’ve had to ply my trade face-to-face that I’ve gotten reasonably good at crafting tales extemporaneously. It’s a useful skill to be able to plausibly explain your presence in places where you otherwise shouldn’t be.

  It helped my case that my story was mostly true—not that it had anything to do with me. The life story I told the king belonged to an angry redheaded barbarian with whom I’d had the misfortune of sharing a cell in the city of Delmark about two years ago. I suspected he had embellished some of his tale—I left out the bear wrestling—but it provided a convenient superstructure on which to hang the story of Blackthorne of the Northern Wastes.

  I measured my success by the king’s eyes glazing over and the envoys and herald staring off into the middle distance, all apparently wishing they were somewhere else.

  That was my cue to wrap up.

  “—and that’s how I ended up in your fine country, Your Highness.”

  “Yes, yes.” I heard what sounded like relief in the king’s voice. “Well, good fortune and gods’ speed, Sir Blackthorne.”

  • • •

  All in all, that had gone about as well as could be expected.

  The way Elhared had been pushing for “Sir Blackthorne’s” quest, I’d expected him to toss me out the gate to face the dragon as soon as we’d left the throne room. But some glimmer of sanity still shone on the wizard, albeit dimly and occasionally. I got board for the night, a decent meal, and a chance to wash up and get some real sleep before going out at dawn.

  Morning had me walking a wooded path northwest of the city, dressed in a dead squire’s scale mail and carrying Dracheslayer.

  Elhared had given distressingly precise directions to find the dragon’s lair, and I probably would have found it rather suspicious if it wasn’t for the fact that I was being sent to slay a damned dragon! That tended to preoccupy my thoughts.

  Of course, I’d be a rather poor thief if I didn’t consider a Plan B, which involved me slipping away westbound, along the coast and out of Lendowyn, and finding a proper place to sell the priceless magical dragon-slaying artifact. The sword could probably fetch enough in the black market to get me passage on a ship halfway across the world from dragons, crazy wizards, and Nâtlac-worshiping royals, and leave me with enough of a stake to get myself somewhat established on the other side of the ocean.