Dragon Thief

  After several long moments freezing in place, my eyes began adjusting to a dim light that seemed to shine up from the floor in front of me. I lowered my arm, no longer holding the lamp, so I could lean over and look down at the light source.

  It was a good thing I had stopped where I had. Barely a hand’s-breadth from my right boot, the floor dropped away. From there to the wall of debris, there was no floor, just a drop into a corridor somewhere in the dungeons. The wall behind me continued to descend until it reached a stone floor about ten feet below, and the flickering light came from what I assumed was a torch hiding behind a pillar that hugged the wall and supported the end of the passage before me.

  I heard footsteps below. I held my breath and quietly inched forward to lean in and get a better view of the hallway beneath me. That proved a mistake. My right foot slid on spilled lamp oil and shot out from under me. I fell forward, and almost completely through the hole. My descent was only stopped by instinctively grabbing the top of the pillar in front of me and pushing my left foot against the edge of the hole. I fought to remain silent as my naked hands slapped against the stone and pressed in.

  Snake was just tall enough for the maneuver to work.

  I held myself there, muscles vibrating, as one of the dungeon guards sauntered by below me. His pace was leisurely. So much so that it felt deliberate as my lungs screamed for air and my legs, arms, and hands stung from the effort of holding me suspended.

  After a short eternity, he passed out of sight behind the pillar in front of me.

  I slowly exhaled, and when no one came running, I shifted my grip on the top of the pillar and let go with my legs to swing down to between the pillar and the wall. I dangled for a moment, then dropped the last four feet or so. It would have been a graceful dismount if not for the fact my right boot was still slick from lamp oil and slid away from me again, dropping me on my ass.

  I sat there, not daring to move. After it became clear I hadn’t made enough of a commotion to warrant the attention of the guard ahead of me, I got slowly to my feet and peeked around the pillar.

  I stood in the middle of a long corridor dominated by rough stone pillars supporting squat vaults every ten paces or so. Every other pair of pillars had a torch burning in a sconce between them. The torches were all on the same side of the corridor I was, meaning that the space where I stood, between a torchless pair of pillars, was the most shadowed spot available. Looking up, the gap in the ceiling I had fallen through was completely wrapped in the shadows from the pillars and the vaults they supported. Even standing directly beneath it, I couldn’t distinguish between the gap and the shadows surrounding it.

  “So far, so good,” I whispered.

  • • •

  I had some basic information on the dungeons from Sir Forsythe, but he could impart only so much in the time we’d had. Also, he had no knowledge of the girls or where they might be locked away. There were five levels of cells where they could be hidden.

  However, there were other sources for that information.

  I followed my quarry past two twisting corridors while he made his rounds, and I made my move when he passed near a cell that was open and empty.

  I’m normally not bloodthirsty, but people guarding more-or-less innocent sacrifices to the Dark Lord Nâtlac are fair game. Also, when you’re armed only with a torch and the element of surprise, you can’t really hold back and wait for the other guy to draw a sword. So one burning torch across a face later, I stood over the unlucky guard holding his own sword to his neck.

  “My face!” he yelled at me through a still-smoldering beard.

  “Shut up,” I said, “or the pain is going to come to a very abrupt stop.” I prodded his neck to emphasize the point.

  The guard whimpered, but he sucked it up and stopped screaming.

  “Now,” I said, “you’re going to tell me where you’re holding all the sacrifices.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  He stopped when I pressed the sword point down. “Try again. Six teenage girls and a pretentious knight. I’d think that’d stick in your mind.”

  “Oh, them.”

  “Where?” I repeated.

  CHAPTER 15

  I left my singed adversary in the unused dungeon cell after divesting him of his weapons and armor. Unfortunately, it was too ill-fitting to be a disguise. I had to leave half the fittings unbuckled, and I had to abandon the boots and helmet. But it did give me more protection than I started with.

  I did have one lucky break—assuming he’d been telling me the truth. According to him, my girls were all chained in a single cell only a few hundred yards from Sir Forsythe.

  I just had to sneak down one more level to the deepest part of the dungeon. Unfortunately, there was only one narrow stairway down, protected by a guardsman who rivaled my barbarian friend Brock for sheer size. I suspected that he was on guard duty here because he wouldn’t fit in the stairwell.

  Unlike Brock, I felt a sense of physical competence about the guy that suggested walking up to him and swinging a sword would just be adding to my personal list of bad ideas.

  As I hid in the shadows, trying to come up with an effective way to get around this guy, the involuntary fire-eater I had locked up behind me decided to start screaming. While I had chained the semi-flammable guard to the wall with the available manacles, apparently balling up the end of his shirt and shoving it in his mouth did not make an effective gag.

  But that oversight made an effective distraction.

  The main obstacle to my descent ran off to investigate the screaming. He ran by the pillar I hid behind without even looking in my direction.

  Once he passed, I bolted for the stairwell.

  It was a good thing my immediate nemesis was distracted by my lightly toasted victim, because my oil-slick boot squeaked loudly on the stone as I ran. I stopped running when I hit the stairway.

  The steps downward were narrow, steep, irregular, and corkscrewed down into complete darkness. If I tried to run down the stairs, my slick boot would probably try to kill me.

  I sheathed the sword I’d been holding and grabbed the nearest burning torch from its sconce and began a slow, careful descent. I finished two complete circuits before I reached the bottom, where the stairway emptied into a closetlike antechamber dominated by a heavy oak door banded in iron.

  The door would have been close to impenetrable, if it wasn’t for the fact that the heavy iron bolts were all on this side. I slid the bolts aside with my free hand and stepped back as the door slowly creaked open toward me, pulled by its own weight.

  I saw flickering light beyond, and I took a step to keep behind the opening door. I heard a horrible guttural sound and for a second believed that some demonic creature had been set to guard the lower depths of the dungeon.

  Then the sound cut itself short with a sucking breath and I realized it was someone snoring. I heard a clatter and a groan, then a deep voice say, “Gryod?” Followed by a long yawn. “Can’t be time yet, is it?”

  The door now hung fully open, pressing me against the wall. I couldn’t see the speaker, but I heard his footsteps, large and heavy, as imposing as the man above had been.

  “Gryod? You there?”

  The footsteps approached me. I heard jingling that might have been mail, or keys. I also heard a sound unmistakably like a blade being drawn from its scabbard. “Who’s there?”

  I said nothing and kept my gaze focused on the gap between the door and the floor. I saw a shadow pass on the other side as I heard the man, very close now, say, “Show yourself!”

  I decided to oblige him by bracing against the wall behind me and shouldering the door closed with all the force I could muster.

  I can say this about the body Snake bequeathed me, it made such a move a lot more plausible than it would have been if I still had Lucille’s mass and upper body streng
th. The massive door had quite a bit of momentum as it slammed into the unseen guardsman. It came to a stop with a bone-jarring impact that stopped me cold and sent a dagger of pain shooting down the right side of my body. I heard cursing and a thud, and I ducked around the door to point my weapon at the prostrate guard.

  I cursed myself as I realized that the weapon I pointed at his bloody face was the guttering torch.

  “My nobe!” The man below me bellowed, swinging his own sword up to knock the burning torch out of my hands. “You buhded my nobe!”

  I jumped back and drew my sword as the man unsteadily got to his feet.

  “Imb goind to cud your fabe off!”

  The massive guard had about a foot’s reach on me. He swung his sword back, and before he brought it to bear, I hooked my foot around the door and slammed it shut on him again. It hit with a solid crack, and I heard the sword clatter to the ground.

  “Ag! I’ll gill you.”

  The door swung back toward me, and I saw the guy, on his knees, holding his bloodied face in his hand as he groped behind him for his sword.

  You don’t change a winning strategy. I slammed the door on him again. Since he was leaning forward slightly, it was brought to a solid halt by his forehead. The door swung inward again, forced by the full weight of the guy falling against it. He flopped, unconscious, facedown in front of me.

  • • •

  Armed with keys liberated from the man who lost his argument with a door, I started opening cells. The first few were people I didn’t recognize, but I freed them anyway. The logic was simple and self-serving. There were at least two guards upstairs free to come after me or sound an alarm, and it would be a bit more difficult for them if a bunch of former prisoners were coming up out of the lower levels of the dungeons.

  If you can’t remove the opposition, distract them.

  The girls had been stripped of their armor and placed in one large cell together. I opened the door and six pairs of eyes focused on me. I heard Grace’s voice, raw as if she’d been screaming, “You bastard.”

  “I . . .” They all sat on the straw-covered floor, chained, dressed only in the oversize male chemises they’d worn under their salvaged armor. Without the outward trappings of their independence—the armor, weapons, even their grotesque jewelry—they appeared much smaller than they had before. “I’m getting you out of here.”

  “You got us in here!” Grace spat.

  I started with Thea who stared at me with shiny eyes and shook. The chains came off her legs with a clatter, and she leaped up to run across the room to cower behind Grace and Mary. Rabbit didn’t cower, but she didn’t look me in the eye as she got up and walked over to Grace and Mary.

  When I unlocked Laya, she whispered as she stood, “You were right. It can’t be worth it.”

  Of them all, only Krys looked at me as if I wasn’t the guard come to haul them away to sacrifice them to Nâtlac.

  I finished freeing them and said, “Now let’s get you all out of here.”

  My statement was met by a thundering silence.

  “Come on, we don’t have much time before the guards—”

  Grace stepped forward. “Why should we go anywhere with you, Bartholomew?”

  Crap.

  “Can we talk about that when we’re not in the middle of escaping?”

  The band of girls crowded together, Mary and Grace at the front.

  “Escape to what?” Grace said. “What do you want us for?”

  “I’m trying to save you!”

  “So you can use us before your brother does?”

  I rubbed my forehead. I always knew that everything would unravel at some point. I had just naïvely hoped that it would happen at a more convenient moment. Behind me, I heard the sounds of commotion, running feet, things thudding into walls, people cursing and shouting.

  The other escapees must have introduced themselves to the guards.

  “You really should come with me.”

  “Why should we trust you?” Mary said.

  I had two swords and scabbards I had liberated from the guards I’d fought. I pulled both of them off and tossed them on the ground in front of the girls.

  “Because I’m trusting you,” I said. “I’m sorry. Things got out of hand. I can’t explain everything now. Too many angry guards coming after us. We still have to find the guy who knows how to get out of here.”

  “I don’t think—” Mary started to say.

  I didn’t hear the rest of her statement because someone tackled me from behind, screaming, “Gill you!”

  I hit the floor as I turned toward my assailant. A huge bloody moon face with a nose swollen like a lumpy black potato snarled and drooled down at me. “Gill you!” he shouted again, spraying me with blood, phlegm, and broken teeth. I couldn’t respond since words were hard to come by while this guy squeezed my trachea shut.

  “I’ll teah you do slam a door in my fabe!” He pounded the back of my head into the floor for emphasis. Fortunately the stone floor was covered by a layer of filthy straw and fecal matter, so I probably only got lice and some sort of disease rather than a concussion.

  He yelled something inarticulate that trailed off into an incoherent sputtering. His hands loosened and he turned his head to look off toward the girls.

  “Ah you gibbing me?” he said as he fell off to the side.

  Above us, Grace held my recently abandoned sword.

  I sat up, rubbing my neck. “What about the rules?” I asked.

  Grace looked down at me and said, “Don’t press your luck. You said that there’s someone who can get us out of here?”

  • • •

  I let Grace and Mary bear the swords. One less thing for me to worry about. Despite the change of heart that saved my life, I could still tell that I had exhausted the reservoir of trust I had with them. Better to let Fearless Leader take her natural role and not even pretend I was in charge. Once all of us were out of this place, we could part ways.

  Just a bit deeper in the dungeon we found Sir Forsythe. I opened a heavy iron door, and it was unquestionably him. He was the only man I knew who could be stripped and thrown in a dungeon hole and still appear as if he’d stepped fresh off the parade grounds. Despite the black manacles holding him to the wall, the filthy bedding in the stall, he appeared unsullied, his long blond hair shining in the torchlight.

  “Is it you, My Liege?”

  “Yes.” I ran up and started unlocking the chains that bound him to the wall. “You’re going to lead us out of this dungeon.”

  He stepped free and looked me up and down. “You are wearing the body of Prince Bartholomew.”

  “Yeah, he goes by ‘Snake’ now.”

  From outside the cell I heard Grace. “Who’s the pretty boy, and what is he talking about?”

  He drew himself up and walked out, intoning, “I am Sir Forsythe the Good, fair maiden. I am here in service to my liege, Frank Blackthorne, Princess of Lendowyn, and the rightful Dark Queen of Nâtlac. And I am going to save you.”

  There was a chorus of “what?” as Sir Forsythe strode through their midst. Mary gaped at him, and he bent down to kiss her hand. “Thank you, My Lady,” he said. Somehow he had taken the sword Mary had been holding.

  Sir Forsythe raised the sword above his head and said, “Now, follow me.” He charged back the way we had come.

  Grace sputtered, “What the f—”

  “We better follow him,” I said. “He knows the way out.”

  Everyone started chasing the charging knight. As we ran, Grace asked, “Who is Frank Blackthorne?”

  “That would be me.”

  “What?”

  “Princess of Lendowyn? Dark Queen?” Mary sounded the words as if she had lost track of what they actually meant.

  “Long story,” I responded.

 
Behind us I heard Laya say, “Aren’t we running back toward—”

  She didn’t manage to finish the thought, because she was interrupted by Sir Forsythe bellowing, “Servants of the Usurper! Cower before the might of he who serves the true Queen of the Dark One!”

  The statement was punctuated by a high-pitched scream as a flailing body sailed through the corridor toward us. Everyone dodged to hug the wall as a guardsman crumpled limp between us. After a moment of shock, Rabbit, Krys, and Laya descended on the body, stripping it of weapons and armor quicker than I thought possible.

  Sir Forsythe, for all his bluster, seemed to have a hint of tactical competence, if not subtlety. He stood before the doorway to the upper levels, but not so close that anyone could fight him with the door. But that meant that the guards—and I couldn’t even see how many there were past the door—were forced to engage him one-on-one. That was not a winning proposition.

  A guard took a step toward him and swung his weapon. Sir Forsythe effortlessly blocked it and grabbed the faceguard of the man’s helmet with his free hand. Sir Forsythe pulled the man’s head forward. As his opponent fell, Sir Forsythe bellowed, “Brilliant! Future generations will sing ballads of how bravely you stepped up and met your doom!”

  The guard continued stumbling forward, and Sir Forsythe dropped his block and introduced his weapon to the back of the falling man’s neck. The result was not pretty.

  By the time the body hit the ground, the guard was permanently out of the fight and Sir Forsythe was blocking the next attacker.

  “I am amazed at the ferocity one can muster in the service of someone like King Dudley. Such valor,” he said as he ran through the next man. “So misplaced.” Rather than spend time freeing the sword from the corpse’s chest, Sir Forsythe grabbed his latest victim’s weapon before he hit the ground. By then the girls had dragged away the guy Sir Forsythe had partially decapitated and were stripping weapons and armor off of him.

  By the time the other guards realized that Sir Forsythe was homicidally insane and slammed the door on us, all the girls had some form of armor, and everyone but Thea had a weapon.