King's Dragon

  “Stop!” snapped Sanglant, and there was, this time, no killing.

  The strange old Eika man was chanting in a soft voice, hunkered down and rocking back and forth on his heels. He had a little leather cup and he shook it and rolled white objects out: dice or bones. Then he passed a hand over these objects, studied them, chanted again, and scooped them up. The cup he tucked away into the pouch he wore at his belt. A small wooden chest sat beside his feet.

  More Eika swarmed into the cathedral, and they began dragging corpses down into the crypt. Others carried a great throne carved out of a single piece of wood. The huge chair was painted gold and red and black and ornamented with cunning interlock, dogs and dragons biting each other, mouths to tails, in endless circles. They set this chair beside the Hearth, in mockery of the biscop’s seat.

  On this throne Bloodheart sat and he surveyed his new domain with satisfaction. Possessively, he rubbed the gold torque on his arm. Sanglant could not help himself: he reached up and touched the iron collar that now circled his neck where once he had worn gold.

  The movement drew Bloodheart’s eye. He leaned toward Sanglant—but not too close. No closer, really, than he would have gotten to his own dogs.

  “Why are you still alive,” Bloodheart asked, “when all the others are dead?”

  “Let me fight,” said Sanglant, and suddenly feared he sounded like he was pleading. Ai, Lady, he did not want to die such a dishonorable death. He would not have wished this on his worst enemy, to die like a dog, among the dogs. “Give me an honorable death, Bloodheart. Let your boldest warrior choose weapons and we will have it out, he and I.”

  “Nay, nay.” Bloodheart bared his teeth in a grin. Jewels glinted, a rich treasure studding his teeth. “Am I not king among the Eika of the western shore? Have I not fought down all the other tribes until they all bared their throats before me? Do I not boast a king’s son in my pack of dogs?” He laughed, pleased with his triumph. “I think not, my prince. You are the prize in my pack, a fine lord with his handsome retinue. For my dogs are like to the kingdom of Wendar, are they not? Led by you.” His grin turned into a snarl. “Lead them for as long as you can. For you will weaken, and when you do, they will kill you.”

  Beyond, the Eika methodically looted the corpses before they dragged them into the crypt. One, rifling the Eagle’s body, ripped his Eagle’s badge from his cloak and tossed it. It landed at the feet of Bloodheart, who picked it up, bit it, and spat.

  “Brass! Pah!” He tossed it down and Sanglant swatted dogs aside and grabbed it up from the floor. But that turmoil set the dogs to snapping and snarling again. He made good use of the badge; it had a clean, rounded edge and was good for jabbing. The dogs backed off and settled down again. One of the big ones growled at him, but he made a sharp gesture, and it lifted its head to expose its throat to him in submission.

  He wiped hair from his lips, trying to clean the horrible taste out of his mouth. His left hand throbbed. Blood leaked, slowed, stopped—as had the gash on his head, which had already stopped bleeding. That was the secret of his mother’s geas, of course, the one she had set on him when he was an infant, the day she vanished from human lands. That was what her blood had given him: keen hearing and unnatural powers of healing.

  An Eika grabbed the dead Eagle by the heels and dragged the body away toward the crypt. Sanglant pressed the Eagle’s badge against his cheek.

  He was hit so hard by the memory of the young Eagle— Liath—touching him on his cheek in the silence and intimacy of the crypt that he was dizzy for a moment. The dogs, alert to any least weakness, stirred and growled. He tensed; they quieted.

  By the Lady, he would not, he must not, let Bloodheart win. This at least he could believe, that Liath was still alive, for the last report he had been given before he and his Dragons were utterly overwhelmed was that the children of Gent had been led to safety.

  “You are speechless, Prince,” said Bloodheart. “Are you half dog already? Have you lost the power to talk?”

  “I am like you, Bloodheart,” he said, his voice hoarse; but his voice always was hoarse now, for he had survived worse injuries than these. The iron collar, and his chains, weighed heavily on his neck. “My heart rests not within me but with another, and she is far away from here. That is why you will never defeat me.”

  But the dogs, ever watchful, growled softly. They were willing to wait.

  APPENDIX

  The Months of the Year:

  Yanu

  Avril

  Sormas

  Quadrii

  Cintre

  Aogoste

  Setentre

  Octumbre

  Novarian

  Decial

  Askulavre

  Fevrua

  The Days of the Week:

  Mansday

  Secunday

  Ladysday

  Sonsday

  Jedday

  Lordsday

  Hefensday

  The Canonical Hours:

  Vigils (circa 3:00 a.m.)

  Lauds (first light)

  Prime (sunrise)

  Terce (3rd hour, circa 9:00 a.m.)

  Sext (6th hour, circa noon)

  Nones (9th hour, circa 3:00 p.m.)

  Vespers (evening song)

  Compline (sunset)

  The Houses of Night (the zodiac):

  the Falcon

  the Child

  the Sisters

  the Hound

  the Lion

  the Dragon

  the Scales

  the Serpent

  the Archer

  the Unicorn

  the Healer

  the Penitent

  THE GREAT PRINCES OF THE REALM OF WENDAR AND VARRE:

  Dukes of Wendar:

  Saony

  Fesse

  Avaria

  Dukes of Varre:

  Arconia

  Varingia

  Wayland

  Margraves of the Eastern Territories:

  the March of the Villams

  Olsatia and Austra

  Westfall

  Eastfall

  You are invited to preview

  PRINCE OF DOGS

  the second novel in

  KATE ELLIOTT’s

  magnificent epic fantasy series:

  Crown of Stars

  HOWLS woke Anna. She jerked up and at once Matthias shoved her down to keep her still. She made no sound.

  Rags slipped, giving her a view of the steps of the cathedral and avenue. Not five paces from her, a man stopped, turning his back to the pile of rags, and pissed into the trench. Then, straightening his clothes, he edged closer and crouched down. Of all the slaves she had seen he looked best kept: His tunic was not encrusted with dirt, though it was not precisely clean either. He toyed with the rope belt hung low on his thin hips and glanced once back over his shoulder, toward the cathedral steps. Through the gap in the rags Anna could see on those steps another slave. This person—she could not tell if it were man or woman—washed the gleaming white stone steps with rags and a bucket of water.

  The man cleared his throat and spoke in a rush. “As soon as all have gone down the road, run inside into the nave. Stay in the shadows if you can and go to the end, where you will find the altar. There you will find the daimone. Approach it softly. It can be violent, or so we have seen. None of us speak to it. That is forbidden.”

  He stood and walked away, and that was the last they saw of him for first he vanished from their restricted view and then, coming back into sight on the steps, he was suddenly engulfed by dogs.

  A horn blasted, a sharp, painful sound. A swarm of dogs surged down the stairs, growling and barking and yipping and howling like mad things. Anna whimpered and then stuck a hand in her mouth, biting down hard, to stop herself from crying out loud. They were monsters, huge hulking things as tall at the shoulder as she was, with long lean haunches and massive shoulders and yellow eyes that sparked with demon’s fire. Their mouths hung open perpe
tually to display their great teeth and red, lolling tongues. They bowled over the two slaves, overwhelmed them until all she could see was a frenzy of dogs, roiling and leaping and biting each other and only God knew what else. She shut her eyes and groped for her Circle. Matthias choked down a sob; his grip on her tightened. She dared not look. She did not want to see.

  A voice roared, a great bellowing powerful shout. She squinched her eyes shut as hard as she could, but Matthias tugged on her and her eyes opened. Eika strode down the steps now, sickly things with their scaled hides. Yet each one, though a savage with nothing of humankind in it, had a brutish strength and the gleam of animal cunning in its bearing and in its sharp ugly face. They grabbed the frenzied dogs by their back legs and yanked them away, struck them hard blows with their clawed hands or the hafts of their spears. The Eika yipped and howled at the dogs as if they were kin and could understand each other in their beast’s language.

  Behind them came the oddest looking pair of Eika she had yet seen: The first was a huge brawny creature dressed in gold and silver chains studded with bright gems, and its companion was an Eika as scrawny as the human slaves and itself clothed only in a single rag tied about its hips. A leather pouch hung from the belt round its waist; it carried a small wooden chest braced against one scrawny hip. The huge Eika waded into the seething mass of dogs and proceeded to strike about himself, roaring and laughing as he tossed dogs aside and beat them away from their prey.

  One dog at last broke away and bounded down the steps. Many of the Eika warriors followed after it. As if this defection signaled their defeat, the rest of the dogs retreated from the Eika chieftain’s wrath—or his humor, for why else would he station slaves on the steps right then, knowing what the dogs would likely do to them?— and loped away down the steps, turning to follow the others down toward the river. As they cleared the steps, their passing revealed two ravaged, red heaps of—

  This time she clamped her eyes shut and did not look, willed herself not to look, and heard only Matthias gulping under his breath, trying to keep silent because any noise would doom them.

  Finally he whispered: “They’ve gone. They’ve carried the two—them—away. Come, Anna. Don’t lose heart now when we’re so close.”

  He scrabbled at the rags, dug himself free and jumped to his feet, then yanked her up. He ran and she ran behind him, stumbling, gasping for breath because she was so scared and because she had almost forgotten how to run and because her legs were stiff from so many days laying still. They came under the shadow of the cathedral wall and ran up the steps; blood still stained the stone next to an overturned bucket of water, and runnels of pink water seeped down the steps toward the avenue below. Rags were strewn everywhere, stained with blood.

  The great doors stood open but because the sun set behind the cathedral, little light penetrated the interior by this, the eastern entrance. They ducked inside and at once Matthias threw himself against a wall and tugged Anna down beside him. He put a finger to his lips. They stood there in shadow and listened.

  And heard … the music of chains, shifting, whispering, as some creature tested its bonds and found them as unyielding as ever.

  Matthias crept forward to hide behind one of the pillars of stone that supported the great roof. Here, in the side aisle, they remained in shadow. The nave itself, the vast central aisle of the cathedral, was brighter, lit by windows built high into the towering walls that faced north and south. Brightest of all was the altar, lying in a wash of light from seven tall windows set in a semicircle at the far end of the church, encircling the Hearth.

  A heap of refuse lay next to the altar.

  Matthias slipped forward to the next pillar, using it as cover to get close to the altar. Anna followed him. She wanted to grab hold of his belt, to cling, but she did not. This she had learned: They must both be free to move quickly.

  It was silent. The stone muffled sound, and the outside world seemed far away in this place—once a haven but now the camp of savages. She felt their musty scent against her the way dry things dragged against the skin cause a tingling in fingertips and neck; she smelled it the way a storm announces itself by a certain feeling in the air long before the first rolling peal of thunder is heard and the first slash of lightning seen in the dark sky. They ruled this space now, which had once been sacred to God.

  She caught up to Matthias and leaned on the cool, stippled stone. He touched her briefly, then darted forward to the next pillar.

  The refuse heap by the altar stirred and came to life.

  Not rags but dogs, starting out of sleep, scrambling up, alerted.

  “Run,” moaned Matthias. He shoved her back, toward the door, but it was too late, the door was too far away. They could never run as fast as the dogs, only hide from them. And there was no place to hide here.

  The dogs bolted toward them. Anna ran, stumbled, jerked herself up.

  “No!” she screamed, for Matthias had charged out into the nave, out into the path of the dogs to try to distract them so she could run free.

  “Go! Go!” he shouted.

  But she ran to him. It was better to die with him, torn to pieces by the dogs, than live if he were dead. Ai, Lady. What did it matter? There was no way to live in this city except as a slave of the Eika, if that could be called life.

  She reached him just before the dogs did, the hideous dogs. She flung her arms around her brother and braced herself for the impact, for death. Please Lady, let it be quick.

  A hoarse cry—not human words, not any words she recognized—came from the direction of the altar, punctuated by noises that sounded like growls and yips. The dogs clattered to a halt, nails slipping and sliding on the stone paving, and they stopped a body’s length from the children, growling, glaring with sparkling yellow eyes. Then, when more of those hoarse words came, they slunk away, tails down, still growling but now submissive to the creature that rose out of the heap of rags by the altar, a heap which was not rags after all but the daimone itself.

  Not human, certainly not that. This much Anna saw easily in the fading light that penetrated the cathedral nave. It was tall and human-shaped, but the Eika were human-shaped and they were no kin to humans. It had covered itself modestly with clothing, though cloth and tunic were shredded by teeth marks and as ragged as if strips had been torn off at random. Gold cloth bound its forearms, this also torn and ripped in many places as though the dogs had gnawed and worried at it, seeking flesh underneath. It wore an iron collar around its neck; to the collar was fastened a thick iron chain, and that chain was fastened to the heavy block of stone that was the altarstone, the Hearth of Our Lady.

  It stared at them with eyes as inhumanly green as the emeralds that studded Matthias’ fancy dagger, and as if that stare reminded him of the chosen gift, Matthias slipped the dagger out from his boot and held it forward, hilt first, in offering.

  “Come,” said the daimone in its hoarse voice.

  They dared not disobey, for it spoke in the tone of a creature used to obedience and, in any case, it controlled the dogs by some daimonic magic. And why not? It was not human, it was an aetherical creature, something that flew bodiless through the vast impenetrable heavens far above the mortal earth, far above the changing moon; it would not fear human children nor hesitate to command them.

  They crept closer, and this time Anna held tight to Matthias’ belt with one hand and to her Circle with the other, chewing at her lower lip. She sniffed back tears but she did not flinch as the dogs circled them, smelling their feet and nipping forward only to be brought to heel by the harsh words of the daimone.

  Closer yet, then close enough that Matthias could reach out and hand the knife to the daimone. It took it and with sudden furtive haste glanced around the shadowed nave, peering into the colonnades, then tucked the precious weapon in among the filthy rags it wore to cover itself. It stood there silent, listening, and they grew silent as well, but Anna heard nothing and Matthias made no sound.

  Anna stared
. She thought that, perhaps, when the enchanter had called the daimone down from the heavens and when the magic had imprisoned it in a body made of earth, the daimone had tried—given now no choice—to form itself into a human body. For it was very like a human: human eyes though they were of a stark green color and somewhat pulled at the corners, as if distorted; human skin though it had the tint of bronze as if the metals hidden in earth had leached out to the surface; a human face though with broad, prominent cheekbones; and no trace of beard though it was clearly male. But had not God made humans both male and female? Why should They not make daimones likewise?

  And it spoke human speech, though slowly, as if not much practiced at it. To the dogs, in that other language of beasts, it spoke more fluidly.

  “Why have you given me this knife?” it asked. Its voice likewise, she thought: a human voice but with that hoarse edge to it, not quite formed.

  Matthias dipped his chin for courage and faced the creature squarely. “In trade for the secret of St. Kristine, who led the other children to safety.”

  “Who led them to safety,” it echoed.

  It stared at them for what seemed forever until Anna thought it had not understood what Matthias said, only mimicked the sounds. The dogs sniffed at her feet and a hundred prickles ran like poisonous creatures up and down her back. The Eika procession would return at any moment.

  The creature flung up its head as a dog does at a sudden sound. “Quickly,” it said. “Beyond the tower stair lies a door to the crypt. In the crypt lies the path you seek. Go free.” That fast, it changed before their eyes to a mad thing: It grabbed the heavy chain that bound it and yanked violently. It threw back its head and howled, and the dogs set up such a yammering and howling and barking that Anna was deafened.