Dark Hope of the Dragons Read online

  As he waited, Dephithus wondered about the daemon-seed within him and if it would stay dormant or begin changing him again. No matter who or what was at fault, the things he had done with its influence had certainly changed him forever. The constant bitterness and sorrow he could not seem to shake were proof of that.

  A troop of thirty well-armored and polished looking soldiers rode out as the storm continued to threaten above. Not more than a few minutes later, a different troop rode in. This battered and bloodied troop, consisting of only eleven weary soldiers, led behind them seven rider-less horses and a wagon holding few bloodstained, misshapen bags that Dephithus could only assume carried bodies. These passing troops were disturbingly common, and he was itching to know what battle they were fighting. Such small troops could not be facing an organized army, but whatever they were facing was obviously a deadly opponent. As this sad looking band passed through the gate, three more soldiers rode out. Dephithus perked up, his ears and eyes alert as he watched them move down the hillside toward his perch.

  “You’re coming up for a troop again soon, aren’t you Darkin?”

  Dephithus recognized Kovial’s voice. His nerves began to dance about with anticipation. Darkin’s group was not the most promising given that they had no reason to want to help him, but they were the only chance he really had at getting inside the walls. And he had to get inside. There was no way he was going to make good progress stuck out here with no clothes, weapons, food, or coin to buy them with.

  Suva was the third rider. Forcing back the emotional torment of that memory, Dephithus climbed down the tree, carefully staying out of sight. As the three riders began to pass him, he stepped out, though he kept the trees between him and the distant gate towers. Suva’s horse was the first to notice him, turning its head and blowing at Dephithus with irritation at being surprised. The animal was most definitely a war trained mount, which was new for this crowd. The rest glanced his way casually then some variation of hatred, fear, or shock touched each one’s face as they abruptly pulled up their mounts.

  “Speak of evil things and they shall come to you,” Suva muttered under her breath.

  Dephithus forced himself to ignore her comment as he stepped closer to Darkin’s mount. Darkin tensed and his horse backed a step in response to its rider’s unease.

  “You are a fool to show your face here. There is a standing bounty on your head, and it’s a good one.”

  Dephithus grimaced. This would be even harder than he had dared imagine. Darkin looked more than ready to claim that bounty. Suva’s expression remained wary, but not all that aggressive, which was almost odd. Kovial had started to move around behind Dephithus, perhaps to help Darkin take him down. If they tried, Dephithus did not think he could put up much of a fight as he stood, still weak and unarmed.

  “For the soldier in the garden? I suppose I should have expected that.” Dephithus tried to keep his tone conversational, though with a tightness of remorse that did not require much acting. Displaying his frustration and impatience now might set off the wrong chain of events.

  “Also, for the kidnapping and murder of Myara and Amahna,” Suva added.

  Amahna. There was someone who needed murdering. To be blamed for her kidnapping of Myara was almost more than he could calmly take, however. “I am not guilty on either count, but I can’t blame you if you don’t believe that. I need help and you three are my best chance.”

  Darkin gave a derisive snort. “Doesn’t bode well for you, does it?”

  “Daemon’s blood! Have you seen the scar on your back?” Kovial’s outburst startled all of them and, for a tense moment, Darkin’s hand closed on his sword hilt.

  Trying to break the tension of the moment Dephithus rolled his eyes with a show of mock exasperation. “I find it extremely difficult to turn my head at that angle actually.”

  He glanced back at Kovial who shrugged and grinned sheepishly. A little nervous laugh escaped Suva, plainly against her will given the sour look she followed it up with.

  Darkin sighed, his hand leaving his sword hilt after a few more tense seconds. “We’ll hear you out, but we still might find that bounty more appealing than your story.”

  Dephithus locked eyes with Darkin. Strangely enough, he was confident in that moment that this man would not betray his trust. “That’s all I can ask.”

  “Kovial, let him ride with you. There is an old abandoned house in the woods. We can talk there.”

  Dephithus turned to Kovial, noticing his wide-eyed look and the way his horse bunched as though ready for attack.

  “I can walk,” he offered.

  Suva grinned and moved her mount up beside him. Her eyes were no less predatory than he remembered, but he was less wary of her than he had once been. She offered down her arm.

  “C’mon, you can ride with me. If I am going to get no bounty out of this I should at least get a warm back.”

  Dephithus relented to a smile as he put his foot in the stirrup she left open for him, took hold of her arm, and swung up behind her. The whole movement caused a mild complaint in his back, but the smile felt good enough that he barely noticed. It was hard to feel good when he knew that Myara and his child were being held as prisoners. Still, if he drove himself mad with guilt he would never have a chance of helping them and he suspected the negative emotions would only strengthen the daemon-seed. Wrapping his arms around Suva’s waist, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to enjoy the motion of the horse.

  They told him the cabin they rode to had been left abandoned after a pack of daemon-dogs came through the windows in the night and killed the family who had lived there. The bodies had long since been removed and burned and the few valuables stolen even before that.

  The three of them told Dephithus many things that were almost too horrible to believe. The daemons had increased dramatically in number throughout the region and people were coming up dead from such attacks almost daily. Kip and Lanz had been two of the first found dead within the walls of Elysium from such an attack.

  Faced with this mass mutilation of his people, High Lord Mythan had begun sending out troops to hunt down and destroy what daemons they could find. Mythan had since stepped down from the throne, passing his empire over to his brother’s son, Allondis. None of them would go into detail on why Mythan had stepped down, or who and how many had died in these daemon hunts. All they would say was that it was not getting better and that people had started siding with the daenox as priests and soldiers more and more often.

  “Now, what do you have to say that will convince us not to take you in for that handsome bounty?”

  Before responding Dephithus looked askance at the several medals on Darkin’s uniform. Darkin only shrugged in response and waited for him to begin. Dephithus considered all three of them as they faced each other over a table belonging to a now dead family. Looking at the new age in their eyes and the patient expressions he began to feel a bit more hopeful.

  “There is a lot that has happened that I think you would have trouble believing so I will try to keep it brief. My aunt, Amahna, is like one of those daenox priests you mentioned. She is the one who left this scar on my back. She left me for dead and took Myara. I don’t know why,” Dephithus deflected quickly when Darkin opened his mouth to ask. “What I do know is that I must go after her, but I can’t do it half-naked, starving, and unarmed.”

  “So, you want us to get you into the palace for supplies.”

  Dephithus nodded while Darkin eyed him somewhat skeptically.

  “Where have you been the last four and a half years?”

  Dephithus’s chest tightened so much he could hardly breathe for a few minutes. “Four and a half years!”

  They all looked puzzled by his reaction, but he could not help himself. A lot had happened since he had been gone, but he never dreamed it could have been that long.

  “I almost died,” he said finally. “A stranger took me in and healed me, but I was unconscious for a long time. Longer tha
n I realized.”

  Darkin glanced at the other two and they shrugged, willing to take his explanation at face value for now.

  “What makes you think Myara is still alive?”

  “She has to be.”

  All three were silent for a long moment. True to form, it was Darkin who finally spoke, the other two deferring to his leadership. “There is a lot you’re not telling us. In fact, I would venture that you’ve barely skimmed the surface.”

  Dephithus shifted uncomfortably. What else could he really tell them without sounding crazed?

  Darkin chewed at his lower lip for a few seconds, then his eyes narrowed a hint. “Last time we spoke there was madness in your eyes. Where did that go?”

  Dephithus met Darkin’s gaze and took a deep breath before answering. “That is still here, it’s just sleeping.”

  Darkin looked pensive. He was clearly working something over in his head. After a few minutes he turned to Kovial and eyed him critically. “We’ll need your uniform. You’re closer to his size.”

  Suva shoved back from the table, showing her first protest to the situation with a touch of drama. “This is madness. We’ll be caught and imprisoned.”

  “No, we won’t.”

  Dephithus nodded his agreement as Darkin spoke. There was no reason to involve all of them.

  “I will get him in and out alone. All I need is Kovial’s uniform.” He focused on Dephithus now. “I will get you in as far as the stables, from that point, you’re on your own until you meet me back there. If you get caught, none of us ever saw you.”

  “Friends appear in the strangest places,” Dephithus mused as Kovial tossed a glare around to each of them before stomping into the tiny bedroom to strip off his uniform.

  Darkin gave Dephithus a calculated look. “Don’t push it. If I had any sense I would be turning you in and I still might if you aren’t careful.”

  “Then why don’t you?” Suva snapped.

  For the briefest of moments Dephithus saw a hint of sorrow in Darkin’s eyes, then he shrugged and offered up a crooked grin. “It’s more exciting this way.”

  Suva looked doubtful, but she said nothing.

  “Go kill something, Suva, we need some blood.”

  Suva grinned then and left them, pleased to have a purpose. A crash of thunder shook the floor as she slammed the door behind her. Darkin looked up and smiled after her then stepped around the corner into the bedroom.

  “You’re going to ruin my uniform,” Kovial lamented from the other room, though his tone was resigned.

  “It won’t be the first one you’ve lost. Just have them fit a new one.” Stepping back out into the main room Darkin threw the uniform to Dephithus. “We’ll rip it up a bit and rub some blood on it. The gates open for the dead without question these days. It happens too often for them to get suspicious and with this storm rolling in they probably won’t even stop us long enough to recognize me.”

  Dephithus shook his head at the misery of the world he had returned to. Before he left it this chaos had just been starting. At least he knew now that the world would always keep on without him, though it did not seem to fare well in his absence. A flash of lightening reflected off the broken glass in and around the windows as Dephithus began to change. Before he was finished dressing Darkin pulled his knife and started some tears in the fabric. Dephithus was a touch broader through the chest than Kovial, so Darkin made a point of ripping down from his right shoulder to the bottom of his ribcage.

  Stepping back, Darkin grinned. “Dashing. Now for a little blood.”

  Almost as though cued, Suva burst through the door with a rabbit dangling from one hand. Dephithus grimaced as the creature twitched weakly. The blood they needed was draining out fast.

  Darkin scowled as he took the animal from her. “Could you have wasted any more blood?”

  Suva narrowed her eyes at him. “It isn’t as if they are easy to find in the middle of a storm. Next time you can hunt and I’ll help with the undressing. As it is, I missed all the fun.” She gestured towards Dephithus as she finished.

  Darkin rolled his eyes at her before approaching Dephithus with his bloody rabbit. While he helped Darkin spread the blood, Dephithus eyed Suva who was scowling at the window. Kovial had still not emerged from the bedroom, even though Darkin had given him the pants Dephithus was wearing.

  “Do you three get along this well all of the time?”

  Darkin grinned. “It’s love.”

  A sarcastic laugh escaped from the back room and Suva snorted derisively. Dephithus and Darkin shared an amused glance and resumed their work. Help did come in strange forms sometimes and Dephithus could not keep from wondering when luck had turned his way. More importantly, how long would it stay around?

  “Perfect.” Darkin tossed the mangled rabbit to Suva who caught it with a scowl. “Let’s go.”

  Darkin was right about getting through the gates.

  Both the guards passed them on with weary directions to take the body to the stables and report it in the morning. Dephithus was appalled when Darkin described it to the guards as “just another daemon attack” and assured them he would bring a replacement out within the hour. At first Dephithus expected a harsh reaction to this callous manner, but the first guard seemed too tired to care and the second responded with disinterest. Were they losing soldiers so quickly that one more was just another nameless body among the masses? For an instant, at the inner gates Dephithus almost forgot he was supposed to be dead and caught himself as he opened his mouth to speak. Luckily the small movement went unnoticed.

  Getting to the palace was likely to be just as easy. Darkin said that no one wandered outside if they did not have to at night because of the daemon attacks. He warned Dephithus to be careful and gave him his boot knife for some small degree of defense.

  Dephithus gave the inadequate weapon a dubious look. “Better than nothing I suppose.”

  As he turned to leave from their spot in the shadows near the show stables, Darkin stopped him. “One more warning. If you get caught, don’t come this way for help. Dead men can’t point fingers, and I won’t give you the chance to implicate me in your pleas for a merciful sentence.”

  Dephithus nodded. If there was any one place he could not fault Darkin it was in his frankness. Not once had he failed to call a thing for what it was.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  Getting in to the palace unseen was a challenge he and Myara had taken on hundreds of times throughout their childhood. There was an old stairwell obscured by some bushes that lead from outside into the cold storage under the kitchen. The kitchen itself was usually busy well into the night hours and often the first to start up again when morning drew near. This made things a little riskier, but rarely was there a reason to enter the cold storage once the evening meal was done.

  At some point someone had placed a lock on the slanted door, but the old boards gave way easily to the prying of the dagger. Whether or not he had any other purpose for it, Dephithus reminded himself to thank Darkin for the little weapon. Once inside he walked to the top of the stairs on the other side of the storage room and listened at the door into the kitchen for some time, counting the voices and searching for patterns in their movements. Time began to tick away, grating his nerves while he stood there alone with no one to help make a game of it. Only two people were speaking, and sound of movement came from over near the big sinks along the far wall. Drawing in a shaky breath—there was so much more to fear than a slap on the hand this time—Dephithus opened the door a crack.

  Two younger serving girls were cleaning up evening dishes and gossiping. Their manner was more subdued than one might expect of young ladies in their station, but they appeared engrossed none-the-less. Dephithus pushed open the door only as much as he had to and slipped out, darting into the shadows after easing it shut behind him. From then on it was easy. Simple patience while waiting in the shadows got him past the patrolling guards to his room. As he bolted to the door he exp
erienced a moment of panic. What if it had been locked up or someone else was using it?

  The handle clicked down and the door opened. Dephithus entered and stood in the dark, listening until he was sure no one was sleeping there. Carefully, he pulled a candle out of one of the sconces and lit it off the one outside his door then closed himself into the familiar space. Nothing had been moved. It was almost like he was returning after a day rather than several years. It was tempting to linger and remember how good things had been once. Still, there was no time. He changed into a clean, properly fitted uniform and stuffed the torn and bloodied one into a pack. In a separate pack he stuffed some other clothes and then donned his belt and a standard Legion issue dagger. Lastly, he dug out his stash of coin for visits to town and pushed the pouch it was in down into his clothes.

  From his room, Dephithus made his way to the library. There was one more thing he needed. If he was to go to the Dunues Mountains he needed to know how to get there and there were map books in the library. If he was fortunate, one might even have a map showing the location of this cave system near Kithin that Vanuthan spoke of. Any information at all would be better than what he currently had to go on.

  There were two candles burning in the library when he entered, set within a circle of high-backed chairs. The candles were down to almost nothing, and their light was minimal. He was reasonably sure after listening for a few minutes that no one else was in the big room now. Next to all the chairs in the circle were stacks of books. Dephithus stopped at the edge and knelt by one of these stacks. They were all books from the archives. It must have been Mythan’s research group and, judging by the dust on the books, the group had not met here in some time. Odd that they should leave it setup in this manner almost as if the research and the library itself had been forgotten. And yet… there were lit candles.

  Dephithus stepped into the circle, moving cautiously towards the table in the center.

  “Dephithus.”

  He jumped, turning to face the figure hidden in the shadows of the chair he had just stepped past.