Androkom’s eyes opened and he sat up. “I’m awake,” he said. “I didn’t want him to know.”
“Have you already thought of a way to escape?” Shandrazel asked him.
“No. You?”
“Not yet,” Shandrazel said, trying to turn his head. “My field of vision is limited. Tell me everything you see.”
“You, mostly, the pool and the wheel.The chains holding me, of course. There are two pairs of manacles, one for my wings, one for my legs. They run through iron rings in the wall. They look well made. There are a few lanterns on the other side of the room. My tail’s free but I can’t reach anything of use.”
To demonstrate, he pulled himself as far from the wall as the chains would allow and thrust his hips forward, his tail snaking between his legs and stretching out about a yard across the pool.
“Can you touch my cage with your tail?” Shandrazel asked. “If we can get it swaying enough to bang the ceiling, perhaps we could break the bars.”
Androkom stretched, but his tail failed to reach the cage by several feet.
“Just as well,” Androkom said. “If we did break the bars, you’d only plummet into the acid. There’s not enough distance for your wings to catch the air.”
Shandrazel stared into the acrid ebony fluid beneath him. The stench made his nostrils water. He rubbed his snout as much as he could against the cool, smooth glass. The motion pulled one of the delicate feathers that adorned his snout free. It drifted slowly downward. Against the perfect blackness of the pool, it seemed to fall forever, into a void, until it touched the surface. Then, with a hiss, it vanished into nothingness.
“HERE!” JANDRA SAID, raising papers over her head. “I can’t believe it! After all these hours!”
Bitterwood rushed to her side and snatched the papers from her hand. The cover page read: “An Inventory of Human Slaves Captured in the Village of Christdale.”
The first page contained a list of male children. He recognized the names, but one name was missing. What had happened to Adam? He turned the page and saw a list of names of women, and beside each was marked their fate. The widow Tate: dead in transit. His neighbor’s wife, Dorla: sold to a noble dragon from the Isle of Horses. Then Recanna! Ruth! Mary! All had a “K” marked next to their names.
“What does this mean?” he asked, pointing at the mark. “Please tell me it doesn’t mean ‘killed.’”
“It means ‘Kitchen,’” Jandra said, looking over his shoulder. “They weren’t sold at auction, but were kept by Albekizan to be put to work in the kitchens.”
She took a closer look at the names next to Bitterwood’s fingers. All this time they’d searched for the name of his village; he hadn’t told her the names of his family. Her mouth went dry.
“You can’t mean…” Bitterwood’s face broke into a look of joy. “They’re here! My family is within these walls!”
Jandra didn’t answer. She turned away from him. Perhaps the names were only a coincidence. Perhaps this was a different family. Perhaps…
Bitterwood turned around, the smile falling from his lips. “What?”
“It’s… I knew them,” Jandra said, still with her back to him.
“Knew? What happened to them? Why won’t you look at me?”
Jandra spun around. “Because they’re dead! Every human who worked in the palace is dead. Albekizan ordered them killed in retaliation the day after you killed Bodiel.”
The papers dropped from Bitterwood’s hands, fluttering to the floor around him like dying leaves.
ZEEKY WOKE TO the sound of voices from below. She had run to the closest building she could find after the dragon dropped her, and spent the day hiding in the attic, waiting for things to calm down so that she could sneak back to the barn.
But during the day, more residents had arrived in the Free City, and it was her bad luck that out of hundreds of empty buildings, some of the new arrivals had picked the building she hid inside to make their home.
It was dark outside. What time was it? Something about the smell of the air hinted that it wouldn’t be long now before the dawn.
The words of the men speaking in the room beneath her were difficult to make out until she heard a now familiar name: Kamon.
“You can’t mean it,” the first voice said.
“I saw him with my own eyes,” said the second. “I would have killed him then but he was surrounded by a dozen Kamonites.”
“I’ll stand with you,” the first voice said. “As will my brothers. Kamon will pay for his poisonous lies.”
The conversation was dropped suddenly as a loud bang shook the house. Someone had kicked in the door.
“Humans!” a dragon snarled. “Wake up! You must go to the square! Albekizan will address you!”
The men raised their voices in protest until a whip cracked, silencing them.
Suddenly, the trap door to the attic flew open and the beaked head of an earth-dragon popped through, looking straight at Zeeky.
“Get down here,” he commanded.
There was no exit save for the hole the dragon was stood in. Luckily, she was small and dragons were slow. She leapt forward over the dragon’s shoulder, sliding down his spine as he uselessly grabbed behind his back, trying to catch her. She grabbed his tail, swinging her feet down to land in a running position. But her feet stopped just inches from the floor. The full weight of her body hung by her collar. She twisted around to see a second earth- dragon holding her at arm’s length, looking at her as if she were some awful bug.
BLASPHET WHEELED OVER the scene below. It was early morning; the sun was just peeking over the eastern horizon. All of the residents of the Free City had been gathered in the square, packed in tightly by the guards that stood in thick columns in the adjoining streets. They looked groggy, disoriented. Blasphet’s research had taught him that humans were most sluggish and compliant in the predawn hours. Apparently, his brother knew this as well.
Toward the front of the crowd, a large platform had been hastily erected overnight. The platform was surrounded by dark-green, heavily armored earth-dragons-nearly the entire unit of the Black Silences-separating the crowd from the platform by rows three dragons deep. On the unpainted boards of the impromptu stage stood Albekizan, looking too smug and satisfied for Blasphet’s comfort.
Behind Albekizan stood Tanthia, her eyes dark and sunken with depression, a look that Blasphet found quite attractive in a female.A heavy wooden post protruded from the center of the stage next to the king; beside this stood Pertalon, who was laboring to chain the captive Bitterwood with his back to the post and his arms stretched high above his head. Bitterwood’s wrists were fastened to an iron ring, leaving his toes barely touching the platform. Completing the group on the dais were the hunter, Zanzeroth, and Kanst, dressed in his full ceremonial armor. With a turn of his wings and a rustle of scales, Blasphet dropped to the platform to complete the assembly.
Albekizan didn’t acknowledge Blasphet’s arrival. Instead he checked Bitterwood’s chains as a leather strap was placed around the prisoner’s head. He then tied the strap around the post in such a manner as to ensure that the human couldn’t look away from the crowd.
The crowd murmured in speculation. Blasphet noted one voice in particular in which he could recognize madness, always an interesting quality.
“The prophecy!” the madman shouted. “It is as I foretold! Bitterwood must suffer this hour so that we can be free!”
Small chance of that, Blasphet thought.
“Well, Brother,” Blasphet said. “Today’s your big day. Tell me, do you intend to kill him quickly? Or perhaps make it last hours, as if that will bring release from these endless days of mourning he has inflicted upon you?”
“His fate will be prolonged,” the king said. He moved behind the post and reached his claws around, placing them on Bitterwood’s face.
“Do your worst,” Bitterwood said, though Blasphet’s trained ear could hear the deep current of fear flowing beneath his brave words. “I don’t fear death!”
“Nor should you,” King Albekizan said. With his sharp claws he grabbed the skin above and below the captive’s eyes and forced them open. “For it is not your death we are here to witness. This is a public execution.”
Blasphet felt the scales along his back rise.
The king continued. “You’ll watch as my troops slaughter this mass before you, an unspeakable tableau of gore
