“My dear Princess, you’ve hit the anvil squarely,” Cole responded with a hint of mockery in his tone. “The High King is exactly who my queen hopes to attract with such lovely bait.”
“Wheen he comes, yee’ll regret thes affront.”
Cole laughed, poured a dollop of water haphazardly over her face, and then tied the filthy sack back over her head. He gave a whistle and the covered tinker’s wagon they were riding in lurched forward.
It’s just a dream, Rosa said to herself as she sat up. Looking around, she realized that it had been just a dream. She wasn’t jostling along in the back of the wagon with a pale-skinned wizard, but neither was she lying in the down four-poster bed in her mother’s Seaward palace. She was in a circular chamber at the top of one of the Dragon Queen’s lofty towers-the same place she had been for days and days on end.
She had all but given up on High King Mikahl’s rescue. The first few days she half expected him to come swooping in on his magical horse to save her, but night after night she cried herself to sleep, each tear carrying away with it a small amount of hope.
He was afield in Valleya, she knew, dealing with her uncle, King Broderick. She understood that he might not even know she had been taken yet. If he did, he couldn’t possibly know where she was being held. These realizations became clearer as the days wore on. It occurred to her that, if she really was bait, then Queen Shaella would eventually have to dangle her in front of her prey in order to draw him there. The longer Rosa spent in the tower, the less she was sure she wanted that to happen. Even without her dragon, Queen Shaella was a powerful force. Rosa didn’t want Mikahl to become a victim too.
A soft humming sound told Rosa that the strange lift was coming up through the hole in the center of the plank floor. Food and wine would be on it. She would have to get it from the lift quickly or it would go back down, and she would go hungry. Several times she had been tempted to climb onto the platform and ride it down, but fear had kept her from it. Surely the Dragon Queen had her slimy lizards guarding the tower’s exits.
To her surprise, it was more than just food on the lift this time. The hard but beautiful looking woman who’d tricked a dragon and stolen the greatest kingdom in the realm was standing there looking at Rosa with a curious smile on her scarred face.
“He’s going to keel yew, jest like he deed Pael,” Rosa snapped, surprising herself with the heat of her voice.
“I’m sure he will try, love,” Queen Shaella responded. In her hand she held a pair of heavy shears, the kind saddlers use to cut through thick leather strapping. The jab about the demise of Shaella’s father didn’t seem to faze her.
“He’s close, you know,” Shaella taunted. “Your hero and that kingdom-less fool Jarrek have been harassing King Ra’Gren as of late. Ra’Gren had to kill a hundred of his Wildermont innocents to quell their meddling. He beheaded them himself, right in the market square at O’Dakahn.” She spoke of these things as if she were talking about a poorly chosen gown that a rival lady had worn to the ball. “The question is will this glorified squire come for you at all?” Shaella stepped off the lift and strolled her way around the ill-kept room where her father used to keep his messenger hawks and pigeons. “A king has to think about his people first, you know,” she laughed. “If he has a kingdom left to rule that is. This one might just decide that your life isn’t worth it.”
“Yeer wrong!” Rosa shouted, with new tears rolling down her cheeks. She hoped Shaella was wrong, but couldn’t find much confidence in the thought.
“Don’t worry, dear,” Shaella said, taking Rosa’s hand in hers. Before the young Princess could pull away Shaella cut half of the little finger from Rosa’s right hand off with the shears. Rosa squealed in agony and clutched at the missing digit. Blood surged freely out of the wound and down her arm. Shaella laughed and quickly pocketed the finger she had snipped. “With this little bit I’ll make sure he comes and finds you.”
Rosa retched while trying to wrap part of her dress around the bleeding stump. She’d never felt this helpless in all her life. The room began to spin around her. Pain throbbed through her arm into her shoulder. Then her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she fainted on the floor.
In the empty plane of blackness that held Gerard, he savored the taste of the creature known as Kraw.
Days ago he had approached the great hell-born demon and was mocked when he asked for its help. Gerard’s pent up hate, and his ill-formed dragon-born instincts overwhelmed him then. He attacked Kraw viciously. The devilish thing rained blow after blow down upon Gerard’s plated skin to little or no effect. Kraw’s demonic spells of hellfire and lightning did even less damage. Gerard tore into the demon like a starving dog into a plate of fresh beef. His own magical attacks of blinding white light, and his terribly sharp teeth and claws overcame the devil in a matter of moments. Soon, Gerard was wallowing in a great lake of thick black blood, and relishing the feel of the tingling power his soul was absorbing.
He was Kraw now. He was Gerard too, but Kraw was a part of him. Each and every bite of the devil’s flesh he swallowed increased his strength. No longer just a disfigured dragon-blooded beast with a demon trapped in his mind, he was now a force to be reckoned with. He was as much demon as he was man, and as much dragon as he was demon. As his power grew, so did his thirst for it. He wanted to be free from this hell. Kraw’s dark knowledge flooded his mind and filled his molten veins with raw power. There were places down here where Gerard could feast, he learned from the hell-born essence. Places where he might gain the power he needed to escape. There were lesser demons he could send to the world above to help Shaella. There were so many possibilities that he found himself tearing savagely into what was left of his meal so that he might move on to another. Already the red-robed priests who worshipped Kraw were on their way to Westland. They would do Gerard’s bidding now. They would do all they could to help him and Shaella be together again. He would expend everything that he was to make sure of it, and he would devour anything that got in his way.
Chapter Twenty – One
Mikahl couldn’t believe he was actually back in Westland. It would have been an emotional moment had he not been so wracked with nerves. He couldn’t understand how the people of Southport were going about their business as if nothing were amiss. There were scaly green zard-men working among the humans, and no one seemed to mind. They were doing the harder labor that the men who’d been drafted into King Glendar’s army had once done. The bustling city seemed to be thriving, and everywhere Mikahl looked he saw the yellow and black lightning star banner fluttering in the breeze.
Mikahl, Maxrell Tyne, and four Highwander soldiers, all dressed in the garb of Dakaneese sell-swords, only garnered the occasional glance from the people. Mikahl was torn between finding Lord Gregory and searching out Princess Rosa. He knew that if he could find Lord Gregory he would gain an adviser who understood both politics and strategy. Lord Gregory could also help him figure out what to do about Rosa, and the Dragon Queen. He had no idea where the Princess had been taken, but he had some information about Lord Gregory’s whereabouts from the mercenary, Tyne, so his course was decided for him. He wasn’t sure Princess Rosa was even in Westland. With Queen Shaella wanting his head so badly, he was keenly aware of his surroundings. He only hoped the Lion Lord hadn’t been caught by the Queen’s soldiers while snooping around looking for Lady Trella.
According to Tyne, if Lady Trella wasn’t a Dakaneese captive, she was most likely a refugee on the Isle of Salazar. A few dozen nobles and merchants had gotten word before Shaella’s attack and had fled Westland by ship. Salazar had taken them in. The Westland nobles that King Ra’Gren successfully ransomed had been sent to the island as well. Tyne knew this because he had escorted a few of them there himself.
Tyne spoke to a man who saw Grommen riding around in a fancy carriage with a secretive person of wealth. The two had stayed at an inn that Mikahl remembered as the Golden Lion, but was now called the Dragon’s Doorstep. Tyne said he hoped to find them still there, but if not, he assured Mikahl he would gather as much information as he could. Mikahl saw no sign of a fancy carriage as they approached the upscale place. When they gained the entrance, Tyne suggested that Mikahl and the other men wait outside. Mikahl had been the King of Westland’s personal squire for several years, and Lord Gregory’s before that. He didn’t want to be recognized. Against his better judgment, he agreed, knowing that if Tyne decided to betray him, he would be in a serious bind.
