The Dragon Engine (3 page)

The others, though?

Beetrax glanced at Sakora. She was staring at him, cool as anything, eyes unreadable, lips moist. She exercised her wrists, circling her fists and then pushing her shoulders back to stretch muscles and tension her spine.
By all the gods, that's one amazing specimen of a woman,
thought Beetrax, momentarily distracted.

Sakora smiled, closing her eyes. She caught images of his thoughts, flashing at her like flickers of starlight.

You'd better believe it
, she projected back, not quite sure if he would be receptive to the thought, but willing to give it a try. She opened her eyes and smiled. Beetrax frowned, and turned to Dake and Jonti.

They were gazing into one another's eyes, and there was something wrong there. Beetrax tilted his head. They were supposed to be arguing with him, him trying to convince them, but... there was something else. Subtle. Out of context. Beetrax knew he was a big boorish lout, an axeman with a love of frothing ale, long-legged women and waking up in a pool of his own sick. But he was, surprisingly, well-versed in the art of the subtle. He could read people, and read them well. He was surprisingly intuitive, a fact which had probably gotten him into double the number of tavern brawls than should have been normal for one of his character. But now...
now
he couldn't read his old friends Dake and Jonti. There was something they were not telling him. They were holding back. Something serious.

Talon broke the silence, as Beetrax knew he would. “When do you propose we leave?”

“In a week's time, from the front doorstep of this very tavern.”

“I'm in,” said Talon, brushing back his long blond hair. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a hot young brunette warming my bed sheets, and I simply haven't
enjoyed him
enough
to satisfy my ego for one evening.”

He stood, a quick hard movement, and turned to leave.

“Are you not going to wait and see who else volunteers?” said Beetrax, bushy brows forming a thunderous ridge.

“Not necessary. They'll all come.” Talon swaggered off, reaching the foot of the stairs, where he turned for dramatic effect, tossing back his hair just a little. “After all... why would they not?” He disappeared, and Beetrax looked around at the others.

“I knew he'd be the easy one. He always was.”

“I didn't realise you two had got it on that way.” Sakora winked.

Beetrax reddened. “Ha! He wishes, the spindly little maggot. Anyways. What do the rest of you think? Lillith? You recognise the healing potential, the quest for knowledge from something like this?”

Lillith considered Beetrax, then ran both hands down the olive skin of her face. “I recognise the healing potential you have for yourself becoming possibly immortal. Is that what you want, Beetrax? Really?”

“I want,” said Beetrax, resting his hand on his chin in a studied philosophical pose, “ten wives, a hundred children, a warehouse full of fine wine, enough money to live like a king, and the chance to live for a thousand fucking years, my dear. Yes. I am that vain, I am that greedy, I am that selfish, and I am that hedonistic.”

“And the prospects for all the other people of Vagandrak?”

“When I'm immortal, you can do what the hell you like with the gems,” grinned Beetrax.

“I always thought your selfishness was an affected air,” said Lillith, with considered gentility.

Beetrax deliberated on this. “No,” he said, and turned to Sakora. “What about you, O unarmed combat expert with the bad social grace to get her stinking feet out at a party gathering? Eh? You up for a bit of an adventure with old Uncle Beetrax?”

“Although I would deeply love to reject your proposal on the grounds of spending any kind of trip with
you
being worse than an eternity of torture at the hands of the Torture Priests from the Church of Hate, I must confess: a) I have become complacent with my wealth, my lack of personal challenge, and a certain growing need to push myself once more to the limits of human physical endurance, and b) I have studied a hundred different combat systems from a multitude of cultures. This would give me a chance, perhaps, to broaden my knowledge base.”

“You seek knowledge?” said Beetrax. “Bah! Well, anyway, whatever does it for you. Glad to have you with us. I know your, er, bare feet will be wonderful in any attack situations we might find ourselves in. Unless they're wearing armour of course!” He slapped his thigh and roared with laughter.

“Any time you wish to dance the cobbles, my big and excessively hairy friend, all you need to do is lead the way outside.”

“Hah! Maybe one day, little lady. But not now. I have a quest to prepare! In fact, damn, I have a contract for us to sign. Lillith, be a love and nip upstairs, drag that wastrel Talon down here, by his foolish long hair if necessary.”

Lillith growled something at Beetrax, but stood and moved to the stairwell. Her open annoyance was irrelevant. Beetrax had already turned towards Dake and Jonti. Jonti was pale, a weak smile on her lips. Dake was holding both her hands in his own.

“I suppose we're going to have that big argument now, eh?” beamed Beetrax. There was a certain optimistic rivalry in his expression.

“No,” said Dake, voice gentle. And as Beetrax watched, he realised his old friend's eyes had filled with tears. “We've agreed to come with you on your foolish adventure looking for diamonds of immortality.”

“Really?” Surprise, forcing Beetrax's bushy eyebrows up into an arch. “For the gold? The jewels? The fame and the fortune? To explore long lost caverns and have a bloody damn great fun time doing it?”

Dake gave a sorrowful shake of his head. “No,” he almost whispered. He glanced at Jonti, who gave a single nod of her head. Dake fixed Beetrax with a powerful stare. “Jonti is dying,” he said, his words emerging like cursed charms on a river of sorrow. “She doesn't have long left to live. No amount of money can save her. The best physicians in Vagandrak have given up trying – that's why you are all here, for this reunion, this party. We'd invited you here to tell you the news. This was supposed to be our last get together before... the inevitable happens.”

Beetrax literally stumbled into silence. His mouth opened once, then closed again with an audible clack of teeth.

“So yes,” said Jonti, voice soft. “We'll come with you, Beetrax. Because I'm out of options.” She looked up, and gave him a beautiful smile, her eyes full of tears. “In one month from now, I'll be dead. And there's nothing I can do about it.”

I
t was the early hours
. The fire, once a roaring inferno, a fireball to equal the pits of the Furnace itself, had calmed, flowing down into molten embers which glowed, and pulsed, like fireflies gathered over a rotting corpse in the Rokroth Marshes.

The men and women who stood around the table were sombre indeed. Beetrax had unrolled a thick vellum parchment, on which, in surprisingly neat script, he had drawn up the contract. One huge hand held the scroll in place. His eyes moved around the table, meeting each and every member, until they came to rest on Jonti Tal.

“This is our contract,” he said, with great authority. “Each man and woman here should sign their name, or mark.”

“I don't understand why we have to sign it,” said Sakora, voice silk. “We all know one another; we all trust one another.”

“We all sign,” rumbled Beetrax, eyes filled with a sudden passion; a blaze of anger and strength. “We find the Dragon Heads. We save Jonti. Or we die trying.” His gaze challenged every person individually, and Dake reached forward, dipping the quill in ink and scrawling his name.

“We die trying,” he agreed.

One by one, they signed, then moved to Jonti and kissed her cheek. Tears were flowing, and there were hugs, and kisses, and more tears. Finally, Beetrax took the quill and gave his broad, untidy scrawl. He looked around.

“You are my brothers and sisters,” he said, voice choking, “and this contract binds us. We will save Jonti; by the Seven Sisters and the Holy Mother, I swear it will be so!”

“
T
he Mountain gives
… and the Mountain takes away,” said Skalg, voice a rumble, as his woollen trousers dropped, gathering around his ankles, to reveal his engorged, throbbing, purple-headed cock.

Skalg was considered small in stature, even for a dwarf, but immensely powerful; broad of shoulder –
twisted of shoulder
– one dropping perhaps six inches below the other thanks to a crushed and bent spine suffered during a tunnel collapse in his younger days, and whereby the subsequent growth of disjointed bone had turned him into a hunchback. Oh, how he'd thought he was going to die in that cursed tunnel, way down deep below the Five Havens, as the world shook and screamed and collapsed around him, rocks thundering and crashing, dust choking, Skalg slammed to the floor by a lump of gold ore the size of a horse. The
irony.
His first genuine, incredible, life-changing find – and the lode pretty much nearly killed him.

Skalg blinked away memories of pain and suffering. And he gave a slow, wide grin. Those days were gone, now. How things had changed!

“Come here, my pretty. Don't be frightened.”

He shuffled forward a little, kicking out of his trews and struggling with the glittering diamond buttons on his black and purple tunic; this, he tossed aside, to stand fully naked, his gait unusual thanks to his hunched back, but his broad face with its neat black beard showing no shame or embarrassment. How could it?

Skalg was the most powerful dwarf in the Five Havens.

“Come here, pretty one,” he said, and gestured with his finger.

The young female dwarf, small, slender, and wearing nothing more than a hazy gauze robe of silver chiffon with woven edge-strands of gold wire, cringed back in terror. Her smooth round features grimaced, and her eyes were like those of a frightened gazelle. “I- I do not wish to upset Your Eminence,” she managed.

Skalg gave a wave of his hand. “Listen, girl,” he snapped. “Who am I?” He patted his hairy chest with an open palm.

“You are First Cardinal Skalg, High Priest of the Church of Hate.”

“Am I not the most powerful dwarf in the Five Havens?”

“As well as the king…”

“Yes yes, alongside Irlax, of course, is what I meant. But am I not all-powerful? Like a god, in fact?”

The young dwarf, eyes wide, licked her red painted lips and nodded quickly, several times.

“You are very powerful, First Cardinal. So I know what I must do.”

Skalg took a threatening step forward, leering at the young female. “Then get on the bed and worship your god,” he said.

T
ime passed
. Servants had recently left after relighting candles and filling a bath full of warm water scented with lemon leaves, gathered from the world above; overland;
very
expensive.

Skalg lay on one elbow, staring at the quivering back of the young dwarf sharing his bed. Her skin was smooth and white, her shoulders narrower than he would have liked, but her hips wonderfully broad. Good, honest, childbearing hips. Hips to deliver an army of fine young sons!

Skalg felt himself begin to stir below, and quelled his rising passion. They'd already coupled twice, and now she lay, quivering, and sighing occasionally, as he reached out and stroked the smooth skin of her back. Like velvet, it was. Soothing to the touch.

Ah, the pleasures and privileges of religious office…

“Kajella, wasn't it?”

“Y- Yes, Cardinal Skalg.”

“Did I please you, Kajella?”

There was a pause,
that
pause, the one which Skalg always found
so
entertaining – as they lay in unhappiness, attempting to formulate a lie in their tiny, infantile minds. Minds like donkeys, he mused. Minds like…
common people.

“You pleased me very much, Cardinal Skalg.” It was spoken with a considered neutrality that Skalg found impressive; highly controlled, for one so young.

“How old are you, Kajella?”

“Seventeen winters have passed since I was brought into this world.” She spoke slowly, her words measured and careful. She was dealing with her situation well. Her shoulders were trembling only a little.

“Ah… seventeen. That is a fine number! A breeding age, to be sure! Well then, Kajella, I shall keep you here for seventeen days, with your permission of course, for you have pleased
me
very much. Is that a situation which finds your approval, sweet Kajella?”

He grinned as he saw her muscles tense, and imagined tears rolling down her cheeks to form stains on the pillow.
Oh such sweet sorrow. I wonder what your father would think of his daughter, beautiful, pure Kajella, now nothing more than Skalg's cheap mistress to be abused and tossed aside whenever he fancied.

“That would be… my pleasure,” Kajella managed, her teeth gritted.

“Good.”

He shuffled closer, hand stroking down her arm, ignoring the murmur she emitted. He grew hard almost immediately, for Skalg was practically priapic. Whether it be females, politics or religious matters – most excited him in one way or another. His hardness pressed into her, and he heard a gasp.

“There there,” he said, grinning, “we're going to have such a wonderful night, sweet butterfly.”

S
kalg had only just finished
when the door burst open, and for a delicious, delicate moment Skalg thought this might be some enraged suitor come to claim his love, or an axe-wielding father arriving to take revenge on the plight of his daughter in the name of the church.
Oh how disappointing. It's only Granda, here with his boring face and his boring voice to deliver more bad news…

“Granda! What an outrage!” came Skalg's bored voice. “Can you not see I am in the middle of something extremely important…? Well,
fucking
something extremely important. Can you not see?”

Granda's eyes narrowed, flicking to the naked female dwarf on the bed, her embryonic, curled figure one to elicit pity in the eyes of even the hardest of dwarves; then back to Skalg. His brutal flat face showed no emotion.

“I beg your pardon, Cardinal.”

Granda, Chief Educator of the Church of Hate and Prime Protector of the Firelaw of Skaltelos, scratched his beard and frowned as Skalg disengaged, rolled from the bed, and started pulling on his black and purple robes of office.

“Yes yes, what is it?”

“There has been an attack, Cardinal.”

“What kind of attack? On an Educator? On a common, petty dwarf? On a–”

“One of our churches is burning,” said Granda, voice low.

“What?” shrieked Skalg, and still pulling on one boot, staggered comically, crab-like, towards the heavy shutters which guarded his high balcony. Skalg slammed into them, and they folded outwards, revealing…

Revealing Zvolga, the deepest of the Five Havens, the deepest of the five dwarf cities – and therefore most wealthy. It was in Zvolga that Irlax, Dwarf King, ruled from his Palace of Iron. It was the largest, the wealthiest, with the most refined and affluent citizens, and where the Church of Hate had its core buildings, its most loyal members, and of course, the stunning, thousand-yard high Cathedral of Eternal Hate. Skalg stumbled out onto the balcony carved from the very interior of the mountain itself, as was the entirety of the Blood Tower, the top five floors of which Skalg liked to call home. He hit the balcony, both palms slapping down on smooth stone, his gaze sweeping the vastness of the city chasm beneath him.

To witness Zvolga was to witness a feat of architecture so grand, there were no words available to describe the sheer vast, engineering brilliance. The whole city was part of the mountain, with perhaps half the structures carved from the interior mountain rock itself, the other half built, no,
sculpted
with the very finest engineering precision ever produced in vast acres of stone. The city swept away from Skalg's high vantage point (the highest in Zvolga, Skalg was always keen to point out when he was entertaining “important” guests), twenty thousand buildings, each of individual elegance and grandeur. Huge arched bridges connected roadways and paths, crisscrossing like spider webs in the comforting glow of the city burners – the fire-bowls. From thousands of burn portals, flames rolled gently, filling the cavernous city of Zvolga with a gentle, warm light, where long shadows highlighted the fabulous stone carvings on every house, every tower, every church, temple or palace, even on the dwarf blocks at the far end of the city away from the Palace of Iron and Cathedral of Eternal Hate.

Now, from his vantage point, where a cool, languorous breeze drifted, and he could smell a hint of sulphurous fumes from the Dragon Pits and their collector bowls and pipes, fuelling the city burners, so Skalg swept his gaze in a sudden panic, from left to right, passing the Cathedral (
oh thank the Great Dwarf Lords it wasn't the Cathedral!
) until his eyes settled on a tiny, distant inferno. Figures had formed a dwarf chain, little tiny blobs highlighted against the bright orange flames, and Skalg's face grew grim, eyebrows frowning, mouth turning into a scowl. His fists clenched on the stone parapet, and he punched downwards three times.

“How dare they?! HOW DARE THEY?!”

“Shall I order your carriage, First Cardinal?” But Skalg was beyond listening, as his rage grew inside his breast, in a beautiful parallel with the fire accelerating and consuming his Church of Hate.

“Blasphemers! Heretics! I'll fucking see them
burn
,” he hissed, spittle on his lips, soaking his beard. He suddenly seemed to gain focus and grabbed Granda, shaking the Chief Educator, a sudden move which made Granda jump. Skalg might have a twisted, hunched back, but he was immensely strong. A fact many of his enemies – now dead – had failed to take into consideration. “Who was it, Granda? Who did this to my church?”

Granda stared at Skalg with a stoic expression. Then he gave his lips a single, quick lick. The gesture of a shark.

“
Who fucking did this
?” screeched Skalg, shaking his Chief.

“There was a symbol,” said Granda, choosing his words with care. “It was painted on the church steps… in blood.”

Suddenly, Skalg's voice dropped to a growl. His eyes flickered like demon souls. There was danger there. Real psychopathy.

“What symbol?” he said.

“The one that has been plaguing you,” said Granda, words coming out in a rush. “The sign of the Army of Purity.”

Skalg's face was colder than a tomb. He opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off before he could begin.

“You dirty… filthy… stinking, crippled old bastard!” came the words, and they were soft, and feminine, and dripped with a dark honey of hate.

Skalg refocussed on Kajella. He blinked. He bared his teeth in half smile, half grimace. She was holding a small crossbow. The one he kept under the bed to deal with intruders, assassins, ex-wives…

“I see you found my secret weapon,” said Skalg, voice dry and level. “I thought you would have had enough by now.”

“You ugly, dirty, perverted, evil…
whore…
”

“No need to get personal,” said Skalg, and flicked a gaze to Granda. Granda had taken a step back. Skalg frowned. Was that a
step backwards because I'm about to leap into action,
or was it a
step backwards because now you're on your own and I don't really want to get a bolt in the neck
?

Skalg saw Granda's hand inching towards his belt, and a huge array of knives which hung in neat, oiled leather sheaths.

Kajella saw the look. The crossbow swung on Granda, but to his credit, the big dwarf did not flinch. Granda had been stabbed, burned, broken and impaled before. He was the toughest, meanest bastard Skalg had ever met. Skalg knew no crossbow quarrel would stop the killer.

Skalg relaxed a little. He forced a smile. “Kajella. Kajella! My sweet. Why are you doing this? I am the Cardinal, the fucking
First Cardinal
of the Church of Hate – appointed by the Great Dwarf Lords. Appointed by our
gods
, little lady. What you do is heresy. If you fire that crossbow, you will burn in the nine levels of the Furnace. You know this. So be a good little dwarf, and put the crossbow down.”

Reflected in the glass to either side of Kajella he watched his church burn. He breathed deeply and sank into a low, calm place. The throbbing of this slow pulse beat through his broken back; through the hunchback which tortured him now, and to the end of his days.

“I… I hate you!” she said. Injured. Embarrassed. Degraded.

Skalg lifted a hand, palm outwards.

“Don't do anything hasty,” he said.

The crossbow wavered now, swinging between Granda and Skalg, then back again. Suddenly there was a click and a whine and a
thump.
The thump of steel in flesh. Skalg's hands frantically pummelled his own belly, and came away so he could stare down in horror. But there was no blood. No stain. His head cranked left. Granda dropped to one knee. Blood poured out in a quick stream, then stopped. Drips pattered onto a glossy platter illuminated by distant orange flames.

Granda groaned.

The crossbow swung back to Skalg. He grimaced. Now there was an edge of panic to his voice.

“Come on, Kajella. What are you doing? Your father is High Born. All you have to do is serve me for a number of weeks, and your family will be
blessed
; your House will be honoured by the Church! By doing this,
this,
you bring dishonour on an ancient clan, the clan of Karik ‘y Kla. What, in the name of the fucking Great Dwarf Lords, do you think you are doing?”

“You took me as only a dwarf should take his wife,” spat Kajella, face scrunched into a snarl. “I feel dirty inside! And if my father and mother and clan allow this
wrongness
to continue, then they can all rot in the Furnace for all I care…”