Twice Drowned Dragon (The Gryphonpike Chronicles Book 2) (6 page)

“I feel no evil in this,” Azyrin said, turning the shirt in the red light.

“She has to find the shiny stuff. All this chest has is some moldering silver and what might have been a couple books. Might be some gems I can salvage from it, though.” Drake looked up from where he knelt next to the second chest, a delicately wrought but highly tarnished plate in his hands.

Makha slid into the maille with Azyrin’s help. Silvery threads extended from the sides of the armor, binding together and the whole shirt shifted slightly, adjusting to fit her broad shoulders, muscled arms, and ample chest perfectly.

“Whoa, that’s different,” Drake said.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Makha said. “Feels. . . perfect. Guess I don’t need straps.” She grinned and reached into the chest for the rest of the armor. The gauntlets adjusted to her hands as well. “Feels like the smoothest leather ever on the inside. Hope it’s strong.”

Strong? Silly humans
. I smiled and walked over to the weapon rack. Taking one of the axes from it, I moved back to Makha and smashed the blade down on her chest before anyone could react. The ancient steel shattered while Makha barely had to adjust her balance to take the blow.

“Hey, elf, a little warning before you do that?” Makha glared at me. I watched as realization hit her grey eyes and her glare turned into pleasant surprise. “That does answer that question, don’t it? I got me some new armor, I think. Anyone here object?”

“Not me,” Drake said.

“Are you even sure you can take it off?” Rahiel asked.

Makha caught the bottom edge of the maille where it draped her thighs and tugged upward. The silvery threads holding the sides together unknit as she rolled it upward. She let it drop back into place and reseal itself. “See? Just fine.” She hooked the maille hood onto the claps on the shoulders and tugged it up over her head. The scales seemed to grow, extending over her face until just her eyes showed.

“Can you breathe?” Azyrin asked, worry tingeing his voice.

“Yeah,” Makha said, her voice muffled by the scales. “Warm in here but comfortable enough.” She tugged on the hood and it receded. She let it drape down her back and bent to reattach her belt and sword sheath.

“All ooh and ahs and look at my new armor until the day it comes alive and kills us all in our sleep,” Rahiel muttered.

“Cheer up, sprite. I found a wand, I think.” Drake held up a foot-long, thin copper rod inlaid with purple stones.

Caution abandoned, Rahiel zipped across the room and swiped it from his hand. She concentrated, muttering a spell. The wand glowed faintly purple and she smiled. “Mine. Any objections?”

“I dunno. Not sure you can just take wands out of moldy chests and use them.”

“Stupid man-children should not talk of things which they know naught.”

We salvaged what we could from the rest of it, coming away with ancient coins that everyone decided could be melted down, a double handful of assorted garnets, rubies, amethysts, and even a couple diamonds cut like tear-drops, and the long sword which seemed to have retained its usefulness better than the ancient axes. The door in this room had a thick bar and proved to be the one leading back into the main chamber of the first tower. Our final act was to knock down and smash to bits the red glass chandelier as Rahiel was unwilling to leave even a shred of necromantic magic behind us.

It was decided we would return to the monastery, clean up and have a meal, and then finish the journey to Coldragon where we could bring the evidence of Master Ziarnys’s necromancy before the town council and hopefully let them hire us to deal with him.

I stepped from the keep and squinted in the sudden sunlight. The air had cleared some while we were inside and now felt more like it should; full of the scent of ripening apples and sun-warmed grasses. The rotting stench of the dragon cut through that, but the birdsong and clearing air held a promise that this place would forget the evils here eventually.

Hoofbeats drew my attention, and I pulled an arrow from my quiver with an aching arm, rolling my shoulders. I wanted a rest and a cool bath, but it wasn’t to be.

“Guess we won’t be bringing evidence before the council,” Drake said as the horse and rider came into view.

The horse’s sides heaved as the rider dragged on the reins, pulling the bay gelding to a stop.

“Thieves! Plunderers!” Master Ziarnys pointed a kid-gloved hand at us in an overly dramatic gesture. “I will kill you all for your trespasses.”

“Really? You and what dragon?” Makha had pulled her new hood up and her voice echoed slightly from behind the shimmering blue scales.

“Oh wait,” Drake continued for her. “We killed the dragon.”

“Guess it is only you then,” Rahiel said as she and Bill flew upward.

“That’s your cue, Killer,” Drake whispered as he drew his rapier.

I released my aching fingers from the string and loosed my arrow. Ziarnys threw himself from the horse and the arrow passed over his shoulder as he fell. He came up from his roll and pulled a curved knife from within his robes, chanting as he stood. Red mist rose from the grooves on the blade and coalesced into a huge glowing hand which shot toward Drake and Makha as they both closed the distance between him.

Makha’s sword slashed into the hand and splatters of red mist like ink spewed around her. Drake tried to dodge out of the way but was caught by the edge of the magic hand’s palm and thrown into the air. Another slash of Makha’s bastard sword dissipated the rest of the hand. Azyrin reached her side and they both advanced on the necromancer with blades ready, the shaman’s still gleaming gold even in the bright summer sunlight.

My second arrow caught Ziarnys in the shoulder, interrupting his chanting. His horse bolted, eyes rolling, as the ground beneath us began to shake. I took a wide stance and shot again, aiming low. My arrow sliced deep into the necromancer’s belly and he screamed.

Ghostly hands erupted from the courtyard’s already churned ground, grasping for Makha and Azyrin as they charged forward. Makha leapt into the air, attacking the hands with both shield and sword, bashing and slashing through the ghostly green flesh. Azyrin’s glowing falchion sliced and withered every hand it touched.

The necromancer crumpled to the ground, but he glared at us with madness in his bloodshot eyes. He stabbed the curved dagger into his own arm with a half-mad laugh that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

“No you don’t,” Rahiel yelled. A crackling blue bolt of energy slammed into the necromancer, engulfing him and drowning out his final screams in an intense blaze of magical fire.

Bill neighed, the sound shocked and desperate in tone. I looked up and saw Rahiel pass out, falling from the mini-unicorn’s back even as he tried to drop altitude and stay beneath her, his teeth snapping in a vain effort to catch hold of her gown or hair.

I dropped Thorn and sprinted, arms extended. The pixie-goblin dropped into my grasp, her little body bird-like in its fragile near-weightlessness. Her butterfly-esque wings were folded and her eyes, bruised looking from exhaustion, were closed, but her chest still rose and fell. She’d burned herself out.

I laid her down as gently as I could on the ground. Bill landed beside me, his pink nostrils flaring and his golden eyes full of worry. I wished I could tell him she would be all right. She had used too much energy, put everything she had into that final spell. The pixie-goblin wouldn’t be slinging spells for a few days, however.

“Is she all right?” Drake, coughing and brushing grass seed from his shirt, rushed up to where I knelt cradling Rahiel’s head in my hands.

Azyrin knelt beside me, and I gently set the pixie-goblin’s head down as the shaman laid a broad blue palm on her tiny chest.

“She will be fine,” he said. “That last spell was too much.”

“I’d say it was just enough,” Makha said. “Dunno what that unnatural bastard was up to, but I’d say Rahiel just saved our asses.”

Rahiel’s eyes fluttered open and she licked her lips. “You are welcome,” she whispered.

“Killer,” Azyrin said, looking up at me. “Think you and Fade could round up that horse and meet us at the monastery?”

I gave a slight nod, swallowing the nausea it raised, and Fade, hearing his name, materialized a short distance off.

“I bet a pot of honey would perk you up,” Drake said as the shaman lifted Rahiel onto Bill’s back.

“Two pots. Maybe three,” she slurred as the unicorn flew up into the air, maintaining a height where Azyrin could keep a hand on Rahiel’s leg, holding her in place.

Drake stepped up to the other side of the mini-corn with a laugh. “Two. If I don’t get to them first.”

I turned away with a smile. The monks were safe, and the necromancer and his undead minions had been destroyed. The horse had run off into the orchard so I used the excuse to wander back to the star pear trees and tipped my head back, tracing the interlaced branches with my eyes. Somewhere in the orchard a meadowlark struck up a song. The trees had endured; the roots deep and branches strong. This place would recover from its brush with ill magics. I imagined that even Peggy, the Fachen, would come back now that the dragon had been destroyed. I felt that I had done another good deed.

I rubbed my fingers against the bark and pressed my cheek into the bowl of the star pear, breathing in the familiar scents of tart fruit and wood. These ancient trees reminded me of things I had hoped to forget, yet somehow I felt closer to home than I had in many years.

Fade coughed and brushed his wet nose against my hand. I smiled down at him and we set off into the orchard after the horse as more birds braved the summer day with their songs.

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Want to read more fantasy by Annie Bellet?
Find additional exciting adventures following Killer and her friends.

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Also by Annie Bellet:

The Gryphonpike Chronicles:

Witch Hunt

A Stone’s Throw

Dead of Knight

The Barrows: Omnibus Volume One

The Twenty-Sided Sorceress:

Justice Calling

Murder of Crows

Pack of Lies

Chwedl Duology:

A Heart in Sun and Shadow

The Raven King

Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division Series:

Avarice

Short Story Collections:

The Spacer’s Blade and Other Stories

Forgotten Tigers and Other Stories

River Daughter and Other Stories

Deep Black Beyond

Till Human Voices Wake Us

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About the Author:

Annie Bellet lives and writes in the Pacific NW. She is a Clarion graduate and her stories have appeared in magazines such as AlienSkin, Digital Science Fiction, and Daily Science Fiction as well as multiple collections and anthologies. Follow her on her blog at
“A Little Imagination”

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