Prince of Lies - James Lowder [107]
A sudden creak of bones brought Bryn to her feet, sword held defensively before her. In the wavering light from the brazier, she could see the dragon's corpse shudder. One of its wings slipped from the bindings and unfolded slowly, stiffly.
Icy fingers of fear danced up Bryn's back. The shivers gathered at her neck, tensing her shoulders and choking off the scream that had begun to well in her throat.
The bindings dropped away from the wyrm's other wing, and it, too, unfurled languidly. Bryn's years of training in the Zhentilar helped her throw off the fear-born paralysis holding her in place. Yet this was no dalesman, no renegade goblin she faced. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't still the trembling in her hands or swallow the lump in her throat. The best she could do was force a tentative step forward.
The corpse remained still, wings spread to its side like some monstrous bat awakening with the nightfall.
The soldier and the corpse remained motionless for a time, locked in that weird tableau. Finally Bryn gathered the courage to prod the dragon; the blow simply made the wyrm swing back and forth on its rope.
"Damn civilians," she muttered, sliding her sword tip over the loose ropes. "Can't even tie knots right."
As Bryn leaned forward to bind the corpse's wings again, its head shot up. Eyeless sockets regarded the Zhentilar for an instant. Then the undead dragon snapped its jaws closed on her neck. It enfolded the woman in its wings like a vampire in a melodrama sliding his cloak around the swooning heroine. The leathery embrace muffled Bryn's gasp of surprise and the single shriek she managed before the dragon tore out her throat.
The soldier's bloody corpse slipped to the floor with the dull sound of leather armor striking stone, and the wyrm turned its attention to the rope wound around its tail. It tried in vain to struggle free from the sturdy hemp, but Xeno's thugs had done a much better job on the knots there than the ones that had held the dragon's wings. After a few moments, it grew impatient. Three savage bites severed the bonds – and the end of the wyrm's tail, as well.
The dragon, long past feeling any mortal pain, dropped to the ground and padded into the darkness of the catacombs. Its slithering trek led to the Keep's sewers, down to the befouled water of the River Tesh. From that murky swell the dragon rose, phoenixlike, to deliver a message of vengeance to its clan.
On broken, ice-rimed wings the wyrm took to themidnightsky over Zhentil Keep. In only a few days it would be home. There, the challenge would be delivered to the dozen fully grown white dragons of the clan. The plea for revenge had no words, could have no words, since the young wyrm's tongue even now bubbled in a mage's elixir.
No, when the other dragons found the corpse laid out at the mouth of their cave, the brands scorched into its side would direct their fury and give their rage a target. "Death to Zhentil Keep! Death to the minions of Cyric!"
* * * * *
Thrym bellowed out a prayer to Zzutam, thanking him for a particularly cold winter and a continuing supply of errant sell-swords looking for gold and glory. The frost giants of Thrym's clan had fed well over the years, much better than many of their kind in other parts of Thar. Rumors that the near-mythical Ring of Winter could be found inside their cave, as well as old bardic tales that placed the priceless crown of King Beldoran somewhere close at hand, had led hundreds of treasure hunters to the giants' doorstep and, eventually, the cookfires beyond. Thrym and his kin knew nothing of these fortuitous – and utterly groundless – stories; they ascribed the bounty to their monstrous patron, and offered prayers to him once a day, twice when it snowed enough to cover the toes of Thrym's boots.
"We thank you lots, O mighty ice god," the chieftain cried. He crushed a handful of bones between his