Thrall - Christie Golden [38]
“Such a tender yet bizarre moment.”
Thrall whirled, seizing the Doomhammer and placing himself between the infant and the owner of the voice.
The mysterious assassin who had attacked him in the Caverns of Time now stood a few paces away. Thrall had thought the bronze dragons would have dealt with this man, but it would seem that, despite his words of frustration as Thrall had escaped earlier, he had eluded the bronzes and found a way into this timeway after all. And a way to Thrall.
Again Thrall could not shake the strange sense of familiarity. The armor—the voice—
“I know you,” he said.
“Then name me.” It was a pleasant, booming voice, tinged with humor.
Thrall growled. “I cannot name you—not yet—but there is something about you …”
“I should thank you, really,” the assassin continued to drawl. “My master set me a task. To slay the mighty Thrall. You’ve already slipped through my fingers once. And you might again. But you’ve forgotten one … little … thing. …”
With each of the last three words, the assassin took a step forward, and Thrall suddenly realized what he meant. He tightened his grip on the Doomhammer and drew himself up to his full height. The human was large for his race, but nowhere near as large as an orc.
“You shall not harm this infant!” he snarled.
“Oh, I think I shall,” said the black-armor-clad figure. “You see … I know who is just a few moments away from being here. And it’s someone you won’t want to harm—because then this timeway would be just as violated as if you’d let your parents live. You know Aedelas Blackmoore will be here, and that he’s going to pick up this little green baby and raise him to be a gladiator. And you most certainly don’t want to be around for that particular reunion.”
Curse the bastard, he was right. Thrall couldn’t let himself be seen. And he couldn’t fight Blackmoore and risk injuring or even killing him.
Not yet.
“So you need to go. But you also need to protect your younger self. Because if my job is to kill you … it’s ever so much easier to chop a baby in two than it is a full-grown orc. Although I’ve done that quite a lot, if I do say so myself. What to do, what to do …?”
“It’s not going away,” complained Blackmoore. He was closer now, though he was still a few steps away from the clearing.
“It could be an injured creature, sir, incapable of crawling away,” Tammis suggested.
“Then let’s find it and put it out of our misery.”
The stranger laughed, and suddenly Thrall realized his course of action.
Silently, though his whole soul ached to shout his battle cry, he lunged at the assassin. Not with his hammer but with his powerful body. The human was clearly not expecting such an attack and did not even manage to raise his weapon before Thrall slammed into him, the force propelling them both into the briskly flowing stream.
“What’s that splash?” Lieutenant Aedelas Blackmoore took a long drag from the bottle.
“Probably one of the large turtles that live in the area, sir,” Tammis said. Already tipsy and about to head into drunk, Blackmoore nodded. His horse, Nightsong, came to an abrupt halt. Blackmoore stared at the bodies of no fewer than three adult orcs and that of a huge white wolf.
Movement drew his eye, and Blackmoore suddenly realized the source of the horrible noise. It was the ugliest thing he had ever seen—an orc baby, wrapped in what no doubt passed for a swaddling cloth among the creatures.
He dismounted and went to it.
EIGHT
Several days had passed since the debacle at Wyrmrest Temple. Kalec had thought—foolishly, perhaps, but sincerely—that with the tragic but necessary death of Malygos, some kind of healing, some kind of peace and unity, could occur among the dragonflights. He had come to that meeting with hope in his heart, only to see more than his own personal dream shattered.
The loss of so many eggs, from all the flights, all at once—exterminated by one of their own, no less—was a devastating blow from which Kalec wondered if any of them would truly recover. Korialstrasz, a friend of his for some time now, someone Kalec