Secrets of the Sword 1 (Death Before Dragons Book 7)

  Secrets of the Sword I

  Death Before Dragons Book 7

  Lindsay Buroker

  Copyright © 2020 by Lindsay Buroker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  1

  Drizzle spat from the gray sky as I grabbed my weapons, climbed out of the Jeep, and looked for the mysterious magical artifact that plucked at my half-elven senses.

  A bog stretched away from the gravel parking area, white and red cranberries floating on the surface, smoke hazing the air above them. That air smelled of the Pacific Ocean, decomposing leaf litter, and a barbecue gone terribly wrong.

  I wrinkled my nose and spotted a fire smoldering near a manufactured home overlooking the bog. Animal carcasses were piled beside it, hooves and antlers jutting out of the tangle.

  “Cozy place,” I muttered.

  A grizzled man in a yellow raincoat came out of the house—the farmer who’d called my boss and requested my presence? He carried a rifle instead of a hoe or rake or whatever one used for collecting the harvest.

  The man didn’t point his rifle toward me, but he squinted suspiciously, and his knuckles were tight around it. If I hadn’t sensed magic out in the water, I would have wondered if I’d gotten the wrong bog.

  I let my fingers rest on the hilt of Fezzik, the compact submachine pistol in my thigh holster, though he was a full-blooded human and likely couldn’t see it or Chopper, the sword in a harness on my back. Both weapons were magical and difficult for the mundane to see.

  “Are you Gene?” I asked.

  “Yup. You Val Thorvald? The assassin, great warrior, and expert in kooky magical shit?” He eyed my jeans, combat boots, leather duster, tank top, and finally my long braid of blonde hair draping down to my boobs. The latter prompted a lip curl instead of the more typical masculine interest.

  I flicked the braid over my shoulder. “That’s more or less what my business card says.”

  “I was expecting a guy.”

  “You thought Val was a man’s name?”

  “I hoped. Knew a big German guy named Valentin once.”

  “Well, you got a six-foot-tall Norse gal named Valmeyjar. It means corpse maiden if that makes you feel better about my abilities.”

  “Not really. Here.” Gene tossed a pair of muddy hip waders onto the damp grass in front of me. “These are for you.”

  “I’m honored. I didn’t know I’d receive gifts on this gig.”

  “You can borrow them. I assume you’re going in. The thing is out about there.” Gene pointed his rifle toward the center of the expansive bog—there had to be twenty acres underwater. “You can see it glowing at night.”

  “A shame I didn’t come later. I assume you didn’t put it out there?”

  He gave me a scathing look. “Of course not. It just appeared, somehow rooted down to the ground. It happened three nights ago, right after I flooded the bog for the harvest.”

  “Can you unflood it?”

  Whatever it was would be easier to remove if it wasn’t underwater.

  “Not until the berries are harvested.” Gene’s expression shifted from scathing to pitying, as if I were a slow city simpleton. “I’m sure you can find the thing. Look around the property first, if you want. There are dead animals everywhere, dying faster than I can burn them.” He shifted his rifle toward deciduous and evergreen trees to the sides of the bog, fall leaves matted into the grass underneath them, creating a soggy red and orange carpet. “I trust you’re not squeamish, Corpse Maiden.”

  “I’m not, and you can call me Val. You think this artifact is killing the animals?”

  “Artifact?” His forehead wrinkled. “This isn’t some archaeological find. It’s a weird glowing bundle of balls that you can’t get out of the water. If you touch it, it’ll zap you. If you shoot it, the bullets bounce off. Which I guess you won’t be doing since you don’t have a gun. I thought a great warrior would have a weapon.”

  I drew Chopper, plunged the longsword into the ground, and released the hilt.

  He jumped back as it seemed to appear out of thin air to him. The sword’s magic only camouflaged it when I carried it. In the dim afternoon daylight, the blue glow of Chopper’s blade was noticeable, and Gene gaped at it.

  “Hopefully, that’ll do.” I pulled Chopper out of the ground, silently apologized for sticking it in the dirt, and wiped it with my cleaning cloth. The magical blade never dulled, and I’d used it to pry and dig my way out of everything from wrecked cars to cave-ins without harming it, but I still felt guilty over improper use.

  I grabbed the bog boots and stalked away, wanting to finish this task as soon as possible. The clouds promised more serious rain, and the scent of burning carcasses was turning my stomach.

  “Where’d you get that sword?” Gene called after me, reverence replacing the sarcasm in his voice.

  “Killed a zombie lord ten years back. He didn’t tell me where he got it before he died.”

  A shame because it would be nice to know. I’d come across magical beings from other realms who had accused me of stealing the sword. Only recently, I’d learned that Chopper—I had no idea what its real name was—had many more powers than I’d suspected.

  With luck, it would shatter an animal-slaying magical artifact if need be.

  I headed around the bog toward the far side, less because I wanted to see the promised dead animals and more out of a reluctance to put on hip-high rubber boots for the first time in front of a stranger. My elven blood gave me more balance than the average human, but that was no guarantee of finesse in dressing.

  My phone beeped with an incoming text message from my daughter, Amber.

  I can’t practice swords this weekend. Too much homework.

  I paused to stare bleakly at the words. It was her third time canceling this month.

  This past summer, after a run-in with a dragon, she’d asked me to teach her how to defend herself, and I’d even finagled a magical short sword from Colonel Willard for her, but Amber had been extremely busy since school started up again. Or so she’d told me.

  I believed her, but I couldn’t help but feel rejected. She lived with my ex-husband, and the weekend sword practices were the only excuse I had for coming by, so every time she canceled meant I didn’t see her that week. Maybe she’d decided she preferred it that way.

  Sighing, I put the phone away. Great warriors weren’t supposed to feel sorry for themselves. Besides, I had a mission to focus on.

  At first, I passed only dead crows and seagulls, but a couple of coyotes had collapsed in a thicket at the edge of the trees. They weren’t gaunt, aged, or visibly injured. Just dead. Poisoned by the proximity of the artifact’s magic? If so, why hadn’t the farmer who lived bog-adjacent been affected?

  I rubbed a cat-shaped charm on a leather thong around my neck, one of many magical trinkets I’d found, purchased, or won in battle over the years. A silver mist formed at my side, and Sindari, a seven-hundred-pound silver tiger, solidified with the top of his head almost level with my shoulder.

  You went into battle without me? Sindari asked telepathically, his green eyes accusing.

  “Nope. These seagulls and coyotes were dead when I got here.”

  He gazed around, nostrils twitching. I suppose that is acceptable. They would not have been formidable foes. I sense something magical in that water.

  “That’s what I’m here for. I’m going to go check it out. Can you sniff around and let me know if you smell or sense anything else unusual in the area?”

  Other than a dozen dead animals?

  “Yeah. Also, have you heard of any artifacts designed to kill animals but not people?”

  In many realms, humans, with their utter lack of magical senses and abilities, are considered animals.

  “As a half-human who grew up in Seattle, I’ll try not to find that offensive.” I tugged on the first of the tall rubber boots—it was as awkward as I thought it would be.

  I am simply saying that I do not know why an elf or dragon or other enchanter of artifacts would bother excluding humans from a creation designed to kill animals. Sindari wandered off, sniffing the ground and air as he continued to speak telepathically with me. I am also not aware of many artifacts that are designed to kill animals, unless it is a booby trap that is protecting something.

  “If a dragon
made it, I’m sure it wasn’t put here to guard the cranberries. Zav complains if there’s even ketchup on his hamburger patty.” As I’d found out recently when taking my dragon mate to Dick’s Drive-in for a late-night snack in Wallingford. The cook had left the buns off our order of twenty burgers—even in human form, dragons had ravenous appetites—but he’d refused to believe that anyone would want the meat without condiments. “I’m positive he wouldn’t want cranberry sauce on a turkey drumstick.”

  Dragons are carnivores, as are all apex predators. Magnificent predators would not have fangs if they were meant to eat berries.

  “Why do I have a feeling you’re talking about yourself more than Zav?” Once I’d gotten the boots on, attached the straps to my ammo belt, and removed my thigh holster so Fezzik wouldn’t get wet, I waded out into the chilly water. A nippy wind gusted in from the ocean, salty and cold and promising a storm.

  Because you know I am magnificent. I am going into the woods.

  Let me know if you feel woozy from the artifact’s magic. I switched to telepathy as we moved farther away from each other. My boots bumped against underwater cranberry bushes with every step, making the passage arduous. I’d hate for such a magnificent predator to keel over like a poisoned coyote.

  I detect nothing deleterious in the air. Perhaps the water is tainted, and the animals were drinking it.

  The words made me pause and eye the water halfway up my thighs. Coming out here might not be wise, but what choice did I have?

  “Let’s hope rubber repels magical poison,” I muttered and waded onward, floating cranberries bumping off my thighs.

  Though I still couldn’t see it, my senses tingled as I drew closer to the artifact. They guided me until a faint white glow grew visible, emanating from under a raft of cranberries. Whatever the artifact was, it was fully submerged.

  Wishing I’d thought to bring a rake, I used my hands and legs to make waves to drive the berries away so I could see under the water. It only partially worked, but it was enough for me to make out what reminded me of a bouquet of balloons. Balloons emanating magic.

  My chest grew tighter, a telltale sign of the asthma I’d developed in the last year rearing its head. It tended to get worse in stressful or emotional situations—and also if the air was polluted with such noxious things as woodsmoke or mold spores.

  I eyed the distant bonfire—no, the funeral pyre—burning near the house, but this probably had more to do with concern about what this weird artifact might do to me. Surreptitiously, I dug out my inhaler, put my back to the farmer—he was standing on the shoreline and watching me—and took a puff.

  My new vantage point let me see Sindari, his silver fur visible as he skulked through the trees. No, he’d stopped skulking and had his nose to the leaf-littered ground.

  I have found a fairy ring, he informed me.

  Like a circle of mushrooms? I’d heard the stories that they marked doorways into the fae realm, but I’d never seen such a doorway, so I didn’t know how much stock to put in rumors. I’d encountered people with fae blood before, but I’d never run into a full-blooded representative of the race. Elves and dwarves had once lived in hidden colonies on Earth, but I’d never heard suggestions that the fae did anything but visit and kidnap fair maidens.

  Indeed. There are footprints around the mushrooms. Unlike the tracks around the bog, I do not believe they belong to the farmer or his family.

  Do they belong to whoever planted this artifact? Perhaps unwisely, I stuck my finger in the water to touch one of the balloons to see if the farmer had been telling the truth about being zapped. A mere brush sent an electrical shock up my arm that reverberated through my torso and made me gasp and jerk back.

  I cannot tell that. They were made a few days ago.

  The farmer said this artifact appeared three days ago.

  Few lingering scents remain, but I believe… Yes, fae or someone traveling from the fae realm may have been here. I detect an otherworldly smell.

  What constitutes an otherworldly smell to my otherworldly tiger? I poked my sword into the water under the balloons, trying to locate whatever bound them together and to the bottom, and hoped the electrical charge couldn’t travel through my blade to me.

  The dirt and foliage of their realm has a distinctive smell. All of the fae lands were crafted by magic.

  My sword hit something. Not a chain or a rope or anything with give. I poked around it with the blade. A stem? No, more like a trunk. I probed to the bottom and pushed the tip into the mud.

  “Sorry, Chopper. I’ll give you a nice oiling later.”

  Unlike Sindari, the magical sword didn’t communicate with me, but it pulsed a brighter blue as if to acknowledge the comment. Odd. In the ten years I’d had the blade, I couldn’t remember it doing that. Usually, if it glowed a brighter blue, that meant an enemy was near and we were about to charge into battle.

  I scanned the shoreline of the bog again. Though I didn’t see anyone but the farmer, the sensation of being watched crept over me.

  One of my necklace charms allowed me to turn invisible, and I’d encountered others with similar trinkets or innate magic, so not seeing anyone didn’t mean that nobody was there.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. You’re sure those tracks are three days old, Sindari?

  They are not fresh.

  A thwump came from the farmer’s bonfire, and the flames leaped ten feet into the air. He charged over to check on it.

  I didn’t sense anything in that direction, but that hadn’t appeared natural. I still had the feeling of being watched.

  “This place is giving me the creeps.” Not wanting to hang around in the water any longer, I angled Chopper so that I could saw at the trunk under the balloons.

  The tough fibrous material gave but surprisingly slowly. Chopper had an edge sharper than any mundane blade, and I could have cut down a redwood with it, but the sword struggled to make progress on this.

  I switched to hacking instead of sawing, but the water made the cuts less effective. My arm brushed one of the balloons, and it zapped me through my sleeve.

  Pain and irritation swept through me, and without thinking of the consequences, I lifted Chopper and smashed it into the artifact. The balloon didn’t pop, but it shattered, spewing out a puff of glowing white mist and glass-like shards. One gouged my hand as I skittered away from the tainted air.

  “Good move, Val.” I eyed the glowing mist and scooted back farther, almost tripping over a submerged bush but hardly caring. Whatever that mist was, I didn’t want to breathe it in.

  My thoughtless bashing of the balloon had destroyed it—the remaining shell had gone dark—and the artifact oozed slightly less magic. The mist faded and nothing untoward happened to me. That didn’t keep me from wishing that I had a hazmat suit in the Jeep that I could have donned. For good or ill, I was being paid to take care of this and had to finish the job.

  Do you know of any possible side effects from destroying fae artifacts, Sindari? Assuming this is a fae artifact.

  Aside from irritating the fae who placed it there?

  Yeah. Irritating people is my job. I’m not that worried about that.

  Like elves and dragons, the fae have numerous kinds of magic. There are thousands of things that artifact might do. Side effects, as you call them, could be copious.

  Fabulous.

  A pair of deer had come out of the woods while we were communicating. I didn’t notice them until they reached the water and bent their necks to lap at it.

  “Beat it, deer!” I yelled, waving my sword.

  They skittered back to the trees and stopped to stare at me. The farmer was also looking over from the fire. It had returned to normal, but he shook his head slowly, as if to say the trouble was only beginning.

  The deer must have gotten some of the water. One wobbled, took a few faltering steps, then crumpled to the ground.