Secrets of the Sword 2 (Death Before Dragons Book 8) Read online

  “A whole planet’s worth of dwarves?”

  Perhaps. It is not a hardship for them to remain underground—they have ways to farm, hunt, and fish down there—so it may be something akin to waiting out a storm for them. It is also possible that the being is particularly wide-ranging and heinous and has been preying on their people.

  “Comforting.” I took some comfort in the fact that Zav, Sindari, and I had defeated the skeletal army, but if those had simply been minions, they’d been powerful ones. How strong did that mean the creator was?

  Sindari shifted from sitting to lying on his belly, his head between his paws. That didn’t bode well.

  “How’s the healing going?”

  I have repaired the physical wounds, but the undead taint remains. It must be driven out by a more versatile healer than I, someone with experience with such injuries, or it will turn necrotic and damage his body from the inside.

  “Can Zondia help? Or another dragon?” I could hardly believe I’d have to give up my sword quest less than an hour into arriving on this world, but Sindari was far more important.

  I do not believe Zondia’qareshi has experience with the undead. She is young. The most experienced healer I know is a curmudgeon of a female dragon from the Silverclaw Clan. She is ancient and has peculiar habits.

  “What constitutes peculiar habits for dragons?”

  She preys upon dwarves, elves, humans, and the other sentient races, even though the meat is unpalatable.

  “Uh.” This did not sound like the dragon I wanted healing Sindari—or anyone else. “Why would someone like that become a healer?”

  She is a healer of dragons. She wishes to remind the other races that dragons are all-powerful and to be obeyed. She eats their kind to make a statement.

  “Wouldn’t she just eat Sindari?”

  That made Sindari look over at me, green eyes bland. Nobody eats Del’nothian tigers. As I’ve informed you previously, we are apex predators.

  “Uh huh. Worms and insects eat even predators when they die. Circle of life, buddy.”

  The Del’nothian tigers have long been allies to the dragons, Zav said. She would not eat one. I believe she would even heal one, though she would hate to help a Stormforge dragon, especially one who has battled so many of her kin.

  “Yeah, this sounds like a bad idea. Are you sure Zondia can’t heal him?” Never would I have thought that I’d long for her to help me.

  Maybe Zoltan has a potion that would do. Sindari must not have been eager to be treated by a grumpy old dragon.

  You may not have time for experimentation, Zav said. Once you return to your world, if the wound advances far enough and the magic of the realm charm believes you are an undead creature rather than a tiger, it may keep you from traveling again from your realm. You would be stuck there.

  Where I would die—or be killed by my people.

  That is possible.

  I tried to swallow a lump of emotion swelling in my throat. It didn’t work. “He’ll go with you, Zav. I know you can find a way to help him.”

  Very well, Zav said. I must also ask my people about Braytokinor and if anyone knows what’s going on here. If he has been slain, or this world is truly threatened, my kind should act. They should be willing to come deal with the situation here. Zav’s head turned, his long neck shifting as he looked over at me. I must return you to your home. I cannot leave you here. It is too dangerous.

  “Wait, I’m coming with you. I have to go with Sindari.” I waved to the feline-shaped charm on my thong.

  Would the magic allow Sindari to travel through a portal without me? Or would he poof back to his world? We could usually only be separated by a mile, so it was hard to believe that being on different worlds would work. And if he got stuck back there…

  It will be safer for you at your home. Lend me the charm, and I will take Sindari to the dragon home world.

  “Why can’t you take both of us?”

  Did you not hear his warning about the human- and elf-eating dragon, Val? Sindari asked.

  “I’ll poke her in the ass with Chopper if she tries to eat me.”

  Sindari and Zav exchanged looks, as if they both thought it was a bad idea for me to go along.

  You and your blade are now known among dragon kind, Zav said. As you know from your incident with the assassin that a Silverclaw dragon hired, you are most hated. I believe the Silverclaw healer would go out of her way to slay you. Of course, as your mate and protector, I could not allow this, and we would do battle, but if I slew or incapacitated her… Zav extended a wingtip toward Sindari.

  “She might be disinclined to heal my buddy?”

  She will be disinclined to heal him if she learns that he is linked to, and an ally to, you. It will be better if I claim that his charm belongs to me.

  “Wait, if she’s a Silverclaw dragon, doesn’t she hate you as well?” Though I had questions and concerns, I removed my leather thong, the charms clinking against each other, and unthreaded the feline one.

  She loathes me, yes.

  “And that’s not a problem?”

  I will have to promise a return favor in exchange for her help. Zav’s lips rippled back, revealing his fangs.

  “That doesn’t mean having sex with her, does it?” I thought of the assassin’s favors for the fae queen. To save Sindari’s life, I would look the other way—extremely far the other way—while he got jiggy with a dragon, but I wouldn’t like it.

  No. Dragons are not like fae. I will have to bring her meat or, more likely, she will expect political favors in future court sessions. There was the lip ripple again. Who would have guessed a dragon could do that?

  I held the charm up for Zav—he used his magic to lift it from my hand and store it in some invisible pocket—then rested a hand on Sindari’s back. Will you be all right? I didn’t want to delay things, not when he had to get this healing treatment before the magic dictated that he return to his realm, but I was worried and felt guilty. I’m sorry I brought you out to fight when this was a possibility.

  Injuries are always a possibility in battle, and I live to hunt prey and destroy enemies. Sindari tilted his head in consideration. I would always rather fight than not. Unless it is in a bog, pond, lake, or under torrential rainfall.

  Yes, I’ve noted your aversion to water except on warm sunny days.

  Good.

  With a swell of magic, a portal formed.

  Zav pointed his wing at it. You will return to your world.

  “I could stay here while you take care of him,” I offered, hating the idea of sitting back home and twiddling my thumbs. “Isn’t it possible the dwarves would come out and talk to me if no dragons were in the area?”

  I envisioned camping out in front of those stone doors in my tent, but then I remembered Zav’s words, that it probably wasn’t the dragons keeping the dwarves in their mountain.

  It is too dangerous for you to stay here alone. Zav pointed at the portal again. You will stay in the protection of your abode, and I will bring Sindari back to you on Earth when he is healed.

  He was probably right—even if he was getting uppity and making it a command—but I was curious about one thing. Do you think the big bad sensed your arrival here—your dragonly aura—and that was why the, uh, minions were sent? If I activated my camouflaging charm, would I be able to travel around here unnoticed?

  I supposed there was little point. If I was camouflaged, the dwarves wouldn’t know I was here, either, and nobody would come out and chat. Also, Mount Crenel could be a thousand miles away, and I didn’t see any public transportation systems.

  Possibly, Zav said as I returned my thong, bereft of my favorite charm, to my neck, but it is still too dangerous and there is little you could do here on foot. I will bring you back after this world has been dealt with and made safe again. If dragons defeat whoever is responsible for the undead minions, then perhaps the dwarves will come out, and it will be easier for you to find someone to answer your sw
ord questions or guide you to that mountain.

  “I understand. Thanks for helping Sindari.” I hugged Zav’s leg and my furry ally before stepping through the portal.

  My last thought before the swirling tunnel of magic enveloped me was that this had not only been a waste of time but that I’d gotten one of my best friends hurt. That crusty old dragon had better be willing to heal him.

  13

  Rain and darkness had descended on Seattle by the time I returned. A text message from Amber informed me that she’d scheduled my next dress fitting, making me wish I’d argued harder to stay on Dun Kroth. Who wouldn’t want to battle creepy skeletal enemies instead of being poked and prodded and tape-measured by a seamstress while half-naked?

  Dimitri wasn’t home, but I sensed Zoltan in the basement, and surprisingly Freysha was down there too. I hadn’t seen her since visiting our father in their homeland. Maybe she’d returned to finish her engineering class.

  If she stayed awhile, maybe I could talk her into teaching me a little more magic. The roots and mental defenses were nice, but what I would really like to learn was how to hurl fireballs. Wizards did that in books, and it seemed terribly useful. Freysha, with her forest magic, might not be able to create flames, but maybe she could introduce me to a helpful pyromaniac elf who owed her a favor. I would be happy to pay for tutelage, but so far, I hadn’t found the elves any more interested in currency than dragons. Maybe, like the fae queen, they could be enticed by chocolate-covered caramels.

  After making sure the new toe bone had survived the trip through the portal with me, I headed around to the back of the house and down the basement steps. Usually, Sindari’s charm bounced against my chest under my collarbones when I did that, and I noticed the lack. An uncomfortable feeling washed over me as I worried that Zav’s plan wouldn’t work and I would never see Sindari again.

  I knocked on the door and was answered by two muffled shouts, the words “don’t come in!” being decipherable in the mix.

  “Fine, but I’m leaving another gift-wrapped piece of bone stuck to your door.”

  A rustling and a startled gasp came from the yard next door. Maybe I shouldn’t have called that quite so loudly. There were so many trees and bushes, in addition to a six-foot wooden fence, between the properties that I tended to forget that we were in an urban neighborhood and that sound carried.

  Oh, well. If the rumors of the house being haunted hadn’t warned the neighbors to expect oddness from this corner lot, then the dragon-shaped topiaries out front, now complete with glowing eyes, were a big clue.

  One moment, please, Freysha spoke politely into my mind. Zoltan is streaming a live recording.

  Do you know what that is? I hadn’t noticed Freysha on my laptop, experiencing the fascinating vagaries of the internet, in the months she’d visited. She was much more inclined to study from ancient tomes in her room, peruse goblin-approved engineering texts for her class, or grow Jurassic foliage in the conservatory. Her class was online, however, so maybe she had learned about the joys of YouTube.

  I am learning as I assist him, she replied.

  This isn’t something for his raving groupies, is it?

  What is a groupie?

  The teenage girls who send him fan mail and want to know how to turn their high-school nemeses into frogs.

  Freysha digested that for a moment before replying. I believe it is for them, yes. But this is a frog-free presentation. He is instructing his followers on formulas and tinctures that can be made using manzanita bark.

  I got him that bark, you know. Tell him I expect a cut of his advertising revenue from the video.

  I had no idea if there was advertising revenue, but since, as far as I knew, I was Zoltan’s only recurring client, he had to make money somewhere to buy ingredients.

  You may enter now. Freysha didn’t comment on the rest.

  When I opened the door and walked into the dark basement, I almost crashed into another door two feet in front of it. “Dimitri found time to build the light-lock, I see.”

  Red light from Zoltan’s special lamps flowed through a crack under the interior door, so it wasn’t entirely airtight—light-tight. I closed the exterior door behind me before opening the next one.

  In addition to the usual lab accoutrements, the magical anvil, Zoltan’s coffin, and his various cases of books and scrolls, a recording setup had been erected on a table. In front of a laptop camera, a cauldron smoldered over a Bunsen burner, votives burned in a pair of holders made from monkey skulls, and an array of colorful liquids in vials filled almost every remaining inch of space.

  “You’re burning candles in monkey skulls, and you were squeamish about the bone I left taped to your door?” I asked.

  “I ordered the skull candle holders from a catalog. They didn’t appear in a mysterious package on the door.” Zoltan, clad in a white suit, his dark hair impeccably combed back from his widow’s peak, adjusted his red bow tie. He usually wore suits, but the black cape trimmed with ermine fur wasn’t his typical basement wear.

  “I left a note. How mysterious could it have been?” I headed toward Freysha, intending to give her a hug and welcome her back to Earth, but I paused and pointed at the cube of special red lights she was holding. “Have you been pressed into service as his lighting assistant? Can you even record videos by red light?”

  “Certainly you can,” Zoltan said. “It’s perfect. The candles and the red lights create the ideal ambiance for an alchemist occasionally giving lectures on how to dabble in the dark arts.”

  “You were teaching them to make wart remover.” Freysha balanced the light contraption on a shelf and came forward to hug me.

  “I said there was occasional dark-art dabbling, not frequent. Practical alchemical solutions applicable to all are much more popular. They also don’t result in my videos being de-monetized and de-listed. Instructions on how to use alchemical formulas to slay or incapacitate people can have that result.”

  “Weird.” I’d known there was advertising revenue. “Got something for you.”

  I fished the bone out of my pocket and offered it to him. “Will you see if this is related to the other one? Not related, exactly, since it came from a flying skeleton instead of an invisible wraith, but from the same world. Shared DNA or whatever.”

  Zoltan used his forefinger and thumb to pluck up the bone and carried it over to the station that held his microscope and a variety of magnifying glasses. I didn’t think he had a DNA sequencer over there, or that they were something that could fit in a basement, but maybe he had an alchemical alternative.

  “It sounds like you’ve been in interesting places lately.” Freysha tilted her head, a pointed ear poking up through her blonde hair.

  “Yeah, the artifacts room under Willard’s office.”

  Her elegant eyebrows rose.

  “Also the dwarven home world. Zav and I were trying to research my sword but didn’t make it far before eight undead, winged creatures waylaid us.” I summed up the brief adventure for her and told her about Sindari.

  “Ah, that is unfortunate. And also explains rumors that we’ve been hearing about Dun Kroth. Just two days ago, our father sent a scouting party to investigate and find out why we’ve lost contact with the dwarven king.”

  “I hope they don’t run into the flying things. We only defeated four before the others fled. How is our father? Recovered from his dragon-inflicted illness?”

  “Yes.” Freysha smiled. “He has been telling people that you are getting married in the human way—which is deemed to be somewhat similar to the elven way and therefore acceptable—to a dragon.”

  “He tells people about me?” I touched my chest. “I’d assumed that my assassin career made me an embarrassment. Along with the fact that I’m a half-human mongrel.”

  Her smile shifted to a frown. “You should not use derogatory language to describe yourself. You are a strong warrior and have promise to one day be a decent magic user.”

  �
��Still, he didn’t tell your mother about me, did he? I’m sure your people don’t approve of dalliances with human maidens.” I trusted my mother had qualified as a maiden back then. Or something close.

  Whistling came from the work station. Zoltan had pulled down several thick tomes and opened them—biology tomes, judging by the illustrations visible—and had laid the new bone on a swath of fabric—or maybe that was an antimicrobial towel.

  “He eventually told her,” Freysha said.

  “After I showed up on her doorstep? I guess it was more of a platform than a doorstep.”

  “Before then. He told me about you first though.” Freysha smiled again. “I was surprised to learn I had a sister! He hadn’t ever spoken to me about people, uhm, lovers he had before my mother.”

  “I don’t think that’s a conversation most parents have with their kids. ‘Hey, kiddo, guess how many people I shagged before I met your mom?’”

  “Shagged?”

  “Never mind.”

  “I am taking a sample from the new bone fragment,” Zoltan announced, switching his magnifying glass for what looked more like a hammer than a precision laboratory tool.

  “Go for it. The owner doesn’t need it anymore.”

  “Macabre.”

  “He’s odd for a vampire, right?” I asked Freysha.

  “He is my first vampire acquaintance. We don’t allow vampires on my home world.”

  “Ghastly,” Zoltan said.

  “The elven embargo on vampires or the bone?” I asked.

  “The former. The bone is simply a bone.”

  “It doesn’t ooze insidious magic?”

  “It does not.” Zoltan grabbed a chisel and tapped off a shard. “I had to pulverize the other one you gave me. I hope you didn’t want it back.”

  “Not really. Is that necessary to examine it fully?”

  “No, but I have an interesting recipe that calls for wraith bones. I always assumed it was a joke, since apparitions can hardly have bones, but given the story you put down in your note… I’m curious if the formula will turn out.”

  Turn out? I imagined him baking muffins that failed to rise.