Dragon Hunt (The Throne of the Dragon Queen Book 1) Read online

  Carefully he removed the armour a section at a time, honouring each piece with a kiss before he hung it on the frame where it would stay until he fought again. Each piece of the ancient armour was made from a different part of a dragon and had been forged together by his ancestors using dragon fire. The armour never changed, but when a new champion arose the padding was replaced so it was always a perfect fit for Assimus’s greatest warrior to wear.

  The padding was there for other purposes too, as the raised edge of each plate was sharp enough to slice through flesh and bone and was as much a weapon as his sword. He’d used his vambrace for that purpose today, slicing it up into the Ramillion’s face and cutting through his jaw, nose and right eye so the man had gone down screaming. The Ramillion had been a good warrior and a worthy opponent, so he’d done him the honour of ending his suffering with the Moonstone Blade.

  As he removed his last piece of armour, he bowed to the frame which held each of them and thought about the men he’d killed that day. They had all been skilled warriors and the current champions of the seven provinces of Assimus. Each had fought well and had died violently, whilst the crowd had shouted his name in adulation. He should have felt proud of his victory and the awe in which the people of Phillos held him, but instead he felt sad.

  The performance, which was meant to honour the Dragon Queen, was repeated every full moon but slowly the continent’s manhood was being pared away. This had been going on for a very long time, but it was only now that the effect was being felt. The bloodlines had been depleted, and fewer of the new generation survived to adulthood, and those who did were noticeably smaller and weaker.

  His line was the exception, and when the time came for the boy child he’d sired to wield the Moonstone Blade, he had no doubt that the boy would be a great warrior. It did make him wonder though, that if men were now weaker than they used to be, how many of them in the future would have to be pitted against him in the arena to honour the Queen and keep the crowd entertained. Today it had been six eager volunteers, but how long would it be before they had to coerce a dozen or more men into facing him?

  That wasn’t his problem. The council of seven and the priests would have to come up with a solution. His responsibility was to care for his blade and armour and keep his body fit for the next fight. With that thought in mind, he pulled off the tight fitting shirt and leggings he wore beneath his armour and, wearing nothing but his loincloth, began the stretching exercises which would ease the tension out of his tired muscles. He was still exercising when the messenger came to summon him.

  *

  Lesserrinescelleous put his foot on the body, took a firm hold on his pilum and pulled it free whilst ignoring the blood which spurted from the hole the thin throwing spear had left behind. He studied the tip and frowned in annoyance as he noticed the end was slightly bent. That would make the weapon worthless, but at least it wasn’t his favourite pilum which he was saving for the games. Without bothering to wipe the blood from it, he threw it onto the arena floor and walked over to the next body to retrieve his second pilum.

  This had been a much better kill and had taken the man cleanly through the throat. He pulled the pilum clear and wiped the worst of the blood on the corpse’s clothes, noticing for the first time the contorted features of his victim. It might have been a clean kill as far as he was concerned, but the man had died in agony.

  The arena floor was churned up where the man had thrashed about trying to claw the spear from his throat and he’d bitten off his own tongue before he’d died. That had left his features twisted beneath the thick, dark blood that stained his face and neck. For a moment the unpleasant sight disgusted him and he walked away.

  He didn’t usually practice with live targets, but with the games only weeks away, he needed to sharpen his skills if he were going to retain the golden wreath of victory which had been his for the last two years. For a time he’d used a static target but when he’d hit the centre circle twenty times in succession he’d become bored and wanted something more challenging. Despite providing thick padding, it was almost impossible to find volunteers outside of the games who would run for him, so he’d gone to the practice arena to see if anyone was being held who was expendable and was in luck.

  There were two men being held in the cells below the arena awaiting execution. The curator said they were thieves, but as they were both from Passonia and didn’t speak Assimusian, he guessed their trial had been brief. As far as he was concerned they were ideal as it gave him a chance to practice his Passonian as well as his throwing arm.

  It hadn’t been his intention to kill them, only for them to run around holding a target board but the curator had put him in a bad mood calling him by his full name. He hated that as it always made people look down on him. It wasn’t his fault that Escellos was the smallest of the seven provinces, or that it only had a single town and the rest of the province was made up of farmland and smallholdings. Usually he tried to explain that if it wasn’t for Escellos, the rest of Assimus would starve, but the man wouldn’t have been interested in such details.

  The outcome had been that he’d used the condemned men for live target practice and now he felt guilty, although he didn’t know why he should. Killing a couple of Passonians during practice was not that much different from Champion Dannin culling half a dozen warriors in the arena. The truth of the matter was that if it wasn’t for them, Assimus would soon be overrun with Passonians and trained killers, and then where would they be?

  Now, that was a philosophical question which did concern him. Ever since he’d come to Phillos, which had been against his father’s wishes, and had worked on the translation of an ancient dragonian scroll, he’d been concerned about where Assimus’s traditions were taking them. It wasn’t just the reducing strength of the continent’s manhood which worried him or even the people’s growing lust for blood sports, but there was something deeper. Beneath the surface the nature of Assimus was changing and it had something to do with the old queen herself.

  On top of that there was the worsening political situation. Without a unifying influence, the council were spending more time arguing with each other than governing the country, whilst the influence of the priests grew by the day. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but there were rumours from the Northland of a new leader who had brought the tribes together and was going to lead them to a new land. Of course there were always such rumours, but this one had a ring of truth about it.

  He’d even been asked to transcribe a document written in the northern tongue which had been acquired somewhere in Passonia. The contents appeared to be innocent enough but that wasn’t the point. In the past, very few of the barbarians could read or write, but if they had now progressed sufficiently to send missives to Assimus’s Passonian rivals what else were they capable of? He feared that the council and the priests were so busy vying for position that they were missing something of vital importance to their country’s future security.

  Still deep in thought he picked up the last of his weapons and went to leave the arena, but his patron, who rarely watched him practice, called him over.

  *

  Dannin was the first to arrive. When his owner had told him to dress in his arena robes and go to the Dragon Field, he’d expected there to be people waiting to meet him. His owner, the one who fed and clothed him and paid for his training, often had work for him to do, but that usually involved providing some rich man’s wife with the physical satisfaction they weren’t getting from their husband. This was clearly different, and he wished he had some idea of what he was supposed to do.

  He was still looking around trying to decide whether to stay or not when Serrin entered the field from the eastern end. Serrin had never met the swordsman before, although, along with everyone else, he knew him by reputation, and wondered what the fighter was doing there where he looked so out of place. After all, the Dragon Field was sacred ground dedicated to the Queen and the only people who came here were priests who u
sed the place for some sort of ritual.

  He’d been told that the Queen came here as well, but like most of the people in Assimus, he’d never actually seen her. There were no paintings of her either, which was a pity, as it was said that in her youth she had been very beautiful and he would have liked to have seen her for himself. He’d often thought it was odd that the queen, who was equally revered and feared by her people, was never seen in public, but put that down to her being old and frail.

  Feeling slightly foolish standing at the edge of the field with its low, surrounding wall, gawking like a schoolboy, he started to make his way around the edge to where the swordsman waited. He’d only taken half a dozen paces when he abruptly stopped as another figure appeared at the southern entrance. He didn’t know the man’s name, but he knew what he was.

  The tight fitting black attire could only mean he was a member of the Brotherhood, which amazed him. Phillos’s secret society of assassins were rarely seen and never in daylight. Having one expose his identity like this meant that something extraordinary was going to happen. That thought should have filled him with excitement but it didn’t, instead it left him feeling decidedly uncomfortable.

  Wisteran too was feeling concerned. He couldn’t imagine what his master was doing sending him here in daylight where others would recognise what he was and perhaps remember what he looked like. Even worse was that he’d been sent out there without being armed. Of course that didn’t mean he was defenceless, but as he recognised who the other two people were who were walking towards him he was beginning to feel very vulnerable. They were rapidly approaching him from opposite directions and it occurred to him that having a weapon which could kill at a distance would have been useful.

  As they came closer he relaxed a little as he realised that they too were unarmed except for the ceremonial blade Dannin wore. That meant they were clearly not expecting to fight. What’s more they too were wearing some sort of ceremonial clothes and Serrin wore the Wreath of Victory so they all looked as uncomfortable as he did. At least all he’d had to change into was a new set of clothes and wear the red pendant with the dragon etched into it which made him feel slightly better but not much.

  They had almost reached him when a carriage came to a halt behind them and they all turned to watch as three people stepped out. He knew who the men were and it was clear the others did too as they all bowed. A young woman, a priestess by the look of her robes, stepped from between the Head of the Council and the High Priest and looked them over.

  “You, Assimus’s finest sons, have been chosen to serve the Dragon Queen. My name is Padalayatarmin and I am here to present you to her majesty. If you accept the honour which has been bestowed upon you, then you should follow me, otherwise you may go and find a dark hole to crawl into where you can hide your shame.”

  Dalaya ignored their look of astonishment, stepped past them and walked towards the centre of the field without looking back to see if they were following her. Behind her the three young men watched her go, reluctant to follow without knowing what was going on. Serrin looked at the other two, who seemed as unsure as he did, and would have liked to have asked them what they were doing here but didn’t want to look a fool.

  Instead he turned to the Head of the Council, who he’d met once before when he’d been presented with the victory wreath after last year’s games. “Is that true, my lord? Are we to meet the Queen?”

  “It is. The Queen seeks a consort and you three have been chosen.”

  Serrin raised his eyebrows at that. Being a queen’s consort would be a great honour, but bedding a woman who was reputed to be a hundred years old didn’t fill him with joy. Still, with any luck the Queen would choose Dannin who was stronger and better looking than either he or the assassin and had a reputation with women.

  He supposed there would be some sort of choosing ceremony, which is why the priestess was there, but once the Queen had chosen Dannin he would be free to leave. Then he could return to his practice and the assassin could go back to doing whatever it was that assassins did when they weren’t killing people. He turned back to his two companions, who had obviously had similar thoughts, as Dannin had already set off after the Priestess. The assassin just shrugged at him and together they followed the priestess to the centre of the field.

  Standing by the side of the low wall where he’d entered, Dannin had thought that the field was flat and even but as he walked towards the centre he realised it had been an illusion. The field actually rose up to a dome and when he looked behind him he could see the wall which surrounded the field far below. It looked tiny and much further away than he thought it should.

  In fact it looked so far away that he could no longer make out the Head of the Council, the High Priest or the carriage in which they had arrived. That was ridiculous as he’d only been walking for a short time but there was no doubting it. In the few minutes he’d been walking, he hadn’t only left the wall far behind but his home and all he knew, and now the first tremors of fear were making his legs shake.

  Wisteran was having problems too but not with the distance. Despite all his agility and training he kept stumbling over the rough ground. He was certain that when he’d set out the field had been smooth and flat but now it was like walking over a ploughed field. It was unlikely, but he did wonder if someone had dug out parallel furrows in the ground and had disguised them by covering them over with loose soil, just to make him look a fool.

  If that were the case then they had succeeded, as every time he put his foot onto what looked like smooth land it slid into a furrow making him stagger forward instead of moving lightly across the ground as he always did. What’s more it was getting rougher and if he carried on like this he would soon be on his hands and knees. He glanced at the others to see if they were laughing at him, but they weren’t faring any better than he was, and he was slightly relieved to see that both the swordsman and spearman were looking unhappy.

  Serrin had always thought he was fit and was proud of his endurance which made him a formidable hunter, but the climb was making him breathe heavily. He could feel the muscles in his legs ache with exhaustion and sweat was gathering between his shoulder blades and running down his back. When he’d set out, he’d thought it would only take a few minutes to reach the centre of the field, but he felt as if he’d been walking for hours, and he still had a long way to go to reach his destination.

  What was worse he was feeling light headed as if he couldn’t breathe in enough air to keep him going. He’d read somewhere that people who climbed high into the mountains sometimes ran out of air to breathe and died, and whilst he’d thought it was a foolish idea at the time, he was beginning to think it was true. The problem was that there were no mountains in Phillos or even hills for that matter, but when he stopped and looked around him he could almost touch the clouds.

  Dalaya stopped on the crest of the rise and waited for the others to catch up. She’d been to the Dragon Field once before and knew the illusions it created from people’s fears in order to humble them and test their resolve. She had already come to terms with what she was, so the walk hadn’t bothered her that much. The same couldn’t be said for the three young men who seemed to be struggling with the terrain and the strangeness of it all and looked like they were going to give up.

  For a moment she was concerned whether the council had chosen the right ones to be the Queen’s consort. They had been chosen for their strength, courage and intelligence but that didn’t mean they would be acceptable. Not that she could do anything about it. They were here with her now and as she held up the Crystal of Calling which hung around her neck, she could sense the Queen approaching.

  “Priestess,” said Dannin in a shaking voice, breaking the silence around them. “I thought we were here to be presented to the Queen?”

  “You are.”

  “You mean the Queen is coming here?” Serrin asked, still trying to control his ragged breathing.

  “Yes, she will come here
.”

  Wisteran looked back to the way they had come. He could feel the thrumming of horse’s hooves through the thin soles of his boots but couldn’t believe that a carriage could be driven up that hill with its rough, uneven terrain. “She’ll never make it.”

  “She will. She comes.”

  They could all hear the noise now like distant, rolling thunder and feel the pressure in the air change as if someone was breathing in and out. Despite that they still didn’t understand how the ancient queen and her entourage would get up the hill. The three of them looked at each other and then at the priestess, following her gaze into the distance. Far away but getting rapidly closer was a small, black dot, no bigger than a child’s ball, but the ball grew wings and changed into a bird and the bird grew bigger and bigger until it filled all their vision.

  “Bloody hell, It’s a dragon!” Serrin hissed. He wanted to run but his legs wouldn’t move.

  “It’s the fucking Dragon Queen!” Dannin exclaimed. He could see it clearly now, the long neck lined with spikes, the red and gold body with powerful wings and the long, spiked tail.

  “It’s coming for us,” said Wisteran from where he’d fallen onto his knees in fear.

  It was true. The dragon had seen them now and had turned its head towards them, glowering at them with its deep, amber eyes. It dipped its wing to adjust its flight and let out an ear-splitting roar, showing rows of teeth as sharp as daggers.

  “Your consorts await you,” shouted Dalaya, holding up her arms in supplication and waiting for the dragon to land but the dragon had other ideas.

  It swooped down on them with both talons extended and its mouth wide open. The first talon sliced through Dalaya from shoulder to hip, flinging both parts aside whilst the second pierced Dannin through his chest and abdomen. It gave him just enough time to scream before his body was crushed in the talons’ powerful grip. The dragon’s head snapped around as it passed, biting through Serrin’s chest and swallowing his head and shoulders and leaving the rest to remain standing for a moment until his legs collapsed. Wisteran screamed but only for a moment as the dragon’s spiked tail smashed him to the ground and gutted him like a fish.