Dragon Queen by Stephen Deas Read Free Book Online Page B

‘I need him!’ he shouted. ‘I need him to do my work!’ Tuuran would not die for him, not for showing him a secret. He reached inside himself, into his blood. He'd use what he had, here and now if he had to.

    ‘Liar.’ The Taiytakei ran his finger along his wand. Its light grew fierce once more.
    ‘I will not work unless I have him!’
    ‘You'll do as you're told, slave.’ The Taiytakei levelled the wand.
    ‘You will give me what I ask for to build an eyrie for you or the dragons you bring to me will roam free and burn your kingdoms to ash!’ Bellepheros was shaking but there were things that needed to be said. ‘I am the keeper of the dragons! I have defied dragon-kings when the need arose. You have taken me against my will from my life and my home but you can not make me do what you wish without my consent. Kill me, hurt me, threaten me and you will get nothing . I require this man! I demand him.’
    The look on the Taiytakei's face didn't change. A slave was a slave and there were no exceptions. But then his eyes shifted and he looked past Bellepheros and the soldiers who held him, and Bellepheros saw the wand lower a fraction.
    ‘The sentence is pain,’ said a woman's voice.
    The Taiytakei touched his wand. The light inside it dimmed a little and then Bellepheros reeled as the air cracked like a lash and lightning jerked across the deck. Tuuran screamed as it threw him into the air. He fell so hard that Bellepheros felt the planks shiver under his feet, and lay twitching and whimpering. The alchemist stared. An Adamantine Man learned to take pain more than any other man, and here was one of them curled up and wailing like a whipped child.
    The Taiytakei with the wand glowered at Bellepheros and marched away. Bellepheros turned to see the woman who'd saved Tuuran. She wore gleaming white robes which looked as though they meant something, but he had no idea what. Strangest of all, she wore two round pieces of glass bound across her eyes, like the curved glass of a Taiytakei farscope. They made her eyes oddly big. He didn't know what to make of the look on her face. Sizing him up, perhaps. Staring at her didn't seem to trouble her; rather she seemed curious, intrigued, disdainful and perhaps a little disgusted. He couldn't make out her age but she certainly wasn't young. She wasn't tall, but the armoured Taiytakei around her made her seem shorter than she really was. She watched him watching her until he looked away.

    Two armoured men hauled Tuuran to his feet. He was still shaking even when they dragged him over and threw him at Bellepheros. ‘This one is yours now, slave. You'll be accountable.’
    Bellepheros helped Tuuran up. An odd feeling that, him at his age helping an Adamantine Man to his feet. ‘You're shivering.’
    ‘So would you if you felt their lightning so strong. Thank you, Lord Master Alchemist. I owe you my life. They'll make you regret this though.’
    Bellepheros nodded towards the woman in white. ‘Thank her.’
    ‘I will not!’ Tuuran shuddered.
    ‘Why? Who is she?’
    ‘An enchantress.’ Tuuran made a sign against evil. Bellepheros frowned and stole another glance at the woman. She was still watching. ‘An enchantress? What does that mean? A blood-mage?’ There were no magicians of any other kind in the dragon realms. He shook his head. If that's what she is and the Taiytakei have stolen dragon eggs at last, they can suffer the consequences and all my oaths be damned .
    Tuuran shook his head again. ‘No, not that. A witch!’
    The woman turned and swept away. Taiytakei soldiers pushed Tuuran and Bellepheros in her wake to a gangway that reached from the side of the ship to the platforms on the cliffs. ‘Why didn't you run?’ Bellepheros asked.
    ‘If I'd tried then they'd have killed the whole crew, every one of them,’ said Tuuran. He glowered at the Taiytakei soldiers. ‘And also I can't swim.’
    Bellepheros digested this. He frowned. ‘An enchantress?’ he asked