Dragonfang by Paul Collins Read Free Book Online

curtains were ablaze. The fire spread quickly to the ancient timber rafters that formed the groined ceiling. Smoke began to fill the chamber.
    Jelindel coughed, her eyes watering. A lesser timber crashed down from the ceiling, spilling coals across the floor. A rug began to smoulder. As an Adept 9, Jelindel had few major abilities. But one that most novice Adepts practised with ease was telekinesis, moving small objects. Even market charm vendors could manage as much. She uttered a summoning spell. A small glowing coal flew across the room and lodged in one of the leather thongs that bound her left hand. It was uncomfortably close to her skin and she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out.
    Meanwhile, the Preceptor struggled with the binding spells. Unable to best them, he had managed to squirm his way to the main door. It was an ungainly and humiliating mode of locomotion. His eyes were wild with fear and hatred, like those of a horse that has seen a snake and would like nothing better than to grind it out of existence.
    Just then the doors burst open. Kantor rushed in, followed by a grey-haired truthseer. Kantor went immediately to thePreceptor’s aid but the Preceptor shook his head. Unable to speak, he pointed at Jelindel, then at the truthseer.
    His meaning was clear. Kantor dragged the truthseer through the smoke and heat towards Jelindel. They stopped in the middle of the room. The beams above Jelindel were blazing fiercely and would not hold much longer.
    ‘Establish a link!’ shouted the dwarf.
    The truthseer, trembling and coughing, put out his arms towards Jelindel. His eyes went milky white and he seemed to go into a trance.
    Kantor faced Jelindel. ‘Where is the mailshirt, Countess? Where is the mailshirt?’
    Jelindel tried to think of anything but the shirt. The coal had nearly burned through the thong. Once her left hand was free she had only to untie her right and she could escape. She bit down on her lip. It was no good. The scalpel of the truthseer’s thought-search sliced into her mind, scouring for the truth. She tried to fight it but she was no match for the ancient’s power.
    Then several things happened at once. The ceiling began to collapse just as the leather thong gave way. At the same moment, the truthseer found what he was looking for, or at least part of it, and gasped in triumph. Jelindel swung around behind the scaffold she’d been bound to as the ceiling came down like a volcanic landslide.
    Kantor dragged the old man back, but not quickly enough. A flaming rafter swung down and swept the pair from their feet. Green blood spurted from Kantor’s ruptured chest. The truthseer screeched and pushed himself back from under the cinder-hot rafter.
    As the truthseer’s life drained away, so did his power over Jelindel. As though barely making the surface from a deep dive,Jelindel gasped for air and gagged on the smoke. She registered Kantor’s green blood, and in that moment of recognition, her binding words left the Preceptor and returned to her. The scaffold had protected her from the collapsed ceiling. Now she freed her right hand and made for one of the scullioned windows. She kicked out the glass and climbed outside. Pressing her back against the wall, she scuttled sideways along the stone ledge and clambered up a terracotta pipe to the roof. In no time at all she was some distance away.
    The Preceptor leaned over the dying truthseer. He cradled the dying man’s head as though it were fine china. Nearby, Kantor’s neck brace continued to register words, but no more would come from him.
    ‘Tell me what you found, old man,’ whispered the Preceptor, ‘and I will ennoble your family for all time.’
    The truthseer coughed blood and ash. The Preceptor wiped it away with his own sleeve. ‘Where is the mailshirt?’ he asked, gently.
    ‘It is …’ The truthseer gasped for air. ‘It is – as she said … It is gone, destroyed. I know not where. Could not get that …’
    The