The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King by Lynn Abbey Read Free Book Online

Hamanu's conscience,
Windreaver was the other.
    The troll would have preferred to die with the rest of his kind; Hamanu had not offered a choice.
Windreaver's body had become dust and dirt, as Hamanu's had not, but Windreaver lived, succored by
the same starving magic that sustained Hamanu. He was an immortal reminder of genocide to the
conquered and to the conqueror who had committed it.
    "Look, there, on the horizon," Windreaver pointed to the southwest, toward distant Nibenay,
exporter and abandoner of poorly stained agafari staves. "What do you see?"
    "What did you see?" Hamanu retorted. "A bundle of sticks laid beside an old well?"
    Windreaver served Hamanu. The troll had had no choice in that, either. The King of Urik could
abide guilt and hate, but never useless things, be they living, dead, or in between. Windreaver was
Hamanu's most trusted spy; the spy he sent to shadow his peers, his fellow champions.
    "Do I need a fire to comfort me in my old age?" the troll retorted.
    "Not when you can bring me bad news."
    The troll chuckled, showing blunt teeth in a jaw that could crush stone. "The worst, O Mighty
Master. There's an army forming on the plains beyond Nibenay. Old Gallard does not lead it—not yet.
But I've skirled through the commanders' tents, and I've seen the maps drawn in blood on the tanned
hides of Urikite templars. Nibenay's coming, Manu; mark me well, I know what I have seen. What
Gallard sends to Giustenal doesn't matter. Gallard, Bane of Gnomes, means to become Gallard, Bane of
Urik."
    Hamanu bared his dripping fangs in contempt and disbelief.
    Gallard might be marching—toward Tyr perhaps, or more distant Draj. Draj had been Lord
Ursos's home until two years ago, and amid the lord's debauched memories were images of its bloody
anarchy. Gallard wouldn't waste his army against Urik's walls, not while Draj's throne sat empty. It was
impolite to march across another champion's purview, but not unprecedented.
    "You're wrong this time, Windreaver. You've overreached yourself."
    Disappointed, Windreaver sucked air and tried again. "He brings his children, his thousand times
a thousand children. He will set them in your place, and you will do his bidding, and I will hover about
you, a swarm of stinging gnats to blind your eyes as you weep. Where are your children, Lion-King of
Urik?"
    A thousand years had sharpened the troll's tongue to an acid edge. His final question lanced an
old, old wound. Hamanu hissed again, and the dust that was Windreaver swirled apart. "Urik is my child,
with fifty thousand hearts, each braver than yours. Go back to Nibenay. Sting Gallard's eyes, if you dare.
Listen to his words when there's no one else about to hear them, then tell me of his plans."
    Dust rose on its own wind and was gone. Hamanu inspected the armor and garments the slaves
had laid out for him. His taloned hand trembled as it made another misty gray slit in the afternoon's torrid
air. Anger, he told himself as he shoved armor and garments together into the trackless netherworld.
Rage at Windreaver, because the troll had done what he always did, and at himself, because this time the
barbs had struck home.
    Urik was his child, his only child. He'd face them all— Gallard, Dregoth, anyone who dared
threaten Urik. He'd risk the fate Rajaat laid before him, but for Urik's sake, he'd win. The Lion-King had
never lost a battle, except for the very first.
    There was a way, if they all came at him, all at once and in all their strength and he had to choose
between himself and his city.... At least, Hamanu thought there was a way to preserve Urik. But the risks
were incalculable, and he'd require the cooperation of a man who was, in his simple way, as
extraordinary as any champion, a man who kept his own conscience and who served a primal force that
couldn't be coerced.
    The time, perhaps, had come to secure that man's sympathy. Without it, there could be a dragon
more terrible than Borys