The Ruin by Richard Lee Byers Read Free Book Online

blood of the men he’d tended. “I imagine that over the past few months, you’ve at least heard about flights of dragons ravaging the land, even if you’ve been lucky enough to escape their attentions yourselves. A circle of metallic drakes and wise wizards has formed to cure the wyrms of their madness, but to do so, they must first recover certain secrets.”
    Mibor frowned. “Secrets known to Nars?”
    “It’s possible,” Kara said, “you can at least point us in the right direction.” She accepted the pipe, inhaled, held the smoke in her lungs for a moment, then puffed it out in a perfect blue ring. “Do the Nars have tales of a time when elves—folk like my friend here, but most likely without wings—dwelled hereabouts?”
    Mibor shot an inquiring look at Shabatai, the small wizard, presumably a custodian of tribal lore as well as the Far Quey’s spellcaster. Shabatai hesitated, and Dorn sensed that, like many a civilized arcane practitioner, the Nar disliked admitting to ignorance on any subject whatsoever. But at length he smiled wryly and said, “No. Once, powerful mages ruled this country. Our memory goes back that far. But they were humans, not elves.”
    “Do you have any mysterious ruins?” asked Will. “Preferably haunted, accursed, or riddled with mantraps. So far, that’s been the pattern.”
    “The cities of the wizard-kings lie buried in the earth,” Shabatai replied. “Once in a great while, someone finds a way down to one or another of them. But I know of none, and even if I did, the old lords were human, as I said.”
    “Still, they may have known the Tel-quessir,” said Kara, “and left records in one form or another.”
    “Indeed,” Taegan said, “but if our friends can’t point us to one particular site, someplace associated with elves, dragons, or famed as a repository of ancient lore, I’m not sure how to proceed. It’s late in the game to dig up Narfell at random.”
    “What about the Hermit?” asked a young Nar woman, her swarthy, sinewy forearms tattooed with lines of highstepping horses rendered in white ink.
    Shabatai snorted. “It’s not an old town or fort, and has nothing to do with wyrms or elves. On top of that, if it truly exists at all, it’s certain death to seek it out. Why, then, would we speak of it now?”
    “Because,” the female warrior replied, “if the stories my grandmother told me are true, it knows the answer to every question.”
    Will grinned. “It sounds like just our kind of trouble.”
     
    The ogre smashed Dorn’s human leg out from under him, and he slammed down on the ground. Around the arena, the
    spectators who’d bet on the giant-kin cheered, while those who’d wagered on the half-golem boy clamored in dismay. Dorn tried to scramble back up, but his thigh was broken, with jagged bone sticking through the skin, and a burst of pain paralyzed him. Smirking, its long, bestial face studded with moles, the ogre raised its greatclub and swung at its opponent’s torso. Dorn tried to roll and catch the blow on his armored half, but the weapon pulped flesh and shattered ribs. The huge creature hit him again. Again. Again-Dorn’s eyes sprang open. The pummeling, however, continued, though it was far less painful than it had been in the dream. He turned his head.
    Kara had taken to sleeping nestled against his human side. At the moment, she writhed and flailed, trapped in a nightmare of her own. He shook her gently, she started to rouse, and he spotted Brimstone, his ember eyes glowing, looming over them. Dorn cast off his blankets, jumped up, and interposed himself between Kara and the vampire, iron half forward, vulnerable flesh angled back.
    Brimstone sneered, revealing the long fangs at the front of his jaws and giving Dorn a whiff of his smoky breath. “Easy,” he whispered. “If I meant you or Karasendrieth ill, you’d already be dead.”
    “Your presence poisons her sleep,” Dorn growled, keeping his own voice low. “And