Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3) (3 page)

Traces of burning venom still flickered here and there on the walls and floor of the lower chamber, seeping out of cracks in the rock, and these gave enough light to see that indeed, there were no dragons down there, nor room for them, nor further openings.

There were charred brown bones, however, many of them. Old

bones, by the look of them—very old. None of them were big enough to be dragon bones; a few were unquestionably fragmentary human skulls.

"A charnel-pit," Stabber said, kneeling beside him.

"An oubliette, perhaps," a man called Edge suggested, as he, too, stepped forward and looked down.

"Or worse," Arlian said, not voicing his suspicion—near-certainty, really—that the dragons had used this hole simply for waste disposal, making no distinction between human remains and any other unwanted debris.

Although why the dragons would have brought humans here he was not entirely sure. The dragons, contrary to widespread belief, did not seem to actually eat people—or for that matter, anything else. They apparently subsisted on magic alone. Enziet had told him long ago,

"They are the magic of the Lands of Man made flesh, a primal force drained from the earth and given shape," and whether that was die precise truth or not, it did appear that they did not need solid food.

On the other hand, they did seem to enjoy tormenting and killing people, and might well have dragged a few back to the lair as playthings—though Arlian had never heard any reliable reports of such a thing, nor found any evidence in the other lairs he had explored over the past fourteen years.

The thought occurred to Arlian that those bones down there might have once belonged to the very men and women who spawned the four dragons whose rotting carcasses lay a dozen yards away. It seemed incredible, though, that anything recognizable could still remain after so very long, even in the dry, dead air of a cave; the dragons here had surely been thousands of years old. Their hides had been entirely black, the sign of a fully mature, even elderly, dragon; newborns were blood-red, a color that faded swiftly to golden yellow, and then to green, before giving way to the final black.

Every adult dragon Arlian had ever seen had been black. At least one of the three that destroyed his village and slaughtered his family had still shown faint traces of green when sunlight caught its scales at the right angle, and as a much younger man Arlian had encountered two bright red newborns, but none he had seen since had been anything but utterly black. Arlian turned to glance at the dead monsters, as if he could still somehow judge their age from the rotting remains.

He froze for an instant at what he saw in the torchlight, then closed his eyes wearily. He sighed, and turned back to the others.

"There may be more openings," he said. "Let us continue our search."

"As you will, my lord," Quickhand said, lifting his torch. The circle of soldiers broke, the men scattering again.

"Form a line!" Arlian called uselessly after them, as he got to his feet.

He stood and watched as they once again failed to obey, but he made no effort to pursue and coax them into a proper formation.

Instead he waited for a moment, then turned his attention back toward Lord Rolinor.

Arlian saw that the man—hardly more than a boy, really—had at least had the sense to move well clear of the dragons again. That did not alter what Arlian had seen. He wished he could have dismissed it as a trick of the poor light, an illusion, an unfortunate appearance of an innocent act, but he knew it was none of those. The light had been sufficient, the actions unmistakable.

Rolinor had been collecting venom. He had brought a bottle, and had been thrusting it into the rotting venom sac at the base of one dragon's sagging jaw. He had tucked the bottle out of sight now, but still wore the heavy gloves he had donned to handle it.

Dragon venom had only three known uses, and only one of those could not be achieved more easily with less precious fluids. It was a deadly and corrosive poison, and highly flammable, but its unique purpose lay in the fact that when venom was mixed with human blood, it became the elixir that turned an ordinary human being into a dragonheart.

A man with the heart of the dragon was immune to poisons, disease, and aging, and acquired a strength of personality that allowed him to command the attention of ordinary men. Dragonhearts also seemed to be a little stronger and a little faster than they should rightfully be, and to have superhuman endurance.

Dragonhearts were also unable to sire or bear children, and tended to grow cold and detached over time.

And after an incubation of roughly a thousand years, each dragonheart would die giving birth to a dragon. Only death or a hideously painful magical ritual that would cleanse the draconic taint and restore the dragonheart to normal humanity could prevent this eventual transformation.

The Duke of Manfort, ruler of all the Lands of Man, had decreed fourteen years ago that every dragonheart in his realm—or rather, every dragonheart but Arlian, who had been given a special exemption until such time as the dragons were destroyed—must either submit to the Aritheian purification spell or die.

Most of the dragonhearts had refused and fled Manfort, establishing a new headquarters for the Dragon Society in the eastern port city of Sarkan-Mendoth; the Duke's armies had waged constant war against them ever since, trying to enforce the edict. The Duke had law and tradition on his side, and all the legitimate forces of die Lands of Man, but the lords of the Dragon Society, who had had centuries to build their fortunes and who could to some extent communicate and cooperate with the dragons themselves, had considerable resources of their own.

The Dragon Society could also offer one very strong incentive to ensure the loyalty of their troops. It was said that those followers they deemed worthy were rewarded with the elixir, and became dragonhearts themselves, with a thousand years of life ahead of them.

That was a strong enticement. To Arlian and some of the others the prospect of becoming a dragon at the end took the appeal out of the idea, but not everyone thought the price too high.

And apparently Lord Rolinor had given in to the temptation. Now he stood on a rise in the cavern floor, watching Arlian nervously.

Arlian began trudging slowly back up toward the nobleman, and Rolinor stood, waiting. At least, Arlian thought, he did not embarrass himself further by fleeing.

"Lord Rolinor," Arlian said, "a word with you."

"Of course, my lord," Rolinor replied. He did a surprisingly good job of concealing his nervousness.

Arlian approached to a comfortable conversational distance, his spear held casually in his hand. He made no threatening moves, and his tone was mild as he asked, "Did you want the venom for yourself, or were you planning to sell it?"

"My lord?" Rolinor's handsome face shaped itself into a carefully crafted look of confusion.

"I believe I spoke plainly enough."

" I . . . Yet I fear I do not understand the question, my lord." Rolinor's expression was becoming worried, but not yet frightened.

Arlian sighed, and the point of his spear was suddenly aimed at Rolinor's throat. Fear appeared in Rolinor's eyes, but still he made no attempt at flight.

"You filled a bottle with this monster's venom," Arlian said, jerking his head to indicate the nearest of the dead dragons. "I want to know whether you intended to use it to prepare an elixir for your own use, or whether you intended to sell it to other would-be dragonhearts."

"I did not . . ."

The black stone point of the spear was under Rolinor's chin, pressing into the soft flesh. "I saw you fill the bottle," Arlian said. "Now, answer my question, or die. The choice is yours."

Rolinor swallowed. "And if I admitted that I had collected venom, would I not die in any case? We are forbidden . . ."

"Indeed you are forbidden to collect venom, and as you suggest, the penalty is death," Arlian interrupted, "but you are young, and I may show mercy. If I am forced to strip you naked to find the bottle, the urge to be merciful shall be tempered by irritation at the inconvenience.

Now, answer my question—what did you intend?"

Rolinor drew himself up to his full height—several inches less than Arlian's own—and said, "I had not yet decided, my lord. I saw an opportunity that might not come again, and chose to avail myself of it . . ."

Arlian interrupted him again. "You had brought the bottle with you.

This was no mere whim, no spur of the moment."

Rolinor grimaced. "The bottle was not empty when we came, my lord; it contained brandy, with which I fortified my courage before facing a caveful of dragons."

"Oh?" Arlian leaned forward to smell the younger man's breath.

"I had never seen a dragon, my lord, and the tales were hardly encouraging. The reality was daunting enough that I made good use of the brandy, and when I was done I had the bottle, and there was the dragon, and the rest of you were all looking the other way, and a sudden impulse . . ." He shrugged.

Despite the cavern's reek the faintest whiff of brandy was indeed just barely discernible, and Arlian could hear the slurring in the younger man's speech. Arlian lessened the pressure on the spear ever so slightly, held out his other hand, and demanded, "The bottle."

"More of a flask, really . . ." Rolinor said as he reached into his buff suede waistcoat and drew out a flat brown glass bottle.

Of course it was glass; few other substances could hold venom without corroding. Arlian snatched it away, then turned to glance at the rest of the party.

They had reached the far end of the cavern, the light of their torches illuminating a blank stone wall, and as Arlian looked. Stabber called, "Nothing here, my lord!"

"Then let us be out of here, before we smother in this foul air,"

Arlian called back. He lowered the spear and trotted quickly to the edge of the opening in the floor, where he tossed the bottle in.

The glass shattered with a satisfying crash, and a hiss sounded as its noxious content spilled across the stone.

That done, he marched back to Rolinor's side and took him by one arm, leading him toward the cavern mouth. "Come on, all of you!" he called back over one shoulder.

Then, without looking directly at Rolinor, he murmured, "You're young, and you were perhaps drunk—I have heard from my men that venom fumes can combine with alcohol in unfortunate ways, though I myself have never been fool enough to drink before entering a dragon's lair. I will assume your wits were addled, and once we are out in the open air we will say no more about this. But understand, my lord Rolinor, that addled wits or no, you gave your life entirely into my keeping today, and you still live only because I choose to allow it. Do not rely on any further mercy."

Rolinor threw him a quick, uneasy glance, then looked down at his own feet and the stone floor. "Thank you, Lord Obsidian," he said.

Arlian clapped him on the shoulder, and said loudly, "Not the half-dozen I hoped, but still, four dead dragons is a good day's work, is it not? And our young Lord Rolinor is blooded at last; even if the hand that struck the killing blow was never his, he stood at the ready every time, and did not hesitate to approach. Perhaps he likes the stench of venom, eh?"

A few of the soldiers laughed. Rolinor coughed, but said nothing.

And then they were in the steeply sloping passage that led up from the torch lit and reeking gloom of the cavern into the cold sunlit open air, and too busy watching their footing to speak further.

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