“Old and young will unite to rule the land from above. Upon the dragon’s breath comes the return of the True King. It will be his to rebuild the glory of Torvald”
Vance Maddox
The city is in uproar. I have never seen the like—even in the old days when the wild dragons would raid from the north. Never has there been so much terror, so much bloodshed and so much anguish. Screams fill the air as people are thrown from their homes. The ringing of bells, the call of the Dragon Horns, and above it all the fire and shriek of the agonized, enraged dragons.
Another beam from the roof splinters and explodes in a shower of sparks on the flagstones at my feet. I dodge to one side. Through the gap in the tiles above I see the red and orange scales of something vast and threatening. The dragon tries once more to get at us inside—to get at me!
“Protect the prince!” I call to the guards, all of them Maddox men and women like myself: tall, light-haired and pale-skinned. They have that rangy look those of the Maddox line never seem to quite outgrow.
“Captain!” The guard chief gives me a quick, stern nod. Gone are the smiles and the fine tunics that marked this small group of bodyguards as ambassadors. We’ve all thrown aside finery, replacing it with the hardened steel and iron armor of my family.
A hissing roar comes from above. The red-orange dragon once again throws its weight onto the roof. We can all hear the intake of its breath like a giant bellows.
“Flame shields,” I call, falling to one knee and holding up the specially-treated oval shield over my head, and not a moment too soon as a firestorm bursts into the hall from the dragon.
One of my guards is not so lucky. He screams and the stink of burning hair and flesh choke the hall. The dragon’s fire is fast, incinerating him in seconds, leaving ash floating on the air.
The flames last only a brief second, but already my arm aches from the force of the dragon’s breath. Maybe my brother and late father were right—how can any human live near such dangerous beasts, let alone build a city underneath their nests? This is the day that my brother, Prince Hacon Maddox, has decided to overthrow the rulers of Torvald and seize it for himself. May the storms guide me; I have sworn to help him.
“Up! Up and to the prince!” Lowering my shield, I stand and leap forward, knowing we have only a little time before the orange and red dragon will be able to breathe fire down on us again. I catch a glimpse of the charred armor of the soldier who has died, melted now into slag. I don’t even know his first name.
No time for misery or cold feet now. We run through the long hall, feet pounding and armor rattling. Above us, dragons pound at the roof and walls and roar. Luckily for us, but not so lucky for Torvald royalty, this palace has been designed to withstand rogue dragon attacks. Its many halls are reinforced stone, shot through with metal bars. The king and queen’s best protection will become their prison.
Turning a corner, we face the next phalanx of Torvald guards, all wearing the imperial red and purple of the Flamma-Torvald household. Scars show how many battles they have fought, and their stance is that of fighting men and women.
But Flamma-Torvald, for all of its might, for all of its fame throughout the Three Kingdoms, has grown soft. The Maddox clan hails from the furthest east some generations ago. We’ve fought every tribe, every bandit and every upstart warlord between here and the ends of creation. The people of the Middle Kingdom have no idea what we can do—or what strange and terrible things we have already done.
“Death to the traitors!” shouts one of Flamma-Torvald guards, throwing his longsword forward in a jab that would have skewered me were it not for my reflexes. I catch and turn the blow, spinning to step inside the man’s guard.
A kick to his solar plexus sends him back. He falls, sprawling onto the floor. My second-in-command dispatches him with a solid thrust of his blade. The battle is fast and hard. I spin and parry. I hack until my sword no longer connects with armor and tissue and bone. Half my guard has been slain by the time we’re done, but all the Flamma-Torvald troops have fallen under our blades. My men and women look as though they have been drenched in red by the time that we finish, and I lean on my sword, panting.
“Sir?”
Looking up, I see one of the women of my guard pointing to the brick dust and mortar raining down from above us. She is right. We don’t have time for even a breath.
Ahead of us is our goal—what looks to be the ornate, wooden double-doors of the throne room. All this carnage has been planned months in advance by Hacon, my brother by our late father—and by me as well. Hacon and the Iron Guard are to be inside the throne room, seizing the king and queen, while I lead a group of soldiers through the palace halls to deal with any Dragon Riders we might meet.
Hacon has said the people of Torvald have no chance against us. I’d thought that mostly bravado. It is only now, standing outside the doors of the throne room with blood dripping down my blades that I start to believe. How long have I heard him and father rail about the day we would take the city? I never truly believed it possible.
Even now, I can hear Hacon’s shouts. ‘They are abominations! Dragons are evil, vile creatures—and they have enslaved the entire Middle Kingdom through their control of House Flamma-Torvald!’ Our father never tired of repeating those same rants.
Why should I feel uneasy now?
The twin doors of the throne room open. Two of the Iron Guards step out, their full-plate suits looking like the scales of dragons and gleaming in the torch light. Behind them, I see the opulent throne room of House Flamma-Torvald. A ring of the Iron Guard surrounding King Mason and Queen Druella Roule.
The carpets of the throne room seem washed in blood. Bodies of the royal guards lay hacked apart. The stench is almost unbearable. Looking at the blood, my stomach clenches and turns. It wasn’t meant to be like this. It wasn’t meant that so many should die. What have we done?
From behind his prison of blades, King Mason shouts, “How could you? We welcomed you to the citadel! We gave you a home!” I hear tears in his voice as well as anger.
My brother, his black hair revealed with his helmet off, walks to the window. Outside, dragons swoop through the sky as the city burns. Just a scant few years ago, we came to this citadel with our Iron Guard as a fine gift for the ‘glory of the dragon-king.’ King Mason had been pleased then, giving us high places at court, installing our Iron Guard at every city gate and guard house. Little did he know this day would come, when our gifts would spring into action under our orders, seizing power and delivering the city to us.
Turning away from the window, Hacon smiles. His face seems sharper than ever, narrow and long. “Call off your dragons.” Hacon points his sword at the queen. “Or she will be the first to die.”
“Cowards!” King Mason snarls the word. “Try me first, man to man!”
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