D. J. Heinrich
The Dragon’s Tomb
For Lyle Graybow and Karl Kunze—
two fine men who died before their time.
They will be sorely missed.
Prologue
He came, just as I knew he would. Just as I knew he must. Humans are that way. Predictable. Idealistic. Bound by honor and vow and silly passion. Knights of the Three Suns, particularly, are that way. It makes them easy bait, as easy to kill as horses in a corral—and I’ve killed enough of those in my time to know.
But, truth be told, Fain Flinn was different. Flinn the Mighty, they called him, and for good reason. The first time I fought him, I discovered he couldn’t be as easily slain as all the others. It was that damned great sword of his, that Wyrmblight. We could, neither of us, kill the other, and that sword mocked us all the while.
Yes, it was Flinn who shamed me—Verdilith the Great Green, scourge of Penhaligon—Flinn who shamed me into winning through subversion what I could not through battle. So I shed my lovely green scales and took human form. I insinuated myself into Baroness Penhaligon’s good graces, even seduced Flinn’s loving wife Yvaughan out from under him… . And, when all was in place, I turned a fellow knight against him, made him accuse the good Flinn of dishonor.
I brought Flinn the Mighty to his knees.
It all worked too well. Flinn was stripped of title and honor, cast out of the fellowship of knights—out even of the Castle of the Three Suns. He became Flinn the Fallen, Flinn the Fool. And I became Yvaughan’s loving husband. Thoughts of her still make my teeth itch. I’d even conceived a son by her, a glorious heir to my power.
But then that slip of a girl came along. She sought for Flinn the Mighty, and found him a hermit in a hovel. Until that time, I’d used abelaat stones to spy on him, to feed thoughts of despair and decay into his mind. I’d learned that prostrating and dominating my foe were far more enjoyable than killing him outright. But the girl, the clumsy bitch of a girl, got herself bit by an abelaat—one of Teryl Aurochs stray beasts from the infernal realms. The poison of the creature’s fangs ran in her blood, blocking my eyes from Flinn, blocking my words from reaching his despoiled brain.
And she began to change him, as women always do to men. She reminded him of his honor, his glory, his nemesis, the Great Green! I should have known she would prove even more dangerous than he—unpredictable, naive, irrational in her love of Flinn the Fool. Before I could blink, Flinn had returned to flush me from the castle, to drive the mage Auroch away, to regain his honor and title. And he once again bore Wyrmblight!
The game was up. I was done with toying. I knew Flinn the Fool would make an idiotic attempt to hunt me down, to slay me. And, poetic soul that I am, I met him in the field where first we fought.
And I killed him.
I killed him despite the fact that my magic had failed me, despite the fact that he used the girls blink-dogs tail to strike at my flanks, despite the fact that he lanced my side and slashed my wings and ruined my arm. I killed him.
My poor arm. Of all my wounds, it pains me most. I change forms from dragon to mist to man to mouse, but always the pain follows me. I feel the urging of my flesh to split apart, to cease its struggle against death and be done. I feel the urging of my mind to dissipate on the wind, or spiral into some interior hell. I am morbidly wounded, insane with agony. Only hatred gives form to my mind. Hatred and the phrase that repeats with the pounding of my heart.
Flinn is dead.
I half expected to feel some sorrow at his parting, but I do not. He was dangerous, yes, but never a truly worthy adversary, never a creature worth engaging for the witty repartee. He was human, after all.
No. It was not Flinn who was my truest foe. It was Wyrmblight, a sword forged to slay me. Even now it resonates with that desire. I feel it in my wounds. I feel it in my aching mind, my still-beating heart. The bitch has it, I know—Jo is her name, like the name of a fisherman or a joiner. The blade is taller than she is, and yet she pretends she’ll bring it against me. She and her comrades—that feeble crone mage and her brainless lackey, and the old mercenary Braddoc, one-time friend of the Fool. These dragon hunters offend me. The baroness sends greater forces against Greasetongue, the orc. In a single puff they would be gone.
Except for Wyrmblight.
Just as it shamed me the first time, it has shamed me again. Try as I might, I could not break that cursed, blessed steel, and my roiling plumes of green poison would not pass it. Worst of all, these wounds that Wyrmblight has cleaved will not heal.
So I wait in this lair of mine, wait for Jo and her pack of misfits to stumble in and kill me, as they must try to do. For they are human. If I cannot destroy them when they arrive, cannot snap the cursed Wyrmblight in two, I shall withdraw and again win by deceit what I cannot by war.
But I will kill them. They have angered me, and I will kill them. I will break the hated Wyrmblight just as I broke its bearer.
Chapter I
Gritty ash from the still-smoldering funeral pyre whirled up in the midmorning breeze and stung Johauna Menhir’s gray eyes. She blinked the tears back. Rubbing her swollen eyelids with the back of one grimy hand, Jo whispered, “No more.” Her lips, dried out from more than four days’ exposure to the late winter winds, split in a sudden grimace. “No more,” she repeated hoarsely. “I’ll cry no more for you, Fain Flinn.” She shook her head sadly.
The wind shifted, and with it came a sudden hint of spring. The barren trees surrounding the tiny glade swayed gently, and for the first time Jo saw that the branches were about to burst with green. It was as if the world was oblivious to the death of Flinn, oblivious to the sacrifice he had made. It was as though the forest had already forgotten the titanic battle waged here between man and dragon. The hushed trickle of spring runoff filled Jo’s reddened ears, and a crow circled lazily overhead.
Her hands gripped the great sword she held, a six-foot weapon fully an inch taller than she. “Wyrmblight,” she murmured, as though to comfort herself with the name. The famed sword shone silver-white beneath the pale sky, untouched by the black taint that had covered it before. The four ancient sigils on one flat of the blade glinted brightly: Honor, Courage, Faith, and Glory. The four points of the Quadrivial. Flinn had attained the four points, but it had cost him his life. And now the sword was hers—her only physical reminder of the man who had sheltered her and taught her so much of life.
Jo’s memories grew bitter, and the corners of her mouth tugged downward. A crack in her lips opened and bled a little. She stared at the fourth and brightest rune. “Glory,” she spat. “If you hadn’t sought glory, you wouldn’t have fought Verdilith alone.” No, that’s not true, her mind whispered. Flinn went alone so we wouldn’t be killed. He knew he was going to his doom; he wouldn’t let us die, too. Her eyes wandered to the still-smoldering pyre.
“Oh, Flinn,” Johauna whispered in a voice that broke, “why didn’t you let me come with you? Why?” A thread of anger wound through the pain-filled words. “I was your squire! If I couldn’t save you, I could have at least died with you!” One hand curled into an angry fist, and Jo stared unblinking at the pile of ashes. She ground her teeth, unable to voice the emotions welling inside her.
Wyrmblight glittered cold and lifeless in the young woman’s hands. The warmth it had generated in its master’s grip was absent for her, and she wondered if it always would be. For four days and nights Jo had stood vigil over Flinn’s body; then she and the others had lit the pyre, and she guarded it during the day it took to burn. So cold and bitter had been the blade during winter’s last throes that Jo had developed chilblains on her hands. But she hadn’t noticed them then, and she ignored them now as she cradled the sword of elven silver and dwarven steel to her chest. “Oh, Flinn,” Johauna whispered, “why did you have to die?”