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DRAGON MOUND RICHARD A. KNAAK
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
www.sealionbooks.com | www.richardaknaak.com
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For Roger Zelazny, Andre Norton, and Edgar Rice Burroughs
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
www.sealionbooks.com | www.richardaknaak.com
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I
THE FOREST
The bloody ghosts of battle warred in his head, their cries forever locked in his memory. Warrior split warrior. A rain of hissing arrows presaged full-scale slaughter. Knights on horseback bore down on hapless foes on foot, and pikemen did their best to unseat knights, skewering them like pigs for the spit. A fire-black dragon whose wings blotted out the sky—a leviathan even by his own kind’s standards—soared overhead, belching flame upon those not marked as his master’s servants. A bearded knight in gleaming crimson sat atop him, his lance smeared with blood, his expression more monstrous than that of the beast. Death had ruled the land, then . . . The rider’s mind snapped back to the present, the grisly sounds of war replaced by birdcalls and the buzzing of insects. That time is long gone, he knew. He let out a breath and regarded the quiet autumn forest surrounding him. This interminable quest, which had been thrust upon him, had become a constant reminder that the war and its consequences would forever haunt him. The cool autumn wind soothed him as he urged the pale steed forward over the winding
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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4 earth. Evan had removed his helmet, allowing his shoulder-length, silvering brown hair to flow free. The weathered mail shirt and tarnished breastplate he had left on, a habit of precaution learned from a lifetime of struggle. A dusky-brown travel cloak obscured much of what he wore, but no one sighting him would mistake him for anything other than a knight, albeit one who had seen better days. How strange the passage of time . . . he thought, gazing at the trees standing tall and proud. In this forest it appeared as if the war had never happened. Only someone as familiar with the carnage as he was could identify a mound here and there as old fortifications, possibly even the burial places of long-forgotten dead. Was the rest of Rundin like this? Evan had avoided the towns and villages for the most part, but those stops he had made so far had indicated that the kingdom was and had been for some time at peace. In the Far West, where he had spent so many years since the war, Evan Wytherling had heard little about the conditions in the East. He wondered what changes had occurred in the capital, Coramas. It had always been a progressive city; was it still? What do I care? the knight asked himself bitterly. Peace or war, he had to continue the search. The shadow of Paulo Centuros still hung over him and would continue to do so until he had fulfilled his mission. The occasional clink of metal against metal punctuated the relative quiet of the forest and its softly rustling branches, the trills, clicks, and hums of its many animal denizens. The land around him was still except for an occasional bird flitting by overhead or a squirrel darting to safety in one of the trees. Evan wondered if the forest and its creatures still recalled the armies, the dragons, the sorcerers. I will have to visit him. He may know. He of all people might know of Novaris . . . This
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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5 close to the old battle site, Evan could not shun a confrontation. If he ever hoped to be free, the knight could not avoid the one source of information he had. He would have to visit Valentin. A shudder coursed through him. Evan Wytherling tightened his grip on the reins; the horse snorted in annoyance. The bone-pale beast turned his head to the side, one glittering black orb almost but not quite focusing on the rider. Evan immediately loosened the reins, desiring no difficulty from the animal. Seemingly satisfied with the knight’s submission, the great horse looked ahead again. Evan returned his attention to the countryside, awed by its resilience. Even the hills in the distance were covered with life, the very same hills where Grimyr had scorched the earth, bathing forest and man alike in a sea of blistering flame. The sun, a misty, round shield, was sinking behind the hills. Evan debated making camp rather than meeting Valentin in the dead of night. But the sooner he learned what Valentin knew, the sooner he could be away. “Away . . . to what?” the knight murmured, briefly shattering the quiet. He rubbed his chin lightly with the back of one gauntleted hand, recalling some of the stops on his long journey. He had sailed seas, crossed deserts, climbed mountains, and wended his way through more forests than he could count, but Evan Wytherling had nothing to show for all his efforts. Still the end to his quest remained ever beyond his tired reach. Ahead, a small stream cut across his intended path. Driven by thirst, Evan dared the horse’s wrath and tugged lightly on the reins. After the animal halted beside the stream, the knight dismounted and collected the near-empty water skin that dangled from the side of the saddle. Evan could easily make out his reflection in the water despite its gentle current. Though
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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6 some others recoiled at the sight of his gaunt face and weathered gray skin, the knight was unmoved. He scarcely remembered how he had looked before Paulo Centuros had claimed him for this madness. Not much different, he supposed, save that his narrow hazel eyes now held a weariness that only a journey as long and harrowing as his could have produced. The image dispersed as he thrust the water skin into the stream and let the bag fill, his gaze rising to view the land ahead. Another hour, perhaps two, and he would reach Valentin. Once that confrontation was over, he could be away from this place of cursed memories. The fluttering of wings overhead startled him, but when Evan looked up he saw nothing. He cursed himself for his foolishness. Sealing the skin, he rose from the stream and returned to the fearsome steed. The animal snorted at him as he mounted, but this time Evan refused to acknowledge the foul beast’s annoyance. They were companions of necessity, nothing more. Magic had brought them together and only death could separate them. The pale animal moved without urging from Evan. The knight resumed his study of the landscape, signs of the war still evident, such as the great depression to his far left. True, foliage covered much of one side of it, but those who inspected it with the eyes of a warrior might notice its perfect roundness. Evan felt a tingle; even now traces of sorcery remained, but only one sensitive to such power would be able to feel the faint emanations. Who had died there? The spellcasters on both sides had wielded their powers with deadly precision, Centuros and his counterpart, the sorcerer-king Novaris, inflicting the most casualties between them. Nothing would remain of the victims, of course, such sorcery being monstrously thorough, but at least the depression gave them a monument of sorts that so many of the other fallen had failed to receive. Renewed fluttering stirred him from his dark thoughts. This time he searched the treetops
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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7 more thoroughly, but Evan could not see the source of the noise. Something about the fluttering disturbed his senses, but what it was Evan could not say. Deal with Valentin. That is all that matters . . . The horse suddenly stilled. Evan Wytherling blinked, puzzled by the animal’s behavior until he caught sight of the figure in the distance. There should have been no one else in the forest, his forest. The legacy of the war should have guaranteed that, but there she was, seated on a small mound, reading from a tiny book. Her golden hair, fastened in a braid, was of stark contrast to the forest, as was her white woolen cloak. What Evan could see of her features revealed that she was young, possibly still a maiden. She had a slightly rounded face with a full mouth, a delicate nose, and almond-shaped eyes that even from a distance revealed a more fiery soul than her gentle appearance indicated. Little more could the knight tell about her save that beneath her cloak the clothing she wore was of good make and dusky blue in general coloring. Nearby, her transport, a brown mare tethered to a tree, munched on some leaves from a low bush. A non-peasant woman sitting in the midst of an empty forest? Evan Wytherling’s eyes narrowed. Something was dreadfully amiss. Why would she be out here, traveling unconcerned in the middle of nowhere? Why pause, with the sun already sinking, to read? “No,” he finally whispered, a possible, terrible answer occurring to him. “No . . . they would not have . . .” Evan had to know. It changed everything . . . perhaps. Certainly it changed his plans. She looked up. The knight tugged on the reins, urging the horse out of sight. Now was the time to watch. Now was the time to learn. Now was the time to pray he was wrong.
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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***
Mardi Sinclair looked up from the thin volume she had been reading, certain that other eyes watched her. She turned her gaze to the west and from the edge of her vision caught sight of an image like none she had ever witnessed. A knight. A paladin atop a moon-silver stallion. He wore no helmet, which enabled the young woman to see the man’s determined eyes, his slightly aquiline nose, and his defiant, wellformed chin. Silver streaks cut through dark-brown hair that flowed to his shoulders. A sword with a jeweled hilt hung from a scabbard at his side. The gleam from the breastplate beneath his travel cloak forced her to blink, and when Mardi finally focused again the magnificent rider was no longer there. Man and horse had disappeared as if they had never been. Never been . . . Of course they had never been. Mardi Sinclair uttered an oath under her breath that her uncle Yoniff would have found reprehensible from not only the niece of an established money lender but also a woman educated in the best schools in Coramas. Of late, he had found her attitude increasingly offensive, especially her reluctance to marry any of the landowners’ or merchants’ sons to whom he had presented her. “I’ve tried to raise you well, Mardina.” Yoniff had ever refused to use the casual, shorter version of her name that she preferred. “Given you all the things my sister would’ve tried to give you if the plague hadn’t taken her that terrible winter along with your father and your little sister, Drucinda. You are the daughter I never had, girl, and up until recently I’ve felt nothing but pride. Now, however, you’ve grown so obstinate I’m beginning to wonder what to do with you. If you
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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9 were a boy, the answer would be easy. If you’d been a boy, you’d have been a soldier, mark me. But you’re . . . Aah, what can I do?” Such conversations between the two had become common, with no end in sight. That was one reason Mardi had sought solitude so often, riding off long distances to find restful spots to read the few books she could get her hands on. The books were her treasures, the gates to a different world that not only she but also the children she taught to read could pass through. Teaching was the one thing Mardi did that her uncle still respected. Yoniff believed educated children offered a better future to the kingdom. He did not always care for her choice of books, however; heroic adventures, tales of knights and dragons. The works about and by the nearly mythic Paulo Centuros, quite the rage in Coramas these days despite having been written so long ago, especially incensed the conservative and fiscal-minded man. Better to teach the young ones to be useful to their king and the upper class than fill their heads with the romantic, heroic verses of an age that, to most, had no meaning in these busy days. Mardi always found contradictions in such thinking but never voiced them to the man. Uncle Yoniff would not have listened. Now she wondered whether he had been correct after all about her choice of reading material. Of late Mardi had found herself too caught up in her stories, so much so that now and then she was troubled by vivid dreams of warring armies, desperate knights on horseback, and even savage dragons. This latest incident was certainly the worst. Never before had her daydreams conjured so real an image. With a sigh, she snapped shut the tan leather-bound book and rose. Returning the thin tome to a pouch on her belt, the golden-haired woman took one last look around. No heroic knight. No magnificent stallion. Of course not.
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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10 Mounting, Mardi Sinclair urged her brown mare east. Her uncle would be wondering where she was. Caught up in her reading and her dreams, the young woman had forgotten the time. Even in a place as quiet and uneventful as this, it was never good to take chances. What’s there to fear here, though? What’s there ever been to fear? A bird fluttered overhead, landing in a treetop just ahead of her. A crow. Mardi gave the avian no more thought; in the forest blackbirds were as common as squirrels. She wished it had at least been a tiny wyvern, but such fantastic creatures were now found only in Tepis or in the far western kingdoms, not in Rundin. Likely they found it as wearisome a place as Mardi did. Not wearisome, she corrected. Soulless. We are losing our soul, our spark. If only someone would listen to her. Rundin cared about little besides its ever-demanding coffers. Her uncle was a prime example of what she most feared her nation had become. The only cause he ever showed interest in was the cause of finance. Mardi tried to focus on the journey. The trek was not a terrible one, although it did require her to keep a tight rein on the mare at times. The forest was filled with strange hill formations and sudden depressions that some of the older folk said were actually the buried remnants of some great battle. Mardi doubted those tales, though. Likely nothing greater than a few road bandits had ever threatened this area. No sooner had she thought that than Mardi heard the rustling of brush to the side. At first she thought nothing of it; with squirrels, raccoons, and the occasional draco rat the most dominant forms of life in the forest, Mardi Sinclair felt little fear. On a rare occasion a lone wolf found its way to the region, but the last one had been sighted some two seasons before. The brush rustled again. If a raccoon, it was a large one. Mardi urged the mare on. Home was not much farther.
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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11 A different sound, the distinctive clink of metal on metal—or so Mardi identified it— made her pause. She twisted in the saddle, searching for the source of the new noise. Her thoughts returned to the paladin, but almost immediately she quelled such dreams. He had not been real. Such heroes no longer existed; the only ones to be found in these peaceful days were the products of storytellers. Besides, had he been real, what would such a knight find to interest him here? Neither sound repeated itself, and after a moment of hesitation, Mardi resumed her journey, feeling more disappointed than anything else. Soon she would be home, safe from the nonexistent threats of the forest. Safe from everything except the explosive wrath of her uncle. The previous evening she had informed him of her intention to move into the small house that doubled as the school. Her parents’ money had bought her that, money that should have been saved for dowry, but for which she had at last found better use. Unfortunately, Yoniff still had legal control of those funds, and before they parted ways this morning he had vowed to save her from her headstrong ways. Mardi feared that he intended to bring her up officially before the magistrate, miserly Drulane. It would be just the sort of lesson her uncle would teach her. A bell rang out, announcing the coming night. A few moments later, Mardi caught sight of the upper tip of the church tower, the tallest structure in the town of Pretor’s Hill. “Home,” she muttered. Her hand briefly stroked the pouch containing the book of verses supposedly written by Centuros himself. It was her favorite, the one she read over and over. The nearness comforted her a little, but not enough to erase her anxiety concerning Yoniff’s threat. “Dear, sweet home . . .”
***
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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A sense of foreboding had stirred within Evan Wytherling as he followed the young woman. Beyond the girl’s obvious lack of concern for both her surroundings and the coming night, the knight had begun to notice subtle changes in the darkening woods. Any sense of calm faded with the diminishing sunlight. The ghosts of battle began to flock to him in greater force, stronger, more demanding than ever before. Monstrous Grimyr circling above, roaring in amusement. The heavyset wizard Paulo Centuros, hands splayed, turning a simple, innocent stream into a river of death. Shadowy, snoweyed General Haggad cutting down a hapless foot soldier with his toothed sword. His opposite, the bearded General Pretor—a gentle, sad giant—turning a rout into yet a stronger assault on the forces of the sorcerer-king Novaris. Something—not a ghost—darted through the woods just to his left. Evan reined the horse to a halt, trying to keep the woman in the distance in sight while also seeking a better view of his new companion. One hand slipped to the jeweled hilt of the blade at his side. A black form flew at him from his right, shrieking and seeking his face. The blade met it swiftly, cutting through just before talons would have gouged scarlet tracks in the knight’s cheek. Blood spattered the breastplate as the two neatly severed halves of his attacker flopped to the ground. Snorting, the pale stallion brought one hoof down on the nearest of the halves, crushing it into an unidentifiable mess. Evan leapt off the animal, seeking the other bloody portion. When he did find it, it took him a moment to identify what sort of creature it had been, so thoroughly had the sharp-edged sword done its murderous work.
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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13 A crow. One of the largest, most baleful blackbirds that Evan had seen in many a year. It had a look to it that reminded him well of another time, a time after the battle had long ended and all that remained had been the dead and dying. That was when the scavengers feasted, the scaly draco rats, the wild, voracious dogs, and the mocking carrion crows. They came to the battlefields by the hundreds, swarming over the rotting bodies even as a few hardy men tried to do what they could to cleanse the land of the carnage. A carrion crow. Evan stared at what remained of the bird. This creature had the look of carrion, the smell of it. Even now, the scent of decay drifted from its mangled corpse. No! All in your mind, Evan Wytherling. There has been no battle here since the great one; since Novaris, Centuros, Haggad, Pretor, and Valentin crossed this ravaged land! There has been nothing here that would feed such monsters. This is a simple blackbird, a stalker of field mice and squirrels, not a scavenger of men’s dark ambitions . . . Yet, even if that were so, it still left the question of why the crow had sought his face. Evan glared at the disemboweled avian, seeking from it an answer he knew it could not give him. The horse snorted. Evan suddenly recalled the young woman, already out of sight. The bird would tell him nothing, but the woman might still provide him with some desperately needed answers. Wiping clean the blade, he returned it to its scabbard, then quickly remounted. As Evan rode, he noted yet more winged furies darting among the trees. With the encroaching night, the forest seemed alive with blackbirds, all of them as large and evil in appearance as the one he had cut in two. Again the knight was reminded of the battle and the devastation, of the friends and foes lying dead by the hundreds wherever he looked. There is no greater wonder, no more heart-wresting spectacle in all of humanity’s history than the battlefield, Paulo Centuros had once said to him. It is the essence of life and death all
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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14 laid out at once for us to view for our pleasure or our pain . . . Again Evan Wytherling shuddered. He had to be wrong. The woman would show him the truth. A great bell rang in the distance. The sound jarred both horse and rider. Evan fought with the pale phantom beneath him, at last winning enough control to force the beast forward. With great trepidation, the pair followed the sound. The knight caught sight of the source of the ringing a moment later; a church tower whose point poked out above the nearest trees. As he rode closer, more of the structure became visible, as did a number of other buildings surrounding the church. There was a stable, at least two inns of some quality, a market, and at least two dozen other buildings within the immediate area that he could not identify, but that were clearly places where people congregated often. Light from within many of the buildings illuminated much of the view before him, revealing a sprawling settlement with roots at least three or four generations strong from the looks of it. Far ahead, he vaguely noted the woman as she rode into what was clearly her home. Someone greeted her. Several more people wandered past his view, going about their business. Even with the coming of night, the place remained active. What stood before him was not the forest he had hoped he would find, but a burgeoning town, a picturesque community clearly in the throes of a long, healthy peace. Evan’s anxiety continued to grow. His gaze shifted back to the church. He stared at it, wondering why it of all places in the town should bother him so. More than once he had received respite from a church or monastery, albeit often under precarious circumstances. He considered them places of comfort, not unease. Why should this holy place be different?
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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15 “No . . .” With a start, the wary knight realized that it was not the church itself but rather the location that disturbed him. How could they have been so ignorant, so foolish, to have built the structure on so damned a spot? Then again, the townsfolk could not have known about the place they had set the church upon. They had not been there during the war. They had not witnessed what Evan Wytherling had witnessed. “Valentin . . .” he whispered, his lip curling in both disgust and growing fear. “Valentin, what have you done?”
Dragon Mound by Richard A. Knaak
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