The Legend of Vanx Malic: Book 02 - Dragon Isle (23 page)

On the rooftop, the ogre dangling the duchess’s now half-naked body tossed her to the side, her full, pink-nippled breasts no longer able to hold its attention. She had torn open her gown and exposed them, hoping that they would delay the creature’s savage bite. Amazingly, the sight of her plump tits had done just that.

The ogre was rushing to the ladder now, jostling for position with another ogre. This one was dragging the limp maid by her well-chewed leg. It was reluctant to turn her loose, but once the first ogre started down, it did. Something else had captured their attention, something that overrode all of their instinct to feed on the bodies of the humans they’d conquered. It was the very same power that brought them there in the first place.

The Blood Stone was dangling from a length of heavy silver chain Vanx had found, on a jeweler’s spool, among Pyra’s vast treasure hoard. They’d struck a bargain. The Blood Stone in exchange for her help. The tiny rock was smaller than the links of chain that now held it around her massive neck, but its power radiated in such a way that it caused the Queen of Dragon Isle to beam with delight.

Pyra came thumping to a hover just over the stronghold rooftop. From all over Dyntalla the ogres started streaming mindlessly into the courtyard below.

Deftly, Pyra snatched the last ogre up as he turned from the ladder to come back toward the Blood Stone. There was a rumbling gout of fire and the sound of sizzling meat, and then the crunching of bones followed. After that there was a long, low, purring of delight. “Mmmm, yessss,” she hissed. “Much better than orcs and fish.”

“Thank you, your radiance,” Zeezle said with a flourishing bow after she dropped him onto the roof. “I owe you my life.”

“You owe your life to your friend,” Pyra hissed. She lowered her huge head closer to the rooftop so that Vanx could dismount. “Our bargain is done, emerald eyes.”

“Yup,” Vanx agreed as he tried to remain standing on legs as solid as water. “But there is one more favor I would ask of you before you start your feast.”

“What is this favor?” Pyra cocked her massive head curiously.

“Fly to the west, toward the mountains, and draw the ogres out of the city before you start roasting them.”

The pup wiggled its head out of the papoon, took one look at the dragon, and let out a peal of savage barks.

The dragon roared out a deep, resounding laugh, sending a cloud of black smoke from its snout. “It is done,” Pyra said as she lifted herself up higher above the rooftop.

Vanx gave her a respectful bow and when he raised his eyes back skyward she was already banking away. He watched her only long enough to realize that someone was insistently calling out his name.

“Vanx! Oh my beautiful Vanx Malic,” Duchess Gallarain called as she ran across the rooftop toward him. “I knew you’d come and save me.” Her exposed breasts bounced with her footfalls, vacating his mind of all sensible thought. Before he knew what was happening he was wrapped up in her arms, her lips kissing his face again and again and again. Her huge, soft breasts pressed so hard against him that he thought she might crush the pup. When he looked down he had to laugh, for even the pup seemed comforted by the feel of them.

“I thought you were dead,” she cried out in a mixture of relief and anguish. “After what happened to Gallarael, I couldn’t bear the thought that you gave your life for nothing.”

“Where is she?” Vanx asked, his mind suddenly jolted back to the moment. “I’ve got a bottle of dragon’s blood right here.”

“She is… She is… Oh, Vanx,” the duchess cried as she clutched him all the tighter, causing the pup to yelp and squirm.

“She may be beyond help,” Zeezle said from where he was crouched over the duchess’s maid. “The fire wyrm blood we returned with somehow changed her into something wild.”

“Olden Pak and Pyra both said that this blood can reverse the destruction of the fang-flower venom.”

“We had the blood of a fire breather. I know because I pricked her myself.”

“Is it true?” The duchess pulled back and looked into Vanx’s eyes from an arm’s length away. What she saw in them clearly filled her with hope.

Using the moment to free itself, the pup nearly dove out of the papoon toward the rooftop. Vanx saved it from a fall and absently sat it by his feet. Without even bothering to sniff out a good place, the pup moved a few feet away, hunched its little body and relieved itself.

“It’s not a matter of whether the blood will save her or not,” said Zeezle, trying not to laugh at the little dog’s lack of modesty. He might have done the same thing had there not been so many injuries to tend and so many eyes upon him. The two falls and the wild ride in Pyra’s claws had scared him so completely that he was surprised he didn’t have a load in his britches. “It’s a matter of catching hold of her without being killed. She tore Trevin up bad and put a set of stripes across Darbon’s face.”

“She hurt Trevin?” Vanx asked with amazement. “But she loves him more than anything.”

“And he still loves her.” Zeezle averted his eyes from the duchess’s breasts. In all his life he’d never been attracted to a human female, yet he had no problem understanding how Vanx had gotten caught up in this mess. “There will be time to catch her later.” Zeezle pointed toward the bodies of Quazar and Prince Russet, then across the roof where Orphas was trying to roll over onto his side. “We’ve plenty to worry about for the moment.”

Vanx nodded and surprised himself by somehow pulling his attention away from Duchess Gallarain.

Quazar had several broken ribs. Orphas had a nasty wound where the edge of his chrome skullcap had cut into his scalp. Prince Russet hadn’t been injured any further than the broken arm, and the spells the two wizards cast on it had gone far toward eradicating the infection.

The duchess’s maid had a huge bite taken out of her thigh and had lost enough blood to make the wound a serious one. With Zeezle and Orphas’s hovering about, though, the bleeding had been stopped and the bite cleansed of the filth from the ogre’s mouth.

The ogre horde was leaving Dyntalla Stronghold in a stampede, drawn westward by the pull of Pyra’s new prize. They seemed unconcerned about what awaited them. Vanx could only guess what the fiery slaughter would be like. He was just glad that his friends, or at least most of them, had survived the whole ordeal.

Later in the evening, after the prince woke to find that Vanx had not only survived on Dragon Isle, but had returned on the Fire Queen’s back to save the city, he ordered Orphas to send a message to the king that it was safe to return. By the next morning the people of Dyntalla were streaming back by the boatload to begin the daunting task of burying the dead and rebuilding all that had been destroyed.

In the afternoon Darbon was found wandering the halls, covered in blood, and babbling on about Matty, Trevin, and Gallarael. After he was calmed and the story was drawn out of him, Vanx, Zeezle, and Orphas found the sleek, black-skinned form of Gallarael Martin curled protectively around the lover she had nearly killed.

Orphas spelled her into a deep sleep from the doorway, and then Vanx followed Quazar’s instructions and gave her a dose of the potion rendered from Pyra’s blood—blood a blue dragon had drawn during its aerial battle with the queen dragon, blood that had been bathed for most of a night under the full light of Aur and her dancing stars.

Zeezle helped a pair of soldiers clear the doorway so that Matty’s corpse could be carried out and another bed dragged in. The potion started working immediately on Gallarael’s body, but both wizards agreed that it would take quite a while for it to completely reverse the changes the other mixture had caused, if it even worked at all. No one had any idea how all of this would affect her unborn child.

While this was going on, the emaciated and infuriated Duke of Highlake, who had escaped being an ogre’s meal only because the door to his cell refused to completely give way, found the king’s ear. Now he sat, filthy and stinking, in a small yet opulent chamber shoveling hot bread and salted pork down his gullet between gulping sips of wine.

The king heard the short version of what happened from his son, but heard no real proof that Humbrick Martin had ordered the attack on the caravan. For all he knew, it was in fact true what Duke Martin was telling him, that lovestruck Commander Aldine had given the order, and had later poisoned himself out of guilt or fear of punishment.

In fact, the king didn’t have much choice in the matter. Kingdom law, written by his own father, dictated that he would have to oversee not only one, but two trials, for Humbrick Martin refused to let the fact that Vanx Malic was still his slave be forgotten.

With much regret in his voice, and a sigh of frustration, King Oakarm ordered the half-blooded Zythian to be taken into custody. He had the decency and foresight, at least, to let his son carry out the order and allow Vanx to be housed under the prince’s guard in the finest guest room Duke Elmont’s stronghold had left intact.

I’m off to make a fool of a fool,

and a fool of a duke as well.

Only a fool can fool a fool,

But with a duke’s wits who can tell?

– The King of Fools (as sung by Vanx Malic)

S
ince one trial could render the other pointless, the accusations against Duke Martin would be heard first, and quickly. The people of Dyntalla considered Vanx a hero. With Duchess Gallarain, Darbon, and with the help of the wizards, they made that opinion perfectly clear to the king. If Duke Martin was found guilty of any of his crimes he would lose his title and all of his property, including his slaves. They would revert to the Crown. The king could then grant Vanx’s freedom and honor his deeds properly. If Duke Martin somehow proved the charges against himself false, then he would retain his title and holdings and a new hearing would commence. The second trial would determine if Vanx’s actions after the attack on the caravan constituted those of an escaped slave, or something else. Needless to say, the king, and everyone else in Dyntalla, wanted to avoid the second event. Not only because Vanx had saved thousands and thousands of lives, but because the penalty for escaping slavery was a one-way visit to the headsman’s block. No one wanted to see the hero’s head roll, or the riots that would follow such an action.

It took a few days to clear out the corpses and restore the stronghold’s rooms to a presentable state. In that time, Prince Russet went over some of the laws and customs of Parydon Court. A lot of them were just common sense, but enough of the details covering the accusations of the kingdom’s higher nobility caused Vanx to ask for an advocate. Prince Russet agreed to do the job, and not one, but both of the royal wizards were delighted to serve as assistants. Vanx appreciated the help, but decided to read all of the kingdom law he could while he waited for the hearings.

He was disappointed to read that he couldn’t fight Duke Martin in single combat. Slaves in Parydon had almost no rights at all, other than food and shelter—not even the right to fight for themselves.

None of them gave Duke Martin the slightest chance of convincing the king that he hadn’t ordered the attack on the caravan or conspired with the deceased demon, Coll, to kill and frame Commander Aldine for the deed, but just in case, they did their duty as Vanx’s advocates and prepared a case for his defense that made his exploits look exactly like the selfless acts of heroism they were. It was a good thing, too, for in his life Duke Martin had studied the kingdom’s law well. He was as prepared to defend himself as any man could ever have been.