Minstrel's Serenade. Aubrie Dionne

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СКАЧАТЬ this beast eye to eye.”

      They skirted the House of Song, careful not to make a sound. Clinking chimes covered their footsteps. The minstrels’ music had taken an introspective turn, and a sprinkle of minimalistic notes drifted over droning chords. The denizens had snuffed out most of their golden lights, and the moon lighted the path.

      The carriage lay where he’d left it, parked next to the gates of the village. Bron reached down and fingered the tarp covering his latest conquest. The fabric still emanated heat, warming his fingertips in the cool mist. Bron shot a glance at the boy. Nip nodded in determination. The warrior tugged and the tarp slipped off.

      A snout three times bigger than a dog’s and littered with ivory white teeth snarled out from the carriage’s backside. Onyx eyes glared in the moonlight, defying death. Two horns spiraled backward from a ridge of fin-like protrusions.

      Nip froze as sulfurous steam from the beast’s mouth pooled around his boots. It would take days for the head to cool and the smoke to dissipate.

      The stark fear in his expression reminded Bron of himself as a boy. His brother had paid a shiny copper for each of them to look upon a caged harpy. Walking to the curtained bars, he could still remember the musky scent and hear the squeaking of its claws on the planks. At ten, he’d needed Hule’s cajoling to get him to open his eyes. When he did, the black-feathered beast seemed more prey than predator. Ever since that day, he knew fear lay in anticipation.

      Bron nudged the boy forward gently as a clammy tang, like old seaweed drying in the sun for too long, wafted up. “Don’t be afraid.”

      “Burrow’s Bucket! It stinks.” Nip covered his mouth with his sleeve.

      Bron shook his head. “Remember that smell. Get used to it. ’Tis the reek of death.”

      Blue-black blood trickled from thorny whiskers, sizzling a hole in the grass. Nip reached out, his fingers brushing over the oily scales. He shuddered, managing to uphold his stance. A scale the size of his hand stuck out from the weave and the boy yanked it off. Bron caught him as he fell backward.

      Nip jumped from his arms and stood on his own. He ran his fingertips over the smooth seashell-like surface of the scale as if touching the feather of a god. Stepping back into the shadows, Bron allowed him time to think, to mourn.

      “I promise, Ma and Pa, to right this wrong.” The boy’s eyes watered, and he swiped at them with the back of his hand. His face grew fierce as he held the scale above his head, challenging the night. “Vengeance is mine.”

      Chapter 4

      Break of Dawn

      Golden sunlight direct from the heavens refracted within a chain of silver armor. Each soldier gleamed like a Knights and Wizards game-piece polished to perfection. Danika observed the processional from her balcony, waving her mother’s satin scarf in the breeze in tribute. Her father wouldn’t approve of her using anything from her mother’s untouched room, never mind the fine scarf he’d given the former queen as a token of his undying love. But, it seemed wasteful to let such finery collect dust. Besides, it was all she had of her mother. The former queen had left her with little else. Now, she might lose her father, too. Watery melancholy and deep angst bled together in her heart, creating a whirlpool of anxiety. Why couldn’t he stay on his throne?

      She knew him too well to plead. If the dead army of Sill breached their northern expanses, only fields separated the insidious evil from blighting their lands. This mission ranked too high to trust with his generals, and he never watched the action from afar.

      King Artemus led the army on his ebony war stallion, flanked by flag holders on either side. Behind him, Bron rode a dove-white charger. A gilded helmet covered his bald head, but Danika recognized the width of his shoulders and the swell of the armor fitted to his muscles. At least Bron would keep him safe.

      A nagging concern pressed on her chest, squeezing out her breath. Her fingertips loosened and the scarf fluttered away in the wind. Hadn’t this scene happened before? A memory of her father’s bluewood coffin draped in Ebonvale’s violet-and-green pennants drifted through her mind.

      “No.”

      Her attendants shrieked as she pushed herself through the back row and plunged down the stairs in the tower. Her heel caught on the rug and she kicked off her beaded sandal, sprinting three steps at a time.

      “My lady, wait! Come back!” Muriel, her lady-in-waiting, screamed just as Danika flung open the door and met the crowd.

      A pang of guilt rolled through her. Muriel was like a sister and to leave her worrying was cruel. Yet, she had to stop her father before he made the mistake that would cost him his life.

      People crowded around her, tugging on her lacy clothes.

      She pushed through the throng of onlookers. “Let me through!”

      Elbowing two men as big as bears, she tore herself away from groping hands. A circle of milk-maids leaned over the main road, dropping roses at the soldiers’ feet. She squeezed through, stepping on their offerings. An old man placed his cane on the trail of her gown and she ripped her underskirt, kicking the fabric free. When she turned back, a poor chimneysweep, covered in ash, dove for the rich lace.

      Danika emerged from the crowd, stumbling onto the pebble stone of the main thoroughfare. She jogged alongside the marching army. Ignoring the soldiers’ questioning looks and hoots, she picked up her pace. The brigade went on and on in an endless line. Would she ever find the lead? Their pace quickened and she panted as she struggled to keep up. What if her father had already kicked his horse into a gallop? The hills of Mealee rose before her like the fuzzy backs of giants, and Sill’s blackened gates lay just beyond.

      Gravel tore the skin of her bare foot and blood ran, warm and sticky, through her toes. Bron’s helmet rose a head taller from the ranks and she quickened her pace, her lungs burning raw.

      “Father!”

      Bron turned in his saddle but she paid him no heed. Danika focused on the golden-etched armor in the lead, as if staring could bore a hole into his back.

      “Father, stop!”

      A gilded lion’s head turned toward her. The visor snapped open and her father’s rigid face peeked through. He looked both majestic and timeworn, his sharp features decorated by webs of wrinkles.

      Danika tripped and fell to her knees.

      Her father tugged his reins and his black horse turned full circle, interrupting the ranks. The soldiers eddied around him like river waves parting before a stone. He dismounted and rushed to her side. His armor chinked as he knelt beside her and laid a hand on her arm. “Why have you left your attendants?”

      Time suffocated her, pressing in on all sides. She knew she had only moments before the past replayed the chain of events leading to his demise.

      “You’ll die in this battle.” Her words tainted her tongue.

      His eyes were steady, his features as calm as if he knew what his future held. “You must let me go.”

      “No.”

      Soldiers marched around them like puppets of fate, their boots stomping the ground in rhythm with her racing heart. King Artemus’ СКАЧАТЬ