Black Dragon of Amber Book Two: The Road to Amber Page 4

  “Very intelligent and not too dangerous. I have impressed upon him not to hurt any children, pets or livestock while he is here,” Marcus added.

  “Good. Will you see to his food or shall we?”

  “He feeds himself. In fact, he is the best mouser and vermin catcher you’ve ever seen. He sleeps with Roelle at night and toilets himself like a cat,” Marcus explained and I hissed threatening to pinch his nose. “He’s a bit bashful, too,” Marcus laughed. I followed behind as we were escorted into the house nearly as grand as my grandfather’s San Francisco mansion. We parted ways from Marcus as Roelle went towards one of the tower rooms that she told me had been hers. Servants and children came out to greet her, leaving hugs and glad cries behind. Once her door finally closed on the feminine room of brass bed, cedar chest, cherry wardrobe and blazing fireplace, she threw herself onto the mattress to stare up at the carved ceiling panels. There were unicorns, fairies, elves, sprites and other fanciful creature staring back.

  “Your parents and family are nice, Roelle,” I said tentatively. I’d seen all seven brothers at the castle and remember the youngest from there. He’d looked happy and very glad to see his sister, inviting her to meet his fiancé later.

  “They are,” she said briefly. I could tell she was worried.

  “What’s wrong, Roelle?”

  “Did you see the collection of boys?” I had noticed the unusual amount of young men there to greet us but hadn’t thought any more about it.

  “So?”

  “It’s my parents’ way of hinting to me it’s time I chose someone for myself,” she said unhappily.

  “Anyone you like in particular?” I asked carefully and she sat up to throw a pillow at me. I dodged it.

  “Raven, how could you? You know how I feel about you!”

  Sighing, I shook my head and landed on her knees. She cradled me in her palms and brought me to her cheek resting my blind side against her delicate skin.

  “Roelle, as long as I’m in this form, there can’t be anything between us. You know that and as far as we know, I’m stuck this way…forever.”

  Her eyes blazed brighter than my own. “I refuse to believe that, Raven. Marcus will find a way to help us. I know that. I went to the wishing well and asked for my heart’s desire. It showed me you, Raven. You, not the Black Dragon but you. Not you, the teenage boy who died but a mature, noble adult in a suit such as Prince Corwin wore standing between your father and grandfather. I believe in that vision and you should, too.”

  A servant knocked on her door to announce the evening meal would be served in an hour’s time and her lady’s maid would be up to help her dress, as it was formal. Roelle rolled her eyes and within minutes, a veritable horde was inside preparing a bath, clothes and toilette for a noble’s daughter. I observed the whole proceedings from my perch upon her blanket rack with both hind legs wrapped tightly on the wooden bar. Sitting up like a pet monkey.

  Her people watched me out of the corners of their eyes, curiosity making them bold. They asked many questions about me and she answered politely. When asked what presents she had brought from Amber, she waxed eloquently and they were suitably impressed. She did not have any idea what my own gift was, only that Murphy had carefully and secretly packed it into a chest marked ‘for the bridegroom from the Black Dragon’. That crate had been especially fussed over by the guards to ensure it was protected and secured.

  When she was done dressing (and it had taken nearly an hour from start to finish), she was breathtaking in a powder blue gown with a trailing skirt, lace sleeves and square neckline. Her hair was up in loose curls with a king’s ransom in jewels woven through it and gigantic pearls on her ears. A choker of blue pearls wrapped her neck and she had hung from it a delicate seashell carved by the Queen. Random had given her a black onyx diadem shaped like a dragon with wings that she wore on her forehead. I swallowed, in awe at her beauty and poise.

  “Wow!” I said unable not to and the crowd around her gaped at me.

  “It speaks? Roelle, Lady Roelle, it speaks?” One of the older women gasped.

  “Like a parrot,” she said swiftly. “It repeats what he hears. Good morning, my dear.” She prompted.

  “Morning,” I said and wiped at my snout as I’d seen an Amazon Gray do. “Morning, morning, morning.”

  “Pretty boy, aren’t you, Raven?” She cooed.

  “Pretty boy.” I rolled my one eye and flapped off following discreetly behind as they escorted her to the Grande salon where they dined and en famile. If you considered forty people family. Everyone was introduced to each other. We ate a meal fit for a king and the ladies retired to do those things ladies did while men smoked, drank and bullshitted. I remained atop the corbels of the huge hall hiding on a gargoyle’s face that reminded me of Murphy. I eavesdropped I admit, because I was nosy. Most of the conversation was about Amber, Court, me and whether Roelle had an eye for any young man. Marcus was never considered because he was only a chef’s son. Which pissed me off because he was honest, caring, and hardworking, just as worthy as any so-called noble’s son. The discussion turned to Khafra and the unrest that was starting between Amber and Luke, Khafra’s newly crowned King. It seemed he was a friend of my father’s, he’d known him since his college days. I wasn’t sure what the conflict was over – whether it was between King Luke and his subjects or some other claimant to the throne or against Amber and Random. I did hear that they had sent a present to Roelle’s brother’s wedding. His name was Lambrecht by the way and she had told me he’d been called Lamby until he beat the last one to call him that. I’d asked if it had been her and she frowned at me.

  “When I was twelve,” she muttered. “Not since then. He pulled out my hair.”

  Dinner was over and the socializing quit about midnight before everyone departed for the respective bedrooms. It took me a while to track Marcus down, as his status wasn’t obvious. On Ro’s insistence, he’d been given a room inside the house and not with the soldiers or servants. In fact, he was two doors down from Ro’s companion. I found his door shut and wasn’t sure which window was his from the outside so I climbed up the molding to hang halfway up and thumped my legs on the door.

  “Who is it?” He called.

  “Raven.”

  “Oh.” I heard him rustling and presently, he opened the door to scoop me off it before he shut it behind us. His room was small, neat and done in oak mellowed to a golden finish with a snug bunk, chair, table and running water in a small privy. He had oil lamps and one small window that faced the valley with the villagers reside in. No balcony for him. Still, it was more than a maid’s garret. The fireplace was busily burning the bluestone I used to feed my flames. Every so often, a chute opened and poured more onto the flames. It was modern considering Amber was a near feudal realm. The room was toasty and he was in his long handles with his hair wet.

  “Shower,” he said grinning. “With hot water.” He showed me and I was surprised at the modern conveniences. The Baron was quite modern, even had flush toilets and sewage pipes. “His eldest son designed it. After seeing Amber and the Castle,” he explained. “What’s up?” He had picked up a few of my sayings, too.

  “Just checking to see if they’re treating you properly.” I said. I cocked my head as I heard the squeaking of a mouse. Before I could even think about it, I ducked, caught and ate it. Marcus blanched.

  “Well, it tastes good,” I defended. “It’s not like I can eat pheasant under glass anymore.”

  “I drew the line at watching you bite off a cow’s head,” he shuddered.

  “Yeah, well my meat doesn’t come wrapped in plastic and pink Styrofoam,” I retorted.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. When is this wedding? And when are we leaving for Khafra?”

  “The wedding is this weekend. I thought maybe you had some ideas how we can get to Khafra. I know you told Roelle you can’t Trump there. What if you had a set?”

  “Marcus, you didn’t!” I said a
stonished. Corwin would kill him.

  “Let’s say I could get a set,” he hedged. “Would you use it?”

  “It wouldn’t help, Marcus. There’s no trump for Khafra in any sets that I’ve ever seen.”

  “But there is a set with Luke’s portrait on one,” he grinned.

  I gaped. “You stole my dad’s set?”

  “Well, he wasn’t using them,” he protested laughing. “So, I thought we could.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “I thought we’d stay until just after the wedding and when the couple leaves for their new estates, we’d offer to go part of the way with them. Once out of sight of the party, we could trump us all to Khafra before anyone could do anything to stop us,” he offered.

  “Best to do it right after the ceremony when everyone is busy with the new couple and gifts. No one will be paying attention to us,” I suggested.

  “Sounds good. Are you comfortable at this size? I can turn you back –”

  “No,” I decided. “The sight of my forty feet of Dragon body would race home to the Castle and before you know it, Dad, Granddad and King Random would all be on the doorstep. As it is, I’m already a sensational topic around here. They heard me speak.”

  “Oh no! What did you say?”

  “Pretty boy, good morning,” I snickered and flew off to hear him laugh at me. I knew he’d get the whole story from Roelle.

  Chapter 7

  The wedding was held outdoors to accommodate the immense crowds that had journeyed from hundreds of miles away to participate. Gaily patterned tents bedecked the fields and woods so thickly that it seemed as if the forest was attired in silk. Flowers and ribbons were everywhere and the contestants were dressed to rival an Emperor.

  The bride was a lovely young lady with summer green eyes and ebony hair; she wore a simple gown of white lace with green roses in her hair.

  Lambrecht looked regal in a blue suit with plain gold braid (he was a captain in Amber’s cavalry) and he wore a smile as bright as a shiny new medal. The two were married by a High Bishop of Amber’s only official religion (the Unicorn) and were promised long life, great wealth and a happy marriage. They danced, drank and ate like every wedding I’d ever attended and I learned the lineage and history of his bride. Her name was Lynette, she was the youngest daughter of a well-to-do merchant Lord from one of the Golden Treaty Shadows and Lambrecht had met her when she’d come to Amber with her father to discuss the revised treaty with newly crowned Random. She didn’t look more than nineteen, just about Roelle’s age. Luckily, that had been before my time so she’d never seen me as Raven or the Dragon.

  After a big meal and dancing to wear it off, the wedding party was seated in a small gazebo and the gifts were carted in. I was surprised at the amount and the variety of the gifts. Each one was joyously and gratefully accepted from a chest of new linen to a dozen sapling fruit trees. Random had sent the Sergeant with his trained men as the start of a newly married Lord’s Armory and the weapons to match. Last to be unpacked was my crate and as soon as the writing on it was read, anticipation made the air as thick as London fog.

  Carefully and reverently, the young husband opened the silk wrapped package to hold up a medium-sized shield. Plain, black, it shimmered in the sunshine like a diamond. There were a thousand gasps. Some of awe, some of envy. His eyes filled with tears and I saw both Marcus and Roelle turn to look for me.

  “Roelle,” he stuttered, at a loss. “Such a gift is priceless. Did you ask for this?”

  “No, dear brother. That is the kind of…creature my Black Dragon is,” her eyes were suspiciously bright.

  “I would hug you, sister so that you can convey my heartfelt thanks to your great friend.”

  “He knows, Lambrecht,” she whispered. “He knows.”

  He kept it at his side the rest of the evening and at last light, I went hunting down the valley back towards the roads. Taking only a small bird, I tore to pieces and ate neatly before returning towards the mansion. I spotted a fluttering form on the ground and dipped low to check it out. As I landed, I saw a rabbit flopping on its side; it’s back obviously broken and unable to crawl away. I wasn’t hungry yet I wouldn’t leave it to suffer.

  With one clawed foot, I held it down and used my front legs to put it out of its misery. Rather than leave it, I hooked my hind legs, mouth in its pelt, and struggled up. I heard a zipping sound on my blind side and saw something shoot off to my left. Nets converged on me. I flapped harder, tried to spit out the fur but the net collapsed forcing me to the ground.

  I dropped the rabbit and tore the lines with talons and teeth but before I’d gotten very far, men ran out of the dark and pinioned me. I bit several, actually tore off fingers but I was weakening as the sun had gone down. I started to say the words that would’ve transformed me back to my original size but one of them wrapped a leather thong about my snout while another tied my legs and hands together pinioning my wings. I shrieked and cursed them yet all that emerged were incoherent mumbles.

  They dumped me in a sack and thumped it several times until I was dazed. Slung me over a shoulder and presently, tied me onto a saddle. My keeper mounted and we galloped a twisting winding way through the forests until I could no longer remain conscious. I slept, unable to do anything else.

  When morning came, I opened my one eye to find myself lying on my back, still tied and muzzled inside the steel barred cage. It smelled as if the last occupants had been chickens and were none too clean. I was thirsty, hungry, and incredibly angry. Struggling, I twisted and turned trying to get the rope off me.

  In the morning light I could see the faces of the men who had had abducted me. Clean-shaven, well dressed and not your average brigand or thief. These looked like professional men, soldiers or mercenaries.

  “What are you, little Dragon?” He mused. “You must be hungry. I know you eat meat or you wouldn’t have gone for the rabbit.”

  I waited for him to remove the snout thong to feed me. Once freed, I would speak Marcus’s phrase and teach these idiots a thing or two about dragons.

  Instead, he pulled out an eyedropper, stuck it into the corner of my jaw and pushed in a meaty broth of rabbit and beef juice. I swallowed eagerly glad to quiet the demon monster in my belly.

  “Good? More?” I found myself nodding. “You’re quite the smart little fellow, aren’t you? I heard that about you. Also, that you can speak. Are you related to Random’s Black Dragon?”

  “Take off the muzzle,” I said and he stared at me.

  “Dieterhof, I swear it spoke. I can almost understand it,” he said over shoulder.

  “Well, we don’t need it to conjure any spells. Can you feed it; keep it alive until we reach the rendezvous with it muzzled?”

  “I suppose. It takes food by eyedropper; it’s sort of like feeding a wild tiercel.” He poked at my ribs with an index finger. “He’s fleshed properly, not too much fat or too thin. Pretty thing, isn’t he?”

  The other men snorted. “Have you seen Jason and Rowley? They don’t think so, minus their fingers, a nose and then, there’s Ben. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Your ‘pretty thing’ slashed his throat with those shiny claws and nearly disemboweled him, also. I heard the boy say he wasn’t dangerous but I beg to differ. He’s clearly a wizard or warlord’s fighting creature. Here.” He tossed over a small hood and a bag of leather closed with a thong.

  The man holding my cage caught both by dropping the cage but it didn’t hit the ground. It jerked to a stop and swung on the end of the chain to revolve around a small clearing in the woods, an obvious skulkers lair. There was a rude hut built of fat sticks so that it provided a clear view between them and a small campfire that lit only a two-foot circle and probably couldn’t be seen more than a few feet into the trees. The men were dressed in good clothes, not rough or torn as if they were homeless or vagabonds. Their weapons were also expensive and up to date. Someone was paying them or they had a rich customer in min
d.

  He opened the pouch and I smelled something that sent a pang of fear up my backbone. It was filled with a powder that Roelle had once pointed out to me – a combination of deadly herbs that caused a mind to detach from the body so that another could control the intended receiver.

  “No!” I shrieked and managed to roll over. I tried desperately to yell the words to release me from this toy Dragon form but couldn’t open my mouth wide enough to get my tongue around the consonants. He hesitated and the other men closed ranks to stand shoulder to shoulder with him. His eyes were round.

  “It speaks! That was clearly a word. Say it again. Do you speak? Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” I panted and drool dribbled onto my chest. It sounded more like ‘eth, eth, eth’ but they understood me. “Pleth, et e o. ‘Ant eathe.”

  “Do you have a name? Are you an enchanted creature? Not a human spelled into this form?” He paused. “Do you breathe fire?”

  “Orel,” I managed trying to say Corbel the name my master had given me. “No, no, eth.”

  “Hmmn,” he said and threw a pinch in my face. Yellow glitters drifted over me, falling softly towards my eye, nose and snout. Desperate, I managed to snort a feeble puff of smoke and heat blowing most of the stuff away but some landed on my chest and legs. Crawling. Crawling up towards my face. I smashed my head against the bars trying desperately to escape the yellow slime but he grabbed me by the horns and puffed more right into my eye. The world spiraled away. Everything I ever knew was lost in the great gray void, which had no up or down, day or night, no reference at all. I knew who I was but I didn’t care. I drifted, lost in a limbo where nothing existed but my loneliness, my loss and my despair. I lacked even the will to die let alone live.

  When morning came, I blinked slowly and sat up inside the rude little chicken hutch. I was no longer tied like a roaster but the gag was still on. Slowly I raised a front leg and pulled it off to yawn and stretch my jaws. Several pairs of eyes watched me. I was cold and shivered, stoked up my furnace and blew a stream of flames at the fire causing it to blaze into a bonfire. Heat reached me and I turned my backside to it soaking up the warmth. They sat up and watched me. The one I had heard called Dieterhof was the leader and he came forward with my rabbit in his hand. “Hungry?”