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  Dragon Choir

  Benjamin Descovich

  Published by

  Benjamin Descovich

  Smashwords Edition

  ISBN 978-1-310-99781-5

  Copyright 2014 Benjamin Descovich

  License notes:

  Reproduction of this publication is prohibited without written consent from the Author.

  I appreciate that you are taking the time to enjoy my work and would love it if you left a review where you made your purchase. Tell your friends and family about it too. Every voice strengthens the choir.

  Thank you for your support.

  Benjamin Descovich is the founder of ethicalwriter.com and works everyday writing the seeds to grow a better future. He is a passionate environmentalist, social justice advocate and holds a degree in Political Science. Born in Australia and well travelled through Europe and Asia, he has been spoilt with inspiration for his fiction. While the dramatic landscapes, political intrigue and epic battles will captivate your imagination; the dragons and magic take your breath away.

  I’m very grateful to

  Amy Mildwaters,

  Paul Descovich,

  & Robert Brown.

  Alpha Readers Extraordinaire.

  To fathers lost

  & fathers found.

  For Kristin

  Your faith is all I need.

  When the days stretch and the land bakes, dragons will again scour the sky. A city of bones and a city of gold plot against each other while the rebellion gathers strength. A young man is caught in a tempest of intrigue that will forge a new era of freedom, or forever scar the land. He must discover the secret of the Dragon Choir to save his father and end the stranglehold of an unforgiven nation.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Delivery

  Had the young man known of what would come, any premonition of the tempest he courted, he would have restrained such curiosity.

  He knew it was wrong, but after the footman went upstairs, Elrin crept out of the antechamber and into the drawing room beside the Guildmaster’s study. Ancient artefacts and peculiar devices crowded shelves and hung in glass cabinets along every wall. Elrin loved this room. It had the musty scent of knowledge; a sense of condensed thought. Shamanic totems of bone and feathers hung beside unusual metal machines, their springs and cogwheels still and silent. Yellowing maps and detailed charts mixed with rich oil paintings.

  Each time he entered the room he was reminded of how little he understood of the world; how much he wanted to learn. The messages he couriered for Herder Kleith to the Guildmaster were another mystery. There were more of them every moon, strung up and sealed with unmarked black wax, different to the others Kleith had him deliver around the city. Without an official guild seal, the contents couldn’t be of much consequence. What mattered was that he got paid, though the missive was already absorbing the sweat from his hands. With sensible haste, the young man dabbed the damp spots with his handkerchief and tucked it into his vest pocket, careful not to break the black seal. There’d be no chance of a silver tab if the message was damaged. An ink smudge would have his shine down to half a copper and that wouldn’t buy a broken loaf.

  Sweat beaded on his face, the stagnant air bestowed no mercy after the long run up the hill from the Hall of the Dead. The Guildmaster neglected making any improvements to the residence; an extra window here and there wouldn’t have gone astray, the place was all bottled up.

  The Guildmaster’s rigid tones complained through the closed double doors of the study. Some poor sod was getting an earful, which was fine by Elrin, it would give him more time to nose around in the drawing room. The Guildmaster had a mind for lengthy lectures and Elrin wasn’t going to interrupt.

  He inspected the trophies of knowledge, pondering their various uses, moving to each case and cabinet, peeking through the glass displays, taking care not to touch them. Each step gentle, testing the timber for creaks before he applied his weight.

  After a circuit of the room he came to his favourite piece, an elegant dagger. Unlike the rest of the artefacts, this weapon was not jailed in glass, pinned to a stand or framed on a wall. It rested on a low table near the door to the Guildmaster’s office, as if it too was waiting, forgotten.

  Elrin knelt down to admire it; it was beyond him how such exquisite craftsmanship would be left out to gather dust. In sympathy he gathered it up, reverently nursing the antique blade. Its handle welcomed his grip; the balance was perfect. He caressed the foreign symbols etched across the curved blade.

  The Guildmaster’s voice pressed though the walls, stealing Elrin’s attention away from the dagger. The ageing sorcerer was losing his temper; nothing unusual. The other voice yelled something coarse and unintelligible. This promised gossip; and gossip was valuable. One of the tavern lasses would pay well to hear who was brave, or daft enough to yell at the Guildmaster. Elrin pressed his ear to the door.

  “No! You listen to m—” the Guildmaster yelled, but was cut off. It was unclear what the other was saying. The guest’s voice was audible yet somehow, indistinct, as if the wood from the thick door would not let it pass. Elrin repositioned his ear over the keyhole.

  “... increase production. The Council’s veiled threats will not persuade me otherwise.” The Guildmaster, paced past the door.

  Elrin pulled back from the keyhole thinking he was caught, but the door remained closed and the argument continued inside. He considered returning to the seat in the waiting room. If he was found snooping with the Guildmaster in this temper, he risked losing his job—and worse. Mother would be disappointed once more, then she’d cry again. He hated it when she cried.

  While turning to leave the drawing room and wait, as he should have to begin with, a single word struck through the door and grabbed Elrin’s attention.

  Arbajkha.

  What had Father to do with the argument? Maybe he wasn’t dead. Had he returned after so long? Could it be true? Mother would be happy like before. He’d make everything bright again.

  Elrin went back to the keyhole and listened. His heart beat in his ears and he clasped at the dagger’s grip, straining to hear. Something shifted. Elrin’s ear heard only stones rubbing and the trampling of sodden earth, but his mind fathomed the meaning; somehow comprehended a language. It was disconcerting. His sense of space twisted, leaving him dizzy. It was as though he were being tugged through the door and down, deep into the darkness of the dirt.

  The voice morphed into understanding; slick with confidence. “It will be no more difficult than it was for Arbajkha. That worked out, and he was a surprise.”

  The Guildmaster’s voice cracked in anger. “No, it’s not the same and you know it. This is too ambitious; it’s not what we agreed on. The forces you toy with can’t be trusted. They wield power akin to the gods.”

  “I assure you, I have everything in hand. The risk is all mine.”

  “As is the debt.”

  “What other choice do you have?”

  “How soon? I will have to recalibrate the net and increase the dampeners. Do you realise how many complications you’ve introduced? Have you even considered the draw this will need for the transition?”

  “Worry about the transition later, just ready the net.”

  Elrin didn’t know what they spoke of, or if it mattered, he had just one question seared in his mind like a brand.

  Where is my father?

  Stones collided and soil churned, “Who speaks?”

  A ripple of energy washed past him and swept back, probing like a hungry eel.

  Elrin pushed away from the door and stumbled backwards. His arm reached for support and found a display case. His momentum was too great and the case tipped over. Elrin fell on his ba
ck and the glass case shattered beside him. Fragments scattered across the polished floor.

  The door burst open, slamming against the wall, revealing the Guildmaster with a look of supreme irritation across his angular face. Golden robes hung on his thin limbs like linen drying on a line. A moment of calculation pulsed across his tight, even features.

  Elrin hurried to his feet, glass biting his knees. He hid his hands behind his back, hoping the Guildmaster hadn’t noticed the dagger. He had to run, but there was no window from the drawing room for a quick escape. If he could make it back out the front door and hit the streets fast enough, the old Guildmaster wouldn’t catch him.

  The Guildmaster’s lips curled in a strange guttural incantation and he pulled an embalmed frog from a belt pouch, crushing it in his fist. Magical essence seethed around his robed arm, surged up his neck and erupted from his mouth towards Elrin. The energy encased Elrin in a constricting embrace, folding over him and through him until he was seized in place; paralysed. He had to concentrate just to breathe.

  “He is a liability,” the disembodied voice of stone and dirt uttered an avalanche. “He must be dealt with.”

  “He’s protected. An investor felt that ...” the Guildmaster hesitated in thought, staring at Elrin.

  “Well, now you have an excuse,” boulders split and fell into a swamp. “End him!”

  The energy warped around him and then evaporated, retracting the presence and leaving the air tight like the skin on a drum.

  The Guildmaster opened the back door to his study and rang a bell beside it. Four warriors responded immediately, their scabbards clacked against their armour as they filed through. Their surcoats bore the insignia of the city guard with the golden sun rising over the mountain range, but these were no ordinary city guardsmen. City guards were fitted with short swords and light armour, maybe a spear or pike for sentry duty. These men had their own weapons, broad swords and axes. The leader walked with a mercenary swagger, like the sellswords that loitered around the trading post.

  “Get him out of here, Malek,” said the Guildmaster.

  Malek bowed his head, so as not to look the Guildmaster in the eye. He glanced over the scene, noting Elrin’s paralytic state.

  “Official business Master?” Malek rubbed his neck and grimaced.

  “No.” The Guildmaster brushed the frog’s powdered remains from his hands into a dustbin. “Take him to the slumper alley.”

  “Does he need an introduction?”

  Malek waited for an instruction, but none came. The Guild Master sat down at his desk and took a sheet of paper from the top drawer. He dipped his quill in ink and scratched away.

  “Guildmaster?”

  “No!” The Guild Master slammed his hand on the desk, breaking his quill and tipping over the ink well. “A farewell, Malek. This is to be a farewell.”

  Malek bowed, and motioned his men forward to collect Elrin. Two took his arms and one his legs, lifting him out through the study door.

  Elrin struggled to move and panicked; his lungs could not keep pace with the pulsing of his heart. He strained to send a limb into motion, to wiggle a finger, even to blink. Nothing would work. He gave up trying as the guards carried him down winding stairs and through a confusion of dank passages. Breathing became his priority.

  They stopped at a dark green door with a torch burning beside it. Malek’s keys jingled in the lock and the door opened with a shove. They lifted Elrin outside and rested him against a stone wall in the alley beyond.

  A gang of ruffians and delinquents crowded around a game of dice. Seeing the guards emerge from the green door, they gathered up their shine from the cobbles and backed away, pulling their weapons out, ready for an attack. Unstable eyes considered their chances against the city guards. These men were on edge. Their eyes were black wells, unsure whether to run or fight. Others lay beside the wall on piles of hessian and straw, their haphazard positions betraying an unnatural slumber.

  One of the guards, the biggest among them, kicked an unconscious addict in the ribs. “Piss off slumper! You lot too. Take ya skagin’ arses out of here!”

  The slumper stumbled to his feet, half dazed. His remaining wits spurred him to flee down the alley and the dice players followed. The big guard kicked another slumper dozing in a sky dream and moved him on too.

  “Get some ink, roach!”

  The guards laughed. One hurled a stone after the fleeing man. It missed and skittered across the cobbles.

  Elrin assembled his thoughts, searching for an escape.

  A meaty hand slapped him across the face then grabbed his chin. “Right then. You’re off for the long snooze like a good little slumper.”

  ***

  The alley was narrow and drenched in cold shadow from the high stone wall behind him. Red brick tenements rose across the other side with willows crowding beside a small courtyard wall, eager to watch his fate. The burly guard tipped Elrin to the ground. He hit the cobbles, stiff like a plank, but felt nothing of the impact.

  “You got the blaze?” asked one of the guards.

  “No,” Malek cut back. “Why would I have it?”

  “Well we don’t, you know. We didn’t ... I mean, we’ve never ...” The guard looked to the others for help, but none was offered.

  “You think I just carry around a kit to get set up on my break?” Malek shoved the guard into the stone wall. “I’m no slumper!”

  “You had the blaze with you last time is all. I just thought.”

  Malek struck his foot against the green door, slamming it shut. “Ash to all of it! How many more of these do we have to do?”

  The guards waited in silence as their captain cooled off.

  Malek opened the green door. “Right. You pillocks keep an eye on him while I go back and get the kit.” He stomped away into the passage under the wall.

  “So what did you do, eh?” The mouthy guard stood over Elrin’s head. “What’s the matter, can’t you talk?”

  The guards chuckled with the self-congratulating idiocy of practiced thugs.

  The mouthy guard leant over Elrin and struck him across the face. “Feel that?”

  Elrin’s body crumpled over. Blows thumped upon him, brittle brown leaves crackled as his body scuffed the cobbles with every kick. He felt no pain, but his ears were insulted by the stupid, juvenile laughter of the guards having their fun. With no control of where he looked, his vision skipped from stone wall, to red brick; blue sky, to black.

  He didn’t want to see, but the darkness swallowed his breath and panic clawed at him. Was he dead? No, he still heard the taunts and the scraping of his body against the ground. Not dead yet, but soon he would be. Perhaps he should welcome it. He was tired of his life; almost twenty and not one tattoo to show for it. He knew more than any apprentice his age, but books were as good as dust without a father. No guild apprenticed without a father’s approval, so he’d never get his ink; he had nothing.

  There was only hope if his father lived. But, where was he? Was he here in Calimska? What did the Guildmaster have to do with his father? So many questions wrenched at him.

  He searched for any trace of feeling from the beating, but there was nothing physical, his paralysis was complete. All at once, Elrin’s vision rushed back. One of the other men was jumping on his abdomen and laughing at the mouthy guard who had his shoe off, rubbing his foot in pain.

  “Ya never learn Ginny. Boot’n ‘em hurts like kickin’ a rock. Jumpin’s more fun. Look at him. Can’t even frown!”

  Malek came through the green door holding a leather pouch. “Get off him, arseholes!”

  “C’mon Captain,” whined the guard. “Once the Guildmaster stiffs ‘em up, ya can’t hurt ‘em none.”

  “You’re no good to me with broken bones. Off!”

  “Get this Captain,” said Ginny. “I reckon I know this poor bastard. His ma’s the old Pride of the Bard’s guild; that plum who’s all mournful these days. What’s her name?”

  “How wo
uld I know his mother’s name? He’s the errand boy for some priest of Nathis, Herder Kleith or something. Who cares?”

  Ginny put his boot back on. “You fellas remember that bird don’t cha? I reckon I could make her happy again. Though she’d be crying right after.”

  They all laughed, stirring Elrin’s defeat into burning anger.

  “Cor, she’s a looker. Big pair a lungs on her, eh. And those outfits make your mind travel.” Ginny thrust his hips.

  They laughed again and Elrin strained in his petrified state. He was sick of being the bastard son, the relic of celebrity and the arse end of jokes. He was tired of Calimska and all its rules, the damn guilds who wouldn’t have him. Everyone had him marked for scorn and it burned in him. An angry heat seethed inside. It raged against the magical bonds cast upon his body.

  Malek held a flame to the bottom of a stoppered glass tube. Elrin watched and boiled inside. The powder within turned to vapour and the guard captain knelt beside him, jamming the vessel in Elrin’s mouth. He drew it into his lungs and his vision swam. Rage exploded, searing through his body. The fire reignited his senses and energy rushed through his limbs.

  Elrin gripped his hands to fists and found the dagger’s hilt already upon his palm. He sprang up and slashed out with the mysterious blade, driven by an urgency to cut and kill before the poison shut him down. The first slash tore across Ginny’s face and he fell to the ground, struggling to hold his mouth together, blood pouring across his clasping hands. Elrin wheeled around and caught another guard’s arm reaching for his sword upon the cobblestones. Blood coursed through the air and splattered on the pavement while the guard shrieked and grasped his wound, falling to his knees.

  Captain Malek drew his sword. “How in the five hells did you do that? That lot would’ve put down an ox.”