Ruin of Dragons Read online

  Mira smiled, and there was reassurance behind her silver eyes. "Exactly," she said. "We all have a past. I don't have to know the specifics to know you have one you're not proud of. I can occasionally see it in your face, hear it in your voice, or get hints of it in some of the things you don't say." She put her hands on Voss's shoulders. "But if there's one thing I know, it's that I don't need to hear the story, not until you're at a place where you need to tell it."

  Voss nodded slowly, relaxing. It was, she realized, exactly what she needed to hear. "You're too good for me," she said.

  "And don't you forget it, shorty," Mira said, straightening up, some of the brightness returning to her face. "So if you're not ready to talk about it, how about at least a heads up on what we're about to get ourselves into?"

  "What, and ruin the surprise?"

  "You're terrible," Mira said.

  Voss grimaced slightly. "Let's just say you might see a side of me you haven't seen before."

  "I didn't think that was possible," Mira said.

  Voss slapped her across the upper arm. "I'm serious," she said. "This is a part of my past I've gone to great lengths to escape. This particular reunion isn't going to do me any favors."

  Mira's tone softened. "You know I'll be right there with you."

  Voss smiled, nodding.

  They were interrupted by Aris's voice over the intercom. "Look alive, people, we land in fifteen."

  Voss looked back to Mira. "Go on," she said, "I'm almost finished."

  "Do you need a hand?" Mira asked.

  Voss looked thoughtful. "Not now," she said. "But I will."

  Mira nodded, smiling as she stood up. "See you in fifteen." She left the alcove, climbed the steps back up and exited the accessway, stepping out into the front of the containment bay.

  Walking onto the cockpit, she sat down in the copilot seat next to Aris. "She's worried," Mira said.

  "Hardly surprising," he said, keeping his eyes forward. Mira watched him a moment, his face not giving anything away. She was aware Aris had known Voss longer than she had, but if he knew what was going on, he wasn't saying anything. "I'm starting to be as well," he continued. "Vorsk airspace hasn't cleared our descent, even though I've been broadcasting our ID and landing access code."

  "Has anyone moved to intercept?" Mira asked.

  "No, everything's been strangely quiet," Aris said. They were approaching the Dwarf homeworld of Vorsk on the night side of the planet, making for the coordinates they had been given, but there was a marked absence of air traffic, and indeed the area they were heading for was unusually dark.

  "So what now?" Mira asked.

  "We're going to stay on course," Aris said, shrugging. "And hope they don't shoot us out of the sky before we get there."

  "Are you sure this is the right move?"

  "No," Aris admitted. "But if anyone will know where that ship came from, it'll be Kale."

  Mira's eyes widened. "Kale?" she echoed. "Of the Dwarf Lords, head of the Seventh House, that Kale?" She had heard the name, but unfortunately not a lot of good surrounding it. There were seven Lords who ran the society as a kind of parliament, but behind closed doors it was more of a collective dictatorship, each Lord ruling over his own territory like an old style feudal system. Each one came with their own set of sordid tales of corruption, decadence and ruthless power mongering. If there was any credence to those stories, then she could easily see why Voss had chosen to distance herself from that kind of environment.

  Aris nodded. "That's who we're meeting," he said. "Don't know how Voss knows him, but he apparently owes her a favor."

  Again, Mira was surprised. She couldn't imagine a situation which would have put one of the Dwarf Lords in Voss's debt. "And you're cashing it in for her?" she asked.

  Aris turned to her, and Mira could see in his face that he wasn't treating this as casually as his voice implied. "She didn't want it," he said.

  They flew in lower, approaching a line of mountains where a high-walled fortress was visible nestled among the higher peaks. A few scattered lights punctuated the dark, revealing the vague shape of the complex, but the entire area was shrouded in mist, making details that were barely discernable in the dark even more completely obscured. Aris turned on the heads-up display, and a green lined infrared image of the surrounding topography flickered to life in front of the dark viewport.

  "Still no contact," Mira said, monitoring communications. As they descended, the coordinates they had been given seemed to correspond to a small landing pad on one of the upper walls, one of the few points of light on the otherwise dark west face of the complex. Likely a private pad, it was separate from the larger landing suite farther down the mountain, connected to the central tower, and was surrounded by heavy artillary emplacements.

  Mira turned to Aris, the noted look of concern on his face echoing what she was thinking.

  "I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that's where they want us to land," he said. Mira looked forward as they drew in closer, the cross in the center of the landing pad looking all the more like a target.

  "If they want us to land at all," Mira said. "This kind of thing usually screams trap."

  Aris nodded. "Guess we'll find out."

  Vermithrax set down, Aris switched the ship systems over to standby, and he followed Mira out and back to find Gareth standing by the exit adjusting his wrist cuffs.

  "We ready?" Aris asked

  "Of course," Gareth said. "I love meeting new people."

  Aris looked around. "Voss?"

  "Said she'd just be a minute," Gareth said. "Shall we?"

  He opened the airlock and they stepped through to the outer port hatch. Aris keyed the exit, the door opened out and up and the three descended the steps that lowered to the landing pad below. The mist was heavy, making visibility limited as they proceeded forward slowly, the weight of the damp air pressing down on them.

  "Ugh, does anyone else feel sluggish?" Gareth asked.

  "Gravity's stronger here," Aris said. "Makes everything heavier, denser." As they reached the center of the pad, it became evident that a number of figures stood along the outer edge, a semicircle of armed guards standing at attention between them and the entrance. Each was compact, not much taller than Voss, and powerfully built, and all were helmeted, wearing ceremonial but no less effective looking sets of armor, each with their own high caliber halfaxe.

  Aris stopped, and the others came up beside him. "You think they got the message?" he asked.

  "I don't think those halfaxes are ceremonial," Gareth said.

  As if in reply, the semicircle of dwarves stepped forward a pace, snapping their weapons forward and leveling them directly at the group's heads.

  All three put their hands out in front of them. "Trap?" Mira said, her voice small.

  Aris nodded a fraction. "Trap."

  Without lowering his weapon, the lead guard lifted his head slightly and called out. "Lord Kale regrets that he is unable to grant your landing request."

  Aris looked from Mira to Gareth, and suddenly found he had no patience for this, pseudo-royalty or not. "You know we gave you plenty of time to deny the access code," Aris called back. "A code you supplied us, by the way. So the only fault is your own."

  Gareth turned to him. "You sure you want to poke? There are ten weapons aimed at us right now."

  The guard spoke up again. "I'm under new orders. You are to return to your ship and depart immediately—"

  "Your orders are rescinded," came a sharp voice from behind them. The three turned to see Voss exiting the ship. She had changed out of the grungy flightsuit she had been wearing and was now decked out in full combat gear, torso plates, shoulder armor and forearm guards underneath a piercing glare.

  There was a sudden shuffling sound at her appearance and Aris turned back, surprised to see every guard in t
he line snap back into parade ground attention, weapons once again held upright. He frowned, confused, as Voss descended to the landing pad and walked their direction. But instead of stopping with them, she strode right through, marching straight toward the entrance to the tower.

  The lead guard sidestepped, putting himself in her path. "I'm sorry, my lady, Lord Kale was very specific."

  Gareth looked at Aris. "My lady?"

  Voss didn't even slow down. She reached the guard, but before he could open his mouth, she lashed out with two moves almost too fast to see, landing a powerful jab to the center of the guard's throat followed by a pivot to sweep his feet out from under him with her right leg. As the man went down grabbing at his neck, Voss plucked the halfaxe out of his grip, spun it behind her back to her other hand and struck out to the left, bringing the blade of the axe up under the chin of the nearest guard in the line, who had made the mistake of turning toward her. She stopped just short of taking his head off, and he quite naturally froze completely, along with everyone else in the line.

  "They're with me," she spoke through gritted teeth. Without a word, the guard took a step back from Voss's blade, and she loosened her grip slightly, looking back to the others. Aris and Gareth were standing wide eyed, while Mira barely suppressed a tight grin.

  Voss motioned them to follow, then turned to the fallen guard, who had managed to get back to a sitting position. She reached down, grabbed him by the chinstrap on his helmet and proceeded to drag him bodily toward the back of the landing pad and the entry to the tower. Reaching the door, she hoisted him up and mashed his face rather unceremoniously up against the reader panel, his helmet crunching into the front plate as his retina was scanned.

  The light flashed green, the door opened, and Voss released him to slump back to the ground. As the others walked by into the warm interior, she bent down and lifted the man's chin so he could see her face. She spoke softly, but her voice carried so everyone could hear. "The next time you try to bar me entry into my own house, I'll leave you with a few less appendages." She let the axe fall noisily down beside him, then straightened up to walk inside, the door closing behind her. She took the lead as the others fell in step beside. "Was that a test?" Mira asked.

  Voss frowned. "A joke," she said. "I forgot how much I hate his idiot sense of humor."

  They descended a winding stone stair that emptied out into a large antechamber with a massive set of double doors, flanked on either side by another pair of armed guards. They snapped to attention as the group approached, and the doors opened inward with a low groan, the old wood heavy and ponderous.

  They stepped into what looked like a great dining hall with high, vaulted ceilings, a well-worn flagstone floor and a long rectangular table down the center. There was a large hearth off to the left with a fire licking at a few stumpy logs, with a semicircle of low armchairs around it inhabited by several other dwarves wearing dark leather. Above the hearth was a large bank of monitors, a bout of armed combat between two heavily armed figures wielding axes on the largest, with a myriad of other sporting events on the smaller ones scattered around it.

  At the end of the room, seated at the head of the long table, seemingly unaware of what was going on around him, was Lord Kale, leaning over a large plate of what had once been a roasted animal, picking the last bits of meat out from between a couple of rib bones. Broad and muscular, he wore his red hair long and had the traditional twin braids in his thick beard. He wore shoulder and forearm armor with gold scrollwork over a leather longcoat and hauberk, and a metal half helm sat on his head adorned with dwarven runes.

  Voss rolled her eyes and took a deep breath before starting forward, swallowing her hesitation and putting on a brave face as she walked up the length of the dining table. "Still living the cliché, I see," she said.

  Kale looked up from his plate and laughed, throwing his arms wide. "Gwinnet!" he shouted. "So glad you could make it!"

  Aris looked up at Gareth. "Gwinnet?"

  "Her first name," Mira said quietly.

  Kale stood up and stepped away from the table. "How's my favorite niece?" he asked.

  "I'm your only niece," Voss said as she reached him, and found herself getting scooped into a tight embrace. A long moment passed, then Kale released and held Voss at arm's length, appraising her. She smiled as she reached up and put her hands on either side of his chin—

  And pulled him toward her suddenly, headbutting him square in the face. The crunch was audible across the hall and Kale yelped as he reeled back, startled. The men sitting by the fire spun around, and a stunned hush fell over the room, seeming to freeze everything in tableau. "That wasn't funny back there," Voss said into the silence.

  Kale stood there a moment, pulled his hand away from his face and looked at the blood from his now likely broken nose. He picked up a cloth from the table, wiped his hand, then his mouth and chin, finally looking at Voss once again. She stood with her arms crossed, her expression unapologetic.

  The tension broke as Kale started to laugh, then grabbed Voss by the shoulders. Aris was afraid he was about to return the favor, but Kale instead turned her around as they both started walking back toward them. "Come now," he said. "It's not like you had any real trouble."

  "That's because your new boys are green around the edges," Voss said. "Took one down in two hits, didn't even give me a fight."

  "I saw," Kale said, nodding to another monitor on the opposite side of the room, where the front of the landing pad and the port side of Vermithrax could be seen. "But are you really surprised? You are a Kale, after all."

  She stopped, turning to him. "No, I'm a Voss."

  Kale looked affronted. "Do you deny your family name?"

  "I don't deny my family blood," Voss said, her voice cold. "But that marriage was annulled and you know it. I was raised by my mother, so hers is the name I carry."

  Kale held her gaze for a moment, then shrugged. "My brother's loss," he said, turning to where the others still stood and gesturing to them. "Interesting group of friends you've collected," he continued. "A ranger, a wizard," his voice dropped a few degrees, "and an elf." Voss bristled at his subtle shift in tone, but he didn't notice. "I trust they're taking good care of you?" he asked.

  "Actually," Aris interjected, "the reverse is generally the case."

  Kale laughed again. "Of course! That's our girl," he said, putting a hand heavily on Voss's shoulder. She shrugged out of his grip as he turned to Gareth next, looking up at him with a frown. Kale was large for a dwarf, but still barely reached the middle of the wizard's chest.

  "Acradian, eh?" he said. "Knew a couple of you a few years ago. Don't trust anyone I have to bend my neck to look at."

  Gareth smiled. "I could step back some," he said. "Or would you like me to sit down?" Gareth asked.

  "I'd like to cut you off at the knees," Kale growled.

  Gareth nodded. "Then you'd only have to bend your neck a little."

  "Easy, stick," Voss warned.

  Gareth didn't break Kale's glare. "I'm sorry, is someone in this room touchy about their height?" he asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "I couldn't possibly know what that's like." He held Kale's stare a moment longer, but his expression finally broke as he looked to Voss, and both appeared to be trying very hard not to laugh.

  Kale turned to Aris, deflating slightly. "Is he always this annoying?"

  "Insufferable," he nodded, offering his hand. "Aris Cobalt. Former ranger."

  "Please," Kale said, taking it. "Don't think I'd be inhospitable, though some of your former comrades have been giving me a headache lately."

  "Really," Aris said, frowning.

  Kale waved a dismissive hand in the air. "It's all this terrorist business going on," he said, shaking his head. "Someone got a hold of a couple of our old Falke ships and they've been spotted at several of the most recent attacks."

 
Aris looked at the others. "That's … actually what we came here to talk to you about."

  There was suddenly a battle axe in Kale's hand as he stepped forward, the spike on the end of the shaft pressing up under Aris's chin. "Do not dare accuse me in my own home," he breathed, "Or you'll end up feeding my hounds for the next few days."

  Aris froze, standing straighter as the needle tip of the spike found the cleft in his larynx. "I'm not accusing anyone," he said, his hands up. He looked over to Voss for help.

  She exhaled heavily. "Stand down, uncle, nobody here thinks you're involved," she said. "We're trying to find out where those ships came from, and who might be using them."

  Kale seemed to relax as he considered this, the pressure on Aris's throat releasing. The axe, however, did not lower. "I don't know," Kale said.

  "That's it?" Voss said, unconvinced.

  "What? You think I have tracking data on every ship in our fleets?"

  Voss arched an eyebrow. "Yes."

  "Every legitimate fleet ship, maybe," Kale countered. "But anything decommissioned or designated for covert or side projects are scrubbed from system logs, so there are unfortunately some gaps."

  "Side projects?" Voss sneered. "Is that what you're calling your extortion and privateering empires now?"

  Kale raised his voice, but there was a note of petulance in it. "Our society has existed this way for thousands of years!" he shouted. "We help the people, and the people help us."

  "Then help us find whoever this is," Aris said. "It might keep you from being the next target, and it'll get the feds off your back."

  "We won't be the next target," Kale said, and he looked smug.

  "Do tell," Voss said.

  "If someone is trying to throw suspicion on the Dwarven Empire, then hitting us will be the quickest way of negating that," Kale said. "Nobody would believe we'd attack our own cities. And even if there is somehow a contingent of dwarves behind this, we wouldn't attack our own cities."

  Voss nodded. "This is true."