A Day of Dragon Blood

MAHRDOR



He walked through the night, flanked by guards. Alongside the alleyways, the walls of workshops and winehouses closed in around him like a prison cell—craggy, hard, unyielding. Lord Mahrdor hated walls around him. He hated these narrow burrows of the commoners.

This city is a prison, he thought, mouth twisting bitterly, and I am a hunter of the desert.

He gritted his teeth as he walked, as around him soldiers marched, as before him commoners scuttled into their homes. He yearned to leave this cesspool, to mount his wyvern, to fly across sea and plain, to hunt in the great northern wilderness. He licked his lips, imagining it. So many creatures there to catch! So many bones to study. So much skin to peel, and screams to hear, and jars to fill.

"Let Solina crave her glory," he whispered into the night, the walls closing in around him. "Let her worship the sun. I will have my prizes of the night." He looked up at a sky strewn with stars. "The sun fades in the dark, but my collection never dies."

In his left hand, he carried a sack with three dripping lumps. With his right hand, he reached into the pouch on his belt. He fingered the treasures he kept there, teeth he had collected from the old man's sons. How they had screamed! The memory of those screams warmed his blood, and the cold, hard feel of the teeth steadied his head. Soon the alley walls no longer seemed to trap him.

There is power in my trophies. There is glory in the night. There is safety.

The alley opened into shadow, and soon they walked across the Square of the Sun, boots thudding against its cobblestones. Lingering peddlers and wandering youths saw the soldiers and scurried into shadow. Clouds flowed across the moon. Mahrdor took sharp, deep breaths, as if he could inhale the night itself. Soon, he thought, he would carry more teeth in his pouch—the teeth of Lyana. He decided to take her treasures slowly, to savor them: first a toe, then a finger, eventually her foot in a jar. He would keep her alive for as long as he could; for decades. She was his greatest prize, his rarest of birds, and he would make her last.

Finally he saw the winehouse again. It rose tall and narrow, built of rugged mudbrick. A sign hung above the door, painted blue and gold, featuring an oared ship and the words "The River Spice".

Mahrdor turned toward his men. The Gilded Guardians stood frozen, staring at him through their ibis helms. They gripped their swords.

"You know what to do," he told them.

They moved forward, automatons of steel and gold. One kicked down the door, and they streamed into the winehouse. Mahrdor stood at the doorway, smiling softly, watching them smash jugs of wine, crush tables, and shatter plates and mugs. Wine thick with clay shards sluiced around his boots.

"What are you doing?" cried a crinkly voice from the second story. "What do you want?"

The old winekeeper rushed downstairs into the common room, hair wild. Peras was his name, Mahrdor remembered.

Foolish man, the general thought. You should be fleeing across the rooftops, not charging into your death.

One Gilded Guardian grabbed the old man. The other drove a gauntleted fist into his stomach, then backhanded him. Blood filled the old man's mouth, and his scream faded into a gurgle. The guards shoved him down, and one kicked him. Coughing blood, Peras crawled into the corner and shivered. He tried to reach for a fallen knife, but a guardian stepped on his hand, then raised a fist above him.

"Enough," Mahrdor said.

The Gilded Guardians froze. The winehouse lay in ruins, and the only sound was Peras's hacking breath. Mahrdor approached the fallen, bloody man and opened the sack he carried. He held it upside down, and three heads rolled onto the floor.

When Peras saw the toothless heads of his sons, he tossed back his own head and howled. He leaped up and clawed at Mahrdor, crying in agony. Blood stained his tunic and tears filled his eyes.

"My sons! My sons! They were winemakers, only winemakers." He grabbed the fallen knife and slashed the air. His eyes were red, his face torn. "Damn you, Mahrdor! May the Sun God burn you!"

Mahrdor stepped back, dodging the knife, and drew his sabre. He thrust the blade. Steel gleamed in candlelight. The sabre drove into Peras's belly so smoothly Mahrdor barely felt any resistance; it was like skewering a slab of butter. He stepped closer, driving the blade down to the hilt, smiling softly. Peras gasped and blood trickled down his chin.

"You harbored a weredragon," Mahrdor said to the dying man. "I do believe it will be your soul that burns."

He shoved Peras back and pulled his sword free. The old man fell, whispered a last prayer to his god, and died between the heads of his sons.

Mahrdor stared down at the body and the heads. His lips curled in disgust. The remains looked to him like crushed worms. Briefly he considered taking a trophy from Peras too, but the man had only several teeth, and the rest of him was wretched. Bile filled his throat, and Mahrdor turned away.

"Burn them," he said to his guards. "Burn everything inside this place. It sickens me."

He stepped outside into the night and sucked the air. When his head stopped spinning, he spat and walked into darkness.

I don't need that old, shriveled body in my collection, he told himself. Soon we fly to Requiem. Soon I will have Lyana. Soon I will have all the trophies of a god's dreams.