Dragon Eyre Badblood: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Magelands Eternal Siege Book 10) by Christopher Mitchell

Author:Christopher Mitchell [Mitchell, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912879687
Publisher: Brigdomin Books Ltd
Published: 2022-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

The hours passed painfully slowly. Two of his guards played dice together, while drinking from a flagon of ale, while the other spent most of his time praying to the dragon spirits. Topaz was escorted to the outhouse toilet a couple of times but, apart from that, he remained tied to the chair, as a headache pounded behind his temples. His eyes were never far from the shutters of the sole window in the room, looking for signs of the approaching dawn. His absence from the base would become apparent as soon as the morning arrived. At first, they might assume that he had simply fallen asleep somewhere, drunk; but he would be officially marked down as missing without leave if he wasn’t at his post when the day shift began. In a strange way, he was more worried about that, than he was about the return of Ata’nix.

A floorboard creaked somewhere inside the building, and the three guards glanced towards the door.

‘Probably just a rat,’ muttered one of the Unk Tannic, as he went back to the dice game.

The door burst open, kicked down by the boots of an armoured Banner soldier. The praying guard glanced up, and was shot through the head with a crossbow bolt at almost point blank range. The body slammed back onto the wooden floor as soldiers piled into the small room. The two other Unk Tannic reached for their swords. The first sprang to his feet, then toppled backwards, three bolts hammering into his chest. The second swung his sword wildly, the blade deflecting off the steel breastplate of a soldier, before he too was struck down in a hail of bolts.

‘Don’t shoot me!’ cried Topaz.

A soldier pointed a crossbow at his face. ‘Are you the master’s mate?’

‘Yes! I was kidnapped; don’t kill me!’

‘Where is the Unk Tannic leader?’

‘I don’t know; he left a few hours ago…’ Topaz burst into tears of terror and relief. He tried to keep talking, but his mouth moved noiselessly, and he began to shake.

Vizzini appeared in the room, squeezing between the well-armed soldiers.

‘Is this your shipmate?’ said one of the soldiers, a sergeant.

Vizzini stared at the three corpses on the filthy floor, then turned to the chair. ‘Yes. It’s him. Topaz. Are you alright?’

Topaz nodded, unable to speak.

‘When I got back to the street,’ Vizzini said, his eyes wide, ‘you had gone; but I heard something, and followed the people who had taken you here. But I had to get Ryan back to the base before I could summon the Banner, and I thought they would have killed you, and that I was too late.’ He began to loosen the tight cords securing Topaz to the chair. ‘I’ll help you get back to the base; the master knows that you were abducted.’

‘Step away, sailor,’ said the Banner sergeant.

Vizzini narrowed his eyes. ‘What?’

The sergeant pushed Vizzini to the side. ‘This man is now in our custody.’

‘Custody?’ said Vizzini. ‘Why? What’s he done?’

‘That’s what we intend to find out, boy.

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