Dragon Rising by Dante King

Author:Dante King [King, Dante]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The next few hours passed in a blur.

Still recovering from the assault of the beastmen and the heroic measures John had taken to save the town from their attack, the people set about as best they could to repair the damage. Seeing to the wounded had been the work of an entire afternoon, as had the disposal of the dead. John would probably be finding bits of dirt beneath his fingernails for weeks from all the graves he’d helped to dig. Although the town itself hadn’t been lost, the casualties from the beastmen attack had been worse than anyone had feared.

Yet they didn’t have time to mourn. There was too much work to be done.

As soon as John got finished burying the dead, he and Fiona split the townsfolk who’d expressed interest in riding out to the nearby townships into groups. They’d been spoiled for choice, as nearly every able-bodied citizen of Vismuth (and some who were not so able-bodied) had volunteered for the job. A few had protested at learning they wouldn’t be riding in John’s own group, having assumed they’d be accompanying the Devonte on his travels. These Fiona had managed to calm down with some assurances and some stirring words before setting them on their way.

She’s a damn good mayor, John thought, making his way down the muddy thoroughfare toward the nameless tavern. Better than the man she took over from, for certain. We should probably thank Aoryl for slaying the man, though no one will admit it...

It was full dark now, and some of the only lights left on in the town were burning bright in the windows of the inn where he sought to rest. He fancied he could hear muffled moaning in every other building he passed—for it was far too early for most of Vismuth’s people to have gone to bed. Like as not they’d fallen into bed with each other, in desperate need of some comfort. Which he couldn’t blame them for wanting. The fighting today had been desperate, bloody, and traumatizing.

His exhaustion tugged at him as he ascended the few short steps leading to the tavern’s front patio. Inside, a handful of early evening drinkers sat wetting their whistles, conversing quietly about the events of the day and the trials to come upon the morrow. To John’s disappointment, he saw neither Aoryl nor Emily among their number. He hadn’t seen hide or hair of the elf woman or the soldier since the fighting at the North Gate—both of them had been just as busy as him, if not more so.

Perhaps they were upstairs in his room, waiting for him. It was a nice thought, but unlikely.

No sense of warning stole over him as he strode through the tavern’s doors. That was a nice change: after the hero he’d made of himself while fighting off the beastmen, no one questioned John’s odd request to take all the stuffed monster heads off the tavern’s walls and have them burned. As a result,

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