Gods and Dragons by Kevin J. Anderson

Author:Kevin J. Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

56

HISTORY was buried deep in the desert outside Queen Voo’s palace.

Sandwreth warriors marched out in scaled armor with crystallized-bone spears. The saddles and headgear of their augas were adorned with long spikes. Voo had girded herself for war, wearing high boots, a shining chest plate, spined shoulder guards. She was armed with her sword and two smaller knives.

Surveying her army, though, Voo felt a pang. Her brother should have been there among them. Quo, his mages, and his warriors should have returned after crushing the frostwreth fortress. Her military force should also have included the Suderran army, with shadowglass-inlaid weapons for killing frostwreths. Yet the humans had betrayed them, raided the slave camp. And they killed Quo! Adan the traitor!

She stood in the bleak wasteland, staring at the undulating dunes like an arid ocean. The angular shadow of her palace towers fell across the desert, pointing to where the artifact was buried. She needed it now.

Pulling on her magic, the queen scooped the glittering grains away. Powder shot upward in a curling plume. She dug deep, excavating the legendary shield. Deeper …

“Help me, Axus.”

Her mage added his magic to hers. With the army watching, the two of them dug through centuries of piled sand. Sandwreths did not care much for history or legends, did not revere curios and relics, but this shield once belonged to the ancient warrior Rao, a wreth hero who had injured Ossus and driven him deep beneath the mountains.

Voo and Axus curled their arms and with a mighty heave ripped the triangular shield from under the mounded dunes—a single scale from the dragon at the heart of the world, copper with black stains.

Voo held the relic by its edges and felt an unfamiliar reverence. The artifact was cool from being buried so deep, but it warmed quickly under the pounding sun. She turned the rippled surface and stared at it, but it drank her reflection.

The queen did not need to see herself. She understood how beautiful she was to others—wreth men, even humans. Anger rose again as she remembered how Adan had rebuffed her advances on his last visit. She should have taken him by force and killed him afterward.

Yes, it would have been far better if she had killed him.

She held up Rao’s shield and showed it to the large sandwreth army. They raised their spears or swords. The augas shifted and snorted. With the loss of her human army, she now wished she had been able to manufacture thousands of drone fighters, but that effort had failed. She lifted her chin and decided that her sandwreths would be enough to exterminate the humans who had betrayed her and killed Quo.

She slipped her arm through the band on the back of the shield and drew the artifact close against her chest. If Rao had wounded Ossus so long ago, then he was a fighter Voo should emulate. She was the queen of the sandwreths. No enemy could stand against her—particularly not King Adan. She would fillet him slowly into a thousand tiny strips of meat, keeping him alive for as long as possible.

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