Spine of the Dragon by Kevin J. Anderson

Author:Kevin J. Anderson [Anderson, Kevin J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Epic, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781250302106
Google: JhtGuwEACAAJ
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2019-06-04T21:21:23.918000+00:00

48

ROCK pinnacles rose out of the ocean of sand deep in the Furnace wastes. The stone monoliths looked like a gateway at the end of the striated gray mountains that pierced the desert.

Queen Voo and her sandwreths were thriving here. The stark heat reminded her of the blasted battlefields from the wars, after she had slashed her rival Onn’s face, after her people dragged her away from the boiling landscape under a shield of defensive lightning. The world’s magic had been so strong then …

The wreth factions had almost destroyed each other in the centuries of warfare, but that war was not finished yet.

Voo hoped that Kur was watching so that he could see her anger, how she and her sandwreth comrades were trying to do exactly as he commanded, in spite of how poorly his lover Raan had been used. The evil Suth had poisoned her own sister and nearly torn the world apart with her jealousy. As the descendant of Raan, Queen Voo would continue that generations-long war of vengeance against the frostwreths.

She shifted the triangular green shield on her arm. No matter what her rivals were doing far to the north, the sandwreths were stronger, and they would wake the dragon—as Kur demanded. It would take time, and first they needed to test their magic, but the sandwreths would be Kur’s chosen people.

Ten of her loyal companions rode augas under the shimmering heat, including her brother Quo and the mage Axus. They had left their sand-and-stone fortresses behind in the deep desert, heading toward the mountains. The reptiles thundered along, leaving deep three-toed imprints in the sand. Voo looked behind her at the swirling sand they had crossed, seeing the line of their tracks.

Wearing brown leather and golden scales, they followed the fault line, seeking the resonance point at the far southern end of the mountains. No humans had ever been this deep into the Furnace, because humans could not survive in such a harsh environment. That was why, as a benevolent queen, Voo protected and sheltered her special human servants, kept them alive so they could continue to work and build. That way, only a few of them died, rather than all of them.

Her brother rode up to her and squinted his amber eyes into the heat ripples that blurred the jagged mountain range. “We will use our magic here, Sister? Unleash all of it?”

Her auga lurched along. “I want to see what we can achieve. Let us hit these mountains, prod the dragon. It is only the first step, but I believe we can make him stir.”

Quo’s smile showed perfectly even teeth. His long hair hung like a mane behind him. “We could level these mountains and break the desert if we wanted to.”

Voo shook her head, jingling the gold bangles woven into her hair. “We will not break the desert, but we will shake the mountains. Our magic will run deep.”

As the queen slowed her auga, the other wreth mages and nobles joined her, squinting their sparkling eyes across the empty sands.

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