Army of the Dragonbonded by Hart JD

Author:Hart, JD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dragonbonded Press
Published: 2020-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

With Fates Sealed

Lacerus waited in the dark, marking off the hours before daybreak, listening, watching, making note of every sound, every motion. As he loitered outside the hole in the side of a hill, he contemplated the many Assassins he had known through the centuries. A thin smile crossed his lips as he recalled all those who’d spent their lives honing and mastering their skills with a sword, a knife, a spear, a bow. He had personally witnessed ordermen performing many astounding feats with those tools. And yet none of them grasped a fundamental truth of their great order—that these were not the real weapons of an Assassin. They were merely agents of an outcome, aids for a desired effect. Patience was an Assassin’s only weapon. And this Lacerus had mastered with great zeal. A waning Erebus was just breaking in the east. It would be light soon. He had memorized every dip and rise of dirt, every blade of grass unnaturally tilted or stiff, every pebble between his location and the opening ahead. It was time to make his move.

He slipped across the open field, Carnia winging stealthily behind. His feet, silent as a passing cloud, were like dry leaves rolling over the terrain in an autumn breeze. A moment later, he reached the entrance to the lair. He dipped into the mouth of the hole and stopped, his eyes gliding over the wooden door.

A few heartbeats were all he needed to disable the trap. He reached for the door handle but hesitated. That was a little too easy. Stepping into the lair of another Assassin unexpected, especially of a grandmaster, was particularly dangerous. Lacerus searched the entrance once more, and found two more traps—one near the handle, another near the top hinge. As he worked, he recalled one of his Assassin preceptors from a century ago, a woman named Arkimedes. He could still hear her grating old voice. “The Assassin who enters another’s lair is the walking dead,” she would say. “Only his legs have not been told yet.” He sneered at the fond memory. Arkimedes had been brilliant, though sometimes wrong. She used to say he was not cruel enough, and thus was unworthy of her tutelage. He’d proved her mistaken the night he plunged a thin blade into her heart. She never saw it coming.

Certain there were no more traps, he rotated the handle. The door swung inward, revealing a dark, musty antechamber. No darts or arrows came at him. No explosions. He took a moment to close his eyes. Concentrating, he called Air and Earth to him. Just a trickle. Not enough for anyone to detect. He slipped inside. And the door blew shut behind him, sealing him in the antechamber.

He surveyed his surroundings. The room was large and busy, one he would describe as cluttered, with creaky plank flooring. Dusty old books and yellowed parchments covered many of the tables and shelves that lined the dark wood paneled walls. The smell of mold, mildew, and earth was thick.

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