Chapter 12 #2
Not even a hint of the wild voxhound that used to guard them. The doglike beasts possessed an abundance of porcupine quills and an ability to parrot the sounds they heard in the creepiest, horror-movie worthy voices. I’d always wanted one for a pet.
Frustration battered me. “There’s a village a mile from here.
Surely someone has a stone.” A sad place filled with dragons who hadn’t become wraithlings or shifters when they lost their firebrands, as so many chose to do.
No, these had opted to live outside of polite society, taking care of the burial grounds and waiting until it was their time to go.
We set off, reaching Mourfall, the City of Cursed Bones, as the sun lowered beneath the horizon. “Just…let me do the talking.” If Taron were to enrage even one warrior, the others would break with rage as well. These were still my people, and I had no desire to fight them.
Taron inclined his head and slowed a half-step behind me. No argument. No negotiation. Close enough to intervene if needed, but far enough not to provoke. His trust caught me off guard. It mattered more than I cared to admit.
Mourfall lay nestled in a sweeping hollow of an even older dragon cemetery.
The curved spines and bones surrounded their homes like solemn guards.
They preferred living in simple dwellings, nothing shiny, no beautiful collections, just stone-built houses with timbered roofs.
As if they lost their hoard-fire when their firebrand died.
Only their gardens filled with the greenery of vegetables, herbs and berries softened the starkness.
Beyond their farm plots stretched a wide, flat rock slab base, worn smooth by centuries of dragon claws–their launchpad into the open sky.
The warriors clocked our approach before we arrived, and waited in battle formation, claws bared and flared. As soon as they noted my identity, they stood down.
Discordant cries of “Her Majesty” rang out. Heads bowed before the leader stepped closer.
“Welcome,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
A berserker going through the motions of living life without his firebrand beside him.
His body was a picture of despair: loose at the joints, with his arms hanging heavy at his sides.
“How may I serve you, Queen Olyssa?” His gaze slipped to Taron, and he frowned.
“And your guest. I am the Staffholder, Alaric Vogler.”
“We seek a lament stone.”
Confusion and regret lined his tired face. “I’m sorry, majesty, but none remain. They were destroyed months ago, along with a handful of wild voxhounds. We informed our councilmember of this.”
“Who is your representative?” I asked, though I already knew. I just needed the confirmation. To make this real.
“Roland Hoffmann.”
Tension gripped me, stiffness vice-locking my muscles.
The councilman had mentioned nothing of it.
Why keep this from me? And more importantly, what else had he failed to report?
The man was quick to point a finger at me for the growing danger in our realm but kept silent about the threat festering in his own district.
He and I would be having a chat as soon as I returned.
“Who or what is responsible for the destruction?” And how were Taron and I supposed to break the bond now?
“We do not know. A plague swept through the voxhounds, and the stones slowly disintegrated. Follow me and I’ll show you.
” Staffholder Vogler led us forward, through the narrow streets surfaced not in cobbled pavers, but of packed earth and gravel.
Lanterns dangled from wrought-iron hooks, devoid of beauty, with no gold filigree or jewels.
Not a sign of murals or pretty cloth banners.
All the bright treasures dragons loved. Villagers paused to bow their heads as I passed.
To his credit, Taron remained on guard behind me, without setting off any alarm bells in the warriors.
We stopped at an enclosed pen, where a single voxhound lay in the dirt. “Only she still lives,” Vogler said, motioning to the poor animal.
Like all voxhounds, she was the size of a large dog, with a mix of porcupine quills and fur, and the body shape of a gorilla, the bulk of her strength in her meaty fists. But patches of quills and fur were missing, and her muscle mass had withered. My heart contracted. Poor dear.
“The others wasted away, as she is doing,” he added. “Nothing we’ve tried has helped. We’ve considered putting her out of her misery but have hoped against hope another voxhound would show up.” These were pack beasts by nature, and like dragons, mated for life.
Voxhounds were also savage when roused. Like little berserkers with fangs.
Yet they served as the wild’s uneasy magistrates, keeping other predators in fearful check.
This one peered at me with dull, crimson pools that held something more than animal cunning: loss, as if grief lived inside her, an old, festering wound.
I sympathized. Compassion rose so fiercely it almost hurt.
“Why is she locked up?” I asked. The wild resented cages, with good reason.
“She sought our protection, unable to protect herself,” Vogler said, his voice was a soft rumble. “Urged us to send a message to you and request a meeting.”
I frowned. “Why didn’t you send it?”
Vogler’s brows knitted. “I did. Our runner spoke with Councilman Hoffmann. He said he would tell you personally.”
I bit my tongue against the bite of a rising temper. “He didn’t.” Hoffmann would answer for that omission too. “I’m going in.” I moved to the pen.
Taron stiffened at my side, every inch the warrior. The set of his jaw warned me that if I tried to go alone, I’d lose the argument. To my surprise, a flicker of reassurance took hold.
“Give us space,” I said, the command absolute.
He hesitated only a heartbeat before turning and leaving.
Though I preferred to be alone, maybe. Probably. Still, I entered the pen with Taron behind me, his presence steady. He didn’t speak; he didn’t have to.
I sensed his attention shift with mine, tracking the poor animal’s breathing and the tension in her quills. Slowing together, we approached the once-fierce creature. The world narrowed to the voxhound’s slow blink.
“We won’t hurt you,” I said, softer than before, the words both pledge and plea. “I apologize for not coming sooner. Had I known of your request, I would have come right away.”
She watched me, every hair and quill taut as I crouched beside her. I reached out. Her coat was coarse under my palm, but not unkind. When I laid a hand along her spine, she flinched but didn’t produce the paralytic reserved for foes.
“Who are you?” I asked. “What do you wish to tell me?”
Silence stretched, thick as the marsh fog.
The voxhound’s lips trembled; a low, guttural sound built in her chest and broke into words shaped like a human’s, like a memory.
“Tell Queen Olyssa,” she said. Her voice wavered before a grotesque mimicry took on Lorik’s clipped accent.
“Tell Queen Olyssa. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. I’ve won. No lament stone for you. Ha ha ha.”
The sound acted as an arrow through my ribs. Air went sharp between my teeth. I met Taron’s gaze; his shock mirrored mine. “Lorik did this?” I breathed. This wasn’t plague; it was punishment. “I will murder him. I give you my word.”
The voxhound’s head dipped, pain evident in that slow motion. She shifted, and the crimson in her gaze seemed to deepen into something like apology.
“I…am…Leah,” she said, each syllable plucked as if from the last thread of breath. Her tongue dragged over consonants that stuck, each one halting and fragile. “Leah… stone… heart…take.”
The words landed and lingered, reminding me of smoke. I didn’t understand them all at once, but I understood enough to know they were a gift, an instruction and a confession braided together.
Her breath came ragged, like bellows winding down. The marsh air tasted of old rain.
I lowered my face closer until I heard the thud of her failing heart, small and stubborn. An ember that refused to die. I pressed my fingers gently against the ribs that rose beneath her fur. Her heart fluttered, then stuttered.
“Thank you, Leah. For everything,” I rasped. “Your courage and strength will be remembered throughout the ages to come.”
“My…family…calls. I…go…home.” Her breathing slowed. Silence didn’t so much fall as press inward, filling the space with a new weight. The voxhound’s eyes glazed; the crimson dulled to a washed-out wine. Her head lolled onto my lap with the soft inevitability of a setting sun.
“She’s gone,” I croaked, salt from tears I hadn’t meant to shed burning hot on my cheeks.