Rasnake(21)
Tallant shook his head, having no reply to that. Instead, he turned his eyes to the body. "How did the other women die?" he asked.
"Wha—um—" Cecil shook himself, but his voice was still rough as he continued. "The priest said it looked like they were strangled. Given the state of their clothes, their feet, they were probably running for their lives and did not run fast enough."
"This woman bled out," Tallant said grimly. He hated to burden Cecil with such grisly details, but they had no choice, and Cecil had proven he could and would endure it. "It would explain the fresh blood on the obelisk." He gingerly touched the place where her throat had been cut. Blood soaked her dress—a ball gown, of all things. He also noticed that one shoe was missing, but the remaining shoe was a dancing slipper.
Cecil abruptly leaned forward, bending over the dead girl, and sniffed. "Fella," he muttered.
That was thieves' cant for a powerful drug called felson. It could, depending on dosage, do anything from make a person sleepy to knock them out—to kill them. "She was drugged before he killed her," Tallant ssaid. "The first two got away from him, maybe, and he just killed them. He made certain this one didn't. But it still didn't repair the wards. Which means he'll just kill another, and keep doing it until one of the sacrifices works—but none of them will."
Cecil removed his cloak and laid it tenderly over the body, then scrubbed hastily at his face, turning it away as he did so, obviously hoping Tallant wouldn't see his tears.
Calling up his magic, Tallant cast a spell that would repel animals for a brief period. "Nothing will touch her, for a few hours at least." Nodding, Cecil motioned to his wolves, and they jogged off back the way they'd come. Tallant went after them, stifling a sigh. "I don't think anything here can help me further for the moment," he said as they reached the obelisk. "I'll need to go back and consult my books."
"You have bo—" Cecil cut himself and turned sharply away, stalking to where the horses waited.
Tallant smothered a grin. Books were a pain in the ass to haul around everywhere, but he did have a half dozen small volumes that came in handy more often the he'd anticipated they would. He should have thought of them sooner. Swords and arrows might dominate Cecil's life, but a scholar was a scholar, and he would bet his life that Cecil had read every book on the premises. Of course he would be excited at the prospect of new books to read.
Mounting, they rode back to the castle, each lost to his own thoughts. The wolves rode alongside them, and Tallant marveled at how common a sight they must be, that the horses were not troubled by them.
The quiet was split by the sound of the horn—three short, bursting calls. "Distress!" Cecil said, and kicked his horse into a gallop. Tallant did the same, and they raced back to the castle as quickly as they could.
Chapter Eight
Only to arrive to a nightmare.
"Since when do dragons dwell in water?" Tallant demanded, and then gave up talking. Abandoning his horse, he charged forward. A dragon so large it could only be female was in the moat—had obviously, from the position, come up out of the moat and attacked people who had been on the drawbridge at the time. The bridge was soaked with blood and water, and Tallant saw at least three bodies.
Men and women screamed as the thieves and Milton attempted to hold her off, as she in turn obviously fought to climb out of the water and up onto the drawbridge. Someone had at least managed to puncture her fire sack—but a female was more ruthless than even a handful of angry males.
"Milton!" Tallant raced across the bridge to where Milton had just shoved another man out of the way and blocked the dragon's teeth at the expense of a sword. He yanked Milton back, out of the way, and called up magic as the dragon lunged again. He released a sharp burst of blinding light, causing the dragon to rear back, roaring in pain and surprise, desperate to protect her sensitive eyes.
"The fuck is going on here?" Tallant gasped out, even as they spread out and braced for the next round.
"Bastard came up out of the water, with no warning at all," Milton said, and then the chance for speaking vanished again.
Arrows flew as Cecil fired from the far bank, and Tallant briefly admired the way he managed—whether by accident or design—to take out one of the eyes. The arrow didn't sink deep enough to penetrate the brain, but the pain and loss of vision in one of her eight eyes could only help them.
He could hear the wolves growling and barking in frustration, unable to contribute to the fight, and shouted thieves cant as Cecil and his men communicated. But the best opportunity to kill the thing would probably come to him and Milton, alone now on the drawbridge as it was too dangerous to have several people there.
The dragon was vicious. Despite extensive combined efforts, the blood swirling in the water below, smearing the drawbridge—they could not break her. Tallant dodged another swipe of her razor talons, then drew energy from Milton and focused on the flame liquid. It was thick, viscous, sticky. Even with all the water, it clung to scales, to everything it touched.
Tallant set it on fire—then sprang back barely in time as a portion of the drawbridge right in front of him burst into flames.
Milton cried out, disbelieving and afraid—then he bellowed in pain, as he moved too slowly and the dragon struck him. Tallant cried out as he went flying off the drawbridge and into the water below.