Another Teaser

Yes, here’s another taste of my work in progress, The Tale of the Drakanox. Duessa and her friends, who were broken out of the Larder in Prisoners of the Wailing Tower, are finding out exactly why they were rescued.

---

     “Oh, I think we know the price,” Duessa predicted with grim certainty.
     “Do tell,” came a cool voice from just beside the wagon. Sergeant Zathi, who commanded Badger Squad, reined her sorrel in beside Lorrah’s chestnut. Duessa’s throat tightened with nerves, this was no time to back down.
     “You’re hunter-guards, but you’ve left your post,” she started.
     Zathi parried the accusation. “Hunter-guards don’t have permanent posts. That’s come in handy recently.”
     Her calm was discomfiting. Duessa kept on, “You’re still warriors who serve Dar-Gothull. You must have something planned. It’s a trap, or…” Zathi’s expression said that was wrong. She pushed on. “Then we’re all headed to meet up with your army. You brought us along to fight on your side.”
     “Because we’d be grateful, or something,” Bettain added bitterly.
     Duessa felt as irritated as Bettain when they all sort of chuckled. “I wish we had an army,” said one of the women. It might be Keerin.
     Another one smiled. “If only.” Was her name Giniver?
     Zathi hesitated, when admitted, “Alemin is correct. We’re not as organized as it may appear.”
     The three former prisoners exchanged glances of anger and dismay. “You broke us out, but you don’t have a plan?” Duessa accused.
     “We needed to get Alemin out. We couldn’t leave him there,” Lorrah hastily explained. “But then —”
     “I learned that Dar-Gothull uses the Larder to feed off the mages inside,” Alemin carried on. “So if he’s ever going to be overthrown, we had to take his food away.”
     “To weaken him, we had to let all of you out,” Zathi affirmed.
     “Wait.” Duessa pressed her hands to her temples, shocked by the words. “Weaken him?” Her dark eyes darted, from brown face to brown face, and rested on Alemin’s mild gaze. “This is one of your jokes.”
     “No,” he answered. “I know it’s a lot…”
     “You want to overthrow Dar-Gothull?” Bettain was aghast, yet impressed. Elldri listened, round-eyed. “What, with the six of you?”
     “Seven,” Lorrah corrected.
     “Eight,” Alemin said.
     “That’s … not better,” Duessa choked. However, strange she had ever thought Alemin was, this was far beyond it. “You’re insane! He’s Dar-Gothull. He has the whole regime and all the counts, the temple priests, the hunter-guards, the…” She trailed off, finding herself momentarily unable to breathe.
     “There are more of us,” Alemin went on, soothingly. “We had to split up when one of our friends got a prophecy that he would be captured…”
     “A prophecy?” Duessa shrieked. That was worse than nothing!
     “We were supposed to meet up again after six months,” Alemin continued. “Right now, that’s what we’re doing. I have a sense of another one of our friends. We’re trying to find her.”
     “While avoiding my sister,” Lorrah added grimly.
     “And we’re getting the hell away from the Larder,” one of the others added, cheeky.
     “No. No,” Duessa insisted. “You just want us for canon fodder.”
     “We need allies,” Zathi corrected, irritably.
     “Yeah, no kidding,” Bettain laughed rudely.
     “We don’t have a plan because it’s impossible to make a plan before we know who supports us,” Giniver added from the other side of the wagon.
     “Really, you’re going to try this?” Duessa’s eyes pleaded with Alemin to say no, it was all just tavern talk. The guardswomen were silent for a moment, and then every one of them nodded. “Yes.” “Yeah, sure.” “What, you want to live like this forever?”
     “It’s time,” Zathi said firmly. “Dar-Gothull’s reign has distorted everything. It has to end.”

---

---

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or Twitter.