Greatshadow (48 page)

Of course, inspiration is only half the job of writing a book. The other half is the actual slog of putting down words on paper then revising them again and again and again. In these labors, I was ably assisted by my wonderful team of dedicated wise-readers: Laurel Amberdine, Ada Brown, Cindy Hannikman, Will Ferris, Cathy Bollinger, Jesse Bernier, Dona Nova, Jenney O’Callaghan, Joey Puente, and, of course, Cheryl Morgan. Once I had the book in its nearly final stage, I sent it off my friend Jeremy Cavin, who gave me suggestions that I think really helped elevate the novel. My editor, Jonathan Oliver at Solaris, deserves credit for helping me put the final finishing touches on the manuscript. I must also thank my agent, John Berlyne, for fighting to see Greatshadow published as the first part of a larger series. And, thanks goes to Gerard Miley, for helping bring the book to life with his fantastic cover. (And wait until you see the cover for Hush!)

If you’ve enjoyed
Greatshadow
, I hope you’ll stick around for future books in the series. Greatshadow isn’t the only primal dragon to be targeted by the Church of the Book. In the next book, Infidel will confront Hush, the primal dragon of cold, Rott, the primal dragon of decay, and Glorious, the primal dragon of the sun. One of these dragons will meet their final fate due to the machinations of the church, an event that won’t go unnoticed by the other dragons. Is the dragon apocalypse finally at hand?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Maxey lives in Hillsborough, NC with his lovely bride Cheryl and a clowder of unruly cats. He is the author of the Bitterwood fantasy trilogy,
Bitterwood
,
Dragonforge
, and
Dragonseed
, as well as the superhero novels
Nobody Gets the Girl
and
Burn Baby Burn
. His short fiction has appeared in dozens of anthologies and magazines such as
Asimov’s
and
Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show
. The best of these stories appears in the collection
There is No Wheel
. For more information about James, and to follow the progress of further books chronicling the
Dragon Apocalypse
, visit dragonprophet.blogspot.com.

Now read the first chapter from

the next novel in this exciting series...

HUSH

BOOK TWO
of the
DRAGON APOCALYPSE

JAMES MAXEY

CHAPTER ONE

A DANGEROUS SPLINTER

A
PRINCESS, A
shape-shifter, and a ghost walked into a bar.

The room fell silent as all eyes turned toward the princess. The bar was the Black Swan, the most prestigious saloon in the boat city of Commonground. While the house wasn’t as packed as it would be come midnight, there were still scores of hard core gamblers crowded around the poker tables. Ordinarily, you could have marched a two-headed tiger through the joint and not gotten these players to glance up from their cards. But the princess, known in these parts as Infidel, was known to be much more dangerous than a two-headed tiger.

Infidel was an imposing figure as she stood in the doorway with the sun low in the red sky behind her. The first thing anyone would notice about her was that she was a woman who wore her three decades well, with sculpted curves, generous platinum curls, and enigmatic gray eyes. The money hungry men in the room wouldn’t linger long on her face, however. She was dressed in the priceless Immaculate Attire crafted for Queen Alabaster Brightmoon nearly three centuries before. Formed from the hide of the last unicorn, the legendary armor was milky white and trimmed with silver. The enchanted leather clung to Infidel’s body like a second skin. Slung over her shoulder was another famed artifact of the Silver Isles, the Gloryhammer, glowing with a pale white light.

Despite her impressive armaments, it was Infidel’s reputation that brought the room to a standstill. On her first night in this bar ten years ago she’d ripped off the arm of a bruiser twice her size. The whole town soon learned that this young woman possessed magical strength and skin so tough that swords couldn’t scratch her. Even as her fame grew, her beauty had tempted many a fool to a place an unwelcome hand upon her. Commonground had an unusual quantity of one-armed sailors.

I say this as the biggest fool of all. My name is Abstemious Merchant, though everyone in Commonground called me Stagger. For ten years, I was Infidel’s constant companion, staring at her moon-eyed when she wasn’t looking. I was far too cowardly to confess my love. Yet, fate can be kind to fools and cowards. Beneath Infidel’s white leather gauntlet, on her left hand, she wears a ring of woven gray hair. This is my hair. I wear a matching small braid of a platinum-hued locks. These serve as our wedding bands, since at the time of our betrothal there were no jewelers handy.

Fate’s kindness, you see, is balanced by a wicked sense of humor. In this unfolding joke, I’m the ghost. In death, as in life, I follow her everywhere.

As a phantom, I’m unseen and unheard. If I could have spoken to Infidel, I would have advised to wear a cloak and cowl into this place, despite the tropical heat outside. Wearing the Immaculate Attire in this city of thieves was the equivalent of walking through a lion’s den wearing a suit sewn from steaks. Worse, someone in this town might be smart enough to ask why she was bothering to wear armor at all. She’d recently lost her magical strength and invulnerability, and if word spread her former enemies would turn out in droves. Plus, as her husband, I wasn’t thrilled with the way the skin-tight armor accented her breathtaking assets. For supposedly Immaculate Attire, the outfit certainly lent itself to dirty thoughts.

Infidel’s silver trimmed boots clicked on the polished oak floor as she walked through the room. Ordinarily stone-faced poker players openly gawked and drooled, though I tried to assure myself they were hungering for the Gloryhammer in all its refulgent splendor. Glorystones are fragments of the sun. They’re rarer than diamonds and twice as hard. The Gloryhammer is literally priceless. All the gold in the world couldn’t buy it. The Tower clan, a family of famous knights, had passed down the weapon for generations. Alas, the last surviving male of the line had recently been reduced to soot. Infidel now owned the hammer under the legal precedent of finders, keepers.

Infidel didn’t look back at the gawking crowd as she arrived at the bar. Battle Ox was bartending. Battle was a half-seed, meaning his mother had visited a blood house to imbue her yet-to-be conceived child with animalistic traits. If the magic was done properly, a half-seed ox child would be big, strong, and tenacious. Do the magic wrong, and you get Battle Ox — a full blown minotaur with horns wider than his considerably broad shoulders.

In more civilized parts of the world, an infant born with a bovine face would have been put to death as a horrid abomination against nature. In Commonground, Battle’s visage seldom merited a second glance. Despite the name inflicted by the pun-happy denizens of Commonground, Battle was a rather gentle vegetarian. While he would willingly eject a rowdy patron if the need arose, his true calling in life was drawing beers with perfect heads of foam. My mouth watered at the smell of the amber fluid.

Battle nodded at my wife. “A lot of people here won’t be happy to see you back” he said, with his gruff, bass voice. “Odds were running ten to one that Greatshadow would fry you.”

Infidel leaned on the bar. “How did anyone know we were going to slay the dragon? The mission was a secret.”

Battle shrugged as he picked up a glass and a towel. “The Black Swan started taking bets on the outcome of your dragon hunt the second you left town. The volcano’s been belching lava for the last week, so we figure Greatshadow was still alive.”

“Well, maybe he is and maybe he isn’t,” she said. “The Black Swan will get the full details. Tell her I need to see her. Now.”

Battle put down the glass he was cleaning. “You ever learn the word ‘please?’”

“Don’t mess with me. I’ve got one hour to get back to the Freewind and don’t have time to waste. I’ve got something the Black Swan needs to see immediately.”

Battle shook his furry head. “No can do. She’s already in a meeting. Going to be a lot longer than an hour.”

Infidel unclasped the top three buttons of her leather armor and peeled it back, showing the top of her cleavage. Battle’s eyes bulged.

“You see this?” Infidel pointed to a black speck the size of an apple seed that nestled in the ampleness of her décolletage.

“Uh...,” said Battle, his mouth hanging open.

“This is Menagerie. What’s left of him.”

Remember the shape-shifter who came into the bar with us? Menagerie used to be the most feared mercenary in Commonground. A blood-magician of unparalleled skill, Menagerie could turn into any of the scores of animals that used to decorate his tattooed flesh. Menagerie had barely survived our dragon hunt. Since shape-shifting into this tick form, he’d yet to change back into a man. A telepath of our acquaintance informed us that Menagerie had been so traumatized by his brush with death that his mind was shattered.

Battle couldn’t know any of this, of course, but Infidel didn’t have to produce any further explanations. Men are willing to believe almost anything while they’re looking at a woman’s breasts.

“I’m the only one that can hear him since he’s latched onto me,” she said while his eyes were still fixed on her. “The Black Swan has a potion that will change him back to human, and he has to drink it within the next five minutes or he’ll die. Do you want to tell the Black Swan she’s lost her most valuable employee because you were too timid to interrupt a meeting?”

Battle frowned. No, no he did not want this, was the message I was seeing in his eyes. But he also looked as if he had his doubts. Infidel wasn’t particularly gifted at lying. If Battle asked any follow up questions, Infidel would probably be in trouble.

Fortunately, Battle was too cleavage-addled to notice any holes in her story. He grunted, “Wait here,” then went through the curtain that covered the doorway behind the beer kegs, leaving Infidel alone. At least as alone as a woman can be with a brain-damaged shape-shifter sipping her blood and her invisible dead husband hovering close behind.

Infidel turned around, leaning back against the bar.

Every eye in the house was staring at her.

Even though the Black Swan was the classiest joint in Commonground, it was still a den where desperate men gathered to try to make an easy fortune. Their already questionable judgment was numbed further by generous tankards of booze. Ordinarily, order was maintained by the Black Swan’s infamous hired muscle, the Three Goons. Even when the Goons weren’t present, their reputation kept most people in line.

Of course, except for Menagerie, the Goons were now dead. If the patrons knew about the dragon hunt, did they also know that the bar’s most feared enforcers weren’t coming back?

Infidel reached over her shoulder and grabbed the Gloryhammer. Instantly, its enchantment kicked in. Her skin glowed faintly as she lifted off the floor ever so subtly. In addition to granting her flight, the hammer also enhanced her strength. The boost was nothing like her former arm-ripping power, but anyone looking at her had to be sizing up their odds of getting their skulls smashed.

The odds were too high even for this room full of hardened gamblers. One by one, all eyes looked back at the cards in their hands. The roulette wheel was spun again, dice were jiggled in cups, and in under a minute the saloon had resumed its normal routine. Infidel slowly drifted back down to the floor.

Then Hookhand and his Machete Quartet walked in from the street. If I’d still had a heartbeat, it would have skipped. I had history with Hookhand. When I was alive, my primary revenue came from locating ruins in the jungle and salvaging lost treasures. Hookhand used to make his living by having an uncanny knack for showing up just as I was climbing out of some god-forsaken tomb with a sack full of artifacts, which I would trade in exchange for not being nailed to a tree and flayed. This arrangement lasted for years until Infidel started adventuring with me. In the intervening decade, there’ve been about seventeen different members of the Machete Quartet. Infidel normally doesn’t let them suffer for too long. Hookhand hasn’t been as lucky. When he first came to Commonground, he was known as Fairchild the Nimble. Now, he’s got one eye, his nose is squashed against his cheek, and he walks with a prominent limp. He’s got maybe six teeth left, and, of course, where he once had a right hand he now has a hook, a big nasty one of the sort you might use to gaff a large fish.

Despite a decade of serving as Infidel’s punching bag, Hookhand was still a feared figure in the city. His gang was made of street urchins he recruited just after they hit puberty, when they’re strong and agile enough to swing a machete like it’s a dagger, but still too young to have any fear of life and limb. Once they join the quartet they become Kid White, Kid Blue, Kid Green, and Kid Black, based on the color bandana they wear. Hookhand doesn’t like to waste a lot of time memorizing names.