The Author's Blood (13 page)

Clara had used her back door key and moved Connie into the boarded-up Briarwood Café. It was a good place to hide, where she could find food and water. The aging process had further attacked Connie, making her even thinner and nearly unable to swallow.

Clara dragged a table in the corner to a booth, making a long table, and used several tablecloths to keep Connie warm. Clara made sleeping quarters for herself in a booth nearby, where she could see outside through gaps in the boards tacked over the windows. She had seen police cars and ambulances since carrying Connie from the bed-and-breakfast but not much else.

Early in the morning Connie was rasping and coughing. Clara had seen shadows move past the windows, though when she peered out, she found nothing but wind in the trees and a dim streetlamp.

“Water,” Connie moaned, barely loud enough to be heard.

Clara brought her a glass and lifted her head.

Connie took a few sips, then lay back on the pillow Clara had made from linens.

“How are you feeling?”

“As bad as I look,” Connie said. “I've always dreamed of being a princess, but when my horse-drawn carriage arrives, it had better be a wheelchair.”

Clara pushed the hair from Connie's eyes and smiled. “It's good to see you still have your sense of humor.”

“With all these wrinkles, it's the only sense I have left. What about you? What are you supposed to see in this new world of your father's?”

“He didn't tell me much,” Clara said. “I assume he'll tell me when I'm supposed to know. I'm still getting used to who he is and who I am. I'm not sure I want to know everything just yet.”

Connie nodded weakly and took a shallow breath. “Do you think he meant for this to happen to me?”

Clara looked away. “Well, if he's truly in control, I suppose he could have prevented it. So there must be some purpose in it.”

“In feeling like you're going to die? I can't imagine.”

Clara fumbled in her pocket for a scrap of paper. “I wrote something from
The Book of the King
down. Listen. ‘Every detail of your life is woven like a beautiful tapestry. Whether it seems good or bad, it perfectly fits into the design. Your father loves you—'”

“Shh . . .”

The doorknob turned slowly. A deep voice. Then something pressing against the door.

“Stay there, Connie.”

“As if . . .”

Clara grabbed a chair and shoved it under the knob, wedging it tight.

When the next volley of pushing came, someone cursed. “We're going to have to break a window.” Clara recognized the voice.

“Let me try,” another said.

The door banged, cracked, and rattled, but the chair held. More cursing. “Once we're in, check the register just in case. I'll look for pies or those ice cream cakes from the freezer.”

Clara took a deep breath. “Looks like company,” she said in her most manly tone. “Call the cops and I'll get the gun.”

Someone laughed and slammed against the door, splintering the wood and sending the chair flying.

Clara screamed and rushed to Connie, covering her.

“Gordan!” she said as he crashed halfway through, pant leg caught in the wood.

“Who is it?” someone behind him said. Clara assumed it was one of his usual lackeys.

“Clara. The pretty one with dark hair. The waitress. How're you doing?”

“What's that?” someone said outside.

“Let's get out of here!” another said.

“Guys,” Gordan said, “don't leave because of a little fog. Honey, can you give me a hand over here?”

Clara shook her head as a misty white seeped in and billowed about.

Gordan coughed and struggled. “Come on. Help me!”

Before she could move, a sticklike arm shot through the opening. Several feelers extended and wrapped themselves around Gordan's chest. His eyes grew wide as they tightened, squeezing the breath from him.

Clara rushed to pull at the spiny tentacles, but they were so tight she couldn't even get her fingers underneath. Something snapped, and Gordan looked like he wanted to scream. Clara actually felt sorry for him for the first time in her life.

An object—curved and sharp and glistening—moved through the broken door. It looked like the talon from some ancient bird. With a quick pull, Gordan disappeared into the mist. Clara heard a gurgle and something splattered on the door. Then a thump on the ground, as if someone had dropped a sack of groceries. Clara froze as a tentacle reached into the room, twitching as if sniffing.

The thing, whatever it was, moved farther in, displaying more tentacles, more feelers. When its huge head popped through the door, it looked like Karl, only bigger, stronger, and more hideous—with a smell that rivaled a pail of dirty diapers.

Clara stepped back, bumped into a table, and toppled over a chair.

The creature headed toward Connie and began removing the tablecloth.

“No!” Clara shouted, attacking, but one thrust of a small tentacle sent her flying across the room.

The monster grabbed the edge of the tablecloth and pulled it off, at first recoiling, then turning to Clara and speaking in a high-pitched, nasal voice. “I see you have done well in preserving the anointed one.”

“Who are you?” Clara spat, getting up. One reach of a tentacle and she was knocked down again.

“I come in service of His Majesty, the new ruler of the Highlands and Lowlands. He requires the chosen bride of the boy prince. This, if I am not mistaken, is her wretched body.”

“You're mistaken. She is not the one. I am.”

The creature cocked its head. “Amazing. Willing to give your life in place of another. And for what?”

“She's not who you think. I'm the one you're looking for.”

“Really?” the creature said, its tone unkind. “I shall take you both just to be safe. His Majesty will like that.”

A tentacle shot from the beast's body and enveloped Clara. Another did the same with Connie, now unconscious. They flew high above the city, and Connie looked whiter than Clara had ever seen her. Clara prayed the poor girl would die rather than endure the torture that certainly awaited them.

For several days Batwing recorded, as best he could, the reports of Starbuck and Tusin and the comings and goings of the guards, workers, and officials in Dragon City. The only ones who left the walled city were the poor unfortunates saddled with carrying trash and animal dung and dumping it in a valley.

One afternoon the sky filled with flyers in a procession that looked like it had royal significance. Scythe flyers with their enormous sharp tails brought up the rear before a gap (which Batwing assumed was made up of invisibles) and a lone flying beast Batwing immediately recognized as RHM, the Dragon's aide.

“What is that he's carrying?” Starbuck said.

“Shall I fly up and see?” Batwing said.

Tusin harrumphed. “And alert the whole city that we're here? Out of the question. It's probably just more prisoners.”

“There's one on either side,” Starbuck said, scrambling higher for a better look.

“Be careful,” Tusin said as rocks and pebbles rained on him. “You want to bury us under an avalanche?”

RHM flew his prisoners over the wall and into the city. A small cheer went up from inside and then died.

A few minutes later Starbuck clambered back down, again spilling rocks and dirt, and breathlessly reported, “He had two females with him. An old one and a much younger one. Dressed in strange clothes.”

“Perhaps from the Highlands,” Batwing said, “like the Wormling. Watcher said he wore strange clothes when he first came to the Lowlands.”

“They must be pretty important for RHM himself to go after them,” Tusin said.

“You saw by the procession that they must be important,” Starbuck said. “But who could they be?”

“I shudder to even guess,” Tusin said, gazing at the darkening sky. “I wish the Wormling would return.”

That night it rained and flooded their mountainside cave, forcing them to higher ground. They slipped and slid until they reached the top of the mountain overlooking the city. Huge torches lit the massive coliseum, crammed with spectators. Vaxors cracked whips and struck humans who stretched animal skins across the arena to keep the surface dry.

“Many will die,” Tusin said. “I can hear the growls of the tigren from here.”

“They probably haven't been fed for weeks,” Starbuck said. “I'd like to release them so they can attack those vaxors.”

Batwing shifted from one foot to the other. “The Wormling told us to wait.”

“But the killing will soon begin,” Starbuck said. “Surely he wouldn't want us to just sit here.”

A strong wind gusted from below, and a great presence loomed over the three.

Starbuck grabbed Tusin's walking stick and held it up like a sword, as if ready to fight.

As quickly as the presence came, it left, flapping into the rain. Through the darkness came footsteps, but it wasn't until Rogers spoke from behind him that Batwing knew who it was.

“It's good to see you again,” Tusin said. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, but we must prepare. We don't have much time.”

“That's what I told them,” Starbuck muttered. “Where's the Wormling?”

“The Wormling is well,” Rogers said. “He said to come up with a plan to enter the city and be ready in the morning. He says his time has come.”

The queen of the west's back ached from the heavy load, her feet blistered beyond belief. She could barely see where she was going through the rain and her tears. She shoveled dung one day and hauled it the next, sleeping in cramped quarters beneath the coliseum where others cursed her because of her smell. Some envied her for being able to go aboveground, but none wanted her job.

The most dangerous place she gathered dung was from the cages of the tigren, where even the vaxors wouldn't enter. She had to wait until the tigren wandered into the safe section and the vaxors blocked the cages so she could run in, do her work, and get out before they pulled the lever. Plenty of people had been victims of a careless or cruel vaxor who had pulled the lever too soon just to see blood.

But as hard as her life was, it was nothing compared to the humiliation. The queen was used to being served, to sleeping in a comfortable bed, and to waking to warm slippers and fresh fruit. Now she was fortunate to get a crust of bread or a drink of brackish water.

Walking with the rough men and women assigned the same task was also difficult. She had ordered these types of people around, and now she was one of them—even taking orders from vaxors.

“Faster!” one growled as she carried her load through the gate. He lashed her back with a whip.

She screamed as the cords bit and tried to stay upright.

The path consisted of deep mud, and the people in front of her stayed in the grass, where they could get better footing. In her former life, she had had no fears beyond the occasional snake in her garden or a hangnail. Now she had nothing but fears—that the Dragon would keep his promise about her daughter, that he would consume her and her husband with fire. But her greatest fear was falling into the dung pit at the bottom of the path. Another had done this and died.

One by one the dung bearers pitched their baskets over the edge and hurried back up the hill.

Vaxors wouldn't even come close to this place. They watched from the ridge, holding their noses and laughing.

“Nice technique, Your Majesty!”

“The queen of dung!”

The valley was steep and the tossing point a sharp precipice that led down several hundred feet. A person who tumbled into the chasm would be dead before she hit the bottom, if one could believe a vaxor.

The queen was the last to the edge today and moved gingerly as she raised the pole that held two baskets on each end from her shoulders. She had become stronger here, working off some of the excess of her pampered life, but she longed for a bath and a real meal.

She tossed the first load over the edge, but when she set the empty basket on the ground, someone grabbed at her ankle and she went down hard in the mud, her momentum carrying her toward the pit. At the last instant before plunging to her death, she wrenched around and gripped a clump of grass, her feet dangling over the edge.

She screamed but no one came. The hard labor that had toned her allowed her to pull herself up a few inches and almost to safety. But suddenly the earth opened before her, and two eyes stared at her. Whoever it was tore her hands from the heavy grass and pushed her backward.

She fell into the abyss, gasping, flailing, kicking, resigned to death. But she had tumbled through the air for only a second before someone yanked her inside an area dug into the soil wall.

“It's all right now,” a young man said. “You're okay. I'm sorry to give you such a fright.”

She gaped, panting. “You!”

The Wormling bowed his head. “I had no idea it was you, Your Majesty. Where is your husband?”

“I don't know,” she said, barely able to speak. “I can only imagine.”

The Wormling held her gaze. Something about his eyes radiated confidence. Had she been wrong about him? Was there something special about this young man who had grown so strong and certain of himself?

“We don't have much time,” he said. “Give me your cloak and wait here.”

“Who tripped me up there?”

“A friend,” Owen said.

“Some friend.”

“We've watched the vaxors for several days so we could get into the city—”

“You want to get
in
?” she said.

“I have to. Now stay here until the vaxors leave.” The Wormling produced a rope. “Tie this around you, and our people will pull you up when it's clear.”

Without her hooded cloak she shivered in her ragged clothes. “Please find my husband and release him if you can.”