Lady Squire- Dawn's Ascension Read online

  Lady Squire: Dawn’s Ascension

  by

  Leonard D. Hilley II

  © Copyright 2016 by Leonard D. Hilley II

  Deimosweb Publishing

  All Rights Reserved

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author.

  Cover art by Howard David Johnson

  For Christal, as always.

  Prologue

  When Boldair awakened, his stubby muscular arms were shackled above his head to a cold wet wall. He looked around the small dark prison cell. A torch flickered outside the tiny barred window on the thick iron-braced wooden door. Overhead at the highest reach of the ceiling, the bright yellow moon spilled through the grated hole. He guessed it was the dead of night, but it could be closer to dawn for all he knew.

  His stomach growled from hunger. He didn’t know how long he had been locked in the cell or how he had even wound up there.

  The last thing he recalled was drinking ale at the Bridgebarrow Tavern with other dwarves while swapping tales of adventure and treasures they had found. Strong drink tended to draw out his need to brag and exaggerate about his discoveries.

  A half dozen muscled Legelarid knights dressed in chain armor had been seated across the room, but they had paid he and his Dwarven friends no mind. The knights focused their attention more on the dark-haired female warrior wearing her snug gilded breastplate that cut short of her midriff than anything else. Her metal belt, which had a decorative dragonhead across her navel, covered most of her abdominal region. Gold-plated leggings and boots protected her lower extremities. Her winged helm rested on the stool beside her, and her round shield, adorned with sharp dragon’s teeth, was propped against the side of the bar.

  The female warrior sat at the bar, staring down at the silver flask before her. Although she sat in a near trancelike state, Boldair assumed her concentration was attuned to take in all of the conversations and interactions around her at the same time. At the angle from where he sat, he was unable to see her face clearly.

  With a rigid coldness, she ignored the knight leader’s drunken lewd comments and suggestive offers of gold to hire her to join their company during their journey back to Legelarid. Something Boldair understood to have double meaning, and had the insulting remarks been to a woman less capable of holding her own, he would have stood and challenged the half drunken knight. Instead, he chose to continue spinning his tales while awaiting the woman’s reaction to the knights, which seemed inevitable.

  She kept her right hand tightened on the jeweled hilt of her short sword. The black blade was different than any sword Boldair had seen before. It wasn’t made of any metal he’d ever crafted, and the blade was cylindrically shaped and sharply curved.

  The armored female sat with her head slightly cocked to the left, and she seemed to be listening to what Boldair and the other dwarves at his table discussed, so they lowered their voices. A barmaid brought fresh tankards of Bridgebarrow Stout and placed them on the table. Boldair smiled, downed the strong ale, and wiped the froth from his black beard with the back of his hand before telling his next tale of treasure hunting. His Dwarven brethren had sat eagerly and wide-eyed to hear what else Boldair had collected from the deep dark caverns and added to his stashed riches.

  Tugging against the prison chains, Boldair shook himself from the daze and fought hard to remember more.

  Boldair winced and groaned; thinking of what had happened after the night settled when he and his brethren had left the tavern to travel north to Damdur. However, more than that, he couldn’t recall anything else. The base of his skull ached and burned. Pain radiated through his head and pulsed behind his eyes. Perhaps someone had welted him from behind with a blunt object and dragged him to this tiny prison. But why?

  After his eyes slightly adjusted to the darkness of the cell, he glanced around. Less than four feet away was the shadowed outline of another shackled prisoner.

  Boldair attempted to rouse his confined neighbor. “Hey! Been ‘ere long?” Boldair asked.

  Other than the whistling dank breeze that smelled of ocean spray, dead fish, and burnt flesh flowing through the barred door window, the room remained silent. In the faint light, his cell companion didn’t move or reply.

  “Sleeping, eh?” he asked, still hoping to stir the man awake. Nothing was worse than being imprisoned without someone else to talk to. Total isolation was the purest torture. Hell without the flames.

  The man didn’t move, and from his overall silence, he was not breathing either.

  “Damn,” Boldair said. “T’would be me luck. Come to Bridgebarrow and get locked inside a prison with a corpse. Bah!”

  Wind flowed downward from the grated ceiling opening. The smell of charred flesh drifted from his dead cellmate, causing Boldair to gag. The tight chain restraints prevented him from covering his nose. The stench forced him to hold his breath until the air grew still once more.

  “You’ve been here for some time, I suppose,” he said, coughing.

  Boldair glanced at the small barred window on the door and wondered if a guard stood outside.

  “Wonder why I’m stuck here, do ye?” he asked the dead man, hoping his continued conversation caught the attention of someone in the outer hall. “Aye, I’ll tell ya. No secret be wasted with ye anyways. This ol’ dwarf is the best treasure hunter in all of Aetheaon. Aye, but it be true.

  “No, I’m not a thief. Never stolen one single solitary thing. I hunt treasures. I do. Since the demise of the dragons of Aetheaon, the treasures are much easier to take, providing you happen upon one of their long forgotten lairs. No fire-breathing lizards guarding the dark caverns makes it—”

  “You boast too much.”

  Boldair straightened his back against the cold wet wall. He squinted, trying to see where the cold stern voice had come from. It wasn’t in the direction of the dead prisoner closest to him, and it wasn’t directly outside the door, either. The voice crept from the darkest corner of the rock-walled cell.

  “Who be there?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. His eyes widened as he awaited an answer.

  “I’m one who wants her treasure back.”

  Boldair frowned and cleared his throat. “Like I was saying. I’ve never stolen treasure from anyone. Just found me treasures in old dragon lairs.”

  “My lair was one of those,” she said coldly. “I want you to return that which is mine.”

  Boldair swallowed hard and kept straining to get a glimpse of who else was in the cell with him. “Your lair? All of the dragons in Aetheaon are dead.”

  “And you believe that?” she replied, somewhat amused.

  “Tis true, milady.”

  She laughed. “You’re sorely mistaken. I want my treasure back.”

  “Who are ye?”

  “Taniesse.”

  “Impossible,” Boldair replied with a rise of anger in his voice. “My father—”

  “Ulthor thought he killed me. Yes, I’ve heard the tales told in taverns and by travelling bards, but those lies are soon to perish just like my fire silenced your cellmate, Dorlan.”

  “Dorlan? He’s me brother. You killed him?” The sudden shock made his heart ache.

  “I did.”

  Boldair’s fury rose in his voice as he rattled the
chains, tugging at them. “He did nothing wrong!”

  “He kept secret where my gold and jewels are. Perhaps you’ll be more cooperative? Now, tell me where you stashed my treasures.”

  “You lie! You’re nothing but a thief! No dragons exist. You twist the bards’ tales and now torment me to take what I found? Release me and allow me my ax, ye coward!”

  “An ax will do you no good,” she replied.

  A sphere of orange flame glowed from across the room. All shadows fled from the fiery ball that she balanced in her hands. Her gorgeous humanoid face held a smile that captivated and yet, frightened him. Her crimson eyes reflected the fire, and her long, flowing black hair didn’t singe from the heat.

  In a deeper tone, she said, “Now, where did you stash my treasure?”

  Taniesse hurled the fiery orb in his direction. He closed his eyes tightly, trembling inside, and the flame exploded on the wall above him. The air hissed as the heat vaporized the dripping moisture on the prison wall. Flaming bats fluttered from hidden crevices and shrieked their last, dropping to the cell floor charred, shriveled, and lifeless.

  Before the scorching flames died on the wall above him, another orb of fire flickered in her hands. He didn’t recognize her face, but he remembered her hair and armor. She was the maiden warrior from the tavern. The gems on the hilt of her strange black sword twinkled.

  “You? I saw you in the tavern. You’re no dragon. You’re a human warrior, you wench. From which kingdom, I’m not certain, but you’re not a dragon.”

  “I’m every bit a dragon,” Taniesse said with laughter rolling in her voice. “Your brother can attest to that. If he were able to speak, that is.”

  She held the flame, blew into it, and the orb danced across her fingers. “You see,” she said, “fire does not harm me.”

  “Nor does it harm a sorcerer that casts fire spells. That only proves magic protects you.”

  “Don’t test my patience, Boldair. You live only because I need my treasure.”

  “Tell me then, if you be a dragon, how are you in a human form?”

  Taniesse laughed and said, “This tiny prison loft could never support my weight otherwise, and this form entices male interest from other races. Most men cannot control their lust, which makes them exceedingly vulnerable and easily distracted.”

  “What need does a dragon have for vast treasures anyway?” Boldair asked, squirming closer to the wall, trying to find any weakness in the chains confining him by tugging harder. The links were sound, unbreakable, even for his strength.

  “In this case?” she said, rolling the fireball from one palm to the other. “I need to hire an army to take Hoffnung from Lord Waxxon and his Vyking warriors. Such an army will require the vast majority of my treasures.”

  “Why Hoffnung? Queen Taube is dead.”

  “But Lady Dawn lives. I seek to find her, destroy Waxxon, and grant her the rightful place upon her mother’s throne.”

  Excitement grew inside Boldair’s chest. “The Queen’s daughter . . . She lives? Is that possible? How do you know?”

  In the fire’s glow, Taniesse’s smile broadened. “Because her spirit lives in Aetheaon, but she’s concealed herself well. She needs to stay hidden until all of her enemies have been destroyed.”

  “The Dragon Skull Order seeks to protect her.”

  “They don’t have the numbers to protect her should they ever find her. Their numbers are few. Not even a couple dozen of them survive. Waxxon’s men hunt for them as well as Lady Dawn.”

  Boldair stared at Taniesse’s stern face, which appeared chiseled from fine alabaster and without blemish. Her armored body was perfect in form and muscularity. Her pupils were dark as obsidian, centered within a crimson glow, and the only feature that revealed she was something much more than human. Truly in this humanoid form, she had the seductive beauty to wile most any lustful human, elf, or dwarf, but not Boldair. He loved gold and gems too much to entertain the thought of romance or to ever take a wife.

  “Time is fleeting, Boldair, both in my patience and for your life. Where did you store my treasures?”

  The flaming orb brightened.

  Boldair cleared his throat and said, “If I tell you, you will kill me. And if I don’t, you’ll never find it. You’d still kill me. Either way, I die.”

  A sly smile spread across Taniesse’s face. “You love gold, do you not, Boldair?”

  “Of course. It’s why I hunt me treasures.”

  “I will need a general to lead troops against Waxxon. You seem capable of fighting.”

  Boldair chuckled and gave a solemn, stern nod. “Aye. Most dwarves are.”

  “Then I will pay you handsomely to lead one front into battle. That is, if you’re half as good a leader as your father Ulthor is.”

  “Oh, I’m every bit as good as he.”

  “Then tell me where my treasure is.”

  “Aye,” he replied. “But release me from these chains first, and I’ll take you there.”

  Taniesse cast the fiery orb.

  Boldair flinched and tried to pull himself into a ball.

  The ball of fire seared and melted the iron chains attached to the wall above the dwarf’s head. Glowing bits of molten chain dropped to the floor and smoldered on the wet mildewed hay beneath him. Steam rose and the metal glowed orange-red.

  “What about the cuffs?” he asked, holding his hands before him.

  “In time,” she replied. “But only if your word remains true.”

  “Well, milady. I never would have ventured into your lair and taken your treasure had I known you were still alive. I am not a thief.”

  “Then I suggest you prepare to return my two sisters’ treasures as well. They are very much alive, too.”

  Boldair winced, realizing he was getting poorer each minute they talked. “Aye, milady,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Twill be done. Since I am not a thief, what’s theirs will be given back.”

  Taniesse waved her hand and all the unlit sconces inside the small prison lighted. She peered down at him and smiled. “Perhaps you are more noble than I credited you to be.”

  Boldair offered a slight bow. “Indeed, Great One, my work is for honorable deeds only. And if a treasure sits for years and no one has claimed it, is that thievery?”

  “Perhaps not.”

  Boldair shook his head, and glancing at the scorched dead prisoner still chained and shackled, he said, “Wish me brother had such wisdom. He . . .Wait, that’s not Dorlan.”

  “No, it’s not.” Amusement rang in her voice.

  “Then who?”

  “A knight that should have understood his rightful place.”

  “The one from the tavern that offered you gold for your . . . erm, company?” Boldair asked with a sly grin.

  She nodded with cold eyes. “The same.”

  “And the others?”

  “Still fleeing on the trail back to Legelarid would be my guess.”

  “Where’s my ax and shield?” Boldair asked.

  “Outside the prison near the ravine,” Taniesse said, pulling open the prison door.

  “How did you fool my father into believing you were dead? He never has misled me or any others. He swears he killed you in the snowy mountains east of Nagdor.”

  “I’m sure Ulthor truly believes that, which makes it the truth to him.” She smiled. “Our battle against one another occurred during a heavy blizzard. The snow and fog were so heavy and thick that neither of us truly saw the other. He was weak from battle. Had I chosen to, I could have killed him and the snow would have buried him for ages. Perhaps forever.”

  “He swears he struck you with a spear. He said that there was a large pool of your blood melting the snow.”

  Taniesse led Boldair down a long spiral stairwell. Water dripped from the stones. An occasional bat flittered and headed down the stairs. A few rats peered out from their hiding places.

  “Indeed, he struck me, and that’s why I carry this,” she said, unshea
thing the black short sword from her belt. “So he did not lie in his shedding of my blood. Only, as you can see, he didn’t kill me.”

  “Aye, what is this?” Boldair asked, looking at the blade.

  She held up her left hand. In the light of the blazing sconce, he noticed she was missing her left middle finger. “This sword was made from one of my claws.”

  “So why didn’t you kill him?”

  “I could have, but what good would that have done, Boldair? All races already view dragons in a bad light. Killing him would have only brought about more contention between the Dwarven kings and the dragons. I wind-blasted your father with my wings, knocking him unconscious, and quickly took to flight.”

  Boldair chuckled and shook his head. “Me father. He’s one to boast well of himself then. Speaking of how he triumphed over you.”

  “Seems you’re not much different from your father, either.”

  “How’s that?” he asked, cocking a brow.

  “I listened to your tales at the tavern.”

  “And what part be untrue?”

  Taniesse kept walking. “Seems I recall you mentioning a few Black Orcs and some knife-wielding goblins trying to rob you.”

  “Oh, right. Never hurts to add a bit of drama while weaving a tale,” he said with a slight grin as his face reddened, followed by a deep throaty chuckle.

  She smiled down at him as they made the final turn in the winding corridor. “I suppose not.”

  “Gold is worth more if you have to fight for it.”

  “For a Dwarven warrior, that is true.”

  “Tell me, other than your sisters, how many other dragons are still living?” Boldair asked.

  Taniesse shrugged. “An actual count is impossible to know as we each have ways to conceal ourselves. But don’t be surprised when the battle for Hoffnung begins to see other dragons reveal themselves.”

  They approached double doors with iron grates. She took a key from her belt pouch and placed it into the lock. The metal lock clicked when she turned the key.