Free The Dragon Society (Obsidian Chronicles Book 2) by Lawrence Watt-Evans Page B

Smiling, Arlian lifted the lid unhindered, and peered into the chest, holding the lamp high.
    For a moment he didn't recognize what he saw; the gleaming black shapes refused to resolve into intelligi-ble forms. He shifted the lamp, and saw its light glitter on sharp, curved edges.
    At last, though, he realized what he was seeing.
    The chest was full of obsidian.
    This was what Lord Dragon had looted from the Smoking Mountain all those years ago. This was what he had been seeking when he found young Arlian, trapped in the cellars of his ruined home—and sold the boy into slavery.
    For an instant that long-ago scene came back to Arlian in all its terrifying detail. He remembered the sight of the dragon's face as one of the three monsters looked directly at him. He remembered the horrible warm weight of his grandfather's corpse, and the pressure of the hot stone floor beneath him, as he lay pinned at the foot of the fallen ladder. He remembered the unspeakably hideous taste of blood and venom dripping into his open mouth, and his stomach wrenched at the memory.
    And he remembered being pulled from the cellar to see his home in flaming ruins, the entire village destroyed, while Lord Dragon, with his fine clothes and scarred face and cold voice, directed half a dozen looters in stripping away what few valuables remained. He remembered Enziet demanding to know where the workshops were, where the obsidian was.
    And he, Arlian, had shown him, to escape a beating, so as not to risk being crippled—because a cripple would never be able to avenge the wrongs done that day.
    He stared at the black glass shards in that trunk in Manfort and felt all the cold hatred he had nursed for years rise up afresh in his bosom, all the thirst for justice, all the lust for bloody vengeance.
    He had slain Enziet, or at least the dragon Enziet had become. He had let Cover die of a fever, had let Hide be murdered. He had killed Shamble and Stonehand.
    Dagger and Tooth might still live; Arlian had been unable to locate them. Dagger had fled from Manfort years ago, and Tooth simply vanished. Tracking them down would probably require sorcery, if it could be done at all, and if they still lived—which Arlian thought unlikely.
    The looters, then, had been dealt with; all were dead or gone.
    But the dragons still lived.
    And here, in this chest, was the material Arlian needed to make weapons that could kill them.
    This was a part of what Enziet had left him, part of the legacy—surely a part that Enziet had intended to be used when he named Arlian as his heir. Despite his dealings with them, despite his betrayal of the old Order of the Dragon that had fought them, Arlian knew that Enziet had hated the dragons even as he was becoming one. For centuries, he had sought a way to destroy them.
    He had found one—but had never had a chance to use it. Clearly, he had hoped Arlian would do it in his stead.
    Arlian grimaced. Lord Obsidian, he called himself.
    This volcanic glass was his namesake—and his destiny. He reached down and picked up a piece, and realized that it had already been shaped into a fine long spearhead. Beside it lay a black stone dagger, and a broken shard that appeared to have been intended as a sword-blade—but obsidian did not have the strength to make a sword.
    Knives and spears. That would be enough. A good sword was a nobleman's weapon, meant for honest combat—and Arlian did not want to fight dragons. He wanted to slaughter them, as they had slaughtered his family and townsfolk.
    He had been thinking that killing Enziet had been enough to satisfy his lust for revenge, and that he would continue his campaign against the dragons simply for the greater good of humanity, but now he realized that it had merely been enough human blood. He still wanted to see the dragons die for what they had done.
    And with obsidian weapons and a thousand years, he he might achieve that goal.
    He was holding the obsidian spearhead and gazing contemplatively