Free The Deer Prince's Murder: Book Two of 'Fantasy & Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 2) by Michael Angel Page A

kingdom. I envisioned the vaulted ceiling, the red-and-green wall tapestries, and the deep-set windows. Thought about the dark wooden table at its center, and how the edges shone with fleur-de-lis of gold leaf.
    A squeeze of the medallion, and everything vanished in a swirl of white light. The now familiar ozone stench, which defied my best attempts to block it out of mind. Followed by a jolt as I landed on the hard stone floor. I reeled like I’d had one too many Mai Tais before noon had rolled around.
    “Be at ease, Dayna,” came Galen’s voice, as his strong, warm hand grabbed my arm to help steady me. “I’m here to support you, as best I am able.”
    I waited a second or two for my head to clear. Galen looked down at me with kind concern. As usual, he was the rock in this magical world that I could count on. But I hadn’t missed that last phrase he’d spoken – and the disappointed tone in his voice.
    “As best you’re able?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound promising.”
    He gestured angrily at a tumble of books laid out in a heap on the nearby table. One of the centaur’s forehooves clacked in annoyed emphasis on the floor as he spoke.
    “If there is one thing I have steadfastly admired about the human kingdoms, it is that they treat their knowledge properly. Binding them in books, storing them safely in libraries. And Benedict’s realm – pardon, Fitzwilliam’s realm – has always had the most complete, extensive records of anyplace in my world.”
    “I’m guessing that we didn’t come up with much about our Fayleene’s dragon?”
    “You misunderstand,” Galen corrected me. “It’s not that I came up with inadequate information. I came up with nothing, nothing at all about this ‘Sirrahon’! And that does not make sense, Dayna. Every dragon that ever lived is recorded in text. In the records of Andeluvia’s military, as a monster that had to be driven off, subdued, or killed. It is enough to drive a scholar insane.”
    “All right,” I admitted, and put my palms down on the long table, staring at the tumbled pile of books like I could will them to tell me something new. “I feel like we just got the wind knocked out of our sails here. There has to be a reason that this dragon’s not in the texts. Perhaps it simply hasn’t ever attacked this kingdom before, so no one has known about it.”
    “Unlikely. You recall, of course, the two dragons that we encountered in the Fayleene woods?”
    A snort escaped my nostrils. “I’m not likely to forget that particular ‘encounter’, as you so eloquently put it.”
    “Those two were mere striplings, at most no more than twenty or thirty years old. As dragons mature and grow older, they simply grow bigger. Their appetite, their need and raw ability for wanton destruction – all scale up immeasurably as the years pile on.”
    I stared at him. “How old – and how big – do these reptiles get?”
    “That brings us to the nub of the matter. No one really knows how long dragons live, or how big they might get. The oldest Andeluvian histories go back to the founding of this kingdom, more than seven centuries ago. Several decades after that, the entire Andeluvian army declared war. Not on a fellow nation, but an ancient dragon named Balaur the Black. According to legend, the dragon in question had been around for close to a millennia, and could ‘thrash giant ironwood trees to ribbons’.”
    This discussion definitely wasn’t giving me the warm and fuzzies, that much was sure.
    “Furthermore,” Galen continued, “despite roasting, crushing, or disemboweling half of Andeluvia’s knights, the beast was brought down. Balaur was measured, and was said to be as long as ‘the royal share of a furlong’, which is a rather intimidating measurement.”
    I had to do a little mental juggling to keep up, based on my studies of Fitzwilliam’s realm over the last couple of weeks. An Andeluvian ‘furlong’ was around one hundred and sixty yards.