Free Dragonfang by Paul Collins Page B

for danger. And Premiel has warned me of the dragonriders.’
    Zimak glanced back at the Matriarch. She and her retinuewaved a last farewell. ‘She warned us of many things, including keeping our destination a secret. Why do you suppose she said that?’
    Daretor waved languidly and turned his back. ‘She has every right to be cautious. Perhaps her caravan was waylaid on information from her own people. Royal courts are rife with subterfuge.’
    ‘Not only courts,’ Zimak said. ‘If you think Premiel fell for that dummart “machine” story you fed her, you must have rocks in your head.’
    Daretor’s eyebrows rose. ‘You must be right, Zimak. I’m sure she prefers skinny prairie dogs to wolves.’
    They reached a settlement a day later. Over a mug of cool beer, Daretor raised an issue that had been niggling him for some time.
    ‘Jelindel,’ he said.
    The tavern was fairly busy, but people kept their distance. Very quickly, Daretor had established a reputation as a monstrously strong thing constructed of clay powered by demons. Even Zimak was looked upon with awe.
    ‘What about her?’ asked Zimak, taking a drink from his mug.
    ‘Jelindel,’ said Daretor again.
    ‘I know the name. What would you like to say about her?’
    Daretor stared into his mug.
    ‘Gah, Daretor, snap out of it. If you want to discuss Jelindel, then do it.’
    ‘I was thinking about the treacherous vixen.’
    ‘I’d noticed.’
    ‘She betrayed us.’
    ‘If not for those dragonriders, we would’ve been desert kill,’ Zimak reminded him. ‘Betrayal of the worst kind.’
    Daretor took another sip of beer. He was unaccustomed to heavy drinking, and morbidity had come upon him.
    ‘We travelled around a whole continent, collecting the links of an enchanted mailshirt,’ he said. ‘And when we finally got all but one of the links together, Jelindel turned on us and banished us here. She obviously planned on keeping the mailshirt for herself. That thing is the most powerful object on Q’zar. She’s probably using it to rule the world now – if she has the last link.
    ‘Who would have thought it? She was a powerful enchantress all along. I thought she was a brave girl with a few spells and a good heart. A soul sister.’
    ‘That’s women for you, Daretor, no constancy at all. Roll ’em and run, that’s what I say.’
    ‘You would have had to run fairly fast to escape the Matriarch.’
    ‘You set me up. Is there no end to what you’ll do to avoid getting a leg over? She could well have killed me – the woman was insatiable. I much preferred Andzu –’
    ‘How are your fighting skills coming along?’ Daretor asked after trying to swallow from the now empty mug. ‘I thought it strange that your fighting skills have waned, while mine remained intact.’
    ‘Why do you ask?’ said Zimak.
    ‘Because you are fingering the place where you used to wear a ring. Was that ring a dragonlink?’
    Zimak clasped his hands together. ‘My ring was just lead, it was from a beloved admirer.’
    ‘It was a thick lead ring, thick enough to enclose a dragonlink. Wear a dragonlink and it takes possession of your fighting skills. When you take it off, your fighting skills go with it and are given to the next person to put it on. Everything we were wearing is back in our home world, including your ring, and quite probably yourfighting skills – or at least those of the poor fool whose skills the dragonlink sucked out.
    ‘Did I ever tell you how much I hate people who steal the fighting skills of others with magical tricks like the dragonlinks?’ asked Daretor, seizing Zimak by the tunic and dragging him halfway across the table.
    ‘Many, many times,’ said Zimak, weakly.
    ‘You know how much I hate betrayal?’
    ‘Lots and lots. It’s another thing we agree on.’
    ‘Jelindel betrayed me, but she is in another world. Yet I intend to track her down and be avenged. I now suspect that you too have betrayed me, but you are a lot