Shadow Weapons of Doom Read online

air. My hair stands on end, waving like snakes. The hairs on my arms singe and burn. The sensation grows more painful as we continue. My knees shake, and a guard pushes me ahead with a strong shove at my back.

  We reach the largest gate yet in those subterranean corridors. During my people's war against the Alhambrans' crimson banners, our Shadows and soldiers have scaled above and tunneled below many a gate. But we have never broken one. We have infiltrated our enemy's gates through cunning and disguise, but the Khy'Meir have never knocked an Alhambran gate down.

  The gate in front of me entirely seals the underground passage. I have not seen a gate as formidable in aspect. What do my captors hide beneath their cherished city? I am silent. My life has been devoted to learning the secrets of my enemies, and I feel I am about to learn a very intimate one.

  A hidden panel in the gate rises open, and several sentries step through the opening. Each strains to carry a large bucket of water. I am silent in confusion as a sentry pours his bucket upon the warlock, drenching his robes and beading his bald head with drops of water. Without receiving a command, a sentry pours a bucket of water upon me. The chill sharpens my senses. The pain of all my hurts roar in my mind. I shake water from my hair and blue sparks crack around me as I feel a thousand shocks tingle my skin.

  "You will look upon what has made me so ugly," the warlock speaks. "You will see that your people possess no weapon that we too have not mastered."

  Heat strikes me the instant I step into the open panel and pass through the thick, underground gate. A sudden, high-pitched screech careens down the walls, burning my ears and shooting pain through my chipped teeth. Bright, blue and green flashes pain my vision, and my eyes are not given time to adjust to the dim lighting before another flash steals my sight.

  "Turn, Shadow, and look upon our greatest achievement," awe fills the warlock's words. "Turn and despair. Turn and look upon your people's doom."

  My training fails me for the first time as I look upon the terror found beneath the Alhambran's capitol city. I tremble in fear. My enemy has realized a weapon we only thought existed in our villages' oldest stories.

  My skin burns as the drake queen's golden, reptilian eyes turn upon me. Thick, iron bars crowd closely together to cage the creature. My mind stammers. Such a creature cannot exist. Yet the sparking green and blue scales, the long and barbed tail, the shunted wings, and most terribly, the three heads of glowing, golden eyes no longer afford me the comfort to believe the beast is only fiction. Nor is the queen the worst of its kind. The queen's presence implies the worst imaginable horror. Though I am a Shadow agent of the Khy'Meir tribes, an agent who has mastered the use of fear as a weapon, I struggle not to fall to the floor and cower.

  The queen mother of that horrible serpent our tribes' crones tell us killed the great Kell Raven with fire and talon thrashes and shrieks beneath our enemy's grandest city. I feel a fool. How could I think my captors would ever think me the monster when they keep a drake queen below their streets? I am only a Shadow. My small daggers have little bite compared to the talons and fangs of the drake whose shimmering scales cast blue arcs of electricity throughout the chamber of its prison.

  One of the drake queen's pairs of eyes consider at me, the slits of the creature's pupils narrowing. My hair singes. Pain licks my skin. A guard quickly pours another bucket of water upon me, and I blink through the sting.

  "I finally see a Shadow of the tribes feel fear,'" the deep voice at my back does not belong to the warlock. "I have built so little since sitting upon my throne, Shadow. Perhaps, like your kind, I too will be remembered by my monuments of fear."

  I rip my eyes from the drake queen and look upon the crown of my enemy. King Thaddeus's granite face stares upon me. He looks little like the visage stamped onto his kingdom's coins. The long, black beard is gone. Gone are the long locks of dark, thick hair. Gone are his fine furs and jewels. Welting burn scars crowd the king's features as they do upon his warlock. His eyebrows have disappeared. But resting upon that bald head is the Alhambran, five-pointed crown, and I think its precious metal must burn the head upon which it sits. I stand between the sworn enemy of my tribe and a terrible monster of my peoples' fables. I have no words. I have been disarmed.

  The king signals, and guards rush to pour two buckets of water upon him.

  "I've often dreamed what I would say when I finally caged a Shadow in my dungeon," says the king. "You have filled my sleep with nightmares. You have brought so much fear to my people. You are a terrible weapon."

  I hold my head high. "We have no other weapons."

  King Thaddeus shakes his head.

  "You keep secrets until the very end, Shadow. It takes more than fear to defy us this long. But I have learned, Shadow. I have learned what secret weapon your tribes possess that makes my spearmen hesitate when ordered to march upon your villages. I have learned what makes the horses of my cavalry bray and rear each time I command the charge. I have learned what makes the arms of my swordsmen heavy and slow. I have learned what drains my shield men of courage and leaves them trembling.

  "I couldn't fill my prisons with enough of your soldiers to give me answers. I filled my dungeons with any of your people I could clutch. I tortured, cruelly and mercilessly, hoping to get any hint concerning the weapon that kept my army at bay. Your soldiers told me nothing. They were as dim as you Shadows are cunning. The children and the hags gave me the first insight to your power. They were the first to describe the monsters that protect your tribes."

  The drake queen shrieks and blue arcs of electricity fill the room. Guards instantly pour water upon the king and the warlock. But the king holds up a finger as a sentry lifts a bucket to pour water upon me. I feel fire nibble upon my black clothing. I feel my skin burn.

  Only then does the king nod. Water pours over me and stings my new hurts. My strength vanishes, and I stumble upon a knee.

  The king smiles. "Finally, a Shadow kneels before my crown."

  The warlock smiles. Tully and Midge's blows did not hurt like my humiliation.

  "How is an Alhambran king to sleep after he learns of the monsters that fight him?" The king asks. "You Shadows have kept so many secrets that a king can hardly determine what is real, and what is nightmare. Shadows hover all around me. I must regard every whispered danger a truth.

  "How do I arm my kingdom against the monsters of the Khy'Meir tribes? I must possess those monsters for myself. You have looked upon our city, Shadow. You have seen how the Alhambrans have built for centuries. You have counted our temples and walls. You have witnessed the might we harvest from stone, iron and steel."

  The king sighs. His shoulders sag as I feel heat again build upon my skin.

  "But I have not built, Shadow. I have not added temples or walls to our grand city. For years, I have spent my silver and gold to learn the secrets of the drake queen. Alhambran kings before me built towers and fortresses. Yet I have built nothing. The monuments of my construction are unseen. While my city's streets crumbled, I tunneled subterranean walls and scoured old tomes filled with superstition and fable, desperate to find the first step to resurrect the drake queen. When my people desired new temples to soothe them during these long years of war with the Khy'Meir tribes, they found my treasure chests emptied on pursuits they could not see or know. It has been my rule's torment. I have spent so much to summon a drake of our own, a monster that we too could unleash in this foul war, a weapon that will bring us victory. And still, my people hate me. For all they care, I may as well have eaten all of my kingdom's coin."

  I turn and force myself to look upon the drake queen. What kind of catastrophe have our secrets wrought? I know the stories of Kell Raven as well as any Shadow. I know that the drake queen is only a first step to acquire a creature too terrible to consider. I fear our secrets have led our enemies to confuse our fantasy with their fact. I fear our Shadows summon the end of the world.

  "I lost many warlocks," the king continues. "Jeffre is the l
ast. But he survived. He learned from the secrets of the warlocks before him, and it was Jeffre who mastered their research. Jeffre learned the old tongue that summoned the drake queen to our underground chambers. Jeffre learned the magic required to cage the creature. And it was Jeffre who learned how to incubate her egg, how to care for the fragile creature that hatched so that the Harbinger could grow."

  "You've unleashed our doom," I mumble. My eyes drop to the floor, and I feel the heat bite at my face.

  I close my eyes. The darkness does not relieve me. My mind fills with visions of burning villages and flaming children, of fields of fire and of crimson skies.

  "The Harbinger grew more quickly than we expected, Shadow. That drake had not yet reached maturity, but we could hold him no longer. All he looked upon withered. We released the Harbinger a night before abducting you. Imagine the destruction the Harbinger has wrought upon your world. Imagine the flame. We have won this long war, and you are the last of the Khy'Meir tribes."

  I will not cry. I will not choke on emotion for the pleasure of an