[Hurog 01] - Dragon Bones Read Free Page A

she might not be any better off than if she had died. We certainly weren’t going to get out the way I came in. The dwarvenstones suggestedthat the room had once been in use; there had to be a better way out.
    Although the room was brightly lit and must once have been fairly open, the original cave formations and the rubble where great stalactites had fallen in ages past made it difficult to tell what was inside. Maybe it had once held treasure, but there was nothing here now. The center of the cave was higher than the outer edges, and there were more stalagmites and rubble. Ciarra’s feet were tough as hooves since she seldom wore shoes, but I lifted her over the worst of the rubble anyway. As I surmounted a broken pile of rock, I saw what the mess had concealed.
    It had long been rumored that there was treasure hidden in Hurog from when the dwarves had come here and traded their jewels and metals. Here was treasure indeed, but one I would rather never have seen. Forgetting Ciarra momentarily, I slid down rocks and stepped closer to it.
    The dragon’s skull, still in an iron muzzle, was as long as I was tall. Iron manacles clasped its feet, and four more sets of manacles surrounded the delicate bones of its wings. In life whatever misborn ancestor of mine who’d committed this crime had pierced the dragon’s flesh to set the iron into the wings.
    â€œStupid!” I snarled, though the deed was long done and those who had done it could not hear me. In the cave the sound of my voice echoed and returned to me. I blinked away the tears in my eyes.
    Tenderhearted, my father called me when he was most angry. It was something that he hated worse than my stupidity. A man with a tender heart could not survive here, he said, and what was worse, those around him would die, too. I believed him. Even so, I couldn’t prevent the tears, though I widened my eyes so no water spilled down my cheeks.
    There were no dragons anymore. Not one. It was to see the dragons living in our mountains that the dwarves hadcome, bearing trade gifts for the privilege and ushering a time when Hurog had been the richest keep in the Five Kingdoms.
    Hurog had held the last of dragonkind. When they were gone, the dwarves had gone, too, and the lands belonging to Hurog had begun to die as the dragons had. They’d died of sorrow, the old stories said, leaving only memories and the crest of my house to remind the world that they once were and what Hurog once was.
    My family had been the protectors of dragonkind; they had died to keep their preserve safe, entrusted to that task by the first high king or, some of the old tales held, by the gods themselves. Hurogmeten in the old Shavig tongue meant guardian of dragons.
    All of my life I’d clung to the glory that had been Hurog’s. When I was a child, I played at being Seleg, the most famous of all Hurogmetens, and defended Hurog from seaborne invaders. When there was no one but the Brat, Tosten, and me, I would take down the battered lap harp and sing the old songs of dragons and dwarven jewels as large as horse heads.
    Here, buried in the heart of Hurog, was proof that one of my ancestors had betrayed everything Hurog stood for. I caressed the skull under the black iron muzzle, kneeling as was proper before the creature the Hurogs had served throughout the ages.
    â€œShe was beautiful,” said a soft, tenor voice behind me.
    I jerked my head up and saw a boy, a year or two younger than I. He was no one I knew, a stranger in the heart of Hurog.
    He would have come up to my shoulder if I were standing, but so did many grown men. At Hurog, only my father was taller than I. The boy’s hair was very dark, perhaps even black, and his eyes were light, purplish blue. The bones of his face were sharp, almost hawklike, as aristocratic as my own face was not.
    He hugged himself as he stared at me. His stance reminded me of a high-bred horse ready to bolt at a loud noise or harsh