The Dragons of Bone and Dust (Tales from the New Earth Book 7) Read Free

her the Mother of the Earth, Gaellestra
in our tongue. She is greatly revered here.”
    “ Gaellestra,”
Tamara repeated slowly as she walked up to the fountain and stared at
the delicate, unearthly visage of the statue.
    “ I like it.”
    “ I am sure
that she is relieved to hear you say that,” Shandon said
gravely.
    He winked when Tamara looked back at
him and she laughed. Sebastian did as well but he was more interested
in looking around at the buildings that bordered the square.
    They were multi-leveled, like low
apartments, with balconies that jutted out from each floor. For dark
stone structures, they looked reassuringly homey to the humans.
    “ All of the
buildings that you can see,” Shandon told the group loudly as
he spun in a slow circle, “are empty. They have been repaired
and cleaned for you. Each one is furnished, but once you all claim
the ones you want, my people will take requests for specific pieces
of furniture. So off you go now and choose which ones you wish to
call home.”
    The group stayed huddled together for a
few moments. People were clearly waiting for someone to make the
first move. Finally, one of the women with a young child holding on
to her skirt stepped away from the rest. She reached down and took
her son's hand.
    “ Come along,
Chris. Let's go and find our new home!”
    The little boy looked up at her
quizzically and then pointed toward the nearest building.
    “ There,
Momma?” he asked brightly.
    “ Excellent
choice. Lead the way, little man,” she told him with a proud
smile.
    The child hooted joyfully and took off
across the square. His mother looked back at the group and two other
women, one with a daughter about the same age as the boy, hurried to
join her.
    “ We can't let
you and Chris have all the fun, Julia,” one said with an eager
grin. “Come on, let's go house hunting.”
    As the trio hurried off after the
little boy, the rest of the refugees from Nottinghill finally pushed
aside their indecisiveness and spread out, trying to decide which
building they'd like to explore.
    “ It's good to
see them with some enthusiasm again,” Sebastian said as he
watched his people. “Leaving yet another home was a hard blow
for them.”
    “ It was a blow
to all of us,” a deep voice rumbled from his left.
    The mage turned and saw Malcolm and
Aiden, the two warriors who had commanded the castle's guardsmen,
walking toward him.
    Tamara put her hands on her hips and
looked up at the big man.
    “ I didn't
think anything could bother you,” she teased.
    Malcolm was the tallest man in the
entire group and was heavily muscled. Aiden, his partner, was also
big but not quite as heavy-set. Both men were good-natured and
pleasant, which was fortunate because their Change had given them
amazing skills in weaponry and warfare. They had been infected by a
werewolf attack a few years earlier, which they controlled by wearing
magical amulets. But the side-effect was that they healed very
quickly and were immune to poison and disease.
    Yes, Tamara thought as she watched the
pair. Thank God they are so kind and even-tempered, for all our
sakes.
    “ Losing our
home bothers me, and him,” Malcolm growled as he poked a thumb
at Aiden. “We were happy at Nottinghill Castle. Hell, we were
happy in the old town of Nottinghill. What are we going to call this
place? Nottinghill 3.0?”
    She snorted but had to agree.
    “ I didn't live
in either of the original towns,” she said as the two warriors
stood close by and looked around at the brooding buildings. “But
I'm sure that they were a little less...intimidating than this
place.”
    She lowered her voice so that the king
wouldn't hear her and be insulted. Tamara was beyond grateful to the
dwarves for their aid and had no wish to offend them.
    Aiden seemed to pick up on her thought
and glanced at Shandon, who was speaking with one of his guards,
before answering.
    “ They were,”
he said quietly. “But this is only a temporary