Page 66 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

Twenty-Four

The first sign of something wrong on the plains came as Io pointed out a dark smudge across the hills in the distance.

"What is that?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said as he leaned over and laid a hand against Veles' side. The dragon increased his speed and soon we were coming up alongside Aben, who nodded his head to let us know he’d seen it as well.

When we drew nearer, the godsgrass looked burned in a wide swath across a low, rolling hill of otherwise uninterrupted grasses.

We climbed down from the dragons and approached the marred grass.

I tried to detect the scent of smoke, but there was no odor above the usual fragrance of the godsgrass.

It was not burned. The godsgrass was simply dead.

The long stalks were whole, but blackened and trampled down to the ground in a wide, elongated circle.

I knelt and picked up one of the fallen stalks. It fell apart, rotted and gummy between my fingers.

I sniffed at the black slime left behind and gagged. It was rot, like dead flesh and some sweet, malodorous undertone that tickled a memory in my mind.

I turned to wipe my hand on the ground behind me where the golden grass still looked as healthy as ever.

"What did this?" I asked.

I heard the squelch of Io’s boots as he strode through the rotten godsgrass. It was thick on the ground, the black sludge sliding away under his feet. "I don't know," he said absently, looking across the plains.

The hiss of steel cut through the silence as Aben drew his blade. I turned to ask him why, but he laid his finger to his lips and began inching to the side slowly, keeping to the edges of the ruined patch.

I stood as Io came to my side and began silently drawing me back toward Veles. "Stay in the saddle," he said quietly.

"What is it?" I whispered.

Britaxia, blade in hand, was following Aben through the rotten grass. They moved in sync as though they had communicated some strategy between them even though neither of them had spoken a word.

"Something...old," Io said, eyes now focused entirely on the patch of blackened grass.

His shoulders were tense as he turned me to Veles and guided me up onto the dragon's back.

I went willingly, swinging my leg over and seating myself on the saddle. I was not stupid enough to believe that, unarmed as I was, I would be any help to them.

Io surprised me by climbing up with me and reaching back to the packs strapped behind the saddle. I heard another ring of steel as he pulled out the sword he never carried. Instead of climbing down with it, though, he put the big blade in my hands before ducking back down to the godsgrass.

The sword was heavy, a huge blade of mirror-bright Obeskan steel—the bluish-gray whorls running down the blade were faint and only visible when you turned it into the light—a mark of how ancient it was.

I wasn't sure I would even have the strength to swing it, but I laid it across my lap anyway, keeping my hand on the grip just in case.

The mages were in the middle of the rotten grass, standing rigid and ready as though waiting for some attack. I saw nothing, no indication of alarm. The plains were visible for miles around, the breeze still for once so that anything large moving through the grass would have been seen for miles.

Melor and Iaxis were on alert as well, their massive bodies low to the ground, tails immobile as they slid through the grass toward the mages.

And then I felt Veles move. His body rippled with some tension that seemed to roll all the way down him before he began slinking through the field like a cat with some prey in sight.

Veles avoided the rotten, slimy grass, staying to the edges of the patch as he inched closer to the fae warriors. They were silently tensed, ready for whatever they expected to happen.

Veles made a low rumbling hiss of warning just before the ground shuddered. Fountains of dirt rose up from the dark earth in at least twenty different places throughout the dead godsgrass. Something pushed up from beneath the soil violently.

Dirt sprayed out, falling down on us like rain as long, pallid arms, reached up from the ground, clawing their way free. Slightly canine heads followed with too-large mouths filled with black, pointed teeth.

Their enormous bodies came next, shooting out of the ground forcefully. Long torsos slid out revealing pale, mottled flesh. They were nearly as long as a horse, though their bodies lay low to the ground.

A hiss like the sound of a thousand snakes in chorus rose from their oversized mouths. It was excruciating, grating on my nerves, and making my eardrums itch painfully.

Hands, more human than animal, with long pale fingers, clawed for purchase in the rotten black slime as they pulled themselves free of the earth. And then back legs appeared, followed by an impossibly long tail lashing the ground with a dull thwap.

I heard a guttural, wet screech and the sound of a sword striking flesh.

I shot my eyes up to see the mages already in the fray, fighting.

The monsters leaped across the ground, jaws snapping, strange pale lizard bodies sliding along as they moved.

They left the dirt overturned in their wake, gouging huge furrows in the earth.

Aben's sword severed a head as his big arms carried his blade out in front of him in an arc. Britaxia, her back facing him, arms moving faster than should have been possible, took down one after another with her bow.

Io stood, almost casually, hand outstretched in the direction of one of the creatures as it raced across the ground in his direction.

My heart hammered in my chest, but before it reached him, the creature exploded with a horrid wet sound.

It disappeared into a gray mist as some fiery magic wavered the air in front of him.

The dragons had joined in the fight in front of me. Iaxis caught one of the creatures in her teeth, cutting it in half before shaking her jaws to dislodge the pieces as though the taste was offensive.

Melor was tracking another of the creatures as it neared the edge of the clearing. I half expected the thing wouldn’t be able to enter the healthy godsgrass, but it darted through undaunted.

Melor followed eagerly. The blue dragon loosed a long stream of breathtaking orange fire through the grass, catching the creature. It let out a strangled squeal of pain as its body burst into flames.

The creature whipped its head back and forth, its long tail lashing as its body bounced up and down, striking the earth violently as it writhed in the flames. And then it lay still, leaving the tall stalks of grass undisturbed as it continued to burn.

I turned to see another of the creatures heading my way. As though their minds were one, others lifted their heads, interested. They quickly followed until several were racing in my direction.

My chest clenched with fear as Veles tensed, long neck craning to track the creatures. He opened his mouth to roar his anger as the first of them reached us.

I held on tightly as Veles raged, ripping the creatures apart. His massive jaws swept several of them up at once. Pieces of them were flung out across the field as his razor-sharp teeth sliced through them as easily as a harvester’s scythe sweeping through the godsgrass.

I gripped the sword tighter as one of them angled around his jaws, claws scrambling as it came for me. Its huge pallid head and slimy, misshapen body began to move up Veles' side.

I lurched to my feet, trying to steady myself to strike. The movement of the dragon sent me back down to the saddle as the monster's teeth came snapping toward my face.

I grunted, unable to manage any force behind the blow. Most of my strength was focused entirely on holding the sword up. The lizard's momentum carried it onto the sharp point. The pommel was forced back into my hip as the sword tip caught in its throat.

Without warning, the pressure disappeared, blade arcing down into thin air as the thing exploded into nothing.

The putrid smell and taste filled my mouth, going all the way down into my lungs as I breathed in the horrible reek of the creature now mist in front of me. Wet droplets struck my face, coating every part of me with the awful stench.

The familiarity of the odor sharpened in my mind to the memory of a servant, an old woman who'd once served in the castle. She’d had a wound on her abdomen that would not heal.

Just before she died, the stench of rot had preceded her into every room.

The odor of the creatures and the ruined godsgrass was just that—infection and death.

I gagged as I struggled to arrest the sword's fall, to keep the sharp edge from striking against Veles' side.

Then Io was reaching up for me, lifting me down as I gulped in lungfuls of air. "Could you have waited any longer?" I asked after I'd managed a few desperate breaths of fresh air.

He smiled, "I was a little busy," he said, amusement dancing in his eyes as he darted a glance around us to where the ground was littered with pieces of those pale, horrible lizards. He handed me a handkerchief from his pocket, adding, "Besides, you looked like you had it in hand.”

I gave him a tight-lipped smile, wiping at the filth covering my face. His, of course, was pristine. Not a speck of gore had touched him anywhere. “If you hadn't come, I think it might have taken my head off," I admitted.

He looked like he would argue, but then Aben stepped up. He took the handkerchief I offered, using it to swipe at the huge clots of black on his face and neck. "What the fuck were those beasts?" he asked.

"Falciferum," Britaxia said, striding up with her bow in one hand and sword in the other.

"I thought as much," Io told her, his jaw tight as he surveyed the long, pale body at his feet.

"Fucking nasty things," Aben said, moving to hand the handkerchief to Britaxia. She looked at the dirty cloth, frowning in distaste.

"What are falciferum?" I asked.

"Demons," Io said simply.