Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,433

snapped the sorcerer. “And one day it shall glow fiery again with his blessing…” He reluctantly put the crystal away. “.…but until that glorious day comes again, I have learned to make due with a different and, admittedly, interesting method of spellwork.”

Morgis hardly cared about what sort of magic the keeper had picked up, but D’Kairn’s prattling garnered the drake warrior time to surreptitiously study the odds… and also try to determine what had happened to Kalena. “And what sort of spellwork have you turned to?”

“Blood magic.”

All thought of escape vanished as the two words sank in. Blood magic. Morgis suddenly recalled Kalena’s horrific tale of the skinned Gnor and the macabre appearance of her human partner. To the drake, it all fit somehow. Both had become part of some monstrous spell created by the fiendish figure before him.

“Blood, you sssay? Didn’t spill enough in the name of your dog god?”

Face an emotionless mask, D’Kairn reached up and pulled from beneath his breastplate a small necklace, the end of which was an ivory-colored stone encased in a silver band. The keeper gently stroked the stone.

The tingling struck Morgis stronger this time. It was all he could do to keep from screaming. He tried to double over, but his guards refused to allow him even that minuscule relief.

“You will refrain from further blasphemous expressions, dragon,” the lupine human commanded. “I want you alive—if not well—for the time being. You have some value to me.”

“H-how fortunate.”

“Not so much as you think. I have utilized the blood of men, of the cat people, of almost every race on this continent. Each offers power of a varying degree for a varying period of time.”

“A Gnor w-would give you much, I sssuspect.”

D’Kairn replaced the necklace within his breast plate, frowning. “Not as much as I would have imagined. The Syrryn actually provide much more.”

Now it was Leonin who tried to reach the sorcerer. “You damned filth! I’ll—”

The Aramite nearest Leonin struck him on the back of his head with a gauntleted hand. Morgis’s partner tumbled forward, groaning.

Morgis hissed harshly, both in response to Leonin’s injury and D’Kairn’s horrific revelation. The Syrryn were bird folk.

Awrak had been a Syrryn.

“You will pay for that…” he muttered to the keeper.

This brought a chuckle from D’Kairn, not a pretty sound or sight. “No, dragon… you will pay. You will pay for all that you did, all that the Gryphon did, all that brought forth the ruination of our empire and severed from those like me the wondrous link to our god! You will pay… and in the process you will help me restore what was ours!”

Morgis had wondered how D’Kairn’s mind had survived so intact after so many of his brethren had lost theirs when the Gryphon had somehow broken their sorcerous ties to the Ravager. Now he understood that his captor’s sanity had not been spared. D’Kairn’s madness was of a different, more deadly sort.

“All the magical power you can gather won’t help you regain your empire, Aramite,” the drake retorted. He indicated the handful of soldiers with the keeper. “And thessse will hardly be enough to police it for you.”

“There will be more of them, dragon, and more keepers again! What I have learned is sufficient to spread to those of my brethren still surviving and each of us will then take on promising apprentices. The blood magic is fairly simple, once you know how best to draw it. I’ve had much time and many subjects, you know.”

Kalena’s visage flashed before Morgis’s eyes, but he said nothing this time. He swore, though, that if D’Kairn had done to her as he had Awrak and the Gnor, the drake would see to it that the keeper met a like fate.

Of course, first he had to escape.

They were interrupted by two more raiders. Morgis’s anger deflated as he realized the odds were even more against him and Leonin. That made ten, in addition to D’Kairn. Even if they somehow managed to overcome the soldiers, the keeper still had some power left in his amulet, enough to keep Morgis from shapeshifting.

“Well?” asked D’Kairn of the newcomers.

“The bird’s disposed of, my lord,” one of them replied. “No sign of the cat, though.”

The keeper shrugged. “No matter. Who will she run to?” He looked directly at Morgis. “We have what we want.”

But the drake paid little mind to the danger to himself. The guards had given him some relief. Kalena had escaped D’Kairn’s foul work.

The keeper snapped his fingers and the guards