Dragon Princess Read Online Free Page A

preoccupy my thoughts.
    Of course, I’d be a rather poor thief if I didn’t consider a Plan B, which involved me slipping away westbound, along the coast and out of Lendowyn, and finding a proper place to sell the priceless magical dragon-slaying artifact. The sword could probably fetch enough in the black market to get me passage on a ship halfway across the world from dragons, crazy wizards, and Nâtlac-worshiping royals, and leave me with enough of a stake to get myself somewhat established on the other side of the ocean.
    Of course, as Elhared pointed out to drunken me back in the tavern, the world of wizards is a small gossipy one. There’d be little question that wherever I sold this sword, word would get back to Elhared and I’d have a pissed-off wizard after me. And after the last debacle with the Grünwald court, I had promised myself that I would make a serious effort to
reduce
the number of powerful people who wanted me dead.
    Besides, there was a possibly innocent princess involved. Even if I’d half-convinced myself that she’d been either eaten, or saved already by one of the dozen knightly rescuers that preceded me, walking away from this would not help me sleep nights. Much as I might try, I wasn’t that much of a bastard.
    So I told myself about the dragon’s hoard and kept on the path as Elhared had instructed me.
    The day went quickly, and I came to a clearing in front of a rocky cliff face before I was ready for it. The sun had barely passed midday and shone down across the south-facing cliffs, letting massive overhangs cast deep shadows on crevasses into the hillside beneath them. The face of the hillside shrugged up above the trees in a rocky dome that probably rose five or six hundred feet. Not nearly a mountain, but as lairs go, it was probably as impressive as a dragon could find within the bounds of Lendowyn.
    If there was any doubt where the dragon might have been holing up, a couple of skulls glinting whitely on a ledge about halfway up provided a rather significant clue to what resided here. I stared up at the cliff face and froze in place where I stood at the wooded edge of the clearing. I kept my hand on the pommel of
Dracheslayer
, momentarily convinced that the dragon would descend upon me any moment.
    I waited.
    And waited.
    And waited some more.
    No attack came my way, and as I stood there, every nerve stretched taut, I thought I could hear a sound coming from somewhere above, up the rocky hillside.
    Snoring.
     • • • 
    The ascent was nerve-racking but uneventful. Climbing up to inaccessible locations was part of my job description, even though I usually did so without a bunch of armor and a massive sword strapped to my ass. The climb was exhausting and I decided that Elhared had been right. Plate mail probably would have been a bad idea.
    After what seemed like hours, I had made my way to the opening by the skulls. I eased my weight on to the ledge, the rumbling snore so close now that it resonated in my chest.
    Before me, the crevasse into the hillside was much wider than it had appeared on the ground. The sun was now low enough in the sky that I could see about thirty feet in, across a slowly sloping floor, before the depths were cloaked in ink-black shadow. I didn’t see the dragon, but what I did see was enough to make me reconsider my Plan B and deal with the wrath of the Wizard Elhared.
    The skulls I had seen from the ground were not the only remains. The entrance to the lair was carpeted with them. Bones had been scattered across the floor, some polished white, some charred black, and some with gnaw marks and bits of flesh attached. I saw remains from cattle and horses for the most part, but I counted six human skulls, some next to piles of armor much nicer than what I wore.
    What did the wizard say?
    “You know where the dragon and the princess are?”
    “Of course I do.”
    “And these dozen knights?”
    “Oh, I’m sure one or two must have run into the dragon