The Legend of Vanx Malic: Book 02 - Dragon Isle by M. R. Mathias

learn that Gallarael was among those travelers. Where is she, Humbrick? Did you find her in the Wildwood? Lady Martin would certainly like to know what has become of her only daughter.”
    “It was that slaver!” Humbrick Martin turned, his face flushed bright with rage and indignation. “That fargin slave killed her in the Wildwood. She wouldn’t have even been with the caravan if my horrible wife wasn’t still trying to buy the adulterous bastard’s freedom. As for the bandits who attacked them, I had no part in it. That lovestruck fool Aldine, another of Lady Gallarain’s lovers, did. I think if you round up a few of those hill pirates and put them to question you’ll find that he did.”
    Only when Duke Martin realized what Duke Elmont had said about Coll going missing did he try to make his wits force back his anger. A sudden surge of panic was sweeping through him. It was the shock of realization, like an icy wave slamming into fevered flesh. The result confounded him for a beat or two, during which he felt his peer’s pitying gaze cutting through his skull. Finally he managed to speak again.
    “What happened to Coll?” he asked. “What have you done with him?”
    Duke Elmont shook his head sadly. “You don’t even care about Gallarael, do you? Your own daughter lies half-dead and you don’t even know or care where.”
    Only then did it occur to Duke Martin that Gallarael was here. It was a surprise, but what was not surprising to him was that his first inclination was to kill her, too.



In the willow’s shadow
    she took my coins away.
    But oh what Molly gave me
    left a smile upon my face.
    – Parydon Cobbles

V anx remembered impacting the rocks, but after that there was a span of blackness. The next conscious thought was that his back was breaking. He was roughly jerked into the moment by a rising surge of his middle body. It was so hard that it yanked his feet and head downward. He opened his eyes and at first thought that maybe Zeezle had gotten the rope fixed around him. After another, smoother yank, Vanx realized that the sparkling blue scales he saw above him were not from Zeezle’s jacket. These scales were stretched over the body of a living dragon, a dragon that had him clutched tightly in a single claw.
    A moment later Vanx was tossed onto a rough, rocky floor where he rolled forward up against the long-decayed carcass of some beast. The dragon was right there between him and the small cavern’s opening, but the creature paid him no attention. On the ground before the huge wyrm was a crunched devil goat and the slight remains of a large dog that might have been brown and black before it had been stripped of its meaty sections and soaked in its own blood.
    The dragon moved sluggishly as it tore loose an arm-sized strip of meat from the devil goat. It chewed slowly, letting the noxious fumes of its crackling breath saturate the morsel.
    Vanx knew where he was now. His senses were slowly coming back to him. He was in the feeding niche he’d seen earlier when his companions had lowered him down. He was relieved that he didn’t see any human remains, though the bulk of the dragon’s body could be concealing some from his eyes.
    Vanx froze in place, hoping the beast would keep to its current meal and leave him alone. At first the dragon seemed to hold him with its narrow, dagger-like pupils, but slowly, like a leaf flittering to the ground from a high branch, its upper lids slid down to meet the upraising lower ones. The dragon caught itself before slumber completely overtook it. It snorted out a crackling yellow spew as it jerked its head back toward the meal it had been eating. Vanx didn’t dare move. Even his breathing was slowed to an imperceptible exchange of good air for bad. The dragon started to take another bite of the devil goat, but didn’t quite make it. Its movements had become lethargic, as if it were trapped in honey, or molasses. Ever so slowly its head drooped to the floor,