The Wings of Dragons: Book One of the Dragoon Saga by Josh VanBrakle Page B

true motives, Iren considered
Rondel the most likely suspect.
    Maybe instead of Amroth, he really needed to
watch out for her.
    “ Amroth!” Rondel piped up,
“My eyes have withered with age and no longer see what you young
folk easily spot. From back here, I don’t see any watchmen on the
wall. Can you?”
    The captain fixed his gaze on the
fortification, as did Iren. The annoying hag was right. Coming from
this direction, they should easily see Veliaf’s guards silhouetted
against the clear blue sky.
    Amroth suddenly snapped, “Weapons ready, all
of you.”
    The group approached warily. Arriving at the
gate, they found it nearly torn from its hinges. As they passed
through it and entered Veliaf, Iren glanced around with disgust.
Admittedly, he’d only ever known the manicured grounds and passages
of Haldessa Castle, but surely villages should not look like this.
Not a soul walked the cobble streets, even though it was barely
midafternoon. All of the windows in every building were smashed,
and many of the structures lacked doors as well.
    Iren shuddered. Even in pristine condition,
he would have considered the town intimidating. He couldn’t spot a
single tree or blade of grass. Instead of individual houses,
identical stone two-story row homes lined both sides of the roads.
As a cold wind howled through the narrow corridor of the street,
Iren felt claustrophobic. He clutched his arms around his
chest.
    Amroth’s eyes narrowed as he swiveled his
head to take in the village from as many angles as possible.
“Veliaf thrived when I came here on my last mission. What could
have happened in such a short time?”
    Dismounting, the group searched nearly a
dozen houses and shops near the village entrance but found nothing
of consequence. The town was devoid of life.
    “ I don’t even see any
bodies,” Balear said when they reconvened back at their horses. “If
someone attacked the village, shouldn’t we see corpses, at the very
least?”
    “ I didn’t notice any
valuables while examining the houses either,” Amroth added.
“Someone has completely looted this place.”
    “ Quodivar?” Balear
suggested, but while Amroth nodded curtly, Rondel did something
unexpected. Adopting a broad grin, she started heading down a side
street away from the others.
    “ This is all much too
depressing,” she said innocently when Amroth asked where she was
heading. “I’m going to find a drink.”
    The captain raised a hand in warning, but
she disappeared around a corner before he could say anything. He
sighed. “I guess we’d better go after her before she gets herself
killed. Leave the horses here; that alley’s too narrow for them
anyway.”
    After tying up their mounts, the trio
pursued Rondel. The narrow lane twisted and turned several times
before reaching the open ground of the village square. Arriving
there, they found not only Rondel but a terrible sight.
    The bodies of men, twenty or thirty of them,
lay heaped and rotting in the square’s center. Dried blood caked
nearly all of the square’s cobblestones. Four pikes surrounded the
corpse pile, each topped with a decapitated head.
    Iren and Balear both vomited at the smell;
the people had died days ago. Even Amroth had a hard time keeping
his composure. Rondel, however, appeared oblivious to the sensory
overload. She stared lividly at the square, her body vibrating.
    As Iren wiped his mouth, he realized he had
overlooked a crucial element of the scene. He’d found the stacked
carcasses so overpowering that he had missed a group of a dozen men
about two hundred feet away on the far side of the square. The men
jeered and kicked at something they surrounded. Through their
taunts, Iren could barely discern muffled cries. Someone remained
alive in the center of all that violence, though likely not for
long. For the moment, the men contented themselves with just
kicking the person, but each of them carried arms fit for war. All
had bows and well-stocked quivers, as well