Art of the hunt an epic.., p.1
Art of the Hunt: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Dragon Gate Book 2), page 1
Copyright © 2021 by Lindsay Buroker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
1
As the mageship Dauntless flew southward high above the Forked Sea, Jakstor Freedar stood inside the ancient dragon portal lying flat on its deck. He leaned his hip against it, using the surface like a desk as he painstakingly drew a waterfall flowing down a mossy cliff into a pool surrounded by a lush green jungle.
Actually, it was a gray jungle, since all he had for the task was a pencil. The deep-blue pool, verdant foliage, and fresh spray glistening on the rocky perch beside the water were much more vibrant in his mind than on the page.
“There’s no way a stranger is going to recognize this place based on my memory of it from a dream,” Jak muttered.
Jak glanced up, as he reminded himself to do every couple of minutes, to make sure a mage with inimical intent wasn’t sneaking up on him. Captain Toggs, the surly captain of the ship Jak had bluffed his way into commandeering, was glaring at him from across the deck.
Toggs didn’t seem to have sneaking in mind. He was, however, drumming his fingers on the sleeve of his green uniform and possibly contemplating launching a fireball at him.
“But you’ll protect me from that, right?” Jak patted one of the four blue-black dragons that were linked together to make the circular frame of the portal.
It pulsed blue, the magical flash noticeable even under the sweltering equatorial sun. Jak sensed it as well as seeing it with his eyes. That was still a novel feeling for him.
It had only been two days since he and his mother had fled the sky city of Utharika, and not much longer since he’d learned he had an aptitude for magic, something he’d been blissfully unaware of as a university student in his extremely mundane and unmagical home of Sprungtown. He hadn’t yet grown accustomed to being surrounded by magical people and magical objects—or being able to sense them.
The portal warmed under his hand and slid a vision into his mind. It wasn’t anything to do with Toggs or the rest of the mage crew of the Dauntless, so maybe the ancient artifact wasn’t concerned about them. The vision featured the actual waterfall and pool that Jak had been trying to draw. It was vibrant, crisp, colorful, and included monkeys hooting, parrots squawking, and a snake slithering along a branch.
“That helps,” he murmured. “Thank you.”
Jak hurried to draw the extra details before the vision faded. The indigenous fauna might help a native of the continent of Zewnath recognize the place.
While he worked, the mercenary unit that was politely not helping the mage crew subdue Jak and his mother came on deck and started doing calisthenics, not minding the sun or the increasing humidity. Meanwhile, Jak tried not to dribble sweat onto his paper.
“This is looking… almost decent,” he decided as he sketched the finishing touches.
Maps were his passion and his specialty, but he could manage a landscape or a portrait when he had a model in front of him. Or a model magically inserted into his mind by an intelligent artifact.
“I don’t suppose you could put a map into my mind?” Jak whispered after the vision faded. “Then we wouldn’t have to find a guide or speak to anyone. We could fly straight to where you need to be placed in order to operate.”
A sensation came from the artifact. It might have been confusion. It returned the vision of the pool to his mind.
Jak smiled. It was better than nothing. That an artifact could understand and communicate with him at all was amazing. Or creepier than the slavemasters in Hell licking human blood off their whips, as Captain Toggs had put it.
The salty sea breeze shifted, carrying faint murmurs to his ears. Toggs had called over two of his crewmen, younger mages with goatees that they stroked as they eyed Jak.
“…get back control… Has to be before… get to Zewnath,” the words floated to him.
Pretending he was engrossed in his drawing, Jak didn’t look at them, but he strained his ears, willing more of their words to carry to him.
From what he’d heard earlier, the Dauntless would reach the port city of Toh-drom on Zewnath’s northern shoreline that evening. If the mages meant to wrest control from him—or do something to him—before then, he needed to know about it. So far, the artifact had pulsed a few times and helped make the crew believe Jak could use it as a weapon if the mages attacked him, but it hadn’t hurled lightning bolts the way it had in the battle in King Uthari’s courtyard. Because of that, the crew had been growing more brazen.
Or maybe they were more desperate. Jak didn’t doubt that Toggs had received orders from his commander to return to Zarlesh with the portal. That was the whole reason the Dauntless had been sent to invade Utharika. If not for Jak and his mother—and the will of the portal itself—Toggs would have succeeded with his mission by now.
“…shoot him… before the artifact… It won’t defend him if he’s dead.”
“I’m tempted.” That was Toggs. He didn’t bother to lower his voice to a whisper. “It would be nice if those mercenaries would assist us with this difficulty. After all, they took King Zaruk’s payment and signed a contract to help retrieve the portal.”
Captain Ferroki, the commander of Thorn Company, was in the middle of performing push-ups with her unit, but she looked over at him. “Actually, we haven’t been paid yet.”
“That ought to incentivize you to help us solve this problem.” Toggs pointed at Jak.
Ferroki, a dark-skinned woman of about fifty, was hard to read, and Jak had no idea what she was thinking when she gazed over at him.
During the voyage, he’d tried a few times to make eye contact and say witty and amusing things to Rookie Tezi, the youngest and prettiest of the mercenaries. Too bad she usually made an excuse and scurried away when he spoke to her. She was in the back row of the formation now, her blonde braid dipping to the deck with each push-up, and she didn’t look over at him. He chose to believe that was because one of the grumpy sergeants was stalking around the formation, razzing anyone who paused, rather than an utter lack of interest in his fate.
“I may need your help in a moment.” Jak again rested a hand on the smooth blue-black dragon steel, its surface warm and tingly under his palm. The confused feeling that emanated from the portal wasn’t comforting.
A hatch opened, and Jak’s mother walked out from belowdecks, the breeze tugging at her thick brown braid and loose trousers, tunic, and vest. She clinked as she moved. Jak wondered how many vials weighed down her pockets today, and if they held acids, liquid smoke, or some other concoction that could act as a weapon, or if she’d been scraping interesting plant or fungi specimens off the ship’s hull.
She looked at the mercenaries and the mages as she walked toward Jak, and the concerned expression in her blue-gray eyes wasn’t that reassuring.
“Problem?” Jak asked as she stopped in front of the portal. He remained on the inside, as he had for most of the trip, choosing to sleep and even eat in the spot, since he felt safer and more protected there. He had a hunch that one of the mages would risk attacking him if he went belowdecks—or anywhere out of sight of the artifact. “New problem?” he clarified, since they both knew their existing problems well.
“An extension of the same one. I thought I should tell you…” Mother glanced around again. Several people were watching them, and she lowered her voice. “I’ve had some dreams the last two nights.”
“Dreams about how we’ll succeed in getting the portal to this spot?” Jak tapped the pool in his drawing. “And how we’ll slide the key into the keyhole?” He tapped the dragon-headed medallion affixed to the band in the hat he always wore, the hat that had once been his father’s. “And how the portal will activate, so we can jump through it together and find some amazing dragons who have missed humans terribly these past ten thousand years? Dragons who are eager to return to Torvil to help us defeat all the wizard kings so we can bring peace and prosperity to all the terrene humans who are tired of living as serfs and slaves?”
“I’m afraid not.” Mother smiled, but it was fleeting, and the concern remained in her eyes. “I dreamed—I’m not positive they were only dreams—that Malek was in my cabin.”
Jak remembered the last time they’d seen King Uthari’s loyal zidarr, a warrior and wizard of unparalleled skill and power and someone Jak dearly hoped wouldn’t be sent after them. Malek had been recovering from a magical lightning bolt to the chest, and he’d held up a pistol as the Dauntless flew away from Uthari’s castle. Malek could have fired at Jak or Mother, but he hadn’t. Because Uthari wanted them alive, not dead. He wanted them to figure out how to open the portal, not for the good of mankind but for his own gain.
“Uh, what was Malek doing?” Jak asked. “And what do you mean you’re not sure if they were dreams?”
Her next smile was bleak. “I don’t know the full extent of zidarr abilities. I think it’s possible he may have used magic to reach out to me in my sleep. He was asking me where we’re going.”
“Fortunately, you don’t know.” Jak turned over his drawing to hide it from her.
She snorted.
“Did he ask anything else? Did he say he’s coming after us?” Jak also didn’t know the full extent of a zidarr’s abilities, but he’d seen Malek fight, and he’d experienced Malek reading his mind, so he had no trouble believing the man could reach out to them in their sleep, even from hundreds of miles away. Or maybe it was thousands of miles by now.
“Not exactly, but he said he would make sure we weren’t harmed if I told him where we were going, so that implies he would be there.” Mother wiped away the sheen of sweat on her forehead. “I hope he doesn’t bring that awful General Tonovan with him if he comes.”
“Me too. Mention that to him in your dreams, will you? Dear Lord Malek, you’re invited to stalk us at a distance, but leave your general behind, please.”
“I wasn’t planning to invite him either.”
“I know. Malek could drag us and the portal back to his king easily; I doubt I could talk the portal into attacking him.” Jak doubted he could talk the portal into attacking anyone unless it was to defend itself or to defend him. For whatever reason, the artifact was interested in keeping him alive, probably because it knew he wanted to take it to its home and set it up. But Malek didn’t want to kill Jak or his mother; he wanted to use them. The portal wouldn’t object to that.
The mercenary Colonel Sorath walked past the plotting mages—or tried. Toggs reached out and gripped his arm, the normal arm, not the one that ended in a pickaxe head.
Toggs whispered harshly, the words too low for Jak to hear, but when Toggs pointed at him, there was little doubt about the topic of the conversation.
“I think the crew is a more immediate problem than Malek,” Jak whispered.
“I think so too. You’ve been wise to sleep up here.” Mother touched the portal. “I’ve wondered if I should too.”
“Have any of the crew threatened you?” Jak hadn’t been without dreams himself. The night before, he’d woken with a start, believing Toggs had grabbed Mother and pressed a dagger to her throat.
“No, but they haven’t been that hospitable. It was the mercenaries who gave up one of their allotted cabins so I could have a bunk. Captain Ferroki has been sharing her food with me.”
“Something Toggs looks irked about.”
Toggs released Sorath with a shove, not that it budged the big fighter. Though in his fifties, with gray mingling with black in his wiry hair, the scarred Colonel Sorath was fit and muscular. Given the sword across his back, the pistol at his hip, and the sharp point of that pickaxe, even a mage would be foolish to pick a fight with him. He always had a pocket full of tiny spheres that exploded on impact with the ground—or a person—and he was an expert at wielding them to distract mages trying to use their power against him.
“I believe that man is irked about everything,” Mother said.
“He probably has an inadequate drawing tool.”
“Are you making penis euphemisms again?”
“Of course not. I’ll be nineteen later this week. I’m told it’s an age of maturity.”
“I’ve spent most of my career on a university campus. I know exactly how mature nineteen-year-olds are.” Mother glanced at the still-exercising mercenaries. “Have you made any inroads with them?”
He and Mother had agreed to try to befriend the fighters, figuring they were more likely to switch sides than the military mages loyal to their rulers.
“I’ve succeeded several times in causing Rookie Tezi to look awkwardly away from me and make excuses to hastily depart my presence,” Jak said.
“That’s not something a mother likes to hear.”
“I’m just trying to start a conversation with her.”
“Well, stop it. If she’s interested in talking to you, she’ll come to you. But chances are all of those women have had rough lives. Taking up arms and risking your life on a daily basis isn’t a career you sign up for if everything has always been wonderful at home. Besides, he’s the one you should befriend.” Mother nodded toward Sorath as he left the mages and headed in their direction.
It wasn’t clear if he wanted to talk to them or was simply walking the deck for exercise. Hours a day of walking, jogging, calisthenics, and sparring seemed a requirement for the mercenaries.
Jak eyed the scar on Sorath’s face that ran from his eyebrow halfway down his cheek. Numerous bumps on his nose suggested it had been broken many times.
“Tezi seems a lot more approachable,” Jak admitted. “I haven’t noticed her driving pickaxes into people’s skulls or otherwise garishly slaying them while being spattered in her enemy’s blood.”
Jak was intrigued that Sorath carried a pen in his bushy hair. He’d heard a rumor that the man was writing a book. That seemed at odds with the garish pickaxe slaying.
“The lowest-ranking mercenary isn’t the one we need to establish a rapport with,” Mother said.
“I know.” Jak had seen her speaking with Captain Ferroki several times and might have asked her how their rapport was coming along, but Sorath stopped in front of them.
“Your artifact keeps glowing,” he remarked.
“It’s giving me tips on my drawing.” Jak started to point to it, then realized that if he and his mother escaped with the portal, the mercenaries might be paid to hunt them down. Giving them tips on their destination wasn’t wise. He flipped the paper over again before Sorath got a good look. “But my work isn’t ready for a gallery showing.”
Sorath arched his eyebrows. “I’ve heard of artifacts made from lesser dragon steel being able to share visions with their owners. It’s not surprising that full dragon steel could have even more magical properties.” He scratched his jaw with the tip of his pick. “I admit I was startled when it hurled lightning at our enemies. And was it also responsible for destroying the tool that kept the castle shield in place and allowed us to escape?”
Given how chaotic the battle in the courtyard had been, Jak wouldn’t have expected Sorath, who’d been busy fighting guards, to notice all that. Maybe he’d pieced it together based on the timing.
Jak had little familiarity with the various mercenary units in the world, since Uth and Sprungtown had been protected under King Uthari’s rule for all of his life, but he’d heard the Thorn Company women talking about how Sorath was, or had once been, a brilliant commander who’d won numerous battles against impossible odds. Even if he looked like a bruiser, Jak couldn’t let himself think of Sorath as a dumb thug.
“I didn’t see that particular blow,” Jak said, though the portal had shared a vision with him, “but I believe so.”
“Interesting. I’ve read about the dragon portal, and I don’t think any kind of sentience or ability to do more than open passageways to the dragon home world was ever mentioned.”
“You’ve read about it?” Mother asked. “Do you have an interest in archeology?”
“It’s been a hobby for me over the years. I’m certain I haven’t anywhere near your knowledge.” Sorath nodded politely, not only to Mother but to Jak as well.
