Epilogue
The Bishop of Danbury waited outside the cavern’s magical entrance, shivering with cold and damp. It hadn’t stopped raining for the last few days, and of course, it had to be the time he’d been scheduled to meet with his king’s cave-dwelling mutants.
How he, as a man of prestige, had been chosen to be the emissary to these disgusting hybrid monsters, he had no idea. He was a man of the cloth, a tax… ahem… tithe collector from time to time, an enforcer if pressed, but he was not a fucking messenger boy. And certainly not to creatures of the most foul.
Still, if his king bid him speak, he would speak. If he bid him wait in the forest in the rain for Lords knew how long, he would wait. Two days and counting and still no sign of the little buggers. But if he returned without an update on the demise of the dragon princes, there would be hell to pay.
They had been sure their power was nearly gone. With the sacrifice being one of such poor quality as that harlot of a girl who’d practically thrown herself on him, the bishop had thought things would’ve been wrapped up by now.
But if so, where was the damned representative for those little buggers?
Water dripping from the hood of his cloak into his eyes, he dreamed of meat pies and mead and the women who were waiting for him in his bed back at the castle keep. The trees dripped around him, and the forest was quiet. Just as he was about to drift off, he heard the skittering of little feet over rocks. Eyes popping wide, he spied the pitiful limping thing climbing down the rock and trundling toward him.
“What happened?” he said before he was even standing. The thing was lurching along badly. One leg was missing completely, another protruding at an odd angle. The long black hairs had been singed away as if there had been a fire. One red eye was swollen shut. It reeked of charred hair and burned flesh.
Fire. Charring. The princes had been able to shift.
“They aren’t dead.” He gripped his staff hard enough to put fingernail grooves into the wood. The king would be most displeased. And the bishop did not want to go to the king with something that displeased him. Bad things happened to people who did.
The creature gave a sharp exhalation of air out of its half-badger, half-spider-looking mouth. Then it spoke in that voice full of iron fillings. “We were attacked. The curssse isss broken.”
“Broken?” he shouted. “How?”
“The girl you sssent.” Its eyes roved around the clearing. As it talked, it was as if it were expecting an ambush. The bishop wanted to beat it to death with his staff, but held back, too disgusted.
“It isn’t my fault. She has no magic in her blood. None in her family. You must be mistaken.”
“Not missstaken. The girl. Ssshe’sss done it.” The creature’s red eyes locked with his. “Tell your king your fault.”
Danbury struck then, bashing the thing with his staff before the creature could even react. One crack to the skull and it tottered, staring up at him with one wide red eye. The back legs tried to scrabble away, but the two injured ones made it clumsy and slow. Danbury fell on him, bashing with his staff until the thing twitched and made hoarse wheezing sounds.
“I will tell my king no such thing,” he said, more to himself than to the dying beasty. It would’ve been Danbury being smashed if he had. That was not the way he intended to go out. He had a very comfortable life in the castle, and he didn’t plan to lose it over some stupid peasant girl and overgrown spiders.
After the horde creature kicked its last, Danbury stood for a long time, rain running into his face as he worked over a plan. He would finish the girl himself. Before he’d been a bishop, he’d been a spy and a hired knife, the curved blade of which still hung at his belt. He palmed the handle now, thinking how a little stealth and treachery was usually all that was needed to turn the tide his way.
He slowly pulled the blade from his sheath, anticipation creeping over him. The girl. He’d look forward to paying her back for all the trouble she’d cost him.
He strode to the rock, using his staff to open it once more. Glaring into the cave’s darkness, Danbury grinned evilly.
“See you soon, Seela. See you very soon.”
