In The Lair of the Draca (Book 2)

In The Lair of the Draca (Book 2) Chapter 74: Queen's Rage

Dragura and her fury were indistinguishable.

"No one escapes from me! No one escapes from me!" Again and again she had shrieked this raging refrain, all the while leaning over the section of wall between the turrets where Sashek had disappeared. One hand had gripped the barrier with talon-like ferocity, the other arm outstretched to the waters as though she could have simply reached in and snagged the fleeing Sashek before she'd had a chance to regain consciousness and swim to shore.

Rare clouds had appeared from the west, blocking both the star-spirits and precious beams of light from the Twin Moons, bathing the roof of the Fortress in inky blackness. Behind Dragura and Franek, the Draca were pacing and rearing against their neck braces in an astonishing break from their formal training. There was not one animal who sat quietly and reclined; the weeping Franek and screeching Queen were too much even for them.

"Mistress, I implore you not to overreact!" Franek begged, daring to rush across the wet-stone ceiling of the attic in her water-logged sandals. Collapsing to her knees at the hem of Dragura's gown, Franek yanked at the seam (a thread had come loose in the melee) and brought it, trembling, to her pallid lips. "The girl was able to fool even me-- and I have been loyal enough to guard this Fortress and its inhabitants with my life! No one could have foreseen this infiltration--"

"You are forgetting that I heard your entire conversation, fool!" Dragura raged, lashing out with one high-heeled foot and catching Franek squarely in the jaw. The older woman wailed in surprise and agony as bone and cartilage crunched beneath the Queen's heel. "No longer will I permit the members of this commune to plot against me-- and after everything I've done for them. Everything! Did I not shield you from angry family members who would have tossed you out for being defiled? Did I not help deliver your Offspring and raise them on my own out of sight on the turrets, so you would not have to look at their evil faces? Did I not keep you even after the births, providing food, shelter, clothing, fresh air, and meat to eat every night?"

Franek gripped her ruined jaw in both hands and howled.

"You did not answer. Answer me, woman! Do you think you can be impertinent, just like the others?" Another kick with the opposite heel destroyed Franek's left eye socket and sent her flying backward, landing on the stone floor in a muddled heap. Blood pooled from an ugly hole in Franek's face and created a large, crimson puddle that contrasted well against the dim stone. The stoic, grey-headed woman did not move again.

Now filled with as much panic as she was raw asperity, Dragura stepped over the body and ran back to the turrets, bending almost double to lean over the side while behind her, the Draca nervously voiced their frustrations: Ai-ai! Ai-ai! Ai-ai!

Dragura's eyes did not see as well as they had in her younger years. In the moat below, dirty-brown waves crashed one against the other, and she even thought she could make out the long, fish-like forms of the water-draga who frequented the moat often for tripe or bits of marrow-filled bone...but she did not see anything that looked like a corpse. Could Sashek have survived the fall from the Fortress? It was possible, but highly unlikely, especially given the fact that the water dragons would have almost certainly hurried to make a meal of her.  Had she simply sunk to the bottom? Or was the skin of her smooth, young woman's flesh already breaking down in the stomach of one of the moat's bottom feeders?

Dragura shielded her eyes and scanned the bank that led away from the moat and toward the Ice-Capped Mountains, beyond which tiny bits of light winked from Hidden Well village: still nothing.

Dragura could not believe that, for the first time in her nearly forty years of reign, she had finally been bested.

With an inhuman, animalistic growl, Dragura reached for the shiny jade bun at the back of her neck and ripped, ignoring the searing feel of hair and bits of skin being torn from her scalp. She shouted; she wailed; she kicked off her bloody heels and hopped up and down in her childish tantrum at having finally been overcome. Unwanted tears poured from her eyes like tiny rivulets; infuriated, she scratched at them with long, well-manicured fingernails and nearly tore the eyes right out of their sockets.