Kingsteel (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 3) by Michael Meyerhofer Page A

that all the dead were dragonpriests, he had to be sure. He had no idea what the Dragonkin looked like now. He hoped he would be able to sense him, but if the man were unconscious, that could be difficult. Slowly, carefully, Chorlga checked every one of the more than two hundred corpses in the chamber. But all were green cloaked, wide eyed, and lifeless.
    Chorlga smiled. He’d absorbed many of these bone-worshippers when he reached Cadavash, building his strength, just as his kind had once drained the life force of dragons. Once he’d shown those who remained what he intended to do, they had sacrificed themselves without hesitation. Their willingness lent extra potency to their sacrifice, granting him even more power than he could have seized otherwise.
    Still, their fanaticism unnerved him. Even at the height of the Dragonkin Empire, the Dragonkins’ subjects had never worshipped them with even half as much fervor as these priests showed for dead dragons. Their madness had nearly overwhelmed him. Also, there had been the visions.
    What happened to drive them to that kind of madness?
    Chorlga rubbed his eyes. The visions still swirled through his mind: sensory fragments, brief images, and raw jolts of sound. He did not know if they were the result of his briefly augmented powers or just some kind of prophetic warning sent to him by the Light. Of course, he would have to sort through them, but that could wait until he’d recuperated.
    Leaving the chamber that contained Namundvar’s Well, Chorlga made his way to a set of stairs that led directly up to the surface. The stairs had been concealed behind a false wall, and the only footprints in the thick dust were his own.
    Last night, he’d descended into Cadavash in the traditional manner, with a legion of sacrificial dragonpriests behind him. But he had no desire to traverse those same reeking, subterranean streets lined by self-mutilating worshippers and countless shrines devoted to dragonbone. He reckoned at least a thousand people were waiting up there, anxious for his return. With his heightened senses, Chorlga could feel their roiling need to serve him. They would kill or die for him. He was their emissary of dragons. They would wait hours, days, even weeks for his return. As far as Chorlga was concerned, they could wait forever—or until he needed another sacrifice.
    For now, I have to find my Nightmare.
    Chorlga started up the stairs then stopped and glanced back at Namundvar’s Well. He felt something stir: a faint tingling in his senses that filled him with dread and guilt. He shook himself free of it. Gathering his strength, he ascended the long dark staircase as quickly as he could.

    Long before he had a body, he felt the thick silence hanging over the corpse-filled chamber. It seemed to him that he existed everywhere in the chamber at once, that he had no flesh and thus no senses, yet he sensed everything. The fingers of light topping the candelabra flickered and gradually died, one by one, returning the room to darkness. The only sound was the occasional, especially loud lamentation from the dragon-worshippers filtering through the stone floors of the chambers above. The darkness thickened until it became like stone.
    Then, something sparked to life.
    Faint at first, a pale glow drifted up from the stone mouth of what appeared to be just an ancient, ordinary well. The glow intensified. Gradually, the chamber gave itself back to the light. Then he felt his body take shape.
    Just a shadow at first, slowly the shadow took on substance, shaping him into a small man crumpled facedown next to the stone well. He stirred then lifted his head. Slowly, he pushed himself to his knees. The hood of his cloak fell. White light streaming from the well illuminated a face of twisted features, as though the small man’s body were busy suffering every malady at once. Violet eyes blinked. And with the opening of his eyes, he collapsed entirely into his own body.
    The pain was