Shadow Dragon by Marc Secchia Page A

longer wore manacles. What was the point, if he could slip out of them at will?
    Troubled in spirit, Ardan trudged back to the blocked-up latrine. He was still alive. The stench that threatened to cauterise his nostrils as he dug further beneath the latrine, confirmed he was alive. Soon, he would open the little sluice gate and let the diverted river water wash it clear. Except that there was no water in the trench. Oh, toss it into a Cloudlands volcano! There must be a blockage elsewhere. His muscles bunched as Ardan heaved the slop-laden wheelbarrow along a narrow, hard-packed footpath to the field. Here came Kylara. She marched up to him, taking care to stand upwind, he noticed. Her brow drew down into her habitual scowl.
    “You’re a pain in the backside, slave,” she ground out. “Had you not saved us back in the village, you’d already be swimming in the Cloudlands. My troops don’t like you.”
    Ardan decided to continue with his adopted persona. “That’s not what their eyes say,” he claimed, hitching his thumbs into his loincloth. “Maybe you ought to find me some trousers, Chief.”
    Putting her hand to her scimitar, Kylara snarled, “Maybe I should finish the job I started on your head, you arrogant, insufferable piece of goat turd! How do you take a hammer to the skull and live? Or a scimitar blade? Oh, keep shovelling the dung, boy. That’s what you’re good at.”
    “I’m not a boy, I’m a man–”
    Ardan was not enjoying being obnoxious, but it definitely lit the fires beneath the already fiery Warlord. Kylara, with a pointed glare, said, “Trust me, keep mouthing off and you won’t be for long.”
    Although, he preferred to keep all of his body parts intact. “Chief,” he said, in a more conciliatory tone, “I wish I could answer your questions. Maybe my memory will heal, given time.”
    “I had my physician drill into your skull. It’s ordinary bone.”
    Ardan’s hands leaped up to check the dressing on his head. “You did what?”
    A hungry leopard’s grin flashed at him. “My blade split your skin like a rotten prekki fruit, slave, but didn’t so much as chip the bone beneath. It’s not metal or stone on your shoulders. You arrive beneath a tree on my Island, a man without a past. You’re a warrior. Had you not been wounded, you might even have made me work for my victory.”
    “I could’ve spanked you with one hand tied behind my–”
    “Then you slip out of locked manacles,” she continued, giving his boasting short shrift. “You singlehandedly carve up half a Hammer of Sylakia’s elite warriors, throw crossbow quarrels to an impossible height, destroy a couple of Dragonships, defend those who enslaved you, and then put yourself to work afterward without a word of complaint.”
    Ardan grinned. “You want complaints? I don’t like shovelling faeces.”
    “You hate Sylakians like I’ve never seen anyone hate before. I saw it writ on your face.”
    “Aye,” he breathed, reliving that fragment of memory. “I remembered something–a woman, maybe my wife. Kylara, was there anything left of Naphtha Cluster?”
    He swore at her headshake.
    “You know how Sylakia operates, slave,” she said. “Burn it all. Naphtha was strong enough to hold out for two months. The Sylakians left nothing but charred stone on those Islands.”
    To his dismay, Ardan felt tears splash on his cheeks. He turned away, shaking with anger, humiliated at showing any weakness in front of the warrior Chief. He was no warrior. He was already a slave in his heart, behaving like this.
    “Burn them in a Cloudlands volcano!” he screamed at the heavens.
    “Aye,” said Kylara, apparently unmoved by his vein-popping, fist-shaking explosion. “Finish your work, boy. Tonight you’ll march to our hideout. Behave yourself and my women might not toss you to the windrocs.”
    He pointed with the spade. “Tell your warrior hiding beneath the white-currant bush to stop fidgeting. She has terrible