Blood of the Emperor Read Online Free PDF

walk from your army, big cat-man, we walk with our grain and our meat and our stores. We walk with your lives. How long will the pilgrims remain? How long before this great army of yours starts eating itself?”
    “It is late,” Belag said. “We will convene again tomorrow at dusk to consider our response.”
    A silence descended on the hall.
    Belag stepped forward, turning around as he spoke to the now silent council.
    “We have forgotten,” he said, his deep voice resonating through the hall. “We have forgotten our destiny. We have forgotten that we are the Children of the Prophecy.”
    Doroganda leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “As I understand this fairy-tale prophecy, you’re supposed to be led by some great human who will bring down the elf oppressors and avenge the fall of his people. He shows up on the big, nasty dragon and everyone is impressed but where
is
he now? No one seems to have seen him since he arrived and the Pajak of Krishu is becoming concerned that he does not exist at all.”
    Belag eyed the goblin then turned to look at where his throne lay smashed and in pieces.
    Where are you, Drakis?
Belag thought.
Where are you?

C HAPTER 4

    Upside Down
    U RULANI STRODE THROUGH THE SOUTHEAST Goblin Gate of Port Glorious as the morning sun rose behind her with salmon hues. Her appearance was acknowledged by the manticorian and chimerian warriors working to clear the gate marketplace of the dead and debris with bows and silent salutes. Urulani was grateful for this change. When they had first returned with the dragons to find the Army of the Prophet and the pilgrim refugees on the shores of Willow Vale any sight of Drakis or any of those who had returned with him was enough to elicit wild cheers and thunderous acclamations. She had managed with considerable difficulty and the assistance of the Council of the Prophet to dissuade the warriors in the army from the practice of dropping everything to honor any of the “Drakis Chosen” as they had come to be called in favor of the quieter and subtler salute.
    Yet they still looked at her with those same eyes. She could see the adoration and the hope behind them. It was a look the raider captain could not tolerate for any long period of time.
    Now this dark-skinned captain of the Sondau Clan had been reduced to an all-too-glorified messenger. Ethis had come to her after the council disbanded the previous evening, begging her to present a message to Drakis on his behalf. He had rebuffed her suggestion that he run his own errands, claiming that Drakis would not see him but that he might see Urulani. She had tried that night to approach Drakisin his tent, believing it the best time to find him there but the manticorian guards had established a perimeter around his lodgings and had orders to let no one pass. She had attempted again at first light this morning and had been admitted—only to find not Drakis but a messenger with an urgent request from the Aether Master Braun that Drakis be brought to him at once. Urulani had dismissed the messenger, promising to fulfill the charge of the grateful man. She had been engaged in an increasingly frustrating search for Drakis ever since, discovering a number of warriors who claimed to have seen him but somehow their directions never seemed to get her any closer to finding him. The last had brought her through the southeastern gate of the town wall and into the carnage that lay before her.
    It occurred to her to try another tactic. If Braun was looking for Drakis then perhaps all she really needed to do was to find Braun.
    The destruction here near the former docks was bad enough but she knew that the plaza beyond the wreckage was much worse. There, the manticores had been working throughout much of the day to clear the slaughtered elven warriors from the charred square. That had been the place of greatest carnage, the dragon’s breath descending like a deadly avalanche of flame on the tightly packed ranks of elven