Read Online The Dragon Engine by Andy Remic - Free Book Online Page A

cantankerous stallion during a cavalry charge, way back, years ago, nothing more than a hazy dream from older, better days.
    Five stairs. Eight. Halfway. A voice from above.
    â€œWhere are you going, old man?”
    Beetrax cursed, glancing up. It was Daron, with his silk tunic and trampled face. He seemed a little more sober, and this was odd. What was not odd was the short dark blade in his fist.
    â€œListen son, I did nothing wrong,” said Beetrax, turning at the sound from the bottom of the rough-sawn stairs. Two broad-shouldered men. Both carrying blades.
    Beetrax gave a narrow, bloodless smile.
    â€œI beg to differ, you unwashed, common scum,” said Daron, advancing slowly down the steps. Behind Beetrax, the two large soldier-types began to climb. Beetrax weighed up his options, sighed, and charged up at Daron.
    The charge was a surprise, and the blade came up as Beetrax batted it aside with his left forearm, grabbed Daron’s bollocks in a meaty grip with his right, and delivered a bone-crunching headbutt that broke the young man’s nose.
    Beetrax stared at the squealing face beneath him, blood-drenched, jaw working sporadically as Beetrax’s iron grip crushed his testicles, and images flickered and flashed into the axeman’s brain, older days, darker days, on the walls at Desekra, slamming his axe into a mud-orc’s face, watching brains splatter over the battlements, watching his friends squirming in their own blood and sloppy puddles of disembowelment. And then it was gone in a flash of relief and Beetrax cannoned back to the present.
    His left hand grabbed the man’s windpipe, and by throat and balls, he picked him up and hurled him down the narrow stairwell. A tossed ragdoll, Daron cannoned into his companions and all three went tumbling down the hard wood steps. Beetrax fancied he heard some bones break. He charged down after the flailing limbs, jumping from the mid-point, not caring where his boots landed, or whom he crushed. His boots thudded home, one against a skull, another against ribs, and then he was on his knees punching all three men in a squirming mass of limbs and bodies and faces. A knife flashed past his face, but he nudged back, the steel carving past his eyes. He grabbed the arm and broke it with a crunch. More punches, and then suddenly everything was still in the dimly lit corridor.
    Mumbling and groaning, Beetrax grabbed one man by the legs and dragged him along the corridor, backkicking the door open and pulling the man onto the icy cobbles. The cold hit Beetrax, and he shivered, but now he had a clear mission before him. If anybody called the City Watch, there’d be questions, and arrests, and pointless wasted time. Beetrax didn’t have time nor inclination for none of that.
    Methodically, he dragged all three men out onto the cobbles and they lay, unconscious, like three cadavers. Beetrax checked they were all breathing, which they were, and that was a good thing. Beetrax killed men too easy these days, and it was a struggle to restrain himself when the blood was up and boiling, and the anger and bad memories flowing.
    Beetrax breathed softly, and calmed himself, and looked around. Lit by the moon, the courtyard was eerie, spectral. He noticed a couple of leaning sheds behind the stables, and dragged Daron over to them, kicking down a door and peering into the inky blackness. It seemed to contain some huge, rusted machine, with several large cogs and wheels. Grunting, Beetrax pulled Daron inside, then went back to the other two men, pulling them inside also.
    A short trip to the stables and one length of old rope later, Beetrax bound the men by ankles and wrists, then tied all three to a huge old cog as big as he was, like some disused component from a dismantled water wheel.
    He stood, admiring his knots.
    Daron began to stir, and slowly his eyes flickered open, white and wide and frightened by the light of the moon spilling through the shed