ISBN 978-5-0059-1965-6

      Создано в интеллектуальной издательской системе Ridero

      Medea Shai

      The red and white fairy fought fiercely in the sky above the battlefield. Their bright robes merged with the sunset glow. They say it is not good to see them. But King of Aluar did not believe in omens. Today he was going to win a great victory. Never mind that the fortresses of the black kingdom, which emerged as if from nowhere in the wasteland, were supposedly guarded by evil spirits.

      King Conrad believed neither in evil spirits nor in an entire kingdom under the strange name of Shai. It could grow on the wasteland all by itself overnight. An ambassador who had lost an important message in the wastelands supposedly saw this black wonder with his own eyes. Towers like darkness grew straight out of the dry, barren ground, and spikes of iron stretched across them. And then there was the shrieking of a multitude of monsters. It sounded more like the fiction of a boy who had failed an errand and feared punishment.

      There was no point in punishing him. The boy himself was sick with some horrible disease. He must have caught it on the badlands. His skin was green, his eyes were overgrown with a black film, and his fingers were covered with fur and claws.

      And later was a declaration of war, written in red on a scroll of perfectly black parchment. Fine letters appeared in bloody ligature:

      «We will attack human lands until someone defeats us!»

      It was a clear threat, but the signature «Fairies’ Queen Medea Shai» might have belonged in the banter section.

      No fairies’ queen in a land where everything is poisoned and scorched by dragon fire. It is dangerous to go there. The ambassador who passed through there is a case in point.

      Conrad would have thought the message a practical joke, but Aluar had indeed been plagued by wildlings at twilight. They could easily be mistaken for monsters. And they attacked at dusk every time. The frightened people began to beg for protection. The commoners could be ignored, but the nobles also suffered. Several knights, who had gone to fight the outlaws alone, were mauled alive. In the royal castle, incidents began to occur that caused panic. The cauldrons in the kitchen began to ooze volcanic lava and nearly burned down the entire castle, or all the statues suddenly came to life and began to strangle the guests with their marble hands. All the ambassadors fled from Aluar, spreading rumors of the curse. Conrad himself saw none of this, so he slept soundly. And yet the ill ambassador assured that a black-winged lady had come to him and threatened to destroy the whole kingdom.

      Rumors are often more dangerous than war. The situation had become so tense that Conrad had no choice but to call in the militia and march on Shai.

      They were already waiting for him there. It was an army of black armor, remotely resembling dragon scales. It lined up in endless lines. The black warriors emerged as if they’d risen from the ground as the sun set. There were countless of them.

      But Conrad was no coward either. Young and willful, he was more eager to fight than any of the victims who’d filled him with complaints about the Cursed Kingdom, as they called Shai.

      The king was sure he would win. A couple of years ago, when his father died suddenly, he had already had to fight the invaders. The price of power was military strength. Conrad knew how to lead an army and fight in such a way as to destroy the enemy. Should he be afraid of an army of black demons?

      It was a good thing he hadn’t brought the court wizard, who had been in his father’s service. He would have seen bad omens in all this. He was a foreteller of misfortune. Ever since Conrad was born, he had been foretold nothing but bad fortune, that he would not live to see his coronation day, that he would fall prey to evil spirits and foreign usurpers, that he would be cursed and forgotten. And he became king and victor, spitting on all the prophecies. The wizard seemed to have had no choice but to shut his mouth, but he cawed like a crow, continuing to foretell misfortune. And so he did! Shai’s kingdom had become a barrier to trade routes and any relations with other powers. Behind Aluar was only the sea, but ahead on the road to the wider world, Shai had risen. So we must tear it down from the face of the earth! Black fortresses that resembled dragon’s teeth on the horizon disfigured the landscape. They must be destroyed soon. And to do that, we must first defeat the enemy troops.

      The red and white fairy clashed furiously, hovering over a field that was about to bleed.

      «I tell you this is pure love!» The white fairy screamed, her voice lost in the roar of weapons and armor. «He will die of pure and sincere love! Love, like a white rose with thorns, will sprout in his breast and warp his whole heart. They will both perish from love!»

      «I insist that it is passion,» the red fairy shouted scandalously, fluttering her flaming wings that made the air burn. «Passion is like a red rose with poisonous thorns. It sprouts not in hearts but in two bodies, devouring them completely. These two will be mine!»

      What are they two! Conrad looked around perplexedly. What is love? What is passion? There are only armies of stern warriors unaccustomed to tenderness here. And all of them can neither look nor hear the two fairies. They can tear their own throats out. Let them scream. There is something tragic in their screams. They were dancing in the air, locked in a fistfight.

      Darkness fell, and they were gone. It was probably just a game of sunset rays. Some hunchbacked creature, like a rhinoceros in a herald’s dress, blew a black horn and retreated behind the flank of the enemy armies. It’s time to fight!

      There will be no negotiations for peace! Shai is to be destroyed. Conrad rushed forward, but in time to notice how the hooves of his horse pressed two roses: a red and a white. Why would there be roses on barren ground, parched by dragon fire? Witchcraft was involved. Not for nothing did the threatening letters come supposedly from the queen of the fairies. It was a veiled hint that powerful sorcerers had taken up residence in Shai. Though what could they do against a sword? Conrad had heard that evil spirits were afraid of steel.

      He slashed left and right. The battle was the fiercest he had ever fought. The blood made even the skies above his head seem red. The limbs he chopped off from his enemies fell to the ground, and indeed turned out to be the paws of monsters. They moved even after they were severed. The enemy troops trumpeted a black horn as their warriors fell dead. Every time! From the resounding sound of the many horns, there was a rumble in his ears. And something suspicious was happening on the field among the dead bodies. The king wasn’t the only one who noticed it.

      «They’re coming back to life!» Conrad’s marshal pointed somewhere forward. «The corpses are getting up and going back into battle.»

      «You imagined it!» Conrad did look closely. It seems to be true! Maybe they just weren’t finished? Though how could a badly wounded warrior stand up as if nothing had happened? The monstrous bodies that had been churned through the meat grinder would stand up as good as new and fight again.

      «We’ll never beat them that way!» Conrad bit his lips in annoyance.

      Magic is a nuisance! No matter how much you work with your blade, it’s all blown away in one fell swoop once they blow the horn. So we must take the horns from them. But how is it? There are many of them. They blow here and there. Each warrior has a black horn. We have to kill them all to take their horns. And you can’t kill them because they come back to life. You can’t kill them all at once.

      A new, powerful rumble of horns sounded from on high. Conrad looked up and saw, instead of the beast blowing the horn, a huge black dragon with its mouth open and a growling sound. Now that’s someone who could take down an entire army in one fell swoop. But unfortunately the dragon didn’t belong to him. What a pity! What can be done to tame such