DragonFire

by Donita K. Paul

She squeezed her father’s arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how sad you must be.”

  Sir Kemry wrinkled his brow. “Sad? I’m not sad. I’m hopeful. Why, it’s unheard of that a Dragon Keeper be without dragons.”

  Kale leaned back to examine his face. He did not look morose, after all, but a bit excited. Her own doubts expressed themselves in her words. “It’s been three years.”

  “Yes, and busy years. Your mother and I returned some order to the Northern Reach, specifically the region surrounding the castle.”

  Kale shivered. “Mother told me about some of the wild animals that had overtaken the land, nearly consuming all the small creatures and making it unsafe for the high races.”

  Sir Kemry chuckled. “I have to admit, after years of inactivity, it felt good to hunt down packs of icebears and thin a herd of fanged portucads. Those portucads, if they are young, are very tender and tasty.”

  She loved to hear her father relate tales of his adventures, but rather than encouraging him to go on, she asked a question to get him to talk of the task ahead. “Have you decided how to get through to the valley?”

  “We’ll wait until dark and then walk through the center of the camp. I also thought it would be a good time to give those bisonbeck soldiers a scare. They’re altogether too cocky for my liking.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I’m going to teach you a few tricks using your talent to control light.”

  Kale thought they would pull off their major hoax as soon as full dark spread over the land. But her father took her back into the ravine where they were less likely to be seen and made her practice the manipulation of light he had explained. At first she didn’t see the necessity, but after trying to maneuver energy particles, she saw she needed to be able to change the intensity quickly and without having to think through the procedure. After they ate supper, they experimented again.

  The moon came up, a sliver of waning light. Stars glittered through the chilling air. Kale and her father watched from a distance as the soldiers wrapped themselves in woolen blankets and crawled into their single-sleeper tents. Three guards walked the perimeter of the camp.

  “Wait here,” said Sir Kemry. He disappeared into the darkness.

  Kale knew what he intended to do and that he was capable of the tactic, but nonetheless, her nerves jangled at every little sound. “Oh, Wulder, protect us and help Father bring back two of the guards alive.”

  By using her talent, she kept track of her father’s location. She gritted her teeth when he approached a guard and breathed out a sigh of relief when he stunned the soldier and took command of his mind. Influencing a person with a suggestion placed in his thoughts was not such a difficult thing. Requiring the person to do something contrary to his will was harder. Kale kept tabs on her father as he met up with the second bisonbeck guard and brought him under his power. He returned to Kale, followed by the two subdued soldiers.

  “Are you ready to do this?” he asked.

  Kale wanted to sound more confident than she felt, so she stood straighter and gave a firm nod. “Yes, let’s get into position.”

  They stole through the tall grass that edged one side of the camp and waited until the third guard was at the farthest point of his route. Kale stood in the middle. Sir Kemry positioned the pair of captured soldiers on either side of her and then took his place directly behind his daughter.

  “All right, Kale. Let see what you’ve learned.”

  Kale cloaked the two soldiers with a green light that shifted and swirled like a mist. She and her father were enveloped in the edges of the light as it came from both men.

  Sir Kemry gave the mental command to begin walking. Kale maintained the quality of the light’s performance. Around the men, the luminescence was thin enough for anyone to identify the soldiers. The combined light between them hid the o’rant wizards. As the four walked forward, the light pooled around their feet and drifted away in tendrils of thick green luminosity. To the observer the light snaked away and dissipated while the central illumination remained the same.

  The first soldier to see the apparition yelled out a warning. “Attack! We’re under attack!”

  Bisonbecks roused from their beds and hurled themselves out of their tents with their weapons drawn.

  “What wizardry is this?” shouted a voice.

  “Isn’t that Agore and Illar?” asked another.

  “It may be their bodies, but something unnatural has a hold of them.”

  “Your orders, sir?”

  The first gruff voice responded, “Destroy them.”

  Kale heard her father’s cheerful laugh. “Good thing we planned for this.”

  A pike came flying at them. It hit the green light barrier and appeared to ricochet. Kale knew her father’s spell was more complicated than that. Whatever hand had held the weapon was now the target. The pike would return to its owner. Unfortunately for that bisonbeck warrior, the pointed end of the long stick zeroed in on him. The soldier jumped aside in time, but the pike made a wide turn and came hurtling back. This time he tried to catch it. He did but not in the manner he desired. The pike pierced his hand. He screamed.

  Kale flinched and marched on, keeping her part of the show operating smoothly. The bisonbecks flung more weapons. Knives, arrows, pikes, and clubs all returned, attacking their owners, usually hitting the hand. If the warrior ducked at the last moment in the wrong direction, his weapon hit him on another part of his body. But then the instrument of destruction would pull back and again try for the hand that had last touched it.

  Soon the orderly military encampment dissolved into utter chaos. The beleaguered soldiers ran helter-skelter trying to avoid their own flying weapons. They crashed into one another, knocked over tents, and hollered for help. Kale and her escorts plodded along. When they reached the inside of the canyon beyond the camp, Sir Kemry turned the bisonbecks around and sent them trudging back. The greenish, flowing light clung to them.

  “How soon will your suggestion to keep walking wear off?” asked Kale.

  He shrugged. “Maybe six or seven miles on the other side of their outpost. But without you to sustain the light energy, that will fade in just a few minutes.”

  “I hope they don’t run into any wild animals in the night.”

  “Kale, this is the enemy. You aren’t supposed to be wishing no harm comes to them.”

  “I just like to think they’d have a fighting chance if, say, a fanged portucad attacked.”

  “We are too far south for one of those beasts. They’re more likely to run into a Creemoor spider.”

  Kale shuddered. The huge, poisonous spiders gave her the creeps. She’d seen the ugly monsters close up and been poisoned. If not for the combined efforts of Bardon, Gymn, Paladin, and Wizard Fenworth, she would have died. Even now when she heard the sound of a twig scritching against a rock, she remembered the noise made as the hideous creatures advanced.

  The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Was it because she was thinking of the spiders that she heard that scritch? Perhaps a tree limb scraped the side of the canyon wall.

  “Speaking of which,” began her father.

  “Which ‘which’?” interrupted Kale.

  “Creemoor spiders,” said her father, pulling his sword. “I believe we have encountered the first obstacle in our trip through the gorge to the valley. I count eight. How about you?”

  Kale surveyed the area as her father had done, with her mind and not her eyes. “Yes, eight, but a half dozen are very young.”

  “That’s not to our advantage, daughter. The young ones are not as heavy and therefore jump farther.”

  “Of course,” said Kale. With a sigh, she pulled her weapon from its sheath.

  35

  MADNESS

  Leetu Bends and Bardon left Latho at the first town they reached and went ahead, riding horses. Bardon wanted to get back to Sir Dar, report what they had seen, and get started on some sort of defense for the kimens aga
inst the grawligs.

  They traveled a straight trade-route road to the seacoast. Crops covered the rolling hills on each side of the wide lane. Some of the fertile fields had yet to be harvested. Others showed the stubble left after the summer’s yield had been gathered. No other part of Amara had more productive farmland.

  When they stopped to water the horses, Bardon surveyed a stretch of land beside the stream. On the other side of the brook, an orchard stood in straight rows with plump parnot fruit dangling from the branches. “I don’t see any evidence of the war between Pretender and Stox and Cropper here.”

  Leetu petted her horse’s nose. “Maybe they’re smart enough not to damage the crops that keep their armies’ bellies full.”

  “I doubt that they waste much time thinking about the comfort of their minions.” Following the emerlindian’s example, Bardon rubbed his horse’s face. He preferred a dragon and was uncomfortable around these animals.

  Leetu tilted her head. “What’s that noise?”

  Bardon strained to hear something unusual, but only the slight breeze whistling through the leaves above them sounded in his ears. His mount snorted and shuffled his hooves.

  Leetu Bends sprang into her saddle. “Come on!”

  Bardon’s horse danced away as he tried to put his foot in the stirrup. “Be still, beast.”

  The horse circled him, unable to get away since Bardon held the reins. Bardon calmed his voice. “All right. I’m talking to you nicely. I really do like horses. I think you’re beautiful. You’re very useful.” He crept closer and stroked the animal’s neck. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Now, you’re going to be a good boy and let me get in the saddle, aren’t you?”

  A whuffling noise came out of the horses nostrils, and Bardon took that as a yes. He put his foot in the stirrup and heaved himself onto the horse’s back. “Now, we have to catch Leetu Bends and see what she’s up to. No more tricks, all right?”

  He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks. His mount arched his back and crowhopped twice.

  Bardon yelped but kept his seat. “That’s right. You don’t like to be touched on the flanks. Greer is not that picky. On the other hand, my legs don’t reach his flanks. Let’s try this again. I promise to be more considerate.”

  Bardon’s ride took off at a full run with only a tap of the knight’s heels on his sides. He caught up with Leetu Bends as she entered a line of trees. Weaving through the skinny trunks of a gordon grove, Bardon nearly lost her again. Her agility on horseback astonished him.

  Now he heard the grunts and growls she must have heard earlier. Leetu burst through heavy underbrush into a clearing, Bardon right behind her.

  Five grawligs gathered around a tree, snarling at their prey in the upper branches. A kimen, pale and panting, sat on one of the thinnest limbs at the top of the gordon tree. Slick bark covered the trunk and peeled away easily, making it hard for the mountain ogres to climb.

  Bardon and Leetu Bends pulled their bows from where they were strapped to their backs. Bardon cocked his arrow and shouted, “Hold!”

  The grawligs didn’t acknowledge the command. Their present pursuit thoroughly occupied their attention, a madness that prevailed over reason.

  The tree shook under their assault. Three ogres clawed at the tree trunk. One tried to clamber onto the back of another to reach a lower branch.

  Leetu Bends’s arrow whistled through the air and sank into the fleshy ear of one of the ogres. The grawlig screeched, grabbed his ear with one hand, and pulled out the arrow with the other. He stamped his feet and let out a horrific wail, then to Bardon’s surprise, returned to his battering of the tree trunk.

  Bardon joined Leetu in sending a barrage of arrows at the frenzied grawligs. Leetu killed two. A skilled shot pierced the eye of one grawlig on the opposite side of the tree as he leaned toward his comrade. The arrow penetrated its brain. The second shot in the head entered through the ear.

  Bardon aimed to wound. After annoying the beasts with well-aimed shots to their tender ears, he realized he hadn’t deterred even one.

  Leetu took that moment to lower her bow and scowl at him. “Shoot to kill. If they turn on us, we’ve got very little defense.”

  “That’s just it,” Bardon said. “Look at them. They aren’t fighting back. All their concentration is on that poor kimen. Nothing deters them.”

  “Right! Nothing! Only death. We have to kill them to make them stop.” She sighted down her arrow once more.

  It bothered Bardon’s sense of ethics to shoot at the backs of the enemy. He got down from his horse, laid down his bow, pulled out his sword, and approached the three remaining grawligs. Leetu felled another one as he advanced.

  He slapped the broadside of his sword across the muscular back of one beast. This creature stood at least seven feet tall and outweighed Bardon by a hundred pounds. Bardon gagged at the stench rising from his matted hair. He stepped back.

  The mountain ogre ignored him.

  Bardon swung again, this time leaving a line of blood across the back of the beast’s arm and slicing through the material of his ragged shirt. The pain got the grawlig’s attention. He turned, raised two massive hands to smash this pest. Bardon thrust his sword into the attacking grawlig’s chest. The weight of the falling enemy struck Bardon, knocked him down, and pinned him to the ground.

  With the air pressed out of him and his nose buried in sweat-soaked, greasy hair, Bardon thought he might expire from the simultaneous need to breathe and vomit. He heard Leetu’s scornful laugh and felt the weight of the grawlig shift.

  Bardon rolled twice, once to get out from under the ogre, and the second time to lie face upward in the wonderful, fresh air. He sat up and scooted backward, away from the grawlig corpses. The atmosphere surrounding them was not as fresh as he wanted. He scooted back some more, sucking in cleaner air with each effort. He saw the fifth grawlig lying peacefully next to the gordon tree trunk.

  Bardon pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his nose.

  Leetu Bends sat down beside him and shaded her eyes to peer up between the lacy leaves. “Are you hurt?”

  Tears welled in Bardon’s eyes. He hoped he wouldn’t further disgrace himself by emptying his stomach. “No, I’ll be all right.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you.” Leetu cupped her hand to her mouth. “Do you need help? Do you want me to come up and get you?”

  A squeak answered her query.

  Bardon could not make out the words, but Leetu did. “She’s coming.”

  “The kimen is a female?”

  Bardon’s eyes roamed over the five hefty grawligs who had hounded one tiny kimen. His queasiness passed as anger roiled in his veins. He jumped to his feet and strode over to the tree in time to offer his arms to the small woman who had descended from its heights. She leapt from the last branch into his kind embrace.

  “I’m so sorry, m’lady.” Bardon held the shivering form gently. “Can you tell us where to take you? Do you have friends or family nearby?”

  “You’re sick,” said the kimen. “I can feel the fever in you.”

  “My concern right now is to find you sanctuary.”

  She quivered, making her dress flutter. The material woven of light lifted and swirled and settled over Bardon’s coat sleeve.

  She tsked. “Those hounds chased me for a hundred miles.”

  “We’re going to our headquarters outside of Grail. Would you like to accompany us, and perhaps give your statement of what is happening to our commander?”

  “No, no. I want to go home.”

  Leetu Bends came closer. “I don’t believe it’s safe.”

  She shuddered. “You’re right, but I’m not sure what to do.”

  Bardon jerked his head around and stared into the sky. A small black dot grew larger. “Greer.”

  He patted the kimen awkwardly on her tiny shoulder and handed her to Leetu Bends. “My dragon has arrived.”

  Joy swelled in his heart as he walked
to the nearby stubbled field. What brings you, my friend?

  He listened to the thoughts pummeling him from his dragon, and then answered. Yes, there has been a battle but we’re all right…No, I have not been grousing and grumbling all day…I certainly did not yearn for your presence. It’s convenient to have you here. I’ve been riding a clod of a horse. Leetu always seems to pick the better animal…I doubt that my handling of the beast is a deterrent to good behavior…I am not sick. I just became overwhelmed by the stench of a grawlig while it was lying across my face…Well, I was glad to see you. Now, I am not so sure.

  Greer landed, and Bardon jogged out to him. The big dragon rested his chin on his knight’s head, rubbing back and forth.

  You’re messing up my hair…Well, yes, I guess I am a bit of a mess as it is…I know I smell like grawlig, and I need a bath. Bardon reached up and patted Greer’s chin. I’m glad you’re here.

  Leetu Bends agreed to Bardon’s plan. He would take the kimen with him on Greer, and she would take his horse with her.

  “You do look peaked.” Leetu Bends placed a hand on his forehead. “And you have a fever.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  Leetu picked up the kimen and handed her up to the saddle on Greer’s back. “You keep an eye on him, Izz. Kale, his wife, says he’s the sweetest berry on the bush, but I think he is not the sharpest thorn in the patch. He’s likely to think he can do anything instead of taking care of his body first.”

  “All I could do is nag him.” Izz laughed, sounding like the gurgling of water over stones in a creek.

  “Nagging is acceptable.”

  “Pardon me, ladies,” Bardon interrupted. “I’m right here, and we’ll be back at Grail before Izz has an opportunity to nag me.”

  They flew off, and Bardon expected an uneventful trip. However, three times in the short distance, they swooped down out of the sky and rescued more tiny victims. He delivered six of the kimen race to headquarters early that evening. He escorted them into Sir Dar’s presence without delay.

  “Oh my,” said Dar when he saw their condition. “I shall send for Lady Allerion immediately.”