Dragon King Charlie

by Scott Baron

  Fortunately, he had over twenty men backing him up now. And if he managed to take the former king to his new one, oh, the rewards that would be showered upon him.

  “Quietly, you idiots!” he hissed at the clanking soldiers behind him.

  Of course, silence was difficult in armor, but the men did the best they could as they hurried deep into the woods.

  “We are being followed,” Bawb noted as they crested a low hill not far from the castle.

  “I know,” Charlie replied. “How many do you think?”

  Bawb strained his ears and listened. “Twenty. Perhaps thirty. With armor.”

  “I heard that part. Not terribly quiet, are they?”

  “No, but they are following our trail rather effectively. I think it is time to discard that foul thing.”

  It took Charlie a moment to realize what he meant. He’d been wearing the stinking cloak for so many hours, he had actually become accustomed to the stench.

  Shit. Of course. They’re following the smell. Stupid, Charlie, he scolded himself as he shed the cloak.

  “Come on. We can widen the gap if we hurry.”

  The duo raced ahead, putting another low hill between themselves and the castle as they fled. The men on foot behind them were falling behind, but the sound of a horse’s hooves was growing louder. Their leader, it seemed, had ridden ahead.

  Charlie was about to suggest they quickly eliminate the pesky pursuer when the sound of clanking weapons greeted them from ahead. It was another group of soldiers, returning to the castle, and they’d just blundered right into them in their haste.

  “Well, this is rather unfortunate,” Bawb muttered.

  Bawb pulled his cloak further over his head, but Charlie had discarded his. He could only hope the newcomers didn’t recognize the king in peasant garb.

  “You, there. What are you two doing out in these woods?” the leader of the approaching men called out.

  “We live here, sir,” Charlie said, as meekly as possible. “Just over those hills.”

  “Only bandits and rebels use the forest trails. Honest people use the roads.”

  “But sir, it is a much longer walk if we take the road. This path saves us a lot of time. I assure you, we’re not bandits, and we are certainly not rebels. We have no armor, we are just simple folk.”

  The soldier looked them over a long moment. He was traveling with at least twenty men of his own. Hunting rebel soldiers, no doubt. Charlie just hoped he would buy his tale. Finally, the man nodded, satisfied.

  “All right, get home. But from now on, stick to the roads. Even if it is a longer walk.”

  “Of course, sir. Thank you, sir,” Charlie said as he and Bawb moved past the men.

  It was just looking like they were in the clear when a shrill voice called out. “Stop them! That’s the renegade king!”

  Charlie spun. The pest on horseback had caught up with them during the delay. And, he realized, he did know the man.

  “The fucking tax man,” he grumbled as he drew his sword. “Goddamn death and taxes, eh, Bob?”

  The Wampeh had no idea what he was talking about, but it didn’t ‘much matter with the men surrounding them.

  “Yes! It is you,” the little man crowed. “The king will reward me greatly for this. Even more than when I turned in your friend hiding in the kitchen.”

  Bawb bristled, and Charlie knew the man well enough to know what was coming next. They drew their swords, putting their backs to one another for defense.

  “They didn’t say we had to bring you back alive,” the tax man said.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  It was chaos in the woods. Charlie and Bawb were horribly outnumbered nearly thirty to two, but the spacing of the trees at least granted them some respite from the charging attackers. Nevertheless, they were each facing several men at once.

  They swung and stabbed, dispatching men as quickly as they were able, but the tax man’s reinforcements had arrived, and there was simply no way they could overcome nearly sixty men on their own.

  Bawb, though likely about to die, was nevertheless smiling as his arms spun in a deadly windmill of carnage. If he were to go, this seemed a fitting manner.

  Charlie fought as hard and fast as he was able, but eventually took a blow to the arm, miraculously struck largely with the flat of the man’s blade. The panic of battle had made him careless, and that saved Charlie’s arm. It hurt though, and he cried out in pain and frustration.

  Surprisingly, a ferocious growl replied to his utterance.

  The soldiers spun, and the tax man’s horse reared in fear as his feisty passenger was ripped from his back by a blur with powerful jaws. The beast easily ripped the tax man’s head from his body and turned on the other soldiers. Despite their armor and weapons, the men turned to flee.

  Many were not fast enough.

  Limbs flew, heads were crushed. It was utter carnage, and moments later a dozen men lay dismembered at the massive canine’s feet.

  “Baloo! You’re alive!” Charlie gushed.

  “Charlie, they’re spreading out. We can’t stop them all from reaching the castle and sounding the alarm,” Bawb realized as he skewered the last living man at his feet.

  He was right. There were over thirty men scrambling back toward the safety of the castle. And once they were there, the king’s entire army would ride out after them. And heaven help their friends in captivity.

  Charlie had some magic at his disposal, and he managed to take down a few of the fleeing men, but there were too many.

  “I can’t get them all!”

  A realization flashed on Bawb’s face.

  “I have an idea,” he said, drawing the strange, wooden implement from his hip.

  He had no idea if it would even work, but there was simply no time for tests.

  “Stand behind me. I do not know if this will fly true,” he said.

  Charlie pulled Baloo to him and stepped behind his friend. The Wampeh then pointed his wand and cast his spell. One of the most deadly and powerful of the Wampeh Ghalian’s secret arsenal.

  The wand crackled with power, spitting out a flash of hot death. The men in its path turned to sprays of blood and bone, obliterated in their tracks. Of the thirty soldiers, only a handful at the very perimeter of the spell escaped harm.

  Charlie stood stock still, mouth hanging open with shock. Bawb too was temporarily stunned by what had happened. By what he had just done. His assassin’s reflexes kicked back in and he quickly fired off a rapid series of much smaller, individually targeted spells, dropping the remaining men one by one, like a sniper, as they fled.

  The wand glowed a second longer, then returned to normal. For all intents and purposes, it seemed to be no more than a tapered stick in the pale man’s hands.

  “Did you know it would do that?” Charlie finally managed to say.

  “No, I certainly did not.”

  “Holy shit, Bob. That was... I don’t even know what to call that.”

  “Amazing works. Or incredible.”

  A relieved grin spread across Charlie’s face. “So, the wand idea. Not a bad one, eh?”

  Bawb smiled and examined his new toy. “Completely intact and unscathed, though it feels largely drained of power. At least so far as I can tell.”

  “But if you put it in the sunlight tomorrow––“

  “Yes, I believe it will recover full potency, or at least much of it. And I shall certainly use it far more sparingly in the future.”

  Charlie scratched Baloo behind the ears, the muddy, bloody beast panting happily from the long-absent affection.

  “That spell. That was horrific. Impressive, but...”

  “Yes, I know. A spell of last resort, though never meant for that particular purpose. I had no idea the power contained in this wand, so I cast the most powerful one I could draw upon without preparation. Apparently, this device is far more powerful than I ever expected. I still need to learn its limitations and quirks, but it would see
m we now have at least one powered weapon at our disposal.”

  Charlie looked over his canine friend with joy. Baloo was filthy, but he seemed well-fed. Given his proclivity for hunting game, that was no surprise. What was, however, was his being there in the first place.

  “Wasn’t he supposed to be trapped and killed?” Charlie said, searching for any injuries on Baloo.

  “There. His leg,” Bawb said. “The fur is growing back slightly off-pattern. Right where a trap would have broken it.”

  “But that was just days ago,” he said. Then it hit him. “Oh, of course. Back in the Balamar wastelands, when Baloo was just a pup, he played in the mist when we hosed down Ara with the healing waters.”

  “I do not recall this.”

  “No, of course not. She flew you back to the campsite so you wouldn’t accidentally get sprayed and blow up.”

  “Which was appreciated.”

  “So he must still have that in his system. No wonder it’s healing so quickly. And if we can get to our stash of the waters hidden in the castle, we can easily fix him up the rest of the way.”

  Baloo, for his part, was just happy to be with his pack, his hind leg twitching with joy as he received abundant skritches.

  “Now, What about these bodies? We can’t leave them like this,” Charlie said as he surveyed the carnage.

  “Allow me,” Bawb said, waving his wand and lifting the remains into several piles. He separated the weapons and armor from the corpses, then, with another flick of his wrist, covered the bodies with dirt and leaves. “Primitive, but it will have to suffice for now.”

  “Agreed. And enough excitement for the night.”

  Quietly, and with the unexpected companionship of their furry friend, the pair made their way back to their hideout to eat, plan, and rest. Given the events of the evening, things were going to get interesting in these parts, and soon.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The pile of weapons Bawb had brought back with them to their hideout in the disused hovel was rather impressive. Of course, they each had only two hands, so Charlie wondered just how much good the massive stash would do them.

  It had actually been quite a load to move all the way to their base of operations, but Bawb’s new toy apparently had a bit more juice remaining than he’d first estimated. With a simplified lifting spell, combined with a bit of help from Charlie’s growing internal magic, the pair had managed to lug all of it back with little trouble.

  They’d have whipped up a makeshift carry sack for Baloo, as Leila sometimes did, but both were so happy to see the filthy beast that they thought it best to simply have the overjoyed animal pad along with them unencumbered. It was as much for their benefit as his, truth be told. They’d seen the carnage the full-grown animal could inflict when riled up.

  That he had been sidelined long enough for them to have captured Leila said something about the strength of the trap he’d been snared in. That was likely why his leg had still not healed fully.

  “You know, he must’ve damn near torn his foot off pulling free from that trap,” Charlie noted, scratching the good boy as he contentedly lapped up a dish of the fresh milk Clay had left for them earlier that afternoon. “And after that little display in the woods, heaven help the men who set it if he ever catches up with them.”

  The assassin looked up from his work, the weapons now sorted into piles based on quality, length, and heft.

  “I would think, with a nose like his, they might not have a choice about his finding them, you know. We’ll need to keep him on a short leash for the time being. If he goes tearing through Horgund’s men, they’ll lock down the castle grounds even tighter.”

  “But he’s all the way out here. And he hadn’t ventured near the castle yet. We’d have heard.”

  “I know. But he found us, Charlie. And we are his family. His pack. Where we go, he will want to go as well, and we will have to dissuade that urge.”

  “He’ll listen to me,” Charlie said.

  He didn’t know why, or how, for that matter, but with his strengthening magic, he found he had picked up some of Leila’s gift with animals. He had no use to really pursue it, not with her around, but the latent talent was there. He just had to practice a bit.

  “Baloo,” he said, focusing on the canine as he reached out with his mind. “Leila is okay. We’re going to get her back,” he said both with and without words.

  Baloo’s tail sprung to life, wagging merrily.

  “So, he does understand you,” Bawb noted. “Fascinating.”

  “Add it to the day’s list,” Charlie replied. “I mean, that wand of yours is one helluva potent device.”

  Bawb twirled the length of wood deftly in his hand.

  “Hey, careful with that!”

  “I’m not casting, Charlie. We’re fine.”

  “You say that, but after seeing what that thing was capable of, I’d still rather you treated it like a loaded gun.”

  “As you wish,” the Wampeh replied, holding the wand gently. “It is a remarkable thing you inspired, and I’m glad I fabricated it. The efficacy with which it cast, it was as if the living wood understood and amplified the spell.”

  “Hang on a second. You said you had Ara reshape a konus to form the core.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “And did that konus have an active translation spell tied to it at the time?”

  “It’s one of my standard spells. All of my devices carry one in some form or another.”

  Charlie nodded his head. “That explains it. I have no idea how, but it looks like you may have given the tree the means to understand you. And if that’s the case, it very well may be echoing back your spells, both through the konus as well as the Ootaki hair.”

  A look of astonishment grew on the pale man’s face. It was something he hadn’t considered in all the months he’d been carefully watering the plant, strengthening the branch with carefully applied magic, and even talking to his tree as he tended it.

  “Admittedly, it seems you may actually be correct, which would be a fascinating circumstance, and one previously undocumented in any of the systems.”

  “But this isn’t one of your systems. Here, your magic reacts differently. Hell, just look at the sun. It does nothing for us humans, but Hunze and Ara suck up that energy like a sponge with water.”

  Bawb carefully unwrapped the length of hide protecting the Ootaki hair wrapped around the shaft. He placed it atop a low table near the eastern-facing wall. Every day, a shaft of light would poke through a gap in the wall, and now, come morning, his wand would begin absorbing the sun’s first rays, replenishing its power.

  “You know, much as I have hope for this new tool, I have to say, I still miss my regular gear. My armlets. My slaaps. And especially my enchanted blades. All equipment I have used for more years than I care to count. And all safely hidden away within the walls of the castle.”

  “Safe from everyone, but that includes us, at the moment.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Hey, man, I get it,” Charlie said. “The stuff you’re familiar with. Yeah, muscle memory is a big thing. That level of comfort using your gear without having to even think about it takes a long time to reach. And I think we may be able to get our stuff, now that we have captured armor from Horgund’s men. They were castle guards, and their gear will allow us some freedom of movement once we get inside.”

  “I agree, but we will need to come up with more of a plan than merely sneaking in our hidden entry point and rushing to retrieve our equipment. It is only a matter of time before the missing men are noticed. That was a lot of them. Far too many for their absence to slip through the cracks.”

  Charlie looked over at the pile of weapons and thought about the bodies and armor still buried in the woods. Bawb was right. It was only a matter of time before the alarm would be raised. They’d need support if they were to succeed.

  “I have an idea. We hide this stuff out in the treeline. When Clay comes by in the
morning, we tell him where it is, as well as the gear buried with the bodies back toward the castle.”

  “There were very few bodies left.”

  “You know what I mean,” Charlie shot back. “Anyway, he knows the people on the neighboring farms and seems to have made friends with them, so he’s the perfect person to distribute weapons and armor to those he can trust. I don’t know if they’ll even need them, but if things go tits up, it’ll be far better the locals are armed rather than unarmed.”

  “On this, we agree,” Bawb said. “And this will give us a force should we need to rally men to arms.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And this gave me and idea, as well.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I’m thinking, with a fair amount of creative planning, we can have our allies infiltrate and disrupt the castle’s perimeter guards. Because if we hope to get inside, retrieve our gear, and save our friends, we’re going to need quite a distraction.”

  “No, Bob. We’ll need a miracle.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The plan had gone more or less as intended the following morning. Clay had acquired the location of not only the large cache of weapons hidden just outside the farm in the treeline, as well as that of the buried equipment from men slaughtered the night before.

  Despite his intimidating appearance, as well as his former profession as the now deceased tax collector’s muscle, the burly man expressed his reservations. Even with the reappearance of Baloo, who he hugged gleefully as his face was licked with enthusiasm, he still seemed unsure about farmers and common folk taking up arms in any assault on the castle. Even confronting the king’s troops outside of its walls was a concern.

  It took a lot of talking things through before Charlie, with Bawb’s subtle help, brought him around to their way of thinking. Things were still in limbo in the kingdom, but once King Horgund had cemented his power and installed more and more of his people in key positions, the locals would be at terrible risk.

  “Do you truly believe he’ll leave all of the farms to their own devices, Clay?” Bawb had inquired, casually. You worked for the tax man and are intimate with how those collections are made. If you had to guess, what do you think Horgund will do once people fall into complacency once again? Will he leave you as you are, or will he begin squeezing for all he can extract?”