Shaw’s next squawk turned into a mewling cry of pain. A gout of bright red fountained from his beak.
“Do it, Galen!”
The wizard swung his hands forward, shouting his incantation. A white glow enveloped the griffin. Shaw vanished from the dragon’s vise-like grip.
Sirrahon’s beaklike snout grinned at us through a horrible skein of broken teeth. He crouched forward, his hungry eyes turned toward Liam a second time. The dragon’s pose looked familiar.
In fact, it looked exactly like his sigil from the book in Galen’s saddlebag.
“We have to change our tactics,” I stated, as the wizard trotted over. “All we’re doing is annoying him.”
Galen wiped a soot-stained brow clear with the sleeve of his now ruined jacket. “In that, I must agree.”
“Before we left, Master Zenos found Sirrahon’s sigil inside the Codex,” I explained, as the forest shook with another of the dragon’s mighty steps. “How can we use that in this fight?”
The wizard shook his head. “I don’t see how. A sigil is a magical seal. Used to bind creatures in caves and cells, or to magically repel someone from opening a secret scroll or document. None of which are applicable to our current predicament.”
I fought down a wave of panic as Sirrahon split the world with his roar again. Think, think!
“Wait, wait! Zenos said that a sigil was a kind of ‘seal’, or a ‘banner’ of power. What does that mean in this world?”
“A banner is a flag that conveys a symbol, or a message. In combat, it is the formal declaration that a lord has decided to give battle.”
I tucked away my gun, understanding. “Then that’s what we have to use it as.”
Destry wavered into tangibility to our side. “Whatever you do, I would move très vite. The beast bears down upon the Fayleene quite rapidly, no?”
A third crack of thunder was cut short as Sirrahon blasted Liam’s remaining thunderbird out of the sky with a gout of flame. The time for debate was up.
“Destry,” I said quickly, “You can get to Liam faster than we can. Tell him to do whatever he can to distract Sirrahon for the next half-minute. We have a plan.”
The pooka bowed to us and winked out. Galen helped me mount up and then took off at a gallop towards the Protector. I held on to Galen’s torso with one arm and turned around as best I could, opening up the top of the nearest saddlebag. I had to hunt more by feel than sight, but I managed to grab the Codex and hold it tight.
A chorus of squeaks, trills, and squawks filled the air overhead. Birds of every color and shape, from magnificently tressed songbirds to spare, stern looking hawks erupted from the trees, all making a beeline for Sirrahon.
It looked like a pathetic excuse for a delaying action, but it actually worked. The clouds of birds completely blocked Sirrahon’s vision. They pecked at the thinner scales of his eyes, his ears. The dragon raked his talons through the assembled flocks, smashing dozens of creatures at a time, but he had been stopped.
Galen stopped before where Liam stood atop a tiny rise at the edge of what remained of the Sacred Grove. Destry waited next to him, his form wavering between tangibility and phantasm. His eyes glowed as they continued to call and send birds against Sirrahon, but he sensed my approach as I dismounted.
“The birds are a clever stratagem,” Galen remarked.
“Birds may be too small to stop a dragon,” Liam said, with a smirk. “But I know how many there are in my forest. And I have a lot of them.”
“Then before you run out, I’ve got a plan to try.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
“The thing is…” I admitted, with a hard swallow, “That it puts you right in the line of fire. If it doesn’t work…”
“Then Sirrahon might as well slather me in barbeque sauce and have at it, as you might say.”
I blushed. I’d spoken those very words here in the grove. They didn’t sound very amusing now. But Liam shrugged it off and motioned me to go on.
I held up the Codex and then opened it to the page with Sirrahon’s blood-red sigil. “This book is infused with magic. And it’s got Sirrahon’s sign on it. A sign of power, or a ‘banner’. I’m betting that if you display it, challenge Sirrahon, that it will repel him.”
Liam thought about that for a moment. He sighed. “It’s that, or nothing. Give me the sigil to display.”
I considered how to secure the book to Liam’s frame. I decided to simply jam the open book between his newly grown antlers. To my amazement, the Codex fit snugly, and the nubs on the inside edges of his antlers worked to hold the pages open to the right place.
“Galen, if you have any magic left, help Liam project his voice, his image.” The wizard nodded curtly as I turned to Destry. “I don’t think we can change our responses on the fly this time. But if you can read the dragon’s thoughts, his reactions…maybe we’ll at least know if this is going to work.”
“That I can do, Dayna,” the pooka agreed.
Sirrahon let out a bellow of triumph as he swiped away the last of the birds. Galen backed off to one side, murmuring his incantations. I remained where I was, Destry next to me. Liam took a few steps forward, head raised, the book perched securely in his antlers. The white glow around his eyes and antlers had been replaced by a blue one as Galen completed his spellcraft.
“Sirrahon!” Liam cried, and his voice boomed like surf against ocean cliffs. “Stay your wrath and come no further!”
The mighty dragon glared down at Liam. Stubs of broken teeth gleamed from deep within his mouth. A long scuff showing the mark of griffin talons trailed down one side of his head, while Galen and Liam’s lightning bolts had left dark blotches on several of his large, flat scales. But aside from giving him a reason for a trip to the dentist, we really hadn’t done the dragon any substantial physical damage.
But at least Liam had his attention. Now, as the rest of Galen’s spellcraft took effect, the Fayleene seemed to grow to five or six times his size. It was illusory, and still far too small to cause Sirrahon any alarm. But the image of the sigil had grown too.
And it had begun to throw off scarlet sparks as Liam raised his voice another notch.
“Do you know who I am, spawn of dragons?” Liam challenged, “I am the Protector of the Forest, the keeper of the Fey Magic that sustains the realm upon which you tread!”
Sirrahon let out a sound like a ‘whuff’. A puff of black smoke billowed from his nostrils.
“Destry…” I said quietly, “what’s the dragon doing?”
The pooka’s brow furrowed.
“He is quite difficult to read. He is hesitant, that I can see. Ah, he has just checked his ability to breathe fire. He seems to be sans carburant now. Out of fuel to burn.”
“Liam!” I called. “You’ve got Sirrahon worried! Press him harder! Use the knowledge we have of the last war!”
My voice sounded confident, but my knees trembled. This was one hundred percent pure bluff. And as my poker-playing friends would have pointed out, I was betting Liam’s life on a pair of fives.
“I am the Protector of the Forest,” Liam stated firmly. “And the blood of all the Protectors before me runs in my veins! The same blood that ran in the veins of the Fayleene who stopped you all those centuries ago!”
Sirrahon froze, eyes riveted on Liam, on the sigil’s glow.
“He’s afraid!” Destry whispered, amazed. “The monster’s actually afraid!”
“I, Liam of the Fayleene, cast you out of the sacred woods! Flee back to the darkness, ancient wyrm!”
To my amazement, Sirrahon actually took a step back. Liam matched it with a step forward. The sigil blazed from the book’s page in a spangle of red. The dragon winced as the light danced in its eyes.
“Flee!” Liam bellowed. “Flee, lest you be returned to the stone from whence you came!”
Slowly, like a fully loaded supertanker, Sirrahon turned away from Liam. Turned away from the burning remnants of the Fayleene woods. The
world shook with each booming step. I held my breath until the shaking reduced itself to a mere tremor, and then finally receded into the distance.
Galen’s spell dissipated, returning Liam to his normal size. The sigil held above his head dimmed in intensity, and then finally went out.
A strange near-silence fell over the smoking ruins of the Sacred Grove. The crackle of the remaining fires smoldering in the trees. The splash of water. And finally, the clip-clop of cloven hooves. The Fayleene had emerged from the woods, many of them coated with ash or dripping cold stream water from their flanks and legs. The herd of fey deer surrounded us, focused solely on Liam. The Lead Doe named Orlaith stepped before him.
“You have saved us,” she pronounced, though with a new, humble tone in her voice. “O great Protector, you have saved us from the dread beast and come into your own. We are your people, and you are our fey lord to command as you see fit!”
As one, the assembled Fayleene bent their forelegs and went to one knee. A sea of bone-white antlers bowed before Liam, like a great wind bending back a gigantic stand of birch trees. And just when I didn’t think things could get any more epic, the sun broke through the clouds. A shaft of golden sunlight sliced through the gap as if it could wash away the broken, burning remnants of the forest, and lit Liam up in a bright golden spotlight.
Galen made a choked sound of awe. Then followed the example of the Fayleene by bending his equine forelegs and making a deep bow.
I felt a wetness upon my cheeks. Strangely, absently, I realized that they were tears.
Liam’s eyes met mine, and they were charged with wonder and disbelief.
I nodded to him.
Then I bent my knee and knelt before my friend as well.
Oh, yeah, I thought to myself, as a fierce feeling of pride ran through me. Not even Disney could top this.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The morning had come to an end before King Fitzwilliam and a dozen of his armored knights arrived at the Sacred Grove. Liam, flanked by a pair of the surviving Lead Does, stood along their path, waiting to greet them. We’d known of their coming for at least a quarter of an hour prior, as the jingle of steel and heavy tread of fully shod warhorses weren’t exactly hard to miss.
Galen and I had just sat down for a quick swig of water from his goatskin and to share out the very last of the apples from his saddlebags. Destry stood in the shadows nearby, quietly observing all that went on. My fingers ached from all the work they’d been put to. Liam had summoned a new pair of thunderbirds to call down enough rain to put out the forest fires for good, and the clouds had blown away with the freshening breeze. But now that the threat of imminent death had receded, many of the Fayleene had been left with cuts, scrapes, and burns.
I wasn’t a doctor by any stretch of the imagination. But I knew enough anatomy so that I could put limbs in a sling. Under Galen’s direction, Destry ranged out from the grove to locate deposits of healing mud and cooling moss that hadn’t been dried out or burned up by the fires. Once the pooka had done this, the wizard had led me through slathering on the mud and binding compresses made of the mosses.
The Fayleene were quiet for the most part when I treated them, even borderline shocky, which was to be expected. And even though I’d had some rough treatment at their hooves, I was glad to help. I hadn’t forgotten their medical assistance on my part when I’d suffered a concussion or even a cracked skull in their woods.
Fitzwilliam’s knights glinted silver, red, and black in the sunlight. The king rode at the head of the column, clad in gold-washed chain mail to the neck. His head was bare, save for the golden circlet of the crown, and his long gray cloak flowed out behind him, covering his saddle. He dismounted with a clink of his mail and then inclined his head towards Liam.
“Most honored Protector,” he began. “Forgive my intrusion into your demesnes. I received word from two quarters that your realm had been set upon by a dragon and immediately set out to assist you. The treaty between the castle and the wood stands firm and binding between us.”
“My thanks to you, King Fitzwilliam,” Liam replied. “It is good the bond is firm, though as you can see, little enough of the wood remains. The dragon was driven off, though not without loss and suffering.”
Fitzwilliam’s kind face grimaced. “What are your losses, Lord of the Fayleene?”
“Seven dead. Many more burned, bruised, or battered. The nights ahead promise to be cold, bare, and short of food as well.”
“It appears that I have arrived too late for battle,” Fitzwilliam said, as his eyes took in the ruined trees and the soot-covered Fayleene. “And I have no way to shelter your people. But perhaps I can help with the remaining problem. I have wagons of grain and greenery already rolling towards these woods. None shall go hungry, at least.”
At that, I handed Galen his goat-skin of water and got to my feet. I approached the two monarchs as Liam made his own little bow to Fitzwilliam.
“Thank you, your Majesty,” he said. “Whatever aid you can render us is sorely needed and quite welcome.”
I cleared my throat softly. I still wasn’t sure what the polite protocol was to break into an all-royal conversation. But I was so badly smudged with ash, mud, moss, and Fayleene blood that I probably violated every rule in the court etiquette book just by standing upwind of the king.
“Ah, Lady Chrissie,” Fitzwilliam said smoothly. “I am most pleased that you and the court wizard survived. Your griffin friend shall be pleased as well.”
“That makes two of us, your Majesty,” I agreed wholeheartedly, before my brain caught up with his words. For his part, Liam’s ears perked up immediately. “That is…I mean, is Grimshaw alive?”
“Indeed he is. I did say that I’d received news from two quarters, did I not? Master Seer Zenos came in the gray dawn with the news that Sirrahon had invaded the Fayleene. Then, as my men were collecting their gear to join my expedition, your griffin appeared in the courtyard, complete with a trio of broken ribs. He confirmed what Zenos told us and despite his wounds offered to lead us back to you.”
Liam snorted. “That sounds rather like our bone-headed griffin.”
“I declined the offer and instead put him under the care of the Royal Air Cavalry’s surgeon. The man’s treated plenty of griffins before, so your friend is in good hands.”
This time I bowed my head. “Your compassion is as deep as your wisdom,” I said thankfully. “And on that note, I thought that I might put forth an idea for you to judge.”
Liam gave me a curious glance. Fitzwilliam nodded curtly for me to go on.
“Much of the Fayleene wood has been destroyed, particularly the old-growth trees that made up this grove. In short, this forest isn’t much of a place to live anymore. Might I suggest a place on the border of your kingdom for the Fayleene to dwell that hasn’t been touched by conflict and loss?”
“I am all ears, Lady Chrissie.”
“The forest where the centaurs and the humans meet would suit everyone’s purpose. As a bonus, those woods contain the Grove of the Willows. To my mind, it couldn’t hurt to have a people who are admired by both human and centaur there to guard the Grove and help it flourish.”
Liam nodded appreciatively. “Indeed, it would be a fine place for my people to get back on all four feet. Are you willing to let us settle there, King Fitzwilliam?”
“I like the idea…” Fitzwilliam hedged. “But those lands lie athwart those of Lord and Lady Behnaz. If you can convince them to lay aside any objection, than I will give the move my blessing.”
I smiled at that. “I can guarantee that Lady Behnaz will help us out. And what she does with her land, her Lord will follow.”
Fitzwilliam spread his hands. “Then it appears that you and the Fayleene have everything in hand. We were not needed after all.”
“No, not quite, your Majesty. I know who murdered Captain Vazura. And right now, I could really use a column of armed and armored knights to take him out. That is, if yo
u’re interested.”
Fitzwilliam’s eyes took on an eager, chilly look.
* * *
The afternoon was well advanced by the time the column of knights reached the first of the trio of streams that crossed the northern road into the mountains. Fitzwilliam had given me one of his knights’ spare mounts, a spirited charger that shifted under my saddle like a restless racehorse. But any misgivings I had were muted by the presence of the king himself on one side and the centaur wizard on the other. Liam had stayed back to care for his people, but Destry ranged ahead of the group, scouting for any dangers we might encounter.
The ride had taken on a strangely quiet air. Galen had gone into a light meditative state, trying to build up some of his sorely depleted magic. The king and his men were terse, eyes uneasily tracking movements along their flanks or on the road ahead. Hands stayed close to sword hilts as we rode, and as far as I could see, the entire column was armed to the teeth. They’d set out this morning to possibly fight a dragon, and now they were drawing closer to a brand new foe.
As for me? I was quiet so that I could let the gears in that eight-ball of a brain of mine clatter away. The last piece – the way that foe had slaughtered Vazura and would likely defend itself – finally became clear to me. And it happened as soon as we’d begun to cross the wide banks of thumbnail-sized gravel washed down from the mountains.
“Mine tailings…” I mused, and Fitzwilliam gave me a curious look. “All these gravel banks are from mining operations. Your Majesty, would these be from the kingdom’s gold mines?”
“Indeed,” he answered. “Upriver are the veins from which have supplied most of the kingdom’s gold or silver coinage over the years.”
The last piece of the puzzle fell into my mind with a solid click.
“So that’s how he kills,” I breathed. “With cyanide from the kingdom’s own mines.”
The edge of Fitzwilliam’s mouth curled up in his odd form of a smile. “Truly, how your intellect works is dizzying to witness. And yet my men and I are in need of your insights. You have told us how you suspect this ‘Old Man of the Mountains’. Yet even I am puzzled as to how an ethereal demon could have killed so quickly. It seems that you have finally discovered the method.”
The Deer Prince's Murder: Book Two of 'Fantasy & Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 2) Page 21
