The D'Karon Apprentice

by Joseph R. Lallo

  It took two minutes of intense concentration and a dozen quietly murmured incantations to bolster the effects, but finally the man’s breathing eased and his coughing subsided. For the first time since she’d begun her work, Myranda opened her eyes. Though there was no doubt the man had vastly improved, his struggles and coughing had left him a horrid sight to look at. In clearing his lungs, he’d spattered the ceiling and walls of the tent with flecks of red. Myranda and the clerics had received their share as well.

  With a touch to the injured man’s face and a final twist of magic, Myranda nudged him into a badly needed slumber.

  “He’ll awaken in a day or two. He should recover fully,” Myranda said, wavering slightly.

  She wasn’t truly fatigued by the exertion, but pulling into and out of the level of concentration necessary for such spells had a way of making one unsteady. At the slightest suggestion that she might need something to lean on, Deacon appeared by her side, steadying her.

  “Fine work,” he said. “As always.”

  Myranda turned to the second patient. “And how is he?”

  “His wounds were healing badly, and there was a fever. Simple enough to ease.”

  “May you be blessed, good woman,” said the first cleric.

  “You have done the work of the divine today,” said the second.

  “No,” Myranda said. “We did what anyone would have done. But you are very welcome.” She sighed and turned to the door. “And now it is time to face the consequences.”

  “Shall we?” Deacon asked.

  “Of course,” she replied.

  He set down his crystal. She did the same with her staff, and he lightly waved his hand across the simple cloth flap of the tent. The spell reinforcing it wafted away, allowing two soldiers to burst inside, swords drawn.

  Myranda folded her hands in front of her, and Deacon did the same, stepping slowly toward the courtyard. The soldiers kept their distance, for the world appearing as though they were facing down a pair of tigers.

  When Myranda and Deacon were fully into the courtyard, the level of chaos they’d left behind became abundantly clear. What had begun as a test of strength between Garr and Myn had clearly become something personal. Each was rumbling with a sound just barely short of a roar, and long furrows of the courtyard had been dug out by their claws as each was pushed back by the other in kind. The soldiers labored at their wits end, unwilling to venture near enough to put their weapons to use without fear of being lashed by a sweeping tail, and unable to fire arrows or throw pikes without fear of striking Garr, who was effectively a fellow soldier.

  Grustim stalked up to the pair of wizards.

  “Call off your beast and I will do the same,” he commanded.

  “Myn! Enough!” Myranda called out.

  She stopped her shoving but held her ground, grinding slowly backward thanks to Garr’s efforts until a similar order coaxed the green dragon to stillness as well. Each beast stood stone still, horns locked together, and gazing up into the eyes of the other. After a moment while the rest of the courtyard held its breath, Myn narrowed her eyes slightly and huffed a quick breath.

  “Don’t!” Myranda warned, but it was too late. The dragon had made her mind up.

  Myn twisted her head sharply to the side and heaved all of her weight in that direction. It was just enough to throw Garr off balance, sending the male tumbling aside with an earth-shaking blow and knocking his helmet halfway across the courtyard. She then plopped her hindquarters down and craned her neck proudly.

  Garr scrambled to his feet, a furious gleam in his eye, but before he could do anything, Grustim issued a throaty order. Garr turned to him with a sharp look of protest, but Grustim remained firm. Reluctantly the male trudged to Myn’s side and sat heavily, glaring at her. Myn flicked her tongue once and lashed her tail, looking down at Myranda.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Myranda said with a shake of her head.

  “You see!” cried Brustuum, stomping as angrily toward them as his battered body would allow. “You see the arrogance with which those of the north conduct themselves?”

  “What did you think you were doing?” Grustim demanded, for a moment forgetting protocol and simply speaking to Myranda as he might to anyone who had taken her life and liberty into her own hands in a very tense situation.

  “I refused to allow a man to die because of the distrust between our people.” She offered up her wrists. “Throw me in irons if you must. I fully accept that I’ve acted without proper regard to the situation, but it had to be done.”

  She spoke without challenge or arrogance. This was not an act of defiance. Her words were sincere. What she’d done was an act of mercy for the men in the tent, but a tremendously dangerous one and certainly a breach of any number of well-designed protocols. A punishment was called for.

  “I understand that something terrible happened here, and that it appears to have been done on behalf of my kingdom. I assure you this is not so, but I fully understand that you must err on the side of caution until it can be proved otherwise. None of us will resist.”

  “Men, secure the Northerners. Separate cells,” Brustuum ordered. “And secure the dragon.”

  Myn looked down to the assembled soldiers. Unlike Myranda, her own gaze was dripping with challenge.

  “Myn, go where they say, do what they say, and for heaven’s sake, behave,” Myranda instructed.

  The dragon gave Myranda a pleading look.

  “I mean it,” Myranda said as a pair of heavy metal shackles was secured about her wrists. As she was taken by the shoulders and led toward the gate of the damaged keep, she turned to Grustim.

  “I trust your capacity to handle this situation properly,” Myranda said.

  “Handle this situation?” he said, flustered for perhaps the first time in years. “I do not even understand what precisely this situation is.”

  “Then seeking understanding is an excellent place to start,” Deacon suggested, receiving his own pair of restraints.

  “I am not a diplomat!” Grustim objected.

  Myranda glanced over her shoulder and gave a wry smile. “You can hardly do worse than I did…”

  #

  Grustim paced through the halls of the damaged stronghold, two steps behind Commander Brustuum. He had shed the heavy plates of armor, dressed now only in the padding and thin mail usually worn beneath it. In the earliest days of his training as a Dragon Rider the armor had been torturous to wear. Now, even when among fellow soldiers, he felt naked without it. Never had that been truer than at this moment. Something about this place, about the attitude of the commander who was his host, made him profoundly uneasy. He didn’t feel as though he was among allies. Dragons, it is said, are fast and accurate judges of character. This was yet another trait that Dragon Riders seemed to absorb through proximity, because somehow Brustuum had rubbed Grustim wrong at first sight. With each word and every action, that feeling of distrust grew stronger.

  He turned his gaze from the limping commander and surveyed his surroundings. The damage to the stronghold had been quite apparent on the outside, but it was even more so on the inside. Wooden support beams were splintered. The stone of some walls had been utterly pulverized. Grustim had good reason to doubt the roof would remain in place for much longer.

  “You see… you see what comes of trusting monsters…” Brustuum fumed as he led to the end of a hallway that was, though not wholly intact, at least not in imminent threat of collapse.

  A wooden door at the end, the only one that was still seated squarely in its frame, bore a recently applied brass nameplate etched with Brustuum’s name and rank.

  “You will accept my apologies for the disarray. My own quarters were badly damaged. I was forced to move my things rather hastily to this room. Please, come inside, sit down.”

  Brustuum opened the door and the pair entered. The room was somewhat more comfortably furnished than the rest of the keep, but in a very precise and austere way th
at seemed to transcend culture. These were an officer’s quarters, appointed in a way that spelled luxury to a lifelong soldier and was barely tolerable to a civilian. Grustim had been in a dozen such rooms, and though they were no doubt furnished to the strict requirements of each individual officer, they may as well have been built from the same template. Comfort, in the mind of a fighter, came in a very simple form: a sturdy chair, a firm bed, and strong drink. The latter came in the form of a bolted liquor cabinet against the far wall, just at the head of the bed. It stank of recently spilled spirits, and when he lifted the bolt and pulled the door open, the wooden hinge ground with the sound of broken glass lodged within. The cabinet was largely bare, only three bottles occupying a space suitable for a dozen.

  “Sit,” Brustuum said, indicating a second chair set opposite a few planks of wood stretched between two sawhorses.

  In the shadow of the recent disaster, Grustim supposed it was playing the role of a desk. He took a seat and watched as the commander set the bottle of liquor on the table, as well as a cracked ceramic pitcher of water and two glasses.

  “May I offer you a drink?” Brustuum asked.

  “Dragon Riders do not consume spirits,” he replied.

  “Such was my understanding. But from time to time I’ve known men to overlook the lesser aspects of duty and protocol.”

  “I am not such a man.”

  “Then you are a better man than I,” Brustuum said with a stifled chuckle.

  The commander eased himself painfully into his chair and poured a glass of water for Grustim, then poured his own tumbler two-thirds full of water before topping it with the contents of the bottle. As the clear liquor met the clear water, both took on a milky-white color and an almost pearlescent sheen.

  Both glasses full, Brustuum and Grustim set their palms flat on the wooden plank and bowed their heads.

  “May the nectar of your bounty sustain us,” they recited quietly before lifting their glasses.

  Brustuum sipped his drink with a sour look on his face. “You know, I genuinely hoped I’d been misinformed when I heard the delegation to Tressor would receive a Dragon Rider as an escort. Your presence unnecessarily elevates them. Of course, now I realize that with a dragon of their own, there are few who could hope to subdue them when they inevitably chose to break their treaty.”

  “So you were informed of the nature of the delegation,” Grustim said.

  “Indeed. I am one of only three commanders prepared for the arrival of the enemy. They had me searching for the agent. As you can see, I found her.”

  “Yes, I see that. I had some questions in that regard.”

  “As you would.”

  “What time of day did this occur?”

  “Quite near midday yesterday.”

  Grustim leaned back slightly, gazing at Brustuum silently.

  “And how many of your men were killed?”

  “Five. Nearly seven.”

  “Yes. Nearly. But the seriously injured men will live, thanks to the efforts of the duchess.”

  “Small recompense for the lives already taken,” Brustuum rumbled.

  “How many men are under your command?”

  “Fifty-six. Now Fifty-one.”

  “And how many prisoners?”

  “Fifteen. Sixteen including the escaped Northern agent. Two now, the duke and duchess.”

  “And their dragon.”

  “I suppose. Typically we wouldn’t count livestock.”

  Grustim shifted in his chair. “So you lost all of your prisoners when the agent escaped?”

  “We tend to cluster our prisoners together to simplify watch duty. The attack was centered on the agent’s cell, so it killed them all. As well as the guards on duty and nearly myself.”

  “I see. I assume, remote as this stronghold is, you deliver and receive your messages via falcon?”

  “Of course. And mounted messengers for shorter distances.”

  Another nod. “Describe this agent.”

  “Ah, finally we are past the formalities and foolishness and into the valuable questions. The woman was my height. Northern, of course. Dark hair falling well past her waist. Threaded with gray. Perhaps in her midforties. Dressed in dark robes, armed with a bone staff with a purple gem. She kept a… creature. Nothing nature could have wrought.”

  “How did you capture her?”

  “She came willingly, after we found that she’d ravaged a nomad tribe two days east of here.”

  “And that was how long ago?”

  “Five days.”

  “And she was able to escape noon yesterday.”

  Brustuum sipped his drink with a grimace. “Yes, as I’ve said. Her escape was through some manner of mystically summoned window. Now, my recommendations for—”

  “I’m not interested in tactics. Strategy is best left to strategists.”

  “Ah… Then you will deliver this information to your superiors?”

  “When my mission is through.”

  “What, if not to aid in the capture and punishment of this aggressor within our land, is your mission?”

  “My assignment was to accompany and aid the duke and duchess as they investigated the selfsame aggressor who you’ve let slip through your fingers. As you’ve seen fit to detain them and they are thus unable to investigate personally, that task is left entirely to me.”

  “You would serve the Northerners?”

  “I would follow orders. Now am I correct in assuming the nearest liaison from the capital has been made aware of the woman’s capture?”

  “They have not yet been made aware.”

  “But you have a falcon, and you returned with her three days ago. Unless there have been changes since my last briefing, you would report any significant findings to Malaar, which is well within two-days’ falcon flight.”

  Brustuum sipped his drink. “Our falcon was unavailable at the time of the capture.”

  “Then you will have sent a rider.”

  “Naturally.

  “And a rider would take…”

  “Four days, at best.”

  “I see. What route would this messenger take?”

  Brustuum thumped his glass down roughly. “What possible difference would that make?”

  “If you’ve sent him with news of the woman’s capture, then his information is out of date or outright false. This is too sensitive a time to allow disinformation to circulate. Garr and I can easily intercept him and deliver a more complete and accurate assessment of the situation.”

  “Better to deliver the message yourself. Do not waste your time intercepting my runner.”

  “Assuming your runner took the most direct route, and I cannot imagine much value in straying far from it, then it would be no delay at all. I am curious why—”

  His observation was interrupted by a cry from the hallway. “Esteemed Dragon Rider! Please, we require your assistance!”

  After some thumping footsteps, the breathless voice made another plea. “Many apologies, but this… could become dangerous if it is not dealt with properly.”

  “What is it that cannot wait until the Rider and I are through?” asked the commander.

  “We are having some difficulty with the Northerners’ dragon. It and the Rider’s mount appear to be getting agitated.”

  “Trained and untrained dragons can have violent interactions at times, Commander. If you are willing to postpone the rest of our discussion, I will tend to the situation.”

  Brustuum drained the second half of his glass and thumped it on the table.

  “See to it,” he said.

  Grustim stood and marched to the door as the commander refilled his glass. The Rider pulled the door open to find himself face to face with a man who had quite obviously been coping with a tinderbox of a situation and had no clue how to handle it.

  “What is the issue?” Grustim asked, falling into quick pace behind the man, who spoke between brief, harried glances as he rushed back toward the exit.

&nb
sp; “The, ah, the dragon. The red one. It… we… it seems to understand Northern, and Footman Quarnaam speaks a bit. It was listening. But once we ushered it into the stable, it… we… it won’t let us close the doors.”

  “Won’t let you?”

  “Well, it will let us close the door, but it won’t let us keep it closed, and I think it has something to do with your dragon.”

  “It isn’t unlikely,” Grustim said.

  The pair made it outside in time to see the latest effort to secure Myn just finishing up. Five soldiers were hammering splintered and salvaged planks into place, securing a stable door that was a good deal more damaged than Grustim remembered from their arrival.

  Garr was lying on the ground, his head held low and his eyes narrowed. The male’s pointed snout was angled for the doors, eying it with the focus and expectation of a wolf waiting for a rabbit to poke its head out of its den.

  The soldiers were working feverishly, despite the pounding sun, and looking incrementally more frenzied with each passing moment. By the time the final spike had been hammered true, most of the soldiers had run to a safe distance. The final worker dropped his tool and sprinted for the wall of the main keep, then turned and waited. For a few beats, there was silence save for the panting breaths of the workers and the howling desert wind. Then came the slow, deliberate creak from within.

  After a few seconds, the new braces buckled, popping free. When they’d clattered to the ground, Myn gave a sharp nudge and the doors flew open, smashing into the walls of the stable hard enough to dislodge one door entirely. She then snaked her head forward slightly, matching Garr’s same hard gaze. The two then commenced a grumbling exchange that was barely at the edge of hearing, yet loud enough to rattle pebbles across the ground.

  “That thing is a vicious monster…” the footman leading Grustim said shakily.

  “A vicious monster who waited until the workers were clear before forcing the door,” he muttered under his breath. Grustim stepped forward, raising his voice: “Stand aside.”