“Not at the moment, I thought I’d have Aunt Izzy help me with picking colors and flowers and what food to serve.”
“An excellent idea, I think between the two of you, that you’ll create a wonderful tournament. I’ll leave it in your hands.”
Sibylle smiled brightly and kissed her father’s cheek. “Thank you, Father. I will do my best to make sure the tournament and my marriage is the talk of the kingdom.”
Lord Lamar grinned. “I’m glad you’re choosing to be proactive. Whatever you like, my child. We’ll make it a tournament to remember.”
Sibylle hugged her father, yes it would be a tournament to remember. And if it went the way she hoped, it would save her from marrying some royal cad. Step one to her plan was complete. Now that her father had agreed to let her plan the tournament, she needed to find the next part of her plan. Someone that she liked who could win it for her.
25
AFTER THREE WEEKS OF LIVING WITH AZINA, Valeria and Celine, Lyric looked like a new boy. Clean clothes, three weeks of three meals a day and daily trips to the pond to bathe left Lyric looking nothing like a street rat. With proper meals, his body started to fill out, and one could no longer count each rib in his chest just by glancing at him.
Beyond the physical changes brought on by the healthy food and rigorous training that added muscle and definition to his body, there was a mental change in Lyric. Since Azina had rescued him from the beating the highborn boys had given him, Lyric had not been struck once in anger, or beaten by a crowd. The only beatings Lyric took now were in training, and even those were starting to be fewer and fewer. All the time Lyric had spent watching the boys at the war academy training had left an impression on his mind. At first, Lyric was worse off for that knowledge.
The way Azina fought and trained was different from what was taught at the war academy in Winport. The first days of training with Azina, Lyric had been trying to adjust to her teachings while his body remembered the moves he had memorized during his dreams. The result had been clumsy and uncoordinated. Leaving Azina to think her pupil was almost a lost cause.
However, as the training continued and Lyric started to grasp the concepts that Azina and Valeria were teaching him, Lyric started to improve. The years of sneakily watching the war academy students had left Lyric with an abundance of knowledge that he couldn’t understand. Now that he was getting proper training, he was able to start understanding some of what he had seen. Once that started happening, Lyric started excelling with his training. His footwork became smooth, his timing improved and Lyric could spar with Azina without getting bruised and battered.
In fact, as Lyric grew stronger from the training and eating food every day, he improved to the point that it became hard for Azina to spar with him. It was time for Lyric to have a sparring partner. For a while, Celine had taken over as Lyric’s sparring partner, but she was no trained warrior. She could defend herself but Celine had never been enthusiastic with staff fighting and had only learned the bare minimum. To get better, Lyric would have to spar with someone bigger, stronger and better trained than himself.
Azina decided that the solution was to head to Middale. Blair Hiron, the owner of the Pigs Ear Inn had been a sellsword before using his earnings from winning the winter solstice tournament to buy the bar. Blair was starting to get fat from sitting behind the bar and enjoying the fruits of his own labor, and a love of ale, but beneath his burgeoning belly was a solid muscular body, and a level of quickness that fooled most opponents. Moreover, Blair won a tournament using a staff, the only warrior to do so in the last twenty years.
“Come on, Lyric, lets head to Middale,” said Azina as she headed out the door.
Lyric gobbled down the rest of his breakfast, quickly waved goodbye to Valeria and Celine, grabbed his staff and followed Azina.
While they walked, Lyric broached the subject of the surprise trip to Middale. “What are we doing in the village today? Picking up supplies?” asked Lyric.
“Today, we are going to a bar and having a drink. I have a hankering for a good ale.”
“What’s wrong with Valeria’s bumble berry ale?” asked Lyric.
“I said a good ale,” replied Azina. “Don’t you go repeating this, but my sister makes ale like you do magic.”
Lyric, used to Azina’s dry and cutting tongue, ignored the crack about his magical talents, or lack thereof. While his physical conditioning and staff training had gone exceptionally well, magic training had been a bust. Lyric had a better chance of lighting a candle with his digestive gases than he did magic. Despite his father being a powerful mage and his dragonblood, Lyric was unable to create magic.
“I try to do magic. I really do. I’ve concentrated on that damned candle until my eyes felt like they were going to pop out.”
Grudgingly, Azina had to admit Lyric put as much effort into his magical studies and training as he did the staff. “I suppose that is true. You might be a worthless magic user, but you do put in an honest effort. We’ll keep training and studying magic despite your lack of success. One day, when the dragons do come, you’ll have magic of some nature. It’s best you understand magic now, even if you can’t use it.”
“What kind of powers might I have?” asked Lyric. They had never really discussed the effects of dragon magic.
“It varies. Without knowing more about your ancestors, I can’t really say. Even if I knew what powers they had, it doesn’t mean much. Inside you is a certain type of magic that is attracted to dragons. Just like earth mages are able to draw upon the magic in the earth and elemental mages can draw on fire you will be able to draw on the power of a dragon or several different dragons. The records indicate various levels of connectivity between dragonblood humans and dragons. You could be a minor magic users or very powerful. If normal magic is any indicator you will be the wimpiest dragonblood in the history of all dragonbloods.”
“Or I could have so many dragon powers that normal magic just doesn’t work for me,” said Lyric in reply to Azina’s assessment of his potential dragon magic.
Azina turned her head to give Lyric a look that spoke volumes. Azina didn’t share Lyric’s optimism for his potential to be great at dragon magic.
Unperturbed, Lyric kept walking. It really didn’t matter how powerful he became. He had no desire to use dragon magic, and he certainly had no intentions of ever meeting a dragon. The only reason he went through all the magic training and physical training was so that he could stay with the witches. Despite her wicked tongue, Azina was very nice to him, as was Valeria. Celine had a wit that made Azina seem soft and sensitive in comparison but she had stopped dousing him with buckets of cold water, and she wasn’t nearly as critical of his magic any more despite his inability to improve. She did however still manage to show up when he was taking baths in the pond. It was hard for Lyric to enjoy sunning in the nude knowing Celine might pop up at any time and tease him about it. Yet now that he was being forced to bathe on a regular basis, Lyric was finding he rather enjoyed it. He even taught himself to swim. His first attempts had been less than spectacular and ended up with him ingesting half of the pond as he sunk to the bottom, but as he spent more time in the water, Lyric become comfortable being underwater for long periods of time. His ability to hold his breath was rather good. On more than one occasion, Celine had sworn she thought he had gotten stuck under a boulder and drowned. Each time he would pop out of the water laughing, and she would swear at him for scaring her. Lyric enjoyed his little victories, far too often Celine was catching him off-guard, to return the favor was fun. Celine was a terrible tease, but Lyric didn’t mind and slowly he was starting to gain the confidence to tease her back.
As they walked into Middale, Azina glanced over at Lyric, “When we have our ale, you best be quiet. Let me do all the talking.”
Lyric shrugged his agreement. He had no problem with being quiet.
The Pig’s Ear Inn was quiet. Only a wandering minstrel and the town drunk were in the bar. Late
r in the day, as workers finished their day’s efforts the place would become reasonably busy, but for now they would have the plenty of elbow room to sit and enjoy the ale. The bar layout was simple, wooden tables and benches haphazardly placed throughout the main room with a long main bar counter from where the bartender stood polishing glasses.
Azina planted herself on a stool in front of the bar counter and pointed Lyric the one beside her.
Lyric sat on the stool and looked around. He had never actually been in a tavern before. He had eaten plenty of tavern scraps over the years in Winport but never set foot inside one before. The Inn was nice, Lyric decided. The wooden tables, thick oak bar counter, and sawdust covered floor had a woodsy yet musky smell. Years of spilt drinks had given the wood a certain flavor. The room was cool and dark, a pleasant change from the bright sunny day outside.
“Azina, you old bat-legged witch! I haven’t seen you in years,” greeted the bartender.
“You’ve gotten fat, Blair Hiron, you need to stop drinking all your profits,” replied Azina.
Blair laughed. “When did you return?”
“I’ve been back for a few weeks now. I just didn’t feel like walking all the way into town to drink this swill you call ale.”
“Oh? Would you rather some of Valeria’s bumble berry ale? I’m sure I have a jug around here somewhere,” replied Blair.
“Are you trying to kill me? You heartless man.” Azina drank her first ale down in one large gulp. “Pour me another.”
Lyric gladly sipped on his ale while Azina chatted with the burly yet friendly bartender. Azina was correct, Blair’s ale was much better than the stuff Valeria made.
“Who’s your friend?” Blair asked Azina.
“Friend?” asked Azina.
Blair nodded towards Lyric.
“Oh, you mean this little bugger. I found this street rat in Winport, all beaten up and pathetic. Completely worthless little maggot. I thought I could train him to do some magic and be useful, but he’s a total bust. Most useless magic student ever!”
Blair smiled at Lyric. “Magic is a tough one, I never could get the hang of it myself.”
“Yes, since the little twerp turned out to be completely useless at magic, I’ve been trying to teach him how to use a staff. That way when I throw his useless carcass back on the streets he can defend himself. He’s pretty useless with a staff as well, but I’m getting old and the amount of effort it takes to teach a knucklehead like him is more than I can bare.”
“That bad is he?” asked Blair.
“Bad enough that he could probably learn a thing or two from you,” declared Azina.
“So you’re not here just to insult my ale, you want me to help you train the lad,” said Blair. His body language made it obvious that he didn’t see much reason to entertain the idea.
“Now that you bring it up, that might not be a bad idea. I can’t pay you, of course, but if you came out to the house and trained him once in a while, I think we’d feel obligated to feed you. Valeria has promised me that if I found a trainer she’d feed him.”
At the mention of Valeria, Blair perked up. He gave Lyric a look over, I suppose the boy could be taught. He’s not very big, how’s his foot work?”
“Actually, it’s not terrible, that is one thing he has improved at since we started,” said Azina.
Blair knew Azina had far greater skills with a staff than most men and could handle herself very well with her old gnarly walking stick. If Azina said the boy wasn’t terrible, it was likely that he might have a degree of skill.
“You ever fought for real, boy?” asked Blair.
“Sort of,” replied Lyric as he remembered the various beatings he’d taken over the years, and the attack in the woods against the Lamar caravan.
“How do you sort of fight?” asked Blair.
“We came across bandits trying to kill a princess. I snuck up and hit the bandit in the head when he wasn’t looking,” admitted Lyric.
“Did he get up after you hit him?” asked Blair, slightly doubtful of the story about him rescuing a princess.
“Stone cold dead, broke his neck,” answered Azina. “But she was no princess, just that Lord Lamar’s daughter.”
Blair had heard about the bandit attack on Lord Lamar’s caravan. “So this was the dirty little creature too shy to accept a ride in the lord’s carriage after saving his daughter” Blair gave Lyric a friendly wink. “I heard you refused an offer to ride with Lord Lamar and his daughter. Not many boys would refuse a lord,” said Blair.
“I had to, sir,” replied Lyric. “I was so scared. I had the worse gas ever, not to mention my clothes were a touch rank. I was noxious smelling. I was too embarrassed to be sitting so close to such fine folk.” Lyric turned to Azina, “And she was pretty enough to be a princess.”
Azina nodded, “Ay, the lass was pretty, I will grant you that. And you smelled worse than Blair’s ale, so no fault to you for turning down the Lord Lamar. I thank the gods every day that you bathe. You were the foulest smelling creature I had ever met. When I found you, rats were dying of the stench.”
Blair laughed. “How about the boy comes to town in the mornings. I’ll train him for a couple hours and then a couple times a week I’ll come out there and train him and get those meals you mentioned.”
Azina took another healthy sip of ale. She had known Blair would agree once she mentioned Valeria. The man was smitten but as shy as a kitten. The opportunity to have dinner with her was too enticing to turn down. “Better get me another ale, all that walking builds a powerful thirst.” Azina the belched loudly before smacking her lips and downing the rest of her drink. “Much better, I thought I was going to die having to drink Valeria’s swill every day.”
Blair smiled and looked down at Lyric, “Meet me at the edge of town tomorrow an hour past first light. Leave your staff at home.”
“Yes, sir” replied Lyric.
26
SHAYLA WOKE WHEN THE COLD shackles started to cut into her wrists. Groggy and with a pounding head, Shayla tried to gather her wits. As her eyes came into focus, she could see she was chained to a stone wall. She was in a large empty room, cracks in the ceiling along the far wall let in the faintest amount of light. Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Shayla could see chains all along the wall. She was in a prison of some sort. An old, ill-cared for prison. The walls looked almost ready to crumble, and the chains appeared rusted. Yet when Shayla tugged on her own shackles, the chains held firm. Shayla was a prisoner.
“Help,” yelled Shayla.
In response to her yell, a thick oak door at the end of the room opened. A burly man with a bulbous nose and beady eyes entered and placed a torch in a wall holder. The flickering flame lit up the dark room, spreading light and shadows everywhere.
“It’s about time you woke, Lady Finch. I was worried young Fabian had brained you too hard.”
“Where am I?” asked Shayla. “Why have you taken me?”
“Where you are is of no importance,” said the burly man as he stood beside Shayla. “Why you are here is. You are the daughter of Layton Finch. You are going to answer some questions about your father.”
Shayla’s head dropped, one of her father’s enemies had decided to capture her. Hopefully, they intended to ransom her off. “I’ll tell you everything you need to get a fair amount of gold for a ransom.”
“Oh, I think you misunderstand, Lady Finch. This isn’t about gold. My name is Ewan Hussain, and I belong to the Sacred Blood Brotherhood.”
Shayla’s blood went cold at the name. The Brotherhood were the zealots who organized the dragon wars. Their crusade against dragons had started the original dragon war, and it was the Brotherhood who had hunted down and killed as many dragonblood as it could. There would be no ransom note sent to her father. They might send him her body parts to him instead.
“From the look on your face, I’d say you know who we are,” said Ewan. “That is good, it will save time if you understand wh
at is coming.”
Shayla lifted her head in defiance, “Why are you bothering us? The dragons have been gone for centuries, why harm us now?”
“Come child, don’t play dumb with me. We both know the prophecies. Dragons will soon return to our lands. We won’t let you and your kind rule once again.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Shayla.
Ewan smacked her across the face.
Blood dripped down from Shayla’s cut lip. “Why did you strike me?”
“For lying. Look at your clothes, I’ve seen your mark.”
Shayla looked down and noticed that her own clothes had indeed been replaced with a simple robe. Whoever undressed her would have noticed the large, almost complete dragon mark along her rib cage. There would be no faking ignorance with the brotherhood. They obviously knew much about her family already.
“Tell me about the ring. Does your father possess it?”
“What ring?” asked Shayla.
Ewan smacked her face again.
“The dragon ring. The ring that allows a dragonblood complete control over his bonded dragon.”
Shayla spit blood onto the floor, “I don’t know of any such ring.”
Ewan smiled, “How interesting. I would have assumed your beloved father, on his death bed, would have told his daughter about the ring. Perhaps he intends for your bastard brother to have it.”
Shayla had always wondered how dragonblood warriors and mages had been able to control their dragons, some formed bonds of friendship with their dragons but other had been master over dragons. The rings Ewan Hussain spoke of must have been the way they controlled their dragons. But none of her father’s notes had spoken of such rings. Perhaps he knew she was secretly reading his notes and had hidden the most important ones.
Did her father have a ring? Was he intending to give it to her bastard brother? Shayla couldn’t help but wonder, not that it mattered. The likelihood of her escaping from the Sacred Blood Brotherhood seemed remote at best. The Brotherhood was not known for mercy.
Lyric's Curse (Dragonblood Sagas Book 1) Page 10
