Dragon's Mage (An Advent Mage Novel), The - Raconteur, Honor

by Raconteur, Honor

  It took willpower, it took effort, but we managed to get ready for the day. Kogan very kindly did a quick cleanup spell for us so that no one had to stop and do breakfast dishes, and then we all trudged outside and headed for the towers.

  As I saddled up Kaya, Helen paused and said to me, “Why don’t you take the one on the right and I’ll take the left? Our powers shouldn’t clash much that way.”

  “All right,” I agreed. Vaulting up into the saddle, I gave Kaya the signal to go. We took off out of the doors with a quick snap, the launch this morning smooth without any hurry to it. Kaya might be a little tired from yesterday as well, but not as much as her human companion. But then, she’d grown up flying all day and spitting fire. I hadn’t.

  The two towers left were the ones in the middle, so they sat right next to the major highway system coming from Khobunter. Nolan chose to help Kogan and me today, leaving Helen, Cora and Trev’nor to tackle the other tower. With the young Life Mage in dragon form, he could do almost as much damage as Kaya could. He just didn’t have as much power to bear because he was still a child and so his dragon form didn’t have the same size to it as Kaya. Still, seeing him in the deep blue of a male dragon, breathing fire and tearing at the tower with his claws impressed me. Never underestimate a Life Mage. I was beginning to think they were actually the most dangerous of the mages.

  For whatever reason, the towers today seemed tougher to break than they had been yesterday. I wasn’t sure if it was just an illusion because we were tired, or if they actually were constructed differently, but it took more effort to inflict any sort of noticeable damage. After several passes, we’d barely demolished the top third of the tower. Kaya, definitely upset, dove for the tower at a ferocious speed with flame so hot that it made most of the water nearby steam. I had to put up a quick barrier around myself so that I didn’t get burned. This time, though, she didn’t just aim fire at the tower and then fly away, but she hit the tower with her claws, slamming her body weight against it. Jarred at the impact, I rocked in the saddle, frantically grabbing onto anything within reach to steady myself.

  From the tower, I heard a tremendous crack sound, as if the foundation itself had rocked under Kaya’s weight. The tower leaned slightly to one side.

  “HEY!” Nolan called in excitement. “GOOD IDEA!”

  Uh-oh…he was going to follow that example? Kaya had her claws dug into the stone for balance, but if he slammed into the tower as hard as she had, surely it would jar her loose. “Uh, Kaya—”

  Nolan slammed into the building in the next moment, flame bursting out of his mouth in a hot stream that threatened to scorch my skin in spite of the shield I still had up around me. But under the impact, I heard the sound of stone cracking and felt the stone nearby become molten hot until it started to melt.

  Kaya didn’t need me to tell her to get free and she launched herself back into the air with a single heave of her legs. The top half of the tower slid sideways under that powerful thrust, slowly toppling to the ground before it broke free entirely and tumbled straight for solid earth. It hit with a concussive sound, breaking and shattering into hundred pieces.

  Of course, that meant that we still had the rest of the tower to destroy. It was leaning badly, but not down yet.

  But still, that one attack had worked. As Kaya flew up and over, bringing us back around, I waved at Nolan. “ONE MORE TIME!” I called to him.

  He grinned a toothy and very evil grin in return before shooting upwards into the sky, gaining altitude. Maybe he and Kaya had the same idea, as she went upwards at the same time, gaining altitude so quickly that it nearly stole my breath.

  Then she doubled in on herself, turning her nose back towards the ground, and snapped her wings closed. We accelerated toward the ground with all of the speed of a falling boulder. Knowing what would happen next, I put a stronger barrier up around myself before gathering a scorching hot fire in the palm of my hand. Kaya’s mouth opened and she shot a highly intensive flame toward the base of the tower. I extended my hand, adding my fire to hers, making it even more intense. From the corner of my eye, I could see Nolan doing the same thing at practically the same time.

  With my free hand, I grabbed onto the saddle as hard as I could and braced for impact.

  Kaya slammed into the building with enough force to rattle the teeth in my head, even with me braced. I swear the very foundations of the world rocked a little as Nolan’s body weight slammed into the tower in the next second. The building didn’t stand a chance—under that kind of ferocious attack, it capsized in on itself, the sides cracking and falling to either side. I grinned in victory. One tower down. How did the other one fare?

  My familiar took us back into the air, not really wanting to perch on a crumbling building, and she flew us back toward the city in a lazy flap of the wings, slowing her pace enough so that she could talk to me. “Go help?” she asked me.

  True, the other tower hadn’t been destroyed yet. But they were very close. Another attack or two would probably do it. “No, let’s land and wait for them,” I instructed her. “Our powers will mess their attacks up.”

  Giving a grunt of acknowledgement, she found a fairly dry place that stood somewhat taller than the rest of the landscape and landed there. I glanced toward Nolan and Kogan, but Nolan had changed back into his human body and was apparently peppering the man with a thousand questions. Not unusual behavior for Nolan—aside from being honestly interested in every living being, he was always trying to learn about everything he encountered. I had no doubt that Kogan would be interrogated about his profession until the man managed to escape back to the Institute.

  Since it looked like I had a few minutes, I grabbed a dry towel from my bags and slid out of the saddle. I hated the feeling of wet hair dripping down my back, but Mages all had to grow their hair long, so this braid of mine was inevitably irritating me every time my hair got wet. I started toweling the back of my neck dry of sweat, planning to get into dry clothes as soon as everyone finished up here.

  “KRYS!”

  I snapped around on sheer instinct, having rarely heard that tone coming from Mari. She was running for me at full speed, waving an arm over her head to get my attention. Uh-oh. Whatever this was, it was bad.

  I dropped everything and ran to her, two hands out to catch her by the shoulders so that we wouldn’t plow into each other.

  “What?” I demanded, half-panicked just by the wild expression on her face.

  “Mhazzaekul Forest is burning,” she panted out, a little short winded from her mad sprint here. “They can’t contain it for much longer.”

  Oh ye little gods. That forest covered most of the eastern section of Sol and even went into parts of Hain. If it flared up, it would decimate hundreds of miles. Who knew how much damage had been done already.

  “I’m going. I’ll leave in ten minutes.”

  She caught my arm before I could move. “Wait, I have to go with you.”

  “What?” I said, not really in protest, but in surprise.

  “You’re operating out of your jurisdiction if you go, so you have to have a supervisor go with you,” she explained rapidly. “Stupid as it sounds, that’s the rules. Besides, eastern Solish has a twang dialect to it that will be hard for you to understand. Your Solish is good, but not that good.”

  Insults aside, I didn’t really mind having her along. “Fine. Meet you at the park in ten minutes.”

  She raced away to pack, me going in the opposite direction. From nearby, Helen called to me, “What’s wrong?”

  “Firefighting emergency!” I called back, not slowing my pace any. “You’ll have to take over! I’ll be gone for a few days!”

  Helen waved a hand in acknowledgement. “Good luck!”

  I might need it. A part of me hoped that by the time I got there, a miracle would have occurred and the fire would be out. After all, even flying at top speed, it would take a day and a half to get there. But I knew that if they had called for me, even though
I was on the opposite end of the Empire, that they didn’t have a prayer of containing it.

  As I ran, I called for my dragon and prayed for any divine help the heavens might be willing to give us.

  Chapter Fifteen: Mhazzaekul Forest

  We were in the air a whole minute, still over the city, when Mari leaned in closer to my ear and shouted, “How fast can we get there?”

  Very, very conscious of how she leaned into my back, I tried hard not to blush as I answered. “At best, a day and a half.”

  “A day and a half,” she repeated, her tone indicating that she was calculating at high speeds. “That’s better than my initial estimate.”

  “Still think that it’s worth it for us to go straight there, eh?”

  “Yes.” She sat back slightly, but still kept close enough that her arms were securely around my waist. “If they called us in, they’re desperate. They have tried everything they can think of and nothing worked. You’re the weapon of last resort, remember?”

  “I remember.” My contract with Sol stipulated as much. “You just said the forest, but which section is burning?”

  “Southern end, in Venkat.” She lifted an arm and pointed it in a southeasterly direction. “So we actually need to change headings a little.”

  I nudged Kara around to face the direction Mari pointed. I urged her to speed up as well, which she did easily. The pace she flew at now would devour the miles quickly and put us there much faster than if she sprinted madly and crashed into exhaustion at some point. Besides, just getting there was only half the goal. We still had to have the strength to fight a raging forest fire once we arrived.

  But right now, the only thing we could do was fly.

  Eventually night fell, with a thick cloud cover blocking the moon, and we had to set down for the night. I had never learned how to navigate by the stars—I never thought I would need to know—and neither had Mari. So until daybreak, we were grounded.

  The area we set down in had a good tree cover nearby and a little brook. As neither Mari nor I had thought to bring anything to eat, Kaya and I did a brief hunting trip through the woods. I caught two rabbits, and she caught a boar for dinner. Politely, she devoured it well away from camp, taking my cue as I had washed and prepared the rabbits in the stream before bringing them back to the campsite.

  Mari had gathered firewood and refilled our canteens while we hunted. She had even stacked the wood in preparation for a cook fire, but hadn’t lit it. As I walked back into camp, I pointed to it and asked, “What, you didn’t start it?”

  “With a Fire Mage and a dragon as my companions?” she retorted, hands on both hips. “Why on earth should I argue with a piece of flint when I can just wait for you to do it?”

  Laughing, I shrugged, acknowledging her point. With a snap of my fingers, I threw a quick spark at the wood, instantly catching it on fire.

  As we set up the rabbits to cook, Kaya came back, licking her chops clean with a satisfied expression. As usual, she curled herself around the campsite, lying like a living barrier between us and the outside world.

  Mari watched her settle in with a raised eyebrow. Silently she inclined her head to the dragon, expression asking, does she always do this?

  I nodded wryly. Always. “You have to admit,” I said in a low tone, “there’s not a man or beast that would dare cross her. We couldn’t be any safer than if we were in a proper inn.”

  “We might actually be safer,” Mari admitted thoughtfully. “We don’t have to worry about sneak thieves.”

  “See?” I settled cross-legged on the ground, waiting patiently for the rabbit to cook, and took in the area around us. We were somewhere in southern corner of Teancum, so we had crossed most of the distance we needed to. Venkat would be another three hours flight from here, at most. This particular area had absolutely nothing around it. Not even a farm. It was just grassy, dry land with little stands of trees here and there. In this kind of flat country, a person could see for miles—or at least, I could have if it wasn’t pitch black. The campfire was the only source of light with the moon totally blocked overhead. The place smelled earthy and mixed with the smell of smoke, it was pleasant. The ground felt very firm underneath me, almost bedrock hard, and the grass crinkled. It didn’t promise to be comfortable to sleep on.

  This open amount of time gave me a good opportunity to ask something I really wanted to. After that conversation with Cora this morning, I had more courage to say something now than I had before. So I cleared my throat slightly and said, “Actually, I’m glad you came with me.”

  “Oh?” Mari responded invitingly.

  “Did anyone ever tell you that magicians never work alone?” I cast a quick glance, wanting a look at her face. She looked…as if she were waiting with baited breath, not sure where I intended to go with this. “Part of that is because mages aren’t good with any magic outside of their element. But part of it, too, is that when we’re focused on a task, we’re pretty oblivious to everything else. With firefighting, I especially need someone at my back that I can trust to watch out for the things I’ll miss in my preoccupation. I, um, rather hoped you’d think about partnering with me. You don’t have to answer me right away,” I hastily added, not wanting her to feel pressured. “I understand if you want to think about it—”

  Mari put a finger at my lips, halting me mid-sentence. “Krys, you’re babbling.”

  “Yes,” I managed around a dry throat. “I tend to do that when I’m nervous.”

  “Well, in this case, you shouldn’t be. I’d love to be your partner.”

  I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, a smile breaking out over my face. “Delighted to hear it.”

  Without missing a beat, Mari turned to Kaya and asked, “What do you think, Kaya?”

  “Mari-friend good partner,” Kaya assured her with a pleased bob of the head. “Lucky.”

  “Then we’re settled.” Mari sank back into her original position and gave me a pat on my shoulder. “I thought you’d never ask me, y’know.”

  “Nerves?” I offered, feeling more candid now that my worries proved to be useless. “It’s a lot of work, after all. And I’ll be constantly yanking you away from your desk.”

  “Yank away. I get bogged down there sometimes. I don’t mind it from day to day, but I don’t want to be chained to the desk either.”

  Actually, that brought a good point up. “Um, they’re not going to mind that I’ll be stealing you on the bigger jobs, will they?”

  “No, this is rather usual,” Mari assured me dryly. “Every firefighter administrator was in the field at some point, and we prefer to actually be out there in it than doing reports on it. So we’ve come up with all sorts of reasons and excuses to get away from the desk on a regular basis. During an actual emergency, everybody knows what to do as well as I do. They don’t do more than touch base with whoever’s in the office and make sure that we all know what everyone else is doing. Sometimes, I got so bored in there that I would sneak out and join one of the units.”

  Interesting. “So really, your job doesn’t start until afterwards, when all the paperwork on it has to be done.”

  “To sum it all up, that’s it.” She reached out a hand to idly trace the contours of the saddle lying next to her. “There’s surprisingly a lot of room up there. I thought it would get very uncomfortable and cramped for a long trip. I noticed it last time, too. Did you design this?”

  “Well, in a way.” I told her the story of how we came into Sol and been adopted by a whole border town. She laughed when I told her of the less than graceful first few flights. Kaya turned her head at one point and said, “Sorry.”

  I patted her neck, assured her it was fine, and went back to filling Mari in.

  “Kaya?” Mari asked.

  The dragon lifted her head and cocked it slightly.

  “Krys told me that you were far south of where he expected you to be. Why were you so far away from the other dragons?”

  I perked up
too as Mari asked the question. I’d always meant to ask Kaya this, but hadn’t ever found the right timing for one reason or another.

  “Big storm came,” Kaya explained with a twitch of the tail. “Was chasing fast-fire. Then storm got very big. Very strong. Blew me far, far away. Was blown to the sea.”

  I blinked. All the way to the sea? But the closest sea was the Arapeen Sea, which was south of the Empire of Sol! That must have been quite the storm.

  “But I not lost,” Kaya assured her audience proudly. “So, flew back home. But on way, saw fire-ring. Fire-ring pretty. Saw that man-made fire-ring.” She gave me a look, amused at herself even as she told her story. “Was curious. Stayed to see how man make fire-ring. Then he juggle fire-balls for me. Make friend. I like man, so I stay.”

  So, it really was that simple? She’d just been blown far from home because of a storm, happened to see me as she flew back, and decided she liked me.

  “Do you miss your home?” Mari asked, a little taken aback, I think, that Kaya would attach herself to me so easily.

  “Mmm,” Kaya wavered her head from side to side, indicating that she sometimes did. “But more fun here. Small Kryses to play with. Things to burn. Krys give pretties. Have meat-sauce. City to protect.” After counting off these reasons, she gave a firm nod. “Better here.”

  I thought about it, for the first time, from her perspective. What would it be like, to be in a barren area that only had your own clansmen? To go day in and day out with only the same food source that you were in constant competition with. To not have anything to do except eat, fly around, and play around with fire. I imagine she got bored of it fairly quickly. Kaya loved learning and experiencing new things. She liked helping people. Being in a clan of dragons, no matter how familiar and loving, would have bored her to pieces. No wonder she’d been chasing lightning and gotten so easily distracted that she’d been easily taken far away from her home.