“Several of our people volunteered to join as full-time guardsmen, so Malcolm and Aiden have been busy with training.”
She glanced quickly at Simon.
“I'm just telling you this in case you were worried that taking them with you would leave us defenseless.”
“I was a bit, to be honest. Thanks, that's reassuring.”
They approached a low, one-story building built of rough stone. The roof was made of uneven wooden planks and the entire structure looked a little unfinished.
“Yes, I know it's a bit...utilitarian,” Clara said as she caught Simon's dubious look.
He felt his face turning red.
“It's not that,” he said quickly. “I think I'm a bit spoiled, to be honest. Having earth elementals to build for you is great, but they are such perfectionists that I'm not used to seeing something built by regular people.”
They stopped several yards from the barracks and Simon looked from the misshapen building back to Clara.
“You know, if you'd asked, Kronk and his fellow earthen would have happily built the barracks for you.”
“Yes, I mentioned that to the boys, but they wanted to do it themselves. We may all have Changed but machismo lives on.”
Simon laughed and Clara sighed and smiled.
The door of the barracks burst open and two men strode out into the sunlight. Their armor clanged as they walked up to Simon, both of them grinning like kids.
“Sir wizard! How good to see you again,” Malcolm declared loudly.
Simon was still overwhelmed by the man. The guardsman was simply the biggest man that the wizard had ever met. He towered more than six inches over Simon and was broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped. He was black, with long braids that hung to his shoulders and a handsome, friendly face. Right now he looked happier than the wizard had ever seen him.
His partner, Aiden, was almost as large. He was Vietnamese and his thick dark hair was longer than Malcolm's. His expression matched that of his friend.
He bowed to the wizard and smiled down at Clara.
“Thank you for allowing us to accompany Simon,” he said cheerfully.
“Don't thank me. You know that you are free to do as you please, especially right now when things are quiet.”
She looked up at both of them sternly, hands on her hips.
“We want you back here in one piece, so don't take any risks. And remember, if Simon tells you to do something, listen to him. He has more experience fighting the dragons than anyone, so follow his orders.”
“Clara, I'm not their boss,” Simon protested.
“You are leading this...expedition. You are the wizard and you know the area better than they do. So you are in charge.”
Clara's tone was quite firm and Simon held up his hands in surrender.
“Fine, fine. Whatever you say.”
She looked at him and then up at the grinning guardsmen and burst out laughing.
“Okay, fine. You three decide who does what. I'm just worried, that's all.”
“My friend, your words are wise, as always,” Malcolm told her, becoming serious. “Aiden and I are under Simon's command, whether he thinks we are or not. So don't worry. We live for battle, because that's what the Change turned us into. But we aren't stupid or impetuous. And we want to come back.”
Clara looked a little mollified and nodded weakly.
Aiden stepped forward and got down on one knee in front of the cleric. Malcolm hastened to do the same and Simon watched them curiously.
“Will you give us your blessing?” the young man asked formally.
The cleric's expression became solemn and she gently put a hand on both of their heads. Even kneeling, they were as tall as she was.
“In the name of the gods of Light, I bless you and strengthen you. May your swords be swift, may your aim be true and may your enemies fall before you.”
She stepped back and the pair rose as one and thanked her.
Simon was fascinated. He'd never seen Clara act as a pure cleric before. But he had felt the magic gather around her and flow into the guardsmen and he didn't doubt her power.
Both Malcolm and Aiden were wearing full plate armor, gray and functional. Both had shields slung across their backs, but were armed differently.
Malcolm had a sword on his left hip while Aiden was armed with a long mace hanging from a loop on his belt. It had vicious spikes radiating in all directions and Simon thought that it looked incredibly deadly.
“We are ready when you are, sir wizard,” Malcolm said pointedly.
Simon looked up at him and nodded.
“Sorry, I was lost in thought for a moment.”
He reached out and clasped Clara's hand.
“I'll do what I can to make sure they're safe, my friend, but I can't guarantee anything.”
“I know that. They are adults,” she looked at the guardsmen and smiled crookedly, “barely, and have made their choice. I accept that. Just watch out for yourself, Simon. We want you back as well.”
“Thanks.”
Clara stepped back and Simon looked up at the pair of warriors.
“Okay guys. Each of you put a hand on one of my shoulders. And don't squeeze too hard. I'm a bit fragile.”
They both laughed and gently put an armored hand on opposite shoulders.
“Good luck, all of you,” the cleric said and they all smiled at her.
Then Simon chanted the Gate spell.
“Invectis!” he said firmly and watched as Clara disappeared, her anxious expression the last thing he saw as they faded into the void.
Chapter 10
The three men arrived smoothly in the center of the Moscow outpost. Malcolm and Aiden immediately drew their weapons and fanned out, moving slowly and looking in all directions.
Simon could barely see. The torches on the walls had burned out, so he muttered under his breath and made a gesture and a globe of light appeared in his hand and rose up to hover several feet over his head.
“Handy spell,” Malcolm remarked quietly as he searched the room.
“That it is,” the wizard agreed.
He slipped the staff off of his back and put on his coat. The air was cold but not freezing and he left the coat open.
Simon watched, not moving, while the two guardsmen made sure that the area was clear.
Aiden ducked into a small doorway in the back and returned, shaking his head.
“The latrine is empty. Some dried blood on the floor but no bodies.”
“The same out here,” Malcolm said as they rejoined Simon in the center of the room.
“Blood but no remains.” He looked at the wizard. “You think that drakes did this?”
“There's no way to know. But the front door was covered in deep gouges, definitely claw marks. A dragon wouldn't be able to get in here without doing massive damage. Drakes are only about six feet high and twelve feet long. They could squeeze down that hallway,” he nodded toward the far end of the room, “and attack. And,” he hesitated then plowed on, “they eat what they kill. That would explain the lack of bodies.”
“Yes it would,” Malcolm said grimly, exchanging a glance with Aiden.
“Should we head toward the entrance?” he asked Simon, obviously deferring to his leadership.
Simon grimaced but nodded.
“No other choice. If anyone escaped, they went that way. Unfortunately there is no other exit.”
They began to walk toward the hallway.
“Foolish, having a refuge with no back door,” Aiden muttered.
Malcolm glared at him and he shrugged.
“Well it is, and you know it. I'm not disrespecting the people here, but it was short-sighted.”
“Yes, it was,” Simon said, forestalling an argument. “I'm no tactician, but I wish I'd mentioned that to Liliana. Perhaps they could have found a better refuge.”
Malcolm nodded reluctantly but said nothing. Once they'd reached the hallway, he motioned for Simon to stay behi
nd him and led the way forward.
They advanced slowly, the subtle squeak of armor and leather sounding very loud in the enclosed space. The blood had dried on the concrete floor and Simon did his best not to look at it or to imagine the last moments of the people who had lived here.
They turned to the left and saw the broken door lying twisted and slashed. Its metal plating gleamed in the light of the wizard's spell.
Malcolm moved forward and knelt beside the thick door. He ran his hand over the deep gouges, the metal grating unpleasantly under his mailed fingers.
“If a dragon didn't do this, then I can't think of anything else that could,” he said, his hushed voice echoing along the hallway.
Aiden brushed by Simon and examined the door as well.
“The slashes are over an inch wide,” he said in disbelief. “Whatever it was, it was huge.”
Simon looked past them at the steps leading up toward the ground floor. Sunlight still beamed in from above but it was growing darker as he watched. He knew that dusk was approaching.
“Guys, it's going to be dark soon. I think we'd better get upstairs and look around while we can.”
He made a small circular movement with a forefinger and the globe of light disappeared with a little pop.
“Good point,” Malcolm said. “With your permission, Aiden and I will go first.”
The wizard nodded with a tight smile and the two warriors began to climb the stairs, step by step. Simon moved to stand at the bottom of the stairway and watched them anxiously.
He counted thirty steps on the staircase and waited impatiently until the two guardsmen had reached the top before slowly following them.
Aiden turned and looked down at him. He gave Simon a thumbs-up and the wizard hurried up to join them.
At the top, Simon stopped and looked around, the two warriors on either side of him.
As the mirror had shown him, the roof had been torn clean off of the old theater and the blue sky, dotted with swiftly moving clouds, was open above them.
“My God,” Aiden whispered. “The sheer power it would take to rip off the roof of this place is staggering.”
Malcolm nodded mutely, obviously more interested in their surroundings. He moved to the right and motioned for his partner to head in the opposite direction. Simon stood still and examined the floor, trying to identify which way the survivors, if any, could have gone.
There were smudged tracks and a few bootprints, but nothing to indicate if any were fresh. The dirt that must have rained down on the floor when the roof had been torn apart had muddled any existing evidence and all that he could see were scuff marks.
He moved forward toward what must have been the front entrance of the theater. The doors had fallen away, whether through recent violence or from the original dragon attack on the Night of Burning four years earlier, but there was an obvious path from the door to the stairs and he assumed that if anyone had made it out, they would have run that way.
There were wooden beams, misshapen pieces of metal and other bits of debris strewn across the floor and the path to the door twisted and turned somewhat to avoid these obstacles. Simon followed it slowly, watching the ground and straining to see any sign of recent footprints.
Several feet from the doorway, he stopped dead as if he'd walked into an invisible wall.
“Guys?” he called out, trying to keep his voice as low as possible. “Could you come over here please?”
Simon heard the sharp sound of metal on metal as Malcolm and Aiden hurried toward him from the depths of the building.
“What is it, sir wizard?” Malcolm asked as the two of them approached.
Simon just nodded at the ground in front of the gaping doorway. The guardsmen moved up to stand next to him and stared.
Aiden gasped while Malcolm muttered a curse.
“Well, now we know, don't we?” Simon said simply.
There was a large paw print pressed into the dirt, reminiscent of a dog's track, but over half a foot across. At the front edge were the clear marks of four claws that had dug into the concrete floor and left shallow grooves behind.
“Drakes?” Aiden asked under his breath.
“Drakes,” Simon answered, his voice bleak. “Damn it.”
Malcolm pushed past Simon carefully and moved to stand next to the entrance. He peered outside, looking around carefully.
“It looks clear,” he said and turned to the wizard. “Do you want to continue looking or should we...”
A ear-splitting scream from somewhere overhead cut him off and the three of them immediately ducked down and looked up instinctively.
A flash of white, almost silver in the dying rays of the sun, shot across the sky over the theater; there and gone so quickly that Simon barely saw it.
“Dragon!” he hissed.
“No kidding,” Aiden said as he looked up wide-eyed.
“Did it see us?” Malcolm asked, watching the sky.
“Wait. If it did, it will come back for another pass,” Simon told them.
They stayed crouched down, the guardsmen balancing their armored bodies by keeping one hand flat on the ground, and waited.
The cry was not repeated and they could hear no sound of dragon-wings. After a few minutes, Simon stood up cautiously and the others followed.
“I think we dodged a bullet that time,” he said, feeling a bit shaky.
“Let's hope so. I'd rather face a drake than a dragon, to be quite honest,” Aiden said, gripping his mace tightly.
“You haven't cast any spells except for that globe of light,” Malcolm said, looking curiously at Simon. “Any particular reason?”
“Yes. Dragons can sense magic. The light spell uses so little power that I thought I could risk it. But if I cast a Shield spell and one of them is close enough, it will draw it like a bee to honey. It's best to wait until we need it.”
“Sensible,” the big man said approvingly. “No need to stir up a nest of snakes unless absolutely necessary.”
“Exactly.”
Aiden had moved to stand at the doorway and now he hissed a warning.
Both Simon and Malcolm pulled back into cover, and looked at Aiden.
“What is it?”
“Movement,” he whispered. “I thought I saw a flash. Maybe sunlight on scales? Not sure.”
Malcolm stayed low and crept up beside his partner.
“Where?”
Aiden pointed and Malcolm looked in that direction.
Simon waited impatiently. He couldn't see more than a few feet outside of the building from where he was squatting.
“Anything?” he finally asked.
“We may have a survivor,” Malcolm said but he sounded dubious. “Come over here, Simon and take a look. You know these people. We don't.”
Simon moved forward, staying low, until he was next to the big man. His eyes followed Malcolm's nod and he gaped as he looked across the wide open square in front of the theater.
From between two wrecked buildings about fifty yards away, a figure was walking toward their position. Armor flashed like silver in the waning sunlight; armor covered in dents and dried blood. It was Liliana.
Simon was about to jump up and run forward when Malcolm grabbed his arm, holding him down.
“What are you doing? That's Liliana!” he exclaimed, trying to pull his arm from the big man's grip.
“The leader of this place?” Aiden asked in surprise.
“Exactly. And it looks like she's been in one hell of a fight. Let me go, Malcolm!”
“Wait, sir wizard. One moment. We just saw a dragon fly past. If it spots her before she reaches cover, it will attack. Call her over but stay hidden. That way, if there is an attack, you can give that damned dragon a surprise greeting.”
Simon stared at him. Malcolm was obviously thinking clearly. If he'd been alone, the wizard would have simply rushed out impulsively.
“You're right, my friend. Thanks.” He glanced down at the armored hand holding h
im in place and the big man let him go with an embarrassed grin.
“Sorry. I didn't mean to grab you like that.”
“I'm glad you did.”
Simon moved up right into the doorway.
“Liliana? Liliana! Over here!” he called out, wincing as he voice echoed off of the surrounding buildings.
The paladin raised her eyes wearily in surprise and saw Simon and the two guardsmen.
“Simon? What are you doing here?” she answered and increased her pace a bit. The wizard saw her grimace as she did so and then noticed that she was limping.
“She's hurt,” he said to the two men.
Aiden nodded.
“We'll have to get her back to Clara as soon as we can.”
“First things first,” Malcolm said sternly. “Let's find out what the hell happened to her and her people.”
Liliana kept her eyes on Simon as she made her way across the open square. He kept looking up, expecting to see a dragon arrowing down from above like an attacking eagle, but the sky remained clear.
When she finally made it to the theater, Liliana leaned against the door frame and closed her eyes a moment. Her breathing sounded labored and painful.
“Are you okay?” Simon asked, and then realized what a stupid question that was.
Liliana opened her eyes and smiled at him slightly.
“Okay is a relative term, my friend. I am alive, so that is something. My people, on the other hand...”
Her voice trailed off and Simon watched two tears slip down her cheeks, cutting furrows in the dirt on her face.
“Dead?” Malcolm asked gently.
She looked at him blankly and then nodded once.
Before she could continue, Aiden spoke up.
“Maybe we should get back downstairs? Liliana can rest and we'll be less exposed.”
“And trapped in here if the drakes return,” Malcolm reminded him.
“There will be no returning drakes,” the paladin said grimly. “I could not save my people, but at least I avenged them.”
The guardsmen stared at her with obvious respect.
“In that case, let's get you downstairs where you can at least sit down,” Simon told her.
The Dragons of Ice and Snow Page 14
