“Thank you, both. My name is Rika. Those men said they would help me get home, but as we passed by this alley, they grabbed me and dragged me in and started robbing me, and… other things.”
“Did they get everything you had?”
“I think so. Wait, that ruffian over there on the ground… I think he has my purse. It is bejeweled with blue benitoite stones.”
Gnath walked over to the unconscious man and searched him. As the woman said, the man was carrying the purse decorated with blue gemstones. He retrieved it and handed it to Rika.
“Thank you both so much. Now I must find a new escort to help me get home. I don’t suppose you know of anyone heading north do you?”
“As it happens, m’lady, we are heading north ourselves.”
“Please stop calling me m’lady. I am Rika. I am not royalty or even a true lady. I merely try to keep my appearances up. That is probably what got me in trouble with the thugs.”
“Here, let’s get you out of this alleyway,” I said, offering her my hand to assist getting her to her feet. “Where in the north are you going?”
“Edenkeep. I have family there.”
“Edenkeep? That’s a long way. Weeks away. What are you willing to pay for an escort?”
“I was going to pay those guys one-thousand d’nars. I told them I would pay them when we got there – my father is quite wealthy, but I guess they didn’t want to make the trip and decided to take what they could now and run.”
“What do you think, Gnath—”
“Yes. We go!”
“Gnath says we’ll take the job of escorting you to Edenkeep, it the offer applies to us?”
“Oh, I couldn’t ask you. It is far too long of a trip, and you have already done enough for me.”
“Listen, m’lady… Rika, we were going north anyway, with the thought of going all the way to Edenkeep. All you have done is convinced us to quit putting it off. Is the offer still available?”
“Yes, of course. You are more than welcome to take me, and I will pay you the thousand d’nars upon my safe delivery to Edenkeep.”
“You’ll need a wizard,” came a voice from behind. We turned to see the cloaked man from the tavern standing there, his face hidden in shadow under his oversized hood.
“What makes you think we will need a wizard,” I asked, trying to get a look at his face.
“The rumors of dragons are true. I’m heading north myself to investigate the issue. It is not good to have dragons loose in our world after two hundred years of peace.”
“Well, we already made our deal with the lady. We’re not cutting you in for a share.”
“I have no need for a share of the deal you made with her. But if you don’t want a wizard to come with you, that is fine too. Until we meet again…”
He turned and took several steps down the street when I decided to stop him.
“Oh, yoo-hoo, Mr. Wizard, sir. We have decided that you should join us on our quest to Edenkeep.”
The wizard stopped and lowered his hood. His gray beard and wrinkles showed his age. His sunken eyes spoke of days without sleep, and his hands, holding a long wooden staff, were rough and wrinkled as well. A hint of a smile swept over his face.
“I am Wellington, this is Gnath. The lady’s name is Rika. What is your name, wizard?”
“I am Arick of Whitshire.”
“The Arick of Whitshire? The Wizard of Whitshire? The conqueror of the orc mobs? The defeater of… wait. You are the Defeater of Dragons. You can’t be. You would be well over two hundred years old.”
“I am Arick, and I am over two-hundred years old.”
“How can that be?”
“Magic can do amazing things to the living. So, are we going north, or not?”
“Rika, are you okay with the wizard tagging along?”
“What’s not to like?”
“Okay, then. I guess if there are dragons, then who better to take with us but the Defeater of Dragons? First, we should probably load up on some rations, and then we can be on our way.”
The road north was well-traveled. The few remaining cities between Vanderspar and Edenkeep offered decent trade, but the risks rose higher with every mile the journey went north. And when you get caught between cities at night, be prepared for the worst. Bad things come out at night; everyone knows that. A good warrior and a wizard may not be enough, but we are better off now with Arick at our side. The man is a legend, and any foes better think twice before they take on the Defeater of Dragons.
We walked along at a steady pace, restricted mostly by my short legs. I was lucky to have great stamina, so keeping pace was not as difficult as you might think, but sometimes I slowed to a more natural pace for me and would hold everyone up for a brief period. Until I got my wind again.
“You don’ talk much, do you wizard?”
“Neither does your friend.”
“True, but I am sure you have a better grasp on the art of conversation than my friend Gnath.”
“Was there something you wished to talk about?”
“Yes. Tell me about slaying the dragons.”
“Nothing to tell.”
“Nothing to tell? Really? The greatest battle in the history of Neverwind, the battle where you alone took down five blue dragons, one of them the great Dragonroth! What’d you do? Hit them with some fireballs? Huh? Some fireballs? I bet it was fireballs.”
“It wasn’t fireballs, and it was only one dragon.”
“Then what? Did you ice it? Shoot them with ice shards? That would be great!”
“I do not care to discuss it.”
“That Dragonroth was a nasty sort, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I wish I could have seen it. I bet you were all ZZZZAP! POOOF! And he was all Ouch! Stop killing me, wizard!”
“Can we stop talking, please?”
I was getting the impression that the old man in the cloak didn’t want to talk. I guess I was a bit star-struck with him, considering he was the only wizard I knew, and he was the Arick the Defeater of Dragons.
“I bet it was a sonic blast, wasn’t it?”
The wizard held out his index finger and touched my shoulder, instantly knocking me back with a huge static shock. With that single touch, I felt my right arm erupt into excruciating pain, followed by numbness.
“Curse you, wizard! What’d you do that for?”
“Keep on talking and I will turn it up a notch and do it again.”
“Okay, I’m done. Gosh, celebrities are touchy.”
“You should have listened to him when he asked you the first time,” Rika said.
“Can’t feel my arm.”
Chapter 4
The first day out of Vanderspar was, save for the lightning bolt to my arm, uneventful. We made camp in a clearing near the narrow road, and with the help of Arick’s magic touch, and Gnath’s ability to carry a large amount of wood, we had a nice roaring fire to eat our dried rations next to, and later sleep by. Gnath took it upon himself to stand watch, even though the wizard said he had an alarm spell that would alert him to anyone or anything getting too close, but Gnath was not much of a fan, or believer in magic. Though we were in a lightly wooded area, it was by no means the Forest of the Damned. That would come much later. We weren’t looking forward to that. You know, with all the stories and such.
We talked amongst ourselves, to get to know each other, but I did not pry into the wizard’s past any further. Our sponsor, on the other hand, was a bit more enlightening. She told of leaving Edenkeep on a quest to the Caves of Megan’s Rock, far south of even Hammelberry Commons, almost to the southern coast, where she lost all her companions searching the caves and labyrinth deep inside the jagged peaks of the Dragon’s Tooth mountains.
“There were six of us, all together,” Rika went on to tell the story. “I barely made it out alive. I thought it was going to be a fun adventure, but who knew there were wererats down there.”
“Ooh, wererats. T
hose are bad.”
“Yes, and they were mean. Gilgabing was the first to go, and Mikka the Strong died trying to help him. She wasn’t really that strong. And then our conjurer, Brandonshire tried to stop them with fireballs, but he wasn’t strong enough… magic-wise.”
Arick chuckled to himself.
“The rest of us did our best to hack away at the rat-things, but it seemed like our blades wouldn’t do them much harm.”
“Did you use silver weapons?” Arick asked.
“Um… they were shiny, silvery color, yes.”
“I mean, were they made of silver, or silver-coated?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Probably not.”
“Only silver does real damage to any kind of were-creature. Everyone knows that.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Everyone knows that.” I didn’t know that. Never had much use for such knowledge. But my ego got the better of me in the presence of the pretty lady. In hindsight, I probably should have proven that I was like her, and didn’t know anything about were-creatures, but there’s no going back once the mouth has already done its damage.
“Well, we didn’t know,” Rika continued, her hair and her eyes reflecting the orange light from the fire amidst the ever-darkening forest. “And Sharian and Simmar, the elf twins held them off long enough for me to get out of the caves and get away.”
Rika began to sniffle a bit, her sorrow for her lost friends beginning to weigh on her. Arick looked at her, then away. Gnath, sitting on a log behind and to her right, raised his big hand and placed it on her shoulder, more tenderly than I had ever seen him before. Rika laid her hand over his in acceptance of the gesture, then leaned her cheek down onto his huge hand. I had never seen Gnath show affection of that nature for anyone before, and the visual was only a bit unsettling to me. Not certain if he could even control his feelings for a girl, should he end up disappointed he could do some real damage if he lost control of himself.
“So, you managed to make it all the way from Megan’s Rock to Vanderspar on your own?”
“Most of the way. I got a ride from a lovely older couple with an oxcart. They took me north for half a day before they had to turn off to the west. But no. For the most part, I was alone. But I am very good at hiding, when I need to be.”
“That is a handy skill to have.”
“She is a chameleon,” Arick said with a huff.
“She’s a what?” I asked, shocked that the wizard had inserted himself into the conversation so abruptly.
“She’s a chameleon. She can blend in with the background. I knew I smelt a bit of magic about her.”
“Is that true, Rika?”
“Yes, it’s true. I was born with the ability. I got it from my mother. Lot of good it did my friends.”
“My guess is that you were hiding while your friends were being ripped apart by wererats.”
“Hey, wizard,” I said, standing up and pointing my finger at the cloaked mage. “There is no call for that. You don’t know the true story, so there is no need to speculate. No matter, anyway. We are not here to judge her, simply escort her to Edenkeep.”
The wizard looked at me, and though his hood darkened his face, I could see the sparkle of his dark eyes looking at me. Slowly, he raised his finger and pointed it at me. Knowing full well the jolt that that one finger could provide, I sat back down again.
“It’s all right, brave Wellington. He’s right. I was hiding. The wererats were so fast, and their teeth and claws so sharp. I froze as they killed my friends. I am not a warrior nor a witch. I simply blend in when I get scared. I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse.”
“Speaking of curses,” I said, pulling my amulet from under my shirt. “Wizard, what do you make of this?”
Arick, though looking annoyed at being bothered by a rather worthless trinket, stood and walked closer to me. He took the amulet in his hand without removing it from my neck, flipped it around a few times, then let it drop down to my chest and walked back to sit on his stump.
“It’s an amulet of chance. Good luck with that.”
“Um, do you mean, like, good luck with that? Or I will have good luck with that?”
“Either way. It will help you, but only to as much as you need. Never any more than that. It’s cursed because you can never get rid of it.”
“I pretty much knew all of that. What can I do to remove the curse?”
“You didn’t hear me, I guess. You can never get rid of it.”
“Is there not a spell you can cast? A chant you can chant? Bones you can rub together to take the curse off this thing?”
Again, the wizard looked annoyed. “You must find the wizard or witch that cursed it in order to remove it. I cannot undo another’s curse. And never in my life have I rubbed bones together to work a spell.”
I was about to suggest that he try it, if only to see what might happen, when the darkness around our camp became illuminated by a strange, magical glow.
“Proximity spell!” the wizard announced. “We have a visitor!”
“Who’s out there?” I called out. I could hear, with the aid with my oversized elven ears I inherited from my mother, someone rustling through the overbrush and trees. “Come out where we can see you.”
Gnath stood and drew his massive sword and positioned himself between the approaching unknown, and the camp. My friend was as loyal as a hound and would fight to the death to see that we were safe. I looked at the wizard who was taking a defensive stance. It was then that I noticed that Rika was gone.
“Ho there, travelers,” a deep but feminine voice penetrated the darkness. “I’m a friend, and not here to do harm. You can sheath your weapon, brave knight.”
Brave knight? Who was this person and how did they get out here being, evidently, blind as a bat?
Slowly a figure of a female human dressed in chainmail and a red tunic stepped into the light. She carried a short sword in an ornate scabbard at her waist, and a longbow draped over her shoulder. Hidden partially by her chainmail hood, her hair had a fiery red hue that matched her full lips. But something told me that she was not one to spend a lot of time with matters of beauty. She seemed much more rugged than that.
“I am Lady Nyssa of Brineshore. I was merely looking for a safe place to camp for the night when I came across the light of your fire. Do you have room for one more around your fire?”
“How do we know we can trust you?”
“Well, little elf—”
“Half-elf.”
“I’m sorry, half-elf. I could have taken out your wizard with an arrow outside of his proximity alarm, then maybe a shot or two to take down the giant here, then the rest would have been easy.”
“Hey, I resent you saying that.”
“But where did your girl go? She was here earlier.”
“Rika, you can come back now.”
A moment later, Rika showed herself again, still sitting on the log she was on earlier.
“Nice! A chameleon! I’ve heard about your kind but have never met one. That’s pretty slick. I wish you could teach me that.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t do lessons.”
“That’s too bad. I could make it worth your while, if you know what I mean,” she said with a wink.
Gnath took a step in between the newcomer and Rika and offered a bit of a grunt as a sign of his displeasure.
“You might want to back off that line of thinking. Looks like Gnath doesn’t appreciate you speaking like that to the lady.”
“Really,” Rika said, “it’s okay.”
“Terribly sorry for my rudeness, m’lady. But I could still use a place to rest in relative safety. Would you all mind if I spent the night here?”
I glanced up at the wizard, who nodded his approval.
“Okay, you can stay, but any more remarks like that about our lady friend and you are gone.”
“Understood. Mind if I pull up a log and rest my weary feet?”
“Make yourself at home.”
>
Gnath watched like a hawk as the stranger sat herself down on one of the logs arranged around the fire, keeping a fair distance from Rika. I made the introductions, and the conversation turned to what had brought Nyssa to this part of Neverwind.
“Treasure. I am a treasure seeker. If I can come away with a good sack of gold coins, or even regular old d’nars, I am a happy girl,” she said.
“So, you’re a bit of a freelancer? A sellsword?”
“Heaven’s no. I am a loner. I work alone.”
“Then why would you bother us?” Rika asked. “Why didn’t you make your own camp somewhere by yourself?”
Nyssa turned to look at Rika, a bit stunned that she had said something. She smiled, her eyes sparkling in the firelight.
“I felt the company would be refreshing, especially when the company is so varied and interesting as the lot of you.”
“Okay, then,” the wizard said, “maybe we should get some sleep. We have a long way to go and sitting around talking will not make for good progress tomorrow.”
And with everyone in agreement, we all found as soft a spot on the ground near the fire. Gnath positioned himself near Rika. If I were a gambler – well, actually, I am a gambler – I would say that he was a bit smitten by the young lady. I have no doubt she will be kept safe throughout the night.
Chapter 5
The remainder of the evening proved uneventful, though I admit I slept with one eye open, so-to-speak. Gnath kept Rika close, and our new warrior friend slept sitting upright next to a tree, her bow in hand, an arrow knocked ready to draw.
The early morning sun fought its way through the branches of the quiet forest as birds began singing to the new day, and the aromatic smell of - is that…?
“Java, Mr. Wellington?” the chainmail covered fighter asked, swishing a pot of aromatic liquid over the now roaring fire. “I don’t have an extra cup, but if you have one, I will gladly share.”
I found that java is particularly tasty in the cool morning air, especially when brewed over an open campfire. I would have let her pour it straight into my hands if I hadn’t had a cup of my own.
The Dragons of Neverwind Page 3
