Samual

by Greg Curtis

  That was a pleasant thought to sleep on. And it became obvious to him as he sat there that that was all he could do. So as his eyes began to close he clung to the dream. After everything that had happened he needed to cling to something good.

  Chapter Forty Seven

  “Aylin mi elle.” A woman's voice came out of the darkness. One filled with love and promise.

  Even in his sleep Sam smiled when he heard it. Because he knew the speaker. He knew her whether asleep or awake. He would always know her.

  “Samual, it's time to awaken.” She raised her voice a little, becoming a tiny bit more insistent.

  But Sam was simply too happy in his dreams to open his eyes. He let the soft, wonderful words flow over him like a soothing blanket.

  “Get up Samual!” This time it was a man who spoke and he sounded annoyed. It was that that finally managed to persuade Sam to open his eyes.

  When he did it was to discover that he was still where he had fallen asleep. Still propped up against the side of a tree. Somehow even in his sleep he hadn't managed to collapse completely. Time had passed. Clearly quite a lot of it. Night had fallen and if he was any judge of the moon's position on the horizon, dawn could not be far away. But while the sleep had helped him, he was still nowhere near his normal strength. His magic was subdued. His flesh felt bruised if not completely broken. Worse still he could still smell carrion. That accursed smell would just not go away. He needed to find a river.

  “Elder?” He was actually almost glad to hear the Elder's voice, crotchety as he was. And he was very glad to hear Ryshal's. Glad to see both of them staring back at him from the window in the sky which was hanging just in front of him.

  “Samual Hanor, do you have any thought of how much trouble you have put us to?”

  “I'm sorry Elder.” It was an instinctive response that came out of his mouth. He actually had no thought what the Elder was talking about. “I will try to do better.”

  “See that you do,” the Elder humphed. “And see that you apologise to your poor wife as well. After all the pain you have put her through this night. I will give you two a little while to speak.” With that the Elder walked away leaving Sam sitting there staring at only his wife.

  “Elder Bela is right beloved. I owe you a great many apologies.”

  “And we will speak at length of how you may give them aylin mi elle. And how often.” But she smiled to show that she wasn't angry. She was relieved.

  She had been upset. Even in the darkness he could see the traces of tears on her face. But the tears had dried. The upset had gone away. In fact, though Sam thought he could see worry in her eyes, she looked happy. That was a good thing. Wasn't it?

  “For the moment though we must speak of your journey home.”

  “I will begin the moment the sun rises,” he promised her. She was right. It was time to come home. “I will not let myself be kept from you a day longer than I must. I promise.”

  “And I will wait impatiently for your return. But the elders say you will have to make a stop along the way at Fall Keep.”

  “Fall Keep?” Sam hadn't expected that. Fall Keep wasn't on the direct path back to Ryshal. And there was nothing left there anyway. The keep was gone, the town burnt to the ground. There were no people left there. Why would he go there? He asked.

  “Because the elders have asked and I believe they are right to do so. The Dragon is heading there and he still must be stopped.”

  Sam didn't respond to that. Instead he simply sat there wondering. He couldn't imagine why the Dragon was heading there. If there was nothing there for Sam there was nothing there for the Dragon either. It was a ruin. But she was right. If they knew where the Dragon was it was his duty to hunt him down if he could. Before he returned to his island.

  But on the other hand it was a fifty league journey and he was on foot. He was also nowhere near his full strength. Stranger still, why would Ry want him to go into danger? She hated it when he left her and risked his life. Carefully he asked his wife that.

  “Yes, but you are stronger now and you will continue to recover. By the time you reach the city you should be as strong as ever. You should be the Fire Angel again. And no mere Dragon will stop you. Especially now when he's weak.”

  “I am no god that victory should always be mine.”

  “You are the Fire Angel. I did not truly believe that until yesterday. And for that I am truly sorry. But now I understand. Even the Dragon understands as he flees in terror from you. He knows he cannot face you. That no one can.”

  “Ry I …”

  Sam wanted to tell her that she was giving him too much praise. That he was not the unstoppable warrior she believed. That he could be killed far too easily. Just like any man. But the words stuck in his throat when he saw the faith in her eyes. She had been very frightened. And that was his fault. He had scared her. Now she had found something to believe in. He could not take that from her just now. Later when they were once more together he would tell her the truth. Instead he turned his words to practical matters.

  “The Dragon is weak?”

  “He only has a small army. Smaller than the one you destroyed in Shavarra. But in two weeks he will be stronger. All the rats from Shavarra are marching to Fair Fields. The war masters say he will go to Fall Keep. That he will repair the walls and wait until they arrive. Then he will march south with a much larger army as he heads for his island. Samual he cannot be allowed to return to his island. In time he would only send more armies to destroy us all and we can't have that. Especially not now.”

  “Not now?” Sam didn't understand.

  “Not now.” Ryshal turned side on so he could see her belly and then patted it and smiled. “Not when we have so much to protect.”

  “Are you saying …?” Sam's question trailed off as he knew exactly what she was saying. There was no sign of a bump, but she surely knew if she was with child. And suddenly he was gloriously happy.

  “You are the most perfect wife a man could ever hope for!”

  “And you are the champion a wife dreams of.” She smiled broadly, tears in her eyes. “But now you will have to be once more the champion our child needs to protect him or her.”

  In that moment Sam understood why she was asking him to go into battle, when always before she wanted to keep him from it. She was going to be a mother and she had a duty to protect their child. The Dragon threatened their baby just as he threatened everyone else. He had to be stopped. And she believed he could do it. That in fact he was the only one who could.

  “I will not fail you,” Sam vowed.

  “I know that.” Ry smiled happily. “You have rebirthed the phoenix. Called the dragons to war. And levelled a mountain. The entire world surely trembles at your feet. The feet of the Fire Angel.”

  “Ry, I didn't really do any of those things. The phoenix was reborn through me, but not by me. I cast the magic but I don't know where the shape came from. And Mount Andrea was levelled by a sun burst. I do not have that sort of power. As for the dragons I have no thought at all where they came from.” He felt terrible telling her that. Letting her know that he wasn't as powerful as she believed. But it was the truth and she had to hear it. From him before others made it clear.

  “Then you also did not leap off a thousand pace high cliff and fly to the ground?” She shone like the sun with happiness as she said it.

  “Alder's hairy tits!” Sam let swore as the memories came flooding back. He couldn't help himself. And then he stuttered like a village idiot as he tried to think of something intelligent to say. But there was nothing he could say, and eventually he ended up sitting in silence.

  “If you didn't fly there then how did you not fall to your death?” Ryshal seemed somewhat curious. Maybe even a little worried. “That was when we lost you. You ran too fast and we couldn't keep up. I spent half the night looking for you at the bottom of the cliff. It was only that there was no body lying there and that the priests swore you still lived that kept
me from weeping in terror.”

  “Praise the All Father, Ryshal I'm so sorry for that. There was no time and I did not think. And then when it was over I was too exhausted to do anything but sleep. I should have told you I lived. I should have found a way.”

  “But you do live and that is what matters. The Fire Angel lives. The father of my baby lives. He has learnt to fly.”

  “I cannot fly.” Sam understood why she believed it. It was actually easier to believe than the truth. But it wasn't the truth.

  “Then how did you reach the ground from such a height?” She looked puzzled, and maybe even just a little bit worried.

  “Ry my glorious wife, could we choose not to speak of that – ever?” The last thing Sam wanted to do was tell anyone of that journey. He didn't want to even remember it. But when he saw the determination in Ry's face he knew she would not be kept from finding out.

  “Then at least can you promise me that no one will ever hear of this please?” He pleaded with her a little and finally got at least a nod from her.

  “I was falling when a dragon caught me.”

  “That doesn't sound so bad.” But clearly she realised it wasn't the full story.

  “In its mouth,” Sam added to complete the picture. “And it spat me out in this copse of trees.”

  “A dragon ate you and spat you out?” Her eyebrows rose in disbelief.

  Immediately she said it Sam could hear laughter coming from somewhere out of sight and he guessed his secret was out. It was quite a lot of laughter actually.

  “It was unpleasant. And I was covered in saliva. Even now I still stink of carrion. The whole world stinks of it. I need a bath.”

  He shouldn't have added the last. Immediately the words left his mouth he could hear people around her exploding with laughter. Some obviously tried to hide it behind coughing fits. But others didn't even bother. Soon the only thing he could hear was laughter. Even Ry gave in and started giggling – though she tried to hide her amusement behind her hands.

  Meanwhile Sam had to sit there and wait for them to stop. It was a long wait. But at least Ry was happy. In fact whatever trace of fear she had been holding seemed to have vanished as she gave in to her merriment. He supposed that was for the best.

  “Oh my beautiful husband, you bring light to the world in dark times.” She eventually managed to speak through her laughter, though she nearly choked doing it. “You truly do.”

  “I live to please you,” he told her a little sarcastically. Because just then as he sat there red faced, he would have preferred not to have brought so much pleasure to so many.

  “Samual, you should be happy.”

  “About being eaten by a dragon? Less than you'd think!”

  “About being saved by a dragon!” She told him a little sternly. But she was still laughing quietly. “No man has ever been saved by a dragon. And it means you will defeat our enemy. You can't fail.”

  “Huh?” Sam didn't see the logic.

  “Beloved, if a dragon saved you it can only mean that it was commanded to, and only Draco could do that. Husband, the Father of Dragons saved your life.”

  No wonder she was happy Sam realised! She thought he had the gods on his side. Even if she was still laughing.

  “Or I just didn't taste very good!” He shouldn't have said it. Sam knew that the instant the words left his mouth. But it didn't stop him saying them. And nothing at all he guessed was going to stop the laughter that followed.

  Maybe it would have been better if the dragon had swallowed him!

  Chapter Forty Eight

  It was daylight when Sam finally reached Fall Keep. And he was glad to see at least some of it still standing in the sunshine even if night would have been a better time to attack. Mostly that was because he was aching from having ridden for so long. Moose were not good riding animals even when you had magic. And though he could keep the animal calm, he could do nothing about the hardness or shape of its back or its natural gait. He couldn't simply create a saddle for it either. Three days on the back of a moose was hard on a man. But unfortunately there were no horses around. No doubt they had all been taken as people fled the realm.

  Still, the beast was actually quite quick when it wanted to be, and they had made good time. Thus far there was no sign of the rats.

  The Dragon had beaten him here – but then he was in a light wagon being pulled by a pack of steel wolves that could run night and day without pause. He had always been going to beat him here. Luckily he had not got far with his repairs to the walls. They had begun; the Dragon had started using his magic to shape the stone and lift the walls up. But he had not yet had time to complete the job.

  As for the wolves, they were patrolling the walls. Sam could see them through the massive hole where the gate had been. A hole he had created. A small wall of steel teeth and claws replacing the missing stone. But they would not last long. The elders had said the Dragon had come with an army of only a hundred and fifty to two hundred wolves. It had been what he had presumably thought would be his personal protective squad as he rode to claim his prize after his army had captured it. Now it was his entire army. It was also about to get smaller. Much smaller.

  Sam was still nowhere near his full strength. In fact he had the strange feeling that his fire would not return as powerfully as it had before, but he still had enough magic to launch a fire ball at the wolves standing in the remains of the gate. A moment later at least a score of the steel beasts were gone. His fire ball was nowhere near as hot as it should be and it would certainly never knock over a city wall as his best ones once had. But the wolves weren't the most powerful of the machina and it was more than a match for them. The Fire Angel had announced his arrival. Even if he was no longer the master of fire he had been.

  “War Masters,” he spoke to the window in the air beside him, “can you give me some targets to aim at please.”

  The Window of Parsus was an incredibly useful tool he thought. Especially when your enemy was hiding behind huge walls that he couldn't see through and didn't have the strength to knock down. And so as he watched the window abruptly streak away from him at great speed heading for the keep, he felt a small thrill of victory. The Dragon had never prepared for this.

  Soon the window was back and the war masters had a list of targets for him to hit. Naturally he sent fireballs at all of them, surprised at how easy it was. And a few moments later when they returned from checking out the damage he'd done he was given the welcome news that at least two score of wolves were gone.

  A third of the Dragon's army – gone before he'd even approached the keep! Sam suspected the troll blood had to be hiding somewhere inside the city, trembling with fear. Soon though Sam silently promised him, he would no longer be afraid.

  Over confidence though was always a mistake. A lesson Sam learned anew when he heard a sound he had not expected to hear. Cannon fire. Obviously the Dragon had been busier than he'd realised.

  Sam raced for cover behind a farm house, annoyed at his oversight. But thankfully the cannon shot came nowhere near him. It wasn't surprising in hindsight he supposed. The Dragon might have raised the cannon into position and loaded them, but he had no one to aim and fire them. An army of steel wolves could not operate war machines. He was just firing them wherever they sat.

  How was he lighting them though? The Dragon had no fire magic as far as he knew. Only nature and earth magic. Had he set up some elaborate fuse system? Or was he running along the walls himself with a torch in his hands?

  Either way it didn't matter. The front walls had once had thirty or forty cannon on the ramparts. And Sam had heard thirty or forty blasts. Now that the cannon had been fired they had to be reloaded. Who did the Dragon have to do that? Only himself. That meant that for the moment they were useless.

  Once again the Dragon had struck too early. If he'd had any military training he would have waited until Sam was in his sights before firing. But he hadn't and so he'd weakened himself.

 
But he still had more soldiers that Sam hadn't prepared for. And they began with the three steel drakes that he had used to decimate Fair Fields with. Sam had forgotten about them. Everyone had. But as he watched them climb into the sky from somewhere within the keep, he remembered them anew.

  Luckily Sam had a weapon too that the Dragon didn't know about. And when he pulled his sword and aimed it at the nearest of the three drakes, he knew the Dragon was going to be upset. Some time ago he'd found out that the steel drakes weren't nearly as fire proof as they were supposed to be. That was a weakness. And by focusing the fire scythe spell, he planned on exploiting that weakness.

  When the closest drake was within two hundred paces he released the spell and played the thin ray of fire over its wing. The wing was the drake's most vulnerable point since the metal there was thinnest and without a wing the drake couldn't fly.