I did not move from my position at the edge of our lump. As far as it concerned me, it wasn’t a stampede of thrashing tusks and heavy hooves charging for us, but a fat feast Aranath would love to gobble up at his leisure. I realized I could not—and probably should not—solve every delicate and indelicate situation I came across by summoning a dragon, but knowing I had the ability to do so gave me a mettle few mortals could hope to equal. It was a wonder it took two thousand years for dragon knights to war with Orda when one considered the high levels of conceit that came with the partnership.
The snorts and grunting oinks of boars broke apart the fog, which permitted the animals themselves to manifest before us. It’s only when Ghevont referred to the wisps did their absence reach my awareness. Their spontaneous departure did nothing to slow the already incensed mob of pork. Despite their riled state, the obstruction and balls of thrown fireballs still forced the meat river to split down the middle and flank us. A few of the bolder beasts tested the wall with a quick jerk of their heads, but they bounced off without doing much damage.
Dozens and dozens of animals advanced eastward. However, the leaders slackened their pace some fifty yards ahead, causing those behind them to slow as well. We were thus surrounded by the dozens of boars yet to pass us. Odet ordered for the expedition guards to stop throwing fireballs directly at the animals, but unless the heated spells burst right in front of their bristly faces, lack of contact meant the spells did little to dissuade them from impinging our wall with their poking tusks.
Igniting my dragon stones did a better job of scattering them, but the marshland’s own odor, the breeze, and the return of heavier raindrops limited the effect. Given that a marshland’s environment was not prone to burning, it’s also possible the animals here had less of an ingrained response to smoke. Still, the nerves of the sturdy beasts must have been thicker than average to spurn dragon smoke. Now I knew why Kylock Clay choose the boar as their sigil.
At any rate, there was no real need to waste energy trying to chase off or kill every swine in sight. It was easier to preserve the wall and take a stance of patience. If I listened very carefully I could hear the wisps laughing their gassy little asses off.
The night dragged on as both species of creature stayed wary of the other. Many of the boars kept their distance and did nothing more than mingle with each other. Nevertheless, a few of the bigger mothers and their piglets liked the look of our higher land, prompting offensives from them. One of the guards wanted to eat boar, but before he could plunge his spear into a charging mother, an adamant Odet told him to stop.
“A feast of boar sounds nice,” she said further, “but only kill one without young to take care of.”
“We can eat those, too,” said Unferth, the spear wielder.
“No. I shouldn’t have to mention that Duality says killing mother beasts and their children for food or self-defense is an option of last resort.”
“Why? What’s the difference? They’re all animals.”
“Geez,” said Cade. “Do you need a club to the head to get any idea in there?”
“Enough, Cade,” said Orion. “Don’t mock our protectors. Our minds should be occupied by what we just witnessed. And Unferth, listen to the girl. Hunt for a lone, childless boar. The gods demand it.”
“Thank you, Master Massey,” said Odet.
The old man dipped his eyes in curt servility and went back to talking with the alchemists and scholar about the number of wisps and their apparent scheme to entrap us. Likewise, talk about how to escape our predicament picked up momentum. The needless plans ended for a couple of hours when Unferth found a mid-sized male to jab at.
Much of the firewood we had left was used to make the campfire bigger. There would normally be greater effort in getting the most out of the meat from such a prize, but no one wanted to put in the work. The boar was thus unceremoniously chopped up into cuts of meat, which were next stuck with sticks and hung over the fire. Basic, but heartier than anything we carried. Thanks to a clandestine mission by Ghevont, Clarissa acquired boar blood in her flask for her share of the meal.
The heavy intake produced a lot of yawns from the expedition members. My group assured the yawners that we would keep the wall up and the boars at bay as they slept through the later part of the night.
Not all of them slumbered at the same moment, but by the time the clouds brightened from the dawn behind them, we discovered the alchemic team visiting the realm of dreams. Odet wanted to give them the courtesy of napping a little longer, but I did not want to delay our schedule any longer than necessary.
A little dragon smoke might not have been enough to banish the brave beasts, but the roaring dragon himself did the trick. The expedition members woke up in panic as the dragon ousted the coarse pigs, one of which he plucked up as a treat. The mules would have bolted had they not been tied to their branchless tree. As the dragon climbed the sky to come back for another sweep, the hunched defenders asked Orion what to do, how to attack, and where to hide.
“Dragons are intelligent creatures,” he answered. “They won’t risk injuring their wings attacking humans who have less meat and greater weapons than the boars. Just stay together and prepare to cast wards in case it breathes flame.”
“Aren’t we still miles from her territory?” asked Cade.
“This is a different one, lad. I’ve seen the Crimson Mistress of the Yuroks, and this one is larger. Not to mention the mistress is red.”
“Then where in the blazes did it come from?” asked Simon.
“Imagine the gold we can earn by bringing the bastard down!” said Unferth. “The scales alone should set us for life!”
“Careful,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he can hear you.”
Aranath bellowed his throat to punctuate my point. The dragon’s swoops drove the swine northward, though Aranath himself could not get too far from me due to our low-quality link. Either I would need to expend big chunks of prana to keep him in Orda, or our connection would sever on its own if he strayed too far from me. Satisfied with the pace of escape the pigs were taking, Aranath touched down on the marsh fifty yards away from us.
Cade, with a hand over his brow, asked, “What’s on the dragon’s back?”
“It’s time to go,” I told my group. “Master Massey, good luck with your expedition.”
“What?” said Simon. “You’re going now? With that thing right there?”
“It’s just a big lizard,” said Clarissa, walking behind me. “He’s more cute than scary, don’t you think?”
“Cute my ass,” said Cornelius. “Wait, you’re going toward him?”
Responding to his mumbled words, Orion asked, “What is it, Cade?”
“It’s a saddle! The dragon is wearing a saddle! It’s tamed!”
“Impossible.”
“Then what do your eyes see, old man? And look! Our new friends know it’s tamed.”
Walking backward, Odet said, “‘Tamed’ is the wrong word, Master Rosewood. Is there not ancient reason behind his raving eyes?”
A few more words of wonder and explanation left their mouths, but I was far away enough to ignore them. The ever obliging Odet and her knight were quick to catch up once they saw the rest of us secure on our saddle. Moments later and the gawking expedition team watched as a dragon imitated a wisp and vanished as quickly as it came.
Chapter Sixteen
Four days of travel took us over the trees bordering the marshland, over the many townships and farms scattered north of Mil’sith, and over Etoc’s coastline. A little over two thousand miles east floated my next destination—not a forest or bog, but the island of Nim Holm. Here I would learn how my father’s leg was coming along and what he intended to do now that a ship was not my main means of conveyance.
From there I planned on heading southeast to the Dragon Spire Temple. Aranath had collected more of his shed scales, scales I wanted the sages to make armor for Clarissa and Ghevont. There wouldn’t be enough for
two full sets, but as long as they obtained protection over their hearts, it would be worth the visit. Depending on how efficient my flying became by that point, the nearest coast of Efios lied about a week away.
Before getting to Nim Holm, we needed to island hop at least six times. According to our most detailed map of the Parsillion Ocean, finding three islands before reaching the Glims promised to be problematic. Perhaps we would be forced to commandeer a merchant ship or two for a night? Anyway, the end of the first day of flying had us able to choose from several islands. We selected the farthest piece of land Aranath saw within his hundred mile range.
Worried we might not get anything bigger, I settled us on the only island Aranath could spot halfway through the second day of flying. And by “island” I really meant a pile of jagged stones that might have been the breaching peak of an underwater mountain. The early break served my nerves well. It also gave us more time to train.
Extra time was dedicated to the Dracera training, something I thought annoyed Odet. She preferred the action of clashing our spells against the other. On this date, however, my, and perhaps her own, belief faltered when she said, “You know, I believe this training is helping my wards as well.”
Her words distracted me, so the string of flame I pulled collapsed and dispelled her ward. “How?”
“Just as weakening your flame aids your control, it seems weakening my shield is doing something similar. My mother once proposed that a few of our ancestors used their wards as something other than a shield or weapon, but as a warning against incoming attacks.”
“A warning?” said Clarissa, who sat huddled in my shadow. “How’s that?”
“Well… Let me show you.” She rose her hands and cast her frailest ward around us, its boundaries ten feet out from the center. The only reason I saw it at all was due to the glitter of the sun’s rays bouncing off it. “Now, imagine if I can spread the ward much farther out, and make it so weak that it’s nigh invisible.”
I did imagine. “But not so weak that you don’t sense whatever crosses it.”
“Exactly! I’ll be able to feel danger as it breaks through the ward. Then I cast a stronger shield in response. No sneaky arrow or spell will take me by surprise.”
The image of her mother being taken by surprise flashed in my memory. I cleared my throat. “Sounds useful. Do you know how your ancestors practiced this technique?”
“I’m sure the method is archived in our library, but I willfully ignored the subtler uses of my ward when I first started training. This is the perfect time to refocus my efforts. Your dragon knight training might not be the ideal method, but it works well enough.”
“Hey,” said a vampire experiencing an epiphany. “Maybe I can do the same thing with my water spell.” She pulled in a few pints of water from the sea lapping in a few yards away and proceeded to enlarge and shrink the bubble she formed. After it popped for the fourth time, a discouraged Clarissa said, “Eh, I’ll let you worry about it.”
Thanks to an earlier sleep, we got back into the air faster than normal. Keeping in mind we might not see another island for many hours, Aranath ascended higher than his favored altitude so he could see land from farther away and conserve energy by gliding longer. Regrettably, he and I had to waste much of that saved energy circumventing a storm. The tempest came at a point when I sensed my nerves beginning their jittering dance under my skin.
We skirted the worst of the solitary storm without incident, but their dark clouds ended up being supplanted by a bright nothingness. Ocean and sky mixed into one blue color that exasperated the cramps of disorientation that started in my deforming eyeballs and sank into a skipping stomach, which pushed up its burning gastric juices to the bottom of my throat.
At least my drawn-out ordeal suggested that Aranath covered quite a bit of distance, distance that ultimately allowed him to spot a place to land. A few ships had shown up before the islet, but I did not see a practical way to board them and also find out if the people on board were not just going to rob us or ask us to do something Odet and the others would not be able to refuse.
I had to lie still for an hour after reaching the island of thistles to slow the world’s spinning. Nonetheless, the respite and day’s training did not bring back my appetite. Even when a jesting Clarissa offered me her flask of blood, I gagged. The ordinarily mouthwatering aroma of searing fish produced the same reaction. I only ate a few nuts and seeds minutes after waking up for my watch. According to Ghevont’s course-plotting skills, I would not have to risk such a test of endurance until we had to cross the Osahar Ocean, the turbulent waters between Kozuth and Efios.
Proof we neared civilization came in the middle of the next day. More ships drifted below and we had a couple of islands to choose from at the end of the day’s flight. The number of islands exploded in the succeeding flight. Since almost every island in the Glims Archipelago was surrounded by a dozen other indistinct islands, we first had to find Kylock Clay to get a sense of where we were in relation to Nim Holm. Timing also forced us to seek rest on the capital island.
As a way to treat ourselves—or, in Odet’s case, to find normalcy—we forwent hard training and walked to Enstad. That evening we found hot baths, hotter meals, and soft beds in one of Enstad’s more lavish lodgings, The Chance Inn. Its name came from the games of chance played in the large basement of the brick building. The gambling upper-class apparently helped pay for these kinds of affluent inns. We could hear the festive atmosphere from the first floor, but our room lied in the middle of the much quieter second.
“May I go to the basement?” Ghevont asked me out of the blue.
“You want to gamble?”
“I believe it to be a fine opportunity to experiment with theories of risk versus reward, and how well humans can predict their own success, or the successes of others, in certain competitions.”
“Uh, I guess it’s all right. Just don’t bet too much.”
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” said Gerard.
“I don’t like you gambling,” said Odet, crossing her arms. “You and your friends get a little too serious about it.”
“We’re only serious about the bragging rights. Besides, I’m just going to watch over Ghevont, nothing more.”
“Aw, I wish I could go,” said Clarissa. “Too bad the smell of a crowd would distract me too much.”
“I’m certain the odor of tobacco and ale will mask the aroma,” said Odet. “I can still smell it up here.”
To the princess, Gerard said, “I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”
Sighing, Odet uncrossed her arms and said, “No, it’s fine. I didn’t mean to sound like your mother, and you deserve a little amusement. We all do.”
Watching him about to leave, I said, “Leave the staff here, Ghevont.”
“Ah, yes, that’s best. I remember a sign stating that no weapons were permitted in the basement.”
“That’s not why you shouldn’t take our nismerdon staff to… Forget it. You know what, I’m going with you.”
“You too?” asked Odet. “A dragon knight needs to stay above the dens of vices.”
Aranath grunted. “That’s where most knights of any kind eventually find themselves.”
Removing my talking weapon, I responded to Odet’s comment by saying, “Like you said, we all deserve a little amusement, and Ghevont studying drunken gamblers holds the potential to do so. Keep Clarissa company and our belongings safe.”
Minutes later and the three of us, unarmored and unarmed, descended one of the two stairways leading into the basement. Before being allowed in, we first had to be patted down to check for anything sharp. I still carried three of my smaller dragon stones in my pockets. I was thus not wholly without weapons when I entered a basement that appeared to stretch farther than the breadth of the upper floors.
Smoke from pipes, candles, and torches hazed the edges of the people gathered around the tables both large and small. Many donned coats, doublets, and ves
ts that forced no one to doubt their worth to the world. Even the corsets and skirts the young wenches wore looked more expensive than anything they could get working anywhere else. They carried trays of food and drink with grace and smiles as they dashed from table to table, unable to do much about the rows of hands that blithely grabbed a piece of their bodies as they walked by.
In the center of the place, currently unused, lied a sunken dirt ring I imagined roosters, dogs, or other animals fought. For now, card, dice, and other games kept the patrons busy. Helping to keep everyone in order, two dozen armored men armed with purposely eye-catching weapons occupied every corner, ready to pounce on any rabble-rouser unhappy about their luck. Due to the early night, smoked stimulants, and endless drinks, the overall mood of the place was still as merry as the start of a pirate song.
Gerard knew the rules of many of the games, so he took it upon himself to teach the scholar the particulars of the games that most intrigued Ghevont. The scholar’s main draw was to a card game called oracle. Unlike the thinner paper cards more common in Iazali, these were thicker pieces of wood. And instead of the inked images of royalty, hearts, and diamonds, these had been carved with swords, bows, and the four elements. What fascinated Ghevont the most was the level of deception and strategy needed for a player to win a round against a minimum of three participants.
Both Gerard and Ghevont joined the four others at the table, and since Odet and I kept the majority of our coin, I did not worry too much about them losing what they carried. I therefore moved my focus to a corner of the room that caught my eye on first entering. Up against a wall stood a tall, two person table where a man with sleeveless arms no bigger than mine arm-wrestled challengers twice his girth. From what I could tell, not only had he never lost, but no one gave him ample trouble. He allowed everyone to bet whatever they wanted and how often they wanted. If the challenger won, then they would stand to win thrice what they bet.
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