Three Quest Deal (Tales of Former Dragons Book 1)

by Rainer Domingo

  Toshen saw the woman in the distance, and picked up his pace to close on her. Soon he was right behind her, and he reached out to grab the dangling hood of her cowl.

  The woman heard his footsteps. She turned her head and saw Toshen at arm’s length. She was getting tired, and knew she couldn’t possibly outrun him. Abruptly, she slowed and tumbled, catching Toshen by surprise. He tripped over her curled-up body and landed face down by a tree trunk. Before he could blink the woman had grabbed Toshen by the hair and held a blade up to his throat.

  “Stand slowly or I’ll cut you,” she said.

  When the others caught up, the woman used Toshen as a shield. She held one of his arms bent up behind his back, blade at his neck. The black cloth that had previously covered her nose and mouth had fallen below her chin, revealing an angry face too pretty to be that of a bandit.

  “Stay back,” the woman said. “If you let me get away, I won’t hurt him.”

  Aesus motioned for the others to stay back as he stepped forward. He stared directly into the woman’s blue eyes. “There’s no way out of this,” he said in a strange, deep voice that reverberated in the surrounding forest. “There’s no escape. No matter what you do next, you’re going to die.”

  The woman’s eyes grew wide. She released Toshen, dropped the dagger, and covered her ears. “No, no,” she wailed. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

  Aesus grabbed her by the neck and pulled her hand away from her ear.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he instructed.

  “I’m not afraid,” the woman replied, her eyes staring back into his, her face expressionless.

  “I’m not here to hurt you.”

  “You’re not here to hurt me.” She slowly took her other hand away from her ear and it dropped to her side.

  “You belong to me now.”

  “I belong to you now.”

  Aesus let go of her. The woman stood there motionless, looking off into the distance.

  “You will do as I say,” Aesus said, “and not harm me or my companions.”

  “I will do as you say, and not harm you or your companions.”

  “You will answer any question I ask you truthfully and fully.”

  “I will answer any question you ask truthfully and fully.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Tessandra, but everyone calls me Tess.”

  “You will close your eyes and sleep.”

  Tess closed her eyes and collapsed into Aesus’s arms. He lowered her to the ground.

  “Was that from your spellbook?” Xan asked.

  “No,” Aesus replied in his normal voice. “It’s a way of speaking I used as a dragon.”

  “I’ve never heard a dragon speak like that,” Drakor said. “Not ever.”

  “I stumbled upon it by accident. One day I was so angry with a shepherd boy for setting a trap for me, and I cornered him. When I spoke, that voice came out of my mouth. He repeated everything I said, and did everything I told him to do. I’ve been using that voice ever since. It doesn’t work on all the emo, but when it does, they’re powerless against me.”

  “What do you intended to do with this woman?” Xan asked.

  “I’m going to keep her. We need her help.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Xan knelt next to Tess and brushed her hair out of her face. “How much longer is she going to sleep?”

  “I don’t know,” Aesus said. “I usually fly away after putting someone to sleep.”

  “How can she help us?” Drakor asked.

  “We have no idea where we are, where to go, or how to prepare food,” Aesus said. “She must know these things.”

  “Agreed,” Drakor said. “But if she becomes a burden, you’ll have to deal with her.”

  “She won’t.”

  “I think I see some boars in the distance,” Toshen said. “Aesus, come help me hunt them down.”

  He headed into the forest, and Aesus followed.

  Xan inspected the area she had healed on Drakor while in combat. She used her fingers to spread the rip in the leather to get a better look.

  Drakor flinched. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m curious as to how well this healed,” Xan said. She looked for a scar or some type of mark, but didn’t see one.

  “How does it look?”

  “I don’t see any trace of an injury,” Xan said. “It’s quite amazing. These healing spells work better than how we healed as dragons.”

  Toshen and Aesus returned two hours later with a medium-sized boar hanging from a pole that rested on their shoulders. The boar’s front and rear legs were tied with Toshen’s extra bowstring. They placed the boar on the ground when they reached the others.

  “Good kill,” Drakor said. “It looks like it’s enough to feed the five of us.”

  “Indeed,” Xan said. “Now we just need to figure out how to prepare it.”

  Aesus knelt next to Tess and lightly shook her shoulder. Tess slowly opened her eyes. When she was fully conscious, she sat up briskly and looked around to get her bearings.

  “What happened?” Tess asked. “Who are you people?”

  “What do you remember?” Aesus asked.

  “I was being chased by someone. I’m not sure who. And now I’m here.”

  “Do you remember attacking us?”

  She frowned. “I remember now. Marcus told you to hand over your gold, and then—” She raised her hand to cover her mouth. “You flamed Egan, Kerick, and Lance!”

  “That’s right,” Aesus said.

  Tess looked around. “What happen to Marcus?”

  “Who was he to you?” Drakor asked. “Your leader?”

  “Is he dead?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Tess looked at the ground and wiped away a tear that ran down her cheek. “What will become of me now?”

  Aesus put a finger under her chin and raised it. “You’re with us now. We need your help.”

  “Me? But I’m just a bandit. How can I be of help to nobleman?”

  “Why do you call us noblemen?” Drakor asked.

  “Look at how you’re dressed. Only lords and ladies wear cloaks like yours. And I’ve never seen leather in those colors – or with those textures. And that dragon on your breastplate. You must surely be a knight.”

  Drakor grinned. “But we’re not noblemen.”

  “Then what exactly are we?” Toshen asked. “What do we tell people who ask what we are? Where we’re from?”

  Drakor eyed his companions as he contemplated an acceptable answer. Then he turned to Tess. “What do you know about the lands east of the Darvish elves?”

  “There’s a land east of Darvish?” Tess asked. “I haven’t heard of such a place.”

  “Then we’re from there. We’re from a placed called... O… Shen. It’s called Shen. And its capital is… Layor.”

  “What actually lies east of the Darvish?” Aesus asked.

  “Impassible mountains and an ocean. My lair is on the ocean side.”

  “Clever, Drakor,” Xan said. “And why are we here?”

  “Hmmm. We’re… merchants. Looking for goods to take back to Layor.”

  “Now that we’ve settled where we’re from, and why we’re here, can we eat?” Toshen asked.

  Aesus turned to Tess. “Do you know how to prepare a boar before it’s placed over the fire?”

  “We need to hang it up,” Tess said, “remove its hide, and cut off its head. Then cut off the meat and leave the rest for the wolves. Don’t touch the insides. It might taint the meat, and then we’ll get sick.”

  Aesus looked at Drakor and smiled.

  Drakor nodded at Aesus, and asked Tess, “How do we hang up the boar?”

  Tess gave Drakor a strange look. “With rope, of course.”

  Drakor looked at the others, and back at Tess. “We don’t have any rope.”

  “And you’re not using my bowstring,” Toshen said. “I may actually need that.”

&nb
sp; Tess looked around. “Where’s my pack? I placed it by a tree before we attacked you. The others did too.”

  “Go back into the forest,” Drakor told Toshen and Aesus, “and bring back their packs.”

  Toshen nodded, and he and Aesus followed the bandits’ tracks back into the trees.

  Toshen and Aesus returned with the packs and some water skins. Tess claimed her pack, and removed rope and a skinning knife from one of the other packs. She supervised the others as they strung up, skinned, and removed the meat from the boar. They gathered firewood, skewered the meat, and placed it over a small fire.

  Aesus stood by the packs and called out to Tess, “Help me look through these. I don’t know what’s of use.”

  “Just take what you want,” Tess said.

  “I don’t know what I want. Come here.”

  Tess walked over to Aesus. “What do you mean, you don’t know what you want?”

  “I don’t know what I need to take from these packs.”

  “What’s in your pack now?”

  “I don’t have a pack. None of us do. All we have are these satchels.”

  Tess looked around at her new companions. “You’re in the middle of a forest and none of you is carrying a pack? How did you expect to survive? Do you have a water skin?”

  Aesus shook his head.

  “You’re the oddest group of people I’ve ever met.” She shook her head and picked through the packs. “Most of this is rubbish, but we can use some of it.”

  She handed Xan two round loaves of bread, dried fruit and meat, and gave each person a water skin. She handed Toshen eating utensils, a small cooking pot, a ladle, and a butcher’s knife.

  When she came upon a pouch of coins, she tossed it at Aesus’s feet. “Marcus held all the gold. It’s not much, but we can use it to buy supplies.”

  She handed ropes and blankets to Drakor and then, her job done, she stood and gave the others a puzzled look. “Are all of you just going to stand their holding those things?”

  “What do we do with them?” Xan asked.

  “You noblemen are worse than children!”

  Tess emptied the contents of the recovered packs and helped Xan, Toshen, and Drakor put away the items they were holding. She handed each person a tan blanket, and gave the remaining pack to Aesus.

  Day turned to night by the time the boar meat was cooked. They sat around the fire to eat their meal of meat and bread, washed down with water.

  “Today wasn’t so bad,” Toshen said. “I can get used to this.”

  “We fought and lived to tell the tale,” Aesus said.

  Xan held up a piece of bread. “And we even have food. What do you think, Drakor?”

  “I think we got lucky,” Drakor said. “Any one of us might have been killed today. Who knows what awaits us tomorrow?”

  Tess leaned close to Aesus. “Can I ask a question?”

  “All right,” Aesus replied.

  “Where are you really from?”

  When he didn’t reply, Tess glanced around her new companions, but no one provided an answer.

  “Well, can you tell me what you’re doing in the forest?”

  Toshen laughed. “Clever one, isn’t she?”

  “And can anyone tell me why Drakor’s satchel is glowing?”

  Everyone looked at Drakor’s satchel. Light was emanating from its seams. Drakor looked inside and saw the band on one of the scrolls was glowing. He pulled out the scroll, removed the band, and unrolled it.

  “What does it say?” Xan asked.

  “Find mage Verick’s tower and retrieve the Spellbook of Fusion,” Drakor read.

  The letters on the scroll burst into tiny flames, setting the scroll on fire. Drakor eyes opened wide and he dropped the burning parchment. It disappeared before it hit the ground, and left no trace it had ever existed.

  “Did you set the scroll on fire?” Aesus asked.

  “It set itself on fire.”

  “Set itself on fire? How is that possible? Did it say where we can find Verick’s tower?”

  “All that was written on it was what I read.”

  Xan turned to Tess. “Do you know of this mage Verick, and where we can find his tower?”

  Tess frowned. “I know of no one named Verick, or any other mages for that matter.”

  “What about a mage tower?” Aesus asked.

  “I don’t know of any mage towers.”

  “Do you know what a mage is?”

  Tess rolled her eyes. “Of course. I’m no fool. It’s a spellcaster. But spellcasters don’t exist anymore. Well, except for you.”

  “What do you mean, they don’t exist anymore?” Xan asked.

  “The art of spellcasting disappeared a long time ago. All the mages in our lands were killed in battle well before I was born.”

  “Who would know where to find Verick’s mage tower?” Drakor asked.

  “A sage. My grandfather’s a sage, but he’s gone mad from the talking madness. I’m not sure he can help us.”

  “What’s the talking madness?” Xan asked.

  “It’s when someone talks to himself or people who aren’t there. It’s a terrible affliction,” Tess said. “Sometimes he doesn’t even know who I am.”

  “Do you know any other sages?” Drakor asked.

  “Well, there’s sage Reuben. He took over the library in Lord Byron’s castle when my grandfather took ill. Problem is, he’s a gossip. If I ask him anything, he’ll tell everyone.”

  “Where can we find your grandfather?” Drakor asked.

  “He wanders around the town of Melhorn. It takes five days to get there on foot.”

  “Then we’ll leave for Melhorn first thing in the morning.”

  They settled in for the evening, curled up to sleep on the ground around the fire.

  CHAPTER 7

  Drakor woke at sunrise. He stood, stretched, and roused the others, and they ate a quick meal of the remaining bread.

  Drakor asked Tess, “What lies between here and Melhorn?”

  “After you get to the edge of the forest, there are two farms, more forest, another farm, and then we’ll be on the road to Melhorn.” Tess said. “We’ll have to stay off the road to avoid Lord Byron’s patrols. They’ll get suspicious that you’re not on horseback if they see your cloaks. Nobleman don’t walk in these parts. It’s too dangerous.”

  The group made good time, and reached the edge of the forest by noon. They crossed both farms, taking nuts from the almond trees along the way and refilling their water skins from a barrel of fresh water by a shed. By mid-afternoon they had made it into the next forest.

  “I don’t know about all of you, but I’m tired,” Tess said. She was sitting against the base of a small tree, leaning against its trunk.

  “We can rest here,” Drakor said. “Toshen, can you hunt down a meal for us.”

  Toshen nodded and motioned for Aesus to come with him. They disappeared into the forest.

  “All of you sure move fast,” Tess said. “I can barely keep up.”

  Xan looked at Tess. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one, I think.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “I’ve lost track. It’s not important to me. What does it matter?”

  “I’m surprised you don’t have more stamina for someone your age.”

  Tess gave Xan an angry look. “Living on the road takes its toll. Unlike you nobles, I don’t get to sleep in a bed every night. Some days I go without food. If you were me, you wouldn’t have much stamina either.”

  “But why choose this life? Why not do something else?”

  “My parents died in a fire when I was six, and I was raised by my grandfather. I was sixteen when he came down with the madness. Lord Byron kicked us out of the castle and we didn’t have a place to live. A shopkeeper who knew my grandfather took pity on us and let me work in her shop. We lived in a small cottage in the back. I met Marcus when I was nineteen and he promised me a better life. He said things tha
t made me feel special, so I ran away with him. I didn’t know he was a bandit until later.”

  “But you continued to stay with him?”

  “I—I didn’t want to go back to the life I had. I love my grandfather, but I can’t deal with him anymore. I still check on him, to make sure he’s all right, but I can’t be responsible for him. I just can’t.” She wiped a tear from her eye and looked away.

  Xan opened her mouth to say something, but decided against it. She walked over to Drakor.

  Drakor smiled at Xan’s tense expression. “Is everything all right?”

  “I think I said something wrong.”

  Drakor turned his head to look at Tess. “Their ways are similar to ours, yet so different. They hunt. They mate. They protect their young, old, and weak. I used to think of them as pests. Now I’m one of them. It’ll take some time to learn what not to say.”

  Toshen and Aesus returned with a young doe. Under Tess’s supervision, they cleaned the doe and cooked the meat over the fire. They didn’t talk much during their meal, and shortly thereafter they went to sleep.

  By noon the next day they had reached the road to Melhorn. The dirt road weaved through grassy plains and hills.

  “It’s best to keep our distance from the road,” Tess said. “Most people will just ignore us if they see us walking in the grass. Problem is, we’ll have to get on the road when we get to Cedar’s station. It’s the only way into the valley.”

  “What’s at Cedar’s station?” Drakor asked.

  “The patrols use the station to rest, and as a checkpoint to keep undesirables out of the valley.”

  “Undesirables?”

  “Bandits, squatters, vagabonds.”

  “Can we go around the station?”

  “Lord Byron built a high wall to prevent people from getting around it. There are guards on the wall to make sure people don’t try to climb over. If a guard sees you and sounds the alarm, there’ll be a group of men waiting for you on the other side.”

  “How many guards are at the checkpoint?” Drakor asked.

  Tess counted with her fingers. “Two at the pole. Two archers above, one on each side. Maybe four or five in the barracks at any one time. You’re not thinking of fighting your way through the checkpoint, are you?”