Phaer grabbed the hat and showed it to the old man. “There! There's your hat!” The old man eyed the slightly soggy hat suspiciously. “That's not my hat, sonny. My hat was in much better condition. Have you switched hats on me, boy?” “Look, Grandfather, if you'll just come with me I'll buy you a new hat with pleasure. Please just come on!” Taking no further argument, the half-elf gently but firmly grabbed the man by the arm and started to jog up the slope back the way he'd come.
They hadn’t gone far before the old man said, “You know something, sonny, I think there's something following us.”
Phaer panicked. “There is? Where?” He looked around but he couldn't see anything.
“Well if there isn't, boy, why in the name of all the gods are you making me run up this confounded hill at my age?” he demanded.
“Because there's a monster in the lake.” The old man came to such an abrupt halt, Phaer stumbled and fell flat on his face. “The lake!” the old man cried in triumph. “That's where he went!” He whirled around to face the lake, pushing up the sleeves of his robes, which promptly fell down again. “Come out of there you lousy good-fornothing snake! You did that on purpose, tried to drown me!”
With much bubbling and frothing of the water, a massive head raised up, at least four times the size of any dragon. It was a creature of immense size, powerful magic, incredible speed and very bad temper: a sea serpent. Even the most fiercely arrogant of aquatic dragons would think twice before crossing such a creature.
That was it. Phaer was not going to risk his own neck to save this ridiculous old man who was busy shaking his fists and giving the creature a good scolding. So without a single extra thought, he ran back to the heart of the village and rejoined the group, telling them nothing of his encounter.
* * * * *
Calandra was deep in conversation with Hannah, when she heard Loric, who had taken off by himself, call out. “Callie! Over here! Quick!”
It took the cleric a moment to pinpoint where his voice was coming from, but finally spotted him jumping and waving in the distance. Wasting not a moment, she sprang up and ran towards him. Loric had been searching the wider area, desperately hoping there might be some survivors and he had stopped suddenly as he found one. She was a human warrior judging by her rather fine armour. She wore a scabbard that seemed to match a sword that was on the ground a few feet away. Her wounds were consistent with battle, not assault. This was further evidenced by the pile of chaos creature corpses all around her. Most importantly, she was still alive... just barely, and though it was hard to tell from her extensive injuries, Loric thought he recognised her.
The woman seemed to react to his voice and tried to speak. What came out was no more than a whispered croak, but it sounded like his name...no, it couldn’t be...could it? She tried again, this time a little clearer. She was saying his name. She was saying, “Loric.”
But how could she possibly...? He broke off his own thought when he realised she was holding something out to him, as best she could. He crouched down to examine it and she immediately relinquished her grasp.
Calandra arrived on the scene then and knelt down beside the victim, gesturing for Loric to give her more space. As Loric backed away a few steps he was amazed to discover that the warrior had given him a map – a map of something he had been searching for, for a long time.
Wait a minute, he realised with a jolt, the only person who should have this is... He moved closer again: much closer, ignoring Calandra’s protests.
“Dear gods, it is you! Sara!”
“She’s a dragon, isn’t she?” the cleric asked and Loric nodded vaguely. “I’ve learned to sense your aura and hers is like yours...an obsidian, yes?” Again, the half-listening nod.
He knew this young dragon and he knew her human form very well indeed, or at least he did before it was so badly beaten. She had found the map for him and paid the ultimate price.
“L-LoLoric,” the girl croaked. “Found...” she was wracked by pain and began coughing up blood.
“Yes, you found them,” Loric said, softly. “You’ve done great. Thank you. Now just save your strength, we’re going to sort you out.” Sara couldn’t see Calandra look up at Loric and shake her head sadly, but she didn’t need to. She knew she “I...we...look...” was dying and wanted desperately to communicate with him one last time.
“You’ve been looking for me?” Loric guessed.
Sara shook her head.
“No? You mean not just you? Someone else?”
Sara nodded.
“Who,Sara? Who is it?”
“J...Jay-” and then she passed away. Loric felt the gentle, sympathetic touch of Calandra . “Loric, I’m sorry for your loss,” she said in a soft voice. “There was nothing anyone could do. Her injuries...it’s a miracle she held on to this life as long as she did.”
Loric nodded. “She seemed to know you. Who was she? A sister? A lover?” When Loric did not immediately answer, she offered, “If you would rather be left alone, I understand. Do you want me to go?”
“No, no please stay. I'm glad that another of our kind is here. She was called Sara. Dear gods, she was so young, barely started to live! She and I met less than a century ago, on a human timescale, when a group of stupid dragon slayers forced her in to mylair.”
“They were hunting her?”
“No, the truth is stranger than that. She was merely bait. You see, at the time, she didn’t know she was a dragon.”
Calandra frowned. “How could she not know?” Loric told the story, explaining that when she was still a hatchling, too young to leave her family home, her nest had been attacked and slaughtered by a powerful red dragon. She was the only survivor - her instinct saved her. She changed into the form of a small human girl and hid. The red overlooked her and eventually she was found by some of Calandra's order, the Revered Children of Patrelaux. The Clerics didn’t have the magic to sense that she was a dragon and the shock and trauma had affected Sara's mind so that she simply forgot she was anything other than human. The temple took her in as an orphan and raised her in their ways.
A few years later, she became a victim of another attack - an attack on the temple. The place was ransacked by a Hand of Darkness raid and though the clerics fought well, the attackers were too strong.
The most senior and powerful clerics were killed on the spot because they were deemed too dangerous. The youngest, most impressionable children were to be conditioned and indoctrinated in the ways of the black clerics. A number of those in between were taken to Avidon to be sold as slaves. Sara was among them.
“On one particular slave market day,” Loric continued, “a group of dragon slayers came to town looking for slaves to use as dragon bait. These weren’t just your usual drunken rabble I deal with all the time. These were serious hardened professionals Dark Knights.”
Calandra cursed. “Lady Hannah is right to feel the way she does about them!” “Well, strictly speaking, the hunt was organised by an unauthorised splinter group, that had helped finance and plan the temple raid. The highest ranks of the Dark Knights of Zhentilon took it so seriously, that at the same time as this group was hunting dragons, the Order of the Black Rose was out hunting them!”
“The Black Rose?” Calandra wondered. Lady Hannah joined them at that point and informed the cleric, “The Order of the Black Rose, Revered Daughter, art a small group of Knight Assassins that doth answer directly to the Supreme Knight Commander. Their function is to eliminate Dark Knights that breach their Code of discipline and honour to such a degree that they art considered irredeemable. Their lives are forfeit to receive the dread punishment of the Mistress of Death. A similar Order doth exist even among the ranks of the Knights of Paladinia. Mercifully, there hath almost never been any need to use them in such a capacity. Prithee that thou shalt forgive me for mine interjection, but I didst feel that mine knowledge mayhap be of use to thee.”
“That's OK, my Lady,” Loric said. “Anyw ay, for some reason – I
still don’t know quite why the leader of this band wanted my hide in particular and he bought Sara especially for that purpose. He knew they had to act fast because the Knights of the Black Rose were only two days behind. Too far to prevent the rebels if everything went to plan, but close enough to be onto them if there should be any delay. Most probably their haste caused them to cut corners in their preparation and make the mistake that they did.”
“What mistake?” Calandra asked.
“Well, their plan was to force Sara into my cave, hoping that I would kill her with my acid breath.”
“Pray tell, how wouldst that help the rebel Knights?” Hannah wondered.
Calandra explained, “There is a brief moment after we dragons use our various breath weapons - just a second or so when we are blinded and made sluggish by the effect of the magic.”
“I hath never heard that before,” the Knight admitted. “As you can imagine, it's not something we're keen to publicise, and most of the time we learn to cover it, especially if we’re flying on instinct,” the cleric pointed out. “Also, obsidian dragons, like their cousins the blacks and the brass tend to be very irritable when they're woken up suddenly by an intruder.”
Loric agreed, “We tend to spit fir st, clean up the mess later, but using our breath weapons the instant we wake up is the most vulnerable time for us. If I'd done that on this occasion, then I would have been blinded and relatively immobile, just long enough for the well-prepared Knights to ambush me. They used specially designed weapons that could have pinned my wings to the ground and shredded their thin membranes.”
“Indeed, that is the standard attack pattern used by the Knights of Paladinia. It has been ever thus since Lord Paladinius himself didst lead a party of the very first Knights to slay the evil dragons of the enemy forces of the Hand of Darkness. Pin them, shred their wings, and use a combination of armour, shields and good position to prevent a clear strike from the dragon's breath weapon whilst attacking the tail.”
“A dragon's tail is very sensitive to pain,” Calandra agreed. “Precisely. Thus, the pain doth build until some of the Knights hath sufficient time to strike at the flanks, keeping their weapons low to penetrate the soft underbelly. Attacking a dragon is not without risk, but the Honourable Rules of Engagement hath instructed countless generations of Knights and led them to success.”
“With me, they miscalculated,” Loric explained. “ They approached from behind the mouth of the cave. That way, they thought, even if the wind changed direction, it wouldn’t carry their scent into the cave and I wouldn’t smell them until they were right on top of me.”
“And suddenly detecting that smell like that would cause you to wake up and spit your acid breath instinctively,” Calandra filled in, mostly for Hannah’s benefit.
“What they didn’t realise was that my lair possessed an air vent at the back.”
“So their scent travelled down that vent!” Calandra marvelled. Loric grinned darkly. “I could smell them for leagues as they approached. When they thrust Sara alone and unarmed into my lair, I knew she was an innocent, so I gently moved her to one side and blasted the Knights.”
“Thou didst slay them all, then?”
“Almost. One got away. Don’t ask me how.” “He didst run away?” Lady Hannah was incredulous. “He was indeed no true Dark Knight. For if I hath learned anything of them, an abomination though they truly art, their honour cannot be questioned. A Knight doth not run from a battle unless there are innocents to protect. A Knight may lead a battle to a more tactically favourable terrain, but to run away like a frightened hobgoblin is not a Knightly manner in which to behave. Didst the Black Rose catch him?”
“I don’t know,” Loric said. “But as I say, this was about a century ago, so he's long dead by now either way.”
“Of course,” Hannah agreed. “Anyway, when the dust settled, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered Sara was a dragon the same as me. It took a long time to convince her, and I'm not sure she was ever entirely comfortable with being a dragon.”
I can relate to that, Calandra thought silently.
“I always assumed that she would eventually work through her pain and embrace her true self. Now she will never have that chance.”
“Knowest thou why she shouldst be out here?” Hannah asked him. “I sent her,” Loric admitted, guilt and regret washing over him. “Oh, not here specifically,” he clarified before they asked. “Sara was out searching for something for me. She found it, too,” he held up the parchment, though without giving any indication of what was on it. “That’s what she was trying to tell me at the end.”
“She was trying to give you a name, too, I think, yes?” Calandra prompted.
“Jayne. Another protégé of mine. She was part of the same mission. Their paths must have crossed sometime before Sara came here.”
“This Jayne was another young dragon?” Calandra asked. Talking seemed to be helping Loric, and she was keen to encourage anything that might aid the healing process.
“No. A half-orc.”
“More dragon bait?” Hannah wondered. Loric smiled in spite of himself. “The only time I’ve ever seen the bait kill the hunter. OK, that hunter was just a typical mercenary, not a trained Knight, but even so. He thought she was a cowed and docile kitten when she was really a tigress simply saving her strength, waiting for the right moment rip out his throat.”
“Good for her,” Hannah approved.
“Well, I was impressed. Man but she was wild!”
“And you tamed her, I take it,” said the cleric.
Loric snorted. “You don’t tame Jayne. In fact, I think it was the very fact that I didn’t try that helped me gain her trust. She completely adores me now.”
“Naturally,” Calandra teased. Loric had the good sense to at least appear slightly embarrassed. “Anyway, she’s out there somewhere, looking for me. Most likely heading for Avidon. And I won’t be there. I sure picked a bad time to leave the city!”
“Hadst thou not, then Sara wouldst have died alone out here,” Hannah pointed out.
“At least this way you got to say goodbye,” Callie added.
“True.” Loric nodded.
That said, he asked his two companions to leave him while he buried his young friend’s body with the respect and honour she deserved.
Chapter 17
Later, when most of the group was back together, Bunny revealed, much to Calandra's dismay, that she had conducted a careful search of the bodies as they'd buried them. The white cleric was slightly appeased when Bunny assured her she was just investigating and took nothing.
“There was nothing worth keeping, and even a complete collection of gold wouldn't be worth the effort," said the Sumorityl. Then, seeing the reactions all around her, she clarified, "My point is, there was no material reason to attack these people. There is no evidence that they possessed anything of value that would make it worthwhile.”
“Tactically, they didst appear to have little in the way of military defensive capability,” Hannah observed.
“And there was no time to mobilise even that much,” Phaer added. “You saw how many were armed with garden forks and rakes, when there's a basic but wellstocked armoury in the town?”
“There's not much evidence of deaths due to magic,” Rochelle pointed out.
“That's right,” agreed Toli. “Just the odd one here or there, but most of it seems to be tooth and claw.”
“Then this whole village was simply taken by surprise and overwhelmed, overrun by a kind of feral force.” Eilidh concluded.
“Dost thou adjudge this to be connected to the kidnapping, Eilidh?” “On the face of it, I don't see why it should be. According to Prince Garald, the kidnapper is a sorcerer not a wizard. He could have no possible way to control these beasts. It could easily be coincidence. Since we don't know where we are, we have no way to judge whether this is consistent with the known attack routes of the chaos creatures. On the other hand, there's plenty
going on at the moment that doesn't seem to make any sense, so maybe there is a connection.”
“So you're firmly on the fence, then,” Phaer remarked with a grin.
Eilidh returned the smile “You could say that.”
“In that case, I guess the only option is to get on with the task at hand but stay alert,” Loric said, drawing his sword and moving to a protective position in the group.
Lady Hannah agreed with his assessment and she moved to the opposite flank. She checked her sword was free in its scabbard, but kept it sheathed.
“Don't you think you'd be better with it in your hand?” Loric inquired. “Nay, good sir! The Sacred Code of Paladinius doth state under the Honourable Rules of Engagement, `A Knight shalt not draw weapons until a clear threat hast been identified`. Such a course of action doth help to avoid the possibility of appearing threatening to innocents.”
“And increase the chances of falling victim to a surprise attack, I should think.” “Not if a Knight is proceeding with all due vigilance. Surprise attacks oftentimes art the result of poor perception on the part of the warrior, rather than good strategy on the part of the enemy.”
“Then of course there's all that armour,” Phaer pointed out. “I don't know how you can even walk inside that shell, let alone fight.”
“One gets used to it, noble Phaer.” “There’s still one thing I don't understand,” Loric said. “Sara made no attempt to change into dragon form and fight when this village was attacked. I know she wasn't comfortable with her dragon form, but even so…”
“No, my friend,” Granite said, as he stomped over, stroking his beard. “Yer wrong about that. She did try to change form. My guess is she hesitated for a moment and that cost her. She was prevented by a binding spell. Och yes, its effects still linger even after death. That’s why she didn’t even revert to her true form when she died.”
“But that's an Enforcer spell,” Toli pointed out. “Why would Enforcers be involved in this massacre?” “There's more,” Granite cautioned them. “While we were burying the bodies, I took the liberty of magically probing those few that were struck down with sorcerer magic and it had the same signature.”
Chosen (Majaos Book 1) Page 19
