“Alright,” Sabium said. “I’ll teach him. But if I get a single whiff of the Paladins, none of you will ever see me again.”
“Fantastic!” Alman clapped triumphantly and turned to Fadan. “What do you say, your majesty? I will vanish into thin air. I guarantee it.”
“If you think this will lead me to join your rebellion, you can forget about it,” Fadan said. “I will not plot to murder my own father.”
“Maybe not,” Alman said. “Maybe the rebellion doesn’t even have to murder your father. Replacing him with you would be more than enough for me.” He smiled.
Fadan frowned. “I said I will not join the rebellion.”
“And I said I would disappear,” Alman said, moving towards the door. “The two of you are free to carry out your lessons.”
Chapter 12
The Desert Flower
Aric led Leth and Clea up a tight, dark stairwell. Sometimes Lamash seemed like the crumbling castle of some bankrupt lordling, but then an opened door would lead to a gleaming hall with a ceiling as tall as a tower that would rise up before you. It was obvious that no architect had ever planned any of its design. The building had just gradually taken shape throughout the centuries as needed. You could even tell the older corridors from the younger by their wall’s particular shade of amber.
“I’m not insane,” Aric told them in a low voice. “I know what I saw.”
“We believe you,” Clea said hesitantly. “But… where are you taking us?”
“I’m not taking you anywhere,” Aric replied, opening a door at the top of the stairwell. “You two are just following me.”
They crossed the door into a barely lit storage room with flour bags in one corner and old wine barrels covering an entire wall.
“Well,” Leth said, wiping a spider web from his head with a grimace, “you did tell us you saw a woman petting a Dragon. Forgive us for wanting to make sure you didn’t bump your head into something.”
“My head is fine,” Aric assured him.
“That’s good to know,” Clea said. “So why are we here?”
“Yeah,” Leth agreed. “And why are we whispering?”
Aric didn’t even acknowledge the questions. He opened a massive chest and dove inside, leaving Leth and Clea to exchange a confused glance.
“There!” Aric said, his legs the only visible part of his body. “I knew it was here.” He reemerged with a victorious smile on his face and a large parcel in his hands.
“What’s that?” Leth asked.
“Dried ostrich meat,” Aric replied, leaving for the door. “Geric loves it.”
“Who’s Geric?” Clea asked.
“My cat,” Aric replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Wait.” Clea raised her hands. “You named it?”
“Of course I named it,” Aric said. “And don’t just stand there, the cooks might come in any moment.” He fled the room, trotting down the stairs.
Eyes widened, Leth and Clea looked over their shoulders to what they now realized was the front door to that storage room, then raced after Aric, closing the smaller backdoor behind them.
“You could have warned us we were aiding you in stealing from the kitchens,” Clea said, catching up to Aric.
“I was going to,” Aric replied, “but you seemed far more interested in my account of what happened in the desert.”
“Yeah, about that,” Leth said. “You’re not going to tell that to Saruk or anyone else, are you?”
Aric shrugged. “I have to.”
The stairwell came to an end and Aric turned left towards a door so small they had to duck to get through it. On the other side, the desert swathed them in hot air like a baking oven.
“I really don’t think you do,” Leth said. “In fact,you probably shouldn’t.” He nearly didn’t finish the sentence as a lean shadow darted past, sending him jumping backwards. “What the‒?”
“There you are,” Aric said, wrapping both arms around the huge cat. The two of them wrestled, Geric’s paws slapping Aric around his neck. “Look what I got for you, look. What’s this? Oh, you like this, don’t you?” The parcel was barely open when Geric stuck his snout inside, devouring its content. Aric giggled.
Clea neared Aric. “Will he bite me?” she asked, reaching out for the cat.
“Of course not,” Aric assured her. “Go ahead.”
Carefully, she moved her hand closer to Geric’s fur. When her fingers brushed against the cat’s neck, he snapped and one of his paws whipped Clea’s hand away. The large cat finished his message with a hiss before diving back to his food.
“Alright…” Aric said, “maybe not while he eats.”
“Can we please get back to the matter at hand?” Leth demanded.
Aric sighed as he stood back up, but he complied. “What do you want me to do? Keep this a secret?”
“Huh… yes.”
“Are you serious?” Aric couldn’t believe it. “There is a crazy Witch out there that can tame Dragons. The Guild has to do something about it.”
Leth closed his eyes and pressed his temples as if a crushing headache had just struck him. “You do realize that if you start blabbering about women wandering around the desert with their Dragon pets, you’ll be the laughing stock of the whole fortress. If you’re lucky.”
Geric had just finished eating and he was happily licking around his own mouth. Aric picked up the now empty parcel and scratched behind Geric’s ear.
“Don’t worry,” he told Leth. “I’ll be fine.”
“So…” Saruk tried to weigh his words most carefully. “This woman was… petting the Dragon. Is that it?”
Somewhere along the line of recruits came a muffled laugh.
“She wasn’t petting him,” Aric replied. He obviously didn’t appreciate Saruk’s condescending tone.
“And you say this woman was Eliran?” Saruk had a suspicious eyebrow raised. “The one from the scary bedtime stories.”
Aric’s mouth moved silently a couple of times. “I can’t be sure it really was Eliran,” he finally admitted. “But she was standing very close to the Dragon and then… reached out with her arm.”
“I see.” He obviously didn’t. “And the Dragon simply stood there?”
Aric exhaled loudly, his cheeks glowing red. “You know I tagged a Dragon, your Hunters traced my Seeker arrow back to it.”
“That’s right,” Saruk agreed. “A Mahari Black Dread no less. Very impressive.”
“Then why would I lie about the rest?”
“Because you’ve lost your marbles,” Ashur said.
The crowd of recruits burst into laughter. Even Saruk had to hide a smile.
Feeling like there wasn’t a hole deep enough for him to hide in, Aric looked to his left and found Clea trying to smile reassuringly at him. She was doing a terrible job of it.
“Listen,” Saruk said, his hands asking for quiet. “Sometimes, when you’re out there on your own, the desert plays tricks with our heads. Veteran Hunters with years of experience have come back from patrols swearing they had found the Goddess herself. My own instructor, to the day he died, vowed that he had found the edge of the desert. That there was a city there with towers made of gold reaching up to the sun, and that some of the old gods still wandered there. As Grand-Master Sylene says - It comes with the job.”
Aric didn’t reply. He knew what he had seen, but it was clear that the conversation was over. Saruk turned his back on Aric, ordering the Company to follow him out into the corridors. What else was he supposed to do?
Each team formed a line behind the instructor, marching down the great staircase leading to the main hall. Tharius seemed to have grown two inches overnight. He paraded himself along Lamash’s hallways with his now enormous team in tow as if he owned the entire Guild.
It was alright, Aric told himself. If someone deserved to gloat a bit, it was certainly Tharius. Ashur, however, wasn’t as forgiving.
“Look at that idio
t,” Aric heard him whisper to Prion and Jullion. “Prancing around like a peacock.”
It was funny how quickly Ashur’s attention had shifted from Aric to Tharius, and it wasn’t just him. Tharius seemed to be the only thing everyone in the Company talked about since he had tagged a Dragon all by himself. It felt kind of unfair, though. After all, hadn’t Aric done exactly the same?
Saruk led the Company to the lower levels of Lamash. The second challenge was to take place inside a damp cave somewhere within the mountain.
The bowels of the fortress were a frightfully large and dark place, and it was no wonder the recruits were forbidden to access them on their own. One could easily get lost in the mess of man-made tunnels and natural caves. Saruk had even claimed that those who got lost in there were rarely found.
“This challenge is called The Silent Retrieval,” Saruk said when they reached a large hollow where the sun could be seen shining through a crevice miles above them. “Your goal is to rescue a straw man laid inside. The trick will be to do it without waking up the bats sleeping within.”
“Bats?” Lyra asked, grimacing.
“That’s right,” Saruk replied. “They’re mostly harmless. Mostly. But they won’t attack you if they remain asleep, which is exactly the point of the challenge. There are four candidates still in the race to become Captain. Only three will remain by the end of today. Good luck.”
Each team was placed in a different chamber waiting for their turn to go in. Who would go first and who would go last, Aric did not know. He waited with Leth and Clea by the torchlight for well over an hour before Saruk came and told them their turn was up.
As they prepared to go in, Aric couldn’t tell which was harder; dealing with the butterflies in his stomach, or pretending like he wasn’t nervous at all in front of Clea.
“Are you alright?” she asked, firmly tying the leather straps around her boots.
“Sure,” Aric replied, smiling weakly.
The challenge, however, went much smoother than Aric would have ever guessed. Clea seemed to feel quite comfortable in the darkness, and since lighting a torch was out of the question, Aric was more than okay with letting her lead the way. They were in and out in a breeze, and Aric was incredibly proud that none of them made a single sound. No one slipped or kicked a loose pebble. It was, as Saruk put it, a clean rescue. The only question was, had they been fast enough?
They were ordered to return to the Company’s quarters and wait for the results. By the time Saruk arrived with a rolled piece of parchment in his hand, Aric had nearly carved a trench in the stone floor of the common room from walking back and forth.
Please let us win, please…
Aric still wasn’t sure if he really wanted to be Captain, to have all that responsibility fall upon his shoulders, but the glory of winning the competition, however, was something he really wouldn’t mind. For the last couple of days, he had found himself daydreaming of the moment that Saruk raised his hand in the air and announced him as the Captain of the twenty third Company of Dragon Hunters. In Aric’s mind, the announcement was always followed by loud cheers and applause. Sometimes the whole Company would rush to hug him, other times they carried him upon their shoulders across Lamash. No matter how the news was received, though, the best part was always the way Clea’s smile glowed when their eyes met.
Saruk opened his parchment roll and cleared his throat as every set of eyes locked on him. “The winner of this challenge,” he said, “is team Ashur.”
Jullion and Prion jumped, screaming victoriously, grabbing and shaking a shock-frozen Ashur. Everyone else looked stunned.
“Oh, please…” Leth begged uselessly. “Not him.”
Aric agreed, but that wasn’t the worst part. Losing would be bad in any case, but now it would mean becoming part of Ashur’s team.
Oh, Goddess…
“Congratulations, boys,” Saruk said over the excited howls of Jullion and Prion. “Outstanding work.”
Trying to look as if it didn’t really matter, Ashur thanked Saruk, then leered at the other team leaders.
“Now, the losers,” Saruk continued.
Like a spell, those words made the whole room become silent in a flash. Aric saw Trissa close her eyes and move her lips in a silent prayer. Even Tharius had lost his recent smirk.
“I really wasn’t expecting this, but…” Saruk said.
Oh, Goddess… he means me.
“The losers are…” He made a look as if he was apologizing to the parchment roll. “Team Tharius.”
“WHAT?!”
Every pair of eyes turned to Tharius. The poor boy was looking as if he had just been stabbed in the gut. Even his color was gone. Behind him, everyone on his team looked speechless. It was such a pitiful sight Aric even refrained from giving a sigh of relief.
“Yeah,” Saruk said. “I didn’t see that one coming either.” He rolled the parchment containing the results and addressed the entire group. “Overall, everyone did well. I’m actually impressed. It came down to speed, and your team was the slowest, Tharius.”
“But, but…” Tharius mumbled.
The poor guy never finished the sentence.
“Instructor,” Trissa called.
“Yes?”
“I wouldn’t mind knowing who came second,” she replied. “Me or Aric.”
“That would be you, Trissa.”
If disappointment had a sound, Aric thought, that would’ve been it. It was still better than losing, though. Nahir and everyone in his original team couldn’t even take their faces off the ground. Losing two challenges in a row had to be rough.
“The three remaining team leaders are to report to the Grand-Master’s study for the next mission’s briefing. Dismissed.”
“We almost lost. Again…” Aric said. It was the first thing out of his mouth since him, Leth, and Clea had left the Company’s quarters.
“We’ll do better next time,” Clea told him.
A piercing sound made them both jump.
“Goddess, Leth!” Clea cried. “What the heck are you doing?!”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Leth said, indicating the pickaxe in his hand and the cracked stone slab he had just hit.
Clea fumed. “I’ve had enough of weird places in the fortress for today. Why did you have to bring us to this creepy old tower? And why in the world are you hacking at the floor?”
“I’m finding out the truth,” Leth said as if making a solemn vow, then he stabbed the floor once again.
“What?!” Clea asked again, dumbfounded.
“There used to be a library on the floor below,” Aric explained.
“What do you mean used to be?” Clea asked.
“This being the mage tower, obviously, the Paladins wiped it clean,” Aric replied. “There aren’t any books left.”
“Then why is he trying to get in there? And what’s wrong with using the front door?!”
“What Aric forgot to tell you,” Leth said, wiping sweat from his forehead, “is that the library has a walled off section. Who knows what the Paladins didn’t wipe clean?”
Clea shook her head. “And you thought this was the best moment to begin your… excavation?”
“Well,” Leth replied. “It’s not like we’ve had lots of free time lately, have we?” He stabbed the floor once again, making Clea cringe.
Aric stood up. “Well, I have to go,” he announced.
“Future Captain’s duties, huh?” Clea said.
Aric smiled faintly.
“I can’t wait to learn what’s next on Saruk’s catalogue of tortures,” Leth said, swinging the pickaxe above his head. He struck the stone slab again, his whole body lending strength to the blow. “Goddess damn this! What is this floor made of?”
“What are you expecting to find down there, anyway?” Aric asked as he walked towards the exit.
Leth lowered the pickaxe, resting his arms. “You never know,” he said between heavy panting. “I might find the de
sert Witch.” He smiled devilishly and Aric smiled back.
“If the Mages wanted that section to be a secret, it’s going to stay a secret.”
Aric ducked under a massive spider web and walked out the door, still in time to hear Leth screaming, “Dead Mages are no match for the finest son of House Ranraik!”
It made Aric laugh out loud, even though he was already alone. He left the Mage Tower and had to cover his eyes from the burning sun as he crossed the stone bridge leading back to the Main Tower. A Company of senior Hunters was readying their gear on the Main Hall, and Aric recognized most of their faces.
That was the seventh Company. Whitejackets was their nickname, although why, Aric did not know. He had never seen any of them wearing a white jacket. What Aric did know was that they had returned from patrol less than a week ago, and apparently were being shipped out already. None of them seemed very happy about it either.
Trissa and Ashur were already by the door to the Grand-Master’s study when Aric arrived.
“What are you looking at?” Trissa was asking Ashur.
The fair haired Samehrian smirked. “Just wondering what your duties will be when I become Captain.”
Trissa looked away, shaking her head. “Idiot…”
The three of them waited in silence for a little while until the black door opened with a creak and Saruk waved them in. They formed up in front of the huge table holding the map of the Mahari desert, Grand-Master Sylene standing across from them like one of the marble statues of the Citadel. Slowly, she moved towards them, inspecting each one from head to toe, until she stopped in front of Aric.
“Is this the armor you were issued by the Guild?” the Grand Master asked.
“Yes, Grand-Master.”
“What happened to your own Dragon scales armor?”
“It’s in my bunk, Grand-Master.”
“Your bunk? Why?” Sylene asked. “Are you afraid it’ll get damaged?”
The Dragon Hunter and the Mage Page 22
