by Dante King
The walk gave me time to ponder a little on this upcoming foray out into the world. The first thing that I realized, now that I had the time and quiet to think a little, was that I had just been asked to go and check on the safety of a Leprechaun village…
Aren’t Leprechauns supposed to be tiny? What if I accidentally walk over their village while I’m looking for it? I wondered.
I didn’t give this too much thought, thinking that one of the squad would know what real Leprechauns looked like and how they lived.
The next thing that I couldn’t help thinking about was what might prove to be a tricky dilemma. It was an hour’s flight to the village of Swanside, and that was all very well and good for me because I had Noctis. How though, did squads travel when they were required to set out with a dragonmancer? Did Noctis take a big enough form so that all four of us could ride on his back? I didn’t think it was likely.
“Given a little more time in which to strengthen our bond, gain experience and power and generally grow together, there is no doubt in my mind that I could easily take a form sufficiently large enough to transport you and your three comrades—even the fat one,” Noctis told me, in his usual laidback voice.
I grinned as I strode around a corner, dodging out of the way of a messenger-drake boosting in the other direction.
“I’m not sure if Bjorn would appreciate you calling him fat,” I said.
“Why not?” Noctis replied, generally not understanding. “It means he eats well. Eats the most. Is as far up the food chain as he is able to climb.”
“At the top some might say,” I said.
“They who said that would be wrong,” the Onyx Dragon growled in my head.
“Anyway, let’s get back on topic,” I said. “How the hell are we all supposed to get airborne?”
Noctis’ reply was as relaxed as it ever was. “I will show you. The place used to be called the Eyrie, though it might have changed since last I saw it.”
“When was that?” I asked as I headed toward the Armory doors up ahead.
“Four-hundred and seven years ago,” Noctis said promptly.
“Well,” I said, “I guess we’ll see if the Academy has been renovated since you were last out and about at the Eyrie, won’t we?”
I presented myself at the talking side door of the armory and declared myself. The face, which I had taken to be just a bit of decorative molding when I first was shown the armory, came to life at my approach and informed me that it would announce my presence to the Armory Warden. It disappeared and left me waiting.
Twelve seconds later, it reappeared and said, “You may enter, Dragonmancer Noctis.”
I walked through the side door and into the odd waiting room that fronted the Drako Academy’s main armory. Just as it had last time I had visited—when Elenari and I had been tasked with polishing what felt like a zillion shields as a punishment—the room struck me as incongruous. More like the modern waiting room of a dentist’s surgery than the front of a place where you could pick up a sword, shield, and crossbow if you needed them.
“Hello?” I called.
“One second,” came a voice that I recognized.
A moment later, the muscle-bound, blue-skinned, silver-toothed Djinn, Renji, came through a closed door and walked out from behind the counter at which I was waiting. She was carrying a large parcel wrapped in waxed cloth in her arms.
“Renji!” I said, pleased to see the formidable looking but very amiable Djinn again. “I was hoping you’d be on duty. How’re tricks?”
“Tricks are good, Dragonmancer Noctis.” The big blue woman smiled.
“Come on, Renji,” I said, “call me Mike, yeah? I’m trying to take a little of the starch out of all the stuffed shirts around here.”
Renji flashed me her silver smile, which matched the large silver ring that pierced her septum.
“Very well, Mike,” she said. “Here are your things.” She pushed the parcel across the desk.
“How did you know I was coming?” I said, picking up the parcel. It was pretty heavy.
“I didn’t, but the door spirit announced you, and there is only one reason that people come a-knocking at the door to the armory—unless they are here to be punished, of course.”
“Well, there’s no punishment for me today, thankfully,” I said. “It’s business.”
Renji nodded understandingly.
“There is a room in which to change over there,” the Djinn said. “If the sands of time are not flowing in your favor and you need haste.”
“They aren’t and I do, as it happens,” I said. “What about my daily threads? Can I just leave them here and pick them up later?”
“I will have your Rank One attire laundered and sent back to your dorm room, Mike,” Renji said, tipping me a wink.
“Renji,” I said. “You are one hell of a female. When are you going to take a day off and let me take you out, hm?”
Renji let out a girlish giggle that was totally in contrast to her imposing outer appearance. I grinned at the sound.
“Well, you just let me know,” I said, making my way toward the door. “And I’ll come running. I know Noctis wouldn’t mind spending some quality time with Corvar.”
I thought I might have heard an impatient metallic snarl come from the back room at this comment, so I decided to shut up and get changed.
I emerged about ten minutes later—getting changed into my fighting gear turned out to be a bit of a lengthier process than simply chucking on a pair of breeches and a shirt. I was wearing my burnished bronze hauberk—a thigh-length shirt of fine chainmail—with my leather brigandine with its embedded tiny steel plates stitched underneath the fabric. I had a pair of leather and steel vambraces strapped to my forearms, a set of matching thigh guards and greaves, and a pair of mailed gauntlets covering my hands.
It might have been a heavy ensemble for an average human, but thanks to my dragon-bonded strength, it felt about as weighty as wearing a set of American football pads.
“How do I look?” I asked, when I stepped back out into the Armory waiting room.
“You look like a dragonmancer,” Renji said, and there was a note of pride in her voice.
I reckoned that, in the Mystocean Empire, there were fewer higher words of praise than that.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, my smile fading as my game-day demeanor began to establish itself. “But you let me know when I’m taking you to dinner.”
Renji flashed me another silver smile, and I made my exit.
I caught up with the boys just where I said I would.
The three of them were attired in the same matching uniforms and equipment—leather undershirts, polished hauberks of plain steel, and scarred greaves and vambraces with the sigil of the Drako Academy claw stamped into them.
I looked closer at Bjorn, the giant seven-foot piece of bad news. His beard was freshly groomed and forked, and his red eyes gleamed. Over his shoulder, I could see the handle of a double-headed axe that must have been big enough to cut about three men in half at a single stroke.
“You thinking of running away to join the Leprechauns as a lumberjack, mate?” I asked, pointing at the axe.
Bjorn grinned a tombstone smile at me. “You said come prepared, boss.”
“That’s true,” I said.
I turned to Gabby. The mute tracker stood watching me with his impassive yellow hawk eyes. He was wearing his cloak with the hood pulled up and had his bow and quiver slung across his back, as well as a pair of sabers hanging from his sword belt.
“I’ve got you down as cultural liaison, Gabby,” I said. “You’ll be doing all the talking. That all right?”
Gabby pulled the finger at me.
“Great,” I said.
Rupert was the last man in line. He still, sadly, had his battered Robin Hood bycoket hat on his head. He was strapped with a half-dozen knives, but he also had a leather satchel fastened tight across his shoulders, the bag part strapped to his chest so that h
e could get to it easily.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
“Medicaments, Mike,” he said.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“W-w-w-well, there are a few b-bottles of this p-potion that I’ve been experimenting on.”
“What kind of potion?” I said.
“Less a potion and m-more a sort of c-combustible liquid,” Rupert said.
“You made some bombs?” I asked incredulously, crushing an impulse to take a step back.
“N-no, Mike,” Rupert said in an affronted tone. “I just b-brewed up a mixture of certain elements—saltpeter, carbon and sulfur mostly—that reacts in a v-v-v-volatile manner when exposed to excessive heat, direct f-flame or, in some instances, a sharp impact.”
“Yeah, Rupert,” I said, “you’ve quite literally given me the fucking dictionary definition of a bomb there.”
“Bomb?” Rupert asked, intrigue written on every feature of his face.
“That’s what we call them back on Earth,” I said.
“B-bombs… Yes, I like the n-name. Well, in that case, yes, I h-h-have produced some b-bombs and have them safely stowed in my b-bag,” Rupert said, patting his bag in a satisfied manner.
I flinched at the sound of bottles clinking but took solace in the fact that if Rupert hadn’t done his homework—something that I felt was extremely unlikely— we would all be scattered across the surrounding landscape so fast that we wouldn’t have time to be pissed off with him.
“Okay, lads,” I said. “Let’s get the hell out of here, yeah? We’ve got—what, six hours of daylight left, Gabby?”
Gabby held up five fingers.
“Five hours of daylight,” I corrected myself. “An hour flight either way, gives us three hours to sort this shit out and still make it back before the refectory closes for supper.”
“Back in time for cocoa and medals, is that it?” Bjorn said sarcastically.
“Back in time for you to be tucked in by whatever poor prostitute will have you,” I retorted cheerily.
The boys laughed.
“Now, follow me, ladies,” I said. “I believe there’s some means somewhere in the castle that’ll allow you a nice trip to Swanside.”
Noctis allowed me to access his memories of the Drako Academy as he had known it so many hundreds of years before. These memories guided my squad through the burrowing passages and myriad twists and turns until we emerged out on the side of the castle that faced the sea.
There was a courtyard from which we could hear the crash of the waves breaking on the base of the cliffs far below. After stepping into the courtyard, still following Noctis Maps, we were brought up short by a wall that, according to Noctis’ memories, was not supposed to be there.
“Excuse me, miss,” I said, to a guardswoman who happened to be marching past at that moment.
She turned, and I found myself staring into a pair of all-white eyes, as milky as any blind person that I had ever seen.
“Oh, uh, I was just wondering whether or not you knew the way to the Eyrie?” I asked.
The blind woman smiled. “Yes, Dragonmancer, I do.”
“How did you know I was a dragonmancer?” I asked in amazement.
“I might not be able to see, sir,” the guardswoman said, “but my people, who are from the lightless caves in the far south, have an unparalleled sense of smell. Dragonmancers carry a particular scent. Although, I had thought there was more than one dragonmancer present, since you carry the scent of two.”
I laughed at that. Penelope and I had been taking advantage of her private room in the library a lot lately.
“Look, we’re in a bit of a rush,” I said amicably. “Any chance that you could show us where the Eyrie is?”
“Of course,” the blind soldier said. “Follow me.”
The woman hurried off, and we followed.
So amazed was I by the way that she steered herself unerringly through the corridors, gardens, and open spaces, that I almost walked into her when she stopped outside a wrought iron gate.
“Here you are, sir,” she said.
“I… Thanks. Thanks a lot,” I said.
“It was my honor to help you, dragonmancer,” the guardswoman said. She bowed and went to leave.
“What’s your name, soldier?” I blurted suddenly.
The guardswoman’s tanned cheeks darkened a shade. She raised a hand to brush a honey-colored strand of her out of her face and then seemed to remember who it was she was talking to. I noticed that she only had three fingers on her left hand. The same was true of her right. I wondered what race she might be part of.
“My name is Private Bedra Swiftcreek, Dragonmancer Noctis. One of the Cave Fae and a pikewoman of the Sixth Academy Battalion.”
“Right, well, thanks for the help, Bedra Swiftcreek,” I said. “You’ve done me and the boys here a real service and we appreciate it. I owe you one.”
Private Bedra stammered, as if she was not quite sure how to reply to these words of thanks coming from a dragonmancer. Then she colored again, bowed, turned on her heel, and left.
Once she was out of sight, I found myself still staring after her.
“Uh, boss,” Bjorn said, clearing his throat with a sound like someone tossing a bucket of grit into a cement mixer, “are you all right?”
I turned. “I just… I mean, she was blind.”
“Yes, boss,” Bjorn said. “And?”
I looked at him. “And she can’t see.”
“No, boss,” Bjorn said patiently.
“And she’s a fucking soldier,” I said, wondering why I was the only one who thought this was odd.
“Yep,” Bjorn said.
“None of the Fae f-from the southern caves can see, Mike,” Rupert said.
I shook my head and raised my hands.
“Clearly,” I said, “this is one of those things that I just do not understand, and there’s no time for that to be remedied just yet, so let’s just push on and get Bedra out of our minds.”
“Bedra isn’t in m-m-my mind, Mike,” Rupert said.
“She’s sort of in my mind,” Bjorn said, grinning.
Gabby made a gesture.
“Gabby’s right, Bjorn,” I said. “Storing an image of a woman away in your wank bank is not the same as keeping her in my mind.”
With Bjorn’s feigned sounds of outrage playing as a soundtrack, the four of us passed under the archway of the wrought iron gates, under a cunningly worked metal sign that spelled, “THE EYRIE.”
The wrought iron gate led us into a roughly hewn tunnel which, in short order, spat the four of us out into an enormous space that reminded me of an aircraft hangar. This space was more a cave than it was the hangar bay of the Death Star. It looked, if the coarse pickaxe strokes that scored the surface nearest to us were to be believed, to have been mined by hand.
“Whoa,” I said, “this is pretty cool isn’t it?”
At the far end of the hanger there was no wall. All that could be seen from the end of the enormous cave was a large patch of perfect blue: the sky.
“That must just drop out of the cliff,” Rupert said. “A very c-c-convenient launching point.”
“Launching point for what though?” I asked.
Gabby pointed and gave a little grunt. I turned and followed his finger.
“Oh, right,” I said. “Fucking flying boats. Why didn’t I guess that?”
The boats in question were design along similar lines as Viking longboats, though smaller and more maneuverable looking. The one that we were standing next to now was also floating, which I don’t believe the Vikings ever got theirs to do.
Gabby, in his nonchalant way, turned out to know how to fly these longboats—although, of course, just how the mysterious son of a bitch learned he couldn’t tell us. After I had used my dragonmancer status to procure us a boat, Gabby directed—through some pretty modest hand gestures—Rupert and Bjorn to sit down, shut up, and not touch anything.
Once the boys
were all safely stowed on the magical, floating longboat, Gabby took up his position at the tiller. He was running his eyes over the rigging as I went quickly through my crystal’s itinerary slots to make sure that I was prepared as I could be.
It was only then that I noticed that my Weapon Slot A, which up until then had INSUFFICIENT EXPERIENCE written next to it, now said CHAOS SPEAR.
“Hello, hello, what the hell is this now?” I wondered aloud and shifted Noctis’ power into it.
Instantaneously, a spear appeared in my hand. Its shaft seemed to be made of smooth, flawless ebony or some other dark wood. The tip was long and sharp and gave off the impression that it would probably go clean through plate armor. What really caught the eye though, what really made this weapon stand out from the crowd as not just another infantryman sticker, was the crackling black, white, and silver Chaos Magic that roiled up and down the shaft like a heatwave.
“Holy shit, this is an enchanted weapon, isn’t it?” I breathed, turning the beautiful stick of death around in my hands. The weapon was perfectly weighted and, as the tip moved through the air, it seemed to sing a song that tickled at the edge of my hearing. I couldn’t make out the words—hell, I couldn’t even make out the melody—but I knew one thing: the song the weapon was singing was a lullaby. The ultimate lullaby for my enemies.
“Wowee!” Rupert yelled, so amazed that he even forgot to stutter. “Where did that come from?”
I whirled the spear around in a blur of speed and thrust it into the air, doing a statue-of-liberty pose.
“Noctis’s power in Weapon Slot A,” I said. “You reckon the bandits are going to like it, if we run into any of them?”
“Oh, sure,” Rupert said. “They’ll like it, all right. They’ll love it. Love it like a mouse loves a cat.”
I grinned, put the Chaos Spear down, and then transferred Noctis’ power into my Leg Slot. The spear vanished, and the Onyx Dragon appeared in a misty burst of Chaos Magic.
I mounted Noctis’ back and looked across at my squad in the dragon-headed longboat.
“If you three would put your tray tables in the upright position and your window shades up,” I said, “we can buckle our seatbelts and prepare for takeoff.”
