The Last Dragon: Book Four

CHAPTER THREE

The wrestling episode with Princess Elizabeth was exactly what all in the camp required to relax. Amidst the wrestling, tugging, punching, and shouting, then the pervading tensions evaporated like the morning mist as watchers took sides—most hers. A few offered suggestions I might try during the next bout. The idea that a loyal subject would spill water on his princess was inconceivable to them. Her response in attacking me was beyond belief, and more than a few coins exchanged hands.

Her unexpected response was because they didn’t know her, or the hundreds of wrestling matches we’d had while practicing with the King’s Weapon-Master at Crestfallen for almost ten years. She was smaller than me but quicker—and she fought dirty. I was not allowed to use my magic in any form by mutual agreement. Besides, we had agreed to keep my limited magic secret from all but the three of us, therefore, it was more powerful when it was used.

This late in the afternoon, our playful romp provided a relief we all needed. Afterward, we ate an early meal of hard strips of meat that had been soaked in brine to soften them and dried beans that had been boiled. The beans contained green flakes of at least two plants I recognized and one I didn’t. Overall, combined with warm, stale water, it was one of the better and more memorable meals I’d ever eaten.

The topic of conversation at first centered on Elizabeth and me. Then it changed to ideas and possible plans. Everyone provided suggestions.

We all agreed that Dagger had to be our primary target until we found a way to defeat Kaon. We also agreed that we couldn’t capture Dagger and thus all of Kondor, or any of the Council of Nine, without outside help.

Avery said with a sneer, “We need an army, maybe two. A few rogue mages would also help, and a dozen sorceresses would too, especially with our sagging morale. Any other ideas?”

Kendra said, “Prince Angle has already raised a small army. It will grow and he’ll fight with us.”

Avery had told us the prince had started a rebellion and taken Vin in a surprise attack. Now he was marching to Trager to restore order and seat someone on the throne as he attempted to save the city from destruction and increase the size of his army with fresh recruits. Kendra’s dragon had burned much of the city, and the people there had already been starving for a year. I didn’t see a lot of hope from that direction and said so.

To my surprise, Avery disagreed. “While I was traveling under the guise of a Wandering Priest in Trager, I found there are more people in the city than you’d believe. They are hungry, but they are the survivors in a city where half the population has died, and they kept out of sight but managed to go on. They are tough. Many were in their King’s Army before all this began. Others learned to fight in the street. Their families are dead. I suspect a good number of them will leap at the chance to fight back at their oppressors—especially if we offer food and pay.”

“We?” I asked. “How did this become something we are going to do?”

Avery replied with the sly smile I hated when he directed it my way, “With a couple of warriors loaned to me by the Slave-Master, the three of us could ride over the mountain pass between Vin and Trager and meet up with Prince Angle’s army there and help. Remember, I am not without influence in Trager. I can be of most help there.”

From experience, I knew Avery never did anything without a benefit to himself. I searched back in time and found it. The murdered king of Trager had been his personal friend for years and years, although it was difficult to think of anyone actually liking Avery. He felt an obligation to help the people of his slain friend. That was easy to understand.

I said, “You could help them find the rightful heir to the throne as well as use your influence to recruit soldiers. I like it. Prince Angle will appreciate it too.”

The Slave-Master said, “One of the few things I am good at is the organization of large groups of people and supplies. If a ragtag army from Trager and Vin is going to help us, it will need food, clothing, weapons, and training. My warriors and I can best be of service that way. I know how and what to procure.”

“You’ll go with me?” Avery asked in an astonished tone that displayed more disbelief than acceptance.

The fat man brushed the last of the crumbs from his meal off his tunic as he said, “It is where I can best be of service.”

Flier said, “I know the way. As a messenger, I traveled that pass a dozen times. I’ll go too.”

People were already packing their belongings in preparation for an early start. Only five of us remained and we watched silently. Elizabeth, Kendra, Anna, me, and Will, the protector the king assigned to Elizabeth would soon be alone. I looked at them in anticipation.

Elizabeth said coldly, “Avery suggested we need two armies.”

“Vin and Trager are not two?” I said, knowing they were not.

“Fairbanks and Landor lie south of Kondor across the sea. Fairbanks has no army, but Landor does,” Elizabeth said. “Suppose we travel there and recruit them?”

“And raise an army in our spare time?” I asked in a sharp tone even I didn’t like.

She turned her eyes but not her head until they bore into me. “My father sent me on a mission to negotiate a treaty or treaties with those kingdoms that will support Dire. He gave me no geographical boundaries.”

“I think he meant you were to attempt to find peace with Kondor,” I said. “Not start a war.”

“Only because he didn’t know all that is happening. If he stood before us now, do you deny he would wish me to travel to Fairbanks and Landor?”

I broke eye contact while muttering, “No. He’d probably go himself.”

She turned to the Slave-Master who was the only one not packing since others did his work. “How long to travel to Trager, recruit and train an army, and march to the outskirts of Dagger?”

“Sixty days is minimal. Ninety would be better. A new army must train or they’re worthless.”

She scowled. “Sixty days it is. We will meet you a day’s march north of Dagger on the coast. Find a place for our ships to land.”

The Slave-Master, being a much smarter man than me, didn’t argue. He stood upright and made a deep bow to her, with all the dignity and respect possible. The last rays of the sun were streaking behind him as if they emanated from the man and not the sun. My impression was that he had planned it that way for her, but perhaps not. The effect remained the same.

No, my mind changed. I’d played blocks against him for my freedom from slavery. He planned his moves too carefully. The action was on purpose, although I doubted if any of the others noticed.

Despite sleeping much of the day, the ride through the night had tired us and shortly after eating salted meat again, I curled up and slept the night through. When I awoke in the morning, only five of us remained, and six horses. We saddled the last horse with our meager supplies.

Kendra looked around at the empty camp and asked herself, the words little more than a whisper, “How did they disappear so fast?”

Will, who normally said little, spoke loudly as if trying to reinforce his words with volume, “If I had the power, I would order Princess Elizabeth back to Dire at this moment. Since she will disobey me if I so order her to go, I encourage each of you to try. Failing that, I will ride at her side. Do not attempt to separate us. I have not done as my king wishes by allowing her to be captured, and it will not happen again.”

I said, “Will, I thought that you should lead us.”

“I have a prior commitment.”

I knew he meant that he was pledged to protect Elizabeth, and nothing would stand in the way of that. It would not be me to lead, I had already decided. Not Anna, of course. That left Kendra and Elizabeth. I didn’t believe the change in relationships had been enough that Kendra would be comfortable ordering a princess to whom she was a servant, to do anything. I turned to face Elizabeth, the only logical choice, but she had never liked giving orders. She worked behind the scene. Kendra also turned to her.

To my surprise, Elizabeth lifted her chin a tiny bit and said in a strong voice seldom heard from her, “I will lead.”

Nothing fancy. No long speeches. Just three small words that surprised a few of us, but from what I saw, it did not surprise Will in the least. Something had happened to her on the ship and he was aware of it. I had a faint suspicion he was the cause of it. A subtle change had turned our dainty princess into a leader.

Whatever it had been, it made little difference now. She had taken charge in fact, if not name. I expected her to do so in action and was not disappointed as she said, “Gather your belongings, we need to ride.”

She had also become a woman of fewer words.

A few moments later, we were in our saddles because there was not much to pack, just a few blankets to roll and tie behind the saddles. We departed, with me at the rear and Will in front. We hadn’t spoken of how to get to Fairbanks, the nearest of the two kingdoms. However, they were south of Dagger across a desert and across a sea, so how could we miss it?

I smiled inwardly at my little joke. Besides Fairbanks and Landor, there was enough desert and drylands to get lost in and spend a lifetime trying to find our way out. If the rumors I’d heard were true, there were bandits, outlaws, and crazies who killed any travelers for little or nothing, even a few jugs of water took on value. I glanced down at my scabbard and the makeshift addition intended to carry arrows. Again, I had no bow. The Kaon warriors had grabbed the few at the weapons cache and could undoubtedly put them to better use. My life seemed destined to lack one.

Anna touched my mind gently, *Are you angry with me?*

*Angry? No, why would you ask?*

*Because you do not talk to me. You don’t even look at me.*

In my head, it felt as if she was sad. Sad? Was she also transmitting “feelings and emotions” to me? It was the first I’d thought of that. Always before, our mental communications had been dry, flat, and just words.

The idea that we might communicate emotions hit me like the sting of a bee. Was I revealing my emotions to her? Could she “read” them any time she wished? If she could, it meant the end of lying, something I was pretty good at, but not if someone could tell what lies came from my mouth.

Not that I intended to lie to her, but there are lies, and there are bigger lies. If she asked how she looked in a new dress I didn’t like, what would I say? What could I say? Just how truthful did we wish to be with others?

My mind felt like a tangled fishing line I’d once seen. The fisherman had managed to hook a branch of a tree, and the result was a ball of knots and twists that must have taken hours to straighten out, if ever. Trying to follow one thought today was like untying those knots without using my thumbs.

I rode faster and caught up with Anna while ignoring the reactions of the others as they looked at us to see what was happening. We rode together, side by side, for a while, then she giggled as her mood improved. I fell back to the rear knowing all was right with the two of us. Later, I’d share what happened with the others.

The incident made it well between us—but the questions raised were not answered. As the sun reached the top of the sky and the waves of heat rose from the ground, we saw the tops of a few trees in a hollow ahead. There was no water in the depression, but the cracked ground told us after a rainstorm there had been water pooled there. The trees, varieties with long roots like willow, mesquite, and ironwood, along with several kinds of cactus, provided scant shade, but it was better than none.

Better, but not by much. To my surprise, Will unlashed his spare blanket and walked to a small mesquite tree. His determination and speed were at odds with the scorched ground we sweat upon. With a roundhouse toss, the blanket spread over the branches. The shade below was complete.

The act was simple, efficient, and something I’d never have thought of. That made me wonder if he had more experience in the desert than the rest of us. It was possible. We knew almost nothing of his background, only that he had been a war hero and a soldier in the King’s Army. His exploits had earned him lands, homes, orchards, and servants. Now it earned him respect from his fellow travelers.

Many men had joined the King’s Army and performed well in serving their kingdom. Only one soldier had been rewarded such as Will. There was more to his story, and I wanted to know what it was.

However, the heat seemed to suck energy from us. We were nearly out of drinking water. The combination of circumstances soon had us sleeping fitfully, but thankfully in the shade provided by more blankets tossed over the small trees.

One item caught my attention before I slept. Kendra sat unmoving, eyes glazed. I decided she was mentally touching the dragon although I hadn’t seen it in a while. I suspected that as she observed Anna and I communicate, she was trying to do the same with the beast. If she managed to see through its eyes or convey more than basic emotions and directions, we would all be safer.

The fact that she could direct it at all told me she had the basics in hand. Perhaps practice or repeated interaction would reveal the right methods to make it work. I went to sleep with those thoughts on my mind.

I woke to thirst and lack of water. My last water jug contained enough dregs to wet my mouth with warm spit. The northern branch of the great Dagger River and its chain of “pearl” lakes couldn’t be far. Not that the northern branch contained the famed lakes, but it would flow south and east to where the southern branch joined it and from there to the city of Dagger were dozens of impoundments. Each formed a pearl of a lake. Several were so large the far shore was out of sight.

The present rulers and peoples of Kondor had inherited them. The rock and earthen dams had been engineered by unknown desert dwellers of a forgotten civilization. Some said the lakes were a thousand years old. Others said they were older.

I scoffed at the idea of those estimates until I’d heard the age of the trees found growing on the banks of the lakes and the ages of some of the buildings that were constructed with unknown methods and decorated with forgotten languages.

Kendra slowed and eventually rode at my side. “We’re all thirsty,” she said. “I think when we went over that last rise, I saw the river was directly ahead.”

In my mind, the river as a destination had become both a beacon and a line of demarcation. It was our temporary goal, but more importantly, it was from that point we went on to whatever we planned to do—the part that was unknown other than in the most general terms.

I kept my thoughts to myself. As we rode to the top of the next gentle rise, the river was a line of faint green in the distance. Not that the water was green, but when water is applied to the desert, plants grow in abundance. Both banks were lush with greenery.

While admiring and anticipating the respite from the heat beside the river and the prospect of all the water I could drink, which would amount to enough to slow the flow of the river, I didn’t look behind us as I should have, especially since I rode last in line for just that reason. The first indication of a problem was a slight whistle of wind as if it had suddenly picked up and blew across strips of leather.

Turning, I found a Wyvern flying low, its toothy beak of a maw open and coming directly at me. Reflexes took hold. I kicked my feet free of the stirrups and dived to one side. My hand reached for my sword.

But my mind acted without instruction if that is possible. To Anna, I mentally shouted, *Look out!* as my mouth screamed a warning by the wordless yell. My mind also scooped up sand, a lot of it, and threw it at the eyes, and the open mouth, that nearly raked the saddle of my horse. I was the target of the beast.

The Wyvern wailed in protest at the sand struck. At least some of it went into its eyes. Another Wyvern flew directly behind the first, and this time with conscious thought, I used all the magic I could draw to throw more sand at it, which in retrospect seemed like a child throwing sand at antagonists.

Behind that one flew seven or eight more, all seemingly looking directly at me. Me, not the others.

Instead of passively throwing sand at them like a petulant schoolboy, I leaped to my feet. Since I’d been the rear guard for our group, if a poor one, the beasts flew at me first, so maybe I was not targeted.

The next one came at me, flying even lower, so low its wing tips skimmed the ground and stirred the sand. The beak, or mouth, was open, shrieking at me as it prepared to snap at me, but that was a mistake. I held my sword in what the Weapons-Master at Crestfallen had called a cocked position, where my feet were firmly planted, my knees bent, both of my hands grasped the pommel in tight fists, and the back of the hilt nearly touched my shoulder. The blade was a solid obstruction, ready to allow the attacker to use his size and weight against himself.

I waited. That was the hard part. It seemed a long time but was in reality only the time to gasp for one more tense breath, as I tensed. The Wyvern neared. At the last moment, I dodged aside and resumed my stance. My sword lashed out at the Wyvern. I sliced behind the head as it flew past me instead of passively using myself as bait.

The sword lived up to its reputation as it nearly severed the head. The momentum carried the Wyvern forward, but I didn’t watch because another was nearly upon me. Only my training brought the sword into the cocked position again in time to defend myself. I slashed it along the side and prepared for the next.

It also flew low and fast, but well before it reached me, a shadow from the corner of my eye swept down and plucked it from the sky in its great talons. It was Kendra’s dragon. As it flew upward, it snapped at the head of the Wyvern. The dragon shook the Wyvern violently and allowed the dead animal to fall to the desert floor as it swerved to attack another Wyvern.

The attackers turned and fled; the dragon in pursuit. It caught up with one, and an aerial battle followed. The smaller and quicker Wyvern twisted and turned to elude the heavier dragon until it made its final fatal mistake and the dragon’s mouth seized it.

Kendra’s dragon returned and circled above us as if daring any of the Wyvern to return. None did. As I turned to face the others, I found another dead Wyvern on the ground; dark blood pooled near its chest. Will wiped his blade on a scrap of cloth as casually as if performing a weekly cleaning of his weapon.

None of us were hurt, which seemed a miracle since the attack had come so suddenly and unexpectedly. It should not have been a surprise. Any of us should have anticipated the Young Mage retaliating or sending the Wyverns to kill us. At the very least, we should have expected he would try to draw us back to Kaon even if it included making us so angry at him we acted from that instead of rationality. If it did happen, if we reacted with emotion, we’d blindly charge the city of Kaon to get our revenge, exactly what he wanted. I was still berating myself when the princess cleared her throat, drawing our attention.

Elizabeth said softly, “The Young Mage sent them to kill us or lure us back.”

It was not a question. None of us tried to deny her assessment. Kendra said, “It won’t be the last attack on us. He knows where we are.”

Will kicked the dead Wyvern in frustration. “The next attack will be with men. He knows our location and will have an army waiting for us at the gates of Dagger. There will be others before then, probably small bands of bounty hunters seeking huge rewards.”

“How do you know that?” I found the words tumbling from my mouth without thinking.

“Because, it’s what I’d do,” he said simply. “His plans are already laid, and men are moving into position as we hesitate. There will be more than one ambush. Too bad, we won’t be there.”

Elizabeth said, “To avoid them, we have to move quickly and unexpectedly. Also, I want each of you to think of this while we’re riding. What will his next move be? Let your minds run free. Come up with something the Young Mage will not expect.”

Her foot was in her stirrup as she said her last words, and she pointed her horse to the river before swinging her other leg over. We followed at a more sedate pace. However, from the expressions, all wore, her feelings were very little different than ours. Fear had transformed into determination and anger.

For myself and my planning, I’d thought we might catch a boat and sail downriver to Dagger and depart just before reaching the city and cut across to the southern part of the bay where a boat could be chartered to Landor if the passage was not to be found on another.

That idea demonstrated how poorly we were prepared. If the Young Mage had notified the Council of Nine in Dagger, which we were sure he had, they would not only have armies posted and waiting for us at obvious choke points like those narrow passages that connected the lakes, but they would also send out scouts who would provide information on our arrival date as well as where. If they were good scouts, we might never see them and blunder directly into the ambushes.

The Wyvern could fly and keep track of us from a distance. They only had to fly within sight a few times a day to know our exact route—and from that our destination and probably plan could be anticipated. We had no choice but to continue and quickly. Speed seemed our only ally.

Anna came into my mind, *I’m scared.*

I considered trying to lie, to tell her all would be alright, but couldn’t do it. Even if she didn’t detect the lie, it was one. *We all are.*

*What’s going to happen?*

Even a sorceress who claimed to see the future couldn’t answer that. Anna was a child, no older than fourteen, and probably younger. But she deserved the truth or at least a version of it. *We are going to try and evade the traps they will set. Maybe we can outrun them. And don’t forget, there is a dragon looking out for us.*

She turned in her saddle and flashed me a smile that was as insincere as it looked. She was scared but controlling it, as we all were.

That only left one train of thought for me to consider, and probably everyone else. The Young Mage assumed we were going to Dagger, our path pointed right at it and the Wyvern had certainly told him that, but our true destination was far south of there. Instead of traveling along the north bank of the river as expected, or on one of the many boats, we should cross the river and ride far to the south until we could reach the ocean. However, we should continue our present course as long as possible. That would give him less time to react when we changed.

How far south we should travel was a question I couldn’t answer. The Brownlands extended there, even more, barren and bleak than the featureless ground we rode on.

I also didn’t know what the others were thinking, and hopefully one had a better idea. It wouldn’t take much to improve on the little I had.