The Last Dragon: Book One

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The farmer had the barn door standing open, Alexis was already inside with an ox, a few goats, and more sheep than a barn should hold. The ox and goats were fine. Sheep smell. Especially wet ones. Kendra led her horse inside, then crowded in the others. The horses mingled together, we retreated to the loft.

The farmer said, “I got some endless stew on the fire, but you have to contribute or pay.”

Elizabeth spoke harshly, “How much?”

“Quarter-copper will do.”

“For each of us?” she demanded.

He barked a laugh, then followed by saying, “Nobody has that much money.”

Elizabeth said, “What exactly is endless stew?”

“I have this big old pot that hangs over the fire. Whatever is gathered today goes inside for eating tomorrow. When others come to visit, they bring what they have and add to it.”

“Doesn’t that get old? Eating the same thing every day?” she asked.

“Same thing? Hardly ever tastes the same. A clove of garlic, two onions, and a cubed turnip went in just yesterday. The day before, it was thinly sliced mutton.”

“How long has this endless stew been cooking?” Elizabeth asked, then quickly added, “Never mind. We’d love some. Can we help you carry it out here?”

She followed him by running through the sprinkle of rain to the cabin. Tater said, “Never had a princess deliver my food right to my bed.”

Kendra said as she climbed the ladder to the loft, “Don’t get used to it. Hey, this is really nice up here. Throw the blankets up, will you?”

We built nests in the hay, unsaddled the horses and fed them. I’d ask Elizabeth to leave the farmer a coin or two because if not for him, we’d be out in the storm. The thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and the rain fell in torrents. We were dry and eating stew as we talked with the farmer about mostly nothing. We did find out that Mercia was a long day’s travel, and that relieved me.

Kendra and I had to talk and plan, she needed to know what I did, but not with Elizabeth and Tater present. Tater dampened a rag and washed the new wound on Springer’s leg. It seemed to be healing already, probably thanks to a touch of magic.

One specific item bothered me more than any other—as far as things not understanding goes. Even the Blue Lady, the six mages that were now waiting in Mercia, and the attraction of wyvern to my sister were complex things not understood. However, the single item my mind kept going back to was not a thing. It was Stata.

If I understood correctly, Stata only lived because a mage far away had inhabited the body of one long dead. He resurrected it with his magic. Hard as that was to believe, I could accept the powers of a mage performing such a thing. However, my concern was one of those smaller things that eats and eats at a person until they reach an understanding.

Stata had been with the dozen bandits for a time, which meant that all day while awake, a mage controlled the body and made it act human. It had done that for days or even weeks. Every day, all day long. Why had it chosen that precise place to be?

Doing the same thing along a well-traveled road to Mercia made sense, or at the walls of Mercia, but at the gates of the city there might be too much competition with other mages. But why spend days and days on a cold mountain pass that nobody uses?

Isn’t that much like fishing for your dinner in a mud puddle and expecting to land a meal? No, the odds were less than that. Nobody uses that trail, and in a year, perhaps only three or four people travel it. What are the chances that one of those few is the one called the Dragon Queen?

It didn’t make sense. Yet, it must. Kendra might know an answer.

“Or you might ask me for your answers.”

I turned in surprise to find the Blue Lady standing in the loft with us. Elizabeth, Tater, and Springer slept soundly, probably with her help again, and certainly, the farmer inside his home did, too. She wouldn’t want him noticing her blue aura in the barn and thinking it was on fire as he rushed to save it.

Kendra was climbing to her feet, her fists balled, and she did not look happy. She asked, “Why? Why didn’t you warn us of the men from Kondor and Stata?”

My thoughts were that she would deny all, but instead, she said in a pleasant sort of way, “Because if he killed you, our problems would be resolved.”

I reached out with my magic and attempted to touch her. My magic placed a tangle of hay around her ankles—or tried to, just to see if it was possible. Where the hay should have twisted into a rope of sorts, at her shoe tops, a flash of orange appeared. The hay disappeared. She smiled at me, with the smile a mother gives her son when he imitates her knitting—and fails. Tolerant is the word that came to mind. She didn’t object, she was tolerant and smiling. I was the child.

Kendra was angry. She shouted, “Why do you wish to harm me?”

“Harm you? No, not harm. You must either control your powers or die.”

“Because I use too much essence? Why don’t you simply teach me how to avoid using so much and I’ll stop.”

The Blue Woman’s glow increased in intensity as she said, “If it were only that simple.”

I said, “You told us they’re waiting for Kendra at Mercia. Six mages and who else? Who are you? All of you evil people!”

“We are not evil, and not all are people. We are those who are entrusted with the power to control the trees, the animals, and all living things. Not gods, but natural beings who maintain the order.”

“Nature,” I said.

“A silly name, but we accept that it encompasses much of our work.”

Kendra said, “How do I fit into all this? I don’t destroy forests or wipe out animals.”

“Do you understand how many generations it took to rid the world of the terrible dragons who killed indiscriminately and ate anything that moved? Oh, we still have the little wyverns to deal with, but they all return to the barren mountain peaks above Mercia to breed, and that’s how we contain them, and we will eventually wipe them away, too. But, not yet. We destroy their eggs, defile their nests, and kill what few we can. Each year, their numbers decrease, and one day there will be none. And then you come into our world and upset all we’ve achieved.”

“Stata,” I demanded. “How did he know to wait at that mountain? Not any other, but there?”

“The mage who resurrected Stata is extremely old and powerful. He is all but bedridden, despite his powers. He followed you, my friend, knowing that where you went, so would your sister.”

That couldn’t be right. I said, “He was already waiting there before we left the palace.”

“Age, wisdom, and luck. For whatever reason, he suspected you might avoid traveling on the main road, and you did. Never gamble with the old. They’ve seen all the tricks, bluffs, and bluster. Besides, there were others on the main roads to stop her. He was just eliminating a possibility.”

“Why are you here?” Kendra said. “You want me dead, yet you are warning me. It does not make sense.”

“To plead with you one last time. Do not attempt to enter Mercia.”

There were mages and others waiting. But this creature didn’t want Kendra captured by them. It reinforced the idea that there were sides in the conflict we knew nothing about. We all stared at each other for what seemed a very long time, trying to understand what was happening and what it meant. Finally, Kendra said, “If we return to Crestfallen all will be well?”

“For a time. But already, the wyvern come searching for you. In Mercia, the dragon also will come to you, and that must be prevented at all costs.”

“If I shoot you with my crossbow, will you die?” I asked casually, hoping to trick her into revealing something important.

She giggled like a young girl and said, “Silly boy.”

Because of the response, I wanted to try. “My magic will not work on you?”

She paused. “You are too clever. Most of your attempts will be as fruitless as trying to tie my legs with strands of straw, but even a gnat takes a bite of a lion now and then.”

“So, I’m a gnat?”

“Essentially. It is your sister who is of extreme concern.”

Kendra said, “If we return home, we only delay the inevitable? Why not allow me to enter Mercia and help me?”

“It has never worked before.” The Blue Woman started fading as she spoke, and by the time her image shimmed out of existence, even her last syllables were fading, too.

Kendra was flushed, her face red, hair soaked, sweat rolling down her forehead. “What was all that?”

“You cannot go to Mercia. They’re waiting for you,” I told her. “The reasons do not matter right now.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. Not tears of sadness, but of anger and frustration. “Why are they doing this? I can’t go, I can’t return home. What do they want of me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is that damned blue creature?”

Kendra had put her finger on a critical point. I’d seen the image and accepted and acted as if it was a woman, so my thinking and responses had been as I would speak to someone’s mother. My sister was correct in her question. The Blue Woman was no more a woman than me, and probably less. She was like Stata, which meant, the image we saw had little to do with who she was in reality. It might not even be a she. The image could take on any shape, and whoever was behind it chose what it wished to portray and what would sway us to her side.

If the Blue Woman had appeared to us a giant snarling blue wolf, we would have reacted completely differently. If she was a grotesque image of a helpless child, another.

“Motivation. She is trying to move us to do her bidding in some manner.”

“Damon, what’d you mumble?”

“You’re right. She is a creature, but one that can appear in any shape I’ll bet. A vicious wolf or helpless child. But it chose an older woman with a soft, reassuring voice. Never threatening. Always acting as if she is trying to help you, but she allows you to walk into danger.”

“You mumbled all that?” she asked, her tears slowing as she understood I’d figured out something that might help.

“Motivation was my comment. Why did she choose that image, and why come and warn us at all? She let us walk directly into that trap with the Kondor, but now she warns us of another?”

I noticed Elizabeth was awake and listening intently, but Tater snored on. Maybe not including Elizabeth earlier had been a mistake. So, I ignored her and continued, “Think about this from the idea the Blue Woman knowingly let us walk into a trap, not only with Kondor but with a more powerful mage than I’ve ever heard of. She knew and didn’t warn us.”

“She also let us go into that storehouse where huge men should have had no problem killing us. She wants us dead. Well, me.” Kendra folded her arms across her chest, a sure sign of defiance.

Elizabeth quietly sat and pulled her blanket around her to fend off the damp and cold of the night. In the next flash of lightning, her face was stern, her jaw clenched. There would be future sessions of explaining our actions and trust to rebuild, but that would come later.

I continued, “So, after not warning us of danger twice, she now tells us that six mages and ‘others’ will sense your powers when we enter Mercia. They are there to kill you.”

“She was not warning us. She was trying to scare us away from going there. Preventing us.” Kendra’s fingers were still curled into fists. “She also said I cannot go home because that has never worked before.”

“I think that was a mistake on her part. Not the truth in it, but she didn’t mean to reveal that there have been others before you.” My answer was deliberately short. It hung in the air like the punctuation of a thunderclap. “And if she is trying to prevent you from going there, I’m inclined to do the opposite.”