The Last Dragon: Book One

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

We walked outside, leaving the wounded mage lying on the floor bleeding to death. At any instant, I expected her to relent and tell me to question him again. Instead, we mounted and rode to the bazaar where she dismounted long enough to buy a loaf of bread and slab of cheese. Then she led the way out of the city, back to where we had left the first mage.

“Are we going to let him die?”

She turned to look at me. “I’m certain you didn’t mean to cut him as deeply as you did, and the other was an accident. I saw his chirp in my mind disappear when you hit him. The other is so dim I can barely detect it. There was nothing we could do to save him.”

“You called yourself the Dragon Queen.”

“To scare him. To know if he recognized the name. He was terrified of it, and that tells us he knows of the dragon and me.”

A shout drew my attention. The soldier or bodyguard from the inn was threatening a man on the street, demanding information about the mage who had disappeared. “Turn your head away and keep riding, Kendra.”

We left the city without incident if you can call killing two mages no incident. When we arrived where we’d left the first one we had kidnapped, he was still sleeping. We staked the horses and made a cold camp. While sitting on my blanket, I asked, “Did the second one die?”

She turned to me, and for an instant, I think she considered lying to spare my feelings. Then she said, “Yes. It was not your fault.”

“Are there any more of them in Andover?”

“No, but where I expected to find ten, there are four missing. Their blips have faded, and I have no idea why. I don’t think they died because I can still see them. That only leaves three strong blips, and four almost gone from mind.”

“Maybe they were injured by the buildings falling in Mercia and are dying.”

“Could be, but I don’t think so.”

“What about the Blue Woman and others of her kind? Can you detect her?”

“Nothing. It could be due to distance. We’ll talk to this one when he wakes, then move on to the mages at the port, and the others if we can find them.”

That told us how little we knew. We didn’t even have names for the blue creatures or spirits, besides calling them “others.” There was still daylight left, and the mage hadn’t woken, so I decided to take a nap. One thing about being my age was that naps came easily, at any time of the day.

I pulled the top blanket up to my chin and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, it was full dark, and Kendra was talking.

“Listen, the short story is your protector has no idea of where you are. I know you are a mage—or perhaps I should say, you were a mage. There is no more captive dragon to steal your essence from. So, you are mine.”

“There are others who will come for me.”

She snorted, “The other two mages in Andover who were from Crestfallen Palace? No, they won’t be coming to rescue you, I’m afraid. Damon killed both of them this afternoon.”

“Damon?”

“Yes, that young man sleeping over there. To tell you the truth, I was not too happy about it. He should have let me have at least one of them.”

It seemed more menacing to lie there and wordlessly stare at him. It certainly didn’t seem like Kendra needed any help. Besides, she knew the topics she wanted to question him about, and I didn’t.

“Both are dead?”

“Well, yes. Sorry. Now, we need to move on to you. I want to know about people, or things, that draw in essence for their use. There is one Blue Woman in particular, who intrigues me. And feel free to share anything about mages that you know.”

“Will I live?”

“That is a point you and me will have to discuss.” When it seemed he might object, or make demands, she held up her index finger to quiet him, then continued, “I should have put it this way. If you do not please me, you will die tonight. That is a certainty. Beyond that, well, who knows?”

He looked at me as if silently begging for help. My face remained impassive.

Kendra said, “Tell me about the mages who went to the Port of Mercia.”

“Some of us did,” he admitted.

“Why? I’m not going to spend all night trying to pull the information from you. It would be easier to leave you here for the crows to peck your eyes out while we go there and find out for ourselves. Talk, or we leave.”

He grew more even scared of her bland tone. Kendra can have that effect on people. He said, “The wyverns cannot produce all the essence we need.”

“Meaning?” she demanded.

“We must get more.”

“Are you intending to recapture the dragon?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s too old. It’ll die in a hundred years or less. We need a new one. A strong one full of vigor.”

“Where will you find this dragon?” her voice was deceptively soft.

“From the eggs. I do not know where that is. My job was to keep the dragon secure and shield her from the Dragon Queen’s release.”

“Ah, yes. The Dragon Queen. Enlighten me about her.”

His eyes darted from one side to the other before speaking as if making sure nobody else overheard him, “She will free the dragon from bondage and destroy the city. . .”

The mage’s voice had faded off at the end as if he listened to his own words and learned something he didn’t know. Kendra said, “Yes, that was me.”

He shuddered in fear.

She said in that calm voice that brought chills to backs and necks, “The Blue Woman and her ilk?”

“The undying?”

“Explain.”

“There are those who abuse the essence of life and draw it to them in such quantities that their bodies die, while they become evil spirits of energy existing only from the nourishment of the dragon. Not real physical beings. Touching them causes a discharge of essence strong enough to kill. Never touch one.”

Kendra slowly turned her head to peer through the darkness to me as if to say, I told you so. No misunderstanding existed between us on that point. I’d touched my last Blue Woman.

She said, “They occur unnaturally, the Blue Woman and others like her who demand essence. Correct me if I’m wrong, but with the dragon free, she and her kind cannot survive.”

“Wyverns. They profess to hate them, but that’s a ruse, so they alone control them. Wyverns are always kept nearby for times when there is no dragon essence to draw from. It is a pale substitute but keeps them alive. . . or what they call alive. They are hateful and evil.”

“The wyverns are like having a water-well beside a stream. If the stream goes dry, there is the well with stale water, but better than none until the stream flows again.”

He nodded quickly. “Yes. Like that.”

“I get the feeling you do not like them, the spirits,” she said.

Kendra had relaxed in her tone and posture, and as a result, so had the mage and I. However, it was he who was falling into her trap, as I’d done so many times before. He hesitated before answering. “No, we mages who still live do not like them. We will not allow ourselves to follow them.”

She seized on his statement, “I knew it. The spirits are nothing but mages who went too far consumed too much essence and changed into something else.”

He hung his head in shame. “You’re partially right. They are mages who grew old in their flesh and transformed into something eternal before their natural deaths. As long as they are fed the energy they require, they remain with us but do nothing of value. They only care about maintaining their sordid existence. If it was up to me, I’d have released the dragon long ago and told it to fly as far and as fast as possible, then a little more.”

Neither of us had expected that response, and there was no doubt about the anger, hurt, and disgust in his words. That brought another thought to mind. The man tied on the ground in front of us was not a terrible person—and that presented a problem. Those I’d killed earlier, and those before, deserved to die.

He said, “Do us all a favor and drive the dragon to the ends of the earth before you return to your home in Kondor. Do not let the dragon go there with you. It is expected, and there are mad mages and more spirits waiting for your return.”

“Return?”

“The dragon of yours came from your home in Kondor all those years ago, didn’t you know?”