Erik And The Dragon ( Book 4) (3 page)

Erik’s eyes looked at the blade and he took it from Lepkin’s hands. “For me?” he whispered.

“Alferug told me that you have been able to summon the white fire. Even without taking the Exalted Test of Arophim, I know I have found the true champion. The sword is yours. Wield it in defense of truth, and light.”

Erik was about to express his thanks, but he couldn’t find the words before Marlin, Dimwater, Jaleal, and Alferug approached. The boy turned to them and could see they had some things on their minds.

“We have been thinking,” Lady Dimwater said. “Perhaps we should decide how best to track the dragon and kill it.”

Marlin nodded. “If he was able to deceive all of us, then we should not let this opportunity pass us by.”

Lepkin nodded. “I agree. First, we need to hide this book again, and then we should seek the dragon, and slay it.”

“Where will we hide the book?” Erik asked.

“Only one place to hide it,” Lepkin replied. “We will take it to Tualdern.”

“The city of the Sand Elves?” Alferug asked.

Lepkin nodded. “It was they who helped us forge the mithril box which holds the book. They have a better understanding than most of its dark powers, and they will be anxious to keep it hidden.”

“Plus,” Tatev put in. “I doubt anyone would think to look for the book in the place its magic was first used.” Erik looked to the librarian questioningly and Tatev smiled and winked. “Tualdern is on the eastern side of Hamath Valley, it is where Nagar first used the magic.”

“And it is where countless men, dwarves, and dragons fought tooth and nail over the cursed thing,” Faengoril growled.

“It is the best option I can think of,” Lepkin said. “The elves keep to themselves for the most part, and hardly anyone ever ventures into Hamath Valley anymore.”

“With good reason,” Marlin added. “It is not a very welcoming place anymore.”

“True,” Lady Dimwater said. “But it is the best choice.”

“I should take our cavedogs north, back to Roegudok Hall,” Faengoril said. “I will inform our king of what has transpired and seek his assistance in defeating the dragon.” He turned to Lepkin. “After you place the book with the elves, where will you go?”

“To Ten Forts,” he said.

“Right, right,” Tatev agreed. “Tu’luh will go back to Demaverung, and Ten Forts is the best place for us to stage our assault.”

Alferug glanced to Faengoril briefly and the two nodded sullenly. “We’ll see you there as soon as we can raise the army,” Faengoril promised.

“I will send my warriors to Fort Drake,” Marlin said. “I have only forty men left, and they will be appreciated at Fort Drake. If I take them to Ten Forts, they will not be as useful. I will go with you, though.”

“As will I,” Jaleal said. “I am with you to the end.”

“I am not letting you out of my sight,” Dimwater told Lepkin. Her tone was half playful, but still it made Lepkin squirm a bit. The others walked away then, leaving Lepkin, Jaleal, and Erik alone together.

“You know,” Lepkin started. “I noticed a few additional scars across my body. Mind telling me why you were so careless as to let someone stab my leg, shoulder, and stomach?”

Jaleal laughed out loud and clapped his hands together. “You should be thankful that you have scars!” he said emphatically. “Before I got to you, they were not so neatly healed.”

Lepkin turned on the gnome. “Oh?” he asked.

Jaleal produced his spear. “Aeolbani has more than a couple of useful powers,” he said with a big grin. “Why, if it wasn’t for me, I bet you would have slept through the whole battle with the dragon.” The gnome grinned proudly and stamped the butt of the spear on the ground. “Let’s go dragon hunting!”

Al sat awkwardly in his royal armor, shifting his weight to keep the metal from sticking into his hips. Apparently the dwarves of old were not as well endowed with love handles as Al was. Not that he was fat, on the contrary he was quite stocky and thick, but most of his bulk was solid. However, he did carry just a little bit of fat around the hips.

At least he had talked his footmen into taking off his
gauntlets so he could move his arms freely. Wearing the gaudy armor was bad enough, but eating while trapped with stiff arms would have been almost unbearable.

He glanced around the room, noting that most of his dwarves sat to his left around the several long tables that had been arranged in the dining hall. To his right there was a large empty space, and then King Mathias in his high-backed chair of iron and carved wood. Beyond him sat the senators and other members of the court that Al didn’t recognize off hand. In the center of the room, between the two long tables, danced a trio of women. They wore midriff bearing shirts of purple silk, with small golden bells along the sleeves. Their baggy, sheer blue pants flowed out as they kicked their legs high and twirled around to the rhythm they made by clapping their hands and tapping their bare feet on the floor. They were entertaining enough, but Al would have preferred to watch dwarven acrobats. Now those were women that could hypnotize with their looks!

He took a sip of his wine.

“Pheasant, milord?” a sultry young voice asked from behind. Al struggled to turn his neck and had to turn his whole torso to see who spoke to him. It was a lady servant, holding a platter with roast pheasant on it. One of the drumsticks was already taken, but otherwise the bird was intact.

“I’ll have the other leg,” Al said with a sharp nod of his head. He thanked her after she placed it on his plate next to a half-eaten slice of buttered bread and a small hill of fried potato cubes mixed with thin green beans and onions.

Al used his fork to separate the onions from his other vegetables before eating the potatoes. He knew it wasn’t very kingly to be a picky eater, but he had never gotten used to the taste of onions, nor the sour breath they left him with the few times he had choked them down. Besides, what was the point of being a king if you couldn’t at least choose to avoid the foods you hate without being reproached for it?

After he finished the last thin green bean he picked up the pheasant leg and took a huge bite off the thickest part. The skin crackled in his mouth and the savory juices ran over his tongue as he pulled the meat free of the bone. It had been a long time since he had enjoyed fire-roasted pheasant. He closed his eyes in delight and savored the bite. Then he washed it down with a swig of sweet red wine.

“Bring out the juggler,” one of the senators called out from the other side of the hall. A couple others nodded their approval and shortly thereafter a tall, thin man came walking into the room
. The dancing women bowed to King Mathias and then pranced out of the hall, their bells bouncing and sounding with each step.

“My king, and honored guests,” the man said with a flourish of his hands and a
bow so deep that his head nearly touched the floor. “It is my honor to bring you the latest trend from the jugglers in Hornbeak.” He shook his right leg and three juggling pins fell out of his enormous pant leg. A few of the senators laughed, but Al just took another bite of his pheasant.

The juggler then clapped his hands and two assistants came running out to him. They were young, maybe in their early teens. They wore white face paint with black around their eyes and red around their mouths. Each one carried a long stilt, and one also had a stool with him. The juggler turned, climbed up onto the stool and then leapt atop the stilts as soon as the assistants had them in place. The
juggler reached down and buckled his feet to the tops of the stilts and walked around the hall, making a show of kicking each stilt out before him.

A couple senators clapped. None of the dwarves did.

Then the assistants went to the three juggling pins and began to juggle between themselves. At the juggler’s command, they turned and threw the three pins up to him and he began to juggle while walking on the stilts.

“Good show!” one of the women at the other table called out.

“This is nothing,” the juggler explained. “The masters in Hornbeak have taught me a rare secret in my time there, and now I show it to you!” Each assistant pulled another pin from their own pants and they struck matches to them, lighting them on fire. Then they tossed them up to the juggler on stilts and he incorporated them in with the other three. “Watch carefully,” he said as he stopped walking in a circle. He tossed the pins up higher and higher, until they nearly reached the ceiling. Then he made a couple of them collide in air, lighting the others on fire as well and then catching them to throw them back into the rhythm. After all five were on fire, several senators whistled and clapped.

Al watched the fire, entranced by the yellow and red flames as they danced and swirled over the juggler’s head. Then, as if on cue the juggler held the brim of his pants out in front of him and the flaming pins went down inside one after the other in rapid succession amidst gasps from the audience. The juggler smiled and snapped his pants closed as he walked around the room. Al watched intently, expecting the man’s pants to erupt in flame, but nothing happened. The juggler made three circuits around the room, then he stopped in the center of the room directly in front of the king.

“Now, here is the finale,” he said with a sly smile. The man bent down in a quick bow and flipped the latches of his stilts loose before launching into a graceful backflip. The pins flew out the bottom of his pant legs one by one, each reigniting and streaking through the air after him. The man landed on his feet and looked up just in time to catch the first pin and throw it back into the air. He caught each pin effortlessly before throwing it back into the rotation. He juggled them for a few cycles and then clapped his hands twice. Afterward he would wave a hand over each pin as he caught it and threw it for the last time. The instant his hand passed over the wooden pin the flames died. When all of the pins were extinguished he caught them and tossed them to his assistants, who would hold them.

When he finished several senators stood and clapped for him, and even some of the dwarves rapped their knuckles on the table in approval.

“Well done,” King Mathias said.

The juggler bowed his head and turned to each table for another bow. As he turned to face Al, the dwarf felt something strange. There was something in the ma
n’s eyes that unsettled Al. The dwarf king instinctively pulled his knife into his right hand.

The juggler then turned back to the king. “With your permission, I have one more trick,” he said.

“Of course,” King Mathias said.

The juggler stepped closer to the king and Al tensed. The man twirled around and smiled to the audience. “For the last trick, I need a volunteer,” he said.

“I’ll do it,” Al said.

“Oh, no no no,” the juggler replied with a pat of his hands. “I would not dream of it, I am not fit to work with kings, I only perform for them.”

Al sighed and watched the man keenly.

“Something wrong,” a dwarf soldier asked as he leaned in close.

Al nodded, but said nothing. He watched the juggler turn to the senator that had originally called him out.

“You sir,” the juggler said. “Would you be so kind as to join me in the center here?”

The senator nodded and wiped the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin before walking around the table to join the juggler. The two assistants rushed up and put one of the wooden pins atop the senator’s head. Then they turned and gave another pin to the juggler.

“For my last trick, I will knock this pin from our dear senator’s head,” the juggler said. He paused for effect. “Whilst my assistants juggle flaming pins between me and him.” He clapped his hands and the assistants began juggling the three remaining pins in a close circle in front of the senator’s face. The juggler turned to the king. “One inch this way or that and I will undoubtedly hit one of my assistants’ pins, which will then hit the senator.” He walked close to the two assistants and passed a hand over each pin as it passed in front of him, reigniting the pins. Then he turned and walked close to the king.

“Shall we take bets?” one of the senators jested.

“Fifty gold says the juggler sets our dear senator on fire,” one of the women said.

“I’ll take that bet,” one of the men shouted out.

“Are we ready?” the juggler asked. He held the narrow end of his pin in both hands. He glanced to his right and left, giving Al a sly wink as he caught the dwarf’s stare.

Al slid his arm back and prepared to throw his knife.

The juggler wound up over his shoulder and gave a slight, almost imperceptible twist of his wrist. Then he turned wildly toward the king. Al sprang into action and threw his knife. It whistled through the air and sunk deep into the juggler’s hand, throwing the performer’s aim off. A dagger
clinked
off the side of King Mathias’ chair and the juggler turned to run away but the dwarves and king’s guard were upon him like bees on the first flower of spring. Within moments the man was hauled away to the dungeon screaming and shouting, with his assistants being dragged in chains behind him.

The senator in the middle shrank away, staggering back to the table. “It wasn’t me, I swear!” he said. “I only knew that a juggler was hired, but I didn’t have anything to do with this!”

“Take him,” King Mathias said sternly. “We will find the truth of the matter.” The king’s guard moved in and took the senator away.

Al moved over to King Mathias and picked up a wooden handled dagger. “It was well made,” he said as he set the weapon down in front of King Mathias.

“Yes,” Mathias agreed. “Hiding it in the juggling pin was clever,” he said.

One of the other dwarves approached and slid the dagger back into the pin and then gave it a twist to lock the dagger in place. “It seems your security has overlooked a very basic protocol,” he said.

King Mathias shook his head. “I have employed this juggler before,” he said. “We have never had any issues before.”

“I will look into it,” Senator Mickelson promised as he took the weapon and unlocked the dagger. He slid it almost all of the way out before replacing it inside and locking it again. “Clever indeed,” he said. “You can hardly notice anything with the pin,” he said. “The seam lines up perfectly with the paint, and would be extremely hard to see.”

“Then perhaps it is time to call off the festivities,” Al said curtly. “There is a war out there, whether we like it or not, and pretending it doesn’t exist will only give the enemy more opportunities to strike.”

Mathias nodded and sighed as he leaned back in his chair. “I will not spend my final days in hiding,” he said wearily. “I am tired of staying in my tower. I would rather go out by an assassin’s blade than gagging on my own spittle in my bed.”

Al looked to Mickelson and then put a hand on King Mathias’ shoulder. “I understand wanting to escape the trappings of being king more than most,” he said.

“Yes, but what about the trappings of being old and sick?” Mathias countered. “Every night I close my eyes wondering whether I shall see the sun again.”

Mickelson turned away and motioned for everyone to leave. “The feast is ended,” he said.

“Horse apples!” Mathias grumbled. “Call the dancers back in, sit down, and let’s finish our meal.”

Al sniggered to himself and shrugged to Mickelson. “Let’s eat,” he said.

The room slowly settled down as best as it could and they all resumed eating, though not with the previous merriment that had accompanied the feast before the juggler had come into the room. Even the dancers seemed nervous as everyon
e finished the meal in silence. After twenty minutes, King Mathias rose from his chair and left the hall without even wishing his guests a good night.

It was then that Al decided to take a walk. He went into an antechamber and had a couple of his footmen help him escape his ridiculous armor before he slipped out into the night.

He followed the winding, cobblestone road to a large, ivory colored villa. The gates were closed for the night, but the guard out front let him slip inside where another servant opened the front door and took him into the drawing room, where he found Braun and Lady Lokton sitting and drinking tea.

“Well met,” Braun said as he rose from his chair.

“I am happy to see you again,” Lady Lokton added. “Tea?” she offered.

Al shook his head. “I just came from the banquet, I don’t
think I should put anything more inside, else I might pop.” He grinned and patted his stomach, making an effort to stick it out far enough to draw a stifled giggle from Lady Lokton. “Not a bad place to stay,” Al noted as he looked around the drawing room. His eyes went to a collection of pinned butterflies neatly arranged inside a glass case that hung from the wall.

“King Mathias has been very generous,” Lady Lokton agreed. “We are sharing the villa with another family, and a few of the masters from Kuldiga Academy.”

“Really?” Al asked. “Who else?”