Travel by dragon was normally an exhilarating
experience, but in the day since they’d sensed the opening and
closing of the portals, the journey had been a tense and silent
one. The lush green fields of Tressor’s farms now lay mostly behind
them. Save for ribbons of green that traced along the banks of
rivers, most of the land below had shifted to rolling dunes and
windswept plains. It was a landscape every bit as forbidding as the
icy wastes of the Northern Alliance, but with its own unique
dangers. Cold nights were a concern, but the greatest danger came
during the day, when a few hours of sun could easily bake an
unprepared traveler to a crisp. The group had touched down to drink
their fill at a stream and refill their canteens not an hour prior,
but already the dry, constant wind buffeting them had begun to
crack their lips and redden their eyes. It was uncomfortable for
the riders, which made Myranda doubly worried for Myn.
“If you get thirsty or tired, don’t push
yourself, Myn,” Myranda said.
The dragon didn’t seem to notice.
“Myn?” Myranda repeated.
Now her friend shook her head slightly and
glanced back, as if snatched out of deep thought. Myranda
smiled.
“Just be sure to take it easy. It won’t do us
any good if you let yourself dry out,” she said.
Myn rumbled a reply in the affirmative, then
faced front again. It was nothing new for her to be distracted. The
young dragon reveled in flight. Even with two passengers, she was
more than willing to ride drafts and bob in breezes. She would even
sneak in a twirl, loop, or roll from time to time. With so tight a
schedule and so tense a climate, there was no room for such. That
wouldn’t typically matter, for even when flying in a more subdued
manner, Myn always seemed endlessly interested in the lines of
rivers and the points of towns as the ground crawled by below. But
in the desert, such matters of interest were few and far between.
That left just one thing to hold her attention, and it held it
well.
Right on schedule, Myn’s eyes flitted to
their escort. Somehow, Myranda suspected even if they had
permission to lilt like a leaf on the breeze or fly over a tapestry
of different landscapes, Garr would still have been the thing that
captured the dragon’s attentions. The wizard felt a twinge of
regret that the two dragons had met under such trying
circumstances. Myn hadn’t had many opportunities to meet her own
kind, and her fascination with Garr was a sure sign that it was a
piece of her life she’d been missing, even if she didn’t know it.
Rare was the minute that went by without Myn casting a curious look
in his direction. She drew in a long, lingering whiff of the breeze
to catch his scent, flicking her tongue briefly to taste it for
good measure. The dragon may as well have been trying to memorize
her counterpart’s features for future reference.
Curiously, despite all of the obvious
interest in her companion for the journey, Myn hadn’t “spoken” with
Garr. Beyond a rumbled warning when circumstances threatened to pit
them against one another and the lecture about eating the meal Garr
had offered, they were silent in one another’s presence. Myranda
almost giggled at the thought that Myn might actually be shy around
her own kind.
This thought was still fresh in her mind when
Grustim subtly waved his arm and then indicated a point on the
ground below. Barely visible, a cluster of wood and sandstone
structures blended well against the dunes. But it didn’t take more
than a second glance once it had been spotted to be certain that
something had gone terribly wrong there. The wall surrounding the
stronghold was intact, but it was perhaps the only part of the
prison that was not damaged or recently repaired. With each second,
they drifted nearer and were able to discern more details of the
carnage. Large pieces of stone, in some cases whole blocks, were
scattered about the courtyard between the largest of the buildings
and the wall. What had at first looked like a pile of debris was in
fact the remains of a squat tower that had entirely collapsed. By
the time they were circling for a landing, they could see that even
a short stretch of sandy earth and rough cobblestones had collapsed
downward. Most concerning, just outside the eastern wall were five
freshly mounded graves…
At the sight of a pair of dragons, a dozen
guards moved out into the courtyard, first to assess any danger,
then to frantically flag them down for aid when they were able to
determine it was indeed a Dragon Rider. At an unheard order by
Grustim, Garr swept his wings back and dropped from the air,
landing hard in the center of the courtyard. Grustim continued the
momentum of the landing into a leap from the dragon’s back and a
roll to his feet. When the green dragon shuffled aside enough to
make room, Myn touched down as well. Myranda and Deacon climbed
from her back, staff and gem in hand. The ground practically
sizzled beneath their boots, and the whole of the courtyard felt
like an oven. Wavy lines of heat distorted anything more than a few
feet away, and the glare of sun against the tan stone was just
short of blinding.
Now with a firsthand view of the damage, it
was a wonder any of the buildings were still standing. Fractures
wove up along the stone walls, branching up from the ground. Roofs
had fallen inward. Walls had toppled aside. Even now some low-level
soldiers were hard at work, having been pressed into repair detail.
They troweled a loose slurry of mortar into what cracks they could
reach in the handful of walls that might be salvageable, and
scavenged bricks from those that were too badly damaged to save in
order to rebuild those that had been utterly destroyed.
The prison fort was of a simple design. When
it was whole, it had been composed of one large sandstone keep,
five stories tall at its highest central spire and three stories
tall elsewhere. Built large enough to house a large squad of
troops, from the looks of the interior where the walls had given
way, it dug at least as far into the ground as it stood above it.
Five towers, built sparingly of wood, stood just tall enough to
overlook the fifteen-foot wall that formed a pentagon around the
courtyard, a tower at each point. One such tower had been reduced
to splinters by flying debris. The others were intact but unmanned.
The only other sizable structure was a large stable near the
southern point of the five-sided wall. A few cases and crates,
something akin to half-sized storage shacks, were nestled in
out-of-the-way areas, and what was likely a well stood prominently
to one side of the stronghold.
“What happened here? Is there still danger?”
Grustim asked, speaking in his native language and thus sounding a
good deal more precise and confident than in his exchanges with
Myranda and Deacon.
“Does anyone need help?” Myranda added,
dusting off her own knowledge of Tresson.
“We are both skilled healers,” Deacon added,
his mastery of the language easily a match for Grustim’s.
The guards, lightly armored in off-white
cloth padding, barked warnings and raised their weapons. The light
skin of a Northerner was never a welcome sight in a Tresson
military base, even accompanied as they were by one of the most
revered units in all of Tressor. Myn planted her claws and spread
her wings, curling her tail protectively around her humans and
making her intentions remarkably clear regarding what would happen
if anyone tried to lay a finger on them.
“Myn, that’s enough for now. They are just on
edge, and understandably so,” Myranda said, offering a calming hand
on the dragon’s leg.
“Lower your weapons. These are
representatives of a diplomatic delegation,” Grustim instructed.
“Tell me what happened here.”
“Belay that order. Weapons high and prepare
to take these aggressors prisoner!” growled a hoarse voice.
The command came from a form tottering out of
the one side of the keep’s main doors that was still able to swing
on its hinges. He was a man, dressed as much in bandages as in
clothes. Wrapped tightly in blood-stained linens, he had his right
arm and leg both bound to splints. A crutch tucked under his left
arm kept him upright, though just barely. Even his face was largely
obscured by three loops of bandage across its right side.
Grustim stepped forward to greet the
approaching man, who by sheer force of personality could only be
the commanding officer.
“Commander,” Grustim said, tapping his fist
to his chest in a formal greeting.
“Brustuum,” replied the commander, painfully
mirroring the gesture. “Rider.”
“Grustim.”
“Welcome to what
remains
of my
stronghold, Rider Grustim.”
“It is my duty to offer any aid that is
within my power to give, Commander Brustuum. Tell me, please, what
happened here?”
“It was an attack, Rider. An agent of the
north has broken the false peace that they dangled before us and
assaulted a Tresson stronghold.”
“A Northerner. You are certain?”
“Her flesh was lily white, and her accent was
unmistakable. She even admitted to it. Shortly before unleashing
her treacherous magic and taking the lives of fifteen prisoners and
five of my best men. Two more are at death’s door.”
“If people are badly injured, you must let us
tend to them,” Myranda said, stepping forward.
“Stay back, Northerner. We’ve had enough of
your
aid.
Now place your staff on the ground and prepare to
be escorted to a cell. That goes for both of you.”
The courtyard began to rattle with the
ominous growl of a dragon testing the limits of her patience. Myn’s
jaws hung just slightly parted, a flicker of orange flame licking
from between her teeth with each slow, hissing breath. Stalwart
though the Tresson soldiers were, a furious dragon barely
restraining itself from a rampage was the sort of sight that would
give any creature pause. They held their ground, which was evidence
enough of their bravery.
Commander Brustuum gazed up at the creature,
who glared down at him in much the same way an eagle would glare at
a rabbit.
“Is this creature not under your charge?”
Brustuum said warily. Addressing Grustim.
“The beast is the personal mount of Duchess
Myranda and Duke Deacon of Kenvard,” Grustim explained.
“Nobility? Ah. So this is the ‘diplomatic
mission.’ Curious how it found its way so readily to the site of
the attack…”
Brustuum and Grustim continued their
discussion, but Myranda couldn’t keep her mind on it. Out of a
hard-earned instinct to find and end suffering, on the battlefield
or elsewhere, she’d begun to sweep around her, probing with her
will. In the months since her final battle, Myranda hadn’t needed
to put her mystic abilities to use very much. Though they were
unquestionably an asset, considering the circumstances that had
made them necessary in the past, she would have been quite pleased
never to use them again. As soon as the threat of another death at
the hands of the D’Karon presented itself, however, her carefully
trained will was ready and eager to leap into action. It took mere
moments for the sharp sting of suffering to burn at her mind. She
turned to her right and spied a hastily erected tent in the shadow
of the wall. The injured men were certainly inside. She glanced at
Deacon and found his attentions locked on the tent as well. When he
turned back to her, it was with an expression that confirmed what
Myranda feared. Without help, one of the men wouldn’t see the next
day. The other wouldn’t see the next hour.
Without another thought for herself or the
consequences her next action might have, Myranda paced steadily
toward the tent. Her motions caused a ripple of activity around
her. First, Deacon fell into step beside her, his fist gripping his
gem tight and his will already weaving at least half a dozen spells
of defense and recovery. A half-second later Myn followed,
unfurling her wings and curling them low about either side of the
wizards. Voices began to call out, soldiers demanding she hold
still. Grustim called out to her, then grunted an order to
Garr.
Two bounding steps from the green dragon
brought it thundering in front of Myranda and the others, but Myn
was ready, lowering her head and thrusting it forward, butting hard
against Garr’s own head as it lowered. The blow was a minor one, by
dragon standards. It may have produced an ear-splitting clank of
scale on helmet and horn on horn, but it caused little pain and no
damage, more a test of strength than anything else. Myranda stepped
aside, continuing around Garr as though he was little more than a
simple obstacle. The male dragon tried to shuffle sideways and
block Myranda, but Myn shoved harder, keeping her horns locked with
his and just barely muscling him firmly enough to keep him in
place.
Next the soldiers acted, heeding a bellowed
order to subdue Myranda and Deacon. Without thinking, Myranda
raised her hand to her side and sharply lowered it. The weapons in
the soldiers’ hands followed the motion, dropping suddenly to the
ground as though they’d increased in weight tenfold. Some men
attempted to raise their swords and pikes from the ground. Most
peeled off and attempted to interpose themselves between the
wizards and the tent, even if it meant defending unarmed. Deacon
released his gem, leaving it to float beside him, and spread the
fingers on his hand. The half-dozen soldiers stumbled and shuffled
aside, pushed by a gentle but firm force. Try as they might, they
couldn’t push their way past the unseen wall that held them at bay.
Finally there was no one left to stop them, and Myranda and Deacon
stepped into the tent.
“I fear this was not the most diplomatic
action we could have taken,” Deacon said, casting an uncertain
glance at the door before warding it with a simple but potent spell
to prevent them from being bothered.