The Dragon Eaters

by Duke Kittle

  Chapter 5

  Tina sat on the ground outside of the western gate of the city with her legs folded in tailor style. She looked up at the sky and watched the few white clouds drifting across the great blue expanse. The western side of the city was completely open and not much more than flat grasslands. She could see over the entire area with little difficulty. A wide path led out of the western gate with unlit torch stands lining it on each side. The air was still cool in the mid-morning with late spring not yet having summoned the warmth of summer.

  Tina could hear the footsteps of soldiers patrolling the wall above her, but with her diminutive size, it was easy to overlook the Mateesh wizard so close to the wall. The sound of the gates to the city being opened reached her ears, and Tina turned to see who was coming out. When she saw the badger Lazur Thulfa stepping through the gates, she pushed up to her feet.

  Lazur was already looking around at his feet when Tina came into view. He placed a wide, cone-shaped straw hat on his head just as Tina reached him. She leapt onto his leg and climbed up quickly. The badger was startled for a moment, but refrained from making any sounds of alarm.

  Tina seated herself on the badger’s shoulder, hidden from view by the straw hat. She adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her muzzle. “I take it you were able to make arrangements?”

  Lazur snorted. “Wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”

  Tina wrinkled her muzzle. “Take us to the edge of the woods, and I will get you transportation faster than feet.”

  Lazur eyed the wizard on his shoulder briefly. After the gates had shut behind him, he started off on the path leading to the edge of the woods. “You wizards like to throw around magic a lot, don’t you?”

  “On the contrary.” Tina laid her tail across her lap and rested her hands on top of it. “Magic is a tool. We make our best attempts to use it as little as possible and only out of necessity when another solution cannot be found. And since time is of the essence, I have reached the conclusion that magic will be necessary to get us to that Maldavian as swiftly as possible.”

  Lazur shook his head. “Most folks seem to get by without it. What makes it a necessity for wizards and the like?”

  “Most folks,” Tina imitated, “don’t have to deal with the same problems as wizards.”

  “Like problems created by other wizards?” Lazur cocked his head, glancing at Tina on his shoulder.

  “That is one capacity for the use of magic, yes.” Tina’s whiskers twitched. “Speaking of which, I have come to understand there was another wizard here before me, one not attached to the Council of Stars.”

  Lazur nodded, turning his eyes back to the road as they approached the edge of the woods. “Was. He’s dead. Killed by the Dragon Eaters.”

  Tina wrinkled her muzzle. She had hoped to have a chance to speak with the wizard somehow. But it was much harder to communicate with a dead one. Though, for another wizard, it was not impossible. “How did it happen?”

  Lazur shook his head. “He was trying to capture those monsters when they attacked him, and they ate him. Pretty clear-cut.”

  “When a wizard is involved, there is usually very little which is clear-cut.” Tina climbed down from Lazur’s shoulder once the badger stopped next to the trees. “Now, to find a clear spot off the trodden path.”

  “Plenty of them back there.” Lazur gestured back over his shoulder at the grassy area through which they’d just passed.

  “I can’t be seen from this distance in Likonia. Would you like to give the guards the impression that you are a wizard yourself when they see you standing next to the result of my spell?” Tina folded her arms and looked up at Lazur.

  “In Cerra’s name, no.” The badger walked a few paces deeper into the woods to be sure he was out of sight.

  Tina gave a small smile and then looked around. She saw a patch of dirt beyond some of the underbrush. “There. That might do.” She made her way off the path and ducked under a small clump of bushes.

  When she emerged on the other side, Tina saw a shallow impression in the ground about as deep as she was tall. There were several patches of mashed grass and a flower that had been pressed into the ground. She looked around the large impression. The edges of it were uneven, but it would do for her purposes.

  Lazur rounded the bush which Tina had passed under and came to a sudden stop. “Uh, wizard.”

  “Tina.” Tina replied.

  “Tina, do you see what you’re standing in?”

  Tina looked down at her feet. “…Dirt?”

  Lazur crouched down and beckoned to Tina. “More than that. Come here for a moment.”

  Tina looked at Lazur curiously, but acquiesced. She walked back to the edge of the impression, and when Lazur lowered his hand for her, she stepped onto it. When Lazur stood, he held her back from the impression so she could get a better look at it.

  The impression was almost six feet long and three feet wide. The back side of it was rounded with a smaller, circular impression six inches wide behind it. Three long gouges jutted from the front of the impression, each one about four feet long with a fourth one only three feet long.

  It was a footprint.

  Tina was startled by the size of it. She’d seen footprints from greater thunder lizards. This one was bigger than most. “Is that,” she questioned with a brief pause, “from the Dragon Eaters?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. They were out here last night, looking baleful and hungry.”

  “Your town needs a bigger wall.” Tina cleared her throat and then jumped down from Lazur’s hand. She landed in the soft dirt at the edges of the footprint and climbed back into it. Something caught her eye, and Tina looked at what was next to the footprint. There were rocks and the scorched remnants of kindling vines wrapped around parts of them. All were blackened from fire as was the grass around it. She pointed at it. “Do you know what caused that?”

  Lazur looked at the scorched rocks. “I do. The guards used a trebuchet to heave a flaming rock at one of the monsters out here. The blasted thing caught it and crushed it like a berry. Didn’t even seem to feel it.”

  Tina felt a cold chill run up her spine as she inferred three things from Lazur’s comment. The first was that the creatures hadn’t felt pain from a flaming boulder heaved by a trebuchet. The second was that it had the strength to crush said boulder with what the badger regarded as little effort. The third was the one which worried her the most; the creature had recognized the threat and taken steps to prevent it, which implied problem solving intelligence.

  However, while problem solving intelligence was a worry, Tina considered that detail momentarily. If the creatures were intelligent, then it was possible they could be reasoned with.

  Tina came out of her momentary contemplation and looked back at the footprint. “Made by the Dragon Eaters or not, it will still serve my purposes.” She pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and untied the cords of her rucksack. Removing it from her shoulders, the mouse wizard set the rucksack down and pulled it open. She removed from it a rolled up leather kit which she spread out on the ground.

  Tina plucked from it a small, metal wand the size of a needle for the average Cerran. She inspected the two runes drawn into the base of the wand. Picking up a small, glass bottle, she removed it from the kit and pulled the cork out. Walking down into the indentation, she used the metal wand to trace lines into the ground. The lines looked jumbled at first, but she continued tracing them.

  Collectively, they began to form an image. By the time she was finished, Tina had traced out a rudimentary creature with six thin legs, each leg ending in a four-toed foot. The toes were spread apart like the foot of an avian, though they lacked talons. Walking to the back end of the dirt drawing, she drew a long, whipcord-like tail covered by scales.

  She traced a line from the tail leading to the front of the drawing’s body to create its back. Stopping at the mi
ddle of the back, Tina drew on a simple saddle and then continued to the drawing’s head. She sketched a short snout covered by wide scales and ending in a pair of pointed, boney lips resembling an avian’s beak. She next added a pair of round eyes. Tina completed the drawing with a few other needed details including a pair of long, pointed ears and a bridle on the creature’s head.

  Once finished, Tina walked around the drawing and tapped the silvery powder inside the bottle into the lines she had drawn. The silver powder glimmered inside the lines as it touched the soil. And once Tina had finished pouring the powder, she corked the bottle again and put it and the metal wand back into the kit from which she’d taken them. She rolled the kit up and put it back into the rucksack.

  Tina put the rucksack back on her shoulders and walked to the front of the drawing. She held her hands out in front of her and chanted her personal mantra to help maintain her focus. The process of summoning required a greater degree of concentration than most other spells.

  Tina multiplied the organic variable inside her personal equation, taking the excess magic produced from it and gathering it between her hands. She formed a sphere with the fingers on one hand and swept the other hand out over the drawing which was several times larger than she. With each sweep, wisps drifted off the sphere of pure magical energy in her hand and poured over the drawing like a fine mist. The mist faded into the silvery catalyst which floated up from the soil. Each sweep of her hand caused more of the magical energy to pour through the catalyst and made the silver dust drift into the air for an instant with each sweep.

  Once she had applied sufficient magical energy, Tina allowed the remainder of her summoned magic to return to her body. She pushed both hands forward, and her fingers formed a pair of cones facing the intricate drawing. The silver dust filling the lines rose and carried with it bits of soil. The soil spiraled in the air in a long cylinder which lay on its side. Commanded by Tina’s will, the cylinder formed a long body with the bits of dirt becoming suspended in the air. Some of them drifted downward from the formed body, and Tina cupped one hand to collect the falling dust in an inverted cone beneath the forming creature.

  The dust in the inverted cone rose and connected to the creature’s body and formed three pairs of legs. The creature’s feet touched the ground, and it held itself up on its own. More of the soil rose from the ground to create the creature’s long tail just as its head started forming. Once its mouth was complete, the creature let out a quiet groan.

  Tina clapped her hands together sharply, and dust burst away from its body. The dust drifted to the ground to reveal her creation. Its body was a deep, earthen brown with green scales on its shoulders, along its snout, covering its back, and extending down the top of its tail. The saddle formed was brown like the rest of its body, but softened into leather.

  Tina lowered her hands and drew in a deep breath before she shivered. The expenditure of magic to animate a creature with a spark of her own life force left Tina feeling drained. She sank to the ground and crossed her legs with her hands on her knees. The creature blinked a few times, its eyes rotating to take in its surroundings. Upon seeing Tina, it leaned down and gently bumped her cheek with the side of its snout. Tina smiled weakly and rubbed the side of the creature's muzzle.

  Lazur whistled lowly at the animation of the creature. “Magic or not, that’s impressive. Is that thing really alive?”

  Tina looked up at the creature’s eyes. It gently bumped her with its snout. “It has a spark of life. But not a strong one. The best way to say it is that it shares my spirit.”

  “That sounds a little dangerous.”

  Tina nodded. “It is taxing. Fragmenting one’s spirit in any way tends to be like that. But this is a creature I created sometime ago before the banning of long term animation within the Council of Stars.”

  Lazur stepped forward and tentatively rested his hand on the creature's back. He lightly rubbed its scales. “But they let you continue to use animation?”

  Tina rose to her feet, and the creature dipped its head down to lift Tina up on its snout. It tilted its head back and let Tina slide down between its shoulder blades. “Once a spirit is fragmented, mending it can be more dangerous. The Council of Stars did not make the law retroactive.”

  “But you just created this creature now, didn’t you?”

  Tina shook her head. “The ritual for creating life is far more complicated, time-consuming, and requires several reagents I do not possess. This creature, I merely summoned from a spell I had already enacted some time ago.”

  Lazur looked down at the creature, lightly bumping its scaly side with his knuckle. “Your spirit resides in it. Does that mean you feel what it does?”

  Tina shook her head. “It’s as conscious as I am, but it is contained within its own vessel. We are not linked that way.”

  The badger grunted. “Not entirely sure what you mean by that, but I think I get the idea.”

  Tina gestured toward the saddle. “We’re losing time. Please, climb on.”

  Lazur scrutinized the creature briefly, then threw his leg over it. The creature shifted with his weight, then settled. The badger picked up the reins attached to the bridle and wrapped them around his hands. “You train it to respond like a strider?”

  Tina smiled. “There’s no need. Just hang on.” She turned around to face the creature’s head. “I will get her moving. Just guide her where we need to go.” When Lazur nodded, Tina put her hand on the creature’s back. She thought of the act of running.

  In an instant, it responded and started forward smoothly. Lazur pulled the reins to one side, the creature following his lead. He turned it back to the road, and by the time they had reached it, the creature was practically sprinting.

  Lazur kept a tight grip on the reins. “It rides much more smoothly than a strider.”

  Tina smiled. “She.” Her head tilted down, and she closed her eyes. “The magic I have been using today has left me a little drained.” She rested her back against the front of the saddle. “As little as you may think of magic, it is a stress on even a gifted spell-caster’s body and mind. You may think that wizards throw magic around, but to do so without regard for the power we wield is reckless, dangerous, and to the careless magic user, deadly.”

  “Then why do it?” Lazur looked down at her.

  “For most, it is a choice to seek some greater goal.” Tina opened her eyes. “I try to help people with my gift. But even if my aims were entirely hedonistic, I no longer have a choice, if I want to survive.”

  “Because of your curse.” Lazur stated in understanding. “You seem pretty knowledgeable about magic. Haven’t you found a way to cure it?”

  “Oh, I found the cure a long time ago. But the wizard who cursed me did his work well. The curse spread to my spirit before I found the cure. Were I to undo his spell, it would kill me.” Tina softly sighed. “I have been using a great deal of magic today. I would like to rest.”

  Lazur wrinkled his muzzle. “Putting more trust in me, are you?”

  Tina tilted her head up to look at him. “Trust can only be bought with trust.” She smiled weakly and lowered her head. “There is one more thing I would like to ask before I rest, though.”

  Lazur nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “It’s about the wizard who was here before me. You’ve told me he was killed by the Dragon Eaters. How did he come to be in Likonia at all?”

  “The governor recruited him, far as I know. Nobody really trusted him, but it didn’t have anything to do with him being a wizard.” Lazur adjusted the reins and turned the riding beast as they came to a bend which, once rounded, brought them out of the woods to start the climb up a hill. “It was because he was an Idassian.”

  Tina’s eyes opened. “The governor trusted an Idassian wizard to capture the Dragon Eaters?”

  Lazur shook his head. “Not exactly. The wizard came before the Drag
on Eaters even appeared. He was supposed to be dealing with the Maldavians. Then the Dragon Eaters showed up and attacked the Maldavians. After the wizard was killed trying to capture them, they started raiding our crops and attacking farmers.”

  Tina flicked one of her rounded ears. A wizard from Idassia wasn’t unheard of, but many of them tended to have one thing in common. “Did you ever see this wizard yourself, Lazur?”

  Lazur nodded. “I did.”

  “Did he wear a deep purple traveling cloak with maroon, feathery wings sewn into the sides and a hood with a pointed tip like the beak of a bird?”

  The stocky badger looked down at Tina. “Yeah. That’s a pretty accurate description. Does it mean something?”

  “It can. That cloak means he is part of a cult in Idassia.” Tina sighed as she rubbed her forehead. She thought back on the words given to her by the prophet in the Council of Stars. ‘Discover the truth upon which light is shed in the knowledge granted by those who are dead.’ The Cult of the Red Phoenix used magic relating to life and death. Such a wizard may not be beyond Tina’s reach.