by E. D. Baker
“You think we’d tell you?” Eadric asked. “You have the biggest beak in the kingdom.”
“I’ll go with you, Eadric,” Emma said. “Just give me a moment while I change.”
Audun glanced at the door. “Perhaps I should leave.”
“Why?” said Millie. “She’s not going to change her clothes.”
“While you see what you can learn outside the wall, I’ll go to the parapet,” King Limelyn said. “Perhaps I’ll be able to find out what Rudolfo wants.”
A pale, green light had begun to shimmer around Emma, but it faded away when her father said he was leaving. “I need to renew your protection spell if you’re going outside,” she said, taking her father’s hand in hers. “I know I put one on you just a few months ago, but they don’t generally last very long. This should do the job.”
Keep him safe from point or blade,
From all that’s magic or man-made.
Deflect their aim, repel their blows,
Let him be well where’er he goes.
Bright green sparkles dusted the air around the king, melting on his head and shoulders as if they were tiny, colored snowflakes. King Limelyn smiled and patted her hand. “You’re a good daughter, Emma.”
Audun watched as she kissed the king on the cheek, something that made them both smile. The young dragon was surprised by the feelings the sight of such a simple sign of affection stirred inside him. Millie had kissed him twice before, once as she was about to enter the Blue Witch’s castle, and again when she was leaving the mountain range. They were the only kisses he’d ever received and they’d given him a warm feeling inside, which was unusual for an ice dragon.
“Emma, perhaps you should change in the dungeon,” Eadric suggested. “You always complain that the stairwell is too small when you’re a dragon.”
“Good thinking,” Emma replied. Something heavy hit an exterior wall, making the castle shake. “We’d better go. It sounds as if someone is trying to get our attention.”
Emma and Eadric were already out the door when Millie started after them saying, “I’m going, too. I’m sure you’ll need my help.”
“Not so fast, Millie,” said King Limelyn. “I want to ask your young man about the poison gas he mentioned.”
“Yeah,” said You-too. “Do you have it in a bottle, or do you make it yourself ? And if you make it, does it come out your mouth or your—”
“That’s enough from you!” declared the king. In two strides he crossed the room, snatched up the bird, tossed him into Emma’s storage room, and slammed the door. Turning to Audun he gave him an apologetic smile and said, “I understand you have the same ability as my daughter and granddaughter.”
“That’s true, sir, although I breathe poison gas instead of fire.”
“Ah,” said the king. “And that’s because you become an ice dragon.”
“Actually, sir, I’m an ice dragon who can become a human. After I last saw Millie, I spent my time earning the right to learn how to make the change.”
Millie inhaled sharply, but Audun kept his eyes on her grandfather.
King Limelyn rubbed his chin and looked at Audun speculatively. “I didn’t know that such a thing was possible. Either way, we can use a man like you in the family.”
“Grandfather!” exclaimed Millie. “He hasn’t even asked me yet!”
“You go with Millie and keep her safe,” the king told Audun. “She’s very dear to me.”
“To me as well,” Audun replied, turning his gaze to Millie.
Twenty-three
Millie and Audun accompanied King Limelyn down the tower stairs, separating when the king headed for the parapet while they descended the stairs to the dungeon. “Did you tell my grandfather the truth?” Millie asked. “Did you have to earn the right to learn how to become a human?”
“Of course it’s true. Dragons don’t lie!” Audun said.
“And you did it for me?” asked Millie.
Audun nodded. “Your grandmother made it clear that we couldn’t be together as long as I was a dragon. Since you’d become the most important person in my life, I had to find a way to be with you.”
“You really feel that way?” Millie breathed.
“Dragons don’t—”
“Lie. I know. You already told me.”
“When your mother told King Stormclaw that you were pining for me, I knew that you truly did feel the same way about me that I feel about you. I meant to come to you sooner, but I had to perform tasks for the ice dragon king, and then there was the war in Aridia . . .”
“So you came as soon as you could. I believe you, Audun.” Giving him a smile that made his heart miss a beat, Millie took Audun’s hand in hers and led him down the last of the stairs.
They had just reached the dungeon when Audun heard voices up ahead. Two of them sounded like Emma and Eadric, but the others were too faint to make out. As they walked deeper into the gloom broken only by the light of flickering torches, the voices grew louder. Millie smiled. “You’re about to meet my great-grandparents. I can hear my parents talking to them.”
“Why didn’t I meet them last night when I met everyone else?” asked Audun.
“They rarely leave the dungeon. You see,” she said, as they turned a corner and saw two hazy figures facing Emma and Eadric, “they’re ghosts.”
“I didn’t know ghosts were real,” breathed Audun. “I’ve never seen one before.” He peered at the figures, trying to see them better in the dim light, but their wavery forms seemed to fade away at the edges as he and Millie approached. The ghosts were gone altogether by the time the two young people stood before Emma and Eadric.
Sometime after leaving the tower, Eadric had acquired a sword and tarnished armor, which Emma was now helping him put on. “Wasn’t this Great-grandfather’s?” Millie asked, running her finger over the scabbard leaning against the wall.
Emma nodded as she helped her husband pull up one of the jointed metal gloves. “Grandfather insisted that Eadric use it. My grandmother put so many protection spells on it over the years that some of them became permanent and now it’s virtually impenetrable. There, that ought to do it,” she said, setting the helmet on Eadric’s head.
“You forgot one thing,” said Eadric. Lifting the visor, he gently touched her chin with one hand and raised her face so that he could give her a tender kiss on the lips. Emma ignored the hard metal encasing his body and wrapped her arms around him, deepening the kiss. When she stepped back a moment later, Audun saw the way they looked at each other, as if nothing else in the world mattered at that moment. He wondered what it would be like to kiss someone on the lips—something most dragons would find distasteful.
“We need to go,” Emma said softly, as the air began to shimmer around her. A heartbeat later a lovely green female dragon swung her tail out of the way and started down the corridor behind a knight in not-quite-shining armor.
“We should change now, too,” Millie told Audun, as she stepped back to give him room.
It had never occurred to Audun that he would have to change in front of Millie, at least not quite so soon. Not knowing how he looked when he did it, he was reluctant at first, but when she gave him a brilliant smile and started her own change into dragon form, he began his change as well. Although he had changed back and forth many times over the last few months, this time he was left feeling breathless and exhilarated. He was gazing at Millie when she glanced toward the ceiling and he became aware of the sounds coming from above. Fighting had started in earnest.
“The tunnel is this way,” Millie said, hurrying in the direction her parents had gone. The corridor that had seemed wide just moments before now seemed cramped with two dragons in it. He could hear Millie’s scales scraping the wall each time she bumped it and knew that it wasn’t any more comfortable for her than it was for him.
When they reached what appeared to be the end of the corridor, Millie reached out and deftly pulled one of the blocks in the wall out part of the way. Audun hear
d a groaning sound before he saw that the wall had actually begun to move. Millie backed into him as the wall swung out, revealing a dank, lightless space. Although Audun couldn’t see anything past the opening in the wall, he noticed that Millie ducked and lowered her tail before stepping into the tunnel.
“Hurry,” Millie said, her voice loud in the confined space. “The door doesn’t stay open for long.”
Audun grunted and began to walk faster, but he was only partway through when he heard the door groaning shut. Not wanting to lose his tail, he pulled it as close to his body as he could and scurried forward until he finally bumped into Millie.
“We’re almost there,” Millie said. “See that light up ahead?”
Audun couldn’t see anything with her body blocking the light, but he could smell fresh air and felt a hint of a breeze when he raised his head. With the next step he bumped his crest on a dangling root, and dirt showered around him. Audun jerked his head down, and was still walking hunched over when Millie pushed aside the canopy of leaves that hid the tunnel and they emerged into bright sunlight.
“Where are your parents?” Audun asked, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light.
“Up there.” Millie pointed to where a knight sat astride a flying green dragon as easily as he might a horse.
Stepping out from under the branches of the overhanging tree, Millie and Audun took to the sky. Once above the tops of the trees, Audun could see for miles and easily spotted the soldiers surrounding the castle. He saw King Limelyn as well, standing on the parapet above the drawbridge, looking down at the group of men clustered on the other side of the moat.
“Your demands are unreasonable!” shouted the king. “I’m not giving up my granddaughter or my castle.”
“Be sensible! I’ll let you and your queen depart unharmed if you lower your drawbridge now.”
“Why should we go when we’re perfectly happy where we are?” answered the king.
“Then you leave me no choice!” Prince Rudolfo shouted back.
At a gesture from the prince, the men who had been standing beside the moat opened sacks that they had hauled across the fields and began dumping rocks into the water. “What are they doing?” Audun asked Millie, who was flying only a wing tip away.
“They’re trying to fill in the moat so they can use that,” she said, gesturing to the tall wooden structure that another group of men were hauling out from under a copse of sheltering trees. “It’s called a siege tower. They hope to push it up to the castle wall and climb onto the parapet.”
“Shouldn’t we stop them?” asked Audun. “You or your mother could burn that down with one puff of flame.”
“The magic user has probably made it flameproof. But that won’t make any difference,” Millie replied. “Watch.”
Audun glanced back just as two men shoved an extra-large rock into the moat and water shot up in a geyser. When the geyser failed to die down, the young dragon watched more closely. A tentacle rose from the center of the waterspout. It reached toward the edge of the moat, forcing the soldiers to back away. Two of the men weren’t quick enough: the tentacle slapped the ground beside them and knocked them into the moat where they flailed about, struggling to reach the edge. The rock that they had just dumped in shot out of the water, hitting the siege tower with a thunderous boom! Soon the other rocks were hurtling out in a steady stream, demolishing the siege tower and chasing the soldiers across the fields and down the road.
The two soldiers still hadn’t dragged themselves from the water when the last rock hit the ground and bounced across the field. Suddenly, the tentacle plucked the men from the moat and sent them screaming through the air only to land halfway across the field in a stack of freshly baled hay. Whimpering, they scrambled out of the hay and limped as fast as they could across the field.
At first, when Audun saw the prince riding away, he thought that Rudolfo had given up, but then more soldiers came out of the woods carrying bows and full quivers. The archers had assembled only a short distance from the castle when the prince gave a signal and they opened fire, raining arrows down on the parapet where King Limelyn was retreating into the shelter of one of the castle towers. Seeing the approaching cloud of arrows, the soldiers around the king held up their shields to protect him, but Emma’s spell was already working. Although the arrows rushed at them with frightening speed like a cloud of deadly hornets, when they were a dozen yards from the king, they bounced suddenly as if hitting stone and fell to the ground, broken and useless.
“Now what?” Audun asked, as the archers reached for more arrows.
“Since they’re being so persistent, Mother will probably want to chase them off. See, I was right. There she goes now.”
Audun glanced up to see Emma come roaring out of the sky with Eadric bent low across her back, his sword in his hand. With an answering roar, Millie joined them as they plummeted toward the now-scattering soldiers, who were running before even a hint of flame left the dragons’ mouths. Prince Rudolfo had already disappeared into the forest.
Audun was tempted to fly with Millie and her parents, but they didn’t seem to need his help. He was circling overhead, watching the fleeing soldiers, when he noticed one figure heading in a different direction. Instead of running away from the castle, he was moving furtively around the side, stopping every now and then as if to see if he was being watched. The figure was already close to the entrance to the secret tunnel. Audun was about to follow him to see what he was up to when a dark shadow blotted out the sun. Even before he raised his head, Audun knew what was up there. Only one thing could cast a shadow big enough to darken an area that size. A roc had come to Greater Greensward.
Cupping the air with its wings, the great bird screamed as it approached the castle. The soldiers who hadn’t already run away did so now, shedding heavy armor as they tried to outrun their friends. The roc wasn’t after them, however. Bellowing so loudly that it hurt Audun’s ears, the bird landed on the top of Emma’s tower and began to rip at the roof with its massive beak. The tower sagged under the weight of the roc even as chunks of the roof fell into the courtyard below.
A green dragon swooped out of the sky, exhaling long tongues of flame at the roc. Eadric swung his sword and hacked at the bird as Emma flew past. They turned and were heading back for a second run when Millie joined them. As Emma and Eadric flew past the roc once again, Audun dipped his wing and headed back to the castle, arriving in time to breathe his poison gas into Millie’s flame, making the air around the roc explode. Its feathers singed, the bird screamed and raised its head to lash at them with its beak. Millie and Audun dodged the blow and flew safely away.
On her next pass, Emma swung around to the other side of the bird. She had just started to exhale her flame when the bird turned and, with a powerful swipe of its head, knocked Emma and Eadric tumbling through the sky. Millie screamed and flew after them with Audun close behind. He was nearly even with Millie when Eadric fell from Emma’s back. While Emma fought to right herself and Millie struggled to reach her father before he hit the ground, Audun pulled his wings to his sides and dove. Pulling up just below Eadric, he positioned himself so that he could lash out with his tail to catch the falling prince. With his tail securely wrapped around Eadric, he landed on the ground and gently laid the limp man on the grass.
Both Millie and Emma were there an instant later, their concern for Eadric plain on their faces. While Millie crouched by her father’s side, Emma changed back into a human. Kneeling next to her husband, she placed her fingers on his throat. “He’s alive,” she breathed.
“Of course I’m alive,” Eadric groaned, his eyes fluttering open. “I just had the wind knocked out of me, that’s all.”
Audun thought the prince might have protested when his wife fell on him and covered his face with kisses, but instead Eadric reached up with both hands and held her still so that he could kiss her.
“Your father is fine,” Audun said, glancing at the young dragoness.
She was stretching her wings, preparing to leap into the sky when Audun barked, “No! You can’t take on a roc all alone. You’ll just get yourself killed if you try. If I thought I could get them here in time, I’d try to get ice dragons to help, but it would take a dozen dragons to challenge a roc and even then they probably wouldn’t win. There must be a reason the roc is here and behaving that way,” he said, gesturing to the bird that was clawing at the stones of the tower walls. Another huge piece broke away, making a tremendous racket as it crashed to the ground below.
“And how would we ever find out why that stupid bird does anything?” Millie asked. “You’re not proposing that we go ask it, are you?”
“Not at all, but there might be someone we can ask. Let’s see if we can find him.” Spreading their wings, the dragon and the dragoness took to the air and circled once above the castle while Audun told Millie about the figure he’d seen sneaking toward the entrance to the tunnel. Together they landed beside the concealing tree and peered under the branches. There was no one in sight, so Audun pushed aside the leaves and entered the tunnel, not wanting Millie to be the first to confront whoever might be inside.
It took Audun a few minutes to find the block that opened the door. Even as the stone door groaned open, he could hear a man talking nearby. “Shh!” he whispered to Millie when she started to speak. “I recognize that voice.”
Moving as silently as a dragon could in a stone-walled corridor, Audun and Millie crept toward the sound. Rounding the corner, they saw a man outlined in torchlight. He wasn’t very tall in his long, flowing robes and his back was curved with age, but it was his distinctively shiny scalp that affirmed Audun’s first guess. Olebald Wizard was standing with his back to them, trying to get past the ghosts who blocked his way down the corridor.
“I don’t know why you keep trying, you old coot,” said a wild-haired ghost dressed in rags. He brandished a long chain with manacles attached to the end. Judging by the grating sound they made on the floor, they were far more substantial than the ghost. “My friend and I aren’t letting you by, no matter how much you wheedle and whine.”