“Perhaps,” he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin. He stood, motioning for her to follow. They walked back to his private quarters, and he opened the door to a room that she had not seen for a very long time. It was a wardrobe room, but since her mother had passed away she found she had no need to be there. She used to spend hours there with her mother’s dresses, looking in the full-length mirror that they had mounted to a wall in the room when she was a little girl.
Julian lifted a key from around his neck and opened a large armoire. “I know your duty is to heal and serve and if need be fight, but most importantly, you can’t serve and help others if you’re in danger yourself.”
Olivia gasped as the faint light shined off of something gleaming inside the armoire. Her father stepped back so she could see it clearly. It was a shiny coat of chain mail, meticulously crafted, which gave it a perfect symmetrical look. Julian smiled as he reached in and lifted it from the mannequin bust it was resting on.
“I’m sure it’s too big,” Olivia said, facing her father, who used both hands to hold the chain mail out.
“Let’s try it on,” he said. “There are a few exceptional things to it.” He smiled.
Olivia reached overhead as her father lifted the mail over her blouse and rested it on her shoulders. “It feels so light—I am surprised,” she said. Instantly she felt the entire armor tighten around her, making her feel snug within it. “Did you see that, Father?”
“Yes, I was expecting it. It is a special property of the armor. It will adjust to fit the wearer,” he said, stepping around her and clasping the top back collar link to its partner, fitting the links tightly around her neck. “Of course, you’ll wear a thicker cotton or wool blouse underneath, which will provide more support and prevent chafing when you move in it, and wear it for long periods of time.”
“Yes, this silk already feels too thin now, but I swear I feel differently in this. I’ve never seen you in it. How came you by it?” Olivia asked.
“It’s been in the family for generations. It is Akun welded steel, forged during a transit of Father Death, very rare and very priceless.” Julian smiled.
“Father, I can’t. This should stay here with you. Why didn’t you give this to Osric? He could make better use of it than I could.” Olivia smiled back.
“Your brother, Osric, has a very nice set of plate armor that he wears, and it is quite strong, though not so enchanted. Besides, this armor came with a very special sword that I gifted to Osric. You did not see it before he left last year, as he kept it sheathed when it was worn, but it went with this chain mail and I made sure he had something special to help him return to us. I fear for him every day, but now I am glad he refused this armor and so I have it to give to you,” Julian said, stepping back and looking approvingly at his daughter.
“Why not keep it for yourself, Father?”
“My fighting days are over . . . at least with a sword. I fight now with a quill and parchment.” He laughed out loud, nodding in approval.
Olivia moved over to the lone mirror in her father’s wardrobe room and looked at her reflection within it. The armor was shiny and magnificent-looking, and she would have expected to see it only in Utandra, the realm’s capital, not here in a provincial town. Obviously, though, the skirt she wore and her blouse made her look half-silly, but she imagined that she would look better in it with a set of fully equipped clothes and gear to go with the chain mail.
“I can’t thank you enough, Father,” she said, walking to him and hugging him intensely.
“It’s the least I can do. I don’t approve of you being in the Order, but I suspected, and even resigned myself to the fact, that it would happen one day.” Julian looked off into space before looking back at Olivia. “Your mother, anyway, would have been most proud were she here to see you in it. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you that due to its light weight, you won’t have to wear a leather undercoat. A thick blouse top and cotton pants will work just fine with this mail.”
“I can unclasp it myself?” she asked, reaching back to unlock the neck links.
“Yes, so you don’t need any servants to take it on or off. Another benefit I suppose, especially for a lady,” Julian said, and then he smiled at her.
“Agreed, Father, but do help me tonight,” she said, struggling to unclasp the link.
Her father helped her in silence, and once finished, they spent the rest of the evening on the veranda, talking about anything except her impending departure, which would soon begin the next morning.
Olivia rode in silence, thinking of the day. She had said farewell to her father and remembered him accompanying her as far as the edge of town before waving good-bye to her. This drew a few snickers from several of the soldiers, who seemed to take some sort of glee in the overly dressed Hand of the Order being escorted by her ‘Papa’. Commander Fulbert quickly put an end to that, and most of the day they traveled south upon the road to the southern port city of Ortanel, before finally leaving the road and heading east into a small grove of trees and flat meadows that lay nearby.
They made camp at nightfall. Olivia felt quite secure in her armor; being accompanied by so many soldiers and other servants, she couldn’t imagine anything detrimental happening to them.
“Do you always travel with so many soldiers, Commander Fulbert?” Olivia asked as she came from setting her tent to stand next to him around a small ring of stones, where the servants were piling wood for a fire.
“Please, just Fulbert will be fine, especially out here, unless you prefer me to call you Lady Olivia or Hand Olivia?” Fulbert said, and then he smiled.
“Right you are. Olivia will be fine, and so will Fulbert then.”
The commander barked a few more orders for the watch and then waved a servant over and motioned for two chairs. Soon two folding wood and leather chairs were brought over from the supply cart, and Olivia found herself seated, waiting for the fire and feeling more than a little proud of herself for traveling all day without complaining.
“This will be our base camp, Olivia. No more chairs, open-air kitchens, or even partitions for dressing. You’ll have to rough it from here on out,” Fulbert said, adjusting his seat and motioning for the fire to be started.
“Indeed, I’m sure I’ll miss the little pleasantries that we have here, but it was only one day, and I can’t imagine we will be gone long, will we?” Olivia asked, looking around at the bustling camp. “Besides, you still haven’t answered my original question.”
“Question? Oh, yes, about our contingent here. Actually it’s quite small considering what we used to patrol with a few seasons ago, but it’s big enough to deal with any wild beast we may come across.”
“You don’t believe the rumors, then, about a great drake from the North living near here?”
“Absolute rubbish. I’ve patrolled the entire Pentost region for decades and have never even heard of a dragon sighting, much less encountered one myself,” Fulbert said, scowling. “I wouldn’t have even believed they existed in the North if not for the actual war and reports from there by our own troops,” Fulbert said, with a forceful tone in his voice.
“Well, from the looks of your men, and with your experience, I’m sure any wild creature near here will think twice before looking for trouble with us.”
“Quite right—it would be a big mistake if it did,” Commander Fulbert said, grinning as he warmed his hands over the newly lit fire as dusk settled.
The rest of the evening was uneventful. Olivia noticed that the company had no ale, beer, or wine whatsoever, and she took that as a sign the expedition was serious.
A couple of times she tried to listen to the conversations between the troops and the scouts who had come back much later. They reported on the surrounding area and the results of tracking the prior group of elite warriors who had gone missing weeks before.
They hadn’t said much of anything interesting. Kero Swamp was very close, and Olivia chuckled inside because she didn’t need
a tracker to tell her that. Her nose gave her a clear indication that something dank, musty, and foul-smelling lay just eastward on the wind, which oftentimes blew inland from the sea, which was several days away.
She didn’t have much to do because they had travelled only one day; the group’s lone injury was a servant who had walked all day in a pair of shoes that were a size or two too small, and the constant chafing and rubbing led to several blisters. After popping them and dressing them, she thought the man would stop complaining, but instead he just went on about the lack of proper roads in these parts and whined about why they had to walk cross-country.
He became very quiet when Commander Fulbert’s aide-de-camp, Nerus, walked by. Nerus had taken one look, raised his nose, and continued on with a pompous pace up and back, from one end of the camp to the other, looking for protocol infractions, such as gambling, liquor, or other contraband. Olivia was glad to have finished her healing duty and returned to the main camp group.
She finally retired for the night, taking off her mail and setting it, as well as her shield, under her portable sleeping bed made from a wood frame and supported by many wide leather straps, much like her chair. Most of the troops and servants slept on the ground in tents that barely came to their waists. Her tent was head-high, and while others may have had to duck to enter their own tents, she did not when entering hers. This was one of the benefits of representing Astor with the company.
She sat in the small confines of her tent on the edge of her rickety bed and took out her sword, setting it upon her lap to look at it. It was familiar and smaller for a sword, so she could wield it easily. It cut well enough, especially if she had a good swing behind it, and she always had thought of it as something special until her father gave her that armor. Now the once shining blade seemed dull in comparison to the chain mail she wore. She wished Osric would have shown her the companion sword to the mail before he left a year earlier.
Dawn came early for it was high summer and there was plenty of daylight. The camp stayed busy, but only the soldiers and some select staff started off east again that day. Olivia noted that two score of troops stayed behind with about the same amount of servants, and about three score started marching east under Commander Fulbert’s banner.
There had been some discussion about whether the men should wear heavy armor, mostly scale and chain mail, but the commander’s aide-de-camp, Nerus, insisted on it. “We are fighting men in our own lands,” he had said rather forcefully, and Commander Fulbert simply shrugged and headed off in his own plate armor, still mounted on his steed.
Only the commander and Nerus had steeds to ride. Everyone else was now on foot, but two servants walked behind their leaders to take the steeds back to camp once they reached the first of the marshy lands.
“You know they’re going to drown in that armor,” a taller, leaner man wearing a green cloak with black leathers and tall boots said to her as he walked up beside her.
“I’m sorry—do you mean the commander or the entire expedition?” Olivia asked.
“I was referring to Fulbert and his aide, Nerus,” the goateed man said.
“I’m sorry, but do we know each other?” Olivia asked.
“No, we don’t, and you didn’t see me yesterday either. I arrived late last night. I was already in the area, keeping a watch.”
Olivia continued to walk, picking her way around some small brushes just off the main trail. “Well, I am grateful for your service, but I’m sorry that I don’t know your name. I thought I knew everyone who worked in our lord’s service.”
The man smiled at her and started to laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Olivia asked.
“You are the most polite Acolyte of Astor that I have ever met, and please do not be ‘sorry’ for anything else. No need to be so apologetic or formal out here. Oh, and so I don’t have to put you in another awkward position, let me inform you that my name is Felix and I am not in the employ of the duke or your father.”
Olivia blushed a bit and felt awkward, despite the man’s attempt not to make her feel exactly so. “Well, I am a Hand of Astor now, having just recently been initiated into the Order, and if you don’t serve in the government, then what are you doing out here?”
“Ah, my congratulations, then. I had not heard of your initiation. It has been a long time since I have been in Tannis or . . .” There was a pause for a moment as Felix looked pensive. “Any town, for that matter. I serve no master, just the Mother.”
“You serve Agon, then? Are you one of the Arnen?” Olivia asked.
“You are a learned person. No stranger to a book, I see. No, I am not of the Arnen, but you are close. I serve them as a defender, and they, of course, serve Agon,” Felix said with a smile.
“Well, very well met, then, Defender Felix,” Olivia said with a slight tilt of her head.
“The pleasure is all mine, Hand of Astor Olivia.”
“You know my name?”
“Difficult not to, even for a city-averse man such as myself. When your father is the prefect of the entire region, one who lives and travels in that region comes to know who is enforcing the noble’s laws.”
“You sound like you don’t approve.” Olivia raised an eyebrow at him while they walked together just to the side of the main troop.
“Agon makes the law, nature’s law. Man is just visiting for a time, and we would all be better off if we knew that and respected it,” Felix said.
“I will remember that, then, Defender Felix,” Olivia said. She spoke no more, and the two walked in silence for quite some time before one of the scouts whom Olivia did know, Pascal, motioned for Felix to come to the front of the group.
She could not hear much, but the conversation seemed animated. Felix left quickly with a different scout, and the entire group resumed their slow march eastward. Eventually the land got soggy in places, and many bogs and ponds were found. The commander and his aide dismounted and resumed the journey on foot, with the two servants returning to the base camp with their horses.
Several hours later, and with the sun low on the horizon, the commander called for a halt to the march, and they made camp at a predetermined location that had been scouted earlier. The area was just large enough to accommodate the entire group, but several of the tents were in between small puddles of standing water. It was difficult to find a swath of land that was thoroughly dry and large enough to accommodate a group of this size. Thank goodness it is the dry season, Olivia thought to herself as she set up her new tent, which was much smaller than the one she left behind.
Soon the entire camp was settled, and Olivia found herself looking for the rugged defender who said his name was Felix. She did not see him or the scout he left with several hours earlier. She asked the commander about it, and he said only that their behavior was normal and even expected. “They are scouts,” he had said, as if that explained it all. “I expect they will return when the twin sister moons rise high overhead late into the night. That is what they usually do.”
Olivia had let it go and had pretty much kept to herself for the remainder of the evening. She was just about to enter her tent and retire for the night when she heard a blood-curdling scream, a scream of death. Olivia stood upright and gripped her sword as she peered into the blackness. Then, cold as death itself, she saw them, and for the first time in her life she felt real fear.
Chapter 7
Undead
Qui Amatha had raised her small army of undead, and had unleashed them upon the humans who dared to enter her abode. Sivern had proven himself capable, even for a drone, and the makings of a plan were coming to her mind.
The magically enhanced death echoes were reverberating across the negative ether, and Amatha reveled in the life energy that was being taken and channeled to her and her minions. She could not see nor hear the battle as it started, but she could feel it as life forms were vanquished and souls were separated from their corporal bodies.
Nothing could stan
d in her way; however, she was still sluggish from the centuries that she had slept. Some would call it hibernation, but she had dreamed during that time, so sleep it was. As usual, the landscape around her oftentimes changed, sometimes dramatically, and other times almost imperceptibly, but change there always was.
She would feed not only physically but also emotionally, as she stole the life energy from those around her. She thought it ironic, in a pleasingly cruel way, that she was using the physical forms of her past victims from centuries past to inflict pain and death on those of the present. This replenished the ranks as hundreds of years passed, and the Father of all Dragons returned to grant life and energy to her kind. Life was good. The time to feed had arrived and Amatha basked in its glory.
Then the pinprick of pain and light came to her psyche; something disturbed the negative ether, and it sent waves of light and pain to her scaly, dark soul. She had encountered this once before, very recently, and it was a most unpleasant experience. This troubled her, for in all her centuries of life she had never faced anything this threatening before. This was something she would have to deal with . . . personally.
Markus had spent the last two days in mediation and prayer, always seeking to understand the events that had unfolded the last year. The great drakes of the North were as much a myth and legend as fact. The books and tomes were clear that they existed and even showed themselves every two centuries, but it was quite another thing to live your entire life and never see, much less hear about, a drake of any kind.
Now he had lost two of his three key advisors and the delegation from Utandra had departed Tannis to return to the realm’s capital. This meant he was left with only six initiates of the order in his temple. Where once he had overseen several score, he couldn’t come up with a quorum to save his life.
He didn’t want to complain or feel bad about the entire situation, as he knew Prefect Julian Moross suffered just as much as he, if not more. So many lost—staff, servants, soldiers, initiates, even farmers and tradesmen were sent north, and none had returned in over a year. Not one. This could not be sustained, he thought, as he sat in meditation in the inner sanctum of the temple that he presided over. Not once did he have a vision or a mandate from on high about what he should do. Even the Supreme Patriarch was silent despite his last three missives.
The Black Dragon: A Claire-Agon Dragon Book (Dragon Series 1) Page 7