“I will.”
Closing the bedroom door behind me, I asked Holly, “How forgetful does he get?”
“Well, he’s forgotten his own name a few times. He definitely forgets me and my brother by the end of the day.”
“Your brother?”
“He and I have been hired by Dumaine to help out his father when he’s not around. I normally work until lunch and Elias comes afterward.”
“And does Thorvald take anything to help his memory?”
“Um, yes…” Holly walked over to the all-purpose shelf and picked up one of two large vials filled with a mustard colored liquid. A third vial lay empty. “The alchemist Dumaine buys this from calls it the Draught of Re… What was it? Re… Oh! Requited Wisdom. Master Eberwolf has to go to Kylock Clay to get it.”
I took the vial, examined it for a second, and then presented it to the scholar. “Ghevont?”
Taking it, the scholar uncorked the vial to sniff its contents. “Could be analogous to the Elixir of Coherence I dabbled with back in Gremly. This should be kept cold for best results. Of course, not to the point ice crystals form to mar the concoction.”
“I don’t remember any instructions like that,” said Holly. “It seems to work, though. I heard Thorvald’s attacks of forgetfulness lasted most of the day before Dumaine found this potion. Now the worst of it only comes for a couple of hours before he sleeps it off and wakes up closer to normal.”
With his fingertip over the opening, Ghevont inverted the vial to get a small drop on his skin. Then he licked it. “Nevertheless, I still recommend keeping it cool. I assume a caster in this village can cast cold spells?”
“I suppose.”
Taking back the vial and corking it, I said, “Until you can acquire their services, put the vials in a bowl and my vampire friend will fill it with cold water.”
“Are you sure that won’t ruin it? Just one of those costs more than… They’re expensive.”
“Not to worry,” said Odet. “Our scholar is quite knowledgeable. If he says to keep it cool, it should be kept cool.”
“Well, if a p-princess says so, I won’t argue. You really are a princess, right? You weren’t just jesting with an old man’s mind?”
“We’re all who we say we are.”
“Then you flew on a dragon to get here?”
“You’ll see yourself if you wish. Until then, shall we help you prepare our meals?”
I did not include myself in Odet’s “we.” I slipped out of the stuffy hut and made my way over to the closest pier in view. A handful of older villagers milling around prevented me from getting on the actual structure, so I merely watched the sea from a spot halfway between the pier and the Eberwolf hut. As my eyes observed, my conscious tried getting a sense of my beating heart.
Other than the lashing wind and crashing waves jumbling the thumping coming from my chest, my vibrating hands also foiled my goal to sense my individual beats. I had not flown much this past day, yet the shaking still insisted on making itself known. They were not anywhere near as bad as they could be, but I still needed half an hour to finally get my heart beats to subdue these combined intrusions.
Spurning the outside world’s elemental sounds for my own inner workings allowed Clarissa to get five feet behind me before I heard her coming. If she had been purposely sneaking, I would have never noticed her. The vampire brought me a small wooden bowl of fish salad.
Handing me the fork, the vampire said, “I don’t think your grandfather was being literal.”
“And?”
“And nothing, I guess.” She pulled out my gift to her and drank a few gulps of fish blood. After smacking her lips, she said, “At least that’s one good thing about being a vampire.”
“What is?”
“As far as I know, we’re immune from most human sicknesses. I’d hate to get old and then forget about all my experiences with you or anyone else.”
“Getting old is not the only way that can happen.”
“True, but I’m not even sure vampires can get corrupted.”
“I was actually imagining getting hit in the head or something.”
“Gods, you’re right! I need to start wearing a helmet!”
“We’ll pick one up in the dragon temple.”
“Two. We can’t have you losing even more memories.”
“I think you might be exaggerating the chances of that possibility.”
“Maybe, but a helmet can still help against pointy things.”
“As long as you’re the one to lug it around.”
“Why even take it off? The right helmet can make a man look quite dashing.”
“That doesn’t help in a fight.”
“Doesn’t hurt either. What about a silver colored helmet in the shape of a-”
“There. Is that them?”
She peered toward the little boat I pointed at. “Umm… Looks like them.”
We walked to the end of the twenty foot long pier, not minding the stares we received from the villagers wondering who the foreigners were. The bantam boat, propelled by Lucetta’s water spell, came well within view much faster than a boat brought forth by rowing ever could. Clarissa waved both hands to get their attention as I finished eating the scraps in my bowl. On recognizing us, Lorcan responded with his own waves. Lucetta sped up the boat a little more.
The piratess moored the boat moments later. Meanwhile, my father jumped on to the pier and embraced me with one arm as he used the other to tussle my hair.
“I wasn’t expecting you this soon! Does this mean what I think it means?”
“You’ll see Aranath before I leave.”
“Excellent! Wait, don’t you mean before we leave?”
“Sorry, but Aranath’s saddle is already full.”
“With who? Eudon?”
“His daughter and her green knight.”
Lucetta, carrying a net with two large fish in it, pestered me with a mocking laugh as she accepted Lorcan’s hand to pull her up to the pier. “Couldn’t help it, could you, kid?”
“It’s nice to see you too, Lucetta. I’m especially distraught knowing I can’t take you along.” To Lorcan, I asked, “How’s your leg?”
He stomped it on the pier, bending two of the wooden planks. “Quite well. I‘ll admit it still gets a tad sore now and again, but even that’s becoming less common. Where are the others? Home?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ve met your grandfather?”
“That’s right, and I’ve confirmed everything you’ve already taken the liberty to tell the whole village.”
A slap to my back. “Ha! Everyone quips about how all the Eberwolfs are destined to lose their minds! But we’ll show them! Look! The Cowill brothers.” He pushed me forward. “They believe I never sired sons at all!”
We spoke with five more nearby villagers before we reached our hut, letting them know I was indeed Lorcan’s son and a dragon knight. A couple of people wanted me to prove my father’s outlandish claim right then and there, but I told them they would have to wait until noon the next day to witness the summoning.
We entered the hut to see that Thorvald, still in his gown, sat by the table eating from the biggest bowl. He and Gerard laughed about something unknown when we came in to cut them off. Lucetta gave Holly the fish to prepare them for her and Lorcan to eat. Clarissa and Ghevont lent their assistance as well. As the preparation transpired at the end of the table and on the stove, the rest of us listened to my father’s father speak on a past he seemed to have a good grasp of. Sometimes his eyes glazed over to ponder something, but only for a few seconds.
Otherwise, I got to hear uninterrupted tales that ranged from raising his two sons—one of which he did in secret for more than ten years—to his vendetta against a man who stole his imported recipe for a mixed drink he called Bay Leaf Sunset. The drink was not making this man much coin on the islands he exported it to, but the mere fact he stole it from a pirate made him a target for six years be
fore he paid for the transgression with his life.
Somehow, even the stories about him raising his children had someone dying by his hand somewhere along the line. Our more recent narratives also had a few deaths in them, though we did not emphasize them as much. What intrigued Thorvald more than who we killed was how we killed them, how we fought. I showed off a little dragon fire, but he wanted to see more, especially after hearing the main reason I brought the princess was to train against her shield. So, after Lorcan and Lucetta finished eating, we stepped outside.
Sitting on a chair carried out for him, my grandfather scrutinized how I twirled and chucked Aranath’s dragon flame against Mytariss’ crystalized ward. Odet must have anticipated that I would not give it my all during the family reunion, for she did not take me seriously in the first few seconds. That turned out to be a mistake. An Eberwolf family reunion was not like an Astor one. She frowned on realizing I was thinking about last night’s incident and adjusted her urgency accordingly, but it was already too late for her to gain any ground.
Holly gasped and yelped in the times it looked like someone would surely get burned or bruised. The cries continued when Lorcan and I drew swords. I had never seen my father happier as we sparred in front of our originator. It inspired me to give him a good fight. Perhaps worried Thorvald would castigate him if he took it easy on me, Lorcan did not hold back, though I held my ground as well as I ever had against him.
Thorvald, with a few critiques every now and again, observed my training for the remainder of the afternoon. Including Holly’s brother, neighbors returning from the sea came over in the late afternoon to learn what was causing the upheaval of steel and spell. Taking any excuse to enliven the salty rock the saltier people lived on, several villagers brought over a bit of food, drinks, and music with them, creating a festive atmosphere by the onset of dusk.
Children wanted to see me melt rocks and mothers introduced themselves and their daughters to me. Lucetta got a real kick from the latter. For their part, boys and men sought and pursued Odet and Clarissa, not heeding Gerard too much. Even Ghevont found an audience of elders to listen to his orations on which therapeutic remedies and balms could help their ailments. Villagers who had not spoken with the undermined Eberwolf in months now gave him their compliments regarding his warrior grandson.
All the attention I was getting had me pulling back from the crowd at one point, but no sooner had I done so did my grandfather call for me.
On stepping up to him, he said, “Stay within my sight, if you please. Newer memories fade the quickest, so I need to make sure I ingrain your face as much as possible, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I regret your grandmother isn’t here. She dreamed of grandchildren, though she wanted lassies. No matter, I want to tell her all about ya once the gods take me to her. It’s Cyrus, right?”
“Aye.”
“Good, good. I usually start mixing things up by now. Your father says the people you’re after took some of your own memories, right?”
“Yes, my childhood ones.”
He lowered his voice. “Then you and I are on two ends of the same pole. The two of us know the bottomless barrenness that hits us when we try to remember somethin’ important. Take it from someone who once had the back of his skull shattered by a maul, your enemy has already done the worst they can do to ya. I’ll take real pain over the emptiness any day.”
Looking over at Clarissa and Odet, I said, “They can do worse.”
“Aye, but that’s on them as much as it is on your enemies. All ye can do is make sure they’re as strong as they can get. Everything else is up to the gods.”
Chapter Nineteen
The whole village came out to the eastern edge of their hamlet an hour before noon.
As my group walked beyond the crowd, I told Lorcan, “Word will spread that the father and grandfather of a dragon knight live here. I don’t like that word reaching the Advent, or anyone else, really.”
“Ha! Let any cult or any enemy of yours try something so foolish! We might be a nameless town, but once word spreads, the entire Glims will see you as one of their own! A fleet of pirates will be at your back should the Advent attack us.”
“I’d still take precautions. Move if you have to.”
“Don’t concern yourself, son. I haven’t lived this long without knowing when to hide and when to fight. Of course, I’d feel better if I went with you.”
Making my voice low so only he heard me, I said, “I’m a nose hair away from replacing any one of them with you.”
“Too late now. Besides, if the princess can indeed help Alex, then it’s something we have to try.”
I couldn’t disagree. “We’re far enough.” I looked back to see Lucetta and Gerard aiding Thorvald in his walk. “Keep him braced.” After nodding their assurance that they were, I cast the summoning spell.
Even braced my grandfather’s body wavered, though no one except me took notice. All other eyes peered in the direction of the wind burst and the sound of a dragon’s growling gullet, which I could not decide whether it was closer to a cat’s purr or a mumbling old man. A few of the younger children squealed or cried at the nightmarish sight of a dragon crawling a little closer to them. Aranath’s actual purpose was simply to turn his face toward us.
Lorcan did not hesitate to walk up to the beast to get a feel for the scales on his neck. Lucetta and Gerard brought my grandfather to the same neck as I bade the others to get on the saddle.
“Can’t I get a ride first?” asked Lorcan in the expectant manner a child would.
Taking the role of that child’s father, I said, “Sorry, but every minute counts if we want to make it to Somesh’s coast today.”
“He can get that far in one go, eh?”
“It’s more about how far I can go. Aranath tells me he could fly two days without stopping if I had the prana.”
“Just two, dragon?”
Aranath snorted. “Three after a good meal of pirates.”
Lorcan laughed and patted the dragon’s neck. He stepped back with his father and wife once I gave them my farewell. Aranath stepped back as well to give his unfurling wings room to flap. Once in the air, Aranath gave own his farewell to the villagers with one of his “friendlier” roars.
The dragon headed straight east, his shadow swooping over five dozen islands in the first hour alone. The second hour had us flying into a wide swath of rain showers Aranath had no trouble passing through. Our smooth flight was sustained for the rest of the afternoon.
With my limit nearing, the golden coast of Somesh budded into view. Except for the port towns dotting the coastline, western Somesh was dominated by a vast savanna that spread over much of northwestern Kozuth. Our maps called this untamed expanse the Plains of Sethos. Ghevont did not know where the name Sethos came from. Only a handful of settlements and trade roads had been charted within the unforgiving savanna, most of which did not lie on our planned path. Sounded good to me.
Aranath flew ten or twenty miles beyond the seashore and a small port town to get to an empty patch of dry grassland to land on. Here we trained and looked out for predators that mainly consisted of large cats that specialized in sneaking up on their bigger prey. I took the chance to burn away the tall grass and shrubs surrounding our sleeping area, but Aranath still warned to keep a close eye out for felines. Wolves, bears, and most other hunters avoided the scent of dragon smoke, but cats big and small apparently did not take the hint as easily.
Our first night out here had me taking first watch. I used my time under the placid night sky to pay close attention to my heartbeats. Standing at the edge of the campfire light, I likewise started to send insignificant amounts of prana to my chest to get a sense of the timing.
“What are you doing?” asked Aranath.
“What do you mean?”
“I sense your prana pulsing without purpose.”
“There is a purpose. I’m trying to learn how to use my heartbeats to give m
y prana a nudge.”
“When did you learn such a technique?”
“While in the gambling basement. An arm wrestler beat men twice his size without trouble. He taught me the technique after I asked him the secret to his strength.”
“Did he also tell you of its perils?”
“Yes. I’m going to take it slow.”
“It’s still dangerous.”
“I’m going to take it really slow.”
He growled. “You have enough to focus on, boy, and every training technique refines your prana to the sought after result. It is unnecessary.”
“But will it help?”
“Indeed. I might have even informed you of this technique myself once you mastered other aspects of your training, but giving you more to ponder is not my intent.”
“Well, unlike you dragons, humans don’t have such long lives. We sometimes have to cram whatever we can whenever we can.”
“It’s such a belief that often cuts the lives of your kind even shorter.”
“Fine, I’ll stop if you feel that strongly against it.”
A low grumble. “I haven’t felt strongly about anything in five hundred years… Keep training in the technique if you wish, but until your reliance in the prana crystals is diminished, you must be judicious in your pace. Like your nerves, your prana quivers after sustaining the summoning spell with the crystals. It’s possible these quivers can add to the technique’s already high risk.”
“Thanks for the warning. I will be careful.”
“At least one facet of your life should be… If you believe the vampire can act as cautious, then perhaps you should inform her of the technique. Her heart will be able to handle more mistakes.”
“Eh, we’ll see.”
Four days of southeastern travel brought us into the middle of fertile farmland toiled by Somesh in the north and Dracera in the south. Being this far inland provided us with game other than fish. This less wet variety came as a relief to Clarissa, who did not particularly enjoy the taste of fish blood. Gerard also favored hunting to fishing. The hunting bow Aranath’s saddle carried proved handy for the knight, as he used it to bring down a couple of skittish antelope for us to eat. The dragon ate the remains in the morning.
The Dragon Knight's Soul (The Dragon Knight Series Book 4) Page 20