Dragons, Power, Courts, And War (Book 2)

by Vic Broquard

  Come on in, he sent, quickly lowering his Circle’s defenses which prevented unauthorized materializing at or around his Circle. At once, two young women materialized in the center of his circle. One was unconscious, and her arm looked awful; the other was terrified and in shock. “Help us please! Chan has been slimed by a Green Dragon! Her arm is dissolving! Can you help us, please,” the younger woman begged. Both women were soaked in some kind of foul smelling water. Mud and muck covered their leather clothing and hair; their weapon sheaths were empty, he noted.

  He quickly chanted off a Message to Zdenka and Jarka, asking them to meet him here at the Circle. “Don’t touch her arm. If you get it on your fingers, sir, it will eat through your flesh too,” the frightened woman cautioned him.

  “Oh hell, that looks really bad!” Jarka interrupted her, arriving just ahead of Zdenka. Both had used their Mystical Door spells to get here as rapidly as possible. “Green Dragon slime is it?” she asked.

  “Yes, please, help her. She’s my sister. Please,” Wen begged.

  “Oh dear!” the mellow alto voice of Zdenka announced her arrival a second after Jarka’s.

  “Don’t touch her. Back in a flash,” Mage Jarka ordered. She cast another Mystical Door and stepped through it, vanishing from sight. Seconds later, the door reopened and she reappeared, the door then vanishing.

  “Zoran, careful of her arm, but lift her head up. I’ll try to get this down her throat,” Jarka ordered. He did as she asked, lifting the soaking, filthy woman up so that Jarka could make her attempt. She did manage to get the small vial of liquid down the woman’s throat. Involuntary muscle reactions allowed Chan to swallow it.

  “Damn, it’s not going to work, Zoran,” Jarka stated flatly. “Damn! Look, there is nothing left of her fingers but bones! Worse, it’s almost down to her arm bones! If we’re going to save her, we are going to have to remove her arm there at her elbow, Zoran. Do it immediately! If that slime gets into her system, she could die!”

  “Okay, I’ll tie on a tourniquet; you get it off,” Zoran answered. Wen slumped to the floor and began bawling. Jarka used her dagger and carefully cut through the bit of remaining muscle and flesh at the woman’s elbow. She had to go slow to avoid touching the slime which was barely an inch below this spot. At last, she severed the limb.

  “There! Okay, Zoran, you Vanish the arm and hand. Make sure you get all of that corrosive slime too. I’m going to pump her full of healing potions now. Zdenka, hold her head up please.” She poured two more healing potions into the unconscious woman.

  “Will — will she live?” Wen asked above her sobbing.

  “Let you know in a minute, ma’am,” Jarka replied, watching the severed elbow closely. She smiled and began unloosening the tourniquet. “Ah ha. It is holding. Good. Yes, we caught it in the nick of time. The wound is healing rapidly now. No need for a doctor’s stitches — not when you have good old Jarka around. You certainly came to the right place and in the nick of time. A few more minutes and she probably would not have made it. God, you both stink! Muddy too.”

  Zoran cast one of his power spells. All traces of the slime and the nearly dissolved hand vanished from sight, appearing momentarily just above the surface of the sun, where it vaporized. He could not help but remember how, before he learned to cast that spell, his teacher Archmage Oldrich had done the very same thing, greatly humbling him.

  “Okay, it has healed sufficiently. Zdenka, we need to get these women cleaned up pronto. God, what a smell!” Jarka announced and proclaimed. Zdenka didn’t hesitate. She took both women’s hands, teleporting them to their bathroom. Jarka followed along after her, leaving Zoran to clean up the small amount of mud and water that the women had left on his precious Circle of Ascension.

  Later, the two brought the new arrivals into the packed Great Hall at dinnertime. Word had already spread throughout the fortress, and everyone was anxiously awaiting the two women, eager to hear their story. Life had been pretty much mundane for many years now and this was big news! Indeed, for Zoran and Zdenka, the past twenty years had been heavenly and peaceful.

  Zdenka and Jarka escorted the two women into the Great Hall. The healing potions had done wonders for Chan, physically at least. Her stump was pinkish now and healing rapidly on its own. They wore borrowed simple white cotton dresses, similar to what all the women wore around this fortress and tower. While other off-planet barons and baronesses insisted on wearing only the latest in fashions, here in Brn, the women opted to follow Zdenka’s lead and wore simple dresses like all of the other women of Brn. Only at the twice a year High Councils did the women dress up in the latest fashions. Well, they also sometimes did so for dances and other outings.

  “Everyone, these are the daughters of retired Baron Chen Meerong. Baronesses Chan and Wen Meerong. They have been killing Green Dragons on Jing and were caught in a trap today. Their friends died and Chan lost her left arm to the dragon slime. Now then, let’s eat,” Zdenka announced for everyone’s benefit. “They can tell you more after we eat.”

  Chan struggled to eat, but Zoran sensed immense grief in her, far beyond the losing of her hand. Something else was eating away at her, though he waited to hear their story. When the meal was finished and everyone began sipping their tea, Wen decided to speak for her sister. After all, these people had save them from disaster.

  “When we were little, dad — Baron Chen — brought the Green Dragons to Jing. My sister and I argued with him, insisting this was a very bad idea, but he did it anyway. At first, it seemed to work out. I mean, the dragons stayed away from us humans for the most part. Then they started attacking harmless families who live far out in the swamps. Dad wouldn’t do anything about it, so finally Chan and I took matters into our own hands.”

  Wen continued, “We became rebels and slowly built up the Swamp Raiders and went after those Green Dragons who murdered our people. Some we got, some escaped. Dad put a bounty on our heads, but we kept out of sight. Dad retired and now our oldest brother Gang is the Barron, along with our other two brothers who run the new Circles, Baron Jie and Baron Li. Both of them mostly take orders from Gang. Anyway, we continued to get revenge for the murdered families, and Gang continued to raise the bounty for our heads.”

  “A few days ago, a green murdered a whole family of three, and we swore to get revenge for them. Only now we think it must have been a trap set by Gang and the greens to murder us. Chan thought it might be a trap, but she wanted to get that green anyway.”

  Chan spoke up, “It’s all my fault. They are all dead! I led them into the trap, I killed them!”

  “No you didn’t, Chan. The greens killed them with their slime,” Wen countered. She then outlined what had happened, adding, “I am sure that Jie and Li followed us here, Baron Zoran! Now they’ll probably come attacking you to get to us, but I didn’t know where else we could go.”

  Zoran spoke up, “Wen, Chan, I grant you sanctuary here in Brn for as long as you desire. I will not let your brothers or anyone else from Jing get to you. You are safe here with us.”

  “Thank you, Baron. We’ve brought funds with us, so we can pay for our keep,” Wen replied. Always the two women kept their accumulated treasures shrunk into small bags and on their person. Living out in the swamps, they had no place to keep their valuables except on their persons. This turned out to be very fortuitous for them. “We’ve at least killed nineteen of the wicked dragons, but now I don’t know how we can kill more.”

  Chan spoke up, “We can’t, Wen. We’ve lost our weapons, and my magical dagger broke when I killed that green that did this to me. We never should have allowed those three men to join up with us. All we did was get them horribly killed. It is all my fault, Wen. I knew it must be a trap, but I went ahead with it anyway.”

  Zdenka Messaged Zoran, Do something! Say something. Can’t you tell she’s blaming herself?

  “Chen, the three men who lost their lives today — didn’t they want to help free Jing from the evil Green Dragons?�
��

  “Well, yes,” she admitted.

  “Men and women all want to help when evil threatens their land, their families, themselves. Some of us are more powerful and more able than others, such as yourselves. Yet, Chan, would you deny someone who is not a Duska to offer their help in ridding your land of its evil? Would you deny them their own self-respect and honor simply because they are not as able as you and Wen are?”

  “Well, no,” she responded meekly.

  “Did these men volunteer of their own free will? Didn’t they want to do their part, knowing well the awful danger that they would be facing? Terrible odds against them?”

  “Sure, they knew that. Honestly, they saved us a couple of times but,” she answered.

  “Then, Chan, honor their memory. They did not die in vain; they died brave and free. They alone of the millions of your people had the pride and self-respect to stand up for what was right and to do the right thing. You should honor their incredibly brave sacrifices. Don’t let the battle against the Green Dragons of Jing die with them.”

  “Baron, you are right. I must not let them down. So few have the guts to stand up to the dragons. Hardly anything will kill them. Peng, Kang, and Tao did their best and delivered a killing blow several times. You are right; they were proud of what they were doing for Jing, in spite of the bounty placed on our heads by our barons, our idiot bothers. Wen, somehow, we have to continue to fight the dragons, but right now, I don’t know how,” Chan decided.

  Zoran added, “As far as your mistake about the trap, we are all human. We can make mistakes in judgment. The sign of a good leader is one who learns from his or her mistakes and continues the great battle. For that matter, the entire dragon problem is really my own doing, Chan. I was the one who first brought dragons into our federation.”

  “Well, you had no choice, if our version of your history is right,” Wen interjected.

  Zoran sighed, “Yes, I had very little choice. Had I not brought the Golden Dragons to Adapazan, none of us would likely be here today. Yet, what have I unleashed upon all our worlds?” He sighed again and then added, “Please consider joining us, Chan, Wen. Somehow, someway, I must undo what I’ve done with these dragons.”

  Wen replied, “Well, count me in, but I am more interested in getting rid of all the greens on Jing.”

  “Of course, Wen. Thank you,” Zoran agreed.

  “Me too,” Chan sighed deeply, before adding, “but I am going to have to find us some more magical weapons. These dragons are almost impossible to kill without using magical weapons.”

  Zdenka grinned, “Well ladies, with all of the Archmages around here, that should not be too hard to do.”

  “Not at all, ma’am,” Archmage Karel broke in. “I’ve been putting my talents to good use enchanting high quality blades. Come on up to our quarters tomorrow and see what I have. My charming wife, Chika here, keeps finding me nothing but the very best forged weapons in the entire federation!”

  Chika grinned, “Well, I do have a knack for finding them for Karel. But honestly, how were you and your hero friends able to actually kill those dragons? I mean they are so powerful and strong and huge. I don’t see how anyone could harm them. Our Gold Dragon Archmages are so strong and powerful. They are really quite good friends with us all and have helped us a whole lot. Your dragons must be really evil ones.”

  “The last one I stabbed in its eyes with my magical dagger. Must have hit its brain twice,” Chan answered. “The Green Dragons on Jing are evil and wicked, murdering helpless women and children. We’ve never seen a Gold Dragon.”

  “Do they eat humans? The Golden Dragons here only eat antelope, not people,” Mage Jarka asked. She added, “Emil once told me that we taste really bad. He’s our Archmage Gold Dragon. You have to meet him and his sister, Archmage Renata sometime. I think that you’ll like them.”

  Wen answered her. “No, they murder us and slime the bodies, leaving nothing but bleached bones behind to bury. They eat gators and sometimes deer, we think. From what we’ve seen of them, I think that they must despise humans. Yet, dad allowed them to come to Jing from Voss, where they claimed that they were starving to death, having overpopulated Voss. Perhaps that was just a made up story they fed to dad.”

  “No, that much was true, I’m as certain of that as I can be without having seen Voss firsthand,” Zoran answered her. “I trust Emil and Renata and their parents completely. That is the story they stand by — overpopulation of Voss and starvation. Old Archmage Oldrich wrote a treatise on dragon-kind. She claims that there are a number of different species of dragons, and each one had a different viewpoint of humans. Red Dragons and Black Dragons supposedly have a great dislike of us, though they value our gems and magic.”

  Chan volunteered, “Well, greens sure dislike us, but they do want gems and gold. Show them Wen.”

  Wen produced a bag that she carried around her neck, stuffed safely within her bosom. She put it on the table and canceled her Shrink spell. “After we killed a green, we spent days looking for its lair. Often we never did find it, but when we did, this is what we found.” She dumped the bag’s contents onto the table. Exclamations came from all sides, as the large gathering stared at hundreds of gems, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds mostly, and all were quite large in size. She added, “This is only about a third of what we found. Some we gave to the families of their victims and to our friends who perished today.”

  Chan added, “There was also quite a lot of gold, but that we gave to the folks who live in Ningho, our safe haven village, to help them pay our brother’s high taxes.”

  “Incredible, Wen. I wonder where these greens got so many huge gems? This collection here must be a fortune. If you like, when Emil or Renata or their father is around, I can have him appraise them for you,” Baroness Archmage Zdenka asked and offered.

  “Thanks, I suppose that we ought to do that, since we are now exiled here and can never go home. Like I said, we will pay for our keep, Archmage, Baron,” Chan replied. As Wen began picking them up and returning them to her pouch, Chan grimaced. She could no longer hold the bag and pick them up. The reality of her missing hand began to raise its ugly head, and Chan fought back tears, bottling it within herself for the moment.

  Wen sensed this and changed the topic slightly. “Some of these probably come from our secret mines.” That got everyone’s attention.

  “I thought that Jing produced mostly skins, furs and rice,” Chika commented, she was most curious about this aspect, feeling that she was about to gain some key inside information on Jing and its economy.

  “Well, yes, our average folk hunt and trap, while in the east some are able to grow rice crops. However, the baron has always had secret mines that yield gold and gemstones,” Wen explained. She looked at her sister for approval and then added, “Jing is mostly swamp lands. Over the centuries, our mages and Archmages have devised clever ways of mining deep underground. They built stone retaining walls to keep the swamp waters out of the mine entrances. Workers get lowered into the mines down these long shafts. It’s all very hush-hush. The barons use the gems to purchase what the planet needs, but from what we’ve seen, they spend a whole lot of it on senseless things and don’t really use all that much of it to really benefit the average person. Most eke out a marginal living by trapping and hunting, aided a bit by a little fishing. We have no idea where these mines are, though.”

  Chan decided to add her take to Wen’s explanation. “Now that our brothers are controlling Jing and not dad, the problem seems to be getting worse. I’ll wager our whole stash here that our brothers are paying off the Green Dragons with many of the gems that they mine.”

  “Well, that would make sense,” Mage Jarka commented coyly. “Everyone knows that dragons of all kinds love big gems. Here on Adapazan, we pay our Gold Dragons in gems for their protection services.”

  Archmage Nadia explained, “True, because of them, dad and the rest of us have not ever had to keep and maintain any large armies
. I think of all the planets, Adapazan has the tiniest army, right dad?”

  “True. We mostly have security forces to help maintain law and order. After all the wars unleashed on Adapazan by my evil father, I just can’t stomach building up an army,” Baron Zoran admitted. “I’ve taken an awful lot of flak from our allied barons over this. They continue to harp on me to build up at least a huge defensive army, but I keep declining. I guess that I am too dependent upon our Golden Dragon friends to do that. Besides, the manpower is much more useful elsewhere.”

  “He’s right,” Archmage Nadia backed him up. “Already the Wild Lands are rapidly becoming quite civilized as a result. Putting men to work on useful construction projects that benefit everyone in a province is actually working to civilize what was once considered the uncivilized lands of Adapazan. The changes they’ve made — the strides forward during the last twenty years are miraculous. But still, dad, I see your point. Perhaps we have been too dependent upon the golds.”

  Zdenka ended the lengthy conversation. “Gang, I think that we’ve talked long enough with our new guests. They have been through a traumatic ordeal today. Why don’t we let them retire for tonight? Let them get some rest.” She didn’t add that poor Chan was going to be going through a rough period learning to adjust to living life with one hand. This evening, everyone was pretty much ignoring what had happened to her. She sensed just how hard Chan was fighting to keep that awful reality from becoming visible to one and all.

  “Of course, dear, you are right. Forgive us, Wen, Chan,” Zoran said sympathetically. “You must be utterly exhausted. Dear, will you show them to their quarters? If you need anything, ladies, just let one of us know.” His eyes met Chan’s and he knew what she was thinking, but he did not have the power to grant that. She needed her arm and hand back.