by Vic Broquard
“We still are not totally sure just how many were abducted, conflicting opinions. Some suggest as many as a hundred men and women are missing, other believe it is more like sixty who are unaccounted for. However, we finally got a break. Abigail Westwood is a prominent local woman who makes beautiful quilts that are in high demand. I had Archmage Lisa attempt to Message her, but as you suggested, she must now be off-world. Zoran flashed the young woman a smile. He’d last seen her when she graduated as yet another of Zdenka’s Archmages five years ago.
“Zoran, I have never really done this kind of tracking before,” John admitted.
“No problem. You make a Duska Mind Link with her and I’ll follow the energy line.”
“Big brother, we’ll pay close attention to how he is doing it,” Baron Hank added. Zoran nodded; the two younger barons would soon learn how to do this tricky, but useful action. John focused and reached out for the woman. His communication line arced through the Shadows and at last latched onto Abigail. Baron John Witherspoon here. We are coming to rescue you now.
Help! Black dragons have us. They’ve raped all of us! It’s horrible! The woman’s panic and terror nearly overwhelmed John, but he fought to maintain his link to the woman in spite of this. Zoran spotted the faint energy line and stepped the group into the Shadows. Zoran noted that John’s two younger brothers were also able to see the faint line, and he purposely moved them slowly through the Shadows, hoping the two could keep up with him. They did. Before long, a whitish world appeared and everyone recognized Gerde. Snow covered the mountainous world, which had almost no plains or lands on which to grow crops. Life here was tough.
Before long, Zoran led them high into impassible mountain ranges, far from the civilized portion where the barons dwelled. Zoran appreciated this, since that meant he would not need to contact the Ebbe brothers and clear this visit with them. Finally a dark cave entrance loomed ahead and Zoran sent, In that cave. We should go Invisible and check it out before we go charging in there.
I’ll go; they are my people, Baron John sent. He cast his spell and vanished from sight. Meanwhile Zoran and the others hovered near the entrance still in the Shadows and thus invisible to anyone on Gerde. A bit later, he sent, One Black Dragon is standing guard over fifteen women. If we attack, the women will be in the way and likely be harmed!
Let me have at the dragon first, please, Jakob Messaged John, as they stepped out of the Shadows, scrambling for footing on the narrow entrance ledge. A fall of over a thousand feet awaited the slightest misstep. John looked at Zoran, not daring to agree unless Zoran approved of this.
Be careful, Jakob! Go ahead, Zoran sent. Jakob cast his Invisibility spell. However, he also knew that he could not mask his human smell and that the dragon may soon smell his presence. He counted on the presence of so many women to mask it long enough for him to activate his Gem of Dragon Control. He moved as silently as he could into the cavern. Ah, the dragons had cast Permanent Light spells aplenty around the whole cavern so it was well illuminated. He spotted the women lying on crude mattresses against the back wall. The black was lying on the floor between himself and the women. He approached the dragon and activated his gem. He found himself on a grey, featureless plain, staring down this dragon, who was totally shocked to find himself in this place. The mental battle ended abruptly as Jakob won.
You are my friend. You will do everything that I tell you to do. I want you to go into a very deep sleep. You are overly tired and must have your rest. You will not wake up for several days. He waited. Would it work? He listened and soon heard snoring and smiled.
The dragon is in a deep sleep. If you don’t make a lot of noise, he will be sleeping for days now. Come on in, he Messaged the others.
One by one the others entered and cautiously moved around the huge form of the sleeping Black Dragon. This was incredible, but none dared say much. Karel with his rod at hand stood guard in front of the beast in case it woke up. If it did, he’d handle it personally, allowing the others to deal with the terrified women. They were filthy and their clothing torn, but they were otherwise fit. One by one, the Duska began Shadow Walking the women to freedom arriving in John’s Infirmary. The last to leave, Zoran and Karel took hold of Jakob, but only after making doubly sure no others were hidden around this complex. A minute later, the three stepped into the Infirmary where the others were already cleaning up the women and asking them what had happened. More to the point, John wanted to know where the other women and men had been taken.
“We’re always hungry now. They said that we are going to die when we give birth to their baby dragons! How can this be? We feel sick,” Abigail wailed.
“Trust us, Abigail, we have a way to prevent that from happening to you women,” Zoran consoled her. “Baron Zoran Vladislov. We saved seventeen women on Adapazan who were raped by the Red Dragons too. They all survived the ordeal just fine.
“Okay, calm down now. We need to know how many of you were taken and where the others are at,” Baron John took control of the interrogation.
One woman spoke up, “We don’t know. The reds took fifteen women away with them. The whites and the greens each took ten. The greens also took away at least twenty strong men. We don’t know where they are.”
The lucky streak ended abruptly. While some of the rescued women had seen some of the others around the village, they did not know their names. Without their names, a Mind Link could not be established. “Well, at least you were able to rescue fifteen,” Zoran tried to make the best of it.
Meanwhile, Archmage Nadia explained in detail to John’s Archmages and others just what to expect as they days progressed. More importantly, she outlined in detail what they would have to do to save the women’s lives when the sixty-day gestation period ended and the dragons were due to be born. Considering the sheer number of morph spells that would be needed, Zoran offered to take these fifteen to Brn until their ordeal was over. Baron John thanked him profusely and later sent significant financial support for the women. Their due dates were around the 15th of June.
That settled, John invited them to take tea with him. “We all want to know about just how Archmage Jakob got that dragon to go into such a deep sleep,” he added.
This time, it was Jakob who reveled in the admiration and praise for his Gem of Dragon Control. Karel glared at him, eventually muttering, “The only good dragon is a dead dragon.” Jarka chuckled. She knew that Karel was rather annoyed with Jakob for stealing the limelight from himself and his rods.
Before leaving, Zoran pointed out, “Look all isn’t over yet. You still have some fifty plus days to locate the other women. I say keep at the detective work, John. Holler if you find another name and we’ll come help out.”
After many thank you’s, Zoran’s group returned home. Now Jakob again had to explain all about his invention, much to the annoyance of Karel. Still, in the right situations, Zoran saw many uses for such gems. The problem was finding large gems capable of holding such powerful spells. Later, Baron John and his brothers Shadow Walked the fifteen women to Brn and they were given beds in the infirmary.
The next day, Milan received a visitor, Honani. “We meet again, Duska Milan. Now that the snows are melting, I thought I would drop by and see if you need more of our special goods.” He never spoke outright precisely what these were, not after that one initial bargain. Secrecy required such and he knew that Milan knew what he meant.
“Not really. We’ve been killing many dragons of late.” Milan was only too keen to tell Honani all about what had been going on, particularly about the abduction and interspecies breeding of more dragons. He ended after relating all that his dad had told him about yesterday’s rescue of fifteen women. “There are still a bunch of women unaccounted for and some men.” Again, he told Honani about what Karel had said that the women had said.
“So the greens have a lot of men and ten women; the whites, another ten; and the reds, another fifteen?” he sought clarification.
“E
xactly Honani. If we don’t get the women rescued in fifty days, they will die when giving birth to these foul beasts!”
“Hum, do you think that Baron John Witherspoon will pay a finder’s fee if they can be located in time?” he asked, sensing another way to pull in some funds. He was a bit disappointed that they didn’t need more dragon blood. Killing the baby dragons to get it was easy.
“I am sure of it.”
“Thanks. We will see if we can locate them. I have to be going. Catch you later on, Duska Milan.” The two men bowed and Honani teleported away, before going invisible and then Shadow Walking back to his group on Isi.
Chapter 15 The Fall of Jing
Li Shan fought to control the intense pain shooting through his left arm, pain unlike any that he’d even known. To fight it, he imagined finding ways to use the Green Dragon rotting slime to torture his victims into talking. Talk they would, that he knew, as he fought to keep from screaming. He was an assassin, always had been. As a nine year old boy, he knew what he wanted to do: kill. The feeling of power and control was addictive, gained at that time by killing his villager’s pets, one by one. No, he had to get to the safety of his liege, Baron Gang. He had to report; he had to get healed. Gang had to know. Healed? He hazarded another glance at his left arm and involuntarily gagged. Already his hand had rotted and fallen to the ground, lost somewhere behind him. Now his lower arm was about to drop off as well. Pain, excruciating pain.
Now he was far enough away that he could hazard a spell. Could he concentrate enough to do it? Somehow, he just had to. “Focus, focus,” he whispered, shocked to hear the awful raspiness of his voice. Had the slime affected his lungs too? Was he rotting from the inside out? “Focus!” he commanded himself. His spell detonated and Li Shan dropped two feet from the air onto the outside paved entryway into Gang’s fortress in Nanchan. A gate guard saw him and rushed to his side. “Take me to Gang immediately!”
Two minutes later, he stood before his master. “My god, Li! What happened to you? Guard, get the physician and tell him to bring lots of healing potions with him. Run man, run! Hang in there a bit, Li. No, don’t try to talk. Wait for the healing potions. My god, slime! The bastard greens!” Shortly the aging physician came running behind the guard. He saw Li and set to work, forcing a healing drought into the man’s mouth. From behind the man, the physician shook his head and Gang picked up his intention. Li was dying and all the potions in the world would not save him from the rotting slime.
“Okay, tell me what happened?” Gang ordered, hoping that Li could live long enough to report. On the marsh planet of Jing, there were few locations which had solid bedrock ground. Three of the largest patches had become the locations of the three Circles of Ascension and the huge stone fortresses of the barons. Beyond these three, there were only a few other smaller areas of solid ground.
“I went to Xiaosheng just as you requested. It is far worse than we suspected! The greens have totally taken over that entire complex. They’ve turned our homes there into their own dens. Worse, they have got some women prisoners there, pregnant ones. I don’t believe what I heard though, that those women are carrying green dragon babies in their wombs. That can’t be.”
“My god, then the rumors are true. We’ve lost the small fort at Xiaosheng. You are right; obviously humans and dragons can’t breed together. They must have something else going on there.” Gang felt crushed. The greens were most definitely now out of control, having broken all of the agreements they’d made when offered sanctuary here on Jing while they were starving on their own world of Voss.
“I barely escaped from there. I dropped by our secret mine at Baozhai next. You wanted to know what the holdup was. Well, the greens have taken over the mine there! We’ve lost that entire mine. They spotted me poking around and tried to slime me. I nearly killed one, but another came out of nowhere and caught me with its slime. I thought that I was a goner, but I fled on foot into the marshes. They gave chase, but I lost them.” Suddenly, his throat felt like he’d swallowed a pile of dirt. He coughed and gagged. Up came a pile of rot and blood, which spewed across the baron’s fine rug. Pain! His chest now throbbed. He tried to breathe, but even that hurt. His legs felt weak and he slumped to the ground. Li tried to ask for more potions, but only blood mixed with rotting slime came out. His eyes opened wide as he realized that he was not going to live. He looked at his baron, who turned away from the grotesque sight of the man. Rot had appeared all over his body, most noticeably his face. Li gagged again and fell forward; life left him.
“Get his body out of here. Clean up this mess. I have to get to work,” he ordered. The news could not have been worse. He stepped over the dead man and the pile of slime slowly eating away at his own carpet and added, “Dispose of the carpet too.”
In the safety of his plush study, he summoned his brothers. Somehow they had to do something. “What’s up?” asked Jie, who arrived seconds before his brother, Li.
“Li Shan is dead. Slimed. However, he did bring me the news. It’s far worse than we ever imagined. Sit down.” They did so and he told them what Li had reported and what other news he’d gathered before.
“My god. They have taken Xiaosheng and are making it their den? Damn!” Li cursed.
“Hey, that’s not anywhere near as vital as the loss of mine at Baozhai. Without the gold and gems from Baozhai and Honghui, we have zero income! All will be totally lost, brothers, lost completely! No revenue, save the paltry taxes we collect from our pitiful citizens,” Gang muttered.
“Well, we still have control of Honghui. Half the income is better than none,” Jie tried to make light of the mess.
Just then the booming voice of their father caught their total attention. Chen Meerong, although retired and quite lame in his right leg, came into the room, moving slowly, each step nearly too painful to take. “So what the devil are you going to do about it? Do I have to repeat everything? I give you control of Jing and what do you three idiots do with it? Lose our fourth fortress — lose our number one secret mine which provides us with the funds to survive! Idiots! Incompetent nincompoops, that’s what you three are. I would have been better off leaving Jing in the hands of your rebel sisters!”
“Dad! Li Shan is dead, slimed while trying to find out what the greens are doing,” Gang said flustered. He wished the old man would have died when his mother had. “What are we supposed to do?” He regretted saying that. He’d put his foot in his mouth and his dad would surely lecture them for hours now. Jie gave him a dirty look.
“Sons, it is plainly obvious what you must do immediately: take back our mine. Forget the fourth fortress for now. That mine and the one at Honghui are the most important places on Jing. We lose them and we’ve lost everything! What have we got an army for? Use them. Summon all mages too. Put old Liang Don to work too. High time he earned all the pay we’ve been giving him for the last forty years. Storm the mine and retake it immediately.”
“But those are dragons, dad,” Li protested, becoming a little worried that his dad actually meant every word that he just said.
“Dragons can be killed. How many did your sisters supposedly kill? Eighteen? Nineteen? Something like that. If your feeble sisters can slay that many, surely you powerful sons can vastly top that count. Let’s show these greens that they cannot mess with the Meerongs.”
The three brothers had little choice but to follow their father’s suggestion. While Chen really was no longer the baron of Jing and had given up the throne, still many supported him. He was still an influential man around the courts. He could easily embarrass all three boys and turn public opinion against them, making their jobs even more difficult. If the army mutinied, they’d lose control of Jing. Chen could easily step back in and retake control of the planet.
The three brothers summoned their generals. Originally, Chen had three generals commanding each of his three mighty armies. Some thirty thousand men guarded the three fortresses and other vitally important locations. How many had died
at Baozhai and Xiaosheng none knew at the moment, but it had to number a few thousand. After all, the two secret mines were critically important to Jing. Further, the soldiers who were sent there to protect the mines were never allowed outside contact after they were posted there. When they grew too old to soldier any longer, they were executed. Beyond Chen, the three barons and their wives, a few mages, and a general, no one even knew of the existence of said two mines. Any local person who accidentally stumbled upon the mines was captured and executed on the spot.
An hour later, their wives, the generals, a dozen mages, and Archmage Liang Don had assembled in Gang’s private study. Philomena, his servant girl, went from man to man, filling their cups with the finest wine on Jing, and then she sat in the back of the room, awaiting further orders. Many nodded or spoke to old Chen, whom they still respected. He had been a kindly tyrant, at least to them.
Gang began outlining what had recently happened. “General Tingfeng. You take half of your army and secure the secret mine at Honghui. Li will go with you to show you the way. The other half of your army will join with General Zedong here. All of us will march on the mine at Baozhai and re-take the mine from the greens.”
“Against dragons, my liege?” General Zedong asked, startled.
Gang didn’t quite know what to say. It was obvious that they were going to attack the greens. However, his father, who had been sitting silently watching his sons, spoke up, “General, let all of the soldiers know that the barons will pay a one thousand gold piece bounty for every green that is slain. All those who partake in its slaying will get their share of the bounty. Tell them that this is a golden opportunity to become very wealthy soldiers.” General Zedong grinned. Old Chen had not lost his touch. Chen added, “Plus, everyone here will get a five thousand gold bonus for the holding of Honghui and the successful re-taking of Baozhai.” Now the smiles broadened. The men saw that there was something in this risky venture for them.