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

by Vic Broquard

  “Yet, I can also see the wisdom of Donatello. We would do what the humans are doing if our females were stolen, impregnated, mutilated, and ensured of death when they give birth. We would do the same thing if the humans burned our villages and murdered all its inhabitants. We whites would most certainly counterattack to retrieve our mates and obtain justice. I see now that the role that we whites have played in interspecies breeding has been the wrong path to follow. We have been antagonizing the humans who are merely reacting to our own ill-conceived deeds. It is the opinion of us whites that the humans have thus far been entirely justified in their actions against we dragons. We should do as Aldrick suggests, cease and desist, allow peace to return.”

  Werner, the black, grumbled mightily. All his planning with the whites just crumbled, but Cezar, the white, was not yet finished. “However, I am worried about this declaration of war against dragon-kind. I would like to add a stipulation that, if in the future we obtain evidence that the humans have gone on the offensive against us even though we are not continuing our ill-conceived actions against them, then the whites will side with you, Werner. War it must then be.” Werner relaxed, the cause was not as hopeless as it seemed. Cezar, the white, had just given him a key concession!

  Now Aldrick, the gold, called for a vote and it passed by one vote. He summarized, “From this day forth, dragon-kind will no longer burn and destroy human villages, murdering the occupants, and abducting their women. No more interspecies breeding. No more antagonizing the humans.”

  Werner, the black, spoke, “We blacks will no longer attack their towns and destroy them. We will not murder whole villages. We give you our pledge.” He cleverly did not mention interspecies breeding however. Dario, the red, picked up on Werner’s words, realized what hadn’t been said, and repeated them. Alistair, the green, somewhat confused, duplicated what the others just said, not realizing Werner’s intention at all. He was just glad that Aldrick had not come down harder on the greens.

  With the compromise passed, Aldrick dismissed the council and left to inform Zoran of the results. He hoped and prayed that this would appease the many barons and avoid an all-out war.

  After the neutrals also left, including the whites, the others held their own council. “So what was that all about, Werner?” Dante, the red, asked.

  “Yes, clever wording,” Dario, the red, added.

  “Perhaps we did overdo it a bit by destroying whole villages just to get some appropriate females to breed. We blacks have been doing some experimentation of our own. There is a far better route. Go into an unsuspecting village in the middle of the night. Cast Sleep spells to ensure they don’t rouse while we search each house for suitable women. We take only one or two from any given village. No one is the wiser and no one comes looking for them. It is a far better solution. We’ve also found that there is no need to pull out their eye balls. Rather a Blind spell is highly effective and less damaging to the female host. We are also using a Charm spell on them and thus they become docile and obey us fully. However, we are still removing their arms as a precaution. We don’t want to chance one of them killing themselves. Three did just that in spite of our spells. So their arms have to go. However, burning them off with our acid has caused other problems, and we’ve had to follow that with healing droughts of our own. Wasteful, wasteful.”

  “Ah, fantastically good idea. We will follow this new approach,” Dario, the red, replied. “Say, we reds have a better solution to the arm problem. We’ll have to show you. Meanwhile, what about these constant raids by Zoran’s group? How in the world are they able to find our secret caverns on so many different worlds? How do we stop those raids? If they keep on raiding us, we are getting nowhere in our breeding program.”

  “Good point. I suggest that from now on, we keep only a few human females at any one secret location. We won’t have all our babies in one nest. However,” Werner, the black, added, “I suggest that we also focus our attention on discovering just how Zoran is able to locate our nests. Let’s use this breather to work that one out and then take countermeasures. I am certain that sooner or later we will get our way and be able to outright exterminate the humans on these worlds.”

  “Excellent. You can count on us reds,” Dario, the red, replied. “We should spread our abductions out over more worlds and not all from the same general area. Mix things up a bit.”

  “Good idea, Dario. Let’s work on that now. We just lost a pile of our babies and there is no way that we can get them back. Zoran’s fortress is too heavily defended at the moment. Besides, they have the despicable magical rods with them. We blacks are in a complete mystery over how Zoran found our secret cavern on Maeve. We find it incredible that he found it!”

  “Same with us, he keeps on finding our secret locations where the women are being held. Perhaps we are leaving behind some kind of trail that he is able to follow,” Dario, the red, suggested. For an hour, they discussed this idea and similar ramifications before they headed back to their homes.

  Meanwhile, Aldrick visited Zoran. “I’ve just been blind-sided by the barons. Have they really declared war on dragons?” he asked antagonistically.

  “Yes, old friend, they have done just that. I failed to keep that from passing. However, Aldrick, their declaration is mere words. They have not the means to seriously back it up. It was done more for their own morale and that of their people. The only real action they took along those lines is to form up Strike Force One, fifteen fighters who are to attack the evil dragons wherever they can find them, but only single dragons. Obviously, they are not strong enough to fight more than one at a time and they will not be carrying the magical rods. It will be swords only for them. I doubt that they will have much of an effect. However, I will do all that I can to slow them down.”

  “Well, that is a relief. I just barely carried the day. The blacks almost won a declaration of war against humankind! We simply must keep this from becoming an all-out war. So many humans will die. So many of us will die,” Aldrick pointed out with a sigh.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more, old friend. We must continue to keep this war from happening. Say, can I ask you something?” Aldrick nodded. “Have you dragons ever been called worms?”

  Aldrick gave Zoran a funny look. “Why, I haven’t heard that name in many centuries! Yes, our ancestors were called worms. Why do you ask?”

  “Curiosity. We’ve come across some ancient records of ours that mentions fleeing from worms. Although we can find no description of just what a worm actually was, I kind of got the feeling it might be dragons. Strange.”

  “Very. I am not much of an historian. Perhaps Burk might know more. I will get back to you on it. Farewell.” Aldrick left and Zoran had to tell the others all about the meeting. Everyone wanted to know what the gold had to say. These days, if a dragon was involved, everyone had to know all about it. How times had changed, he noted.

  Early May, Physician Bedrich came to see Jarka. “Excuse me. I need you to look at my fingers here, Mage Jarka.” He held out his right hand.

  She looked them over. “I don’t see anything. They look fine to me.” Jarka looked a bit baffled. What was wrong with them?

  “They are numb on this side, but not on their back sides. Try it. Stick a needle in one of them.” He insisted until she did so.

  “Wow! You didn’t feel that at all?” she asked incredulously. She’d stuck one in almost a quarter of an inch before he began to feel the needle.

  “Precisely. My fingers are numb and so are those of Physician Kamil. Most strange. Can you do anything for them?” he finally asked what he’d come here seeking.

  “Have you tried a healing potion?” she asked the obvious. He had and the two chatted for a bit, discussing a number of lesser possibilities.

  “Well how long have they been numb like this?” she asked finally, giving up on immediate cure possibilities.

  “Nearly five months now. We’ve been trying various cures and hoping that in time, feeling woul
d return to them. However, they seem to be permanently numb.”

  “Five months? Say, what happened to them in the first place?” Jarka finally asked the key question.

  “We are not sure at all. You see, we have been dissecting all those women’s arms that we had to remove last late fall. You know, from the seventeen women that were first rescued, the withered, numb arms. At first, we could find nothing at all, but then I noticed a small amount of a thick bluish liquid on one arm, near the shoulder ball. Of course we extracted samples of it and examined it thoroughly, but we have as yet to identify what it is. Our fingers went numb right after we were examining it, though. Physician Kamil has now discovered this same substance in nearly all of the remaining intact limbs that we still had. It is our theory that somehow this bluish stuff was injected into their arms, causing their arms to become dead to the women. Of course, we cannot prove this. I was hoping that you could perhaps find a cure for our fingers.”

  “Wow! Fascinating, Physician Bedrich. This stuff might just have been the cause that we were looking for, but of course I will need samples to work with,” Jarka exclaimed, eager to have a new research project.

  “Follow me to our workroom, Mage Jarka. We have two arms intact so you can see where it was originally inserted. Physician Kamil and I have extracted a small vial of the stuff from the remaining arms. I’m afraid the quantity is so very small. It’s sticky and gooey, do be careful not to get any on your fingers or they will become numb like ours.”

  Jarka held her nose as she entered their workshop. Severed arms lay all over the tables, each one tagged and labeled. Physician Kamil looked up as they entered. “Any luck?” Bedrich shook his head. “Here, Mage Jarka, you can see the foreign substance right where it was somehow deposited. We’ve cut away the tissue above the stuff so you can see it. Have a look.”

  Gruesome, Jarka fought for control of her stomach as she looked closely at the withered arms. She saw a tiny spot of the bluish stuff there near the rounded ball of the arm. “What are those things that it is covering? They are not blood vessels, right?” She knew little of what lay inside human bodies. Furthermore, she didn’t really want to know. Both men shrugged their shoulders; they didn’t either.

  Taking the vial, she promised, “Okay, I will get on this. I have no idea what this stuff is either. I’ll see if I can find out.”

  “Don’t forget to find us a cure,” Physician Bedrich called out as she left their workroom.

  Chapter 20 Summer’s Respite

  Daily life chores continued to be a huge challenge for Danika and her sixteen friends, for friends these seventeen women abducted by the reds had become. Companions in misery, some often jested at their helplessness. Every day, they were forced to face the sharp reality of their lack of arms, requiring many others to assist them with the mundane things of life. Yet the moment that they set foot in Zdenka’s classroom each morning, all that changed, for they knew that they were true mages in the making. They had no doubts about their ability to cast magical spells. Any lingering fears that their armless state would hinder their studies had long ago vanished entirely. All seventeen continued to make utterly phenomenal progress in their training.

  While standing on the roof top of Zdenka’s tower and casting lightning bolts at the distant mountains using their feet as pointers of direction, all traces of doubt vanished forever from the seventeen minds! With a simple chant and point of their toes, great arcs shot forth from them — to say nothing of the massive Balls of Fire also cast harmlessly at the mountains. All seventeen knew that they were on the route to greatness as mages. If only they had the time to continue their studies.

  During the late spring and early summer, the seventeen were elated with each new spell. At last, they were casting really power spells, from their point of view, spells that could really kill or help them. True, these were only at the third level, far from the true Archmage spells at the ninth level, but for these humble women, the casting of a Ball of Fire or an Immobilize Person was vastly beyond their former realities.

  By the middle of the summer, all seventeen were now tackling the next level of spells, fully a year or more ahead of Zdenka’s usual students, who themselves were often far ahead of other Archmage teachers on other planets. They had reached the spells that Zdenka had been hoping and praying for: Morph Others, Morph Self. If her students could master these, they could Morph themselves into a woman with arms, partially removing their awful handicaps. True, the spell could easily be dispelled, reverting them back to their armless state. Still, it would give them additional options and abilities, however temporary that might be.

  On the 10th of July, Danika’s Morph Self spell detonated for the first time. Suddenly, she looked perhaps a year younger, but she now had arms! She jumped and screamed, waving her arms around for her companions to see. “Oh my! It works! It works! We can have our arms back again!” All sixteen others cheered her.

  Zdenka rose and cautioned, “Excellent, this is just what I had been hoping for all along, ladies. However, I must caution all of you. Soon you will all be able to morph yourselves and regain arms. Yet, it is only temporary. If a Dispel Magic is cast, the Morph spell will be undone. Thus, I cannot impress this upon you hard enough: do not ever depend entirely upon having your arms in your morphed state. In combats, Dispel Magic spells are frequently encountered, and right in the middle of a life and death battle, you may be armless once again, dropping anything that you are holding or falling if you were hanging on to something with your arms.” That brought the spell’s reality home to the seventeen. Yes, once they learned the spell, they were no longer dependent on all the others for their daily living, and that meant everything to these seventeen. Within a day, they all were able to cast that spell.

  Zdenka then estimated that by fall, the seventeen would be tackling the level five spells and of course, the Teleport spell. As soon as that spell was mastered, the seventeen would officially be recognized as mages throughout the Federation. She had no doubt that all would progress much farther than that, though how far she could not anticipate.

  Archmage Bianca on Cosma had already taken on the ten women rescued from the greens, and they were making the progress that normal students did. As the 1st of May came, Zdenka and Bianca now had to tackle the training of an additional dozen women, made all the more challenging because these dozen were similar to the seventeen in that the magical energies within them were as potent as the seventeen. If the pattern held true, these dozen ought to progress as rapidly Danika and her companions were, posing a terrific challenge to the Archmage teacher. The first ten were attuned to Red Dragons while the last two, blacks. Five of these women were whole and in good health, Concetta, Edda, Ermina, Ginevra, and Marta. However, five had no eyes, though with Jarka’s help they now had attractive glass eyes which greatly aided others who looked at them, though it did nothing for the five. These were Daniela, Drina, Gabriella, Ines, and Luisa. Lacking sight, studying magic would be impossible. Thus, special actions were needed with them. Finally the remaining two had their sight, but lacked their arms and thus were similar to the seventeen Zdenka was already training.

  Because these were women and had recently undergone severe emotional trauma to say nothing of the physical abuse, Zdenka and Bianca were against having Cosma’s other two Archmages take over their training because they were men. Enough said. Bianca explained, “What with the ten I already have, I may be able to handle the incredibly rapid progress of the five that have no physical limitations, Zdenka, but I am just starting out teaching others. I lack the experience that you have.”

  “Point taken. Why don’t I take on the seven with physical limitations here at my school? Is that acceptable? Can you persuade your baron to go along with this? They are his people,” Zdenka asked.

  “Yes, consider it done. Actually, I don’t really care what Baron Arcangelo desires. We must think of the women’s welfare first,” Bianca stated flatly. That settled it.

  Already, Zdenka
had hired the blind woman named Eva to help the five blinded Cosma women and Andrea of Rehor learn to deal with life. She was good with the women, spending ten hours each day with the six, coaching them, leading them, and sharing what she found workable with them. Already, Zdenka saw forward progress; the six were now being far more independent than when they first arrived.

  Once she and Bianca reached their agreement, Zdenka took Andrea, Daniela, Drina, Gabriella, Ines, and Luisa aside. “Ladies, as soon as you learn to get around better on your own here on the first floor of my tower, then we will begin your official magic training. As you probably have heard, you women had an aftereffect of carrying the dragon fetuses. Intense magical energies now flow within you. With some hard work on your part, I expect that each of you may well become an official mage.”

  “Really, real mages?” asked Andrea.

  “But we can’t see to read,” Drina protested slightly.

  “Ah, I have a plan to temporarily restore your sight. Magic can do many useful things, but I must caution you not to depend upon the magically restored sight. It can very easily be dispelled by other magical spells. So take the time to learn all that Eva can teach you now. When you are ready, we will begin. Just remember that at times you will be unable to see and you must be able to still function and recast the spells needed to restore your temporary sight.”

  “That would be a miracle in itself. Count me in,” Drina replied.

  “We have a number of other women who will be giving birth during May and June, so we may have to either delay starting your magical training or go slower than you might like. Bear with us, we have so many women that we have yet to save when they give birth,” Zdenka explained. All six agreed and Drina began to smile again, a subtle thing, but not missed by Zdenka.