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

by Vic Broquard

Adrianna, I am with you. I have you secure and we are going to get you away from these dragons now. We’re going to my castle first. Just relax. I will go as fast as possible. He felt the young woman take a deep breath and hold it, as if it were her last possible breath. One by one, the other fifteen appeared in the cavern beside the sleeping women. Each put their arms around the women who were under a Sleep spell and stepped them into the Shadows. Zoran moved as rapidly as possible and soon stepped lightly into his infirmary, where Zdenka, Jarka, Bernard, and others were already waiting for the new arrivals, water barrels warmed and ready. Plenty of towels lay close at hand.

  “Here we are, Adrianna. You are now safe in my fortress in Brn, Adapazan.”

  “Thank you. I can’t see and my hands are gone, arms too. What’s happened to me? I don’t understand. I still see the grey images, the Shadows you call it. I am pulled to them cause I can sort of see. It’s better than this other total blackness,” she gushed out all at once.

  “You have had a Blindness spell cast upon you. We will get it undone pronto,” Zoran answered her partially. He knew that it was top priority to get her sight back, otherwise she would continue to be drawn into the Shadows, understandably so. He chanted and cast his Dispel Magic.

  “I can see again! Wow! So bright in here! I’m naked? Oh, I do have arms! Why can’t I feel them? Who are all of you? Oh, so many of us.” She now saw fifteen others like her and many other men and women around as well.

  “Incredible, Zoran, just incredible,” Baron Leo commented. “Oh, yes of course, cancel the Blindness spells.” He and the others quickly cast their spells as well, though a couple of them had to be recast after the first attempt failed.

  “Ladies, you are all now totally safe. No dragons will ever get you here. You are in my fortress at Brn, Adapazan. I am Baron Zoran.” He introduced the others and the women were very much impressed — surrounded by so many barons, baronesses, Archmages, and mages. He explained that first they would get bathed and any wounds looked after. Jarka would be examining their arms to see if they could be healed as well.

  “I know this sounds cruel, but we may not be able to do anything for your arms. Don’t panic. We will always look after your needs here,” he tried to soften the blow which he suspected would soon be coming. “Now then, we men will leave you women to bathe and dress. You may have your privacy back from now on.” Quickly, the men left and Zdenka issued bathing orders.

  “My god, Zoran, you’ve done it again!” Leo praised him. The men had gathered in his study.

  “I should have realized what was going on, dad,” Tomas chastised himself.

  In detail, Zoran explained how he’d found them and shared his memories of the other four cavern rooms with their captive women. “We have sixty-four more women to get out of there. My idea is to keep the dragons wondering just how the women are disappearing on them. If they don’t get wise to us, we can keep recovering the women that they abduct. I don’t know if we can do it fast enough to prevent them from being raped and their arms damaged, though. I think that we ought to rescue those who are showing their pregnancies the most next. We don’t know their due dates yet and I don’t want to risk their lives now that we’ve found them.”

  “We still don’t know what the dragons are doing to the women’s arms, do we?” Tomas asked.

  “No, but let’s hope Jarka’s potions will work on them this time,” Zoran replied.

  “Say, this Adrianna — she’s Duska born, isn’t she? How come she’s not had her Ceremony of Ascension?” Stefan asked.

  “I don’t have the full story yet, but I think that she is an illegitimate daughter of a baron on Terra, most likely the late Tom Witherspoon. Downright criminal of him not to have given her the Ceremony of Ascension at the very least. She is so attuned to the Shadows it’s not funny. I will have Jarmila perform the ceremony as soon as possible.”

  “I hate to point this out, dad, but you are running out of helping hands in the infirmary. If Jarka cannot fix up their arms, how are you going to handle eighty more women?” Tomas pointed out and asked.

  “Simple,” Stefan replied before Zoran could say anything. “We are going to have to lend a hand. After all some of these are likely our women too, right Leo? Zoran, we’ll get together a bunch of Adepts and all the Duska we can spare. We’ll see that you have all the helping hands you need.”

  “Right, after all, your people are the only ones skilled enough to handle these women properly,” Baron Leo replied, also getting himself off the hook. He could not fathom how his people could possible help and train the potentially armless women. “There is only one Zdenka,” he teased.

  “All help is welcome. Gentlemen, I’d rather focus on the women still there and the dragon problem further. One of us ought to hang out there, hiding in the Shadows observing them. As long as from the dragon’s point of view the women simply vanish without any visible cause, we can keep them stalemated in their vicious breeding program. If we checkmate them, as we have done before, they will just invent new ways and means. Let’s keep them guessing.”

  “You got it, dad. I will return and take the first watch. How soon are we going to ‘vanish’ the next batch of women?” Tomas asked.

  “Later today, I hope. I’ll keep you posted. Honestly, the trauma being inflicted on these women is beyond description,” Zoran declared.

  Just then, Jarka’s Mystical Door appeared and she stepped into the room. From her glum countenance, Zoran already knew what she would report. “Failed again. Whatever they are doing to those poor women’s arms is beyond me. Nothing works to restore feeling or sensation in their arms. It is like their arms and hands are just dead.”

  “I assumed that would be the case, no failure on your part, Mage Jarka,” Zoran said formally because of the presence of the other barons.

  “Well, I have one last thing that I’d like to try,” she continued. “Verushka told me that you are able to sit in the Shadows and observe them. Can you actually see the dragons and what they are doing?”

  “Yes, we can. Why?”

  “Well, whenever they bring in another sixteen women, I’d like to be there, as much as I hate Shadow Walking. I want to see exactly what they are doing to these women’s arms. They have most peculiar little puncture marks on their shoulders and I don’t have any idea just what they are doing. If I could somehow see that, maybe I can find a way to undo it properly.” She didn’t yet tell him about the mysterious blue gooey substance which the physicians had found. It had thus far totally eluded all her detection spells and chemical tests. Jarka hated to be baffled. Seeing what was done to the women might give her more ideas of ways to help them.

  “Makes sense, Jarka. I’ll tell you what. If and when one of us sees that happening, we’ll open a Mind Link directly to you and you can be here and observe it directly through one of us. That way, you will not have to hang out long hours in the Shadows. I’m sure that would make you very ill,” Zoran replied. She was satisfied and returned to help the newly arrived women.

  Tomas then left but Mind Linked to Zoran not long after. Say, the women in this one room seem awfully pregnant. I swear they could go into labor anytime. You’d better be prepared. Give the others a head’s up on this one.

  Zoran was afraid of this from his own initial inspection of the cavern complex earlier. “Okay, Tomas says we have to retrieve another sixteen who are likely due anytime now. I’m going to the infirmary to help get it ready. You can take care of whatever you need. We’ll head back there later today.” Leo and Stefan headed home to arrange for more Duskas to come lend a hand with the expected women.

  His daughter met him at the entrance to the infirmary. Jarmila said, “Dad, I’ve examined Adrianna. She’s just got to have the Ceremony of Ascension and soon, but she is definitely pregnant with a Black Dragon. Her body is now beginning to suck up all kinds of magical energies. I think that we’d best wait until she delivers it before I give her the ceremony. If I do it now, there is no telling what that
will do to the fetus that she is carrying. I know it is still small, but I am worried that somehow it could harm her or somehow alter the dragon too. I sure don’t want to do something that will aid dragons, dad.”

  “High Priestess, I will abide by your wisdom in this. I think that she ought to be stable enough to get by until then. That Blind spell was probably what triggered her bout of Shadow Sickness. Now that she can see, I think we can keep that at bay.”

  “My thoughts exactly. Let her sleep at night with a lantern on. Okay, we have them bathed, their hair washed, and gotten them into clean dresses. Jarka’s probably told you that their arms are still useless.”

  “Yes, we need to prepare for another batch which will be delivering at any time now — that is, if we can find a way to get them out of there without being seen by the dragons,” he replied. The two headed on into the women-filled room. Zdenka had brought all her dragon-harmed women into meet and discuss the situation with the new arrivals. Yes, many including Adrianna were sobbing. They saw the armless women and truly didn’t want to lose theirs. However, the seventeen then eased their misery and feelings of hopelessness by demonstrating their Morph abilities.

  “See, once you learn the Morph spell, you can have arms any time you need them,” Danika explained. Zdenka left her students alone with the newcomers and moved her group into the next room with Zoran.

  “They are taking it hard, but I believe they will be able to handle it eventually,” she reported. “I promised them that we would leave their arms alone as long as possible, in case Jarka can somehow find a cure. You said some are near their due dates?”

  “Yes, we are going to have to fetch another batch yet today. Tomas is there keeping watch over them. He and I both think that sixteen are due anytime now. Leo and Stefan are going to send more Duskas to help.”

  “Bout time,” Lida retorted. “Men, honestly,” she added exasperated.

  “Right. Being raped is horrible, but what these poor women are forced to experience is beyond description,” Rayna added. “If Stefan doesn’t send along a bunch, I’ll hang him out to dry!” Zoran chuckled. His sister just might do that.

  A while later, Baron Stefan returned with six of his relatives, some as young as sixteen, all were Duskas. Additionally, he introduced an older woman. “Baron Zoran, this is Izabela Alfons, a distant cousin and Duska. She is also a Potion Maker. Izabela has heard of the situation facing the women and came to me with some ideas. I thought that you ought to hear her and make your own decisions.”

  Izabela was a matronly looking woman, with sharp eyes and a confident demeanor. “May we speak of this in private or perhaps with a few of those who are dealing with the intimate details of the birthing of these women?”

  “Yes, of course. Rayna, get your helpers acquainted with everyone and the infirmary. We’ll be right back. This way. Verushka, Nadia, Zdenka, Jarka, if you will join us?” he replied and requested, not so much as asked. He knew that he was out of his league in this area. A minute later in his private study, they sat down and Izabela spoke frankly.

  “I don’t wish to offend anyone. However, in my line of work, Potion Making, I receive many unusual requests. Sometimes a woman needs to have a pregnancy terminated prematurely. Usually, it is for medical reasons, but not always. Over these many years, I have developed potions which do just that, if taken within about the first couple of weeks. Beyond that, the risk factor to the woman steadily increases. I’ve only recently heard of what the dragons have been doing. At first, I thought this was utter nonsense. How could they possibly interspecies breed? Last week, I had to come to the Fortress on business and wisely stopped to see young Stefan. I asked about this business and he fully briefed me on it. I decided that I may be of some assistance. It may be possible to terminate some of these pregnancies, if they are caught early on. However, if I understand Stefan, carrying them to term somehow turns the women into ‘super-fast’ magic students. Is this really true? If this is so, perhaps they might not wish to terminate their pregnancies early.”

  “We just rescued sixteen women not six hours ago! Good timing. Yes, these were raped only a day or so ago. We are not precisely sure, since they were Blinded beforehand and had no way of telling time after that,” Verushka explained. “The gestation period is not nine months, but a mere sixty days. And yes, those who have delivered are now able to learn magic but at an alarming rate. The first seventeen are already Mages and all that in less than a year.”

  “You’re kidding? That makes them superwomen. I spent years getting to Mage level!” Izabela was most impressed.

  Zdenka continued, “Yes, here’s the thing. It’s kind of complicated and depends on how badly the woman has already been physically hurt. If they have lost their arms or eyes, then we’ve discovered that carrying the fetus full term allows them to learn magic and at a rapid rate. It gives them new hope, self-reliance, and likely a way to use Morph Self to gain arms or eyes when needed. Failure to do this for them leaves them with destroyed lives and little or no hope. On the other hand, if they have not lost body parts, then it is their call. Some may want to do what’s needed so that they can learn magic, others might not and will want the potion.”

  Izabela agreed, “Yes, that makes sense. Have you worked out how long a woman must carry the dragon for her body to become filled with magical energies?”

  “No, only some raw facts. We can begin examining these current women. This first batch has been pregnant a very short time, a few days. Others that we will be rescuing have been so for varying times. We can attempt to work it all out.”

  “May I lend a hand and help out?” Izabela asked. She was welcomed with open arms. Zoran return to the others while the women headed off to check on magical energy levels of the new arrivals and consult the long ledger that Verushka had been keeping on each woman that they treated here. They quickly saw that these recent arrivals did have magical energies flowing in their bodies, but at a fairly low level. Verushka then sat down with the sixteen and explained in great detail the future track for the women and also presenting the termination route and its potential effects, particularly acute if no cure could be found for their “dead arms.” As she expected, all wanted to wait as long as possible to see if a cure could be found. They did realize that those who came before them had had no choice but to have the “dead” appendages removed. The sixteen clung desperately to the faint hope that Jarka had offered them, which was better than losing their arms.

  On his way back to the other men, Zoran found himself wondering what planet this new one was. He knew that dragons had limited abilities to Shadow Walk between planets. He also recalled Aldrick said that they all lived on Voss. Could this be Voss or was it some other planet known to the dragons only? How could he tell?

  Around four, Zoran issued his orders to the fourteen who would come with him to rescue the women, joining Tomas who was still there observing. “We have to exercise extreme caution with these women who are near their due dates. We tried Shadow Walking two who were in labor. Although we Morphed the dragons into their human forms, when we hit the Shadows, they morphed back and clawed their way out, killing the women. If we do nothing, these sixteen women will die giving birth. If we attempt to Shadow Walk them here, there is also a chance that they will die, but I say we have to try.”

  “If you Morph the dragons before you Shadow Walk, how long do they stay Morphed?” asked Stefan.

  “Ordinarily, when they are that close to delivering, less than a half hour between Morph spells. The dragons keep trying to prepare themselves for birth. We lost the two because we didn’t know that would happen. We do now. Ideally, I’d like an Archmage with each Duska who is transporting a woman. The Archmage can constantly monitor the dragon and recast the spell as often as needed. However, we simply don’t have enough Duskas and Archmages to do that. I thought about the Duska bringing along a non-Duska mage with them. The idea being that person could monitor and recast. However, the snatching of the women is going to be tri
cky and must be a fast action. The non-Duska would be in serious trouble if the Duska let go of them while materializing and snatching the woman. So I think we must discard that idea.”

  Jarka had dropped by to see how soon they were planning on leaving, and had overheard his suggestions and chose to speak up, “My advice is to do your Shadow Walking as fast as you possible can, but also talk to the woman and have her tell you if she is sensing any activity from the dragons. Usually, the woman has a bit of advanced warning that it is about to morph back into the dragon form; she gets a lot of pain and motion before it actually morphs. If you use this as a guide, if and when it happens, you can pause and recast it before continuing.” Zoran adopted her plan.

  “Okay, here’s how it must go. When the coast is clear and I give the signal, materialize before your woman. Snatch her up and step into the Shadows. At once, cast the Morph Other spell. Then Mind Link to her, I guarantee you that she will feel an enormous relief when you morph the dragon. Tell her to let you know if the pain and discomfort start up again. Travel as fast as you safely can back here.” Zoran felt he had all bases covered. After briefly notifying Tomas, they all joined with Zoran, and he Shadow Walked the fourteen and himself to this secret cavern, joining up with Tomas.

  Tomas, via a large Mind Link, quickly outlined the situation and took everyone to their positions. Essentially, each Duska was in the Shadows beside a specific woman, ready to materialize and snatch her up. The women were lying on crude beds against one wall. A short ways from the bed was a small barrel, their makeshift potty. Further away was a long table with a chair for each woman. Here was where they were fed, he explained. There were several female dragons, both red and black, who visited the women or checked on them periodically. The women that they wanted to snatch were close to birthing and were being kept under a Sleep spell most of the time. The other women were only given Sleep spells when they grew too upset or frightened.

  We have about a five minute window when no one is in the chamber with them. Timing is critical if we want to avoid detection, Tomas sent. By the way, it is working. The disappearance of the sixteen women has caused quite a stir among the dragons! They’ve been coming and going all over the place. Speculation is running rampant. They’ve rechecked all their traps and drilled all of the guards, but the leaders are becoming convinced that no one entered the cavern. They are completely mystified over the disappearance. This should further confuse them, but I think that they may decide to move the others to a new location, so we ought to snatch the others as soon as possible as well.