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

by Vic Broquard

  Since the rescued women were sleeping, they decided not to take them underground this evening. Instead, Archmage Verushka assigned all the Archmages two hour night watch shifts. Always, they would be pairs and always one had a Rod of Dragon Slaying with them. Fortunately, nothing happened during the night.

  The next day, the women’s pregnancies had to be handled. This was made all the more difficult because they still considered that they were dragons who were now prisoners of the humans. Worse, their future babies were being murdered and they reacted as one might have anticipated. Finally, the Archmages and Jarka had no choice but to cast Immobility on the women before they terminated the dragon fetuses in them.

  Milena Dezda began to recover from her induced confusion, especially after she experienced the Roman Candle Effect when the dragon that she was carrying was aborted. “Dragons don’t do that do they? I must not really be a dragon, right?” she said timidly.

  “Of course not, Milena. Say, how would you like to continue your magic education here with us?”

  “Really? Me? Learn more magic? Well sure that would be great! I do know quite a few spells that the old mage taught me. I’d really like to be able to fly. Is that possible?” she began chatting about magic and soon forgot all about the nightmare confusion she’d endured.

  What to do about the other forty-five women was the real problem. Bluntly, they were insane, believing utterly that they were dragons, not humans. “Wish there was a Cure Insanity spell,” Zdenka exclaimed exasperated and commented more than once that day.

  She did have use of a Forget spell, but that only impacted what had happened within the last hour or so. Some of these women had been in dragon form for nearly a half of a year. They again had the women sleep in the infirmary a second night. Since the women were still basically mad, they dare not risk bringing them into the underground safe house. Once they were sleeping again, thanks to several Sleep spells, the Archmages conferred.

  “I don’t see any improvement happening anytime soon,” Nadia said sadly. “They’ve really been brainwashed by their terrible treatment.”

  “I agree. I just don’t see that we have any alternative but to use the Mind Wipe on them to wipe their minds of all memories from the last six months or so,” Zdenka said with a heavy heart. She hated to do this to anyone, permanently destroying their memories. For the women, somehow half a year would have suddenly gone by and they’d have no recollections of any of it. Well, if the horrors that they suffered were gone, that might be a benefit, she thought. Still, wiping someone’s mind was a very last resort.

  Even so, Zdenka waited another day, hoping for some improvement in the women’s insanity. Unfortunately, there was none and she begrudgingly gave the orders for the many Mind Wipes. All the Archmages partook in the process, most handling three of the women. Of course, the women were once more confused about how they got into Baron Zoran’s infirmary at Brn. That they had somehow lost all recollections of the last six months of their lives only added to the confusion. However, Zdenka explained to them that they had been kidnaped by the dragons and rescued. “You have not been harmed and the barons of your respective planets will be coming soon to take you back to your families.” Why?

  The Archmages made a startling discovery. The Mind Wipe had also neutralized all of the magical energies that had built up in their bodies. Not one would be a viable candidate to learn magic, not like the other rescued women had been. True, a couple Zdenka thought could possibly become Adepts if they wished. Milena, on the other hand, was now stable and studying away with her other students in her tower. Within the next two days, all forty-five women were returned to their home worlds, ending this latest dragon breeding scheme.

  Chapter 36 Repercussions

  Werner, the black, and Dario, the red, were livid with anger. “All sixty of our new born babies had their throats slashed? Someone will pay for this and pay dearly!” Werner swore, his tail knocking a chunk of the roof of his cavern down. Several more bits of rock dropped unnoticed to the stone floor. “No more mercy killings! These humans deserved to be tortured, made to scream in pain, made to beg us to put them out of their misery!”

  “Torture the vile, evil beasts!” Dario spat on the floor, resisting the urge to blast everything around him with his fiery breath. That would of course harm many of the blacks who were with him and that alone kept him from doing so. “Who could have done this heinous deed? It has to be Zoran’s gang. They were the only ones on Voss. Death is entirely too good for them! Torture them for days! Make them pay and pay and pay!” he shrieked loudly.

  A half hour of ranting passed before they calmed down into mere seething pots of hostilities. “Okay, Dario, we have to be cool about this. We cannot get all of the dragons together and attack Zoran directly because of this. They will be asking too many questions which neither you nor I wish to answer right now. After all, we were not supposed to be continuing our breeding program.”

  “Let’s get the breeding program going once we eliminate all of the humans who threaten us. We’ll make the humans our personal slaves and breeding women,” Dario suggested.

  “Yes, I like that. Put the men to work in all the mines and breed the women until our numbers are in the thousands! Good thinking, Dario, good thinking,” Werner replied with wry smile. “So any more reports of the barons sending out their Archmages and mages and Duska to protect all the smaller towns and villages?”

  “Er, not yet. The browns haven’t yet reported in on their observations. Rehor and Adapazan apparently have not done that yet. Perhaps they need more convincing?” Dario said snidely.

  A wicked grin formed on Werner’s huge muzzle. “Yes, we should give them some more encouragement. Send out the word: tonight let us repeat our initial attack. Take out three more of the smaller towns on the sixteen worlds.”

  “Torture some? Can we? Can we?” Dario asked and then begged.

  “Yes, let’s have our blacks and reds each snatch one and bring them to our nursery on Voss. We’ll torture them there, right where our own babies were executed. Once we finish our torture sessions, we’ll dump what’s left of them on Brn as a personal message to Zoran,” Werner declared emphatically.

  “Excellent. Pull their arms and legs off and drop all the appendages onto Brn too. A rain of human body parts! That ought to shock them and throw fear into their minds!” Dario declared with passion in his deep voice.

  “Say, Dario, you have a good point. Drop their body parts onto Brn, arms, legs, heads, whatever. That should shock them to their very cores! Great idea, but we must make the captives suffer horribly first, before we let them die. It is the least that we can do for our sixty babies who did not have the slightest chance against the blades of the humans!” Werner agreed.

  “Hey, even better idea: let’s leave some alive to tell old Zoran just how bad it was,” Dario laughed wickedly.

  Werner roared, “Sometimes, old friend, I think you are meaner than I am.” He meant it as a compliment!

  “Oh my god! Zoran, come quick!” Archmage Nadia had just begun her daily survey of the tower, fortress, and Brn. Until this morning, all was quiet and a bit eerie, Brn lay completely deserted; its inhabitants safely below ground. On the snow packed main street of Brn that led to the main gates of the fortress was a ghastly sight, more than one stomach wrenched that morning.

  Seldom had Zoran flinched, but he did when his eyes gazed out onto the street from atop the fortress walls for the first time that morning. His eyes caught limbs, human arms and legs, scattered about, hundreds of them. Then, he saw what remained of the victims, mutilated torsos, many headless, many with their chest cavities sliced open. There was almost no blood to be seen, which told him that these poor souls had not been killed here. “Body drop!” the vitriolic voice of Archmage Karel came from behind him. He turned to see the Archmage standing there, fists clenched, anger seethed through the man.

  “Right. Lack of blood. Killed elsewhere and left here as a message for me,” Zoran c
oncluded. “Look, there’s a sort of blanket covered mound. I dread seeing what else might be there.”

  Jarka led the way, cursing repeatedly to herself as she gingerly stepped around the remains, some no larger than the fingers of the victims. “Some are from the desert worlds. Check skin colors.” she spoke a little louder, making her slow way to the blanket mound. As always, her first thoughts were to search for survivors, though she didn’t expect to find any among this horrific scene.

  As Zoran caught up to her, he said, “Dragons were careful and didn’t get within my Alarm activation spells. Damn them! They’ve stooped to a new low!”

  Jarka carefully lifted a corner of the blanket expecting more gore. “Oh dear god!” she gushed, her free hand coming up to her mouth and covering it. Zoran looked over her shoulder and flinched.

  “Over here! Survivors,” he called out. Mystical Doors appeared beside him. This was faster than trying to step over all the body parts littering the snow-covered street. He saw what remained of ten men, women, and children. Six were comatose, in deep shock, four had already died and what was left of their bodies were now frozen. Zoran picked up the two little girls and Shadow Walked them into the infirmary. Jarka followed, carrying what was left of a young woman. He didn’t see who brought the three men, however, he was too busy covering them up and casting Warm spells to counter the girls’ hypothermia.

  His two physicians came rushing in. Jarka had summoned them from the subterranean city below. “Oh damn! What happened to them?” one asked as he pushed Zoran aside and began examining the first girl who was barely ten.

  “Dragons got them. Looks like they are into torturing them now,” Zoran said extremely softly. He too was going into shock over these sights. He sat down and put his head between his knees for a minute.

  Jarka and the two physicians poured several healing potions down the six victims, hoping to stabilize them at least. One man came to and screamed before he realized that he was safe inside a warm room and there were no dragons present. His arms and legs had been torn from his body, but the dragons who had done it had crudely healed him with their healing droughts, just enough to keep him alive.

  His name was Tomas and accompanied by continuous sobbing, he told them what had happened to his village. The dragons had taken him and others away to some cave filled with dead baby dragons. There, he was made to watch the hideous, inhuman torture of over fifty men, women, and children. At last, they tortured him until he begged them to end his misery. Instead, they crudely healed him and told him to tell what he’d seen to Zoran. “Please,” Tomas sobbed, “I can’t live like this. Please put me out of my misery. If you have any feelings left, please, please kill me, please, I beg you.”

  “Me too, please,” the voice of another man who had only one arm and no legs joined Tomas. He’d awakened and begged as well. He did say that his name was Miklos. The other man had only one leg left and no arms. Josef also wanted to die, but did as the dragons had ordered. He told Zoran what he’d witnessed.

  “Let us see what we can do for you men first. If we cannot help you recover from this, then I give you my word that I will do as you ask,” Zoran finally gave his consent. After all, these men could not live as mutilated as they were.

  The screams of the eighteen year old woman now demanded their attention. She had awakened from her nightmare only to find herself still in it. Her eyes had been torn out after she’d passed out witnessing the brutality of the dragons on the other victims. Both her legs were missing below her knees as well. After casting Calm spells on her four times, she finally relaxed and told them her name, Rickena. She described what she’d seen before they sliced off her legs and then forced her to drink something that kept her alive. Then, they’d removed her eyes. She required three more Calm spells while she was describing what had happened to her.

  “We’re going to get you four a bath and cleaned up first. Then, we’ll tend to your wounds if they still need attention. Once that’s done, let’s get some hot food inside you,” Zoran rather ordered more than suggested. While they were being bathed, the two children roused at last, finally coming out of their hypothermia. Both had been very near death themselves. Another hour and they would not have made it.

  The ten year old girl was Dona Lida, and the dragons had removed her legs at her knees and arms at her elbows, leaving her four stumps. The eleven year old girl was Viera. The dragons had literally pulled her arms from their sockets and then poured her full of their ill tasting droughts, which, according to Viera, somehow stopped the massive bleeding but not the pain. “Those dragons are really mean, aren’t they?” she said when she finished telling them what had happened.

  “Yes, Viera, they surely are,” Zdenka agreed. “Come on. Let’s get you pretty girls all cleaned up, shall we?”

  “But I can’t do anything anymore,” Dona Lida protested.

  “Me either,” Viera added.

  “Oh, we will just have to see what we can do for you ladies,” Zdenka countered.

  Two hours later, the six were cleaned, fed, and given a sleeping potion. The Archmages met together to discuss what could be done for the six survivors. Archmage Karel said, “One thing is for sure, I aim to make those dragons pay for what they’ve done!”

  “Yes, but what can we do for these six?” Zdenka tried to get him back on the real issue facing them.

  “Well, only Viera has any chance at all of living some kind of life. At least she has her legs,” Danika pointed out. “The others, poor Dona Lida — well I don’t see how she can, or the others either. Perhaps, we should allow them to die.”

  “Life is precious. We have to save them if possible. I have been thinking about it while you all were cleaning them up. What if we use Morph Others on them? You know, Morph them into what they looked like before the attack?”

  “Clever, dear,” Zdenka spoke up. “There are only two problems with that — well maybe not problems exactly. Obviously, the spells could be dispelled. We could promise them that if that ever happened, to let us know and we’d recast the spell for them. However, their morphed forms will never seem to age. They could really be fifty years old and yet still look as they were before the dragons tortured them.”

  “That will be really a problem for the children,” Zoran pointed out.

  “We should give them that choice, dad,” Tomas pointed out. He’d come to help clean up the hideous mess and was sitting in on the discussion, hoping and praying that he never had to deal with this up in Sholov Province. “They might prefer to just die.”

  After some discussion, they decided to follow this route. “Make your decision after we cast the spell on you, Miklos, Tomas, and Josef. At least see how it could be for you,” Archmage Zdenka suggested. She’d just explained to the six the only thing that they could honestly do for the survivors. The morose men grumbled but allowed the Archmages to cast their Morph Others spells on them. All three men now appeared whole again, just as they had looked a week ago.

  However, Tomas spoke for them. “This is all well and good, but we’ve lost our wives, our children, and our homes, and Josef here, his business. We have nothing more to live for now. Nothing. We are not fighters. We just want to join our lost loved ones, please.”

  Still, Zoran didn’t want to kill them. “Why don’t you men take a few days to get used to everything? I can offer you employment with my staff here in Brn. You are all fit and can start life anew here in Brn.” He ought to have seen it in their eyes, but perhaps it was because he didn’t want to see it. Grumbling, the three agreed, and Zoran took them on a tour of the fortress grounds. He left them in the huge dining hall to eat their breakfast and returned to see how the women were fairing.

  Rickena was eighteen and cheered when her eyesight returned. She had been a good quilt maker prior to the attack and was extremely pleased with the “cure.” She didn’t have to be asked twice to stay here in Brn and make her quilts, especially when Zdenka offered to give her a fully supplied shop. “After this drag
on war is over, I’ll see that you get a fine shop. In the meantime, we’ve got temporary quarters below ground where you will be safe and can make quilts there. Many people will need them since it’s rather chilly down there.” She was pleased with the offer, safety was now extremely important to her.

  Meanwhile, Archmage Danika and Eliska had a long show and tell talk with the two girls. “See, these are our true forms, exactly like you, Viera. I know, Dona Lida, you haven’t got all your legs now, but you do have more arms than we do — that’s something.”

  “You think that we could really learn magic spells and change ourselves like you two do?” asked Dona Lida, eagerly.

  “Really?” added Viera.

  “If you study really hard and practice a whole lot, I think you both just might,” Archmage Danika replied. The girls giggled and promised to do so. When Zoran returned, he found that Danika had taken on Viera as her first magic student, while Eliska had just accepted Dona Lida as her first student. Both Archmages whisked their new students off to Zdenka’s tower to get them started.

  Zdenka could not help herself. She eavesdropped in on the two as they began the girls’ training. “Now one thing that our teacher, Archmage Zdenka taught us is that the Morph spell can easily be undone by other magic. So she made us learn to do many things by ourselves. We will Morph you both back to your old bodies after your lessons are over each day. However, we insist that you try to do your studies as you are now, using your feet, Viera, and your short arms, Dona Lida. We’ll help you with the harder things, but if some evil mage undoes your morph spell and your real body returns to the way that they are, you have to be able to still function and recast your spells.”

  “I get it. We have to be independent. Okay, I’ll try,” Dona Lida replied. “This is going to be so much fun, Viera. We are going to become real mages!” Her childish enthusiasm had returned. Zdenka smiled and went about her own teaching duties.