“You want me to tell you?”
He shrugged, but I could tell he did want to know.
Why not? It was hardly confidential information.
I repeated the story.
Lyall shook his head once I was finished.
“We take for granted how the Wildwoods protects us. You would never have been put in a room with a hitman.”
“I guess.”
“Mordon defended you, then, even knowing he may pay for it?”
“I don't think he cared. He saw what was happening and acted.”
Lyall's smile was smug and coldly approving. “Glad to know he follows the true rules of leadership.”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “The true rules of leadership?”
“Protect life at every chance. Display kindness. Give when you see someone is in need.”
Those rules sounded familiar somehow, but I couldn't place where I knew them or how. “Is it an honor creed?”
“You could call it such.”
“Are the true rules of leadership a drake thing? Do you know a lot about drakes?”
“Not in particular. I know of the rules because they are part of an ancient Commandment of the Veil. The commandments are intended to govern anyone non-lamb. Once the human population outweighed the magical community, and this was quite some centuries ago, they began to hunt their magical counterparts. In order to survive, they built a Veil. Some parts are tactile and observable—the use of portals, the concealment of magical communities, the use of illusions to mask anything that might accidentally be discovered—but other aspects are social defenses.
“That is why we have certain rules when out of the magical areas. Don't go shooting spells in public lamb spaces, don't provide evidence of our survival. The honor creed, as you call it, was instated to help us help ourselves. As we could easily face extinction, we must remember not to let our own prejudices tear us apart.”
That was an important observation. I said, “I think we've forgotten that. The divide between sorcerers and lambs is so clear that I think sorcerers have forgotten about normal people as much as normal people have forgotten magic. Which leaves us to fight amongst ourselves. And do things like discriminate against fire drakes.”
“Hmm.” Lyall took out his pipe, filled it, and began to smoke.
I doubted that I had changed his mind in any way about Mordon. “Where is Mordon, anyway?”
“I sent him up a bunny trail until we were finished speaking.”
My jaw dropped in astonishment. “What?”
“No need to worry, he's not far. The Wildwoods will keep him close enough.”
“Why?”
Lyall pointed the stem of his pipe at me. “I thought you wanted him near.”
“No, I mean, why did you keep him away?”
“I did not want his interruption.”
Annoyance pinked my cheeks. I couldn't keep the irritation out of my tone. “Well, then, have you got all your answers?”
“Why did the courts use Veridad? It is hardly any more accurate than the other spells and its side effects are by far the worst of the truth spells.”
I sighed, resigned to responding. “I was told it's part of the court experience. The whole process is meant to be a deterrent in itself.”
“Would be a pity to put a perfectly innocent person through that,” Lyall said. He tapped on his pipe. A bird stopped on the branch above him, trilled out a whistle, and left. He climbed to his feet. “Very well, then, let's go find your fire drake.”
I frowned. “You said he was near.”
“I did say, yes, but I am told that someone is looking for him and the Wildwoods so kindly chose to oblige their will over mine. Up we go.” He tossed on his pack and kicked dirt over the remains of the fire.
I hurried with my bedroll, tying it up and wearing the strap over my shoulder. “Who is looking for him?”
Lyall was moving quick, leaving a now non-smoking fire behind. “Someone with greater authority than me.”
A roar shook through the woods. Lyall froze, listening closely until he'd settled on a direction. He bolted into a jaunty jog.
I bustled after him. “Greater authority than you? Like the Captain of the Vanguard?”
“Yes.”
A branch swung at me in his wake. I stopped asking questions and just tried to keep up.
Chapter Seventeen
The next clearing bore a ring of defenders armed to the teeth with trinkets and weapons, a collection of prized blades and legendary guns. There were a few Hunters in their midst, but most of them were Vanguard. From my past conversations with my parents, I knew the fey battalion had found an intruder, and under the leadership of an earth drake, they were going to defeat or kill him.
Mordon braced himself in the center, his red scales raised in a hackle, releasing a musky warning scent from glands in his hide. I'd never thought of him as fine-boned, but he looked it compared to the ruddy green dragon facing him.
The green dragon had heavy ridges on his brow and down his back. His spikes grew thick and long, a telltale sign of advanced age and battle prowess. Scales lost their vibrancy past their prime in life; this beast still had a healthy sheen and rich tone. Mordon towered over him, however the green dragon had stock and stamina and a tail which terminated in a bony club.
Much as I had believed the stories told to my wondering ears, I was not prepared at all for the reality of the fey battalion. There were the weapons and the black sashes tied about their waists and the grim silence of an elven ancestor which showed through in the seriousness of the situation. But when I'd heard the tales, I'd always envisioned myself protected by the battalion, not facing them.
A soft wind made the aspens quake in the silence following the trumpeting challenges of the dragons. Bursts of the breeze teased the faces of the battalion before whirling around seed heads and whisking them in the space in between the two contestants. I wiped my eyes which had watered from my sprint and I searched for gaps in between the hunters standing ready to spring. Everything waited for a single word to break the peace.
I slipped my invisibility ring on my little finger and bolted through the ranks. The nearest woman wrenched her bow in my direction, saw nothing, and returned her aim back to Mordon. A sudden hammering of my heart rang out in my ears.
As quickly as I had passed through the front lines, I was between the dragons. The moon stared down, painting the ferns and trees in gray and silver shadows. I panted with my running. Both dragons swung their heads at me and their nostrils flared.
I withdrew from the ring hanging about my neck, in an instant becoming visible to everyone, surprising the battalion at a moment they were most alert. Arrows and spells cut through the air.
They say that a fey is at their strongest in their ancestral home. I had no way of knowing what that meant until the split-second when I felt the vibrations from the bowstring, the shout of sorcerers, and the penetration of projectiles plummeting straight towards me. Just after, I felt Mordon's wings unfurl, arcing to my defense. The earth dragon sucked at the air, his throat beginning the hum of a roar. I reached into the world around me and wrapped it in a bubble, enclosing the three of us.
Bursts of light struck the fey circle, sending veins of brilliance arching and zipping overhead. Arrows snapped and fell to the ground. Then red leathery wings blocked my vision and scooped me off my feet, ramming me against the hot scales of Mordon's belly. A roar rumbled through the startled cries of the battalion. The wall of red scales shoved me as Mordon lunged his neck in a quick jolt. I felt the force of his snapping teeth all the way down to his chest.
Our opponent spoke first, his voice so low that the very ground shook and groaned with effort.
“Fire drake! Take your feeble form and submit to our authority.”
That was insulting, to both of us. Mordon's muscles tensed beneath my hand; I silently pleaded for him to not rise to the bait, and wished we were back in the shop or even the dr
ake's castle where I could ask the venue to mute my voice…then I drew my magic to me into a tight wad to muffle my voice. “Tell them you do not have a feeble form, but you will shift into a less frightening creature if they desire it.”
I felt him tense again, then a claw closed about my waist and drew me beneath his chest. Mordon said in a soft rumble that was almost the same purr he spoke to the smallest children with, “I haven't a feeble form, but if I frighten you so, then I will become less intimidating.”
With that, he folded his wings and waited for a reply. The battalion on the outside of the circle had stopped. I watched them as they put another plan into action. There had to be a way to get around the fey circle I'd put in place, and they were sure to know it. By putting up a barrier, I'd bought us time, nothing more. We needed to resolve the conflict with the earth drake, and quickly.
“Remain as you are, then, if you fear whispers in the wind,” the other drake said, and I felt the words and the way they echoed from the very earth itself, the vibrations of his voice carrying in the ground before transferring to the air.
Mordon laughed, tossing his head back, flashing the soft scales beneath his cheeks, using the sight of them as a tease. A small curl of flame escaped his tongue, making his face radiate red light. “My mate masters the wind. I have nothing to fear from it.”
My cheeks burned at the confidence and the lie he had thrust upon me. A few seconds of silence came between us, then Mordon nudged me with his nose before he decided to change. Beneath my hand, Mordon's scales shifted from hot rock to warm leather to the silky black sorcerer's shirt which matched mine.
He stood a head and a half over me, eyes glinting in the lantern light as he flashed me a quick smile. Without pausing to sort out the shirt which had come half untucked from his belt, Mordon gave a graceful bow.
“Happy moonshine to you folks. I regret you gave me a bit of a startle, you will have to accept my apology for my aggressive response to your initial contact,” Mordon said in the deep and rich tones which had always brought a faint smile to my lips. “Might I have the privilege of knowing to whom I am addressing?”
The other drake had shifted as soon as he saw Mordon do it, but the stocky man before us nevertheless grasped the hilt of a sword. “I will provide no such honor until an account of the your presence is provided.”
Mordon said, “I accompany Feraline Swift on her summons.”
The man said, “You lie. It is impossible.”
Mordon's fingers dug into my shoulder. “Why is it impossible?”
“She's scint. A cheap informant could have told you that.”
I recognized the voice now, though the woods had been disguising it from me. I turned so the other man could see my face.
The man grunted. “A passable likeness, but a wasted effort.”
“Lyall said everyone in the Wildwoods knew about my recent adventures. Aren't I expected?” I asked.
The man before me bore 'a passable likeness' to my father, but was different, too. If Father had gone Paul Bunyan on me, this would be what my father would look like: powerful, shortish, and commanding. His beard was sandy brown, down to his chest and bushy. Violence was in his eyes, and for the first time since I was an errant adolescent, I felt a twinge of fear in facing him.
“No,” Father said.
He might as well have proclaimed me guilty, the way that one word rippled through the woods and froze my heart.
“You don't recognize me?” I asked, disbelieving his bluff. We'd gone on so many jobs together, been parted and separated, had practice with confirming identity. To this question, Father was supposed to respond with 'perhaps'.
He said, “Fera is scint. You are not.”
I wasn't expecting to feel hurt, nor was I expecting to find myself out of Mordon's arms and marching towards Father in a cloud of fury. All the things I could have said to convince him were clean out of my head, none of it mattered in the light of a new fact.
“You never thought I'd do it.”
“Fera,” Mordon warned, grabbed my wrist and held it hard. I broke his hold, shooting him a look so venomous that he held up his hands in surrender.
My father remained impassive, but the battalion outside was scrambling into position.
“You never thought I'd break the gryphon's curse, you thought it was impossible, so what, were you humoring me with all the witch doctors and shamans and hare-brained schemes? Did you think I was so weak and pathetic that I couldn't take the truth?”
I got no response, none, not a bat of an eye or a twitch of a muscle. Father just stood there, as if bored of me, not caring about all the trouble I'd gone through to get here. Lake Alarum, the husks, even the damned portal, all of it had led to this. Tears I refused to shed built up in my eyes.
“Great, fine,” I said, not believing any of this, hoping it was a test. Yet when I looked at my Father, I knew that he had never, ever believed that I'd get my magic back. Maybe he had at first, but not towards the end. Probably at about the time he was encouraging me to explore other options. I wondered what they'd said about me behind my back while they were all here together, the whole family unit: Father, Mother, brother, just me left on the outside.
Anger made me spit out, “Forget it.” I rounded on Mordon. “Snap up a portal, I'll hold the others off. I'm ready to go home.”
Mordon looked uncertain, blinking at me dumbly. “What?”
“You heard, get me out of here before I punch him or something.”
Mordon hesitated. I stared expectantly. He crossed his arms and stood still, mirroring my posture. “No.”
“No?”
“You are running from pain. I know that you think it's important to succeed, so, no. I won't make a portal, and I don't think you can make one and maintain the circle simultaneously, so you'll have to abide by my decision.”
I clenched my fist. He saw it and didn't appear concerned at the chance I might use it. The times we'd goofed around, he'd proven why he'd been victorious in wrestling matches and scuffles. I swallowed the urge to start a fistfight now.
“Fine.”
“Fine?” he asked, skeptical for a good reason.
I pulled the protective circle in tight, closing it so much that it nudged my father closer to us and sent the battalion racing for the new boundary. At Mordon's raised brow, I said simply, “It doesn't need to be so large anymore. No more dragon forms.”
“I'm right, Fera. You know I am.”
“I know you think you are,” I said.
“You'll have to listen to me.”
I scowled. He won this too easily. I returned my attention to my father.
“I brought the summons with me, judge it for yourself.” I fished the letter out of my pocket, very creased and stained with sweat and the blue dye from my jeans. I opened it up fold by fold. Father took it calmly but cautiously. I tried to read his expression. He gave away nothing.
He was still examining it when the protective circle faded into nothing and was replaced by a ring of battalion members awaiting orders. Father lifted a finger. One person came forward to take the letter, then returned to the rest of the battalion. They held position, one by one passing the letter around.
“It's all thirteen of us Hunters,” said a man who resembled Father. Uncle Leazar, my brother's namesake, looked a giant amongst feys. He was the heaviest of the party, with a square face and short hair. Uncle Don was the tallest and slimmest of the brothers, looking like a weightlifter whenever he didn't wear his rectangular black glasses. The letter dwarfed in his palm before he passed it off to the others, the letter making its way around the ring of anxious watchmen.
One of the women in the group said, “I didn't sign this.”
“But it is your signature,” Uncle Don said. “It's authentic.”
“It isn't forgery?” asked Uncle Leazar.
“Do you smell the ilderwiesse flowers from the Great Oak? It was sent by the Wildwoods herself,” someone said. “I saw it happen once b
efore, when I was a boy, and had heard of it happening once before that.”
“Why?”
“Calling her home,” Father said. “We could hardly do the honors without knowing of her situation.” He didn't sound happy, particularly when I offered no explanation. “The woods looks after her own even when they don't take care of themselves.”
I said, “If you have something in particular to ask me, ask me it in private. It's been rough going getting here, and I'm pretty upset Lyall didn't mention us to you.”
“Who?”
“Lyall Limber.” At their blank expressions, I described him. “About so high, kind of pointy ears, homemade clothes, likes his long-stemmed pipe, says he's a patrolman and Vanguard, goes around with a bag full of bird food.”
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