“I hope that attitude doesn’t get you into more trouble than you already have,” Brock said.
“Don’t worry, my friend, I have no intention of letting sentiment keep me from killing our enemies if it must be done, but I will do it only if it must be done. If they offer to surrender, I will accept.”
Brock nodded along with everyone else gathered around the fire.
“Good, everything is settled,” Delno said. Marlo and Saadia have hunted for Carra to replenish her since she used so much energy when her wounds were healed, and she has eaten. We will all be ready to go tomorrow morning.”
“I still don’t understand why a simple healing requires her to have food,” Lawrence observed, “and why she couldn’t hunt for herself.” He was a bit resentful of having had to be Jhren’s errand boy, and he resented any privilege that Jhren seemed to get now, and by extension he passed that resentment on to Carra.
Delno sighed. Could the man really be that thick? “Lawrence, if you injure yourself, your body heals. That requires a small amount of energy constantly to rebuild the tissues until the wound is healed completely. You don’t notice because you eat and drink and breathe anyway so the little bit of energy your body puts into the rebuilding process isn’t noticed over a period of days or weeks. However, healing the body magically is simply a process of speeding up and augmenting what is occurring naturally. Since that happens in moments, it uses that energy all at once and you need to eat to replenish yourself. As for why she didn’t hunt for herself, Marlo is very adept at not being spotted, and with Will on her neck, Saadia is invisible. They hunted for Carra to avoid detection by our enemies.” Delno paused but then, after thinking a moment, he added, “If you don’t get over this resentment you have for Jhren and Carra, I will send you back to Llorn. I can’t have my Riders getting caught up in personal disputes that could endanger the rest of us. Is that clear?”
Lawrence looked at the ground and blushed. He was embarrassed at being chastised in front of everyone, but he simply nodded and said nothing.
“Good,” Delno said, “Now, I suggest that we let the dragons maintain a watchful sleep while we all get some rest. Jhren, if you would put up a ward to warn us of incoming danger, that would help us rest more peacefully.”
Jhren nodded and set to work while everyone else settled down to sleep.
Chapter 38
Will circled the remains of the two dragons again. This time, he was low enough to be sure that the bodies of their riders were with them. It was obvious that one of the dragons had died nearly instantly, and her Rider had perished at the same time. The pair was burned so thoroughly that he had no doubt that they had borne the brunt of Carra’s flame. The others appeared to have moved enough to make it obvious that they had lived for a while after the battle had ended. The Rider, burned over about half his body, had been removed from his saddle and laid out next to his Bond-mate, though Will doubted he had been able to manage the feat of unsaddling himself in that condition. There was no sign of the third Rider at the camp site. Carra’s sister had fallen several hundred feet away, and her body was completely undisturbed. Will had Saadia relay his findings to Brock and Nassari.
“Leera says that we should land, and they will join us here. Brock wishes to examine the camp himself,” Saadia relayed.
“Very well, Saadia; make sure that we keep a watch on the sky. That third Rider may come back.”
They landed, and shortly Brock, Nassari, Nadia, and Raymond appeared in the air overhead. Brock had all four of them circle a wide pattern to make sure they were alone. Will began looking through the remnants of the camp. There were three tents and some gear, but it was all burnt. The area of char was impressive. Will began to get a sense of the power contained in a dragon’s breath.
He shook himself to break through the awe he felt at the devastation and then began to sift through the ashes. At first, it was a fruitless, smelly job. But just as the others landed, he found a small leather pouch deep inside the remains of a saddle bag that had been somewhat protected by the gear piled on top of it. He opened the pouch and found two pages of written instructions addressed to King Torrance of Bourne. As Brock approached, he held up his prize for the older Rider to see.
Brock took the pages and read them. “If this is all, we have to get back in the air. Delno will want to see these.”
They quickly searched the ruined gear one more time and then mounted. Brock had Leera set as nearly a straight line toward Geneva as was possible. They flew hard while keeping watch for enemy dragons.
“Marlo says that there are many un-bonded dragons about, Love,” Geneva said. “We are near the men you sent and the dragons are watching over them. I can sense Sheila if I push to my limits. She can feel me reaching out and has acknowledged. She has a report for you, but doesn’t want to get too near the men. She will meet you near the camp, but not near enough to risk bonding with anyone.”
“Very well, Dear Heart, have the others land near the camp, and Rita can have the Commander find his leather worker for me while I meet with Sheila.” After thinking about it for a moment, he added, “Have Jhren stay with me for now: the fewer people who see him initially the better. If Brock and his group arrive as quickly as you believe they will, then having ten bonded dragons and their Riders might keep Jhren from being seen and possibly recognized if the camp is being watched.”
“As you wish, Dear One, but it is only mid-afternoon. Because of their mission, Brock’s group will be at least three hours behind us. You and Jhren may be kept out of camp for a long time waiting for them.”
“That can’t be helped, Love. The Roracks and most of Warrick’s Riders may not know of Jhren and his abilities, but the significance of his inclusion in our forces won’t be lost on Warrick himself. I would like to keep the wizard a secret as long as we can to cut down on the possibility of more visits from those damned cat-men.”
“I understand, Love, I don’t disagree in theory, but I know that you have been flying for several hours with nothing between your flesh and my scales but a few thin layers of cloth. You must be sore and tired. I was only thinking of you.”
“My comfort and rest can wait for a couple of hours, but I appreciate your concern. Thank you, Geneva.”
Delno and Jhren went in search of Sheila. They found her about a mile from the soldiers’ camp.
“Greetings, Delno Okonan. I am glad you have come. I have news of our enemies. At least, I have news of the Roracks. I have seen no dragons or Riders yet,” Sheila, as blunt as ever, said.
“Any news is more than I knew before, Sheila,” Delno replied. “I thank you for the effort. Tell me what you have discovered.”
“A group of nearly fifteen hundred Roracks are waiting for your soldiers less than three leagues from here. These Roracks are indeed different than those I have dealt with in the past. They are organized, and they are patient. Those I have seen before had no patience for such an ambush when gathered in large groups. In fact, they had no tolerance for each other when gathered in groups of more than fifty or so, and were likely to turn on their fellows. They would have attacked by now, but these are content to sit and wait for our troops to walk into their trap.”
“Then we will oblige them, but not the way they think,” Delno responded. “Their controller believes he has caught a force of soldiers unawares. But the Roracks, even though they are organized, are still not very intelligent. They have no idea that they will be facing three dozen or more dragons in the air while being cut down by over half a thousand seasoned veterans on the ground.”
“Good,” Sheila replied. “I don’t wish to become reckless, but I am anxious to begin collecting on the debt that is owed by these beast-men.”
“We need to wait a little longer, though,” Delno said, “the rest of my group hasn’t arrived, and I need to re-outfit myself and Geneva. Also, while the dragons see better at night than most men see in daylight, and the Riders’ night vision is magically enhanced through their bonds wi
th their Partners, the men we fight with have no such advantage. If we move at night, they will be hampered in their efforts to assist us.”
“Delno,” Jhren spoke up, “it’s me you want to hide here. Why don’t you go and see to that new saddle while I stay here and see what I need to do to coordinate my magic with these Ladies’ fighting skills?”
“I am sorry to you both. I should have introduced you. Sheila, this is Jhren, and his Bond-mate, Carra.” Then he turned to Jhren and Carra and said, “This is Sheila; for all intents and purposes the leader of the un-bonded dragons who fight with us.”
“I know Carra,” Sheila responded. “We have spoken many times in the Dream State over the years. It is good to see that she has finally found a way to end her loneliness.”
Delno looked at Jhren and said, “I don’t want to just leave you out here like an errant child.”
“You aren’t leaving me, youngster; I’m sending you off to do the work you need to do,” Jhren replied. “I will be fine. Carra and I will hide among the dragons here and find out the best way to help them when we fight. When the others show up, we’ll sneak in unnoticed. Now go; you’re useless this late in the day, anyway.”
Jhren said the last part with a smile, and Delno saluted both the wizard and Sheila, and then he and Geneva left to join the others already in camp.
Chapter 39
Delno read the letter to the King of Bourne again. He had read it at least five times since Brock had given it to him earlier that evening, but he was nervous about Will’s mission, and it gave him something to do.
Warrick promised Torrance that as soon as he had finished his business in Horne, he would come in full strength to settle matters in the north. Of course, Torrance would most likely miss the point that Warrick had no intention of sharing power with any non-Rider and would, therefore, relegate the present king to the position of something akin to court jester. The letter further stated that Torrance had nothing to worry about because the Riders who were causing him trouble would all be leaving to fight in Horne soon, and his way to Larimar would again be open once they had gone. Warrick admonished Torrance not to fail in his mission to take Larimar because it was a vital trade center. He made vague threats of what would happen if he had to handle the situation himself when he finished in the south. He closed the letter by saying that soon the House of Bourne would become the ruling house of all of the lands of men and that those who helped him would be rewarded generously while those who opposed him would be crushed without mercy.
Delno put the message away and said, “I think I will keep this safe for now. It is interesting, but really doesn’t bear on our doings any more. Warrick is posturing to his underlings. He will soon find that he is not facing the small force he had planned on us bringing. I would actually have preferred that this letter had gotten to Torrance. It would be interesting to see how he reacts to the fact that the Dragon Rider kin he places so much faith in has made such grave errors in judgment: though I am glad that the three Riders carrying the message didn’t get through unscathed. Adamus might be hard pressed to handle three experienced Riders with only new recruits as backup. If the one Rider continued on, he is alone now and won’t be so eager to join in battle again.”
“Since he felt the message was destroyed, he most likely returned to his master to get new orders,” Brock observed. “We may be facing him down here, and he will have reported that he and his fellows were attacked by un-bonded dragons. Even though Carra wasn’t with us at the time, and it was simply happenstance that put her and her sister in proximity with Warrick’s troops, it may still have inadvertently tipped our hand.”
“I’m not as worried about that as I had been. Our forces have been watched and expected, though they don’t expect all of our firepower, yet. The time of our secrecy is very close to an end, my friend. By the time we have finished with the battle that is coming, Warrick will have an idea of what he is facing, and we will be hiding no longer.”
“Then you intend to meet these beast-men head on?” Lawrence asked.
“What would have us do, Lawrence?” Delno asked. “We have to make our way deeper into Horne and draw out our real enemy. These beast-men are just pawns he is throwing in our path to slow us down and thin our numbers. By defeating them in large groups like this, we leave Warrick no choice but to face us or have us hunt him down like an animal. He is too proud to allow the latter, so he will choose the former.”
“Saadia approaches, Love. She and Will have returned from their scouting trip.”
Apparently Brock had received the same message from Leera, as he was looking to the sky to spot Will. Will didn’t wait until he was on the ground to stop cloaking himself. That way any lone spies who might be about would not see the trick: he un-cloaked while he was still so high in the air that none but a very alert dragon might have noticed. He glided in for a landing and dismounted.
He saluted Delno and the other leaders as he walked to the fire. “The Roracks that the un-bonded dragons saw are still there. I found it odd that they were waiting in ambush so openly and on the low ground. It looked as if they wanted us to spot them and attack from the high ground. I figured that even the beast men couldn’t be that stupid, so I began looking more carefully. When I examined the area magically, I found that someone had glamoured it, and I believe that is why the dragons haven’t seen the Roracks body heat. There are about fifteen hundred of them waiting in that obvious ambush, but Saadia and I were able to penetrate the glamour and discovered that there are nearly two thousand of them hiding in those black trees on the slope just beyond. They are hard to spot because they are managing to hide their heat signature from the dragons, while their skin is roughly the same texture and color of the trees. They blend in quite well, and we almost missed them, too.”
“No Rorack is capable of doing a spell like that,” Jhren said. “Roracks are resistant to magic, but not magically active creatures. That’s why the idiots who created them didn’t use them. They are hard to control because they resist any spells to compel their behavior, and, unlike dragons, they don’t do a damn thing to add to the magic user’s power. Warrick must be expending a tremendous amount of energy into that compelling stone to control such a large group of them at once. Especially if he isn’t close at hand and is doing so over a greater distance. Then add to that the glamour to prevent the dragons from seeing the body heat, if he is the one doing that, and he must be near his limit.”
“Is it possible that other Riders could be forming the glamour?” Delno asked.
“It’s possible,” Jhren answered. “It’s not really high level magic. A glamour like that is a simple illusion. It’s the scale of the thing that is difficult. The person maintaining it has to be covering an area the size of a small city to cover that many beast men and keep them hidden from so many dragons. Remember, the dragons are naturally resistant to falling for such tricks.”
“That’s true,” Will interjected. “Once I had used enough magic to penetrate a small area, Saadia just began to see all of the beast-men hidden as if the glamour had fallen away. However, when I checked the area again magically, I could see that it was still in place. I had feared that I had disrupted it and alerted our enemies, but that wasn’t so.”
“That’s pretty typical of glamour magic,” Jhren said. “Once you see it for what it is, it tends to become completely transparent. You know, boy, you should study with me some. You strike me as a much more attentive student than your brother. You say you learned all of this in a couple of weeks reading books in your uncle’s library?”
Delno cleared his throat loudly. “Will’s magical training, as well as mine, can be discussed at some other point in time,” he said, and couldn’t keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Now—we were discussing the beast-men and the magic they are using before I lost control of this meeting.”
“Could one young but somewhat experienced Rider cast such a glamour, Jhren?” Brock asked.
Jhren considered the qu
estion so long that everyone began to wonder if he would answer at all. Finally he said, “I don’t think so. I could do it, but I’ve got a lot more experience than some young Rider who’s had only a few years of practice. Glamours are funny things and take some concentration and practice. The bigger it is, the more it takes. If it’s Riders under Warrick’s command, then I’ll bet there are three or four of them working together on this.”
“Well, we need more reconnaissance,” Delno said. Then, as Will began tying his coat shut for flight, he added, “You’re staying, Brother. Nat and I are going.”
Everyone looked at him, and Brock said, “Suppose you are seen?”
“We won’t be attacked. Our enemies want their false ambush to be seen and scouted; otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered putting it there. We don’t care if we are seen because the enemy expects us to do just what we are doing. What they don’t expect is that Marlo will use her senses to detect any bonded dragons hiding in the area.”
“I don’t like it,” Brock said. “Suppose it’s a trap to lure you out into the open so that they can take out our commander?”
“Then they will find that they have more to deal with than they expected,” he replied. “Besides, as commander I have to know the lay of the land to see how best to use our forces, and this will give me a chance to try that new light-weight saddle that was made for me this afternoon.”
Without another word he turned and strode toward Geneva with Nat following in his wake.
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