by Karine Green
For a split second, she understood what Mack's beef was with all this brouhaha about Kings and Noble dragons. Still, it was very good for Zeke and his family's standing. It would put his children first in line for the King's new training program, in which potential riders were schooled and trained together alongside dragon pups.
Almasi was also showing an interesting military savvy that a house servant wouldn't have, or even be trained to have. The Great Losing had stolen their ability to simply exist and raise their pups. There was more to her family story than met the eye, and she couldn’t wait to get to know them better.
Dunia was the last of the single nobility. She would have to be careful who she allowed to court her. Perhaps she could use Arlen and Mack as a filter, like a set of older brothers. Greer the Fire Dragon seemed nice, and was very attractive. They might all share a deer with each other sometime.
Mack’s right, it’s time to move forward and start living.
She sighed as she realized she still had issues from being stuck in the other realm. She wasn't over being Demetria Dunia, despite her ups and downs, it had been good to be the basketball player. All she had to worry about was whether the bus driver remembered to wait for her. Here, she had monumental responsibilities, far beyond that of a twenty-year-old woman. She should be playing college ball, not coordinating battles and making snap decisions about how battle plans should be altered in the heat of the moment.
Her only worry should be which boy would take her to a sorority or fraternity party. She smirked at herself. That was a fantasy, she’d never been a party girl. And, while she loved basketball, she was mediocre. She was a student, a good one. She was painfully shy in romance.
Arlen and Ridder jogged up dragging her out of her private thoughts. "The Red Wizard's awake, I mean conscious. Wanna talk to him?"
She stretched up out of her guard-dog position. "Yes, let's go."
"What about Zeke?" Ridder asked, "Do you want me to guard him?"
"I think Misty's got him covered, Arlen-style."
"The King's rider?" Arlen asked, sniffing toward the tent before starting toward the area where the Red Wizard was being held at the center of the camp.
"Yes, I think, at this point, we are just waiting for the announcement of the Mate's Oath between them." Dunia fell in behind Arlen. She flushed Demi Dunia out of her mind, she didn't exist anymore, and the sooner she accepted that the better.
She stifled a gasp as she rounded the last tent and saw the Red Wizard. He was tied up like a hog on a spit, ready to be roasted. His arm-stump was the only part not tied up and hanging loose. His once fine robes stained with his own blood. Daphne walked in circles around him, giving him a tap on his stump with her wand. He groaned and cringed in pain.
Dunia whispered to Arlen: "Did Mack approve this torture?"
"The wizard fought with us and tried to cast a spell on the other dragons. I was close so I directed his wand to a safer location for the safety of the mission." He patted his stomach with his tail. "So, Daphne-Nancy didn't do it."
“Daphne–Nancy?” Dunia gave him a cockeyed look. "Arlen? Directed his wand to a safer location? Are you applying for the job of Minister of Word-Jacking?”
He just smiled, then looked at Daphne. "She is quite different than I thought she would be."
"You have a mate, who is far above your moral station, and two beautiful pups, who are actual dragons that need an example set for them. She is a human, magical...creature," she said frowning. "Come on, let's question him… without you snacking on him. On the wand, good luck pooping that out."
"No, she is my adopted mother. Really, is my reputation that bad," he said smiling and focusing his gaze on the Red Wizard. He winked at him and licked his chops. The Red Wizard's full attention focused on Arlen's fangs. "Hello, Red Hen. The General wants to meet you, so I brought her by for tea."
"Red Hen?" Dunia said, frowning. Arlen was far too skilled at Good Cop/Bad Cop.
"Yup, He can't wave his wand anymore, he was a righty. Now he just clucks like a chicken because he isn't strong enough to be a proper rooster, he is a hen -- Red Hen."
"Why don't you and Ridder go and check on The Dragon King, see if he wants to be here for this." She pointed with her tail straightened out to indicate which way Arlen should go.
Arlen snorted at the Red Wizard, drenching him in ice cold water. "The cold will help the swelling on your stump." He smiled a cocky half-grin, as the Red Wizard shivered, grimacing at the pain of the cold. He jogged down the street to find Mack.
She smiled at the Red Wizard, and walked up, bending her head down to meet his eye. Now that she was an adult, the striping on her face gave it a dark gold hue that perfectly highlighted her snout, eyes, her high, long cheekbones, and ran up into her horns.
He stared at her. "You are a beautiful dragon, Great Lady." His eyes traced the striping.
Dunia smiled. "Perhaps you would be willing to help a pretty girl out. According to my research, I can use the fossils of certain leaves to promote healing. If the fossils can be found in time." She had read that certain leaf fossils could be made into a powder and added to Earth Dragon saliva to make a salve to heal severe wounds. She made a note to hunt for some to keep on hand in case of emergencies. "Where is the arm?" she asked Daphne. "Is it too late to reattach?"
"Arlen ate it, wand and all," Daphne said in a whoopsy tone of voice as she shrugged.
"Well, in that case," Dunia said refocusing on the Red Wizard, "it won't fix your arm, but it will heal the stump and stop any infection. Perhaps stop the pain."
He offered the look of a defeated man. "It is too late, Great Lady. The Spiritual Villagers will try to execute me if King Lahay doesn't get me first. He will never forgive this failure. The last of his dragons have deserted him. They ran away; after all we did to care for them."
Dunia nodded, "You know, there are some lands in the other realm where you would be expected to commit ritual suicide for the level of failure here. You have laid the groundwork for the fall of your nation. May I suggest, cooperating with us may spare your life?"
He smirked. "I thought dragons were about preserving the spirituality of life."
"Preserving life, isn't the same thing as allowing oneself to be killed at the expense of allowing a killer to live." She circled him, allowing her fangs to hang over her lip. She leaned up and sniffed his hand, licking it. He winced, "Smells like it needs sauce or a good spice rub. I don't know how Arlen eats human meat. It has such a funny taste." She had never tasted it, she just added that for good measure.
"Please, Lady, just kill me. I won't tell you a thing. Daphne will tell you. I respect that you have defeated me, but I will not betray King Lahay."
"Really. Did you know your body is created of the Earth?" Dunia asked, smiling.
"Everyone knows that, but the body is mostly water, that lout Arlen already introduced me to that. He dehydrated and then rehydrated me. It was terrible."
Dunia smiled and winked at Daphne. "Can you tell me if Lahay is aware that the Brown Witch is really Daphne the Green Witch?"
Silence.
Daphne smiled. "Shall I?" She held her wand up.
"I'll get it." Dunia gently blew on his stump.
The Red Wizard shook, slowly at first. "What is this?" he gasped as the shaking came harder and faster.
"A long forgotten practice that I read about." Dunia smiled. "A bone-quake. It instantly heals Leukemia, but is very painful."
Daphne clapped. "How delightful. I thought that was just a myth about dragon magic."
He grunted and allowed his neck to flop back in pain as it slowly came to a stop.
"Let's try again. A simple yes, or no." She didn't have to ask again.
"No, he has no idea. With the way she lays down with him, I doubt he would believe it, even if she told him herself. I am not so sure she isn't Belinda posing as Daphne."
Dunia shook her head. "That is too bad."
"What, Great Lady, I told you," Th
e Red Wizard said with a very slight whimper that came and went, as he quickly regained his composure.
"I offered you a healing, you turned me down. I know that information offered under torture is no good. It is nearly a psychological fact that answers under duress, are answers designed to end the duress. You don't really expect me to take you seriously? And I hope, you don't seriously expect me to simply execute you. You have driven us to near extinction. The punishment I'll suggest to the King is to let you go."
"What?" Daphne said eyes bulging out.
"Yes, just let him go. I am sure the villagers would like a word with him."
Daphne smiled. "Clotlchie." The spit and binds were gone. The Red Wizard's breath was knocked out of his lungs as he splatted down on the ground. She waved her wand.
Mack came jogging up with Méi. "What do we have here?"
"They are torturing me," The Red Wizard wheezed. "They want to know if the King is aware of who Daphne is."
"The Mad King. I am the real Dragon King, as I am sure you know." He frowned. "Guards, take him to your tent, call a doctor. I will see him in two hours, no one else is to talk to him until then."
"Yes, Majesty," the two human guards said pulling the Red Wizard to his feet. He groaned loudly as they hauled him into their tent. He muttered that it wouldn't matter what happened because he would be dead soon.
Méi's eyes widened. "Jabaob! You are the Red Wizard! Stop!" She ran around in front of the guards and stared at him. "Your wife! How could you betray her?" She looked crazed. "You did this? Mack! Mack! He is the Himmler-character you were talking about." She pointed at him with her tail, and front paw.
The Red Wizard's eyes followed her striping as he recognized her. "Méi, I thought you were dead."
"I'll bet you did," she didn't hesitate before rearing on him to burn him to a crisp, but Daphne blocked her with a spell.
"We need to ask him some questions."
Méi shook her head. "Without Jabaob the Mad King is powerless. He turned on his own wife, my mother's rider. He will not betray his own cause by giving us information. He has already sold out those who loved him to get what he wants."
Daphne frowned. "He does as he pleases so the Mad King can play with the dragons. So, he really can tell us..."
Mack leaned into Méi "Please, let the guards take him to a more private place so we can interrogate him in a manner that isn't in front of the villagers."
Méi stepped out of the way. "I'll be walking with the guards."
Mack nodded and followed her.
Dunia scrambled to catch up to Mack.
~~~
They sat and watched the doctor tend to the Red Wizard.
Méi scowled at him while tears ran down her face and snout. "You had everything, a mate who loved you. You were nobility among humans, your family were riders to dragon nobility. Why? You sold your own mate out, my mother's rider. How? Why? What could Lahay offer that you did not already have?"
"I didn't want that. I wanted to work with the dragons, but as soon as my magic came in, I was barred from even carrying on a conversation with a dragon. I don't know how Daphne got away with it. They seemed to just come to her, like she was a Great Dragon Mother."
Mack put a wing over Méi, but she would not be comforted right now. "Daphne’s father was a dragon trainer. She grew up with it. She knew dragons like she knew her own family, she had to have."
Daphne walked in. "I did."
"Belinda...Daphne, why didn't you kill us both and just take over? You could have ended it a decade ago," The Red Wizard said, grunting as the doctor put a fresh dressing on his arm-stump.
"The Seculars were out in the villages. Spies were among the Spirituals. I needed to hide the dragons. I didn't know who I could trust, so I needed to wait for the rightful King to return." She sat on the opposite side of the bed from the doctor. She leaned over and caressed his face. "Méi is right, your wife, she loved you. How could you do that to her, betray that kind of unconditional love?"
"Lahay loves you. I suppose it would be the same thing you are doing to him."
She pinched his cheek, hard. "Lahay loves Belinda, not me."
He made a face. "And how long have you been Belinda? Because I assure you, he didn't always love her."
She stared at the ground. "Too long, long enough to escape with the Stone Dragons Lahay allowed you to condemn to death. I took them to Sea An'Tia. I am sorry," She made a sarcastic, pouting face with one side of her lip curled up. "But there is a very healthy, free Stone Dragon population there. Anything I did to Lahay was done willingly to save them."
The Red Wizard smiled. "You told him things to get what you wanted, as did I. I just want to train them, love them, and nurture them. They weren't supposed to be exterminated. I had to order their deaths, they refused to listen and would not obey. They had to be destroyed. Put down like the oversized wild dogs they had allowed themselves to become."
Méi leaned over him, almost knocking the doctor out of the way. "You continued to take pups from their parents, deny them the love of their family, and then get angry when they wanted their parents. You sick, lunatic. Dragons are not little dolls for you to play with."
Mack leaned in over Méi to look at him. "Why would you come to Blue Valley, knowing I was back?"
He sighed deeply and stared at the tent ceiling. "Lahay sent a decoy army, and no they did not know you were back. They only knew Arlen was back. I was to sneak in and take the Water-Stone Dragon pups while staging a harvest raid. We knew nothing until we reached Yellow Hollow and there were no soldiers. That's when I took the majority of our Stoney's, and moved north with them, to protect them. I only left the defiant ones to die in that dismaying display of total devastation you brought upon the civilians of this nation."
"How could you have known?" Mack asked, but the next person who spoke was Méi.
"Sarnia! Mack! Shway and Wren are with her, along with Parana and Apis! He was the backup attack...not the primary. The primary is a stealth mission to get the pups. My pups." Méi bolted out the door screaming, and roaring.
The Red Wizard slowly laughed. "I am only sorry I will not be there to guide them during their training with Fire magic. We really did not understand we would get the bonus hybrids."
Dunia and Mack followed the Queen.
"Sarnia!" Méi was screaming. "Sarnia! Guards! Find the Minister of Youth Education. She is in danger..." Her words were cut off as she entered their tent and found both the human and dragon guards dead.
"No!" Mack did not even try to hide his panic as he ran out of the tent. "Parana! Apis! Guards! The Prince and Princess have been kidnapped with the Water Minister's pups!"
They found Sarnia unconscious outside the fire ring, by the edge of the forest.
"Sarnia!" Mack shook her with both of his front paws. "Sarnia!"
She lay there motionless. Dunia sniffed her, then listened to her heart. "She has a heartbeat."
Arlen and Ridder flew up, landing near them. "The guards said you needed us."
Arlen focused on Sarnia immediately. "Sarnia! No! No!" He lay next to her, resting his head on her front leg. "Sarnia, baby, no. Where are the pups, Sarnia? Come back you can't leave me too." He shook her with all four paws, and his tail. Ridder was scrambling to get out of the saddle as Arlen rolled onto his side.
Daphne arrived. "It's a sleeping spell. She won't wake up without a counter curse. Wayne, let go." She produced her wand, as soon as Arlen moved. "Leventasayme."
Sarnia stirred, then jumped up on all four paws. "The pups. Lahay. It was the Mad King. I tried to stop him, but he...he...did...something. I think. I don't know." She burst into tears. "Arlen. The pups, go get them back." This time, Sarnia shook Arlen with all four paws.
"Sarnia, run back and tell everyone; we are going after them now. If someone could bring our riders, we would appreciate it." Mack took off, with Méi on his heels.
Arlen paused only long enough for Ridder to get back in the saddle.
> "Wait," Daphne said, jumping on Dunia's saddle. "Alaloyalme," She pointed her wand at Sarnia. "Do as King Makani says. Get the riders, and bring them. Use the spell I just gave you to find us."
"Excuse me," Dunia said. “That’s Zeke’s saddle.”
"I just put a spell on her to overcome anything the Mad King may have done to her. She will obey. As to my hitching a ride, be thankful. The Mad King really is a powerful wizard. You will need magical backup. Now Fly! Mack is an Air Dragon, he'll catch up to Lahay first; and be without backup because he can fly faster. Go, now!"
Dunia nodded. "Apparently illegal spells aren't that big of a deal for you either."
Mack knew it was tactically wrong, but nothing could stop him from going after the pups. He would have to hope that all four elements together would be enough. It also didn't escape his attention, that the Red Wizard accused Daphne of the reverse; she really was Belinda...Lahay's lover. He had to get the pups back, and he did not care the cost.
Less than ten minutes into the flight Mack saw something.
"See that?" Mack pointed with his tail.
Dunia said, "You can see things related to Air that we cannot."
"Something was hot, Méi?"
"Nothing, but if a freezing spell was used, Arlen would see it first, then you would see the movement of the air where the currents were still recovering from the heat dissipating so rapidly," Méi said.
Arlen squinted. "I don't see anything."
"Thermo-physics still work," Mack said, "Let's fly south a bit like we aren't aware, and then circle back around. Meanwhile, as we fly over, Dunia, see if you can see any terrain issues we need to know of."
"Yes, Your Grace, I can already see them, boulders have been overturned to make an earthen shelter. At the northeast side of what appears to be a small camp. There couldn't be more than two people in it."
They flew south for about five minutes, then circled wide to come back around to high ground behind the overturned boulders. This way the Mad King would think they’d flown over him. Mack looked off into the distance, he didn’t see any soldiers.