“For being the King, he seems to be rather grounded,” Strelzar said. “Until this nonsense,” he added with a dismissive wave in front of his face. “But, Birdie,” he added, looking over at her as they walked.
“Hm?” she asked, matching his gaze.
“Settling down would be a punishment for you,” he said.
Veria scoffed. “Is that why you kicked me out?”
“Ha!” Strelzar laughed, then covered his mouth as his laugh echoed against the eastern cliff wall they were nearing. “We wouldn't have done anything that resembled 'settling down', love.”
Veria laughed softly and nodded her head, and they walked in silence for the last stretch. They finally reached the tunnel pass of the eastern cliffs, and Strelzar pushed his hood off his head and put his back against the wall once inside, sliding down it until he was sitting on the red dirt floor. Veria wanted off her feet desperately, and joined him on the ground.
“I would feel much better about all this if we had some sort of distraction,” Strelzar grumbled. “Something to keep any potential eyes away from us.”
Veria dropped her head back, sending her hood slipping off, and closed her eyes for a moment, but she felt like her mind was jumbled mess of nerves and plans.
Strelzar grabbed her forearm suddenly and squeezed it urgently.
“The cavern,” he said, his eyes wild.
“Yes, we are in a cavern,” Veria nodded.
“No, my cavern. The duel. Do you remember our last duel?!” he pressed, excitedly, shaking and squeezing her arm with almost every word.
“Yes, it wasn't that long ago, but—”
“How did you win?”
“You said I won because of—” Veria cut off as the realization hit her. “The dragon...”
“The dragon,” he repeated. “Do you think we can—”
She nodded. “There will be plenty of stone in the siege weapons to morph into two dragons.”
“We each do one—”
“And burn it to the ground.”
“No one will be looking for us,” Strelzar sighed with excitement and relief.
“Everyone will be watching the dragons,” Veria said, matching his excitement.
“And then they'll all die,” Strelzar added.
Veria groaned. “You know you make everything morbid, right?”
“Yes, I'm fully aware of that,” Strelzar said. “I am sure it's a side effect of being two-hundred and twenty seven years old,” he rasped.
“Oh, you had a birthday?” Veria teased.
Strelzar rolled his eyes at her and let go of her arm. He pulled a pocket watch from inside his cloak and checked the time.
“Midnight,” he said. “It's still a half hour on foot to the encampment. And we will have to go slowly to watch for and deal with the scouts.”
“When do you want to leave?” Veria asked.
“I don't,” Strelzar answered. “I mean, this may shock you, but I have never killed two hundred people in one night before,” he added with a sardonic laugh.
Veria dropped her head and stared at the red dirt of the tunnel floor. “I know,” she sighed. “But these people—”
“We don't know anything about these people,” he interrupted. “Where they came from, where they're going, what their plans are or why. We know what we've been told. And to them, we are the villains. We may be heroes in our story, but to them...”
“What other choice do we have?” Veria asked.
“We have a lot of choices,” Strelzar said, “but they are all quite terrible. Much worse and more dangerous than just going through with this, unfortunately.”
Veria placed a hand on his shoulder. “I'm sorry I pulled you into this,” she whispered.
He turned his entire body toward her and put his hand on her face, turning it toward him. They locked eyes and he dropped his forehead into hers.
“Don't,” he said. “Don't ever apologize to me. I came because I wanted to.”
Veria swallowed hard. “Thank you. I could never have done—I can't do any of this without—”
He pressed his thumb into her lips to quiet her. “I know,” he whispered. “We should go.”
She nodded, moving both of their heads in unison. He lowered his stony lips to hers and gave her one brief, polite kiss before pulling away and standing up. He pulled two vials of dragonskin from the inside pocket of his cloak and handed her one. They drank in unison, pulled their hoods back over their heads, and continued through the tunnel toward the exit, and the border.
The scouts were sparse as they approached the encampment, and easy enough to handle. Many of them carried pikes, flares, and some sort of horn to alert the camp below of intruders if the flare didn't work or wasn't the fastest option. Strelzar ripped their pikes from their hands and Veria pulled the horns from their belts before they could react. Strelzar winced as he sent their pikes back at them, lodging their tips into the flesh of their backs when they turned to run.
Once the scouts had been dealt with, they proceeded toward the camp, which they could see easily once they reached the crest of the hill that it sat behind. They were far enough away from it that no one in the camp could see them, shrouded in their black cloaks in the night, but from their vantage point, they could see the entire thing—a scattering of linen tents and blossoming orange fires littered between them, and the monstrous siege weapons right at the base of the hill below them.
“Can you reach it?” Strelzar whispered.
Veria felt for the energy, and nodded when she found she could connect. They were just close enough. “You?”
He nodded as well. “We will be stronger if we hold hands,” he said, holding his out to his side for her to take, but keeping his eyes on the camp below. She grabbed it and squeezed it reassuringly, even though she knew she had to be just as nervous as he was, if not more.
“Ready?” he asked.
“As I will ever be,” Veria whispered.
They squeezed hands tightly and started to work in unison, morphing the stones that sat in the chambers of the siege weapons into two giant dragon statues, heating, them cooling them, chipping them, smoothing them, sculpting them until they were each at least fifteen feet long, and very much resembled the ones from Plazic Peak.
They lifted them into the air, flying them above the camp and rippling their bodies through the darkness. A patrolling footman yelled out, “Attack!” and chaos ensued. Men tumbled out of their tents, whistles and horns sounded, weapons clattered, but everyone eventually fell silent once they saw their attackers—stone dragons flying through the air above them.
Strelzar and Veria pulled the Fire energy from the dozens of campfires available, moving it into the mouths of their dragons as they flew through the midnight sky. And then they attacked, sending the fire in razing streams from the dragons' jaws. Within a minute, half the camp was ablaze. Men started running from the site in panic. Strelzar's dragon swooped around the perimeter of the camp, targeting the would be runaways with shots of flame. They screamed in pain and terror as they each caught fire, falling to the ground when they couldn't run anymore. Veria's stomach lurched and she clenched her jaw at the sound and sight.
She kept her dragon circling above the camp, pulling another round of fire from below, spraying walls of flame across the tops of all the tents until shouts and screams filled the night air and every tent was completely ablaze.
She placed her dragon on the ground on its four legs in the center of the camp facing the siege weapons frame, and with a final drain of her energy, made her dragon light every single one of them on fire. They took to flame easily, as they were constructed of wood, and rather dry in the arid climate.
They watched for many moments in silence to see if anyone had survived, and saw a singular scout from the far east side of the camp trot up on a horse, then turn hastily and dash away.
“Strelzar,” Veria whispered.
“Let him go,” he replied. “Somebody has to tell the world about th
is.”
Veria frowned, not knowing why anyone had to hear about it. He settled his dragon next to hers, and they both left their stone creatures there, in the middle of the camp of flames.
“Leave them,” he said, letting go of her hand.
“Why?” she asked.
”Fear,” he answered, and turned to leave the site, and she followed with one last glimpse behind her at the camp of flames, the dragons perched in the middle of the destruction. “It's a warning.”
-X -
The trip back to Londess was miserable, as the frigid winds that had been at their backs when they were headed east were blowing directly in their faces for the entire trek back through the mountainous, hostile terrain of Govaland. They kept their heads down most of the day, not just to keep the icy gusts from their faces, and they didn't talk much at all. They were solemn, they were filled with guilt, and they were exhausted.
When they finally arrived back at the Castle of Londess, the King insisted on a 'welcome back dinner', which Veria wanted nothing to do with but knew she had no choice. She crawled in her bed and buried herself in the thick velvet quilt, noting how pleasant, yet odd it was to be sleeping in a bed and not on the ground as she had for the past month.
Month...she thought with a sigh. She had been living at the castle for almost three months before she went on the mission to Govaland, which had added another month to her time away from home. Her daughter. Her daughter would be one year old in less than a month. And she hadn't seen in her almost four...
She sniffled as tears threatened to spring from her tired, weary eyes. She had been telling herself it was for the best. Irea loved Grandma Tani, and Grandma Tani was raising her well. And Veria had a purpose. And when she first came to the castle, and agreed to head the Elemental Guard, that's what she felt like she had.
Now she didn't know. What part of this was her purpose? she pondered, a lump forming in her throat as she held back a sob. The part where she killed two hundred people by burning them alive in the middle of the night like a coward? Like a lunatic? Like a murderer? She shuddered and pulled the quilt tighter around her face and tried to think of the hundreds and hundreds of people she saved with her actions. The people of Londess...everyone she had come to meet and know at the castle, a staff of a hundred, would have all been killed if that unit and its siege weapons had been allowed to reach the castle.
And in order to reach the castle, it would have likely destroyed all the watchtowers, at least a dozen, manned by a dozen guards each, and many of the estates along its route—Haleshore, Pasrect...Guyler.
The door to her bedroom flew open and she jumped, even though she knew exactly who it was.
“I can't sleep,” Strelzar complained.
“You've only been trying for ten minutes,” Veria groaned.
“It's because I've been laying on the ground for a month,” he grumbled. “Next to you.”
“Do you want to lay on the ground or do you want to lay next to me?” Veria sighed.
“Well, I'd much prefer if the latter is the solution, if I'm being honest,” he answered.
Veria patted the empty side of the large bed and Strelzar flung himself down next to her on top of the quilt.
“Now go to sleep,” she said.
“Yes, Commander,” he saluted her teasingly, then laid his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes.
He was asleep within minutes, and Veria quickly drifted off to the sound of his steady breathing.
They slept for the entire day, awaking to the sound of a knock on the door. Veria jumped out of bed when she realized it was dark outside.
“The dinner!” she ejected.
“I don't want to do this,” Strelzar grumbled from the bed, his eyes still closed, curled in a ball on his side. “I don't want to see people.”
Veria opened the door and saw exactly what she expected, the guard who usually patrolled the barracks corridor in the evenings.
“His Majesty, King Browan, inquires as to Commander Laurelgate and Lieutenant Plazic's whereabouts, as they have been requested in the dining hall.”
“Yes,” Veria smiled as pleasantly as she could manage. “We, I—apologies for the tardiness. Catching up on sleep. We will be right down. Thank you.”
She closed the door and rushed to her vanity, smoothing her hair, which had been tied up in the same loose braid and unwashed for a month.
“Oh, yes, much better,” Strelzar drawled sarcastically.
“Be quiet,” she ordered, looking over at him to see that he had sat up in the bed and was retying his boots.
“Alright,” he said with forced enthusiasm, followed by a yawn, “let's get this over with.”
They made their way to the dining room, where the rest of the Elementals sat waiting at the table, a spread of delicious-looking food sitting in front of them.
Browan jumped out of his seat as soon as they entered the room and his face lit up as he caught Veria's eyes.
“Commander!” he greeted, rushing to greet her and pull out her chair. “Lieutenant. So wonderful to have you back.”
“Yes, it has been rather quiet with you gone,” Virro said softly, throwing a teasing glance at Strelzar. Everyone at the table chuckled.
“You should have started without us,” Veria said. “Honestly, I hate thinking that you waited.”
“Oh, the food hasn't been out too terribly long, and we did start in on the meade,” Browan said, taking her in with a wide, warm smile. “Special ordered from that brewery in Dranspor,” he turned and raised a glass to Strelzar.
“It's the least you could do...” Strelzar muttered disdainfully.
“Let's eat!” Browan said happily to the table, and they all quickly obliged.
Everyone ate in relative quiet for most of the meal, Veria and Strelzar shoveling food in like they had just spent the last month starving. Finally, Turqa tried his hand at starting some conversation once he had finished his plate.
“Do you think much will come of the diplomatic meeting tomorrow, Your Majesty?” he asked the King.
“I think it is a formality,” Browan answered. “Tensions always run high after these sorts of things happen.”
Veria and Strelzar exchanged a brief glance in between bites of food.
“You don't think other kingdoms will try to blame this on your removal of the hard elemental ban?” Sureven asked, cocking his head.
“There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the rogues that attacked the Separatists on the Govaland border are from Londess,” Browan said plainly, no hint of knowledge at all, and Veria waited for the lie to crackle in her ears, but it never did. He had chosen his words carefully, she thought, realizing that he had spoken the truth. There was no evidence. “In fact, there is no evidence about them at all. And hard elementals have been continually used by assassins regardless of any laws or bans. It's not like assassination is legal, either,” he added with a laugh, and a few at the table chuckled as well.
“Where do you think the Separatists were headed?” asked Aslay.
“Here, or perhaps the Govaland capitol, I can only imagine, though in the winter, an attack on Varfelg would be rather ill-advised,” Browan answered. “In the recent trade negotiations, Govaland closed their trade route to Tal'lea in response to aggression from the Separatists, and I supported that decision, also placing sanctions on certain Tal'lean trades until they can handle their issues. The Separatists already thought the government in Tal'lea was being spineless when it came to negotiations and relations with Govaland and Londess. I am sure the added trade sanctions didn't help the Separatists feelings on that.”
“Why doesn't the Tal'lean government do something about these Separatists?” Pascha asked with concern.
Browan shrugged. “I'm assuming that is what the diplomatic council plans to report on tomorrow. So, if anything comes of the meeting, hopefully we will get some insight on that. Willis and Andon Villicrey have been in Tal'lea for the past three months, so I sincerely
hope they have some useful information. You will all attend?” Browan asked, and everyone nodded except Veria and Strelzar, who continued to fork food in their mouths while occasionally locking eyes with each other in nervous looks. “I think it would be wonderful if we had a show of solidarity that elementals are not the problem. Don't you, Commander?”
Veria coughed on a bite of salad when he addressed her directly. She nodded as she drained her glass of meade to wash it down. “Of course,” she said finally.
“Commander, Lieutenant, did you hear any of this while on your trip?” Virro asked, and with the way he looked at Strelzar, Veria was almost certain he had figured it out.
“Yes,” Strelzar said. The lie was warm in Veria's ears. “Taverns in the South were buzzing with it. You know, sailors get all the best gossip. Dragons, they said?” he asked cocking his head.
“The Twin Dragons,” Virro said.
“That's what everyone is calling them,” Aslay added.
Strelzar caught Veria's eye, but his nervousness and apprehension was gone. His eyes twinkled with delight and he smirked at her.
“I see,” he said. “Well, we didn't hear too many of the details of it. Most everyone we heard talking about it was drunker than a wasp in a wine cask.”
“That's the South for you!” Sureven chuckled and raised his glass of meade before throwing his head back and chugging it down.
“Well, since we will all be at the meeting tomorrow, let's try to turn in early,” Browan suggested once they all had finished eating. “Commander, Lieutenant, please meet me in my library to discuss your new recruits?”
They nodded in unison.
Browan stood and everyone followed suit. The others headed in a group down the hallway that led to the barracks, while Veria and Strelzar followed Browan to his library. As soon as they were inside, he shut the door behind them, then rounded on them.
“I guess I should have been more clear,” he said slowly. “By 'do what you like with it', I didn't mean turn it into a spectacle!”
The Twin Dragons: Book III in the Elementals Series Page 9