by GARY DARBY
She paces several steps, obviously angry and stops near us. She turns and explains in a hard voice, “We have specially designed catapults that can fire several bolts at once.
“No dragon can withstand their strike. They’re always kept at the main armory in the city center so that they can move to any point on the city’s perimeter quickly.”
“Let me guess,” Phigby says dryly, “the thirteenth district is the furthermost point from the mountains leading to South Pass?”
“Yes,” growls Desma.
“Moreover,” Phigby says, “I take it that while powerful, the catapults are slow.”
“Very,” Desma answers in the same low growl. “Even with Elepho Oxen pulling, it would be close to dawn before they arrived at the northern districts.”
“It would seem that your mother has thought of everything,” Phigby observes.
“Everything to open up the city to a Wilder attack,” Amil snarls.
Master Boren comes to stand in front of Desma. “Your Highness, we came to your land to seek a haven for ourselves and Golden Wind, but it would seem that our misfortune has followed us here. However, your enemy is our enemy.”
He turns and makes a sweeping gesture at our little company. “We are not warriors trained in the art of war, nevertheless, we would offer what help we can in your fight.”
Desma stares at him and a questioning expression crosses her face. “Even if I allowed you to go free? You and all your dragons?” she pointedly asks.
Master Boren turns to us with his eyebrows raised and his own questioning expression. To his silent query, Cara says, “We were led here for a purpose, if we leave now, we’ll never know what that was.”
“Aye,” Amil chimes in, “and it’s not in me to turn aside when I would have the opportunity to plant my blade in a Wilder skull—or two.”
“I may not be of much help,” Helmar coughs, “but I agree with Cara.”
“I can’t leave,” Phigby quips with a twinkle in his eye. “I have to get my bag back as it has my laundry, and I’m wearing my last clean robe.”
I’m the last to speak, but I already know what my answer is. “I’m not leaving without Scamper,” I declare. “If it means I have to go through an entire Wilder army to get to him, then so be it.”
I glance up and notice that the golden has turned and is now sitting with her head and eyes centered on us. Her gaze seems to meet mine, and I murmur as if to myself, “But whatever we do, we need to stay together, for together we become stronger—apart, we grow weaker.”
“What did you say, Hooper?” Cara asks with an odd expression on her face.
“Just something I once heard somewhere,” I murmur.
Master Boren places a hand on my shoulder and gives an approving nod. “Nevertheless, well said, Hooper.”
Master Boren turns back to Desma. “There you have it, princess, it would appear that our small company would stay together and join your cause.”
Desma turns to Mintis. “Send half your warriors to General Katus, take the other half and bring up the catapults as fast as you can.”
Mintis snaps a salute, gives out several orders and within moments, the Amazos have split into two companies and dash in opposite directions, leaving us with Princess Desma.
“Princess,” Phigby notes, “your leg wound is bleeding, let me help you with such that I have.”
Desma waves him off. “The tending to wounds must come later.”
She draws in a deep breath. “I need your help in other ways and for some reason, my heart and mind say that only you can provide the help I need.”
We respectfully remain silent and listen. Desma’s mouth works as if she is trying to speak but cannot find the words. Then she mutters low, “My mother has gone mad.”
The Golian princess hesitates as if unwilling to share more, but then speaks in a voice filled with distress, “When I returned today, the person I met with was not my . . . Mother, nor my queen.”
“What do you mean, princess?” Phigby asks.
“I cannot explain it,” Desma answers, her mouth struggling to shape the words. “But after I returned to the hall, I found my mother seemingly alone, but it was as if there was another presence there; a shadow form, speaking through and for her.
“It was her voice, her body, but it was not her.”
She straightens and speaks plainly. “A daughter knows her mother, and whoever spoke to me was not the Golian Domain queen.
“She ranted and raved about how there was a conspiracy against her, and the appearance of Alonya and Fotina proved that Escher’s House was still trying to kill her.
“She told me that in the morning, I was to take all of you, except the golden dragon to South Pass and hand you over to a Wilder leader I was to meet there.
“I couldn’t believe my ears. I refused. She screamed at me over and over that I was a feckless child, unworthy of being called her daughter.”
She drew in a breath, and I can see her lips quivering in the torchlight. “I didn’t know what to say, I just stood there until I could stand no more and left, with her shrill screaming seeming to follow me down the hallway to my room. I tried to sleep, but slumber would not come.
“Some time later, I heard movement in my room and then she was upon me.”
Desma draws in a breath that’s almost a sob. “She tried to kill me. My own mother tried to murder me with my own blade.”
Her voice is a groan. “I struggled against her.” She draws in a breath. “She fought with such strength, such force as if she drew power from somewhere else. I barely escaped with my life.”
I glance at Phigby, my eyes wide. Power from somewhere else and an evilness that would have mother turn on daughter to murder. To me, there’s only one place she could receive such influence.
Vay.
The memory of what I saw in the Grand Plaza comes full focus into my mind. It wasn’t an illusion, it wasn’t my imagination run wild.
Vay is here. Somehow, some way, she is controlling Queen Gru, and if she controls the queen, she has complete dominion over the Golian Domain.
Even to the point of holding the gates open and letting in the Wilders to ravage and destroy Golian, just as they did in the days of Malonda Kur, and we are caught between a mad queen on one side and a sheet of fire from Wilder dragons on the other.
Chapter 28
“Fotina,” Cara cries, “Alonya! if Gru tried to kill you—”
She leaves the frightening thought open, but before any of us can speak, Desma says, “They are most likely already dead.”
“And if they’re not,” Cara returns, “we have to stop her.”
“Can we get into Warrior Hall?” Amil questions.
“Before, with me leading you in,” Desma answers, “yes, but now? I have no doubt that my mother’s personal guard has orders to slay anyone, including me, who approaches the building.”
No one speaks, each pondering our dilemma. I hesitantly say, “Wouldn’t the queen’s guard be most likely looking for anyone approaching Warrior’s Hall to do so on the ground?”
I shrug. “What if we skyed there?”
In the torchlight, everyone turns and peers at me, but not as if I’ve proposed something foolish or wholly outlandish.
“Dangerous,” Desma mutters. “By now, the word is spreading throughout the city of the Wilder attack. Any dragon—”
“Skying or walking,” Master Boren interjects, “would most likely be considered a Wilder dragon and attacked.”
“Yes,” Cara thoughtfully answers, “even if we fly over the rooftops, fast and low, someone is bound to send arrows our way.”
She peers up at the star-filled night. “But what if we go straight up, higher than their arrows can reach, level off and sky far enough that we can descend straight down on Warrior Hall?”
She turns and gives me a little smile. “After all, we’ve had a little practice in plunging straight down before pulling up at the last instant.”
&n
bsp; I swallow and mutter, “Don’t remind me, please.”
“It could work,” Cara insists.
“Maybe, but it’s still a dangerous gambit,” Master Boren concedes. “Once those guards see dragons descending—”
“They’ll think we’re Wilders, for sure,” Amil states.
“Only if they hear and see us,” I offer. “The moons haven’t risen yet, so they’re going to have a hard time seeing us against a darkened sky.”
“There’s still the matter of them hearing our dragon wings,” Helmar notes.
I take a step closer to Helmar and in a knowing voice suggest, “Not if we glide high up and wait until the very last moment to have the dragons flap their wings.”
Helmar looks in my face and returns my gaze with a nod. “Just like at the wall.”
He smiles. “And Cara’s right,” he says, his grin growing wider. “We certainly know how to work that antic.”
“Exactly,” I reply in a firm voice.
Phigby lets out a deep breath and gravely speaks to Desma, “Princess, we have our four dragons but no other weapons with which to fight.”
He pauses before saying, “Compared to the queen’s guard, we’re hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed; this is not an easy task we have assigned to ourselves.
“But we have come to regard Fotina and Alonya as our friends, even, in a way, a part of our little company. The thought of them being tortured or dying at the hands of Queen Gru has weighed heavily on our minds.”
He peers up at her, and his stare is sharp, unblinking. “It is our desire to free them if they still live. But it would mean that we would not only take on your mother’s personal guard, it may well mean we would have to fight her, too.”
His eyes and Desma’s seem to be locked, neither blinking just staring at each other before Phigby says, “Are you prepared to allow us to do that?”
He doesn’t say it, but I know everyone is thinking the same as I. If we fight Gru, we may all be killed, but there is the chance that not only Desma’s fellow Amazos are going to die but also the queen.
Is she willing to face and accept that?
Desma turns to stare at the vicious dragon fire in the distance. She murmurs, “My people are being slaughtered at the hands of the Wilders.”
Her breath is almost a sob. “And at the hands of their own queen. How can I allow that to happen?”
Phigby nods at her tacit acknowledgment of what might happen if we do take to the air and attack Warrior Hall. He turns to us and says, “We have only ourselves and our dragons, what say ye?”
No one speaks, each considering the dire challenge that lies before us. Four dragons against several cohorts of Gru’s well-trained Mori warriors who have sworn to protect the queen with their very lives if need be.
I swallow and begin to speak. I’m not sure where the words come from or who is even talking, but they flow out of my mouth as if I were someone else.
“We have friends in dire need, who, I believe, would not hesitate to come to our aid if the reverse were true. Maybe this is the moment of why we were led here.
“If it is, and our friends die because we turned aside, how could we ever say that our purpose is right and our way honorable?”
Everyone gapes and stays silent until Phigby declares with open admiration, “Hooper, I know not from where you brought those words, but they’ve lifted an old man’s weary spirit. Well said, and words that we all needed to hear.”
Master Boren takes Cara by her arms. “Would it be too much for a father to ask his only daughter to take her dragon and sky away from this place?”
He glances over at me. “And perhaps take the golden as well? I will search and find your Scamper for you.”
Cara buries her face in his chest for a moment and hugs him tight. Then, with a halt in her voice says, “And would it be too much for a daughter to ask her only father to let her ride beside him so that at least some will know the Dracon family’s true spirit?”
Master Boren’s body goes rigid, and his breath catches. He and Cara have no doubt thought that somewhere among the Wilder dragons there might be a big red ridden by Daron Dracon.
Moreover, both have thought of what it might mean if one of them comes face to face with him in the coming battle.
Master Boren lets out a long sigh and strokes his daughter’s hair lovingly. “If that is how it is to be, then let us both show the world the fidelity of the Dracon family.”
He turns and looks at Helmar and Amil. “And you?”
“I will always be at your side, Master Boren,” Helmar declares.
“I would sky with the company as well,” Amil says. “Hooper has said it better than I, but this company stays together.”
Master Boren turns to Desma. “Princess, I think we are as ready as we’ll ever be.”
She nods and says, “Then, this is how I propose we carry out what needs to be done.” Swiftly she lays out her plan and once assured that everyone knows their part, she sprints away in the direction of Warrior Hall.
We make what preparations we can, which considering what little we have, is not much, but we need to give Desma time to reach her vantage point near the royal residence.
Cara helps me snug the sprogs down in their saddlebag. There’s no question or discussion of leaving them behind. They may not be able to add anything in the coming fight, but they’re part of this company, too.
As we cinch the last straps down, Cara softly says, “Hooper, are you scared?”
I immediately start to say yes but stop. I’m afraid, but, for some reason, it’s a calm sort of scared.
A new feeling for me and hard to explain so I say, “Yes, but not like before where at this point, I’d have a nasty taste in my mouth, and my hands would be cold and clammy.”
I hesitate before admitting, “And thinking of a way to run, or hide.”
I glance at her. “You?”
She nods and says, “Yes, I’m scared, but I know we’re doing the right thing, and that helps.”
She cinches the last strap tight and then murmurs, “Hooper . . .”
“Yes?”
“I just wanted to say . . .”
“Yes?”
She gazes at me for a moment, then says, “Nothing,” and hops down off Golden Wind to lope over to Wind Song.
“Now, what was that all about?” I murmur to the golden.
“You know that sharing thing that’s so important to you?” she answers.
“Yes.”
“Well, she was about to share.”
My eyebrows come together as I frown. “Really? Then why didn’t she?”
“Because, like Princess Desma, Cara is finding that her world is not what she thought it was, nor are some people who she thought they were. When your world starts spinning, and you can’t make it stop, it can be a very confusing place.”
“Uh, huh,” I answer. “Well, after that, you can say that we’re both very confused, especially me.”
Just then, Master Boren calls out, “It’s time. Mount up.”
Moments later, we’re aboard the dragons, the sprogs are held fast in their saddlebags, and each of us knows our part in the plan. It will be a chancy thing, and luck will play a role as much as skill.
Hopefully, for once, luck will favor us, and we’ll accomplish what must be done. For our sakes, as well as for so many others in the city.
At a snap of Master Boren’s arm, we launch our dragons straight up into the night. The golden reaches out with her great wings, cups the air and pushes us higher and faster until Master Boren has us level off and we actually turn away from the great hall and head for the sea.
Why? Because, no doubt, by this time, all eyes either in the grand plaza or surrounding it will be pointed in the direction of the Wilder attack and that would make the chance of us being seen all that greater.
From this height, it is easy to see the destruction the Wilders are wielding on the outskirts of Dronopolis.
Whole rows of
houses and city streets are ablaze as the dragons rake the ground with blast after blast of fire. The once beautiful orchards are spears of flames in the night as tree after tree erupts in flames.
The dragons wheel and turn in great arcs above the roaring inferno. The towering flames easily silhouette the reds’ massive bodies in crimson and garish orange tones.
Some brutes plunge so close to the firestorm it’s as if they’re actually diving through the hot blaze, the windstorm of their enormous wings seemingly spreading the flames even more.
Here and there, I see a dragon fall out of the sky and into the all-consuming conflagration. The Golians are fighting back, but against an onslaught such as this, the Wilders’ sheer numbers alone may well overwhelm the Amazos.
As we fly toward the sea, I let the other dragons get ahead before asking Golden Wind, “You knew the Wilders were coming, didn’t you?”
“The wind carries many messages, Hooper,” she answers.
“Why didn’t you warn us, warn the Golians?” I question.
“It would not have done any good to warn the queen,” she answers. “Obviously, she would not have listened. And Princess Desma? She had to see for herself before she would believe the truth.
“So who could I warn? You? If I had and you tried to tell the guards, what do you think would have happened?”
“I’d be dead from a Golian arrow—or two.”
“Exactly. I’m sorry, Hooper, but I had to wait until the right time. Unfortunately, that had to be when the Wilders attacked.”
“I understand,” I mutter. Then I ask deliberately, “Is it Vay, Golden Wind? Is she here?”
“Vay desires many crowns, Hooper,” she states. “The Golian Domain is but one of many.”
Before I can respond to the golden’s statement, I see Master Boren hold up his hand and point to the right. We curve in a high arc with the dark ocean now on our left. The air is fresh and calm in stark contrast to the roaring conflagration far behind us.
We silently glide along, the dragons flapping their wings only occasionally to keep us level and straight. We sail along until Master Boren again has us turn to the right.
I look to the side and in the distance, I can easily see the giant edifice set in the grand plaza. We come abreast of it and again turn. Now we’re headed straight for Warrior Hall.