Finding the Wolf(The Dragon's Hoard #1)

by Mell Eight

  Nyle took a deep breath and let it out as flames. The rock was quick to start glowing red and Nyle increased the heat and strength of his fire when the screaming began to start around him. It wasn't long before the stone started to melt, lava flowing away from the wall to pool on the ground.

  Nyle almost didn't notice when arrows started to rain down on his head, but Leon kept him safe by using his werewolf speed to knock the arrows away before they could strike.

  Finally the hole in the wall was big enough to fit through and Nyle could pull away. The sides were still cherry red and while Nyle could go through without being burnt, Leon would be severely hurt.

  More arrows rained down and Nyle was quick to turn them into harmless ash before they could land.

  "Go ahead of me!" Leon snapped. He had his head cocked to the side and Nyle took a second to listen as well. Gail's explosion must have alerted Bast's forces in the city, because the clanging sounds of swords striking swords could be heard. The battle was on in earnest and the castle wasn't on fire yet! Everything was falling apart and only the first five minutes of their plans had elapsed.

  Nyle took one last look at Leon, and Leon, sensing Nyle's disquiet at their separation, looked back. Then, before Nyle could change his mind about leaving his most important pretty behind, he spun away and pushed through his cooling hole in the castle walls.

  The other side of the wall was chaos as well. Soldiers rushed towards the main gates, which Nyle could see had been set on fire. Gail was there in her dragon form, towering over everyone and shooting flames, but held in place by the advancing swords and the rain of arrows bouncing off her scales. Nyle wanted to go over and help her, but Leon was right. She could take care of herself and the castle needed to be on fire to convince the magi to move their focus away from the flames for any of their plans to work.

  The guards on the wall hadn't noticed his transfer onto the castle grounds. To the harried guards he pushed around to get to the castle he looked like just another servant fleeing from the fighting. It wasn't hard to reach the castle walls.

  The building was made mostly from stone, but there was a fair amount of wood in the construction as well. There was also a large amount of furniture, tapestries, rugs, and other nicely burnable items within that would make the blaze grow.

  Nyle took a deep breath and let out his fire. The roof fifty feet above him was the first to catch. There was wood and thatch underneath the protective shingles. Then one of the expensive windows shattered and his fire whooshed inside that room as well.

  Nyle took another deep breath and felt his fire stomach churn as he released more fire. The stone in front of him was melting and soon even more of the castle would be nicely burning.

  Suddenly, Nyle's fire ceased. Nyle whimpered. His fire stomach was producing plenty of fire, but the pain in his lungs prevented him from letting out the necessary air to allow those flames free. He put a hand to his side where the pain was coming from, but it came away blood free. The pain was on the inside only.

  "Another dragon," an oily voice snapped coldly. "What a catch today." Nyle looked over at the man speaking to him, trying to get any breath into his lungs beyond the pain. He couldn't.

  The man was clearly a magi. His brown hair had two black stripes growing from his temples. He held out his hand with one finger pointed directly at Nyle and smiled cruelly.

  "I'm looking forward to dissecting you when you're dead," the magi continued. "Your race will fall and the magi will own this world!"

  As suddenly as the pain began, it stopped. The magi fell to the ground, dead, with Leon standing over him.

  "Pretty," Nyle gasped as air filled his lungs again.

  Leon smiled thinly at Nyle as he wiped his bloody knife on his thigh and returned it to his boot. "We have to get the other side of the castle too, for Gail," Leon said.

  Nyle whipped his head around to find his hatch-mother, but all he could see by the gates was fire and humans fighting each other.

  "She left when she saw the castle catch fire," Leon explained. "I'm sure she's fine, but we need to finish this for her."

  Nyle nodded in agreement and set off around the castle at a quick pace. Leon kept up with his strides at first, and Nyle was looking ahead to figure out were the best place to start more fires would be so he didn't notice Leon's heavy breathing right off. Only when Leon began to fall behind did Nyle realize something was wrong.

  "Leon, Pretty?" Nyle asked as he stopped walking.

  "I'm okay," Leon gasped out. He bent over to brace his hand on his knees as he fought for breath, and Nyle gasped. He had two arrows sticking out of his left shoulder.

  "You've got holes in you!" Nyle whimpered. "You're hurt!" Someone had hurt his Pretty! His most precious of treasures was bleeding everywhere! Someone would pay dearly.

  "Sit down," Nyle said and gently helped Leon to the ground.

  "But the castle," Leon began, but groaned when he accidentally shifted his shoulder.

  "I set the roof on fire already," Nyle said absently as he bent over Leon to see how bad the injury was. "It will spread just fine. Fixing you is more important."

  And then it didn't matter whether Nyle was able to finish lighting the castle on fire because, right on schedule, the dragons flew overhead. One of them, possibly Toel, but it was hard to see his golden hide over the glare of the sun and fire, sent a gout of flame along the side of the castle that wasn't yet burning as his wing of dragons swerved overhead and dropped towards the fighting.

  Nyle looked at Leon's shoulder and frowned. The arrows hadn't penetrated all the way through. He would have to pull them out by the shaft.

  "Were they barbed?" Nyle asked desperately. Barbed arrows would hurt much more coming out than they had going in.

  "I don't know," Leon said softly, pain deepening his voice. The adrenalin that had allowed him to rescue Nyle was wearing off quickly.

  Nyle moaned to himself. "They have to come out eventually, but it's going to hurt you a lot."

  Leon pulled out his boot knife and gave it to Nyle. "Try to cut the wounds open near the shafts. If you can free the arrowheads that way, it will hurt me less."

  Nyle gripped his knife in his hurt hand and whimpered. He could bend all his fingers and only the faintest of scars remained to show he had been injured, but his strength wasn't fully back yet. Still, he would do what he must to help his pretty.

  "Hold on to me," Nyle whispered and felt Leon's arms tighten around his stomach.

  The knife was sharp and Nyle was as careful as he could be, given the circumstances, but by the time the first arrow had been eased free, Leon had passed out. Nyle could still feel the werewolf's breaths on his neck from where Leon's head rested on his shoulder and knew that it would hurt so much less with Leon unconscious. That didn't mean Nyle wasn't chewing through his lip in worry as he cut the second arrow free.

  When the second arrow clattered to the ground, Nyle quickly pulled off as much of his clothing that was left after the fire. He wadded the cloth into a ball and pushed it against the bleeding wounds. Pressure would stop the bleeding, Nyle hoped.

  The battle waged around them, humans screaming as they fought and died and dragons flying overhead and landing on the ground to take out a group of magi or enemy soldiers. Nyle recognized that he should be helping somehow, but he was more interested in making sure Leon was still breathing.

  It was dusk when Toel found them hours later, and Leon still hadn't woken.

  "An'nanyle?" Toel asked softly. "How fare thee?"

  "Leon," Nyle whispered in a broken voice. He didn't realize that he had been crying until he heard the tears in his exhausted whimper.

  Toel bent down to look at the blood soaked rag Nyle still held to Leon's shoulder and frowned.

  "Thou must take him to the wolves," Toel said finally. He held out his arms towards Leon and Nyle had to fight off a growl as he passed his pretty into Toel's waiting hands. "Come," Toel called over his shoulder as he strode off in the direct
ion of the forest.

  Nyle stumbled into the werewolves' camp in Toel's wake and gazed around blearily. There weren't any tents, but bedrolls near the fire held wounded wolves in both human and animal shape while other wolves tended to them. A second fire, further away, had a large cook pot and another circle of healthy wolves sitting around it.

  Nyle recognized Reese and staggered in the Alpha's direction.

  "Reese," Nyle sobbed weakly. "Reese!"

  The Alpha jumped to his feet from where he had been holding the hand of a wounded wolf and jogged over to Nyle.

  "Nyle, what happened?" Reese asked as he looked down at the blood and tear stained dragon.

  "You'll make him better, right?" Nyle said, almost coherent. He felt himself list to the side and Reese's arms come out to steady him. "You'll make my pretty Leon not have holes?"

  Nyle felt his eyes close on a long blink as Toel moved to his side. Reese's chest expanded on a gasp as he saw what Toel held. Nyle reached out a shaking hand to clasp one of Leon's that was hanging down out of Toel's arms, but found he couldn't move from where he was slumped against Reese.

  He felt more than heard when Reese roared out a woman's name, but his eyes were too heavy to keep open any longer.

  Nyle tightened his grip on Leon's hand and succumbed to the forces pulling him under.

  *~*~*

  When Nyle woke the first thing he checked was that the hand still clasped in his was warm and strong. Then he rolled over with a groan to look at Leon. His wolf was still asleep, but his breathing was even and pain free. Leon's shoulder was well bandaged and the blood had been carefully cleaned from his skin.

  "Pretty," Nyle whimpered, brushing a finger along Leon's cheek. His pretty was going to be better soon. Werewolves had the same advanced healing as dragons, so the wound would be trivial in no time. Until then, Nyle would take the best care of his pretty as he ever could.

  "Hey, you're awake!" Reese said as he walked over to the bedroll Nyle and Leon were sharing.

  Nyle nodded. "Thank you for your help," he added to the Alpha wolf.

  Reese just shrugged. "Leon may be your hoard, but he's also one of my wolves. You did the right thing by bringing him to me. He'll be fine. When he wakes up get some of that stew into him."

  "Okay," Nyle agreed, tightening his hand around Leon's.

  Reese clapped him on the shoulder before walking off to tend to other wolves. Nyle glanced down at the sleeping Leon again and sighed. His pretty would be okay. Nyle just wanted Leon to wake up soon.

  Nyle finally tore his eyes away and got a look around the camp. It was daylight, so Nyle knew he had been sleeping for a long while. There were fewer wolves laid out on bedrolls around the fire, but the big cook pot was still being stirred.

  Toel was sitting near the cooking fire and it took Nyle a second to figure out what had the elder dragon so absorbed.

  A boy was sitting on a bedroll and Toel was studying him intently. The boy looked to be about eighteen, had blond hair and grey eyes, and wore unusual jewelry around his upper biceps. The thick silver rings looked more like shackle rings from Nyle's angle, but there was some ornate scrollwork stamped into the metal that almost made Nyle want to go over and study the boy himself.

  "An'tatoel," Nyle called. "Who is that?"

  Toel looked up slowly, as if he were pulling back his mind from far away.

  "Thou art awake!" Toel said as he quickly stood and walked over to Nyle. "How art thou?"

  "Yes, elder," Nyle said with a polite nod of his head. "I'm doing okay. Reese said Leon would be fine too."

  "Good," Toel said with a nod. "And I believe that boy is the focus we have been seeking. T'would seem the wolves located our quarry."

  "Huh," Nyle said as he looked back over to the strange boy. Reese was there, kneeling on the ground next to where the boy sat with a blank look on his face. Reese tried to press a bowl of stew into the boy's hands, but was met with total unresponsiveness. Nyle narrowed his eyes in thought as Reese bit his lip and looked hurt that the boy didn't seem able to function properly. Nyle recognized that look.

  A groaning sound from the ground below Nyle made him immediately switch his focus to more important matters. Leon was waking up!

  "No more holes," Nyle snapped at Leon in a voice that didn't hold even a hint of malice.

  Leon blinked up a Nyle in confusion for a moment before a small smile bloomed on his face. "I'll agree with that," he said in a voice scratchy from sleep. "You're okay?"

  Nyle nodded and gently brought Leon's captured hand up to his cheek.

  "No more holes," Nyle repeated, before he dropped Leon's hand and buried his face in Leon's uninjured shoulder.

  Leon brought his good arm around Nyle and rested his head on top of Nyle's.

  "I shall bring your repast," Toel said as he got to his feet.

  Toel was just bringing two bowls of stew to Nyle and Leon when Nyle's hatch-mother bounced into the werewolf camp in human form.

  "Toel!" she yelled and darted straight through the camp towards the golden dragon.

  Toel was quick to hand his burdens over and Nyle made sure Leon's grip was sound on the hot stew before he tucked into his own food.

  "Ana'gail," Toel said as the redhead clasped his arm with a smile.

  "I was starting to get worried," Gail explained. "So I came to see." She turned towards Nyle, and Toel had to lunge to keep Gail from pouncing on Nyle and spilling his bowl. "You're okay!"

  "Yes, Hatch-mother. Thank you for your concern, but Leon and I are fine," Nyle replied with a smile. He was glad to see his hatch-mother uninjured. "You are okay?" he asked, because even though she appeared to be fine the last he had seen of her had not looked good.

  "Oh," she let out an exasperated puff of air. "A few scratches here or there. I healed right up with some sleep. Stupid magi took too long to die," she finished with what would most likely be her only explanation for her mistake at the castle gate.

  Nyle sighed in relief when his mother headed off to inspect the focus. Leon needed rest, and his hatch-mother wasn't prone towards those sorts of activities. Nyle didn't miss Reese's wince when Gail began circling the strange boy. Yes, Nyle recognized that look. And he owed Reese.

  *~*~*

  They were meeting again in the largest room in the mountain. Reese and his envoy, Nel, sat together on one of the stone seats near the Eldest. Prince Felix and Prince Bast sat on their own stone outcropping to the left of the wolves. Nyle and Leon shared the same spot as last time, with Nyle in dragon form and a human-shaped Leon curled between Nyle's carefully held front paws.

  The rest of the dragons in the room were situated similarly to their last meeting. The only anomaly was the confusion about the strange boy who had been silently placed on the lowest stone bench. His grey eyes stared at the assembled dragons blankly, and the dragons stared back with much curiosity.

  There was no doubt that the boy was the focus. He felt magically charged to the dragons that were used to using objects as their focus. They recognized the power within the boy, but they could not access what the boy held, as he wasn't sparkly enough. There would be dragons studying the phenomenon for a long while.

  "The magi have fallen," the Eldest said strongly into the crowd of waiting dragons. "Our attack was more than successful. I congratulate all who fought so bravely."

  The Eldest's golden head turned to look at the two humans. "Our human allies recovered the city from the magical coercion of the magi, then stormed the gates and recovered the castle as well. The humans were weak-willed enough to ally themselves with the magi, but they have since redeemed themselves in the eyes of dragons. Felix of the human court, I give you full right to rebuild your castle and take your birthright. The dragons shall support your endeavors to rebuild your home and kingdom and you may call upon us for aid."

  Felix stood up and bowed politely to the Eldest, accepting the words that named him king with more authority than the human coronation that was still to come.


  "I must tender an apology to the dragons on behalf of my family," King Felix said formally. "For my father to have been so foolish as to allow the magi into the city, let alone into the castle and his mind, is a disgrace. We will call upon your aid in rebuilding the castle that was destroyed in our war efforts, but you may also call upon the humans for aid should you ever need it. I thank you, and all dragons, for your guardianship over our shared land."

  King Felix sat down with another bow, but the Eldest did not turn his head from the humans.

  "Prince Bast, the decision for your punishment has been made. The hoard you burgled has been safely restored and the injury you caused healed. Additionally, it is known that the magi took your mind from your control. Therefore, it has been decided that you and all your descendants will owe both An'saset, from whom you stole, and An'nanyle, whom you injured, a boon. The two dragons may call upon such a boon at any time."

  Bast stood and bowed. "It is true my actions were not my own, that the magi had taken control. Under that control I committed grievous crimes that cannot be properly repented. I accept the terms, but ask that the two injured dragons respect my humanity and only ask for such that a human of my ability can accomplish."

  Both Nyle and Set, sitting across the room, acknowledged the request and Bast sat down with another bow.

  "Are we done with the speeches yet?" Leon asked Nyle softly.

  Nyle rumbled a quiet laugh and shook his head. "Halfway through, Pretty."

  "Oh, good. 'Cause I think the Eldest might be offended if I fall asleep during this, but I'm tired and you're comfy."

  Nyle had to struggle to keep his laughter quiet.

  "Don't worry, Leon. We will be back in my caves soon enough, and you can take all the naps you want."

  "Napping isn't what I think about when I get you alone," Leon grumbled with a half-hearted scowl.

  Nyle gently nuzzled Leon in amused, and slightly aroused, agreement before turning back to the conversation.