"You're right," Rolf sighed. "We need to figure out how to get rid of the dragon. Where's Sam? He's the only one in this fortress with any real understanding of how magic works."
"He took Tamara to Wynne." I made a helpless gesture with my hands, somewhere between a shrug and apologetic placation. "I assume he's still with her, trying to see what Wynne can do to help with Tamara's burns."
"Understandable," Rolf nodded, "But we need him here."
"Sadly, I agree." I conceded. "Send someone to get him, and I'll tell you what I know about the dragon in the meantime, so we have a solid starting point to work from when Sam gets here. Sound good?"
Rolf nodded, strode to the door, and barked orders out it at passing people. He turned back to me after closing the door. "So, what do we know about the dragon?" He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "It feels so strange to say that. Dragons have been extinct in Daraglathia for thousands of years, or we thought so, anyway."
"Interesting," I muttered. "I wonder if that's somehow relevant to the current situation."
"Dunno," Rolf shrugged. "We'll ask Sam about it when he gets here. Now, what did you notice about the dragon?"
I sighed, hating to have to think about it. "It's not as big as I would have expected, only about the size of a flying elephant, but it makes up for that in pure bad-ass destructive power."
Rolf suppressed a snort of ironic laughter at my description. "Elaborate on the bad-ass destructive power for me. How, exactly, do you mean that?"
"Okay," I nodded, trying my best to focus without dwelling on the trauma of Tamara's injuries. "Well, naturally, it breathes fire, and its aim is astonishingly accurate, as opposed to what I was expecting. I assumed it would just belch out broad, destructive swaths of fire, but the only things the flames hit were Tamara and me, as well as a small radius of the courtyard around us." I ran my hands through my hair, only then registering that certain bits and pieces of it were singed, and my hair was hanging in tattered, random lengths. I made a mental note to cut my hair if I managed to live through any future attacks.
"What else did you notice?" Rolf was staring at me with interest, and scribbling notes down on a piece of parchment as I talked.
"It appears to choose its targets intelligently, as opposed to in an animalistic fashion," I mused, thinking back to the courtyard. "Sam tried to distract it, but it made a beeline for Tamara and me as we were trying to run to shelter in the armory."
"That's rather disturbing news," Rolf murmured. "Go on."
"On the subject of intelligence," I pressed on. "I believe that the dragon was specifically looking for me. It didn't damage anyone or anything that wasn't in my immediate vicinity. If it can choose targets that intelligently, it can probably also perform aerial reconnaissance, but that's purely an assumption on my part."
Rolf frowned as he continued to jot down notes. "It's probably an accurate assumption."
"Also, our arrows did basically nothing to the dragon. They didn't stick or bounce off. It's almost like the dragon somehow absorbed them when they touched his skin." I shivered at the thought.
Rolf looked as if he wanted to ask something else, but Sam entered, looking as worried as I'd ever seen him.
"How's Tamara?" I blurted it before Rolf had the chance to get to the points he wanted to cover with Sam. "Did you get her to Wynne in time? Is she going to be okay?" The questions tumbled out of me in a big hurry because I desperately needed some word about the girl who'd put her life on the line to save mine.
"She's in Wynne's hands," Sam shrugged helplessly. "If anyone can heal Tamara, I have faith that it's Wynne."
Rolf cleared his throat. "I hate to be rude, but we should get back to the problem at hand. How do we get rid of this dragon?"
"What do we know, or think we know about it?" Sam's voice was weary, to say the least.
"These are Lauren's observations about it. See if they help you any." Rolf passed him the parchment with the hastily-scribbled charcoal notes on it.
Sam's expression turned from grim to excited as he read over the notes, and he grinned up at us with a vindictive twinkle in his stormy blue eyes. "It's conjured, not summoned."
Rolf and I both stared back at Sam, nonplussed. "What's the difference?" We asked in unison.
"The difference is," Sam responded, in a giddy, sing-song voice, "A conjured dragon will be much easier to get rid of than a summoned one!"
The whole atmosphere of the room brightened. Rolf and I exchanged relieved glances before I spoke.
"So," I grinned back at Sam, "How do we get rid of it?"
"Well," Sam mused, "It's not going to be easy, but it can be done. If we find Sigrid's most powerful mage and break his spell through whatever means we can, that will essentially cause a disruption in the entire power structure that was involved in conjuring the dragon, and that will get rid of the dragon entirely."
"Great," I clapped and beamed at him.
"How do we break the spell?" Rolf interjected, clearly more goal-oriented than I was.
"The easiest way to break the spell and interrupt the power chain isn't going to be pretty," Sam warned. My stomach squirmed at his tone, and I swallowed hard as I waited for Sam to complete his thought. "If you kill the most powerful mage, the remainder of the power structure crumbles, and the dragon is essentially un-conjured."
"Shit," I hissed. I knew we were at war, but I'd naïvely hoped that we wouldn't have to kill anyone in this process. "How difficult is that going to be, do you think?"
"I don't know," Sam murmured, "But I'm sure we'll find out soon enough."
Once Sam used his magic to locate the tent of the most powerful mage in Sigrid's camp, he excused himself and went back to help Wynne tend to Tamara. Rolf assigned Noah, Burns, and me to carry out the plan we'd come up with for taking out the dragon. All we had to do was wait for nightfall.
My heart pounded so hard that I heard nothing else as Noah, Burns, and I slipped into the outskirts of the sprawling enemy camp. The Queen’s arrogance stunned me. Sigrid hadn’t even bothered to post sentries. The three of us wove our way around the outlying tents, searching for the one that would be the game changer, the one Sam had located for us. We were going after the most powerful mage who had helped summon the dragon.
I tapped Noah’s arm and pointed to a fairly large tent at the very back of the encampment and he nodded. It matched the description Sam gave us perfectly. We crept forward with daggers drawn.
I slipped around the back of the tent and lifted a corner just long enough to spot the figure of a man shrouded in a glowing purple haze. I gave a single nod, and Noah grimaced. My stomach lurched with nausea in response. I had never been so afraid in my life, but there was no chance of Noah and Burns letting me return to Tiernan without completing the mission first. Or being captured and/or killed, a voice whispered in the back of my mind.
I caught myself holding my breath as Noah worked in silence, slicing an opening in the tent. We crawled in without a breath of sound, but we were greeted with an ironic chuckle.
“You may as well have used the door, children," The mage's voice reminded me of James Earl Jones, and I shivered. "Did you not think that I would divine your coming the moment you conceived your little plan?”
I stared as Noah gave a nonchalant shrug. “Of course I realized that you would know we were coming.”
The haze dissipated enough that we could see each other, and the elderly mage cocked a curious brow at us. “And you chose to come anyway?”
“A necessary risk," Burns interjected, "I’m assuming that there are only two possible reasons that you’re still here. Either you’re going to kill us, or you want to die.”
Soft but deep, amused laughter floated around the tent as the remainder of the haze dissipated. The mage looked so much like my Grandpa Alex that it caused me physical pain, right down to the core. “You are correct, Captain.”
“Which is it to be, mage?” Burns' voice was hard, clipped, and all business. The whole
situation made my stomach hurt.
The old man sighed. “Every strike against my dragon pains me. I feel every arrow, though their energy only serves to fuel the dragon. I burn for every innocent lost in its rampages. I’m afraid I must ask the latter of you.”
“No.” I was just as stunned as the three men that I had blurted it out, but I plunged on. “We can’t just kill a defenseless old man!”
The mage turned to me, his pale blue gaze full of honest sorrow. “You would have me suffer, child?”
I shook my head and choked back tears. “No, but we have no right to take your life.”
The old mage shook his head. “All old men are destined to die, sweet girl. End my suffering and my abominable creation will die with me. Think of all the innocents to be lost, and of the thousands that will be spared.”
I continued shaking my head, crying. “I can’t do this. I will not be a part of this. It's basically assisted suicide!”
Burns frowned and sighed, pointing to the slit we'd cut in the tent. “You two go stand watch. This is a job for one who has also suffered magic and is not afraid to die.”
Noah and I slipped back through the slit he’d cut in the tent and I pressed my hands over my mouth so I wouldn’t sob aloud. Moments later, blinding light flared on the other side of the encampment, close to Tiernan's outer wall, leaving a glowing cloud in its wake like a small nuclear blast.
Burns bolted from the tent, and Noah started dragging me toward the nearest treeline.
“They’ll spot us in the open ground between here and the forest,” I hissed.
Noah growled and glared at me. “Not bloody likely. If we move fast enough, they’ll all be too preoccupied with the loss of the dragon to spot us.”
"He's not wrong," Burns grunted as he kept pace with us.
I nodded a grudging concession to their logic and pushed myself harder than ever before, matching their intense speed step for step. As panic erupted in Sigrid's camp, we made a discrete re-entry into the fortress from a secret passage that opened into the Black forest, which Mack had been kind enough to show us. We emerged from the armory, which stood halfway between the outer wall and inner fortress. Noah immediately left to get Rolf, and probably be put on Adele duty, while the rest of us waited to meet with Rolf and talk strategy.
In the aftermath of the conjured dragon’s attacks, and the subsequent explosion when we figured out how to destroy it, it wasn’t hard for the queen’s forces to use their siege engines to find weak points in Tiernan's outer wall. The fortress’s open mine design around the courtyard began to crumble from the thinnest layer at the top down. The open courtyard that the dwarves had carefully carved out of the half the mountain, filled with fertile soil, and cultivated for growing crops vibrated and shook with each strike of a boulder against the outer wall. The inner parts of the fortress, carved into the remainder of the massive mountain, reminded me of Petra, and I had a sudden vision of the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as I stared up at it. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine Tiernan coming apart at the seams just as Petra had in the movie.
The patent fury of the onslaught from the queen’s forces made it clear that ripping this peaceful fortress full of people who never wanted to fight apart at the seams was their plan. Mack appeared at my side, followed by Rolf. “How long do you think the wall can hold up to an attack like this?”
“Not long enough, lass.” Mack’s voice was grim, his face ashen. Captain burns and Rolf nodded their agreement.
“Sigrid must have used the dragon’s eyes to spy out the structure from above. They’re only aiming at the top of the wall, where the structure isn’t as thick or solid. If they get through the 10 feet of outer wall and knock into the beehive structure of the hall and stairways we use to get to the top of the wall, they could breach the wall and invade the fortress within a few hours.” Rolf’s assessment did nothing to lift the mood within the fortress walls.
“So what you’re telling me is that we took out a freaking dragon, and we could still feasibly lose this conflict?" I snapped. "Jesus! There’s no way to win!” I sounded like a whiny, beleaguered brat, even to myself.
“It’s certainly starting to seem that way, child.” Captain Burns gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’m going to take a few of our best archers up to the top of the wall and see if we can’t slow down those trebuchet operators a bit. Flaming arrows should cause a little bit of chaos among their ranks, at the very least.”
“I’ll get my bow and come with you,” I volunteered. Burns, Rolf, and Mack all shook their heads no in unison.
“No!” Burns snapped. “First of all, you’re not one of the best archers we have. There are others who are better. Second, we can’t afford for you to fall to your death if the wall starts to collapse. Third, I need you and the rest of the archers stationed in the highest rooms inside the fortress, prepared to work clean-up duty when the queen’s forces do manage to breach the walls.”
“When?" My voice shot up an octave. "We’ve officially made the jump from if they breach the wall to when they breach the wall. Great. That’s encouraging. We should probably start considering meeting some of her demands if it comes down to massive loss of life versus complying with her crazy demands.”
“And exactly which demands would you suggest complying with, lass?” Mack raised questioning eyebrows at me, and I slid a sideways glance at Rolf.
“I’m not at all opposed to handing Adele over to her. I’m pretty much 100% behind that one." My tone was harsh, to say the least, and I saw Rolf grimace out of the corner of my eye. "She’s outlasted any possible strategic value she could have had for us. Hell, I’m not opposed to giving myself up if it stops Sigrid's rage-fueled rampage against the people in this fortress. The only demand we will absolutely not be complying with is the demand to hand over whoever aided in my escape. Noah’s family has been missing him and searching for him for the past eleven years. There’s no guarantee that Sigrid wouldn’t kill him now that he knows the truth about his identity. She doesn’t get him, no matter what.”
“And how do you think you’re going to get him back to his family, even if you do keep him from her?” Rolf sounded dubious and hostile all at once. I knew he hated the idea of giving Adele up because he'd obviously been madly in love with her mother, but I was past caring about that.
I shrugged and shook my head. “I haven’t figured that out yet, but I’ll find a way to make it happen. He deserves to get to go home after all this time.”
We were losing the lives of those stationed in and on the outer wall, even as we discussed what needed to be done, and that knowledge made me sick to my stomach. I hated the thought of innocent people dying for what amounted to stupid, insane reasons. We moved the discussion to Rolf's office after taking a short break to re-fuel with food. People came and went as Rolf and I argued over whether or not to hand Adele over.
"This can all end now," Sigrid's magically amplified voice lilted throughout the fortress, covering the sounds of the wounded and dying. "Give me Adele and the raven-haired witch, and I will withdraw my forces, never to harm you again."
It was a long, hard-fought argument, but Rolf finally agreed to surrender Adele to Sigrid in exchange for a much-needed respite after Sigrid's forces breached the outer wall and our casualty count spiked. I gave his shoulder what I hoped was a comforting pat. “I know this is hard for you, letting her go after holding on to her mother’s memory for so long. Thank you for understanding why we have to hand her over. We desperately need the time she will afford us to account for the missing and dead, and we need to get the wounded to Wynne and the others for care.”
“I know.” His nod was curt but resolute, and I knew he’d keep his word.
Frost: An Otherworld Tale (The Otherworld Tales Book 1) Page 28