Hental asked, “What do you think, tatush?”
“What do I think? …I think….I think it is time for supper.”
Hental cried, “No, finish the story” while Lared yelled, “Yea! I get the first bowl!”
“There’s a lot more to the story and a lot more stories, Hental. I’ll tell you about the Battle of the Dragons after supper, okay?”
“All right, but I better know what happens when we’re dead at the end of it.”
Chapter 19
When Yuri woke up after the next morning, after his long swim, he was famished. His original idea was to leave right away, but he decided he wanted to stock up on fish before he did. Yuri turned his fishing rod into a spear and walked out into the frigid water. It no longer bothered him; instead, he found it invigorating. The fish were not suspecting any company with spears in the cold water and fishing was good. In short time, Yuri caught nine fish. He cooked them over a fire and devoured them in short order.
As Yuri began the long walk home, he began to notice a few changes in himself. For starters, he was even more comfortable in the cold; in fact, he preferred it. Though he could go shirtless, he kept enough on so that people would not think there was something odd about him. He also wore a scarf to hide the blue scales riding up his neck.
He brought out the flute as he was walking and continued to practice. As he did, he thought, I sound nothing like the master who gave this to me, but I don’t sound like a dying bird anymore. He had been working on a song for Hental, but he couldn’t play fast enough yet. Instead, he was practicing what he hoped would be a slow, sweet song that his mother might like. And, if it was really good, he could save it for Miriam - a girl back in Mandan he always liked talking to.
Yuri stopped a half-mile from a small village of two to three hundred people. He could see the wisps of smoke coming from the fires in the huts in the distance. The trail, which had been densely surrounded by trees, was moving into the open. The trail also split. One path went straight into the village and the other led to the south, going around the village. As he was trying to decide if he should go through or around to avoid trouble, he saw a rock come flying out of the bushes to his right.
Without thinking, he caught the rock before it hit him in the face. A sharp pain ran up his arm and his hand started bleeding immediately. He heard laughter from behind the bushes. He dropped the rock and shook his numb hand. Blood flung to the ground. “All right, you little rats. Come on out before I come in there.”
Two boys came out behind the bushes. The smaller boy, about three and a half feet tall stood behind a taller boy, who was holding a sling in his hand. Yuri shouted, “That’s a mighty fine shot you took.” The boy with the sling looked at Yuri’s hand. “and yes, it hurts. So tell me, why try to take my head off?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re not from here. Maybe you deserve it.” Both boys took a step back as Yuri took a step forward.
“Well, that’s not very kind. I must have passed by this village at night coming through the first time. What’s it called?” Yuri shook his head again while he waited for an answer, noticing that the pain and bleeding had stopped.
“What do you care, stranger? Just leave.” The older boy put another stone in his sling, slowly, all the while staring at Yuri.
“We got off on the wrong foot, and I think I’m just going to keep walking, but I would drop that rock if I were you.” Yuri put his hand on the knife he kept nestled in a sheath between his belt and waist on his right side. “You are starting to make me angry.”
The boy let go of one strap of his sling. The rock fell to the ground. Yuri shook his head, took his hand off his knife, and started walking down the trail leading south. Ten feet down the trail, Yuri stopped to check on the two delinquents. He turned his head back in time to see a rock hurtling towards his head. This time, he couldn’t catch it and it hit him square on the forehead, knocking him down.
Yuri knew he was bleeding before he hit the ground, though that thought was buried under a lot of pain. Lying on his back, he listened for the boys. Looking up, he saw that the boys were gone. “Damn little monsters.” He pulled back his hand, which had been on his forehead, and saw that it was covered in blood. He could feel blood running down the side of his nose. He was tempted to shout, but the throbbing in his head convinced him not too. Instead, he slowly got up and began walking towards the village.
It didn’t take long for Yuri to realize something was wrong. The smoke wasn’t coming from the cooking fires of the huts; it was coming from what was left of half of the huts in the village. The huts were spread out enough that only a strong wind could have moved a fire from one hut to another, and last night had been still.
Dragons burn down villages now and then, and that was Yuri’s first thought, until he looked closer. There was none of the destruction one would expect from a dragon attack - no smashed-in walls, broken trees, deep claw marks in the ground, nor any trails in the dirt made by a dragon’s tail. These fires were man-made, or mage-made. Even though he knew it wasn’t dragons, Yuri felt a pull on his amulet. Something was connecting with him or him with it, but he couldn’t tell why or what the connection was about. The destruction around him kept him from dwelling on it. He was no longer angry, the feeling replaced by a general confusion.
The shapes on the ground, shapes that had seemed to be lumps of clothes or branches, suddenly became clear to Yuri. They were the villagers, burned, broken, and dead. Yuri wanted to sit down at this realization, but he dropped to his knees and vomited instead. He had seen the occasional dead body before, but nothing like this. He wondered what the boys must have seen. One was Hental’s age. What would this do to Hental? he thought.
He stood up and shouted to the surrounding trees, “Okay, boys, come on in. I’m not going to hurt you.” He waited for movement or a reply, but all he saw and heard were the crows, fighting over the remains. He picked up a rock and threw it at one of the crows. “Get out of here, you scavengers.”
“Listen up, boys,” he shouted, “we can’t leave your people like this. We need to take care of them.” No response. Yuri wrapped a scarf around his face to help block the smell and went to the closest cadaver. The body was badly burned. Based on its shape and size, Yuri suspected it was a girl. There was no place to pick her up that wasn’t burned.
Yuri went into the nearest hut that hadn’t been burned down and grabbed a blanket. He brought the blanket back to the girl and lifted her on it as gently as possible. To do this, he had to reach under her arms and lift her up. The smell of burnt flesh and the sounds made him more nauseous. He pulled off his handkerchief just in time to throw-up again.
He tried to spit the acrid taste out of his mouth, saying to himself, that will be enough of that. He put the handkerchief back on and steeled himself to get back to work. He decided to bring the bodies to the open center of the village. He would figure out what he would do with them later. For now, that gave him something to do that made sense.
The boys entered the village a short time later. Yuri wasn’t sure when they actually arrived; he just realized that they were there, working together to use a blanket to bring all the bodies to the center of the village. No one spoke. It was late afternoon when the boys came up to Yuri, who had just deposited another body. The three stood by the bodies of 150 villagers.
The oldest boy told him, “We can’t move him.”
“What?…Okay, I will help.” Yuri followed the boys to the body of a large man. Even shrunken by flames, the man had obviously been very big. There was an ax head at the end of what was left of a burnt handle by the man. Yuri guessed that he had gone down fighting, but fighting what, he did not know. Yuri looked at the stained blanket the boys had been using. “Is there another blanket we can use? Larger?”
“We’re going to use this one.” There was an edge to the older boys voice.
Yuri could see that the boys had been crying. He realized that he had been crying too, off and on as he brou
ght the bodies to the center. “Okay. He is a big one.”
In a little voice, so soft that Yuri almost didn’t hear it, the little one said, “He is our father.”
The words were like a giant weight dropping out of the sky onto Yuri’s shoulders. He had been running on automatic, but all his strength left him in this moment. “I need to sit down, boys. Come with me.” Seeing the look on the boys’ faces that said they didn’t want to leave their father again, he added, “We won’t go far.”
Staying within sight of the boys’ father, Yuri led the boys to the front of one of the huts that remained intact. “Let’s just sit here for a moment.” The moment stretched on for over an hour. Yuri didn’t move, but the oldest boy did, leaving and returning with some water in a bucket. He put the bucket down in front of Yuri and handed him a ladle. At the sight of water, Yuri felt incredibly thirsty.
After drinking, Yuri felt some of his strength returning, and he still didn’t know what to do or say. “I’m just making…” Yuri was about to confess his loss at knowing what to do, but the poor state of the boys made him stop. “What happened here?”
“Everybody died.” It was clear the older boy was not going to say anything further. Yuri felt like the older boy was still treating him like the enemy.
“We killed them,” whispered the little boy.
“What?” Yuri shook his head. “I don’t think so, listen,…um…I don’t even know your names. Let’s start there. My name is Yuri. I’ve got two little brothers, just about your two’s ages.” He pointed at the youngest. “What’s your name?”
“Bernard.” He wiped the blonde hair from in front of his eyes as he said it. His face was covered in ash with streaks where his tears had cleared paths down his face.
“Bernard is a good name.” Looking to the older boy, he said, “What is your name?” When he didn’t say anything, Yuri added, “Any chance it’s Stone Thrower? I don’t know anybody better with a sling than you, and my little brother is a terror with one.”
The boy thought about it and said, “You can call me Stone.”
For a split second, Yuri thought about arguing with the boy, but he really didn’t have the energy to do so, and who was he to push for a name when the boys’ village had just been burned down? “Okay, Stone and Bernard. Good names. Strong names. So, Stone and Bernard, we are going to take your father to the rest of the villagers. Then, well, I’m not from around here. In the past, what would you do when someone died?”
Stone answered, “We do the dragon rite.”
Yuri wasn’t sure what that was, besides guessing that it involved fire. “Tell me about it.”
Stone gave his little brother the water ladle. “Ah, well, when Olteen died, we took him to the field of return and put him on an altar. Then Danner, he was our talker, would go out dressed as the dragon and start the fire.”
“Where’s this field of return?” The only answer Yuri wanted to hear was that it was the center of the town, but he knew that wouldn’t be the case.
“It’s behind the village, about a mile. That’s part of it, too, the walk. The adults would say stuff along the way, but I never really paid attention…I should have paid attention.” Stone punched his hand. “If I don’t know this, how will they return?”
“Hold on a minute. We can…” Yuri realized what the pull on the amulet had been when he first saw the village. Samora knew. And Samora was coming to the village. “The dragon returns people, right?”
“Yea. But we don’t have our dragon talker.”
“Oh, you are going to have something better, boys.” Even as he said and believed it, he wondered what ice dragon could do with fire.
***
Samora was flying eastward as Yuri came to the crossroads. When Yuri entered the village and saw the dead bodies, Samora stopped heading east and began flying in circles, moving higher in the air. After a few circles, she headed in the direction of Vrotsim. When she approached the dragon talker’s hut after a day of flying, the green dragon was waiting.
The roof and walls of the hut had been rebuilt, though it did not look as well-put-together as it did before Samora’s last visit. She pulled in her wings and dived toward the hut, roaring and doubling her speed. Opening her wings and landing a few feet in front of the hut, she let out a roar as her momentum carried her through the hut. The thatch of the roof, along with the walls, went flying in front and to the sides of Samora. Her claws dug deep tracks through the ground and crushed the cooking pot in the hut while also bending the frame that held it up into a tangle of useless metal.
The talker had run behind his dragon. The green dragon stretched out her wings, roughly half the wingspan of Samora, and roared back, not backing up. Samora’s slide came to a halt only feet from the green dragon. Samora leaned forward and brought her face within inches of the green dragon’s, who put its head down in response. The dragon talker watched as the two looked at each other. To him, it looked like his dragon relaxed, which made him feel better because Samora was the largest dragon he had ever seen, and he didn’t like her.
The talker waited to see what happened. And he waited some more. The two dragons were face to face, silent. The only sound he heard was that of the two dragons breathing, the breeze in the trees, and the beating of his heart. He kept his position behind the green dragon. It was obvious to him that the blue dragon did not like him. He was not going to push it.
After what seemed like an hour to the talker, Samora moved her head past the green dragon’s and rubbed his neck with hers, briefly. Then, she stepped back and leapt into the air. The green dragon turned and looked at the talker. The image of himself rebuilding his hut formed in his mind. “Oh, come on!” He whined. “What did I do?”
The green dragon snorted, crouched briefly and leapt into the air, following Samora. As they left, he thought, my new deal is looking better and better.
Chapter 20
Now that his wounds had stopped getting worse, Xeron was able to catch his breath and begin thinking more methodically. His first realization was that the sphere was no longer just his. There was another sphere around his. Luckily for Xeron, it was not shrinking. If he were to try this on a person, creating a crushing sphere, he knew he could bring painful force on a person. He thanked Thanala that Perante hadn’t added that to the mix, which made sense. The idea of a mage, even Perante, with enough power to crush a dragon in a sphere was laughable. Xeron would have laughed if his life wasn’t on the line. Still, the second sphere was obviously going to make sending out any spells of his own more difficult.
He looked at Perante, who remained in the chair surrounded by the charred remains of all the wood that had been left in the room before the trap was sprung. If this is a dragon trap, maybe I should think like a dragon. The first thing I would do is to send a nice jet of flame at Perante. He didn’t seem to mind that, though, but I wonder about the floor. Xeron raised both hands in the air, using a fire claiming spell to capture the power of the fire in the room to start a much larger fire that he threw down to the ground. Fire leapt from the walls, only to turn back towards the wall after a few feet. Xeron to put his hands down. Perante had obviously countered that threat.
Perante smiled and lifted his hand slightly and waved his first two fingers back and forth, nodding his head. “You are thorough, Xeron, but you will have to do a better job surprising me if you plan on getting out of here alive, and I am not going to make it easy for you. I liked the rat move. I have your mutt under my control, but it was a worthy attempt. It will be a shame if I have to kill you. Riches, my friend, of the magical kind, await your survival.”
Xeron didn’t reply. He wasn’t listening. He raised his hand, cupping it while casting a small fire sphere spell. He moved his hand closer to the edge of the sphere. The heat of the fire washed back over his arm. He couldn’t pull fire from the wall and the outer sphere kept him from sending out his own himself. So, you aren’t just talk, but adjusting your spells, Perante. There goes my idea of melting
a hole in the floor, he thought. I’d only end up cooking myself.
Cold? Xeron cast another spell. This time, a sphere of ice formed in his hand. As he brought it towards the sphere, he could see the steam rising from the ice being pulled into the sphere. Before his hand had moved six inches, the sphere was gone. The sphere fully absorbed the cold. Xeron realized, that crazy man really is going for Samora. He almost shouted out to Perante that he was insane, but he was done talking. He thought of the enormity of Perante’s desire and preparations: he wants the ice dragon. I can’t compare to an ice dragon. How am I supposed to get out of a trap that can hold the first dragon?
Xeron sat on the floor, cross-legged, and tried to see what he was missing. This is a dragon trap. If it is truly strong enough to hold a dragon, there is no way I can overpower the trap. Each train of thought led to the same conclusion, he isn’t as strong as a dragon. Fine, he thought, I won’t outdo a dragon. I’ll get out as a man. I know Perante and can use that. He’s smug and thorough, but he doesn’t know everything.
Xeron thought back to his mentor, Illnox. Illnox introduced him to the secrets of Thanala, the source of magic in the world, the source of everything. Thanala’s power was so great, Illnox explained to Xeron, that storms and lightning are natural expenditures of extra power that rolls off of Thanala. The sky was Thanala’s playground, but it could also pull things from the earth, but while the energies of the sky where light and fast, earth energy was slow and heavy.
Xeron realized he had been focusing on the sky energies - fast spells and quick actions. Slow power was deep power. Deep power can split the earth and move mountains. Xeron smiled. Settle in Perante, he thought, this battle has just started.
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