Spears' Challenge (The White Dragon Series Book 2)

by Bonnie Watts

  I give him back his power to speak.

  “So, you need the Order to help you. What’s in it for my people if we help you?”

  Jeff can’t stand it anymore. He jumps up from his chair near me and snarls, “Since when do Knight Protectors look for what they can get out of something before they do the right thing? A White Dragon has put out the call to arms, and you heard it from your own Founder’s lips, who ordered you to cooperate. What in the world is wrong with you?”

  “Know your place, Siniocor! I didn’t give you leave to speak.” Tang Lo snaps.

  “He does know his place. He outranks you, Order General. He is the Consort of the White Dragon and is no longer under your orders.”

  Dragon’s deep growly rumble that is his draconic pissed-off voice rolls over the Order General.

  I put up my hand to signal for Dragon and Jeff to back off.

  “Gentlemen, please, calm down. What do you want, Tang Lo? I should have asked that when you first came. My apologies.”

  Jeff looks at me in shock at my conciliatory words.

  “I need the Sword of Power bonded to me. I want to take the Gallows test.”

  “But you could die, Tang Lo.” I say gently. “I almost did, Sir, it was a horrible test. I care deeply for Tor, the wizard in the sword, but I don’t think I could go through that test again.”

  “I can do it, and I insist on getting the chance to try.”

  “You need to let your second in command know what you are doing first, brief him on everything, bring him here, then we’ll head to the otherworld and ask Sir Frederick if you can try it. If he allows it, then I have no problem with you trying. You know the results of failure as well as anyone, I suppose.”

  Tang Lo nods, and Lucifer agrees to take him to the European headquarters to get the second in command of the Order and bring him back to us.

  After the Hellhound disappears, everyone groups around me.

  “You can’t allow that greedy power monger to get Tor, Jerrie.” Jeff yells.

  “I agree completely.” Dragon adds.

  “Guys, remember, Tor is a soul-singer, and the Gallows exam involves getting soul-sung. Tang Lo won’t pass it. If he refuses to push Tor through his spiritual heart to be soul-sung, Sir Frederick will take his life for being a coward. If he does have the courage to pierce his heart, then Tor will sing his soul and he’ll fail the test and die of a heart attack. Either way, let’s just hope that his second understands the danger signs better.”

  Tor, I am so sorry to force you through another one of these tests, but my empathy tells me that Tang Lo will never cooperate. He’ll continue to try to undermine my authority and steal you until I have to kill him.

  Don’t be sorry. He isn’t a war-time Order General. He plays politics well, but we need warriors now.

  Does Fred know the second-ranked guy?

  He keeps his eye on the Order all the time. He likes Wolfgang Borger. Probably because the guy’s a lot like Fred, you know, built similar to a tank, with a head as thick as one.

  Let’s hope he’s smarter than he looks, too, like the Founder is.

  I expect so, or Fred wouldn’t like him so much.

  Lucifer’s returning!

  The man who came with Tang Lo and Lucifer was built a lot like Sir Frederick, leaning towards his professional wrestler look. He also has a battered surcoat with the rank badges of a Champion Knight Protector on it. He even has a mix of blond and grey hair like Fred. But unlike Fred, Wolfgang Borger is very much a heterosexual, whose tawny eyes take in everything about me with the candid appreciation of the European male, to the point that starts Dragon quietly growling and Jeff not too far behind him.

  Fortunately, Tor takes his attention away from me. What warrior wants to look at a woman when the Sword of Power is in front of him after all? A lady just can’t compete.

  After Tang Lo tells him what he plans, Borger’s words in a German accent are short and sweet.

  “You’re a fool to do this, Tang Lo. The Gallows Test will kill you.”

  “Do you realize how much power that sword can give me?”

  “Not if you’re dead like the other 58 Knights that thing has killed. If you insist on this insanity, I’ll stand as witness and take your place when you are gone until we can elect another Order General. Either way, the Knight Protectors will serve a White Dragon once again.”

  He laughs and slaps Jeff on the back, nearly knocking my poor Consort to the ground. “Ha! Fun times ahead.”

  I like this guy!

  Be quiet, or I’ll tell Fred. He’s already jealous of Dragon.

  Nah, Borger’s straight. Did you see the way Dragon reacted to him looking you over? Smoke was coming out of his nostrils!

  I didn’t notice anything over the growling.

  That was kind of noticeable. Dragon’s getting a little possessive, I think.

  He is not! He was just protecting me from rudeness. The guy stared for a long time.

  He’s from Europe. The men there let women know when they look beautiful. It’s a complement to him. If he had treated you like one of the guys, you would have been insulted.

  I had the feeling he wanted to eat me! He reminds me of a lion with those yellow eyes and that mane of hair. But he’ll do the job, thank goodness. I’m not sure what I would have done if he was a second Tang Lo.

  We would do what was necessary to get the task completed, Jerrie.

  That we would, my friend.

  -5-

  We meet in the living room again. This time it is only Tor, Tang Lo, Borger and I. This business is between Champion Knight Protectors and the Sword of Power now.

  I open my eyes in the otherworld to see Sir Frederick standing waiting for us, a potent glare on his face. I have Tor clasped in my hand as a sign of our bond. I walk over to the Founder and give him his sword.

  He takes it and turns to glare at his modern successor. “The sword’s already bonded to a Champion, Tang Lo. The test has never been done under these conditions before. To actually see an Order General refuse to help a White Dragon without you demanding this test first in return shames me.”

  Tang Lo flushes, but he doesn’t give in. “It was different when you were alive, Gallows. The world has changed, moved on. The Order has to fight for every ounce of power and money we can get now. They treat us like a laughingstock in the human world.”

  In a way, what he says is true. The human police treat the Order of Knight Protectors like they were an anachronism unless supernaturals are involved. Then they are as quick as anyone else to turn to them. There are certainly different challenges than what Fred had dealt with thousands of years ago.

  I spoke up for Tang Lo, surprising Sir Frederick.

  “Sir Frederick, Tor should have been with the Order Generals all along, and the Gallows test is a legitimate, if extreme, part of your testing procedures. Now that the sword’s been recovered, Tang Lo wants to try the test. It is his right to do so under the laws you yourself wrote up for your Order. He’s made arrangements for his successor to take over if he should fail, and he agrees to help me with my quest if he passes it. I have no problem with him trying it. I’ve already learned the skills I needed.”

  The amethyst eyes narrow and stare at me, and I feel like a butterfly stuck by a pin beneath that angry gaze. But if I am going to be the White Dragon, who above all stands up for justice, Sir Frederick needs to realize that he can’t intimidate me with his powerful personality.

  I have to admit that I breathe a quiet sigh of relief when that intense purple stare turns to the other Champion here.

  “Borger, are you prepared to witness this and to take up the mantle of the Order General if Tang Lo fails to pass?”

  “Yes, Founder, I’m prepared.”

  Looking back at the Order General, Sir Frederick says, “Then you can try it, Tang Lo. To bond with the Sword of Power, it has to be thrust completely through your heart here in the spiritual realm. I’ll hold the hilt. You lean forward and let
him pierce you.”

  Tang Lo watches as Sir Frederick holds Tor’s hilt firmly point outward, then he looks at me suspiciously. “You did this too? How deep did it go?”

  “Yes, I did. It is run entirely through your body. It hurt like bloody hell, and I almost stopped several times. My family’s tortured faces were all that kept me going. I still have the scars from the cuts here in the spirit world, but it’s in a place I’m not comfortable showing you men.”

  The Order General had courage, I’ll give him that. He takes a deep breath and pushes himself onto Tor, impaling himself until the fiery sword sticks out of his back. He screams in agony and I pick up on his pain with my empathy, almost screaming myself. Not long after it was through, Tang Lo’s spirit fades from the room, leaving only the three of us and Tor still here.

  Borger says sadly, “It killed him, then?”

  Fred nods his head, sadness in his eyes. “He never really had a chance to pass because his motives weren’t pure enough. The only person who didn’t realize that was Tang Lo. But the White Dragon was correct. It was his right to try.”

  “I’m sorry, Fred.” I took the large man who had become my friend in my arms for a hug. “I know it’s not easy when you lose them.”

  Fred lets me hold him for a bit, then gently pushes me away to get back to the business at hand.

  “With a White Dragon here, we need a warrior running the Order, not a politician. Borger, the White Dragon requires our Order’s help. Can I count on you to do what needs to be done to shake the dust off of my Knights and get them ready for war? Because we are all beginning to think that this time it’s going to be a real bad one.”

  Borger grins. “I’ll kick their Knightly asses until they’re ready to take on all the legions of Hell, Founder, you can be sure of that!”

  They clasp wrists and really look alike right then.

  “Is there a chance that you two could be related? Because you resemble each other quite a bit, in case you haven’t noticed, except for the eye color.”

  Borger grins. “Unless Sir Frederick is part shifter, we aren’t.”

  “You’re like Jeff, my Consort?”

  “Not half and half as he is. My father was half lion clan shifter and half witch and my mother was a Knight Protector. I got only the eyes and the size but can’t shift. My sister can.”

  “Interesting, the way genetics work. Well, we better go back, because you have an Order General to bury and mourn. I would like to meet with you before you go to let you know what you’ll be in for, if that’s okay?”

  He nods, and we return to our bodies in the real world to get ready for the trip to Belgium.

  The brownies had wrapped Tang Lo’s body in a sheet and placed it in a beautiful mahogany coffin to await the journey home. This time he will be leaving by the gateway and will be flown to the Atlanta headquarters with Borger accompanying him. The acting Order General contacted the Order chapterhouse in Las Vegas to arrange an escort to meet them at the gateway for protection as well as to honor their fallen leader.

  After I explain to Borger what we are planning, he thinks about it for a few moments.

  “I saw some of those records when I was a child and my mother worked in the main Order Archives in Berlin. They’re so old, yet magic has kept them legible to the naked eye.”

  Jeff, being an archeologist and an expert at handling and reading ancient papers, points out, “Magically preserved documents like that mean they can’t be scanned or emailed. So we’ll either have to head there to see them, or they’ll have to come to us here.”

  “Well, neither you nor I can go without triggering the enemy’s Finder abilities, since he knows us. We can’t give him even a hint we’re planning to go to Europe ahead of time.”

  “That’s all well and good, Jerrie, but who else here speaks enough old-time French and has the required knowledge of ancient ruins to be able to tell which blueprints and journals we need?”

  I glance around the table at my generals in question.

  “I speak and read the language fluently, My Lady.” Cirwin says, “And some of our buildings in the seeley mound are older than those you study.”

  “I have the knowledge as well.” Dragon offers, “Also, I can fly to Europe in ten hours.”

  Jeff looks at them. “There’s one problem with that, guys. You both know buildings. You don’t understand ruins and how to figure out where to find stuff from ancient blueprints. You might miss something crucial that I’ll require later to make our plans.”

  “Jerrie, we have to risk it. I need to be the one to go.”

  “My lady?”

  Liam usually doesn’t speak up in our meetings, but when he does, the brownie always has worthwhile points to add.

  “Yes, Liam?”

  “I’ll go get the plans and bring them back. Brownies have been part of building magical buildings since we came into existence. There isn’t anything we don’t know about them. I speak and read some of the ancient languages as well.”

  I don’t want to risk the little fey who has become a close friend, but when the choice comes down to it, at this moment, of all of my advisors, Liam is the one I need least right now. Later, when we are on the move to Europe that will change. His logistics expertise and brownie magic will be of prime importance. But not now. God, I hate having to make decisions like this.

  “Liam goes. I need the rest of you here with me to deal with the meet and greets now that everyone knows about me.”

  I turn to Borger. “I’ll send Lucifer to you to bring you back after the funeral and after you’ve had time to start things in motion. Will you handle your archivists in Berlin and give Lucifer a picture in his mind so he’ll know where to go with Liam? It will make it easier if they’ve pulled all the records from that period ahead of time for him.”

  “Yes, I’ll take care of that and will email the Consort when they’re ready for Liam to come. I’ll start my Knights secretly moving towards the old headquarters as soon as the funeral is done. That witch will have to get through us to attack you. Even if he’s powerful enough to suck my men dry of our magic, we’ll buy you the time to bring the wizard and the Founder back, by my oath as a Knight Protector.”

  “Order General, I admire your courage, and am thankful for it. But we mustn’t forget the goal here. Your Knights are there to distract the enemy from sensing my Consort and my magical signatures long enough to revive and maybe heal Tor and to reanimate the Founder as a secondary objective. Then Lucifer will take us back to Avalon immediately afterwards if all goes well. I am going to need your Knights for what is coming, for the real reason I was made a White Dragon.”

  “I hear you. But we have to be ready to fight, just in case things don’t go as planned, which they usually don’t in war. I wouldn’t expect you to know that, since you’re the healer, my Lady, and I’m the soldier. You do your job, and leave me to do mine, okay?”

  I get up and lean over the table at him, coming so close I can smell lunch on his breath. I stare into those tawny eyes, draw up all of my magic in its sparking entirety, and purr, “I’m not just a healer any longer, Borger. I’m the White Dragon. Don’t make the same mistake your predecessor did by underestimating me. You need to hold your Knights back until I give you the order to confront our enemy face to face, or I won’t take assistance from you other than to get the blueprints I require. Sir Frederick is correct in saying that in these times a warrior is needed to lead the Order. But there are different kinds of warriors. I don’t want an egotist who will throw his men away like magical cannon fodder that can only make my enemy stronger. I don’t think you’re that type of person. Neither does Sir Frederick. Am I wrong?”

  The man doesn’t back down one inch, all he does is grin at me. What is he, crazy?

  “Good! I was starting to get concerned that this version of White Dragon was a washed-out touchy-feely one.”

  I sense Dragon’s anger erupt and feel him make a move towards Borger.

  “It�
��s okay Dragon, I’ve got this. Borger, I plunged the Sword of Power into my heart and passed the test of a soul-singer to become a Champion Knight Protector, then walked out and fought a magical duel with the High Priestess of Avalon afterwards. I don’t need to prove myself to anyone. I want your word that you’ll work under the White Dragon’s authority, or we’re done here.”

  “As long as you understand that they are my Knights, not yours to command directly, then you have my promise. Also, if I’m forced in a field situation to fight, I will.”

  “They’re yours to command. But you won’t be looking for that battle, will you, Mr. Lion?”

  “No. We can’t beat this witch’s magic. After seeing yours here, I get that. I’ll leave that to you and the Founder’s Wizard. That’s what a White Dragon is for, after all, to destroy magical enemies.”

  I straighten up, let the power go, and practically fall back in my chair. This man is exhausting!

  “Then we’ll wait to hear from you. Once we have the drawings and finalize our plans, I’ll bring you here by Hellhound express for a final meeting.”

  He laughs at our nickname for Lucifer’s method of travel, nods his head, and gets up to leave. Suddenly he reaches over and takes my hand and kisses it, golden eyes twinkling. I flush red and pull it back with a hard stare, ignoring the playfulness in his eyes. Uppity sexist man.

  “It’s been a pleasure, my Lady Dragon-Spears.”

  He turns and struts out, looking insufferably pleased with himself.

  “Dragon, where do you think you’re going? Jeff?”

  “That lion cub needs to be taught some respect for dragons.”

  “For healers too.”

  “Don’t do it, please?”

  The tiredness in my voice is probably the only thing that will stop the two angry men. They both turn around and come back to make sure I’m okay.

  Cirwin speaks up, surprising all of us. He’d been pretty quiet lately.

  “My Lady’s right. She just convinced a strong Order General to agree to follow her commands, and though I would love to join you to teach that disrespectful pup a lesson in manners, doing so would negate all the good Lady Jerrie just did.”