Dragon Adventurer collection

by K V Deal

  The top one was… well, unreadable really. It was almost like somebody had swallowed all the letters of the English language and just vomited them onto the page.

  Looking at it, Carah shook her head. “Okay, that’s got to be a code. No way is that how these guys are writing. Is it all like that?”

  I shuffled to the next page. Happily, this one was actually written in normal English. I felt my eyes go wide as I realized what I was reading. The paper detailed the exact way that Edward, the shapeshifter and Rachel’s tormentor, had died. It described his final moments in some pretty explicit detail. It even had the names of everyone in our team.

  “Ohhhh…crap,” Carah said from over my shoulder.

  Yup, that’s pretty much my feeling too.

  She jabbed a finger at the paper. “We have to let Axle know about this!”

  I nodded and flipped to the next page. This one was mostly gibberish again, for about half-a-page at least. Below was a list of names, each with a description.

  “Hey, I know some of these guys!” Carah said. She frowned at the list. “At least a few of them are Adventurers,” she pointed out one of the names, “but this guy is one of the butchers that used to be friends with—” She cut herself off. From her expression, I knew she was thinking about Vinny.

  To change the topic, I gently tapped a name. “Robert.” It labeled him as half-dwarf. That, plus the description… “I know this guy, and I can’t imagine him working with a bunch of thugs.”

  “Robert? Wasn’t he the guy from Search and Rescue who found you?” Carah asked.

  I nodded.

  Carah pursed her lips. After a moment she spoke in a hesitant tone. “I’m…not sure we should tell Cyrus about this. Not yet, at least.”

  I looked over at her and raised an eyebrow in surprise.

  “Look…” She paused and then changed tack. “Have you noticed that he seems a bit…different lately?”

  “Yeah, but the guy is under a lot of stress,” I said. “Until Gloria recovers, he has to handle everything.”

  “I understand that, but…” Carah glanced around as if someone could be listening. “I mean about the witch hunt he’s running.”

  “Wait, we have witches?” I asked in surprise.

  “No!” she hesitated. “Well maybe. I don’t mean witch witches. What I mean is the way that he’s trying to hunt down anyone who is even rumored to be connected with either the Inquisitors or The Chosen.”

  “What?”

  “You hadn’t heard?” Now it was Carah’s turn to look surprised.

  “I mean, I knew he was going after them,” I said defensively.

  “The problem is,” Carah went on, ignoring me, “that he’s started hauling away people. And wherever they go, they don’t come back!”

  “That sounds like an urban legend,” I said dubiously.

  “Alright, I know it sounds crazy, but B knows a guy who was taken. She saw it happen. She’s the one who told me about it.” Carah leaned in closer as she continued to speak. “She wanted to stop them, tried to. To her, it looked like a kidnapping. You know? Then they told her they were working for Cyrus. They showed some kind of documentation and then dragged the guy away. B was not happy.”

  That…might change my urban legend theory.

  B, or Brittany, was Carah’s twin. B was pretty rock-solid reliable on this kind of thing. Definitely not the type to spread rumors. Carah was looking at me in annoyance.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I saw that. So, if B says it, it has to be true, but if I say it…”

  Okay, I…may have put my foot in my mouth again with that one…and I didn’t say a word.

  I looked away. “I…um…”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Crap!

  I coughed into my hand and turned back to the papers. “Let’s do a bit more digging, before we go to Cyrus then,” I muttered. It was a weak attempt to change the subject, and I knew it.

  “Right.” The tone of her voice made me wince. I was in so much trouble. Thankfully though, she let it go. For now, at least. “Maybe we should check on a few of these guys. See what we can find out.”

  I nodded.

  There were still two pages left. I flipped to the first of them. More gibberish. Hopefully, somebody would be able to break that damn code. But that wouldn’t help us now.

  I lifted up the final page to take a look. Thank, god. It was in English. My relief vanished the minute that I saw the image on the page. It was MY lamp! There was a simple message below.

  To all The Chosen,

  Our command still stands.

  Obtain this lamp at all costs.

  Kill the dragon.

  Well, shit.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Chapter 14

  While Carah and I hurried our way back down the tunnel toward the first room we’d discovered, we were trying to figure out our next move.

  I’d stored the crate and papers in my ring. We’d strip searched the giant, just in case. We’d examined the rest of the room. As far as we could tell, the only ways out of this place were back the way we had come or underwater the way my prey—no, the other people—had escaped. Since we really hadn’t felt like risking the swimming, we’d headed back the way we’d come.

  Carah sighed, rubbing her head. “This is just a massive headache...”

  “I know.”

  “Why is it we keep stumbling across things like this?”

  “It’s not like I go looking for them...” I muttered defensively.

  “I know,” Carah waved a hand dismissively, “but you have to admit, it’s weird.”

  We walked in silence for a while before Carah spoke again. “I may know somebody who can break that code.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  She shrugged. “B's always been into codes and such. If she can’t break it herself, she'll know somebody else who can give it a shot. The way she talks, it seems people like that are a pretty close-knit community.”

  “Well, that’s a bit of good news.”

  Right now, I’d take any bit of good news I could get.

  “So, we should drop the gibberish pages with her and maybe talk to a few people from the list?”

  “There’s another step first.”

  I groaned. “What else...”

  We exited out of the tunnel into the first room. Carah gestured at the walls, the very solid looking walls. “Finding a way out of here,” she said.

  Oh. Right.

  Luckily enough, that turned out to be easier than we’d expected. Searching around the spot where I had left the bat guy’s body, Carah found a crazy, well-hidden latch that had opened the hidden door. It didn’t take long to climb up and out, back into the building. We made it to the door, no problems at—

  “Stop right there!”

  The front door was already open. Standing in it was a man in heavy-plate armor. As soon as he saw us, he leveled a rather sharp looking sword at us.

  “Excuse me?” I said. It wasn’t a question, as my tail had begun to lash. Whoever this was, they were being rude.

  “Jake and Carah, you are ordered to report to Cyrus at the mayor’s residence immediately.” The man’s sword didn’t so much as twitch as he watched us with cold eyes from under the heavy metal of his helmet.

  “Alright,” Carah said lightly. She seemed to be taking this arrogant ass's drivel in stride. Much better than I was, that was for sure.

  Personally, there was something about this guy’s attitude that made me want to sock him in the jaw. Only the hand that Carah put on my arm held me back.

  “Hmmph!” the man said, stepping out of our way. He gestured us to go out ahead of him.

  As we stepped outside, we could see there were five other Adventurers, all armed and waiting for us. Their expressions ranged from angry to just worried

  “Drop your weapons,” the knight behind us said.

  Oh, no. If he thought I was just going to—

  “Hey, Sal. They’re not
prisoners, right? Cyrus just told us to bring them back,” a young green-skinned man with leaves in his hair and a spear asked worriedly. “They’re still Adventurers, just like us.”

  The knight, Sal I guessed, looked at the green man and snorted disgustedly, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he just said, “Get moving.”

  The group took up positions around us as we walked. They kept Carah and I moving at a fast clip.

  Honestly, this was pissing me off. Why the hell had we been grabbed like this?

  Seemed Carah was asking herself the same question. She, at least, was able to ask it politely. “Sooo...anyway you guys could tell us what's going on?”

  “We saw you go into that house,” the green guy said.

  “Shut up, Garrett,” Sal said.

  “Hey, they have a right to know,” Garrett muttered, looking down at the ground.

  “Gary's right,” a thin woman, whose green dreadlocks seemed to be moving with a mind of their own, intervened on the green man's behalf, “I’d want to know too.”

  “Please don’t call me Gary,” Garrett winced.

  Sal ignored him and focused on the woman. “Just don’t. Cyrus can tell them whatever they need to know. We don’t want to get involved one way or another. Trust me, you didn’t get that sparrow.”

  That sounds ominous...

  “Wow...that makes me feel better!” Carah muttered sarcastically. “Nice to know we're with the good guys.”

  That made Sal hesitate. He was trying to stick to his guns, but then his shoulders drooped, and he looked away. “What he said wasn’t pretty. Just, don’t make us kill you. Okay?”

  Wait, they have orders to kill us? From Cyrus? Well, crap.

  We continued our march through the city. I thought about breaking loose once or twice, but Carah, as if reading my mind, gripped my hand and gave it a squeeze. She looked up at me reassuringly. Even with that, I was pretty twitchy by the time we got to the mayor’s house.

  At the door, a group of four people in brightly polished armor and helmets that covered their faces stood waiting for us. That style of that armor looked really familiar...

  “We’ll take them from here,” one of the four said. It sounded like a woman, but it was nobody I knew.

  Sal nodded and motioned his group back.

  Garrett was the last one to back away. “Hey,” he said, “they didn’t try to escape or anything okay?”

  “Garrett!” Sal snapped.

  The woman nodded. “It will be noted.”

  “So,” I said, my tail lashing, “when do we get to see Cyrus?” I really wanted to get this stupid misunderstanding out of the way.

  “Whenever he feels like it,” another of the group said. This one was a man, and boy, did he sound angry. Why the hell should he be angry? I didn’t know this guy! How the hell had I pissed him off?

  “Will he know we’re here?” Carah asked sweetly. Giving the man a cheerful smile.

  Knowing her as I did, I could tell it wasn’t a real smile, but with the amount of good cheer she shoved into it, I bet the guards couldn’t tell.

  “He will be informed,” the man said grudgingly.

  “Thanks!” Carah nodded.

  There was an awkward moment of silence after that, as Carah just grinned at them.

  Then the woman of their group stepped forward to break the silence. “Hand over your weapons.”

  Now that I really wasn’t willing to do. “Hell, no!”

  “It wasn’t a request,” the man said coldly, reaching for his sword.

  “Jake! We don’t want to fight here!” Carah stepped between me and the man and reached up to grab my hand. She wrapped both of hers around it. “Please! For me!”

  I gritted my teeth, looking from her to the wary group of soldiers standing behind her.

  Damn it!

  With a snort of anger, I tugged my hand free. As I did, I felt a pull on my finger. Her back to the group, Carah winked at me. She opened her hands to show that they now held MY ring.

  “Weapons!” the woman barked.

  I glared up at her and then looked back at Carah. The ring was gone, and she was grinning at me.

  “Jake, please...” There was a nervous tone in her voice that was not reflected in her expression.

  I forced my grimace to get worse as I pulled MY dagger and MY mace out of my belt and threw them on the ground.

  Carah let out a loud sigh of relief, again, not reflected in her face. Then she tugged her rapier free and tossed it to the ground.

  “Finally,” I heard one of the soldiers mutter as he and another guard stepped forward. “Prepare to be searched.”

  “Really?” I growled. I could feel heat radiating from my mouth as my anger boiled up. I didn’t do anything as they patted us down.

  “Where’s your ring?” The guard who was searching me jabbed a digit at my finger.

  “The Chosen stole some of my stuff,” I growled, pushing myself to get angry about that again—not exactly a hard to do.

  The guard eyed me, huffed, then continued his search.

  “Come with us,” the woman barked, spinning around to stride into the building.

  They led us into the depths of the former school, taking us all the way down to the basement-turned-dungeon that I had chased Edward through. Back then, as I’d run past cell after cell, every single one had been empty, just sandstone rooms behind a wall of bars. Now? Every single cell held at least one person.

  “The hell?” The words slipped past my lips as I looked around, almost unable to believe my eyes. Even with what Carah had told me, I wasn’t prepared for this.

  Neither was Carah it seemed. She shrank back against me as we walked, looking around with wide, terrified eyes. Without thinking, I reached out and wrapped an arm around her, my tail thrashing a furious beat.

  The group of armored figures took us over to one of the few empty cells. It was near the exit Edward had used to escape from this dungeon, not that we’d have a similar chance. Two more heavily armored figures stood guard in front of the doorway.

  Again, there was something about their armor that poked at my memory. I’d seen that style before, and it wasn’t all that long ago.

  “Get in.” The woman held open the door to a cave-like cell and jabbed a finger inside.

  I hesitated, just for a second, and then headed inside. Carah balked, pulling back, but when she saw I was heading in, she quickly followed.

  As soon as we were inside, the door slammed shut. I turned around in time to see another of the guards turning a key in the lock.

  Well, that’s pleasant...

  I looked around the cell. It was pretty bleak, just a single twin bed, one stool and one of those brown clay pots that were toilets. It was more than a little annoying considering the cell across the hall had a queen-sized bed with quilts, a desk, a chair and even a small curtained area that I had to guess was a bathroom.

  I didn’t have time for this. While we were sitting here, MY lamp was in the hands of those thieves!

  My tail began to lash, as I let out a growl. When we got to talk with Cyrus, I was going to have some pretty nasty words lined up for him.

  Carah was watching the two soldiers stomp away. “Well, this just sucks,” she said glumly.

  I asked, “How long do you think it will actually take till we get to see Cyrus?”

  “Well, if our companions down here are any indication, quite a while.” Her voice was familiar, jovial, but it sounded wearier than I had ever heard her sound before.

  The curtain in the room across the hall shifted, and an armored head poked out. Behind the visor, were twin lights that shone as if the eyes inside were glowing.

  Carah was at the bars of our cell in an instant. “Gloria!” she shouted happily, “you’re alright!”

  “Of course, I am,” Gloria said, seeming amused at Carah’s reaction. “Give me a moment to finish up in here,” she said and ducked back behind the curtain.

  I’d never given any thought to whe
ther a living suit of armor would use the toilet. I guess that question had been answered.

  After a moment, she returned. “So, I take it you two are our latest Chosen supporters?” There was a sarcastic tone to her voice as she walked up to the bars of her cell.

  “What? No!” Carah shook her head. “Gloria, why are you down here?”

  “For my own protection I’m told,” Gloria shook her head, “though the only people I’ve talked to are those damned guards.”

  “Cyrus hasn’t even come to see you?” I asked in surprise.

  “Not even once.” She looked off down the hall. “I thought we were closer than that.” The last bit came out so softly that I almost didn’t catch it.

  Then she clapped her hands together and looked to us.

  “So, fill me in on what I’ve missed! I need to get back in the game!”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Chapter 15

  Filling Gloria in on everything that had happened since her attack took a while…not that we were interrupted or anything. In fact, other than the heavily armed men guarding the doorway down the hall, there wasn’t a single soldier in sight, much less one bothering us.

  Gloria must have noticed me looking around. “Don’t worry about them. The guards never come down here unless they’re throwing somebody else in a cell.” She grimaced or at least gave the impression that she had. No idea how, but for only being a helmet, she had a very expressive face.

  “There’s a lot of people down here...” Carah murmured, leaning against the bars to look down the hall.

  “They've been busy,” Gloria said darkly. Then she clicked her tongue in annoyance. “I was hoping you would be able to tell me who these guys are.”

  I blinked in surprise. “You don’t know?”

  “Not a clue. We didn't have anything like this, last I knew. I mean, matching armor? We were having trouble just making sure everyone actually had something! And I don’t know a single craftsman or smithy in the city, who could arm this many people this fast and with this level of quality,” Gloria grumbled.

  “Then where the hell is all of this coming from?” Carah scratched her head.

  “Should that be what we’re worrying about right now?” I grumbled. “Shouldn't we—I don’t know—worry more about being thrown in a cell with no hope of getting out?”