Dragons of Summer Tide (The Dragons of Hwandor) (17 page)

The birdsong hour before dawn passed and dawn came and the sun was starting to rise before anyone in the camp began to stir. Shira realized with a start that she had slept instead of watched. She built up the fire and got a couple of small pots going for some food. The dragons awoke and each headed into the forest to hunt. Cyerant sat up and looked around not even remembering coming into the camp the night before.
Veer stirred and then gasped in pain.

“I can’t see anything,
” Veer said.

“It was the flash from magic, maybe it will pass. I have your eyes covered right now. Don’t try to move around because your skin is pretty badly singed like a
sunburn.”

Shira made sure that everyone ate and was taken care of and she carefully checked the returning dragons to make sure none of them had injuries. Jolss
, she fretted over but he slept until mid afternoon and woke up long enough to eat something and then went back to sleep. Cyerant decided that they should keep moving in the afternoon but Shira overruled him and the companions would stay in the camp another night. Cyool was able to scout the trails to make sure that they were clear and she saw that the forest fire had burned itself out to the north but had left many acres smouldering still. After the sun went down Shira uncovered Veer’s eyes to see how they were; and he was able to make out some shapes and she knew that his sight would return.

On the second morning all of the companions were awake. Jolss was still weak and
Veer still stung from his burns and needed his eyes covered against the sunlight but after eating and packing they were able to get back on the trail. Shira now led Veer’s horse for him while Cyerant stayed close to Jolss who sat on the new horse and was trying to learn to ride. Cyerant regularly steadied the boy and taught him how to manage the horse so that by the end of the day Jolss was able to decently sit on the animal and control it to some extent.

The next morning saw Veer
able to keep his eyes uncovered though he had to shade his eyes against the sunlight still. It helped that clouds had moved in and shaded the world a bit. Veer was able to manage his own horse now that he could see again. Cyool was able to scout the trail and toward late afternoon she sighted a large band of the foreigners moving up from the south but still several hours away. Cyerant led them off of the trail as the clouds began to thicken and soon the sky opened and a steady rain began to fall. This was lucky because the rain would wash away their tracks and as the day wore into evening the companions used the forest to pass around the party of foreigners and then return to the trail. The cool rain felt good on Veer’s skin and the cloudy day was easy on his eyes but the others found the wetness to be miserable.

“I’m sorry.” Jolss finally blurted out. “I had no idea that it would do that. It was supposed to just be a flame that I thought might hurt one of them a little bit. I knew that having a dragon bond made it stronger but I didn’t think that it would make it that big. I didn’t mean to hurt any of us.”

Veer said. “There were a lot of them so what you did saved our lives. Just next time maybe not so close. I don’t know how much damage you did but I know it must have been a lot.’

Jolss responded,
“I don’t know either, I can’t remember anything other than feeling a tingling all over and then waking up in camp.”

Shira
spoke. “Four of them. You just made four of them disappear; they were just consumed by fire. They never even screamed. And it blasted the trees behind them and started a forest fire. I’ve never even heard of a mage being able to do that.”

“
They can’t,” said Cyerant. “The stories say that once they could but magic has been weakening for centuries. Now mages are really just researchers and they can’t actually do magic or at least not anything useful.”

“Maybe magic left when the dragons did
,” answered Shira

The next few days passed in relative quiet as the companions continued south. Jolss researched the dragon book when he was able to and found out more about magic dragons and dragon mages. He also told Shira more about tracking dragons. There was a story about battle dragons and the description fit Drace perfectly. When he told Cyerant what the book said about mount dragons which bond with nobles and form dragon knights the young baron seemed to become upset and turned away from the boy. Jolss had even figured out what kind of dragon Green Eyes was. She was a poison dragon which rarely bonds and when they do it is to someone very unpleasant. Even when poison dragons stay non-bonded they like to remain around people and they occasionally will bite people with their venom.

As they moved south Cyool was able to scout and keep them away from any parties. Most of their travels were on the trackway but they were able to use the forest to avoid the occasional party of foreigners or guardsmen. One morning Cyool spotted some men moving north up the trail a few hours ahead of the companions and she sent the glimpse to Shira. “There is another party coming up the trail ahead of us. But they look like trappers with their pack horses. Should we go into the forest again?”

“No” said Cyerant. “Trappers have no reason to want to bother us and we know that they can’t see dragons.”

Nearly two hours later the companions spotted the group of trappers. As the two groups approached one another Cyerant held up his open hand as a sign of peace. Then he heard Shira whisper behind him. “One of those dogs they have isn’t a dog. Look.”

One of the hunting dogs with the trappers was actually a dragon and all of the companions could see it. One of the trappers looked at Cyerant and very subtly shook his head indicating that the others travelling with him didn’t know. That trapper must be bonded to the dragon and so he could see the dragons with the companions. While the dogs and dragons all milled about sniffing one another the trappers and the companions traded news. The trappers had seen nothing unusual to the south and they were heading back to their trapping grounds before winter. Cyerant and Veer told the trappers about the forest fire up north and the bands of foreign bandits. Shira managed to wander down the trail a bit and the trapper with the dragon followed her and they were able to talk quietly for a few minutes before both parties parted ways and continued their journeys.

“What did you find out?” Jolss asked as soon as the trappers were far enough away to be out of earshot.

Veer shushed him to make sure that the trappers were far enough away.

Shira looked at Cyerant and he nodded so she began. “He said that there was nothing to the south and I told him what the foreigners were looking for so he is going to head back into the mountains and be very careful with his dragon. He said that there have always been a few trappers who have dragons and they know one another but keep it secret from most folks. They find them in the mountains sometimes. He said that he had never seen so many dragons together and that he only knew about the dragons that help t
rappers hunt and he’s never seen dragons as big as Drace and Corth.  He said in a couple of weeks we will reach the Blacktine River where the Furway ends and we will see the New Range Mountains. Then if we want to go south we can cross on the ferry there or we can book passage on a river boat or we can ride along the river until we get to a city called Deelt. We will see lots of trapper parties coming back up-trail to get to their hunting grounds. And when I told him that something had killed a whole party of foreigners in the night without leaving a single sign he said it had to be elves.”

“Elves?” Asked Cyerant.

“Elves,” said Shira.

The next
two weeks passed uneventfully though the companions did have to occasionally take to the wilds to avoid search parties. Jolss was able to continue his studies relatively peacefully while Veer had his sight slowly return to normal and he was able to resume his nightly training sessions at weaponry with Cyerant. Cyerant had decided that they would cross on the ferry and continue south on the Shadow way which skirted the edge of the New Range Mountains the way that the Furway skirted the Dragon Mountains.

All of this time Cyerant paid very little attention to Jolss and seemed to avoid the boy. Jolss was hurt by this and didn’t understand what he had done but assumed that it had something to do with the fire.
Veer and Shira also noticed it and said nothing as neither one or the other could figure out what was increasingly bothering Cyerant.

One
evening, after two weeks of this treatment, Jolss was starting to read something from the dragon book as he sat by the fire and Cyerant stood up and turned to walk away. Jolss dropped the book and jumped up suddenly dislodging Prin from her perch on his shoulder. The little dragon shrieked and tumbled toward the ground but managed to right herself and open her wings in time to stop her fall and settle clumsily to the ground. The little magic dragon began to let out an angry but tiny roar as Jolss began to yell at Cyerant. “I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t know the fire was going to be that big. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“It isn’t the fire
,” Cyerant began. “You just look like my little brothers; you look like my whole family.” Cyerant started to walk forward into the dark away from the camp but suddenly his dragon Corth stepped out of the darkness right in from of the young man blocking his way. Cyerant tried to step around the, now small horse sized, dragon but Corth just backed a few steps and remained in front of the young man. Cyerant tried to send a mental command to Corth to move out of his way and was surprised to feel the backlash of refusal from the dragon. It was as if the dragon gave him a mental slap. Cyerant continued, “I had another little brother who wasn’t killed in the fire. He was the second oldest and twelve years ago the family nurse stole him. He was a year old and she just disappeared with him. When they caught her she said that we would never find him. After she died my parents searched but never found any sign of the baby. We assumed that he ended up in a river somewhere. You look so much like him; like them all that it hurts to look at you.”

There was a long silence and finally Jolss quietly said
,” oh, I didn’t know.”

Cyerant tried to walk forward again and Corth quietly rumbled in his chest and so Cyerant stopped since the obstinate dragon was not going to move out of his way.

Veer was looking at the exchange between dragon and young noble and he quietly asked. “And?”

Cyerant answered very quietly
, “I’ve been wondering some crazy things.” He paused for a moment and quietly continued. “He had a birthmark on his back in the middle of it.” Cyerant, facing away, couldn’t see Shira as she gently raised the ragged tunic that the boy was wearing and looked at his back. “It looked like a little tiny...”

“Bat wing
,” Shira finished. “A little tiny bat wing – or a dragon wing.”

Jolss sat down on the ground hard with wide shocked eyes as he watched Cyerant slowly sink to his own knees and begin to shudder. Corth stepped up to the young noble and leaned down to encircle the shoulders of the man with his long serpentine neck.

*****

A lone tall female figure rode south on the Edgeway. Her name was Garisa and she was somewhere in the third decade of life. She had grown up rough and she had learned to fight at a very young age. She had never actually been formally trained to use the sword at her side but she had some considerable skill based completely on experience. She had worked many professions through the years, most of them violent. It made no difference to Garisa, bodyguard, assassin or thief so long as the pay was good.

Right now she was a bounty hunter. She knew that young impostor was heading south and she was determined to find him and collect that reward. She was also determined to see the laughter wiped off of the face of that Sergeant of the Guard. How dare he laugh at her and send her away after only a few days of searching. Garisa had seen the impostor and his friends and had followed them and she knew that they
were headed south. That damned sergeant telling her to take her things and leave because she had no more idea about where that boy was than did he or his men after that forest fire had destroyed the trail. The guard knew that the boy was headed south and he just wanted to keep the reward for himself.  When she turns that boy in for the reward she will make sure to mention that guard by name and explain how she would have gotten the boy much sooner if the sergeant would have listened to her.

All that Garisa could do now was head south until reaching the end of Edgeway at Deelt. The saying was that all roads from the Dragon Mountains lead through Deelt. It wasn’t true but most roads did converge there on the Riverway. Chances are that at some point the boy and his friends would come through Deelt. And that is where Garisa would be waiting for them. Then watch until the boy is alone away from his friends and take him. Then turn him in for the reward. Calyen Duchy would have to have a business agent in Deelt. Turn him over to the business agent and get her reward. Simple enough plan.

If the boy and his friends keep to the Wall trying to move through the hills they will take weeks to get to Deelt. But if Garisa stays on the Edgeway she knows that she will be in Deelt in a week and a half of hard riding from town to town.  Then just get a room at Telfargo Inn across from the main stable near the north gate and wait and watch.

The week and a half of the journey went relatively well. Garisa waylaid a few travellers in that time just to make enough money to pay for her stops at inns and taverns to eat and sleep and to build up her purse in order to sustain her when she arrived in Deelt.
Just as she had planned, the journey was quick and when she entered through the north gate of Deelt she felt at home. Garisa sold the horse for a little money, it wasn’t worth much in the exhausted condition to which she had driven it over the last couple of weeks. She was even somewhat surprised that the beast had not died and forced her to steal another. Anyway, horses were easy enough to steal when on your way out of a town.

The inn keeper at the Telfargo was neither particularly happy to see Garisa nor unhappy to see her; though as usual he feigned joy. Garisa had always paid her bill in this inn and she had made sure to cause no trouble here in order to insure that there was at least one inn somewhere in the city which would accept her. The Telfargo was just expensive enough to not be a low class dive of an inn but barley so the inn was not quite a middle class business. It also had the advantage of not bein
g down near the docks on the south end where the river sailors were so abundant.

Deelt was just big enough to be considered a city; a small city but a city nonetheless.
It was a port city with lots of docks on the south end. But Deelt was a strange kind of port city, not on the sea but on the river or actually on the confluence of the Blacktine and Merris rivers where they joined and formed the West Garee River. All goods and materials trading between the southern and the north western parts of the kingdom went by way of these rivers and so everything came through Deelt. Mostly timber and food on barges headed south really but there were trade goods which came back north. The city made a nice sum from the docks on the rivers. There were the docking fees. And there were the taxes collected and sent south to the capital and there were the other fees paid to avoid some of the taxes.

Yes, Deelt was her favourite city. Just large enough to remain anonymous in and allow her to be able to ply her various unpleasant trades. But being so far to the north Deelt lacked the order and stability of the southern cities so the rule of law was a little less here and often only available for those willing to pay a bribe. Certainly not a lawless den of thieves but also not lawful enough that thieves found things difficult.

Garisa soon fell into a rhythm for her days which involved spending most of the day just sitting on the porch of the Telfargo Inn watching the people coming in through the northern gates. Evenings were spent sitting in the common room of the inn listening to gossip and playing a few low stakes games to pass the time.  So now the only things left for Garisa to do is wait and watch.

Over the first few days of watching, Garisa noticed that there were three foreigners staying at the inn who also seemed to take turns watching the main roadway into the city. The three of them spoke with a strange accent and mostly kept to themselves though they would occasionally play a few games and exchange a few coins across the tables with others at night. Garisa figured that the men were also hunting someone and so she decided to play a few games with them and find out who they were looking for so that she would know if they were hunting the same bounty that she intended to claim. It turned out that the foreigners seemed to be more interested in the animals coming through the city than the people so Garisa knew the bounty would be all hers and the only thing that she had to do was to wait until that boy came right to her. 

*****

“Brothers, you’re brothers,” Shira said only slightly louder than a whisper. “Jolss is your little brother, Cyerant.”  She looked at the back of the young man kneeling on the ground and shuddering as he silently cried. “This is good Cyerant, someone else in your family is alive. Jolss is...”

“Daralce, is his name; Daralce Dwalreez,” said Cyerant, cutting Shira off as she was speaking. The young man turned slowly to look, through his tears at the little brother that he had lost so long ago. “Where?” Cyerant whispered to the little boy. “Where?”