The Dragons Revenge (Tales from the New Earth #2) (18 page)

The cleric sipped her tea
quietly and then looked at Simon, her expression bleak.

“
Won't I? The dark
gods and their damnable dragons want us all dead. Yes, this moat may
save my town for now, but what about the future? Walls and ditches
won't stop a dragon.”

Simon looked at her, began
to speak and then sagged slightly in his seat.

“
I have no answers
for you,” he said finally. “But I'm resolved to try to
stop them, somehow. My powers are growing beyond even my expectations
and, in a few months, I may be ready to at least try to plan an
attack on one of the primals. The next most powerful dragon is the
green, so that will be my target.”

“
That's absurd,”
Aeris snapped.

Both Simon and Clara
looked at him in surprise. The elemental hadn't said a word since
they'd arrived and now he floated to the middle of the room so that
he could look at them both simultaneously.

“
You almost
destroyed yourself once by trying to regain your powers too quickly,
my dear wizard. And now you want to tempt fate again? You will not be
capable of facing a dragon in a few months, and certainly not one of
the remaining primal dragons.”

Simon frowned at him.

“
Thanks for that
vote of confidence, Aeris. But my convalescence is over with and I
have passed beyond your babysitting.”

He stood up and glared at
the elemental.

“
I will decide my
own fate now. And if and when I choose to face the dragons again, it
will be my decision, not yours.”

Aeris gaped at him, obviously surprised
at the wizard's sudden mood change.

Simon's resentful anger faded as
quickly as it had come and he smiled ruefully at the elemental. He
sat down and picked up his tea cup.

“Look, bud, I owe you and Kronk
more than I can say. But the time for caution is quickly passing.
Clara's right about the future. It is bleak. Unless we begin making
plans, and soon, that poor little baby's death will only be the first
of the next generation to fall.”

The misty figure floated closer to
Simon and watched him quietly for an uncomfortably long moment. Then
he nodded abruptly.

“You're right, of course,”
he told the wizard in a quiet, serious voice. “Both Kronk and I
are, perhaps, too close to you to see the big picture on occasion. We
don't want you to die, Simon. It's that simple. But, well...”
He looked almost helplessly at Clara. “The good cleric is
correct, I suppose. Losing her people the way she did brings the
horror of the future close to home.”

He floated up to Simon's right and
perched on the arm of the sofa again. His expression was more
vulnerable than Simon had ever seen it and he felt a rush of guilt
for snapping at the little guy.

“Aeris, look. I'm not going to
waste all of the good work you guys did getting me back on my feet
and back to normal. And I promise you that I won't suicidally attack
the first dragon I see. But when the time is right, I'll take my
shot.” He grinned at Aeris' sudden eye roll. “And I hope
you'll be there with me.”

The elemental nodded once and looked
past Simon to smile at the cleric.

“Now you see what I have to deal
with, day in and day out. It's worse than being a babysitter.”

Clara had watched the interplay
silently and now her gloomy expression gave way to giggles.

“You two should take that act on
the road, do you know that?”

Simon chuckled.

“I thought that we had,” he
replied. He finished his tea, stood up and stretched to loosen up his
stiff back.

“It will take Kronk a few hours
to get here, Clara. And, since I'll be at loose ends until then, I'd
like to do a little reconnaissance before it gets dark. So, exactly
how far is it to that cemetery?”

Simon rode Chief away from
Nottinghill, following the clear mess of staggering tracks left by
the undead in the scattered drifts of snow. Aeris floated beside him
resignedly, having exhausted all of the reasons that he'd thought of
to convince the wizard that this was a terrible idea.

“
Aeris, it's still
broad daylight,” Simon told him as he rode. Chief was lifting
his hooves lightly as he moved, frisky and still full of energy even
after the trip from home. He was the only one of the three who seemed
to be in a good mood.

“
Even I know that
zombies, or whatever these things are, can't rise until it's dark. So
relax.”

“
Relax? Are you
joking? I could understand if you were scouting out the source of
these monsters for any good reason, but you're just going there out
of curiosity!”

“
Supposed source,”
Simon told him. “None of the folks from town actually know that
the undead are coming from there. Something about these attacks
doesn't feel right and I want to find out what.”

“
Which part?”
Aeris asked sarcastically. “The part where the dead are rising?
Or the part where they are slaughtering the living?”

Simon sighed and guided
Chief around a clump of brush on the trail they were following.

“
I mean the fact
that Nottinghill has been attacked for three nights running and, by
all accounts, Clara and her people have destroyed dozens, possibly a
hundred of these creatures.” He halted the horse abruptly and
looked at Aeris. “I've been to that town. Back before the
Burning, I dropped by there several times for supplies. They had a
great country store. It had everything. And I remember the quaint
little cemetery on the edge of town. It had maybe a dozen tombstones;
no more than that. It was a tiny place.”

He gave Aeris a
significant look and chirped at Chief to get him moving again.

The elemental hovered in
place for a moment and then hurried to catch up with Simon.

“
Wait a minute,”
he said when he was beside the wizard again. “So you're saying
the undead couldn't come from that cemetery?”

“
That's exactly what
I'm saying,” Simon said grimly. “So if they aren't coming
from there, where exactly are they coming from?”

Aeris became quiet and
thoughtful and they continued the journey in silence.

Although the trail to the
town was blocked by the occasional deadfall or high, crusty
snowdrift, the path that the undead had forced through these
obstacles had ironically made it easier for Simon to get to his
destination. By about two in the afternoon, the remains of the small
town came into view.

The wizard remembered that
the town had had a church with a lovely, delicate steeple soaring
overhead. But now, as he looked across small mounds of snow and bare
patches of brown, churned-up earth, all he saw was the shell of a
building.

The steeple had been
smashed to the ground and lay alongside the gutted remains of the
church. Fire had touched the quaint little building and blackened
timbers leaned drunkenly in all directions, turning the church into a
shapeless ruin.

Simon directed Chief
carefully through the town. The path of the undead was still leading
him to his destination and they crossed through backyards, over
broken roads and, most sadly, they made their way around the town's
tiny war memorial.

The wizard was reminded
sharply of the melted slag that had been Ottawa's famous memorial. He
had seen it when he had visited his home city and now here was
another one.

Simon stopped and
dismounted. He dropped the reins and Chief stood quietly as the
wizard walked a few steps to stand in front of the cenotaph.

A bronze plaque, twisted
and scarred, lay by a pile of rubble that must have been the marker
that had listed the names of the several local soldiers who had died
in one war or another. The writing on the bronze sheet was obscured
by a scummy drift of snow and Simon squatted down and brushed it away
slowly. Revealed beneath was only one legible word: 'Unconquered'.

He stared at it blankly,
his mind grasping for meaning. Slowly, Simon's mood changed from a
hollow feeling of loss to one of kindled anger.

Who did the simple people
of this unnamed town ever hurt? All they had wanted to do was to live
their lives, raise their kids, maybe find some happiness. Some, as
commemorated by the cenotaph, had patriotically gone away to war, to
fight and die for their home and country.

He stood up and turned
slowly, scanning the area, taking in the desolation. His vision
blurred and he shook his head incomprehensibly. From the depths of
his being, an cry boiled out of him.

“
Why?” he
shouted in helpless rage.

Aeris had been watching
disinterestedly as Simon had poked through the ruin of the little
memorial. At Simon's painful cry, he jerked upward and retreated a
few feet. Then he stared gaping as the fragile-looking young man
stood trembling in the middle of the ravaged town.

“
Simon?” the
elemental ventured hesitantly. “Are you...okay?”

The wizard wiped his eyes
with an abrupt gesture, turned and mounted Chief again.

“
I'm fine,” he
muttered. “Let's go while the daylight lasts.”

He pulled the horse around
and began walking along the churned path of the undead again, Aeris
following behind. The elemental watched the wizard closely but
remained silent.

When they had reached the
far end of the town, Simon pointed ahead.

“
There's the
cemetery,” he told Aeris as they approached a storm fence that
had been trampled and torn apart.

“
It looks like the
monsters came from that place after all,” Aeris replied as his
eyes followed the broken trail created by the undead.

“
Maybe,” the
wizard said.

When they reached the
dismantled fence, Simon pulled up Chief and he and Aeris looked
across the graveyard.

It was indeed a small plot
of ground. Dirty, faded tombstones lay toppled or tilted crazily in
all directions. Simon totaled them up and looked at Aeris.

“
Fourteen,” he
said as he waved at them. “That's all there are. Only
fourteen.”

Aeris darted ahead and
followed the frozen footprints into the cemetery. And out the other
side. He turned and waited while Simon and Chief crossed the small
square of land.

“
You were correct,”
the elemental said with a rueful smile. “The undead came
through the cemetery, but they came from somewhere else.”

“
Yes, I can see
that. The question is, where exactly is that?”

“
The path continues
into the trees there. Who knows how far? We should head back to
Nottinghill, Simon. I doubt if you will find any answers today.”

Simon stared at Aeris long
enough for the elemental to begin to squirm.

“
You seem awfully
anxious for me to return to Clara and the others,” he said.

“
Of course I am,”
Aeris said. He waved above them at the sky. “It's only an hour,
maybe two until nightfall. Surely you don't want to be caught out
here after dark? Not with hordes of undead roaming the countryside?”

Simon was torn. He wanted,
no, he needed to get some answers about the source of the undead
attacks. He had a strong feeling that something was going on;
something more than random corpses rising from their graves.

But Aeris was right.
Getting attacked by those creatures alone in the wilderness,
especially when he wasn't back to his full strength yet, was
tantamount to suicide.

With a resigned shake of
his head, the wizard pulled Chief around and started back the way
he'd come.

“
You win,” he
told the elemental. “We'll head back. But I'm not done with
this. I'm going to discover where those zombies are coming from, with
or without your help.”

Aeris looked relieved and
took his place on Simon's right side.

“
With my help,
actually,” he said.

“
What?”

“
My dear wizard,
have you forgotten an air elemental's original function, back in the
old days of magic? I am first and foremost a scout. If you'd like, at
first light tomorrow, I'll endeavor to locate the source of these
abominations. And then you can decide what to do about them.”

Simon had to grin.

“
I thought you said
this was a waste of time?”

“
No. What is a waste
of time is you tramping through the woods looking for dead, crawly
things. Your energies are best used to deal with these things once
you have the proper information. And I will get that for you.”

“
Well, that's
just...” Simon's voice trailed off and then he turned and
focused on the trail ahead. “Thank you,” he said simply.

“
You are quite
welcome, my dear wizard. After all, someone in this family has to be
the sensible one, doesn't he? And it certainly won't be you or that
earthen lunkhead.”

Simon managed to return to
Nottinghill before nightfall, barely. The guard at the front gate
opened it just wide enough for Chief to squeeze through and then
slammed it shut behind him, bolting it securely.

“
Is Clara still in
the hall?” he asked.