Estragon was the copy editor for this years ago but I have made some changes so please do not blame him if there are mistakes.
*****
Sinking down by the fireside in an exhausted daze, I look out across the camp in wonder. A week ago the enemy army that had us nearly beaten suddenly turned into a mass of confused, walking wounded when Dragon took the Demon's second focus stone. My army, my loyal, compassionate, amazing people immediately switched from a fierce fighting force to a swarm of humanitarian aid workers.
In the beginning I interrupted their work everywhere I went in an attempt to lend a hand. Finally they all came to realize that though I am king I am also a healer and stopped their ridiculous bowing and scraping to me. Now I walk among them more as a peer and am proud to assist wherever I can. These poor tortured souls, they have lost everything. If their families were not tortured and killed in front of them when Morbern took them from their homes, they were conscripted along with them. Nothing was left of their villages but ashes. We work now to heal their bodies but it will take years to heal their minds, if they ever recover. As soon as they are able to travel we will take them to the capital; it will be a strain on our resources but we cannot leave them alone with nothing.
Captain Coby and Vorlayin are in pursuit of the Demon. It fled, still in my brother's body, with what remnant of its army it could control. I hope they can catch up to it and send it back to wherever it came from, though it may yet be necessary to capture the last of its focus stones.
-
As I cling precariously to the back of this damnable beast, cursing Yelani in four languages, I try to reach out to Bedrian through our bond. Nothing. I know he lives and yet I can feel nothing of him through our bond. Something goes very ill with my bondmate. Word reached the capital the day we left of the effects our mission had upon the enemy troops. Knowing Bedrian, he is so immersed in his healing it is affecting our bond in some way.
I hate not being with him and I hated still more having to leave Cordial and his wound in the hands of the meager healing staff remaining at the palace, but my daughter needs me now. After discussing with Yelani the treatment the captured Cinos receive at the hands of the Ruoh, I knew I had no choice but to try and catch up to Dragon. My daughter will need a healer and her mother when she is freed. This is why I am now trying my best to cling to the back of an oversized fowl. The gait is nothing like that of my horse. It is almost like having to learn to ride all over again, but the difference in speed makes it well worth it.
Yelani is more concerned, I think, with Dragon and what she may encounter in her search for Ames, than with my daughter. There is something out there in Ruoh territory that she will not speak of yet that worries her severely.
-
I try yet again to reach through the bond to Ames, but feel nothing in return. I have followed what tracks that I could find to this seemingly impenetrable wall of jungle and now I must go in. Traveling through this is not going to be easy or fast, and I almost wish I had left Bore behind at the Cinos village I passed through days ago. Unsheathing my sword, I begin to hack and slash my way through the heavy vegetation, Bore following on my heels like a huge puppy. I will have to cut a larger path to accommodate him but he is in many ways my best friend. I will not leave him behind, alone, at the mercy of the jungle beasts.
Bore seems to be agitated and nervous. I know he is used to the open and to me riding him but a warhorse should be better able to handle odd situations. I have to wonder what it is that is bothering him. In the past he has alerted me to danger on several occasions before I was able to sense anything myself. The sun seems to be sinking rapidly now, so I will have to find a place to spend the night soon. I do not look forward to a night in this seething mass of life. I imagine the bugs will be fierce come nightfall, and the predators will all be on the prowl.
It is then that I feel it, the hair rises on the back of my neck and a shudder runs through me. We are being watched. Something is stalking us, who or what I have not a clue but I can feel it. Just as I turn to check to make sure the packs are still secure on Bore's back he rears and begins to stomp and thrash about. Looking down I realize he is dancing on a snake, a brightly striped green and yellow snake and my mouth goes dry. It is a Bamam viper and the most deadly thing known. A bite from it kills in a matter of minutes.
I try to step in to get at it with my sword but Bore's mad death dance prevents that. It is as if he is intentionally keeping me from helping him. As I step back to avoid flying hooves he lets out a sorrowful equine scream and goes crashing down. No! Gods No! The snake is dead but its fangs are buried in his left fetlock. I rush to him, pulling the snake loose and flinging it away.
His breathing is labored and his eyes roll wildly as I try to soothe him. No! I cannot lose Bore! Ames taught me a little minor healing and I kneel beside him now and attempt to do what I can for him. His heart is slowing and his breathing becomes yet more labored. My heart wrenches as I try to concentrate and remember what Ames said about strengthening life force.
'Let him go warrior. You only prolong his agony and pain.'
What? Who? Where did that come from? I turn searching around looking for the source. The voice is in my head!
'I know it is hard for a mage to lose a familiar but you must let him go now. He has served you well and gave his life to save yours. Honor him by letting him go.'
I turn back and Bore has gone. I scream my grief to the sky.
"No!"
'Back up little one, I need more room to land. I come in peace, put away your sword and back up to the edge of the clearing.'
I back up without thinking, sheathing my sword and once again sinking down to my knees. I am racked with great shuddering sobs. Bore has been here for me my entire adult life. He was the first thing I ever cared about when the numbness of my exodus from home abated and the first ever to care about me in return.
There is a great rush of wind and I look up, squinting through the blur of my tears to see the last thing I would ever imagine seeing. A dragon sails smoothly down to land before me. Not a large dragon, only about thrice the size of a horse, but nonetheless a dragon. I am taken aback. Though they are prominent in the mythology and legends of every known race, there has never been any actual evidence of their existence.
Even through the haze of my tears I have to admire the softly glowing bluish grey scales and whirring brilliant blue eyes before me. The large leathery wings shake and flap a few times before settling to its sides. The short front legs with what looks like large hands tipped with long wicked claws reach for me.
'Come little one, let me offer comfort and solace for a while. You need to rest and grieve in safety. I will hold you through the night so you can mourn your friend. In the morning we will have much to discuss but for now let me comfort you as best I can.'
I don't know why, but I trust this beast and I walk up to her and settle down in between those front legs, her wings coming forward and enclosing me in a cocoon that oddly smells of catmint.
-
Jingali pauses his work of mixing herbs and listens carefully. He does not turn to look; that would be too easy. He waits until the two foolish young warriors are almost at the captive before turning to hiss loudly, sending them scampering away. Idiots! They thought I would be absorbed in my work and they could have a quick go with the oddling.
Why everyone seems so enchanted by this ugly, nearly hairless creature Jingali cannot fathom. For it to be claimed by the King is ridiculous. Why would a king want to make a cub with such an ugly creature? It makes no sense. Jingali has not spent fifty winters as shaman to the king to learn nothing. The King gets what the king wants and Jingali will not allow the foolhardy youths to touch the oddling; let them go to the pens of captured Cinos to slake their lust.
Jingali rises and goes to check the incense burner beneath the oddling's head. The oddling must not awake again. Standing beside the rough wooden frame it is tied to, Jingali reaches out to run his claws through the long red hair. This one is dangerous, very dangerous. Jingali hopes the first attempt the King made was successful because it will be some time before the King mates with anything again. Shaking his maned head in disgust, Jingali moves back to his work, making herbal salve for the King's burns. He sinks down before the altar of the Dragon, remembering to chant the required prayers before beginning his work with the healing herbs.
One thing is certain: if the attempt was successful and this one drops a cub, she will not live long enough to see it take its first breath. The King still roars in anger and Jingali does not blame him.
-
Vorlayin stares over the hill in disgust. It is as if the Demon and his army just disappeared. One minute Captain Coby was leading a mad dash to catch them and the next they were gone. Somehow, some way he must have been able to conceal his troops or transport them from here. The tracks just stop at the top of this hill and nothing remains to be seen of them.
There is nothing left to do now but return to the King and the rest of the army. They must be in need of the extra hands to deal with the troops the Demon abandoned when he could no longer control them. It seems, like it or not, we will have to take the last of his focus stones before we can be rid of him completely.
-
The one good thing about having to deal with thousands of walking wounded is the effect it has had on my dear friend Bedrian. He went from lying on a cot in a near coma to being up and about healing for all he is worth in a matter of hours. He seems better now than I have seen him since he left the capital. Perhaps it was just battle fatigue and exhaustion after all.
I approach him now with news of his family that is not going to be easy to deliver. I hope it is not enough to send him into another collapse. I find him bandaging the wounds of a boy that should never have been in battle at all. It seems whatever my brother has become cares little for the age of his conscripts. If it is strong enough to hold a sword or draw a bow he takes it, if not he uses it in his sick torture games, then kills it.
