Jenn brought herself to a halt in the forest and began to scold herself for being so foolish in her speculation. A fifth order demon. As if Lenamare’s school could ever be so valuable. No, perhaps the fourth order demon could save them. The goddess knew Jenn prayed that it would never come to even using that.
Off to her right Daphne screamed. Quickly, Jenn spun to her right. She motioned the other three children with her to huddle together as she ran to where Daphne sounded to be. She dodged through a few trees and came upon the frightened child. Siegfrid was cowering with her, both were trying to back away from what menaced them.
What menaced them Jenn quickly saw, was a man. Not just any man either, he was scroungy and dirty looking and wore the trappings of a forester. His cloak however had a bright badge of purple and gold. Exador’s colors. This man, who was advancing on the children with a dagger, with the obvious intention of silencing them before they could give warning, was one of Exador’s scouts.
Fearing for the children, Jenn reached in her pocket and pulled out a small vine. “Esticten tomros sed nesten. Verdet et suprestum entreppum sid faltos. Xiat et lux.” As she said this she concentrated on the forest growth around the man’s feet, she twisted the vine in her hands into a loop.
Mimicking her gestures, the roots of nearby trees and bushes, rose to twine around the man’s feet. Cursing the man stumbled and fell to the ground. Looking up, he grimaced angrily as he saw Jenn. Hurrying, before he could get free, Jenn shoved the children back towards the wagon, and then grabbed more vines from her pocket. Carefully she repeated the spell, this time wrapping the struggling man’s right arm and then his left. After this she roped him around the waist.
Reaching into another pocket she pulled out a rock and began the spell that would make her other spells last long enough to get people back here to capture this man. “Eternum solidum, vectos sed altos entreppum se kreolum. Sig fielos soy dernum. Kiapum der bindus.” Using all her strength she broke the rock she held with her hands, releasing its centuries old hardness and solidness into her previous spell, so that it might have some of the lasting power that this rock had had. Since the rock was only limestone, because that was all she could break with her own hands, the spell wouldn’t last that incredibly long, but it should last without her for several hours, long enough for her purposes.
She then left the man, still struggling and cursing and led the children back to the wagon. As a final precaution, she took out a small crystal and stared into it. Concentrating, she tried to detect any other humans in the area. As far as she could tell though, the scout had been alone, or certainly was now. It wasn’t fool proof, and she wasn’t the best at this sort of scrying, but it was still better than nothing
Feeling relatively safe now, she headed the children back to the tower. At least the children would have something to talk about. As would she, Jenn realized. What was more, Jenn suddenly thought, she, herself, had made an important contribution to their defense by stopping a spy, and by capturing someone who would have information on Exador. Shaking from the past few moments of stress, but proud of herself, Jenn returned home with her charges in tow.
Chapter 13
For the second time since smoking the grass, Tom awoke in the demon plane. Oh well, Tom thought, still here. Tom had hoped he might have woken up at home, proving that the whole thing had been a dream. It was still real though. What was happening at home? Tom wondered. Was he in a coma some place, or was he, as Boggy said, dead. He hoped he wasn’t dead. He hated to think of all the pain it would cause his mother if he were dead. Hisdad had died in an explosion 10 years ago, and just recently his mom had divorced his stepfather, so Tom was pretty much the only person she had in her life.
What would his friends say? He imagined that if he died at Reggie’s party, they’d all be shitting bricks. Even if he was only in a coma, they’d still be majorly freaked out. Serves them right, Tom thought vindictively, for giving him that bad grass. They could go home that night, even if they didn’t sleep well. Tom was stuck here, either forever, or until he woke up, if it was a dream. In the meantime he’d have to be constantly living in fear of more intense agonies. Thinking of pain, Tom noticed that he was sore all over. Noticing that brought him back to where he was.
Quickly, he looked around. The large cave was deserted, only he and the dragon body were in the cavern. Actually, sans dragon, the cavern was pretty nice and roomy. However, Tom tried inhaling, which caused a great deal of pain where he’d been bitten, and he caught a powerful smell of rotting. The dragon corpse was stinking really bad. Apparently he’d been out for some time.
He looked down at his legs to see if he’d ever walk again, and was surprised to see that they were almost back to normal. Touching them, he noticed that they were quite tender, but all the muscle had pretty much returned. Looking down at his chest, and feeling it with his hand, he noted that the puncture was closed, and only a large indenture and some scarring was left. It seemed that demons bodies repaired themselves. Carefully he tried to stand.
He wobbled a bit, both from weakness and from still not being totally familiar with his new legs. After he got to his feet, he tried flexing his wings. They definitely had a twinge to them, but, as far as he could tell, were fully functional.
Well if he had to be stuck in a video game it was good to have regeneration as a power. It might have been nice to have designed his own character so he knew what it could do. Character? Tom shook his head. There was no character, it was him. He was the demon warrior fighting dragons! He had to close his eyes and take a deep breath to avoid freaking out. He needed to get to doing something, stop thinking about this.
The first order of business, Tom decided, was to remove this unwanted corpse from his new living room. Tom walked over to the dragon’s head, and carefully picked it up. Actually, Tom thought, it might be nice to have a souvenir. He reached into the mouth with his right hand, and steadied the head with his left. Deftly gripping one of the fangs, he pulled. Crack, snap, the tooth came loose from the mouth. It was covered by decomposing flesh and was pretty sick, but Tom figured, it was worth it. He then repeated the exercise with the other three fangs until he had a nice set of four dragon fangs.
Tom then picked up the head in both heads and proceeded to carry it to his entrance. When he reached the cave mouth, he looked over the edge. Now, where to put it? He could toss it over, but that was likely to draw scavengers that he really didn’t want to deal with, so perhaps it was best to take it away someplace. He glanced up, and around the valley. Nowhere here, Tom decided. As he’d been taught, Tom began walking towards the center of the valley. When he reached the edge of ledge he kept on going. He then reoriented himself, and flew up and over his mountain. He’d decided that his best bet would probably be to dump it a few valleys over. He flew down the backside of his mountain and then up the next mountain and into the next valley. When he got to a likely spot, he simply let go of the head and watched it fall. He then returned to his cave.
As he landed on the ledge, he realized that he hadn’t marked the cave yet. Thinking that marking would be the best way to keep unwanted visitors away, Tom imagined himself walking up a ladder to the top of the cave mouth. His wings complied, and there he was. Now, what would he use as a mark? Tom really didn’t feel too creative today, so he finally decided on a cursive ‘T’ with a flourish of a circle around it. True, it was imitative of the other demon who had used a circled ‘Y,’ but who was to know. Using the nail of his index finger, Tom carved his symbol in a relatively smooth space above the mouth.