“I saved your life.”
That didn’t seem to calm him at all as he pulled away from his guard and charged me, intending to butt me with his head since his hands were bound. The man with the red scarf paused long enough to watch Flier knocked to the ground by a guard. Then his lips twitched into what could have been the beginnings of a smile before he turned away and continued walking into the night.
“Kendra and the girls are fine,” I told Flier without attempting to whisper. The guards had seen the same things we had, and they looked relieved to be ordered to move away from the dragon, as had those who were attacking the dragon.
We walked most of the night, finally stopping when we reached a small lake surrounded by dense underbrush and small trees. A trail broke off the main one and took us deep into the vegetation, single-file. Near the far end of the lake, a clearing had been carved out of the green growth, a place concealed from the trail.
Flier and I were fed a stew of fish, turnips, and carrots. The broth was thick and surprisingly tasteful. Only our feet remained bound while we ate, but there were two guards for each of us. We sat beside each other and emptied our bowls without talking. Flier avoided my eyes, and he remained angry with me for punching him. After a while, our wrists were bound again, and only one guard remained near us. When he briefly turned his head, I loosened the knots on the scarf with magic and slipped one hand free to scratch my head in plain sight of Flier.
Flier glanced my way, then his head almost twisted free of his neck as he spun to look again. By then my hand was slipping back into the scarf, and the knots were magically pulling tighter. My intent was to let him know the situation was not as ominous as he believed. I said, “Getting away is no problem. But what do we do after that?”
He slowly shook his head.
“Getting caught a second time will be much worse,” I told him. “We need a plan.”
He asked, “Are the girls nearby?”
“I think so.”
“The dragon?”
“With them.” He pursed his lips and glanced around. I sat quietly and studied the situation. We were being fed, and our captors were not treating us badly, so escape wasn’t at the top of my list of concerns. The guard was now watching me, sensing something had happened, and he hadn’t seen it. I said to him, “You all speak my language?”
“Yes.”
“I’d think you would speak the same as Kondor.”
He spat. “Kondor. It is the language of dogs.”
“Hey, I’m not from Kondor, friend. My home is Dire.” I flashed a winning smile that he ignored.
His eyes checked out my complexion, features, and skin before he snorted in laughter and disbelief. “Dog.”
I understood his humor. What I didn’t understand was that all our captors spoke my language so far from home. Dire is not a large kingdom, so there shouldn’t be diversity in language. There were variations in physical appearances. However, Dire also lay across a sea, a journey of several days on the fastest sailing ship. We called our language Common, but as far as I could see, we had little in common with our captors.
As if to respond to Flier’s earlier questions, and to settle my mind, the dragon flew high above, making continuous circles above us. That calmed me more than words can express. The beast flew one circle after, like a single huge buzzard flying over a dead sheep. Her height was too high for arrows, but anyone looking up understood how quickly she could fall from the sky and attack. The instant my mind made the comparison with buzzards circling dead animals, I tried to shut it from my mind. There were hundreds of other things to consider, but I knew that one would remain.
Flier watched it, too. He said, “How long are we going to stay here?”
The guard had walked off several steps and sat on a log, his sword held across his knees in a silent threat as he watched us. The gentle noises of insects, the rustling of leaves in the breeze, and the distance gave us a measure of privacy. We were out of sight of the others, which meant they couldn’t see us, either. We were sitting beside each other and speaking softly hoping it would keep the words from the guard’s ears.
I shifted to both turn and move a little closer to Flier without being obvious. “There is no hurry. The girls are fine, and Kendra will care for them. If necessary, she will go to Vin or even Dagger because we have a friend named Avery who will be in one or the other, and the princess we serve, along with her delegation will make their way to Dagger. Then they will rescue us.”
“The story about the princess is real? I hate to repeat the questions, but this is all so unbelievable. And I’m scared. A little girl faced down a dragon today, one your sister commands. You talk with your minds. It’s so hard to believe it all.”
“All of it is true. Her father, the king, gave me my sword. We have told no lies.”
“She was sent to Kondor to do the king’s bidding?”
After looking at the guard and seeing his eyes almost closed in weariness, I continued, “In some manner. We don’t know the details but listen to this tale for a moment. Our king became ill and the mages, along with a few appointees, ‘helped’ him rule Dire until he returned to health. A new mage arrived, and I think two sorceresses.”
“The same pattern as other kingdoms,” Flier said.
“Dire, Trager, Vin, and Dagger. The mages must be involved, and until we arrived here, we believed the dragon was, too. It’s the last true dragon to exist, and we believe the mages and sorceress derive their power from it—or maybe from Wyverns.”
Flier chewed on his lower lip before speaking. “You are too trusting to tell me all you have. What if I’m not your friend?”
“I have not asked for your pledge of silence. If we die, I’d like to believe you will carry on in some manner, even if it is just to tell our tale so others might succeed where we didn’t.”
“I was just questioning your judgment, not our friendship. But since we and your magic have the means for escaping, why are we staying? Won’t the girls be worried?”
“That crossed my mind several times until the obvious answer dawned on my witless mind. I have sent several messages via Anna. If she heard them, understood, and passed them on to Kendra, I asked her to have Kendra order the dragon to fly over us and fly in circles as a signal.”
“Good. Now, why are we staying? Have the dragon attack.”
“Two reasons. The first is because they will chase us down and kill us if we escape, and maybe catch the girls at the same time. The second is because we need to find out about them. Where they are from and where it is. Why are they here?”
“Why?”
“We may have the same enemies.”
Flier gave me one of his frowns that said he had no idea of what I was talking about. I added, “They speak the Dire Common language, have a king, and don’t like mages or dragons. They sound a lot like us.”
He considered what I’d said and finally responded, “Some of that I either knew or from their conversations could have arrived at the same conclusions. While all the other kingdoms near here are being taken over by mages or a group the mages support, they are the exception. The only one I’ve heard about, and I haven’t even heard of them before. We don’t even know which kingdom they come from.”
I smiled. “You just gave me another worry. The four kingdoms we know of are all being usurped at the same time—the same way. How many others we don’t know of are going through the same thing?”
Flier’s eyes danced around, coming to a rest on the guard in the long robe who didn’t look like either of us or those from Dire. “I thought the same thing happening in the two major cities of Kondor were a coincidence. Now you bring up a possible conspiracy that crosses the ocean.”