Dragon's Mage (An Advent Mage Novel), The - Raconteur, Honor (20 page)

I’d bring that up tomorrow. I doubt we’d be able to handle all nine towers today anyway. We’d be too exhausted. As long as the plows were properly destroyed today, the rest of it could probably wait until tomorrow.

Trev’nor had marked a deep ‘x’ in the ground in the base of the nearby tower, indicating it was ready to be destroyed. I tapped Kaya’s side with a flat hand. “All right, let’s tackle that next tower.”

Kaya let out a sound that could very well be described as a whoop of joy and dove for it.

Chapter Fourteen: Emergency

I staggered into the kitchen, vague thoughts of cooking for my guests in my head, but I didn’t get more than two steps when I realized that someone had beaten me to it. A spread of fresh bread, fruit, boiled eggs and sweet tarts lay spread out on the table. Some angelic person had even made a fresh pot of tea. In the back of my mind, a heavenly chorus burst out into song.

Cora sat at the table with a cup of tea and a plate of food already half-consumed. Since everyone in the house still lay in bed, it must have been her that’d done all of this. I sank into a chair nearby and said in heartfelt tones, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said and wisely didn’t say anything else until I had chugged a cup of tea down. “Your magic level is a little low, you know that, right?”

“Yes.” I shrugged, loading my plate with an assortment as I spoke. “But I’ve never used my magic at that level and for that long before. I think we’re all a little tired.” I made a face. “And we still have two towers left.”

“Those two are going to be rather challenging, as well,” Cora sighed with a grimace.

We’d destroyed six towers, as I’d expected, but something had occurred we hadn’t planned on. With each tower we’d destroyed, the water pressure had escalated and shifted to the surviving towers, which made it harder to reroute the underground water source. It had tasked Helen and Trev’nor considerably to make sure the capped towers were cut off from their water source and they weren’t entirely sure their work from the night before would hold. They might well have to reinforce what they had done yesterday to make sure it wouldn’t break.

Before leaving the towers alone last night, Helen and Trev had done one more change to the landscape, forming several basins and canals so that the water would drain back into the lake. It gave us a little grace so that we could sleep in this morning and properly rest before we had to get back to work.

If I didn’t have those two towers left, I probably would have climbed right back in bed.

Cora leaned back in her chair, cradling her cup with both hands, a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “I had quite an interesting conversation with Mari Wangsgard this morning.”

I paused mid-motion, hand still reaching for the teapot. “You met Mari this morning?”

“When I went to pick up some fresh bread. We ran into each other at the market.” That smile hadn’t faded. “She was ever so carefully probing me for information.”

Did I want to know…? I retracted my hand, eyeing her cautiously. “Like?”

“Oh, how close we were, how long we’d known each other, things like that.” Cora’s subtle smile became downright wicked. “She also wanted to know if you, as a mage, were required to marry another mage.”

I choked. “W-what?!”

“Or if your partner has to be a magician,” she added gleefully. “Krys, I do believe that woman likes you.”

Mari? Like me? As in,
likes
me? I had a hard time swallowing around the hope rising in my throat. “Really?”

“Oh-ho!” Cora abruptly sat up, eyes shining like a child’s. “You like her too!”

Busted buckets, but she was sharp. “Um, well…”

“Your partner doesn’t have to be a magician, you know,” she told me with wicked amusement. “I told her that, too. I mean, the only reason why most mages have a magical partner is because we can’t do the
other
magicks. But your jobs are all fire-oriented. You don’t need help with that. All you need is a spotter, someone that can keep watch while Kaya flies you around.”

That was…a very good point. “And, ah, how did she take that bit of information?”

“With absolute relief. Especially when I followed it up with my plans on going back to the Isle as soon as this job is finished. Krys.” She set her cup down, raising a challenging eyebrow at me. “If you have any sense in your head, you’ll partner with her
today
.”

I gave her a lazy salute. “Consider it done.”

People started waking up that point and shuffling to the table. The boys were especially zombies, but we’d all expected that. They had done the work of an adult yesterday and had never once asked for a break. The fact that they had the stamina to keep up with us yesterday impressed me. If they were like this now, I couldn’t imagine what they would be like once they actually had an adult’s body.

It took willpower, it took effort, but we managed to get ready for the day. Kogan very kindly did a quick cleanup spell for us so that no one had to stop and do breakfast dishes, and then we all trudged outside and headed for the towers.

As I saddled up Kaya, Helen paused and said to me, “Why don’t you take the one on the right and I’ll take the left? Our powers shouldn’t clash much that way.”

“All right,” I agreed. Vaulting up into the saddle, I gave Kaya the signal to go. We took off out of the doors with a quick snap, the launch this morning smooth without any hurry to it. Kaya might be a little tired from yesterday as well, but not as much as her human companion. But then, she’d grown up flying all day and spitting fire. I hadn’t.

The two towers left were the ones in the middle, so they sat right next to the major highway system coming from Khobunter. Nolan chose to help Kogan and me today, leaving Helen, Cora and Trev’nor to tackle the other tower.  With the young Life Mage in dragon form, he could do almost as much damage as Kaya could. He just didn’t have as much power to bear because he was still a child and so his dragon form didn’t have the same size to it as Kaya. Still, seeing him in the deep blue of a male dragon, breathing fire and tearing at the tower with his claws impressed me. Never underestimate a Life Mage. I was beginning to think they were actually the most dangerous of the mages.

For whatever reason, the towers today seemed tougher to break than they had been yesterday. I wasn’t sure if it was just an illusion because we were tired, or if they actually were constructed differently, but it took more effort to inflict any sort of noticeable damage. After several passes, we’d barely demolished the top third of the tower. Kaya, definitely upset, dove for the tower at a ferocious speed with flame so hot that it made most of the water nearby steam. I had to put up a quick barrier around myself so that I didn’t get burned. This time, though, she didn’t just aim fire at the tower and then fly away, but she hit the tower with her claws, slamming her body weight against it. Jarred at the impact, I rocked in the saddle, frantically grabbing onto anything within reach to steady myself.

From the tower, I heard a tremendous
crack
sound, as if the foundation itself had rocked under Kaya’s weight. The tower leaned slightly to one side.

“HEY!” Nolan called in excitement. “GOOD IDEA!”

Uh-oh…he was going to follow that example? Kaya had her claws dug into the stone for balance, but if he slammed into the tower as hard as she had, surely it would jar her loose. “Uh, Kaya—”

Nolan slammed into the building in the next moment, flame bursting out of his mouth in a hot stream that threatened to scorch my skin in spite of the shield I still had up around me. But under the impact, I heard the sound of stone cracking and felt the stone nearby become molten hot until it started to melt.

Kaya didn’t need me to tell her to get free and she launched herself back into the air with a single heave of her legs. The top half of the tower slid sideways under that powerful thrust, slowly toppling to the ground before it broke free entirely and tumbled straight for solid earth. It hit with a concussive sound, breaking and shattering into hundred pieces.

Of course, that meant that we still had the rest of the tower to destroy. It was leaning badly, but not down yet.

But still, that one attack had worked. As Kaya flew up and over, bringing us back around, I waved at Nolan. “ONE MORE TIME!” I called to him.

He grinned a toothy and very evil grin in return before shooting upwards into the sky, gaining altitude. Maybe he and Kaya had the same idea, as she went upwards at the same time, gaining altitude so quickly that it nearly stole my breath.

Then she doubled in on herself, turning her nose back towards the ground, and snapped her wings closed. We accelerated toward the ground with all of the speed of a falling boulder. Knowing what would happen next, I put a stronger barrier up around myself before gathering a scorching hot fire in the palm of my hand. Kaya’s mouth opened and she shot a highly intensive flame toward the base of the tower. I extended my hand, adding my fire to hers, making it even more intense. From the corner of my eye, I could see Nolan doing the same thing at practically the same time.

With my free hand, I grabbed onto the saddle as hard as I could and braced for impact.

Kaya slammed into the building with enough force to rattle the teeth in my head, even with me braced. I swear the very foundations of the world rocked a little as Nolan’s body weight slammed into the tower in the next second. The building didn’t stand a chance—under that kind of ferocious attack, it capsized in on itself, the sides cracking and falling to either side. I grinned in victory. One tower down. How did the other one fare?

My familiar took us back into the air, not really wanting to perch on a crumbling building, and she flew us back toward the city in a lazy flap of the wings, slowing her pace enough so that she could talk to me. “Go help?” she asked me.

True, the other tower hadn’t been destroyed yet. But they were very close. Another attack or two would probably do it. “No, let’s land and wait for them,” I instructed her. “Our powers will mess their attacks up.”

Giving a grunt of acknowledgement, she found a fairly dry place that stood somewhat taller than the rest of the landscape and landed there. I glanced toward Nolan and Kogan, but Nolan had changed back into his human body and was apparently peppering the man with a thousand questions. Not unusual behavior for Nolan—aside from being honestly interested in every living being, he was always trying to learn about everything he encountered. I had no doubt that Kogan would be interrogated about his profession until the man managed to escape back to the Institute.

Since it looked like I had a few minutes, I grabbed a dry towel from my bags and slid out of the saddle. I hated the feeling of wet hair dripping down my back, but Mages all had to grow their hair long, so this braid of mine was inevitably irritating me every time my hair got wet. I started toweling the back of my neck dry of sweat, planning to get into dry clothes as soon as everyone finished up here.

“KRYS!”

I snapped around on sheer instinct, having rarely heard
that
tone coming from Mari. She was running for me at full speed, waving an arm over her head to get my attention. Uh-oh. Whatever this was, it was bad.

I dropped everything and ran to her, two hands out to catch her by the shoulders so that we wouldn’t plow into each other.

“What?” I demanded, half-panicked just by the wild expression on her face.

“Mhazzaekul Forest is burning,” she panted out, a little short winded from her mad sprint here. “They can’t contain it for much longer.”

Oh ye little gods. That forest covered most of the eastern section of Sol and even went into parts of Hain. If it flared up, it would decimate hundreds of miles. Who knew how much damage had been done already.

“I’m going. I’ll leave in ten minutes.”

She caught my arm before I could move. “Wait, I have to go with you.”

“What?” I said, not really in protest, but in surprise.

“You’re operating out of your jurisdiction if you go, so you have to have a supervisor go with you,” she explained rapidly. “Stupid as it sounds, that’s the rules. Besides, eastern Solish has a twang dialect to it that will be hard for you to understand. Your Solish is good, but not
that
good.”

Insults aside, I didn’t really mind having her along. “Fine. Meet you at the park in ten minutes.”

She raced away to pack, me going in the opposite direction. From nearby, Helen called to me, “What’s wrong?”

“Firefighting emergency!” I called back, not slowing my pace any. “You’ll have to take over! I’ll be gone for a few days!”

Helen waved a hand in acknowledgement. “Good luck!”

I might need it. A part of me hoped that by the time I got there, a miracle would have occurred and the fire would be out. After all, even flying at top speed, it would take a day and a half to get there. But I knew that if they had called for me, even though I was on the opposite end of the Empire, that they didn’t have a prayer of containing it.

As I ran, I called for my dragon and prayed for any divine help the heavens might be willing to give us.

Chapter Fifteen: Mhazzaekul Forest

We were in the air a whole minute, still over the city, when Mari leaned in closer to my ear and shouted, “How fast can we get there?”

Very,
very
conscious of how she leaned into my back, I tried hard not to blush as I answered. “At best, a day and a half.”

“A day and a half,” she repeated, her tone indicating that she was calculating at high speeds. “That’s better than my initial estimate.”

“Still think that it’s worth it for us to go straight there, eh?”

“Yes.” She sat back slightly, but still kept close enough that her arms were securely around my waist. “If they called us in, they’re desperate. They have tried everything they can think of and nothing worked. You’re the weapon of last resort, remember?”

“I remember.” My contract with Sol stipulated as much. “You just said the forest, but which section is burning?”