Terry W. Ervin (26 page)

The prince joined Road Toad and me around the small campfire. Road Toad was busy boiling chicken eggs in a cast iron pot and cooking biscuits on a flat stone along the edge of the fire. During my patrol of the area after landing, I’d gathered some cattail shoots. I peeled and cut them before adding their white core to the boiling water.

Road Toad smiled. “Don’t like them raw?”

I shook my head, watching as the prince pulled and unrolled parchment from a leather case. It wasn’t until that moment that I saw the large ruby on the pommel of his sword. Road Toad just noticed too that Prince Reveron again carried the Blood-Sword.

Prince Reveron signaled us closer. “Now that we’re away from the palace,” he said, placing small stones on the corners of the map, “it is time you knew some of the details of our mission.”

He moved his finger along the map as he spoke. “We’re here.” I recognized the location of the Northern Kingdom of Keesee where he pointed, just below the Doran Confederacy. “Where our last mission took us mostly north around into the mountains, we will travel this way.” His finger ran west, then north around the city labeled Paris–Imprimis in the heart of the Faxtinian Coalition, to the coast.

“Risky,” commented Road Toad. “The Coalition is overrun by the enemy. Goblins, ogres, zombies.” Road Toad checked the map again. “We’re traveling light. I assume you’ve arranged safe layovers and resupply?”

The prince shook his head. “A dragon trio left a day ahead of us. Just our side of the border with the Coalition they’re leaving a cache in an isolated area like this. Road Toad, you recall Lord Mendenhall’s burned-out estate?”

After Road Toad nodded, the prince looked around. “We’ll let the fog dissipate so as not to draw attention.”

Road Toad checked the fire and the progress of the meal. “Where to after that?”

“The Reunited Kingdom,” Prince Reveron said. That got both our attention. “Even if they don’t know we’re coming, I have a writ.” He patted his satchel. “Simply laying over, and again resupplying.” Then he pointed to a small set of islands to the north of the Reunited Kingdom, running his finger northwest over to an island. He then slid his finger across the Western Ocean some more to a large land mass then down it, southwest and then west towards its center. “Somewhere out here.”

I knew there was no need for me to ask why. If the prince didn’t explain further, Road Toad would surely ask. The prince brushed the rocks off his map and rolled it back up. “We seek a way to destroy the factories of the enemy. The places they build the panzers, artillery and Stukas.”

Prince Reveron sat back, cross-legged, with his hands on his knees. “Are those eggs ready?”

Road Toad shook his head. “No, and the cattail has to cook longer too. The biscuits in a few minutes.”

“Your biscuits have always tasted like balled pie crust.” The prince grinned. “I should have brought honey.”

“Eggs on an outing such as this are rare enough,” said Road Toad. “You could skip my biscuits. Flank Hawk will eat your share.”

Prince Reveron asked me, “I take it you prefer yours crusty on the outside and uncooked on the inside?”

It seemed awkward to talk so freely with the prince. Still, I replied, “I’ve found that Road Toad is many things, but not a cook. Or a judge of fine food.”

“Very true,” said the prince. “Even so, I have fond memories of training under you in my youth, Major Jadd. Sometimes I long for those days, but not for your biscuits.”

We had a good laugh, but then the prince’s eyes looked into the fire, and became serious once again.

Road Toad asked, “Our mission has something to do with the captured zombie?”

“It does. Its soul is a damned one, summoned back from before the fall of the First Civilization. That is how the enemy learned to build the weapons he sends against us.” The prince frowned. “Scientists and engineers reviving weapons and methods of war from the past. The one we have is evil, and I believe he was evil to the core long before being summoned and anchored in a corpse. The enemy has many more like him.”

I knew that damned souls served and were the playthings of demons. “If his soul was damned,” I said, “he’d have to have been evil.”

“But this one was damned before the rise of demons and magic.” The prince leaned forward. “We go to trade with one of the greater elves.”

That got our attention even more than landing in the Reunited Kingdom. The prince wasn’t talking about sprites or pixies. I’d always been told greater elves were nothing more than a myth. A bard in Pine Ridge once sang a ballad hinting that Fendra Jolain, and Uplersh, goddess of the seas, were actually great elves.

“Oh, yes,” said Prince Reveron, answering my wide eyes, “they exist.”

What did Prince Reveron intend to trade? What did he hope to get? The prince didn’t answer either of those unasked questions. Instead he asked, “Flank Hawk, it was reported you saw souled zombies bearing the sign of the long-toothed tiger?”

“I did, Prince. In the tunnels. On their shields.”

Road Toad used a flat stick to get three of the six eggs out of the small pot, tossing one to the prince and one to me. “Prince, are the rumors true?” he asked. “That the cult of the long-tooths has returned to fight for the enemy?”

After tossing his egg from hand to hand to cool it, Prince Reveron cracked the egg on a stone. “Yes, and no.” He lifted several cattail stalks from the water and set them on the rock. “They have returned, but they do not fight for the enemy.”

Road Toad scowled as he handed the prince and me a biscuit. “Then who do they support?”

“We have yet to learn,” answered the prince. “But they have begun stalking and slaying our brothers.”

Someone kicked me awake. Even though I’d thrown my wool blanket aside and sat up, Called Shot, as always with her weird-strung bow in hand, kicked me in the leg again. “Patrols,” she hissed. “Ready yourself for travel.” She hurried to her equipment pile, grabbed her chain mail shirt and pulled it over her head.

I stood and began buckling on my breast and backplate. Evidenced by the dim morning light, I’d been asleep less than thirty minutes. “What’s happening?”

She slid on her conical helm and adjusted the chin strap. Like mine, it showed wear from combat. “Shaws says patrols are closing in on us. Goblin and ogre.”

After I strapped on my sword, I rolled my blanket, tied it and shoved everything else into my satchel. “They must be close.”

Called Shot nodded, adjusting the arrows in her quiver. “Don’t waste time hiding evidence of our camp.”

I grabbed my spear and together we hurried along the shallow stream toward the meadow’s edge. Just inside the tree line Prince Reveron, Road Toad, and Wizard Sabfried readied the bevy for flight.

Road Toad had borrowed my crossbow for his turn at watch, and I saw he’d strapped it down next to my rear facing saddle. Hell Furnace growled as Road Toad tightened straps. “What can I do?” I asked.

“Secure your spear,” said Road Toad. “Don your parachute pack.”

I slid my spear’s head into its sheath and secured the shaft with leather throngs woven into the rigging. Road Toad had done the same, but on a smaller scale for his javelins.

“Are the canteens full?” I asked.

“They are.” He pointed. “Help Called Shot.”

She struggled, hauling two large skins filled with water from the stream. I carried one, knowing Lesser Wizard Sabfried would need it if he used his magic.

Shaws appeared through the trees at the far side of the small meadow, sprinting toward us. Prince Reveron signaled everyone to mount the dragons.

“They must be close,” I said to Road Toad.

He nodded and directed Hell Furnace through the trees and into the field. Just as we emerged, a pair of slender dragons sped by, overhead, in the direction Shaws had come from.

The prince signaled with his right arm, “Take flight. Vic formation, wide spread.” Hell Furnace flapped her powerful wings and leapt skyward while an ogre patrol broke through the tree line across the meadow. One put a crescent-shaped horn to its lips and signaled our location with a trumpeting rumble.

As we took our trailing position, below and to the right of the prince’s dragon, I prepared the tripod-mounted crossbow. A goblin patrol emerged from the woods at the spot where our bevy had taken off. I scanned the sky while calling over my shoulder, “Goblins just overran our camp.”

“Three o’clock high,” answered Road Toad, indicating the pair of white dragons that had flown overhead. They’d swung around. “They’re faster than us. Faster than blacks.”

I knew the spread vic formation enabled us to protect our leader, yet not allow an enemy dragon to catch more than one of us with its breath weapon.

Road Toad called over his shoulder again, confirming my suspicions. “Look sharp, two more dragons have risen from the ground, eleven o’clock. Something or someone betrayed our presence.”

“A trap? The goblins and ogres flushed us?”

“We’re lucky. If they’d have known our exact whereabouts they’d have strafed us with the whites’ icy breath.”

Hell Furnace banked, swinging west. When we’d landed last night, the prince reported we were fifty miles west of Paris–Imprimis. We were to travel northeast tonight. Now we were heading west. The pair of dragons that had been at our three o’clock were now on our six. The ones at the eleven now flew parallel on our three. I scanned the sky. “Pair of dragons, nine o’clock,” I yelled.

I signaled my sighting to Called Shot on our left, while Road Toad urged more speed out of Hell Furnace. She growled deeply, straining to keep pace with the faster black dragons. “I’m dropping equipment,” called Road Toad before he cut two of the leather straps securing the bundles and sacks. I didn’t watch our tent, water and food fall to the ground. “It’ll come to combat anyway,” he added.

I swallowed, recalling the spins and dives Road Toad had practiced to familiarize me with aerial combat. This time it would be for real.

“Three more, twelve o’clock,” announced Road Toad. “Prince Reveron is climbing.” We followed, striving for altitude and an advantage over the nine enemy dragons.

I watched as they closed. The white dragons were longer, with narrower wings than other dragons I’d seen. Their snouts were also longer with a straight bony crest extending back from their skulls, making them seem even longer. Like us, each white bore two riders. The enemy serpent cavalrymen appeared human, dressed in heavy furs. By the size I guessed the aft-guards were goblins with shortbows.

“They fly, climb and dive faster,” said Road Toad. “We can turn more swiftly.” The air became colder the higher we went. No clouds offered cover. “Their breath’ll look like a black’s,” Road Toad added. “But a stream of liquid nitrogen. It’ll freeze anything it touches, hard as a rock.”

I pulled out the quarrel Wizard Seelain had given me and replaced the one I’d set. “Can we take nine of them?”

“The prince must survive,” he responded.

“Should I target the dragons or the cavalrymen?”

“I don’t think the goblins will be able to take control. Target the cavalrymen. If any are wizards, try Seelain’s gift on them.”

The enemy serpents were within two hundred yards, three climbing parallel, three striving to get above, and three weaving below us. Called Shot, who in camp had proven far better with her bow than I was with my crossbow, opened fire on the enemy. She sent an arrow at one of the dragons below, striking a goblin archer in the leg. Then, everything seemed to happen at once.

Prince Reveron led us in a banking turn toward the trio at our elevation. Hell Furnace roared deeply while Frothing Maw and Night Shard added their hawk-like challenge. The whites replied with honking bellows that sounded like angry giant geese. The ruckus emphasized how greatly we were outnumbered.

“Look up!” I shouted. “They’re diving on us!”

“Hold on,” replied Road Toad. He pulled Hell Furnace up into a steep climb.

Facing down, I could have fired on the dragons below, but none of those enemy serpent cavalrymen appeared to be spellcasters. I twisted and turned, watching for any dragons attempting to close on us. At that moment, none were.

Hell Furnace slowed in her ascent and took a deep breath just before exhaling a gout of flame at a foe. At the same time a cloud-white, steaming shaft of liquid struck Hell Furnace’s tail, producing a snarl of pain and anger. A line of frosted scales shattered and fell away, exposing a raw wound. Hell Furnace turned and dove as a wildly honking white dragon plummeted past, nearly colliding with us. The white beast flapped, trying to regain control, but Hell Furnace’s breath had burned away one of its leathery wings.

Road Toad grunted, indicating he hurled a javelin at some target out of my field of vision. A barbed arrow bit into the saddle inches from my right thigh.

Hell Furnace swung about, the wind pressing my back told me she was picking up speed. At our four o’clock I spotted Prince Reveron, urgently gesturing a series of spells, fending off a whirling wind elemental as Night Shard struggled to maintain flight. Shaws lay flat, doing his best to hold against the buffeting gale.

“Bear left,” I called. “The prince is in trouble. Give me a shot.”

Road Toad complied. “Fast, we have company closing.”