The Dragon of Time: Gods and Dragons (29 page)

“Damn your Dragon,” Scar cried out before
dropping the knife and torch.

The mercenary violently bashed at Hachi’s
head with both fists until there was nothing left but splattered
blood. In his mindless demolishing of the assassin, Ylithia called
out to him and knelt beside him with her hands on his arm.

“Scar, please,” she begged and gazed into his
eyes. A modicum of control returned to him, though Delton, Lortho,
Jayna, and Hija appreciated the display. “You must calm
yourself.”

“Why?” he cried. “Do you not understand? I
have trusted these men blindly, wanting only to know who I am, and
time, and time again they have pissed on me.”

He stood sharply, shook the blood from his
hands, and stormed off into a shack to find some water and cloth.
Ylithia followed him in to help in whatever way possible, which
left the others to either argue over or contemplate upon the
deceased’s words.

“Scar?”

“Ylithia, I can’t do this anymore. Dragons be
damned…let those out there find their way. I am through being a
pawn.”

She pushed her hair back. It was difficult
for them to see each other in the dark, and more difficult for Scar
to find anything with which to clean his hands, but after some
fumbling, he found a small cloth, and Ylithia poured water onto his
hands from a pitcher off a table.

“So what does that mean?” the knight asked.
“You won’t search to find what the Dragons are up to or avenge the
death of your friend?”

“Why should I even care? Hachi is dead now. I
have enough blood on my hands to last a lifetime.”

“People need your help…I think…Silwen must
have thought so.”

“Mekosh must not have. Damn the Gods, too.
Silwen used me to her end. She has also failed. I will do as I
please for my own reasons, make my own way in life.”

“And what way is that?”

He didn’t have an answer. As he plunked on a
chair that barely supported his weight, he tossed the rag into a
corner. Scar considered the life he recalled; Zoltek had hired him
to kill Kulshedrans under the pretense of false promises. To that
end, Scar had killed many. Then Dumar tried to kill him for letting
a Kulshedran flee. Following that blunder with burns on his skin to
repay his trust, Lovenhaad came bearing the will of Mekosh. That
led to a friendship with a generous man, Labolas, who was only
following the orders of a king, who was evidently only plotting
more war under the guise of peace, a peace he might have actually
sought, but not with Scar as part of the picture.

Those empty promises of placing Scar on the
high seat of Alduheim were too much to bear, and to add insult to
injury, the Goddess of Love played him, too, albeit in a much more
enthralling manner. Tears fell between Scar’s cupped fingers.
Ylithia sighed and sat next to him with a consoling rub of cold
gauntlets to his back. Then N’Giwah walked in after a polite
knock.

“We heard what you said,” the dark skinned
man told him. “She is right. We can use your help.”

“You can
use
me,” Scar shook his head
from his hands with a heave. “I’ll not be used any longer.”

Then Marlayne walked in and said, “We need to
stop these Dragons. It is Kulshedra and Bakunawa who have conspired
against us today. Please don’t abandon us…you’re the only one who
can help.”

“You have that book. Your answers are in
there,” Scar snapped back.

“I can’t read it,” she retorted.

“Certainly you can find a way from everything
else inside that blasted castle,” he argued. “Find your own way.
I’m done.”

Outside the shack, heavy hearts pondered over
their loss. Loved ones and friends were killed, their leader pro
tem no longer wanted to provide aid, and the Dragons were still out
there somewhere, vilifying the hearts of kings. Pater thought Scar
just needed some time to calm himself, and said as much. Lortho
suggested they bury the dead. While they worked to that end,
Shamara sang a song of peace and prayed that wherever the souls of
the departed actually did go, since she no longer believed the
Tiamatish went to Thalatte, they could at least find a well
deserved rest.

In the meantime, Scar buried his face in his
hands, the scent of the traitor still on them. Ylithia rubbed his
shoulder. Silwen had had an effect on her, too. She didn’t know
how, but she knew when she first laid eyes on Scar that she was
going to fail Mekosh. The God of Severity had clearly also known
and abandoned her before she even pointed her sword at the pale
warrior. Some faint sense of solace washed over her as she stood
next to the teary eyed brute. She didn’t know him, but she liked
him.

“I have no desire to go after the Dragons
either,” she volunteered. “I certainly would like to see them dead
for their lies, but I have known of their lies for ten years, and
yet I have never seen a Dragon…I can’t even begin to imagine where
they are or how to defeat them.”

“You can’t,” Scar mumbled through his
hands.

“Can’t what?”

“Kill them,” he breathed. “In the vision,
Drac said that men can’t kill Dragons. I don’t know what that
soldier did with that gem and lance, but Drac didn’t die, none of
them did,” he said then looked into her emerald eyes. “We should
forget them. Let men war as they might. We could travel…perhaps we
could spend time together, and lend a hand in small towns driving
out bandits, or I don’t know…I was never meant to be more than a
mercenary…I’m no King of Alduheim…I’m just Scar, a man with no
past, but I may yet have a bright future if I stop relying on the
wishes of kings.”

“The burden of severity has left me,” she
whispered and looked at the door. “They all seem like good people,
but perhaps you are right. After twenty years of serving Fafnir and
ten of serving Mekosh, I have very little to show for it…I, too,
would like to see what life has to offer beyond servitude…besides,
I know of a quaint village on the outskirts of Closicus near the
Lake Grekka. Not a lot of bandits, mind you, but good fishing and
hunting…I suppose two friends could get along well there.”

Scar chuckled and touched her face with the
backs of his fingers.

“You would spend time with a blubbering fool
who thought he was a king?” he asked.

“I would do more than that if you care learn
who I am beyond a woman forgotten by Mekosh.”

“Let us sneak off then…they are good people
out there and will not understand abandonment.” He paused a moment
then added, “Kings and pawns can play their games.”

“To live life for ourselves…I should like to
see how this turns out,” she chirped with a smile.

So Scar exited the shack with Ylithia,
retrieved his sword, and in doing so felt a familiar weight in his
heart. He shrugged it off, took Ylithia’s hand, and they merged
into the stones, trees, and darkness of Alduheim to head east
through Malababwe north of the Sudai border, and into Closicus.

Chapter Nineteen- Life in the bosom of
love

It was a long trip through the country of
Malababwe for Scar and Ylithia. Many days were spent travelling on
foot, searching for fruit bearing trees, cool streams, small game,
and hunkering down in safe areas during the torrential downpours
for which the thick jungle was known. In that time, the two learned
one another’s mannerisms; Scar’s rolling of the shoulders during
tense situations, his popping of the knuckles. He learned of her
coy smiles and the way she crinkled her nose when she found
something she didn’t like; the cute things appreciated in sound
relationships.

Traveling by foot eventually grew awkward and
tiresome for the knight in bulky armor. Regardless, they marched
on, finding their way into small settlements where they were both
easily recognized; the Ghost of Zmaj turned Kulshedran champion and
the bare faced paladin. When the supposedly neutral townsfolk
brandished weapons, the two left the Tiamatish to their own
devices. The warriors of Malababwe, though impartial in the
territorial wars, were quick to throw out those they saw as foreign
invaders, but other larger towns were more tolerant of them, more
tolerant in general, so long as foreigners sought peace in lieu of
violence.

In the town of Elanjo, a place where houses
were built into the trees by way of molding limbs into a framework,
Scar and Ylithia secured passage on a trader’s cart in exchange for
news of other countries and security in the event of roaming
brigands. Even Malababwe had bandits as Labolas had once predicted.
The wayfarers were glad to converse over matters outside the realms
of Gods and Dragons for a change, but spending time with a paladin
always prompted religious questions.

While conversations stayed mostly on the
topics of current events such as Gilgamesh’s ceaseless war against
Zoltek, the cart master, M’babo Tumba, often asked after Ylithia’s
patron. She was reticent to incite any kind of discord with talks
of Gods. Scar also kept his meeting with Silwen a secret. After the
third day and the third question of her relationship with Mekosh,
Ylithia only stated she had served Mekosh, the Severe, in the past,
but recently abandoned her quest in the name of severity for a life
of peace.

“A wise decision,” the old man with green
patterns like tiny darts on his arms said. “Peace and hard work are
far more rewarding than killing those with different ideas from
your own.”

“That is something we have both learned,”
Scar assured.

“Why off to Closicus?” M’babo asked as he
transported them over a muddy road during one misty morning. “Is
Malababwe not to your liking?”

“There’s a small town in the east of the
country called Othnatus,” Ylithia obliged. “I visited once when I
was small girl and was enchanted by the good people who lived near
Lake Grekka. Their love of gardening, fishing, music, and reading
is something I desire to witness again.”

“I have never been,” M’babo said. “It sounds
nice though. Fafnirians are always welcome guests. Quicker to draw
wit than blade, they are.”

M’babo’s route took them along the Sudai
border and then south into the town of Agir. It was a lively city
laden with sandstone buildings. Their architecture utilized round
wooden posts, which could often be seen protruding through the
stone finish. The Gyosh used arched rooves in place of flat ones
unlike Kulshedrans and Zmajans, but the square design of the homes,
warehouses, and government buildings were similar. Adults and
children freely ran about cobbled streets in the day time wearing
the customary light colored thin robes. They were an effective
garment for keeping the blistering sun off the skin. Days were warm
even in the cooler months.

“This is as far as I can take you,” M’babo
informed them after stopping at the bazaar, a thriving scene of
stands, shops, and kiosks with an abundance of customers and
sightseers.

They thanked one another for the short
friendship and while the cart master took to haggling and trading
in the busy marketplace, Scar and Ylithia perused clothing stands,
fruit stands, and trinket kiosks. They had grown happy in the few
weeks they spent together. Both were thankful for Scar’s meeting
with Silwen. Their bond of friendship, though marred in part by
abandoning those in need of hardened warriors for a valiant cause,
was quickly tempered by their openness, their honesty, and most
importantly, their mutual interest in simply living a life of free
will.

“I’d very much like to see you out of that
black armor and in more comfortable attire,” Scar flattered as he
rifled through soft robes in a stand managed by an older, sun baked
woman.

“Yes,” she chirped. “It’s too bad we have no
money.”

“Maybe we could work here a while before
moving on to Closicus.”

“In this heat?” she scoffed. “What would you
do?”

He gazed into her placid eyes and smiled.
“The heat is no concern of mine, and what would I do? I can work in
a warehouse.”

“Lifting heavy crates, no doubt,” she
joked.

“I’d work the camel stables if I had to.”

It was her turn to smile. The man she had
been ordered to kill, the man that slaughtered Kulshedrans,
Khmerans, and even tortured an assassin in front of her eyes, was
the farthest thing from a brute. The new lack of war in his life
allowed his gentle, caring side to emerge freely.

“In Othnatus you could work as a guard,
something I think is more suited to your bearing…plus you wouldn’t
come home smelling of camel,” she laughed.

“And what will you do? Work the local
tavern?” he jested. “I can picture you in an apron mopping up
drunkards’ barf.”

She playfully smacked his arm before adding,
“Seriously. I’ve no need of these robes for now. Let’s see if we
can’t find somewhere to stay for the day and start our search for
transportation tomorrow.”

Scar agreed. Finding free lodging was a
nightmare, but the warrens, a place where the poor scrounged for a
night’s sleep, was accommodating enough. The numerous felines of
Agir kept the rats at bay. Only the stink of the unwashed was
bothersome, but eventually sleep came, for Ylithia. Scar, on the
other hand, found it difficult to even doze.

As he watched the lady knight breathing
peacefully, her head on her outstretched arm padded by an old cloth
he prayed had no mites, he thought about N’Giwah, Borta, Marlayne,
Poland, Gilgamesh, and Labolas.
It will be a trying event,
forgetting those faces, but I think I like this one better.
He
pushed her wavy hair from her face and closed his eyes, but sleep
did not come. Instead, a chill fell on the cramped housing. Nights
in the deserts were frigid, and the hot season was behind them.

The following morning they managed to
convince some traders, Gyosh brothers with large almond eyes and
big noses, to provide passage. Scar’s proposition included
information that a group of Dracos had been terrorizing the trade
routes. When questioned about his intelligence, Scar offered up the
name of General Sulas.