The Roar of a Dragon (18 page)

Just as it seemed as if all hell was going to break loose, a female voice rang out from behind us:

‘Enough!’

All eyes turned toward the door, where stood a human female with brown hair with gray streaks, wearing a dark brown buttoned shirt, matching brown trousers, a leather belt, and knee-high leather boots, as well as a leather overcoat. Her hair was done in a tight braid, and she had a bow and a quiver of arrows slung to her back. She was dripping wet from the rain.

I knew her, and I knew that all of the thieves knew her too; she was Kirra, the Queen of the Thieves — a moniker she earned with her aristocratic demeanor (for a thief). She backed up her superior status by not taking any hassle from anybody, be it thief, guard, child, ogre, or minotaur. To be sure, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had picked up a rock and flung it at a dragon who had flown a little too close to the ground and messed up her hair. All the guards in the world knew who she was; she only robbed the richest people in whatever city she was in, so she always had wanted posters everywhere. She had many other nicknames: ‘The Duchess’, ‘The Tigress’, ‘The Dark Lady’, ‘The Countess’, just to name a few.

Kirra strolled into room. ‘What is going on here?’

‘L-lady Kirra!’ one of the thieves stammered. ‘We didn’t know you was in town.’

‘And yet, here I am,’ Kirra said, raising her hands and looking around at her surroundings. ‘Now explain to me why you are about to attack my friends.’

Friends? What in the name of the gods is she talking about?

Apparently, the thief was thinking the same thing. ‘Friends? But, we didn’t…I-I mean, there was — how could —’

Kirra put up one of her hands to silence him. ‘Allow me to help you out, Dolf. Choose one of those sentences, start from the beginning, then finish it — you’ll find yourself less confused.’

This was not the case — Dolf only seemed more confused.

‘You have no more business here at this time,’ Kirra said sternly. ‘I suggest you all disperse — I have important matters to discuss with these people.’

The thieves all lowered their heads, and slowly they started to leave. Some went back up the stairs, while others went around us and headed out the door.

When the thieves were finally gone, Kirra turned her attention to us.

‘Derrick, my friend, it is good to see you again.’

Again with the word “friend”…Derrick, who served alongside me in the knighthood, friends with a thief?

‘And you as well, Kirra,’ Derrick responded. ‘I thought you were retired,’ he added with a smile.

Kirra shrugged. She then looked around at the rest of us. ‘You didn’t tell me that you were going to be having a party when I arrived.’

Derrick chuckled. ‘I apologize, but quite frankly, I wasn’t expecting to be having one. May I present Iskandor, Timor the Wizard and Aidan of Delmar.’

At the mention of my name, Kirra’s eyes got wide and she glared at me. Then she turned back to Derrick. ‘That is
not
Aidan of Delmar. I would know him anywhere.’

I was somewhat taken aback by her reaction, but I remained silent. Derrick seemed to share the same reaction, but said, ‘I assure you that it is…it is a long story, but I give you my word.’

‘A
thief?
I said to Derrick, staring incredulously. ‘We’re joining forces with a
thief?

‘Sometimes you have to dance with evil in order to get where you need to go,’ Derrick returned.

I was suddenly furious, feeling like Derrick was giving up his honor to work with a bottom feeder like Kirra.

Kirra got right in my face — she had spunk, I give her that. ‘Do you have a problem with me, Aidan?’

I stared right back. ‘I always have a problem with your kind.’

‘A woman?’

How dare she imply that! ‘No. You are a thief, a pest to society.’

Kirra smirked at me. ‘Are you really so arrogant and self-righteous?’

I didn’t blink. ‘If by that, you mean I enjoy fighting for what’s right, then yes.’

Kirra gave me an obnoxious look, then she turned back to Derrick. ‘Why don’t you tell me why you summoned me?’ Then she turned and marched out of the room.

Derrick gave me a pleading look of apology. I just smiled and shrugged in response. ‘Catch up with us,’ he said, then he, too, left the room.

Timor looked at Iskandor and I. ‘This should be interesting.’

I couldn’t help but agree.

When Iskandor, Timor, and I rejoined Derrick and Kirra in the streets of Knol, the rain had finally stopped, and Derrick was just about finished catching Kirra up on our story. However, contrary to Derrick’s intent listening when Timor told him the story, Kirra’s reaction was one of amusement. As we approached, Kirra’s eyes met mine and her lips curved in a smile that was mocking in its nature. Evidently, she found something about the story funny — what that was, I had no idea. But I wasn’t about to let her get the best of me that easily; in response to her smile, I sarcastically smiled back.

I caught up with Derrick, who was conversing with Kirra. When Kirra caught sight of me, that smile spread across her face again. ‘So, Aidan — I see that your hair grew a little during your death.’ She made her remark quite loud enough for everyone to hear.

Derrick cast her a reproving glance. I chose to ignore her. ‘Derrick, how exactly was it that you weren’t in Delmar when the ritual took place? Not that I’m not happy about that, mind you…I think you understand where I’m coming from.’

Derrick smiled lightly. ‘After you were exiled, Garridan protested fiercely. He was thrown in the dungeons for his efforts.’

I was in shock, and my heart broke a little.

‘With you two gone,’ Derrick continued, ‘the king was relying on me more than ever. The political situation just got worse, and the strain was just too much on me. The king granted me some time away, so I traveled west and got away for a week, giving me a small chance to get myself together. It wasn’t nearly enough, but I took it anyway. When I returned, no one would open the gates, and then I noticed the black beings with red eyes on top of the wall. I knew something terrible had happened, and I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to fix it. After that, I had no idea what to do…I wandered from town to town for a while, until I thought about Kirra here. I thought she might be able to use her skills to help me get in the city, so I traveled to Knol, seeking her help. As my good fortune would have it, you were there too, along with Timor and Iskandor, and you were out to accomplish the same mission.’

‘Yeah, even dead men can be of great help sometimes,’ Kirra quipped.

I ignored her again. ‘Saving Delmar is
their
mission,’ I corrected Derrick. ‘All I wanted to do was save Garridan… and get even with Norvin.’

Derrick’s expression, which had become jovial toward the end of his story, quickly disintegrated into a look of disappointment. ‘You’re not going to save Delmar?’

I was quiet for a second. ‘My heart is still broken,’ I said in a low voice.

‘Your ego knows no bounds, does it?’ Kirra said with disgust.

That set me off—I spun around and was face-to-face with Kirra in an instant. ‘This has nothing to do with ego. Put yourself in my position — could you see yourself simply putting things aside and going back to save the very country that betrayed you with no remorse at all?’

Kirra didn’t answer.

‘But I told you why I thought Baladir —’ Derrick started, but I cut him off.

‘— why you “thought”. Regardless, it doesn’t change anything.’

Derrick sighed. ‘But the innocent people didn’t have anything to do with it.’

I sighed. ‘I promise you, Derrick, my heart is also broken for those people. They were always so good to me. But when I think about home now — all it does is make me angry.’

Derrick nodded, and I think he understood — at least to some degree. ‘I just…I just can’t help but think what would have happened if I never left Alexia, or if I had come back sooner…maybe I could have done something —’

‘More likely that you would be just another one of those lifeless, mindless creatures, just like all the rest,’ I said evenly.

Derrick looked at me, and then he smiled. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. Only a voice of reason like you could be so blunt.’

I grinned and shrugged. ‘There was no way for you to see it coming, Derrick — that was how the whole thing was designed. The cult apparently snuck in somehow — well, Timor told you the story.’

Derrick nodded. ‘Once the cultists got in and started this ritual, it took three days to finish it — and when it was done, everyone was turned into these “Ther-lor”.’

‘So Aidan,’ Kirra piped up, ‘your eyes are paler than your skin is. I didn’t know that death caused anything like that.’

‘Come on, Kirra,’ Derrick said. ‘That’s enough.’

‘Oh, come on, Derrick,’ Kirra said in a pleading voice. ‘I was just going to ask if he woke up in a coffin, or some type of mausoleum.’

Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and a deafening roar from behind us — and when we spun around, there was an enormous blue dragon standing not ten feet away from us.

It was Iskandor, in dragon form.

Kirra screamed and stumbled backward, almost falling over, and Derrick drew his broadsword; it quickly became clear to me that Derrick had no idea what was going on, except that he thought we were about to be attacked.

He wasn’t the only one who had no clue what was going on, but I didn’t have time to ask Iskandor; I had to stop Derrick from fighting with him.

I stepped in between the two and faced Derrick, not bothering to draw my swords. ‘Derrick, put away your sword. It’s Iskandor.’

Derrick’s eyes widened in surprised, and he looked frantically around at all of us, noticing finally that the human Iskandor was missing.

‘Iskandor?!’ Derrick then looked at Timor. ‘You told me that he saved Aidan!’

‘Iskandor did save Aidan,’ Timor said. ‘Though it occurs to me that when I told you the story, I neglected to mention that Iskandor’s true form is that of a dragon.’

Derrick was still poised to attack, and I knew exactly what was going through his mind. He grew up in Delmar, a country that hated dragons, and now, here was a dragon right in front of him. All of his instincts were telling him to attack. I took a step closer to him, still weaponless.

‘Derrick, listen to me very carefully,’ I said in an even voice, attempting to make eye contact, but Derrick’s eyes were still glued to Iskandor. ‘You and I served together in the White Army for a long time — we stood side-by-side on the battlefield on many occasions. I will always have your back, no matter what. But I tell you this: he has saved my life several times, in more ways than I can express. I give you my word that he will not attack — so I ask that you put your sword away, or I will be forced to draw mine.’

Derrick’s expression was not one of anger, defiance, or even determination; it was more like shock, bewilderment, and confusion. Several seconds passed, during which time, his eyes passed from Iskandor to myself, and then back again…and then finally, he exhaled sharply and lowered his broadsword.

‘I — I know he’s not going to attack,’ Derrick breathed. He looked down at the ground for a moment, and took another breath. ‘I’m sorry, Aidan…and to you, Iskandor, I sincerely apologize. You must understand how I grew up, bred to mistrust dragons, though no one could ever give me a straight reason why, other than to make reference to an attack on Delmar that occurred centuries ago. I may not understand the full nature of what you have done for Aidan, but I do greatly appreciate it.’

Iskandor nodded his head slightly. ‘No apologies are necessary, Derrick. I’m sure much of what you were taught in Delmar about dragons is true…but like humans, there are bad seeds among us, and good seeds as well. Even among our kind, there has never been an answer as to why the three dragons attacked Alexia. I remember asking some of the elder dragons when I was young. But such cowardice has never been my personality; I am here to help, and that is exactly what I intend to do.’

‘I know that,’ Derrick agreed. ‘I’ve always known that. Just — next time, a little warning would be nice before you decided to suddenly inflate to fifty feet tall and become very scaly — there are only so many places to clean your clothes on a journey like this.’

Iskandor chuckled.

Confusion settled, I rounded on Iskandor. ‘What in the name of the gods what
that
all about?’

Iskandor’s eyes were fixed in one direction, and I followed his eye line — he was glaring at Kirra. But when I looked back at the dragon, he was back to looking at nothing in particular. ‘I simply needed to stretch a bit — it gets so cramped in my human form.’

With that, the dragon performed a long stretch, grunting with the effort — coincidentally showing his rows of razor-sharp teeth at the same time.

After his ‘stretch’, Iskandor was satisfied and in another flash, he was back to his human form. Derrick and Kirra walked on ahead of us, both glancing back every so often — Kirra much more often than Derrick.

‘What was the meaning of that?’ Timor whispered harshly to Iskandor.

‘Merely letting her know that I am here,’ Iskandor answered simply. ‘Her derogatory remarks toward Aidan were irritating me, especially considering my own guilt. Trading verbal barbs is one thing — your death is another thing entirely, a personal matter for me. I decided that showing her my true form might whip her into shape.’

I lowered my head and smiled a little to myself; the look on Kirra’s face
was
priceless.

***

The next week of travel went by rather uneventfully. Kirra kept her distance from me for a couple of days, casting me odd looks when she thought I wasn’t looking. Finally, toward the end of the second day, she seemed to figure out that it was my death that she should stay away from when assaulting me with verbal barbs; so she went back to quipping me about my personality and other such things. But even then, I noticed, the jokes were coming
very
occasionally.

Several nights later, a storm forced us to seek shelter while we were traveling through a wooded area. Derrick scouted ahead and found a cave not too far to the north, and Derrick and I explored it to see if it was safe. My ability to see in the dark helped a great deal, but only went so far — and the cave seemed to stretch on
forever
. Seeing nothing there, and hearing nothing unusual, we didn’t worry anymore about it, we only needed to stay there one night.

When we were finally settled, I thought that it was as good a time as any to ask Timor some questions.

‘Timor…why do you think we arrived too late from the time portal?’

Timor cast me a surprised look. ‘It certainly wasn’t intentional, if that’s what you’re implying, Aidan.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ I replied, although my original question did have an accusatory tone to it. I had no idea why, really —
he
was the one who wanted to save Delmar, not me.

Iskandor cut us off before our exchange could go any farther. ‘Timor and I have discussed this already. Timor has traveled through time on many occasions — he does not believe that he miscast the time travel spell.’

‘Perhaps he was slightly distracted by the battle that was raging right by him,’ I said with a shrug.

‘Even I admit that possibility, but I still don’t believe it to be true,’ Timor said. ‘Mages are trained to block out everything that is going on around them and concentrate entirely on their spell casting — the slightest miscalculation could result in our death.’

‘Timor and I have discussed another theory,’ Iskandor continued. ‘It is entirely possible that Sirak unintentionally disrupted the time travel spell by casting his lightning spell. The powerful spell cast by Sirak, in close proximity, most likely disrupted the time travel spell being cast.’

I knew very little about magic, but I had to admit that that made sense…sort of.

‘Is it possible that it was intentional on Sirak’s part, that he knew exactly what he was doing?’ I asked.

‘Not very likely,’ Timor answered. ‘Even if he knew that casting his spell would disrupt my spell, he would have no idea what way the time travel spell would be effected — it could have sent us back earlier in time, which would not have been propitious for him at all. It is much more likely that he simply meant to murder us.’

I thought for a moment. ‘Is it likely that my force field disrupted the spell?’ I asked quietly.

‘Very unlikely,’ Timor responded. ‘It would take a violent force to disrupt any spell, and a force field is a defensive one. I will say, truthfully, that the lightning spell crashing against the force field may have added to the disruption, but that said, if you hadn’t put up the force field, we would all be dead. The force field saved us, Aidan, so don’t think that this is your fault.’

I accepted Timor’s words and put it out of my mind.

‘Well, there he goes, messing up everyone’s plans,’ Kirra piped up — apparently, she’d been quiet for too long and could no longer contain herself. ‘When this Sirak showed up, why didn’t you bore him with arrogant remarks about your greatness? I’m sure that would have driven him away in a hurry.’

I looked at her and narrowed my eyes. ‘Kirra, I’m sure if you were there, that feat would have been accomplished a long time ago, no matter what form of verbiage you chose to use on him.’

‘Oh, ho!’ Derrick exclaimed. ‘How about that, huh?’ He clapped Kirra on the shoulder good-naturedly, but with such force that it nearly knocked her into the fire. ‘Personally, I would have preferred the lightning spell to bounce off of your force field and torch Sirak like a tree in a thunderstorm — now
that
would have been a sight.’

‘I have to ask you, strictly out of curiosity,’ I began, addressing Timor. ‘I remember you telling me that you had to work for years just to cast the simplest spells. You are only an apprentice, and I’m going to assume that the time-travel spell is one of the more complicated spells you can learn. How did you do it?’

Timor hesitated before he answered. ‘About a year before we were attacked by the Ther-lor, I was poking around the Tower of Wizards, and I came across a stone that I had never seen before. I inquired about it, saying only that I had read about it in a book somewhere. The wizards I spoke to confirmed that it was, indeed, a time-traveling jewel. I was fascinated, and I began to search out the spell, which took several months before I could even locate it in a book. When the Ther-lor attacked, I escaped, and ended up near one of the time traveling portals. I decided to take my chances and cast the spell. It worked — though it nearly killed me.’