The Wings of Dragons: Book One of the Dragoon Saga (6 page)

Meanwhile, Amroth continued readying
supplies and loading up three horses. Balear arrived precisely on
time, dressed in traveling clothes and bearing a longbow and quiver
in addition to a short sword. Despite his impressive attire, the
sergeant looked bleary-eyed, and when he saw Iren armed, he
grimaced. Amroth immediately set Balear to work checking that their
stores of food would support them on a trip lasting several
days.

At last Amroth called Iren over and
announced they were ready to go. As the captain began mounting his
horse, however, a light, airy voice called out, “Ready to go? Go
where?”

Iren and Balear simply looked around in
confusion, but Amroth became suddenly tense. He stared in the
direction of the voice. It had come from inside one of the horse
stalls. Iren heard shifting straw, and then the stall door opened
from within. Exactly who or what Iren expected to emerge, he
couldn’t say. What did appear, though, wasn’t it.

An old woman with long, flowing hair of pale
silver stumbled drunkenly through the doorway, her face adorned
with glazed-over emerald eyes and a wide, almost stupid-looking
grin. Five feet tall at most, the diminutive crone had a frame so
light Iren thought he could probably knock her over if he so much
as tapped her.

Balear scoffed, probably at the old woman’s
clothing, which, if at all possible, was worse than Iren’s former
outfit. Her shoes looked like she’d fished them from a trash heap.
Multiple holes made her tan woolen shirt and pants look little
better than rags, and they were so oversized they billowed around
her. She was armed, though only with a dagger with a round wooden
handle that hung from a moldy rope tied around her waist. Poking
out of her right sleeve, which was so long it obscured her hand,
was a bottle of what looked like red wine.

While Iren continued staring dumbfounded at
the odd, drunken elder, Amroth recovered from his momentary shock.
Regarding her, he noted dryly, “The stables are an odd place to
take a nap.”

The old woman shrugged nonchalantly. She
kept her expression in the same broad grin, and when she spoke, her
words slurred. “I had a lot to drink last night. I knew I’d made a
smart move, coming into the castle yesterday. Azuluu always holds a
feast when you return from a mission. That means free food and
booze for me.” She paused and tapped her bottle knowingly. “Guess I
did overstay my welcome a bit though. When did they start barring
the gate?” She hiccupped and took a swig.

Amroth cocked an eyebrow.

“
Anyway,” she continued,
“since I’m here, I might as well go with you.” She stretched her
arms above her head. A loud crack filled the stable, and the woman
fell backwards on the straw. “Ow, my back!”

Sighing, Amroth said, “You can’t come with
us. Where we’re going is dangerous.”

In what seemed too fast for a drunken crone
who had just popped her spine out of alignment, the woman climbed
to her feet. “I know; that’s why you’ll need my help to rout those
nasty Quodivar! Balear there looks too hung-over to stay on his
horse, and what you ever saw in that young Left is quite beyond
me.”

The crone didn’t as much as glance at Iren
while she spoke those words. In fact, she hadn’t looked at Iren
once since coming out of her stall. He clenched his fists. This
drunken bird was just like all the others. “Stupid old hag,” he
growled under his breath.

The woman didn’t miss a beat. As if by
instinct, she retorted, still without looking at him, “Monstrous
brat.”

Infuriated, Iren opened his mouth to shout
at her, to call her any of a half-dozen names he’d already thought
of for her, but Amroth’s next words silenced their exchange
cold.

“
You don’t need to pretend,
Rondel. I told him everything.”

Recognition flashed through Iren. This was
Rondel Thara, the old woman who’d helped Amroth seventeen years
ago. She didn’t look like someone who would welcome strangers with
babies into her home. In fact, she didn’t look like someone who
even had a home. She looked like a bum.

As Amroth spoke, Rondel’s smile faded. “He
knows about seventeen years ago?”

The captain nodded. “Yes, and that’s why
he’s coming with me. No one else can kill the Quodivar leader.”

For the first time, the woman’s eyes fell on
Iren. It seemed to require a great deal of effort for her to focus
on him, and even then, she wouldn’t look him in the face. Instead,
her gaze settled upon the now sheathed sword sitting at his right
hip. “You gave him the . . . I mean, his
father’s sword?”

Iren perked up at that. The? The what? Did
this stumbling bat know something about his father’s sword?

Amroth didn’t respond verbally; he just gave
her a smirk and then turned away to face Iren and Balear. “Let’s
go. Rondel, we don’t have the supplies to take you with us, even if
you wouldn’t be a liability against the Quodivar.”

The crone’s grin returned and got, if
possible, even bigger. “Well then, good thing I happen to have
everything I need for travel right here! What a coincidence!” She
ducked back into her stall and began making an awful racket. “By
sheer luck, I happen to always have my things ready to depart at a
moment’s notice!”

Something about the way she said it made
Iren seriously doubt that luck had anything to do with it.

Rondel emerged moments later heavily
burdened with a pack and bedroll. On each step, her bundle clinked
with the sound of numerous glass objects rubbing against each
other. “So can I come?” the old woman asked innocently. She kept on
smiling, but a subtle edge crept into her voice as she went on,
“You’d best let me. Imagine what might happen if you left me here
to tell the king about how you snuck out of the castle in the
middle of the night, taking a criminal sentenced to death with
you.”

Amroth had already opened his mouth to
rebuke her, but he stopped short. The old hag might be a homeless
bum, Iren thought, but at least this time, she’d outsmarted the
great captain. With the subtlest of nods and an audibly irritated,
“Humph,” he leapt onto his horse and rode from the stables. Balear
followed, glaring at both Iren and Rondel.

Iren approached the nearest horse, but it
shied away from him. Tentatively, he reached a hand out, but the
ornery creature simply snorted and turned away. “What’s the
matter?” Rondel asked, looking incredulous. “Don’t you speak
horse?” Iren shot her a withering stare.

The crone ignored him.
Throwing a saddle on the mare nearest her, she whispered,
“
Kuylet
,
trempiot
.” Iren’s brow
furrowed. If those were words in the Lodian tongue, he’d never
heard them. The mare apparently understood, though, because she
bowed her head and allowed Rondel to climb onto her –
backwards.

“
Onward!” the hag cried,
and then the horse bucked and ran out of the stables, Rondel
swearing as she bounced around in the saddle.

Iren couldn’t decide if
Rondel was a fool or not. All the same, he now stood alone in the
stable, and his horse had decidedly no interest in allowing Iren to
ride him. With nothing to lose, Iren shrugged and tried what he’d
heard Rondel say, “
Kuylet
,
trempiot
.”

At first he felt idiotic, falling for
Rondel’s stunt. The annoying witch had probably made up the
ridiculous phrase. “Speak horse, I bet,” Iren muttered. A few
seconds later, however, the stallion lowered his head and
whickered. This time, he allowed Iren to get in the saddle with no
trouble at all.

Iren was just thinking how amazing it was
that Rondel’s trick had actually worked when the stallion’s
nostrils flared, and he shot out of the stables. The energetic
horse bolted right past the others, all the while Iren shouting,
“Stop! Stop please!”

As his horse cavorted around the courtyard,
and the drunken bat Rondel sat backwards on her steed, Iren
couldn’t help but wonder how this absurd group would ever defeat
the most skilled bandit force Lodia had ever seen.

“
All right,” Amroth began
once Iren’s horse calmed down. “Before we leave, there’s one last
thing I need each of you to do.” The captain held up several pieces
of parchment, ink wells, and pens. “This mission is different from
any other. I cannot order any of you to participate. If you come,
you do so of your own free will. Under Lodian law, if you died on
such a mission, I, as your commander, would become responsible for
paying restitution to your survivors. I have neither the means nor
desire to do this, so you will each have to write a waiver noting
that you understand the risks involved.”

Iren found the concept rather silly. He had
no survivors in any case.

“
What do we need to write,
Captain?” Balear asked, chirping like a bird.

Amroth pulled out another sheet, which had a
flowing, elegant script written on it. “I’ve already completed my
waiver, so you can just copy what I’ve put down.” He motioned to a
table near the entrance to the stables. “When you’re finished, sign
and date your waiver and bring it to me. I’ll leave them with the
king’s legal assistant. He’ll understand well enough.”

The last thing Iren wanted to do was
dismount his horse; getting on it once had given him enough
trouble. Amroth would not relent though, so he reluctantly got down
and joined the others at the table.

Legal nonsense, Iren decided of the waiver.
“I, Iren Saitosan, do here absolve Amroth Angustion, my Great King
and Leader Azuluu, and all agents of the government of the Nation
of Lodia and City of Haldessa of any responsibility should I perish
on this dangerous mission. I recognize the task’s extreme peril and
small window for success, but my desire to bring justice to the
Sneaky and Monstrous Enemy of Lodia, the Quodivar, is
unquestionable.”

Balear completed his first, signing his name
and handing the waiver to Amroth. Iren finished next, but when he
handed his over, Amroth frowned. “Really?” He turned the parchment
around, revealing numerous smudges that made many of the letters
hard to read. Iren glanced at his left hand. Black ink smeared the
pinky side of it.

“
I hate writing,” he
declared, stalking away.

Rondel finished last. She took a painfully
long time, her right hand shaking from the exertion. “Old age sure
has caught up with me,” she said, smiling. “This gets harder and
harder each time I do it.” At last she handed over her waiver,
composed of basic, blocky lettering. Amroth nodded his approval and
said, “Good. Wait here while I take these to the legal office.” He
exited through a doorway on the far side of the courtyard.

From under her sleeve, Rondel whipped out
the bottle of wine she’d been drinking from earlier. She went to
take a swig from it, but then eyed it with disdain. “Empty,” she
whined, seemingly to herself. “It’s always empty.” Turning to Iren
and Balear, she grinned broadly and said, “I’ll be right back. Make
sure Amroth waits for me if he returns before I do.”

“
Doubtful,” Balear muttered
as she disappeared through another doorway, the one that led to the
kitchens. Iren nodded; for once he agreed with Balear.

Fifteen minutes later, Amroth emerged from
the same doorway he’d entered and said they could depart. A few
seconds later, Rondel appeared as well, carrying a bottle of some
vile liquid. A quarter of it had already vanished, and Iren felt
pretty confident he knew where it had gone.

Getting back on the horses, fortunately, was
less of an adventure than the first time, though Rondel rode
unsteadily and nearly fell off her mount twice before they’d even
made it to the castle gate. Amroth roused the guard to the point
where he could open the gate, and the fool was hung-over enough
that he didn’t seem particularly concerned.

The first whispers of dawn crept over the
horizon, and still the sleepy castle and surrounding city rested.
Upon reaching the city bounds, Amroth directed them up a trail that
led northwest. The crisp morning air chilled Iren, but he also felt
the promise of warmth in it. It was still early spring, and while
the snows had melted for the year, winter still clung stubbornly to
the nights as best it could. Even so, it was gradually losing the
fight. The grass had already begun to grow again, and in the
distance, Iren could see the first buds on a clump of trees
sheltered by a south-facing hillside.

As they rode, Amroth explained their task.
They would head to Veliaf, a village in Lodia’s northeast, posing
as a family of traders hoping to obtain some of the durable
minerals harvested from the village’s mines.

“
What’s Veliaf like?” Iren
asked, barely able to contain his excitement, which grew with each
hard click of the horses’ hooves on the cobble road. He couldn’t
believe he was finally beyond the castle.

“
A hardy village, with a
population to match,” Amroth explained. “They have to be, both to
work in the mines and to keep themselves safe, what with Akaku on
their doorstep.”

“
Akaku?” Iren questioned.
“What’s that?”

Balear sneered, “You really don’t know
anything, do you? What a brainless idiot! Akaku is the boreal
forest that forms the northern border of Lodia. Isn’t that correct,
Captain?”

Amroth gave the sergeant a sharp look. “Let
me make two things quite plain, Balear. First, as we’re posing as
civilians, you should under no circumstances call me ‘Captain.’
Furthermore, you will address Iren only by name, and not refer to
him as ‘brainless’ or any other derogatory term. Understood?”