Whistlestop (29 page)

“
Slaying the demons, of
course!”

“
We already tried that and
look at us! Five are dead and my son has been captured.”

“
Trust me, dear dragon. If
we work together, we will defeat them. Isn’t that why you’re
here?”

“
What choice do we have,
Brother?” Crimson asked.

“
Fair enough. Nestor, you
have a deal!”

“
Excellent!” Nestor jumped
to his feet and ran through the small opening. After a couple of
minutes, a long line of humans dressed like Nestor began to file
out and into the large chamber with the dragons looking on in
disbelief. At the end of the line, a small creature flew out on
gossamer wings and landed on Nestor’s shoulder. “This is Concordia
Wilhelmina Downton, our sprite.”

“
Everyone calls me Cora,”
the sprite announced.

“
How is that little bug
going to help us?” Archimedes sighed.

Nestor laughed and said, “The sprite
is the reason our plan cannot fail, dear dragon.”

Over the next three hours, the doctors
removed the arrows from the black dragon and applied wound
dressings to all of the injured creatures. Cora and Nestor
explained the plan in tremendous detail, but it all seemed unreal
to the dragons. They had never seen what a sprite was capable of,
and did not believe when they were told.

Just after sunset, the operation
began. All the dragons and people moved to the outer edge of the
chamber. When they were in place, Cora expanded her body until it
almost filled the open space. The seers climbed on the backs of the
dragons, and the dragons flew up and landed on the sprite. Then
Cora shrank down to her normal size, causing the rest to shrink
along with her. She flew back into the small opening and deeper
into the pitch black darkness of the cavern. Her eyes glowed with
enough light to illuminate her immediate area and she flew to the
end of the cavern where the way forward was blocked by a small iron
door. She shrank again until she could fit through the keyhole and
flew through and then expanded to her normal size and kept flying
down the hidden tunnel that had been built as an emergency exit
from the Temple of the Inner Sanctum.

After another hour of flying, she
arrived at a second iron door and flew through the keyhole once
again. She quickly ascended a flight of stairs and pushed open a
panel and stepped into the vacant central chamber of the Temple.
Cora helped eight of the seers to get down on the floor where they
expanded to their normal size. They hurried over to a second hidden
panel and removed a staff for each. “You know what to do,” she
whispered. They nodded and took their places at the key compass
points in the center of the room.

Cora shrank again until she was the
size of a gnat and then flew under the main entrance door and up a
long flight of marble stairs. She flew through the gap between two
doors and down the long column-lined main chamber. She was
surprised none of the demons were here to guard this sacred place.
Now that the central chamber was manned, she knew the demons’ time
was over.

She flew out of the main chamber and
into the open city square and immediately dimmed her eyes to avoid
detection. Now she knew why no one had been inside the temple.
Thousands of demons filled the open area and a large bonfire burned
in the middle. All of their axes were piled on the sides of the
large area. On one side, a huge demon stood with a large golden
axe. Two other demons were leading Emmanuel toward a large block
where the executioner would soon chop off his head. “Dragon for
dinner,” a nearby demon drooled. Others were hooting and
laughing.

The apparent leader of the demons wore
a bright gold breastplate and helmet. He clapped some of the others
on the back as he stood on the chopping block. “Brothers and
Sisters, today has been a glorious day on Asterpast! Thanks to a
warning from our father, we were prepared for the dragon assault.
You have all performed magnificently, and each deserves to fill his
or her belly with fresh dragon meat!” The crowd shouted and cheered
again. As he jumped down from the block, he turned to the
executioner and said, “Prepare our feast!” The two demons pulled
Emmanuel toward the block while their siblings drooled and laughed
at the helpless dragon, whose snout had been taped shut to avoid a
fiery death.

Cora flew over to Emmanuel landed on
his head, and then suddenly expanded to her normal size. “Dear
demons, I hate to ruin your party.”

“
What is that?” one of the
demons asked.

“
Oh shit!” the leader
moaned.

Cora shook her body and all the
dragons flew off of her with their riders. Away from her, they grew
instantly up to their normal size. The demons tried to escape or
head for the piles of axes, but before they could move more than a
few feet, the dragons blasted them with fire. Archimedes rushed to
Emmanuel as the demon with the golden axe attempted to finish the
job. Just as the demon was about to strike, Archimedes bit him in
half and then incinerated the guards holding his son. Archimedes
clawed the tape from his son’s mouth and they rubbed their snouts
against one another. “There are more, Father,” he shouted and took
to wing, followed closely by the black dragon. In the distance,
they could see a line of two hundred demons with longbows, prepared
to attack.

“
We’ll never make it on
time, Emmanuel.”

Emmanuel sprayed a fine line of
intense blue flame that shot across the open space and hit the
demons, which were reduced to ashes in seconds. On schedule, the
eight seers slammed the ends of their staffs into the receptacles
on the floor. A huge dome of blue light now covered the entire
city, just as thousands more demons approached. The first few that
hit the dome dissolved on contact, and the remainder fled. Emmanuel
and Archimedes returned to the open square where the others were
sitting quietly, unsure how they had won or what would happen next.
They landed next to Nestor who was dancing with the sprite. “I
don’t know why you’re so happy, human. There are still many demons
outside your dome. What happens when they find their way
inside?”

“
The demons will flee
Asterpast now, Mr. Dragon,” he said confidently. “The Temple of the
Inner Sanctum is the keystone. Once our dome was lit, the domes in
every other city will light automatically. Over the next few days,
the domes will increase in size until the entire planet is covered.
You have saved our world, Mr. Dragon, and we owe you our lives.”
The seers all dropped to one knee and bowed their heads.

“
Please get up,” Archimedes
replied. “We were a team. Without you, my siblings would have been
found by the demons and destroyed. My own son was about to become
their dinner. It is we who owe you our lives.” He bowed his head
and the others followed.

“
Enough of this mutual
admiration society stuff,” Cora laughed. “Let’s have a
drink!”

“
I’m afraid we cannot stay,
sprite,” Archimedes noted. “We are part of an army that will attack
the empire.”

“
But Archimedes, we can’t
leave without the elf,” Crimson noted.

“
What elf? You have an
elf?” Cora asked.

“
Well, one folded us here,
but he did not stay. Without an elf, how will we ever leave this
place?”

“
You don’t need an elf,
Archimedes,” Cora laughed. “Any of the seers or I can fold you
anywhere you want to go.”

“
Is that true?”

“
Yes, but we’re all going
to have a few drinks to celebrate our victory, so I recommend you
join us and we can take you away tomorrow.”

Lydia, Jedidiah and the monks from the
Temple of Light folded into a small meadow not far from the city of
Thrace. Immediately, it was apparent that something was wrong. A
tall column of black smoke rose into the sky in the direction of
the castle. They hurried forward, unsure what they would find. At
the top of the small ridge that marked the edge of the woods, the
city lay before them in ruins. Lydia looked at Jed and he only
shrugged his shoulders and then took off running toward the city.
“What do you think happened, Jed?” Lydia called out as she and the
monks chased after him.

“
I don’t know how I could
have been so blind!” Jed shouted. He reached the main roadway and
began to sprint ahead. After a few minutes, they had reached the
center of the city and the broad park where the castle was located,
and stopped to catch their breath. The castle looked deserted, with
the plume of smoke as the sole resident. “The city was attacked for
the same reason as the temple. They are all potential threats to
the empire. Even though the emperor could control the trehbor, he
would never be an ally. I underestimated Karl’s treachery. All of
our planets and all of the realms are in danger now.” Jed headed
toward the main gate, which was smashed open. The others followed
closely behind him. Inside the gate, they found a large pile of
furniture mixed with weapons feeding the fire that created the
plume of smoke.

“
Why did the emperor’s army
burn the weapons instead of keeping them, Jed?”

“
That is very curious,” the
elf replied as he walked around the fire and toward the main doors
to the trehbor’s throne room. “Something else must have happened.
We’re missing something and I don’t know what. Everyone be on
guard!”

Jed put his hand on the door and then
his ear. He held his staff at the ready and turned the knob, and
pushed the door open an inch and looked inside. The room was dark
and seemed empty. He motioned to the others to keep quiet, and
pushed the door open. They moved quickly down the long hallway.
There were no guards outside the throne room doors unlike the last
time Lydia had come to visit the trehbor. Jed touched the door for
heat, and then pressed his ear against the door. A faint voice on
the other side said, “Please come in.” The monks crouched down in a
defensive pose and looked to Jedidiah for their next move. Lydia
drew her short and long swords and nodded her head.

Jed opened the door slightly and
looked inside. To his horror, he saw the trehbor chained to the
wall near his throne. He wore only a loincloth and appeared to have
been beaten and whipped. His head hung down and he did not move.
Karl August Galantine Armstrong was sitting on the throne. Two
hundred imperial soldiers filled the chamber with their swords and
pikes in position to attack. “Don’t be afraid, elf,” Karl said.
“You have my word that we will not attack you or your friends. We
both know you can fold out of any danger.”

Jed shrugged his shoulders, pushed the
door open and walked inside, followed by Lydia and the monks. Once
inside, several of the monks jumped up onto the walls and in the
corners of the room to maximize their defensive posture. “My dear
Emperor, it is a unique pleasure to see you again.”

“
Who the hell are you
anyway, and who are your friends?”

The elf bowed deeply and said, “My
lord, I am Jedidiah Beetleweed Mosscatcher, a humble elf from the
planet Whistlestop. The lady is Lydia Amaranths Iron-heart of this
planet, and of course, you know Abbot Heinrich Hans Lumen and the
other monks from the temple you attacked last night. What have you
done to the trehbor, if I may ask?”

Karl stood and walked over to the
chained man and prodded him with his dagger. The trehbor groaned
and looked up blearily for a moment and he passed out again. “Elf,
since you are not a citizen of the empire, I will assume you do not
know that every government official serves at my pleasure. I simply
decided Duncan Albright no longer pleased me.”

Jed noticed that Lydia was seething
with anger and took her hand and smiled at her. “Emperor, it is
unfortunate that he failed you. What happened to his
soldiers?”

“
Frankly, that is a bit of
a quandary, elf. When my entourage arrived, Duncan was here alone,
and several bonfires had been set to burn their weapons. Duncan
would not confess their plot, so I must assume it was mass
desertion. Perhaps you or your friends have information of value on
this situation.”

“
If his soldiers deserted,
why did you beat him half to death?” Lydia shouted.

Karl glowered at her and calmly said,
“Elf, you should control your wench more carefully, lest her head
become separated from her shoulders. While you are a stranger here,
she and the monks are citizens of my planet.”

“
Majesty, I am certain the
lady misspoke. How you deal with incompetent staff is none of our
business. As it turns out, Mr. Albright owes me a large debt, and
it would be an invaluable gift if you would give him to
me.”

Karl started to walk toward Jed and
Lydia. The monks tensed, ready to strike. “Pardon me, elf, but did
you say her surname was Iron-heart, like Jeremy Davis
Iron-heart?”

Jedidiah bowed again and replied,
“Gracious Lord, certainly you are aware that many citizens of this
planet changed their family names to those of famous Knights of
Winterpast. I can assure you this woman is a simple farm girl I
found on the other side of the planet.”

Karl was now standing less than two
feet from them. “I am certain you are right, after all, she is a
poor example for a knight. I have had my own experiences with farm
girls, and I know how brash and outspoken they can be. I recommend
that you school her on how to act in front of her superiors.” He
stroked her hair and ran his hand over her breasts. “She is
pleasant on the eyes and seems to be quite ripe and fertile. Would
you be interested in selling her? It might improve relations
between our worlds.”