Dragon Talker (32 page)

Xeron looked back, “Excellent. I was hoping you would.” With that, he turned his attention back to the trail and kept walking.

“Okay,” she replied quietly. Looking at Tail Biter, she said lowly, “I guess we’ll talk more about it later.” Tail Biter wagged his tail in response. She scratched behind his ear. “All right, let’s go. It won’t do to lose the boss before the job has even begun.”

A few steps later, Xeron paused for a moment, then resumed walking. “Melanie, I want you to listen carefully. This is a matter of some seriousness.”

“I’m listening.” She looked at Tail Biter and rolled her eyes.

“There may be times when Perante or some other mage may become interested in what I do. Those would be dangerous times. Times when I will have to act quickly.” His tone never changed as he spoke, but Melanie saw the hackles go up on Tail Biter, causing her to look around the woods for danger.

“Is this one of those times?” she asked.

“It will be, soon. When I tell you to do something, it will be crucial for your safety that you follow my directions without question. Do you understand?”

“Of course I do. I’m not stupid.” She realized the last part might not have been called for. “I will do what you say, as long as my clothes stay on.”

Melanie couldn’t see it, but Xeron smiled. He had no time for fools, and Melanie was obviously no one’s fool. He thought she would be a good assistant for what he was going to do, if they made it out of the forest alive. He thought leaving Perante’s chateau was too easy. He shook his head.
I’m so stupid
, he thought.
I just about took down his castle. He wouldn’t attack me again at any place he wanted to keep intact.

Xeron couldn’t figure out the point of taking him to the chateau, but Perante always had reasons for what he did. Right now, Xeron’s personal charms designed to warn him when someone had hostile intent against him were burning his arms. More than one person was out to harm him, and they were nearby.

“When I say now, I want you to grab Tail Biter’s collar. Do you understand?”

Melanie bit back a retort, knowing that things were serious. “Yes,” was all she replied.

Xeron ran through his options. Without knowing exactly what he was up against, he didn’t want to tip his hand too soon. On the other hand, if he didn’t do anything he would be reacting to their move. He wanted space and high ground, and the time to get there. He bent his wrists, bringing his hands parallel to the ground.

Melanie was grabbing the collar before he had finished saying, “Now.” Kneeling down, Xeron cast a numbing spell downward and out, bouncing off the ground and expanding in a circle around them. Tail Biter’s collar protected him from the spell, and Melanie was protected because of her contact with it, too. Still, she felt the spell pass over her like a strong wind.

The burning of his arms lessened, but only slightly. Either the men planning to attack him were protected from the spell or there were more than he realized. Either way, it did not clear a path for them as he had hoped. “Come stand by me,” he said to Melanie.

“We’re not running?”

“No, there are too many, or a few too well protected.” He scanned the woods with his eyes and magic.

Melanie looked, too, but didn’t see anything. “Are you sure that there is anyone out…” She stopped talking as the men started appearing out of the woods. At first, she wasn’t even sure they were men. Their camouflage made them look like parts of the trees around them.

The men formed a circle around them. Xeron counted ten. If he didn’t put all his attention on the men he could see, he would have realized that another six were lying on the ground, knocked out by his spell. “Do you know who I am? Or are you just following Perante’s orders to catch some mage in the woods?”

A tall, broad shouldered man smiled, saying, “What’s it matter?”

The leader,
thought Xeron. He looked around, looking for the weak links. “Well, if you know who I am, you will know that I cracked Perante’s castle, and it just might not be worth your pay to get in my way.”

“Hear that, boys? We’ve got ourselves a powerful mage here. Maybe we should just quit and go home.” The circle tightened around them.

No one talked. Xeron realized he was dealing with a disciplined group. His anger rose. This was no random group of men. These were mage-killers, men for hire with enough spells and protections given to them by a mage like Perante to take out other mages.

Melanie stepped closer to Xeron. Xeron smiled, “Do you think they look thirsty?”

Melanie was afraid, but his smile gave her confidence. “Yes, yes I do.”

A shimmering protective sphere formed around them. The men stopped moving in, taking time to examine the sphere. There were different types, some more for show than protection. They were trying to figure out which kind this was. Xeron didn’t plan on giving them time to do that. He turned his head to Melanie, telling her, “Whatever you do, don’t let go of Tail Biter’s collar and stay behind me.”

Melanie nodded, “Believe me, I won’t. And will.”

To the men surrounding him, he said, “You are going to die now. That is your choice. If you want to change that decision, now is the time to do it. Anyone who leaves now can live, unless I see you again.” He closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind to the trees closest the men. Four of the men were close to trees, close enough that he hoped the explosion would kill or seriously wound them. Now that he knew what he was doing, it was easy, even though he was working four trees instead of one.

How much power is in the earth?
he wondered as the trees started to crack and moan. The men looked around at the trees, moving away from them, but it was too late. Four trees exploded from the inside, launching large chunks of wood out into the forest as geysers of water soaked the surrounding area. The four men near him went down, but Xeron couldn’t be sure if they were knocked down and out or simply ducking debris.

Three of the six remaining men pulled out swords from their scabbards. By their looks, Xeron assumed the swords were coated with a thin layer of silver. No one knew why, but silver had a way of penetrating magical spells. Gold was just the opposite, as if magic had a special ability to repel it. Tail Biter was growling and Melanie was gripping the back of his coat tightly.

“There are three behind you, and they have swords,” she warned.

“So you got us a little wet. How terrifying. You may want to make a run for it, little girl,” the leader taunted, “we’re not here for you.”

Xeron didn’t say anything. Instead, he thought of silver. He closed his eyes, trusting Tail Biter to let him know if anyone was able to penetrate the sphere. He knew the other men had armed their bows, but he knew they were waiting for the men with swords to pierce the sphere before they would launch their arrows. His brows narrowed as he searched the ground for metal.

The sensation of being the roots in the ground washed over him, and he changed track. Feeling stones under the soil and closer to the surface, he chose seven cannonball sized stones and brought them to the surface. He could have sworn he heard the slightest sucking sound as they broke free of the ground, as if the ground didn’t want to let go.

“Hey,” one of the archers shouted, “he just brought up stones from the ground.”

Before they could react, he sent the stones out at the men at chest level. The leader stood his ground, but one of the archers dropped his bow and took off running. The other four men tried to avoid the stones but were hit squarely in the chest or winged on the side as they tried to dodge the rocks. The leader leaned into his stone. It pushed him back when it hit, but he was still standing. He was obviously the most protected of the group.

Two men remained on the ground. The others stood up quickly, but Xeron could tell they would be much more cautious. He wasn’t about to give them a chance. He closed his eyes and trusted the sphere to protect him as he searched deeper into the ground. The silver was deeper than the nugget he brought up for Melanie, much deeper, but he began calling it up as Melanie kept looking around at the closing circle of men.

“I hope you have something planned and you’re not just resting.”

She didn’t see the slight smile cross his face, but she heard him say, “This will be over quickly.”

The silver was tumbling upward, carving its way through the soil and picking up speed as they did so. By the time they hit the surface, they appeared as sliver streaks exploding from the ground and disappearing into the sky. A few branches, hit by the pieces of silver, fell to the ground.

Lowering his bow, one of the archers asked, “What was that?”

“Silver,” Xeron said quietly. Melanie remembered the jagged feel of silver in her hand and closed her eyes as Xeron reversed the pieces of silver’s course, sending a nugget at each attacker. The silver rained down, tearing through any magical protections the men had and then went through their bodies.

A few extra pieces of silver he didn’t use dropped to the ground around them. Melanie raised her hands above her head to protect herself, while Xeron cast a life force spell to see the condition of their attackers. All were either dead or dying, besides the archer who left early and the leader. He, Xeron realized, was quite well protected, though the silver had injured him.

The leader was holding his arm across his chest and running as quickly as he could away from Xeron. Xeron sent a piece of silver into his leg. The man crumpled to the ground. Before walking over to him, he said to Melanie, “Stay here. You don’t need to see this.”

“You’re going to kill him.” It wasn’t a question.

Xeron looked at her, saying gruffly, “I’m not going to make him pancakes.”

Melanie shook her head and raised her hands. “Let’s get out of here.”

“We will. In a minute. I’ll be right back.” Xeron walked to the wounded leader. By the looks of him, his right shoulder was dislocated and his leg was broken. The silver in the wounds kept the man’s healing charms from working. Xeron studied the man in front of him and knew he would have done much worse to them. Anger was building in his chest. This was a professional mage killer.

The leader spit out blood. Xeron added punctured lungs to his list of injuries. The man looked up at Xeron and said, “I was just doing my job. Nothing personal.”

“My life is very personal to me.” Xeron took out his own small, silver blade he kept in a sheath in the small of his back. “Perante?”

“Who else?” Coughing, the man added, “I know things about…”

Xeron slid the blade between his ribs, piercing the man’s heart, killing him instantly. “That’s better than you deserve. And I know all I need to know about Perante.”

Wiping the blade on the man’s jacket, Xeron returned it to his sheath. He spit on the ground next to the dead man and walked back to Melanie and Tail Biter. Melanie was wondering if working for him would be such a great idea. “Does this happen a lot?”

“It never happened before, but Perante is afraid of me.”

Melanie thought about all she had seen in the last twenty-four hours. “Okay, I can see that. Um, how much danger would I be putting my family in working for you?”

Xeron thought about it, “A lot, until I take care of Perante, though I could do a pretty good job protecting you. The archer will let him know what happened. That you’ve seen all this means Perante will want you no matter what. I’m sorry for that, but that’s the way it is.”

“Yeah, that’s the way it is, everywhere.” She was momentarily resigned, then realized the new danger her mother was in. “Hey, that means he’ll take my mother!”

Xeron snapped his fingers and flicked his index finger off his forehead. “Dragon’s tail! Sorry. I didn’t think that through. May I borrow Tail Biter for a little while?”

“Yes, please do.”

“He’s bonded to you, so grab his collar and give me your other hand.” As soon as she did, Xeron used her as a conduit for his message. Tail Biter took off running in the direction the archer left.

“You can stay here. This might take a little time.”

Melanie looked at the circle of dead men surrounding her. “I think I’ll go with you.”

Xeron cast a gathering spell and all the pieces of silver flew to a spot in front of him, hovering in a cloud of silver nuggets three feet off the ground. Many of the nuggets were covered in blood. He saw the look on Melanie’s face and cast a cleaning spell. Dried blood fell to the ground as a polished shine spread over the floating pieces of silver. He collected the silver, placing it in an inner jacket pocket.

They began walking. Melanie assumed correctly that Xeron could follow Tail Biter magically. An odd thought popped into her mind, but she was happy to be distracted. She asked, “If you can cast a spell to clean things, why do you need to hire servants?”

Xeron stopped walking and turned to answer her. “Well, doing everything with magic is tawdry, for one.”

“And…” she prompted.

“It’s comforting to have people around once in a while. Tail Biter is a lousy conversationalist.”

Melanie thought about the comfort she felt with Tail Biter at his side during the attack. She was scared, but he helped control that fear. “He’s not for talking, though, is he?”

“No. He’s a combination guard and toolbox, with padded feet.”

“For non-pancake situations.”

Xeron smiled, “You got it. Now let’s go and get this over with.”

Melanie nodded and they resumed following the trail Tail Biter was creating to the archer.

Chapter 47

As the wagon bounced down the trail, Yuri tried to clear his mind. Once he did, he laughed.

Samantha jumped, “What is so funny?”

Yuri reached into his shirt and pulled out his medallion. “This. This allows me to be in touch with Samora. With everything going on, I forgot about it.”

“And you’re a dragon talker? Are all dragon talkers so…” she searched for the right word, settling on, “forgetful?”

“Cut me some slack in the reins, I’m new to the job.” Yuri was too happy to feel bad about another reminder of his lack of experience. “I had no idea what I was going to do. Now, easy.”