Spirit Blade: Book III of the Dragon Mage Trilogy (29 page)

Kazin looked at the charred remains of the other mage nearby. Was he supposed to be here to see Filbar? Or was it a mistake on his part? Kazin grit his teeth. He should have consulted Amelia’s orb first.

The young mage shook his head sadly. What had he done? With foreboding thoughts, he transformed back into his dragon form and flew back to camp.

His companions were wide awake by now, having been roughly awoken by the earthquakes. They were anxiously awaiting his return. Amelia marched up to him once he had changed back into his human form, and was starting to demand an explanation from him about his whereabouts, but his serious, dark expression caused her tirade to fizzle out quickly. Even Sherman knew it was unwise to talk to him right then. Questions could wait.

Without a word, Kazin picked up his things and transformed back into his dragon form. He lowered his wing to the ground and the others climbed onto his back. Kazin launched himself into the air effortlessly and the trio flew off in silence.

Kazin didn’t respond to the others’ occasional query, so they left him to his thoughts and talked quietly among themselves. They wondered whether Zylor and Olag were having any luck in finding Harran. Sherman pointed out that if they had found him, they would have rejoined the rest of them by now using Kazin’s rings. In his opinion, the search was continuing on.

Amelia conceded his point and fervently hoped they would succeed soon. The longer it took them to find Harran, the less likely they were to find him. Sherman hoped so too, but knew as long as Zylor and Olag hadn’t come back yet, they hadn’t given up either.

Amelia consulted her orb on their progress, but couldn’t fathom whether they were succeeding or not. The only thing she knew for certain was that future history had not been rewritten - yet. Kazin flinched upon hearing this statement but said nothing. Amelia chose that moment to give a course correction to Kazin and the dragon complied.

“Something has been slightly altered west of here,” said Amelia, hoping Kazin was paying attention.

“We’re over a lake right now,” remarked Sherman, looking down. He hated heights and held on tighter after his downward glance.

Amelia confirmed his statement as the moon momentarily poked out between some clouds to reflect off a shiny surface below.

About ten minutes later, the air became noticeably more humid and the moon slid out of sight for the last time.

“I do believe it’s going to rain,” commented Sherman.

Amelia pulled a water resistant cloak from her pack and wrapped herself in it. “I guess we couldn’t have expected perfect weather all the time.”

“We have had good weather up until now,” agreed Sherman. He withdrew a proper cloak from his own pack. He had scarcely donned the cloak when the first raindrops could be felt stinging against his face.

“We’re almost clear of the lake,” rumbled Kazin at last.

“We’re also getting close to where the orb is drawing us,” said Amelia. “Just go north a bit. I’ll let you know when we’re at the spot.”

Kazin flew for another twenty minutes before Amelia informed him they were almost on the spot. The dragon circled around to scout out a suitable landing place and glided toward a small field. The ground was wet but not enough to be muddy. Though it was still dark, Kazin’s keen dragon eyesight ensured a safe landing.

Once on the ground, Sherman stretched while Kazin transformed into his human form and lit his staff. The bright white light was reassuring and warm in the damp rain, and Amelia was impressed by Kazin’s ability to heat the area as well as light it up. Not only that, but he had erected a shield above them to prevent them from getting any wetter than they already were.

Kazin nodded at Amelia. “Lead the way.”

Amelia consulted her orb and discovered it was a dark pink. It seemed to become darker when she pointed just south of their current location. She started in that direction and the others joined her.

Not more than fifty yards away, Sherman called a halt and pointed to a mound beside a small grove of trees. He led the way to it and kicked at the soil. “This has been fairly recently dug up. I’d say no more than a day or two ago.”

Amelia’s orb was darker now. In the darkness it was unnecessary to tell the others. The red glow was eerie to behold. “Something bad happened here,” she said.

“It’s a burial mound,” said Sherman, poking at a section of the soil. “Whoever did this didn’t care to do a neat job. It was done in a hurry.”

“I’ll wager it is the final resting place of some unfortunate people,” said Kazin. “Our quarry has killed again.”

“Yes,” said Amelia slowly. She studied her orb. “I - I see eight bodies here. They look like they were in combat with a patrol unit for the army.” She looked up at Kazin with a fearful expression. “They were all strangled!”

Kazin nodded grimly.

“Why would a patrol strangle people?” asked Sherman. “They would have been armed.”

“Not only that,” added Amelia, scratching her head, “but if these people died, our quarry would have been slain. Yet my orb says they’re still out there. I don’t get it.”

“Maybe some of them were captured,” suggested Sherman.

“Amelia,” said Kazin, “can you make out the images of the people we’re chasing?”

Amelia consulted the orb. After several minutes she shook her head. “It’s no use. The faces keep changing. In fact, I see so many faces we must be after dozens of people.”

“That’s impossible,” said Sherman. “If there were that many of them, someone would have been bound to notice and we would have little difficulty tracking them. There can’t be more than a dozen.”

“Sherman’s right,” said Kazin. “Maybe the faces you’re seeing are the ones our quarry has killed.”

“That’s possible,” admitted Amelia. “For some reason the orb can’t distinguish between them.”

“Well, keep trying,” said Kazin gently. “You’re doing much better at tracking our quarry, not to mention seeing what they’ve done. You couldn’t do that with your orb a few days ago.”

Amelia smiled wanly. “I guess you’re right. The orb can tell me a lot more if I learn to master it properly.”

“So what now?” asked Sherman.

“I think I’ll fly for another hour or two,” said Kazin. He turned to Amelia. “Where to?”

Amelia consulted her orb. Then she pointed north. “That way. There’s a sizeable army in that direction. Our quarry went in that direction.”

Kazin nodded. “Good. Once we’re close, I’ll set down and we’ll proceed on foot. There should be some fresh supplies there, and I’m getting hungry.”

“Me too,” said Sherman. “Our stash is getting rather lean anyway.”

It was nearly dawn when they were almost at the army garrison’s south entrance. The rain continued as a light drizzle and the sky was still dark. At this point Kazin cast a spell on them so they all looked like ordinary civilians. Sherman’s weapon and Kazin’s staff were magically concealed.

At the gate they were asked a few questions, but since they didn’t appear to be a threat, were let inside without a hassle. It took a while for them to find their way to the patrol master’s tent, but the timing was good. The patrol master had just finished assigning duties to the patrols and was just sitting down to have breakfast.

Kazin inquired as to which patrols had gone to the south the past couple of days and nights. At first the patrol master was suspicious and evasive, but Amelia worked her charms on him and won him over with her story of wanting to find her brother, who was said to be on one of the patrols under an assumed name to avoid being found by his family. Finally the patrol master gave them the designations of the patrols who were on duty at the requested times. He then directed them to the area where the various patrols were housed. The companions left the patrol master’s tent with six patrol designations and made their way to the appropriate area of the camp.

As they walked, they went past a hand-to-hand training area, a hospital where white robed clerics worked to heal injured soldiers, a stable containing horses as far as the eye could see, and a forge where weapons were being crafted or repaired. Beyond that they could see a cordoned off area where a number of dragons waited. They were no doubt dragons who were ridden by mages.

“That’s an impressive sight,” said Sherman. “I’ve never seen so many dragons in one place before. In fact, I’ve never seen so many dragons, period.”

“That was normal in this time period,” said Kazin.

“There’s even a white one,” said Amelia.

“An ice dragon,” said Kazin. “Those were more rare, but just as dangerous.”

Above them in the predawn light, a handful of dragons could also be seen, circling the camp slowly. Astride the dragons were mages who wore black cloaks and staves in their hands. Kazin shuddered, realizing that they could have been spotted landing near the south gate, but then realized the darkness that hid them from view worked both ways.

A few battalions of soldiers marched in unison as they were urged on by their commanders. The camp was so huge that Kazin couldn’t even hazard a guess as to how many soldiers and mages there were.

They took a small detour to a spot where cooks were preparing breakfast for the troops. On the way they stopped by a young man who sat at a table with a stack of parchment piled on one side. On the free portion of the table was a partial sketch of a dragon. Amelia paused to look at the completed sketch on the top of the pile.

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “That’s very realistic!”

The young man looked up from his work. “Thank you. I’ve been doing many sketches of dragons. They’re my favourite. Would you like to buy one?”

“No, thank you,” said Kazin. “But my companion is right. It is a very good sketch. You are very talented.”

“Thanks,” said the artist. He let Amelia browse through the stack for a few moments. Then the companions thanked the artist and continued toward the cooking area.

As they departed, the artist looked after them curiously. He sensed there was something unusual about these individuals, but couldn’t place a finger on it. Then he shrugged and returned his attention back to his sketch.

No one asked any questions when the companions lined up with a number of early risers to get a decent helping of gruel. Famished, they ate everything on their plates before going back to the tent area where the patrols were housed.

When they got there, they spotted a large board with wooden slabs indicating patrol designations loosely swinging from various parts of it. The board was marked with columns designating north, west and south. Three rows of hooks hung below these marks. The top row was marked with the early shift, the next row with the late shift, and the last row with the night shift.

There were twelve patrol designations, each represented by some sort of symbol.

“Great,” muttered Sherman. “We have to check half of the patrols to find out what happened a couple of nights ago. Why didn’t we just ask the patrol master and be done with it?”

Kazin shook his head. “We don’t want to raise suspicion by asking that directly. If the patrol master suspected we had something to do with it, we might have been questioned. By asking the patrols themselves, they’ll assume we were told by the patrol master.”

“I don’t like all this subterfuge,” grumbled the big warrior.

Kazin put his hand on Sherman’s shoulder. “Patience, my friend.”

“Well, we might as well get started,” said Amelia. She pointed to some tents nearby. “Those tents have the same designation as one of the ones the patrol master has marked on his list.”

“They appear to be off today,” commented Kazin, looking at the board. “Perhaps we can find some of them already awake.”

“Good,” said Sherman. “Then they can answer some questions.”

A few soldiers were milling about with plates of breakfast as the trio came up to them. Sherman took the lead asking them questions to see if they had heard of or been in a fight or skirmish south of the encampment within the last two days. No one knew of any such encounter.

“That’s one down,” said Sherman as they left those tents. “Five to go.”

“They were telling the truth,” said Amelia. “My orb didn’t show anything out of the ordinary.”

“Let’s keep trying,” said Kazin.

Three more patrols were questioned but nothing was turned up.

“Two left,” muttered Sherman.

“And one of them is out on patrol,” said Kazin. They had returned to the giant board and he looked it over. “That patrol is out in the west right now. They won’t be back until the early shift relieves them from duty.”

“That’s still about an hour from now,” said Sherman, looking at the dull sky. The rain showed no signs of letting up.

“We might as well see if we can find the fifth group,” said Amelia.

They soon found the tents belonging to the fifth patrol on their list. The patrol leader himself sat outside his tent in a folding chair having a hot drink. The rain didn’t seem to bother him.

“Hi,” said Sherman politely. “Can we ask you a few questions?”

The patrol leader looked up at him and appraised Sherman’s muscular figure. “Sure.”

“We were just wondering if you might have encountered anything unusual in the last couple of days on your southern patrols,” said Sherman.

The patrol leader took a sip of his drink and shook his head. “No. Why?”

“Just curious,” said Sherman. “We just came from that direction and saw signs of some sort of skirmish. It’s not important.”

“Oh, really?” said the patrol leader. “A skirmish, you say?”

“The ground in one spot was torn up by many hooves and there were some pieces of torn clothing in the area,” said Sherman. “We thought it might have been one of the patrols, that’s all.”

“Were there any bodies?” asked the patrol leader.

Sherman shrugged. “I didn’t see any.”

The patrol leader shrugged and took another sip of his drink. “Maybe you were mistaken. It could have been a group of horses disturbed by the earthquakes we’ve been having.”

“Maybe,” said Sherman. He turned to go but the patrol leader called to him. “Are you in the army?”

Sherman turned back to him. “No, but I’ll be signing up.”