The Dragons of Ash and Smoke (Tales from the New Earth Book 5) (2 page)

Her
broad features were attractive and she had twinkling blue eyes.
Altogether she looked a lot more approachable and friendly than
Stanis did, even though Simon knew that the dwarf had a kind heart.

“
Sir
wizard, allow me to present Opheilla. She is the cleric who has been
taking care of you during your...extended stay with us. Opheilla,
although you do know Simon intimately, this is your first chance to
meet him face to face, as it were. So may I introduce you to my
favorite human.”

The
cleric gave Stanis a dark look and pushed him to one side. Then she
smiled and extended a hand to Simon.

“
It
is good to meet you,” she said in a deep but pleasant voice.

Simon
offered his hand and it was engulfed in hers.

“
Thank
you. It's good to meet you too.”

She
nodded and sat down on the chair next to the bed. Stanis stepped back
and watched them quietly.

“
You
looked a little surprised to see me when I entered,” she said.
“May I ask why?”

Simon
adjusted his pillows and pushed himself up a bit more before
answering.

“
Well,
it's just that, no offense intended, but I thought that Clara would
be the one taking care of me. She's done it before, you see. To be
honest, I didn't actually know that the dwarves
had
clerics among them.”

“
We
don't begrudge aid from the gods, sir wizard,” Stanis spoke up.
“We do not espouse magic, most of the time, but healing is a
gift we will accept when it is offered in the name of the Light.”

Opheilla
nodded at that.

“
That
is correct. And we do use magic as well, young wizard. May I call you
Simon? I would not want to presume.”

“
Please
do,” he replied quickly. “You've taken care of me for
months. It would be weird to start being formal now, don't you
think?”

She
chuckled; a warm, friendly sound.

“
Thank
you. We use magic, but only on our creations; machinery, armor,
weapons, that sort of thing.”

She
hesitated, glanced back at Stanis who made an encouraging gesture and
looked at Simon again.

“
Your
friend Clara was not able to aid in your recovery because she
was...unavailable.”

“
Unavailable?”

He didn't
like the sound of that, or the cleric's cautious tone.

“
What
do you mean? Where is she? In fact, where is everyone? I would have
thought that my friends Kronk and Aeris would have been here, at
least.”

“
Who?”
Opheilla asked blankly.

“
The
wizard has two elemental servants that usually accompany him on his
travels,” Stanis volunteered.

“
Oh,
I see, Well, things have changed a lot since you were injured, my
friend.”

“
Changed
how?”

Simon
looked from the cleric to Stanis and back again.

“
Look
folks, it's obvious you're holding back something here. Would one of
you please just tell me how I got here? What happened to me? And
where are my friends?”

His hands
were clenched so tightly on the quilt that the scars flared white and
looked like a network of cobwebs under his skin.

Opheilla
put a hand over his and he felt a rush of warmth flow into him.

“
Easy,
young wizard. Breathe slowly. What we do not need right now is a
setback in your healing.”

Simon
closed his eyes and tried to calm himself down. He hadn't realized
that he was actually panting in his anxiety.

“
Good.
Yes, that's better. Now, Stanis, it would be best if you told my
patient exactly what happened. It will be less stressful to know the
truth.”

“
Very
well,” the dwarf said and moved to stand next to the cleric.

Simon
opened his eyes and watched him fearfully, dreading to hear the news
but desperate for it at the same time.

“
Six
months ago,” Stanis began, “you fought and won against
the primal brown dragon. That was after a visit to the elven lands.
Do you remember that?”

“
Vaguely,”
Simon replied, searching his memories. “I think, yes, I think I
went there with my friends; Liliana the paladin, and Virginia, Anna,
Eric and Gerard. Didn't I?”

“
You
did. And you cleverly lured the primal back to our world, separating
it from its servants and destroying it.”

The dwarf
smiled and gave him a gentle clout on the shoulder.

“
Well
done, by the way. Your deeds have become legendary among my people.
Why, young dwarves are telling stories about you as if you were one
of our mythical heroes.”

Simon
knew he was blushing.

“
It
wasn't as exciting as it sounds,” he mumbled and both dwarves
laughed, a deep rumble.

“
No
lad, it never is. So, to continue: you defeated the primal and then
made your way back to the new settlement that your friends were
building in the former state of Florida, I believe it was called.”

“
Did
I?” Simon asked blankly. “That's weird. I don't remember
that at all.”

“
Trauma
can sometimes do that, young man,” Opheilla told him. “Intense
pain and suffering can cause our minds to block the memory of the
events that caused them. It allows us to heal without added
suffering. You could say that it is a safety valve, so to speak.”

“
Right.
Yes, I think I've heard that before.”

“
So
you made your way to this new town,” Stanis told him. “But
when you arrived, you found that the settlement had been attacked.
Destroyed, actually. It was burning and all of the townspeople were
missing.”

“
Wait.
Wait,” Simon said and held up a shaking hand.

He could
suddenly smell the acrid stench of burning wood and his eyes watered
as if irritated by smoke.

“
Is
it coming back to you?” the cleric asked gently.

“
I...think
so. I remember the smoke and the charred wood. The gates were open
and the buildings... They were all in flames. But most of them had
burned to the ground, so the attack was a few hours old.”

Simon was
seeing the scene as if he was walking through the village itself.

“
There
were no signs of life. Just burning and desolation. Even the town
hall. But it was warded, damn it! I installed the ward myself on the
roof. How could it have been destroyed? And inside the hall...”

He lay
back and covered his face with his hands.

“
Oh
God. Ashes. Piles and piles of ashes. All of them, dead. And the
children. God, even the children.”

His eyes
burned with tears.

“
I
failed them. Somehow my wards didn't work and I failed them.”

He opened
his eyes and wiped them roughly.

“
And
then there was, I don't know, a feeling of darkness and I looked up
and a red dragon was swooping down on me like some huge grotesque
bird. It breathed flame and...that's all I remember.”

“
I
see,” Stanis said softly. Then he grinned. “So you don't
remember our daring deeds then? Now that is a pity. I'll warrant we
earned a few stories from that, at least.”

“
Stanis!”
Opheilla said sharply. “My patient is suffering and he blames
himself for the disaster. Shrink your head back to its normal size
and ease his pain.”

The dwarf
accepted the cleric's chiding and took one of Simon's hands in his;
his rough and calloused palm hard but warm.

“
You
did not fail them, sir wizard. The townspeople were betrayed by one
of their own.”

That
statement caught Simon off-guard and he stared at Stanis in
disbelief.

“
What?”
he asked faintly.

“
One
of their own, I said,” and now the dwarf's voice became grim.
“There were survivors, my friend, and they told us what
happened. Apparently a malcontent named, what was it? Ah yes. Henry.
I believe he had an argument with your cleric friend, Clara. Who
knows what it was about. At any rate, someone saw him some time
afterward up on the roof of the town hall. When they asked him what
he was doing there, he muttered something about repairs.”
Stanis snorted. “Aye, repairs. What he was doing with removing
the ward that you had placed up there. The fool.”

“
My
God, why would he do that?”

“
Why
do evil people do what they do?” Opheilla said with a shrug.
“Who can say? We do know that this Henry person was not in the
town when the red dragon descended upon it and destroyed it.”

“
Happily
for your people though, we were,” Stanis said with a wide grin.

Simon
said up straighter, a small hope growing inside of him.

“
You
were?” The dwarf nodded. “But why?”

“
Why?
To visit, of course. It took some time to rebuild after the mutated
dragons attacked this city. An attack you helped thwart, by the way,”
he added with a wink that made Simon smile weakly. “But I had
wanted to see Clara and the others for quite some time, to set up our
trade again and all that. Imagine my surprise when we showed up at
the old town of Nottinghill and found it deserted.”

“
Yeah.
After an attack by wights, the people decided that they'd had enough
of winter,” the wizard told him.

“
So
we learned later. We used our scrying glass to find the new
settlement and popped up the morning of the attack. Good timing,
don't you think?”

“
The
gods work in mysterious ways, Stanis,” Opheilla told him.

The dwarf
rolled his eyes.

“
There
she goes again; typical cleric. Can't we for once just have a
coincidence instead of all this divine mumbo-jumbo?”

She gave
him a hard clout on the shoulder and Stanis staggered back.

“
Watch
what you say,” she growled at him and the dwarf, after a brief
hesitation, bowed to her.

“
I
meant no offense, lady cleric,” he said. It sounded sincere.

“
Good.
See that you don't. The only reason that my patient here is alive
today is because of the gods, so keep that in mind.”

Simon
watched the exchange with interest. It was obvious that the cleric
held a position of significant authority among the dwarves. He
doubted that someone like Stanis would allow just anyone to smack him
around.

“
Go
on, Stanis, please,” he asked.

“
Yes,
of course. As I said, we arrived in one of our drilling machines; a
larger model because we had brought along a fair amount of trade
goods. Fortunate for us and for the townspeople. The red dragon
attacked soon afterward. We got almost everyone into the vehicle in
time but, I'm afraid, one of the them was lost.”

He looked
sadly at Simon.

“
It
was your friend Clara. I'm so sorry to be the bearer of such bad
news. She insisted that we get everyone on board before her and then
she went back when she noticed that Henry was missing. How was she to
know that the snake had already fled the village?”

“
Henry,”
Simon hissed in rage. He pulled his hand from the dwarf's and
clenched his fists, looking across the room. “Not only did he
betray the town but he got Clara killed. Oh, he has a lot to answer
for.”

And then
his anger suddenly drained away to be replaced with grief.

“
So
Clara waited until everyone else was safe?”