The Green Dragon: A Claire-Agon Dragon Book (Dragon Series 3) (5 page)

Slowly the figures stirred and then sat up, causing the trio to step back even further, and this gave Greyson enough cause to look at them again and shake his head. First one, and then another of the men raised their hands, covered in dark leather gauntlets, and removed their helmets. Elister gasped.

“Dunric,” Elister said, not believing his eyes. The Ranger looked much as he had last seen him over half a century earlier. Elister had spent most of his time under the Ranger’s attentive watch, till the once young boy became a man and entered training with the others. Elister had always thought that his protector had traveled far and lived his life and then died long ago. Seeing him here, alive and well, brought back a flood of memories.

Dunric shook his head as if clearing it from a long sleep. His yawn and stretching of his massive arms did little to dispel that idea. He noticed Elister and smiled at him. “Good morning, Elly. It’s been a long time.”

Elister took a moment to watch as Edric and then Wulfric took their masks off, pulling their blankets aside as well, stretching their limbs and even rubbing their eyes. “How is this possible?” Elister turned to face Greyson.

“Mother help me,” Greyson said half-heartedly. “You’d think you’d remember half your lessons by now. All servants of the Mother sleep from time to time. You’ve done the same thing, though you have hardly noticed.”

Wulfric’s voice brought a tinge of memory to Elister, the memory of fear. “The boy doesn’t understand, Greyson.”

“Nonsense,” the old druid replied, looking back at the Rangers.

“Wulfric’s correct,” Edric said, standing and stretching his legs. “They may have spent decades with you, Master Arnen, but they are still like children, unwise to the world and the perils within.”

“Now wait just a minute,” Beth said, walking around her old teacher to stand in front of the three tall Rangers as she placed one hand on her hip and wagged a finger on the other at them. “Master Greyson says we are to become like him, one of the Arnen, so I hardly think calling us children is appropriate.”

“My, but does she have a tongue,” Edric said.

“Reminds me of her mother,” Wulfric responded, sending Beth a disapproving look.

“What would you know of my mother?” Beth asked, holding her poise, finger in the air mid-wag.

“Gentlemen,” Dunric interrupted, “do you really want to have a conversation now about . . .” The elder Ranger allowed his sentence to end prematurely.

The three Rangers looked at Beth, and then they started to shake their heads in unison.

“Wise decision,” Greyson said, coming around to face Beth. “Elizabeth, now is not the time to bring up old wounds—”

“Wounds?” Beth’s finger found its way to the old man. “I thought we were the Arnen now and they were to protect us.”

Tristan and Elister shifted their weight from one foot to another, not at all feeling comfortable with their companions’ tone, though interested enough in what the answer would be.

“You are all Initiates now, not Arnen . . . yet that is,” Greyson hedged, giving his young pupils an intent stare and wagging his staff back and forth from where it was clutched in his right hand.

Wulfric bent down to put his boots on. “Too much like her mother.”

“I thought we decided that question,” Dunric said, doing the same with his boots. “Come now, Greyson, is it time?”

Greyson turned around to face the Rangers, who were gathering their belongings that had mostly been stored at the foot of their sleeping slabs. “You are early, but there is news.”

The three Zashitors stopped and looked at the druid. Eldric asked first, “Has the beast stirred?”

There was quiet for a moment, and Elister looked from his old protectors to his teacher and back again. He alone of the students knew what Eldric was referring to. Finally the old man spoke. “Yes, but there is more. The realms have moved against each other and war has begun.

The Rangers had all taken baths while the druid and his three former students had prepared a large meal for the seven of them. When they had all sat down, Elister saw that the three warriors had donned their leather armor and had their weapons nearby, set on an empty table. The group was now in the basin of their complex, sitting in the outdoors where there was some sunshine to enjoy. The basin had high mountain walls, and the sun only graced its interior with sunlight for a few hours at midday and the time right before and right after it.

Bowls of fruit, freshly made bread, butter, and honey were all laid out, along with slices of cheese, flasks of clear mountain water, and a pitcher of fresh milk, as well as a few hard-boiled eggs. There was no meat, as there were no hunters in the group and no real domesticated livestock, much less a butcher in their Abbey. Usually, it was the Rangers who hunted and provided, and they had been gone for a long time. The monthly wagon of provisions came regularly, and they subsisted on eggs and milk from the chickens and two dairy cows that they kept in a large barn in the basin.

The three Rangers ate ravenously and didn’t speak until they had nearly finished everything that had been laid before them. Dunric wiped his hands clean and finished his drink, setting his cup down before addressing the druid. “What news, then, Greyson?”

Elister listened as his teacher spoke. “Something different, something unusual, I’m afraid to say.”

The three Rangers took a moment to read the druid’s facial expression. Seeing that their leader was serious, they nodded at him to continue, with Wulfric speaking: “Go on, don’t hold back.”

Greyson nodded, allowing himself a moment to take a deep breath. “Usually we are prepared with ample time to set our defenses and rally the order across the realms. This time, something has accelerated the awakening well before the Father approaches.”

“Do we know what happened?” Dunric asked.

“We suspect, though we have scant evidence and less than normal reports from Agon’s children.” Greyson was referring to their network of animals and creatures that communicated with the Arnen.

“Has the beast awoken, then?” Edric asked.

“Maybe,” Greyson continued. “We don’t know for sure, but what we do know is that the realms of Ulatha are mobilizing for war.”

“Who?” Dunric asked.

“Tyniria and Ulatha for the West while Kesh and Balaria rally for the East,” Greyson said.

“What do we care what those realms do or don’t do?” Wulfric asked, disdain in his voice as he finished eating and used a napkin on his hands and mouth. “Let them fight amongst themselves. It will leave less of their kind to pollute the Mother.”

“It’s all right, Dunric,” Greyson said to the Ranger leader, reaching out and resting a hand on the man’s forearm. “Wulfric has always been pure at heart, so much so that he is zealous in his duties, and that is not a bad thing.”

Dunric nodded, looking first to Wulfric, who met and held his leader’s gaze, and then returning to face the old man. “He can learn to improve his manners, though, that’s for sure. Now tell us simply, why has this happened?”

Greyson nodded, withdrawing his hand. “The Kesh have meddled in the affairs of the Mother and the Father, awakening those who should be asleep. Forces are moving, and we must find out for ourselves what is happening here in and around the Greenfeld. The master of my order has asked this of us. Are you ready to do your duty?”

The question was a formality, of course. The Rangers would do what their oaths mandated of them, and they would give their lives to fulfil them. The druid was simply being polite. “Yes,” Dunric answered, returning the formality. “My companions and I will serve the Arnen once more. What’re our plans?”

Greyson nodded and then graced his former students with a smile. “You will each accompany an Initiate on three separate tasks.”

This perked the ears of all three former students. “We have a mission to accomplish?” Elister asked.

“Yes, I have need of all your services. The Arnen are also being mobilized, though I fear some of us may be too late,” Greyson said, looking at each man and Beth in turn.

“First, one of you must go to Vulcrest and inquire as to the status of the baron and his forces. They may be needed on the frontier and in dealing with the servants of the Father. Second, I need one of you to pass from the Greenfeld and seek out the closest barbarian clan. Their activities may very well inform us of what has transpired recently.” Greyson paused, seemingly hesitant to continue.

“The third, Arnen?” Dunric asked.

Greyson looked to Elister, his eyes peering into the man. “Third . . . someone must go into the heart of the Greenfeld and see if the beast has awoken.”

Elister looked at the old man who had been so kind to him, and he remembered in vivid detail the attack on his family. He addressed the druid. “You mean the dragon?”

“Yes,” Greyson said, sadness in his voice. “The Green Dragon.”

The stupid humans didn’t see her, even though she was less than a stone’s throw away. She had toyed with the idea of killing them, but the bright shining figure in plate armor screamed caution on her part. Normally, the idea that any human could invoke a sense of danger in one of her kind was laughably ridiculous, but of all the humans in Agon, there were two who engendered such a reaction in the Draconians—Kesh wizards and Astor holy warriors. This warrior woman was obviously one of the latter.

Sure, there were warriors who did not shine brightly in her ultra-vision, and they were also dangerous, but they were few and far between. The wizards and holy warriors emanated a bright white light that was not visible to their kind, but the dragons saw it clearly enough. More than one of her sisters had succumbed to their evil enchantments and deadly weapons. The female holy warrior felt her presence, that was a certainty, but she seemed more intent on whisking the smaller female away to safety. This intrigued the dragon. What was so important about the young woman that required her safety above the duty of the holy warrior’s religion?

It mattered not at the moment. The dragon had fed yet again and felt strength rushing through its bones, energy rushing through its blood, and it felt alive and awake. It was early for the creature, but there was no drone to awake it, no drone to inform it of their plans. Much as it had done over a century before, the creature awoke on its own to feed and terrorize the inhabitants of this planet. Only when the dreaded servants of the Mother arrived did the creature return to its slumber and to its secret.

The dragon’s scales started to return to their dark, hunter green color from the mixture of forest green and brown that camouflaged it thoroughly. The blacker colors of its feet and claws did likewise where they had blended into the muddier dark colors of the forest’s soil. The dragon knew that its time of cat-and-mouse games with the humans had begun. It had played this game off and on for thousands of years and would most likely do so for thousands more. It always won, or at the very least, it had to admit a grudging draw with some of the more powerful humans, though from time to time her sisters had died in the struggles that ensued endlessly over the millennia.

“You let them live?”

The question annoyed her greatly. “Yes, little one. I let them live. What’s it to you?”

“Nothing, though it’s unusually merciful of you, Tyranna. It’s not like you to let humans walk freely amongst your abode.”

Tyranna turned her long neck slowly, lowering her head so she could see her companion when she answered. “You will call me by my proper name—Zaloynaya.”

The woodland dryad was the size of a petite human female, and she leaned against a massive willow tree nearby. Her silk dress blew gently in the mild wind, as did her golden blonde hair. Her bright green eyes returned the steely gaze from the large scaly green dragon, and though her appearance was that of a human girl in her late teens, her bright, green eyes belied that fact, indicating wisdom, experience, and an age that bordered on eternity.

“Your pretentious manners haven’t improved with age,” the dryad said.

“And your familiarity with my kind has gotten worse over time,” the dragon said, motioning with its huge anvil-like head for the dryad to follow it.

Moving quickly but silently, the dragon and dryad walked to the edge of the forest and peered out from the relative concealment of the trees. In the far distance, the riders were now mere specks as they galloped toward town, soon to be out of sight, though a small dust cloud was visible despite the moist ground that they rode on.

“What is it?” the dryad asked, watching the humans as they disappeared from sight.

“Who is the young girl?” Tyranna asked.

“How should I know?” the dryad answered, shrugging in mock ignorance.

The dragon narrowed its eyes. “Don’t play stupid with me, nymph. Answer my question or pay for your insolence.”

The dryad tilted its head and lowered its shoulders, deciding not to resist the dragon further. “The girl is the daughter of the local baron. I know not her name.”

Tyranna knew the last to be true, but simply knowing that the girl was nobility was enough . . . for now. “I’ll need your help, you and your sisters’,” the dragon said, looking from the riders back to her companion, who now stood very close to her. The closeness made the woodland nymph nervous, and Tyranna enjoyed the clash of emotions that she witnessed.

Apparently the dryad understood this as well and bit her lip, standing as nonchalantly as she could. “What do you have in mind?”

Tyranna smiled inwardly, repressing the urge to laugh, which most creatures found most discomforting in a dragon. “We need to lure these humans into the heart of the forest where our powers are strongest. There, you and your sisters will help me subdue them. I’ll have you take as many of their man soldiers as you think you can manage.”

The nymph frowned and put her hands on her hips. “You know we won’t kill them for you, don’t you?”

“I know,” the dragon answered, allowing its tongue to hang from its mouth over its fangs. “You just do what you do best.”

“They’ll be back,” the dryad answered, trying to dissuade the great creature from coercing them into helping.

“Yes, in a few years, and that will be sufficient for what I have in mind,” Tyranna said, her eyes gleaming.

The dryad narrowed her eyes, pondering her options at the moment. While most dryads were neutral, neither aligned for good or evil, they had an affinity for the Mother, which brought them close to those who served her, and that usually meant those who were concerned about the weak, the poor, and nature itself. The Arnen and their servants were once allies, until the great greens appeared millennia ago.

Her situation was somewhat precarious. The first dryads, or nymphs, refused the coaxing charms of the green dragons long ago and found themselves under siege or killed for their refusal. The woodland nymphs were bonded to a tree, and that tree held a small portal into Agon’s bosom.

The first dragons killed the dryads, their trees, or simply entered into their multi-dimensional abode to execute the nymphs where they resided. The only resistance a dryad could do was to phase shift the portal and trap the dragon with it, inside their abode for all eternity. The dryads perished, but the dragon was locked in the nymphs’ multi-dimensional chamber, and a gateway back to Agon proper could only be opened by the dryads.

Dead dryads opened no doors.

So the stalemate, while definitely in favor of the dragons, was one where even the most evil and wicked of their species preferred self-preservation above infinite imprisonment. The dryads also preferred to live their solitary lives with the hopes of fulfilling their destinies, meeting a human of intense charisma and charm so that the dryad would take him away with it to dwell in their other dimensional home.

Finally the dryad spoke. “Fine, we can help, though none of their soldiers appear particularly interesting. I can’t say exactly for how long we will keep them. It may be for only a couple of years. More I cannot promise.”

Tyranna did chuckle now, a deep guffawing that bellowed in echoing waves from its chest and reverberated off the close-knit trees, making the dryad wince and resist the urge to cover its ears. “A year is sufficient . . . that will do nicely.”

The dryad shook her head and allowed the quiet to embrace them once more before responding. “How do you intend to lure them into the heart of the forest?”

“The same way we always have.” Tyranna grinned, an evil grin that bared her teeth and forked tongue to the woodland nymph. “We take one of their babies. That or . . . we take their noble woman. Either way, they will come for one of those.”

The dryad winced now in emotional pain, knowing how attached the humans were to their young, and if their observations carried any weight at all, their ruler also placed a high value on his daughter, the noble woman. It would be ugly for the humans all too soon.

“There it is,” the lead scout said, pointing toward the far horizon at the castle and small city of Vulcrest.

The lead element of the military column came to an abrupt halt as General Gores signaled for a stop. Only the large Kesh wagon kept moving as it approached the leaders of the army.

“What is it?” a large Kesh wizard said from atop the wagon’s bench where he sat next to the wagon driver.

“We have arrived at Vulcrest,” one of the officers yelled back.

“Nonsense,” came a voice from within the wagon. “We should still have another day’s ride before we arrive.”

“Yes, well, we have made good time and we can see Vulcrest from here,” the general said.

The wagon finished pulling up alongside the general and his entourage, and the front cover was pulled back, allowing the Kesh inside to peer out. One stepped forward onto the front driver’s bench and stood towering high overhead as he peered east toward the faint speck that was Vulcrest.

“You underestimate the distance involved, and the sun setting at our backs gives us an unnaturally good light in which to view the barony. It is still a good day’s ride at a wagon’s pace,” the man said.

“Perhaps the good mage is correct?” Gores said, squinting and looking east at the castle and gauging the distances involved.

“Amsor is correct,” the tall Kesh wizard said from his seat on the wagon, not bothering to look at any of the general’s soldiers.

“Yes, well, I said he was most likely correct,” General Gores said, trying not to sound flustered despite his position at the head of his army and hoping his men didn’t notice his discomfort around the Kesh.

The awkwardness of their companions was shared by all the soldiers, and so the general’s discomfort was not very noticeable. The Kesh spoke amongst themselves, and then the tall wizard on the seat pointed to the small hollow below them a few stone throws distant. “We shall make camp there for the evening and maintain a campfire blackout.”

The groans were audible from those nearby despite the presence of the Kesh, and this simply added to the impression that the general’s troops were not as disciplined, well-trained, and professional as the Kesh and the mercenaries that the Kesh had brought with them.

“General, your orders?” Commander Knoll asked, refusing to accept the Kesh commands and instead asking his leader.

Gores looked at the two Kesh magic-users atop the wagon, neither one of which seemed insulted by his subordinate’s action, nor were they sympathetic either. As usual, they held a certain disdain for the common people of Agon, those who knew not their way in the arcane art of magic. “Yes, very well, then. We shall camp there, below. It will prevent the Vulcrestians from spotting us, especially if we maintain a light curfew.”

“We’ll have to get moving, then, if we can light no torches and still hope to make camp before sunset,” Commander Knoll said.

“Give the orders, move out.” Gores nodded and spurred his horse toward the relative obscurity of the small valley.

The column continued its march and, once its lead elements reached the center of the valley, it started to spread out in a predetermined spiral fashion that they had performed on more than one occasion. The main tents were set up at the center faster than one would think possible as the column continued to move forward and disperse. The general and his contingent took their places on light leather chairs that had been set out for them around what would have been a fire pit but now was simply a grassy clearing.