The Lazy Dragon and Bumblespells Wizard (12 page)

“I want to help you, Cl'rnce. What can I do? You haven't said.”

He shook his head. “I'm not sure. Well, yes. As Hazel said, I need a Wizard Partner. Every dr'gon has to have one. It's important, like getting to Ghost Mountain. And getting to Ghost Mountain is critical.” He slid a look out of the side of his eyes at Moire Ain.

She felt like he'd just given her a present. He really needed her!

“But you're not exactly an official wizard, right?” His eyes weren't as friendly as Moire Ain wanted, but still ….

Moire Ain shook her head. “I'm not a wizard, not yet.”

“I have to get to Ghost Mountain in three days. Which is impossible, because we are so far away. Especially since my snarky twin sister didn't even warn me until too late.” He tapped his chin with one claw. “Then again, Hazel is a tricky one. Maybe I don't need an official powerful wizard.”

Moire Ain swallowed and tried to keep the smile on her face. She didn't want him to know how badly his words hurt about how he knew how un-powerful, how un-wizardly she was.

He went on, “Maybe Hazel wanted me to waste time
getting a powerful wizard I don't need. Maybe even an untrained wizard is enough. I certainly don't have time to train you. And you might be the wrong wizard.” He shook his head like he'd just talked himself into and then out of believing in Moire Ain. “Maybe an untrained wizard who bumbles her spells will be a bigger disaster.

“Maybe I should do this alone. Fast. I could leave you with the king and hurry to the mountain. You can practice magick while I finish my delivery. I might come back and help you later.”

Moire Ain's throat felt like she'd swallowed something big and stuffy. She was so disappointed to be left behind that she couldn't speak. She just nodded her head and walked on.

High on the castle ramparts, Moire Ain saw a figure lean so far over the wall she thought he would fall off. The short, fat man in long, sky-blue robes clamped one hand on a crown and put the other over his eyes like he was staring at them, then ran to a tower. Next, he sped back to the edge of the wall with a drum and beat it frantically. All the villagers milling in the town below ran this way and that, scattering into the buildings below the castle.

Moire Ain stood up straighter and walked forward. This was it.

Cl'rnce grabbed her arm. “Whoa! I don't think this is a friendly kind of king,” he said. He pointed to the
row of archers lining up along the castle ramparts. The short, fat man clutched at his dingy yellow crown while he waddled back and forth past the archers. The way his mouth worked and the way his skin went from chalk white to tomato red, he seemed to be yelling orders, but Moire Ain couldn't hear them.

“Do you think we're far enough away not to get shot?” Moire Ain asked. Staring at the king and the archers, she reached back and wrapped her fingers around the edge of one of Cl'rnce's folded wings.

At her touch, Cl'rnce jerked. “What?” He looked at his wing. “Look at that! Where you touched me, you left marks.” He stared.

But when she looked, the only difference in his wings was that they'd taken on a slightly golden color, instead of their usual grassy green.

Cl'rnce wiggled them a little. “They feel different, heavier. And scratchy.” He wiggled like he was being attacked by itchy worms. His wings snapped out straight and wide. “I never used them for anything but gliding before. And even then only for short distances from low heights, because they're usually so limp, like ornaments, not real dr'gon appendages.” He clamped his lips together like he'd said too much.

“Did I do that?” Moire Ain asked, but her attention jerked away from him. “Do you see what I see?”

“What?”

“There in the moat on the front side of the castle. Is that Sir George riding on a kelpie?” Moire Ain was on her tiptoes pointing at the moat. Her stomach tightened. The water creature had four legs like a horse but with gills along its long neck, and a truly hideous scaled face with rubbery lips that drew back over sharklike teeth. For an instant Moire Ain thought the kelpie looked like Hedge-Witch.

She glanced at Cl'rnce, wanting to tell him about Hedge-Witch, but he was examining his wings. “They don't look normal. They're better.” He looked up at her. “You did that.”

But Moire Ain didn't have time to revel in the compliment or wonder how; she was too rattled. “Cl'rnce? Are you listening? That's Sir George again. And I think ….”

When she glanced back at the kelpie, it no longer looked like Hedge-Witch. Moire Ain went on, “He's riding out of the moat on a kelpie. I know why he's here. He's going to keep us from seeing the king, or worse.”

Moire Ain was sure Sir George was connected to Hedge-Witch, even if he'd seemed before to not know her. Maybe he didn't know Hedge-Witch was his kelpie. Maybe only Moire Ain could see the old witch. Maybe, maybe this, maybe that. It didn't make sense though, for a witch who hated water to disguise herself as a water monster.

Moire Ain shook her head in confusion and paced,
kicking dusty pebbles on the road. Looking up, she watched the king pacing almost in a twin to her agitation. Moire Ain stopped. If Sir George had come with the witch to kill the king, Moire Ain had to prevent it. The king had archers. If Moire Ain could get him to fire on Sir George and the kelpie, the knight and his monster would run away and leave the king alone.

But Moire Ain's plan fell apart when the king leaned over the moat and yelled at Sir George. With a nod, the rusty knight whipped his river horse. The kelpie sprang out of the moat and charged after a small child still sitting in the road between the village and the inner castle walls. As the kelpie snapped at the child's head, Sir George jerked on his reins. The kelpie raised up on its hind legs, missing the child and bucking Sir George. The knight managed to hang on, but it was clear he was losing control of the killer river-horse.

Warning the king would have to wait.

“Quick, we have to get that kid!” Moire Ain yelled, already running for the moat. She scooped up the child as Sir George was thrown through the air. He landed in a pile of dented armor, cursing loudly. The kelpie's head snapped to one side and then the other, as if it was trying to decide if it wanted the knight or the more tender child and Moire Ain, who hugged the little girl close.

Before Sir George could rock to his feet, Cl'rnce was there. He stood between the kelpie and Moire Ain.
Moire Ain's heart soared. He was a hero!

But she heard him mutter to himself, “This is not me. I've never done anything brave before. I probably shouldn't be doing this. If I get killed, Hazel will string my brains for a room decoration. But I'm here, and since I'm taller than the kelpie by at least two feet, I should be able to get out a good roar and startle it into running. At least I can distract the monster long enough for Sir George to get up and get out his sword to defend himself and the child, and hopefully the archers will fire on it.”

Cl'rnce cleared his throat. Turning its head slowly, the kelpie's eyes went to Cl'rnce. Between thin, snarling lips, its sharp teeth dripped more than moat water. Moire Ain thought she saw small bones of fish and maybe birds drop through its lips. The kelpie held still, as if deciding what to do next.

Moire Ain glanced at the archers, willing them to shoot the kelpie, but the king held his hand in the air to halt any firing. She understood. The king did not want to risk killing a peasant child. Moire Ain turned back to the kelpie, who now watched the king. Darting another glance up, Moire Ain saw the king signal the archers to move their positions. The way they realigned themselves, Moire Ain saw, put them in a direct line to fire at her and Cl'rnce. The king didn't care about the child.

Moire Ain held up the little girl. “Save her!” she
yelled at the archers. The men lowered their bows an inch, but the king screamed for them to prepare to fire. The archers looked at each other as if unsure.

Then the kelpie roared and charged Cl'rnce. “Shoot your arrows! Get the monster!” Moire Ain screamed.

But the king yelled, “Hold. Do not harm my pet. Shoot those others. Now!”

The kelpie and the king were allies. This was not the king Hedge-Witch was after but possibly her ally or her boss. The king would not save them from the monster. He wanted them all dead, all but the kelpie.

Since Moire Ain suspected the kelpie was really Hedge-Witch, and she knew Hedge-Witch feared dr'gons, Moire Ain was stunned when the monstrous water-horse snapped at Cl'rnce. Cl'rnce dodged the blade-sharp poisoned teeth. He ran, headed away from Moire Ain, the child, and even Sir George. The kelpie chased him.

“If I had working wings, now would be a good time,” Moire Ain heard Cl'rnce say, as he jumped, catching hold of a massive oak branch. He tucked his feet and pulled himself up. The kelpie snapped, just missing him. Moire Ain knew kelpies were great swimmers and runners but not climbers or jumpers. Cl'rnce hung from the branch and kicked at the kelpie's head as it tried again and again to bite him.

The dr'gon's digits were slipping. A claw came loose
just as Raspberries flew down low and dropped a huge load of bird excrement in the river-horse's eyes. The kelpie screamed and shook its head, trying to toss the poop off. It ran in circles, seeming to have forgotten Cl'rnce, Moire Ain, the child, and Sir George.

Shaking its head, it raced at Sir George as he finally stood, holding his rusty sword. As the monster came even with the knight, it dove for the moat. Sir George swung and sliced off its head. With a hiss of black steam jetting into the sky, the head and carcass dropped to the ground short of the moat's brackish waters.

Cl'rnce took a deep breath.

“Thank you,” he said as he dropped from the branch he'd clung to.

“Thank you, Sir George,” Moire Ain said. She handed the child to a hysterical peasant.

Sir George nodded. He took off his helmet and wiped his grimy face. “That didn't go the way it was supposed to.”

“Tell me about it,” Cl'rnce said.

Moire Ain stood next to Cl'rnce, not certain how close they should get to Sir George. Just because the knight had killed the kelpie didn't mean he was their friend. He was saving his own life, not theirs.

“Kick the kelpie into the moat,” the king yelled from where he leaned over his tower parapet.

“It seems only right,” Sir George said. “Like a burial
for a knight.”

“No!” Cl'rnce and Moire Ain yelled at the same time.

But they were too late. No sooner had Sir George kicked the two pieces of the kelpie into the moat than the scummy waters began to boil. The kelpie's bellow rang out from the volcano of water that spouted skyward.

Moire Ain froze when she saw Hedge-Witch's face in the tower of water.

“Run!”
Cl'rnce yelled. He scooped up Moire Ain and raced up the road toward the chicken-stomping village.

“Don't lead it back to the villagers!” Moire Ain screamed.

Grumbling about how soft-hearted she was and how she was complicating his life, Cl'rnce took the
Y
in the road and headed away from the chicken stomping village and the castle.

“Not bad. We're actually headed the right way. We are going to the mountains,” Cl'rnce said. “I have to get there.”

“That Sir George sure does ride some bad-tempered horses, but how did he end up on a kelpie? I thought he was chasing you. Why would he be in a moat on a hedge—I mean monster?” Great and Mighty asked as Cl'rnce trotted down the road.

Cl'rnce slowed. He would have set her down, but he was a fast runner, and she was a short, slow human.

It was a good question. How did Nasty Sir George come up with his steeds? Cl'rnce had never heard of a knight on anything but a regular warhorse. Somewhere, this knight had gotten magickal creatures. Cl'rnce was pretty sure the raggedy knight wasn't a sorcerer or anything magickal himself.

If Cl'rnce had been Nasty Sir George and knew enough magick to call up a goblin steed or a kelpie, he would have also given himself a really shiny set of armor with matching parts, instead of the rusted stuff Nasty Sir George wore. It didn't make sense for Nasty Sir George to be able to conjure up these mounts and
still keep his ragged armor. Even if he had magick, both the goblin horse and the water-horse had thrown Nasty Sir George. They sure looked like they'd rather kill him than keep letting him ride them. If he had any, Nasty Sir George's magick was pretty poor—dangerous, but poor. Something was not normal about the knight.

“And how did he get to the king's city ahead of us? He couldn't have ridden a water-horse all the way. No rivers,” Cl'rnce said. “Good questions. I think he's getting help.”

“From the king, or—who?” Great and Mighty stumbled over the ‘who.' “He's not a nice guy.”

Cl'rnce slowed and stopped. He looked behind them down the road. Not a speck moved. No one was following. It was about time for some good luck, like the kelpie snagging Nasty Sir George and dragging him back into the moat to eat. That would certainly keep the kelpie busy, what with the armor to bite through and all. “Didn't look to me like the king was helping Nasty Sir George, just ordering around the kelpie. That means someone else is helping him get these magickal steeds, or he's good at hunting them down and crazy enough to try to tame these horses himself. I go with crazy.” Cl'rnce put Great and Mighty down. “I'm thirsty. All this talk of the moat, you know.”

The little want-to-be wizard looked like she wanted to say something, but instead she studied her pouch, then pulled her little book out of it. She flipped the
book open. “I really should be learning this from the beginning to end. But I saw something in the pictures. This page—no, wait.” She flipped backward a page and stared, her finger tracing a picture Cl'rnce couldn't see, and her forehead wrinkled. “I'm pretty sure he's not the one,” she muttered.