Shade: **typing madly on the floor with her sister's pet rabbit running in
circles around her laptop** Urgh! I can figure out what to do another
fifteen chapters or so into the story, but can I figure out what to do in
the present? NO! I did, however, find my Meteora CD.
Urobolus! I knew I spelt it wrong! ^-^ My thanks to Sword Master Jeff, Pyrostriker, and anyone else who may have set me right.
'-' means someone is cut off mid-sentence '-word-' is used for emphasis
Dart's POV:
The dawn was still a faint grey smudge on the eastern horizon when we rode out of Seles early the next morning. Or at least, Zion rode. Horses were not something readily available in the village and those that were for sale where well and truly out of my price range. Zion's mount had been returned to him by Remmy, the same lantern-nosed animal that had nearly run me over in Kazas nearly a week ago. Maybe I would be able to trade in some of my spare equipment for a horse at one of the farms dotting the prairies, but until then I was stuck on foot. Heading northward over the hills surrounding the village, we should reach the edge of the prairies by late morning.
That was, if Zion didn't run me into the ground first.
"You mind slowing down a bit?" I growled through clenched teeth. Halfway between a jog and a run, I fought to keep even with Zion's stirrup as he trotted his mount up the side of a long grassy hill. After nearly an hour of alternately jogging, walking, running, and jogging again, my lungs felt as though they were about to burst. Grasshoppers appeared and vanished underfoot, startled from hiding as we ran over them. "I'm not going to be able to teach you anything if I'm dead from exhaustion."
Cresting the hill, the horse's steady gate didn't break. Posting to the rough trot, Zion looked smug. "Think of it as some healthy exercise." Below us the land gradually leveled out, the low hills stretching out into a rolling plain. Dark copses of trees dotted the waving grassland, and off to the east a small lake reflected the early morning sky.
I stumbled, but somehow stayed on my feet. "You're still sore at me for making you pay for that cart aren't you?" I wheezed.
"Whatever gave you that idea?"
//Smart mouth// Ark noted. //Why don't you gag him?//
/I might, if I could reach him/ I grumbled. "Maybe I'll just leave you to deal with the Urobolus by yourself."
"I don't think you'd do that, somehow." Taking the reins in one hand, he half-turned in the saddle to look at the rolling countryside around us. "Just hard luck on your part. Hey, how do you feel about a bit of a canter?"
Shooting him a sour glare, I jerked my sword roughly from its scabbard and slapped his horse hard across the rump with the flat of the blade. With a startled squeal the animal exploded down the far side of the hill, bucking and leaping with Zion clinging to the pommel of the saddle for dear life as he was tossed about.
As I doubled over to suck in gulps of air, Ark watched the pair thunder away. //That's one way of doing it, I suppose//
/It seemed suitable/ Still gasping for breath, I sheathed my sword and watched with a small amount of satisfaction as Zion finally lost his grip and was pitched head over heels into the branches of a gnarled old apple tree at the bottom of the hill. /That can't be comfortable/
//That's his problem, isn't it?//
/I guess so/ I said, starting off down the hill again. Now that it had rid itself of its rider the horse had seemed to have settled some. He stood not far from the tree where Zion had managed to lodge himself, cropping grass while its short ears flicked back and forth. As I approached he raised its head warily, chewing slowly on its cud and watching me with dark, liquid eyes. When I had come close enough that I could reach out and touch him he snorted softly, then dropped his neck again and began pulling up clods of dying grass with his flat teeth. Rubbing the horse's shoulder, I happened to glance down at the ground. Still attached to the bridle, the leather reins had been snapped in two during the animal's run. Picking them up with my good hand, I stared blankly at them for a moment before sighing and setting one between my teeth. /Damn you, Ayrel/ Fumbling with the end of the other rein, I started tying them into a knot.
Zion, looking rather scratched and battered from his experience with the tree, came shambling over as I swung up into the saddle. His left eye was blackened and decidedly puffy looking, swollen partially shut. Coupled with the old scars that already marred that side of his face, it gave him the general air of someone who had just come off second best in a street brawl. In spite of this, his already worn clothes had survived with nothing more to show for the encounter than a small rip in one shirtsleeve and a few smudges of dirt on his knees. Tugging at the leather bound hilt of his sword, he glared up at me, albeit a bit lopsidedly. Pretending not to notice, I nudged the gelding into a walk while Zion fell into step beside us. For whatever reason, he kept his mouth shut.
/I think he's starting to learn/ I noted.
Ark snorted. //He's going to slow us down if you make him walk. Help him boost his spirit energy and let him fly for a bit. He'll need the practice before he has to fight again//
/You're inconsistent/ I complained.
//You're worse than children. If you're mad at someone, you kill them. If they piss you off and you need them for something, you put up with it. If you two idiots keep trying to inconvenience one another, then we'll never find Ayrel//
With a sigh I pulled my mount up short. As much as I enjoyed the thought of Zion chasing after a galloping horse, Ark did have a point. Dropping the reins onto the pommel, I kicked my feet free from the stirrups and slid to the ground. Zion took a step back as I did so, arching an eyebrow slightly. "What, you spend all that time complaining, and now you want to walk again?"
"Hardly." Jerking the horse's head up from the grass, I led him back to the apple tree and wrapped the reins around a branch. The last thing I needed now was to have the horse frightened off when Zion transformed. Picking a spot, I led Zion to a patch of bare ground perhaps a hundred meters off. It was in a slight hollow, so whatever happened would be shielded enough as not to scare the horse. Pushing back the flap of my coat, I pulled my sword free from its sheath. "I hope you don't have any reserves about fighting someone with a handicap, Zion."
"Not really." He replied cautiously. "Why?"
"If you're going to learn to fight as a dragoon, you're going to have to learn to fly properly first. Remember what I told you about spirit energies?" I waited for his nod, then continued. "With out it, you can't complete a transformation properly. Spirit energy is derived from the tension that you build up while in combat. For a normal person that doesn't mean anything, but for you, the more you fight as a human the faster you'll be able to fight as a dragoon. Got it? Then attack me. Like you mean it."
Zion's POV:
Ry circled wide, his silver inlaid blade held low and glinting in the warm morning sunlight. Reaching back over my shoulder, I grabbed the hilt of my own sword and hauled it roughly out of its slit sheath. Normally swords as big as the one I use are meant to be carried in wagons and such; they aren't really designed to be drawn from a sheath. Human arms just aren't long enough to pull the last foot or so out of the casing. To counter this, I had made a long slit in the leather at the mouth of the sheath, just over a foot in length. It was still a pain in the ass to draw, but it was an improvement. Taking my weapon in both hands I pivoted slowly, following Ry's progress as he circled. In spite of whatever I may have said, I didn't really feel right putting everything I had against him, injured as he was. Maybe if I held back just a bit-
Without warning Ry cut into the circle, dipping low and bringing his sword upward in a flashing arc. I twisted the hilt so that the strike rebounded off of the crosstrees, but he moved with it, sidestepping around me and slapping me roughly with the flat of his blade on the arm as he passed. Spinning about to face him again I swung across vertically, angling the hilt so that the flat of my blade was angled toward his shoulder. He ducked slightly, allowing it to pass harmlessly overhead before striking at me again with the flat, this time catching me hard across both shinbones before springing away.
As I gasped and stumbled back, pain blossoming up through my legs, Ry shook his head. "I thought we agreed that you wouldn't hold back? We'll be here all day if you keep using clumsy attacks like those ones."
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to stop shifting my weight and stand steadily. Ry nodded as I raised my sword before me again, this time taking the short stance that I customarily used in the arena. "Good. Now don't hold back this time; I'm not going to use the flat of my blade anymore."
It went on for nearly ten minutes before Ry judged it enough. Chest heaving from exertion, I grounded the tip of my blade and leaned heavily on the crosstrees. Thin cuts crisscrossed my arms and back, and I could feel a large bruise starting to form over part of my ribcage. The cuts stung as sweat mixed with blood, the morning sun suddenly seeming ten times hotter than it had a few minutes earlier. A few paces away Ry, breathing hard and his bandanna damp with sweat, wiped the tip of his blade in the grass before returning it to its scabbard. A single cut high on his cheek seeped blood, next to a second, older scar. The one blow I had managed to land during the entire fight, and it was hardly more than a scratch. And worse yet, from the slight grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, I was beginning to suspect that -he- had been the one playing around. Spitting bitterly on the ground, I shook my head. I had though I was good with a sword, but Ry was on a completely different level altogether. "Looks like I have a long way to go yet," I muttered, half to myself.
"Huh?" Ry looked up from rummaging through his coat pockets. In one hand he held a fluted glass bottle, half-filled with a thick blue liquid. Pulling out the stopper with his teeth, he dampened the end of his sleeve with the healing potion before replacing it and tossing it over. "Here, patch yourself up a bit." Suiting actions to words he began to gingerly dab potion onto his cut.
Working out the cork, I followed suit. The shallow cuts and scratches mended themselves almost instantly, while the bruise took a bit longer. Tucking the empty bottle away, I returned my sword to its sheath. Shrugging my shoulders once or twice to settle the belt into a more comfortable position, I pulled the little string bag from around my neck and popped my spirit out onto my palm. It flickered briefly when my fingers touched it before returning to its normal state. "So what am I supposed to do with it now?"
Ry gave me an odd look. "Do you see me using a dragoon spirit? I already told you everything I know about transformations. Just try to remember what it felt like the last time."
"It hurt." I said blandly, but I rubbed the smooth stone nervously. My memories of the events of that night in Kazas were a little fuzzy at best; recalling anything that may have triggered the transformation was next to impossible. So I was essentially working blind. Ry hadn't told me much about transforming, except that with time a sort of link would form between the spirit and my mind that would make the shift from one form to the other second nature. But until I managed to form the link, there had to be another way. Closing my eyes, I tried to relax. What had it felt like? Well, it hurt. Still with my eyes closed, I frowned. No, if I didn't want it to hurt, then it shouldn't. It had been hot certainly, but I hadn't actually been burned.
There was a slow heat in my hand and I snapped my eyes open. The spirit had flared up again, hot enough to make the late summer heat seem like a mild spring morning. Ry nodded encouragingly. "Almost. Try it again."
Shutting my eyes again, I tightened my grip on the spirit and tried to remember more. Armor. How had it formed? Unbidden, the image of liquid fire dripping from my limbs like water seeped into my mind. Yes, that much I could remember. It had hardened into the armor, light as cloth but harder than tempered steel. My sword had changed to suit the armor, but where had the wings come from? Where they a part of the armor, or were they actually sprouting from my back? Since it was impossible to tell, I shoved the question away and concentrated on what the armor had felt like as it formed.
Without warning the spirit exploded into dazzling red-orange light. The air around me superheated, hotter than the depths of a blacksmith's forge. The ground at my feet erupted into flames that rippled up my legs and engulfed my body in a whirlwind of fire, white-hot and blistering as it licked at my face. Power raged through my veins, as shockingly cold as the air around me was boiling, pulsing and growing until I remember being sure that it would rip me apart from the inside out. Caught between ice and fire, I gritted my teeth and opened my eyes.
And then as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The flames disappeared and the light with it, leaving purple blotches to slide across my vision whenever I blinked. The tide of power warmed and receded, until it was little more than a faint tingling at the edge of my awareness. Blood still pounding in my ears, I glanced down. The armor was there the same as before, dark crimson, graven and inlayed and surmounted by a fist sized green gem. Inexplicably my sword had left its sheath and now rested in my hand. Reaching back over my shoulder I could feel where wings seemed to sprout out from the base of my neck.
"Good enough." Ry tugged at a shock of hair thoughtfully. "Don't try anything too erratic at first, and try to time it so that you land before your spirit runs dry. Other than that, you're going to have to figure out flying for yourself, I'm afraid. I'm not going to be much help there."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm going to take your horse and head north. Just follow the road as best as you can until you reach the mountains to the northwest. You probably have enough spirit energy to get that far at least."
"Then what?" I stretched out my wings, looking back over my shoulder at them curiously. They were quite large really, and the gossamer membrane caught the sunlight like frosted glass.
"Find somewhere out of the heat, sit and wait. It'll probably take me the rest of the day to get that far on horseback." He squinted up at the sun. "Probably around sundown, I'd say. Watch for me. And try to stay out of sight for as long as you're a dragoon." Shifting his sword, he started back in the direction of my horse. "Oh, and try not to break your neck when you land. You're not exactly graceful."
In spite of Ry's warnings, flying was not half as difficult as he'd made it sound. By comparison to using the red-eye spirit, it actually felt natural. Leveling out at two thousand feet or so, I tried to reorient myself in relation to the ground below, wings beating the thin air steadily as I turned in a slow circle. The hilly landscape had shrunk into miniscule, patchy stretches of yellowed grasses broken up by brown-green bluffs of trees and the occasional few acres of tilled brown farmland. Far off to my west lay the purple-grey slopes of the Serdian mountain range, the bushy forest at its base still steeped in early morning shadow. Seles was several miles off to the south, a tiny cluster of buildings nestled in between the low hills surrounding it. Further off still, the sea glimmered in the sunlight, appearing glassy and calm in the distance. Directly below me the road cut through the center of it all, like a dusty brown snake winding lazily from horizon to horizon. Follow the road, had he said? Wedging my sword into a niche in the hip of my armor, I took off to where the road began to angle toward the mountains, leaving a trail of red-gold sparks falling in my wake.
Ragnarok's POV:
/I don't see him anywhere. You don't think he crashed, do you?/
//How in hell should I know?// I growled. Beneath me, my lathered mount squealed and tried to shy away again. Irritably, I jerked hard on the reins. Dart and I had shifted control back and forth several times that day, and yet the horse persisted in acting up whenever I was in the saddle. While this was nothing new to me, it still didn't change the fact that it was incredibly annoying. The only useful thing about this was that the gelding would run for me as it would for no human, out of stark terror if nothing else. As a result we had reached the mountain's shadow with a good hour to spare before sunset, though the exhausted horse still reared and spooked as though it was fresh from the stall. //You did tell him to look out for us, didn't you?//
/Yeah. He should be around here somewhere/ Dart fell silent, scanning the countryside around us.
//I hope he had the sense to wait for us before going off trying to find the Urobolus. Young idiot like that probably would//
/I think he has more sense than that/ Dart argued.
//Not much// I said bluntly. //At his age, I know that you would've, and I have a little bit more faith in him than I did for you at the time//
/Thanks for sharing/ Dart replied dryly. He lapsed into silence again as we continued along the road, the horse alternately plodding and bolting at erratic intervals. Another dusty mile passed without notice, and the road begun to make the slow ascent from the prairies into the foothills. A soft breeze smelling heavily of hay whispered through the grasses on either side of the road, causing them to bend and sway; from the hillside looking out over the plains, it resembled a heaving, brown-golden sea. Though by no means cool, the breeze did provide a bit of momentary relief from the baking heat. Pulling up my mount near a bluff at the crest of the hill, I dismounted. //We can stop here. The kid's just have to come and find us when he gets hungry//
/You sure?/
"Stop that!" I snapped aloud. The gelding, which had been snorting and jerking on the reins froze, eyes wild. //Of course I'm sure. Even if he were born in a city, he'd have to be daft not to recognize the light from a campfire// Stomping my feet on the ground once or twice to recover some of the feeling, I headed toward the small grove of bent birch and alder several yards off of the road. After a moment of hesitation, the horse followed suit, head held high and snorting anxiously with each step.
/Ark? Look to the northwest for a moment, will you?/ Dart said suddenly, a note of urgency creeping into his thoughts.
//Company?// I asked, half-turning.
/Maybe/ While when not in total control both Dart and I could still 'see', though not in the normal sense of the word. In order to see anything clearly at all, the body itself had to be looking at it. Scanning the horizon, I frowned. //Where?//
/You're looking too far off. See where the land sort of breaks up a couple of miles to the north? Near the foot of the hills?/
Still frowning, I looked where he directed. The land did look broken up, with ridges of grey-white limestone jutting out of the earth like crooked teeth. An old fissure, a remnant of an old caved-in mine shaft perhaps, split the ground between them. In truth, the actual geography of the area meant little to me, but one does tend to take note of such things. The real concern was the thick dust cloud slowly rising up from where the road curved between them.
Cursing, I jerked the horse's reins and dragged him into the bluff. Whoever was raising that dust cloud, they were lost amid the outcroppings. And while that meant that there was no way that they could have seen us, even on a hilltop, it also meant that there was no way that we could see them either.
The bluff wasn't very large, hardly an acre at best, but the trees and undergrowth were dense enough that anything near the back or center of the grove would be invisible to anyone passing by on the road. Tying the reins around the trunk of a sturdy looking alder, I pulled down Zion's small pack from the saddle skirt and loosened the sweaty girth. Satisfied, I returned to the edge of the grove closest to the road and crouched down behind a screen of withering shrubs to wait.
I wasn't kept long. After five or six minutes the steady rumble of hoof beats reached my ears and the ground began to tremble, though it was so slight at first that I almost didn't feel it. The breeze changed from refreshing to choking, filling the air with the dust pounded from the road by scores of hooves. Pulling the bandana down over my mouth and nose to try to avoid breathing it in, I narrowed my eyes as the first of them came trotting past. I knew the bestial forms riding warily on the brown-black mounts far too well.
/Dread knights/ Dart growled testily. /What are they doing all of the way out here?/
I said nothing. The knight leading the column wore a helm fashioned to resemble the head of a boar, complete with upturned tusks jutting from the protruding face guard. The rest of the armor was the standard, angular design, but the silken green tabard emblazoned with Ayrel's crest tied over the breastplate was far cry from normal. A short cape of the same design hung down his back, limp and covered in dust from travel. In the dread knight corps, each of the three countries is home to fifty knights, twelve of which hold discernable rank. Six sergeants, three captains, two commanders, and one grand commander, or something to that effect. The grand commander rarely leaves the side of the High Priest, so I judged that the man riding past must have been one of the two commanders. //Interesting. Someone in Seles must have sent a pigeon when we arrived//
/They're looking for Zion. Recognize the second knight?/ Dart asked.
I frowned slightly, trying to remember. The curious, griffin-like helm was familiar, though where exactly I had seen it before eluded me. //Refresh my memory//
Dart sighed. /When Zion first transformed in Kazas, he was facing off against him, I'm positive. I thought the spell he got hit with must have killed him, but either the spell wasn't as strong as I thought, or he's a tough one/
//Wonderful// I growled. The rest of the column was passing by now, but the stony-faced men riding iron-backed in the saddles were low ranking guardsmen. And judging from the bags under their eyes and the stubble covering their chins, they'd ridden through the night, and probably most of the day as well. //They must be patrolling the area. Unless the temple sent them to deal with the Urobolus?//
/Maybe/ Dart didn't sound convinced.
As the last man trotted by, a thought occurred to me. //How much would you miss our dear commander up there at the front?//
/Not much/
//How much do you think the temple would miss him?//
Dart's answering laugh was surprisingly vicious. /They're in a column, Ark. One good shot at the commander and the rest of them will get caught in it as well/
//I guess that's just hard luck on their part// I replied with vast insincerity. The entire column was on the hillside now, but the leaders would reach the bottom soon. If the shot were to work, then it would have to be made now. Bracing myself for the transformation, I had half risen to my feet when I heard a twig snap behind me. Automatically my hand went to my sword, whipping it free from its sheath as I spun around and lashed out at chest height.
Zion yelped and jumped back, the singing tip of the blade missing his ribcage by millimeters. "Hey, get a grip! It's just me!"
With a snarl, I jammed my blade back into its sheath and Zion took a step back. The window of opportunity had shut. With him here, I couldn't let myself risk the transformation. "Where the hell where you?!" With a tremendous effort I managed to keep my voice down just above a whisper, remembering at the last minute that we weren't alone.
"Looking for you!" He hissed back angrily, but his eyes flickered uncertainly. "You sure took your time getting here," he muttered in a more normal tone of voice. "I've been dodging that patrol all day, and that's not as easy as it sounds."
"Look faster next time!" I snapped. //Your turn. If I stay out any longer, I think that I'll end up killing him// The patrol had reached the bottom of the hill now, fanning out as they cantered onto the plains. Still fuming at the lost opportunity, I brushed past Dart and retreated to a quiet corner of his consciousness. Humans!
Zion's eyebrows rose as we switched, and Dart rubbed his forehead to try to cover the moment. He may not have known what it meant, but the kid had noticed something at least. Moderating his tone much more than I had, Dart kept his eyes on the ground. "Just. don't do that again. I don't like being surprised."
If his eyebrows had managed to climb any higher they would have been lost in his hairline, but Dart ignored Zion's look. Pushing past, he tugged absently at the knot in his sling. "Did you find your horse? No? You'd better go see to him then; we had a hard ride today."
Zion's POV:
By the time we finally set out again the mountain's shadow had stretched over several miles of the plains and the sky to the west had faded to a pastel pinkish-orange. A few rare clouds had drifted onto the horizon, thin, wispy things that looked little more than a tiny white smudge against the rest of the sky. They would bring no rain, yet. For the next week at least, the only clouds that the villagers in Seles would be seeing would be dust clouds. Overhead a lone hawk wheeled about in a tight circle, calling out stridently before sheering off toward the brown-grey mountain slopes.
The temperature was falling with the sun, but it was still cool only in comparison with the heat of midday. Tying my overshirt to the back of the saddle, I patted my mount on the shoulder before leading him out of the grove and onto the hill after Ry. Sweat curled and matted the gelding's coat, and he plodded along slowly at the end of the lead, but at least his breathing had returned to normal. For now he'd just have to be led rather than ridden, until he recovered some of his lost energy. Ry stood halfway down the hill, scanning the waving grasses with his good hand on his sword hilt. He didn't turn as I approached, but directed his words back over his shoulder instead. "The village is just a few miles to the north of here, then?"
"Yeah." I rubbed my ear. Actually, I'd overshot this morning and had to walk ten miles back to the road on foot after my spirit had given out. I'd passed the village on my way, but had resisted the impulse to check it out on my own. "The place looked pretty quiet."
"Urobolus are used to living in caves. They probably wouldn't come out in the daytime." Taking his hand from the sword, he let it hang at his side. "Keep an eye out for that patrol. They may decide to set up camp for the night, but if they don't I don't want to run into any surprises."
"Don't you?" I said, but under my breath. I remembered the hungry look I'd seen on his face earlier as the patrol had ridden past. Something told me that he'd like nothing better than to stumble on their camp and take his chances at them, no matter how suicidal it was. Personally, I was just as happy to stay clear of them. I'd seen them ride past more than once today, and I'd recognized the second dread knight all too well. Soltrane didn't seem quite as inclined to kill me as the other dread knights; at least, he'd planned on giving me a trial rather than killing me on the spot as the others would have done; but I still didn't want to meet him again with a full patrol at his back, dragoon spirit or no dragoon spirit. Clicking to my gelding to try to coax him into moving a few paces faster, I trailed a few strides behind Ry. With luck, the patrol would be far from the biggest problem we'd face tonight. A few moments after the thought flitted through my head, I frowned. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
` In spite of being on foot, the few miles passed quickly and before the last of the colors had fled the western sky we found ourselves on another hillside, looking down into a sort of shallow valley. The nameless village sat in the bottom of the bowl, fourteen or fifteen small houses and outbuildings all clustered around a large, sheltered well. Plowed furrows covered the surrounding hillsides, growing everything from small withered cabbages to thick, healthy stalks of corn. There was no sign of movement in either the village or among the crops, save for the rustling corn leaves as the twilight breezes whispered through them. Strangely, this made me feel even more uncomfortable. I'm used to fighting things that I can see, and I don't like it when they're hidden from view.
Ry glanced over at me. "You better let your horse go. He shouldn't stray too far, and he'll just be a nuisance if you bring him any closer."
I grunted in agreement and set to work unbuckling the girth straps and lifting the saddle off of his back. Removing one of the reins from the bit, I knotted it around his neck so that I'd have something to grab hold of when I came for him later. Dumping the gear at the end of the nearest cornrow, I took a moment to draw my sword before returning to where Ry stood waiting. If I couldn't see any of the Urobolus until they attacked, then I wouldn't have any time to draw my sword either.
We slipped into the village through the eastern end, cautiously making our way down the single 'street' with weapons drawn and at the ready. Ry's sword remained sheathed at his side but he carried a long dagger instead, holding the smudged blade carefully between three fingers of his right hand, ready to make a throw. I kept my sword resting against my shoulder, eyes darting about. Every shadow, and there were quite a few of them in the twilight, seemed to move and shift every time I started to look away. I half expect at any moment for something to leap out and sink its fangs into my shoulders and drag me down, but nothing ever moved, except in my imagination. The little settlement remained still; deathly quiet save for the soft sound of our boots scuffing on the hard ground. We searched the alleys, crept into the few small barns, and even peered into the windows of a few houses, but each was as empty as the next. Within fifteen minutes it was apparent that the village was completely deserted.
Letting my blade slide home into its sheath, I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. Avoiding a fight, any fight, is always a good thing, but I was sort of eager to try out the red-eye spirit in combat again. On the other hand, I was used to fighting people, not overgrown monsters. Whatever creatures I had rooted out earlier to help build up my spirit earlier today would be nothing in comparison to the Urobolus. Sitting on the lip of the stone well that the village seemed to be situated around, I cracked my knuckles and flexed my fingers once or twice. "So what now?"
Ry paced back and forth in the dusty square that surrounded the well. He was not nearly as at ease as I, and still held the dagger between his fingers. "They're still here. They have to be."
"Why? Maybe the guardsmen fought them off."
"I seriously doubt that. The dread knights, maybe. But there'd be some signs of a fight left over, at least." He stopped to stare fixedly off into the darkness. "Maybe they come down from the mountains at night?" He mused, more to himself than to me.
I rolled my eyes. "Look, if you're really that eager for a fight, then why don't you just go pick on the guardsmen? I'm sure that they'd be more than happy to accommodate you."
Ry stopped and turned to glare at me, opening one mouth as he did so to deliver a retort. What he was going to say I never did find out, because at that precise moment a violent tremor ran through the earth, sending me sprawling face first onto the ground. It lasted for only a moment, but the echoes were still rumbling off of the surrounding hills when I pushed myself back to my feet. Ry was on one knee, examining the blood dripping from a gash in his forefinger. His knife lay in the dust next to him; it must have slipped when he went down. He stuck the finger in his mouth for a moment, then pulled it out and wiped it on his sleeve. "What was-"A second tremor shook the ground, cutting him off again. Panes of glass rattled in the windows of nearby houses, and an old wooden bucked tumbled off of someone's front porch to land with a crash in a dried up rain barrel.
Before the last of the rumblings had faded Ry was back on his feet, plucking up his knife and backing away from the well. "They're underground." He kept his voice surprisingly quiet and level, but I could hear the note of urgency. "The mountains are a gigantic network of honeycombed caves, some of them extending out for miles in any direction. If the well extends into an underground lake, or if the bottom dropped out of it."
Moving toward the houses, I drew my sword. "They're living underneath the village?"
This time there was no tremor. Without warning water gushed over the sides of the well, splashing onto the ground. What followed was like something out of a nightmare.
A blunt, shadowy head on a long thick neck emerged from the depths of the well, forked tongue flicking in and out as it tasted the air. Framed against the night sky, it didn't resemble the head of any snake I had ever before seen. A thin crest of spines bristled down the center of the face, and three bulbous golden eyes shone out from beneath a heavy ridge of bone. Water streaming and dripping down the scales of its back, the Urobolus started to slide out of the well, thirty feet of coiling, twisting serpent that was accompanied by a heavy, musky scent that made me want to gag. Unfortunately for me, the sound caught the monster's attention. With a hiss that sounded more like the scream of a child it dropped to the ground and rushed towards me with surprising speed. Readying my blade for a thrust, I braced myself for the collision.
Ry, it seemed, had other ideas. When the snake was a bare three meters out of reach of my blade it suddenly seemed to collapse upon itself, squealing and hissing like a piglet, the thick black hilt of Ry's knife protruding from one ruined eye. Sword in hand, Ry followed, the bright blade flashing one, two, three times in the moonlight. The serpent shuddered and went limp, the back of its skull a wreck. Raising his sword again, Ry grinned. "That one was mine. Go on and change quickly, before her mate comes." Retrieving his knife, he disappeared into the shadow of the houses lining the square.
More water came spilling over the sides of the well, and I forced myself to close my eyes. The change seemed to come easier that way, somehow. Reaching tentatively out to the spirit, I felt it answer back, power flooding through my body like a mountain river in the spring. Heat flared up, and I opened my eyes just in time to see the second Urobolus lunge forward from the well. I kicked off hard and the serpent passed beneath me, plowing into the front of the nearest house and collapsing the wall in an avalanche of splintered wood and broken building stone, effectively stunning him. Not wanting to miss the advantage, I dropped down to strike at the prone form.
While I worked, two more Urobolus slipped from the mouth of the well, though these were smaller, only partially grown. Meaning that they were only twenty feet long, as opposed to the full thirty or forty. Jerking my blade free I took to the air again, mentally running over my options. Even if no more came out it was still one on three, and those were pretty heavy odds. I wasn't sure how much my being a dragoon leveled things out, but in the back of my mind I could already feel the spirit power channeled from the spirit ebbing, slipping away like sand in an hourglass. Energy was lost faster in combat than just flying; if I were to use a spell, then it would use up whatever strength I had left. One of the smaller serpents struck out at me, and I winged a little higher to avoid them. In the background I could see the adult slowly drawing itself from the ruins of the house. Sand in the hourglass. Whatever I did, it would have to be fast.
As the snake struck again I flipped my blade around, bringing it up and across so that it slashed the creature across the roof of its mouth. It fell back with an agonized screech, its raised head leaving its throat dangerously exposed. A quick dart in and out coupled with two short slashes and it collapsed to the ground with a shiver, its long coils falling back over the opening of the well. Immediately the first fell I spun in mid air, lashing out at chest height. The second Urobolus, which had tried to strike from behind, caught the blow across the forehead, splitting the fine spines that adorned the face. It flinched back for a moment, then struck out again. Pain blossomed up through my right leg; four inch fangs pumped venom into my muscle; venom that was instantly counteracted by some vague workings of the red-eye spirit. As close as I was there was no room to wield the blade, so instead I used the heavy hilt as a club, hitting the serpent across the back of the neck with all of the strength I could muster. The pressure on my leg eased, but almost immediately the adult slammed into me from behind with such force that for a moment I lost my vision and was sent sprawling blindly to the ground. Lying there dazedly, I felt the last of the sand start to trickle into the bottom of the glass.
Magic. How had I done magic before? Heaving myself onto my feet, I was vaguely aware of the two Urobolus slithering across the square toward me. Cripes, out of all of the things Ry hadn't been able to explain to me, magic had to have been one of them. Fire. Well, it had to involve that, obviously. Dimly, I recalled the ever-expanding circle of fire chasing down guardsmen back in Kazas. No. Not like that. But what if I could make it more focused?
Drawing on the last of the spirit energy without really being aware of how I did it, I stretched one crimson gauntlet towards the snakes and released the spell.
Wave upon wave of fire seemed to burst from the ground before me, hitting the two Urobolus head-on. This time there were no shrieks; the two monsters simply disappeared beneath the press of the flames. The fires continued on, rippling across the square and catching on the two houses directly across from me.
Stumbling back with a sigh, I felt the armor dissolve. Pain flourished anew in my leg, but it felt strangely numb as sudden elation flowed through me. I'd done it. I had no idea in hell how I'd managed to, but I'd done it. I was so pleased with myself that I didn't hear Ry approach from the shadows, and jumped when he spoke.
"Not bad. Could have done better, but I think it could have been much worse." He passed me a damp rag the smelt heavily of potions. "There. Stick that on your leg for a bit."
Pulling up my pants leg I started to do just that, but at that moment an unfamiliar voice rang out unexpectedly from the direction of the burning houses.
"DAMN!"
Still clasping the cloth to my leg, I looked up. Someone was stalking across the square from largest of the burning houses, carrying a large bundle in her arms. She wasn't tall, even for a girl, and wore her black hair short, although it hung longer at the front. Dressed in tattered pants that had been ripped off at the knees, her dark red shirt and faded long blue vest seemed to be in only slightly better condition.
She was also spouting a stream of curses that would have made a sailor blush.
Without even glancing at the twisted, bloody Urobolus corpses lying across the ground, she stormed over and flung her bundle to the ground. It clattered as it struck, and through a small tear in the cloth I thought I saw a glint of gold. Pointing at it, she glared at me. "Do you have any idea of what that was?"
"Uh-"
"-That- was three days and nights worth of wandering around these bloody, goddess forsaken mountains! -That- was the only heap of stuff worth stealing anywhere short of Bale! And you know what? You just ruined it, you bloody flaming pyromaniac!" Blowing her bangs out of her eyes, she scowled. "You just had to choose tonight to light things up, didn't you!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped back, recovering slightly from my initial shock of being bitched out by a total stranger. I jabbed a finger at the nearest serpent. "Those things were going to wreck the place!"
"Oh, what, and that isn't?" She flung a hand back in the direction of the merrily burning houses. "You idiot, if you'd just have left them alone they wouldn't have done a thing!"
"Yeah, right. Just try to kill anyone who passes through!"
"They didn't try to kill me!"
"Well you probably came in the day!"
"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"
"It has everything to do with everything!"
"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Not only you're a pyro, but you're a raving lunatic as well!" Stopping to take a breath, she snapped her eyes over at Ry, who was for some reason laughing uproariously. "What the hell are you laughing at?"
It took Ry a minute to get his mirth back under control again, but even then he still snickered. A few gasping breaths, and he managed to compose himself, if just barely. A grin still tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Zion, you're going to kill me for this."
"Kill you for what?" I asked suspiciously.
Ry didn't answer. Instead, he tossed something small and flaringly bright blue to the girl, who turned it over in her hands with the air of someone appraising a jewel.
It took a couple of moments for my brain to put two and two together. A few gears ground. They rattled and squeaked, turning slowly and in desperate need of oiling. Then everything clicked into place. And the little gears in my mind suddenly crumbled into dust.
"Ry, can I borrow your dagger for a minute?"
Quick battle, huh? Oh well. Being level one dragoon sucks ass. I tried to make it interesting. And probably failed horribly, but that's for you guys to judge. AND there's your next blue-sea dragoon. Two birds with one stone! Bwaha!
**Dart, Nova, and Garren are all hiding in a small, makeshift bomb shelter constructed from old garbage can lids, hubcaps, slabs of cement and sandbags. All three appear to be very nervous, and speak in hushed tones while they keep a nervous watch on the yard outside. A very confused Zion, who pops in through a gap in the ceiling, soon joins them**
Zion: What's going on?
Nova: **hits him over the head** Shhh! She'll hear us!
Zion: **rubbing head** What? Who?
Garren: Shade. Some idiot went and let her pass her learner's test. She's got a @#$%'n driver's license now!
Zion: I don't see any cars around.
Dart: -.-; She's not driving a car. All she could find was the lawn mower.
Zion: But I thought they sold the lawn tractor?
Nova: They did. She's driving a push mower.
Zion: O.o;
Shade: **Whirrs by seated atop a very battered mower, wearing a dented pylon as a crash helmet and giggling insanely as she chases a random Lloyd around the yard**
Urobolus! I knew I spelt it wrong! ^-^ My thanks to Sword Master Jeff, Pyrostriker, and anyone else who may have set me right.
'-' means someone is cut off mid-sentence '-word-' is used for emphasis
Dart's POV:
The dawn was still a faint grey smudge on the eastern horizon when we rode out of Seles early the next morning. Or at least, Zion rode. Horses were not something readily available in the village and those that were for sale where well and truly out of my price range. Zion's mount had been returned to him by Remmy, the same lantern-nosed animal that had nearly run me over in Kazas nearly a week ago. Maybe I would be able to trade in some of my spare equipment for a horse at one of the farms dotting the prairies, but until then I was stuck on foot. Heading northward over the hills surrounding the village, we should reach the edge of the prairies by late morning.
That was, if Zion didn't run me into the ground first.
"You mind slowing down a bit?" I growled through clenched teeth. Halfway between a jog and a run, I fought to keep even with Zion's stirrup as he trotted his mount up the side of a long grassy hill. After nearly an hour of alternately jogging, walking, running, and jogging again, my lungs felt as though they were about to burst. Grasshoppers appeared and vanished underfoot, startled from hiding as we ran over them. "I'm not going to be able to teach you anything if I'm dead from exhaustion."
Cresting the hill, the horse's steady gate didn't break. Posting to the rough trot, Zion looked smug. "Think of it as some healthy exercise." Below us the land gradually leveled out, the low hills stretching out into a rolling plain. Dark copses of trees dotted the waving grassland, and off to the east a small lake reflected the early morning sky.
I stumbled, but somehow stayed on my feet. "You're still sore at me for making you pay for that cart aren't you?" I wheezed.
"Whatever gave you that idea?"
//Smart mouth// Ark noted. //Why don't you gag him?//
/I might, if I could reach him/ I grumbled. "Maybe I'll just leave you to deal with the Urobolus by yourself."
"I don't think you'd do that, somehow." Taking the reins in one hand, he half-turned in the saddle to look at the rolling countryside around us. "Just hard luck on your part. Hey, how do you feel about a bit of a canter?"
Shooting him a sour glare, I jerked my sword roughly from its scabbard and slapped his horse hard across the rump with the flat of the blade. With a startled squeal the animal exploded down the far side of the hill, bucking and leaping with Zion clinging to the pommel of the saddle for dear life as he was tossed about.
As I doubled over to suck in gulps of air, Ark watched the pair thunder away. //That's one way of doing it, I suppose//
/It seemed suitable/ Still gasping for breath, I sheathed my sword and watched with a small amount of satisfaction as Zion finally lost his grip and was pitched head over heels into the branches of a gnarled old apple tree at the bottom of the hill. /That can't be comfortable/
//That's his problem, isn't it?//
/I guess so/ I said, starting off down the hill again. Now that it had rid itself of its rider the horse had seemed to have settled some. He stood not far from the tree where Zion had managed to lodge himself, cropping grass while its short ears flicked back and forth. As I approached he raised its head warily, chewing slowly on its cud and watching me with dark, liquid eyes. When I had come close enough that I could reach out and touch him he snorted softly, then dropped his neck again and began pulling up clods of dying grass with his flat teeth. Rubbing the horse's shoulder, I happened to glance down at the ground. Still attached to the bridle, the leather reins had been snapped in two during the animal's run. Picking them up with my good hand, I stared blankly at them for a moment before sighing and setting one between my teeth. /Damn you, Ayrel/ Fumbling with the end of the other rein, I started tying them into a knot.
Zion, looking rather scratched and battered from his experience with the tree, came shambling over as I swung up into the saddle. His left eye was blackened and decidedly puffy looking, swollen partially shut. Coupled with the old scars that already marred that side of his face, it gave him the general air of someone who had just come off second best in a street brawl. In spite of this, his already worn clothes had survived with nothing more to show for the encounter than a small rip in one shirtsleeve and a few smudges of dirt on his knees. Tugging at the leather bound hilt of his sword, he glared up at me, albeit a bit lopsidedly. Pretending not to notice, I nudged the gelding into a walk while Zion fell into step beside us. For whatever reason, he kept his mouth shut.
/I think he's starting to learn/ I noted.
Ark snorted. //He's going to slow us down if you make him walk. Help him boost his spirit energy and let him fly for a bit. He'll need the practice before he has to fight again//
/You're inconsistent/ I complained.
//You're worse than children. If you're mad at someone, you kill them. If they piss you off and you need them for something, you put up with it. If you two idiots keep trying to inconvenience one another, then we'll never find Ayrel//
With a sigh I pulled my mount up short. As much as I enjoyed the thought of Zion chasing after a galloping horse, Ark did have a point. Dropping the reins onto the pommel, I kicked my feet free from the stirrups and slid to the ground. Zion took a step back as I did so, arching an eyebrow slightly. "What, you spend all that time complaining, and now you want to walk again?"
"Hardly." Jerking the horse's head up from the grass, I led him back to the apple tree and wrapped the reins around a branch. The last thing I needed now was to have the horse frightened off when Zion transformed. Picking a spot, I led Zion to a patch of bare ground perhaps a hundred meters off. It was in a slight hollow, so whatever happened would be shielded enough as not to scare the horse. Pushing back the flap of my coat, I pulled my sword free from its sheath. "I hope you don't have any reserves about fighting someone with a handicap, Zion."
"Not really." He replied cautiously. "Why?"
"If you're going to learn to fight as a dragoon, you're going to have to learn to fly properly first. Remember what I told you about spirit energies?" I waited for his nod, then continued. "With out it, you can't complete a transformation properly. Spirit energy is derived from the tension that you build up while in combat. For a normal person that doesn't mean anything, but for you, the more you fight as a human the faster you'll be able to fight as a dragoon. Got it? Then attack me. Like you mean it."
Zion's POV:
Ry circled wide, his silver inlaid blade held low and glinting in the warm morning sunlight. Reaching back over my shoulder, I grabbed the hilt of my own sword and hauled it roughly out of its slit sheath. Normally swords as big as the one I use are meant to be carried in wagons and such; they aren't really designed to be drawn from a sheath. Human arms just aren't long enough to pull the last foot or so out of the casing. To counter this, I had made a long slit in the leather at the mouth of the sheath, just over a foot in length. It was still a pain in the ass to draw, but it was an improvement. Taking my weapon in both hands I pivoted slowly, following Ry's progress as he circled. In spite of whatever I may have said, I didn't really feel right putting everything I had against him, injured as he was. Maybe if I held back just a bit-
Without warning Ry cut into the circle, dipping low and bringing his sword upward in a flashing arc. I twisted the hilt so that the strike rebounded off of the crosstrees, but he moved with it, sidestepping around me and slapping me roughly with the flat of his blade on the arm as he passed. Spinning about to face him again I swung across vertically, angling the hilt so that the flat of my blade was angled toward his shoulder. He ducked slightly, allowing it to pass harmlessly overhead before striking at me again with the flat, this time catching me hard across both shinbones before springing away.
As I gasped and stumbled back, pain blossoming up through my legs, Ry shook his head. "I thought we agreed that you wouldn't hold back? We'll be here all day if you keep using clumsy attacks like those ones."
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to stop shifting my weight and stand steadily. Ry nodded as I raised my sword before me again, this time taking the short stance that I customarily used in the arena. "Good. Now don't hold back this time; I'm not going to use the flat of my blade anymore."
It went on for nearly ten minutes before Ry judged it enough. Chest heaving from exertion, I grounded the tip of my blade and leaned heavily on the crosstrees. Thin cuts crisscrossed my arms and back, and I could feel a large bruise starting to form over part of my ribcage. The cuts stung as sweat mixed with blood, the morning sun suddenly seeming ten times hotter than it had a few minutes earlier. A few paces away Ry, breathing hard and his bandanna damp with sweat, wiped the tip of his blade in the grass before returning it to its scabbard. A single cut high on his cheek seeped blood, next to a second, older scar. The one blow I had managed to land during the entire fight, and it was hardly more than a scratch. And worse yet, from the slight grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, I was beginning to suspect that -he- had been the one playing around. Spitting bitterly on the ground, I shook my head. I had though I was good with a sword, but Ry was on a completely different level altogether. "Looks like I have a long way to go yet," I muttered, half to myself.
"Huh?" Ry looked up from rummaging through his coat pockets. In one hand he held a fluted glass bottle, half-filled with a thick blue liquid. Pulling out the stopper with his teeth, he dampened the end of his sleeve with the healing potion before replacing it and tossing it over. "Here, patch yourself up a bit." Suiting actions to words he began to gingerly dab potion onto his cut.
Working out the cork, I followed suit. The shallow cuts and scratches mended themselves almost instantly, while the bruise took a bit longer. Tucking the empty bottle away, I returned my sword to its sheath. Shrugging my shoulders once or twice to settle the belt into a more comfortable position, I pulled the little string bag from around my neck and popped my spirit out onto my palm. It flickered briefly when my fingers touched it before returning to its normal state. "So what am I supposed to do with it now?"
Ry gave me an odd look. "Do you see me using a dragoon spirit? I already told you everything I know about transformations. Just try to remember what it felt like the last time."
"It hurt." I said blandly, but I rubbed the smooth stone nervously. My memories of the events of that night in Kazas were a little fuzzy at best; recalling anything that may have triggered the transformation was next to impossible. So I was essentially working blind. Ry hadn't told me much about transforming, except that with time a sort of link would form between the spirit and my mind that would make the shift from one form to the other second nature. But until I managed to form the link, there had to be another way. Closing my eyes, I tried to relax. What had it felt like? Well, it hurt. Still with my eyes closed, I frowned. No, if I didn't want it to hurt, then it shouldn't. It had been hot certainly, but I hadn't actually been burned.
There was a slow heat in my hand and I snapped my eyes open. The spirit had flared up again, hot enough to make the late summer heat seem like a mild spring morning. Ry nodded encouragingly. "Almost. Try it again."
Shutting my eyes again, I tightened my grip on the spirit and tried to remember more. Armor. How had it formed? Unbidden, the image of liquid fire dripping from my limbs like water seeped into my mind. Yes, that much I could remember. It had hardened into the armor, light as cloth but harder than tempered steel. My sword had changed to suit the armor, but where had the wings come from? Where they a part of the armor, or were they actually sprouting from my back? Since it was impossible to tell, I shoved the question away and concentrated on what the armor had felt like as it formed.
Without warning the spirit exploded into dazzling red-orange light. The air around me superheated, hotter than the depths of a blacksmith's forge. The ground at my feet erupted into flames that rippled up my legs and engulfed my body in a whirlwind of fire, white-hot and blistering as it licked at my face. Power raged through my veins, as shockingly cold as the air around me was boiling, pulsing and growing until I remember being sure that it would rip me apart from the inside out. Caught between ice and fire, I gritted my teeth and opened my eyes.
And then as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The flames disappeared and the light with it, leaving purple blotches to slide across my vision whenever I blinked. The tide of power warmed and receded, until it was little more than a faint tingling at the edge of my awareness. Blood still pounding in my ears, I glanced down. The armor was there the same as before, dark crimson, graven and inlayed and surmounted by a fist sized green gem. Inexplicably my sword had left its sheath and now rested in my hand. Reaching back over my shoulder I could feel where wings seemed to sprout out from the base of my neck.
"Good enough." Ry tugged at a shock of hair thoughtfully. "Don't try anything too erratic at first, and try to time it so that you land before your spirit runs dry. Other than that, you're going to have to figure out flying for yourself, I'm afraid. I'm not going to be much help there."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm going to take your horse and head north. Just follow the road as best as you can until you reach the mountains to the northwest. You probably have enough spirit energy to get that far at least."
"Then what?" I stretched out my wings, looking back over my shoulder at them curiously. They were quite large really, and the gossamer membrane caught the sunlight like frosted glass.
"Find somewhere out of the heat, sit and wait. It'll probably take me the rest of the day to get that far on horseback." He squinted up at the sun. "Probably around sundown, I'd say. Watch for me. And try to stay out of sight for as long as you're a dragoon." Shifting his sword, he started back in the direction of my horse. "Oh, and try not to break your neck when you land. You're not exactly graceful."
In spite of Ry's warnings, flying was not half as difficult as he'd made it sound. By comparison to using the red-eye spirit, it actually felt natural. Leveling out at two thousand feet or so, I tried to reorient myself in relation to the ground below, wings beating the thin air steadily as I turned in a slow circle. The hilly landscape had shrunk into miniscule, patchy stretches of yellowed grasses broken up by brown-green bluffs of trees and the occasional few acres of tilled brown farmland. Far off to my west lay the purple-grey slopes of the Serdian mountain range, the bushy forest at its base still steeped in early morning shadow. Seles was several miles off to the south, a tiny cluster of buildings nestled in between the low hills surrounding it. Further off still, the sea glimmered in the sunlight, appearing glassy and calm in the distance. Directly below me the road cut through the center of it all, like a dusty brown snake winding lazily from horizon to horizon. Follow the road, had he said? Wedging my sword into a niche in the hip of my armor, I took off to where the road began to angle toward the mountains, leaving a trail of red-gold sparks falling in my wake.
Ragnarok's POV:
/I don't see him anywhere. You don't think he crashed, do you?/
//How in hell should I know?// I growled. Beneath me, my lathered mount squealed and tried to shy away again. Irritably, I jerked hard on the reins. Dart and I had shifted control back and forth several times that day, and yet the horse persisted in acting up whenever I was in the saddle. While this was nothing new to me, it still didn't change the fact that it was incredibly annoying. The only useful thing about this was that the gelding would run for me as it would for no human, out of stark terror if nothing else. As a result we had reached the mountain's shadow with a good hour to spare before sunset, though the exhausted horse still reared and spooked as though it was fresh from the stall. //You did tell him to look out for us, didn't you?//
/Yeah. He should be around here somewhere/ Dart fell silent, scanning the countryside around us.
//I hope he had the sense to wait for us before going off trying to find the Urobolus. Young idiot like that probably would//
/I think he has more sense than that/ Dart argued.
//Not much// I said bluntly. //At his age, I know that you would've, and I have a little bit more faith in him than I did for you at the time//
/Thanks for sharing/ Dart replied dryly. He lapsed into silence again as we continued along the road, the horse alternately plodding and bolting at erratic intervals. Another dusty mile passed without notice, and the road begun to make the slow ascent from the prairies into the foothills. A soft breeze smelling heavily of hay whispered through the grasses on either side of the road, causing them to bend and sway; from the hillside looking out over the plains, it resembled a heaving, brown-golden sea. Though by no means cool, the breeze did provide a bit of momentary relief from the baking heat. Pulling up my mount near a bluff at the crest of the hill, I dismounted. //We can stop here. The kid's just have to come and find us when he gets hungry//
/You sure?/
"Stop that!" I snapped aloud. The gelding, which had been snorting and jerking on the reins froze, eyes wild. //Of course I'm sure. Even if he were born in a city, he'd have to be daft not to recognize the light from a campfire// Stomping my feet on the ground once or twice to recover some of the feeling, I headed toward the small grove of bent birch and alder several yards off of the road. After a moment of hesitation, the horse followed suit, head held high and snorting anxiously with each step.
/Ark? Look to the northwest for a moment, will you?/ Dart said suddenly, a note of urgency creeping into his thoughts.
//Company?// I asked, half-turning.
/Maybe/ While when not in total control both Dart and I could still 'see', though not in the normal sense of the word. In order to see anything clearly at all, the body itself had to be looking at it. Scanning the horizon, I frowned. //Where?//
/You're looking too far off. See where the land sort of breaks up a couple of miles to the north? Near the foot of the hills?/
Still frowning, I looked where he directed. The land did look broken up, with ridges of grey-white limestone jutting out of the earth like crooked teeth. An old fissure, a remnant of an old caved-in mine shaft perhaps, split the ground between them. In truth, the actual geography of the area meant little to me, but one does tend to take note of such things. The real concern was the thick dust cloud slowly rising up from where the road curved between them.
Cursing, I jerked the horse's reins and dragged him into the bluff. Whoever was raising that dust cloud, they were lost amid the outcroppings. And while that meant that there was no way that they could have seen us, even on a hilltop, it also meant that there was no way that we could see them either.
The bluff wasn't very large, hardly an acre at best, but the trees and undergrowth were dense enough that anything near the back or center of the grove would be invisible to anyone passing by on the road. Tying the reins around the trunk of a sturdy looking alder, I pulled down Zion's small pack from the saddle skirt and loosened the sweaty girth. Satisfied, I returned to the edge of the grove closest to the road and crouched down behind a screen of withering shrubs to wait.
I wasn't kept long. After five or six minutes the steady rumble of hoof beats reached my ears and the ground began to tremble, though it was so slight at first that I almost didn't feel it. The breeze changed from refreshing to choking, filling the air with the dust pounded from the road by scores of hooves. Pulling the bandana down over my mouth and nose to try to avoid breathing it in, I narrowed my eyes as the first of them came trotting past. I knew the bestial forms riding warily on the brown-black mounts far too well.
/Dread knights/ Dart growled testily. /What are they doing all of the way out here?/
I said nothing. The knight leading the column wore a helm fashioned to resemble the head of a boar, complete with upturned tusks jutting from the protruding face guard. The rest of the armor was the standard, angular design, but the silken green tabard emblazoned with Ayrel's crest tied over the breastplate was far cry from normal. A short cape of the same design hung down his back, limp and covered in dust from travel. In the dread knight corps, each of the three countries is home to fifty knights, twelve of which hold discernable rank. Six sergeants, three captains, two commanders, and one grand commander, or something to that effect. The grand commander rarely leaves the side of the High Priest, so I judged that the man riding past must have been one of the two commanders. //Interesting. Someone in Seles must have sent a pigeon when we arrived//
/They're looking for Zion. Recognize the second knight?/ Dart asked.
I frowned slightly, trying to remember. The curious, griffin-like helm was familiar, though where exactly I had seen it before eluded me. //Refresh my memory//
Dart sighed. /When Zion first transformed in Kazas, he was facing off against him, I'm positive. I thought the spell he got hit with must have killed him, but either the spell wasn't as strong as I thought, or he's a tough one/
//Wonderful// I growled. The rest of the column was passing by now, but the stony-faced men riding iron-backed in the saddles were low ranking guardsmen. And judging from the bags under their eyes and the stubble covering their chins, they'd ridden through the night, and probably most of the day as well. //They must be patrolling the area. Unless the temple sent them to deal with the Urobolus?//
/Maybe/ Dart didn't sound convinced.
As the last man trotted by, a thought occurred to me. //How much would you miss our dear commander up there at the front?//
/Not much/
//How much do you think the temple would miss him?//
Dart's answering laugh was surprisingly vicious. /They're in a column, Ark. One good shot at the commander and the rest of them will get caught in it as well/
//I guess that's just hard luck on their part// I replied with vast insincerity. The entire column was on the hillside now, but the leaders would reach the bottom soon. If the shot were to work, then it would have to be made now. Bracing myself for the transformation, I had half risen to my feet when I heard a twig snap behind me. Automatically my hand went to my sword, whipping it free from its sheath as I spun around and lashed out at chest height.
Zion yelped and jumped back, the singing tip of the blade missing his ribcage by millimeters. "Hey, get a grip! It's just me!"
With a snarl, I jammed my blade back into its sheath and Zion took a step back. The window of opportunity had shut. With him here, I couldn't let myself risk the transformation. "Where the hell where you?!" With a tremendous effort I managed to keep my voice down just above a whisper, remembering at the last minute that we weren't alone.
"Looking for you!" He hissed back angrily, but his eyes flickered uncertainly. "You sure took your time getting here," he muttered in a more normal tone of voice. "I've been dodging that patrol all day, and that's not as easy as it sounds."
"Look faster next time!" I snapped. //Your turn. If I stay out any longer, I think that I'll end up killing him// The patrol had reached the bottom of the hill now, fanning out as they cantered onto the plains. Still fuming at the lost opportunity, I brushed past Dart and retreated to a quiet corner of his consciousness. Humans!
Zion's eyebrows rose as we switched, and Dart rubbed his forehead to try to cover the moment. He may not have known what it meant, but the kid had noticed something at least. Moderating his tone much more than I had, Dart kept his eyes on the ground. "Just. don't do that again. I don't like being surprised."
If his eyebrows had managed to climb any higher they would have been lost in his hairline, but Dart ignored Zion's look. Pushing past, he tugged absently at the knot in his sling. "Did you find your horse? No? You'd better go see to him then; we had a hard ride today."
Zion's POV:
By the time we finally set out again the mountain's shadow had stretched over several miles of the plains and the sky to the west had faded to a pastel pinkish-orange. A few rare clouds had drifted onto the horizon, thin, wispy things that looked little more than a tiny white smudge against the rest of the sky. They would bring no rain, yet. For the next week at least, the only clouds that the villagers in Seles would be seeing would be dust clouds. Overhead a lone hawk wheeled about in a tight circle, calling out stridently before sheering off toward the brown-grey mountain slopes.
The temperature was falling with the sun, but it was still cool only in comparison with the heat of midday. Tying my overshirt to the back of the saddle, I patted my mount on the shoulder before leading him out of the grove and onto the hill after Ry. Sweat curled and matted the gelding's coat, and he plodded along slowly at the end of the lead, but at least his breathing had returned to normal. For now he'd just have to be led rather than ridden, until he recovered some of his lost energy. Ry stood halfway down the hill, scanning the waving grasses with his good hand on his sword hilt. He didn't turn as I approached, but directed his words back over his shoulder instead. "The village is just a few miles to the north of here, then?"
"Yeah." I rubbed my ear. Actually, I'd overshot this morning and had to walk ten miles back to the road on foot after my spirit had given out. I'd passed the village on my way, but had resisted the impulse to check it out on my own. "The place looked pretty quiet."
"Urobolus are used to living in caves. They probably wouldn't come out in the daytime." Taking his hand from the sword, he let it hang at his side. "Keep an eye out for that patrol. They may decide to set up camp for the night, but if they don't I don't want to run into any surprises."
"Don't you?" I said, but under my breath. I remembered the hungry look I'd seen on his face earlier as the patrol had ridden past. Something told me that he'd like nothing better than to stumble on their camp and take his chances at them, no matter how suicidal it was. Personally, I was just as happy to stay clear of them. I'd seen them ride past more than once today, and I'd recognized the second dread knight all too well. Soltrane didn't seem quite as inclined to kill me as the other dread knights; at least, he'd planned on giving me a trial rather than killing me on the spot as the others would have done; but I still didn't want to meet him again with a full patrol at his back, dragoon spirit or no dragoon spirit. Clicking to my gelding to try to coax him into moving a few paces faster, I trailed a few strides behind Ry. With luck, the patrol would be far from the biggest problem we'd face tonight. A few moments after the thought flitted through my head, I frowned. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
` In spite of being on foot, the few miles passed quickly and before the last of the colors had fled the western sky we found ourselves on another hillside, looking down into a sort of shallow valley. The nameless village sat in the bottom of the bowl, fourteen or fifteen small houses and outbuildings all clustered around a large, sheltered well. Plowed furrows covered the surrounding hillsides, growing everything from small withered cabbages to thick, healthy stalks of corn. There was no sign of movement in either the village or among the crops, save for the rustling corn leaves as the twilight breezes whispered through them. Strangely, this made me feel even more uncomfortable. I'm used to fighting things that I can see, and I don't like it when they're hidden from view.
Ry glanced over at me. "You better let your horse go. He shouldn't stray too far, and he'll just be a nuisance if you bring him any closer."
I grunted in agreement and set to work unbuckling the girth straps and lifting the saddle off of his back. Removing one of the reins from the bit, I knotted it around his neck so that I'd have something to grab hold of when I came for him later. Dumping the gear at the end of the nearest cornrow, I took a moment to draw my sword before returning to where Ry stood waiting. If I couldn't see any of the Urobolus until they attacked, then I wouldn't have any time to draw my sword either.
We slipped into the village through the eastern end, cautiously making our way down the single 'street' with weapons drawn and at the ready. Ry's sword remained sheathed at his side but he carried a long dagger instead, holding the smudged blade carefully between three fingers of his right hand, ready to make a throw. I kept my sword resting against my shoulder, eyes darting about. Every shadow, and there were quite a few of them in the twilight, seemed to move and shift every time I started to look away. I half expect at any moment for something to leap out and sink its fangs into my shoulders and drag me down, but nothing ever moved, except in my imagination. The little settlement remained still; deathly quiet save for the soft sound of our boots scuffing on the hard ground. We searched the alleys, crept into the few small barns, and even peered into the windows of a few houses, but each was as empty as the next. Within fifteen minutes it was apparent that the village was completely deserted.
Letting my blade slide home into its sheath, I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. Avoiding a fight, any fight, is always a good thing, but I was sort of eager to try out the red-eye spirit in combat again. On the other hand, I was used to fighting people, not overgrown monsters. Whatever creatures I had rooted out earlier to help build up my spirit earlier today would be nothing in comparison to the Urobolus. Sitting on the lip of the stone well that the village seemed to be situated around, I cracked my knuckles and flexed my fingers once or twice. "So what now?"
Ry paced back and forth in the dusty square that surrounded the well. He was not nearly as at ease as I, and still held the dagger between his fingers. "They're still here. They have to be."
"Why? Maybe the guardsmen fought them off."
"I seriously doubt that. The dread knights, maybe. But there'd be some signs of a fight left over, at least." He stopped to stare fixedly off into the darkness. "Maybe they come down from the mountains at night?" He mused, more to himself than to me.
I rolled my eyes. "Look, if you're really that eager for a fight, then why don't you just go pick on the guardsmen? I'm sure that they'd be more than happy to accommodate you."
Ry stopped and turned to glare at me, opening one mouth as he did so to deliver a retort. What he was going to say I never did find out, because at that precise moment a violent tremor ran through the earth, sending me sprawling face first onto the ground. It lasted for only a moment, but the echoes were still rumbling off of the surrounding hills when I pushed myself back to my feet. Ry was on one knee, examining the blood dripping from a gash in his forefinger. His knife lay in the dust next to him; it must have slipped when he went down. He stuck the finger in his mouth for a moment, then pulled it out and wiped it on his sleeve. "What was-"A second tremor shook the ground, cutting him off again. Panes of glass rattled in the windows of nearby houses, and an old wooden bucked tumbled off of someone's front porch to land with a crash in a dried up rain barrel.
Before the last of the rumblings had faded Ry was back on his feet, plucking up his knife and backing away from the well. "They're underground." He kept his voice surprisingly quiet and level, but I could hear the note of urgency. "The mountains are a gigantic network of honeycombed caves, some of them extending out for miles in any direction. If the well extends into an underground lake, or if the bottom dropped out of it."
Moving toward the houses, I drew my sword. "They're living underneath the village?"
This time there was no tremor. Without warning water gushed over the sides of the well, splashing onto the ground. What followed was like something out of a nightmare.
A blunt, shadowy head on a long thick neck emerged from the depths of the well, forked tongue flicking in and out as it tasted the air. Framed against the night sky, it didn't resemble the head of any snake I had ever before seen. A thin crest of spines bristled down the center of the face, and three bulbous golden eyes shone out from beneath a heavy ridge of bone. Water streaming and dripping down the scales of its back, the Urobolus started to slide out of the well, thirty feet of coiling, twisting serpent that was accompanied by a heavy, musky scent that made me want to gag. Unfortunately for me, the sound caught the monster's attention. With a hiss that sounded more like the scream of a child it dropped to the ground and rushed towards me with surprising speed. Readying my blade for a thrust, I braced myself for the collision.
Ry, it seemed, had other ideas. When the snake was a bare three meters out of reach of my blade it suddenly seemed to collapse upon itself, squealing and hissing like a piglet, the thick black hilt of Ry's knife protruding from one ruined eye. Sword in hand, Ry followed, the bright blade flashing one, two, three times in the moonlight. The serpent shuddered and went limp, the back of its skull a wreck. Raising his sword again, Ry grinned. "That one was mine. Go on and change quickly, before her mate comes." Retrieving his knife, he disappeared into the shadow of the houses lining the square.
More water came spilling over the sides of the well, and I forced myself to close my eyes. The change seemed to come easier that way, somehow. Reaching tentatively out to the spirit, I felt it answer back, power flooding through my body like a mountain river in the spring. Heat flared up, and I opened my eyes just in time to see the second Urobolus lunge forward from the well. I kicked off hard and the serpent passed beneath me, plowing into the front of the nearest house and collapsing the wall in an avalanche of splintered wood and broken building stone, effectively stunning him. Not wanting to miss the advantage, I dropped down to strike at the prone form.
While I worked, two more Urobolus slipped from the mouth of the well, though these were smaller, only partially grown. Meaning that they were only twenty feet long, as opposed to the full thirty or forty. Jerking my blade free I took to the air again, mentally running over my options. Even if no more came out it was still one on three, and those were pretty heavy odds. I wasn't sure how much my being a dragoon leveled things out, but in the back of my mind I could already feel the spirit power channeled from the spirit ebbing, slipping away like sand in an hourglass. Energy was lost faster in combat than just flying; if I were to use a spell, then it would use up whatever strength I had left. One of the smaller serpents struck out at me, and I winged a little higher to avoid them. In the background I could see the adult slowly drawing itself from the ruins of the house. Sand in the hourglass. Whatever I did, it would have to be fast.
As the snake struck again I flipped my blade around, bringing it up and across so that it slashed the creature across the roof of its mouth. It fell back with an agonized screech, its raised head leaving its throat dangerously exposed. A quick dart in and out coupled with two short slashes and it collapsed to the ground with a shiver, its long coils falling back over the opening of the well. Immediately the first fell I spun in mid air, lashing out at chest height. The second Urobolus, which had tried to strike from behind, caught the blow across the forehead, splitting the fine spines that adorned the face. It flinched back for a moment, then struck out again. Pain blossomed up through my right leg; four inch fangs pumped venom into my muscle; venom that was instantly counteracted by some vague workings of the red-eye spirit. As close as I was there was no room to wield the blade, so instead I used the heavy hilt as a club, hitting the serpent across the back of the neck with all of the strength I could muster. The pressure on my leg eased, but almost immediately the adult slammed into me from behind with such force that for a moment I lost my vision and was sent sprawling blindly to the ground. Lying there dazedly, I felt the last of the sand start to trickle into the bottom of the glass.
Magic. How had I done magic before? Heaving myself onto my feet, I was vaguely aware of the two Urobolus slithering across the square toward me. Cripes, out of all of the things Ry hadn't been able to explain to me, magic had to have been one of them. Fire. Well, it had to involve that, obviously. Dimly, I recalled the ever-expanding circle of fire chasing down guardsmen back in Kazas. No. Not like that. But what if I could make it more focused?
Drawing on the last of the spirit energy without really being aware of how I did it, I stretched one crimson gauntlet towards the snakes and released the spell.
Wave upon wave of fire seemed to burst from the ground before me, hitting the two Urobolus head-on. This time there were no shrieks; the two monsters simply disappeared beneath the press of the flames. The fires continued on, rippling across the square and catching on the two houses directly across from me.
Stumbling back with a sigh, I felt the armor dissolve. Pain flourished anew in my leg, but it felt strangely numb as sudden elation flowed through me. I'd done it. I had no idea in hell how I'd managed to, but I'd done it. I was so pleased with myself that I didn't hear Ry approach from the shadows, and jumped when he spoke.
"Not bad. Could have done better, but I think it could have been much worse." He passed me a damp rag the smelt heavily of potions. "There. Stick that on your leg for a bit."
Pulling up my pants leg I started to do just that, but at that moment an unfamiliar voice rang out unexpectedly from the direction of the burning houses.
"DAMN!"
Still clasping the cloth to my leg, I looked up. Someone was stalking across the square from largest of the burning houses, carrying a large bundle in her arms. She wasn't tall, even for a girl, and wore her black hair short, although it hung longer at the front. Dressed in tattered pants that had been ripped off at the knees, her dark red shirt and faded long blue vest seemed to be in only slightly better condition.
She was also spouting a stream of curses that would have made a sailor blush.
Without even glancing at the twisted, bloody Urobolus corpses lying across the ground, she stormed over and flung her bundle to the ground. It clattered as it struck, and through a small tear in the cloth I thought I saw a glint of gold. Pointing at it, she glared at me. "Do you have any idea of what that was?"
"Uh-"
"-That- was three days and nights worth of wandering around these bloody, goddess forsaken mountains! -That- was the only heap of stuff worth stealing anywhere short of Bale! And you know what? You just ruined it, you bloody flaming pyromaniac!" Blowing her bangs out of her eyes, she scowled. "You just had to choose tonight to light things up, didn't you!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped back, recovering slightly from my initial shock of being bitched out by a total stranger. I jabbed a finger at the nearest serpent. "Those things were going to wreck the place!"
"Oh, what, and that isn't?" She flung a hand back in the direction of the merrily burning houses. "You idiot, if you'd just have left them alone they wouldn't have done a thing!"
"Yeah, right. Just try to kill anyone who passes through!"
"They didn't try to kill me!"
"Well you probably came in the day!"
"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"
"It has everything to do with everything!"
"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Not only you're a pyro, but you're a raving lunatic as well!" Stopping to take a breath, she snapped her eyes over at Ry, who was for some reason laughing uproariously. "What the hell are you laughing at?"
It took Ry a minute to get his mirth back under control again, but even then he still snickered. A few gasping breaths, and he managed to compose himself, if just barely. A grin still tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Zion, you're going to kill me for this."
"Kill you for what?" I asked suspiciously.
Ry didn't answer. Instead, he tossed something small and flaringly bright blue to the girl, who turned it over in her hands with the air of someone appraising a jewel.
It took a couple of moments for my brain to put two and two together. A few gears ground. They rattled and squeaked, turning slowly and in desperate need of oiling. Then everything clicked into place. And the little gears in my mind suddenly crumbled into dust.
"Ry, can I borrow your dagger for a minute?"
Quick battle, huh? Oh well. Being level one dragoon sucks ass. I tried to make it interesting. And probably failed horribly, but that's for you guys to judge. AND there's your next blue-sea dragoon. Two birds with one stone! Bwaha!
**Dart, Nova, and Garren are all hiding in a small, makeshift bomb shelter constructed from old garbage can lids, hubcaps, slabs of cement and sandbags. All three appear to be very nervous, and speak in hushed tones while they keep a nervous watch on the yard outside. A very confused Zion, who pops in through a gap in the ceiling, soon joins them**
Zion: What's going on?
Nova: **hits him over the head** Shhh! She'll hear us!
Zion: **rubbing head** What? Who?
Garren: Shade. Some idiot went and let her pass her learner's test. She's got a @#$%'n driver's license now!
Zion: I don't see any cars around.
Dart: -.-; She's not driving a car. All she could find was the lawn mower.
Zion: But I thought they sold the lawn tractor?
Nova: They did. She's driving a push mower.
Zion: O.o;
Shade: **Whirrs by seated atop a very battered mower, wearing a dented pylon as a crash helmet and giggling insanely as she chases a random Lloyd around the yard**