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CHAPTER NINE
Kate and Rick stood with their mouths hanging open as the large dragon who just moments ago was the woman who had helped them when they were lost wanderers in this fun house mirror version of Camelot.
Geoffrey stood there with an angry scowl on his face. Zolitorus, for whatever reason, didn't seem all that concerned. Kate hoped it was because he had some hidden magical way to get out of there.
She was still having problems believing what she had just seen happen before her eyes. She knew they had been deposited into some other world when they passed through that mirror portal but this kind of stuff wasn't real. Kate didn't believe in magic, or dragons, or mirror portals for that matter. But here she and Rick were. Lost in some farcical land of fantasy.
She wanted to wake up from this nightmare that she had to be having. But she couldn't wake up. Instead the woman who helped them just up and turned herself into a freakin' dragon right in front of her.
Kate grabbed Rick and whispered angrily in his ear. "I thought female dragons just sat around, got fat and had kids. Doesn't look like she just sits around."
Rick shrugged before he took a couple of steps toward the large fierce looking dragon. Kate wanted to call him back, but that would be pointless.
"Sadie, if that is indeed your name. What purpose do you hope to accomplish? Why do you want to wage war with the people of this kingdom?"
She bent her longish neck a bit so she could bring her face closer to his. "My name is Saedee."
There was a guttural component to the name she spoke. Rick imagined it would be near impossible for human vocal chords to correctly pronounce it. Sadie was about as close as anyone would be able achieve.
Rick tried his smile. "That is a beautiful name. I am only sorry that my inadequate vocal chords would never be able to do it justice. But I still have a fond memory of the woman Sadie who was so generous and helpful to two lost souls in a land they had no knowledge of."
The dragon turned toward Kate. "Is he always like this?"
Kate wasn't sure if she imagined what appeared to be a smirk on the dragon's face.
Kate just nodded her head. The dragon Saedee let go a terrifying sound that almost sounded like laughter. "Zolitorus," the dragon turned toward him. "How were you able to keep a straight face during your time with these humans? Do they always prattle like this?"
Zolitorus took a few steps away from Geoffrey and stood near the creature.
"You have no idea how much I suffered my Queen."
The huge dragon began to blur to the human eye as the much larger version of her transformed back into the vision of the human woman Sadie.
Geoffrey glared at the wizard now standing next to their captor. "You filthy traitor. How could you go against your King?"
"Oh hush up." Sadie waved her hand in the air. "You don't know anything about anything, and I am a bit too tired to explain it to you. So," she turned to Zolitorus. "You have these people secured for the rest of the evening. I'm tired and the entertainment can wait until morning."
The human version of the dragon turned and wandered back toward the church. Zolitorus indicated to some of the mercenary soldiers to take 'their guests' over to a small hut. He followed.
The three of them were unceremoniously shoved into the small one room building.
Zolitorus stared at the scowling trio. "Try to get some sleep. You will need it. There will be guards at the door and at all the windows."
"Why are you doing this?" Geoffrey was very angry.
The often frivolous wizard wiped the grin off his face. "There's a reason why I've managed to live many more years than the rest of you."
"Because you're a stinking coward." Kate growled.
He chuckled. "Hardly. No, it's because I always evaluate the situation and then pick the side whose goals best align with my own. And survival is one of my most important goals."
He smirked as he closed the door.
Geoffrey stomped over to one corner of the small building and flopped down and continued to scowl at the floor in front of him.
Rick led Kate over to a longer unblocked section of the wall. There were no windows, and no furniture nearby. He sat down on the floor and reached for Kate's hand. She took it and allowed him to guide her down next to him.
"I'm so sorry I dragged you into this?" He pulled her head down onto his shoulder. "Next time I have a great idea for a fun day, tell me you have to wash your curtains or something."
She smiled into the muscle of his arm. "This isn't on you, Rick. I'm a big girl, and I wouldn't have gone out with you if I didn't think I would have a good time."
She played with his chain mail shirt. "Well you said we would be able to experience medieval living, But I have to say I never expected a real dragon to be a part of it."
He pulled her tighter to his side. "You're the best, you know that?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I know." She chuckled. "But you aren't so bad yourself."
They stayed propped against the wall in each other's arms in a weary silence for several minutes.
Kate expelled a large sigh. Rick turned her face toward him.
"I'm so sorry I got you into this, Kate. If only I'd never seen that ad in the paper."
"Shhh," she put her finger over his lips. "It's not your fault. Not even that over imaginative mind that you have could ever have foretold something like this could happen."
"Still, I can't help feeling responsible for all this."
She chuckled. "You are responsible for us being thrown into some alternate dimension? You're responsible that we've become embroiled in the start of some kind of war that just happens to include a dragon?" She shook her head. "You're good at surprises, but all this is even more than I think even you could be responsible for."
His face was still locked in a frown. She puts her finger under his chin and tips his face toward hers. She places her lips against his and puts everything in it.
She pulls away and captures his eyes with hers. "I know that we will get out of this, because we have to. We have too much yet to experience together." She dives in for another kiss. "I am used to you Rick, and I have no inclination to not have you around for a long long time." Kate pulled back and stared into his bright blue eyes. "I love you Rick."
They snuggled even closer and closed their eyes. Maybe they'll even get a little sleep before the morning brings whatever it will bring.
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To their combined surprise, they both had managed to be fall asleep for a few hours, but the morning sunshine was now shining through the curtain less windows. Kate was first to gain her feet, followed by Rick. Geoffrey still sat in the corner with his eyes wide open.
The door suddenly flew open and crashed against the wall. A couple of dark clad mercenaries stepped in. Both had their swords drawn.
"You three, get up. We're going out, now!"
The three of them slowly walked out of the building with their two escorts, swords drawn, closely behind.
They were herded out into the middle of the main street that bisected the village. Kate glared at Zolitorus who was standing next to the Sadie version of the dragon. Kate had to admit that it would be easier for her troops to interact with the dragon in her human shape than when she looked like a giant lizard.
Most of her troops were standing around in a large circle which contained the three prisoners.
Sadie stepped out into the center of the street.
"Before I outline our plans concerning the attack on Avoria and the kingdom, I thought we should take a little time for some entertainment." There was a loud shout of approval.
Sadie walked up to where Rick and Kate were standing. "Now these two are an interesting duo. They were brought here through a mirror portal from some strange land. A land where they claim that magic doesn't exist, and there are no dragons to be found. At least that's what our friend the wizard tells me." The merc soldiers all laughed. "And when I first met them a few days ago, they both claimed to be knights of some realm called York." Sadie walked a circle around both Rick and Kate. "I don't know. From the look of them, they appear much more like a couple of spoiled nobles who haven't lifted anything more strenuous than a knife and fork." More laughter.
Sadie walked around the two of them, who both could look down on the plump woman. But they kept their mouths shut since they knew what she could turn herself into within a few moments.
"So I decided that a little test of their knightly prowess would be exciting." Sadie waved her hands and got the loud reaction she was looking for. "So I've chosen one of my soldiers who would be around her size. A fellow who wasn't all muscle, but was more wirery. More like Lady Katherine is herself."
A fellow just under six foot tall, with a slender build stepped out to the shouts of the crowd.
Sadie stepped over and clapped her hand on the man's shoulder. "I don't want her killed, but mess her up pretty good for me."
He nodded. "Yes, my Queen."
Another soldier came out and handed Sadie the extra-long Shillelagh that Kate had been carrying as her go to weapon when she was thrust into this world. Sadie walked over to Kate.
"An interesting weapon, my dear. I hope it will last for a while at least. Wood seldom lasts very long when pitted against an iron blade."
Kate just glared at her as she snatched her "stick" away from the human form dragon.
"Were you the one who sent that assassin to try and kill us in our sleep back at Rock Ridge?"
The human dragon grinned. "Yeah, but apparently he wasn't very good."
Kate smiled. "No he wasn't, why did you send him?"
Sadie shrugged. "I guess you'd call it a test."
Kate frowned. "What happened to him anyhow?"
Sadie let a long moment of silence pass. "Would you believe me if I told you I ate him?"
Kate glared at her. "I wouldn't put it past you."
Sadie laughed long and loud. "You make me sound like some kind of monster."
Kate rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I wonder where I got that idea."
The human form dragon just grinned, and singled to the man she had brought out.
The merc drew his sword and began to circle, so Kate copied his move so they were both circling each other. The soldier whipped his blade in a figure eight motion. Kate smirked and used an old memory and spun her staff in a circle like a baton. She kept the circular spin going.
"What do you think is going to happen if you stick your blade into the whirlwind?" Kate growled as she tried to keep faking complete confidence in what she was doing.
He tried a quick thrust, but Kate managed to knock the blade away. She switched to a horizontal spin toward his head, but was short. They began to circle again. Kate knew she had to appear like she was in control of her weapon, but she really only had messed around with it a little since she got it. She frantically was trying to remember some of the tricks she leaned in the academy.
They kept circling each other with occasional thrusts and swipes but there had been no landed hits.
Then Kate tried for a low sweep motion in the hope of taking him off his feet, but he saw it coming and jumped over the staff, and countered with a downward slash toward the back of Kate's head. She barely got the Shillelagh up in time. The blade hit hard on her staff, then slid off of it and bounced off her thick braid.
She spun back and faced her opponent. He had a big grin on his face. He had already decided that he would be the winner so he started hamming it up. It just made her mad.
So she danced around a bit in from of him. She would bounce back and forth in front of him, and every so often she would jab at him like she had a spear. She kept doing it and finally she got him were she wanted.
She went for a thrust over to the left side of his stomach. He lazily swung his sword down to knock the staff away, but this time she used the force he'd imparted onto her staff and used it to accelerate her round about swing that traveled a complete 360 degree circle only to land up side of his head. The blow knocked the merc to the ground.
Kate followed up with a savage thrust to his belly which caused him to roll over and barf all over the ground. Kate looked up and held out her hand with her thumb straight out. Everyone gave the thumbs down.
Kate shrugged, flipped her staff around and cracked him on the back of his head. He was out like a snuffed candle.
She glared at Sadie as she walked back next to where Rick was standing. Rick and Geoffrey were both grinning like kids with a lollipop as they watched a couple of the fellow's comrades dragged off the unconscious soldier.
Sadie walked out to the center of the street and silenced the rowdy crowd.
"It looks like I might have underestimated the woman's abilities and her ferocity." She looked at Rick. "I shan't make that same mistake a second time." She gave Rick a nasty smile. "I've changed my mind. I was going to have you fight one of my sergeants who command a small infiltration troop. But I think I'll give you a more interesting challenge."
She turned to the crowd. "Tristan," she shouted. "You have your wish."
A tall man, even taller than Rick stepped out of the crowd and walked toward the center of the street. He was well built, but not overly muscled. Rick could tell just by looking at him that he would be fast. Very fast.
Someone came over and tried to hand Rick a sword. He refused to take it.
"This is not my sword." He stared at the dark clothed Tristan. "I'm willing to bet that Sir Tristan there is using a sword that he's quite familiar with. The exact weight, the way if moves through the air with every cut and thrust he makes. Yet you try to fob off some piece of poorly forged iron that has a chipped and bent blade and loose wrapping on the hilt." Rick stared at the imposing swordsman in front of him.
"Would you feel like you actually won a contest that was so heavily weighted in your favor as to not even be considered a contest of skill?"
Sadie crooked an eye toward the man in black. He just nodded. She turned to the crowd.
"Bring Sir Richard's sword. The winner shall decide who keeps it."
There was a lot of shuffling around and men looking at the ones next to them. After about five minutes of that, a slight young man stepped forth holding Rick's sword in his hand.
It was obvious that this kid had never had anything that nice in his life, and he was not happy having to give it up. He walked up, gave Rick a scowl and dropped the sword at his feet. Without a word, the youth turned and walked back into the crowd of mercenaries.
Rick pulled the blade from its sheath and turned to Kate. He handed her the sheath.
"If you would hold this for me milady, hopefully it won't take too long." Kate gave him a raised brow but took the sheath from his hands.
As he walked toward the center of the street, Rick took several practice swings with the sword. It was the sword he purchased at the fair and as such it was not a sword he had actually used in competition. But when he found it at that swordsmith's stand he knew it was for him. It had a similar weight and feel as one of his favorite competition swords. He swung a few swipes because he wanted to get familiarized again with this sword. It felt good in his hand.
He turned and stood looking at the most likely disgraced knight Tristan. He had pulled his sword from its sheath also. Rick looked into his eyes and saw nothing. There was no emotion, no hate, no fear, no excitement, nothing.
Sadie raised her voice for the crowd again. "Since we should be witness to a couple of true knights fighting for our pleasure and entertainment. It should also mean more. I declare this a duel to the death.
Rick heard Kate gasp. He hadn't expected anything else. It had been a couple years since he had done any competitive sword play. And there was the time when they were on that scavenger hunt case where he had to square off against a pretty good swordsman who was actually just part of the game, but Rick hadn't known that at the time.
He was going to have to fight defensively for a bit until his muscle memory was sufficiently back so he could makes some moves that would allow him to take the measure of this Tristan.
"Okay gentlemen, once I make it back to the audience circle you can commence.
Neither combatant gave a rat's butt if Sadie had moved away yet or not. Both immediately began to circle each other slowly. Tristan tried a quick lunging thrust directly at Rick's chest but he was able to slap it away. He countered with a sweeping counter toward Tristan's thighs. He was short by inches.
Rick backed off and studied the man in black's posture and stance. Tristan seemed very much a stand up kind of fighter. He didn't bend a lot at the waist. The man made a lazy thrust move, but when Rick parried it Tristan tried a quick riposte which almost knocked the sword out of his hand. He managed to force the blade down with a block from his sword's cross guard.
They backed up and began to circle each other again. Rick noted a slight smile on Tristan's face this time. The merc was beginning to enjoy himself.
The traded off a flurry of slash and blocks in a concentrated burst of fury. The stepped back. Both needed to catch their breaths. They both circled some more. It was clear that both were strongly right handed since they both instinctively moved their circling counter clockwise.
"You are better than your body shape would suggest Sir Richard." Tristan's voice was deep and showed little emotion.
"I have to apologize. There was a big banquet at the castle the other night and I may have indulged myself a bit too much."
The black knight, as Rick was beginning to think of him as, just nodded. "Life in a castle makes women out of men." He lunged, trying to take Rick by surprise. Rick was able to block the lunge and redirect his blade to within a few inches of Tristan's hip.
Rick found himself doing well, but not so much because of his better hand and eye coordination but because his mind seemed to be mapping the moves being made by both of them better. His body wasn't quite up to physical coordination he needed just yet, but his mind was a step faster than his opponent. It was what had saved him on more than a few occasions.
He stepped back and used his sword to create a wild figure eight pattern in front of him. There was no intention of it being any threat to his opponent. But it was one of the tricks he used to loosen up the muscles in his arms. No celebrated swordsman would ever make himself look so silly during a match. Their egos wouldn't let them do such a thing. Rick didn't care about his ego, he cared about winning.
Suddenly the black knight used a double faint by coming from the side with a horizontal slash which Rick position his sword to block, only to find that Tristan was able to redirect his blade to a vertical upsweep.
Rick sucked in any expletive he had on his tongue as he saw the thin line of blood from his stomach to his chest. Luckily it wasn't a deep wound, but it did sting.
Rick stepped back to catch his breath. If there was one thing that might put him at a great disadvantage it might just be his conditioning. He could match Tristan for speed, and swordsmanship, but he was twenty pounds overweight. He didn't have the endurance that a lifelong mercenary would have. He would have to end this soon, or Tristan would end him.
They were too well matched, and that gave Tristan the edge. Rick was going to have to use the one thing that he knew his opponent didn't have⦠imagination.
So once he squared off again he plotted his risky ploy. Rick moved in closer and exchanged some blade banging. He stepped back as if to regroup but then immediately he double palmed the hilt and made it look like he was going to aim straight for Tristan's face but once the merc shifted his defense up to protect his head, Rick turned the sword vertical and slammed it into the black knights foot. His scream was loud, but it became much louder when Rick used both hands on the hilt to twist the blade in the man's foot.
As Tristan fell back to the ground nearly unconscious from the pain with the gaping hole in his foot, Rick just stepped back.
Sadie walked out from the circle of people and stared at her black knight, then turned toward Rick. "I told you this was to the death."
Rick stared at her for a few moments. "That man is a mercenary, a master swordsman who will have to live with a significant limp from now on. What kind of mercenary swordsman do you think he will be now?" Rick looked down at the man. "Maybe he'll be able to groom horses. He sure as hell's not going to be an elite swordsman anymore."
Sadie stared at Rick for a long time without saying a word. If one watched her face it slowly morphed from a glaring frown slowly, ever so slowly to a smirk, then a grin.
"It may have been sheer coincidence that you two were the ones who stumbled across my mirror portal, and I do mean stumble." She chuckled. "But I'm glad it was you. You've provided me with more fun than I've had in decades."
Kate gave her a glare. "Why did you do that in the first place? What was the point of stealing someone from their home world?"
She gave Kate a smirk. "I was bored, so I went fishing."
She turned and looked at a couple of soldiers, then pointed to the writhing Tristan.
"Take him into one of the cabins and stuff something in those wounds."
Rick walked over to where Kate was standing. She place her hand on his chest and followed the slash wound he had from his belly to his chest.
"Does it hurt?" She looked up at him, a single tear in the corner of one eye.
He smiled at her. "I'd love to act all macho and tell you it's nothing but a scratch, because basically that's really all it was. It's a long scratch, but crap, it does sting quite a bit."
He leaned down and kissed her. "To bad we don't have any liquor that I could take as a pain killer."
She frowned. "The alcohol could be better used as a disinfectant."
He grinned. "I'd rather drink it."
Sadie stepped back out into the middle of the road. "I want everyone to get their stuff packed up and be ready to ride. I want to be on the way before noon."
Everyone began to bustle around as nearly every individual headed off in a different direction.
Geoffrey joined Rick as they confronted the old woman who was a dragon.
"Why Sadie? What is it that makes you want to march on Avoria and the kingdom?" Rick didn't understand.
Zolitorus joined the group. "You mean you haven't told them yet my Queen?"
She gave him a quick shake of the head. She turned to the three knights that had snuck down into her camp just to find that information out so they could take the information back. It was kind of funny actually.
She stared at the three of them for a few moments. "I'm going to keep you three alive so you can see my victory. Something I've been wishing to happen for decades. I'm going there to get my son back."
Both Geoffrey and Rick looked confused. Kate sucked in a deep breath.
"Are you saying your son is being held in Rock Ridge Castle?" Rick asked, even though he couldn't think of a reason why she'd lie.
She nodded. "That's where he is, maybe you've heard of him. Goes by the name Zachariah."
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All Readers are Appreciated, Review if you wish
A/N: Surprise! Another little twist to make things a little more interesting?
