The bell above the shop door jangled, and Angela Morcala smiled as she heard the rapid patter of feet. She rose and looked out from the small room behind the counter just as Devih came running up to it. The girl looked very excited.
“Miss Morcala!” Devih said. “Have you heard?!”
“I don’t think so,” Angela smiled at her niece. “You have heard it, it seems, so why don’t you tell me?”
“It’s Caveria,” the girl said. “She’s fought another dragon!”
“Oh,” Angela said, and then she said it again, as it sank in. Another dragon. A second dragon.
“Where did you hear this?”
“Down at the docks,” Devih said, and climbed up to sit on the counter. She dangled her legs and sighed happily. “There was a boat coming in, from downriver, and I went up to give them flyers.” Devih glanced at Angela, who smiled back approvingly. “I heard them talk about stuff, lots of stuff. Boring stuff. But then one of them mentioned her.”
Angela chuckled and tousled the girl’s hair. She had to stretch to reach the top of her head, and Devih was really getting too old for it. Right now she was too excited to mind.
“It was in the mountains, near Davorra,” Devih went on. “She fought the dragon with fire and lightning, and she beat it.”
Angela froze. Lightning - that was not a battle mage skill. Some mages could do it, or rather, imitate it, with white fire, but real lightning? That was - dragon magic.
“Did, did she kill it?” Angela asked, hoping her voice was steady enough.
“No,” Devih said, with evident disappointment. “She beat it, and forced it to take her with it.”
“Take her with it?” Angela said. That she’d never heard of. But if she’d killed it - as far as she knew, there could be two reasons for Caveria to kill a second dragon. First, of course, the honor and glory of it. There were those who had killed a dragon in single combat. There were none who had killed two. Caveria was proud and yearned for glory, according to every single story and song.
The second was more troubling. Angela was no mage, but she knew that you could make powerful amulets from dragon body parts. Amulets, that might lead you to the cursed Dragonblade, which had already been found and then disappeared. According to the rumors.
She hoped Caveria hadn’t found the sword. Or that nobody else had. But Devih was still talking - she forced her attention back to the girl.
“They laughed,” Devih was saying, “but just think, Miss Morcala! She didn’t kill it, she tamed it! She’s a dragon rider!”
“Well, now!” Angela said, laughing. “I have never heard of that, except in the song of poor Ofren!”
“He was stupid,” Devih said dismissively. “He wanted to usurp the Moon Goddess. Caveria would never do that! Oh, I hope she comes back to Ambor! She could stop the war and set everything right!”
Angela gave her niece a troubled look. Caveria was her hero, and had been for years, but this was getting close to a line that should not be crossed. The gods tolerated a lot of human folly, but not usurpation. The song of Ofren made that painfully clear.
“Keep your eyes and ears open, okay? Tell me if you hear anything else about Caveria.”
“Of course!” Devih jumped down from the counter. “I will go to the North Gate now with flyers. Maybe someone has heard something there!” She waved and ran out the door and disappeared.
Angela stood behind the counter for a long while, lost in troubling thoughts.
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“My lord,” the hooded figure said and bowed deeply.
“Of course,” Lecander said and strode past the man, into the room. There were several others there, some hooded and masked, others - like Lecander - not. He nodded to them. Some nodded back, and a few bowed. he made a careful note of who did what.
“Ah, Lecander!” The Duke of Mezzecal was masked and wrapped in a bright purple cloak, but his voice betrayed him. He held out his hands as if offering a hug.
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“Duke,” Lecander said, but did not move closer. They were on speaking terms again, after the disaster in Ambor, but not more than that.
Lecander went through the room and tried to sense the mood of the gathering. There was only one other mage there, who had shielded his mind and feelings, but the others were experienced politicians and schemers, and had long since schooled themselves to mask their true thoughts.
Four men, and two women, plus Lecander. It was almost too many, he thought. One or another wouldn’t be able to keep their secrets. He glanced at the Duke.
“We are all here,” one of the hooded figures said, in a practiced, deep voice, that would have been hard to identify if Lecander hadn’t heard it so many times. “Let us discuss.” The figure gestured towards a table, and the men and women gathered around it.
“So,” the figure said, “the sword has been found again?”
“Yes,” another figure answered, “without doubt. There was a magical thunderstorm above Davorra three nights ago, followed by a fight in the town where the sword was used.”
“One of your men, I heard.” Yet another hooded figure, a woman. She had a sharp, clear voice, and Lecander suppressed a snarl. He had never liked her.
“Yes,” he said, and allowed some of his real pain to shine through. “One of my best men, and oldest friends.”
“Yet he could not take the sword,” the woman said.
“None of us could,” Lecander said, “if the wielder is anything but completely incompetent. It channels more power than the three greatest battle mages together.”
“Granting the sword has reappeared, what do we do? Our plan was to track it down in secret.” The figure with the deep voice looked around the table, at the others.
“I believe you said Tiriel would never find it,” the woman said.
“And she didn’t!” Lecander snapped. “It was - it was that troublemaker Caveria. But she’s dead now.” Well, her, and that feckless... outsider. The reports were garbled, but it was clear Caveria had done the actual fighting, and somehow forced the dragon to reveal the sword.
“Are you sure?” the Duke said. “I don’t want her to come barging into our plans again.”
Lecander controlled his irritation. “I am sure. I know, for a fact, she is dead.” Or as close to it as made no difference.
“That, at least, is good news,” the deep-voiced figure said. “It still doesn’t give us the sword.” It paused, then went on. “I believe it is time to change our strategy. It may be time to come out in the open.”
None of the others answered, but Lecander clearly felt the tension in the room increasing, by several notches. He suppressed a snort. As if, he thought. This bunch wouldn’t be able to work together for more than a week, if that. Luckily, he’d made preparations for just this kind of event.
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Skorra decided that the porridge was done and stuck her head out from under the tarp. “Food!” she called, to nobody in particular. Her husband was away working his evening shift in the basement of the Royal Hotel, and the children were out playing.
That was good, actually, even if it was a bit annoying right now. They’d been so quiet and indrawn, and only yesterday had actually dared to play with some of the other kids in the tent city.
Well, they would come back. Skorra scooped up some of the porridge for herself, and dug out some dried fruit from the hidden bag. It was painful to live like this, after having their own farm, but at least they were alive. Others had been less lucky. She shuddered as she remembered the smoke rising from their neighbor’s farm, just after they’d fled their own when the soldiers came.
She walked out and sat on the rickety chair her husband had made from some pieces of wood the children had found. It worked, but it was so rickety it hadn’t even been stolen.
As she ate slowly, she looked up towards the cloud-covered sky. Behind those clouds were the tall peaks surrounding Davorra, and the tallest one, where the thunder and lightning had been.
Everyone had woken up, and gone out to stare at it, despite the rain. It hadn’t looked normal, and then there had been other lightning, from the ground. And finally what must have been a fight, right in the middle of town, with fire and lightning shooting into the sky.
The rumors had been wild, for a day, until they settled down into something even wilder. It was the Dragonblade, it had been found, and it was right here, in Davorra.
But it wasn’t one of the great adventurers or heroes who had found it. It was someone else, and nobody knew who. Or what he - the rumors agreed it was a he - would do.
So far, nothing. It had been three days ago, and nothing had happened that Skorra had heard of. Maybe they’d left, and taken the sword with them.
She almost hoped so. The Dragonblade was the hope and curse of the entire world, the stories said, and it could stop wars - and start them. She hadn’t told her husband, and definitely not the children, but she hoped beyond hope that it would be used for - peace.
The children suddenly came running in the narrow passage between the tents opposite.
“Food!” they cried happily, and Skorra pushed her hopes and thoughts out of her mind and rose, to scoop up some porridge for her children.
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She was too old for this, she was. She could just barely care for herself any more. But - what could she do? There was nothing to it, it was her duty. She would care for her, like she had for so many years.
If they would let her.
She composed her face and gave a friendly smile to the man beside the door. He’d been polite, he like the others, but of course he was still guarding them, and would not hesitate to use force. Imprisoned in her own home. She shook her head as she went inside with the heavy bucket.
Well, she hoped it would get resolved in some way, soon. That awful man could hardly be right, could he? He’d laughed and said that she would sleep here forever now, like in one of the old stories. But surely someone would come by and set things right? That always happened in the old stories.
With a deep sigh, madam Cosala reached down to stoke the embers into a new fire, so she could boil some water and make more of the nourishing ointments for her poor girl.