“Oh, no,” Atres replies, “Swear it. If you swear it, then I know you’ll have to do it. I don’t know why, but it’s important. Please…”
Sensing how important this is to him, Emlyn nods and sighs. “Since it means so much to you,” she replies, “I’m sorry, I don’t know your words for such a thing. “Rwy’n ei dyngu.” (I swear it)
As soon as Atres sees the flash of truth, he relaxes visibly, “Gods! That’s better. It’s still not ideal, but it’s an improvement. Don’t ask me why it’s important, it’s just that I know that it is. Now I have to get back to Harito so I can figure out the duty schedules and a few other things.”
Without waiting, he catches her up in a bone-crushing embrace, “Take care of yourself. I have to go, but send me word the instant you’re back in Harito.”
He mumbles a few things into her hair and plants a kiss on the top of her head.
Releasing her, he steps back, “Now I really have to go. If I’m going to go with you, I’ve got some things I have to take care of.”
Without waiting for a reply, he turns and starts striding away. Passing Benger, he gives Benger a small salute and friendly smile, but doesn’t even slow down. Frowning, Benger looks at Emlyn, at Atres’s retreating back, and crosses his arms, giving Emlyn a measuring stare.
“What was all that about?” Benger asks her.
“He’s upset about this thing with the dragon,” Emlyn shrugs, “and made me swear to come see him in Harito before we go deal with it.”
“I heard what he said,” Benger frowns, “He’s right. If that dragon or whatever it is wants virgins, sending you isn’t very smart. If that upsets him this much, it’s likely going to be very dangerous. Why don’t you sit this one out? You could stay behind in Harito. Let the rest of us handle this. No one will think any less of you, and not having you there might make it easier for the rest of us to handle this.”
“How am I supposed to lounge around in Harito,” Emlyn shrugs, “with all my friends facing down a dragon in my place? How do you think I’d feel if any of you got hurt? I left sketches with the smiths to make some weapons that I think we’ll need. I doubt that you’d know how to operate them without some training.”
“You’re set on going,” Benger says, shaking his head, “I think I agree with Atres. This is a horrible idea. I can’t imagine what Master Ember was thinking, even to ask you to do it in the first place.”
“I’m expecting to have to hunt this thing,” Emlyn shrugs, “Given all the other circumstances, it’s by far the most probable outcome. I doubt the duke will sanction handing over Monkford and his lackeys to this dragon as recompense for attacking under a parley truce. I don’t see the dragon accepting anything less than that, even to open negotiations again, so that only leaves one option. Letting the rest of my cohort take that on while I hide in Harito isn’t something I’d feel right about. If it were asking for big, blond males instead, would you hide in Harito and send me?”
Grinding his teeth in the face of her logic, Benger finally relents, “No, I suppose I wouldn’t. Just… damn. There’s not a good choice here, is there?”
Emlyn shakes her head, “Not really.”
“So how do we make the best of the bad choices we’ve got?” Benger sighs, “You’re the tactician.”
“We go in as prepared as we can be,” Emlyn shrugs, “We try to plan for everything we can with as many contingencies as we can. The first scenario we’ll have to cover is the one that seems to concern all of us the most – that he tries to take me as tribute. We’ll need the weapons made up that I left the sketches for, and I’ll have to teach all of you how to use them. We’ll also need to have plenty of archers ready. Good stout bows are how you tear a dragon’s wings to shreds and rip it from the sky. I’ll be in full plate, so I should be able to withstand the arrows without much problem. If that should happen, catch him before he gets too far off the ground with me. Otherwise, let him go because if he drops me or we both fall from a great height…”
Benger nods, grimly, “Splat!”
“I’ll find a way to get free of him later, if that happens,” Emlyn nods, “even if it means climbing down a mountain from his lair.” With a wave acknowledging his comment, Emlyn continues, “Keep in mind that they’re only marginally less dangerous on the ground. Approach from the side and attack his wings. We’ll need something like boar spears for that. Poke as many holes as you can and keep moving to stay away from the teeth, claws, and tail. Even if all we can do is shred its wings, we can keep it grounded. If we can keep it grounded, we can back off and use the weapons that I’ve instructed the smiths to create. That’s the best advice I can give you. Otherwise, the head and the tail are the most dangerous parts when they’re grounded.”
“Gods above! You’ve done this before,” Benger remarks, “That’s why Ember is sending you.”
“Only once,” Emlyn shrugs.
“That’s one more than the rest of us,” Benger frowns.
“Most of my experience is with hunting drakes,” Emlyn explains, “not their larger kin. They thrash around with their tail, and it can send you flying.”
“Found that out the hard way, did you?” Benger grins at the mental image of Emlyn tumbling through the air and then stops, scrubbing his face with his hands.
“No wonder Atres is having premonitions,” Benger grumbles, “This is going to be dangerous, even with your experience.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Can you explain that? I know he said that they anticipate things,” Emlyn says.
“He should be the one explaining this to you,” Benger grimaces, “but I’ll try. He’ll have to sort out anything I get wrong later. The King’s Guard is chock-full of the dragon-blooded from many of the clans because of their inborn abilities. Different clans have different abilities. Some can control animals; others can harness different elements. Because of his eye color and what he said, I’m going to guess that he’s from Clan Valkis. Their particular gift is prophecy, predictions, and premonitions. If he’s having premonitions about danger for you, you’ll need to be doubly careful.”
“I see,” Emlyn grimaces, “No wonder he’s so upset by this. I’m not sure why seeing him in Harito is so important, but if it means that much to him, it’s a simple enough thing.”
“Who knows?” Benger shrugs, “As I understand it, premonitions aren’t exactly clearly written out and delivered via courier on palace stationery like one of your ball invitations. If he thinks it’s important enough to make him ask you to swear to do it, it’s something he senses is deeply important. He might not even know himself. From what I understand, it’s more like a gut feeling, an intuition.”
“Except that his gut,” Emlyn grins, “happens to be reliable.”
Benger watches as the expression on Emlyn’s face changes to something incredibly thoughtful. “I wonder if this explains why he was so… so bold,” Emlyn muses.
Benger gestures for her to go on.
“When we went hunting, Korek and Argonath were giving me a hard time over refusing to be recruited, but Atres was just hanging back, not saying much but clearly not surprised by my refusal. If anything, their continued attempts to recruit me seemed to amuse him. I told them if they or the prince should ever need my help, that a simple request to the Temple should suffice.”
Emlyn stops for a moment and grins, “I told Argonath to look on the bright side, since he could call on me without having to pay me what I’m worth. Then Argonath asked me what I think I’m worth, so I said my weight in gold, and Korek accused me of being a braggart.”
“I’ve never heard you brag,” Benger shrugs, “They must really have been giving you a hard time.”
“They were,” Emlyn nods, “Argonath wasn’t taking my refusal well at all. I had a bit of a rant, and before I realized what was happening, Atres was laughing at them and shoved both of them out of the way, saying he’d like to get his request for dancing in with me before they could and that the two doubters could sod right off. He tells me that he knows I can’t lie, even in a boast, and that he thinks I’ve vastly undervalued myself. He said that my being a paladin didn’t put him off in the slightest, and then he gave me this look that made me blush almost to my toes.”
“He saw it and laughed, saying that he might be tempted to see how far that blush went. At that point, I was ready to crawl under a rock, and I’m fairly sure that my ears were glowing. I told him that I was at least three winters away from being old enough to be courted, and he said he didn’t care and that I was well worth waiting for. Then he offered to abide by my rules if I would tell him what they are and asked me to trust him to be man enough to handle it. Gods! I wonder if he had some premonition about me.”
“That’s some pretty bold flirting,” Benger laughs, “I’ll have to remember that so I can use it later. Maybe he did. You’ll have to ask him about that when you see him.”
“I think I might just do that. I had wondered why a man I’d just met would offer to wait for me for three years,” Emlyn nods, “That’s why I checked his motives. Anyway, I think you know the rest from there.”
"What else should we be planning for?” Benger asks.
“My other ideas aren’t any more comforting,” Emlyn warns him, “The next scenario I can predict is that he refuses to talk to us at all. That brings us back to hunting him, maybe even tracking him to his lair. If that’s the case, we’ll need to see what his elemental breath is like and how strong it is before we know what kind of enchantments to have the mages craft for us. I would rather not have to toe up against the business end of a dragon, if we can avoid it. If this happens, though, I doubt we’ll be able to avoid it. He’ll likely be backed into his lair, and that will be an ugly fight. We’ll need lots of clerics to keep healing us until we can bring him down.”
Grimacing, Benger nods and Emlyn continues, “Another option is that he’s been enslaved or ensorcelled somehow, and we have to find a way to free him from that to get him to leave off harassing this village. Gods alone know what that might entail – maybe hunting down some rogue mage or some lordling who’s holding his offspring hostage. With a bit of luck, our investigators might be able to turn something up to help us with that. We’ll deal with it, and he agrees to leave the village alone. If we can’t figure out and fix it or if he doesn’t agree to leave the village alone, we’re back to hunting him.”
“Then there’s the option that he’s a shapeshifter of some kind and collecting brides for his clan group. I tend to think this might be one of the more likely scenarios. If this is the case, then we can speak with the girls to see if they’re happy in their new lives. If they are and he’s willing to leave off harassing the village, I’d be willing to close the case on it. If they’re not happy and are being forced against their will or he’s not willing to leave the village alone, then we’re back to hunting him and maybe the rest of his clan in the bargain. This could turn out to be one of the uglier options. Instead of just one, now we have a dozen or more.”
“We also have to consider that it’s something like an infernal or an elemental pretending to be a dragon. If that’s the case, the same weapons should work, but we might need to put some plating on them to make them more effective. We can take the precaution of having some of the weapons dipped in the appropriate metals to deal with that.”
“All of these assume that this Divaros is a dragon or at least a real beast of some kind,” Benger shrugs, “What if it’s not?”
“Hmm,” Emlyn shrugs, “You mean an illusion spell or something? The other thought I’ve had is that this is something Monkford’s cooked up himself to try to abscond with all the money that the ‘dragon’s’ collected. It might also be someone else robbing Monkford in the same fashion. My only concern here is I don’t think an Illusion spell would be able to grab the girls up and fly off with them, so I’m leaning towards it being a real beast of some kind. It might be possible to fake that with more spells, but a mage or anything else with that much magic wouldn’t need to do all this to get at Monkford.”
“Now I see why you think hunting him is so likely,” Benger grimaces, “Too many of these paths end up with us hunting a dragon.”
“About the only outcome I see where we don’t end up having to hunt him is that he decides to negotiate with us,” Emlyn agrees, “and even then, if the negotiations fail...”
“We’re hunting a dragon,” Benger sighs heavily, “and as the only one of us who’s ever done it… I can’t say that I fault Master Ember too much for sending you on this. I still don’t like it any more than Atres does, but I do see some sense in it.”
Going quiet for a while, Benger seems to be lost in thought.
“Copper for your thoughts,” Emlyn says, tapping him on the arm.
“Why don’t we go back early?” Benger says, “You can take Atres up on the offer to put you up in an inn. We can leave tomorrow.”
“If his premonition is correct and you need to be with him in Harito for some reason that pertains to this,” Benger shrugs, “then let’s get you back to Harito.”
“I can’t fault your logic,” Emlyn shrugs, “but I hate to see you cut your time with your family short.”
“If this helps keep any of us alive and safe,” Benger shrugs, “my family will understand. I’d best go talk to Mama and Da now.”
Would you go back to Harito? Or do you think Atres is up to something?