Fate Rides Wicked: Volume I of the Lerilon Trilogy (29 page)

He came at Tych with speed he had only heard about
from Aquendar, a witness to it twice. The gold almost
avoided contact entirely, but a rear claw caught him on the
shoulder and sent him spinning out of control towards the
ocean. Near the border he regained a level flight position
and curved right as the red dove down from above. This
time Tych moved his tail out of danger and swung it back
with stunning force. Arfelimon slammed into the trees
again, out of control.

Tych climbed as fast as he could. As he did so, he
discovered the secret to the dragons’ speed. Through
mental magic they performed a series of very short
teleportations, which, combined with the speed obtained
from wing power, let them move forward very quickly. He
tried to use it to turn, however and found he had a very
large turn circle.

Tych attempted to teleport a long distance, but
discovered he could not call up a clear enough image to
perform it. He could teleport only to places within his
sight, which extended on for almost two miles. As
Arfelimon rushed up at an unaware Tych, the prince
performed such a maneuver and, by pure luck, avoided
being seriously gouged. The red roared in anger and Tych
realized his good fortune.

The red vanished from sight and fearing a similar move,
the gold teleported so that the sun would be behind him if
Arfelimon appeared at his old position. Guessing right, he
used the sun to hide a dive at the disgruntled red.
Arfelimon faced away at the moment Tych struck. The
endaril-dragon struck the right wing of his opponent with
teeth and two sets of claws, backed by the force of his
weight from the dive.

A sound like a tree being split by lightning cracked
through the air. The red began to fall and Tych circled
back from his last strike to finish it. Arfelimon had
vanished. At top speed Tych climbed as high as he could.
He circled and looked for his wounded opponent. He
found him skimming low above the trees, using only the
teleportation, retreating.

For a moment Tych dove to finish the red, but pulled
up. He still didn’t feel entirely comfortable with his form
and he disliked the idea of killing when the battle had been
won. Beyond these two reasons, another sense told him
that somehow this time was not Arfelimon’s time to die.
This feeling brought a realization to him of the dragon’s
sense of the universe. While he looked at the world from
the perspective of the mind, the lizards lived with the
consciousness of time and space.

Tych swooped down to the road and flew above the
trees until he saw Lendril. He folded his wings and folded
the space between himself and the road to come to a soft
landing. He used a moment of concentration to return to
his old form. Lendril came to him and hugged him then
stepped away, looking at her hand. She looked at him and
said, “Your shoulder is bleeding.”

Tych suddenly felt the pain. “And my rear is in pain
also. But I can see again.”

“They say it is impossible to blind a dragon.
Apparently, changing fixed your vision. Your other
injuries failed to heal, I’m afraid.” She began removing his
armor. “I expected you to be naked upon returning to your
normal form, but I guess your armor and equipment
became included in the material that made up the dragon.”

“Where are the horses?” Tych noticed this as Lendril
began bandaging his shoulder.

“They fled at the sight of the dragon. You must
remember that dragons normally feed on herds of wild
animals, including horses. The pemilons fear dragons
almost as much.” Lendril now had his shoulder wrapped
and while Tych thought about what to do, she stripped him.

He stood buck-naked by the time he decided what to
do. “I’ll change into a horse and you can ride me back to
the group.”

Lendril finished wrapping Tych’s rear end and lower
back. “See if you can.”

Tych concentrated. Nothing happened. For a long time
he bore down on becoming a horse, his face clamped and
eyes squinting. Lendril began to laugh. Tych stopped and
frowned, but a look of mirth could be seen in his eye.

“I hope you’re ready to fly.” He put his armor back on
while Lendril stood watching and waiting. Then, he lay on
the ground on his stomach as Aquendar had described
Doleof doing. “Straddle my neck and place your hand
between your legs, palms down.” Lendril did so. The next
thing she knew, she sat on her hands on the neck of Tych,
the gold dragon. “White horses shouldn’t be too hard to
find, then we’ll ride to catch up.” They launched into the
air and climbed above tree level. The horses had bolted
down the road in the same direction as the pemilons and the
expedition.

Tych found them grazing by the side of the road a few
miles south of the battle site. Before they could get the
scent of Tych, he landed and let Lendril off his back. In a
moment, the two endarils had the horses in hand and
mounted. They spurred the horses into the fastest gallop
they could obtain and maintain without the magic of the
pemilons as the sun reached the three-quarter point in its
journey across the sky.

Before long riders could be seen approaching them
from the south and the endarils slowed. The other riders
also came to a walk until they saw whom they approached.
Both groups took short gallops towards each other and met.
Tych had no reaction to seeing Tendelbro, Reichet,
Aquendar and Wiltev.

“We came to give assistance if need be, but apparently
it isn’t needed,” said Aquendar. “The rest of the group is
waiting not far from here.”

Tych urged his horse south and shouted back, “Then let
us rejoin them,” as he sped away. The other five chased
but didn’t catch him until they reached the expedition a few
minutes later. Tych kept his horse walking so it could cool
slowly and asked, “Did the entire group agree to send
assistance or was the decision made by these four?”

Ofeldar frowned at this. “You should have more trust
in our ability to learn the concepts you practice with us.
We waited here for a while since Aquendar said the first
towns on the outskirts of Rambestak begin soon. Once you
didn’t return for a long time, we discussed what to do and
decided that the four strongest warriors should go. We
voted who would go and these warriors won.”

“I probably sound silly, but I think of these ideas a lot.
Can somebody tell me, why these four?”

Sir Xalt said, “Because the mission required brute
strength, not stealth or fancy fighting. If we were setting
up an ambush, we would have sent Ofeldar, Nandel, Blard,
and the mendar. If more than four had been needed,
Loktaro, the neftir and myself would have gone with them.
We just wanted to keep the large group as balanced as
possible.”

Tych smiled, a rare display. “I am very happy to see
you learning how to use the strengths of the group to good
advantage.” He turned his horse south. “Flandroke, we
can make Rambestak by dark if we hurry.”

Loktaro asked quickly, before the horses started, “Why
do we go all the way to Rambestak? Wouldn’t it be better
to camp first out here and go in the day?”

Lendril responded, “Because Queen Olera said that
Rambestar and Quel would be friendly to the idea of having
other races in their inns. Aquendar confirmed this. Also,
the kingdom is too forested to make it safe to camp out
here.”

“There is an inn I know that will put us all up with
pleasure,” added Aquendar.

Loktaro said, “Let’s go then,” and they rode on at top
speed.

They reached the first town on this road in less than an
hour and slowed down. The buildings sat low to the
ground, never more than two stories and the environment of
the city stood wide open, with many of the trees still
standing. The pemilons stayed in the center of the group.
Compared to the other cities they had been in, very little
slander came their way. They reached the other side in a
few minutes and burst into top speed again, having been
unbothered by the military officials there. This pattern
repeated itself in the next two towns.

Finally, a few minutes after the sun went down and left
them in dusk, they saw the lights of the great city of
Rambestak. While Efrenak sparkled with beauty that
dazzled humans, nature lovers and the non-humans fell in
love with the capital of Rambestak immediately. The city
had no buildings over three stories and the buildings and
trees meshed together. Only a field south of the castle had
no trees but only Aquendar knew of it since they
approached from the north.

The guards stopped them but quickly let them by with a
few words from Aquendar. They wound their way down
the tree-lined streets to a the door of an inn named ‘The
Arboretum.’ Here a stable boy came out and took the
horses as they dismounted then waited for a tip. Tych gave
him a gold coin, more than needed and the boy sheepishly
handed them a pouch of little things he had filched from the
horses, Tych’s graciousness causing guilt.

The door sat at ground level and had intricate wooden
carvings on the front. Aquendar led them in and greeted
the innkeeper with open arms. The two shouted greetings
at each other and laughed, and then the horse master
introduced his companions.

The tall, thin innkeeper welcomed them all and said, “I
am Kliktet. Dinner is on the house. We had an especially
good hunting day.” The expedition filed into the
restaurant/bar section of the inn and received only one evil
look from the dozen or so patrons there. Kliktet fed them a
huge meal and they retired to ten separate rooms.

Tych and Lendril kept Aquendar back and took him to
their room for a talk. Tych, satisfied and comfortable from
the meal and warm surroundings, put on a stern face and
asked, “Where did you go to in Efrenak?”

“I had business to attend to and at that I must leave it.”

Lendril’s face turned red with anger while Tych silently
fumed. The female endaril said, “That is not good enough.
You endangered the expedition and our chance of getting
help from Unlo. Tell us what it is and if we decide not to
tell the rest then we won’t. No promises except that if you
don’t tell us you can stay right here and travel north with
this kingdom’s army.”

Aquendar sat silent for a long time, pondering his
course of action. The terse words of Lendril and the look
of fire in both of his commanders’ eyes, made his decision
easier. “I suppose I should trust you and the other members
if you tell them.” He took a deep breath and started.
“Have you ever heard of the ‘road police,’ or the
‘innkeeper’s network,’ or the ‘webs of knowledge.” The
endarils shook their heads. “I run all three. I started all of
them and I recruit for all of them. Each member has an
exceptional ability of either great importance or minor in
terms of everyday life but essential to their tasks for me.
Wiltev is the only member in the expedition that is a member
of the road police. His partner died in combat so, as
instructed by me when I recruited him, he joined a grey
army until I found a partner.

“Nobody I recruit knows me except for a group of men
that carry out my decisions. I find somebody worthy of
service, have him or her watched over a long period of
time, then send in one of my agents to bring them on if
they’ll accept. The recruit has no idea what he’s involved
in until after one year of service. One innkeeper, carefully
selected after months of observation, in each capital knows
who I am, what I do and how to help me. Then the
recruiting agents bring me news of things like me being not
welcome in Unlo.” He left it unsaid that Kliktet served him
in Rambestak.

“There are only, now, eighteen people who can identify
me as the leader of the groups. Each would die before
talking. Wiltev has no idea that I’m the top boss. An agent
recruited him and messages always came through the web
of information for him. At the top of the web are my
agents, then my special innkeepers, then the other
innkeepers that help but have no idea who I am and finally
the road police. If I wanted to send a message to Wiltev, I
would give it to an agent or a trusted innkeeper and the web
would figure out where he was and get the message to him
within two weeks.

“The intelligence organizations of only two kingdoms
have even come close to discovering the structure and
leaders of my networks. In Efrenak I left to go talk to my
innkeeper and I met with an agent. They told me nothing
you didn’t know from Queen Olera’s intelligence people.
They did warn me to stay low in Unlak, but a guard found
me. You left before I could return from those meetings.
Satisfied?”

Tych took only a moment of thought and asked, “How
many of you are out there?”

“Over two hundred road police, thirteen special
innkeepers, three agents and several dozen clueless
messenger innkeepers. All in all almost three hundred. If I
didn’t orchestrate their actions through my agents, nothing
would get accomplished.”

Lendril had been tossing all this information around in
her head. “We will ask you to tell us any and all things we
should know and present you to the group as a man with
contacts. Everybody else knows that you have served in
every capital as a horse master or mercenary, but only we
will know what that covered up. You are meeting contacts
whenever the members ask where you went. Agreed?”

“Very acceptable. Now, can I get some sleep?”

Tych nodded and the over-sized human got up and left
without a word. The Prince turned to his Princess and
smiled an impish smile. It would be a while before either
slept.

The inside of the castle of Rambestak had covered
stone walkways crisscrossing wide open spaces to rooms
grouped three or four together, or all by themselves. The
rest of the area, almost half of it, bathed in the sun but had
lots of shade. Fabric stretched over the paths and wooden
slats covered all the rooms. The page led them down an
exceptionally large ‘corridor’ to a very large room. They
noticed that each of the walls consisted of fabric and every
room stood on foot-high platforms.