Omensent: Princess Of Dragons (Book 5) (56 page)

"Of course." The bearded bandit nodded, wrapping his uninjured arm around her waist, and drawing her close. "I think it's about time that we take the next step, don't you?"

The young woman's eyes filled with tears. "I do." She turned and fixed her father with a dangerous look. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"You'll not stand in the way of our joining, will you?"

"Of course not!" Damarius laughed, casting a wink at Damion, who did his best to conceal his smile. "If you wish to be joined in marriage, then I will be happy to give you my blessing!"

"Really?" Shirk and Lady Skie asked in unison, both wearing matching expressions of surprise.

"Why would you think that I would stand in the way of your joining?" The old wizard asked with an innocent expression. "All you needed to do was ask, and I would have happily given you my blessing. All I've ever wanted is for my daughter to be happy, and if Shirk makes her happy, then so be it."

Shirk stared at Damarius, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why do I suddenly have the feeling that we've both just been had?"

Lady Skie stared at him in confusion for a moment, then her eyes suddenly widened in realization. She turned and stared at the old wizard in disbelief. "Father! You... You..."

Damarius merely smiled and looked away, his expression still innocent.

"What's going on over here?" Damion asked curiously, looking at the field opposite the battlements.

"Our little Leia has made a few changes to how things are done around here." Sly told him, a note of pride in his voice. "She had the work crew clear the field and plant a number of vegetables to help replenish the stores."

"That was a very good idea." Damion said approvingly, examining one of the massive tomatoes hanging on a nearby vine.

"That's not all," The little man informed the huge warrior. "In an effort to save us a bit of gold, she and Slither spent every evening for several weeks out hunting. They managed to hunt up enough game to stuff the warehouses full. It was quite impressive."

"Oh really?" Damion sounded impressed.

"She did, indeed." Lady Skie confirmed, giving Leia a smile. "She also instituted a new set of rules that has the caravan leaders and the merchants in the city on their very best behavior."

"Really?" The huge warrior asked in surprise. "How did you manage that?"

"I starting fining the worst of the offenders very,
very
large sums of gold, and confiscating the shops of any who couldn't pay." The young girl shrugged. "I also banned a merchant or two from doing business in Sevria. The rest quickly fell into line."

"Leia!" Raven gasped as Damion burst out laughing. "You can't do that!"

"Well, I did," The young girl said defiantly. "and, believe it or not, most of the merchants seem to approve. They have seen a significant increase in their sales ever since I started forcing them all to play by the rules. It's made them all quite happy."

"I'm glad to hear that you didn't encounter any significant problems in our absence." Damion said, still chuckling from hearing how Leia dealt with the merchants. "I had worried that something serious may have happened while we were gone."

"Now that you mention it," Leia frowned. "we
did
encounter a bit of a problem that Sly and I were forced to deal with."

They slowly started to make their way up to the castle as she told them about the reoccurring problem with goblins appearing along the trade road, and the unexplainable disappearance of the dragonspawn.

"Once we realized that the dragonspawn had taken over the goblin hollows in order to stage attacks and move about unseen, we sent warnings out to everyone except the Deola." She explained with a sigh. "We decided that I should inform them in person, so I had Xaxis fly Sly and I to Mercedia so I could speak with the Deolan Council."

"You did
what
?" Raven asked, staring down at her daughter with a dangerous expression.

"We all agreed it was the best plan." The young girl said quickly. "Considering father has always had a bit of a strained relationship with the Deolan Council, we thought it would be best to inform them of what we discovered in person, instead of by messenger. And since you and father weren't here, it fell to me." She frowned. "It didn't go as well as I hoped it would."

"Let me guess," Damion laughed in a knowing tone. "Clan Chief Krel decided to cause problems, as usual."

"Krel is dead." Sly told him with a shake of his head. "He was gored through the eye by a bull. His son Lek is now clan chief."

"And he's an even bigger ass than his father was." Leia muttered sourly.

"It was like watching you and Krel all over again!" Sly laughed. "From the instant they met, Leia and Lek hated one another!"

"Oh dear," Raven murmured, giving her daughter a worried look. "You didn't do anything... permanent, to him, did you?"

"No," The young girl said in an evasive tone. "Nothing permanent."

"Not unless you call dangling a man from the rafters by his ears in front of the entire Deolan Council permanent." The scruffy little man guffawed. "By the time she finally let him down, his ears had stretched so long that he looked like an ugly tattooed hound dog!"

"Really?" Damion asked in a flat tone, giving his daughter a disapproving look.

"It wasn't my fault!" Leia protested, shooting Sly a dirty look. "That obnoxious ass just wouldn't stop with his threats and insults! I was finally forced to take steps to remind him of exactly who I was, and what I could do to him if he decided to push things too far."

"And?"

"It didn't work." Sly informed him, tears of mirth standing in his eyes. "Lek and a group of his clansmen decided to try and ambush us as we left Mercedia."

"Oh dear," Raven gasped in dread. She looked back to Leia. "You didn't..."

"Turn them all into radishes?" Leia asked ominously. "Why, yes, I did."

"Leia!" The young woman exclaimed in disbelief.

"Of course I didn't turn anyone into a radish." The young girl rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Xaxis merely gave them all a good scare. In fact, when we returned to inform the council that I had taken care of the problem with dragonspawn, he was quite cordial, though that may have been because Bativa threatened to drag him outside and let Xaxis take a bite out of him."

"What do you mean that
you
took care of the problem with the dragonspawn?" Damion asked with one eyebrow raised questioningly.

"Well," The young girl started with a pained expression. "On the way back from our first visit with the council, we ran into a bit of trouble." She quickly told them about the skirmish with the winged dreadspawn.

"Winged dragonspawn?" Shirk asked with a sick expression. "Please tell me you're joking."

"They are called dreadssspawn." Slither grunted with displeasure. "SSSlither and Leia dissscovered their exissstance by accident not long after you left for the elven island."

"Did you manage to kill them?" Raven asked in concern.

"Xaxis did." Sly told her with an angry scowl. "He used his fire to blast them out of the sky."

"But that's good." Damarius said with a confused expression. "Why are you so angry?"

"Because Xaxis decided to fly right through his own flames, while we were on his back." Leia giggled, causing Sly to scowl even harder. "My armor kept me safe from the flames, but poor Sly was defenseless."

"So
that's
what happened to your hair." Damion murmured with a straight face while the others began to laugh.

"It's not funny!" Sly snarled angrily. "I could have been killed!"

"He looked like a dog with a bad case of mange!" Leia told them, still giggling in amusement.

"So Xaxis managed to kill all of the winged dragonspawn?" Shirk asked, glancing up at the sky nervously.

"Dreadspawn." Leia corrected him. "He killed all of the beasts that attacked us, but there were more. Many, many more."

"And how do you know there were more?" Damion asked, watching his daughter closely.

She and Sly exchanged a long look.

"After Xaxis killed the dreadspawn, he circled around and destroyed the rest of the spawn on the ground." Leia told him with a sigh of resignation. "A few shadowspawn managed to survive, and fled into a nearby goblin hollow. We followed them inside to an immense cavern where we found thousands and thousands of dragonspawn, shadowspawn, and dreadspawn all gathered together in one massive horde."

"You followed the shadowspawn inside the goblin hollow?" Raven asked in disbelief. She stared at her daughter for a long moment, then turned to Sly with an angry expression. "And you let her go?"

"I tried to stop her!" The scruffy little man protested. "She wouldn't listen to me! She's as stubborn as her father was at that age!"

"Hey!" Damion and Leia exclaimed in unison.

"Anyway," The young girl continued after giving Sly another dirty look. "It was pretty obvious that the spawn were preparing for war, so I decided to stop them before they had the chance to strike."

"How did you manage to do that?" Damarius asked curiously.

"There were a number of huge limestone pillars which supported the cavern ceiling." Leia explained with a shrug. "I snuck through the horde and destroyed them, causing the ceiling to collapse, crushing the horde beneath tons of stone."

"How did you manage to sneak through the chamber without being noticed by the spawn?" Shirk asked in astonishment.

"My armor allowed me to slip through the shadows without them even seeing me." She made a face. "Well, most of them didn't see me, anyways."

"So, let me get this straight," Damion murmured, stopping in his tracks, and looking down at his young daughter with a serious expression. "Are you saying that you destroyed the
entire
horde?"

"Pretty much." The young girl nodded. "There may have been a few spawn that weren't in the cavern when it collapsed, but the rest were buried under thousands of tons of stone." She smiled a vicious smile. "The Dragon God isn't going to be happy with me when He finds out what I've done."

The huge warrior stared down at the young girl with a stern expression for another long moment, then suddenly broke out into a wide grin. "That's my girl!"

"Damion!" Raven exclaimed in a voice that was both amused and outraged. "Stop encouraging her!"

"Why?" Damion asked, still staring at his daughter proudly. "She not only managed to make a number of improvements in our absence, but she saved the people of Sevria, and countless others, from a war with the dragonspawn! I'm not sure even
I
could have done that!"

"Once the horde had been destroyed, the goblins returned to their hollows, and things returned to normal." Sly finished the story. "Everything has been nice and calm ever since. We've even had a number of new craftsmen move to the city and set up shop."

"It sounds like Leia has had everything well in hand." Damion said, giving the young girl an approving nod. "It may be time to expand her responsibilities a bit now that we've returned."

"I don't think so." Leia shook her head firmly. "Now that you and mother have returned, I'm more than happy to return to my role as spoiled child. I've had quite enough of worrying about every single thing that happens around here."

"What's all this madness?" Damion asked as they approached the large crowd milling around outside of the local tavern.

"They're just my loyal customers." Sly laughed, hurrying towards the overcrowded tavern. "Go ahead and go on up to the castle. I'll grab a couple of casks and meet you up there."

"What has he done now?" Raven asked suspiciously as they pushed their way through the inebriated crowd.

"He perfected his ale recipe." Juco told them, licking his lips with longing. "It's becoming wildly popular among the people. So popular that he has been having problems keeping up with the demand. He's raised the prices so high that men are spending their entire fortunes on just a few tankards."

They quickly got their weary horses settled in at the castle livery, then made their way up to Damion's office high up in the massive Dragon's Keep. Sly and Axel soon appeared, each carrying a large cask under each arm, and they all settled down together for the first time in months.

"Oh my!" Damarius murmured as he took a drink from the tankard Sly handed him. He took a second long drink, then sighed in pleasure. "Now
this
is what ale is supposed to taste like!"

"This
is
good!" Damion said, draining his tankard, and handing it back to Sly for a refill. "I can see why you have people lining up for a taste."

"It took years of patient experimentation, but I finally did it." Sly sighed happily, handing the huge warrior a fresh tankard, then taking a long drink from his own. "I'm rapidly becoming a wealthy man. It won't be long before my Dragon's Reserve is known all over the world!"

"I'm happy to hear it." Damion smiled, taking another drink from his tankard. "The taxes brought in from all of your sales will go a long way in filling the treasury."

"You're going to tax me?" Sly asked in disbelief. "After everything that I have done for this city?" He scowled huge warrior. "I'm profoundly disappointed in you, my friend."

"You'll get over it." The huge warrior grinned, draining his tankard, and then passing it back to the little man for yet another refill. "If what you're saying is true, you're making more than enough gold to keep yourself comfortable, and if I were to exempt you from paying taxes, every other merchant in town will expect the same treatment."

"Ah well," The little man sighed. "I guess if it's for the good of the city..." He shrugged, then drained his tankard and belched thunderously.

"So," Damarius murmured, leaning back in his chair and sighing contently. "With the troubles with the blood elves behind us, and the dragonspawn horde destroyed, I guess all that's left to do is celebrate."

"Celebrate?" Damion asked in confusion. "Celebrate what?"

"Why, Skie and Shirk's betrothal, of course." The old wizard smiled. "It's not every day that my only daughter gets engaged."