The Dragon Hunter and the Mage Page 2

  “And the Lord of the city, the Duke, is nowhere to be found,” Tigern replied. “The city is yours again. What other names do you require?”

  “I cannot return to Augusta empty handed. Someone has to pay,” Intila said. “You are not going to convince me that the Duke was alone in all this.”

  “Of course he wasn’t. Even the people supported him until the Legionaries arrived.” Tigern aimed a finger at Intila. “I was guaranteed you would be reasonable if the problem was taken care of.”

  “You’re not behind bars,” Intila said matter-of-factly. “Even though you are a member of the city’s government. I would say that part of the agreement is being kept.”

  Tigern paused. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “How am I supposed to take over the city if I don’t have the trust of the noble families?”

  “Listen to me,” Intila said. “The Emperor cannot afford to not punish the families who openly affronted him. I am here, Tigern. Me, and not others. You know there are others far less reasonable than me.”

  Openly affronted him? Tigern wanted to scream. Those families had done only what any decent human would have done. Tarsus was a tyrant, and his Purge was an unforgivable crime. If Tigern were a brave man, he would have said so.

  “How many names?” he asked instead. “Is two enough? I want you to assure me their families will be spared.”

  Intila said no with a shake of his head. There was no irony or malice in his expression, just the pragmatism of a soldier.

  “Tigern, rebels are like Dragons. The problems they don’t cause today will become twice as bad tomorrow. That’s why we hunt Dragons, and that’s why you will tell me all the names. All of them.”

  They had been hiding in that shack for three hours and their clothes were still wet. It had taken them too long to find a place to hide, and twice they had almost crossed paths with Legionary patrols. On a square that Eliran thought was the fruit market, she had seen the body of Allard lying over a pool of dark blood, his blue eyes staring at infinity. She was the only one who had seen him because as soon as she recognized him she turned the girls around and fled though an alleyway where they crouched in the shadow until the metal steps of a patrol drove them off.

  She didn’t really know what the place was, but it looked abandoned and, at least, it protected them from the skin slicing wind. To warm themselves they nested against each other, but Eliran made sure she was the only one with a view to the hill where the school rose. It was visible through a slit in a closed window, but the scenery was terrifying. Red fire, black smoke, green lights, blue explosions, and the most sinister noises Eliran had ever heard. It had been going on for hours.

  Flara had cried uninterruptedly for a whole hour, as had Sarina, Lassira, and Tajiha. Now they slept deeply, culled by exhaustion. Eliran herself was making an effort to stay awake as if that macabre spectacle was a vigil she was bound by duty to attend.

  Suddenly, a noise distracted her. It was just a small crackle, but it was close that it was enough to make her stomach tighten. Then the door spun open, and a man with a messy, grey beard entered the shack. Confusion took over the stranger’s face for a moment.

  “What’s this? What are you doing here?”

  Eliran jumped up and the other girls did the same.

  “I am so sorry. We thought this was abandoned.”

  “Abandoned? My house?”

  “M‒my apologies,” Eliran mumbled. “That’s not what I meant.”

  The man grabbed the girl closest to him, Rissa, by her arm, making her scream.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  Eliran felt alarm flash through her, but going back to the Legionary filled streets wasn’t something she looked forward to.

  “We just need to spend the night. We won’t cause you any trouble….”

  “Won’t cause any trouble?” The man pulled Rissa closer to him and she squirmed. “Who are you hiding from? The soldiers?”

  “From no one.” Eliran had her eyes fixed on Rissa. The man was clearly hurting her. “Please let her go.”

  “It’s the soldiers, isn’t it?” The man smiled. “Yes…. You’re little Wizardesses, aren’t you? And if the Legionaries catch you, they’ll snap your little necks.” To demonstrate, he took Rissa’s neck and squeezed it.

  “Let her go, now!” Eliran stuck her hand in her satchel and fumbled inside, looking for the flask of Runium. She would need it to cast a spell, put him to sleep, whatever.

  “Shush, little Wizardess. Do you want the soldiers to hear you?”

  Eliran’s arm twirled inside the satchel. She caught coins, cookies, more coins.

  “You are all going to be very quiet if you don’t want to end up like your teachers.” Once again he squeezed Rissa’s neck until she turned blue. Then he pointed at Lassira. “You, take off your shirt.”

  Like a flock of birds, every girl took a step back.

  Eliran was about to give up and throw a bunch of coins in the man’s face ‒ wherewas the damn flask?‒ until she touched something cold. She wrapped her fingers around the object and felt the blade’s metal. Desperate, she pulled it out and held it awkwardly in front of herself.

  The man’s eyes became wide and in that moment, she realized he was drunk. He let Rissa go and stepped towards Eliran. She aimed the knife at him defiantly.

  “What do you think you’re going to do with that?”

  He was a big man, and his nose bore the marks of many tavern brawls. He advanced towards her, his hand ready to grab her wrist. At first, Eliran stepped back out of fear, then out of her own will. The man chased her until she was cornered against a wall. At the last moment, Eliran stepped forward instead of backward.

  Caught off balance the man didn’t even see Eliran grab the knife with both hands and swing it up, clumsily, until the blade drove itself through the man’s chin, into his mouth. He howled in pain, grabbed the knife’s handle and pulled it off. A jet a blood gushed from it.

  The Wizard apprentices panicked and screamed hysterically. Not even Eliran managed not to.

  Scared from the pain and the streaming blood, confused by the screams, the man dashed off in a random direction, bumped into a window, and fell from it.

  Eliran grabbed her satchel firmly, took Rissa by the hand and rushed out the door. The other girls didn’t require her to tell them to do the same.

  It wasn’t hard to understand why the Mages had told them they could only step out from their hideouts when the sun came up. The streets quickly filled with people and life. With the exception of the physical signs of violence from the previous days, everything seemed to have gone back to normal. A group of children strolling down the street looked completely commonplace. Still, though the city was covered with Legionaries and Eliran thought it best to leave the girls behind a fish stall that, apparently, had lost its owner during the riots.

  Accompanied by Flara alone, Eliran looked for ways to leave the city. She talked to merchants planning to restock somewhere south and asked the price of hiding in the potato carts of a couple of farmers from a neighboring village. She discovered there were spice caravans headed for Saggad within two days, and eventually arrived at the Fyrian square from where people could climb the Mage Street, the one that led to the school of magic. Flara was scared out of her mind and stayed by the entrance to an inn, but Eliran walked right up to the center of the square.

  At first, she pretended to examine the statue at its center, where five Dragon Hunters defeated a colossal Eastern Short-tail. Then she found the courage to approach the exit to Mage Street. Even at that distance, it was very obvious not much of the majestic building was left. Only one of its five towers was still standing, and even that one was missing a third of its original height. From the ruin columns of smoke still rose, and what had once been the main gate was now dust beneath the boots of a dozen Legionaries. They were formed rigidly, blocking the access to the smoldering building.

  Eliran wanted to see it, to search the building f
or survivors. What if there were people trapped in the basement or the underground tunnels? She could go around the back, use some distraction spell, or maybe wait for night to fall….

  Her planning was interrupted by a panicking Flara.

  “Please, let’s get out of here,” the little girl begged.

  Sighing, Eliran did as she asked. The two of them talked with a couple of other potential rides out of Niveh and finally decided to join the other girls. They were exactly as Eliran had left them, and it was as if they were even more scared than the night before. Eliran wondered if that wasn’t her case as well. After all, what was she was going to do? Where could she go? Was it safe to return to her family in Ragara? What if the Emperor had arrested them for being the parents of a girl with the Talent? What would she live off if she really was alone? How was she going to hide the fact that she was a Mage for the rest of her life?

  “Where are we going?” Eliran asked the girls.

  By the looks on their faces, the question hadn’t occurred to them yet. They had been all too happy to let Eliran make all the decisions for them. Shouldn’t she decide that as well?

  “I can’t decide where each of us goes,” she explained.

  “But… aren’t we going to stay together?” asked Rissa.

  “We can’t,” said Flara. “I want to go home, to my parents. We should all find our families.”

  Sarina agreed.

  “My family was arrested,” said Tajiha, staring at the ground.

  “We should head west,” said Lassira. “They say the school in Awam is still functioning.”

  “That’s a lie,” Flara replied. “No school survived.”

  The twelve apprentices broke into a discussion over whether there were any schools left or not until Eliran silenced them with a yell.

  “We’re going north. To avoid the Legions, the best way out of the city is through the river, and the river goes either to the north or to the Shamissai Mountains, so we’re going north. After that, anyone who wants to go a different way can go. Anyone who wants to finds their parents can look for them. Anyone who wants to find the school in Awam can do that as well.”

  Everyone agreed and shortly after they were headed for the docks. There was a boatman who intended to transport wine barrels to Augusta, and whose barge had more than enough room for all of them.

  “Twenty-five golden crowns, here you are.”

  The boatman took the coins and felt their weight.

  “Yes, but now it’s fifty.”

  “Fifty?” Eliran couldn’t believe it. “We agreed twenty-four, two for each person, and I’m offering you an extra coin.”

  “Yes, but that was before I knew you were all children.”

  Eliran felt her stomach turn and her face became as red as a pepper. “What difference does that make?”

  “It makes all the difference,” the boatman replied. “I don’t know if, for some reason, you’re running from the authorities….” As if to prove his point, he stared ostensibly at two Legionaries leaning against a nearby wall.

  Eliran wanted to shove the idiot in the water and watch him drown. Instead, she turned around and stuck a hand in her satchel.

  “Let me see what money I still have,” she said with her back to him.

  The boatman smiled.

  Eliran searched for a little while and finally found the Runium flask she so desperately had wished for the night before. She opened it and took a generous sip from it. Confused, Rissa opened her mouth, but Flara covered it before she had time to blurt out anything.

  Eliran turned back around to face the boatman.

  “I have exactly what you need.”

  She held out her hand and the boatman looked curiously at it. When Eliran opened her hand, all the man saw was a flash of light, quicker than a blink of an eye. The boatman was ecstatic.

  “Oh, my lady! For that money I’ll take you to south Aletia, if I have to.” With a smile the size of the world, he indicated the way to his barge. “This way, please. Go right ahead, little mistresses. Careful with that step. That’s right. Feel right at home.”

  They all embarked and sat down on the deck. All except Eliran, who remained on the dock.

  “Eli?” Flara was confused.

  “Good luck, girls. Hope to see you all one day.”

  The boatman jumped to the barge, still smiling, and placed himself aft of the ship.

  Rissa looked about to cry. “Eli, where are you going? What’s wrong?”

  “Take care of them, Flara,” Eliran said, then she snapped her fingers and the boatman untied the ship and propelled it away from the dock.

  “Eli, please!” Rissa begged. Flara had to hold her.

  Eliran waved as the boat sailed away, but she was unable to hold the girls’ sad stares for very long.

  She turned around and left.

  Chapter 1

  The Half-Prince

  Aric could see the inner courtyard, five stories below him. Two men circled each other with swords held high, their bodies tense, ready to spring into action. Without warning, the shortest one struck directly at the other’s head. The rest was a mess of wooden swords smacking against each other until the fake blade of one of them hit the other’s wrist. Aric heard another series of smacks, but this time, they were right next to him.

  “Your class is up here, my Prince.” Old Macael was probably the only person who called him that.

  The professor pointed at a parchment filled with geometrical shapes and numbers. Aric followed his twig-like fingers and examined the values before him, adding some numbers in his head, moved a few pieces in his abacus, then ended up sighing, defeated. Macael gave him a look that demanded more than that, but Aric paid him no attention. Down below the inner courtyard witnessed a pirouette that finished with a sword smashing uselessly against a shield. What did he care about the height of that triangle? And if it was so important, why couldn’t he just measure it with a ruler?

  “You can stand there sighing all afternoon, but I’ll still have to give you this lesson and my Prince will still have to hear it. Might as well pay attention and learn something.”

  “Why can’t I learn how to fight instead?” Aric asked.

  “I’m afraid that’s not something I can teach you,” Macael replied.

  Aric sank in his chair, hugging his abacus.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Aric said, staring down at the combat in the courtyard.

  “I know…” Macael replied. “The Goddess gives us all a different role to play. It’s up to us to enjoy it as best we can. There’s no point in envying what other people do.”

  At that moment a sword smacked squarely on the head of one of the warriors in the courtyard, knocking him down and making his helmet fly. Aric laughed.

  “The Goddess should have given Fadan faster legs.”

  This time, it was Macael who gave up, rolling the parchment with his circles, triangles, and hexagons.

  “Well, I think I’ve had enough of trying to compete for your attention today. You may go.”

  Aric’s face lit up. He threw his abacus onto the table and jumped towards the door.

  “My Prince!” Macael called. Aric stopped halfway through the door. “It might be better if you don’t get too close to the courtyard.”

  Aric’s face darkened again. He gave a dull nod and disappeared.

  Intila, High Marshal of the Emperor’s Legions, watched the light pouring in through the stained glass window behind the massive oak table where the council met. The glasswork consisted of a very colorful depiction of the siege of Victory. Intila was sure that whoever had lived through the event would have witnessed no other color beside arid brown and blood red. Yet, on that three story window, the last great battle of the unification of the Empire looked more like a tribute to spring than a faithful representation of the historical siege.

  As usual, Chancellor Vigild read an unending list of reports, missives, and related documents, so the Marshal took the opportunity to
examine the fragments that made the stained glass, each one meticulously cut to achieve its particular form. He calculated that it was the millionth time he had done so.

  Beside the Emperor, there were five other people attending the meeting. Fressia, the Emperor’s Secretary, was furiously scribbling down everything that happened. Scava, the Treasurer, slept in silence. Seneschal Daria was organizing several piles of documents in preparation for her own briefing of the council. And finally, there were Admiral Cassena and Constable Fervus, two creatures Intila considered most useful exactly as they were right now – blankly staring at nothing with their mouths open.

  “Apparently, our agents in Imuria haven’t gone mad. There truly is a King, or Chieftain, or whatever they call him, who has gathered over fifteen tribes under his banner.” Vigild threw the piece of parchment onto the table as if he was about to yawn. “Naturally, the Aletines are in a panic.” He grabbed another document but was suddenly interrupted.

  “Well, that sounds important…” Cassena said, unsurely. “Maybe I should put the Eastern Fleet on alert?” The Admiral faced Intila, looking for help, but didn’t get as much as a glance in return, so he found himself facing the piercing eyes of the Emperor instead.

  Tarsus was a tall man whose flesh had been consumed by worries, leaving nothing but bone beneath his pale skin. His long hair, slightly below his shoulders, was no longer black, but streaked with grey, just like his beard.

  “Alert?” Tarsus asked. “Because of half a dozen barbarians?”

  The Admiral trembled and tried to mumble out, “Well… it is known that, I mean, historically speaking, these unifications… In fact, during your great-great grandfather’s… no, before that….”

  It was Intila who put him out of his misery, placing a hand on his shoulder to quiet him down. The poor man simply let himself wilt.

  “Moving on…” Vigild said. “We have the issue of the tax collection in South Ake.”