For Morte
Wealsun 19, CY 593
48: Dragon Hunting Tip #32: Look Vulnerable.
“These mines are corrupted,” Heydricus announces, startling Prisantha from her studies.
“Nonsense,” Prisantha says.
“Corrupted by Good, but corrupted nonetheless.” Heydricus leans within the door frame, cleaning night-hag blood out of his greaves with a slender fighting-knife. “Isn’t Industry a Virtue any more? The Tenha have decided that they intend to use their freedom to stare slack-jawed into the lights of the emotes.”
“And if they do?” Prisantha asks. “Halrond will wait. I am composing a letter to him, and I expect that I shall convince him of the soundness of our approach. He means well, but he thinks too highly of his own position.” Prisantha closes the book she was reading, and sets her writing papers upon it.
Heydricus looks up from his work, a glimmer in his eye. “Well, hell, Pris, write me a speech for the Tenha—give me something that can convince the lazy bastards to get to work.”
-----
Prisantha does, and he does, and for a shining moment, the Tenha do as well. The speech is a thing of sublime beauty—its arguments speak to both the head and the heart with equal skill; clever turns of phrase accentuate the critical segments and play to the great Flannae themes of Ancient Tenh. Heydricus is born for this sort of presentation, his inborn magnetism and enthusiasm give vibrant life to Prisantha’s words.
The Tenha cheer, some even scream, and afterward all agree that they are in the best of hands with Heydricus Tritherion. No doubt he will get his wish someday, and they will be citizens of a united Tenh. A few even agree to go back to work in the mines, seeing as how it isn’t really slavery if you don’t have to do it.
Afterwards, Prisantha takes Heydricus’ hands in hers as he steps down from the podium. “Heydricus, you were wonderful, simply grand.” She is radiant, smiling from ear to ear.
“Hey thanks, Pris,” he says. “Mialec worked with me all night on my delivery.”
------
“The ore wasn’t getting through when the Iuzians held the mines either,” Dabus says at the Liberator’s habitual morning meeting. “The Aiman tells me that they were worried about a dragon raiding their commerce trails. A big red, he thinks, and none of the wicked priests wanted to risk his neck tangling with it.”
“Just like an Iuzian,” Heydricus says. “Got a problem? Don’t try to fix it, just figure out how to blame the other guy.” The sorcerer rolls his eyes and drinks his morning tea, double-strong.
“You’re drinking more tea than usual,” Prisantha says.
“No I’m not,” Heydricus replies.
“Tritherion teaches us that each man is responsible for finding solutions to his own dilemmas,” Dabus says.
Heydricus thinks for a moment, then slowly nods, as he comes to a decision. “Hell, those Iuzians produced for months without a shipment. We’ve got enough ore backed up to let us resume delivery while we get the mines back up again,” Heydricus says to himself. He looks across the table at Prisantha and Dabus. “Let’s go dragon hunting.”
-----
Heydricus hand-picks a crew of twenty men, a work detail for the ore-cart and a reasonable-seeming armed guard. Heydricus, Dabus and Prisantha will guide the ore-cart to Stoink, directly through the patch of road where they had noticed the dragon’s attacks upon their first arrival in Tenh. The men are given instructions to flee at the first sign of trouble.
A cart is loaded with ore, and tethered to a pair of stout oxen. Even when the belligerent beasts can be prodded into motion, the cart is painfully slow, and the retinue moves down the rough cart-track at a snail’s pace.
As they walk along, Prisantha comments on Heydricus’ appearance. “You look like you haven’t been sleeping,” she says with a motherly tone. “Is something concerning you?”
“Naw, it’s Mialec,” Heydricus says. “She keeps me up all night. She can really go.”
Prisantha sputters. “Well, I . . . well. That little slip of a girl? I don’t want to hear that!”
“Working!” Heydricus says. “She’s a taskmistress and a cruel one! She’s always got this or that plan to approve, or questions about our operations. I don’t think that she sleeps at all.”
“She is devoted to our deity,” Dabus says. “And the righteous fire of Tritherion sustains her. Myself, I sleep only enough for the sake of my spells. I must say, I am pleased at the direction our band is taking of late, Heydricus. The faithful are rallying to the Liberator, as they should.”
Prisantha recovers from her blushing fit, and changes the subject. “I’ve never fought a dragon, though I have read much about them. All the lore-keepers agree that they’re terribly fierce.”
“Dragons are bad,” Heydricus agrees. “I fought one in the Temple, before you came along. A little black ball of terror—it killed Aelniir, and Esril . . . and that one guy. The gnome lived, but I don’t think he ever got that dragon out of his head. You know, I just realized—this dragon is the one that made Gnomer go mad.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Prisantha says.
“That was all before my time,” Dabus says. “But where there is terror, there is mental slavery and Tritherion abhors those who bring it about.”
They walk for all of the day, setting camp at night with the guards placed strategically apart from one another. Both moons are thin, lightless slivers on the horizon, and low-light vision is of little use. Prisantha grants Heydricus’ hawk a darkvision spell, reasoning that some eyes in the air are better than none.
Heydricus instructs the men to sleep no closer than ten feet from their nearest companion, and Dabus keeps a lit lantern of revealing covered, but at hand. Prisantha discovers that the expensive fuzzy case for her crystal ball of true seeing makes a fine pillow.
The second and third days pass much like the first, and at the end of the fourth day, the party has walked across Central Tenh, unmolested but not unnoticed. On the second day, Heydricus’ hawk reported that it spied wings on the horizon—a dragon, surely, but it could not make out the color. The group took immediate evasive action, but the dragon came no closer. Later, they spied it again, but this time from the opposite direction. This game of cat-and-mouse kept up for the duration of the trip, adding to the already substantial tension among the men.
“Remember,” Heydricus tells them for the hundredth time. “If you see the dragon, you run like hell.”
“Beggin’ your pardons, sir, I don’t like to play the craven,” one of the guards complains.
“You are no coward, but you are a soldier,” Heydricus replies, “and you have your orders.”
-----
Heydricus finds that he is getting no better sleep dragon-hunting than he does with Mialec pestering him, and he is lying awake in the dark. He listens to the wind rattle the spear-head cones of the local scrub-trees, and tries to place his current position relative to where he first came across the blasted caravan.
The wind rises, and rattles the trees, then dies again into a soft, velvety silence. Suddenly, a lone tree rattles, and Heydricus’ eyes snap open. He leaps to his feet, and sees a massive silhouette cut over the top of a near ridge and scream down upon him! The dragon has a wing-span equal to the width of the entire camp—a massive beast knifing through the air, black against black in the warm Tenh night.
“Dragon!” he yells, as he fumbles for the components for his protection from fire spell.
The inky wyrm arcs low to the ground and rears up just over the ore-cart, provoking startled braying from the oxen. Its wings kick up a stinging cloud of dust as it beats them against its own momentum, then it crashes onto the cart, destroying the wooden axle with an ear-splitting crack and crushing the cart to the ground. The dragon howls—a lingering, booming cry that rises in pitch and volume as it goes on and on. The creature’s tail lashes out pensively with a whip-crack and narrowly misses Heydricus’ head.
Heydricus reacts, ducking the blow, but in his haste he miscasts his shield spell. As the soldiers rise to their feet and scatter into the dark, the dragon’s eyes light up from within and flicker from side to side following the movement. Suddenly, its mournful cry is repeated from some distance away. Then there is a second answering cry, and a third, and another, then another and another.
Even the laziest of sorcerers can count to six. “Gods be good,” Heydricus stammers as he levels his spear.
