Dragonmasters, Part 3

Part3

Taron and Ali met again outside, but there was no sign of their friend.
“I still don’t know his name…” she said, looking out over the growing crowd of peers.
“Hope he’s alright…” Taron said, “but he is late for things, we’ve seen that already.”
“Not this late,” Ali replied. They had left their weapons in their rooms and had their wooden weapons from yesterday. Ali swung her staff around, and Taron just barely blocked it as she swung his behind her back and nearly hit his head.
“Whoops, sorry,’ she said. At that moment the instructors came outside.
“This is your second day of training,” the lead guard said. “I know all of you are very sore from yesterday, but you cannot let that get in your way. Out in the wild, you will most likely be tested more rigorously than this, for more days than you wish. Push through the pain, learn to live with it, for you will most likely have to save your lives by ignoring the pain and persevering. You have two more days of training after today; make each one better than the previous.”
After they were situated into groups of three he training began. It was torture; everyone was sore and a bit weak from the training of the other day, but their trainers pushed them, forcing them to defend themselves. Many more dropped out from cramps and other ailments. A few had to go inside for headache treatment. Taron knew that in the wild he would not be able to treat his aching knees in the midst of combat, and gritting his teeth he forced himself to fight back as his trainer tried to get around his defenses.
By the end of the day, some of them had to be carried back inside. Ali was leaning on Taron for support; her right leg was cramped and kept cramping no matter what she did. Taron helped her to the treatment center, then went upstairs to shower. The warm water felt so good on his sore muscles he didn’t want to get out. He finally forced himself to get out and dress, then get some food. He got himself a large bowl of soup and sat at the table, hunched over the bowl, drinking from it because his arms were too sore to move his spoon back and forth. No one else in the room cared; most of them were eating soup too, mostly through straws, and they were all sore as well. The Craftsmen apprentices had been hammering and bending hard metals all day, and Taron knew that working by hot fires was exhausting work.
When he was done eating he went out into the hallway. Ali and Laskor were waiting for him; Ali was slumped against the wall, too tired to stand. She had a crutch nearby.
“Come with me,” Laskor said as Taron joined them, and Taron helped Ali up and they followed him down the stairs into a room in the basement. They went inside and Laskor locked the sound-tight door after making sure they hadn’t been followed. There were several guards and a few other advisors there, watching as Ali and Taron slowly sat down, their sore bodies wanting to rest for the night.
“We’ve called you down here o consult you on your dreams,” Laskor said, sitting down. “We want you to recap for us, to the fullest your memory can allow, what you both have dreamed of.”
Taron started, and Ali stared at him as he recounted his dreams. When he finished he noticed her watching him.
“What?”
“I’ve had dreams just like those! The flying one, I was following you! I recognize you now as the leader on the white dragon! And running through the woods…I think I was looking for you! I saw a black man hunched over someone on the ground…”
There was a long pause and a stillness of shock in the air.
“This is no mere coincidence,” one of the guards said. “These are definitely visions.”


Taron finally flopped back into his bed. It was past midnight and he was dead-tired.
“What are these visions?” he asked himself. “They seem like my future is filled with anger and revenge…but I don’t want that to happen…” He flopped over and hid his face in his pillow, frustrated. He slowly fell asleep, and for one night he didn’t have any dreams he could remember.
The morning was cold and wet, and there was a slight misty rain falling as they grouped together outside once again. It didn’t take long for the water to creep into their clothes and armor, and it soon became very uncomfortable. Today they were training with their own weapons, and Taron was looking at his distorted reflection along the flat of the blade of his sword. Ali was lightly running her fingers over the jewels on her staff, occasionally wiping the water off and trying not to leave fingerprints.
After a long wait their trainers came outside. Without a word the trainers split them up into groups and the training began. Today’s training was about using the environment to their advantage. More slabs and rocks had been set up overnight, and Taron only noticed when he tripped backwards up a stone stairwell as he avoided his trainer’s swords. He got a good laugh as he “fell up” the stairs, trying not to fall down and hit his head on the rough rock. He finally regained his balance and laughed with everyone else. Mud-fights soon broke out, and they had to quickly learn to either dodge the mud, use another part of their body as a shield like their arm or hand, or clean off their face as fast as possible to give minimal advantage to the foe. There were lots of cuts but surprisingly nothing major. About ten had to go inside to get their cuts treated but then came right back out. The day ended with an all-out mudfight as everyone who wanted to come out joined in the fray. It was well-timed, too: before they had to go back in, a torrential downpour started and cleaned them off somewhat. Many of the guards grumbled as the dirty teens came back in, leaving long trails of water and mud along the floor.
Taron flopped into his bed after his shower. His cleaned armor had been hung up to dry in a scented closet to get rid of the three days of use. Taron drew his sword and felt its edge. He’d taken some hard hits with it, but there only a few tiny nicks and some hard-to-see scratches. Laskor knocked at the door and silently came in.
“You ready for the last day of training tomorrow?” he asked.
“I guess…it’s not gonna be as fun as today was, though. Found out the hard way that mud isn’t fit for pies…”
“ Well, I came to ask about last night. Any more dreams?”
“No…I don’t remember having one.”
“Neither does Ali. But if you do dream tonight, here’s some paper and a pencil to write down all you can remember.” He pulled up a small desk and put the paper and pencil on it, along with some water. Taron thanked him and Laskor left with a smile.
“I think I can trust him,” Taron said, though he was still unsure. His concern for these matters was a little odd, but then again excusable as it was thought that Taron was a Dragonmaster.
“I hope I don’t have any dreams tonight,” he said to himself, and he slowly fell asleep.

He was cast headlong into a deep underground pool of water, illuminated by blue lichens and purplish fish. He saw his captors up above, standing on the edge of the dripping waterfall that had made this pool. They smirked and left before Taron could get a good visual of them. He looked around and saw that there was no way up; the walls around him sloped inward so he was at the base of a cone, and they were way too smooth and moist to scale. Taron looked down and saw a vast expanse of clear water beneath him—glowing fish swam about far below.
“How will I get out?!” he thought frantically. His weapons had been taken and all he had were the shirt and shorts on his skin, and the glasses on his face. His thoughts flashed back to a white dragon in sunlight…and he suddenly remembered something…he couldn’t tell what it was, though, for he held his breath and dove in. The water was thin, if it could be called thin; it didn’t resist him as much as normal water, but that also made it harder to swim. The fish watched him, unsure if they should swim away to the smooth walls or ignore him. Taron was glad they stayed, for it gave him a better view of his surroundings. The walls were slowly growing farther apart, and the light was growing dimmer. His breath seemed to regenerate the deeper he went, but his natural instinct to breathe was making him gag. He had to hold it back, though, for if he inhaled the water his captors would win. He kept going deeper, straining against the water, his limbs growing more tired, until he finally saw a tiny hole in the wall. As he got closer he also saw the bottom of the pit, lit by a very faint light cast off by algae growing on the carcasses and bones of dead fish. He went into the hole and pulled himself through. It was a tight fit but not too tight; he was able to get his arms in front of himself to pull forward. He felt like he was going red in the face but knew something was giving him oxygen.
He finally made it to the end of the tiny tunnel and gasped for air as his instinct to breathe finally was allowed to work again. He was in a small pocket of air, and up above was a small hole lit by daylight. A slippery stone staircase of tiny stairs, barely the size of his toes, led up to it, and after quite a bit of slipping and stumbling he finally made it to sunlight, and he opened his eyes to see a bright light on his face.

It was Ali and she was terrified as she held a Sunstone torch over him. He sat up in his bed and looked out the window. The sky was the color of dried blood.
“What’s wrong?”
“I dreamt you were thrown into a bottomless pit of water in a cave…and I couldn’t do anything to help…”
“It’s another vision!” Taron said. “I escaped from that place, but I don’t know how…somehow I was able to hold my breath forever…”
Ali sighed with relief, then her brow furrowed. “I thought I’d seen your death…now I’m afraid to see anything else like this…”
Taron stood up and took the torch from her falling hand. “Today is the last day we spend here. Hopefully those Dream Weavers or whatever they are don’t come after us when we leave.”
“But you heard what the council said; those things attach themselves to people and follow them no matter what.”
“Yes but only so long as they want to. I hope they get bored of it and leave us.”
She sighed, and he led her back to the floor below. She took the torch with her, leaving him in the dark hallway. His eyes quickly adjusted and he hurriedly crept back upstairs on the balls of his feet. He had his knife on him and his hand ready to grab it; he sensed that something hostile was near. He reached the top of the third flight and froze; something was watching him, he could feel that something was nearby, ready to strike. He tiptoed forward, silently loosening his knife in its sheath.
Out of a nearby doorway jumped a boy about his height, wielding a sword. Taron jumped back as he avoided the downward strike. His foe was clumsy, like he’d just woken up, but he was after one thing: Taron. In the dim light he couldn’t tell who he was fighting, but when he grabbed his enemy’s wrist to avoid a chop to his side he saw it was the same boy who’d thrown his knife at him. The boy was staring at him with a glazed look, like he was still asleep, but sliced at him with uncanny accuracy despite his sleepy clumsiness. Taron tripped him but the boy kicked Taron’s feet back out from under him. There was a loud chink of metal as Taron used his knife to block a vicious blow, and the two stood there straining against each other, Taron with the knife in an underhand position almost against his arm, his foe pushing with one hand. Taron shoved the blade back and ducked under the following swipe, at the same time spinning around and punching the boy in the hip, just below the hip joint. He yelled and leaned to the side as he backhanded Taron with the flat of the blade. Taron fell to the floor and again used his knife to block another vicious slash aimed at his head. The lights went on and two guards wrenched the boy off Taron, taking his sword at the same time. Taron brushed himself off and sheathed his knife.
“What happened here?” one of the guards asked.
Taron hesitated, faking a hurt head to cover up his hesitation. “I heard a noise out here so I came to see what it was, and he started attacking me…”
“He’s sleep-walking, sir,” one of the guards said, still restraining the teen. “He’s not fully awake.”
“I’ve only heard of that kind of thing once,” the guard addressing Taron said to himself. He turned to Taron. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just a bit shaken. He’s gonna have a bruised hip though.”
“You’ve got a cut along your face.”
Taron felt his cheek and felt a small warm trickle on his fingers. The skin around the cut felt inflamed and bruised.
“I didn’t think he had hit me that hard…”
“Take him below,” the guard said to the others, and they promptly carried the struggling boy away.
“This kind of behavior will seriously affect whether or not he is officiated as a Warrior,” the guard said to Taron. “If he’s like this here, he might get himself killed in the wild.”
“I know…”
“You should get to bed. Final day of training tomorrow. Wash off that cut.”
Taron nodded and the guard left him. Taron watched him disappear below the top stair, then headed to his room, lightly running his finger over the bruising skin. He looked in the small mirror above the water desk and saw a long, fat red welt that was turning purplish. He took some water and washed the wound, wincing as it stung on contact. He flopped back onto his bed and fell asleep almost instantly, without any more dreams to disturb him.
Laskor shook Taron awake only a few hours later. Taron groaned and hid his face in the pillow, then jerked up when the scab on his cheek stung. It felt like he had something stuck on his face but he figured it was because his face had been on the pillow for so long.
“I heard about last night. You need to see the medical center right away.”
“Why? I’m fine, it’s just a scrape and a bruise…”
“Scrapes don’t turn into loaves of bread.”
Taron sat up and craned his neck to look in the mirror. The area around the cut was puffed up and beet-red.
“There was rust and a trace of poison on the metal of the sword,” Laskor explained. “Only fifteen minutes ago did our analysts find anything.”
Taron put on some better clothes and followed Laskor. Eyes and heads watched him from the doorways; apparently word had spread quickly about the spat in the hallway that night. They made it to the medical center just before everyone started coming out to get ready for the day. Taron was immediately given a desensitizing drink and his whole upper body seemed to have no feeling in the skin.
“We’re going to inject some antidotes; they sting very badly, so be prepared. You might feel burning or ice-chill in your limbs, that’s the poison being killed.” With that a needle was painlessly stuck in his face near the wound, and he just barely felt a cold fluid enter his skin. Within a few seconds the cold was replaced with a bitter-cold freezing feeling all across his face; it felt like a combination between cold and searing hot. His limbs began to jerk as the muscles contracted, and he heard the nurses gasp.
“This isn’t supposed to happen!” one of them shrieked. Taron wanted to say something but his whole face was numb from the drink, and frozen in chilling pain. His hearing seemed to fade as everyone around him rushed to him and picked him up. All he could remember afterwards was what he saw, and even then only bits and pieces: everyone was running him down to the emergency center; he saw his arms twitching violently, unable to control them; he saw doctors and nurses gauging his vitals; the last thing he remembered was being injected with another drug and falling asleep, losing the one sense left to him as it faded into the darkness of sleep.

He woke up much later, his head swimming and his limbs throbbing with a dull hot pain. He tried to look around but the painkillers had not yet worn off so he didn’t have full control of his upper body.
“He’s awake!” said a familiar voice, and in his peripheral vision he saw Ali come to the bedside.
“Sh, don’t move…not like you can, but still…”
Taron tried to move his mouth but nothing worked, he could only breathe.
Ali guessed his thought. “Apparently the poison was much stronger than anticipated, but somehow your body was fighting it off until the painkiller somehow disabled your immune system. You had an allergic reaction to the poison as well.”
She saw Taron’s eyes dilate in amazement.
“Can you move your eyes?”
He could.
“Okay then, move your eyes up for yes, down for no, got it?” He moved his eyes down and she laughed. “You’re joking, right?” He moved his eyes up; he wanted to laugh at the joke but he couldn’t.
A doctor came in, followed by their late-in-coming friend.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, and both of them rolled their eyes.
“Can he respond?”
Taron moved his eyes up.
“He says yes,” Ali said.
“Does he feel a burning pain in his limbs?”
“Uhhhh…yes,” Ali said when Taron’s eyes flicked up.
“Okay, good. The antidotes are working fine. He should regain control of his body within the next fifteen minutes.”
Ali laughed to herself. “When I heard about what happened I came straight here. Was he really sleep-walking?”
Taron felt his shoulders regain feeling and he weakly shrugged.
“Hey, you can move again! Did you say you don’t know?”
He rolled his eyes.
“Kinda hard to tell at night, huh?”
His neck was slowly beginning to come back but he couldn’t nod so once again he tilted his eyes up.
“How are you talking to him?” the late boy asked.
“We’ve worked out a system,” Ali replied.
All of a sudden, the heat of his limbs flushed away, leaving Taron feeling kind of clammy and weak. The numbness slowly faded like a headrush, and he slowly tried to lift himself up.
“AH! What’re you doing?” Ali half-shouted, pushing him back down. “Don’t get up! You’re not recovered yet!”
“Fine,” Taron said in a raspy voice; his vocal cords weren’t letting go of their disuse just yet.
“He can talk! I’ll go get the doctor,” the late boy said, and rushed out.
“Not very well,” Taron rasped.
“It’s something at least,” Ali said.
The doctor hurried in. “Is he able to speak?”
“Yes,” both of them replied at once.
“Good! Very good! When your strength returns, grab something to eat and you may leave. Make sure you eat something like fruits or vegetables, that’ll help you recover after the reaction.” The doctor left.
“I think I’ll sleep,” Taron said with a weak yawn.
“Go ahead. Daren and I will come back soon.”
“Daren?”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you! His name is Daren—the late boy, you know? He was just in here and went to get the doctor?”
“Yes, I figured as much,” Taron said, his eyelids drooping. He yawned again and without even knowing it, he fell asleep.

Taron woke up some time later and sat up. The pain in his limbs was now replaced by the roaring of his stomach. He stretched and looked around when the headrush-darkness faded from his eyes. Ali was asleep in a chair, and Daren was nowhere around. In the next room the doctors were milling around, quietly chatting and filing papers and stuff.
A tickle came to his nose and before he could stop it he loudly sneezed. Ali jumped with a surprised yell, her staff getting knocked over and clattering to the floor.
“Sorry,” Taron said a little hoarsely.
“You’re awake! Feeling any better?”
“A lot better.” He slung his legs off the bed, and stretched as he stood up. Ali handed him his sword and he walked with stiff legs to the door.
“Need some help?” she asked.
He hesitated. “Sure I guess,” he replied. She gave him her staff to use as a cane, then opened the door. He followed her out and she helped him up the stairs. Laskor was coming down the hallway when he saw them appear over the stairs.
“So he’s better now?” he asked as they went to 12-3.
“Yes,” Ali replied. Taron sat on his bed and fell back with a groan. He felt drained and a bit hazy.
“I would have come to see you but we had a meeting all morning…I hate meetings. But it’s good to see you’re fine. Ali, how’d you get out of training?”
“They told me Taron and I were fortunate that we were doing so well in training, since it was just a review of what we’ve done so far. They exempted us from today’s training.”
“Well, that’s good news. Tomorrow you’ll be heading out on your own into the wilderness. I was supposed to talk to Taron tonight about it but since you’re both here I’ll tell you now and save you the wait. It is recommended that you travel to each others’ villages and introduce your partners to your families. We want to avoid any ‘conflicting’ that families might have…if there’s an issue, contact us.”
“Do you always talk so dryly?” Ali asked.
“Oh, I’m doing it again? Sorry, but I tend to do that when reciting ‘important’ issues and stuff. I have to under the Arena Council’s policies…”
All of a sudden Taron and Ali yelled and fell to the floor, unconscious. Laskor froze briefly in shock, then tried to revive them. They were still alive but had somehow been thrown into a deep sleep.
“I’d better go get the doctors,” he said, and raced out of the room.

Taron and Ali woke up in a strange, blue-hued room; everything looked like it was in a blacklight. They were tied together around a pole, surrounded by dozens of people dressed in hooded black cloaks. Taron struggled against the bonds but it was no use; they were steel chains, each link at least a half-inch thick. He looked wildly around and saw torches flare up, giving a striking contrast against the glowing blue atmosphere of the room. Ali seemed to be asleep but he couldn’t crane his neck around well enough to see her. He looked up at the ceiling and saw a large metal grating with hideous designs wrought into the bars. He focused his though elsewhere…where was he thinking of? He couldn’t consciously tell but he felt himself trying to call something. The men surrounding him laughed at him and one of them prodded him with a long electrical lance. Taron shouted in pain and his whole side went numb. The laughter subsided and one tall man came down the center of the room from an unseen door. He drew a sword and Taron could sense that he was smiling maliciously. The sword came up to Taron’s neck, and Taron closed his eyes, knowing he was finished. The sword fell away, though, when a loud roar took the whole room by surprise. There was a blast of heat and light and the metal grating was blown apart, bits and pieces falling on them. Taron opened his eyes and saw a large white dragon fly in through the grating, and with one sweep of its tail it both cut through the pole and chains holding Taron prisoner and created a shockwave that took out most of the surrounding captors. While the dragon filled the room with fire and cut down every last foe, Taron tried to revive Ali. She was snow-white and barely breathing, and her eyes were half-open but unfocused. She opened her eyes and saw what was going on.
“Where are we?” she asked, and Taron opened his eyes to find himself and Ali on the floor of his room, with Laskor and the doctors bent over them. Both Taron and Ali sat up at the same time.
“They’re fine,” one of the doctors said when the two got up to their feet, “but I’m worried. I hope this is the final time they experience this, or else they’re not going to last long out there.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Laskor said, and the medics left. Taron held his head and Ali sank into a chair.
“Now I’m confused,” Laskor said as Taron flopped onto his bed. “There were no Dream Scouts around…” He paced around the room as the two teenagers sat in silence, the recent scene replaying rapidly through their heads. After some time he went to the window and looked outside.
“I think you two are connected more deeply than I had imagined,” he said at length. “I believe now that you are the two foretold Dragonmasters. Most of the prophecies say there will be one, but I am starting to think the later ones that told of more are true. What did you see just now?”
Taron and Ali looked at each other, and Ali looked down in resignation. Taron sighed and began to tell. When he was finished, Laskor sighed and leaned against the wall, rubbing his brow.
“The fact that you called a Dragon, especially a white one, means that you’re a Dragonmaster. No one else can freely call like that. You’ll need to be on your guard at all times out in the open. Ali, what did you see?”
“I only heard stuff until the end when Taron woke me up…but I was trying to call something as well. It felt like I was being blocked though…”
Laskor remained silent for a while, then with a sigh he turned back to the window. “I’ll need to call my friends to see to your protection.”
“I have a question,” Taron said, “something that you said earlier…”
“What is it?”
“You said we should visit each others’ villages and families…does that mean Ali and I have been grouped together?”
Laskor hesitated. “Yes. My mistake, but now you know. It was a long, hard decision between whether to split you two up or keep you together. It seems that keeping you two together would allow us to better protect you, not only because where one is, the other will be, but also because you two are such close friends now,” at this they side-glanced at each other, confused, “and if one went missing you’d be more likely to report it and give us enough of a start to locate you.”
Laskor went out into the hallway, and after some silence Taron and Ali decided to get some lunch. Everyone else was still outside, but there was some food left over from breakfast, so they helped themselves.
By the time night fell, Taron was back to normal; his limbs no longer felt so stiff and weary. He and Ali parted for the night as everyone poured in and headed straight for the showers and food. Back in his room Taron fell onto his bed and let his mind wander. His eyes fixed on the blue dragonhide armor suit and the sword hanging from its shoulder, and he slowly fell asleep, dreaming of climactic battles where he emerged victorious, usually by some inexplicable thing or happening that dreams tend to have.
The next morning he was up early, and he got ready for the dismissal celebration. The party four days ago had been for the visitors, this time it was for everyone. He sighed nervously as he brushed back his hair; he didn’t want to go into a huge crowd, but he also didn’t want to be paired up with Ali. He liked her as a friend, but he didn’t want to have to see to her protection as well as his own, at least not until he was more acquainted with the wilderness. He was afraid something would spin out of control out there. With a groan he hesitantly headed to the door. His stuff was all packed and ready to go; apparently the guards brought everyone’s stuff to them before it was time to leave. With one last look at his white-walled room, he headed into the hallway.

The party went well, but Taron found himself often alone, watching everyone else socialize. Ali was flitting from group to group, her jeweled staff affixed to the clip on the back of her shoulder-sling. Taron’s fingers ran along the hilt of his sword, affixed to his hip. He wanted to attach it to his back but it was easier and faster to reach from his side. There was no side of the nasty boy or his friends—Taron was pretty sure the kid was still in the holding cells deep underground.
He sighed and stood against the wall, watching. He wanted to leave but they still had some time left before they were dismissed. It felt like it was going to rain again, but there were no clouds at all in the sky.
“Hey, you okay?” Taron looked down and saw Ali standing in front of him. “You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine, just bored,” he replied.
“Me too, no one really wants to talk about anything,” she said, looking back over the crowd. “I hope we can leave soon. It’s kinda dull here now.”
After a while Taron went to the food tables and got himself another plate of food. Ali followed him but didn’t get much; she’d already eaten quite a bit. They sat down at a table and ate in silence, watching everyone around them. A few people seemed to be eyeing Taron, but he pretended to not notice. They seemed to be planning something every time they looked at either him or Ali.
Finally, in the afternoon, the party was called to an end. The teenagers were all called to line up, and they were grouped together. Those who were not going out into the wild were excused and dismissed. Taron and Ali knew they were assigned as partners, so they stood next to each other in the line. As the line was divided into travelling groups, they were dismissed and guided to the edge of the valley.
Finally Taron and Ali were sent off with Laskor. When they were a good distance away and sure no one was around Laskor stopped and addressed them.
“My group has decided that I shall accompany you, at least so far as your second destination. It is up to you to decide where to go first. I’d advise getting to know the others’ family.”
Taron opened his mouth, but Ali had already piped in with “I vote we go to Taron’s village!” Taron’s words died right in his throat and came out as a sigh of resignation.
“Okay, fine…” he said.
“Do you remember the way?” Laskor asked.
“Not really, not from here. If I see the upper trail again then yes I can remember.”
Laskor led them towards the entry Taron had used. They were hardly halfway there before night fell, so they had to take out their sleeping gear and pray there was no wind or rain.
The next morning dawned cold and chilly and wet with mountain dew. They dried themselves off as best they could and continued to the valley ridge. By mid-morning they reached it and scaled it, and Taron, after getting his bearings, led the way. Laskor knew the way far better than Taron guessed, but he didn’t show it as he followed the teenage boy through the woods; his hand was always near the knife concealed beneath the pouch at his hip. They found a grove of fruit trees and had some brunch.
“It’s really hard acclimatizing to life in the wild,” Ali said as her stomach groaned. “You’d think the Age Trials would better prepare us for this.”
“Too many whiny parents and kids,” Laskor laughed with a snort of disgust. “The Council tried that long ago and there was a huge outcry.” He then started mimicking voices, “How dare you starve our kids? You’re so mean to my precious baby…you’re starving our children and pushing them too hard too soon…” They laughed as they walked and Laskor reverted to his normal voice. “Seriously, the kids’ll be subjected to worse in the wild…I just…it just blows my mind how stupid those people are.”
“How old are you, exactly?” Ali asked. “I wasn’t expecting that from an adult.”
“What, you thought adults were stiff and uptight?” Ali hesitated. “There’s no ‘magical’ change that comes from adulthood, those people just get a ‘maturity’ or ‘pride’ complex and lose their humor. Shame, really, since humor seems to prolong life. I’m only about five to seven years older than you two, though I might not look it, and my sense of humor isn’t leaving anytime soon.”
“Good, it might get boring out in the wild,” Ali said.
“I think after a while most of what we can say will be said,” Taron said, walking backwards to face them.
“Whaddaya mean?” Ali asked.
“I mean, after a while we’ll have covered everything we can talk about so there won’t be much to say during the treks through the wild.”
“Not for a long while, I’ll see to that,” she replied.
“Well, you’re a girl, girls can talk forever on a subject and never get bored,” Taron said, and Laskor chuckled in agreement. Ali scowled at them and they laughed.
“This is gonna be a long life,” she sighed. “How far away is your village from here?”
“If we continue by night, we should get there a little past midnight. I set off about three, and made it to the edge of the woods after nightfall. So, with the delay in the eating back there, we’ll make it to my house by very early morning if we keep going.”
“But I don’t think your parents would expect you so late?” Laskor suggested. “I can keep going, I’ve had to for most of my life, but you two need sleep. Though you do have to acclimatize yourselves to waking up early and going to bed late, and with little food or water most of the time.”
“Don’t we have time to do that?” Ali asked, running up to them after briefly stopping to examine a small jeweled lizard on a rock by the road.
“Not really. The other groups technically do, but they’ll be hard-pressed now that everyone’s off on their own. You have it easy; the other groups only have each other, their guides did not go with them. I however was only signed on in hopes that the Dragonmaster-s would come, and was free to go if I wished or needed to.”
“What group do you belong to?” Taron suddenly remembered the first night he’d met Laskor. “Why did you call me a Dracostan?”
“Ah yes, that is the title given to you after my group has watched you for years. Ali had a name but we’ve been so focused on your protection.”
Ali’s jaw dropped. “You forgot about me?!”
“Not so much forgot as pressed,” Laskor explained. “The enemy also had their sights set on Taron, but they knew nothing of you. Therefore, we were constantly fending them away from Taron’s village, but to them we hope it seemed that we had found one of their targets and were simply depriving them of something they wanted. Our motives were to protect and study Taron to see if he indeed was—or one of—the foretold Dragonmaster-s. Now we are certain there are two—you two—but there may be more. Your friend, Daren, has a possibility, but his calling is obscured in mystery. He himself appeared as an orphan in the middle of a battle, and no one in the village knew where he had come from. His clothes, though tattered and a bit burnt, were made of fine material, very pricy, but his body was malnourished. We kept an eye on him, as often as we could spare, which wasn’t very often unfortunately. He’s had a very trying childhood, in fact he’s the only child his age who survived a lethal virus that plagued the village. His health isn’t as good as it should be but he’s fine, so long as he doesn’t contract anything powerful for a long period of time. He seemed to be on the road for Dragonmaster-ship, but as he got older it seemed like his calling was similar but wasn’t what we thought it was. Now we can’t tell at all.”
“He predicted the storm that came with the mages,” Ali said.
“Yes, he seems to have a keen tuning with nature and its balances. I had somewhat hoped he would come with you, but he chose to be a Village Warrior, one who stays near home instead of wandering through the wild. Probably better for his health.”
“What group are you from?” Taron asked after some silence after they had thought about Laskor’s insights on Daren.
Laskor hesitated, then sighed and said slowly, “I belong to an underground group devoted to the finding and protection of the Dragonmasters, and to the recovery of the ancient artifacts now sought by the Mages of Umbros. There were many ancient artifacts of great power, used for healing and keeping peace in the land. But the Mages wish to pervert that usage; they want to heal the damage to the darkness they worship, and to promote peace through their idealized means of keeping peace. I.E., they want to completely take over whatever they can and not be challenged, the typical tyrannical story. So far they’ve acquired quite a few artifacts, including ones that we didn’t know existed. In fear of dragons, they also have several of the last few Dragon Eggs in their keeping, protected by a time spell so that they will never hatch.”
“Can’t we do something about that?” Ali asked. “That’s awful, keeping babies from being born. Poor little Dragons…”
“Actually, that is your first task,” Laskor said, and they turned to him. “Your first task is to free the outpost of the Dragon Eggs and slay the mages guarding it. Most of them are inexperienced, it’s basically a training ground, the perfect start for you. Though I must warn you, every day a Head Mage comes in and renews the time spell. If the eggs are taken away from the altars they rest on they will no longer be succumb to the spells. Though they may not hatch until they sense that their master is near. Sometimes they will, and they’ll spend years looking for them, but oftentimes they’ll wait in the egg.”
“Are baby dragons cute?” Ali asked, and both the boys rolled their eyes.
“I’ve never seen one myself,” Laskor said. “I hope to, though, and I hope to see Dragons again.”
They traveled on in silence for a while. The sun was beginning to set when Ali suddenly stumbled with a cry. Her left leg was tightly cramped and she couldn’t straighten it.
“We should stop and rest,” Laskor said, looking at the sun’s position. “She may not be able to continue if I can get her leg to relax, and if I can’t she’s definitely not going to make it.”
“I’ll set the stuff out,” Taron said, and as Laskor tried to get the muscles in Ali’s leg to relax Taron set out both his and Ali’s sleep stuff.
“Her leg keeps getting worse,” Laskor said in frustration after a bit. Ali’s teeth and face were clenched with the pain in her leg. “If I can’t do anything it may end up snapping…we can’t have that.”
“Wait a sec,” Taron said, suddenly remembering something. He raced off and came back with some strange leaves.
“Eat these,” he said to Ali, and rushed off to get something else. The leaves were bitter and for a while the aftertaste kept her mind off the cramp. Taron swiftly came back with different leaves.
“Laskor, you got a light on you?”
Laskor took out a tiny flint set and Taron gathered some grasses and put the leaves on top, then lit the pile on the dirt road. The leaves suddenly flared up and carbonized the grasses. After a while Taron gave Ali another of the first leaves he’d brought.
“Oh these things are gross,” she said, and ate the leaf, her face clenching again but with the awful taste. While she got over the taste Taron took the hot ashes and rubbed them against her cramping muscles. The ashes were hot but not scorching, and the heat made her leg return to normal.
“The leaves contain chemicals that will prevent or lessen cramps,” Taron explained as Ali recovered use of her tongue. “The leaves I burned not only turned everything into ash, but they helped the ashes cool faster, though I don’t know why. Ali, you might want to keep those ashes on your leg for a while, the chemicals in the ashen leaves help heal the muscle after a bad cramp.”
“Impressive,” Laskor said in awe. “I never knew that and I’ve been a woodsman since I was eight.”
“Dad’s brother became a healer and he knew a whole ton of stuff about plants,” Taron said. “Dad at the time was interested in that and learned a lot. His brother sometimes will send us a letter with a list of new plant uses.”
After a bit more discussion on plants, they finally lay down under their sleep gear and drifted to sleep beneath the open sky. It was really scenic and clear but because it was so open, the air was biting cold. Their sleep was untouched by dreams and they finally got a good night's rest.