Offendorl tried to stand up, but the weight of the crown was just too much. The muscles in the ancient wizard’s neck stood out like taunt ropes under the weight of the helmet. He wanted to take it off, but he didn’t want to lose his connection with the dragon. He called to his servants, who hurried into the wagon wordlessly.
“Send for the generals,” Offendorl said through gritted teeth. “Tell them to prepare their troops.”
How the mute servants would communicate that message was not Offendorl’s concern. He was sending the dragon along the Tillamook River to spy on the enemy encampment. Things were finally turning in his favor, he thought. Then he sent the mental command to the dragon to attack the Yelsian army.
Chapter 27
The dragon had been cautiously moving closer to the source of the voice in his head. Since leaving the mountains and the girl who was more than just a girl-the dragon thought of her as dragonkind-he had flown south. He could feel the wizard who called to him; he was different from the one who had hunted him far into the northern highlands. This wizard spoke with authority, and there was a sense of arrogance that reminded the dragon of its masters from ancient times.
When the beast guessed it was near enough to the wizard, it landed, waiting for nightfall and hiding during the day. The wizard was with a large army that, fortunately enough for the dragon, had scared the local inhabitants away. When night fell, the dragon flew over the army’s camp, searching for the wizard whose voice the beast couldn’t get out of its head. The dragon was torn between two intense desires: on one hand the dragon wanted to destroy the wizard and return to freedom. Not that freedom had been all that great-it had been hounded and almost killed-but it hated the wizard who wanted to control it just as much it hated as the wizard who was trying to kill it. But the dragon also wanted to give in; the voice was so alluring and it never seemed to stop. The idea of giving up the fight and giving in to the voice was intoxicating.
For two days the beast had swung back and forth like a pendulum between the desire to kill and the desire to give in. Then, something changed. The voice, which had always been enticing, suddenly became undeniable. The dragon knew immediately that the wizard had discovered its name. He could no longer help but obey the voice of the wizard. It had been preparing to fly over the army camp again, but now the voice was ordering it to turn toward the river. There was another army ensconced there, and the voice compelled the dragon to approach it. The sky was bright with stars but the beast couldn’t change that. It circled the second army’s camp, which was divided into three parts. Nearest the river were large wooden devices with mounds of stone beside them. Up a slight hill were the tents and cooking fires of the army, and then further out from this was a line of soldiers standing stiffly, facing into the darkness.
The dragon was angry, but the voice in its mind now had total control. The beast dove toward the river. Once it was close enough, it breathed fire onto the wooden structures. It was easy work: the wood was like kindling and caught fire immediately. There were five of the structures and in moments they were all ablaze, casting a dancing, yellow light out over the river and toward the camp. Soldiers were rushing toward the fires, but they had no way to get water up to the top of the structures. Then the dragon revealed himself fully. He dove toward the army and carved a blazing trail of death through the men crowded below. It took only one pass to scatter the army. Humans fear what they cannot see, and Bartoom the dragon was hiding in the thick, black smoke from the burning trebuchets. Like a viper the dragon would strike, diving down and snatching up a soldier in each talon and one in its gaping mouth. Then it would climb back up into the sky and drop the soldiers like bombs onto any massed group of soldiers.
The delicious thrill of battle was hampered by the voice in the dragon’s head. It was constantly directing the beast, which had no choice but to obey. The army below was scattering, and the beast was called south to the wizard’s army, but as it flew it saw that the wizard’s soldiers were hurrying from their camp to attack the other army.
The voice told the dragon to land, and it set down lightly near a large wagon. The door of the wagon opened and the wizard appeared. He was old, his skin wrinkled and his head bowed by the weight of the golden crown that it was using to control the dragon. The wizard made his way slowly down the steps before looking up at the beast. The dragon wanted to destroy the wizard. Its fury was so intense its vision was turning red.
“You want to kill me, eh?” the wizard said, his voice echoing in the dragon’s mind so loud it was like the tolling of a giant brass bell.
“Well, that won’t do, not at all,” the wizard said. “I am your master now. We have much work to do, but you will find that I am not a harsh task master. Make your lair here, with me. It is time to restore order to these lands.”
The dragon stalked around the wizard and then blew a fiery gout of flame along the ground, burning away the vegetation. It would have to sleep in the dirt like an animal, the dragon thought, shame making the human flesh in its stomach rise up and almost gag the beast.
“Good,” said the wizard. “Now rest. Do not move until I summon you.”
The dragon curled up on the ground, its black scales gleaming, its golden eyes shining as brightly as the stars overhead. It couldn’t move. It would lie there until it died of dehydration unless the wizard with the crown freed it. But it watched the old wizard’s every move, waiting, biding its time to break free and escape, perhaps exacting revenge along the way.
* * *
The battle began, not against the enemy or the dragon that was burning his precious trebuchets, but just to control his own men. King Felix had known that war was coming. He had known that his harboring Zollin would incite the Torr to stir up the other kingdoms against him. But the opportunity was just too great; no one had resisted the Torr in centuries. The treaty had been necessary just to keep the Five Kingdoms from tearing each other apart. When the Kingdoms were fighting, raiders pillaged unchecked, and no one prospered; yet consolidating all magical power in the Torr had given the wizards too much control. Felix remembered his father’s caution, wrestling over every decision, not to determine what was best for his kingdom, but what would keep him out of the Torr’s bad graces.
Now he had a chance to restore the balance of power. King Felix recognized that his son Simmeron had been greedy for the throne, but he couldn’t fault the boy for trying to harness Zollin’s power. Unfortunately, Simmeron had also been trying to kill Felix, but that had been dealt with. Simmeron was under control and now Zollin, too, was almost completely in Felix’s control. No, he thought, control isn’t the right word, he didn’t want to control Zollin, but he did want the boy on his side. He wanted to get full use of Zollin’s ability, to have someone on his side who didn’t cower in fear at the sight of the other Torr wizards.
Regardless, all his plans were for nothing if he didn’t survive this battle. Felix knew Offendorl was behind the dragon’s attacks. In all likelihood, the Master of the Torr had sent the dragon to raze the Yelsian villages in the first place. The summons to the Council of Kings, which Felix had ignored, hinted at the dragon’s presence as the cause for the council. It wasn’t surprising to see the beast doing Offendorl’s dirty work now.
“My lord,” said General Yinnis, head of the Boar Legion, which built and maintained the in the King’s Army’s engineering projects, such as the trebuchets and temporary bridges used to move troops across the Tillamook River. He came rushing to King Felix to give his report. “It is too late to save the trebuchets.”