Phoenix Destiny

Nine

“You know, if you were only a bard, he wouldn’t taunt you so much,” Dak said, walking up to him.

“Bards sing for their supper, perhaps a bath,” Jaron answered without looking at the soldier. “Jesters earn coin.”

The soldier inclined his head to one side, considering that, before walking off to retrieve his own meal. Jaron frowned, still looking after where Dorrall and the prince had gone. The closeness between them was suspicious. There was only one reason two such men made a pact: they both wanted power. He was also quite certain that when one succeeded, they would not let the other achieve their similar goal.

Gambler pawed the ground, shaking its head and snorting.

“Yeah, I agree. We’ll have to watch them.”

Jaron stared into the agitated animal’s eyes, hoping to glean something of its thoughts, but nothing came to him. Despite the stallion’s nervousness, its eyes were wide and calm. There was no telling what was hidden in its depths. Chuckling at the absurdity of the idea, Jaron gave the horse a final pat before crawling into his tent.

Jaron let the flap fall shut before saying, “Come here, Ivy. Time to eat.”

The dragon didn’t answer with its customary chirp. With a frown, he looked to the bed where he had left it. The traveling rations were gone and the imprint of its body still visible among the folds of the blanket, yet the dragon was nowhere to be seen.

“Ivy?” Jaron asked as panicked thoughts raced through his mind: did Dorrall and the prince come into the tent? Did they find her? Was she frightened by the commotion outside? Did she run away?

“Ivy, here girl,” Jaron set his bowl of rapidly cooling stew on the ground to search for the dragon.

Nothing seemed out of place until he noticed the lute had fallen over and was lying on its side. Jaron knelt, picked up the instrument to find it heavier than usual. After playing it for years, he immediately sensed any change in its nature.

Flipping it over, he heard a soft thud, followed by a disgruntled chirp. Jaron turned it back over and watched as Ivy crawled out of the hole in the body of the lute, carefully slithering between the loose strings. The dragon chirped, flicking its tongue.

“There you are,” Jaron sighed with relief and held out his hand to claim the little reptilian. “Found yourself a new sleeping spot, did you?”

The dragon yawned.

Jaron set the lute back in its resting place and carried Ivy to his bed. He sat down, picked up his bowl and set the dragon on his knee. The reptilian’s nostrils twitched at the aroma of the pale concoction. Cooked food was a new experience for her. Jaron swallowed a couple mouthfuls before offering the dragon a meat-laden spoon.

Ivy stood on her short hind legs and clutched the utensil with one of her clawed fore legs as she lapped the broth then snapped up the meat. It was rabbit meat and Jaron’s offering was half the size of her head. Still, the dragon grabbed hold of it and gulped it down. The scales along Ivy’s neck pulled apart as her hide stretched to accommodate the mouthful.

Jaron worried she would not be able to swallow it, but in a few moments Ivy’s neck went back to its normal width. The dragon snapped several times as if to reset her jaw. Her tongue flicked out of her mouth and she chirped.

“Did you like that?”

The dragon stretched her neck so that her flicking tongue could lap directly from the bowl. He couldn’t help but wonder just how much she could eat. Jaron would have thought that a single piece of meat was as large as its stomach.

“Hey, I have to eat too,” he gently admonished.

Ivy chirped.

Jaron continued to feed the dragon morsels of meat and stew while he ate. For such a small creature, it never seemed to be satisfied even when its belly bulged, stretching the scales apart to expose the soft hide underneath. After Jaron finished, Ivy crawled into the bowl to lap the rest of the stew with her forked tongue.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Jaron asked.

Ivy looked up and hissed.

“She’s a dragon,” Artac’s voice said as the sprite appeared on the packs, “Young ones eat as much as they can, whenever they can.”

Jaron looked at Ivy, but the reptilian had fallen asleep, part of her length curled up in the wooden bowl. Surprisingly, it looked comfortable.

“How quickly a Castle Dragon grows is dependent on how much they eat. Your dragon will double her length in a couple of days with regular meals.”

“You say dragons and Fay are enemies, but Ivy has yet to burn you,” Jaron said as he carefully set the dragon and bowl on the ground.

“She’s much too young for that. She’ll learn to fly before she harnesses her fire-breath.”

“And yet she’s not too young to change her form to look like this,” Jaron held up his juggling ball.

“Oh, she’s already figured out her camouflage, has she? It’s a survival trick. Once her scales harden, she will only be able to shift her color, not her form.”

“You certainly know a lot about dragons.”

“Knowledge is power, especially regarding one’s enemies. Remember that. It may be useful.”

“Hinting I should keep an eye on Dorrall?”

“I do that well enough for us both. You should be wary of him, though you are not his true target.”

“What do you mean? Do you mean the General?” Jaron was anxious to confirm his suspicions, but the sprite had already disappeared. He really wished it would stop doing that.

Ivy stirred in the wooden bowl. Jaron turned his attention to her, but she remained asleep. He lay down but could not relax.

Why does everything need to be complicated?

* * *

The camp stirred earlier than usual, but Jaron missed none of it. After a restless night, he woke early, long before the suns rose. Mist hung over the camp, reflecting his mood and setting him on edge as he looked at the castle rising from the haze. He quietly strummed his lute while the stallion dozed on its feet. If it sensed something amiss, it showed no sign.

“Do you ever sleep?” Dak’s voice asked with a yawn. The soldier was becoming a regular visitor to Jaron’s tent as his own was nearby.

Jaron looked up at the soldier and shrugged, replying, “Not this night.”

“What do you mean?” Dak sat down beside him.

“I sense treachery.”

“You mean Dorrall? He talks of challenging the General, but that’s all it is…talk.”

“I don’t think so. Not this time.”

“Dorrall knows he doesn’t have the support of the company.” The soldier shook his head. “You’re new, but even you must have realized that.”

“I am new, and I am the only one who takes Dorrall seriously. He’s biding his time. He’ll show his true loyalties soon enough,” Jaron could not shake the sight of Dorrall and the prince together.

There were far too many tales of treacherous princes and underlings to set the image aside. As if that wasn’t enough, Artac’s warning still rang in his head. No one else knew the sprite even existed. There was no telling what it had overheard in only a few days.

“Well, you’re a happy one this morning,” Dak settled beside him. “Remind me not to come to you when I need cheering up.”

Jaron echoed the soldier’s chuckle as the camp slowly woke and asked, “Why are we here?”

“Rumor is that King Medgar wishes to procure our services to settle an uprising on his northern border. The General will probably set off with a few divisions.”

“Not everyone?”

“Not for something like this. A few ranks can handle angry farmers.”

Jaron narrowed his eyes in thought, then asked, “Does King Medgar often engage the services of this company?”

“He doesn’t keep many knights.”

“Why is that do you suppose?” Jaron idly strummed his lute.

His gaze drifted to the castle pediments, silently counting the armored men patrolling the stone wall. Was that the usual amount or had they increased? Since he had never visited this kingdom before, he hadn’t a clue.

“Knights require land,” Dak answered. “As they marry and retire from active service, a king gives them plots of land as reward for their loyalty.”

Jaron thought about that. This kingdom wasn’t the largest, certainly, but it still had plenty of space. At least, he thought so.

Dak laid back on his elbows, continuing, “If you hire mercenaries, well you pay them and send them on their way.”

“Trouble with mercenaries is that they have no loyalty to a king,” Jaron nodded. “The same group you paid a fortnight ago to silence a rebellion may return to wage war on you under the directive of another king.”

“That is true,” Dak answered with a wink. “We’re soldiers and soldiers fight. Knights, well, they are mainly defensive really, protect the castle and the king. Soldiers are freer. Long live Dragon-Knights.”

“Dragon who?”

“Some myth from the North Mountains. They tell stories of warriors who rode dragons. The Dragon-Knights were like mercenaries. They made agreements between kingdoms: protection for supplies and the like. But they are only stories. No one believes they really existed, them or their gold dragons.”

“Gold dragons,” Jaron repeated, recalling the dragon he saw guarding the Reen Dorema the night he was exiled from Kesle. He wondered if the Dragon-Knights were as mythical as Dak assumed. “What about Milagros, do you believe it exists?”