H - 117: They're Gonna Blame Us for This (Patreon)

Three dragons bearing five riders swept though the mountain passes of the Evervales on a direct course for Boisverd, accompanied by dozens of streaks of blue mist keeping up with their blistering pace.

“We can conceal our approach and get a view of the situation,” Vadaralshi called from the left flank of the formation, “if we climb to a high altitude and apply basic stealth spells.”

“No!” Percy shouted, having to raise her voice to the point of strain to be heard over the rush of wind. “Come in low, over the walls! Roar and breathe fire!”

“What?” Vanimax demanded. “That’ll cause a panic!”

“Of course!” Greg exclaimed; unlike Percy, the bard had a trained set of lungs and projected his voice above the air noise without it cracking. “This is the Evervales, everyone is trained and prepared for dragon attack! They’ll see us coming, the alarm bells will be rung, and everyone will run to shelter—so whatever Lady Cora does won’t have as many victims!”

“Hah! Clever girl,” Zhiiji crowed.

“Good thinking,” Vanimax said in approval. “Low and loud it is, then!”

As he spoke, the three of them arced around a mountain’s flank and beheld before them the pass opening up into the great forested valley of Boisverd beyond, the city’s towers just barely visible in the distance.

Vanimax beat his wings to launch himself forward in a burst of speed, then folded them, diving at a velocity which made it especially vital that all three dragons had secured their passengers in place with magic. Flanked by his sisters, he snapped his wings open seconds later, leveling out into a glide just as he swooped over the border fortification stretched across the pass, guarding the kingdom’s central valley.

He let out a trumpeting roar as the disturbance of their passage whipped the banners of Boisverd and House von Holtzman out after them. The echoes clamored off the surrounding mountain range, spreading across the valley like the ripples of a brick dropped in a pool. All around them stretched the dense forest, its cover doing its job of concealing everything below from aerial view.

But dead ahead in the city, alarm bells began to ring.

***

“He has missed two scheduled check-ins now, your Majesty,” the soft-spoken young man said, his face and tone coldly neutral despite the worry he was expressing. “According to protocol, this does not rise to the level of a situation, but I and several others in the Ministry are…concerned. Forgive me, your Majesty, I know this is a paltry reason to take up your time, but M. Clarent himself insists that we should pay attention to our instincts, particularly when it comes to perceiving dangers.”

“And he is right to do so, that is good advice for all situations,” Queen Henrietta agreed. She narrowed her eyes in thought; at her side, Prince Franz watched silently, also frowning. “That aside…this is too specifically inconvenient a moment for Clarent to squirrel himself away on some personal task. He knows that, and I do not trust coincidence. Have your people begin a discreet search of the Palace. If that fails to turn him up, report to me and unless the situation has changed in the interim, I will authorize a full search.”

“Immediately, your Majesty,” the spy replied, bowing deeply and backing away the requisite three steps dictated by etiquette before he turned and swept out of the throne chamber in which he had approached her.

Henrietta was not currently holding formal audiences, but usually chose the throne room for discussions of state business with her son, as her presence here signaled that she could be approached by government personnel with matters that might require her attention. Now, she and Franz were rapidly approached by her spouse, who had just emerged from one of the side doors.

Princess-Consort Etienne looked after the departing agent of Intelligence. “Trouble?”

“We are not certain yet, but I fear so,” Henrietta replied quietly. “Clarent has been unusually absent all day, and his people are worried. He trains them too well for me to dismiss their worries; I have authorized a search. Your expression warns me that you have not come to alleviate my burdens, my lady wife.”

“I’m afraid not,” Etienne agreed, scowling as she stepped closer and lowered her voice. “The prisoner has escaped.”

Franz jerked backward, grimacing; Henrietta only looked resigned.

“How?” she asked.

“The guard reported that the holding facility was penetrated by a portal mage who extracted the prisoner. He was described as a remarkably attractive Rhiva man with a foul mouth and absolutely vile personal demeanor.”

“Meshabedan,” Henrietta said with cold annoyance. “What a specifically odd moment for him to come down out of his tower and take an interest in other people’s business.”

“Could this be a good sign?” Franz suggested. “I don’t think the dragons could force him to help; he’s apparently powerful enough that even the Dread tolerated his presence. If that godling told us the truth, he may be a more…amiable neighbor.”

“That’s one possible interpretation, but there are others as well,” said Henrietta. “It is good to think of possibilities, my son, but don’t tie yourself to speculation—we must have true intelligence before committing to a course of action.”

“I don’t want the guards disciplined for this, Henrietta,” Etienne said quietly. “There’s not a thing they could have done against a mage who stared down the Dread. Punishing unavoidable failure only disincentivizes accurate reporting.”

“We agree,” said Henrietta. “I hope the guards were unharmed?”

“The sergeant at arms was disarmed, threatened, and insulted, but neither the prisoner nor the mage assaulted them. It would have been easy enough for Meshabedan at least to do so. The guard reported that he described himself as ‘hired help.’ His relationship with Zelekhir may be strictly mercenary; I suspect that one wouldn’t bother to lie.”

“I suspect likewise,” Henrietta said with a small smile, “but again…speculation. Whatever the case, this has accelerated our timetable on that matter. Without access to—”

A bell began to toll outside the walls, followed by others; the sound was muffled this deep in the Palace, but by design the city’s alarm bells were audible everywhere except in the most secure facilities.

All three royals shared an identical look between them.

“Your Majesty!” A squad of four guards broke from their posts by the doors, dashing over to them. “This way, quickly!”

There was no time for discussion; the well-drilled protocol was that in such an event, the Queen and her heir would be immediately escorted to shelter while Etienne, who was the highest-ranking officer of the military, would take charge of defense.

“Be as careful as you are able, my love,” Henrietta said quietly. It was more intimacy than she usually allowed in public, but at a time like this…

One never knew.

Etienne took her hand, bowing over it and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. She squeezed Franz’s shoulder, then turned and strode toward the grand front doors of the throne room, while the rest of her family were quickly hustled deeper into the Palace.

***

“Report!” she roared, striding onto the exterior wall from the keep access door.

“Three of them, your Highness!” replied a soldier wearing lieutenant’s stripes, dashing up and saluting. “It’s the little ones, the drakes. No sign of the Dread.”

“Damage?” Etienne asked, setting off for the nearest tower.

“None yet, ma’am. So far they’re just swooping around and roaring; I’ve seen some blasts of fire, but it’s almost like they were deliberately aimed away from the city. So far, this looks more like a…a prank than an actual attack.”

“Complacency kills, soldier. The beasts have been acting oddly lately; hope for the best but don’t count on it. Who’s in—”

A shadow fell across them, accompanied by a blast of wind strong enough to knock both against the crenelations. The dragon had swept by so close a careless twitch of her tail might have swept somebody off the wall; now, she rose up again, beating her wings to break momentum and land upon the roof of the Palace itself.

Green wings were spread overhead to their fullest extent and the dragon stretched forward her neck, opened her jaws, and emitted a blast of fire that swept across the skies above the entire Palace complex.

All up and down the walls, and in the courtyard below, soldiers dived to the ground, huddling behind battlements or whatever they could find. Etienne alone stood unmoved, staring up at the dragon. It wasn’t that she was too proud to hide, or too stupid to avoid danger; if hiding would actually help she’d be the first behind shelter to set an example for the troops. But if that dragon decided to rake the battlements with fire breath, there wasn’t a thing that would save them—and in that case, setting an example meant she preferred to die on her feet.

Nothing happened, though. The torrent of flame lasted a few seconds, and then the dragon gathered herself and launched into the air again.

“D-did you see that?” stammered the lieutenant, raising her head and momentarily forgetting protocol. Etienne saw no benefit in reprimanding her at a time like this.

“I did. There were people riding on her neck.”

“That, and… It landed so carefully. Took off the same way, too. The Dread would’ve just smashed the whole Palace, but…look, I can’t even see any broken shingles from here.”

“That one was a she, not an it,” said Etienne, turning and striding toward the tower again. “How’s it look down there?”

Soldiers turned and saluted upon her arrival beneath the tower’s roof, the exceptions being the lookouts sweeping in all directions with spyglasses, whose job was to continue doing that.

“City’s undamaged so far, ma’am,” reported the ranking lookout, lens still held up to his face. “Looks like they’re trying to scare people, not harm them. Evac is going according to procedure; citizens know their drills. I see the usual trouble spots, some panicky foreigners in the market districts who don’t know where to go. City watch is trying to herd them. Same old problem as usual in the slums, too—some of the poor folk are making the run to the shelter access, but looks like a lot are trying to shelter in place.”

In Boisverd, the poorer districts were what they were because the people there couldn’t afford to live closer to the access points to underground shelters, a problem Henrietta had inherited from her predecessor. One of several problems; rectifying the others had been necessary to produce enough of a budget surplus to launch any major public works, and so expanded shelter access was only just now in the planning phase. This was certainly no time to litigate that.

“Do any of the others have riders?” Etienne asked.

“All three, ma’am, one on the blue one and two on each of the others. We haven’t ID’d any yet, they move fast and they keep swooping around in unpredictable patterns. I saw the green one land just now, but it was at our backs and it’d moved on again before any of us could turn to get a proper look. Apologies, your Highness. If it landed, hopefully the others will too and we’ll be able to see better.”

“She, not it,” Etienne corrected. Several soldiers gave her carefully incredulous looks sidelong. “That was Vadaralshi. The Dread beat it out of her before any of us were born, but records suggest she used to be pretty amiable with mortals.”

She turned to watch as Pheneraxa swooped past, emitting a terrifying roar, and then Vanimax buzzed the roof of the Flock’s cathedral heading the other way, letting loose a blast of fire into the air in passing. From this angle Etienne could see how carefully he aimed it upward.

They weren’t attacking. Unlike these soldiers, she had a pretty good idea what they were here for, and it made things…complicated.

“I am not making idle conversation,” she said grimly to her troops. “In the best case scenario, that will make all the difference. And in the worst, nothing will.”

***

She perched upon the sloping shingles of… Cora didn’t even know what this was, some sprawling multi-leveled structure in the financial district. This roof suited her current purposes: tall enough to afford an excellent view of the sky and a decent one of the nearby streets, but sufficiently dwarfed by surrounding towers that she stood in shadow, relatively obscured from above.

“I knew it,” she whispered. “I knew it. I told them. No one listens!”

“Okay, whoah, let’s reel this back in a bit, shall we?”

Her shadow spun around her feet like an accelerated clock’s hands before rising into the air before her.

“Cora, it is no longer time for contingencies,” it said soothingly, while overhead dragons ripped back and forth, roaring and emitting periodic blasts of fire.

“They are attacking my city!” she snarled.

“Come on, you know very well that’s not what they’re doing. There are three of ‘em and they’ve been at it a solid five minutes now, if they meant any harm there wouldn’t be a city anymore. They came here to get their papa back, and wow, I knew he was a smooth talker but I did not see this outcome. This is egg on both our faces.”

“You can’t seriously just—”

“Cora.” Its voice was gentler now. “It’s over. We’ve lost this round. Now we have to think about the next one—and for the moment, that means getting you to some proper support. If you want to help Boisverd, we’ve gotta get your head right.”

“You know very well it is far too late for me,” she hissed.

“I don’t know any such damned thing,” it retorted, still in an oddly soothing tone. A shadow fell briefly across them as a dragon passed directly overhead, making it momentarily indistinguishable. “I got you into this, and I’m not abandoning you while you’re still up and kicking. Now that our intended goal is off the table, your well-being is the mission, Cora. That opens up options for me. We’ve gotta move quickly, but if you can get to the Nourdells I have a line on a way to halt and maybe start to reverse the symptoms, and from there we’ll move toward a proper cure.”

“There is no cure, you stupid…thing!”

“Cora, I’m disappointed in you. You’re a mage! The fact nobody’s done doesn’t mean it can’t be done, it means the world will be impressed when you do. Now come on—”

“I’ve had enough.” She strode forward, directly through it, and approached the edge of the roof.

“Cora, you’d better not be doing what I think you’re doing.”

“I’m not going to jump.”

“Okay, that’s a relief, but it wasn’t my biggest worry.”

“I am going to deal with this, once and for all.”

She inhaled deeply to steady herself and closed her eyes. Reaching out with her mind, she could feel the presence of the sigils she had laid weeks ago, in preparation.

“Cora,” the shadow said urgently, “think. You set up that contingency to unleash inside their lair if all else failed. This is not going to do anything to airborne, fire-breathing creatures with room to maneuver and the option to just leave. What you’re about to set loose will harm your city a lot more than those dragons are!”

“Just shut up. I should never have listened to your slithering tongue.”

“You are a mage. You have always prized rationality above social convention and all else. Cora, stop and think. Look at yourself from outside—you’re still capable of recognizing an irrational action. What you’re doing is going to hurt a lot of people in Boisverd and do nothing else.”

She stopped, letting her mental grip slide away from the prepared summoning circles.

“There we go,” the shadow said in gentle satisfaction. “You’re doing the right thing, let’s keep up the momentum. Get to street level—no need to make this worse by conjuring yourself, there’s a convenient exterior staircase two roofs over, reached by a very manageable gap. Everyone’s running to shelter, you’ve got the whole town practically to yourself. It won’t be hard to reach the gate—”

“I’ve been wondering,” she said quietly, pausing as a roar sounded and the orange glow of dragonfire momentarily lit this rooftop. “You’re obviously not just a shadow…but you are a shadow. With creatures like you, sometimes simple tricks and symbolism is surprisingly effective. Could you really be that easy?”

“Cora—”

Magnesium.

She conjured eight flares in a ring about herself, and this time it went perfectly. They hissed, spitting dangerously hot sparks, but they also inundated the rooftop in fierce white light, banishing all shadows.

With no more voice nattering in her ear, Cora turned back to face the city, and reached out with her mind to seize the power lingering in those sigils she’d laid.

Elsewhere in the Evervales, in an infamous ravine avoided by all sapient life, the hundreds of conjuration circles she had previously laid flared to life and began their work.

And here in Boisverd, they began to appear.

***

“What?” Vadaralshi settled down, balancing all four claws upon one of the city’s broad exterior walls, staring aghast at what was now happening in Boisverd. “How? Why?”

They were already present in the hundreds, and seemingly kept popping up out of every alleyway. Six-legged armored creatures ranging from the size of large dogs to that of young mammoths—hissing, scrabbling up walls, flooding the streets. Flailing in a blind panic, confused and in pain after having just gone through conjuration and found themselves in a strange place.

Boisverd was filling up with colossus spiders.

Both other dragons perched on either side of Vadaralshi.

“I think I’d have preferred my dropping boulders idea,” Greg said numbly.

“You know they’re gonna blame us for this,” Vanimax grumbled.

“How, though?” Vadaralshi repeated. “She’s just some conjurer, this isn’t… I don’t think Shadrach could’ve mass-summoned this many critters that size. Hell, I’m not sure Aunt Emmy could!”

“She could,” said Pheneraxa. “Of course, this explains everything!”

“I am gonna bite you,” Vadaralshi warned.

“Preparation,” Pheneraxa explained. “That’s why colossus spiders! I’ve been wondering—nobody would use them as attack animals, they’re just not normally aggressive. But to mass-conjure this many, you would need to set up hundreds of summoning circles in advance. Spiders Gorge has to be the only place you could safely do that! Nobody goes there, there’s nothing in there but colossus spiders and the mycelium they eat, neither of which is good for anything. You could leave a bunch of conjuration circles all over the ground and it might be years before anyone noticed.”

“Can we send them back?” Percy demanded.

Pheneraxa winced. “Not…without a similar amount of circles on this end. I could lay those down…or fly to Spiders Gorge and try to reverse-activate the originals…but I’m not sure either would be the best use of our time right now.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” the princess agreed. “Then it looks like we have to handle this the old-fashioned way.”

***

Soldiers were shouting and running—not panicking, but responding to this turn of events was straining discipline.

Etienne, though, wasn’t even looking at the gigantic spiders suddenly appearing out of nowhere, but at the three dragons perched on the outer wall looking as flummoxed by this development as she was. She had snatched a spyglass and gotten her first clear look at the people the drakes had brought with them.

Most she didn’t know, though they were dressed like adventurers. She couldn’t begin to guess what a Hiiri was doing in the middle of this. Still, none of those were what now commanded her attention.

“Percy?”