Something Wicked This Way Comes

Chapter 29

They pushed through the trees, getting closer to the beach. The sound of rushing water got louder the closer they got. Fenris kept looking around, on high alert, the fur on his neck bristled. Archie, however, knew what—or assumed he did—was waiting for them out there.

"Are you content keeping things hidden from me?" Fenris asked, searing blue eyes boring into him.

Archie sighed. "I am not hiding anything, I just want to be sure."

"You sound like Douxie."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Have you met Douxie?"

"I have, yes. He's my familiar and I raised him."

"Archie," Fenris dipped his head to be eye level with him. "Tell me at least what you think is out there."

Archie walked a little slower, the low trilling back again. "Have... Douxie and I ever told you and Carter about our time in Norway after Camelot fell?"

"A little, yes."

"At the time, of course, it wasn't called that." Archie said softly. "We made our way slowly from Wales to this little island called Berk. Nowadays its somewhere between Trondheim and the border of the Arctic Circle, assuming the island itself survived these last nine-hundred years unscathed by weather and magic."

Fenris was watching him, listening.

Archie turned his face to the sea that was staring at them from the gaps in the trees. "There... he made friends. That island, that place and people, they had dragons, Fenris. More than I'd ever seen in one place. They had bonded with them."

"Quite like the people of Thisby and the capaill uisce?" Fenris asked.

"Yes, though significantly less murderous."

"Dragon riders," the Wolf said softly, realizing. "They were dragon riders."

"Yes." Archie confirmed. "They, that is, the teens who'd figured it all out, took Douxie in as one of their own. He couldn't have been more than eighteen at the time. He... became one of them. I often think that maybe he'd have had a happier life if Ambrose hadn't been forced to leave."

"Ambrose?"

"The dragon who'd chosen him for a rider," Archie said. "I'd have taken that responsibility on in a heartbeat if I could have been bigger than a loaf of bread."

Fenris laughed, the sound chortling and rough. "My, what a sight that must have been to behold."

Archie smiled. "It was. He was a natural. As you know, most dragons can't talk or bond with a wizard the way I did. But Ambrose loved my boy as much as any dragon could love a human."

"Archie," Fenris said. "What happened to the dragons?"

"They left. Forced into hiding because man could not see them as anything but fiery beasts. They went back to the ancestral home of the dragons." They'd arrived at the edge of the water. From here, they could see far off in the distance, a deep, deep well in the middle of the sea that drained the water into it. "The Hidden World."

From deep within that cavern, a dragon roared.

***

Toby scrambled to his feet, Warhammer growing to its full size in a matter of moments. The thing in the trees blinked down at him, tail flicking back and forth. It was humanoid, but tall. Very tall. It could have rivaled Aja and Krel's Akiridion forms. From its head grew long, curving horns the color of Claire's magic. Deep purple that shimmered in the little light the canopy allowed in. White hair, long and flowing, spilled over the thing's shoulder. In its hand was a spear. A celestial bronze tip gleamed at them.