Dragon Tamer - Book 1

Chapter 50

Sebastian and Duruin did not get better. Their rate of sickness appeared to be happening at the same time, neither were worse than the other, and yet both were dying.

Dafne had not slept, she remained vigil at their sides, appearing to need no rest, testing concoctions to ease their symptoms and replacing bandages all the while.

The hours passed into the second day and the two men did not improve.

Dafne could feel their time bleeding away, she felt it as a dread which built in her heart. As always, it was trying to tell her something; tell her that these men needed to live? Or that something terrible would happen if they did not. Probably the latter. Otherwise why would 'She' have warned Marcie to save them.

And yet the brief glance she took when she went with the Daygon to treat the Kes'Koon had shown her enough for her to guess.

It was all linked with this accursed war. The war that brewed silently, that not one person truly wished to be apart of.

Something was happening, something awakening.

A Dragon Tamer had been chosen. The old guardians resurfacing to see it through to the end.

Everything would change again.

Marcie awoke after a much needed rest. She felt replenished, garbed in fresh shirt and trousers she felt surprisingly well, she felt she should have been worse hurt, considering her ordeal.

Dafne left her no time to contemplate this and set her to work immediately, washing bandages and mopping Sebastian's sweaty brow as his temperature rose dramatically.

Sebastian drifted in and out of consciousness, his pain was numbed with herbs, so in his waking moment he blinked in confusion and tried to speak. Again, Marcie found herself whispering nonsense to him to fill her own time as well as his.

Dafne left Marcie to tend to the outsider and Svetatessa to her prince and went into her back rooms. She located the room hidden to all except her by a false wall and entered its depths.

Ignoring the mystical artefacts and trinkets; she headed straight into the middle of the room where a shaft of unfiltered afternoon sunlight fell directly onto a small plinth holding a shallow bowl made from pink glass. Dafne pulled a large vial of clear liquid from one of the pockets of her apron and poured the contents into the bowl, watching it expand and grow until it filled the bowl to the brim.

Then she took a small piece of cheese from another pocket and placed it onto the floor. A tiny mouse shuffled excitedly out of a hole in the wall, it sniffed the air and then scurried forward to nibble on the cheese by Dafne's foot.

The poison worked quickly and the mouse stopped moving after only a few bites. Dafne picked it up, it fit in the palm of her hand, and produced a small knife from her sleeve.

She stabbed the mouse directly in its heart, feeling a little sorrow at the needed death of the tiny creature, then squeezed its blood onto the surface of the water in the bowl.

Immediately the blood dispersed and the water turned the pink of the bowl before fading into an almost mirror image, except a mirror that did not show the present.

Dafne discarded the mouse and, placing her hands of either side of the bowl, leaned over it until her nose nearly touched the water.

Deep in the bowl she saw the outsiders burn their comrade as was their custom and saw the Daygon bury their prince as was their custom, then she saw the Mes'calla mourn the death of her son and saw her take up her spear of wrath and strike it upon the ground so that sparks erupted from the end, declaring war. She saw the Daygon horde ride from the Juggernaut and saw the human army ride to meet them on the plains that separated their two nations and the sky above them turned black and blood rained, and a high fierce scream of delight pierced the black sky and resounded in her ear drums wiping the image clean.