The Adventures of Raegor

IV

Vrandí hurried down the corridor in the right wing of the palace, towards the great hall. He was late.

His mind buzzed. Krela was contacting him.

"Vrandí! Where are you? The council is waiting" she said.

"I'll just be a minute" he replied. He round the next corner and sprinted down the hallway to the great entrance. A guard blocked him with his poleaxe.

"Who be you?" He asked gruffly, even though he had seen Vrandí dozens of times before. It was a security thing. Náskor couldn't allow even the slightest breach to a council - not with the stakes at the moment.

"Vrandí, Human Rider" he replied, then stepped through the oak door the guard was holding open and into the great hall.

The hall was colossal, built to house thousands of riders - and dragons - and there were hundreds of levels of large stone platforms around the centre speaking platform. Only a few were being used. Vrandí counted twenty three dragons and twenty two riders. He swiftly climbed up the steps to where Krela was sitting. She nuzzled him then turned back to the centre. The other riders nodded in acknowledgement as he sat down.

Then, far down below in the centre of the hall was a voice. King Náskor the Kind sat in his throne, addressing the gathered riders and elves.

"Twenty-three dragons and twenty-three riders. And only nineteen of them fit to fight. Am I correct?" he asked a nearby elf. The elf nodded.

"And my accursed, traitorous necromancer brother growing stronger than ever. He has a hundred or more of those filthy walking corpses and thousands of Mnocks. We do have a thousand strong mages of our own, most of which could easily deal with thirty or forty Mnocks."

He paused for effect.

"But while we sit and train in our sand-city, his army of spellcasters makes its accursed way over the land to out borders. And the necromancers have been tampering with our spells. Pálmo, please tell us about your experience.

Pálmo got up and began to walk down the steps to the centre, heart pounding in his chest. He reached the stage and shook hands with the King. Then he turned to the crowd, trembling. This was the first time he had ever spoken to a large crowd.

"I -I was training with V-Vrandí" he began, then started again.

"I was training with M-Master Vrandí, y-yesterday. We h-had been... We had been flying, t-then we came to the m-Mage training room. I used an attack spell, 'Sæli' I think. It- it shot emerald energy at the shield. B-but something altered the flow of m-magic. It twisted the words, manipulated them s-so they destroyed the shield. I think someone is trying to m-manipulate and sabotage our war effort."

"Thank you Pálmo." said Náskor delicately.

"Now could Belakabad give us his account of the weather" he paused, searching for the right word... "accident"

Belakabad was seated near the front, so it only took him a few seconds to reach the stage. He bowed to the audience than began in an entrancing voice.

"Well... Where do I start? I am (as you will know) one of the city's weather mages, and my job is to keep clouds away. I was performing that job in my outpost outside the walls and cast another ward but like Pálmo said, something touched the magic and reversed the purpose of my spell. Rain poured down instantly. I cast another spell to push it away, which worked! Whatever altered my magic mustn't have expected that. I returned to the palace and reported this to you, Vrandí. And then we summoned the council."

"I don't understand." it was Náskor. "Surely it couldn't have taken a day to reach the city from your outpost.

"I was... delayed. The desert lizards are on the move again, and a large one attacked me."

"Ah."

For several hours, they debated tactics and mobilisations of forces throughout the land. When they finished various mages and riders set out to perform various tasks across the land. Pálmo was to take charge of the defence of the city, and Vrandí was to go on an espionage mission with Krela into enemy territory.