[Mkguild] Healing Wounds in Arabarb (53 of ?)

[C. Matthias]

Hehehehehe!


Healing Wounds in Arabarb
By Charles Matthias



Yajgaj had already had one close call when the pup bounded past him 
racing faster than dragons flew. He'd ducked into a side passage at 
just the right moment and waited until he was sure the pup had fled 
before resuming his own flight back down into the heart of the 
castle. He had to reach Calephas before that monster could escape.

But just as he was about to descend the long staircase down to the 
hall with the laboratory, he heard the sound of many footsteps and 
heavy claws and a husky grunting breath that startled him. Yajgaj 
shoved himself into a curtained alcove and stood completely still 
within the shadowed interior. Very familiar voices cried out 
encouragement to another person.

"Very good, Lhindesaeg," Alfwig said with a warm regard. "You're 
starting to look like Pharcellus."

"I'm starting to feel nauseous," a heavy yet light voice echoed back. 
"These steps are too narrow for my paws."

"You're doing fine," Elizabaeg counseled, her voice only slightly hesitant.

Yajgaj held his breath as he heard and saw three pairs of booted feet 
pass. He caught a brief glimpse of the scraggly Alfwig and the 
haggard Elizabaeg accompanied by the worried looking Gwythyr. 
Yajgaj's fist tightened around the sack with Gmork's head.

Following after them was a small dragon, covered in gray scales with 
red coloring along the edges of the ridges along his back and 
outlining a scintillating mixture of scales across his body. The 
pattern reminded him strongly of Pharcellus. Was this what had become 
of Lindsey?

Yajgaj closed his eyes and waited. Their words reverberated through 
his ears and he allowed their voices to fill him one last time. But 
once they all reached the landing, their pace quickened and soon they 
were out of earshot. Yajgaj listened to them until even the clacking 
of the dragon's claws were gone.

Gritting his teeth and wrapping one hand around the bone knife that 
had severed the beast's head, he slipped out of the alcove and flew 
down the stairs toward Calephas's laboratory. He hoped there was 
something left to find. Those three would never have left if the 
Baron were still alive down there. What had happened to him?

----------

Jarl breathed a heavy sigh as he nearly slumped against Ture. The 
tanner was nursing a wounded arm but he and Eivind had otherwise come 
through the battle mostly unscathed. With the sudden chaos and 
dissension in the army, Gerhard and the horsemen had wheeled about 
and routed through them, splintering their ranks into a dozen smaller 
groups. And for one brief moment he wasn't near the fighting.

"This way," Eivind suggested, pointing to a side alley that had 
cleared out when two of the tundra men and their dogs had chased the 
frightened soldiers away. "We can get behind them."

Jarl and Ture followed their companion down the alley at a careful 
but hurried pace. The battle could easily turn against them at any 
moment if they allowed the soldiers to regroup and form ranks again. 
Whatever had caused the pups to flee and the sudden madness of some 
of their own could not be counted on to last.

The alley opened onto a larger thoroughfare where the soldiers were 
trying to gather. They were attempting to form into columns with 
spearmen and swordsmen, but the wings of their line kept getting 
dragged into squabbles with the tundra men and their dogs And oen 
other group that Jarl had long hoped for.

 From down the street ran several men of Fjellvidden, shouting at the 
top of their lungs and swinging clubs, hammers, whatever else they 
could find at the soldiers. Their voices ricocheted through the 
streets, faces bright and purple with an indignation kept bottled up 
for months.

"The mage is dead! We're free of him! Death to Calephas! Death!"

Ture gasped and pointed at one red-faced screamer. "That's Vysterag! 
He's the one who betrayed us."

"Could that be why the pups ran?" Jarl asked with a sudden smile. 
"Could the mage really be dead?"

"Let's hope so!" Eivind grunted as he lunged into the fray. Jarl and 
Ture were at his side a moment later, while the soldiers of Calephas 
jabbed with their spears, slashed with their swords, and vainly 
attempted to survive.

----------

Lindsey was very grateful that his new dragon body came equipped with 
a superior sense of smell in addition to being relatively small. With 
the former he was easily able to follow Jerome's trail through the 
halls of the castle. And with the latter he could comfortably fit 
through those halls, and also out onto the battlements where they 
found his friend howling in anguish.

His father and mother, who had helped him climb the stairs when his 
hands and feet proved too big to grip the steps, paused at the walk 
at the top of the bailey, while Gwythyr shrank back several paces. 
Lindsey winnowed his way forward, slithering his long body between 
Alfwig and Elizabaeg, alone unafraid of the weeping pup.

"Gmork is dead. His... father. I will stay with him," he said softly, 
finding his long pointed tongue and serrated fangs more comfortable 
now. He turned his head back on his long neck and nodded to them 
both. "I can keep him from... doing anything else. Oh!"

In the distance beyond his father and mother and even beyond the 
soldier he could see the slope of the declivity and the bridge across 
the Arabas. At the northern end was a very familiar dragon surveying 
the burning remnants of the Lutin encampment that had once kept the 
bridge secure. Lindsey almost stretched his wings in delight, but 
kept them restrained. He wanted to jump into the air and fly to his 
older brother and give him the good news while capering through the 
sky with reckless abandon.

Only he still didn't know how to fly.

"Pharcellus!" he boomed in delight. Both Alfwig and Elizabaeg turned, 
and his father laughed lightly under his breath. The distant gray 
dragon craned his neck but couldn't quite see them through the haze 
of smoke he'd created in his fiery enthusiasm. Nevertheless, he waved 
one forelimb and returned to making sure that nothing of the Lutins remained.

"Look!" Gwythyr shouted, pointing down across the bailey at the 
eastern wall. "The armory is on fire!" The building he gestured to 
was connected to the interior of the castle but separate with narrow 
windows overlooking the courtyard before the gate. A foul black smoke 
billowed from those windows.

"That's Luvig's fire," Elizabaeg said, leaning forward to grasp the 
stony crenelation with both hands. "Gwythyr, do you keep sand in the castle?"

"Some," the soldier admitted. "Not enough to smother a fire."

"Then wine. Do you have wine?"

He snorted. "Calephas paid sea scavengers handsomely for it. He had 
stock enough for years."

Elizabaeg nodded with a grim set to her cheeks. "That should work. 
Show us where they are. We have to put that fire out."

Gwythyr blinked and snorted in disbelief. "With wine?"

"Aye! It is the one thing Luvig said would work. Hurry!" She turned 
and put one hand on Lindsey's scaled tail and smiled faintly to him. 
"Be safe, son." She then followed after Gwythyr who retreated back 
within the castle proper.

Alfwig touched him on the side and nodded toward the howling pup. 
"You take care of your friend. He seemed a very good man in the 
little time I knew him."

"I will," Lindsey assured his father before Alfwig quickly followed 
the others back into the castle. Lindsey swept his neck back around 
to look at his friend. Jerome sat on his haunches looking very nearly 
a true wolf as he howled. But his arms were too stocky with long, 
clawed fingers that spoke of his human ancestry; the rest was wolf.

The new dragon child slunk along the battlements but slowed his 
approach as he came around to the western wall. There he could more 
clearly see Gmork's body laid in dignified repose with paws crossed 
over his chest much the way Followers were prepared for burial. He 
had to resist the impulse to snarl or smile. The relief he felt was 
immense, but tempered by his friend's inexplicable sorrow.

He stepped forward tentatively, his long tail brushing against the 
stone corner behind him as he moved. Lindsey noted the way his 
friend's body heaved with sobs between each mournful lupine cry. How 
could anyone feel so much sorrow for one so evil as Gmork? And why 
did he suddenly feel guilty because he didn't feel that sorrow?

When his snout was only a few feet from Jerome's back, the pup 
lowered his head and, trembled through his entire body, and then 
sighed in resignation. "Hail, Lindsey."

"Hail, Jerome," he replied as he took another step closer, lowering 
his back half to the stone even while his neck remained low to the 
ground. "I'm here."

The wolf snout retracted some into Jerome's face, the fur thinning to 
reveal familiar sun-baked cheeks. "You don't need to worry about me."

Lindsey flicked his tongue once and glanced down at the headless 
body. His wings wanted to spread in alarm as memories of those 
terrible few minutes he endured in the mage's presence; how well he 
could remember seeing the harmless shepherd Strom beg to have his 
intestines torn from his flesh and devoured. He quailed as he 
recollected Lubec trying to decide which of his brother she'd rather 
have Gmork eat first.

And still, he loved his friend enough to say, "I'm sorry you lost 
someone you love."

Jerome's eyes and ears twitched at that, and his tail drew even 
closer to his haunches. He lifted one hand and stroked it very gently 
across Gmork's lifeless hands. "I know... I know he is a monster and 
that he did terrible things to me."

Lindsey blinked and in his surprise scraped his claws against the 
stone as he inched closer. "You do?"

"I saw it. I saw it in my Calm. When I went there, everything became 
clear and I knew what had happened to me and what my father had done 
to me. He locked me in chains, berated me, taunted me, twisted my 
mind, starved me, and then gave me food he told me was the flesh of 
men. When I wouldn't eat it he'd starve me even more. And then he 
would invade me, controlling my Sondeck in a way not even another 
Sondecki could do. He..." Jerome closed his eyes and pressed one hand 
to his head as if he were shoving his snout back into his face.

When he lowered it, his jowls almost looked flush like human lips. 
"He twisted it so that I had to become more like him to use it. He 
made me want to be a beast, Lindsey. I... I have eaten man flesh. 
And... and I liked it. I... I am still a beast. And... I still love 
him. Knowing all that, I love him dearly and can think of him in no 
other way but as my father. I know he isn't, but... he is. Lindsey, I 
am still Gmork's son, even though I know what he really is. Whatever 
he's done to me, I... I don't know how to undo it. And a part of me 
doesn't want to. I am a beast!"

Lindsey crouched closer and reached out to touch his friend, 
stretching his arm across Gmork's corpse. "But, you are free now, my 
friend You don't have to be that way anymore. He's dead now. Surely 
you can be a man again."

Jerome shook his head and sighed, the snout stretching back out from 
his face, golden eyes lifting to meet the dragon with bitter sorrow. 
"You don't understand, Lindsey. This body may be dead, but... my 
father is still alive."

----------

May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,

Charles Matthias


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