Dragon Bones

"Axiel said he thought there was blood magic involved."

"There is a taint to blood magic," replied Bastilla. "And I don't feel it here."

I didn't feel up to explaining about Siphern. Weariness from working magic and from the knowledge that the hole in my spirit where Hurog belonged was permanent made me want to keep it as simple as I could. "Could a mage or a group of mages drain an object of magic and use it for themselves?"

"Yes," said Oreg at the same moment Bastilla said, "No."

I raised my eyebrows at them, and Bastilla finally shrugged. "I suppose it's possible. Theoretically. But the stone would still exist—just not magic."

"Not this stone," disagreed Oreg, still in that strange, dreamy state. "I smell dragon."

"Could they have transformed the stone?" asked Penrod.

"That stone felt like dragon magic," said Axiel. "Could something have transformed a dragon into the stone, and the Vorsag released it?"

A cold chill ran down the back of my neck just before the steady drizzle of rain turned to a torrential downpour.

"Kariarn has a dragon?" asked Tosten.

"Someone has a dragon," said Oreg peacefully.

Part of me was chanting euphorically, I knew there were still dragons, I knew it, I knew it, while the rest of me tried to figure out what Kariarn would do if he controlled a dragon.

"Where do we go from here?" asked Bastilla.

Good question. I put the thought of the dragon aside for the moment. That done, the question was fairly simple to ask. I only needed one more bit of information to test out my theory about the Vorsagian attacks, and I knew where to get it.

"Axiel," I asked, "Do you know how to get to Callis from here?"

"Callis? Yes, I think so. Why Callis?"

"Because I need information. And if anyone has information on what's been going on here, it's that old fox Haverness. Last I heard, he rules at Callis still." Haverness's people would know if the other villages the Vorsag hit had held better artifacts than the ones that had been passed by. They would know where other likely targets would be. My father had said that Haverness knew more about what the king's troops had been doing than the king had for all the old fox tramped about court looking as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

The pouring rain eased a bit after an hour or more. For lack of a better place, we set up camp in a relatively sheltered spot under some trees. The fire smoked and sputtered, but it was good enough to cook over. It was my turn to do the cooking.

Oreg had gone hunting and produced a pair of rabbits. I had them spitted and turning over the fire when Ciarra came to sit beside me and took one of the spits, more because she wanted decent food to eat than out of any desire to help me.

"So you're not avoiding me anymore, eh?"

She gri

"Me? Grumpy?" When she raised her eyebrows, I said, "It rains all the time here, and we've been ru

She shook her head at me and pointed to the sky, then to my face.

"I know it's still raining," I said. "But now I know what we need to do." It was true. Kariarn had a dragon and possibly more magic than the world had seen in an age, an entire village had been slaughtered, Hurog was lost, but I felt better because I knew what I was going to do. "You're turning the rabbit too fast."

She leaned against my shoulder but didn't noticeably slow the spit. Her rabbit was perfect; mine was too pink in the middle. Not that it mattered, as hungry as we were.

We all went gathering wood after di

"So you decided to be a hero, again," he said finally. I couldn't decide if there was sarcasm in his voice or not.

"Oranstone needs a hero," I said, kicking a stone out of the path with a little more force than necessary.

"Are you going to free the dragon?"

"Oreg. Gods, there are seven of us! What do you think we can do?" And there, I thought, was the problem with my scheme to help the Oranstonian villagers. I wasn't a legendary warrior like my father; I wasn't Seleg; I had no army. It was like the story about the fly who declared war on the horse who took no notice.

"He can't be allowed to keep her," he said with sudden heat "There were no flame marks where the dragon fought. They must have it under a spell."

A spell? My mind boggled at the thought of how much power it would take to control a dragon. "Could you break a spell strong enough to hold a dragon?" I asked.

His silence answered me. At last he said, "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to Callis. From there, I'll send a message to the king, my uncle, and Haverness, so something is done to stop Kariarn—if anything can stop him now."

"They'll try to kill it, Ward." Oreg said in a low tone. He meant the dragon. "They can't afford to let him use a dragon."

"And just tell me what else they can do." I said, knowing he was right.

We walked a few more paces, Oreg's face turned away from me.

"Seleg didn't need an army to kill a dragon."

I came to a full stop. "What do you mean?"

"If one Hurogmeten killed a dragon, why shouldn't you?"

I scarcely noticed the sarcasm as a cold knot settled in my stomach. "Seleg chained the dragon?" My hero killed the dragon in the cave?

Protect those weaker than yourself, he'd written. Be kind when the opportunity is given. Ideas that no one else in my father's home would have said aloud for fear of being laughed at. Seleg set forth the ideals I'd tried to follow. But it was impossible to disbelieve Oreg's truth.

"And killed her so he'd have the power to defeat the invading fleet. He was scared. Frightened he'd lose Hurog." There was something wrong with Oreg's voice, but I didn't pay attention to it.

It hurt to breathe. If Seleg'd killed the dragon, he'd also had Oreg beaten for protesting it. I'd seen the beating myself in the great hall the day Garranon had come to Hurog. How could I feel betrayed by a man dead for centuries?

"Oreg…" I stopped when I saw his eyes, glowing with an unca

"Did killing the dragon make your life easier?" he whispered to me. "Do you hear her scream every night like I do?"

"Oreg, I haven't killed any dragons." Chills crept up my back, and I stepped another pace away.

He laughed like the autumn wind in a field of corn. "I warned you what would happen. Your children's children's children will pay the price for what you have done."

Oreg's episodes weren't insanity. Warrior's dreams, Stala called them, battle visions. Sudden visions of past battles so strong that they overwhelmed the present, terrifying when they hit an armed man but doubly so when that man was also a wizard. A wizard of Oreg's power made the dream real enough to bleed.

"Oreg," I said. "It wasn't me."

A soldier in his lifetime could amass a lot of horror and shame; how much more numerous were the memories Oreg had. He'd told me once that he tried not to remember things.

Oreg stared at me, breathing heavily as he fought the vision off.

"It's done with, Oreg," I said. "The dragon died a long time ago."

"Ward?"

"Yes." The terror in his eyes hurt me. Was he afraid of his memories? Or was he afraid of me? I turned away and began walking. "We need to hunt for wood."

After a moment, I heard his footsteps following me.

"Sorry," he said. "You look like him, you know. He was a big man, too. And filled with magic—like you've been since Menogue."