War of the Wisps

Flying from one end of the kingdom to the other was bad enough. Having to go back without sleep was worse. And, of course, they were flying over the same land again, for the most part. The Green Vale was north east of Prohr in the same mountains as the Iron Valley. Even Jarnvaror, who Anna thought was very laid back for a gigantic fire breathing predator, seemed grouchy and drowsy. Only Peter seemed to be in good spirits. He dashed back down to the courtyard, ready to go as soon as the queen explained the situation to all of them.

“A knight has been taken by the Wisps,” Lady Thalia had said. “Lord Thornwood’s son. He needs to be rescued.”

Anna had exchanged a glance with Andrew and Sol. “Could this be related to the other instances?” Andrew asked.

The noblewoman shook her head. “Who knows! You’ll have to find out when you’re down there. But you must go soon. It’s already been several days! How much longer can he hold on to sanity?”

Anna decided she didn’t want to be the one to tell Lady Thalia that he probably couldn’t have lasted the first several hours. “We’ll do our best!” she’d said.

The commotion had distracted Anna from Sol’s note. Now that they were flying through the night, the cold winds of the sky cutting through them, Anna wished she’d taken the time to read the note before setting out again. As it stood, she was beginning to think she wouldn’t have an opportunity to read it until they’d completed their mission in the Green Vale.

Loud and cold as the winds were, the regular noise of Jarnvaror’s wing beats lulled Anna to sleep. She dreamed she was sitting on the deck of a ship, unable to move as it rolled over the waves.

Dawn came early high in the sky. Anna stirred as the air became lighter, then tried to return to sleep. The wind slowed around them, but Jarnvaror kept beating his great wings. Then he roared, and Anna snapped awake. She looked around, but didn’t see anything at first.

Then she saw the shimmering brown dragons flying before them, hissing and spitting at Jarnvaror. The iron wyvern replied with another roar. From here, Anna couldn’t make out their sizes. She was pretty sure at least one of the beasts was bigger than theirs, which didn’t help the desire to scream building up in her throat.

“What are they saying?” Anna asked over the beating of dragon wings.

“They want to know why a northern dragon is entering their territory,” Peter said.

“Well what’s he saying back?” Andrew asked.

“The truth,” Peter said.

The dragon’s continued to roar at each other.

“Will they let us through?” Anna asked.

“They don’t want him hunting their prey.” Jarnvaror roared again, and Peter’s head snapped forward. “Yeah, you tell them!”

Anna was pretty sure their negotiations were falling apart. “Peter, maybe you could help?” She said. “Suggest that Jarnvaror only eats what human’s give him? He’ll take a sheep if we offer it, right?”

“What?” Peter asked, over his shoulder. “Oh, right. Didn’t occur to me.” He looked back and called out to the other dragons. “Hey! My friend had an idea!”

A squeal rose from the other dragons as they realized it was one of the riders talking to them now. More than anything, though, they seemed curious. They started to fly closer. Jarnvaror warned them off, but Peter patted him and said it was okay. When they were closer, he explained Anna’s idea. When he was done, the bronze dragons hovered next to each other, hissing for a moment. Anna could have sworn they’d huddled up to decide.

They looked back at the group on Jarnvaror and barked something.

“Deal!” Peter said.

“Deal?” Andrew demanded. “What deal?”

“They want me to explain how human’s work so they don’t have to fight us as often,” Peter said. “So, basically I need to explain ranching and farming again.”

“Now?” Andrew asked.

Peter opened his mouth to answer, closed it, then turned back to the dragons. “So, um… we’re in a bit of a hurry.” One of the dragon’s interrupted him. “Yeah, that’s fair. Um… can we talk and fly?” he suggested.

The animals seemed to agree. They moved, making room for Jarnvaror to continue his flight. The bronze dragons followed close to the wisp seekers. Peter shouted the whole time, though Anna couldn’t make it out over the wind. But the dragons would roar at them, and Peter seemed to respond, looking from one to another as he spoke.

They only had about an hour left before Jarnvaror began to descend through the clouds again. Looking down, Anna saw a valley that seemed very different from Andrew and Peter’s home in the north. These mountains were definitely shorter, though she could tell only because the trees reached all the way to the peaks of most of them. Forest covered the mountains themselves, while a grassy plain stretched between them. It was longer and thinner than the Iron Valley, she thought. She could see hamlets lining a silver river that ran through its center. The Green Vale seemed to live up to its name.

The bronze dragon’s descended with Jarnvaror. The castle of High Hill, hill was built deep in the Vale, with a large town surrounding it. They landed outside the wall, the other dragons not far behind them. After the rush of wind had finally died down, Anna could finally make out Peter saying, “Well, yeah. Though we can make cheese and butter from goats’ milk, too. I think we can technically get it from pigs, but I’ve never seen anyone try… no, that doesn’t mean people will be happy if you just take their pigs.”

“Do we just have to wait here until he finishes talking to the dragons?” Anna asked.

Andrew shrugged. “The iron dragons never stopped asking questions. Last time I sat through one of Peter’s ‘lessons’ for them, he had to repeat everything half a dozen times.”

“Well, that’s just because dragon’s don’t think like us,” Peter said. “It all sound’s weird to them.” The largest of the bronze wyverns snorted something. Now that they were on the ground, Anna could tell it was bigger than Jarnvaror. Almost twice his size. But Peter shook his head at whatever the comment was. “Nah. Just trying to keep us on time. We do have an emergency to help with.”

The bronze dragon’s rumbled to one another. Anna felt a chill run through her at the sound. “Okay, that sounded very unhappy.”

“They wanna keep talking,” Peter explained.

“Can’t you tell them no, now that we’re here?” Andrew suggested.

Peter shook his head. “That would be a bad idea…. No, not you guys!” he added as the big bronze dragon rumbled again.

Anna looked between Peter and the town. High Hill had a short wall, and she could see they’d been spotted by the guards. Of course. From this distance she couldn’t tell if they were panicked or merely curious, but she doubted they would be happy that an entire clan of dragons was gathered outside their city. “Well, figure something out fast,” Anna said.

Then Jarnvaror rumbled something, and the other dragon’s turned to him. “That’s a great idea!” Peter said.

“What was his idea?” Andrew asked.

“He’ll stay here to tell them more about humans while we work.”

“Does… does he remember enough to teach them anything?” Andrew asked. “He never seemed that interested.

“I’ve spent more time with Jarn than any of the others,” Peter said. He turned back to the bronze dragons. “Jarn will make an excellent teacher. And this way, we all get what we need!”

The bronze wyverns seemed to think about that for a moment. Then, the everyone’s relief, they agreed. Of course, their conversation didn’t sound any less terrifying, with lots of low rumbles, barking growls, and spitting hisses mixed in as Jarnvaror took over for Peter. Anna was eager to put a little distance between herself and the group of dragons.

They didn’t make it far before they encountered the group of knights who’d come out from the city. “Halt! Who are you?”

“We’re really going to have to deal with this everywhere, aren’t we?” Andrew muttered. Then he raised his hands and called, “We’ve come from Woadrok about the Wisps!”

“Oh,” said the head of the guards. “We thought you would only be bringing one dragon.”

“Hey, the letter arrived before us this time,” Peter said.

“The bronze wyvern’s followed us,” Andrew called. “They weren’t too happy about ours entering their territory, but we’ve worked it out.”

“You sure?” one of the guards asked. A chorus of hissing and coughing came from the dragons. “They don’t look to happy.”

“Actually, they just shared a joke,” Peter said. “Not sure it would make sense to humans, though.”

“Right,” the guard captain said, looking very unsure of the situation. “I suppose we’ll have to take your word for it.” He turned to one of his men and assigned him ‘dragon watching duty.’ Then the trio followed the guards.

Rather than taking the group to the castle itself, though, the guards took them to a large central building in the center of town. The guard explained to everyone that the dragons were not hostile and had brought allies from Woadrok to assist with their situation.

“Oh, good!” came a young woman’s voice from the back of the crowd. A girl with long, blond hair stepped out of the crowd, beaming at the group. She was around Peter’s age, dressed all in Thornwood Green. “So there is hope for my brother?”

“Calm down, Hannah,” said a big man, standing behind her. He was the only other blond in the room, though streaks of grey ran through his hair. He was a big block of a man, with square face, jaw, and shoulders, almost as much bigger compared to the others in the room as they were to Anna. He looked at them, and she saw his face lined with worry. His eyes had black rings around them. “What do you know of the situation?”

“Lady Thalia only told us that your son had been Wisp taken, Lord Thornwood,” Andrew said. “We rushed here as fast as we could, but learned nothing else.”

The Lord nodded. “One of our soldiers watching the road in and out of the Vale was taken. He went to investigate, and they switched to my son instead.” He looked away from them for a moment before continuing. “Our guardsman hasn’t woken, since. And they didn’t have him for as long.”

“We’ll do everything we can,” Anna said. “Does this mean he’s at the entrance to the valley?”

“He’s been making his way north since then. We don’t know his exact location, but we have runners updating us as best they can,” the lord said.

“Can he recover from something like this?” Hannah Thronwood asked. She looked from one traveler to the other, eyes pleading for a response. Andrew turned to Anna. Anna blinked, looking between her companions and the girl. She opened her mouth to speak, then paused. “It’s hard to say,” she said. “Without knowing more about the specific Wisps that took him, I don’t think we can say anything for certain.”

“We don’t know much about Wisps,” Lord Thornwood said. “But our reports say these were all orange.”

“How many were there?” Andrew asked.

There was a moment of silence.

“Thirty, we think. Maybe more.”

Anna felt herself blanch. Then she saw the crowd react to her. A dark mood fell over the hall.

“Well, sounds like we don’t have any time to waste!” said Peter. “Let’s go!”