Dragon Rider (DragonMage Saga) (42 page)

They went back to looking with
Angel and Medwin climbing back up the ladders while Shylyn and Maive push them
along the shelves. They got to the end of that isle and then moved the ladders
into the next isle. This time Shylyn and Maive were up the ladder looking as
the boys pushed them along.

They had not gone far when Maive
called out to slow down. There in front of her was another book of legends and
this book looked to be centuries old. ‘I just found another book on legends and
this one if you take the dust of it looks to be very ancient. I’ll bring it
down instead of dropping it.’

She came down the ladder and
handing the book to Angel, stood and looked over his shoulder as he opened it.
He flipped to any page and looked on it to see what it had. As he did so
suddenly his eyes lit up and a smile came to his face. ‘This page says the
battle lasted almost one year and the battle was won but at great cost. They
lost all bar one Dragon Mage.’ Angel stopped and started to flip through the
pages trying to find more. He was stopping every now and then and reading a
little and going a few more pages and doing the same.

The others looked at him as he
did this, trying to figure out what he was doing. Medwin had enough and asked.
‘Angel what’s wrong what happened in that great battle?’

Angel stopped and looked up at
them and then back at the book. His eyes could only betray the look of
dejection that he felt. ‘That was all the book held, there is from what I can
see no more. We’ll take the book back to our rooms with us and have a good read
through it but we’ll find nothing else. All that’s in the book is those few
lines, it was just a reference it got from another book, but doesn’t give the
name of that book.’

‘You know that one sentence says
a lot and then again tells you nothing, we need to find the book it got that
sentence from. We’ll have to keep going and looking the two things we
desperately need to find. That on the Renegades and what a Dragon Mage is,
there will be more books on them it’s just going to take us a while to find
them. Shylyn showed she shared Angel’s dejection and headed back into the isles
to look.

She stopped and looked back at
the others. They just stood there and looked at the book. She turned to carry
on walking but turned. ‘Well are you coming, we’ll never find the book if you
lot are just going to stand there and mope around, so come on and lets keep
looking?’

Looking at her they then bounded
down the isle to stand just beside her. There were smiles on their faces as
they rushed up to her, they knew she was right and so they were going to keep
going no matter how long it took.

They found no more books that
afternoon and it was getting close to the evening meal. They grabbed the book
and took it back to their room to stick with the other two. So now they had
three books that had only a few lines off the information needed.

They deposited the book with the
others and headed down for their meal, they were finding their apatite was not
the same as their apatite for more information. Angel thought on the
disappointments of that one sentence. All it really told us was we need to find
more books with bits and pieces for that was what it looks like.

When they decided to hide the
information, they made it very hard and split all the information they did not
want found, breaking it up into little segments and stuck those in a lot of
books. The hard part is we need to find where all those parts are and where
they are kept. I think for the moment we concentrate on the Renegades as that
is what is more important.

Angel comes out of his thoughts
as they entered the meal hall. It was slowly starting to fill up so went and
got a meal and found a table to sit at where they could talk in peace. Maive
looked at the group and decided they needed to cheer up, and so called their
dragons up to help. Or to be precise she called her dragon and got him to let
the others know what she wanted.

‘Ok what we found is not bad for
at lest we found something and that is better than nothing. We’re slowly
building a picture and soon we hope to have a bigger picture, we are going to
build it up till we have enough to show us what we need to do. So let’s cheer
up.’ Maive looked them in the face and they all looked at her and smiles coming
to their faces. They got up nodding their heads to Maive as they did so.

They were heading out the door
when Gavrie came up to them. ‘I hope you left the library in good order and all
books back in place?’

‘We are keeping it very tidy and
will make sure when we finish a book we put it back in place.’ Finishing Angel
suddenly had an idea about getting some information from Gavrie. ‘Gavrie we’ve
been lucky as there has not been any attacks for a couple of days and the
weather has been good.’

Gavrie looked at Angel then his
friends as he talked. ‘We got word just before a Dragon Rider patrol spotted
Renegade Wizards on their dragons in a group. The Riders surprised them and the
Renegades had to disperse with out opening a portal for the creatures to come
through.’ The group cheered as Gavrie told them this. ‘So Angel your idea was
right and the council decided to go with your idea. They are very happy they
did this now.

‘Thank you headmaster for telling
me as I had hoped they might just listen if it came from you. We were just off
to bed so good night Headmaster.’ Angel and the group moved off to their rooms.
They arrived and went in to talk for just a few minutes before going to bed.

‘They listened to your idea so
now the Renegades will have to find another place to let the creatures in and it
will be close like up in the mountains behind. They could open a portal down in
one of the valleys and then push the creatures up over the mountain and down on
top of us.’ Shylyn looked at Angel as she gave them her idea of where they will
come from next.

‘You’re probably right and that
means our dragons are going to have to be careful as well as us when we are
with them. Did you hear Aura; the creatures when they attack next will probably
be coming from over the mountain so we’ll have to be careful from now on. I
think we just made it harder for ourselves, aren’t we just so bright, come on
lets go to bed.’ They headed off with Angels little talk still in their minds.

Angel lay in bed thinking on that
one sentence, so there had been a great battle but whom with, was it the
Renegades or something else.

Laying with his hands under his
head, looking out the window at the double moons, lighting up the night with
their slivery glow. They moved slowly across the sky shedding their ghostly glow
over the sea. After a while he slowly drifted off to sleep wandering about the
Dragon Mages and who they were and what were they.

Thinking about that little bit of
information in the other book about the Renegades great wizard. Then it hit him
the one who survived the great battle was the Renegades great wizard. He was a
Dragon Mage whatever they were and from what the book says there had been more
of them but they were killed in the great battle. He sat bolt upright and
looked over to Medwin but found him fast a sleep so lay back down and
eventually went to sleep.

In the morning he was itching to
tell the others about his thoughts. As they walked to the meal hall Angel told
them about the Dragon Mage and who he thought he was. They thought on it and agreed
it was very likely the one. As they walked into the meal hall Gavrie come out
almost knocking them down.

‘Ah, just the ones I wanted to
speak to. Class will be up in the large hall on the forth floor.’ He left as
soon as he finished talking to them.

Having finished their breakfast,
they head off up to the forth floor to find out what they were going to be
doing today. They arrived to find Gavrie there waiting, standing in the middle
of a large room they had not been in before. As they walked into the room they
looked around to see there were a lot of burn marks all over the walls.

There were no windows in this
room which made them wander what the room was used for. Angel looking around as
he walked out to the centre to stand beside Gavrie and was amazed at the size
of the room. It would be nearly quarter the size of a Dragon Deck with there
being no supports to hold the roof.

Medwin was the first to speak of
what he thought of the room and what it might be used for. ‘Incredible the size
of the room, you could get a full sized dragon in here and then there would be
plenty more room. What are all the burn marks around the wall, it’s looks as if
there has been a battle in this room. They look like Dragon Lance burns, as if
they practice firing them at the walls.’

‘I think we are going to find out
in just a minute, looking at Gavrie he has a big smile on his face. I actually
think he is bursting to tell us what the rooms for. I think this is going to be
interesting come on?’ Shylyn looking around for she wanted to know what the
room was for.

Gavrie looked at them with a big
smile on his face just as Shylyn had said he had. It looked like Gavrie enjoyed
what ever happened in this room but he still had not said a word to them as
they came up to him. It seamed he wanted them to anticipate what the room was
for and what he was going to get them to do.

Gavrie watched them come into the
room looking at there faces as they entered. This was the part he liked as this
was the first time a student got to see this room, was when their teacher
thought they where ready to use it. They would not be allowed in here
especially when wizards are using it.

This room was just too dangerous
for students to enter without an adult wizard here with them. This is going to
show me just how strong their shields would be and how quick they learn how to
adapt their shields.

I will watch very closely now how
they do and I will not be easy on them for they need to find out for themselves
just how strong they are. Maybe they will give me a little look at what they
are really capable of doing for I sense they hold back when in other classes.
They will not show what they are really able to do; they hide it very well so
this room hopefully will show me just what they can do.

As the four came up to Gavrie he
come out of his thoughts and looked at them, not speaking just looking, making
them wait. He wanted them to get their anticipation to a high so what he was
about to tell them would show in their eyes just what they thought.

Gavrie had long been good at
reading students eyes to let him know what their feelings for something new
would be. Weather they are scared or excited at what was about to happen.

‘Ok now that you have arrived and
looked around I will tell you what this room is for and we will see if you are
going to be able to handle just what it can throw at you. Now follow me and I
will show you to a spot where you will stay and not move. If you move you can
be killed is that understood?’ He looked at them with one of his most serous
looks for what they were about to see, if they walked out of the safe area it
could be the end of them.

The four of them followed him
over to the side of the room to an area marked with white lines. They could see
the white lines had included the door where they came in and to a little way
along the wall. Gavrie stood just outside the white line, where he indicated to
them to stand on the other side of.

Angel was about to ask Gavrie
what was going on but Gavrie indicated with his finger to his mouth not to
talk. They looked at him and could see in his face he meant it, so they moved
back from the line and leaned against the wall. Gavrie turned to move back out
into the centre of the room.

He had got half way to the centre
when he turned around and looked at them. ‘You will not cross that line, is
that understood, don’t talk just nod your heads if you understand.’ Gavrie
looked at them as they nodded there heads. ‘Now what happens is very dangerous
and you will see why this room is off limits to students till they have been
taught how to survive in here. Now watch and learn.’

Gavrie moved to the centre of the
room and with a wave of his hand he cast a small spell and Angel and his
friends could sense a spell wall in front of them. It would not stop them
crossing the line so they were not sure just what it was for.

Gavrie readied himself and got
into a position as if he readied for battle with another wizard. They were just
about to turn to each other when suddenly out of the air a ball of fire
appeared and headed straight for Gavrie. Angel was about to move when Gavrie
brought up a shield and deflected the ball so it hit the far wall.

Next minute there were more balls
of fire heading for him and they could see Gavrie working with his shields to
deflect the balls away from him. As Gavrie deflected and moved about throwing
his body around to counter the ball of fire. They could see there would be
about for or five balls at a time no more than that.

Gavrie lifted his hands in a
little motion that told them he had cast another spell. The balls of fire now
stopped and Gavrie motioned his hand again and this time the balls of fire got
faster and there were more appearing out of thin air. There would be now about
eight to ten balls of fire trying to hit him and Gavrie was moving faster to
get out of their way or into a better position to counter them.

They watched him for a good half
hour going through the exercise, for that was what it was. This was where
wizards come to hone their battle skills and keep in readiness. They could train
their shields to act before they could and so started off slowly then built up
their speed with their shields.

Gavrie stopped with a wave of his
hand and came over to the four standing there just looking at Gavrie. He could
see the look of  awe in their eyes at what he had just done and he thought
to himself I have not been keeping up with my practice for one almost got
through my shield. I’ll have to remedy that with some more practice.