The Dreaddrac Onslaught (Book 4) (25 page)

The guard escorted the wizard through the fortress to find Jedrac, who rushed to embrace Hendrel, arms clasping arms.

“Have you found a solution?” the duke asked. His eyes sparkled; it was the first time Hendrel noted hope in the duke’s countenance.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Your Grace. It’s a long shot.”

“Well, what do you propose?” Jedrac asked. He squeezed Hendrel’s arm firmly.

I wonder if he thinks I might try to escape, Hendrel thought.

Jedrac led Hendrel to a nearby table, motioning him to sit. 

“I really don’t want to raise false hopes. What I have in mind only has a slight possibility of success. I’m embarrassed to suggest it; it seems so ridiculous.”

The duke shot back in his chair as if afraid of catching something. “What do you mean?” He stared at Hendrel.

“Will you have someone lead me to the wizard’s workshop? I need a few things I didn’t have at my shop.”  

Jedrac hesitated, then nodded once, his lips slightly pursed. “I’ll have to trust your judgment.”

Clearly the duke is accustomed to having the facts and making all the decisions. This out-of-his-control situation is new to him, thought Hendrel.

“Chatra, escort our new sorcerer to the wizard’s workrooms, and put a cohort of soldiers at his disposal,” the duke ordered. His voice firmed with resolve. Jedrac slapped his resolute hand on the table, like a judge a gavel, and rose, leaving to attend to whatever he’d been doing when Hendrel unexpectedly appeared.

*

In the wizard’s workroom, Hendrel quickly scanned the room for contents and especially ingredients the unfortunate former occupant might have stored for future use. The room was quite well stocked with two walls of component cabinets and things in jars, bottles, boxes, and buckets around on the floor. Hendrel began to search for something, then stopped to send a soldier, fidgeting at the door, for two things.

“You there! Find me a bucket of blood, any blood so long as it isn’t human blood.” With one hand on the man’s shoulder, he pushed the soldier out the door.

“Blood?” the soldier repeated. He recovered and headed down the tower stairs.

“Check with the kitchen, they may have saved blood for a pudding,” he yelled down to the hesitant trooper. Hendrel turned to the other soldiers, standing by the door.

“All the rest of you, go door to door, search the city. Bring back any reptiles you can find, you know, lizards, snakes, that sort of thing. Bring them back alive, and don’t handle them too much!”

The soldiers hesitated, looking back and forth at each other as if hoping someone else could make sense of the order. Then they looked at the wizard, slapped hands on sword hilts, stood at attention, and without a word, rushed off single file down the tower’s spiral staircase.

Hendrel turned back into the workroom. I’m not used to giving orders to soldiers, and they aren’t used to taking orders from a wizard, he thought. I guess we’re all acting on good faith now.

“With the men off on their missions, Hendrel busied himself with setting up the cauldron and lighting a fire in the sooty fireplace. Into the cauldron, the wizard tossed the contents of two vials he’d brought with him, several liquids from bottles he found in a cabinet, and various dried animal parts from the cabinets about the room. The fire settled into coals in a bed of ash, and slowly, the cauldron heated with its contents bubbling in a simmer. Hendrel adjusted the pot a bit back from the fire so the brew wouldn’t cook too quickly. In the room’s new warmth, he began scanning the shelves for one spell book he was sure the former wizard would have there.

The first soldier, his face scrunched in disgust, returned cautiously, watching the required blood slosh in its bucket. He handed it over to Hendrel, who poured the contents into the pot.

“That looks nasty,” the soldier said. Apparently realizing he was out of place, judging or commenting, he moved back outside the door to await further orders.

The goop in the pot simmered for several hours before the other soldiers returned with an assortment of reptiles in as varied an assortment of cages. Hendrel stacked the cages, their occupants to await their part in the plan. From the sickened faces, Hendrel knew the sight of the bubbling pot with its black goopy contents disgusted the soldiers, but they stood in the doorway, ready in case the wizard needed further assistance. Hendrel grinned at their sheepishness. He continued working without a word. He’d been grinding and polishing a glass while he waited for the soldiers to return, and now it was about what he wanted. He moved it up and down over a paper, and it magnified the words just as the sorcerer had hoped. He went to the door. “I need you in here in pairs.”

“Pairs you say?” the lead soldier questioned. He looked back at the others.

Hendrel grabbed the first man’s arm and led him into the workroom to the massive table. The others followed, reluctant feet shuffling.

“Each pair of you, one take a cage, the other grab hold of the reptile, being careful not to rub the body. Just hold the animal behind the head.” The soldiers looked at each other. “Using these glasses, search each animal’s skin for parasites, you know, fleas, mites, lice; and using these picks, flick the things in these jars.”

“Excuse me, sir,” interrupted one befuddled soldier. “Did you say we was to pick them iddy-biddy nasty little things off lizards and snakes and put them in the jars?”

“That’s right, and don’t harm them either,” Hendrel said. He continued as the soldiers looked at each other and snickered. Hendrel shot them a stern look as he thought a military leader would use to intimidate his troops. “Do it!” His tone was serious.

The soldiers looked at the reptiles and each other, dismayed.

“I need the parasites as quickly as possible.” Hendrel glanced at the soldiers watching him. “Quickly!” They’re looking for signs of joking, he thought. After a moment of looking at each other to see who would be the first to fall for the joke, the soldiers split up in pairs. Each took a glass and they passed out the cages to begin their search for the minuscule parasites.

Hendrel stirred the cauldron, checking to be sure the contents didn’t burn. Then searching, he found the spell book he knew would be there. The first soldier yelled that he’d found a mite. The others crowded around to see what they were looking for.

“Here, stir this for me,” Hendrel commanded the closest soldier. The man was hesitant, but Hendrel slapped the spoon in his hand and pushed him over by the cauldron. Being a soldier, the man moved a step closer, and shaking his head, began stirring the black goop in the pot. Hendrel took down a mildewed old book from a cabinet’s top shelf and began to read.

“Do we still have one of the catapults in working order?” Hendrel asked.

“Yes, sir,” said the soldier uneasily stirring the pot.

“One of you go prepare the catapult to fire at the dragon.”

Several soldiers dropped their picks and rushed for the door. 

“Only one of you, the rest continue collecting mites,” Hendrel admonished them.

Over the next two hours, the smirking soldiers collected tiny parasites with their great warrior hands. Carefully, one soldier in charge of the mites dumped them into one large jar until the bottom crawled with the tiny red and brown creatures.

By then, the brew from the cauldron was cooling on the worktable, and Hendrel was still absorbed in reading three spell books.

“That’ll do it!” the wizard exclaimed, closing the thick book with a ‘clack’ in the hushed room. The soldiers looked up, caught off guard.

“See who’s coming up the stairs,” Hendrel said.

“What’s going on in here?” Duke Jedrac asked, marching into the workroom followed by the chatra, clacking his staff on the stone floor to amplify his importance. “I’m hearing some ridiculous stories that you’re collecting lizards and snakes for bugs. Can this be true at a time like this?”

“Yes, Your Grace, that’s true,” Hendrel said, buzzing about in the room, intent on his project. “I’m glad you’ve come; I was about to send for you.”

“Send for me!” the duke repeated, staring under raised eyebrows. “My subjects and servants bow to me when I enter a room, Wizard.”

“Sorry, Your Grace, there’s no time for formalities.” Hendrel glanced periodically at the duke and continued preparing whatever it was he was making. He kept an eye on the visitors.

Fuming, the duke looked to the chatra, who pointed to the goop cooling on the table. They looked at the soldiers, who shrugged their shoulders and went back to scrutinizing the last of the lizards for parasites. The duke and chatra last peered into the large jar moving inside with a horde of mites.

“What’s all this getting to, Hendrel?” the annoyed duke asked. His countenance darkened the more he looked about the room.

“You’ll see at daybreak, Your Grace,” Hendrel replied, still working on his goop.

“What’s that soldier copying down over there?” the duke questioned, pointing to a soldier whose sword rattled when his elbow knocked the hilt as he wrote. “My soldiers aren’t scribes.”

“Well, you did put the men at my disposal. I need spells from three different books. When I use them, there will be little time and none for error, so I’m having the man combine the three spells on one parchment for quick reference.”

The jittery chatra shuffled about, peering into this and that. He finally glanced up and saw the annoyed duke staring at him. Immediately, the minister rushed over and stood behind his master. Hendrel saw it and grinned to himself
.
Jedrac is taking his annoyance with me out on that poor little man, he thought.

“Well, daybreak will come soon enough. I’ll wait here and see what all this is leading to,” Jedrac said. “Are you sure this is going to improve our situation?”

He’s making no attempt to disguise his skepticism, Hendrel thought. He stopped manipulating the goop, slapped the spatula down on the table, and turned to Jedrac. “Have you something in mind that might drive away Dragon Magwaddle?” Hendrel asked, glaring at the duke.

The duke and Hendrel stared at each other. The soldiers nervously glanced up at the visual confrontation, then looked back down at the reptiles, now safely back in their cages. The duke broke the standoff and, without a word, sat down to wait for the dawn. The chatra quickly followed, sitting beside the duke in silence.

Hendrel returned to his concoction. Good thing they prudently decided to back off and allow me the latitude to continue, he thought.
It was Hendrel who finally broke the silence. “Shall we go to the tower where the soldiers have prepared the catapult,” Hendrel said all of a sudden.

The duke practically jumped up from his seat. The chatra almost fell off the stool he’d settled on. The whole room was instantly up and ready to take whatever action the wizard had in mind. Hendrel handed the duke the jar of mites.

“Carry it with care, and for goodness sake, don’t allow any to escape,” Hendrel said.

The hesitant duke reluctantly took the jar, but his face scrunched up in a deep frown. Hendrel took the duke’s other hand and wrapped it around the bottom of the jar. “Don’t drop it.” It was a petty vengeance for his treatment when he and the Astorax were imprisoned in the dungeon, but the wizard smiled at the little satisfaction he got from it. He handed the chatra the pot of goop, since he was so quick to point it out when the duke had first entered. The soldier with the parchment followed close behind with his document.

“On to the catapult,” Hendrel said as he led the entourage out the door behind the soldier that knew the way to the catapult.

The men hurried through the dark corridors and up the stairs to a lesser tower at the back of the Hadorhof. It housed the remaining catapult not destroyed by the dragon in its initial attacks on the castilyernov.

In the turret, Hendrel stirred the goop and added a powder. Then the wizard opened the huge jar of mites and poured in a small amount of the black goop. He dusted it with more powdered dragon scale and two liquids no one in the room could identify.

“Who has the cow’s bladder?” the wizard asked.

The man stepped forward, handing the fresh organ to Hendrel, who pushed it back at the man.

“Tie off one end and blow it up tight,” Hendrel said. The man’s face scrunched in disgust.

“Do as you’re ordered!” the duke bellowed, seeing the man’s hesitation.

The duke, too, is disgusted, as are all the men in the room, but a soldier is trained to follow orders and hesitation could prove disastrous if allowed to spread, Hendrel noted.

The sun began to cast its golden rays over the mountain peaks east of the city. As they warmed Magwaddle’s head, he stirred. Hendrel watched and smiled in anticipation.

“Well, what’s happening?” the duke asked.

His frustration has built up through the night and here at the moment of truth, he’s about to explode, Hendrel thought.

“All I can see that you have to confront the dragon with is mites, that nasty goop, and a blown up bladder,” the duke blurted out. He looked at the others in the small tower room. “It looks like this is going to be another horrible day with you angering the dragon further.”

Hendrel’s simple smile and calm look was just too much when the whole room was about to blow up with nervous energy.