The gnawing of a serrated blade sheering through wood and the grinding of a file making small adjustments created a cadence outside the carpenter’s workshop. Ezekiel wiped his sawdust covered leather gloves in vain against his dusty leather apron before scrutinizing his project. Alongside his partner, they diligently worked to fulfill an order of a new dinner table for the lord’s house. He never imagined his hands were capable of more than pilfering gold and rare gems. His home was full of furniture that was a testament to his progress, and new obsession for creative art of woodworking.
Ezekiel jerked his head, squinting into the late morning sky after a shadow blinked across him. “Utiss?” Honey brown eyes expanding, his heart beat accelerated with the speed of panicked questions racing through his thoughts. He dropped his tools, ripped off his gloves, and hastily abandoned his work. Weaving between villagers, keeping an eye on the sky, he chased after the winged shadow searching for a place to land. “Back up! Move! Watch out,” he urgently shouted at the pedestrians, and waved his arms to make them clear a broad area at the market square.
Shocked gasps and whispers rippled through the crowd. “A dragon! How?”
“I thought they were all gone?”
“What’s one of them doing here?”
Utiss flapped her wings in careful concentration, descending incrementally to the ground. Wafting gusts buffeted the onlookers, tossing their hair and ruffling their clothes. Cobblestone bricks forfeited the dust between them to the wind, sending out plumes of dirt in every direction. She hovered above their heads until everyone stood out of harm’s way and she could safely land.
“Kilena? Why is Utiss flying out in plain sight? In the middle of—” Ezekiel’s questions were answered after he looked closer at the passenger draped on the dragon’s back in front of Kilena. Not asleep, not in a drunken stupor, Targath was a lump of clothed, charcoal flesh that dripped blood. “What happened to him?”
“I need your help,” Kilena implored, voice a tremor of worry.
The anxiety pinching her voice and thinly veiled behind the facade of calm, sapphire eyes reflected on to Ezekiel, but he used it to spur him into action. “We’ll take care of him. Bring him this way. Follow me!” Waving his arms in gesture to separate the growing crowd, he led Utiss through the streets to his house. People willingly stood aside to let the dragon pass, but they followed behind. Gossiping loudly to themselves, wildly conjecturing what the presence of a dragon might signify.
“Agnes,” Ezekiel called. Outside of his house, Utiss lowered flattened against the ground. Kilena grabbed Targath’s knee and ankle. Leaning back, she helped him over to one side of Utiss’s neck. Ezekiel reached out both arms and braced Targath to slide down from Utiss’s back, and then caught him before his legs surrendered to the landing.
Agnes, hair tied back and drying her hands on a cloth apron, opened the front door. “What is it, Zeke?” Her eyes shot open wide, and she froze at seeing Targath’s declined state. Stepping back from the doorway to make room, she exclaimed, “Goodness, what happened to him?”
With Kilena and Ezekiel flanking him, they all but carried him into the house. “To the table,” he told Kilena. Agnes left the open door and hurried to clean off her dinner table. Kilena eased Targath’s torso on to the table, stomach down, while Ezekiel lifted his feet up and straightened him out.
“The other fey tortured him,” she explained, failing to hold her voice firm. She deposited her sword, dagger, and shield against the wall behind her, then tossed her gloves and armor plates to the same spot. “We were imprisoned. He needs healing.”
Deftly, Ezekiel loosened buckles, seeking to remove the garments from Targath’s torso to access wounds without ruining anything. “Agnes, bring bandages and the whiskey. Brew up the salve you use for my hands. Thread and needle. Do we still have the pain relieving medicine you made when I smashed my hand with a hammer?”
“Yes, I’ll take care of it,” Agnes said, and hurried away.
The sound of banging cupboard doors rapidly being thrown open then closed faded to background noise in Kilena’s mind while she watched Ezekiel. As carefully as he could, he tilted Targath’s body to reach his chest and peel off the clothing. He draped the blood soaked fabric over a chair, and then moved to the end of the table in front of Targath’s head. “Kilena, take a seat. Be strong for him. Help him through this. Agnes and I will get him cleaned up and stitch what we can back together. Are you hurt in any way?”
“No,” Kilena answered, hesitantly lowering into the chair Ezekiel placed behind her. She locked her attention fully on Targath’s face. “No, I- did not suffer as Targath did. If not for him, though, I would not be alive. Please do everything you can to take care of him.”
“Don’t worry, Kilena,” Ezekiel said with a squeeze on her shoulder. “He needs to feel better before I can kick his ass for worrying you.”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” Targath feebly scoffed.
“Shut up and save your energy,” Ezekiel scolded, and then left to help Agnes.
Targath raised his right arm, searching for Kilena. She immediately wrapped both of her smaller hands around one of his, and firmly held on. “How are you feeling?”
“Been better,” he grunted. “You don’t need to go through all of this. I’ll be fine.”
“I trust you will heal quickly, but if you develop an infection, not even you can fight that. You lost a lot of blood and you are in tremendous pain. Agnes and Ezekiel are going to set you on the path to recovery.”
Targath grunted, lacking sufficient energy to argue for the sake of banter.
“Make him drink this, Kilena,” Agnes said, stepping up beside her to offer a cup half full of liquid. “This will help him sleep.”
Kilena released Targath’s hand to accept the cup, cradling it on the bottom and holding it on the side with delicate fingers. She moved the cup’s opening against his lower lip, then tipped it, and let him slowly sip. The way he sputtered and his jaws clenched told her the combination of herbs tasted as bitter as they smelled. “You need to drink all of this to help with the pain,” she softly implored.
With their eyes locked, Kilena tipped the cup again, and again, and again until nearly every drop was drank. She placed the empty cup on the floor by her foot without breaking eye contact, cradling his golden orbs with her sapphire ones as she did the same to his hand. At the edge of her attention, all supplies to mend Targath were gathered.
“This is going to sting,” Ezekiel calmly warned moments before applying a whiskey soaked cloth to Targath’s bloody back. He hissed and snarled in pain as the alcohol burned at the exposed flesh torn open by crude, leather whips.
Kilena closed her hands more tightly, concentrating on his eyes. “Look at me. Look only at me,” she soothingly demanded, stroking her thumbs along his trembling fingers. She schooled her wide-eyed expression, trying to eliminate the worry and replace it with reassurance. Her breathing thinned, almost holding her breath while she watched Targath’s face contort and twist. “You can do this. The worst will be over soon,” she gently promised.
Agnes and Ezekiel worked together without speaking a word to one another. Acting firmly and thoroughly, they cleaned lacerations and burns, applying ointments to promote healing and numbing on cuts too shallow for stitches. For the others, she threaded horsehair while Ezekiel pinched the flesh closer together and spread honey along the stitches.
Kilena held Targath’s gaze until his eyelids, too heavy to be held open, drooped. “I will protect you,” she promised. “Please rest.” Her slender fingers combed along the flow of his long, platinum hair, and held his hand until his fingers went limp and his expression relaxed into a peaceful sleep.
Kilena slowly lowered and released his hand, only to bury her face into her own hands. Silently, the dread and worry accumulated in her chest drained from her eyes, tormenting her with the question of how she could allow this to happen to him.
Agnes rocked Targath’s sleep limp body toward one hip and then the other, making room to slip bandages under him and wrap them tightly around his ribs, and then applied another ointment to any swollen area.
“They really did a number on him,” Agnes quietly commented.
“Broken ribs, burns, cuts, bruises…” Ezekiel listed.
Kilena peeled her tear soaked cheeks from her palms. “Despite all of that,” she chimed, and gripped the chain around her neck. She drew the pendant out from under the layers on her torso, and let Ezekiel see that her amulet was returned. “He retrieved this from Amodeus and returned it to me, which brought me back to life.”
A rugged hand landed on her shoulder and gave a gentle shake.
“This is all my fault.” Kilena lifted her head and looked into Ezekiel’s eyes. “After Roselake he took me to the underground city, but Amodeus was already there. They had already sworn their loyalty.” She tucked the pendant away against her heart. “Amodeus used black magic to force my spirit from my body. Targath took the amulet back and used it to revive me. But he had been tortured for his heresy.”
Kilena was not benefitted time to wrangle her grief and worry.
A knock pounded at the front door. Agnes opened it, and an armed man in noble clothing stood there. His gaze, along with a spear, pointed at Kilena. “You. You brought that damned creature here! Come out, right now!”
Kilena’s eyes were puffy from tears that carved streaks through the dirt on her round face. “C-creature? Do you mean Utiss?” Stepping through the doorway and into the sun, she saw dozens of people huddled in front of Ezekiel’s house and surrounding Utiss like a mob. “My friend harmed no one! She brought me and my friend here fo-”
“You,” he exclaimed, interrupting her level-headed explanation. “You’re the one who barged into Lord Chester’s home with—” His teeth grit, cutting off words not meant for public ears.
Kilena knew the incident of which the man referenced. She only ever barged into the home of one Lord Chester, and that was with the head of Morgyn, a vampire, only to learn the Chester family had an arrangement with the him and his underlings. “You must have been one of the guards present when I announced my discovery.”
“I was one of the guards trying to hold you back!” His face flashed with anger. “You are not welcome here. Leave Warchester immediately or we will imprison you and hunt your dragon down for slaughter. And take your dark friend with you.”
Kilena’s hands closed into fists, and she raised her voice. “Targath almost died to protect me!” She stepped forward until the spear’s tip pressed into her abdomen. A layer of chain mail and cloth remained between her skin and the point. “We will leave, but not until dusk.”
The guard choked on his words over Kilena’s audacity. “Th-then make your dragon go! We don’t trust those things.”
Kilena stood rigidly, her resolute stare locked on the guard. “Utiss, thank you for delivering us here. Please head out into the forest, but do return if you feel threatened in any way,” she said while glaring at the guard holding the spear.
“The same to you, my friend. Whistle if you need assistance,” Utiss said, emanating a low, warning snarl.
“I will,” Kilena promised. Utiss ascended quickly, the air from her wings beating rapidly tossed mahogany brown hair across her fixated gaze.
Flabbergasted, the spear holding man stared back at her. “Did you- did you just talk to that thing?”
“I did, and that thing has a name. Her name is Utiss, and I am Kilena Maverick, descendant of dragonkin warriors,” she solemnly declared. “Whether you believe me or not, our land is in grave danger. You will permit Targath to rest and recover until he can move.” Hearing the chilled demand in her own voice, she tepidly added, “Please.”
Whispers rippled through the gathered crowd like a disturbance on a serene pond, while the guard stared in disbelief.
Ezekiel burst forward, planting his palm on the guard’s chest to push him back, relieving the spot of pain on Kilena’s abdomen. “Back off. Can’t you see my friend nearly died? That this knight’s been through enough? Get out of here. All of you,” Ezekiel shouted, waving his hands to ward off the spectators.
They began dispersing one by one, some reluctant, and some relieved that the dragon threat was gone. The guard remained, loosely holding his spear. Confusion replaced by surprise, he questioned, “Maverick? Tell me your father’s name.”
Kilena hesitated over this demand for information, but then answered, “Sigmund Maverick, of Roselake. Did you know my father?”
“Yes. My name is Sam Digby. I shared meals with him each time I traveled to Roselake. He was an honorable man. We sparred on occasion. None were shy about recounting the tales of his valiant battles against goblins, trolls, and undead abominations. He’s a real hero. He spoke highly of you as well.”
Kilena blatantly took advantage of this familiarity. “Then please know, Sam, I would never bring harm to you or your people. Everything I do is with the intention of bringing good change. You must let me speak with Lord Chester.”
“I can’t do that,” he said sternly. “He’s furious with you, and if he were to learn about you being here an order for your arrest would follow shortly. For your sake, you best leave before dusk.”
“I promise that we will, you have my word, the honorable word of a Maverick,” she replied solemnly. “He rests now, but once he awakens we will leave.”
Sam nodded, and then explained, “Anything you would say to my lord, tell me and I will relay it to him. I may only be a guard, but my family’s loyalty makes me trustworthy to my lord and his advisor. That’s why I already knew the secret of Morgyn.”
“Thank you, Sam. Please let Lord Chester know that Roselake is already preparing. King Heldrik can tell you about my battle against the cursed dragon that attacked them. Evil is gaining power, but we need soldiers to fight this battle and prevent Draconiam from being destroyed by Ivna’s curse. Be sure to tell your lord that those vampires never would have protected you from this, as they are loyal to this god dragon. Please, deliver this message, and I will leave as soon as my friend and I are rested. After dark, this place is not safe for us.”
“I will tell my lord about this, Kilena, that I promise. It’s selfish to ask this favor but I must. Two vampires remained and they have been terrorizing Warchester. Please deal with them as you did Morgyn.”
“I solemnly swear to find them and end the terror they bring,” she replied in earnest.
“Thank you. Remember, if you are still here come tomorrow’s sunrise, I will be forced to arrest you.”
“I understand.”
Sam pivoted and walked away, helping disperse what few remaining villagers lurked.
Heart pounding, Kilena escaped into the house alongside Ezekiel, reconciling her turbulent emotions. “What is this madness that came over me? I- I was prepared to hurt that man.”
Ezekiel shut out the world beyond his front door, and Agnes moved in close to Kilena, placing her hands on her shoulders. “You’ve been through a great deal from the sound of it,” Agnes said, tilting her head to capture Kilena’s eyes. “You need rest as much as Targath. There’s no shame in protecting the people you care about, even against someone who’s done nothing wrong or just doing his job. You’re scared, angry, upset, worried. I promise you, it’s okay. Let me make you a cup of tea and we’ll talk about your ordeal.”
“Thank you, Agnes,” Kilena said, forming a fatigued smile of gratitude. “That sounds wonderful.”
Kilena Shrelack 