I awoke in the morning feeling fresh, but I had a sense of, not uneasiness, but of distaste for what I had planned to do to the Executors’ caravan today. Since I had become attuned to the Icosahedron, I’d started to feel an aversion to violence. I hadn’t felt that way about it before, as I used to think it was just part of the world around me. I had to learn to fight to protect myself, and I even fantasized about winning great duels and leading victorious armies and such self-centered things. Now that I actually had to do such things I felt differently. It wasn’t just part of growing up, I knew. It was something that attunement with the Icosahedron did to me. Maybe it was a countermeasure against potential tyranny, or maybe a healthy dose of wisdom from a greater power. I know God is out there somewhere, but what He’s doing, how and why He’s doing it are things that I’d never really contemplated. He has to be connected to the Icosahedron somehow, as He must have created it, and He must use the worldstone for His purposes. I just wished I knew a little more about all that.

  For right now, I knew that I had to do something about the threat at hand. The Executors could not be allowed to wreak havoc in Stonekeep, or a lot of innocent people would be hurt, and my family would be the first of those to be harmed. They encouraged people to sacrifice their children in the cities where their religion took root most firmly, and I knew that from experience. I wouldn’t just be protecting my family or myself, but the people of Aldon in general. They’d probably take the side of the Church of the Overgod for some demented reason or another, but I don’t need anyone’s approval to do what I think is right. I was raised to think for myself.

  My routine was to exercise in the morning and had been for years. The usual exercises were not very effective for me since being attuned, though. They were far too easy. I started having to use other muscles to oppose the muscles I was trying to strengthen when gravity and my body weight wasn’t providing the necessary resistance anymore, and it ended up looking a lot like a slow-motion dance of some kind. I washed up and had breakfast with my family. My father and brothers went down to the smithy to start their day’s work. Elle and Juleen were already working for the Bakers two doors down, and Mira went off with Bandit to see Whizzbang for some magical instruction. I watched them all go, which left Nora, Samirah and Bethan in the living area chasing my nephews around.

  “I hope I wasn’t that wild when I was their age,” I said to Nora.

  “You and Bran were worse,” she said. “It was all I could do to keep up.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, I wished it all on you,” Nora said with a laugh. “You’ll get yours.”

  “Sometimes I wonder,” I said.

  “Give her some time. Romance her a little. Mira seems like a tomboy, but deep inside she craves to be courted like any girl does,” Nora pointed out.

  “But I’m really bad at that sort of stuff.”

  “So was your father. He tried hard anyway, which was all I cared about. Women are all different, but we all want to know that our potential husbands will be there to provide for us and protect us. Women want to know that their suitors will put his wife’s needs above their own desires. You’re doing great at that part, son.”

  “Thanks. I’ll give it some thought.” I got up and went to the stairs going up to my old bedroom.

  “Please be careful, Jeron,” Nora called after me. She remembered what I was doing today.

  “I will. I promise,” I said.

  I went up to my old room just so that I didn’t teleport in front of my nephews. We tried to distance them from magic for obvious reasons. Once inside the room with the door closed, I teleported to the roof of Stonekeep Castle. It was raining lightly as it always did on Sixday, so I activated the portal and stepped inside the keep quickly. I went to my suite on the lord’s level and made sure to oil my armor well to protect it from the rain. Then I used magic to help me get into my armor. I wore Mordon’s helm today because the helm showed me things that were normally hidden from normal vision, like hiding Xerith and deadly enchantments. The helm was very handy to have in situations that involved assassins and enemy spellcasters. It looked pretty good, too.

  I walked to the throne room and sat in the Amber Throne. I tried not to take all this for granted, but it was sometimes difficult to stay grounded. That’s why I was sleeping in my childhood bed right now. I didn’t want to end up like Ithion, one of Mordon’s sons, who had gone down a dark path due to pride. I used the throne to check on everyone in my life, both good and bad, and I got the same results I always did when looking for Mordon, Ismaera, Kromwell, Bermin and Raynold. I saw that the High Executor’s party was on the road travelling through the rain about three days travel away from Stonekeep. I then fixed my will on Warsong Keep. I chose an area outside the outer walls of their enormous bailey and used the Throne to open a portal there away from prying eyes.

  I cast an illusion of my usual helm over Mordon’s helm, then I stepped through and walked through the rain to the front gates. While I walked, I reflected on how much I’d learned recently. When Mira had cast the illusions on us, I’d learned to cast those illusions myself. It was almost like being reminded of an instinct. I could also use Mira’s shadow meld spell and invisibility. I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to make her feel inadequate or stupid. She was far from both of those things, but if I started picking up instantly on things that she struggled for years to learn, it would only hurt her feelings or strain our already fragile relationship.

  The guards at the front gates stood at attention, watching alertly from just inside the roofed area. They saw me coming from a long way off, of course.

  “I was bid to tell you that Master Warsong will meet you in the great hall, sir,” the guard said.

  “Thanks. Stay dry,” I replied.

  I walked down the cavernous corridor leading straight into the keep and found Grath speaking with a company of soldiers in the great hall. He was armed and armored as he always was in his golden scale armor with his mace at his belt and his shield on his left arm. The men he was speaking to were all cavalry men in plate armor, but instead of wearing shields, they carried quivers of arrows and held bows that were made of a composite of horn on the back side and sinew on the front. They had a good bit of recurve to them at the ends, and I found myself wanting to try one out. They were very much unlike the bows we used in Stonekeep that were made of staves of ash and were as tall as a man.

  “Ah, there he is now,” Grath said amiably. “I told you he wouldn’t keep us waiting.”

  I smiled. “Good morning, Master Warsong.”

  “And a good morning to you, too, Master Smith. We’re going to make a training exercise of this excursion today.”

  “These men look well trained already,” I said.

  “They are. The training is for you.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  “This is Pethel,” Grath said, indicating a man standing next to him. “He’s going to advise you while I do the heavy lifting.”

  “Good to meet you, Pethel. Let’s get on with it, shall we?” I said.

  “Sure,” Grath said. “First, though, you can drop the illusion around your helm if you want. My men have all been told of your heritage. This is a place without subterfuge. We keep everything that happens here to ourselves for obvious reasons, but we discuss things freely here.”

  “That sounds wise. It shows a lot of trust, too,” I said. I dispelled the illusion, revealing the helm for what it was. “I can’t dispel the illusion around my mace. That one’s tied into the mace itself.”

  “All right. Isn’t that better?” Grath asked.

  “Loads.” It actually did make me feel better to not have to hide here.

  “Speaking of loads,” Grath said as he picked up a large, half spherical object made of mithril with knobs of some sort evenly spaced over its surface. It looked very heavy even if it was made of mithril, which was a very light but strong metal. Grath hoisted it over his head and slapped it against his back. It somehow stuck there securely even though it didn’t have straps or a harness or anything to keep it in place. I could sense the magic in the item. “All right then, let’s go. The Executors are around three days’ travel from Stonekeep, right?”

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  “Yeah,” I said.

  Unconsciously, I fell in behind Grath and to his left as he walked out of the great hall. The other nine men fell into step with us, and we ended up in a two by five marching order the way I was trained in Stonekeep’s militia, with Grath in the lead.

  “That’s an anchor of sorts,” Pethel said of the spherical object as we marched. “We’ll each take one of the knobs off and stick it to the front of our breastplates when Master Warsong gives the command. It’ll keep us from falling off.”

  “Very handy,” I said.

  “The knobs will make a magical tether attached to the anchor that can be lengthened or shortened at a mental command,” Pethel said. “Oh. And you’ll need to be careful of the scales. They can crush your feet if you’re not careful, even if you’ve got those nice sabatons. It depends on where you’re at. Just do what I do.”

  We marched out of the keep’s gate and into the rain about halfway down the bailey’s hill before Grath paused. He was surveying the surrounding lands. Finding all to his satisfaction, he looked back at the rest of us.

  “Knobs,” Grath said.

  We each grabbed a knob from the half sphere that Grath had stuck to his back. The others put the flat, disk-like side to their chest plates, so I did the same. When it contacted the steel there, a very dim, silvery cord sprang into being from the knob to the anchor Grath wore. Grath faced us and concentrated briefly. Lightning bolts played around the surface of his scales as he suddenly grew to his titanic draconic form. His front left paw was close to our group when he was finished.

  “MOUNT UP,” Grath growled. His voice was not strained at all, but it sounded as loud as a shout from a human throat.

  The nine archers ran up his front leg in practiced motions almost the same way Mira ran along vertical walls. They must have been shortening the tethers as they ran, I reasoned. I leapt up and tried shortening my tether as well. It was very awkward for me, but I got up onto Grath’s broad back without making a complete fool of myself.

  “That was pretty good for your first try,” Pethel said. “Better than I did, anyway.”

  “BRACE,” Grath growled.

  After a short pause during which we all took a knee and held onto a spine from Grath’s back, Grath turned a bit to face west, spread his gigantic wings, then crouched a bit. Suddenly he sprang into the air with a downward thrust of his wings that sounded like a thunderclap. Grath was at least two hundred feet long with an equally long wingspan. To say he was impressive would be a great understatement. I could still feel that instinctive fear that he radiated in an aura around him, but I was determined not to succumb. With powerful thrusts of his wings, Grath rose rapidly into the rain-drenched sky. I didn’t see exactly when it happened, but the spaces between Grath’s scales had begun emitting a dim, blue light. The overall effect must have camouflaged him a bit if he were flying in a clear, blue sky.

  It was impossible to see very far in the rain, but as we climbed, I could see the trees rush by at an alarmingly fast rate. Grath could fly a lot faster than Fajen could with the aid of his magic. I watched what the other men were doing and where they did it before I felt secure enough to let go of the spike I was holding onto. The undulating manner of Grath’s flight was a lot like being at sea, but more severe than usual. Even though it was much colder up here than below, and the wind and rain were very uncomfortable, I was enjoying this. The others took up stations facing each direction, but I wanted to be where I could see ahead, so I stayed close to the spikes near Grath’s shoulders.

  Some time passed and I saw the Deepflow River below us, swollen with rain, bringing water to the northern coast. We were already halfway there. I couldn’t see a road beneath us, but Grath seemed to know exactly where he was going. Every now and then, Grath banked a little to his right. After some time passed, Grath seemed to see something and turned to the right. Without warning, the light emitted from between his scales turned red with a low growl, then faded to black. After blinking some more water out of my eyes, I still couldn’t see the road through the forest canopy. Grath was now flying to the east directly above the trade road from Aerie to Stonekeep, coming up on the caravan from behind. His wings made a lot less noise now as he started gliding more and descending slightly. I was watching Grath’s gaze instead of the ground below, and I saw when his gaze narrowed a bit. Grath lowered his head and began a much sharper descent towards the road below.

  Because of the lanterns they carried, I could see the caravan now. There were at least a hundred riders with ten teams of wagons behind going at a leisurely pace along the road through the wilds. They had no idea of the disaster coming down on them. I had one last twinge of regret as I readied myself to make war. I reminded myself of all the innocents that regularly died as a result of the Executors’ agenda, and I firmed up my resolve. We descended at an alarming pace.

  Grath’s chest expanded beneath my feet as he took an enormous breath, and I could feel the heat beneath my boots as the golden scales radiated that heat. The rain washing down Grath’s scales evaporated quickly, forming a trail of steam stretching out behind us. As Grath neared treetop height, he let loose a deluge of flame that filled the road starting at the back of the caravan and completely engulfed the riders all the way to the front. When Grath breathed fire, the soldiers all let loose their arrows at the column of soldiers. The heat was intense even from our safe vantage point on Grath’s back. Below us, the dragonflame was all consuming.

  With a thunderous beat of his wings, Grath shot skyward and began to circle to his right. In moments he had circled and was lined up for another strafing run. I could feel the heat build suddenly under my boots again. This time I readied a shield against projectiles from below and expanded it enough that it covered Grath’s entire torso, his passengers easily included. There was a place I could see where several chaotic forms were trying to flap wings they had just sprouted. I was amazed that they weren’t dead like their horses were. I focused my will and hurled a ball of lightning into the middle of those forms. The little ball of lightning exploded into a hundred small lightning bolts, stunning all those in the area and causing them to fall back to the road. An instant later, Grath strafed the caravan again. I heard bowstrings twang as my comrades loosed an arrow each at a target of opportunity as we sped by. Flaming death followed in our wake as Grath rose into the sky with a triumphant roar.

  Grath gained altitude quickly until he was going almost straight up, then he slowed until he stopped in mid-air. He tucked his wings in and twisted until he was pointed straight down, and I grabbed the nearest back spike in panic, feeling like I was going to throw up. We started free falling and Grath snapped his wings out to guide us in a steep dive towards the road and the burning caravan. He pulled out of the dive and glided just above the trees until he was almost to the burning roadway, then flapped his wings powerfully to stop his forward motion completely. We dropped down through what remained of the overhanging branches quickly, with Grath snapping off thick branches like they were twigs, and landed on his hind legs, then front legs. I had completely lost my footing, and hit his scales with a clatter of armor. The other soldiers had fared much better than me, and they already had their bows readied with an arrow knocked as Grath slowly moved up the road.

  “Ready yourself!” Pethel yelled at me.

  “For w…?” I started to ask.

  I didn’t even get the words out before something looking like a spidery eagle flung itself out of the foliage and clung to Grath’s side. Three of the soldiers on that side were standing at an angle between vertical and horizontal and were able to shoot arrows into the thickest part of its body mass. The shapeshifter fell with a weak cry and was immediately trampled by Grath’s left rear paw as he slowly advanced into the first part of the burning road.

  A volley of spears of magical fire were launched by a group of four or five Xerith hiding in the woods on the left. Their attacks hit Grath solidly on the flank, but they didn’t even cause Grath momentary discomfort because of his thick scales. There were a couple more that were charging him from that direction, and he drew a deep breath. To keep them from fleeing, I hurled a blast of lightning into the midst of the spellcasting Xerith, which burned them a bit and stunned them. Grath breathed a huge deluge of flame back and forth, razing the entire area. There were a couple more Xerith charging us from the other side, and Grath simply reared a bit, then slapped down his front paws, smashing them into a black, ichor-spattered ruin. I found myself on my backside again at the sudden move, but the other soldiers had recovered very quickly because of where they hung near the top of Grath’s flanks.

  Over the course of the next few minutes, Grath smashed the shapeshifters one by one, while the soldiers kept his back and flanks clear of attackers with precise bowshots. I then saw the wisdom of having a talon of troops on his broad back. They fought as a unit until every last shapeshifter was killed. For all my magical ability, I was less than useful with all the sudden and unfamiliar movements Grath made, and only towards the end was I able to keep my feet under me.

  “BRACE.”

  I grabbed one of his spikes like the soldiers did just before Grath circled very quickly, using his tail to smash down the closest trees. Though they were burning brightly, they were still as thick as I was tall, and Grath severed them or knocked them over like they were nothing. Once he had a circle cleared, he leapt into the air and snapped his wings out and down. He gained some altitude, then circled again and surveyed the area. Trees a hundred feet from the road burned like torches despite the rain. Where the caravan was, nothing was left. The wagons were all aflame and every horse and rider was little more than ash and red-hot steel. Nothing moved. Apparently Grath was satisfied, as he gained speed and altitude for the return trip. The light between his scales changed from black to blue. As I compared the blasts of fire that I had conjured in years past against what Grath could breathe out, I was very humbled. I was also very glad Grath was an ally.

  -----

  Protected from view by a thick tree trunk, it watched as the dragon climbed and flew away. The Xerith’s human expression changed from fear to incredulity, then to anger. The shapeshifter simmered with hate and considered its options. The Xerith were created with a compulsion to seek out and kill sorcerers. They could feel the magical power within people and when that power was felt, the desire to snuff it out was overpowering for them. The High Executor had felt the radiance of the power that the rider wore like a mantle just a mere moment before the dragon struck. One does not get to be High Executor by accident, and the instincts honed by decades of trials had screamed at it to get away just in time. It looked over the ruins of the caravan for anything of use, but there was nothing.

  It was of no concern. It had everything it needed already. Its prey was going east, probably to Stonekeep. It would begin its search there in secret since it now had a powerful enemy that must know of the true nature of the Temple of the Overgod and its Executors. The High Executor was not like the Xerith it considered inferior. Those were brutes, completely lacking in subtlety. The High Executor was well versed in human combat and knew it could defeat any foe.

  They would never see it coming.