A Dragon's Tale Ch. 02

Ethan slowly relaxed. "Sorry, I was... Sorry."

"It's okay," Alana said. "I needed a heart attack anyway."

He chuckled. "My pleasure."

Garthildur gave Alana a look. She turned slightly pink, but ignored him.

"What had you so riled up?" she asked.

"Bad dream." Ethan related his dream to them. Garthildur leaned back in his seat and made a thoughtful sound.

"There are rumors that Lord Delmar works for a black dragon," Alana said. "Some even say the black dragon gave him part of his power."

"Great, a lord and a dragon." Ethan looked at her. "Don't we just have the best luck?"

She nodded and then turned to Garthildur. "Do you know anything that could help?"

"I'll ask around with some of my contacts," he replied as he rose. "The room is paid up for the rest of the week. But I've already tarried too long and the caravan needs to leave before daybreak or I'll break a few appointments. Best of luck to you Alana dragon-bride."

Alana got to her feet and hugged him. Garthildur nodded respectfully to Ethan, and then he left.

"Dragon-bride?" Ethan asked when Garthildur had left.

"You heard that?" Alana asked, her cheeks slightly more pink than he was used to seeing. "We shared deep mana and bonded, which in the Elven culture means we're married."

Ethan grimaced. "I was happy to save your life, but I wasn't planning to get hitched."

"Unfortunately, Elven culture is pretty clear on that point and Uncle Garth already told the rest of the camp. I have a bit of a name for making a good magical staff, and my family..." She shook her head. "Gossip follows them like ugly follows an ogre. So basically, this will be spread across the Elven realms faster than the falcon dives."

"So, we're married?" out of habit, Ethan ran his hand over his head where his hair used to be as he considered the idea. "I mean you're nice and you saved my life, plus you're not exactly hard on the eyes, but..."

Alana cocked her head to one side. "Hard on the eyes?"

"It's slang from my world," He hesitated before continuing. "It means you... It means you're attractive."

"Oh," she smiled after a moment. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. So, are we married?"

"Maybe?"

"Maybe?" Ethan repeated. It seemed just a few hours ago that his fiancée had left him for his best friend and stolen the business he spent his whole adult life building. He liked Alana, but he wasn't ready for trying that kind of relationship again so soon.

"Perhaps, it depends on who you ask," she said. "Any elf will definitely say yes and if we were both Elves, the answer would definitely be yes. However, you're not an elf and there were no vows, so many of the other cultures aren't as clear. They do recognize Elven weddings though. Not that I want to, of course, but I suppose we could consider ourselves married."

"No offense, but I don't really want to be married to you," Ethan said. He wasn't sure, but he thought a flicker of disappointment crossed her face for the briefest moment.

He quickly added, "I mean, you're a great girl and all that, but we've only know each other for... What? Two days? Three days?"

"Just over a week," she said, working it out. "We were recovering for almost that long."

"Right. Well, I just meant we don't know each other very well yet, right?"

"I agree. No offense, but I don't want to be tied to you for the rest of my life just because I saved your life."

"Ditto," Ethan said.

There was a moment of awkward silence before he asked, "So what now?"

"I don't know," Alana said. "I had my life pretty well planned out until Hermair burned down my farm."

"My life was also well planned out until recently too, so I know the feeling," he nodded.

They were both quiet for a moment. Ethan noticed something in the silence. In the back of his mind, he could feel a little trepidation mixed with excitement. It was a small and subtle thing that he probably would've missed if they weren't both silent. He didn't feel that way, but he could feel those emotion were present somehow.

"Hmm," Ethan grunted.

"What?"

"I just felt a little..." He cocked his head to one side. "Were you feeling a little nervous mixed with some excitement a few seconds ago?"

Alana narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

"Because I felt those emotions, but they weren't coming from me," Ethan replied. "They were sort of vague and nebulous. Like they were there, but weren't there at the same time."

"Illuminar save us." Alana sighed and put her head in her hands. "It's our bond."

"I wondered. Who's Illuminar?"

"You don't have God in your world?" Her mouth fell open like such a thing was beyond comprehension.

"Of course we do, we just have a different name for him," Ethan replied, and then to change the subject, added, "Can you sense what I'm feeling?"

Alana closed her eyes for a moment before answering. "Curious and slightly concerned?"

"Pretty much," Ethan said. "So this bond thing is real then."

Alana nodded.

"Is there any way to break it?"

"As far as I know, these bonds are unbreakable. They might get weaker with time and distance, but they never go away until you die. What concerns me more is how fast it's growing."

"Oh?"

"Yes. My mother said it took months for her to be able to sense my father's emotions. We've been bonded for less than a week."

"That's..."

"Strange?" Alana offered.

"Hey, this whole thing is strange," Ethan said. "Remember, I come from a place without magic. The whole idea of dragons, elves, magic and now these bonds is a little overwhelming."

She ran her hands through her rich, chocolate brown hair. "You forgot being hunted by dragon slayers and getting semi-married to a wood elf. I can see how that would all be a bit much."

He laughed. "Semi-married - strange world we live in, isn't it?"

Alana nodded.

"Here's the way I see it," he said. "Either we split up and let this bond weaken over time, or we stick together and figure out what to do with it. Thoughts?"

"No offense, but I don't fancy your chances if we split up," Alana said, spreading her hands. "Lord Delmar is pretty much insane and doesn't let up once he's put his mind to something. At least, that's his reputation. Without some help, I think he'll find you fairly quickly."

She took a deep breath before continuing. "Besides, I was a little lonely all by myself in the forest. You may be ugly, but you're not bad company." She finished with a grin.

Ethan couldn't help but notice that she had a great smile.

He nodded his agreement. "Also, when word of that whole dragon-bride thing gets out, this Lord Delmar might come looking for you to get to me. It might be safer to stick together."

"I hadn't thought of that," she said. "But you're right."

He stuck out his hand. "Partners?"

Alana looked at his hand for a few moments. Again, Ethan felt some excitement mixed with trepidation from her.

After a few moments she asked, "Why are you sticking out your hand like that?"

"It's how we seal a deal where I come from," he explained.

"So, you say hello and seal deals the same way?" She cocked her head to one side. "That's strange."

"I never really thought about it, but yeah it is," Ethan said. He kept his hand out, and Alana stuck out hers in return. He shook it carefully.

"Partners?" he asked again.

"Partners," Alana replied, nodding. "So what happens now?"

"I need to be a better fighter," he said. "I wasn't useless, but when they come for us I want to be ready."

"Then you need gold - lots of gold. If you can get a large enough hoard, you can start enchanting your body to be stronger and faster. You can also make your scales harder and tougher so weapons won't pierce them easily. They don't make armor for dragons, and enchantments will be better in the end anyway."

"I can feel some gold in that bag." Ethan pointed to her coin purse. "But I'm guessing I'll need a lot more."

"Definitely. Remember how big Drousin's stash was? Something that size would be better."

"You don't have a massive pile of gold just lying around do you?"

Alana laughed and held up her coin purse. "I'm afraid this is it."

"Hmm," Ethan said. "Well, working to get it will take too long. Stealing isn't an option for obvious reasons, and I really don't fancy my chances against a dragon like Drousin right now."

He closed his eyes, trying to think. He turned his mind towards gold and - to his surprise - now that he was paying attention, he felt something on the edges of his mind. He could feel the gold in Alana's coin purse. He didn't know how, but he could. The metal was strong, brimming with energy and he could feel its energy slowly flowing towards him in a trickle. It felt good, but it was only a trickle. He needed a flood.

He relaxed and tried to feel other gold nearby. He could feel the odd bit of jewelry or coin back and forth in people's pockets or on their persons, but there really wasn't much at all.

That's when he felt it.

It was at the edge of his perception, but it was there. It was far away, but it was massive. It was a pile of gold so large, it rivaled even Drousin's hoard. Unlike Alana's coins, it wasn't strong or brimming with energy. He could feel all that gold just laying there cold a lifeless waiting for... He wasn't sure what, but he knew if he got close enough he could bring the gold to life. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he knew.

"There's a massive pile of gold not far away," he said finally, turning his attention back to her.

"Dragons are excellent at finding it." Alana smiled. "And that's the vault at The Bank, but I could've told you that."

"The bank?"

"Yes. It's so large it doesn't even need a name. They just call it 'The Bank'. It's said that the vaults have enough gold in them to rival a dragon's hoard."

"The stories are true." He frowned as something occurred to him. "I don't need to own the gold do I? I just need to be near it, right?"

Alana nodded. "According to my conversations with Drousin, you just need to be near it. Why?"

Ethan looked towards the bank. He obviously couldn't see through the wall, but now that he was aware of the gold, it was almost impossible not to think of it. He found a part of himself coveting the gold. Suddenly, the threat of Lord Delmar didn't seem as important anymore. Nothing seemed very important except for that gold...

"Oh," Alana said, catching onto his train of thought. "Oh, that's brilliant."

He shook his head to bring himself out of his reverie. "Are they hiring?"

"The bank? No," she replied. "It's harder to get a job there than in the king's palace. Although..."

"What?" Ethan asked.

"Uncle Garth told me that the bank owner's two children were kidnapped two days ago. He's offering 50 gold each for their safe return. Plus you can marry his daughter if save her and if you save the son, he's promised the rescuer a job at the bank."

"That's..." Ethan couldn't think of the right word for a moment. "Convenient. A little too convenient if you ask me."

"It gets even more convenient," Alana said. "The kidnappers are rumored to be hiding out in my forest."

"That's... Strange. " Ethan stood up and started pacing. "I mean on the surface it sounds like a perfect answer. Rescue the kids and get access to a ton of gold. And it's in your forest so we'd even have home field advantage. But we have a saying were we come from: 'if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is'. I think this qualifies"

"We have a similar saying here. So it's a trap?"

"You think Lord Delmar is that devious?" Ethan wasn't sure he cared very much. The thought of being near that much gold was almost intoxicating.

"He definitely is," Alana furrowed her brow and stroked her chin. "But Hermair isn't, and since he's Lord Delmar's lieutenant I would bet he's leading the search. But he's not that clever. Have you made any other enemies since coming here?"

"Not that I know of."

"Maybe it's just a coincidence?" Judging by her tone, she didn't believe it was either.

"Coincidences usually take a lot of planning," Ethan replied. "If this is a trap, then whoever planned it is pretty devious. Do we have any other options?"

"Not that I can think of," Alana said, tapping her chin with a forefinger as she thought. "We could try a few palaces or other banks, but most people aren't much in favor of letting dragons anywhere near their gold. However, by reputation, the bank owner here is honorable to a fault and if he promised a job to whoever rescued his son, they'll get the job."

"But getting into a fight as we are now..." Ethan grimaced. "We could run. I hate the idea, but we could go far enough away that they won't find us." The moment he said it, he was sure he couldn't run. He couldn't stand the idea of not being near that gold.

Alana shook her head. "You don't understand how fanatical Lord Delmar is. He'll have his men pursue us until we're dead, no matter where we go. I don't want to be looking over my shoulder the rest of my life."

"So, rescuing kids from kidnappers it is then," he said, though his mind was firmly on the gold. "We're going to need weapons."

"I have my bow and Uncle Garth left me some arrows," she said. "I know it doesn't look like much, but the bow is enchanted and packs more punch than you might think. For you though..."

"Sword?" Ethan suggested.

Alana shook her head. "A good quality sword is expensive and it would be hard to use when you are flying. How about a spear instead? I still have my father's old spear in the storage pit near the house. We can pick it up on our way to rescue the children."

"I suppose that would work better if I was flying. It would give me enough reach that I wouldn't need to expose myself to attack."

"Okay, then we're all set except for one thing."

"What's that?"

"About a dozen men left to find the kidnappers a few hours ago, and they had horses," she said.

"And we don't," said Ethan. "Any ideas?"

Alana looked at him, and then shifted her gaze to look just behind him. He looked back and saw his wing claw peeking up over his shoulder.

Her face took on a mischievous smile. "I do have one."

"No way." Ethan shook his head.

"It's the only way we'll beat them there," she urged. "They have horses and a head start. We are already behind in this race and would have to walk."

"You saw me trying to fly after we escaped the forest," Ethan said with an exasperated sigh. "I was terrible. There's no way I could fly us both there in time. Besides, I can barely keep myself aloft - so what makes you think I could carry you too?"

"I'm a wood elf," she said, standing up to emphasize her five feet of height and slender body. "I don't weigh much and Uncle Garth finally remembered to return my weight reduction amulet. Wearing it, I'll probably weigh only a tenth of my normal weight. "

Ethan remembered the elf at Garthildur's camp using the amulet to allow him to carry a horse on his shoulders. "I suppose that could work, if I could learn to fly.

"You can practice outside of town. We can circle around the mountain until we're out of sight."

"Would that even allow me to get ahead of them?"

She laughed. "I doubt those mercenaries could travel more than ten leagues a day on horseback. You can fly that far in an hour. You could probably go even faster with practice."

Ethan hesitated, so Alana continued, "Think of the banker's children. They do need rescuing and we can get there faster than anyone else."

"Okay," he said, accepting her argument. "But then I need to get in some serious flying practice before I try to carry you. And speaking of that, how am I going to leave without the entire town knowing there's a dragon here."

That thought brought something else to mind. "And how did Garthildur get me into this room without anyone seeing me?

"With this." Alana produced a necklace with a small green gemstone from her satchel. "It's enchanted to create a disguise for the wearer. It can make you look like a different race or person, though only the rarest ones can copy a specific person's appearance."

She rose from her stump seat and handed it to Ethan. It was rather pretty, and it almost looked as if there was a light inside the stone.

"I thought you could only enchant things that were once alive?" he queried, looking at the small gemstone.

"I keep forgetting you come from a place without magic. Golems, elementals and gargoyles are made from stone and are alive. They eat gemstones like candy and channel mana through them as they digest them, allowing the gemstones to hold an enchantment when they come out the other end.

"Oh." It made sense, but the concept was a little hard to wrap his mind around. "So, they're made of living stone?"

She nodded. "Some people hunt them to harvest the stone because it can be enchanted. As you can imagine, something made from enchanted stone is very hard to breach."

Ethan grimaced then looked down at the disguise gem. "How does it work?"

"Focus a tiny bit of mana at the gem with a general idea of what you want to look like, and it'll do the rest," Alana said.

He put the necklace on, although it took a bit of doing to get it around his horns. He was almost completely out of mana, but he directed a tiny little bit into the stone and thought about looking like an average, normal man. The stone glowed for a moment, and then dimmed again. Around Ethan's hand, he saw a vague, semi-transparent outline of a human hand. His other limbs also had the same gossamer outline.

Alana squeaked, turned bright red, and averted her eyes.

Ethan looked down to see the outline didn't include any clothes. His rather impressive dragon-sized equipment was still concealed, but the ghostly human equipment wasn't. His human cock was roughly the same size as his dragon's, but still somewhat transparent.

"Sorry," he said. He focused a tiny bit of mana at the gem again, this time thinking of a man with clothing typical for the area. Again, the stone glowed for a moment then faded. This time the ghostly outline included some rough pants, shirt and shoes.

"I'm decent."

Alana peeked with one eye and then uncovered the other. There was an awkward moment of silence for several seconds. That's when Ethan noticed the part of his mind that showed her emotions via their bond. She was simultaneously extremely embarrassed and a tiny bit curious.

"Something you wanted to ask about?"

She shook her head, "No, I'm good. Let's just forget it happened."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Stupid bond," she muttered. "Okay, I'm curious but I'm not going to ask so let's just forget about it."

"Okay," he said, although he couldn't help but smile. Alana shook her head as if trying to clear it. He figured he would spare her any more embarrassment by changing the topic.

"Why can I see through the disguise?" he asked.

"Because the spell is designed that way," Alana replied. "The real question is why can I see through it?"

"Our bond?" Ethan suggested.

"Probably, though only the user is supposed to be able to see through it."

"Okay. Well, if I'm going to be flying us to the forest, I should probably get in some practice."

They packed up the few belongings they would need and left the rest in the room. Garthildur said the room was rented for the rest of the week and there was a sturdy-looking lock on the door, so it seemed like a good place to store them.

The street outside was both very different and yet quite similar to what he had imagined. He had seen many medieval marketplaces in movies and TV shows. Earth entertainments were all pretty close, but way off at the same time. It was extremely noisy and filthy. There were people everywhere all clamoring to sell their wares, and it reminded him of videos he'd seen of the frenzied action on a stock market trading floor in New York.