How to Slay a Dragon - Bill Allen [71]
“Good, Greghart. Now, I think we’d best get these men moving again. We have a long road ahead of us.”
“Yeah, too long,” Greg admitted. He spotted the magician Agni apart from the others, meditating with his back against a tree. “Hey, Ryder, can you wait just another minute.”
Ryder looked around the camp at his exhausted troops. “One, but no more.”
With a groan, Greg pried himself to his feet and crossed to Agni. The magician looked up at him with the same hateful expression he had used the day before.
“I need your help,” Greg told him.
“I’ll give you credit for boldness,” Agni told him. “Why should I help you?”
“It’s not just me you’d be helping. You do want to save the princess, don’t you?”
The look in Agni’s eyes caused Greg to take a cautious step backward. No magician should look that angry. “I thought we had already done that.”
“What are you talking about?”
Agni glanced around the campsite to see if anyone was listening, then spoke in a low voice, though to Greg it sounded more like a hiss. “Mordred and I worked very hard at producing an illusion of Priscilla waiting to be picked up by the dragon. The spell was a masterpiece. Not even Ruuan would have likely realized she was not real until he actually tried to eat her. It would have moved this whole affair out of the public eye and given us time to come up with a plan. Perhaps we could have sealed the dragon in its lair. Then you had to come along and ruin everything. You had no right coming to Myrth in the first place.”
Greg could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Well, don’t blame me. You’re the one who brought me here.”
“That was before Mordred told me of your true role in all of this.”
“Are you going to help me or not? Isn’t that why the queen sent you?”
Agni scoffed. “It is a fool’s errand. There is nothing a single magician can do to stand against a dragon.”
Greg’s stomach began to churn. If someone with a magician’s powers thought there was no hope, what chance did he have?
“And even if I could save her, I wouldn’t.”
Greg’s mouth dropped open. “Why not?”
“You don’t understand these people. Living by prophecy has defined their lives for longer than anyone can remember. They know no other way. There would be no gain in my stepping in to handle this for you. Their lives would be destroyed.”
“But that’s still going to happen,” Greg insisted. “When I fail, not only will the prophecy be broken, but Princess Priscilla will be dead.”
“I admit, I can see no way you can succeed, but you are all these people have. Princess or not, I shall not step one foot within that spire. It would be suicide.”
Ryder’s voice rang through the clearing. “Fall in!”
The men instantly jumped up and fell into formation.
Greg watched them a moment and then turned back to Agni. “Queen Pauline sent you to help, so help. Can’t you at least get us there quicker?”
“You expect me to move an entire army halfway across the kingdom?”
“You moved me between worlds.”
“That was a mistake. Besides, it was different. You are just one person, and we had many magicians. Plus, we were bringing you to us. Now you are asking me not only to transport myself a great distance, but to bring all of you with me.”
“Are you saying you’re not powerful enough?”
Agni scowled. “You would do best not to challenge my power.”
“Can you do it or not?”
“Not in one jump, no. But perhaps partway, if I can picture a location well enough in my mind.”
Greg exhaled deeply. “No time like the present.”
Again Agni scowled. “Go lead your army. I will do what I can.”
Greg ran alongside the formation as Ryder shouted the order to move out, and joined Melvin and Lucky at the front. He felt as if they had been marching for only seconds before the scene ahead of him began to shimmer. The trees ahead seemed to meld together into one big blur, then suddenly he stood in a deep gully filled with fog.
“What just happened?” Lucky asked.
“Hopefully we just shaved a few days off this journey,” said Greg. “I wonder where we are.”
“We’re in the Smoky Mountains,