Chapter 175 - The Seeds of Revolt

It didn't take long for us to reconnect with my friends. Tenebris spotted them as we sped by overhead in a second pass, and we set down next to the abandoned barn they'd holed up inside. Hope jumped down and ran over to bark at Kara. I followed with a little less energy. I was still exhausted from the fighting, so I took my time clambering down from the dragon's back.

Clay was there right away, though, scooping me into his arms and twirling me around fast enough to make me dizzy.

"You made it! God, I was so worried," Clay told me. "We all were. When the fighting started we all debated coming back to help. We felt like shit, running off and leaving you there alone against an entire army. But you did it!'

He set me down, which let me get my breath back. Laughing from the exuberant welcome, I nodded to him. "It's a good thing you didn't. We'd all be dead, if you had."

"I suppose," he replied. "But don't expect us to sit out every fight!"

"I promise not to."

I introduced Tenebris, who impressed everyone, but folks were sad to hear about Sue and Plum. Especially Kara; she and I had put in a lot of miles riding Sue around the area, and it truly sucked that my old dino was gone. Tenebris was a lovely replacement, though. He was smart and deadly, a terrific combination when it was fighting on your side.

I filled everyone in on what had happened. How I'd held them off as long as I could, the conversation with Peter, the pitched battle which followed. I told them how I used lightning to blow up the farmhouse. We'd planned that, but even so I sensed sadness from a great many of our people. I understood, of course. We'd all put enormous effort into making that place a home. Maybe we could return there, if we beat Peter, but much of the work we'd accomplished was now undone. The place would require a ton of repair work.

Then they told me about their adventures.

The group had escaped to the mall just fine, and hid there until the sun set completely, holding off for as long as they could to ensure the night was truly dark. Then they'd mounted the bikes we stashed there and rode for all they were worth. That was how they'd travelled so far in just a few hours. I hadn't figured on the bicycles helping them get in as many miles as they had. They kept moving east until they were certain they'd gone past the Air Guard base, then started looking for safe places to hide and wait for me.

"Which is how we ended up here," Alfred said, wrapping up the story. "The house is gutted. Caught on fire sometime after the Event, and I can't tell if it was intentional or not. But the barn was fine, and since there was no house we figured this would be as good a place as any to wait for you to catch up. Glad you did."

"Me too," I replied.

I was still wiped. One advantage to having high Stamina was I didn't get tired the way I used to. I could do a lot more for much longer. But I still had limits to how long I could go without proper rest, and I found I was coming close to bumping up against them. It wasn't just a matter of being sleepy or tired. The stress of the fighting, coupled with the worry for my friends and the way everything seemed to be going sideways added up to a lot.

"So, what's the plan, Selena? What's next?" Kara asked.

It was a good question, and one I didn't have a good answer for. "I don't know, guys. I mean... I just kicked the ass of a bunch of orcs, but we've lost our home, lost most of my undead army, and now we're not just up against Peter. We've also got to deal with all his allies. I think Carver will avoid contributing as long as he can, but Turner sure as hell won't. He'd love to make us hurt. We've been a thorn in his side way too many times."

"You talked about heading for home at one point," Kara said. "Is that still a possibility?"

That comment drew surprised noises from some of the others. Surprise and, unless I missed my guest, some dismay as well. Shit, they all still wanted to fight? I wasn't sure what I'd done to earn their trust, their faith that I could somehow get us all out of this mess. But I clearly still had it.

Going home had seemed like it might be a good idea. I wanted to see my parents, make sure they were okay. It would take us time to travel so far, because I couldn't fly everyone out there on Tenebris. We'd need to use the bikes and the roads to get there. But it was an option. I just wasn't sure it counted as a good one.

"Much as I'd love mom's pancakes, I don't think that's a good idea. Not yet, anyway," I replied. "We're the last thing standing between Peter and total control of this whole region and everyone living in it. Yeah, we can run away, and that might get us somewhere safe. But while Peter has that dragon, he can still come after us wherever we go. Left along, he'll continue expanding his empire, and eventually we'll end up facing him again, but it'll be at a time of his choosing, when he's much stronger than he is now."

"It sounds like you want to face off against him," Clay said. "I support the idea in theory, but we're going to need to have more than just hopes and prayers if we're going to beat him. Like you said, the dragon is a major threat by itself, but his vassals are at least as big an issue as the lizard."

"It seems to me like we need to remove one of them from the equation," Alfred said.

I glanced his way. He'd been quiet for a bit, but this sounded like a good idea, and I wanted to explore it. "What are you thinking?"

"Well, I figure we need to whittle away at his strength somehow," Alfred replied. "He's got this huge stack of powerful assets, right? But they're all resting on each other. It's sort of like a Jenga tower. Pull a few supporting pieces out of the bottom and the whole thing might come crashing down."

We hashed that out for a while, discussing various strategies that might break up Peter's power base. But it all came back to the damned dragon! Without the dragon, the orcs would almost certainly leave Peter. I got the strong sense they'd only joined him because they were impressed by the dragon's power. If he lost the dragon, he lost the orcs. Lose the orcs, and both Carver and Jefferson would probably turn on him. It was just what Alfred was talking about. Take out the one peg, and the rest of the tower would collapse.

"The problem is, we don't know how he's controlling the dragon," I said, sighing. I leaned back, resting my shoulders. "If we did, then maybe we could disrupt it somehow. But he was quiet about how he got the dragon to obey him, probably for exactly that reason."

"Actually, I think I know how he's controlling it," Clay said.

We all stopped talking and stared at him. He chuckled nervously at the sudden lull in conversation.

"Well, don't keep us in suspense," I said. "Even if it's a theory, let's hear it."

"Okay, I'll break it down," Clay said. He held up a hand and began tallying off numbers on his fingers. "First off, we can be fairly sure he's not controlling it with magic from a crystal, because he isn't high enough tier. Selena, you can only Control Undead on things as high a tier as your spell, right?"

"That's right. Tier six, right now. That's as high as I can go." I thought I saw where he was going with this. "Since we know the red dragon is higher tier than me, like at least tier thirteen and probably higher, and Peter is only tier eight, it's not likely he can control it with a spell. Even if he has Control Dragon or Control Monster, he'd only be able to Control things at the tier of the spell or lower. That means tier eight or lower."

"That's assuming Control Monster even exists," Clay added. "We haven't seen one yet, and we've killed a lot of monsters! I'm certain there are crystals we haven't seen yet, but we're only hypothesizing that spell is out there at all. Since it's probably not a spell, we have to assume he found some other way to control the dragon."

"Maybe magic item?" Patches asked.

Clay nodded. "It's possible. We've seen some odd magical items, like the control stones. There could be more we haven't seen yet. But there's one other piece to the puzzle. I still remember standing there on that tower as the dragon attacked, and Peter called it 'she.' That was before anyone had gotten close enough to the beast to check under its tail, or whatever you do for dragons."

We all got a chuckle at the comparison. Somehow, I had a feeling gendering a dragon would be substantially more dangerous than checking a kitten.

You would be absolutely correct. Tenebris said into my mind. I smiled at that.

"How did he know the dragon was a she? It wasn't a guess. He was quite firm about it. Peter knew the dragon was female long before he ever caught her. How?" Clay asked.

I saw where he was going with this. It made total sense. As a working theory, it ticked a lot of boxes and answered a hell of a lot of questions.

Kara caught on, too. "You think she has babies."

Clay nodded. "I do. I think she either had a clutch of eggs, or has baby dragons, and Peter managed to get his hands on them. That's why she was attacking his castle repeatedly, while she was leaving everyone else alone. It was because Peter had her babies hostage and she wanted them back. She kept attacking, and finally he took her down, then worked out some sort of deal with her. The baby dragons remain safe and alive so long as she follows Peter's orders, or something like that."

It fit. It really did. If only there was some way to prove it! If we knew for sure that was the case, then we could do something about it. Maybe break into his castle and free the baby dragons? The momma dragon would be free from Peter's control, then. She'd be on our side, if anything.

"I think Clay's probably right," I said. "It rings true. But we can't be sure without going in there and finding out the hard way. We're going to need to sneak into his castle and get some intel."

"That sounds like a job for me," Kara said.

I opened my mouth to protest, but she put up a hand to stop me. "You know I'm right. I have the ability to see in darkness, hide in shadows, to teleport from shadow to shadow and even to make more shadows. When it comes to sneaky stuff, I'm the best we've got."

"And I'm close to as good," Clay said. Kara looked his way, startled. Clay laughed. "What, you thought you were the only one grabbing those spells? No, I was a good operator back before the Event, so I picked some spells that help me with that now, same as you. I propose Selena take the two of us down on her dragon. We slip into KingsHaven, work our way into the castle under the cover of darkness, find the baby dragons, if they exist, and break them out."

"Three," Patches said. "Patches come also. Can sneak. See in dark. Hide. Also fight. Help keep friends safe."

Clay nodded. "I can see that. You'd be good to have, if you're willing to come."

"Patches willing."

"And what about the rest of us?" Alfred asked. "Not all of us have super-stealth spells."

He looked perturbed at the idea of his fiancee running into danger without him. That was something he was going to have to get over if he wanted Kara to stay with him. I'd tried to keep her safe, and it was not going to fly. She was a warrior at heart, and wasn't going to be held back, not by me, him, or anyone else.

"Alfred, I want you to take command of what's left of our forces. Use the bikes. Bring them down near KingsHaven, but stay out of sight. The stealth team may need help getting out of there," I said. Holy shit, did we actually have a plan? As plans went, it wasn't the best in the world, and there were still a million things that could go wrong. But we had a launching point, at least. We had something.

"And if it turns out we're wrong, and this is some sort of spell or item?" Alfred asked.

"Then we're going to be counting on you and the troops you're leading to help our team get away," I replied. "If we're wrong, and we can't see any way to get that dragon out from under Peter's control, then we may need to withdraw, to retreat from the area entirely. I don't like it. I don't want to give up on all the people living here. But we may not have any choice, in that scenario."

We broke the meeting up so everyone could prepare themselves for the mission ahead. If we wanted to get the stealth team into Peter's castle under the cover of dark, we'd need to move soon. I sat down beside Tenebris, lost in my worries about everything that could go wrong with this mission, until I finally drifted off into a fitful sleep.