Winter's Crown: Act 2, Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“You’re late,” the Vampire Bride at the reception desk said in admonishing tones.

“…did anything happen?”

“No, but you’re still late. The mistress says that we must strive to maintain punctual operations.”

The Vampire Bride picked up her clipboard from the stone counter and produced a pen. She looked up at Ilyshn’ish, who had reassumed her Dragony self after sending the old Dwarf away and finding a new place out of view.

“What did you find out?” The Vampire Bride asked, awaiting Ilyshn’ish’s report.

“That Dwarves are stubborn, prideful and mired in traditions and history that they themselves have half-forgotten,” Ilyshn’ish replied. “That they are not as honourable as they might pretend to be – a few of them seem a bit more sensible than the rest, though.”

“That does not help with our present circumstances in any way.”

Though the Vampire Bride said that, her pen didn’t stop moving, continuing to scrawl notes in some unknown language.

“I might have given them a slight nudge,” Ilyshn’ish said offhandedly, “for all the good it will do for anyone. They’re currently disputing the ownership of their lairs, and their masters did not prepare the appropriate measures to manage them properly. It’s only a matter of time before things grind to a halt again if it hasn’t already.”

“Let’s have some details,” the Vampire Bride tapped her pen on the clipboard. “Perhaps Lady Shalltear will be able to do something about this.”

Ilyshn’ish’s tongue twitched, and the flesh beneath her scales prickled.

“L-Lady Shalltear is coming? Now?”

“We’ve relayed a request for an expedited delivery through the set of Frost Dragons that left before you arrived,” the Vampire Bride replied. “They should have arrived at Feoh Jura by now.”

Ilyshn’ish relayed her findings to the Vampire Bride, who recorded her words without pause. She omitted the meeting in the alley, however – it seemed to matter little in regards to the business at hand.

“You managed to do all of that in just over an hour?” Hejinmal marvelled, “That’s amazing, sister.”

“Considering that I'm a Bard, brother, it shouldn’t be,” Ilyshn’ish sniffed. “What have you been doing this entire time?”

“Um…chatting with the office staff?” Hejinmal offered shyly, “Getting stared at by all the passing Dwarves, too, if that counts for anything. You’d think they’d have seen a Dragon before, as long as they live.”

The Vampire Bride cleared her throat from the reception counter to the side.

“Is there anything else to report?” She asked, “The more information we have to work with, the better.”

“That’s all that pertains to this matter,” Ilyshn’ish replied, “unless you want every piece of idle conversation and gossip that came within range of my hearing for the last hour.”

Before the Vampire Bride could respond, a dark hole appeared in the yard in front of the converted office. A dozen giant lizards spilt out, followed by a pair of Dwarf handlers. Lady Shalltear stepped through last, stopping to look over the Dwarves and their unsettled livestock.

The sight of them reminded Ilyshn’ish that she hadn’t eaten for at least a week. When was the last time she had some lizard?

“Do you know your way from here?” Lady Shalltear asked them.

“Erm…no,” one of the Dwarves answered as they checked over their animals, “but we got a map – should be able to figure it out.”

Lady Shalltear extended an arm, pointing her gloved hand down the mostly empty road branching out from the main thoroughfare filled with cargo sledges waiting to get into the Residential Quarter.

“This delivery was requested by the Merchant Guildmaster,” she said. “He should be at the gate of the Industrial Quarter. The road here will lead you straight to him.”

“That so?” The Dwarf handler said as he gathered up the reins of his lizards. “Well, thank ye kindly, miss: you’ve saved us a lot of trouble. Don’t know how we could have packed these fellows up in this weather.”

Lady Shalltear smiled as they waved and went on their way, then she turned and headed straight into the office.

“Thank you for your hard work, Lady Shalltear,” the Vampire Brides lined up and bowed in greeting.

“Are we making any headway here?” She asked, “we’ve slowed down departures on our end, but that just means all the traffic is piling up in Feoh Jura instead. The Dwarves keep bringing more and more things to the surface, despite being informed of the changes.”

The receptionist stepped forward to offer the information collected by Ilyshn’ish to her mistress, who scanned them over briefly.

“Whose work is all this?” She peered suspiciously at the three Vampire Brides, “You haven’t left your post to wander around, I hope.”

They violently shook their heads in unison, and the receptionist quickly provided an answer.

“Number Nineteen went into the city to find out what she could since her flight is currently delayed.”

“Number Nineteen…” Lady Shalltear’s crimson gaze went from one Frost Dragon to the other, then wrinkled her nose. “Oh, the obscene one. Well, I guess she’s at least showing more use.”

Lady Shalltear seated herself behind the stone counter, poring over the notes again. After several minutes, she produced a scroll from a hole in the air before her.

“「Message」.”

The parchment vanished in a flash of vivid azure flame, and Ilyshn’ish watched as Lady Shalltear went through a curious sequence of expressions. The pen in hand scratched over the notes presented and, after several minutes, she rose with a smile on her face.

“We will be altering the schedule according to the changes written here,” she said as she looked over to Ilyshn’ish and Hejinmal. “You two: with me – break time’s over.”

They flew up after Lady Shalltear as she streaked towards the cavern ceiling high above Feoh Berkana. She stopped to hover near one of the ventilation shafts over the Industrial Quarter that had been blocked off.

“This one should be good enough, I think…” Lady Shalltear murmured as she looked down to the city below.

The Vampire placed a hand on the colossal boulder stopping up the shaft and moved forward. There was little other way to describe it: the tiny figure advanced and the boulder – that must have been four times the mass of their father – appeared to have no choice but to advance with her. It scraped forward with no discernible effort on Lady Shalltear's part.

A few seconds later, a great amount of debris tumbled down the mountain face and the stale air from within the cavern blasted past them and into the gloomy morning skies.

“Our service will be using this shaft to access the city until further notice,” Lady Shalltear said. “Head back to Feoh Jura – the cargo schedule should be reorganized to resume deliveries by the time you arrive.”

Ilyshn’ish and Hejinmal resumed their work, and the day continued uneventfully: Frost Dragon flights to and from Feoh Jura and Feoh Berkana were proceeding smoothly with the newly adjusted schedule.

Smoothly…wait – wait a minute…

Ilyshn’ish grew annoyed as she considered what she was doing. This was certainly not something she had volunteered to do, she was just packed away and the events of the past few days simply swept her along. The idea that she had developed a sense for what qualified as ‘smooth operations’ for their tasks annoyed her even further. Was she really that airheaded, to simply go with the flow without realizing it?

She needed to find a way out of her predicament. She didn’t want a broom closet as a lair, nor did she want to be stuck with this damnably insidious routine. How long would they be doing this for, anyway? Until all of Feoh Jura had been emptied? At one point she heard that there were a hundred thousand Dwarves packed in the satellite city somehow, and considering the whole day had barely moved a thousand…well, she did not want to be stuck flying her brother back and forth for months.

Ilyshn’ish eyed the frantically flapping form of Hejinmal behind her: truly, there was nothing graceful or majestic about the image he portrayed.

“How long are we going to be doing this for, brother?” Ilyshn’ish asked after they levelled off from yet another departure from Feoh Berkana, “I heard that this was being done as a gesture of goodwill to the Dwarves as well: everything we’re doing is free of charge or obligation.”

“As long as it takes, as far as I know,” Hejinmal answered. “It shouldn’t take more than a month or two? After that, the service will be operating regularly along the routes within the Sorcerous Kingdom, in addition to some friendly destinations like Arwintar and the Dwarf cities.”

“So you’re saying that they plan on having us do this indefinitely?” Ilyshn’ish turned an eye to him with a furrowed brow, “What do we even get for this?”

“They subjugated the enclave, sister. I don’t think we get anything – we have to do what they want.”

"That sounds suspiciously like slavery, Hejinmal. Didn’t you say it was illegal?"

"Well, there are rules and then there are rules, sister,” Hejinmal did not sound like he cared either way. “You know how it is."

Indeed she did, but it did not make her feel any better about it. The others appeared so resigned to their fates that even acting for one’s own freedom felt like it would result in their turning against her – actually, they did just that a few days ago.

“You must have some different rules, brother, seeing how damnably upbeat you are all the time now.”

“That’s, uh, hmm…that’s technically true, I guess?”

“Technically? What are you on about?”

A pair of Frost Dragons crossed their path, flying a few hundred metres below them in the opposite direction. They did not even meet her gaze; she wondered if they even registered her presence. If they continued the way they were, inevitably some predator would end them.

The storm over the mountains grew worse, but it mattered little to a Frost Dragon. Ilyshn’ish sliced through the razor winds and blinding snows with no more difficulty than she would through a gentle spring shower: it was perfect hunting weather for many of the powerful beings that made inclement frozen climes their home.

She looked down to the rugged slopes below: most of the Frost Giants she had marked over their many journeys back and forth were still there, and they could see through the storm just as easily as Frost Dragons could. The Dwarf migration was quite the curiosity – she was sure many other denizens of the Azerlisia Ranges had taken note – but the Frost Giant clans were the only force that was probably capable of waylaying the caravans laden with the Dwarves and their precious cargo. It would take a powerful group of them, however, and whether such a great raid would be assembled was not something a Frost Giant scout could alone decide.

It occurred to her that she hadn’t killed any recently. Usually, she would get rid of one or two who became too brave or careless and the rest would lay low for a while. Without their main competition vying for dominance over the territory, it was probably just a matter of time before they moved against the Dwarves. She wondered if the Sorcerous Kingdom would do anything after the fact.

“Are you going to stop waffling and finally answer me?” She growled back at Hejinmal, who continued to remain silent as he followed her through the storm. “What happened to you? I’m starting to think that mother was right about your strange behaviour.”

“Well, uh…I was actually the first of us to meet the Sorcerer King,” Hejinmal said. “Father actually sent me out to deal with him.”

“Deal with him?” Ilyshn’ish narrowed her eyes, “Negotiation is not the first option father would ever choose.”

“Oh, no, of course not,” Hejinmal laughed nervously, “he sent me out to kill the intruders.”

“He sent you out to fight?” Ilyshn’ish scoffed, “It seems father was an idiot in more ways than mother described. I assume you just tried talking this Sorcerer King’s ear off like you do with anyone whenever you get in a pinch.”

“Er…pretty much, but the Sorcerer King just started casting something at me as soon as I asked what he was doing.”

“I see…I didn’t realize my brother had become Undead since we last met. I’ve read that the Undead aren’t prone to bouts of extreme emotion like the living, so I suppose things make sense now. If it’s any consolation, you’re very lifelike still, Undead brother.”

“Yes, I’ve read that as well. Though I guess we did read all the same stuff, after all – no, wait, I'm not Undead! Really, sister, don’t just kill me off like that.”

“Alright, what happened, then?”

“Ah, well…after a brief discussion, I agreed to take him to meet father and, along the way, he gave me to Lady Aura – a Ranger vassal of his – and I sort of became a pet.”

They banked with the bend in the mountain road while Ilyshn’ish tried to make sense out of what Hejinmal had just said.

“A pet…” The words finally sunk in.

“Ehe.”

“What do you mean by ‘Ehe’!?”

Seventy-two frozen faces snapped up to look towards them as her shout rolled over the sledges passing far below.

Unbelievable.

Simply incomprehensible!

Her brother, a pet? There were many things one could strive for, but this was something that Ilyshn’ish was quite certain stood as a first in the histories of the world. Dragons often achieved fame or infamy, but Hejinmal just ignored both to aim straight for ignominy.

“I believed that you had at least some ambition, brother,” Ilyshn’ish spat. “How could you simply roll over and become someone’s belonging!”

“I don’t believe my ambitions really mattered there,” Hejinmal replied. “It just happened, and I had no choice.”

“Fah!”

“Plus, by being useful to them,” her brother continued, “I was able to save mother and the rest before the Sorcerer King decided to just kill them all. It’s not as if my ambitions changed in the end, anyways – I wanted to leave and see the world after learning all that I could; my schedule was just advanced slightly.”

“Hmph. Seeing the world as a delivery Dragon is not what I had in mind when it came to the future.”

“A delivery Dragon…that sounds pretty catchy, sister,” Ilyshn’ish threw him an annoyed look, and he hurriedly spoke again. “B-besides, this work means we can see the world without worrying for our safety as we would otherwise. Also, as Lady Aura's pet, there are all sorts of other perks. She has many abilities that can reinforce us and enhance our performance like your magic does…no that’s not quite right…”

“Our? Don’t tell me that the rest of the enclave now belongs to her as well. No – they’re not insufferably upbeat like you are, and it wouldn’t be Lady Shalltear directing things if so…”

“No, I was referring to all the others like me – the magical beasts and such who are also Lady Aura’s pets. Maybe if you joined, you’d also–”

“Oh spare me, brother!” Ilyshn’ish cut him off, “If I ever gain an interest in this circus you’ve become a part of, it will be as a spectator – you’ll never catch me becoming some Ranger’s lap lizard.”