Chapter 20 – The Lord Delroy
Only a few moments seemed to pass, but when I finally pried my eyes open, I found I was bunked in a room with a dancing fire and a singularly hard floor. I propped up on my shoulders and wondered if it had all been a dream.
The harsh twinges in my side assured me it wasn’t. Carefully, I glanced down and discovered a thick pad of bandages, some with red stains, wrapped around a tear in my shirt. With a start, I remembered what had happened…Aubrey revealing his identity, Redmond’s death, the duel with Aubrey, the surprise reinforcements. Shuddering in realization of how close I’d come to getting killed, I slowly sat up and hugged my knees under the blanket, wishing I could go back to sleep.
Of course, I couldn’t have five minutes of peace, now could I? Loud voices outside my door and then Alye and Philipia exploded into the room, practically dancing in mirth and excitement. “WE WON WE WON WE WON!” Alye sang, spinning. Philipia laughed loudly, and to my shock, flames unexpectedly spurted from her mouth. She coughed abruptly.
“Oh, sorry ‘bout that,” she said hoarsely. “I don’t think my shapeshift back to normal is quite finished. I’ve been spouting flames for the past hour. And my throat bloody hurts,” she complained unexpectedly.
“What exactly happened?” I asked quietly, trying to keep my brain from completely misfiring. “Besides the fact that we won; I heard the first ten times,” I added.
Alye plunked herself down on the floor next to my cot, Philipia following. “Well,” the shorter one began, “you passed out so Elspeth got Violet to get you somewhere where you wouldn’t freeze to death. And Aubrey’s forces all stood down, though I think there’s still some at the castle that we’ll have to take care of soon, and Aubrey’s being guarded by about half our people and his dagger’s gone since I broke that. We’re waiting to…um…do whatever we’re doing with him.”
“I wanted to eat him right there,” Philipia growled, “but Kymber wouldn’t let me. Said it wasn’t right to revenge Redmond like that.”
At the sound of Redmond’s name, we all stopped, falling silent. I forced myself not to think of his last moments, encouraging US when we’d failed him…Guilt is one truly awful, unbearable pain.
“ANYWAY,” I broke in, wrenching my thoughts away, “how long have I been out?”
Philipia paused to wipe something from her eye. “Oh…um, I think just a couple hours. The Rebellion council is gonna meet as soon as you feel up to it.”
“Feel up to it?” I replied, making my legs lift me up and get to my feet. “I’m fine. I just got a scratch and I was really tired. You try fighting a person when you know he can cream you in a second if you don’t think fast!”
Alye and Philipia backed up slightly, doing the cool-down-now hand gesture. “Chill out,” Alye retorted. “You aren’t the only one who fought, you know. Get a grip.”
As usual, she was about as gentle as the blunt side of an ax, but she had a point. “Sorry,” I muttered, feeling embarrassed.
“Whatever,” she smiled. “Now come on!” She ran out of the room and I followed her, Philipia behind me and coughing slightly. A hot flash suddenly sprayed near my back and I turned around to see her grimace.
“Sorry.”
“You were the one who wanted to be a dragon.”
“Well you gotta admit it was a pretty decent battle form.”
“…Yeah. Definitely.”
To my not-so-great surprise, I discovered that I’d been lodged in Kymber’s house, not in the basement but another room that I guess served as a storeroom. We stepped out into the freezing cold and snow, drew closer together, and I suddenly stopped. The streets were no longer empty. Villagers were lined up everywhere, many wearing bandages but all with smiles that conveyed one feeling: joy. I didn’t know how long it’d been since I’d seen their faces like that. And when they saw us, a ripple went through the crowd, one that whispered happiness and enthusiasm. I felt myself flushing from stage fright and walked faster. They didn’t cheer or anything, but I could practically see the waves of glee flowing from them.
It was a relief to immerse myself in the companionable Candlebar Inn. This time, we didn’t bother with the back room; there wasn’t any need for secrecy anymore. I saw the Rebellion council members lined up at the bar, sipping assorted drinks. Selene wasn’t there at all; I guessed she’d gone to sleep off the Inosital. I didn’t blame her.
The three of us joined the members at the bar, slipping onto the worn stools. Clance took one look at us and apparently knew exactly what to make, for the drink he passed me was that hot peanut butter drink that had about the same effect on me as coffee but without the disgust. I drank it eagerly, relishing the sweet and faintly salty taste. Philipia was drinking the same thing, but Alye had gone straight for intoxication. We glared at her but she gave an impish grin as she sipped at some unidentifiable substance that apparently stood for wine (I doubted it had any grapes in it).
After several quiet minutes of drinking, by silent consent, we took one of the tables near the fireplace. Outside, I could hear the sounds of more peasants approaching the inn, hearing its call of warmth and alcohol. We huddled together, watching each other’s faces.
I broke the silence first. “What should we do about Aubrey?”
“Kill him,” Harmon answered quickly, playing with a dull butter knife that he poked at the table with. “He murdered…murdered Redmond and he doesn’t deserve to live.”
“But…” Kymber started, “…but killing him isn’t going to bring Redmond back. I-I know this sounds silly, but isn’t there some way to…I suppose disable him without killing him? Prevent him from hurting anyone ever again?”
“You know if he has his magic, nothing’s going to stop him from trying to cause havoc,” Lunae said in a dull, tired voice.
“What if…what if we took away his magic?” Elspeth asked cautiously. “Isn’t there some way to do that?”
All eyes turned to me. I ducked my gaze and stared at my clenched hands, which I hadn’t realized were shaking. “I…um…I don’t know. I suppose…I could look and see if there’s a method for taking out a person’s magic. But we’d need to get to the castle library for that.”
A flicker began to burn in Alye’s eyes. “Brilliant. We can ransack his darling daddy’s house and find Delroy himself. We’d need to do that anyway.”
“Oh god,” I sighed. “More fighting.”
“It’s necessary,” Adaline snapped. “We can’t just leave it there so he can regroup and send another army after us. Glovebern can’t take the strain.”
They were right of course. I just thoroughly hated any thought of having to fight again. Just the idea of it felt like a lump of rocks in my stomach.
“I’ve got an idea,” Philipia spoke up. “Let’s take Aubrey with us after we storm the castle. Then let’s put him in that cell we were put in when we got captured. You know, the one that turns magic off? That way, he won’t be able to do anything while Tanya looks up on how to take out magic. Sound good?”
It did. So we began to plan.
Next day, the sun dawned bright and clean, reflecting off the endless snow and ice that coated Glovebern. Aubrey wasn’t with us yet; we’d come back with him after we secured the castle. Our group gathered together as many healthy villagers as we could get and left a large guard for the evil Medieval guy, while Philipia had vanished an hour before; I guessed that she was trying to go dragon again. It was a quiet, yet not cheerless group that marched on the castle, the high stone walls no longer looking so impossibly strong. I couldn’t see any archers manning the walls; they’d probably all been diverted to the battle against us. Of course, the drawbridge was up, so we did have a slight problem with that.
But hey, that’s why having a dragon was handy.
Philipia swooped in, a blur of green and black, and seized the wooden planks with her claws. With great caution, she yanked the drawbridge down in defiance of the chains and other things desperately holding it in place. Within a few minutes, it was down, scratched up and slightly broken but serviceable. We stepped over it with care and soon stood in what was a familiar sight, to the future trio at least. But the gorgeous courtyard was unrecognizable in winter, dead and decaying and frozen stiff. I shuddered slightly and turned my gaze toward the high doors that blocked our entrance to the castle.
“HALT!” a terrified voice called out. We turned and saw roughly twenty soldiers streaming over the broken drawbridge, drawing swords but visibly shaking. Philipia rolled her eyes and craned her neck towards them. They stepped back and one almost fell into the moat. I had to stifle a giggle.
“What DO you want?” Alye asked in an incredibly bored voice.
“Y-you are breaking into Lord D-Delroy’s home and you w-will leave at once or else we will f-fight you off!” He didn’t sound very sure of that, not with Philipia staring holes in him with her huge emerald eyes. She glanced at him for another second and then opened her mouth, revealing all her huge shiny white teeth. The twenty soldiers cringed and some were already starting to back away. And then she roared.
Right in their faces.
They were gone when I looked back up (I’d been closing my eyes and covering my ears; you try dealing with a dragon roaring right next to you!). “That was easy,” Kymber smiled lightly.
“Brilliant,” Alye said in another bored tone and pointed at the castle doors. “Philipia, apparently you are the door-dragon of the day. Can you break ‘em?”
The look our resident dragon gave her was eloquent: uh, DUH, genius. She turned slowly, knocking over a tree or two, and slammed her long tail against the heavy wood and metal. Several blows later, the doors burst inward with a crash and splintering of wood. Philipia gave a toothy grin and then her expression changed to something more serious. She growled quickly to Kymber, who translated.
“She says she can’t fit in there. She’s going to have to change back.” Philipia growled again. “And that this may take some time. She said to go on inside and wait for her.” Obligingly, we stepped through the shattered doors and shivered in the freezing hallway. Huddling together, we got some semblance of warmth.
The minutes ticked by and the cold air blew through the doors. Finally, after nearly fifteen minutes, Philipia stumbled through, trembling and unsteady on her feet. “Holy cow, that was hard,” she gasped, and nearly fell. One of the villagers (his name was Keegan, I thought, and he had a pronounced Irish accent) managed to catch her before she splattered onto the carpet.
Violet rushed over, doing her usual nursing thing. “Sit down now, don’t move, and can someone get her something to drink?” Keegan ran out into the snow and brought some back, which Philipia gladly took. She shook as she sat up against the wall, but slowly the color returned to her cheeks and she looked ready to continue.
“Okay, I’m fine. Let’s go find Delroy.” We set off, feet stomping onto the fine rugs and eyes ignoring the collections of artifacts and paintings that lined the walls. We had only one thought: where to find Delroy.
Soon, we heard footsteps coming from another direction, but it was only a lone soldier, armor loose and sword dangling limply from his belt. Smiling, Alye rounded the corner and deliberately smashed into him, sending him sprawling on the ground while she drew her sword and pointed it at his throat. “Hello, we’re looking for Delroy.”
The guy was sweating already and lay perfectly still. “I-I th-think his quarters are i-in the west w-wing on the sec-second floor. P-please d-don’t kill me!”
“No intention of it,” Alye replied sweetly and smacked him over the head with the flat of her blade, knocking him out instantly. We left him there and set out for the west wing, second floor.
It took us a long time, but thankfully, the castle was pretty much deserted. Delroy had truly emptied out his forces to get us, and since all of them were either dead, deserted, or being kept in their own barracks under guard, his castle was totally vulnerable. At last, we got into the west wing.
Weirdly, it too was empty. A thick layer of clogging dust littered the air. There were only a couple signs of traffic, and a single door was at the very end of a long hallway. The rest of the walls were littered with all kinds of junk that apparently had no purpose other than to take up space and impose on anyone entering their total futility or something. Quickly and quietly, we stepped toward the door, making little sound. Alye got to the door force and tried the handle.
“Locked,” she whispered. Using her sword, the lock was quickly picked (the third one in as many weeks). Hesitating for another second, we opened the door abruptly and darted into the room, ready for anything.
Or almost anything.
No sound, nothing but more knickknacks and a large bed that dominated at least half the room. Massive draperies and things covered it on all sides, but it definitely had to be Delroy’s room. Inching across the floor, I reached the drapery on the right side and flung it back.
“OH MY GOD!” I screamed, nearly falling backward. “Oh my god I’m gonna be sick!” I gasped, clutching my throat and nausea pouring up my esophagus.
Lying on the bed, dressed in fine clothing and with an ornate crest representing his social rank, was Lord Delroy. Only he was a skeleton.
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