Dragon delivery service CH 81 Delivering Results

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Leryea was setting up camp with the rest of the soldiers.

They had been riding hard for days, heading toward the Thornwood. Normally, the trip from Avagron to the staging grounds would take ten days on horseback. They were set to finish in less than a week. The pace was harsh, but morale was holding for now.

She tightened the final knot on her tent line and stepped back to check her work.

A younger soldier approached, boots dusty, eyes tired but alert. He held out a steaming cup.

“You’re not like the princesses in the stories,” he said casually.

Leryea accepted the cup with a nod. “Thanks, Frank.”

Inside was the same black sludge they’d all been drinking for days. It was an Arcadian import: bitter, thick, and awful. Supposedly, it chased sleep away and kept you sharp for hours. Rumor had it the mages over there drank it by the gallon.

She took a careful sip.

Once, she would’ve gagged. Now she barely flinched.

“Still terrible,” she said, “but I’m getting used to it.”

Frank chuckled. “Guess that answers my question.”

She glanced at him. “What question?”

“Why don’t you act like a court doll?” he said. “My dad always said princesses were… fragile.”

Leryea snorted softly. “Dad says I take after my mother.”

Frank blinked. “The queen?”

“She travels. A lot,” Leryea said. “I was hardly ever in the kingdom when I was younger.”

He nodded slowly. “Heard that. Never stays put long.”

“Yeah,” Leryea said with a small smile. “Always off to some far corner of the world, working. Father says that’s half the reason Adavyea’s one of the biggest trade crossroads on the continent now. She built roads. Alliances. Ties between countries.”

Frank whistled low. “Guess that’s not something bards sing about.”

“They should,” Leryea said quietly.

That night, they gathered around the campfire.

Stories were shared. Jokes went around. Laughter rose and fell with the crackle of burning wood. For a little while, rank didn’t matter. Titles didn’t matter. They were just people, tired, dirty, and alive.

Leryea leaned back on her pack and looked up.

The moon was rising.

It only did that once a year, climbing fully into the sky instead of lingering on the horizon, tracing the edge of the world like a watchful eye. Tonight, it was slowly rising, inch by inch, toward its highest point.

In a month, it would sit directly overhead.

That was when she would have to return, so she could get ready for her journey to the Kingdom of Bale to meet King Louie de la Reign.

At least there was one bright spot.

She would get to see her brother again.

It had been years since she’d last seen Veyric.

Leryea closed her eyes as memories rose unbidden: running through the palace gardens as children, laughter echoing off stone walls. Veyric had been shy back then, always clinging to their mother and easily frightened by anything new or unfamiliar. Their older sister, Rachel, never missed a chance to tease him for it, mocking how he hid behind doors and asking how he was supposed to rule a kingdom one day if he never left his room when things got hard.

The last time Leryea had seen him, he’d been boarding a ship bound for Bale on his own. Since then, his letters spoke of new friends… and someone he might even be courting.

She let out a slow breath through her nose, a small smile tugging at her lips.

He’d grown up.

He’d make a fine king someday.

For now, she stayed by the fire, listening to the murmur of voices and watching the moon continue its climb, letting the night belong to her just a little longer.

Tomorrow, if they kept this pace, they would arrive at Fort Thayden, the place where Talvan was.

She wondered what she would see when she found him.

Would he still have that same goofy smile?
Or would he be someone else now?

She worried about what he’d lost. Losing your name wasn’t just about being forbidden to use it; it was about losing everything tied to it. His rank as a knight. His lands. All the labor and sacrifice his forefathers had poured into that legacy, erased with a single stroke of a quill. All because a duke decided he could do something that, in hindsight, had been impossible from the start.

Going after a dragon on horseback… You might as well ask to catch lightning in a bottle while you’re at it.

A dragon could cross in hours what took ground travelers weeks. And with Sivares, if we’d approached her clad in rune gear, steel in their hands and war in their hearts, she would never have given them the battle we wanted.

She would have fled.

The chase would have stretched on endlessly until exhaustion, and frustration drained our resolve, and we would have turned back, empty-handed and bitter.

And Talvan would still have paid the price.

Leryea stared into the fire, jaw tight.

Some mistakes didn’t need malice to destroy lives.
They only needed pride.

And Duke Deolron had pride to spar.

Even if Leryea didn’t like him, and she didn’t, he was still a duke. The Flamebreakers were still bound to his house, still his knightly order. If he chose to disband them and strip them of their name and purpose, it was within his rights to do so.

That didn’t make it right.

Leryea knelt by the stream, staring at her reflection in the dark water as she drank. The surface rippled, breaking her face into fragments.

Tomorrow is another day, she told herself.

Behind her, someone cleared their throat loudly.

“Oh no,” a soldier muttered. “He’s doing it again.”

Jonnason was pulling out his lute.

“I’m tellin’ you,” he said confidently, adjusting the strap. “One day I’m gonna be a famous bard.”

“Put it away,” another soldier groaned. “The ladies love a man who can sing, not one who sounds like he’s stranglin’ a cat.”

Jonnason scoffed. “You just don’t appreciate art.”

He strummed.

A mug went flying.

Leryea couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing, the sound surprising even herself. For a moment, the weight of dukes and oaths and ruined lives loosened its grip.

The fire crackled. Voices rose. The night carried on.

And for now, that was enough.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Duke Deolron sat alone in his study in Ulbma, reading through a stack of reports by lamplight.

He did not like what he saw.

Ulbma was the closest major city to the Thornwoods, and whatever was stirring there was no longer contained. Rune-armored wyverns. A second dragon confirmed. And now, a mage from his own academy was taken by one of the first dragon.

Things were slipping. Slowly, but unmistakably.

Order was fraying.

A knock came at the door.

“Sir,” his aide said, bowing. “Basslis reports that the device is ready for testing. You requested a demonstration.”

Deolron closed the folder with deliberate care and slid it into a drawer for later review. He rose, smoothing his coat.

“Tell him I will join him shortly.”

The aide bowed again and departed.

As Deolron stood, memories stirred, unwanted, unbidden. Fire still burned behind his eyes, even after all these years. The screams of Reth echoed in his thoughts as clearly as the day it fell. His hair had gone gray, but the images had never faded: stone melting, people burning, a city reduced to ash.

Reth had never been reclaimed. Its ruins were still left to rot, a scar on the land and on his memory.

And now dragons wished to live among people?

Folly.

Dragons were monsters. Not by choice, not by cruelty, but by nature. Creatures born with power too great to coexist with mortals. The sword was the only answer history had ever proven effective.

If not for the king’s orders, Deolron would already have acted.

Instead, he made his way to the testing grounds.

The doors opened onto a reinforced chamber, stone walls blackened by previous trials. Basslis was already there, a thick-bearded dwarf adjusting equipment with practiced ease. Against one wall hung a stretched hide, dark and scarred.

Deolron recognized it instantly.

The hide of the dragon that had destroyed Reth.

Basslis bowed once, then gestured to a table draped in cloth. “We’ve improved the design, Your Grace. I believe you’ll be pleased.”

He pulled the cloth away.

Several strange metal tubes lay beneath it, short, heavy, and unfamiliar. Basslis lifted one, cradling it like a prized tool.

“Simple enough,” the dwarf explained. “Light the wick, pull the trigger. The flame carries into the chamber, ignites the powder, and sends the iron ball straight down the barrel.”

Deolron’s voice was flat. “Show me.”

Basslis grinned, teeth flashing. “With pleasure.”

He struck flint to steel, lighting the wick. The glow crept inward. Basslis leveled the tube at the stretched hide and pulled the trigger.

Crack.

The hide jerked violently. When the smoke cleared, a clean hole punched straight through it.

Basslis stepped aside, pride evident. “We may not need rune gear to fell dragons anymore.”

Deolron approached the hide, examining the puncture with an appraising eye. His gaze was sharp, measuring, calculating.

“This hide is decades old,” he said calmly. “For accurate results, a fresher specimen will be required.”

Basslis nodded. “Aye. For proper testing.”

Deolron turned back to the table and picked up another of the weapons, weighing it in his hand.

“Well,” he said quietly, “we know of at least two dragons currently roaming free.”

He snapped his fingers.

The wick flared to life. He raised the weapon, sighted along it, and fired.

Crack.

A second hole appeared in the hide.

Deolron did not smile.

But for the first time in years, the fire behind his eyes burned with purpose rather

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