Jan was awakened by loud voices coming from the street. It was still dark outside. Why was it that loud? Sleepy he donned his dragon guardian robe and descended the stairs into the inn below. He wasn’t the first that had been awakened by the commotion, so he had a bit of trouble getting to the front door. As soon as he got there, someone put a long circular rod on his breast.

Three men were standing there, clothed in identical clothing. The one in the front raised his voice. “This city is now within bucarian control. Rebels will be terminated immediately.”

“Bucar?” Jan stared at the man with open jaw. He had seen those men, that clothing, before. Those were the ones chasing Lia!

“What is that bucar? That doesn’t even exist”, someone shouted behind him.

A loud bang was the answer. Someone cried. Jan turned. A man had sunk to his knees, a hand clutched to his breast, his shirt turning red. His hand fell to the side, allowing him to see a gaping hole within his body.

“Any more objections?”

All other guests scurried away from the door.

“You?” The man in front of Jan used his rod to stab him in his breast.

“No”, he answered calm. He couldn’t do anything right now. He didn’t know what type of magic they used or how strong they were … and those strange wands … or weapons … It was too risky. He made one step backwards. Things would change as soon as the lord of the land came back. A half dragon wouldn’t be that impressed by their display.

“Retreat into the house and close the door! Everyone that is seen on the streets will be shot on sight”, shouted the man in front of Jan. He closed the door diligently and turned.

“Why haven’t you done anything?” A woman behind him whispered. He wasn’t a dragon or an archmage, but that probably wasn’t the response she would accept. Instead he settled for something dumb: “Those were no dragons and I am not able to change into something that can withstand these weapons. If you want more dead people, you are free to try yourself.” He left them alone and went back to his room.

He had to wonder if dragon scales were sturdy enough to withstand these weapons. He could only hope. He had to leave this in someone elses hand, he wasn’t powerful enough. He had thought about doing something. It had just been a moment … using his magic, overwhelming them … but he couldn’t get in touch with his magic. The drop dragonblood he had been infused with, wasn’t strong enough to fight against … whatever it was that was laying on the city.

Lia would have been able to do something, but it wasn’t one of her tasks. Neither was it his.

Still … if they were chasing Lia, it was for some strange reason. He should try to find out more. He opened the window, looked outside and climbed onto the roof with a few seconds.

◊

They were riding since the early dawn, having left the camp before sunrise. Felix was riding in the front, then Nina and Lia, while Yukiko was in the back – on the same horse as Lia. She was clutching onto Lia with every one of her limbs. Even her hair was clutching onto Lias arm.

The little girl, that had stood up to half dragons, fought with a menacing men, who had ridden on the back of a dragon … was afraid of horses. It was somehow ironical.

Lia had the feeling she was flying over the fields, although she was only on the back of a horse. These three horses were the fastest ones they could find.

Still the sun had climbed above the horizon and was long past its highest point as the city came into view. And something was wrong. Big black ropes of smoke were rising from behind the city walls.

“The city is burning”, Felix observed.

“He is already there”, Yukiko said bitterly, clutching closer to Lia. “Bradley.”

The mage stopped his horse, Nina and Lia did the same.

“Who is already here?”

“Bradley. It can only be Bradley.” Lia felt Yukikos grip tighten around her. “And if he has the tear that suppresses magic, we have not much of a chance to get it back.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“He was already there, he survived Phobos flames … I tried to find some sort of plan to steal it from him …” Tears were running down her cheeks. “It’s impossible.”

Lia looked to Felix and answered in her stead. “Our enemies seem to have weapons capable of hurting us from a distance.” Yukiko had told her in detail about pistols and other firearms. “They even have things that explode like a fireball-spell and you don’t even see it before it explodes.”

“All of that works without magic?”

Lia nodded in answer. Yukiko began sobbing behind her.

“We still don’t know if that was really caused by Bradley”, Lia turned towards Yukiko.

“He has to be it! Who else can just get past that wall?”

Felix looked back to the city. “Any half dragon, but …”

“But?” Lia turned towards him again.

“I know enough talented mages that would have stopped him. They should also have been able to stop any fires by now. Any half dragon would have to have come with an army, probably sieging the city beforehand. But there wasn’t enough time to do so and there is no camp in sight.”

“See?” Yukiko had tears streaming down her face. “Let’s flee from here”, she begged shivering.

“It’s too early to give up hope. Even if they have powerful weapons, our enemies are still humans, right?” Felix started to smile.

“You have a plan?” Lia tried to read it out of his face.

“I have a plan”, he answered proud. “Even an emergency one, if the first one does not work. But let’s try Plan A first. I am sure Yukiko can answer me a few more questions, if it comes to an emergency.”

The girls sobbing had gotten quieter and she had stopped shivering. Lia felt her nodding slightly. She had found hope once again.

◊

Jan dived into a narrow passage and pulled himself onto the roof once again. He laid there flat to the surface, holding his breath, waiting.

“What’s up?” One of the soldiers shouted.

“I thought I saw something”, the other one replied. Then silence …

“Must have been your imagination.” The first one said.

Then he heard steps again, slowly getting quieter. Jan started breathing again. That had been close.

He hadn’t accomplished much so far. The academy was burning, a few smithies and all barracks as well, even one inn. Someone had resisted at all those locations. He was killed and the rest was burned.

Phobos probably didn’t know what was happening. Blocking all magic and confinement to their houses prevented the citizens form notifying him. For now he could hope that someone had escaped like he had and was working on a way to contact him.

Travelling merchants were being admitted to the city, then imprisoned and their wares confiscated. He got to know the name of their enemy, but he still had to find out where Al Bradley was hiding. He was most probably within the castle as it was heavily guarded, but it also made it harder to enter it.

He wanted to take one of their weapons and use it against them, but getting one without being noticed was difficult and even then … he didn’t know how to use one. Even if he somehow got one and learned to use it, he couldn’t survive against the several dozen soldiers patrolling the city. And that was only the first shift. After about four hours they changed and another few dozen soldiers started patrolling the city, the others retreating to the castle …

What if he waited for the right moment, maybe he could then … It was a risky plan, very risky. But maybe he would get closer to Lia then. Even if not, then he would take some pursuers of her tail and Phobos would be indebted to him.

He got up from the roof, crawling to the edge and looking down on the streets. Another patrol was marching along the street. He steeled his resolve. Everything had to work smoothly. He took another deep breath and jumped down in front of the three soldiers.

Before they could do something with their weapons he ran back towards the house, vanishing behind it, kept running through the narrow passages between the houses and climbed up the next rough stone wall, waiting there.

It took only a few moments until one soldier arrived beneath him. He had hoped that they would split up and they did. Perfect.

Jan jumped down from the wall, just behind the soldier. One blow to his head and he sank to the ground. He took the weapon from the soldier, looking at his clothes. It took him a few precious minutes to understand how to take his clothes off.

He hadn’t had much time to get into the role of that soldier. Hearing steps behind him, he climbed back up on the roof, lying down there, holding his breath again.

A few moments later he heard the voice of the other soldiers. “He has been knocked out cold. The weapon is missing.”

“Shit.”

Jan heard some rustling, then steps, as if someone was dragging something. A bit later he looked on his booty. There were two levers on the weapon, one could easily be pulled by his finger, but the second one?

He couldn’t test it there and then, the noise it made was much too loud. Things needed to calm down before he could do something again and until then he had to lay low.

◊

Yukiko was back to gnawing her thumb. Felix’s Plan had a good chance of working, somehow she still had a bad feeling about all of this.

Surprising Bradley in the dark, taking the dragon heart from him, reassembling the astral diamond and being free once again sounded easy enough. She hoped that it would work. Maybe she could even take revenge.

Laying there before her, sleeping, it would be so very easy, even for her …

“We have arrived”, Felix’s stopped her train of thought. Before them lay a small village, if you wanted to go that far with a few dozen houses. All around these houses were fields, worked by men. Felix waved friendly to them, few waved back, but none paid them much attention.

The sun was low on the horizon, coloring it a deep red, as they continued their way to the middle of the village. They got down from the horses and Yukiko got several feet between herself and them. She didn’t trust those animals. They probably just waited for her to be careless and then they would trample her down.

Felix knocked on the door of a smaller building and soon after a monk opened the door. “Aerith’s blessing be with you. What brings you to my humble chapel?” He seemed to be very friendly.

“The path of the Dragon. The holy city has problems and we have come to pray for it.” Felix smiled himself and bowed slightly.

“Come in then.” The monk opened the door fully and let all of them inside. Yukiko somehow got in even before Felix, hiding on the other side. A wall of stone was a good barrier to shield her from the horses’ malice.

The inside of the chapel was one large room, several chairs stood there in several circles, which were arranged around the statue of a kneeing woman. A small dragon of stone wound itself around her, wings spread, maw open. It looked as if the dragon wanted to protect her. The statue was the only thing that seemed a bit valuable, the rest was extremely plain.

The monk closed the door behind them. “I haven’t seen you in a long time, Felix”, the monk said as he worked a heavy wooden bar before the door. “You need to go to the castle?”

“Yes, we do, old friend. The city has been conquered and Phobos return will take a few more days. We are pressed for time.”

“I never thought that the secret passage would ever be used again”, he sighed and went towards the statue. “I wish you luck.” He used one of the dragons fangs to sting himself in one finger, then he put said finger deep into the dragons maw.

After a moment the statue of the woman began to fade, vanishing completely and opening the path to an old sturdy ladder leading deep down into the earth.

Felix nodded towards the monk, climbed of the tail of the dragon and onto the ladder, going down into the darkness. Yukiko gulped once. There was no way back anymore. Tentatively she followed Lia down the ladder into the deep darkness below. Nina was the last one to climb down.

As soon as they arrived in the passage the statue above them reappeared, sealing the passage and plunging them into a deep darkness. Felix lit up a torch on the wall by snipping his fingers, took it out from its place on the wall and followed the passageway. “We will take about four hours to reach the castle.”

◊

Jan jumped down from the wall, hitting the soldier below him with the grip of the unfamiliar weapon. His target blacked out. He pulled the clothes from him as fast as he could, trading it for his own robe.

Precious minutes went lost while he figured out how to wear that clothing properly.

Suddenly he heard steps. His comrades came back faster than he thought and he hasn’t had the chance to pull the robe over him. Biting his lower lip he turned, holding the weapon like they did. He pulled the lever with his index finger, a loud bang and the uninvited guest fell to the ground. The third one appeared only a moment later. He gritted his teeth, pulling once again. The second bang ended the soldier’s life.

Janus had to be fast in order to complete his plan. He put his weapon into the hands of the knocked-out soldier, pulled his robe to the body of him.

“What happened here, Ensign?” Just as he was aiming his new weapon on the last witness, he heard a voice behind him.

He gulped. He had practiced this sentence in his mind over and over again, but his heart was still pounding. This was serious. He turned, lifting his right hand towards his head. “We were ambushed. I could subdue him after he killed my comrades.”

“Is that so?” The other soldier looked at him suspiciously. “Your name?”

“Ensign Johnson.” It had been a good idea to stalk his target a while, before hitting it.

“Good, then end this farce”, the soldier ordered.

Janus replied with the same gesture once again, targeted the head of the knocked-out man on the ground, switching the small lever on the ground and shot. The following bang removed the last witness from the equation. He still admired that these weapons were easy to handle, and his targets had taught him well while stalking them.

“Good.” He waved to his comrades. They swarmed into the passage and collected the other three weapons. “We will return to the castle. At least we got the missing weapon back.”

Janus nodded once and helped the others bringing the dead soldiers back to the castle. They left the fake dragon guardian back where he was.

Jan had speculated that with this army size not all soldiers knew each other. He had won that bet, for now. He went into the lair of the wild one, alone, hoping that he didn’t underestimate his enemy.

◊

They finally arrived at their destination. Lia hoped that the spiral staircase was an indicator for that and not just a junction in the path. She was nervous. They just had to finish Bradley off and find Jan afterwards. Felix had already promised that he would find a way to transfer the sealed dragon towards Jan.

Somehow it was strange that he knew some sort of spell that could help them do that, while no one of the dragon priests seemed to know it. It would have been good to transfer the dragon to a younger host after some time, keeping the elder ones around to teach. She had to ask him about this in more detail after they finished this thing with Bradley.

They went up, step after step after step after step. Somewhere her legs began to burn, Felix breathed heavily and Nina seemed to be exhausted as well. Only Yukiko seemed to take this as just another small exercise.

After a long time they arrived at a small platform. The Statue of a woman was standing on the top of the pillar the stairs had wound around until then. More steps lead further up next to her.

“This passage is from a period before the half dragons started to rule.” Felix lit up another torch and looked around. “We need to go further up to get to the royal bedchambers.”

“How do you know all that?” Yukiko asked, gnawing her thumb once again. She seemed very nervous and uneasy.

“My family had always been friends with the rulers of this land. The knowledge of this passage was handed down through the generations. I learned it from my father.”

Felix started climbing the next set of stairs, leaving no time for further questions. He seemed pretty sturdy as well. They passed another platform like the first one and arrived on the third, taking the torch there out of its mount and setting the burning one into it.

“We are there”, he whispered. “As soon as I open the door, we need to be fast.”

Lia nodded, the others doing the same. Felix nodded once as well, stepping towards the statue. He put his hands around the head of the stone maiden, letting his thumbs rest on her eyes. He pressed them, something clacked and a stone wall opened, sliding over the ground.

Yukiko was the first through the narrow passage, Lia following a moment later. As she arrived within the bed chamber, Yukiko was already at the bed, searching the man lying there. Lia joined her, holding him down, in case he woke up.

“This … this isn’t Bradley.” Yukikos voice sounded weak. The man didn’t move at all he looked pale. “It’s a trap.”

Just in that moment the main door to the room opened. Several men ran into the room, surrounding them. “I have waited a long time for you”, Bradley stood there and stepped slowly into the room. “And this time you can do nothing.”

“So you have it”, Yukiko grumbled, “the dragon heart.”

“Indeed. And if I am informed correctly, the other four stones are all here as well, correct?” His gaze wandered over them, looking upon the girls and stopping at Lia. “You seem to be quite special. I am thrilled to test you all out.”

Lia felt a shiver down her spine. “H... how did you know?”

“Oh, that was nothing really. You see, our little thief here has learned to shield her magic from us, but she never realized that she shielded more than just her magic. We just had to cover larger areas and check them for missing magic and as a small patch came closer and closer to the castle, the rest wasn’t hard to predict.” He raised a hand. “Take their tears.”

“Nobody moves.” That voice was familiar. “Or your Al will die.” One soldier was standing behind Bradley, threatening him with a weapon.

“Jan!” Lias heart was pounding. Why was he here? Here in all places?

“Toss the dragon heart to the old man and no fast movements!”

The soldiers around them hesitated.

“You will regret that!” Bradley took the gem slowly from his throat, holding it in front of him, dangling from his outstretched arm.

“I said toss it towards the old man.” Jans voice sounded like a growling dragon. Lia felt a nice warm shower running over her back. Part of her would have liked to kiss him there and then.

“Tossing is a fast movement”, Bradley answered coldly, “and I want to keep my life!”

Yukiko ran forwards, grabbing the gem out of Bradleys hand and running away from him once again. She proceeded to hide behind Lia, murmuring a “Fuuin.”

“Order your men to put down their weapons and leave the room.” Felix made a few steps towards Bradley, his voice, his posture telling him that he didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Lia vowed to not ever make him angry at her.

“Do what he says”, Bradley said, nodding once. The soldiers laid down their weapons and left the room one by one.

“Phobos will judge you as soon as he returns.” Felix turned.

“Let me judge over him”, Yukiko exclaimed, going a few steps closer to Bradley, a dagger formed of ice in her hand.

Lia grabbed her shoulders, stopping her. “Don’t do this. He isn’t worth smudging your hands with blood.”

She looked around to Lia. “But … but …”

Lia shook her head once again. “I know what he did to you … and doing what you want to do won’t do that justice. Let Phobos decide.”

Yukiko let the dagger fall to the ground where it burst into several small pieces, tears running down her cheeks. Lia embraced her with a hug while looking to Bradley. He seemed unfazed.

“We should reassemble the astral diamond now.” Felix pulled his tear out of his robe. “After that we will think about the remaining problems.” The mage looked to Lia for a moment, then he looked to Bradley. He grunted, but didn’t say a word.

Yukiko and Lia got their tears. Nina was skeptical but … she got her tear out as well.

“So … how do we do this?” Yukikos voice waivered.

“It’s easy. We should just hold our tears close together”, he kneeled, holding his onyx eye out to the others. Lia followed with her ruby tear, Yukiko with her flame sapphire and the dragon heart. Nina was the last to put her emerald breath to the others.

For a few seconds nothing happened … then the tears seemed to turn liquid, single drops breaking from the larger gems to unite into one big drop in the middle of them all.

Within moments the five small tears had disappeared to form a large droplet, floating a few feet above the ground. Slowly it formed into a beautiful jewel, as clear as the sky.

Yukiko breathed a loud sigh, as if she had thought that things could go wrong in the last moment.

“Now to you”, Felix got up and turned to Bradley. “We shall lock you in the Dungeon until …” The old man stopped.

Lia looked to Bradley, he was grinning broadly. Yukiko was shivering. She looked back to the astral diamond. Deep within it black clouds began to form, filling the gem, making it dull and changing it to a deep black gemstone.

“What?” Felix looked back at the diamond and then to Bradley.

Lia followed his gaze, seeing him change into the form of a young woman. “I … I’m sorry”, she stuttered.

Suddenly there was a waft of air behind her. Black mist appeared from the diamond, changing the floor into a wafting see of darkness.

“Out of here!” Felix warning was too late. A soft blow pushed her away from the diamond, making her hit the stone wall of the room.

She tried to get up, but her whole body hurt and the dark mist seemed to conquer her mind. She only felt the shivering body of Yukiko within her arms before she lost her consciousness once again.