“Seems like I can ask you the same question,” Salem answered.
“Yeah!” Tabby said. “Holy shit, we saw you blow all those guys to hell! That was awesome!”
Ignatius offered a weak smile. War and death were never ‘awesome’.
“Where’s Maria?” Claire asked.
Maria! Two moons!
Ignatius shielded his eyes and looked up. Far away in the distance, covered by a haze of cloud, the great dragon sliced through the air.
All Ignatius could do was point.
Frieda verbalized for him. “She’s up there,” she yelled.
Salem grabbed Ignatius’s shoulder and whirled him around. “Ig! She is the heir to Anwyn. She has to be.”
Confusion stole over Ignatius’s brain. Heir to Anwyn? Who is Anwyn? But I know that name. How? Where?
“The talking to Sherlock, the communicating with the world in between, the sword that she was able to wield with hardly any practice. Ignatius, the blood of the Dragon Slayer courses through her veins. Tell her what she needs to do!” Salem shook Ignatius until his joints ached and his brain was rattling around in his skull.
“Tell her? How can I tell her? And what do I tell her? I don’t know how to slay a Rogue Dragon—a resurrected Rogue Dragon, at that!”
Then an idea hit him. Well, two ideas.
“They’re coming back down!” Agnes shouted.
“Oh, shit, Maria! Hold on!” Claire yelled. The two girls had gathered up loose wood from the destroyed ships and held them near the sides of their heads like knights holding swords.
Ignatius searched the beach for the crumpled remains of Hunter. He pushed past Salem and Agnes, leaving them staring at him, mouths agape. He came upon Hunter’s body and saw that the Dragon Tongue leader was smashed as flat as a…well, tongue. Surprisingly, there was not much blood, aside from a few streaks leaking from his ears.
“Where is it? Where is it? I know I saw it somewhere!” Ignatius muttered. He dropped to his hands and knees and felt around in the sand for the book the Dragon Tongue had chanted from. If there were any answers, they would have to be in that book. He knew that somehow.
Finally, his hands came upon something rough beneath the sandy surface. His first thought was that it was a bone, someone’s skeleton. But as he closed his fingers around the bulky, square object, he quickly realized that was not the case. Luck seemed to be in his favor, the gods on his side.
He flipped through the pages at an alarming rate, so fast that the pads of his fingers became covered with paper cuts.
The spell. There must be a spell in here. What is done can always be undone.
His rune reading was not great—it had been many years since he had read from the ancient texts—but it was good enough. Near the middle of the large book, words appeared on the page. He identified one for sure: Control. The rest of the title was lost in translation. He didn’t need the rest of it. What he needed was the body of the text.
His eyes ran left to right, left to right; skimming the words he’d known when he was a young wizard, still green behind the ears. He came upon a string of words he knew. A sentence.
“Theix grututa fei feir!” he said aloud.
Of course nothing happened. The spell would have to come from Maria to make something happen.
He closed the book with a thud. Above him, the air whistled with the dragon’s descent. Maria was on its back. Though he could not make out her features, he saw the dark spot on the dragon’s white scales. His granddaughter. Oh, I never thought this day could come. What have I done?
You know exactly what you did when you gave her that dratted music box, Ignatius, he answered himself. And she is strong. Stronger than you give her credit for, but she still needs your help. For the moons’ sakes, do not give up now!
But how? How can I relay the message to Maria? How can I give her the spell?
He turned to look over his head just as Agnes shouted for him to duck. The roaring wind given off by the dragon’s body as it sliced through the air was enough to knock Ignatius down. The book spilled from his hands and cartwheeled down the gentle slope of the shore and into the water. Distantly, he thought he heard a splash.
“No!” he shouted.
I think I have the spell, but what if it’s the wrong one? What if I get it to Maria and it makes the dragon more powerful?
No, Ignatius, you cannot think like that. You must keep going!
He scrambled up, spitting sand from his mouth, and rushed over to Sherlock. If he was going to get that spell to Maria before she fell off the Rogue Dragon’s back and was turned to jelly, he would have to do it fast.
Sherlock whined, holding one paw up. Claire was hunkered down and tending to him.
“We must go!” Salem said, his hands glowing with orange-ish light. “It is not safe here, Ignatius. Odarth is angry.”
“No, not yet,” Ignatius answered. He looked at Sherlock, seeing the pain in the Bloodhound’s eyes. It was enough to make his heart shatter, but now was not the time for broken hearts. Now was the time for perseverance, for bravery, for victory.
The wizard fell to his knees before the dog. “Sherlock, I need you to give a message to Maria. Can you do that for me, boy? Bark once if you understand me.”
Sherlock barked, albeit a weak one, but a bark nonetheless.
“Good, good. Now, I don’t know how strong your mental connection is with her, but you’ll need to try. You are our last hope.”
Sherlock placed his injured paw gingerly on the ground and raised his good one toward Ignatius.
“Yes, shake, good boy. Listen to me very carefully. Heed my pronunciation with great care.”
The Bloodhound nodded.
Such an odd gesture from a dog, Ignatius thought in the back of his mind. From the front of his
