“I can’t believe I agreed to this.” Henrek sighed as he looked around the sky, the complete absence of Wyverns in the sky was something he wouldn’t have noticed hadn’t he been looking for it.
“I can’t believe you left him alone.” Hope added as they approached the village of Nihola, the breadbasket of Dracons. Well more of the crumb plate of Dracons, but still.
“He’s apparently going to try and figure out where the Wyvern nests are. I’m just hoping they don’t get fat off of repeatedly eating him.” Henrek laughed as they got within ear shot of a nearby village girl.
“Are you with the King? Or the Church?” She asked suspiciously, lifting her very pregnant self up from her field work.
“Oh no! Actually we’re with the new Duke of Dracons.” Henrek explained, noting the glare in her eye as he jumped off of his horse to shake her hand.
“Din’t think we ‘ad a Duke, under the Crown direct ‘n such.” The woman replied, eyeing Henrek up and down, keeping her arms crossed.
“He was only declared a Duke recently, we have a royal decree if you-”
“Ah, so you’s with the King then. I’ll let Barney deal with ya, he deals with you types.” The woman scoffed, returning to pulling weeds from the field.
“Thanks… I guess.” Henrek muttered as he began walking his horse further into the village.
“She seems mean.” Hope whispered.
“Yeah I noticed, let’s stick to the plan of saying there aren’t any pregnant women here.” Henrek reiterated. On the journey over, Henrek and Hope had agreed that trying to take the estimated 200 people through Dracons was going to get them all killed, especially trying to shove them into the 8 empty houses in Dryholm, so they’d come up with a little plan.
If there are no pregnant women, then there’s no reason for anyone to come. They both figured Utarou wouldn’t accept that without anything to show for it, so they’d just ask around for this Drake Tamer, maybe figure out their secret and return with just that instead.
The village was quite different than what Henrek had expected, it wasn’t surrounded by any kind of defenses against Dragons, though the ruins of a large wall revealed they had once existed. The people all looked at Henrek and Hope with suspicion, not just because of Hope’s white hair and yellow eyes but because Henrek was clearly a knight.
“They don’t like outsiders, great.” Hope and Henrek thought as they sighed in unison.
“Something wrong?” Henrek asked as he looked over at Hope.
“I think you know what’s wrong.” Hope laughed as Henrek cocked his head, baffled as to what she could be talking about.
“Oi! You’s two are with the King yea? I’m Barney.” A massive muscular man in damaged chainmail asked as he exited a building, his arm heavily wrapped in bandages. Henrek and Hope looked at each other and nodded.
“Perfect! I think you’re just the one we’re looking for!” Henrek declared happily as he tied his stead to a nearby fence post, Hope doing the same.
“Oh? Word get’s ‘round quick hahah! Come join me for some drink!” Barny laughed as he beckoned Henrek and Hope into his hovel.
It was a small house with no room for farm animals, really it was just a single room with a kitchen, bed and dining table.
“Well, not quite. The new Duke of Dracons, Utarou has-”
“The hell kinda name is ‘you tar row’?” Barney interrupted, erupting into uproarious laughter before taking a swig of his drink on the table and going to the kitchen to fetch two more mugs for his guests.
“It’s a long story, but he’s now the Duke of this land under order of the king. He’s been researching some strange happenings surrounding Wyvern and Drakes here and-”
“He’s what?” Barney asked, his joyville attitude dropped as the room suddenly became icy cold with the tension.
“Researching. Apparently Lolcons have been reporting consistently lower Wyvern attacks for the last 30 years.” Henrek explained quickly, Barney glared at the two for a moment but sat down with a laugh as he handed the two their drinks.
“Oh why didn’t you say so! That’ll be because of me and my ol’ man, nothing more to it.” Barney explained, pointing to his arm.
“Ya don’t get this just sitting around y’know.”
“I-I’m sure.” Henrek coughed, gingerly taking the drink as Hope eyed the man.
“So, how did you do it? The Duke wants to replicate it in his new capital.” Hope explained.
“New Capital?” Barney pondered, wondering why Dracons even needed a capital in the first place.
“Well, the Duke has big plans for Dracons. He’s uh… Looking far into the future.” Hope explained, blushing at the thought of her own future.
“So we just want to know how you’ve done it, you’re pretty much on the border with Lolcons, most Wyvern and Drake nests extend out from the center of Dracons… So Nihola must have been doing something about the Wyvern problem right?” Henrek continued, Barney pondering the question for a moment.
“What’s this data say exactly?” Barney asked cautiously.
“That about 30 years ago, the Wyvern attacks began a steady decline while Drakes remained stable.”
“Yeah… Yeah that makes sense…” Barney groaned as he grabbed something. Hope reacted before she could think and pushed Henrek out of the way of Barney’s sword, getting a deep cut in her arm.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Barney and Henrek asked in unison.
“What are you hiding! Why! We’re not going to harm you!” Hope shouted as she leapt to the back of the room, clutching her now heavily bleeding right arm.
“Yeah that’s what the last one’s said.” Barney growled as he went in for another attack, but this time Henrek was prepared, jumping into the air he was about to slice Barney’s head off, but hesitated for a moment.
That was enough time for Barney to duck and roll out of the house, dropping his sword as he did.
“THEY’RE HERE FOR M!” Barney shouted.
“Who’s M?!” Henrek asked exasperatedly.
“Probably the real reason all those Wyverns haven’t been attacking Lolscon.” Hope hissed as she poured some alcohol onto her wound and quickly grabbed some spare bandages to wrap her arm in.
It was a flesh wound but it hit a major nerve, she wouldn’t be able to move it until she could find a healer.
“WE’RE NOT HERE TO HURT ANYONE! PLEASE JUST LET US EXPLAIN-” Henrek shouted before being interrupted by an arrow narrowly missing his head, quickly he ducked back into the house.
“Alright we need to get out of here before they kill us.” Henrek said as the two horses were shot and killed.
“Think they’ll shoot at a cute girl?” Hope asked hopefully.
“Please don’t risk it.” Henrek sighed as another arrow burst through the wall.
“Any better ideas?” Hope snarked.
“Just this one.” Henrek sighed as he grabbed a nearby pot with stew in it, dumping its contents on the floor and holding it up as a makeshift shield.
“You waste this perfectly good…” Hope said sadly as she bent down, grabbing a chunk of meat and sniffing it.
“Meat…?” Hope said, unsure what she was holding exactly.
“Hopefully not human.” Henrek sighed before kicking the door down, using the pot to block the barrage of arrows that came from the villagers who’d all gathered weapons.
“They’re all trained too, no wonder they’re taking down so many Wyverns, but how are they producing all of this food?” Henrek thought as time slowed to a crawl.
He threw the pot to his left where a man was waiting with a sword, his approach was sloppy, clearly a regular farmer. To his right was another arrow, he jumped into the air and kicked off the building towards the large crowd where he used a large downward swing to clear a path.
The crowd scampered as fast as they could, none of them were warriors except for one.
Barney, who was with the heavily pregnant woman they’d met at the entrance, standing at the ready to attack.
“It’s my kids skill day soon, so you better get out of here well quick.” Barney growled, pointing his blade at Henrek like a cornered dog.
He knew Henrek could’ve chopped his head off, but he hadn’t.
He knew Henrek could’ve killed every last person who had tried to ambush him.
But he didn’t.
“Look, everyone can we just-” Henrek dropped his blade.
“-calm down a little. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” Henrek begged, raising his arms in the air as he looked at the scattered people.
They were scared.
Barney stood firm, until his wife, May, moved from behind him.
“Is that my soup?!” May screamed, walking directly up to Henrek.
“I believe so.” Henrek explained clearly. May slapped him in the face before storming into her house.
“You! You’re helping me clean, you two go get me some more Wyvern meat. I’m craving it and I am not in the mood. Everyone, get back to work!” May shouted, the entire town practically standing at attention as she spoke.
“Yes ma’am!” Everyone shouted in unison, including Barney.
“W-what?” Henrek asked in bafflement.
“C’mon new guy we’re goin’ Wyvern hunting.” Barney declared.
“B-but, you can’t eat Wyvern!” Henrek exclaimed in sheer confusion.
“The misses does some magic to it.” Barney explained with a coy grin.
“Oh god, don’t tell me… It’s a legacy skill isn’t it?” Henrek asked.
“Bingo!” Barney laughed, patting Henrek on the back as he dragged him towards the nearby forest.
“Oh and sorry about ya misses, but don’t worry she’ll be getting fixed up well soon.” Barney explained, genuinely apologetic.
“She better…” Henrek growled as he looked back to where Hope was.