Novel 2. Royal Justice

The queen spoke calmly, with a faint smile on her lips, but Armando could sense the tension behind her confident tone. And this monologue was unnecessary, if Octavia was going to assign something to her bailiffs — the girl obviously needed someone to talk to.

— How can we help, Your Majesty? — Gotech has spoken.

— I'll tell you in a moment, Don. — The girl in black leaned on the table, fingers intertwined. — Last month, the mages at the Academy in the capital, who were studying the nature of lightning, noticed strange electrical disturbances in the air. Very faint, but uniform and repetitive. After observing them, the mages came to the conclusion that the electrical phenomena were artificial in nature. They traced their sources and were surprised to find no traces of magic. One of the sources of the electrical signals turned out to be in Daerth, inside the city wall. Master Joien, the archmage, reported it to me. I sent a group of reliable men to the source of the signals — a dozen guards, a couple of warlocks. The signals led the group to a warehouse rented by a merchant from Iolia. The merchant resisted the attempt to open the warehouse.

— Was he arrested?

— No. The merchant fired a weapon that used gunpowder, but was far more advanced than even our best arquebuses. The weapon fit in one hand and could fire several shots without reloading. — The queen pressed her lips together so tightly they turned white. — He had killed almost all of them. In the end, one of the soldiers, already badly wounded, managed to finish off the merchant by throwing a knife at his throat. By the way, as the survivors said, the spells of battle mages did not work on that man. Not at all.

— A strange weapon... — Armando stretched out. — A strange mechanism with no connection to magic....

— You guessed right, Don, — Octavia nodded at him. — I'll tell you more. When my men searched the warehouse, they found a device that looked exactly like that set of boxes made of obscure metal that burned down in the castle of Baron de Montore. A radio station. Only in one piece.

Armando whistled in the most irreverent way. When he realized it, he clamped his mouth shut with the palm of his hand. The queen grinned and gestured that everything was all right. She continued:

— How the device works could not be found out. But the soldiers poked at the tabs on it, clicked levers, and the boxes lit up, and the mages at the Academy recorded a new burst of electrical signals. The source of them was the device. Master Joien assumed that it was some kind of communication device, transmitting messages with signals that other similar devices received.

— Which means— Armando felt a chill in his stomach.

— That means that wherever the mages have found the sources of the signals, there could be these people who are not under the control of magic. — Octavia nodded again. — We don't know who they are or where they came from, but they're not loners, but members of an organized force. And their intentions are clearly unfriendly. You remember where the first radio station was found. And now the signal sources are concentrated in the western provinces. The rebel baronies.

— You want us to find them, — Armando said after a long pause.

— Yes — the young queen replied bluntly. — To find them and learn everything we can about them. You may refuse.

Don de Gorazzo hesitated only a moment. He did not doubt the black-haired girl's words. If he said, "No, it's too dangerous," the queen would just nod. And leave. And no reprisals would follow. Her Majesty would never again address Armando with such a special, incredibly important matter. And he, miraculously, wanted to be entrusted with it. Octavia had given it to him personally. He would have refused anyone else, but not her.

— My queen, — the young bailiff said, somewhat pompously. — I am at your service. Gotech?

— And me.

— Then I'm in, -Vittoria smiled.

— You will stay here, Donna — the queen said with a shake of her chin. — There are many bailiffs, but there is only one necromancer in the capital. Your departure will attract attention. But noble dons do not travel west alone. I've already enlisted another man in the case. You'll meet him on the road when you leave Dert through the west gate. The same man will give you additional information gathered by my spies and mages.

Luca emerged from the kitchen, solemnly carrying a silver platter in his front paws, on which stood plates of squirming sausage and appetizers.

— Oh, here is the food! — The young queen was genuinely happy. — I can already smell that your servant is a great cook, Donna Vittoria. I shall have a quarter of an hour to taste his cooking.

It was a night Armando would remember for the rest of his life. And not only because of the abundance of fateful events, but also because that night he ate fried sausage and drank wine in the company of the queen, who kept with the hostess and other guests of the mansion on an equal footing, joked easily and praised the cooking of the dead orangutan butler ....

Chapter 6

Traveling within the country wasn't a particularly troublesome endeavor. Especially if you're traveling on the queen's personal errand, which usually means that all the papers are signed, all the supplies are prepared, and all the questions are settled in advance, without your participation. But even with this support, the bailiffs were not able to leave Daert until the day after the night's conversation. They traveled incognito, so the steel rods were not hanging from their belts, but were hidden in their saddlebags, under the bundles of clothes. Armando had Octavia's hunting dagger next to his staff, a blade too conspicuous to be worn openly, but the young official did not want to leave the royal gift at home, unattended. Gotech, on top of everything else, proudly rode a new horse — a knight's war stallion from the Guards' stables. The black beast was a sight to behold, but certainly no more so than his rider. But the stallion not only carried the one-armed giant without difficulty, but could trot and gallop without panting after a hundred paces.

The friends passed the western gate at dawn, just as soon as the horizon was painted gold. Formally, the great Daert ended here. Leaving behind a cyclopean wall of white stone, the travelers were leaving behind the capital of the kingdom. In practice, the city had long ago outgrown the imperial boundaries, spreading a ring of residential neighborhoods far beyond the line of fortifications. It was strictly forbidden to construct buildings directly under the fortress towers, but Daert continued within an arrow's flight of them. Inns, merchants' warehouses, stables, and dwellings clustered along all the roads that spiderwebbed out from the capital — and the bailiffs traveled by foot for nearly an hour before they reached the open space. Rows of brick and stone buildings were replaced by wooden huts, strips of trees, followed by hilly plains. And when even the fumes from hundreds of stovepipes melted over the horizon, Armando and Gotech's path was blocked by a dragon.

De Gorazzo could not believe his eyes at first. His sight, however, did not deceive him. The giant lizard, covered with black matte scales, sat in the middle of the path, licking the webbing of its right wing with its long, bifurcated tongue. When the dragon saw the riders, it raised its head, spread its wings, and made a low hissing sound, like a red-hot billet of iron on which a blacksmith had splashed water.

— It can't be... — Gotech exhaled in shock. Suddenly he spurred his horse and galloped forward.

— Stop! — de Gorazzo shouted, not knowing what had come over his friend. Did he think he was the dragon-fighting hero of fairy tales?

But the black-skinned giant had no intention of attacking the lizard. The dragon suddenly tilted its head low, spreading out on the ground. A small figure in white jumped from its neck and ran toward the rider. Gotech spurred the stallion, kicked up a cloud of dust, and jumped down. He picked up the white figure with one hand, held it to his chest, and spun it around. And then Armando realized what kind of dragon it was.

When he came closer, the big man had already lowered the dragon rider to the ground. The knight was a short and thin white-haired girl with clear blue eyes and pale freckles — not so much beautiful as pretty. Armando would have given her twenty-five or twenty-seven years of age at first glance. The girl's knightly armor was replaced by an unusual tight-fitting costume, as if made of a single piece of white leather with no visible seams. She wore high boots with cavalry heels and leather gloves, tied with straps behind the wrists. In addition to the long sword, the knight had some iron hooks and skeins of rope attached to her belt, and the scabbard of a broad dagger attached to her left hip.

— The noble donna... — de Gorazzo hastened up and bowed respectfully.

— This is my friend Armando, I told you about him, — Gotech smiled broadly at the girl. — A cunning, bribe-taking, lazy and savior of the queen. Armando, let me introduce Donna Minerva de Hvogbjorn. Dragon knight. My fianc"e.

— Pleased to meet you. — Armando straightened, noting to himself the knight's interesting surname. According to it, Minerva was descended not from the old nobility of Daert, but from one of the companions of the konung Olaf Ider, the founder of the royal dynasty. — I suppose you are the man Her Majesty hired to help us?

— That is correct, Don. — The knight nodded gravely. — I will not accompany you, but I will go ahead and meet you later at the agreed place. Besides, the queen asked me to give you some papers.

— Her Majesty said she couldn't ask the family of the dragon knights for help, — the young official remembered Octavia's words.

— She didn't ask the family, she asked me personally. — Donna Minerva shrugged her shoulders. — 'I am no longer a child, after all. I have no need to report to anyone about where I'm going. Let's go.

The three of them approached the calmly waiting dragon. It was licking its paw now, squinting at them with a round yellow eye.

— What is the name of your... steed? — Armando asked.

— Charcoal. — The knight blushed a little, but kept her face serious. — Actually, the royal registry lists him as Tiberius Augustus the Fifth, but we riders never use those names. He only responds to Charcoal.

— Charcoal, then... — de Gorazzo said, tilting his head to get a better look at the lizard. Up close, he noticed the intricate system of straps around the dragon's body, a veritable harness. Minerva ran up the straps like an experienced sailor on the shrouds, opened the pouch strapped to Charcoal's spine, and took out a couple of scrolls. She deftly jumped down from a rather solid height and handed them to Gotech:

— Here is information about all the places where the Academy mages have noticed the signals of the aliens' radio stations. Also described are ways to make contact with some of the king's spies. One will be waiting for you at a tavern on the tract, a day's journey from your destination. He'll bring you up to speed on local affairs and help you as best he can.

— And you? — De Ardano asked, taking the papers.

— I'll hide Charcoal in a secluded place, dress inconspicuously, and go to town. I'll try to find out something useful when you arrive — not about the aliens, but about the rebel barons.

— Be careful. — Gotech frowned. — You're not a very good spy.

— I'm not going to sniff out anything, — she smiled softly, taking the giant's single hand in her own. — I'll listen to what they say in the markets, in the streets, in the inns. You can learn a lot that way, too.

— Noble Donna, before we part, may I ask you a question? — Armando suddenly squinted his eyes.

— Of course.

— My friend has never told anyone about the circumstances of your acquaintance. In the meantime, I am very, very curious... Perhaps you would consider it possible....

— Of course. There really isn't much to hide. — Still smiling and holding Gotych's palm with one hand, the knight placed the other on Charcoal's scaly side. — It happened eleven years ago, during the war with the Empire.

— That long ago? — Armando wondered.

— Yes. I was sixteen, but I had already ridden around Charcoal, and the Coalition needed dragons. I was sent into battle. Remember the siege of Sane Chatto?

— Uh... no, I wasn't in the war, — de Gorazzo admitted, blushing in turn. Normally Armando did not care that he had not fought for the kingdom and the crown, but in front of this girl he felt embarrassed.

— Oh, I'm sorry. It's a small town. It was besieged at the end of the war when the Imperials broke through the kingdom. Gotech was there with Marshal de Vosse's army. The Coalition sent out swarms of dragons to destroy enemy siege machines, but the Imperials intercepted them on approach, and aerial battles were often fought over the city. In the first battle, Charcoal was wounded, and he and I went down on the neutral strip, exactly between the city walls and the Imperial trenches. I wasn't hurt, but... I couldn't leave Charcoal behind.

— I was outside with my men at the time, updating the palisade, the moat, the traps, — Gotech muttered reluctantly. — I saw them fall, and that the rider was alive, but not leaving the dragon. And a trio of imperial lizards circling in the sky. So I took my ten and went to help. Some more men followed me...

— Gotech brought thick, pointed stakes and drove them into the ground around Charcoal, — Minerva added. — So the enemy dragons couldn't attack us. Then I sent men into the city, and they pointed ballistae and cannons from the nearest tower in our direction. The Imperials called off the dragons, but they moved a squad of infantry toward us. We... stopped it.

— Minerva stopped it, mostly, — the black-skinned giant said.

— Not true. — The girl squeezed his elbow. — The cannons from the walls had crushed half the Imperials on the approach, and the rest were scattered and frightened, just enough pressure to make them run. We started getting artillery fire too, but it was getting dark and Charcoal had recovered a bit and was able to stand up. We went into town on foot. It was in that battle that Gotech lost his arm. Charcoal was at first out of sorts from the pain and....

— So that's him? — Armando wondered.

— Yes. -The knight lowered her gaze. — Gotech helped me calm the dragon, and the dragon... didn't immediately realize that only his own people were around.

— Anyway, he bit my hand off, — the big guy said simply.

— Wait. — De Gorazzo shifted his eyebrows. — But it had to have happened in the beginning, when the dragon was still recovering. So you did the rest....