Chapter 32

“Uurgh” was the only sound Rex could muster as he forced his eyes open. He had an intense headache from being hit on the head and was quite sure that wet feeling behind his head was blood. He could hear creaking noises before his eyes started to focus again, I am moving, he could feel the jolts. Blinking a few times to help clear his vision he sat his head up, he felt his hands and feet were bound tightly so he could not get up by himself. He could see 2 people to his front sitting facing forward and looking to his sides he saw wooden upright boards, he must have been in the back of a wagon.

“Morning sunshine” came a voice from his feet area. Turning his head a little too quickly Rex felt his vision blur a little once more, don’t do that again he said to himself. Sitting at his feet was the woman from the vegetable stall. She was watching him with an evil smile on his face. She hopped up grabbed Rex’s shoulders and propped him up against the wagon wall. “Here drink a little water, we don’t want you dead, yet, we have a someone who wants to meet you first.”

‘Fafnir any help?’ Rex said. When he tried to speak to Fafnir, he got no reply but felt a burning sensation on his chest. Looking down he could see something pulsating red on his breast.

“That is to stop your friend helping you and stop you two talking, your uncle devised this spell to test on you and if it worked, use it on your father, without the help of those stupid beasts he would easily claim all this land for himself and reward us handsomely” The woman said with a sneer.

“You are aware those stupid beasts made this place right?” Rex spat.

“So your father says” she replied shaking her head, “A few books showing a few pictures of dragons doing magic does not making it true either.”

“So where are we headed?” Rex asked still trying to buy some time to think of something.

“That way” the woman asked pointing forward, “Your uncle can answer any further questions, if he wants to. If you don’t want any more trouble, be quiet or we will gag you.”

“That’s fine, not a sound from me” he said to her, if Rex was being honest, he had no idea what to do without Fafnir’s guidance and the help from his powers. Rex didn’t even know what had happened to his friends during his kidnap.

Shortly after he was taken hostage and knocked out, Charr and Lizz were watching from the tree line not far away from him. Lizz was going to let Charr charge at them but the instant she saw the red rock touch Rex’s skin and Rex didn’t use Fafnir to escape she knew something was drastically wrong. They had also been hit with the blunt arrows that had knocked them from their horses, Charr got up almost straight away but Lizz did not, so he did not want to leave her unattended while unconscious so he stayed with her. After she had woken, they quickly gathered themselves and went back to where they had last seen Rex. Once she saw the spell being put on Rex, she stopped Charr from charging in, “We have to know what that is. That could be a reflect spell, we hurt her it hurts Rex, kill her…” she trailed off.

“Kill prince.” Charr finished.

“Yes, so until we know what that is, we have to stay back and watch them, I will send Glint to ask my father for information on what we saw, until then all we can do is follow and observe” Lizz said, mutter her spell to summon her raven familiar she named Glint, “Send a message to father asking him about this spell I saw.” Lizz explained everything carefully about the spell to Glint who nodded to her when she finished speaking it flew off in a trail of black smoke.

“They putting him in cart, we need move” Charr said “Where horses run?”

“They went up the hill, they should be waiting for us up there, lets move” Lizz replied pointing up the hill that was close to them. Sure enough once they had reached the hilltop they spotted their horses grazing on the grass. They took them by the reins and mounted up and followed the cart that was heading towards Valen. “I wonder where they are taking him?” Lizz added.

“Me not know, what that way I land of fae” Charr added, “I know your bird went that way to your home at Bhutan, which mean that way is Valen, home of dirty fae.”

“That’s correct! I can’t believe I did not pick up on that” Lizz said slapping her forehead. For someone who kept saying they weren’t smart, times like this Lizz did not believe him. This remark gave Charr a huge smile as they started their horses off in the direction the wagon went.

They ended up travelling for a whole day before the driver stopped the wagon, “We still stop here for the night, it’s only another half a day until we get to the meeting place. Tie him to a tree.”

The woman in the back of the wagon hopped up and called out, “Who died and made you boss? Last I knew we made decisions together!! Or have you forgotten again?”

The driver of the wagon just muttered something to himself and rolled his eyes at her comment, but Rex saw this as a possible way to sow discord amongst them. If he could get them too busy to fight between themselves he may have a way to sneak off. “So, are you the boss or is he?” Rex asked the woman who was getting him off the wagon.

“We work together for the same purpose whelp” she snapped, “Now be quiet or I’ll hit you!”

“I don’t think the boss over there would be happy if you did that without his say so” Rex smirked.

“We work together!” she snapped pushing Rex onto the tree and then into a sitting position.

“Well if I’m being honest, you just seem cranky, where he has the boss like aura about him” Rex replied grunting with the effort she put into pushing him down. That comment made her snarl. “Why did you get stuck with loading and unloading me with the wagon and he got to pick the route and location for the night if you’re also the boss?”

“Shut up!!” she snapped through gritted teeth and slapped him on the face. If it gets me out of here the pain is worth it Rex thought.

“Someone else can watch him, I’m over his filthy mouth” the woman yelled at the 2 other men who were setting up a fire and she walked off. The driver looked up and walked over to Rex.

“Got a smart mouth do you boy?” he snapped pulling his hand back to slap Rex again.

“No! I was just telling her that you two are the bosses together and not her is all and she didn’t like what I said!” Rex quickly said readying himself for the slap. What he said made the man stop and look at him, frown and look over towards the other woman.

“Is that so, I knew that b*tch would try and worm her way out of doing her job” he huffed shaking his head. He walked over to the fire, picked up from dried meat and a water skin and walked back over to Rex and threw them onto his lap. “Can’t have you starving, we will lose most of the commission for this job, eat it and be quiet.” After handing the food and water over to Rex he walked over to the woman and started yelling at her, from the parts he could hear it was something along the lines of he was afraid she would try and dupe him out of his share and run off to which she screamed that he was trying to take over the whole operation.

Once Charr and Lizz had settled in on the edge of the forest close to the ruins that Rex was in, she got a reply from Glint. “Your father does not know of any spell to which you described, even the magisters said the same thing.” After he spoke to Lizz, it bowed its head and disappeared into a black cloud.

“Odd looking raven caws at you and you understand?” Charr asked raising his eyebrows.

“Yes, I created him. We have a way of speaking that no one else can understand, unless I allow him to speak to someone” Lizz said with a smile, she had always been happy with her creation, had come in handy many times. “He said my father doesn’t know of any spells that are like the one we saw.”

“So mystery spell makes Rex weak?” Charr asked rubbing his chin.

“It must have done something to stop him fighting back” she replied with a worried look. It had to be something serious to stop him like that, especially after the feats they had both witnessed Rex doing. “We need to get down there and ask him what they did.”

“Me too big to sneak” Charr said shrugging his shoulders. He was right, they would see the giant man a mile away.

“I am not good enough to get that close without alerting them, they have a mana tablet with them, it will glow if I come close to it” Lizz sighed pointing at the tablet that was on the wagons seat. It seemed these kidnappers knew a lot about them and wanted to be alerted if they were being followed by Rex’s companions. “We need to know what they did so we can find a way to undo it, if we can’t get to him, who can?”

Meanwhile in the desert.

“Umbra child we must speak” Al’ik said to Nessa as she got up from her bed roll and got dressed, “It is about a vision I saw the night you came here.”

“OK, is it important?” Nessa asked quizzically.

“Very, now listen” she said in a serious tone. “When I touched your forehead on that night, I saw a scroll. On that scroll it said, you must help him show an outwards sign of an inwards change.”