All The Skills

Arthur felt a force of mana pulse out of Elissa.

Instantly, every flake of driving snow, the bitter wind, and even the freezing fog that he had not been fully aware of... melted away. It was as if Arthur and the others behind him stood in a bubble of pleasantly warm early summer air. Even the mist that should have come up from the wet rock underfoot evaporated instantly.

It was a mark of a Legendary dragon's power. And also a mark of how weak Elissa was that she could only flex this power to the tip of the ledge, and that was it.

In the suddenly clear air, Arthur saw how diminished the dragon had become. She was much skinnier than she'd been before. Cloudy blue scales and flesh practically hung off her bones.

He had to swallow the urge to ask if she was all right. She clearly wasn't.

Even Brixaby remained silent which said a lot because he wasn't a subtle dragon.

"As always," Elissa said with a weary sigh, "you have a dramatic sense of timing. Come, join the meeting."

"Meeting?" Arthur repeated.

In answer, she swung her giant head to the side, opening the way to a large stone arch that led into the hive itself.

Time to face the music.

Arthur nodded and stepped forward. So did Cressida, but Elissa swung her head back, barring her way.

"You may leave your retinue on the ledge," the Legendary dragon said to Arthur, not bothering to speak directly to those of lower rank.

Brixaby bristled, but Arthur put a hand on his shoulder. He suspected the 'meeting' was a gathering of leaders. If that were the case, they wouldn't appreciate or include lower-ranked cardholders. Besides, he wanted someone outside to watch his back.

"Cressida, Joy, take care of my retinue while I'm gone," he said.

Cressida nodded and walked over to speak to Horatio and Sams privately.

Arthur and Brixaby moved forward.

Elissa’s power ended as they crossed under the arch. At that point, the internal weather control of the hive took over. It was notably warm inside the cavern, and though Arthur's view was obscured by a curved stone hallway, he heard voices raised in argument.

The first voice belonged to Whitaker, blustering and angry. "You have no right-- no standing!"

"I assure you," said a second, unfamiliar male voice, "this decree has been signed by every leader of the eleven other hives. It was unanimous."

The third voice was querulous and weak, but the words were stone. "You're forgetting one important signature, Vonby: The King."

There was a dangerous pause.

"Do you truly want to get the king involved in this? Or his beast?"

Whitaker again, shouting. "If you think we're going to hand over our hive to the likes of you--!"

It was at that point that Arthur crossed into the main room, Brixaby by his side.

They found three of the most powerful people within a hundred miles all gathered in one room, squaring off.

Whitaker stood with hands clenched at his sides with his chest puffed out. Valentina, in contrast, lay reclined in a fluffy cloud -- an aspect of the card's power she shared with her dragon.

The third person was someone new. He'd had some exposure to other Legendary riders in the kingdom's hives, but he was certain he had not met this man before. And he was so distinctive that Arthur would have remembered him.

The man was in his late forties to early fifties with a sheet of steel-gray hair that fell straight to his waist. If not for his broad shoulders and muscled physique, Arthur might have mistaken him for a woman.

When he turned at Arthur's arrival, he saw a badge of a stag on the right breast: Buck Moon hive.

But most of Arthur's attention fell to the other two hive leaders.

Valentina was too self-contained to gasp at Arthur's appearance. She looked just as sickly as her dragon, if not worse. Her suddenly hardened expression made her face skeletal.

Whitaker, by contrast, let out a half shout of surprise and stepped forward to Arthur. His expression was so fierce that Arthur wasn't sure if the man wasn't feeling relief or rage -- if he wanted to punch Arthur or embrace him like a long-lost colleague, returned.

"Who are you?" the stranger said, then did a double take at Arthur, perhaps sensing the weight of card power in his heart.

"Well, it seems all your schemes have been for nothing. The missing rider has returned," Valentina said, briskly.

The new man's face went sheet white with rage. "Is this a joke?"

"I returned," Arthur confirmed and then gestured to the side. Brixaby, who had been hanging back to obscure himself in the shadows, stepped forward. His blood-red eyes glinted in the firelight. "And with my dragon," Arthur added.

The gray-haired man flicked his hand in their direction. The air around Arthur suddenly dried out and prickled with an uncomfortable heat.

Brixaby snarled a warning. Just as abruptly, the temperature dropped down to normal.

"It's no illusion -- I feel the heat of their circulatory system," the man said. He turned back to Whitaker and Valentina. "Is this some kind of a test? A ploy to test your better's resolve?"

Whitaker ignored the man and strode forward toward Arthur. "Where have you been?" he all but growled out.

Arthur kept his face and voice calm, unworried. "I was a guest at a Free hive."

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"Which Free Hive?" Whitaker snapped, which confirmed Arthur's theory that they weren't a secret to the leadership. Whitaker continued before Arthur could answer. "Those Kingdom Traitors! Have you become one, too? Huh? Tell me!"

"You will not speak to my rider that way!" Brixaby growled.

Arthur appreciated the backup, but he could already tell this was going to be an argument best handled by humans. "Brix, please go back out to the ledge. I can handle this." Deliberately, he turned his back on Whitaker as if he didn't see the other man as a threat. He added, low, "Make sure Joy speaks to Elissa."

He caught the exact moment Brixaby understood. His blood-red eyes glittering, he let one last derisive snort at Whitaker and then turned back the way they'd come.

Arthur looked back at the other leaders. Whitaker was red in the face with anger, and the gray-haired man didn't look much better. Valentina's expression was still hard, but he thought he caught a bit of amusement in her eyes.

"I am not a traitor. My oath to the king remains unbroken," Arthur lied, "Brixaby and I weren't taken to the Free Hive voluntarily, but I'm not going to apologize for the time I spent--"

Whitaker spoke over him. "They kidnapped you? Then this means war--"

Ignoring him, Arthur continued, "And I've returned with a warning."

The gray-haired man laughed. "A warning? You're in no position to threaten us, child." He turned to the others. "I don't see how this changes anything. You two were so incompetent that you let a new rider with a Legendary card fall into an outsider's control. It's almost worse than his death."

"I take it the other hives wish to put their extra Legendary dragons in Wolf Moon?" Arthur asked.

"That is Vonby's plan," Valentina confirmed, meaning the gray-haired rider.

"It'll happen over my dead body," Whitaker growled.

Vonby, puffed up as if to speak. Arthur cut across him.

"I don't care. Replace them, or don't -- it doesn't matter. I told you I came with a warning. I have direct evidence that a Rare-ranked scourgeling has taken over at least one of the Free hives..."

And he quickly outlined the basics of what he had guessed what the Mind Singer was up to, including dragon farming.

The leaders listened at first with incredulity, then disgust, and finally growing alarm.

As Arthur revealed what he knew about the raids on nests, Valentina sat up. "Who knows about this?" she demanded. "If the female dragons find out--"

And right on cue, there was an enraged bellow from Elissa. "THE EGGS?!"

Arthur kept his grin carefully to himself. Brixaby had understood his plan perfectly: Joy was very good at spilling secrets.

He managed a neutral, "I believe the cat is out of the bag."

Valentina's expression became thunderous. "You must learn discretion if you ever intend to lead here."

"Sorry," Arthur said blandly, "that wasn't one of my lessons before I was taken to the other hive."

Inside, he also seethed that no one had asked — or seemed interested — in the fate of the other hatchlings and riders in his class. Nothing about Cressida and Joy, even though Joy was a high-grade shimmer Rare, or Len and Tamya.

That blue dragon and his rider had the right to leave, he thought.

“If this intelligence is to be believed,” Vonby said with a snide look in Arthur’s direction, “I fail to see how this is our problem. The Free Hives exist outside the law of our Kingdom. Let them deal with this issue themselves.”

“Of course it’s our problem!” The shout came from Whitaker who had only looked more and more twitchy during Arthur’s story. “It’s the duty of all of the hives to fight the scourge. And from the boy’s story, this one has been setting itself up nice and proper, gorging itself on cards.”

Wow. Perhaps Arthur had underestimated Whitaker. Maybe he had more honor and compassion inside than he’d ever outwardly shown—

“And things have been so boring here. It’s been, what, two weeks since the last eruption? If we don’t fight soon, we’re going to lose our edge.”

Never mind, Arthur thought. But at least the man was on his side.

Valentina spoke up. “This isn’t the first time a high-level scourgeling has tried to gain a foothold in our world. They tend to burn themselves out like a wildfire that’s grown too hot and too fast. But,” she added with a weary look at Whitaker. “He’s right. It cannot be allowed to stand. We must go.”

“This isn’t a scourgeling eruption,” Vonby said. “If Arthur is to be believed, it will be a raid on another hive. Dragon against dragon.” He looked hard at Arthur. “Assuming, of course, this isn’t a mistake or a convoluted trap.”

Arthur stared back at him. He had nothing to prove, and if worse came to worse, he’d reveal something he’d kept hidden: There was a Legendary card in play.

“I take it that Buck Moon hive won’t be a part of this fight?” Valentina asked with a raised eyebrow.

Vonby grit his teeth and orange sparks were briefly visible highlighting his lips. Some sort of flame power?

“No hive will be a part of this. We serve our Kingdom, not outsiders.”

“Excellent.” Whitaker clapped his hands. “More cards for us to harvest.” Turning, he clapped Arthur on the shoulder – hard enough to send him stumbling forward a step. “Glad to have you back, kid. I’ll send a word to sound the alarm. I assume you can give our portal card users the destination? Yes? Well, I’m off.” He strode away at a fast clip, visibly excited for a fight to come.

Vonby stared after him with a lip curled in disgust. “You must be joking. You can’t possibly take on an entire Rare-ranked scourgeling nest with one small hive’s worth of dragons.”

Arthur didn’t bother telling the man he’d brought dragons of his own to help with the numbers. He lifted his chin. “As Whitaker said: it’s more cards for us.”

The man looked back and forth between them, annoyance and concern warring on his face. He seemed to be on the urge to demand they see reason, but in the end, only shrugged. “If your hive is overrun, don’t expect us to swoop in to help.”

“Of course not,” Valentina said. “Your help would lead to a leadership coup.”

“We’re on the same side, Valentina.”

“So you say, Vonby.”

The two stared at one another for a moment. Then, with a shake of his head, Vonby turned to stride out – all injured dignity.

“Finally,” Valentina muttered under her breath. “Now Elissa can finally let that storm up.”

Arthur looked at her. “She conjured the storm?”

“That annoying man has an extraordinarily powerful fire card.” She smiled thinly. “He and his dragon hate the cold and the wet. Now,” she added before Arthur could take that in. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you left a lot out of your story, young man.”

“I was at the Free Hive for months. I couldn’t tell you everything in one go.”

She leveled an unimpressed look at him. “I’m old and dying, not stupid. What has got you so riled up about this scourgeling in particular? Why do we have to hit it now?”

Arthur was tempted to say, I brought half a Free Hive’s worth of dragons with me and they’ll sure to be discovered before dawn. But I don’t want to say anything because you may not let them leave, or see those numbers as a threat to your power. They follow me, not you.

So instead he told her his second biggest secret.

“I believe the scourgeling has a Legendary card – one that will pair very well with Brixaby.”

She let out a long breath. “Making you the wielders of two pairs. The King will not like that.”

“Only if he finds out,” Arthur said, feeling daring. “Are you really… Are you unwell?”

“The healers have given me weeks, at best,” Valentina said. “It’s a growth, they say. It’s been managed for years but eventually, the healing magic wanes and the growth spreads. I plan on beating their expectations but, yes, Arthur, it will get the best of me. Elissa… isn’t far behind, I fear.” Her hard look softened, but it wasn’t for her dragon. It was for Arthur. “And now you’ve decided to return, my passing will make you a true leader of the hive.”

Arthur wasn’t sure why that hit him the way it did. Only that deep down, he wasn’t sure he was ready.

Valentina continued, ruthlessly. “I don’t envy you the next few decades. We’re a small hive and while Whitaker is good in a fight, that’s all he’s good for. It will be your job to manage him, Arthur. This will help.”

Her thin, birdlike fingers rose to her chest and to Arthur’s shock, she removed a card from her very heart.

She turned it to face Arthur.

It was a mind card.