Quintessentially Quilly

When last we saw our intrepid hero, he had just taken a very broad step away from his own cabin door.  Do you remember why that was?  To recap:

Evaard spent his first day as the 12th Knight of the realm guarding a strawberry stall.  It bored him spitless and as he trudged home he wished for grand adventure.  The next morning his wish was granted in the form of a missing comrade, Sir Chevall, who, according to a page named Fencil, was last seen in the company of a matchmaker in distress.

Sir Evaard went to retrieve Chevall’s body and could not find it.  He did however find the body of a dead baker, a deserted house showing signs of a possible kidnapping, and a pile of contriband dragon eggs. Evaard followed a trail of evidence that lead him to believe the confectioner had somehow manged to smuggle dragon eggs out of the sacred dragon caves and that those eggs had since hatched.  Evaard needed to report to the King.  He also needed to find the hatchlings as qucikly as possible.

Evaard wanted to question Fencil one more time before reporting to the king, but both the boy and Chevall’s war steed had disappeared.  Evaard followed the path that boy and horse had taken, rejoicing in the fact that the trail would pass his own home even while fearing that Fencil may have ridden into danger.

When he reaches his home, Evvard finds Fencil, the war horse, and the fallen Chevall, who although somewhat the worse for wear, is far from dead.  With Chevall is an adolescent purple dragon named Troga.  Troga, along with Olaf Patisserie (the baker) and Chevall had fought side-by-side in an attempt to liberate several of the hatchlings. Patisserie was killed in the battle, Troga was seriously wounded and Chevall was knocked unconcious.

Vernal interrupts the recounting of Chevall’s battle to inform the knights that at least a dozen armed bandits are approaching the cabin.  They are flying no standard, which means they must be enermies or bandits. Everyone takes defensive positions and Evaard steps from his hoem to greet the riders.

The leader of the riders introduces himself as Ranold, a Mage Warrior. He claimed allegiance to the dragon king, DeMajik, but Evvard, knowing that Mage Warriors feed their powers through dragon sacrifice, knew better than to believe him.  Consequently, Evvard tried to misdirect Ranold and his soldiers by giving them false information.  However, Ronald trusts Evaard no more than Evaard trusts Ranold.  The Mage Warrior demands to search Evaard’s cabin.

Troga is in the cabin.  The others scattered into the woods beyond the cabin but Troga was too weak to move.  Evaard realizes that not even an adolescent dragon can hide in a cabin barely double her size.  Ranold will see her the moment he opens to door.

~*~

To be continued on, Three Word Thursday, January 28th, 2010.