FanStory.com - Ol' Silver and Red, ch 6by Wayne Fowler

In the last part Ohmie escaped from the dragon’s lair with the help of the freed canary. King Herb and King Jear joined in search of Ohmie (Prince Waynard).

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Chapter 6

King Herb took his troop around the mountain to the right. King Jear led his to the left. Blado and volunteers from each troop began an arduous ascent up the heartless granite mountain, their goal the peak in hopes of finding the dragon’s entry – and Ohmie.

King Herb felt Princess May would be more secure away from the battle that he was certain would ensue, so he didn’t object to her volunteering to ascend the mountain with Blado and the other climbers. The other two volunteers from King Herb’s regiment were more inclined toward her protection than Ohmie’s rescue.

After two days of fruitless search, the mounted companies met at the backside of the mountain. Neither had seen any evidence of dragon nesting, or mountain entry. King Jear’s team had the longer way to travel, having to skirt a large lake and cross a river, but could find nothing of the dragon, or the son. The Kings agreed to continue circumscribing the mountain, each troop circumspecting, or circumnavigating, whichever, the monstrous peak on the same routes in the hope that one would see something from the opposite side that the other had missed.

Their second meeting was at the point of origin where Blado, Princess May and the others began scaling the mountainside. King Jear held vigil as King Herb returned to his castle for food supplies and proper climbing equipment.

Princess May and Blado peered into a gaping slash in the mountain at least a thousand feet straight down. They’d chosen wrongly. Early in the climb there was a decision to be made – left or right. Left appeared to be a dead end, a ridge that stopped abruptly at what looked to be an impossible, reverse-angle climb. The right led slightly downward, something they didn’t want to do, but then turned back up at another ascending ridge.

Their choice – to the right – dead-ended at this impassable crevasse. They had no choice but to backtrack. They were out of food and water anyway.

Seeing King Herb returning from the distance, they retraced their steps all the way to King Jear’s encampment, their starting place, glad for the rest.

This time, at the reverse-angle climb, the well-outfitted climbers found ascent possible around and beyond what they couldn’t see from the previous vantage point. The climb was most difficult, but not impossible. On the third day of their climb, off to the distance on a completely different ridge, they saw who had to be Ohmie, or Waynard, depending on which climber was doing the seeing. King Jear's people saw Prince Waynard, the King's son. King Herb's folk saw Ohmie, their friend. The figure was walking, stumbling rather, on two legs, not four. Either human or a small abominable snowman. They took him for Ohmie, or Waynard, whoever was doing the seeing.

It was no easy feat to trek over to Ohmie’s ridge. Steps retraced to where crossing over to Ohmie’s range was possible proved far more treacherous than the climb up since feet sight wasn’t nearly as good as eyesight. By the time they reached their friend, Ohmie was barely recognizable: cut, bruised, and swollen where he wasn’t gaunt and diminished. He accepted their aid, passing out at their touch, having held on as long as he had, longer than humanly possible of natural strength. Princess May knew that he’d held on for her when their eyes met, just as his began to fade and roll back into his head. Blado half carried, half dragged him down the mountain to their camp.

Ohmie awoke with a gasp as they placed him on the ground at their base camp. The small jolt of his laying back very nearly caused him to gag and swallow the diamond that had fairly snugged itself in its hiding place high near the roots of his teeth, quite amazingly having remained through the entire ordeal.

“For you, King Herb,” Ohmie said, nodding for Princess May to present the surprising gem to her father. King Herb held it up to the bright sun, diffused light radiating through the prism-cut stone, rainbows spearing from it. Everyone’s gaze moved from the diamond to the mountain peak from where Ohmie must have come after taking the jewel from the dragon. Ohmie, or Waynard, depending on who was doing the admiring, marveled at his prowess and courage, having ridden the dragon to its lair, taken the stone, and lived to escape.

King Herb was ecstatic. He just knew that the stone had come from his Queen Grandmother’s crown. She died while he was still young, but he remembered seeing it on her head. No one ever spoke of its loss, or the disappearance of one of his uncles and a squad of soldiers. King Herb had no idea that a dragon had been responsible.

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“I don’t know, Ohmie.” Blado had never addressed his friend by his royal title, the two having been bosom buddies since old enough to play fight. Not even knowing that Ohmie was a prince at their first meeting allowed Blado freedom to attempt to pin and pummel the prince with his bulk and brawn, though it rarely worked that way. “It’s one thing to take a dragon’s diamond while escaping, but…”

“Look, Blado. It’s all stolen goods. Even a dragon has to know that booty, ill-gotten gain, is fair game.”

Blado’s eyes crossed as he tried to ponder the idioms. Many conversations with Ohmie descended to silence through the eyebrow gazes. Finally, unable to bridle himself, he asked, “Fair game? You mean like a buck instead of a doe or a fawn?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Then on the same trail, Blado replied, “I get that it’s stealing back what was stole; but Ohmie, it’s a dragon!”

Ohmie shrugged his shoulders. “A dragon that has my dagger. And I want it back.”

“What’s May gonna say?” Blado asked, a grin forming.

Ohmie’s eyes crossed.

“I’ll tell you what she’ll say,” May said, having heard the conversation from the stable doorway. “Shauconnery told me you were here. So when do we leave?”

Three sets of eyes darted from one to the other, over and to and back again – Ohmie, Blado, and May.

Racing through all possible objections and rebuttals, within an instant Ohmie accepted that no such venture could possibly bechance except with May at his side. To apprise her of the risk, Ohmie asked, “And should the dragon scorch off your beautiful curls?”

“Then I’ll be your bald-headed bride.”

Blado choked and spewed at the unwelcomed vision that he couldn’t suppress.

“We’d best get to planning and packing, then, hadn’t we?” May snapped as she wheeled about back toward the castle proper.

It was weeks later that Ohmie, actually Waynard to everyone but May, Blado, and Shauconnerey now, stole away in the dead of night. They took only such vittles and supplies as the two young men could carry. Among their stuffs was a lightweight, but amazingly tough cord of over a mile in length. The cord was made of the guts of a thousand cats. They also took as much rope as they could carry and still climb. For sufficient cord material, Blado was referred to the catgut supplier, the home of an eccentric couple, the man never seen in daylight, and the woman known by her beautiful fur coats, though the patterns were always of a clashing, erratic nature: yellow, calico, and gray. Gray stripes dominated each coat, interspersed with the other colors.

During the weeks of Waynard’s recovery, they, Waynard, Blado, Princess May, and even Prince Shauconnery, studied as much as was available about dragons. They’d even interviewed all the oldest people in the realm. Only a handful of people were as old as the King, and only a few of them still had their mental faculties and memories. Ultimately, May and Prince Shauconnery agreed to remain at a base camp, prepared to mount a rescue should one be necessary.

The gist of the team’s understanding was: 1 – dragons could fly, 2 – dragons breathed fire, 3 – dragons were very strong and had no obvious weaknesses, 4 – dragons could see in the dark with the aid of the fire in their eyes (evidently their breath’s pilot light was in their eyes), 5 – dragons lived a very long time, perhaps hundreds of years, and 6 – dragons had a strong affinity for shiny jewelry and gold.

Waynard added to the list of dragon attributes that they could swim. He also could list dragon deficiencies that were previously unknown: 1 – dragons grew tired (at least the silver and red one did), 2 – dragons slept with their eyes open, 3 – dragons couldn’t smell very well, and 4 – dragons lived alone. With that information, a plan began to emerge.

The catgut cord and the rope were the first parts of the plan.