Eve of Battle

Weapons have been sharpened, supplies have been laid in. Karen's mandated fast for clarity has almost begun. Now is the waiting time.

Were we a physical company, one with a physical camp, I would be performing a ritual I've performed many times before, wandering from fire to fire in the dark, burning restless energy by reassuring those who were apprehensive about the morning, accepting the conversation and reassurances of those who thought I might need them.

Then I was not responsible for the another, merely a leader elected by my peers, the anxiety of the morning the outcome of a competition, nothing of lasting consequence. Tonight, perhaps there would be a pair of us wandering. Or perhaps I would be sitting with Karen by a fire as others wandered by, reassuring both her and me as has been done through the exchange of electronic messages these past several days.

But we are only a virtual company, so tonight is somewhat different, harder in a way. This is my wandering, my burning of energy in anticipation of the dawn.

Three battles with the dragon have been laid upon our hero, one physical, another magical, the final alchemical. Tomorrow is the first time Karen enters the dragon's lair. The morning brings a physical battle, the battle of steel. This battle is the easiest, the most direct. In this one the dragon will be carved from its lair and slain without a doubt.

Naming it a dragon may be granting it too much power. If it is a dragon, it is a small one, not the white, English dragon of St. George or the red dragon of Wales. This is but a small, young thing, Grendel's mother as an adolescent girl, a thing easily vanquished by razor steel if our vision is correct. Unmolested, it would grow into a powerful beast in time. Time is an ally we mean to deny it. Its fertility is more in question than its survival, its eggs a greater threat.

Tomorrow we cast a divination to reveal whether this dragon is attempting to spawn a reptilian brood. A simple sentinel will be interjected into our story, a clockwork mage to alert us if the perimeter has been breached. If the alarm is raised, the eggs will be excised in the lymph chambers where they lay.

Those eggs will the goal of Karen's second entry into this cavern, this time armed with a potent spell for a battle of magic. An enfeebling ray, a word of power that stuns or kills when repeated like a mantra, egg by egg, so that no future grendels grow to hatch. But that encounter is weeks farther down this road during which Karen will have time to heal from the wounds she will sustain in the morning, however minor they might be. That battle will be one of endurance, a fatiguing day-by-day affair, a campaign of weeks rather than mere hours.

The third battle, if required, mandates the greatest power and, as such, the greatest ally. Before that encounter, we will seek out a powerful alchemist, one who can brew us a deadly potion potent enough to seek out and destroy any remaining eggs no matter how deep in the cave they have been secreted. But that is another battle, weeks distant, one we need not prepare for now, one we may never need to fight if tomorrow augers well.

Those are my musing by this electronic fire as Karen chats with kindred spirits online, stroking her familiar cats. The ethereal voices give her comfort. Soon, it's time for sleep: our day begins before the dawn.

I will send out an update tomorrow once we're home and settled.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III