All The Skills

Brixaby must have truly been feeling better because, as Arthur seated himself on Ghost, Brixaby landed on Arthur’s shoulders, twined a tail around the back of his neck, and complained that he was hungry.

"How long has it been since you've eaten?" Arthur asked.

Brixaby thought for a moment. "What counts? The last time my body ate... or the time my mind spent in Personal Space?"

That was a good question. Arthur had no idea. So, instead of answering, Arthur took out one of the grilled peppers stuffed with meat and handed the skewer over. Thanks to the timeless nature of his Personal Space, the pepper was still hot off the grill and steaming.

Brixaby took the skewer with a happy rumble and took a big bite. However, as Ghost took off into the air, little bits of meat and pepper fell down Arthur's shirt. He kept having to brush bits off his tunic, and it left spots of grease behind. This probably wasn't the best way to meet the council, but he was past trying to impress these people.

Meanwhile, silver Ghost took a series of upper tunnels that twisted too fast for Arthur to keep track of. The dragon made jerky turns that made him feel like his head was about to snap off his body. Ghost knew where he was going, though, and abruptly, they emerged outside into the late afternoon air.

Brixaby hissed in discomfort at the bright sun and Arthur shielded his eyes. He quickly replaced his hold a moment later when Ghost immediately shot up, almost vertically. They flew so close to the sheer wall that Ghost's stomach nearly scraped the rock. Arthur had to hang on as if his life depended on it. Somehow, though, Brixaby managed to keep hold of his stuffed pepper skewer.

Finally, just as their momentum slowed, they crested the top of the mesa.

The vast arena was gone again. It had probably sunk into the complex and been reburied to leave a flat, rocky plain.

Red Laird stood at the top, wings extended to give Chablis some shade. The rest of the council was nowhere in sight.

Ghost came into land, dropping out of the air with a bone-rattling jolt.

"Thank you, Ghost," Arthur muttered, gratefully sliding down. He rolled his shoulders, feeling like his joints had been loosened by the ride. From the slight drain on his mana, his internal healing card was doing some work to mitigate bruises.

"Yes, thank you Ghost," Brixaby said loudly. "You are a most useful fellow. With many interesting cards, I'm sure." He eyed the other dragon as if trying to assess what was in his cores.

Ghost just grunted.

Laird rumbled to the silver dragon, "Took you long enough to bring them here."

"There were complications," Ghost muttered, looking away. "The little dragon overextended himself."

Laird peered down at Brixaby. "That can happen with a Legendary card? I'm surprised."

Brixaby popped the last of the pepper into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed before he answered, "I became the equivalent of a low journeyman in chainmail arts within a couple of hours," he said, smugly. "What did you accomplish today?"

"I interrogated an assassin," Laird replied evenly.

Chablis scowled. "Not that there's much left to interrogate. The man is practically insane, thanks to you ripping the cards right out of his heart."

"Yes," Brixaby said, "the idea was that he would suffer."

"It's hard to interrogate a man who is babbling, weeping, and insane," Chablis said.

Inwardly, Arthur winced. But outwardly, he shrugged. He had to be hard at this moment. He had to let these people know he would give no quarter to anyone who threatened his life, Brixaby's life, or anybody under them. "But you were able to get something useful from him? Is that why you brought us here?"

"We were at least able to discover where he hails from," Chablis said with a glance at Laird. "We believe the man works for another Free Hive, to the south."

That was interesting. Arthur had been thinking on and off about who would be willing to kill him... and came up with a distressingly long list. Everybody from the king, to other Legendary riders, possibly Valentina and Whitaker—though they were long shots as they needed him more than he needed them. The top of the list, of course, was Lional and Penn Rowantree.

Unfortunately, all of these people had a motive but almost zero opportunity. How would they know he was here in the Free Hive?

No, it was more than possible this was some sort of convoluted plot from the council itself. But... another Free Hive?

"Why would another Free Hive want to assassinate me?" he asked, then, a moment later, answered his own question. "For my Legendary cards?"

"I honestly don't know," Chablis said. "They shouldn't even have known you were here, but..." She exchanged glances with Laird. "We keep a loose communication between all of the Free Hives, mostly as a safety precaution in case any of the kingdoms choose to exterminate us. It's possible something leaked out."

"Wait, has that happened before? A kingdom exterminating a Free Hive?" Arthur asked, feeling a chill. "Why would a kingdom do that?"

"Power and greed, of course," Laird said. Then he added, considering, "Or they just get annoyed with us raiding the noble libraries—"

"Laird," Chablis said, but Laird ignored her and powered on.

"Most of us have been making some concessions to the kingdoms to keep that from happening, but this hive we speak of has been acting so oddly recently, that there have been fears that they may be trying to break off to form their own kingdom – that’s been tried before, too. It doesn't bode well without a Mythic."

Arthur felt like they were finally getting to the meat of the conversation. "What concessions?"

Chablis and Laird exchanged grim looks. Then Chablis sighed and nodded to the dragon. For some reason, to Arthur, it looked like a performance. He suspected the two of them planned on telling him this all along.

"The concession is that we don't allow anyone into the Free Hive to use combat-focused cards. As I said, we raid noble libraries—and mostly those raids are unofficially requested. Either a noble grows out of control or so powerful that they threaten their sovereign, or they're so incompetent that they threaten the kingdom’s security. But the king or queen can't be seen to move against them directly. So they use us as an outside influence."

Something clicked into place, and Arthur suddenly knew what that concession was. "But you don't get to keep all the cards you steal, do you?"

Brixaby perked up, listening carefully.

"No," Laird said. "We can't be seen as a threat to the Kingdom hives. Our payment for staying alive is to return combat cards to the Kingdom." There was a note of disgust in his voice, though it was so quiet that Chablis didn’t react to it.

"But you let Joy and Cressida in," Brixaby said. “Cressida has a flame bear summon. You saw it after the assassin attacked.”

"They aren't official members of the hive, yet," Chablis said, with emphasis. "Besides, even if it was the pink who had the summon card, dragons are different. You are built around your core cards. We mitigate this by offering any dragon who joins us crafter, utility, and other support-oriented cards as soon as they become official residents of the hive." She added, perhaps seeing the look on their faces, "This is no bad thing. You’ve seen it: we get along very well with our support and utility-focused cards. We have built a stable, productive life out here in the desert. We don't need combat."

They don’t need combat, right up until the point that they do, Arthur thought, well aware that he was being a giant hypocrite. His deck so far did not have a single combat-oriented card. Though, he meant to fix that.

"And of course," Laird added with a grim smile, "those of us with combat cards in our core can get around the edict fairly easily."

Of course. Laird was part of the group who went on raids. That also explained why there had been no people riding the dragons during that noble raid. And if anybody witnessed the raid, they could only report that wild dragons had done the deed. There would be no one to blame except for the kingdom hives, and no one with sense blamed the hives overtly. They were the only thing that kept the kingdom from disaster during a scourge eruption.

The checks and balances felt thin to Arthur. Easily breakable. But, at least he finally understood them.

"That raid where I met you," he said, looking at Laird, "was that officially sanctioned?"

"No," Laird said with an evil draconic smile, "that was for my own pleasure."

Brixaby broke in. "Yes, yes. Very interesting. So, you believe another Free Hive has tried to kill Arthur? Point me in their direction. I’ll teach them a lesson.”

"We don't know if the assassin’s actions were sanctioned by the hive or not," Chablis said.

"Easy.” Brixaby flicked his tail. “Point me the way to their council, I'll start ripping out cards and find out."

Laird and Chablis both gave shudders. Arthur watched them, thinking. He wasn't sure if he believed that the assassin came from another Free Hive, but it was better than the assassin coming from this council. He, Brixaby, Joy, and Cressida were still essentially captives here.

"So, you brought me and Brixaby here to tell us that you know nothing certain," he said.

"We wanted to give you an update, in good faith," Chablis said.

Arthur's Acting and Deception skills pinged at him. "No, you brought us here because you hit a wall with the assassin, and you want something from us."

Laird let out a chuckling hissing sound, and Chablis closed her eyes briefly for a moment in exasperation. Then she opened them again. "The man might return to his senses if you give his cards back to him."

"Those cards belong to Joy." Arthur felt no need to hide that. Anybody who had been watching would have seen what happened.

"Yes, but there were others, weren't there?" Chablis asked. “Your dragon took more than the two.”

So, not only had they been watching, they had been watching closely. But Arthur wasn't interested in giving back the stealth class card. He wanted to save it for Brixaby when he could safely add it to his core.

This was why he was taken completely by surprise when Brixaby said, "Then let me speak to the assassin. I'll determine if he's worthy of getting a card back."

It took every ounce of self-control not to turn and stare at Brixaby. Instead, Arthur kept his face blank and crossed his arms, silently signaling that he would be behind whatever his dragon wanted. Even if, secretly, he wondered what, by all the cards, Brixaby was up to.

"Alright," Chablis agreed so fast that Arthur had no doubt that had been the hope all along. She turned and said, "Follow me."

They walked perhaps only a hundred feet before the woman stopped and studied the ground, making a parting motion with her hands. A single crack split the baked red earth and then moved away. A moment later, Arthur was looking at a perfectly cut entrance leading to a shadowed stairwell that led down.

The opening was much too small to fit a dragon the size of Laird. Arthur hesitated for a moment, wondering if this was a trick. By bringing them up here, he had been separated from Joy and Cressida. And Chablis had some kind of earth card power. Was it wise to descend that tunnel with her?

He exchanged glances with Brixaby. The dragon gave him a nod towards the staircase. He seemed eager. Arthur highly doubted that he was going to give the Stealth card back—and that mental trick Brixaby used only worked one way, so he couldn't ask what he thought he was doing. His only option was to trust his dragon.

So that's exactly what he did.

Arthur followed Chablis downstairs. A few steps in and the air became noticeably cooler. Then, as the darkness closed around them with only an occasional sputtering card anchor light to guide the way, it was almost frighteningly cold.

At the bottom sat a row of barred metal cells. There were no guards around, and three of the four cells were also empty. The one at the very end wasn't.

Sitting there, slumped against the back wall, was the assassin.

In his mind, Arthur had unconsciously built the man up to the point he wouldn't be surprised if the assassin had a mustache to twirl. But upon seeing him again… he looked just like a man. A few years older than himself, with short scruffy blonde hair, and a somewhat unremarkable face.

Arthur would have had trouble picking him out of a crowd, except for the fact that he was currently rocking back and forth, knees drawn up to his chest, and hugging himself.

"Do you know who I am?" Arthur asked.

Slowly, the man stopped his rocking and smiled. “Yes.” His eyes were too bright. "You… You are the traitor. The liar. The one who betrays. The one who does not keep his word."

The man should have had no cards to aid him, but in a flash of a second, he was on his feet and running straight at Arthur, hitting the bars and reaching through with a clawed hand. It wasn’t a card power. It was a strength borne of insanity.

Arthur backed a step, and the fingernails missed him by a hair.

Brixaby let out a fearsome roar. The man, however, didn't seem to hear it. His face was twisted in a snarl, and though it looked like he wanted to scream… Instead, he began to chant in a sing-song voice, "Liar, liar, liar…" His sweet voice was as if he were reciting a nursery rhyme. “Arthur Rowantree is a liar…”

"The man is insane," Chablis sighed, "now you see what happens to some who lose their heart decks."

Arthur didn't answer. The man was singing.

"How long did you say the other hive had been acting oddly?" he asked, voice strangled.

"A couple of months. Why?"

The timeline fit.

There was someone else who likely wanted to hurt Arthur and everybody around him.

His instinct was a guess—a gamble—but Arthur had always been a good gambler. His bet was that the Mind Singer had sent this assassin.

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