Adventures of Jessa: the Adventures Continue

15

Jessa watches the dragons sparring closely. She's only slightly more impressed with this group of gold dragons than she was with the first group. The copper dragons were decent, but there were only five that came to the try outs. Jessa suspects that they came more to be a guard for their king than to guard her. She's good with that.

She allowed all five of the copper dragons to join up. "I'll allow all five of you, with the condition that you will spar with the other guards. Although you are showing better than the golds you are still not where I would like you. You will also be responsible for not just Angelo, but my caravan as well since that is the cover you will be using. If you are willing to do that, then you are welcome to come. Angelo, you are going as a guard for me, I know you don't deserve that designation, but it will be necessary."

"I understand, Jessa. I requested to be able to journey with you knowing that this would be the only way. It also keeps me from having to deal with the human kings." Angelo tells her with a smirk. Jessa gives him a sickly smile in return. She isn't very happy with the humans so far and wished that she didn't have to either.

After the try outs Jessa started the guards on sparring and correcting them as they needed it. Finding out that their copper cousins were actually better than themselves seemed to have lit a fire in the golds and they listened intently to their princess when she told them how to improve.

Finally, she called a halt to the sparring and called Dhiren to spar with her. By now there is a great crowd around watching them spar. The sound of the awe from the humans is completely lost to Jessa and Dhiren, but the others hear and hide their smirks. 

Dhiren puts forth all his effort and this time, finally, he manages to get the victory over Jessa. Jessa smiles delightedly at him as Dhiren stares at her in shock. "Yes, I knew you could do it, Dhiren."

There is silence among all the guards as well. Then cheering by them all is heard.

Dhiren helps Jessa to her feet and whispers to her so that she can hear over the cheering of his elves, "We should visit Jethro's temple here before we leave."

"Of course, I had intended on going after the sparring matches. We won't need to bathe before going, he appreciates the sweat that comes from practicing fighting."

"He'll appreciate a visit from you, no matter how you come, Jessa. You know that." Frosnak tells her before Dhiren can. She had been on the other side of Jessa when Dhiren was speaking to her and had heard the whispered message.

Dhiren gives her a dirty look. "Do you always interrupt a private conversation?"

Frosnak chuckles, "I see that Jessa has been rubbing off on you already. I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation. Jessa, how many of the golds will you be taking from this group?"

"About ten of them, the others will need to work with the other golds in preparing for war and have the females go to Silva. Better let Dhiren's parents know that ahead of time."

"They were already prepared for the golds to come, it was part of the treaty made with Alaric. It was the coppers they weren't ready for. They were a bit resigned and figured that the other dragons will likely send their females and eggs there as well."

"Yes, if we can contact and talk the others around. Angelo knows the silver queen and the brass king, but he didn't say anything about the bronze king."

"Another queen, actually. She's prickly one, almost as bad as the Silver queen and nearly as proud as the sun elves."

"Ohh, that's not going to go well with Jessa." Dhiren says and isn't amused in the least. The elves either will listen or die. They have no choice. They need the dragons to even things up a bit. Perhaps if Jessa had time, a few more years, they might be able to match numbers with out the help of the bronze dragons.