Peter glanced over his shoulder as Anna and the Wisps worked with the last of the Ryukyuujin mages. He saw that Andrew had already been tended too, and that allowed him to finally relax. His own wounds were minor by comparison to many of the others, courtesy of Liosfalda’s speed boost.

  Veithi was still digesting Peter’s explanation of what had happened. She’d encountered some mages before. But none before had ever tried to blind her in that way. They usually threw little stinging bolts into her wings which convinced her it wasn’t worth dealing with. She’d only bothered to answer Peter’s call because of how close this was to her own nest. When Peter explained that he’d guessed the mage had prepared the spell specifically to deal with Jarnvaror, both dragons let out an angry rumble.

  “It didn’t hurt, did it?” Peter asked. Jarnvaror replied that it stung his eyes, but that he was otherwise fine. What he raged at was the sense of worthless defeat he felt at being able to do nothing about the magic. “Don’t worry about it,” Peter said. “He was expecting you. We just need to find a you gem so Anna can make sure they can’t target you that way.”

  Jarnvaror squinted and hissed as an idea occurred to him. The soldiers apparently took this as a bad noise and scrambled to give the dragons even more space, while the dragon took his time asking Peter what they would do if they encountered a mage like this again. He knew there could be different spells, other things mages could do to try and keep him from helping. Mages had always been the most dangerous thing the dragon had faced, aside from other dragons. But if they were planning on facing the dragons now, it would be even worse.

  Peter nodded, taking his point. “One spell from Anna will do a lot for that, I think,” he said. “Like how she made it so they can’t pick me up the way Sheil did. That spell blocks a whole bunch of different kinds of spells. But they can still throw things at you like in Nuidia.”

  The iron dragon hissed again at the memory. Veithi’s head swung between the two of them. An angry rumble came from her throat as she asked if Peter knew mages like this would be coming on to her mountain. Peter frowned, looking at her. They were dangerous to her young, and she would have scattered the humans far, far from the mountain if she’d known they were bringing such dangers close.

  Peter blinked. “They probably have been on your mountain a lot. Most big groups of humans have a few, especially in cities. And in my experience, there’s usually at least one in fighting groups. I thought when I mentioned Wisps to you before, it was obvious that mages like this would be involved. I didn’t think they would have planned to fight dragons, though. But there’s a lot of mages. Even more back home.”

  Veithi seemed shocked. She said nothing as her eyes swung out among the humans, maybe realizing what Anna and the healer were doing for the first time as she looked. Finally she broke her silence by asking if these humans would be hunting her now.

  Peter shook his head. “I won’t let them. Jarn can attest to that, too. Right?”

  The iron dragon swung his head to Veithi and explained that Peter was an oddity among the humans, but that his ability to speak with them had made things easier for the dragons of the valley since he was born. He’d taught them how to scare humans off without provoking retaliation from the large human settlements. And he’d been able to make his fellow humans understand dragon territories, at least well enough that they could leave each other alone.

  Veithi calmed down again as Jarnvaror spoke. Only when he was done did she ask why the humans were fighting each other. Jarn replied it’s just something the humans did sometimes.

  “There’s reasons for it,” Peter said. “Right now, someone is trying to use the Wisps to become the boss of all the Humans and Elves, at least to the west. They’re doing a lot of harm, though, and I’m pretty sure we don’t want him to be the boss.” Veithi asked why they didn’t just duel him. “Because Humans and Elves don’t do that. Most of the time,” he added, as Jarnvaror snorted. “Not for power, anyway. We fight in big groups. That’s what happened here.”

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  The dragons were both quiet for a moment. Then Veithi sniffed, asking how she could stop the armies from fighting so close to her nest in the future. Peter frowned. “In general? I don’t know. I helped the iron dragons get along with us normally. I could do that with you once I have the time. But when humans fight each other, no one really listens to rules. The best thing is to just make sure wars are short, so we don’t fight as much.”

  There was another moment of silence. Then Veithi asked if he was saying that the humans would leave her mountain alone if she helped stop the fighting.

  “I was not saying that,” Peter said, though he found a grin appearing on his face again. “But I was hoping to ask for your help. I think it will put the boss of these humans in a better listening mood for you.”

  Veithi told him to explain his idea. “I saw one of the bandits escape,” Peter said, “but I can’t track him down on foot. He was glowing. That means he was using Wisps. But even with them, he shouldn’t be faster than you or Jarnvaror.”

  Veithi asked if she wanted to fly him down. “Sort of,” Peter replied. “He’s probably stopped glowing by now, and it would be hard to spot him if we were just looking around. But if we had an extra pair of dragon eyes, it might help us. I’m pretty sure we’re going to need to talk to him, so having both you and Jarn should be enough to make him give up without a fight.”

  Veithi snorted that they should just kill him.

  “I know what you mean, but like I said, we need to talk to him to find out what his friends are planning. Also, in case you need to deal with aggressive humans when I’m not around, killing is usually a bad idea. Even if the guy is stupid, his friends will probably come after you. The more you kill, the more humans think it’s too dangerous not to try getting rid of you, and then you just have to deal with a fight that keeps getting worse.”

  The emerald dragon snorted in disgust at the situation, but conceded that she would let Peter talk to the escapee if they managed to catch him. Peter thanked her for understanding. “I’ll see about talking to the boss of the local humans about keeping people away from the dragon mountains. Do you have any emerald neighbors nearby who could help in the search?”

  Veithi said no, and Peter sighed. “Guess I’ll have to figure out that bit of the plan later,” he muttered. Jarn asked what plan he was talking about, and Peter shook his head. “I’ll tell you about it later, he said. “Still a few details to figure out.” He looked over at the others. “For now, I’ll need to go talk to them. We didn’t think we’d be running down stragglers, but since we’ve got help, we should do it. Anna will be on board to get those other Wisps, too.”

  He started toward Anna and the others. She was just talking to the healer, now that his work was done.

  “It’s amazing,” the healer had said. “The spell has never been so efficient and effective. Do you know how they’re doing that?”

  Anna shook her head. “I’m pretty sure they know more about magic than anyone else.”

  “Of course. They seem to be made of it,” the mage replied.

  “It’s not just that,” Anna said. “They’re the High Elves. Something turned them in to this.”

  The healer looked astonished. “High Elves? Really?”

  Anna nodded. “We’re trying to figure out how to turn them back. The main point of our journey at first was to find Wisps and figure out how to help them. We didn’t expect all this conflict to get in the way of that.”

  “I see. Are you trying to gather all of them?” the healer asked.

  “I’d love to, but I don’t even know how many that is,” Anna replied.

  “Best not to let any get away, then,” Peter said, cutting in. “Veithi has agreed to help us track down the Wisp user that got away. You in?”

  Anna blinked. “We have business here to finish. We can’t just…”

  “We can handle it from here,” Captain Yamada said. “If one of those enhanced bandits is wandering around uncontested, I’m quite certain we’re all in more danger.” He glanced at the dragons and added, “And the men might be more comfortable if our large friends are off doing something instead of sitting there looking angry.”

  “Those aren’t their angry faces,” Peter objected.

  “I didn’t think they were,” Yamada said. “But I also don’t think we’ll be able to tell the difference.” He smiled at three Wisp Seekers. “And hopefully our runaway won’t be able to either.”