37 New Adventure

The young boy's name was Belze Hedeger. Nia knew Belze's parents when they were younger, although Nia didn't really know their son. Their son would usually keep to himself and they never really got a chance to meet before.

Belze told Nia what transpired in the village after she escaped. He could hear what happened outside during that night.

The other dragonslayers rounded up the villagers including Nera and Belze's parents. His parents were called Hardo and Shina Hedeger. Husband and wife respectively. Nia knew them more as children.

They were gathered and tied to each other with rope. Their captain in charge questioned if they knew where the dragon was hiding. None of them gave up anything. Eventually, one of the villagers tried to fight back, but the dragonslayer punched him down. Nera tried to reason with the remaining dragonslayers and tried to explain that the dragon they were looking for is nowhere to be found. But they didn't listen. The captain believed that they knew something. So, they dragged them away.

"That's all I know. After that, I didn't hear them, anymore."

Nia heard Belze's story and thought of where they would take them. As Nia listened, she remembered a promise that she made long ago. She promised to protect everybody at the village. That was why she trained with her blade for so long. She couldn't just leave them to their fates.

She looked outside towards where the carriages were and they were gone.

"The dragonslayers must have taken them somewhere far. Where would they keep prisoners?" she asked herself.

The boy calmed down, but still sniffled occasionally suggested, "Wouldn't they take them somewhere where they can hold them and get information out of them? Like a base or something?"

Nia replied, "That makes sense. So, where would they keep them. Their only dragonslayers. Not an actual country's military."

Then, an epiphany occurred.

"They have one main base that they could take them to. That one dragonslayer captain mentioned it while I was here. King's City. They should have some sort of base where they could hold them, there," Nia realized and said aloud. After hearing this, Belze smiled.

"Then, we should go there and free them!" he shouted.

Nia was pleased that Belze was feeling better and went to pick up her sword. She gave a smile and said, "Yeah, but first..."

She walked over to Nera's cabin with the boy following. She grabbed the leather sheath and sheathed her red blade. She went into her closet and grabbed some clean traveling clothes and hooded robes. She grabbed some pouches of herbs, money, and some empty. She wrapped each one around her belt with some string. She also grabbed some clean clothes that would fit the young boy. She knew that she couldn't leave the child alone, so she has to bring him along. She hoped that it wouldn't be too much trouble.

She tossed the clothes to the boy and said, "Belze, I'm going to need you to change."

He nodded and changed into the clothes in front of Nia. She looked for a second and saw that there were no visible cuts or bruises on the child. She smiled and walked into a private room to change. When she got out, she threw away the slightly blood-stained clothes to the ground. She had on some clean villager clothes and her hooded robes on top. Her hood was down with her long brown hair clearly visible. She thought that it would be helpful if her ring slipped off, but for now she doesn't need it.

Nia gave a quick smile towards Belze to reassure him that everything will be okay. "Are you ready to go?"

Belze gave a thumbs up and smiled back in response. "Let's go save my parents."

Nia was glad that he was in a good mood. She grabbed a small sack with a strap on it and put an assortment of food in it. She wasn't too picky on what she ate. Nia closed the sack and tossed the sack of food towards the boy.

"Is it fine if you carry that, Belze?" she asked politely.

"Yes, dragon lady." he nodded with a thumbs up. Nia chuckled at that reply. Everybody in the village did know she was a dragon, but it was supposed to be kept secret to the outside. The other villagers agreed.

"You can just call me Nia." she said with a smile as she walked out of the cabin as Belze followed closely behind.