“Do you think we should go see what the matter is?” he asked as he saw what I was pointing at.
I sighed. I’d hoped that we could at least get to the top of the mountain without problems, but it seemed it was not to be. “I guess so,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. I didn’t have the energy to run to them, but I knew I’d have to find some from somewhere if I didn’t want this journey to turn into an all-out war again. I huffed and puffed as I increased my pace, passing Wolvren and Slayers until Ash and I were at the front of the group.
“What’s the matter?” I wheezed at the two men, both of whom looked disgruntled.
“I think we should camp here,” my father said to me, “but your friend here thinks we should carry on.”
“Look out there,” Spear said angrily pointing behind me. The golden fields were covered in a blanket of fog. “If we don’t keep going, that is what we will wake up to tomorrow. Do you have any idea how difficult it will be to navigate this terrain with no visibility? We’ve only just set off anyway. Why are we resting now?”
My legs already felt like jelly with only a couple of hours of walking, but I couldn’t be seen taking sides.
My father puffed out his chest. He hated being told what to do. Not being the leader on this particular expedition was obviously not sitting well with him. “We are not like you. We are human. We need a break. You know these mountains. Are you saying you won’t be able to find your way in the fog?”
Spear grimaced. “It’s not exactly going to make it easy, is it?”
“Look at Julianna.” My father pointed to me. Great! Now I was being dragged into this. “The poor girl is exhausted. You can’t expect her to carry on walking. We are all tired and hungry. If the fog rolls in, so be it, although I doubt it will get this high.”
Spear gritted his teeth as though he was holding back what he really wanted to say. He looked over at me, and despite me trying to appear fine from the journey so far, I was obviously not doing a good job. “You do look tired,” he conceded. “Ok, everyone. We are going to set up camp here. We all need to be rested for the next part of our journey tomorrow.”
I could hear some of the others, mainly the dragons, mumbling to each other behind me, but none of them would dare to go against Spear’s orders. I caught a grin on my father’s face, but when I looked at him directly, he let it drop.
All in all, I was glad for the rest. I didn’t want to announce it to everyone, but I ached all over, especially where my scars were. My body was a map of scars crisscrossing the skin where I’d cut myself to free the dragons. My skin was no longer flawless and never would be again. Some of my scars had faded to thin, silver lines, and others still shone red, but they were all there, plain to see, each one representing the freedom of a dragon.
Two of the younger dragons, Nenno and Fox, changed into their dragon forms to light our campfire. It was getting chilly now the autumn air was coming in and with little to shield us from the wind, we needed all the warmth we could get. Thankfully, my mother and the other villagers had packed us some warm blankets along with enough food for us to feast upon, but as the flames flickered in the wind, I couldn’t help thinking I should have been stronger and insisted we carry on further up the mountain where there would be more shelter from the elements.
Fox and Nenno changed back into their human forms and dressed quickly in the cold air. A couple of the Slayers shifted to one side begrudgingly to let them have space by the fire.
The fire was small as we only had the wood we’d brought with us from the forest, and there were so many of us crowded around it that I could barely feel the heat from it. I had to content myself with snuggling into Ash and wrapping the pair of us in a blanket.
Even around the fire, the group was still separated into three distinct parts. No one was fighting, but no one was making any effort to talk to anyone from one of the other groups either.
“How long do you think it will before someone kills someone else?” joked Ash.
“That’s not a bet I’d like to take,” I replied quietly. He was trying to be funny, but I knew our expedition was hanging by a thread. Centuries of hatred didn’t disappear overnight, and though everyone was doing their best to not get in each other’s way, I knew it would take very little for this whole thing to blow up in our faces.
“Your father looks mad.”
I glanced over at him. “He always looks like that. I don’t think we need to worry about him. He got what he wanted after all. I caught him grinning a while ago. He just likes to be the boss, that’s all.”
“What about Spear?”
I sighed. Spear was as pigheaded as my father. If any two people were going to come to blows, it was them. Alpha, leader of the Wolvren, seemed happy enough to camp. As I looked over at him, I saw he was chatting to Morganna. Both of them were grinning, caught up in some shared story or joke.
“Maybe we should have brought more women up here,” I said, pointing at Alpha.
Ash hugged me closer to him and laughed. “I think it would just give them something else to argue over,” he pointed out. Maybe he was right. I couldn’t see my mother wanting to make this journey and I wouldn’t know who to bring up to keep Spear company. It certainly was a male-heavy expedition, though. Other than Morganna and me, there were a couple of female dragons who were keeping out of everyone’s way. All the rest were men.
“If women were in charge, this would be so much easier,” I mused.
“The guys think they are in charge, but let’s be honest, without you and Morganna, none of us would be here at all. If you ask me, women are in charge here.”
I didn’t feel in charge of anything, but it was nice to be thought of in that way. I stood and grabbed some food from the pile that had been put out and brought it back to Ash. Between us, we ate bread, cheese, and ham that I made into rough sandwiches, followed by a couple of cupcakes I recognized as my mother’s handiwork. Only my mother could think of baking when the whole world was falling down around her ears.
The sky darkened, but I couldn’t see any stars. Spear had been right. The fog was already beginning to drift in.
Chapter Two
I slept better than expected in the cold night. Ash’s body heat and the thick blanket helped keep me warm. That was one of the perks of being a dragon’s girlfriend: I was never cold. I opened my eyes and blinked. I couldn’t see a thing. My first thought was that I’d somehow gone blind, before realizing the damp air around me was actually thick fog. I’d never seen anything like it. I could barely see my hand when I stretched out my arm. I nudged Ash awake.
“Hmmm?”
“Wake up,” I whispered. Everything was silent around us as though the fog was hiding the sound as well as taking our vision from us.
“Woah,” exclaimed Ash as he opened his eyes.
“Shhh.” For some reason, it felt wrong to be speaking aloud.
Through the fog came the sounds of Spear’s voice. “I told him this would happen!”
“I can hear you, you know,” replied my father tetchily. I rolled my eyes. The pair of them would be the end of me if they didn’t get over their differences.
“Breakfast anyone?” I asked, just to break the tension.
“How are you going to make breakfast?” someone shouted, maybe Nenno. “Are you able to cook in the dark?”
It looked like my father and Spear weren’t the only ones in bad moods. The cold, damp air was getting to everyone. I stood, dropping the blanket to the ground. The dampness clung to me. It was going to be a miserable day. I wished I’d not agreed so readily with my father about wanting to stop. Now, if anything, the cold was making my body ache more.
I felt around for my backpack and pulled my warmest sweater from it. The sounds of other people stirring from sleep filled the air. The cloying fog was the main topic of conversation and the main cause of grumbling as we packed up the camp.
Breakfast was impossible. I had to content myself with eating a bar of chocolate that
my mother had packed until we got a bit further up the mountain and escaped the fog. I crossed my fingers and hoped that as we climbed, the fog would thin out if only to keep Spear and my father from killing each other.
I whispered this to Ash who smirked. “If they do, at least they won’t have to worry about hiding the body.”
I rolled my eyes for a second time. It was going to be a long day. The going was extremely tough, not least because we could barely see where we were going. Nenno and Fox turned into dragons and used their fire to light the way. They’d argued that it made more sense for them to fly up the mountain, but both the Slayers and Wolvren argued that it would give them some kind of unfair advantage.
I kept to the back of the group, relying on Ash to keep me going in the right direction with his much better eyesight. It meant I didn’t have to listen to the endless complaints as we steadily made our way to the top of the mountain.
By the time we stopped for lunch, even I was getting grumpy. My hair was soaked and my sweater was barely keeping out the cold. The incessant squabbling between all three groups was driving me crazy and to top it all off, I felt sick with the lack of food and exhaustion. A campfire was set and, thanks to Nenno, lit. The fog had thinned out a little—enough to cook a meal—but it was still gray and dreary. I remembered this part of the mountain. We’d gone above the trees and already crossed the scrubland into the rocky parts. Even without the fog, the scenery would be gray and unexciting. I hoped it wasn’t a harbinger of things to come.
I helped cook, mainly as an excuse to be close to the fire. As we’d missed breakfast, I elected to cook it for lunch instead. I pulled a pound of bacon and three boxes of eggs from my bag. Someone else brought out a couple of loaves of bread and another person buttered them all. I fried eggs in one pan while Fox fried bacon in another. We had limited supplies, but my mother always liked us to have a cooked breakfast and so she had packed enough for everyone and split it between my father’s bag, mine, Ash’s and Jasper’s. Between us, we cooked up quite a feast.
After we’d eaten and once again set off on our way, I noticed that people were grumbling less. A bit of food in their stomachs and the atmosphere had changed completely. Well, all except for Spear and my father who seemed to be unable to help themselves.
The actual atmosphere was getting better too. The higher we climbed, the thinner the fog became, until we finally climbed above it. With the gray clouds below us and the peaks of the Triad Mountains rising majestically above us, showing snow caps next to blue skies, it was shaping up to be quite a nice day after all. The sun shone down, drying my hair and lifting the damp from my clothes. Now that I could see, I recognized exactly where I was, and it wasn’t far from the entrance to the Goblin city. We’d made it and more than that, we’d made it without anyone killing anyone else.
The last time we’d been here, a small green door had been left open. Ash had walked down the tunnel beyond it to find a very grumpy Goblin. I expected as much today, and so was surprised when I saw the little green door was very much shut. Shut and locked. A huge metal chain with a padlock kept it that way.
“What are we going to do now?” asked my father, glaring at Spear.
Spear shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know? The door was open the last time we were here. Why don’t you figure it out?”
What was wrong with these two? They were acting like schoolboys. I marched past everyone else and stood in between them before they began throwing punches. “Father, without you I wouldn’t know how to hold a sword, let alone fight with one. Spear, you command a city of dragons. Both of you are fearless and brave. You are both great leaders.” They both nodded. “So please act like it,” I continued. “You are embarrassing yourselves.”
I took a deep breath. I’d been standing up to my father when he was trying to kill the dragons for a while now, but this felt different. I almost expected him to shout at me to go to my room. Instead, he looked dumbfounded.
Spear nodded his head. “I’m sorry, Julianna. You are right. I’ve not been acting like a man should in my position as leader.” He held his hand out for my father to shake it.
I raised my eyebrows at my father and put my hands on my hips, the way a mother would when scolding a child.
“I’m sorry, too, Spear. Please accept my apology.” He hardly looked like a man of contrition as he took Spear’s hand and shook it, glaring at him the whole time, but it was a start.
“Great!” Someone clapped me on the shoulder and squeezed. I turned, expecting to see Ash, but it was Xander. He gave me a grin and then let go. “Perhaps we should try knocking?” he said heading to the door. “It seems like the polite thing to do.”
He had a point. In my head, we would have been knocking it down. Maybe I wasn’t so different from my father after all. I tried to suppress a smirk at the thought of it while Xander rapped his knuckles on the peeling green paint of the door. After a minute, he knocked again. I was just about to suggest that we knock it down using brute strength when the door opened a crack.
“What do you want?” asked a high pitched whiny voice from behind the door. I couldn’t see the owner but I could tell it was a Goblin.
Spear stepped forward. “We are here to speak to Krikor.”
A mossy hand reached around the door and opened it a fraction more. The goblin—one I’d not seen before—widened his eyes as he took in the sight of our strange crew. “Dragons, Slayers, Wolves. Oh, no. Certainly not, certainly not!” He made to shut the door, but Spear blocked it with his foot.
“I’ve met with Krikor before. Please tell him that Spear is here. He knows who I am.”
The Goblin narrowed his eyes. Goblins were deceitful creatures and like anyone who lies, they never believed anyone else was telling the truth. I could see that the Goblin was either afraid to let us in or had been strictly forbidden to do so.
“Nope. Not going to happen.” The Goblin stamped down hard on Spear’s foot, causing him to retract it from the door. Half a second later and the door slammed shut.
“Let me put it this way,” yelled my father through the door. “Either you open it and let us in, or we’ll open it ourselves. The dragons here are desperate to burn something down.”
He turned and gave me a wink as though he was doing me a favor. I would have rolled my eyes for a third time that day if it wasn’t for the fact his little threat worked. The door opened once again and the small creature stuck his head out.
“Wait here. I’ll speak to the king.” The door slammed shut once again.
Ten minutes passed before the Goblin reappeared, but this time, he wasn’t alone. He had two more Goblins by his side. I recognized the one on the right as Grunch, who had opened the door for us before. I remembered his sneer only too well. He’d been reluctant to let us in last time. This time, he looked absolutely outraged that we were coming back into his home. Nevertheless, he let us all troop past him as we followed the first Goblin. Grunch and the other Goblin I didn’t know took up the rear, locking the door behind us. I had a terrible feeling of foreboding about it all. We’d been down here before and gotten out alive. Something told me we would be lucky to do it again.
The Goblin King, Krikor, smiled as we piled into the vast cavern that the Goblins called home. The smile did not extend to his eyes as he shook Spear’s hand. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon, and yet at the same time, I’m not surprised. What does surprise me is the company you are keeping. First one Slayer and now more.” He raised his fuzzy gray eyebrows into an arch. “And who else? Oh my, Wolvren. What a party.”
“We aren’t here to party, Krikor,” replied Spear forcefully.
“What are you here for then? Oh, don’t tell me. I don’t actually care. I invited you in out of respect, but I think I made my position quite clear last time. I’m afraid you cannot stay. We are busy here and I have to say, the sight of dragons, Slayers, and Wolvren in my home unnerves me.”
My father moved forward in an attempt to intim
idate the small Goblin. “We’ll stay as long as we need to. You’ve got some questions and we’ll not be leaving until you answer them.”
Despite the fact my father was at least three times his height, Krikor stood his ground. “We’ll see about that.” He smiled coldly. It was a smile that frightened me to my core.
Chapter Three
He clicked his fingers and a couple of Goblin warriors ran out from nowhere. Dressed in full battle regalia and with anger upon their faces, they looked ridiculous nonetheless as they were both so tiny compared to the rest of us. My father could stamp on the pair of them, crushing them both, armor and all, with no more difficulty than one would crush an ant.
I watched the amusement on my father’s face as they ran to him, spears aloft, ready to stab him. “Is this the best you can do Krikor?” he asked, pulling a spear upward and taking the Goblin with it. The angry Goblin kicked his feet in the air. My father threw him to one side where he hit a wall and fell to the ground.
The other spear-holding Goblin looked more apprehensive but held his ground. Krikor clicked his fingers again and hundreds of armored Goblins appeared, all with spears, swords and other assorted weapons raised. Even my father, as brave as he was, had cause to step back.
I thought about retreating, but something was off. The Goblins looked strange. It took me a few seconds before realizing what it was. “It’s a trick!”
My father looked at me. “Bloody good trick,” he yelled back. “Come over here, Julianna. Let’s go.”
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