by JA Andrews
Sora crossed her arms, still scowling.
Will glanced up the hill. “Why were you hiding behind the rocks?”
“Because,” Evangeline answered, “he is ridiculously overprotective of me.”
Alaric shrugged. “With good reason.”
“We need to move somewhere less exposed,” Patlon said.
A glint of blue from the ground caught Will’s eye, and he picked up the necklace, careful not to touch the stone. He considered putting it on Hal before deciding it would be more interesting to study it. He shoved it into his pack.
He looked up to the top of the pine where Talen still perched. He pulled a bit of rabbit from his pack and held a slice up toward the bird. Talen dove off the branch and sped down, flaring his wings at the last moment to land on Will’s outstretched arm.
“We have less than an hour until the other Roven come back.” Patlon pointed out.
Will nodded. “I didn’t leave the Morrow on the best of terms. We should be gone by then.”
“Kollman Pass is being watched,” Sora said.
Alaric nodded. “We don’t need the pass. There’s an entrance to Duncave up the slope.”
Sora’s eyebrows rose and she nodded. Then she glanced at Talen. “This is a perfect example of you taking Talen somewhere inappropriate, Will.” She stepped up behind him and reached into his pack. “But he’ll lose track of you if we go underground.” She pulled out the little hood. “Keep him calm.”
Will opened up toward the hawk and pushed the idea of peace toward the creature.
Talen stilled and Sora slipped the hood over his head in one smooth motion and tied a thin strap of leather to his foot. Talen tensed, but stayed on Will’s arm. With some shifting Will got the glove on and Talen settled on it while Will held the end of the strap, keeping the idea of calmness pressed into the bird.
Will felt Rass behind him, peeking around him at the new people.
“This is Rass,” Will introduced her. “She’s a pratorii, a grass elf.”
“Really?” Alaric leaned to get a better view of her.
Douglon moved toward Rass and Will tensed. The dwarf, although his head only reached Will’s chest, looked like a towering giant next to the tiny girl.
Sora took a step closer to the dwarf, loosening the knife in her belt.
Alaric raised his hand toward her. “It’s alright.”
Douglon looked at Rass like she was some sort of rare sparkling rock. He dropped down on one knee so their faces were even. “Hello.”
She reached forward tentatively and touched a braid hanging from the bottom of his copper beard. “I’ve never met a dwarf before.”
“I’ve never met such a tiny elf.”
“Have you met tree elves?”
The dwarf stilled before nodding. “One.”
Will looked up at Alaric in surprise. The other Keeper gave a small, sober nod.
“I hope I get to meet one,” Rass sighed.
A heavy silence fell over the others. Something raw and broken flashed across Douglon’s eyes before he closed them.
“There aren’t any more,” he answered.
Will’s gaze snapped to Alaric’s face, but he was watching the dwarf with a grave expression.
“We should go.” Alaric turned up the slope.
Will and the others started after him, but Rass hung back.
“I don’t want to go into the tunnels. They’re too dark and quiet.”
Douglon paused. “They’re not quiet. The rocks talk.”
Rass fixed him with a dubious look. “No they don’t.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t used to think trees talked, but they do.” He glanced over at the pine trees closest to them. “They talk so much, I wish they’d shut up.”
Rass giggled. “I thought dwarves only liked rocks.”
“I did, until I met that elf.”
Rass looked up at him with wide eyes. “What was she like?”
Douglon’s gaze traveled back to the edge of the forest. “Crazy as a bat.” He turned back to Rass. “Maybe I can teach you to hear the rocks.”
Rass looked doubtful.
Douglon stopped and held out his hand, “I know the tunnels are different from out here, but they have their own beauty. I’d be happy to show you. I never had the chance to show Ayda.”
“Ayda?” Will asked quickly. “The elf?”
Douglon nodded, still facing Rass.
Rass studied his face for a minute, taking in his coppery beard, and his dwarfish face. His eyes were a rich, earthy color, and there was something broken in them. Whether Rass saw it or not, she set her tentative hand into his thick one.
“The rocks don’t chatter like the trees. They have slow, ponderous thoughts. But there’s great truth there to be heard.” Douglon leaned closer to her. “It turns out, there’s great truth in many different places, if you just know how to listen.”
He started uphill, Rass stepping along beside him.
Will glanced at Alaric. “That’s an unusual dwarf.”
“Crazy as a bat.” Patlon stumped up the hill after Douglon.
Will turned to Hal where he sat against a boulder, and the man fixed him with a glare. Unlike Sora’s glares, which had lost much of their power from overuse, the expression on Hal’s face felt like a knife in Will’s gut.
“I’m glad I met you, Hal. You were the first Roven I ever thought that, if things were different, we could have been genuine friends.”
Hal let out a short, humorless laugh and turned his face away, looking out over the Sweep. The setting sun cast the Sweep into a golden haze. It was past time to go. Will shifted his pack on his shoulder.
“Goodbye, Hal.” He paused a moment. When Hal didn’t respond, Will turned away to follow the others.
He’d only taken a step when a surge rolled over him. This time it wasn’t a surge of nothing. This was a ripple, a taste of a power so vast that Will was merely a candle flame before it, about to be snuffed out.
Sora flinched and snapped her attention to the hills, her gaze raking over the slopes around them, her face pale.
Alaric spun around and the wave of his casting out ripped past Will just as he cast his own. He searched through the trees and over the rocky slope, searching for any movement.
The casting out returned nothing for a moment.
Then, high above the Sweep, a blazing inferno of vitalle burst out.
Cold, sharp fear clenched around Will’s chest as he spun.
Glinting blood red in the setting sun, tearing straight toward them, hurtled a dragon.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Dragon!” Will choked out the word over the fear gripping his chest.
Still far out over the grassland, the shape was etched against the clear sky. Wide, jagged wings growing larger by the moment.
Around him, everyone spun to face the grass.
“What is it with Keepers and dragons?” Douglon shouted down to them.
“Will!” Hal’s voice was taut. He yanked against the ropes tying his hands and feet.
Will ran to Hal, calling for Sora and her knife, yanking on the ropes around his ankles.
She was at his shoulder in a breath, slicing Hal’s feet free.
“You’d better run, Hal.” She grabbed one arm of the huge man and Will grabbed the other, hauling him to his feet.
Alaric, Evangeline, Douglon, and Patlon ran up the hill. Rass waited, her eyes flickering between Will and the dragon. Sora reached her and grabbed her hand, pulling her up after the others.
The dragon streaked toward them, growing larger and faster than Will’s mind could grasp.
“Looks like you get to see Duncave, Hal. Come on.”
Will ran, Talen gripping his arm. Hal’s heavy steps thundered after him as they chased the others up the hill. Will caught a glimpse of the dragon and the cold fear clamped tighter in his chest.
Ridged, thin wings, spread wide across the sky, striated with tendons snaking like veins in a leaf.
The sunlight shone off its scales, glinting a deep, biting red.
Voices called out and Will pushed himself faster, stumbling over loose stones. The two dwarves shouted at him, waving him up to a thin crack in the side of a huge rock.
Will’s legs burned from the climb, his ankles aching from being tied up, and fear coursed through him, making his limbs clumsy.
The others reached the dwarves and Patlon slipped inside with Rass. Sora paused at the door, shouting down toward Will to hurry. Her face was terrified and a detached part of Will’s brain realized he had never seen her scared before.
Without stopping or turning, Will cast out.
The massive surge of vitalle soaring toward them almost knocked him off his feet. The creature blocked out a huge section of the sky. With a roar that shook the earth, the dragon shot out a long spray of fire, setting trees alight and covering the ground with a churning sea of flames.
The vitalle released with the fire and knocked Will forward to his knees. Talen flapped his wings, panicked, but Will shot a burst of calmness at the bird. The ground trembled beneath him and the crack of rocks splitting filled the air.
“Get up!” Hal stopped in front of Will, holding one of his still-tied hands awkwardly behind him. Will grabbed it and pulled himself up, shaking his head to clear the shock of so much power. He looked up and saw Alaric bent over too, grabbing onto Evangeline for support.
Smoke poured around him, tinged red with firelight, swirling until he could barely see Hal right in front of him.
Will took a step. An overwhelming anger slithered into his chest. It wasn’t human anger. It was old and savage.
He slammed himself shut, trying to close it off, but the emotions plowed into him. A desire to burn and kill and destroy. The glory of the sky, the strength of wings that ruled the wind.
And a gnawing, driving hunger to burn someone. A single, mindless goal.
Will dropped to his knees again, trying to shove them out, but the emotions filled him until there was nothing else—only power and strength and greed.
Talen screeched, but it sounded distant. Voices called to him, but they meant nothing. The world meant nothing.
Rough hands grabbed him, trying to pull him to his feet. Someone shouted. Will squeezed his eyes shut.
“Will.” Sora’s voice cut through the noise and he opened his eyes to see her face right in front of his, pale and frightened. “Will, you have to run.”
The rush of power filled him, drowning out everything else, and Sora’s face glowed red in the light from the dragon fire. Heat seared against his back.
Sora ducked down, leaning against him and pulling his head down against her shoulder. He could feel her trembling as the whole world shook. He caught a glimpse of the rocks behind them glowing like molten copper. The forest blazed with red flames, black smoke billowed around him, hiding the beast.
The dragon broke through the smoke above him and swept past. His wings stretched over the treetops and brushed the cliff, a jagged sheet of red tipped with spikes. The dragon’s belly glittered dark red, reflecting countless glitters of firelight. One clawed foot tore out a huge pine and flung it down the slope.
Uphill, the others raced for shelter, and the tiny part of Will’s brain that could think stared at them in horror, waiting for the flames to envelop them. But the dragon launched up into the blue sky, dwindling to a small shape and the tide of emotions receded.
“Will, please get up.”
He shoved at the emotions of the dragon, but it was like pushing back the ocean.
“Will,” she pleaded, pulling on his arm.
Will tried to focus on Sora’s face through the chaos. For the fleetest moment he felt an emotion of his own—envy at the fact that she would never feel this.
His mind snagged on the idea of her coldness and hollowness. He grabbed her arm, squeezing his eyes shut again and instead of pushing at the swirling mass inside him, he opened himself up to her. There was none of her normal emptiness. There was only cold terror. But it was a human terror that fit inside him. Something he could understand.
He gulped in a breath. The taste of melting rock stung his throat. He opened his eyes and saw Sora.
At his look she sank down in relief. “There you are.”
Talen flapped agitated on his arm and he pushed the best semblance of peace he could at the bird. The hawk quieted somewhat. Sora pulled Will to his feet and he stumbled forward. Alaric and Douglon had started down the slope toward him, but now they turned and ran back. Douglon waved them on, his face turned up to the sky. The dragon, so high he had shrunk to a small silhouette, gave one last beat of his wings and with a lazy arc, rolled over into a dive. Straight toward them.
Sora craned her head up. “That dragon is after you!”
“Me?” he demanded, his breath ragged. “Maybe it’s after you!”
She spared him the shortest glare and raced forward.
They reached the entrance to the tunnel, no more than a crack, barely wide enough to fit through. Douglon stood at the entrance with his axe blocking the door, shouting at Hal.
“Let him in,” Alaric yelled.
Douglon glared at the enormous man before yanking his axe out of the way and giving Hal a shove.
Evangeline stared up at the dragon, a puzzled look on her face.
“Go!” Douglon yelled.
“Evangeline,” Alaric called, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the door.
“I know that dragon…” she said, bemused.
Will glanced at Alaric, but he looked as surprised as Will at the words.
“You don’t know any dra—” Alaric snapped his head upwards. His eyes widened. “You might know it, love, but it doesn’t know you. Please come.” He pulled at her hand, drawing her toward the rocks.
She shook her head and blinked. The two of them ran into the darkness. Sora slipped through after them and Will pushed between the rough sides of the crack, holding Talen near his chest and hearing Douglon’s feet behind him. A rush of power flared outside and flames licked into the tunnel.
Douglon heaved something and the opening slammed shut, blocking out the flames and dropping them into complete darkness.
“Farther in!” Douglon cried. “Run!”
The ceiling above Will gave a low crack, and spreading his hand out to feel the walls, he ran into the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Three
A low rumble shook the tunnel walls. Will's heart pounded, thrumming down even into his fingers as he ran. His eyes stretched open in the blackness, aching for some light, flickering from one formless bit of black to another.
Talen perched on his glove, still calm, but Will curled his fist closer to his body, afraid he might crash the bird into some unexpected rock. There were no unexpected rocks, though. The tunnel had the finished sort of feel that came from dwarven skill, as if any irregularity in the wall was a decision of style. The floor beneath his feet sloped gently downwards.
“Not far.” Douglon’s words echoed from behind. “There’s an outpost just ahead.”
Another resonant crack of splitting stone sent a shiver through the walls, but weaker than the last, farther behind him. Proof that they were making some progress in the black.
A dragon. Killien had sent a dragon after him.
A dim burnt-orange glow outlined Sora, and a flicker of fear shot into Will that it was dragon fire, before he realized it was only glimmer moss. Will’s eyes latched onto the light and he stood straighter, seeing the vague outline of the arched tunnel.
In half a dozen steps it opened up into a wide cavern too much like a room to be called a cavern. It was domed, rising smoothly to a wide medallion carved out of the rock in the center of the ceiling. Shelves lined one wall, stocked with small crates and casks. A long table filled the middle of the room. Three maps were set out along the middle, their corners pinned by smooth black rocks. A trickling noise echoed around the room and the mosslight caught on a thin line of water sparkling down
the far wall. Piles of sleeping furs were rolled against another wall.
Patlon leaned against the table watching everyone run in. Rass sat huddled next to him, looking like a little snip of grass that had gotten terribly lost. Alaric wrapped his arm around Evangeline, a bit off to the side. The naturalness of it was almost more jarring than the fact Alaric had a wife. Sora walked along the shelves, looking at the supplies. Hal stood over near the bedrolls, his hands still tied behind his back,.
Douglon jogged into the room. “How often are you Keepers attacked by dragons?”
“Before this one it had been a hundred and twelve years since any Keeper saw a dragon,” Alaric protested.
“This is the second one in a matter of weeks.” Douglon dropped his axe on the table with a crash. “And that feels too often to me.”
“But this was the same dragon as the last one.”
Douglon shook his head. “It tried to kill me twice. Counts as two. You Keepers should focus a little of your study time on how to fight them. Because you’re useless.”
“It’s a dragon!” Alaric said. “Everyone is useless against a dragon.”
“Not everyone,” Douglon said.
“I think you only get to count one,” Evangeline said. “This dragon wasn’t trying to kill you. I think it was trying to kill Will. Or maybe Sora.”
“There were dragon flames shot in my direction,” Douglon said, sinking down onto the end of the bench. “I’m counting two.”
Alaric turned to Will. “Evangeline’s right, it did seem to be after you.”
“It might have been,” Will answered. “I may have made Killien, the Torch of the Morrow Clan, a little angry. And he may have recently come across an opportunity to use a dragon.” He explained about Killien and the attack by the Sunn Clan. “I knew he was mad.” He shook his head and admitted, “I didn’t realize he was send-a-dragon mad.”
“Good thing the dwarves were here to save you,” Douglon pointed out.
“He’ll know the dragon didn’t kill you,” Hal said. “He’ll keep sending more rangers. It’s only a matter of time until he finds these tunnels.”