He had spent the last few days working with Dorian, trying to understand his way of getting his to connect to the dragons, and in that time he’d been around him and his dragons enough to feel the effect of them.
The shadow dragon was the easiest to feel. Unlike Gayal, Dorian had no qualms about revealing his control over the dragon, letting that energy streak out, tendrils of darkness that stretched away from him. Every so often, Dorian would pull it back, forcing the dragon into the cloak, and then it would fade. He had never had an opportunity to see the dragon in full, which he wished he did.
The light dragon was different, as well. It created patterns of light, a glowing circle of energy that surrounded Dorian from time to time before he called it back, no differently than he did with the others.
He used the wind dragon a little bit differently, at least from the way that Ty had seen it. The dragon was used to mute their conversations, to prevent anybody from finding them, though he suspected the combination of the shadow dragon and the stone dragon would do that just as well.
Then there was how he used the stone dragon. That power was incredible but also incredibly strange. The energy of the dragon was such that it hummed with power, leaving the ground surrounded with a surge of energy that Ty could feel. He had no idea why he would be so aware of that, other than that it might be tied to Ishantil and his exposure to it over the years.
He watched for a few more moments, but there was still no movement along the street. Finally, he hurried forward.
How long would Albion wait for him?
If it was about the dauvern, which Ty increasingly thought that it might be, then it was possible that he would wait until Ty arrived. But then, if it was about the dauvern, why wouldn’t he have simply slipped into Ty’s room while he was sleeping and stolen it? He was the Dragon Thief, after all.
Ty had to use this opportunity to have his conversation with his brother. Have a real conversation. When he started back along the street, once again, he thought he felt movement behind him. There was a subtle shifting of shadows, enough that he thought it was there but couldn’t be certain. Maybe it was just his imagination.
Ty decided to try something different.
He veered off on a side street. This one was narrower, with the buildings closer together. It made it difficult to see above the rooflines and locate the Dragon’s Jaw, but the shadows were no less dense for it. The glowing cobblestones ended along the street, and he was forced to slip into the darkness, racing along the street while moving quickly and as quietly as he could.
If Dorian followed him, he would probably accuse him of moving too loudly, especially with his connection to the wind dragon. He probably had some way of controlling the wind, the noise that came to him, and the sound of the energy that drifted toward him.
Not that Ty was not skilled. He had trained as a thief for years in Zarinth and had pulled dozens upon dozens of jobs. He wasn’t about to let some Tecal with his connection to the dragons make Ty think anything other than that. In Zarinth, where there weren’t Tecal, he had few rivals.
When he reached the end of the street, he looped around, heading back toward the glowing street. He was careful, slipping along the street, trying to keep as quiet as possible. His training came back to him, training that should have made him little more than a shadow in the night. If he had access to the smoke dragon, he would have had an easier time dealing with all of this. Finally, he caught sight of figures moving again.
This time, he was certain of what he saw. There was a shadowy form.
Ty followed it.
It was the shadows that he wanted to follow. They were what he needed to try to understand. And it was those shadows that revealed to him that it wasn’t Dorian who was after him at all. Dorian wouldn’t have been quite so obvious.
There was no attempt to hide their presence. They were moving openly, and the shadows around them were enough that while he could see them, he could also tell that there was something else taking place here.
No evidence of the stillness to the wind. No evidence of light, though if Dorian weren’t using the light dragon, there might not be. And no evidence of a rumbling energy that would suggest the stone dragon.
If it wasn’t Dorian, then who?
Somebody certainly followed him.
He moved carefully, now behind them.
They reached the end of the street where he had been, and they paused.
Strangely, as they stood upon the glowing blue cobblestones, there was enough light for Ty to make out definition around them, details that revealed their presence but nothing else. It was as if the shadows around them prevented anything more.
That shadowy form left him confused. What sort of magic was this?
If it wasn’t a dragon—and as he walked, he couldn’t tell whether or not this was Dorian and his dragon, or whether it was somebody similar to him—could this be a Dragon Touched?
There was still the danger of the Dragon Touched, especially as he had no idea how many of them sided with Roson James. He had embedded within them, which left Ty thinking that there was a very real possibility that some of that Dragon Touched had been corrupted by him.
How many of them were part of this so-called Order?
He had to be careful.
Ty noticed two figures now.
They weren’t making any attempt to hide very well. Either they weren’t concerned about him, or they wanted him to know that they were there.
They turned.
The figures split off, heading in separate directions, veering away from where he had gone.
Ty needed to know what they were doing.
They were following him. He was certain of it. But why?
There was one possibility he hadn’t given too much thought to. The Order of the Flame. In the time since he had returned to the city, he had not experienced any of the Order of the Flame, but they were still out there. They were still serving Roson James, and he knew that they would still be a danger to him.
They could be anywhere. It was easy enough for them to pose as priests, and when they did it allowed them the opportunity to present themselves as something else. Harmless, in a certain way, though Ty knew otherwise.
He gripped the crossbow.
This wasn’t Dorian.
Then again, Ty shouldn’t have expected that it would have been. Dorian wouldn’t have chased him like this, trying to test him. Dorian wanted him to reach for his dragon, to know that control, but he wouldn’t have followed him like this.
And if this were somebody who sided with Roson James, then Ty might be in real danger. He focused on the heat and energy deep within him. He had to find it. There had to be something there, some energy, but as he focused on it, he could not find it.
The smoke dragon simply wasn’t there.
Ty needed to get away from the people he had seen but could not tell if he lost both of them. He slowed, holding onto the crossbow, swinging it from side to side as he looked around, but he still didn’t see anything. It was difficult to see much in this part of the city—at least on this street—without the glowing blue lights that had guided his way. It was almost as if the city conspired against him, trying to make it so that he couldn’t see anything more than what he had already.
He backed away, sweeping the crossbow from side to side, watching for shadowy forms and movement around him. As he neared the blue cobblestones, he finally saw something. A shadow coming toward him.
Coming fast.
He fired the crossbow.
The bolt streaked, though it suddenly shot up as if redirected.
Magic.
Dragon magic.
Ty scrambled, grabbing for his dragon-bone dagger. He wasn’t equipped for magic, and certainly wasn’t equipped for this kind of magic.
“You can help me any time,” he muttered as he unsheathed his dragon-bone dagger.
The dragon-bone dagger had some intrinsic abilities. It was impossibly sharp. Because it was mad
e from dragon bone, it was nearly indestructible. There were rumors that dragon bone also had magical properties, but that was only for the Dragon Touched, not anything that Ty possessed.
Still, he slashed at the darkness.
Surprisingly, it began to fade.
Shock filled him, but it passed quickly. It had to.
The darkness cleared, and a dark-haired man stood before him. He was dressed in a black jacket and pants and wore the sigil for the Order of the Flame. He sneered at him before lunging forward.
Ty wasn’t necessarily the most skilled fighter, but when it came down to fighting or dying, the choice was obvious. And with the dragon-bone dagger, he wasn’t exactly helpless.
A bit of flame streaked toward him that touched the dragon-bone dagger and disappeared. “Come on!”
Why wouldn’t the dragon respond?
The man sneered again.
“I’m not talking to you,” Ty muttered.
Ty slashed, trying to stab at him, when something hot sunk into his side.
He looked over. A dragon-bone crossbow bolt stuck out of his side.
Another member of the Order of the Flame.
They were the ones responsible for those crossbows, and he had experienced them enough to know that they had power. It was probably something in the crossbow itself that made it so that he couldn’t access the smoke dragon.
He scrambled back, still slashing with the dragon-bone dagger, trying to carve through the empty air, and knowing just how foolish that was. He had to get away from here.
No. What he had to do was find Albion.
One of the Order lunged toward him again.
Ty stabbed, catching him in the belly.
The man backed away, his hands grasping his stomach. The darkness around him faded.
He would have to give thought to how they managed to do that later.
Right now, he needed to get out of here.
He staggered and reached one hand out.
There was something in his hand. A dark, circular object.
Ty scrambled forward. Pain in his side flared, but he ignored it. He swept the man’s legs out from under him, biting back a scream, and grabbed the object in his target’s hand. The darkness swirled around him, staying near the item that he had taken off the Order of the Flame.
He backed away, getting on the street, and looked back. There was another darkened shape leaning over the fallen man. Ty stumbled, nearly fell, and cried out.
The shadowy form came toward him.
Ty squeezed the circular item in his hand. It was warm, and it reminded him a little bit of dragon bone, though this was black, as if it had been charred by flames. What kind of dragon bone would look like that?
He had seen hundreds of different dragon-bone remnants in his time within Zarinth. They were valuable, and because of that he had held far more than most. None of them had looked anything like this. Dragon bone was almost pure white, always warm, and nearly indestructible. This looked as if it had been dipped into a jar of black ink.
He turned a corner, scrambling back along the alley. The darkness followed him.
He pressed his back against the wall, steadying his breathing, trying to keep from crying out, but he didn’t think that he did very good job at that. The pain continued to fill him, leading to his clenching his jaw trying to bite back another scream.
There was no other movement.
Where had that other shadowy form gone?
Maybe it was nearby.
Ty waited, but there was still no sign of the shadowy form.
He looked down at the item he’d taken off the Order of the Flame.
It was small, circular, and was almost perfectly black. It didn’t feel warm the way that the dragon eggs within the Hatchery did. And it wasn’t scaled with an irregular surface like them. Still, there was some aspect to it that reminded him of those eggs for some reason.
There was little doubt in his mind it was responsible for concealing his presence, though. He waited another moment, but still there came no sign of the other attacker.
He would use this.
Ty didn’t know how much longer he had, though. Touching the crossbow bolt and testing to see if he could pull it out was a quick endeavor. Depending upon where the bolt had sunk, it could be dangerous. Possibly even fatal.
He had worked with Maeve enough times to know injuries to the flanks could puncture vital organs. Lungs. Liver. Guts. All of that could lead to death, sometimes very quickly. An injury to the intestines could create a leak, leaving the person rotting from the inside. It was a horrible way to die, but he had seen it one time and had hated every moment of it, especially as there had been nothing that could be done to help.
He staggered along the street.
The noise he made was a problem. Ty knew that he had to be silent. He’d probably left a trail of blood after him, as well. He looked down, but the darkness around him made it difficult to see much of anything. He wasn’t about to leave the item behind, either. Not if it was going to be the only way that he might get out of this safely. Well, at least as safely as he now could. Ty stumbled and almost fell, but he leaned against one building.
He had a feeling he was close to Albion. When he had first seen the movement, he’d been close to where Albion had told him to come, so he couldn’t be too far away. All he had to do was come across the address he’d given him. Then he could hide.
All he wanted at this point was to disappear, slip off into the night, and rest.
It was a dangerous thought. Ty knew the danger in that, knew that thinking that way meant that he was far more injured than he had realized.
He staggered forward, and in the distance he could practically feel something shifting. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was, but then he began to feel something else, some energy in the air, and realized what it was.
More of the attackers were out there.
They were close enough that he could feel them.
He ducked back, crouching close against the building, but didn’t know if it was going to be effective at concealing him. He tried to use the shadows around him, but even as he did he had no control over them. They simply were something that was there, not anything that he could control.
Ty settled his breathing, trying to slow it, readying for another attack, but one didn’t come.
There was something, though. As he lingered where he was, staying in the shadows, he could feel pressure building in the air. It was heat. Energy.
If only he could feel the same heat in his belly, some signal the smoke dragon might respond to him, then he wouldn’t have to be afraid of getting jumped by the Order, but unfortunately…
He dropped to his knees, unable to get up.
Something struck him in the side, and pain shot through him again. It was hot. Vicious. For a moment, he thought that maybe he could reach for the power of the smoke dragon, but then that power faded again, leaving him empty.
There had to be something more.
He tried again, staggering, attempting to get to his feet, but as before he could not. He looked around, but there was nothing, only darkness around him. Ty tried getting up, trying to climb to his feet, trying to move, but the pain within him made it difficult.
He cried out again.
Something struck him in the back, and he collapsed.
Pressure pushed on him.
Hands rifled through his clothes, and then something struck him again. Ty tried getting up, but the pain was too much to bear. He laid there. The darkness started to swirl around him, concealing him.
Not that it would do any good at this point.
The Order of the Flame had found him—and the dauvern.
Chapter Eight
Pain flooded him. Ty could feel some part of himself fading and knew that if he didn’t get moving soon, he wouldn’t be able to get going at all. There was a danger in lingering here any longer than he already had, and he took steadying breaths, trying to control the pain that
flared within him. It was too much. It was too painful.
All he wanted at this point was to crawl forward, to find a place to rest, to be anywhere but where he was, but the pain within him made it difficult to do anything. All he could think of was the agony filling him.
Ty dragged himself across the ground, but he couldn’t get anywhere.
He looked at the shadowy orb in his hand, staring at it. The darkness swirled around it, and while it was helpful to be concealed—or, he had thought that it might be helpful—at this point, he needed help. He wasn’t going to get that help with darkness around him.
Maybe if he moved the darkness, he might be able to find his way out. At the same time, he needed more than just exposure. He needed to get out of here and find some way to get help. He needed to find a healer.
Ty rolled over, crying out again. Pain flared within him.
It came from the crossbow bolt in his side. He knew better than to remove it, knowing that if he were to pull the bolt out of his side, he would keep bleeding, but he couldn’t move with it in there, either.
He had to get it out. Then he could pressure the wound with his hand.
Ty grabbed for it and began to pull. Pain flared immediately. It was going to be too much.
“Why couldn’t you help me?” he whispered, cursing the smoke dragon for not responding and providing no help whatsoever. At this point, all he wanted was to yell at the smoke dragon, to rage at the fact that he hadn’t even bothered to assist him, but what good would that do?
Nothing, that was what.
He gritted his teeth, and then he pulled.
The crossbow bolt came out with a tearing of flesh.
His hand trembled. Everything within him was hot and burning, pain filling him.
Just his luck the damn crossbow bolt would be poisoned as well.
He dropped it on the ground before thinking better of it and stuffing the bolt back into his pocket. If he did get out of here, the crossbow bolt was dragon bone and would be valuable, if nothing else. Besides, it was the preferred weapon of the Order of the Flame. And he could reuse it with his crossbow.
Smoke and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy Progression Series (The Dragon Thief Book 3) Page 9