“Two days’ journey by boat is a matter of hours to me,” Shardas said, speaking for the first time since we’d landed. “And Darrym is not a god. ” He flung himself into the air.
Dark Forests
How is it that no one in Feravel has ever heard of a country this large?”
We had landed on a small mountain that jutted from the water just off the shore of a country that was dark with forest. Country? No, it was a continent, stretching in all directions as far as we could see. Great mist-wreathed mountains rose in the distance, covered with exotic trees: dark green and twisted in shape, with odd spiky leaves.
“I don’t know,” Luka said in a hushed voice. “But without a dragon it would have taken months to get here. ”
“Winter storms would likely have sunk the ships if anyone had tried,” Leontes said. “And if they couldn’t find fresh water . . . ” He surveyed the landscape. “And then there are superstitions that keep some people from exploring. ”
“Like that the home of the gods lies in this direction?” Luka snorted. “I’ll wager Darrym and his friends started that rumor themselves, so that no one would bother them. ”
“But why? What are they doing?” I pounded my fist on Shardas’s shoulder in frustration.
We had found this country, had even found a wide clearing in the trees near the shoreline that was the start of a dragon-sized path and marked with recent signs that Darrym and the others had passed that way. Taking refuge on this mountain a little ways offshore, we hoped to spy on Velika’s captors, but they had disappeared into the forest.
We were at a loss as to what to do next.
“We need to go down into the forest and look for them,” I said.
“But how?” Luka held out his arms. “You saw what the people looked like, Creel. We’ll never pass as being from around here, and neither will the dragons. ”
“Not without disguises,” Leontes said.
“I’m not putting a spike through my nose,” Hagen piped up. “I’m sorry . . . I’ll do whatever else. ” He gave a little shudder. “But no spikes through my nose. And how did they make those white tattoos?”
Leontes gave a huff of laughter. “I meant the dragons, actually. We can all speak in dragon tongue, but you cannot speak the language of these humans. ”
“But how can we dye your scales?” I looked him over. He was a buttery yellow color with violet streaks, and nearly twice the size of Darrym. “And all the dragons with Darrym are small. ”
“A physical disguise won’t work,” Leontes agreed. “But an alchemical one might. ”
I held my breath and looked at Shardas. Though he had lived with a human alchemist for many years following Velika’s supposed death, he objected to dragons using alchemy. I had thought this was due to Velika’s betrayal by King Milun the First, but then I learned that Shardas’s brother, Krashath, had also used alchemy to enslave their own people. Now I waited for Shardas to object to Leontes’s plan.
But Shardas never took his eyes off the path into the forest. “What supplies will you need?” he asked Leontes.
As it turned out, Leontes was prepared for any contingency. Strapped to his back was a large, leather-bound trunk which he had filled with various potions, powders, and tools that were the staples of an alchemist’s practice. The only extra ingredients he needed to transform a half dozen of our large, brightly hued friends into the small, dull, forest-blending enemy dragons were scales.
“There are plenty of those,” Feniul said, and raised one foreclaw to his neck. “How many do you require?”
“I’m afraid that I need scales from these brown and green dragons,” Leontes clarified. “In order to get the look right. We’ll have to sneak down off the mountain and get a few. ”
“How many?” Luka and I asked at the same time.
“At least three, and from different dragons,” Leontes said. “So that our spies don’t all look precisely the same. ”
“All right,” I said. “We’ll wait until dark, and then someone can fly us down to the shore. Luka and I can scrounge up some scales and you can make the potion. ”
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“It’s a paste,” Leontes corrected me. “Niva is the darkest, and might appear the closest in color to the dragons we’ve seen, if she stays in the shadow of the trees. Feniul’s green scales are rather . . . bright. ”
“I want to come, too,” Hagen said.
“No. ” I folded my arms. “Absolutely not. ”
“If you’re going, I’m going,” he insisted.
“I’m used to this type of danger,” I began.
“I’m older than you were when you fought in the First Dragon War,” Hagen interrupted.
Leontes’s eyes twinkled as he broke in, stopping me from replying. “I could use some assistance in preparing the paste,” he told Hagen. “A pair of human hands would be welcome. ”
Hagen hesitated, torn between his desire to be included in what he no doubt saw as an adventure and helping an honest-to-Caxon alchemist prepare one of his secret recipes. “All right,” he said finally.
“There are some hours still until dark,” Shardas said. “And my scales are even brighter than Feniul’s. ” He heaved a sigh. “We should find a place to make camp where we can all be concealed. ”
In the end we located a small island a few leagues offshore, just large enough for our army to encamp. It was craggy enough that the dragons could hide in the crevices during the brightest parts of the day, and far enough from the mainland that Velika’s captors would have a hard time seeing us anyway.
Still, Shardas ordered everyone to avoid flying or flaming unless completely necessary, and for as many as possible of us to stay on the seaward side of the island. It was not a luxurious spot, but it would have to do.
“I’m not expecting to be here long,” Shardas said as I settled on a rock to work on my wedding gown until nightfall. Luka had obligingly gone to fish with Amacarin so that he wouldn’t see it. “We’ll find Velika in the next day or so, get her out, and go home. ”
My only answer was a nod. Seeing this vast country, so thickly covered by forests and mountains, I didn’t know how we could possibly succeed. Velika could be anywhere, and she was so near to laying her eggs that I had a constant knot in my stomach over that alone.
A sudden roaring distracted me from my grim thoughts, and I stuffed my gown into the basket and jumped to my feet. The dragons were all supposed to stay quiet, but I could discern more than one voice crying out. Shardas was just rising into the air to go toward the sound—which seemed to come from the other side of the island—when the water in front of us fountained upward.
I shielded my face against the spray, and when I could look I saw Niva floating in the water, looking triumphant. She had the draglines of a fishing net in her foreclaws, and tangled within the net was a small, gray dragon with only one pair of horns, like a cow.
A rebel.
“It seems that Luka and Creel will not need to go for-aging for scales tonight after all,” she said, preening. “True, we will look somewhat the same, but . . . ”
“But it is a small price to pay,” Shardas agreed, his eyes gleaming, “to avoid endangering ourselves. And, we will be able to question this dragon as an added bonus. ”
Confused, the little, gray dragon’s head swung from side to side, watching Niva and Shardas. It was plain that he couldn’t understand Feravelan. Shardas cleared his throat and asked the captive something in the dragon tongue, which I understood even with my limited knowledge of the language.
“Where is the queen?”
Fade to Gray
Shardas’s question hung in the air, and the young dragon moaned and stopped struggling. His eyes rolled and he looked shocked and horrified. I wondered if the colors of my friends seemed grotesque to him, much as Feniul and the others pitied Darrym and his dull scales.
Giving him a litt
le shake, Niva repeated her king’s question, and at last the little dragon began to talk.
And talk.
I could hardly blame him: he was young, he was trapped in a net, and he was surrounded by very large, very foreign, and very angry dragons. When he stumbled over his words or stopped for a breath, Shardas prodded him with more questions and on he went again. I heartily wished I had taken the time to learn more than the two dozen or so words Shardas had taught me. Feniul tried to translate, but it was too difficult for him to keep up with Shardas’s furious questions, so after a while he stopped and gave Luka, Hagen, and me the gist of it later.
By a stroke of the most blessed luck, this little dragon was in fact Darrym’s brother, though he had never met Darrym until yesterday. It seemed that this was indeed Darrym’s homeland, and he and other young male dragons had been sent out years ago to search for the queen dragon and bring her back, because their people needed her. Why, the little dragon wouldn’t tell at first, except to say there would be more hatchlings now, and they would be bigger and stronger.
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Even though Darrym had spent years in the collar of the Citatian army, he was returning home a hero. He had found Velika, signaled his fellow searchers, and brought the queen to his people. She was now being held in something called a “lesser temple. ” They were especially excited that she would soon have hatchlings of her own, which raised the hackles on my neck.
I did not want Velika to have to lay her eggs in captivity, and I certainly didn’t want them hatching here. I could see by Shardas’s eyes that he felt the same, and Niva looked as though she might be sick.
“What right have you to steal the queen?” Feniul was outraged. “What right have you to lock her away? She is your queen, too!”
“But that’s why we need her. ” Feniul translated the little dragon’s whine. “We’re the chosen people, and we’re dying off! No eggs have hatched in two years! We need the queen and you don’t! She’s brought you enough blessings. Now it’s our turn!” He gestured at the dragons gathered around: huge and glowing with their jewel-like colors.
“What shall I do with him?” Niva gave the little dragon a shake so that he would stop sniveling.
“Get however many scales Leontes requires,” Shardas instructed. “Then find a way to keep him penned up. We can’t have him carrying news of us back to Darrym. Or anyone else, for that matter. ”
“Is that enough? Won’t they come searching for him?” Hagen’s brows were nearly touching over his nose.
I gave him an alarmed look. “We are not going to kill this dragon, Hagen. ”
“Of course not!” Now he looked alarmed, and rather shocked. “I was just thinking that maybe we could take some of its hoard, and hold that hostage in exchange for him keeping quiet. ”
“Oh. ” I was a little embarrassed that I had presumed my brother was suggesting something so horrible, and then impressed at the very clever suggestion he was making.
Shardas thought about it and then asked the dragon what it hoarded, in a seemingly casual way (as far as I could tell). He had to ask twice to make himself understood, though, and then the hostage’s answer seemed to take him aback.
Turning to us, Shardas said, “He collects people. ”
“I beg your pardon?” My eyebrows shot toward my hairline.
“He collects people,” Shardas repeated.
“And you thought I was odd for collecting dogs!” Amusement warred with horror on Feniul’s face.
“That’s not quite right. . . . ” Shardas shook his head. “He doesn’t seem to understand what a hoard is, but says he doesn’t yet have his own . . . people. Odd. ”
“Very,” I agreed, puzzled.
Luka shook his head in confusion. “Are you sure the information he’s giving us is correct?” He frowned at the little dragon. “Hey . . . you?” He glanced at Shardas. “What’s his name, at least?”
Shardas asked, and then looked surprised again.
“His name’s probably something like Little Peder No-People,” Luka said.
“Gray Whiner,” Hagen suggested, and I used both elbows to poke their ribs.
“He doesn’t have a name,” Shardas said, “because he’s not old enough and he doesn’t have a . . . hoard of people . . . yet. ”
“How old do you have to be to have a name and a hoard?” Hagen wanted to know.
“Twenty,” Shardas translated.
“He won’t have a name until he’s twenty? That’s awful,” Hagen said.
Shardas’s eyes were hard. “These dragons have fallen far from our traditions,” he said, and the other dragons nodded in agreement. “Secure him somewhere out of the way, Niva. Leontes, take the scales you need and get to work. ”
Leontes did get to work, with Hagen to assist him, and Luka and I went with Niva to secure the little gray dragon. Luka insisted on calling him Peder No-People, but since he couldn’t understand us, the gray dragon wasn’t offended.
I kept peppering our captive with questions through Niva. I was fascinated by these strange, dull-colored dragons and the people that they apparently collected.
When I had seen the humans with Darrym, I had assumed that Darrym was acting under their direction. But now I realized it must be the other way around.
It was indeed the dragons who were in charge.
This made me uneasy, not because I balked at the idea of dragons running a country, but because if these dragons were willing to take their own queen captive, the Triunity alone knew what other harm they were capable of. I said this aloud, and Luka shook his head.
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“Not as much harm as Shardas, if we don’t find Velika soon,” he pointed out, and I agreed.
“I do feel sorry for them,” I said, indicating the little dragon, which looked very forlorn with the net fouling his wings and pinning him to the ground. “They need Shardas and Velika to help them, if it’s true that they’re all small and sickly, but this was the wrong way to go about getting that help. ”
“What could Shardas and Velika have done?” Luka came to put his arm around me, and I leaned into his side.
“Helped them find other, stronger dragons to mate with, so they didn’t die out,” I suggested. “Made them stop collecting people. ”
“Would that really help them?” He looked skeptical.
“Collecting humans is wrong,” Niva said stridently. “And whether or not it would help them have healthier hatchlings, it must be stopped. ”
“Well, I’m not arguing with that,” Luka said.
Suddenly, there was an explosion from behind the rock where Hagen was helping Leontes with his alchemy, and we hurried to make sure they were all right. Peder No-People gave a piteous little moan as we three turned our backs on him, but this only made Niva check his bonds, and then we left him there anyway.
But both Leontes and Hagen were unharmed and looking mightily pleased with themselves when we climbed over the boulders. In a large copper cauldron was a thick, gray paste with red and brown flecks in it. There was a faint gray haze in the air: the last trace of the explosion, which smelled of salt.
Waving the cloud away, Leontes looked beyond us to Shardas, who had also come to see what had happened. “It is finished, my king,” he said. “Sooner than I expected, but according to the description in the scrolls, it looks precisely as it should. Although there is only enough for three. ”
Shardas eyed the paste, sniffing delicately. “Does one . . . eat that?” He was willing to overcome his aversion to alchemy for Velika’s sake, but within reason.
“No, no!” Leontes assured us. “It is to be smeared over your scales. ” He looked at the position of the sun. “And we had best start now, if you want us to be completely covered by dark. Who is it to be?”
“Amacarin,” Shardas answered promptly. “He is larger than these dragons, but not by much. An
d myself, despite my size. ” Then he hesitated, and I knew precisely why.
The only other dragon small enough to aid the illusion was Feniul. Feniul, who was not particularly known for his spying abilities and who dithered over the least little decision. Niva would be the better choice, but given her size, the illusion would not work as well on her. It would be hard enough to conceal Shardas’s extra bulk.
“Let me go, cousin,” Feniul said quietly, coming into the rock hollow, which was rapidly becoming crowded. “I can do this, for Velika. ”
Shardas studied the smaller dragon, and then nodded. “Feniul, Amacarin, and I,” he said.
“And I’m going with you,” I announced.
“Creel—,” Luka began.
I cut him off with a look. “You can come with me, but if you try to prevent me from going I will have Niva tie you up with Peder No-People,” I said, my voice brooking no argument.
“Hagen,” Leontes said, “you will need to rub this paste on Shardas and the others. And I will make a stain for Luka and Creel’s hair and skin, which you may find interesting. ”
This alarmed me more than the prospect of going into the forest in search of hostile dragons and their pet humans. “A stain? Will it come off?” I imagined myself at my wedding in my beautiful white gown, with weird muddy streaks on my skin and in my hair.
“If it doesn’t wash out naturally by the end of the week, I can concoct something that will strip it out overnight,” Leontes said with great assurance.
“You had blue hair for six months,” Luka said.
“There’s a difference,” I said stiffly. “I was trying to start a new fashion. ” Actually, I had been trying to blend in with the Citatians by using a dye that I had been told would wash out in a matter of weeks. Instead it had taken months, by the end of which the color was faded and the dyed strands had become dull and stringy.
“Blue hair?” Hagen hooted with laughter. “Thank the Triunity that didn’t catch on! Blue!”
“Here’s the paste,” I said, and I shoved a large wooden spoon into his hands.
I took another spoon and began spreading the concoction on Shardas’s shoulder. The paste began to dissolve as soon as I smeared it on, leaving behind scales that had faded from gold to gray.
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