“But I have to thank you for your willingness to believe in fairy tales,” Alain went on. “And for bringing the children out here, where there’d be no one to help them.”
Mella wanted to burst into tears. It simply wasn’t fair to have their last chance snatched away like this. They’d escaped, she had the Egg in her hands once more, and now…
On the floor of the tiny shelter, along one wall, there lay a long wooden staff. Some shepherd, who knew how long ago, had sheltered here and forgotten his crook. Gwyn reached out a hand and picked it up as he got to his feet, stepping out of the shelter to stand between Alain and the children. Alain laughed.
“A staff against a sword? A fool’s game.”
Smoothly Gwyn reached behind him, using the tip of the staff to knock the lantern over. Its light flared and vanished as it hit the ground.
“Run,” he said calmly, a voice in the darkness. Mella scrambled out of the shelter on her knees and one hand, hugging the box to her with the other. Roger ran into her as she gained her feet, and the two of them stumbled and staggered away from Gwyn and Alain. Behind them Mella heard thumps and grunts and then a sharp cry.
The darkness around them was no longer absolute. Rocks and holes in the ground were black splotches in the sparse mountain grass. Not far away, across a stretch of that pale gray grass, a line of darkness rose against the sky. Trees, Mella hoped. Something to hide them. She ran in that direction, plowed through a thin curtain of underbrush, and dove under the shadows of tall spruces and pines. The faint predawn light could do little to lift the darkness under there. Tree trunks loomed up suddenly from one side, then the other. She dodged around them and felt the ground under her feet suddenly give way. From behind, Roger ran full tilt into her.
She was rolling, tumbling, hugging the Egg close to her and unable to use her arms to break her fall. Roger’s knee smacked into the side of her head. Together they skidded and slid down a slope and landed with a thump on a stony scrap of beach, next to a river that ran quick and cold and deep through a ravine.
Mella caught her breath, shook her head clear, and staggered to her feet. She still had the box, and inside it, the Egg. That was what mattered, not her bruises or her scrapes or her throbbing head. “Hurry,” she told Roger. “Come on—”
But Roger shook his head.
“What?” Mella wanted to whisper, but the river, rushing swiftly by, was too loud to let a whisper be heard. Her eyes were adjusting now to the faint light, or the lack of it. She could see Roger’s face, twisted as if he were in pain, looking up the slope they had just fallen down and then back at her.
“I can’t, Mella.”
“You can’t what?” How could he just stand there? Any moment now Alain might appear on the top of the slope, laughing down at them.
“I can’t just leave him!”
Shame flooded Mella, hot and bitter. Gwyn. Alain had a sword and knew how to use it. Gwyn was a shepherd with nothing more than a wooden stick. And they’d run off and left him to a fight he could not win.
“Alain will kill him. I have to—”
“But—” Mella hugged the box to her. “But—”
“You go on.” Roger gestured upstream. “Stay down by the river. You won’t be seen. I hope. If I—I’ll come if—you keep the Egg safe. Go on. Go!”
Roger turned and began scrambling on hands and knees up the side of the ravine. Gravel and dirt kicked loose by his feet rained down around Mella. As she watched, he flung himself over the edge and was gone.
Mella stood there by the river, feeling as if she’d soon be torn in two.
She had to keep the Egg safe.
She had to help Roger.
She’d promised the dragon.
Roger was her friend.
But she was a keeper. The Egg was hers to watch over. Her hands tightened around the metal box until its corners bit into her palms. She had to—she had to—
With a groan, Mella turned and began running upstream along the riverbank.
Chapter Thirteen
She must hide the Egg. That’s what she would do. She’d find a spot under the roots of a tree or between two stones, somewhere sheltered and dark. Then she’d run back to help Roger.
And if Alain had captured Roger? And seized hold of her too? Then what would happen to the Egg?
And Alain surely would do so. Roger was only a boy. He didn’t even have his dagger anymore; that had been taken from them when the villagers had locked them up. A boy and a shepherd against a ruthless armed man. Roger had been a fool to go back. A fool…but a brave one. It must be something to do with the rules of honor again. Mella began to think that she might come to hate the rules of honor.
Somewhere above the walls of the ravine, the sun was rising. Mella could not see it, but she could see—almost feel—the darkness around her lightening. The sky overhead had begun to fade from black to a deep, cold blue. Mella could at least see her way along the thin strip of beach as she ran, stones tilting and shifting underfoot. She scrambled and tripped over branches scattered across the dry land when the river was in flood.
The farther she went, the deeper the river grew, and the louder it rushed through its bed. The noise it made would hide the sound of any pursuit, Mella thought. She’d never hear Alain until he was upon her. She risked a glance back, but a rock tilted under her foot, nearly throwing her to the ground. If she twisted an ankle now, she’d never save the Egg. Clearly she could not afford to look behind her. All she could do was run.
The sound of water against stone seemed to numb the thoughts in Mella’s brain. The wordless roar poured over her, leaving room for only one idea in her mind, and even that was less an idea than an urge, a spur to her feet and her faltering breath. Hurry. Keep the Egg safe. You’re a keeper. Watch over it. Hurry.
The ravine was narrowing. Soon the little strip of beach would cease to exist entirely, and Mella would be forced to wade in the river or climb the ravine’s walls. She dipped a hand experimentally in the icy water and drew it back with a shudder as she felt the tug of the current. She could not wade in that. It would pull her down at the first misstep.
Up, then. Hugging the box under one arm, she began to climb the ravine wall. She could have done it easily if she had not been holding something; the dirt was soft and there were exposed roots to cling to. But the box hampered her, slowed her progress, and once nearly slipped out of her grasp entirely. She had to stop, digging in her toes and one elbow, and clutch the box with both hands. Her heart pounded as she pictured the box with the Egg inside bouncing down the ravine wall to splash in the river and be swept away.
No time to rest and pant and get over the fright. She must keep going. Looking up, Mella discovered that she was closer to the top than she’d realized. She balanced the box on a root, kicked and clawed her way up over the edge of the ravine, and then reached down to seize the box and bring it with her.
Sound hammered at her, loud as a herd of horses shod with iron clattering over a paved roadway. For the first time, Mella realized where Gwyn had been taking them.
Not far away, an entire river came roaring down a cliff face, straight as an arrow. The water did not simply fall; it plunged over the cliff as if eager to reach the ground and dove with a deafening crash into a deep pool. No, to call it a pool was wrong, Mella thought, as she reached its edge. A pool was something quiet and calm. This was a cauldron. It seethed and boiled madly, churning up a froth of white bubbles in black water. It seemed as though the water fought to escape from its stone prison, writhing and struggling until it leaped through a gap between two boulders and spilled down to another, quieter pool a few feet below. From there it swirled away down the ravine she had just climbed.
Thoughts of Roger and Alain and Gwyn drained out of Mella’s mind. Clutching the Egg, she stood staring at the cliffs rising far overhead.
Follow the river to a waterfall, the dragon had said. It had not, apparently, given any thought to what she would do when she reached the wate
rfall.
Oh, it was easy enough for a creature with wings. It had flown lightly over those cliffs, following the bright line of the river below. Had it even thought, when it gave the Egg to her, of how an earthbound creature would make its way up the cliff? Had it realized what it was asking her to do?
Could a dragon understand what it meant not to be able to fly?
It was hopeless. Mella stood at the edge of the pool, the spray from the waterfall chilly against her face. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, for them to have come so far and tried so hard only to come up against a wall of stone.
She stood there thinking this until she fell in.
The fine mist that drifted up from the falling water had softened the earth where Mella stood, loosening its hold on the rock beneath. It only shifted a little under her weight, but that was enough.
She did not feel herself falling. One minute she stood on the bank; the next she was in water so cold that the shock of it cut off her breath. The current grabbed at her with greedy fingers. She was pulled and dragged and tossed until she could not tell which way she should try to swim.
Her head broke above the water and she snatched in a quick breath before being yanked down again. The water tossed her up and slammed her against a boulder, held her pinned there. She clung with both hands to the slippery rock and coughed and breathed. But she could not hold on. The water tugged at her persistently until her cold, stiff fingers slipped, and then she was falling.
Mella didn’t realize at first that the current had pulled her through the gap between two boulders down to the next pool. She only knew that she was tumbling through the air, and then that she was pushed, pounded, held deep under by the force of the water above her. The ache in her lungs spread to her entire body. She went down, down, and there was nothing she could touch but that angry water. Nothing to help her fight against it.
There! Her feet slammed against rock. She pushed herself off as hard as she could. Now the water seemed to be helping her, lifting her up, and she got a breath only to be pulled back down. The weight of the heavy cloak around her shoulders was strangling her, and she clawed at the strings around her throat with numb fingers, finally snapping them free.
The cloak dropped loose and the water swept her up. She breathed again. And this time the water did not snatch her back. It seemed to have tired of her and spit her out to roll, helpless, among the rocks until she fetched up against a wide, flat stone. She held on to it and blinked water out of her eyes until she could see again. She was near the shore, and next to the stone she held on to there was another, and another, rectangular blocks that almost looked as if they had been cut and shaped.
She pulled herself along the helpful rocks until she could crawl onto dry land, hardly able to breathe for coughing. She would choke, Mella thought, she hadn’t drowned but she’d die here on the bank, unable to get air into her lungs. But slowly the spasms eased, and she was able to snatch in half breaths of air between fits. Finally she spat out a mouthful of muddy water and sat up. Her arms wrapped around her knees for warmth, and her wet, cold hands clutched at each other.
Each hand held the other.
She wasn’t holding the Egg.
Her head jerked up, her eyes searching the churning water of the pool. But it was useless. Even if she could somehow glimpse the box that held the Egg in that torrent of black water and white foam, even if she could fish it out without drowning, even if it hadn’t been battered to pieces—the water was icy. Far too cold for the Egg to endure.
She’d lost the Egg. It was gone.
That water—it had been savage, pulling at her, dragging her down. If she’d held on to the box, she’d never have been able to swim.
No excuses, girl. That was Gran’s voice in her ear. Do you think you can explain to dragons? All beasts know is that you’re there or you’re not. Excuses are nothing a dragon can understand.
I tried, Gran, Mella whispered in her mind. I tried. As hard as I could.
But there was no answer. And Mella knew it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how hard she’d tried to save the Egg. It didn’t matter how hard she’d tried to save Lady.
Lady had been Gran’s favorite dragon. Mella’s too, with her warm yellow scales so bright they were almost golden, her brown eyes, her elegant dignity. All the other dragons gave way for her.
After Gran died Lady wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t raise her head up off her nest. All of Mella’s coaxing, the kitchen scraps she’d begged from Mama, the hours she spent curled up by Lady’s nest, scratching her ears, talking to her—it had been worthless. In her first month as a keeper, Mella hadn’t been able to keep the queen of her herd from dying.
Take care of them, girl. Watch over them. But she hadn’t been able to. And now she’d left them. Left her herd alone and traipsed off into the mountains to save a dragon’s egg. And she’d failed in that too.
Not much of a keeper, Mella thought miserably, hardly aware of the tears on her wet cheeks. Nothing like Gran.
How nice it would be just to melt in her misery. To drain away among the stones and never have to get up again. Never try to do something she could not accomplish. Like taking a dragon’s egg to its hatching ground. Or becoming a keeper at the age of twelve.
But there was Gran’s voice again. Tears mend nothing.
“I know, Gran,” Mella whispered. “Work mends all.”
But what did you do when there was no work left to be done? When you had tried as hard as you could and had failed? What did you do when you had lost an Egg or let a dragon die?
You found something else to work at, that’s what you did.
She may have been little use as a keeper, but that did not mean she had to fail as a friend. Roger needed her. She’d have to get up, make her way downstream, creep unseen through trees and brush, and figure out how best to help Roger.
So Mella lifted her head from her knees and looked around her. The first step toward helping Roger was figuring out how to cross back to the other side of the river.
She was huddled on a narrow crescent of stony beach beside the pool. To her left, close enough that she could touch it, a wall of rock rose up just higher than her head. She had fallen down that height when the current had pulled her to this second pool. But it would do her no good to climb back up to the level of the waterfall. She could hardly plunge back into that pool again and expect to survive.
No, she’d have to make her way down the ravine—if she could. To her right, the water poured away down the gully, fast and powerful. Thank goodness the current had not pulled her down that, Mella thought, or she’d have drowned for sure. If she hadn’t fetched up against those rocks…
Something else had been saved by the rocks as well. Her cloak, the one Gwyn had given her, was clinging to the side of a flat stone block. Mella got up and went to retrieve it, wading in cautiously up to her ankles and leaning over to snatch at it.
The edges of the rock that had snagged the cloak were rounded now by water and time, but once it had been square. Mella frowned. She shouldn’t be wasting time, she must hurry to help Roger, but now her attention was caught and she couldn’t help looking. Running water had never shaped a stone like this, with such flat sides and smooth, straight edges. Across the pool, on the opposite side, she could glimpse a few similar rocks, half buried in mud and gravel at the water’s edge. For an instant her imagination sketched in what must have lain between them: a bridge arching across the tumultuous water below.
A bridge? Here? Why would anybody build it? This was wilderness. On one side of the river were trees and rocks and stony plains; on the other side would be more of the same. Who would want to get from one side to the other badly enough to build a bridge?
And there, in the trees on the other side of the water, what was that? Something moving. Somebody running and shouting. Which was silly. As if anybody could hear a word over the noise of the waterfall.
Roger waved wildly at her and then ran off downstream, quickly lost to Me
lla’s sight among the trees. Mella, her wits numbed by cold and exhaustion, stared after him blankly for a moment before she understood. There might be a safer place to cross down below. If he could find it, he would come back to her.
Well. It seemed that she didn’t need to go and save Roger after all. Which was good, because her knees were shaking with cold. She wrung water out of her cloak as best she could and wrapped it around herself. Even wet, wool and fleece would be better than nothing.
It wasn’t long before Roger burst through the undergrowth downstream and ran up to her, soaked to the waist. “Are you all right?” he gasped. He nearly had to yell for her to hear him over the roaring water. “You’re wet. You’re freezing. Did you fall in? Mella? Are you hurt? Can’t you answer me?”
“I lost it,” Mella said with difficulty between her chattering teeth.
“What?”
“I dropped it. It’s gone.” She gestured vaguely at the waterfall and the seething pool.
Roger, shaking his head, was saying something she couldn’t hear. He was pushing something into her cold hands. Something heavy and warm with flat sides and sharp corners.
“I found it by the other edge of the pool,” Roger said. “You must have dropped it when you fell in. You fell in, didn’t you? How did you ever get out? Mella? Don’t cry. Are you all right? We can’t just sit here. Come on.” He tugged her to her feet. “We’ve got to find somewhere safe. We’ve got to hide.”
Mella was better than all right—she was dazed, stunned, dizzy with relief. The Egg. She hadn’t lost it. She hadn’t destroyed it. It was still hers to watch over. The heat of the box in her hands was banishing the cold that had gripped her, and joy was warming her from the inside out. She could have flung her arms around Roger. She could have kissed him. But he was pulling at her, urging her away into the trees, and she remembered why he’d left her in the first place.
“Alain! What—”
“No, not Alain. He’s…well…”
“He’s what?”
Roger shrugged, looking almost embarrassed. “I—um. Hit him. With a rock.”
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