by GARY DARBY
“But you can help calm those waves by facing her and explaining in your usual fumble-worded manner how much you were wrong and what a big lout, oaf, fool, not to mention—”
“I get it, Phigby.”
Blowing out a long breath, my shoulders slump as I realize what I must do. “So, I’ve got to go back and face her.”
“Of course,” he snorts, “there’s no other way to make this right again.”
“And Helmar?”
He frowns a little in response. “Some might say that what’s good for the gander is good for the goose. But, in this case, I’ll let you sort that out with him.
“However, my primary worry is for Cara. You hurt her deeply, Hooper, and yes, she may have hurt you at one time, but I think she’s been trying to tell you, and show you, how wrong she was, since then. Only, you either never saw it, or accepted what she was trying to offer.”
He rises, turns, and stares down at me and his voice is firm. “Whether Cara chooses you or Helmar is not for me to say. She is fond of both of you, though I admit that lately circumstances have thrown the two of you together much more than her and Helmar.
“My concern is with this company. It has to stay together and we cannot let petty jealousies split us apart. There is more at stake here, Hooper, than two swooning young men fighting over the only eligible girl in camp.”
His eyes and his voice become like stone. “Do I actually have to remind you, Hooper, that Vay would like nothing better than to see our company fall apart, leaving Golden Wind at the mercy of that foul fiend?”
I cringe under his words because I know he’s right. “No, Phigby,” I whisper, “you don’t have to remind me.”
“Good,” he grunts. “Now go back there and do what you must with that girl.”
I nod at him. “Give me a moment, will you? There are a few cracks in my emotional armor that I’ve got to mend shut first. Not to mention decide what I’m going to say that doesn’t get me punched in the nose.”
He glances around as if thinking that he should stay as my guard but I wave a hand at him, urging him to leave. “I’ll be fine and practically right behind you. Go.”
Giving my shoulder a couple of firm pats, he strides away, the rustling of his robes breaking the night’s stillness.
I sit for a bit, deep in my thoughts, before rising and sighing to myself. “Well, Hooper, methinks you’d rather face Vay’s water-serpent monster than Cara at this point but Phigby’s right, it’s got to be done.”
Hitching at my scabbard belt, I start to turn when there’s a raspy slithering sound that rises from the vale’s dark depths.
Whirling around, I stare wide-eyed at two unblinking red eyes.
I know in an instant what I face.
A Nahl.
13
Rising like a black cloud of death, the creature towers over me, its hungry, unblinking eyes widening in anticipation of feasting on my flesh.
Then, for an instant, moonlight breaks through and I realize that my inborn terror has played tricks on me.
I’m not facing a snake-demon.
It’s just a death-dealing Wilder dragon, that’s all.
The scarlet whips its head back, readying itself to spray me with an all-consuming blast of dragon fire. For an instant, I’m frozen, unsure of what to do, then I hear a voice screaming, “Run, Hooper!”
Good advice.
But before I can even move, four streaking, glowing, flaming sprites zip just past the beast’s eyes, blinding it for an instant and then, at its Wilder rider. The crimson-clad rider throws up a hand, screams something and ducks down.
Giving me the chance to run—right between the thing’s pillar-sized legs and under its belly. It tries to snap at me as I pass but misses as I’ve caught the beast and its rider off-guard. Then it tries to curl its head between its thudding talons to chomp at me but that doesn’t work as that will pitch its rider to the ground.
One thing about reds. They have thick necks. Not supple like sapphires or the golden’s. And right now, that’s a very good thing.
It bends its neck around and unleashes a stream of lava-hot dragon breath. The heat is so great that I duck away and cover my face, but the flames don’t touch me. Instead, they shoot past its thick body and splash against several boulders, turning them into giant, cherry-appearing rocks.
Another blast erupts from its mouth, but again, the only good it does is to melt a couple of smaller rocks into puddles of hot, steaming slag.
Whirling around, trying to get at me, the scarlet’s tail whips against the ravine’s walls spraying dirt and rocks that bounce and shatter off the gully’s rocky sides.
Spinning around and around, the red does its best to expose me to its dragon breath but I stay right with the beast, shuffling under its belly where it can’t get to me.
Safe for the moment.
But only for the time being.
It stops, one eye on me and I stare back with my two. Then, it seems, we both have the same thought at the same time.
It’s going to lie down and crush me.
Galondraig shoots out of its scabbard as if it had a mind of its own and into my hand. With a vicious thrust, I stab the crimson in its belly scales. My sword, dragon born, slices through the beast’s plates like Amil’s great ax cuts through an apple, straight to the core.
The beast roars and jerks upward from the slashing pain. It spreads its wings as if to sky, only the little vale is too narrow for it to stretch its wings far enough to take flight.
I thrust upward and twist.
The beast roars again, filling the little valley from rim to rim with a deafening thunder that seems to shake the very ground.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see it’s sinewy tail, with its two body-ripping spikes come whipping straight at me.
My choice is simple, jump aside and leave Galondraig sticking in its gut, or pull my sword to counter the thing’s death-dealing spikes.
From the nearby boulders comes a bellow of rage and from the corner of my eye I see Amil fly through the air, his ax held high. He and his glittering ax are sharply etched in the glow of the dragon fire’s aftermath and his face is a dark mask of fury and wrath.
With a downward slash, his great two-sided blade rips through the crimson’s thin tail scales. The half with the spikes goes flopping off to one side. The remaining piece whips forward, just past me and I’m deluged in green, icky dragon blood but I hold my place.
Three bowstrings thrumm and in answer come screeches of agony. The red rears back on its rear talons, its front claws trying to get to the large Golian arrow embedded in its left eye.
Amil roars, “Hooper, move! It’s coming down!”
With both hands, I yank Galondraig free and dive to one side. The gooey dragon blood causes to me slide a whole body length where, with a jolt, I slam up against a boulder.
Over my shoulder, I see the dragon teetering for a moment, sitting on its haunches and clawing at the Golian shaft. Its rider, slumped over from Cara and Helmar’s arrows topples over and plunges to the ground.
Then, the red dragon goes listless and with a giant thud, crashes to the ground, dead, its forked tongue sticking out one corner of its fanged jaws. A soft hiss exudes from its open mouth as the dragon beast breathes its last.
At running footsteps, I pull myself to my feet. From behind, I hear, “Phewww . . . Hooper, I never knew dragon blood stank so much.”
“Neither did I,” I grimace as I wipe the sticky mess from my mouth and face.
“Hooper, lad,” Phigby questions as he dashes up, “are you all right?”
Spitting out a mouthful of goo, I sputter, “Nothing a good bath wouldn’t cure.”
“Yes, well,” he eyes me with his nose wrinkled in disgust, “we’ll have to see about that when we’re able. But not now. That dragon fire most likely was seen by too many unwelcome eyes.”
Spinning around, he orders, “Move, everyone. Up the trail as, no doubt, this place will soon
become unhealthy.”
Scamper comes bounding up, but instead of jumping into my arms, as he normally does, he stops several paces away, his little nose bunched up as if he’d just stuck it into the guts of a rotten fish.
Arrriiite? he asks.
“Yes, Scamp, I’m all right, thanks,” I reply, and with that he spins and darts away. Leaving me and my stench behind.
Trudging behind Phigby, I say over my shoulder, “Thanks, Amil. You saved my life.”
“Yes, well,” he coughs, “would you mind saving my nose and let me walk upwind of you?”
I let him pass and head for Golden Wind where the four little sprites have already alighted and settled down on her back.
In haste, and without a word, Helmar and Cara pack the sprogs in their saddlebags, and dash back to their dragons.
By the time I clamber aboard the golden, Alonya has pulled her arrow and the two smaller arrows out of their victims and is headed up the trail at a brisk pace.
I look around for Scamper only to find him sitting on Wind Song. “Traitor,” I mutter.
Wind Glory swings onto the trail, Wind Song close behind. As she rises to follow, Golden Wind asks, “Are you all right, Hooper?”
“Oh, sure,” I reply, “a Wilder red first tries to roast me, then eat me, then impale me on its spikes. I’m covered in the foulest-smelling goo of all time, and worst of all, I yelled at Cara and hurt her feelings. Oh, yeah, I’m doing just terrific. But thanks for asking.”
“Yes,” she agrees, “you most certainly hurt Cara’s tender emotions.”
“Wait,” I sputter. “I just told you how a Wilder almost killed me, I’ve got this horrible goop all over me and all you can do is to agree with me that I’ve hurt Cara’s feelings.”
“You did say that the worst of it was hurting Cara, didn’t you?”
I open my mouth, close it. She has a point. “Well,” I stammer, “if you’re going to call me a lout, or an oaf, or whatever, you’re too late, Phigby already beat you to it.”
My puff of air sends a small spray of the muck outward in a tiny shower. “First chance, I’ll grovel at her feet and apologize. That is, if I can get within two dragon lengths of her.”
“Not even that,” she answers, “if she’s standing downwind of you.”
She breaks into a fast pace behind Cara’s sapphire. With Wind Song’s tail sliding along just in front of us, I whisper, “We’d better stay far back, I don’t think the others are taking too kindly to my particular aroma right now.”
“They’re not the only ones,” she mutters. “I wish I could stay far back of you as well.”
“Then stop,” I growl, “and let me off. I’ll walk behind.”
“No, Hooper,” she returns, “we must move swiftly and you would not be able to keep up.”
“Then,” I counter, “I’ll ride between your tail spikes. I seem to be gaining a lot of experience with those things of late.”
She doesn’t answer but picks up the pace to match the sapphire’s steps. I swivel in my seat to the sprites, who seemed to be asleep. I grin wide at the sight of them and then wished I hadn’t.
Some of the evil-smelling glop falls into my mouth and I spit and sputter trying to get the nasty stuff out. I can’t even use my sleeve to wipe it away as it too is covered in slime.
Have you ever tasted putrid fish mixed with rotten eggs and spoiled meat?
I have.
Spitting and sputtering, I get enough out to say, “It’s so good to see the sprites. I thought we’d lost them for sure.”
Sighing, I ask, “How they can sleep through all this? Especially with my lovely smell.”
“Don’t you know that dragons can close their noses?” Golden Wind asks. “For just such occasions?”
“Uh, no,” I reply, “I didn’t.”
“Quite useful, you know,” she answers, “especially on particular occasions like this.”
“Yes,” I respond. “That I can understand. Too bad I can’t do the same.”
To change the subject, I ask, “Golden Wind, was that Wilder the same that cornered us farther back on the trail?”
“I cannot say yes or no, other than I suspect it was,” she answers.
“Why is that?”
“Because,” she explains, “the sprites attacked when they did. I suppose that they’ve been following it ever since they led it away from us.”
She pauses for a moment. “I’ll ask them when they wake up. Right now, they’re exhausted and deserve their sleep.”
“Of course,” I agree. “Sleeping with their noses closed. A good trick.”
“One of many ‘tricks’,” Golden Wind asserts, “that we have dragons have.”
“Indeed, and all without sleeves, too.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing,” I reply, “it’s just a silly saying about having a trick up your sleeve. Means you have something hidden up your sleeve that’s going to help you at some point.”
“What an odd place to hide a thing,” she counters. “It would seem that if the object were bulky that it could be easily seen and identified in one’s sleeve such as yours.”
I open my mouth to speak, stop, and close my mouth before admitting, “Good point. Never thought about that before. I’ll keep it in mind next time I try to hide a chicken up my sleeve.”
“Why would you want to hide a—”
“Forget it,” I sigh. “Just keep your nose closed and your eyes on the trail. We don’t want to lose the others because of our jabberwockying.”
“Jabberwockying?” she questions.
“Later, I’ll explain later,” I respond in a tired voice.
The path, wide at this point, lies within a long, narrow, bowl-shaped valley that lies between towering peaks on each side and we make real time.
Dawn finds us standing under Two-Forks, the fork-shaped peak that marks the pass. Just beyond, we can see that the bowl continues, stretched out in a long, downward, gentle slope.
The morning is clear, bright, and cold. So much so, that my nose hairs crinkle when I breathe in deeply.
The sky is bluer than blue overhead as if an artist took a brush and painted an enormous dark azure swath across a lighter blue. There’s not a speck of white clouds anywhere and if there weren’t mountains hemming us in we could probably see for a hundred leagues in all directions.
I shiver as I scan upward, but there’s no sign of a Wilder dragon prowling the heavens. Against the sapphire sky, the scarlet markings of a Wilder dragon would be as if a bright red fall leaf from an oaken tree floated high above.
But no such red sprig glides above, and I, for one, sigh in relief.
Since we have no meat left over, breakfast is whatever we have left in our stomachs from last evening’s meal. And unless we find more sheep during the day’s trek, supper will be the last of Golian trail rations and sore teeth.
Alonya calls us together for a quick huddle. I, of course, stand a distance downwind from the others. “From here,” Alonya begins, “the trail stays on an eastward course before turning northward through another valley.”
She eyes our surroundings and asks, “The question is whether we take it during daylight, or wait for night. Both have their dangers.”
Gesturing toward me, Phigby asks, his question obvious. “Water?”
Alonya motions down the trail. “There’s a stream, not far, with good,” she glances at me, “and ample water.”
“Shelter?” Helmar asks. “Or at least a place where we can hide the dragons?”
“A few puny trees and boulders,” Alonya answers, “otherwise, it’s barren. We won’t see real trees again for some time.”
Amil looks around at our dragons and muses, “If we put them among some boulders, would they blend in enough for someone looking down from the sky to mistake them for oversized rocks?”
“As in a Wilder?” Cara questions, her meaning clear.
“As in a Wilder,” Amil returns.
“Hard to say,
” Helmar rejoins, “perhaps for the sapphires if they’re in shadow, but Golden Wind is only going to look like one giant gold nugget, I’m afraid.”
“Still,” Phigby replies, “if we could just give ourselves and the dragons a few hours of rest, give Hooper a chance to clean himself up, it might be worth the risk.”
No one replies until Alonya suggests, “Let’s go find some suitable boulders.”
As Alonya trudges off, we clamber aboard our dragons and follow. The sun has just peeked over the taller peaks when Alonya motions us off to one side into a small, boulder-strewn valley.
A stream, not much wider than Golden Wind’s head meanders down the vale. After letting the dragons drink, Alonya leads them to one side, where the gray, craggy rocks are large and numerous.
Phigby is the first to dismount and he comes stomping up to Golden Wind. “You!” he snaps. “Get down here.”
I slide off the golden and as soon as my feet hit the ground, Phigby tosses me a light-brown-looking brick. “What’s this?” I question.
Phigby snorts. “Have you never seen lye soap, lad?”
Sniffing the brick, my nose wrinkles up at the sharp, pungent smell. “Of course,” I reply, “only never so much at one time.”
“And you’ll need every bit of it,” he growls.
Motioning downstream, he directs, “There’s a small pool that’s just broad enough to cover most of you. Get in it and don’t come out until there’s nothing left of that soap.”
Gesturing to the golden, I begin, “I need to—”
“Go get the stink off you,” he directs, “while I take care of Golden Wind.”
Sighing, I nod and make my way a short ways downstream. I unbuckle my scabbard, and step in, clothes and all.
Phigby’s pool is small, shallow, and ice cold. Miserable and shivering, I wade to the center where the water comes up just past my knees and after taking a deep breath to bolster my courage, plunk down on my rump.
Taking the soap brick, I wash my hair and work my way down to my face. I squint my eyes shut against the lye’s sting but snap them open at the sound of footsteps.