“No, they know why you came back,” he said gently, putting his hand on her curls.
“Go look one more time.”
“Lea, it’s no good.”
“Please.”
“Lea—”
“Please. Just one more time.”
“All right,” he said to humor her. “But then we must go”
The angle of light entering the cave had shifted since they first arrived. He could see better, and he knew the sun was lower in the sky. They had to go soon, he wanted no trouble either for himself or for Lea. He had to see that she was safely home; then he must put as much distance between himself and the hold as he could before darkness fell and he was forced to take sanctuary in an ice cave for the night.
When he reached the back chamber of the cave, the tunnel suddenly seemed too small around him. he stopped, frowning, and looked back. The air grew strangely warm and smelled of sweet fragrance as though flowers bloomed. A shiver ran through Caelan, and he fell the touch of something cool and ancient go through him.
Afraid, he remembered the horror of the wind spirits, but this was nothing like they had been. This was strange but not unpleasant. He sensed no malevolence, only a peaceful presence.
Then the fragrance faded, and the air grew cold again.
Caelan stumbled back as though released. He blinked and shook himself. Suddenly he wanted out of there.
Whirling around too fast, he slipped and fell with a thud. The impact made him grunt. Stunned, he lay there a second in an effort to regain his breath.
As he levered himself to his hands and knees, his fingers knocked against something.
It skidded away across the ice.
Caelan’s heart stopped. For a moment he dared not move; then he scrambled forward on his hands and knees, patting the ground with his hands, searching in the gloom.
He found one stone, rough and angular like Lea’s. A short distance away he found a second. This one was smaller, no bigger than the nail on his little finger, but polished.
He turned them over and over in his hands, unable to believe his luck. It couldn’t happen like this. It simply couldn’t.
Yet it had.
Lea’s good fortune had been extended to him.
His hand closed over the stones and he crawled forward, trying not to whoop with joy.
She was waiting outside. When he came scrambling out, her face lit up. “You found some!”
“Yes!” He showed them to her.
They bent over the stones and held them up to the light filtering through the trees.
“Emeralds,” he said in satisfaction. He wanted to shout, to dance. “I can’t believe it.”
“The spirits here like you too,” she said, skipping around him. “Look at how pretty the little one is.”
“It’s polished, almost cut like a jewel,” he said in wonder. “A miracle.”
“A special gift.”
In sudden generosity, he held out his palm to her. “You didn’t find any today. Take one of them, the one you like best, as your share.”
Her mouth made a little O and she shook her head quickly. “I couldn’t. They’re yours.”
“No, one for each of us.”
“But, Caelan, I have mine,” she said. “Nine is a complete number. Keep these. You must. They’re for you.”
He started to protest, but she pressed her fingers across his lips. “They’re a pair, as we are. This is a special day, Caelan. You have been blessed in this. Don’t let Father or your anger ever let you forget what you have been given here. Believe there is good, and that you are good, just as you have been given good today.”
As she spoke, the sunlight shone down through the treetops and glowed upon her in a shining mantle. Her words seemed to vibrate in the air.
Caelan’s heart nearly stopped. He felt humbled by this child, so wise beyond her years.
Without thought he knelt before her.
She folded his hand around the emeralds. “One is me and one is you. Now you have something to remember us always.”
Her kindness spread over him like a balm. He loved her for it so much he thought his heart would burst. Somehow he held his emotions in. “How do I thank the earth spirits?” he whispered.
She smiled and touched his cheeks with her small hands. “They know.”
He took her hands and squeezed them. “Then I will say my gratitude to you. Thank you for bringing me here, little one. If the spirits have favored me, it is only because of you.”
“Now you cannot forget me, no matter how far away you go.”
He kissed her forehead. “I will never forget you,” he said, his voice rough. “I swear it.”
She pulled a little cloth bag from her pocket and held it up. “Here’s a pouch to keep them in. I had Anya make two because I knew you’d find treasure too.”
Smiling, he tucked the emeralds into the bag. He strung it over his neck and lucked it beneath his tunics. The stones felt small and knobby against his chest, tiny talismen of his sister’s love.
He gathered her into his arms and hugged her tight. “I love you, little sister.”
She hugged him back, tender and small in his arms. She was crying. “Oh, Caelan—”
Through the quietness of the forest came the sound of distant thunder. Frowning, Caelan slowly straightened to his feet and turned his head to listen.
Another sound came, a rumbling bugle note unlike anything he had ever heard before. His breath stopped in his lungs, and he was suddenly afraid.
His heartbeat started pounding faster, harder. No, he thought. This could not be happening.
He heard the sound again, a trumpet call of disaster, eerie and ominous, closer than the first. He had never heard such a noise before, yet instinctively he recognized it. Old stories, told around the hearth, flashed through his mind.
“No,” he said aloud.
Beside him, Lea looked up at the sky. “What is that noise?”
His paralysis fell away. Caelan grabbed her by the shoulders, swinging her bodily around. “Get inside the cave. Hide there, and don’t come out.”
She stared at him in bewilderment, making no move to obey. “But why—”
Gripping her arm, he ran back to the cave, pushing her as he went. He picked up the food basket and tossed it in the cave, along with his cloak and pack. “Hurry!” he said, fear ragged in his voice. “Don’t ask questions. Just do as I say!”
He pushed her toward the cave too hard, making her stumble and fall. Her face puckered up, and tears filled her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
The dragons trumpeted again. The sound filled Caelan with panic. On a sudden shift of the wind, he smelled smoke.
“Gault above, can’t you hear that?” he shouted at her. “The raiders have found the hold. I’ve got to help them—”
Lea’s eyes widened. “Thyzarenes?”
“I think so.” He was busy yanking off his heavy outer tunic. Wadding it up into a ball, he tossed it inside the cave and drew the dagger from his belt.
“No!” She flung herself against him, gripping hard. “Don’t go. You mustn’t go!”
He tried to pull away, but she was crying. Caelan hesitated, his mind tearing in all directions. He was afraid to go back to the hold, afraid of what he might find. His instincts were yelling at him to run for his life, run with Lea and hide deep in the safety of the forest.
And yet, how could he abandon the others, knowing they were defenseless and unprotected from an attack? The walls couldn’t keep out dragons.
“I must help them,” he said and gave his sister a shake. “Lea, listen to me. Listen! You must be brave now. Hide in the cave until it’s safe. I’ll come back for you.”
She shook her head. “They’re going to kill everyone—”
“No! I’ll help them. I can fight, with this.” He held up the dagger, his body thrumming with protectiveness. “Now stay here. You’ll be safe as long as you hide.”
Her lip quivered. She stared at him th
rough her tears. “Don’t go, Caelan. Don’t go! I’ll never see you again!”
He rose on his toes, listening to the strange noises. The forest had gone silent with alarm. He could feel it around him. There was no time to waste with a distraught child.
“Sweetness, be brave. I have to help Father.”
“I can help them too!” she said, refusing to let go of his sleeve. “Let me go. I’ll wish the raiders away.”
“No, you’re better off here.”
Even as he said the words, he wondered. What was he and one dagger against the savages? What if he couldn’t come back for her? How could she fare out here at night in the forest, unprotected? Would she have enough sense to go to E’raumhold? Or would she perish of cold, starvation, and the wolves?
His resolve almost folded, but then he heard the hold bell ringing out an alarm. He gulped in air. “Get in the cave.”
“But they’re ringing the bell for us to come back.”
All their lives they’d been told to come home at once if they heard the bell. She would have run, but he flung his arm across her chest and held her bodily.
“Not you.”
“But, Caelan, they want us to come home. We have to—”
He picked her up and pushed her into the cave. She clung to him, screaming his name, but he pulled free.
“Promise me you’ll stay here,” he said sternly, knowing he must keep her from following him. “Promise me you won’t go to the hold, not until the dragons are gone.”
She was crying again, her eyes clinging to him, eating him up. Slowly, fearfully, she gave him a tiny nod.
“Hide and don’t come out,” he said. “If you run out of food, you follow the stream south. Watch the sun and you won’t get lost. You follow it to E’raumhold.”
“Aren’t you going to come get me?”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “I promise I will. Now hide.”
Touching her curls one last time, he turned and started running.
“Caelan!” she screamed after him, but he didn’t look back. There wasn’t time.
Chapter Eleven
Now THE DEEP snow wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t fun. It held him back when he needed to run like the wind. Soon his breath was sawing in his lungs. He wasn’t that far away from the hold, only a quarter of a mile, perhaps less, and yet the distance never seemed to close. The bell rang again, then abruptly stopped.
Ignoring the pain in his lungs, Caelan drove his aching legs onward until he reached the edge of the forest. There he stopped, concealed by pine branches. He gulped in deep lungfuls of air. It felt like razors in his lungs.
The pale walls of the hold reflected the sunlight. To the north, the mountains rose mightily, filling the world. And overhead circled black creatures from a nightmare, too many to count, their wingspans as huge as despair. Leathery wings beat a hum that filled the air. And when the wind shifted, Caelan caught a peculiar scorched scent that made his nostrils wrinkle.
The dragons’ long serpentine necks ended in narrow, crested heads and fanged snouts. Their bodies were long and thin as well, with clawed limbs tucked up light against their scaled undercarriages as they flew.
Directed by riders clinging to leather harnesses, the dragons bugled, whipping their long necks around as they sailed low over the hold. Flames shot from their gaping mouths, searing the rooftops within the hold. Smoke was already roiling skyward in a dark column.
The riders carried weapons that looked like spears, only the tips were as long as a man’s arm with jagged edges, and the hafts were short—weapons for stabbing, not throwing.
Dragons dropped into the hold, only to lift again in a constant shifting of motion. The stabbing spears dripped red, and Caelan could hear screams.
Still breathing hard, he gripped his own dagger in his fist and felt fear like a wall around him.
The gates burst open, and Caelan could glimpse smoke and flames inside the courtyard.
A pair of wild-eyed ponies came plunging out, dodging and snorting. Both were badly burned, and the mane of one was smoking. One pony broke for the forest, but the other passed too close to a dragon that was landing.
Unfurling its wings, it whipped its head and struck the pony in the neck.
Screaming, the pony dropped to its knees, still fighting despite the crimson blood that spurted across the snow. With a fierce shake, the dragon ripped open the pony’s throat and gulped down a chunk of meat.
The lifeless pony fell sprawling in the snow, and with roars of greed, other dragons broke off the attack to fall on the carcass. They ripped it apart and gulped hide and steaming flesh, ignoring the riders who beat at them and shouted commands.
Fresh screams came from inside the hold, whether from animals or people Caelan could not tell. Agonized, not sure what to do, he drove himself to think of something that would help. The people inside were helpless since Beva had destroyed all the weapons in the arms room. As for the warding keys, they’d been spell-forged to keep out malevolent spirits, not to prevent physical attack.
Caelan turned and went running through the trees, keeping as much to cover as he could, until he’d circled around to the rear wall of the hold. The standing rule was that all trees and undergrowth were to be kept cleared well away from the walls, but saplings sprouted and grew tall every summer. As Old Farns had aged, more and more chores slipped by without getting done. Raul had plenty of his own work to do and could not get to everything either.
As a result, Caelan found a sapling stout enough to shinny up. At its top, it swayed alarmingly beneath his weight, but he kicked out and managed to get his elbow hooked over the top of the wall. Grunting, he hung there a moment, then swung his legs up. From the sky, he was an obvious target. He knew he had only seconds to move before he was seen by one of the raiders circling overhead.
As though from nowhere, a dragon came hurtling over him, wings tucked, talons raking. It bellowed, giving Caelan a split-second of warning. He dived headlong, flinging himself onto the low roof of the larder, and vicious claws clutched only air where he’d been crouching just seconds before.
Roaring in fury, the dragon could not shift the angle of its descent in time. It passed over, and Caelan scrambled back, yanking his dagger from his belt as he did so.
Another dragon arched its neck and blasted fire from its nostrils, raking the thatched roof of the stables, which were already on fire. The door to the stables stood open, and smoke boiled from inside. Several ponies were rushing about the courtyard in raw panic, an obvious danger to the people trying to dodge them as well as the attackers. Caelan could hear other ponies still trapped inside the burning building, their screams horrible.
More fire raked down from the sky, crossing the roof of the infirmary. It was made of slate, however, and the fire did no damage beyond scoring twin black marks across the surface.
The house also had a slate roof, but the kitchen at the back was thatched. It was also in flames. The stench of smoke and the dragons filled the air.
People burst from the buildings, running, shouting. Caelan saw Anya trying to help old Surva, who could barely hobble.
“No!” he shouted at them, waving his arms. “Stay inside!”
But they could not hear him in the general melee. Beva came running through the smoke, easy to see in his white robes. He was gesturing at the women, shouting something they did not heed.
A dragon passed over Caelan, not attacking him, intent instead on other prey.
It was close enough for him to see the sun glint off the scaly hide, close enough for him to see old battle scars, to see a sparse hank of hair hanging from its lower jaw like a beard. The man astride the dragon was swarthy and small, hardly bigger than Lea. At first Caelan thought he might be a boy, but the rider turned his head to reveal a gray-streaked beard. His teeth flashed at Caelan in laughter. He lifted his jagged spear in mock salute.
Infuriated, Caelan dragged in a breath and went skidding off the roof of the larder. Landing on the ground a
nd staggering at the jolt to his ankles, Caelan looked around swiftly and plucked down the first warding key he came to.
It glowed in his hand, growing hot the moment his flesh touched it. Caelan focused on it in an effort to reach its full power. He’d been able to utilize the mysterious force within the metal once before in driving off the wind spirits. Perhaps it would strengthen him now.
Gritting his teeth, he tried even harder until sweat ran down his face and his hand was afire with pain.
He felt something within him leap, as though he drew in a lungful of fire. Suddenly he was connected with the metal, which became a living, fluid thing in his hand. The power stirred, flowing into him until he was filled with it. His fear dropped away, and he knew only the hum of the Choven force that twisted and stirred within him. Across the courtyard, he saw a flash from the warding key hanging on the side door of the house. Another flash came from the gates, then another and another as all the keys came alive, glowing brightly enough to be seen even through the black smoke.
And Caelan was one with them, a part of the interwoven net of power and protection crisscrossing the hold. He rode it, letting sevaisin join him. Exhilaration swelled into his throat, and he wanted to laugh at the Thyzarenes and their monsters.
Brandishing both the key and his dagger, Caelan ran for the steps leading to the top of the walls. There, he paused and turned around, his clothes whipping in the air stirred up by the dragons’ wings.
One of the raiders flew at him, but Caelan raised the warding key without fear. “We are protected here!” he shouted, his voice deep with the power thrumming through him. “Leave us! Gather your beasts and depart.”
The Thyzarene stared at him in astonishment.
Caelan’s confidence grew. He had defeated a wind spirit. And now he defied a raider. If this was to be his destiny, then he embraced it willingly. He laughed again.
“Fear this!” he cried, bathed in the glow from the warding key. “Go, and come no more to E’nonhold.”
The raider was still staring. Then he threw back his head and bellowed with laughter.
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