“How long have those mercenaries been in Whitecliff?” Cal asked.
Meela considered the question for a moment. Cal wondered if she was going to answer. “About a month,” she said, and hesitated before continuing: “We do not ask questions. There’s always something; if it’s not the sailors, it’s the miners from Toya. Seems we can’t go a month without some group or other starting trouble in Harbour Square.”
“So it’s… normal?” Cal asked.
Meela shrugged. “Not really. This latest lot… well, they don’t usually have as many, what would you call them, recruits? The guards are supposed to take care of it. But this time, I don’t know, this time, the Seaguards are leaving them to it. Maybe they are scared, too.”
“Maybe,” Cal said.
Meela dished up the stew and handed him a large bowl full. There was plenty, he was pleased to see. He and Mateaf sat by the fire and ate. The children sat either side of Meela. She made her best job of keeping them clean, but by the time she had finished, Moll appeared to be wearing most of her stew. After supper, the children went to bed. Cal brushed the horses and gave them water, then he, too, settled down for the night. After nearly a month at sea, lying on solid ground felt strange. The earth seemed to move. Cal was reminded of his first night on the Swallow, the night he had been sick to his stomach. He knew now what Wex had meant when he said it would “take a few days to get his land legs back.” Cal propped himself up on his pack and stared out over the fields.
What would Kirin’thar and the other Elders have to say about what he and Mateaf had witnessed up north? Most, including himself, had assumed Vila’slae was dead. But with the dragons back in Moyathair… It had to be Vila; he could not imagine anyone else having the power to control dragons. And if there were some other, they would likely be just as bad as the witch… or worse. In a way, he hoped it was her; at least then they would know their enemy. Not that knowing would make things any easier.
Cal looked to the west and wondered how long he would spend at home before he would have to leave again. A week… two? Maybe the council would wash their hands of it, leave the Surabhan to deal with the witch. No, they won’t do that, not if Kirin’thar has his way, Cal thought. There’ll be a council meeting, and a few days later, maybe a week, if we’re lucky, Mateaf and I will be off again, likely leading the Cren Horsemen to Gieth’eire.
He shook the thought away and closed his eyes. His stomach gave a queasy jump, but he ignored it and settled down. There was no point worrying about what the Council might decide. Besides, he had to get home first.
The next day, Cal woke early. He was not surprised to find Meela already making breakfast – in truth, it was probably the smell of bacon that had woken him. She had two pans on the fire; Cal was hoping the other would be for eggs. He said good morning and went to the far side of the trees to do his necessaries.
When he got back, Mateaf and the girls were up and Meela was dishing out their breakfast. Cal sat, then nodded a thank you when she handed him a plate.
“We should make Ironbridge by tomorrow afternoon,” Cal said. “Assuming the road stays clear.”
Meela shrugged. She did not seem to care one way or the other.
“Don’t you want to—?”
“No, it’s not that,” Meela interrupted. “It’s just… Roddig’s mother…” She waved her hand dismissively, then gave Ethyl her breakfast. Then, shaking her head, she said, “It’s nothing, really, forget I mentioned it.” She did not need to explain; even Cren mothers tested their daughters-in-law.
Cal took a bite of his bacon. It was wonderful; thick, tasty and perfectly cooked. He smiled. “You could always come to Crenach,” he said, raising his plate. “I have not eaten this well in a month.”
Meela laughed. “No, I’ll be fine. I’ll just bite my lip and let her get on with it. Deaney will get bored of testing me, eventually.”
They ate breakfast and made small talk. When they finished, Meela gathered their plates and, together with a complaining Ethyl, took them to the stream for washing. Cal gave the horses some oats and refilled their water buckets, then threw the blankets Roddig had given them over the Tall Horses. The stable master did not have saddles big enough for Cren, but the blankets would do. In fact, Cal was used to riding that way. Half an hour later, they were back on the road.
By evening, Cal could see the Witham Valley. Ironbridge was on its western edge. At this rate, Meela might be home with her mother-in-law by noon tomorrow. And by noon on the next day, he and Mateaf would be home, the end of a month-long journey that had taken them to the edge of Lebara and back. He should have been happy, but he was not. Somehow he knew the past month was only the beginning; this story had a long way to go before the Crenach’dair would see an end to it… if there was an end.
CHAPTER 17
Brea’s Lot: Part Three
The dragon’s inner den lay at the end of a short climb up a wide tunnel. The path was dark, slippery and quite steep towards the end. Eventually, it opened into what Brea knew was a large cavern. However, at that moment, it could just as easily have been a broom cupboard – it was very dark!
“Hello, is anyone there?” Brea cringed at the sound of her echo… her shout was not a bellowing holler, but it was close enough; she didn’t want all the dragons to hear her. But then it was a big cavern, and its inhabitants may well be in one of the higher tunnels threading through the upper caves – or even out on the cliffs overlooking the Bren’alor Valley… but that was unlikely; it was still light outside, and they rarely went out during the day, at least not to the cliffs.
A deep, rumbling voice rang out from within the darkness: “Yes, we are all here.”
Tor’gan’s reply seemed all-encompassing. Even now, the power of his voice surprised Brea, and she had been coming here for five years – well, two years to this cave; they would not let her beyond her table until her sixteenth birthday. She still did not know why they had made her wait so long. I’ll have to remember to ask someone, one of these days.
Brea squinted towards where she thought the voice might have come from. “Some light would be helpful, please.”
A thin stream of fire lit up the cavern with its eerie blue-green light, as Tor breathed life into the fire pit. The pit was a good ten paces from where the dragon was laying, but Tor struck up the fire as easily as one might take a tupstick to a candle. The dead wood and thicket quickly caught ablaze, sending warm illumination across the high ceiling and casting deep shadows behind the rocks and stones that held the fire in place.
Brea blinked as her eyes became accustomed to the light – of course, she could have brought her lamp, but she knew it would not have been much use in here… although it would have made the climb up the tunnel easier. But why light a lamp just to blow it out two minutes later?
“Ah, that’s better. Thank you, Tor.”
Now that the fire was burning, Brea could see the platform to her left, where the rest of Tor’s family slept. She stood on tiptoe and peered over the lip. Rek would be up there, most likely – sleeping next to his mother. In fact, it seemed they were always asleep whenever she would come visit. Despite her efforts, she could not see over the lip. But the rumbling sound of snoring was enough proof of her little friend’s whereabouts. Lazy dragons. Sighing, she slumped back on her heels. Rek would come when he heard them talking, she hoped. Though why he had not heard her shouting was a mystery.
“You should bring your lantern,” Tor said. “We would not want you to break an ankle.”
“I will. Next time,” Brea said. “I heard your call. Did you want to see me?”
Tor – Rek’s father and the leader of the Gan Dragons – lay on a bed of leaves and hay that stretched along the back wall of the cavern. It was his responsibility, as the father, to stay by the entrance so his family could sleep safely. Brea liked that, even if it was hardly necessary – no one but the villagers of Braylair knew the dragons were there, and none would speak a word of it to an outsider. Tor
raised his head and swung his long neck in Brea’s direction. The fire reflected a thousand times within his glassy black scales. His deep-green eyes blinked at the flame as the slit pupils tightened to mere lines. He stood a while, stretching and yawning, before slowly lumbering his fifty-foot body by the fire to the opposite side of the cavern, below the platform upon which Rek was just now waking up…
Brea saw the young dragon’s head bobbing in and out of view as he ran towards her. The impatient “little” dragon all but slid down the roughly hewn steps joining the sleeping area with the ground floor – so to speak. With an effort, Rek stopped a few feet short of Brea and bowed so she could kiss his forehead – as was their custom upon meeting.
“Hello, Rek. How are you?” Brea stroked his cheek with one hand and tested for a temperature with the other. “Good, the fever has gone. You must be feeling better.” Rek lifted his head and blew two small plumes of fire from his now-clear nostrils. “Good boy!” she said. “You are my special boy. Yes, you are.” Rek drummed his back foot in time with Brea’s chin scratching.
Tor cleared his throat as he raised his head up high and looked down his long snout at Brea, a look of impatience etched on his face – he could be a real grump, sometimes. “Enough with the play. We have business to tend to. Tell us about your latest vision, child.”
Brea sighed. This again. The same question every day. Doesn’t he know I’ll tell him if anything changes? “There’s been nothing new since they left Albergeddy, Tor. Well, not unless you count getting soaked in the Ambieth marsh. They are still together; they are still moving east. Maybe a bit slower since the storm, but they’re still moving east. They should be out of the marsh by now.”
Tor grunted and stamped his foot. Thrashing his tail, he almost destroyed the rock circle surrounding the fire pit. “We need more than this, Brea. This is intolerable.”
Brea knew Tor would never hurt her, but she backed away. Accidents happened; it would only take one of those boulders to roll in her direction…
“I can only tell you what I’ve seen, Tor. The Lier’sinn will not work unless something important has disturbed the Balance. You told me that.”
Tor growled. “Don’t put words in my—”
“That’s enough, Tor,” Rek’s mother, Tiama, strode slowly to the edge of their sleeping area. “No good comes from tantrums, Tor’gan. Stop stomping about like some thirty-year-old.”
Tor sighed. He was not about to argue with Tiama. She always got the better of him – or at least she seemed to; gods alone knew what happened when Brea was not about. Shaking his head, Tor settled down and sat by the fire. He picked up a small rock – small for him, at least – and began toying with it, circling the rock around his massive talons. He did that when he was thinking, Brea knew.
It often surprised Brea just how good Gan Dragons were with their hands – if you could call them hands; they had four fingers and a thumb, but most of it was sharp talons. Not good enough to write or work on fine objects, but adequate to perform less tricky tasks such as collecting firewood, throwing rocks, organizing bedding, or even using a weapon, should the need arise. She had seen Lyduk, one of the Drin’gan, throw a spear once. It was probably a sharpened branch, but he seemed quite good at it. Although why a dragon would need a spear was beyond her.
Tor cast the rock aside, tossing it with his thumb like one might flip a coin. Raising his head high, he looked vacantly up at the ceiling and then slowly closed his eyes. A thick, rumbling sigh came from deep within his throat. Brea could feel the vibrations through her feet. Wafts of thin, grey smoke rose as blue-green balls of flame sputtered and crackled from his nostrils.
“A hundred years wasting away in this valley.” He spoke in a low, lamentable tone. “A hundred years of waiting and wondering. We should be long gone, back beyond Toi’ifael and home. How long can we sit here guessing whether the Powers have risen in the east? And if so, is it her? That witch has been in my life too long!”
He picked up another rock and flicked it hard against the back wall. It made a bang as it turned to dust. An air of determination crept into his voice. “Plans must be made, old alliances rekindled and new ones drawn. We should not just sit here waiting for this… Cinné’arth… or Dre Kel’mai… or whatever they’re calling him in this century, to show up and save the day.” Tor dropped heavily to the floor, resting his head on a pile of leaves. “I’m tired of this, sick of the villagers feeding us goats and only venturing out at night, and then only within the valley. We must act. I will not be caught napping in this… prison.”
Rek hid his head behind Brea’s skirts, peeking from behind with a nervous eye. He moaned low at his father’s rant.
Anger rose in Brea’s gut. Nobody upset her Rek, not even Tor’gan. “Calm down,” Brea told him. “If there are indeed things to do, they should not be conceived in anger or impatience.”
“Unbelievable,” Tor mumbled, flicking another stone with his talon. “A thousand years old and a human child is telling me what to do.”
“And she is making sense.” Tiama leaned over the edge of the platform and gave Tor a smile that, to Brea, seemed conciliatory. “Tor, my love, we have known for an age that an end will come one day. For five hundred years and more, we have watched, waited and listened for the signs. Even the first war was no surprise, knowing, as we do, the way of men and their greed. The only surprise is that it does not happen more often. And if the end is to be now, then we will learn of it soon enough. But whatever we do, peace should be our goal. Peace is the only true end. Anything else will see us waiting another hundred years, until the next battle, the next enemy. It will never end. This must be done right.”
Tor raised his head. “We need our allies,” he said. “We cannot seek help while the wrath of Eiras is knocking at the door. I must go to the Crenach’coi and speak with Kirin’thar. He must be warned to expect the Cinné’arth. Maybe he can find a way to lead Dre Kel’mai to us. Not just blindly hope, as we have been doing, that he might stumble upon our doorstep.”
“And just how do you propose to do that?” Tiama asked.
“If he has passed this town, as Brea said, and is indeed travelling east, then he must pass Crenach’coi. Kirin’thar would have no trouble finding him. He is wise enough – for a Woodsman. He could speed him to us before the month’s end. And then we will see if he is indeed of The Kin. And if not, at least we won’t waste any more time on him.” Tor nodded in agreement at his own plan. “Nothing can be done until then.”
Brea was busy cleaning Rek’s ears when a thought occurred to her. She stood, biting her fingernails, as she was none too sure if she wanted to bring it up.
“Can I just…?” she spluttered, raising her hand like a shy schoolchild.
“Yes… what is it? More advice?” Tor asked.
“If he comes here, won’t he try to kill you? Is that not his curse?” Brea resumed biting her fingernails.
“Well, my dear, that’s where you come in.”
“Me!” Brea’s eyes widened. She pointed to herself in disbelief.
“Yes, you,” Tor grunted. “Brea Loian, Holder of the Lier’sinn, Guardian of the Blood and the Power, the Soul Guardian of Gan’ifael, the Fifteenth Daughter of the Aldriegan Lineage. Need I go on?” Tor looked sternly at Brea. “Or did you think your only duty was to wipe Rek’s nose?” Tor shook his head. “And while we’re on the subject, his name is Ulrekan. Gods, Rek is a girl’s name.”
Brea looked at Rek – Ulrekan. He gave a little gulp and stuck out his bottom lip in consolation.
Brea laughed. “You’re not an Ulrekan, are you, my little one? No, you’re not.” She straightened herself, tidied her shirt and turned back to face Tor.
“So… what am I to do?” she asked.
“You must read the lore, child. Find a solution.”
Tor was enjoying this; that much was plain to see.
Brea bit her thumbnail. “Not the books. I never know where to start. And they are so dusty, never min
d the spiders.” She shuddered.
“Don’t worry, child,” Tiama said. “There will be a way. There always is. And I will help you if I can.”
“As you say. We’ll start tomorrow.” Brea curtsied to Tiama and stuck her tongue out at Tor – when he was not looking.
CHAPTER 18
Trouble with the Neighbours
Olam and the other travellers had settled for the night by a copse of trees at the bottom of a narrow valley. The clean grass and a sweet smell in the air had aided most to a restful sleep. Only Ealian had seemed restless, tossing and turning as though he was having nightmares. His sister had calmed him down, eventually.
Olam wondered if Elspeth suspected her brother had something other than a touch of the flu or a stomach bug. He hoped she did not, but at the same time felt guilty for not telling her the truth about her brother’s passenger. Hiding the truth was not in Olam’s nature; he hoped Daric was right, and that not telling the others would turn out for the best. What will they do if we cannot find a cure? If the Cren’dair will not help? Assuming we can find the Cren! Oh well, it is not my place to tell Daric what to do. He hoped he was right, hoped they were not making a terrible mistake. Only time will tell, Olam thought. Meanwhile, they had to get to the Crenach’coi…
Although a welcome change, the lush meadow at the centre of the valley had struck a little too close to home for some. Gialyn, in particular, had said how the fields had reminded him of home. For a while – last night, before sleep – the boy had been quite the homesick child. He had gone to bed in a dark mood – as had Daric. But Olam did not think Daric’s mood had anything to do with the valley.
The small copse of medium evergreens, spruce, cedar and holly tucked in neatly against the edge of the long, sloping fields. Behind them, a small stream bubbled along between the trees and provided the travellers with fresh, clean water for both washing and drinking. A welcome change from the thick, earthy taste of the Ambieth. Not that they had found much drinkable water in the marsh. To the right, a rock face – a cliff, really – rose some ten spans in a sheer incline of sandy stone. The coarse, grey-white outcrop continued up the verge for some three hundred paces before disappearing into the ever-steepening hillside. To the south, the valley stretched beyond sight, cradled between high-ridged hills to the east and a steep sandstone scarp to the west. After a mile or so, the floor of the valley turned left along the path of the Raithby River.
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