Lorel strolled after them. “Wow, look at her butt. Some giant bug must’ve bit her to make a lump that huge.”
Sumach’s whole body shivered, starting at her middle and working out to both ends. Dollops of lather flew into the air.
Tsai wiped horse-sweat off her face and stroked the mare’s shoulder. “She’s wet all over. Grab a comb, would you? And a lead rope. I’ll tether her to the wagon while I groom her.”
“She’ll want to roll as soon as she calms down.” She grabbed the rope and two curry combs. No way was she gonna abandon Tsai after all the fun of chasing the wounded horse.
“I’ll comb her again afterwards.” Tsai paused with the comb still in Sumach’s red-freckled gray fur – fleabitten, the kid called it. The poor mare was monster-bug-bitten now. “You remember how to make a poultice to take down the swelling?”
“Nope. But we can put wet rags on her butt for a while.” That’s what her mother always did the times she came home bruised and banged up. Almost nightly, come to think of it.
It was dark by the time they finished soothing Sumach. The fire was burned down to coals.
But no smoke rose from the pot. Lorel grinned. “Catching your girl didn’t take as long as I thought. I didn’t burn dinner.”
Tsai snortled. “That’s an improvement.”
Lorel picked up the pan of rice and tilted it. Gluey, mud-brown juice slopped around the bottom. It smelled like the starch her mother used when she ironed Dad’s shirts.
Tasted like starch, too.
They ate it anyway. No point in going to bed on an empty stomach.
Chapter 5.
Viper yawned and snuggled against his bed. His mattress was remarkably warm for a change. But he’d lost all of his blankets and the air was unusually chilly. As chilly as the mattress was warm.
He felt oddly lightheaded, as though he were coming down with the flu. The inside of his nose felt dry and tight. His left wrist ached, and his palm itched. Had he hurt himself again?
Where was he? This wasn’t his bed. He ran one hand over the mattress. Who’d buy suede leather, wine-red sheets? Trevor never would. His old teacher believed in the health benefits of linen sheets.
And he was beginning to feel seasick. What made a mattress sway up and down?
Was he on a ship?
He studied the bed, the oversized room, the slow rock of the mattress. His blood froze.
He was resting on a sleeping dragon’s belly.
His eyes tried to leap out of his head and whiz across the cavern. Blood pounded through his veins in a frantic drum roll. How’d he get on top of the lightning-blasted monster?
Staying here wasn’t an option. He took several deep breaths to steady himself and searched for a way down.
The dragon slept on her side, with her tail curled between her forearms, under her head, and around her shoulders. Her knees just grazed her elbows. Her hips and shoulders rose thirty feet above the ground.
He was sprawled atop her soft belly near the flank. How’d he ever get up here? The angles of her arms and legs were too steep for climbing. He must have scrambled up her tail.
Surely he never had the gall to traipse up her snout and along her neck. That was the only other way to get here.
A shudder jangled through his body. He needed to climb down before she woke up. Down her tail. What a nightmare.
But when he tried to climb to her hip, her skin jiggled and twitched, and knocked him flat on his back. Could a dragon be ticklish?
No point in waking her up by dancing on her sensitive spots. There must be another way down.
He crawled off the soft flank to the rib cage. There he stood and skulked, stepping very slowly and tenderly, up the ribs to the shoulder. He crouched and rested his hand on the curled tail. Even so near the tip, the width of that tail rose above his knees.
The dragon’s hide felt familiar, and he searched his memory for the connection. He’d been too frightened to notice before, but the dragon’s skin was the texture of kid-skin gloves, velvety and soothing. It felt like–
The Kyridon. The dragon’s hide felt exactly like the Kyridon’s skin.
Viper stared at the velvety surface for several seconds. Could Dreshin Vipers be related to dragons? He knew so little about either species. If he figured out the link, he’d write a momentous book.
A low sigh crushed his anticipation. A long, deep sigh, coming from lungs infinitely larger than his own.
His heart skipped three beats. What would the dragon do if she caught him sitting on her? He froze and waited.
Seconds passed. Minutes? He couldn’t stay here any longer.
He stood and studied his options. He could crawl down the end of her tail until it met the ground, where he’d slither down a few more feet.
Or he could slide down the dragon’s shoulder to her hand, which lay right next to her nose. A long, steep slide, but with a final drop of only two feet. Faster, but more dangerous. What if she smelled him? He stunk of sweat and horses and leather. She couldn’t miss him.
The dragon sighed again.
Viper darted to her shoulder. His boots slipped out from under him, dumping him on his rear end. Before he could stop himself, he slithered down the dragon’s upper arm.
His heart thundered so loud it should wake a bevy of dragons. His coat rucked up his back. His trousers glided along the dragon’s skin as if they were made of grease instead of wool.
Leaning hard to the left, he twisted through the turn at her elbow and flew down her forearm. His rump barely touched her skin, he was moving so fast. He skidded to a stop on the back of her knuckles.
A panicky glance at her face assured him she was still asleep. He scuttled to the cliff and hauled his carcass upward, ignoring his aching stitched wrist and burning stumpy ankle. Pain he could ignore. Getting eaten he couldn’t.
He reached the shelf and dove into a tunnel. Barely in time.
Leysamura yawned and sat up. She grinned at the holes in the walls, ambled over, and plunged her hand into one.
Viper crawled deeper into the tunnel. He chose an upward route, creeping silently until he was slightly over the dragon’s head. Without his will-light to give him away, she’d never find him.
A crack in the wall offered a clear view of her antics. He sat very still, fearing even to breath.
Humming an eerie, complicated tune, the dragon poked through tunnel after tunnel, raking her claws along the floor.
The noise jangled his nerves worse than when Tsai’dona scraped a whetstone along her sword’s blade. He eased his hands over his ears.
Leysamura looked up and smiled. “There you are.” She stretched, stood tall on her hind legs, and plunged her arm shoulder deep into a shaft to the right and far above his position.
Her paw landed directly on him.
Air squealed out of him. He wriggled and tried to squirm free of her grip.
Leysamura chuckled. “You didn’t notice that one, did you, little Adoriel? I must teach you to look up as well as backward.”
What was he expected to notice? One dark spot on the cave ceiling looked like all the others. How was he supposed to know there was a shaft up there?
She eased him out of the tunnel, dropped him on the cold floor, and swatted him.
The blow knocked him thirty feet across the sandy ground. He could feel bruises swelling on his shoulders and knees.
Viper scowled up at the enormous face. “All right, you’ve caught me.” Was she as playful as she seemed? He’d rather not get torn to shreds by those oversized fangs. Maybe teasing her would get him out of this mess. At this point, it couldn’t do any harm. “Now eat me and have done with it.”
“Not this time.” The right hand batted him back to the left. “I think I’ll play with you for a while.”
Thunderer! How could he get away from her?
Blood dripped from his nose. Lavender mist surrounded his head. He didn’t want to use blood magic. He didn’t! But right now it was so tempt
ing.
Leysamura waved one finger and the magic vanished.
Her left paw knocked him to the right. “If you can make me miss a beat, I’ll put you back in the tunnels. Come now, Adoriel child. Show a little spirit.”
Viper gritted his teeth and tried to stand up. His foot was numb, but his padded boot stayed on his ankle stump. If he could get upright fast enough, he’d run for it.
She flicked her fingers and knocked him over before he balanced on his knees. “You’re too slow.” She swatted him with the other paw.
He arched his legs, rolled several feet to the side, and scampered on all fours toward a cavelet in the cliff’s base.
A huge palm came down on him and pinned him to the floor. “Much better. I like that kind of spirit. But you still forget to look up.”
“Mmmvfrssh.”
“What’s that?”
He didn’t reply. Couldn’t. His lungs felt squeezed out though his mouth.
She lifted her hand.
He gasped in icy air. “Thank you.” He crawled to his aching knees and groaned. “I think you’ve mashed my ribs.”
“Is that all?” The dragon smacked him with one finger, flinging him several feet. “You really need to look beyond the obvious. Stand up.”
Viper clutched his chest and staggered upright. The sandblasted sandcrab gave him all the time he needed to find his balance, but that was all the mercy she showed.
Her right paw descend toward him. He jumped out of the way just before it landed.
He fell into her left palm.
Leysamura gave him another contemptuous swat.
He flew to the base of the cliff and landed face down in the rocky sand. His chest was on fire. So many bruises welted his body, he felt like mallet-tenderized pork. The stitches on his wrist had torn through the skin, but at least that wasn’t bleeding much. One small victory.
“You mustn’t have a two-dimensional mind.” Leysamura shook her head. “The secret to the game is to watch all of your options at once.”
“I can scarcely breathe, much less see anything.” Both of his eyes were swelling shut. How could he get away from her if he couldn’t see her?
Would she laugh at a joke? Or kill him? “It’s dinnertime. I give up.”
“Be quiet.” Leysamura’s head snapped high. She turned and stared at the cavern entrance. “Didn’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?” He lifted his face from the gravel. Every bone in his spine popped. Blood drip, drip, dripped from his nose into a slowly spreading puddle.
“Movement.” The dragon rushed to the opening and glared out.
Viper lay still, panting through his mouth. But she wasn’t watching him at all. Was she really that distracted?
He crawled to the cliff and began to climb.
Every muscle in his body ached. His joints were swollen and stiff. Each movement was slow torture, but he forced himself to keep moving. After climbing for a lifetime, he reached the shelf.
He looked back at the dragon, but she still shuffled near the threshold. What was so interesting it interrupted her game?
Whatever it was, he’d be eternally grateful.
On hands and knees, he crept into the tunnel.
He hurt too much to attempt a will-light. Feeling his way around icy pools, he crawled through the morgue-black tunnel. He didn’t care where he went, as long as it was away from those cruel paws.
He needed to hide. If she caught him again, he’d die. He had to find someplace safe. He had to keep moving.
Cold stone changed into firm resilience. He felt along the border of the change, trying to figure out if it was safe to go onward.
Lumpy, waxy, squashy. It must be a bed of fungus.
He hurt too much to eat the garbage. Was it worth the trouble of crawling over it?
Could he hide on it?
Come on, you nameless son of a snakebite, try and think like a dragon. When she starts searching, she’ll look everywhere obvious. On top of the fungus is obvious. Do you suppose she’ll think to probe inside the bed?
He crawled up on the highest part of the bed and tried to drag the ears aside. Agony shot through his bloody fingers, up his arms, and settled into fire in his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even scream.
Tears crept down his cheeks.
Tired. He was so tired. But he wasn’t ready to let some monster eat him.
He squared his shoulders and plunged his hands between the ears of fungus. Muffling a shriek against new pain, he bit his lip, tasted blood. But he managed to clear away enough room for him to squeeze in.
It was a snug fit, but he curled his entire body inside the hole. The fungi kept him off the cold stone, and he imagined his living cave held in a little of his body heat.
He was still miserably cold. He was too exhausted to care.
But his belly was rumbling. And he was surrounded by food, if he could call it that. He turned his head and bit off a mouthful of the tasteless stuff, and another. Praise the Thunderer, eating the waxy garbage gave him a little more room to breathe.
He began to relax.
Red pain engulfed him, a crackling squiggly net of agony, but eventually even that receded into the dark.
Clawed hands swished after him, yanking him out of sleep. He curled into a tighter ball and held his breath.
Agony tore through his chest. He forced the breath to hiss out quietly, instead of letting out the scream that wanted to escape.
Would she hear him anyway? He listened, but no sounds scraped through his tunnel. Had he dreamed her hands had reached for him?
He lay awake for hours, waiting for the dragon to resume the game, but she seemed to have forgotten him. He heard her humming to herself now and again, and he heard her fly in and out of the cave, each time heralded by the distinctive whoosh of air.
In time, darkness reclaimed him.
Chapter 6.
Another meadow. More knee-tall grass. The nags oughta be happy to get out from under the trees.
Lorel was not happy.
The ravine at the bottom of the hill was at least twenty feet deep. Straight down. It cut across the valley as far as she could see.
Why did the toad insist they go this way?
At least Tsai’d been able to warn her this time.
Lorel jumped down from the wagon before she slugged the slithering toad. She glanced up toward the noon sun, and rolled her eyes at Tsai.
Tsai shook her head, patted Sumach’s neck, and slid to the ground.
Yeah, it looked like they all were gonna take a break, like it or not. The team was already chomping at the grass around their hooves.
She turned back to the wiggler on the driver’s platform. “Exactly what kind of game are you playing?”
It glared down its nose at her. “This one does not ‘play games’.”
“You said you know where we’re going.” She kicked at the wagon wheel and wished there was something she could hit. Her fist was already sore from punching the fraying starfish coating the wagon. She was getting good at avoiding their spines.
“This one is cognizant of the hatchling’s locus.” The slithering toad yanked its head out of her reach. “This one is aware of the hatchling’s position.”
“Then how come you keep getting us stuck!” She pointed at the miswoven ravine. “That’s the third hole today! Are you trying to slow us down?”
The overgrown snake reared until its head was above the wagon’s roof. “This one is not constructing obstacles. This one is aware of the hatchling’s position, but not of the route to the hatchling.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re telling me you don’t know what’s between here and there?”
Tsai groaned and leaned against Sumach’s shoulder. “I should have guessed.”
The legless lizard sank back to the driver’s seat.
“Got it.” She covered her eyes with one filthy hand. “I’m wishing you’d told me before.”
“This one attempted –”
“I know, I know.” She walked to the horses’ heads. “Let’s turn around, nags.”
The fraying snake lifted its head a little. “What action does the swordling propose to undertake?”
“What action?” She led the team back to the edge of the forest and parked the wagon in the shade. “Me and Tsai are gonna set up camp. When we get done, you are going to point me at the kid.”
The legless lizard wriggled to the edge of the bench. “The swordlings must not endeavor to liberate the hatchling unaccompanied by this one.”
She paused in unfastening Poppy’s harness. “Little words, toad.”
Kyri-thing closed its eyes. “The swordlings must not attempt to rescue the hatchling without this one’s assistance.”
Like the useless critter could assist anybody. It wasn’t even much use to the kid, and he liked the monster. “I ain’t going far. I’m gonna scout out a path. I’ll come back, and we’ll move the wagon. Just that far. Then I’ll go out again.”
Tsai stopped grooming Sumach and stared at her.
The slithering toad raised its head and tucked its chin close to its neck. “The equines will be endangered if left unguarded.”
Lorel winked at her friend and turned back to the snake. “I know, toad. You’re gonna stay with the wagon and guard them.”
Kyri-thing’s jaw waggled soundlessly a few times before it shook its head. “This one would be an ineffective guardian against a dragon.”
Tsai snorted and went back to combing her mare.
Lorel raised her eyebrows at the overgrown wiggler. “You think I’d do better? Nice thought, anyways.”
“The anchor will slow this assembly’s progress.”
“Wrong, toad. The swordling gonna triple our progress.” Lorel thumped Poppy’s butt, and turned to start unharnessing Periwinkle. “Leastwise, I can’t do worse than we been doing. Listen, I’m going ahead to find a path the wagon can travel. Otherwise, we gotta leave it right here.”
“The anchor–”
“Shut up, toad.” She freed Periwinkle to graze and packed the harnesses away. The fraying beasts better not run away on her. If they did, she wasn’t gonna chase them. “I done made up my mind. Me and Tsai go scouting before we move, each time, or we leave the wagon. Here. Today.”
Dragon's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 4) Page 4