Viper executed a deep bow toward his peephole, but of course the dragon couldn’t see him. “Thank you,” he called. He hoped he never ate another piece of meat, once he got out of this prison. But he wouldn’t turn down a handout. Fungus, roasted or raw, simply didn’t fill his belly.
Surizhan nodded toward the peephole before turning back to Leysamura. “What is our daughter’s name?”
She bowed her head and studied the sleeping infant. “Zhanamuriel.”
“A good name, touching all of her beginning elements, I suspect.” Surizhan dipped his nose toward the tunnels.
Leysamura simply smiled.
“Well done.” Surizhan bowed to her, turned, and launched himself out of the cavern, into the snowstorm.
“I never will get used to you people’s abrupt comings and goings,” Viper said from the safety of the tunnel.
Leysamura laughed. She picked up the leathery egg shell and laid it in one of her cubbyholes on the far side of the cavern. Yawning widely, she curled around her new daughter.
Apparently the excitement was over. Viper sighed and stretched. He’d never dreamed living with a dragon could be so boring. All she ever did was sleep.
Though he might be the first person in history to watch a dragon hatch. If only he had a notebook with him. In the morning he’d work on making paper. Or tonight he’d steal the deer hide the dragons had left behind.
Making vellum couldn’t be that hard.
He grinned and strolled through the tunnels to his grill. It was time to light a new will-fire in his grill. Dinner was waiting.
He wound up walking through a tunnel he rarely used, since he’d need to squirm down a hole to get back to the level of the shelf. But before he got to the wormhole, he noticed markings on the wall. Marks that almost looked like writing. He stopped to examine them more closely.
It was writing! Someone had used charcoal to write on the black stone. No wonder he hadn’t seen it before. Now, what did it say?
And where did it start? He strolled back into the dark tunnel, looking for the beginning of the tale. Finally, deep in the mountain where the fungus beds grew, he found what appeared to be the first lines.
The handwriting was so shaky it took him several minutes to figure out the language was Nashidra. But he needed only seconds to read the first entry. He understood the writer all too well.
‘Why didn’t the dragon eat me?’
He’d wondered that himself. Still wondered sometimes.
Despair echoed through the next few lines. ‘Why doesn’t it eat me now? How will I ever get out of here? I don’t believe any of the monster’s promises.’
The poor fellow had gotten out eventually. Unless he died. Or the dragon did eat him.
Viper had a feeling he didn’t want to read this journal on an empty stomach. He turned his back on the writing, chose another passageway, and headed back to his grill.
There was writing in this tunnel, too.
Chapter 22.
Tsai saluted, swung into the saddle, and reined Sumach in the general direction of the kid’s mountain. Glancing back over her shoulder, she shouted, “Take care of your cuts. Unless you like the idea of earning the name ‘One-Handed Warrior’.”
Lorel saluted back with the rudest gesture she knew. Coward crap. Even that little movement made her hand ache. The slime on that blood-woven catfish must’ve been poisoned.
Tsai laughed and rode away. The fraying girl could afford to laugh. She still had a horse. Lorel was stuck with the miswoven wagon.
At times like this, she missed Nightshade more than anything. More than beer or real food. Even more than her family.
And it was all her own fault the stallion was dead.
She kicked at the wagon wheel and glared at the trail that Tsai was supposedly scouting. Lots of new grass, lots of switchbacks. From here, it looked like the last three days of rain had melted all the snow between their campsite and the kid’s mountain.
The thread-fraying mountain looked like a Weaver-sized pile of salt, though.
She’d worry about it when she got there. Maybe it would rain up there soon.
At least down here it was warm again. She climbed halfway to the driver’s platform, shrugged her cloak off, and tossed it under the door, deep inside the wagon.
The toad grumbled. She must’ve thrown her cloak right over the legless lizard, clear up on the kid’s bed.
Lorel grinned and climbed down to recheck the harness. As she crossed in front of the horses, Poppy nibbled at her hair and Periwinkle nudged her shoulder. She paused to rub both their foreheads.
“I’m thinking we’re all ready to move.” She scratched under each roan chin before walking on. “You nearly cleaned out this meadow, that’s for sure.” With all the rain, the grass would grow quick enough. She hoped. They might need it on the way out, after she rescued the kid.
The fire pot was still uncomfortably hot when she scooped it off the ground and set it on the floor of the driver’s platform. Good. The fraying thing wouldn’t need feeding anytime soon.
She swung up to the driver’s seat, picked up the reins, and jiggled them. “Time to go.”
The team leaned into the harness.
Driving was so boring. The kid was right, these nags knew exactly where to go most of the time.
Smoke billowed to the southwest. That was one fraying big volcano, and it seemed to get bigger every day. Lorel eyed it and decided, again, that they’d go nowhere near it. She’d grab the kid and head northeast.
She’d still like to know how Kyri planned to steal the kid from that dragon. The legless lizard didn’t want her messing with a – what did the kid’s weird friend call it? A winged weasel? Yeah, that was it. Doing battle with a winged weasel probably wasn’t one her better ideas.
Though it would make one snipping grand song!
Lorel grinned at herself and closed her eyes. Tactics for battling an overgrown winged opponent brawled inside her head.
The wagon rattled along smoothly.
∞∞∞
Poppy shrieked. Both horses kicked backwards. They broke into a trot, jarring the wagon.
Startled awake, Lorel grabbed the wobbling fire pot with the sides of her boots and wrapped her fingers around the edge of the seat to keep from falling off.
“What’s the fuss?” She sat up and rubbed her back. Stiff as she was, she must’ve slept quite a while.
She’d also managed to lose the reins. She could see them dangling on the wagon’s tongue, between the horses. Blood in the Weave. It was a fraying nuisance to get them back last time she’d dropped them. And that only happened when the nags got it into their thread-snipping heads to run.
Heat soaked through her boots. She couldn’t have slept too long, seeing as the fire pot was still hot, sing to the Weaver. She was looking forward to a cooked supper tonight.
Periwinkle neighed and shouldered Poppy to the side.
What had the stupid mules all riled up?
Wait, where was she?
Glittering gray boulders to the left, forest and a lake down the hill to the right. She wasn’t where she was supposed to be.
“Thread-snipping nags.” Well, she couldn’t rightly complain. It wasn’t like she’d told them the path she wanted to take. Served her fair for falling asleep on duty. Now she’d have to figure out how to get back where she was supposed to be. Preferably before Tsai noticed she’d gotten lost.
The horses screamed and hauled into a gallop. The wagon hopped along like a fancy whore on a muddy street.
She groped for the missing reins. No way she could reach them, not until the overgrown wheelbarrow stopped moving. She clutched the seat edge again instead. “What’s wrong with you two? It ain’t like there’s serdil hereabouts.”
Periwinkle rammed his shoulder into Poppy’s, turning them farther left.
The driver’s seat bucked like a pissed-off seawall ox. Putting springs under the bench hadn’t been one of Tsai’s better ideas. She’d
be tossed to the ground for sure if her grip failed.
But what was making the nags act like they’d fallen off the Shuttle? She scooted to Periwinkle’s side of the wagon and looked back.
A low whistle whooshed out of her.
It gotta be a troll out of her worst nightmares. Steely gray pelt, tiny black eyes. Taller than Sumach, even down on all four paws. And it was catching up. Already it ran beside the driver’s seat.
The beast snarled at her, reared up, and swung one huge paw.
She jerked backwards and nearly kicked the fire pot off the platform.
Muddy claws as long as her hand missed her face by a finger width.
Miswoven monster. She leaned out and bashed her fist on the top of the beast’s nose.
Gray fur crashed into the grass, rolled to its feet, and thundered after the wagon.
“Blood in the Weave, that critter is fast.” Lorel scooped up the pot – the fraying thing was hot – turned and braced one arm on the driver’s seat, lifted the door, and stuck her head inside the groaning wagon. “Hey, toad!”
Kyri was already curled half on Tsai’s bed and half on the floor, its coils bouncing with every jolt.
She dropped the fire pot in the middle of its coils. “Guard this, will you?”
The wiggler hissed, yanked its hide away from the pot, and nudged a heavy copper cook pot at her with its nose. “The anchor shall defend the earth children.”
With a rice pot? “How did you ever – Never mind.” Even if it told her how it’d gotten the pan out of the cabinet, she’d never understand all them big words.
“What is that thing? A troll?” She’d always wanted to see a real troll, not just the fake one the kid made to scare her.
The legless lizard shoved the rice pan forward while easing the fire pot toward the edge of Tsai’s bed, somehow without touching the hot clay. “The creature is an ursine – a bear.”
That thing didn’t look like no bear she’d ever heard tell of. Of course, she’d never seen one, only heard about them in hero’s tales, but the beastie’s legs looked too long.
“The bear aspires to consume the earth children.” The stupid snake nudged the rice pot with its nose. “The swordling must accept the weapon.”
“This gotta be the weirdest weapon ever.” She grabbed the handle and retreated. “I got a wagon full of Crayl steel blades, and you give me an old copper cook pot.” At least the pan had a good heft to it. Maybe it would do a little damage.
The legless lizard turned its attention to the smoldering fire pot. It still didn’t touch the clay with its skin. The wimp. What’s a little heat? It better not catch Tsai’s bed on fire. Or the whole wagon for that matter.
“I ain’t sure what’s worse, no-legged or four-legged monsters.” She slammed the door shut and turned back to the horses.
Periwinkle screamed, and Poppy echoed him a second later. Both were sweating, their wild gallop slowing.
Steely fur bounded past the driver’s bench. Yellow teeth flashed in the sunlight.
“You, fuzz ball! You leave my team alone!” She lunged forward, swung the cook pot high, and clobbered the back of bear’s head with all of her strength.
The beastie hurtled to the ground.
So did she. Grassy earth plunged at her face as she tumbled off the bench. Still gripping the pot’s handle, she thudded to the grass a few feet from the critter.
The horses galloped down the hill.
Wagon wheels flashed past her. Lorel yanked her feet out of the way barely in time. “Thread-fraying nags.” Crushed legs would mess up her day. Weaver’s chamberpot, they’d mess up her whole life.
The bear rolled onto all four paws.
“Weaver’s cold toes.” Laying on the ground wasn’t a strong defensive position. She forced her aching bones upright.
Tiny black eyes glared at her. It shook itself all over, and reared onto its back feet.
The thread-snipping monster stood taller than she did. A lot taller. She better take it down a notch or two.
“You got a real pretty pelt, fuzz ball.” She brandished the rice pot over her head. “If you wanna keep it, you better move off.” Pain burst through her injured hand. She lowered it and shifted the pan to her good hand. This was not the time to show any weakness.
The bear pawed the air and roared at her, yowling just like her dad when he was mad at her.
Just like her father, who never thought she’d amount to anything. Who thought she wasted her time learning to fight. Who thought she was wasting her whole life.
Fury made her breathe faster. She forced her breathing to slow. She’d trained too carefully to let anger slow her down. But she could use it against the blood-woven monster.
She filled her lungs and bellowed, “I don’t gotta take that from you, fuzz ball! I got enough of that while I was a kid! I ain’t gonna put up with it now!”
Looking startled, the critter backed away.
“You ain’t half the man my father is!” She stalked forward, waving the cook pot like a war axe. “I didn’t take that noise from him, and I ain’t gonna take it from you!”
The bear dropped to its front paws and sidled toward the forest.
“Sure, you just run away, fuzz ball! You wanna fight, I’ll give you a fight. I’ll take home your pretty pelt as a present for my mother!” She sprinted toward the bear. Another good wallop and she’d knock it out for sure.
The coward turned and raced for the trees. In seconds its furry backside disappeared into the brush.
At the edge of the clearing, she stopped and glared into the forest. “You ain’t no fun. No troll, no battle, and no pelt to show for my trouble.”
She shook her weapon one last time, and paused. Somehow she’d managed to dent the bottom of the rice pot. The kid was gonna fray all over her. “This is the stupidest weapon the toad could’ve picked.”
From now on, she was wearing her swords, both of them, no matter how safe the area looked.
But right now she needed to find the horses before something else tried to eat them. She balanced the heavy pot on her shoulder and trotted down the trail left in the grass.
She caught up with them maybe a mile away, in a grassy hollow between the hills with a small creek. It looked like a decent place to camp. The team surely couldn’t go any farther for a while.
They were all lathered up, but chomping on grass happily enough. She unharnessed them and wiped off all the sweat before climbing inside the wagon to put away the pot and retrieve her swords.
Books were scattered all over the floor. Again. She’d pick them up later.
Izzy snuggled deeper into the kid’s serdil cloak, up on the kid’s bunk, right next to Kyri. Good thing it was just an old boot. The slithering toad would’ve eaten it by now if it was a living critter.
Kyri raised its head and stared at her.
Whatever the slithering toad thought, it wasn’t worth fighting over. “Where’s the fire pot?” She hoisted the rice pot higher. “And where’d you find this thing?”
The stupid snake yanked its head back and blinked at her.
What, did it think she’d bash its skull in? She hadn’t even been tempted for a whole lunar. “Where, toad?”
It blinked again, but pointed its snout toward the pot-bellied stove. “The receptacle of embers resides therein.”
Inside the stove? How had the slithering toad gotten the firebox door open, or the pot inside? With its mouth? Not likely!
Kyri tilted its head. “The appliance is concaved.”
Concaved? It must mean dented. That was pretty obvious. “I know. The kid’s gonna fray all over me.” The copper bottom was way too thick for Tsai to fix this time.
“This one suggests the appliance should become misplaced.” It reared out into the wagon and nudged her icky hand. “The swordling is injured.”
Weaver’s chamberpot. Blood coated her hand. The catfish-slimed scrapes must’ve opened up again. When she fell? Or while she was grooming the horses? S
he never noticed. Now it stung a little. Or at least, more than it had before.
“I’ll go wash up in the creek.” Holding her bloody hand high so it wouldn’t drip inside the kid’s precious wagon, she dumped the rice pot on top of the stove, opened the oven door, and pulled the fire pot out of it. The fraying fire needed feeding by now.
She grabbed her swords and sword belt off her bed. Halfway out the door, she froze. “Did you just tell me to lose the pot?”
Kyri dipped its head. “This one sees no value in distressing the hatchling.”
The snake was willing to lie to the kid? To protect her? That just plain sounded weird. The kid never yelled that loud. She couldn’t think of anything to say.
But it wasn’t done yet. “Will the anchor permit this one to formulate a new poultice for its injury?”
Not if she could avoid it. She was still green from the last one. “Maybe after Tsai gets here.” She scooted under the door before the legless – and blessedly handless – lizard could pester her about a new green-crap cure.
She poked a few twigs inside the fire pot before she trotted down to the creek. She held her hand underwater until the bleeding stopped. That would do for now. She shook her hand mostly dry and buckled on her sword belt.
Nothing was gonna mess with her today. She’d chop its head off.
A huge boom shook the air. Smoke billowed to the southeast.
“Show off.” Not even a bahtdor-bone sword could kill a fraying volcano.
At least she knew where she was now. More or less. How far off was she from the camp Tsai had marked for her yesterday? Not very far, she’d bet.
A few minutes’ hunt turned up the marker Tsai like to use, a big, pinecone-shaped pile of sticks. But it was hours earlier than Tsai’d said they’d get here. The nags’ wanderings must’ve turned up a shortcut.
Might as well move the wood. Camping on the other side of the meadow suited her better. The place Tsai’d picked was too close to a rocky incline, making it harder to defend. She grabbed an armload of sticks and hauled it to the wagon.
On her way back to the woodpile, she patted Poppy’s damp, blue-gray shoulder and scratched under Periwinkle’s grass-stained chin. “We should let you two do all the scouting. You’re better at it than us people are.”
Dragon's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 4) Page 18