by Dan Allen
Pert turned, ravenous. He flung his arm out, knocking Terith backward with force summoned from his dark awakening.
Terith hit the ground, grabbed his fallen knife, and struggled to his feet, his right arm clutched defensively over his ribs, concealing the blade.
His muscles locked again as Pert loomed in front of him wielding a power over his own body that Terith couldn’t fight.
“Who knows?” Pert demanded.
Terith tried to swing his left arm that held the knife. His halted motion went deliberately high. Pert parried with his own arm and swung his own fist underneath it. But Pert’s blow connected with the dral stomach that Terith had pulled in front of his abdomen.
The ragoon fire burst from the nozzle, straight into Pert’s face, blossoming behind him into a powerful fireball.
Pert screamed as his uncovered face and eyes burned to a black char. The velra lifted its head as its master’s face flamed.
Akara’s wingtip slipped free of the distracted velra’s grip and it rammed a clawed finger right into one of its large eyes. As its jaws opened in a shriek of pain, Akara drew her powerful legs up and kicked the velra into the cavern wall.
Terith met Akara in the center of the cavern and leapt on her back. He had almost made it to the narrow exit into the next section of the tunnel when Pert’s crossbow dart slashed through the shoulder of his leathers. The grazing shot shredded his skin and the pain was like a lit torch against his arm. Blood trickled down his arm as Terith swiveled his head to catch one last glimpse of Pert’s black, eyeless face erupt in a demonic scream of rage. His velra rolled to its feet and dipped its head to one side, looking for its master with its remaining eye.
Akara ran for the exit and Terith snatched the torch from the ledge.
“Remo and Tamm won’t have any trouble getting past him,” Terith said to Akara. “He’s blind.”
The fruit dragon’s breakneck pace through the collection of branching lava tubes kept Terith’s mind off the horror of what had just happened.
When he finally emerged from the exit of the tunnel Terith looked back but saw no blaze of dragon fire signaling the emergence of another dragon in the cool air of the twilight sky. That nobody was behind him was as concerning as it was a relief and a worry.
Where were Remo and Tamm?
Night fell as Akara stroked evenly toward the tallest megalith in the barrier range—the summit of Candoor. The queen dragon kept her heading by starlight, the glow of the half-moon, and her internal compass.
If the brothers’ dragons were following him under cover of darkness, Terith might not see them until they were a few hundred yards away.
“Pert should be out for good,” Terith said aloud, speaking to hear his own voice, to shake off the terror. Somehow, despite the likelihood, he doubted Pert was gone.
Except for occasional drafts of mountain wind, the air was mostly still on the long climb to the summit of Candoor. Terith ate a few scraps of dried meat and fruit from his bag of rations, but mostly he wished for water, a heavy luxury he hadn’t brought enough of. Along the high ridges of the craggy peaks that formed the remote backbone of the Montas region, mountain goats scaled the cliffs, prey for the carnivorous strythes, but no great ivy. Food for fruit dragons was all but nonexistent. Akara would have to rely on her extra abdominal store of ivy fruit.
In the cold silence, Terith allowed himself the luxury of contemplating victory. So early in the morning, high above the silent hills of the upper Montas, everything was clear. The path to his future was open. Pert could not catch him, blind as he was. The other riders had strong dragons, but the challenge was as much a test of the rider as his dragon. If they caught him, he could draft on their wingbeats until the finish. A sprint at the end would play to his skill in riding. Summoning his awakening and bonding with his dragon, Terith could out-fly them with every trick he knew: leading the wrong way, piggy backing dragon style, forced ejection. He’d already done that to Gomder, cinching a heavy stone to the dragon’s tail or dropping a scorpion on their dragon’s wing—paralysis never helped speed in a race.
Victory was not certain, but his gambit had paid off. Akara was regurgitating and digesting the food from her second stomach. She hadn’t stopped to feed and wasn’t showing signs of slowing.
Lilleth was his. They would be one. He could embrace her, releasing everything to her, sharing his awakening until she saw the world as he did, moving in slow motion, and his eyes opened to visions of the future and the past. They would be one, bonded and promised.
Terith felt like shouting in excitement. It was so close now, just a few hours of riding to the summit and the final downhill leg to the finish.
Terith imagined the moment he would face all the eligible after the finish. He would show up at Ferrin’s keep and stand in front of a row of fifteen eligible women winking, with folks in the crowd cheering and yelling. He was going to have to handle the situation delicately or he would have the rest of his life to hear about it.
Enala was the problem. Terith considered whether the threat she had once levied was really a jest.
“If you choose Lilleth, I’ll just have to stab myself with a knife—nothing personal. And yes, it will be your fault.”
Of course, if Terith didn’t choose Lilleth, somebody else would. Somebody else would have her. Somebody else would hold her in their arms and kiss her on her precious ruby lips and think to themselves what a terrible fool Terith of Neutat was not to choose her. It set Terith’s heart pounding with panic to imagine anyone else even trying to kiss Lilleth. She was a gem beyond reckoning.
Enala was fun, whenever she wasn’t trying to seduce him behind her father’s back—and sometimes when she was. What would become of her flirtatious affection?
Lilleth was different altogether. She was the sunrise over the morning fog, the whispering wind in the trees, and the allure of the unknown.
I want Lilleth.
But am I only choosing her to keep her from somebody else?
If no sign from the awakening came to signal a new chief, and something happened to Ferrin, Lilleth’s husband would inherit the chief position among the dragon lords by default.
Remo, the older of the two dragon racers in the running, would be no worse than Ferrin, though easily swayed. But Tamm? He was a firebrand, always in it for himself.
Pert would be a disaster.
Besides, how would Lilleth feel if I chose Enala?
It would be a brutal disappointment for Lilleth to see Terith choose her younger sister over her.
He couldn’t hurt Lilleth like that.
Their faces drifted in front of Terith, dreams of what was, or what could be: Enala swinging her dress; Lilleth putting her hand on his, sending chills over him.
I choose Lilleth.
With mind and heart at peace with his decision, he focused on the other worry that tugged at him: Tanna’s warning about the horde. They were massing very early in the summer, risking their success against their summer crops, which meant they were confident of their chances in finally breeching the Montas Barrier.
They would not cross the Montas on his watch, and he had to protect Lilleth. That was motivation.
Several hours past midnight the summit approached, lit by the torches of the few soldiers who staffed the lookout. It was the farthest western point in the Montas, overlooking the sacred plain and prairies of Erdal beyond.
The men stationed on the chilly perch cheered as Terith’s dragon hovered above the stand.
“Here’s your token, Terith,” a sergeant called, throwing up a gold coin with a hole in the center.
“Anyone else yet?” Terith asked, tucking it away.
“You’re the first. Thought we’d see Pert by now. Water?”
Terith shook his head, though his own water skin was all but empty. There was no way to guarantee the soldiers weren
’t in the pay of Pert. He turned Akara quickly and let her glide down the mountainside, the cool air rushing past him.
The race was all downhill.
Terith let Akara bleed the hard-earned altitude faster than simple wisdom would suggest. The pressure was dropping, a storm was brewing in the east and the winds would be perilous and contrary for the rest of the flight. Staying low, Terith hoped to catch a bit of tailwind with the cool morning air that descended the mountain canyons.
Dawn lit the horizon by the time he reached the foot of the mountains and sailed out over the first of the remote eastern Montas in a red sunrise.
Gusts of wind whipped around Terith, tipping Akara’s wings. Terith clipped his heel hooks into the harness. “Steady, girl.”
The monsoon had begun. Gray clouds rolled overhead. The light of morning had given way to false night as the clouds cased the sky in blackness.
“Almost there. Come on,” he urged.
Checking behind him for the hundredth time, his heart stalled.
The velra was closing from his left, wings tucked, dropping like a falcon onto its prey.
Pert’s arrival woke the survival instinct in Terith. The morning chill that burned his fingers, the wind in his face, and the aches in his stomach, head, arm, and saddle-sore legs all winked into irrelevance. With the heavier velra in a superior position on a downhill race and Akara close to exhaustion, the contest was all but lost. The outcome was inevitable. A side-by-side downhill race belonged to the heavier beast.
But how did he find me? I blinded him.
Terith shook the dral stomach. It was stiff with rigor mortis. Little remained, if any, of the liquid fire. It couldn’t be sprayed—only poured. His pack of fireworks was lighter now, with only one whistler left, besides the two knives at his sides. It was no defense against a crossbow.
But Pert can’t see, Terith thought. How has he come this far? And on a one-eyed dragon with a hole in its wing.
Sensing Terith’s anxiousness, Akara looked back over her shoulder.
“Your turn, Akara,” Terith said. “It’s up to you.”
Thoughts of victory and bonding with Lilleth vanished. Suddenly survival was his only desperate hope.
Chapter 17
Erdali Realm. Toran’s fortress.
Reann lit a new candle and snuffed out the short remains of the old one, using only as much light as she dared at this hour. Verick’s notes lay open before her on the library table. Ranger, who had nearly cost her everything by following her into Verick’s room and meowing loudly as she stole the notes from his jacket pocket, was diligently napping on a rug.
Reann had no pocket watch, but the horizon visible through the library window was noticeably lighter. Dawn couldn’t be less than an hour away and she had yet to come up with a way to get the notes back into Verick’s vest pocket before he noticed they were gone.
Reann was used to sneaking out of bed when necessary and forging a permission note now and then, but not outright dishonest things like breaking and entering, lying, and stealing. Her conscience raised a continuous alarm as she scanned anxiously through the pages of well-penned notes.
The first thing she confirmed was that the script was not Verick’s.
Where have I seen that writing? Reann wracked her memory for it. She’d read those curling delicate strokes before, somewhere in the library, among the histories, legends, or records.
Perhaps a member of the court, someone close to Toran?
She perused the scattered messages, all of them cryptic in some degree. They seemed like fragmented pieces of poems or unrelated comments. But with the hindsight of a month’s detective work, many of the clues now seemed obvious.
“Toran keeps no Furendali in court, but in the kitchen.”
That’s Trinah’s mother, Reann reasoned instantly. She must have been a cook or serving woman. She browsed for more clues.
“The lord, like the falcon, keeps a fledgling under its wings, save when he hunts.”
This means Toran kept a child with him until he went to battle.
“The echoes resound, where all around the fallen lie still on the hallowed ground. Not bound by blood they stake their claim and have it answered: a new name.”
Echoes all around . . . hallowed ground . . . This means Essen! Reann nearly giggled with delight. She had been right. Essen, the tower fortress where the witch healer Onel once lived, stood in the center of a volcanic caldera surrounded by cliffs. That was where the echo resounds. That was where Toran showed that loyalty was more important than blood. If this clue was about a child of Toran, what did a “new name” have to do with it?
The answer was so simple Reann gasped at the obviousness of it. Simple, brilliant, and something only a follower of Toran’s equality-for-all ideals would ever consider.
“He was adopted,” Reann said, speaking to herself in a whisper. Toran had secretly adopted the witch’s son. It was so perfect and clever. Nobody would suspect Toran would adopt an heir. The witch wouldn’t ever have been pregnant when Toran was in Essen, yet she was the mother! Toran had adopted the child of the witch of Essen as his heir.
“Why did Verick keep these secrets from me?” she wondered.
A sudden memory flickered through Reann’s mind, like a shadow of the dreams her wakeful night denied.
“Ah, Ranville, you’ve brought my cup—the elixir of apples. Good.”
“Nobody knows you like I do, Lord Toran. Drink up.”
“Did you turn the apple press yourself, old Ranville? Or did you make Effel do it for you?”
The memory faded with Toran’s hearty laugh that Reann ached to hear once more.
She shook her head. Why had memories of Toran’s old cupbearer taken her attention? What really mattered was on the pages in front of her.
Another faded scrawl noted, “Love is blind.”
The clue was utterly meaningless. The only thought that crossed Reann’s mind was the memory of her mother—her blind mother, Toran’s personal translator.
A thought.
A wish.
A possibility.
Reann’s heart froze.
Could it be?
No. Impossible.
Possible?
A shudder passed over Reann as she considered that Verick had browsed these notes a hundred times. He had seen this clue, but he hadn’t shared it with her. He might already know what it meant—
a terrifying thought. Or perhaps he thought it was irrelevant or merely a trite rambling. Maybe he didn’t want to bring up a clue without a way to justify it being more than a hunch. Verick was cautious. He was deliberate.
He doesn’t want me to know.
It was an odd thought, made stranger by the unholy hour and the looming shadows of the library. As much as she wanted to dwell on the strange possibility, there was more to read.
Another passage grabbed her eye. “The shining cave is a living tomb. Within it lives a giving womb.”
The King’s Cavern? she wondered. The cave, famous for its forbidden crystals, was in the west, in Dervan, where Toran had hidden from Raffani robbers during his fourth crusade. So this clue had to do with the fourth heir.
Living tomb . . . womb. Did the mother give birth to Toran’s heir in the cave? Had she died in birth?
How is that a living tomb?
The message continued in a crudely poetic fashion that made it even more frustrating. “Hawkish eyes watch the land, a window to his open hand. Evening comes and dreams take flight, recalling visions of the bloody fight. His enemies are kept at bay, in darkened halls of crystal and clay. The desert keeps the secret still, a regent’s sword and his iron will.”
The author of the notes knew something of the western heir. The heir was obviously born in the midst of the conflict but would now be living in secret among the warlords of the Dervites. R
eann had only time enough to gather cursory details. Infuriating urgency drove her on. There was no time to waste analyzing now. Verick was the most urgent mystery to solve. Her own life would doubtless depend on it.
Reann skipped several pages of notes until she found the glossier ink of the evening before. This was Verick’s own southern-style lettering made of terse letters devoid of flourishes: precise and unimaginative.
The oath to my dying mother will not escape me. Her last words are my charge. I cannot live and see that oath unfulfilled.
The five heirs haunt me. I cannot escape them even in my sleep. The closer I come to finding them at last, the more real my illusions seem.
I dreamt of a weapon in my hand, an assassin’s knife. I raised it to strike, but the head in front of me turned and it was the library girl. I fled. My resolve is a mix now of too many colors of feeling. I doubt myself, though I continue what I began.”
Those I seek become more real the more I learn. More capable, more alive, even more of a threat. My course is set before me. My fate was written in the preamble.
If I should fail in my challenge, these words will show I knew my duty. These words will show I sought my father’s revenge.
Reann shut the book.
“Verick wants revenge.”
No night terror was more stark, more horrifying. She could read no more. Her curiosity vaporized like dew under the desert sun. Her insides knotted with anxiety. Her pulse throbbed in a crazed rhythm.
Whatever it all meant, if she did not get the notes back to Verick, she would soon be as dead as the young man who first tried to steal the book.
The phantom thought of Ret discovering hawks pecking at her dead body nearly caused her to faint.
I can do this. I have to do this.
The first rays of the morning sun broke through the windows of the library. Reann stirred herself with a mix of valor and desperation riding on the whispers of strange, strange imaginings.