The Summer Dragon

  “Leave me and go!” he said, as if reading my mind.

  I shook my head slowly.

  Keirr turned and, spotting her poppa, bounced joyfully over to him. Her chirps and playful barks were more than I could ever hope to learn and repeat, the sounds of a happy, sated qit with energy to burn. He lowered his head to greet her, accepting her playful swats and swipes in silence. She stood on her back legs to reach his muzzle and licked his nose happily. Though his lips were burned, he returned her affectionate kisses and allowed her rambunctious greeting to blunder against the wounds in his legs. He kept his head lowered, and licked at her face and ear frills whenever she came near his mouth. She was clearly delighted to have her poppa back, and she wanted to be entertained. But the chuffing noise that rattled deep in his chest indicated that he was in anguish, even during this joyous reunion. He closed his good eye, and did not move either to rebuff or encourage her play.

  Keirr bounced back to me, crawled into my lap, licked at the donkey meat lying on my jacket, and mowped happily. Then she snagged the last remaining chunk of meat and trotted over to Malik with it in her mouth. She dropped it in front of him and danced around it excitedly. Her playful enthusiasm brought a lump to my throat.

  “Keirr,” he said, quietly. She pounced on his right paw, chased her tail for a turn, then pounced on his other paw in an effort to draw a response.

  “Keirr,” he said again. Then, “Mfff [purrrr].”

  She skipped over to his lowered head and raised her nose to his. He rubbed his chin against her cheek, and she licked his bloody lips. “Mfff [purrrrrr] [rumble],” he said. She sat and looked up at him, and I allowed myself to breathe.

  Malik looked at his wounds, and at his little Keirr, and at Darian. Then he fixed me with his remaining eye, breathing shallowly and painfully. I met his silver gaze at last, without fear. He studied me long and hard, unblinking. His ruined face was impossible to read, but he no longer snarled or whuffed with menace. He seemed to be waiting for me to do or say something.

  My brain was a weary tumult of frustration and sadness, embroiled with thoughts of Mother and Father and family, Mabir and Bellua, foreign poachers and Horrors. All the events of the last few days spiraled into this moment, in this strange blue-lit room with High Dragons looking down from the walls. I was exhausted, ready to accept whatever fate had been ordained for me.

  “She belongs to you,” I said finally, my voice cracking. “I’m sorry.” I could barely whisper. “I’m sorry for your loss and pain. I wish I could help you.”

  The tramping of Harodhi soldiers echoed up from the cavern beyond, and orange light tinted the air. Malik turned his head in that direction, then back to me. He closed his eye and hung his head low. Keirr rubbed her cheek against his chin. He keened sadly, quietly, as our dams had done the night of Brood Day. Then he rumbled softly to his qit, and she looked at me. He rumbled again and her ear frills and wings drooped. He licked her face and rumbled one more time.

  She came to me, slowly, her silver eyes wide, and crawled into my lap. She looked back at her poppa and keened almost inaudibly.

  Malik picked up the piece of donkey meat at his feet and walked over to us, his tattered face mere inches from mine. He dropped it on my jacket and licked his qitling’s face one last time.

  I could barely believe what was happening. Malik knew how badly he was hurt, could feel his strength ebbing. He knew that he would be unable to care for his qit. He had reached a decision much like mine.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I struggled to find my voice. “I promise . . .” My words caught as I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I promise I will take good care of your little Keirr.” I looked him in the eye.

  His mangled head dipped slightly, as if in acknowledgment, and then he turned away. His baby cried after him, but he limped painfully across the chamber toward the far exit, leaving a trail of bloody footprints as the sounds of pursuit grew louder. Then he stopped and looked over his shoulder at us. “Mfff.”

  “Maia.” Darian propped himself up on his hands. There were tears in his eyes, too. “We have to go.”

  I wrapped my arms around Keirr to gently pin her wings to her sides again, then worked my knapsack up around her. I put the meat in with her, pulled the drawstring, and stood. I left the blanket and my jacket on the floor, and held out an arm to Darian. He gripped my wrist, and I pulled him to his feet.

  Malik waited until we were but a few feet behind him, and then he led us into the far passage, beneath Menog, the Winter Dragon.

  I paused once to look back at the carving over the opposite door, the door by which we had entered. In the rippling blue light, the Summer Dragon seemed poised to take wing.

  Malik took the lead, and we followed him up a dark stair, the glow from the chamber of High Dragons fading behind us. We passed branching tunnels that led up or down into abysmal darkness, but Malik seemed certain in his path. Finally it struck me that he knew his way. He had been here before.

  Darian struggled, his eyes closed, his mouth set in grim determination. He could barely put weight on his left leg, and hopped along painfully. As the darkness grew more complete, I was only able to manage because the steps were man-made, regular, and shallow, and because I could follow Malik’s labored breathing ahead. My legs burned, my back ached. Several times Darian stumbled, and in catching him I bumped the arrow in his leg. I worried each time that I’d aggravated the injury, or that his gasps of pain would alert the Harodhi following us. Though she didn’t struggle or try to claw her way out, Keirr’s movements in my knapsack frequently threatened to pull me off balance.

  I became delirious with pain and exhaustion, but I forced myself to keep moving. Darian and Malik had it far worse, and both were depending on me. I tried to distract myself by figuring out where we might be. I guessed that we had turned westward in the great cavern before we’d come to the chamber of the High Dragons. If we found an exit, we might well be viewing a sunset from the opposite side of the ridge that separated Riat from the far valley. We would be very far from home in a dangerous wilderness full of predators.

  I dropped that line of thought—it only led to more hopelessness. Instead, I focused on the next step, and the next step, and the step after that.

  The echoing rattle of armor and tramping feet was louder, and I realized that I could see by thin orange light. I turned to look back down the long, straight stair. Torches bobbed in the distance.

  “Darian, hang on,” I rasped. He said nothing, but squeezed my arm weakly.

  I climbed with renewed purpose, terrified, and hoped that they couldn’t hear us over their own din, or see us past their flickering lights. Darian concentrated on maintaining his balance, so I supported him as best I could.

  But they were gaining. Malik grunted and wheezed ahead of us, and we followed, laboring in a nightmare of fear and pain. A stone turned my foot. I collapsed with a grunt, cracking my shins on the stair, and Darian cried out, clutching his leg. Keirr screeched once—only once. But it was enough to alert our pursuers. Shouts echoed up to us, and their tramping became a raucous clatter. Fear propelled me to my feet and gave me the strength to haul Darian up again. I threw his arm over my shoulders, reached around to grab him by the belt, and lifted him off the ground. I carried him that way up ten or twenty steps, until suddenly, mercifully, the floor leveled off and continued on a straight and level course. I shuffled forward, on the verge of collapsing, until I realized that I could no longer hear Malik.

  I halted, setting Darian down so that he could lean against me as I gasped for breath. Keirr keened at my back. The landing now obscured my sight of the Harodhi on the stairs below, but their clamor grew louder and the aura from their lights bobbed closer and closer. I pulled a crossbow off my shoulder and stuck my toes in the foot strap to cock it. My arms were so weary that I barely managed to pull it taut. Torches and then heads appeared over the top step, c
oming quickly, as I fumbled to position a quarrel in the groove.

  “Damn it,” I hissed. By their light I could now see a passage intersecting this one on either side, at the top of the landing. I’d passed right by the openings. Did Malik take one of those paths?

  Eight or ten soldiers poured over the lip of the stair. One pointed at the floor, where Malik’s blood trail shined in their light, leading this way. Was he so far ahead of me that I’d lost him? Another pointed at me and shouted, and there was an exultant cry. I loosed, and was rewarded with a scream, but now they kneeled to cock their own weapons.

  “Oh, sweet Avar, Darian . . . I’m sorry.”

  Malik suddenly burst from the passage on the left and charged through their ranks, clawing and biting. They screamed and scattered. Two fled shrieking down the stairs, but the rest scrambled to escape talons or teeth. He swatted them like insects, grabbed them in his jaws and hurled them into the wall, or flung them headlong down the stair. At last only two remained. As one attempted to finish cocking his crossbow, Malik raked downward with a big paw and drove him into the floor. The other crawled, wounded, toward the passage on the right. Malik simply stepped on him, bent down, and crushed the man’s spine in his jaws. The wily old predator had doubled back in the dark to ambush them, using us as bait.

  Shaking, I slung my bow again. “I’ll be right back, Dare. I’m going to grab one of those torches.”

  Malik still waited at the top of the stair, watching down the way we had come. As I picked up one of the Harodhi torches, I peeked over the lip. There were more lights approaching from below.

  I hurried back to Darian and helped him up. “Hold this,” I said.

  He took the torch without comment, and we staggered forward. Malik followed behind, looking often over his shoulder with his good eye.

  We made better time with the way lit before us, but the sounds of pursuit were growing louder, and much too quickly.

  “Light,” said Darian. He pointed with the torch. “Light! There!”

  Fifty yards ahead were ascending steps, illuminated with the cool blue light of day filtering down from somewhere above. The litter of bones on the floor grew thicker, indicating that an exit was near. Now alerted to it, I could smell pines and feel fresh air in my lungs.

  Relief flooded me, giving me strength. Darian felt it too and dared to test his bad leg again in order to help.

  “Blessed Avar! We’re going to make it, Dare! Hang on!” He set his jaw and wrenched his tired body into action beside me. We lurched to the stairs. Malik joined us, and we climbed slowly, too slowly, toward the light.

  Shouts sounded behind us, and bows cracked. I ducked, looking back, but Malik had spread his wings as a shield. A pair of bolts pierced his wing membranes to chatter off the stairs. Others struck him with sickening thuds, and he roared in pain.

  “Come on, Darian!” I dragged him backward up the steps, panting. Malik turned, shielding us with his body and backing up, growling.

  We reached the top step and saw daylight. The hall to the outside had collapsed in several places, and giant boulders sheltering dozens of abandoned dragons’ nests cluttered the way, but the path was open. Glorious, blinding sunlight streamed in. We picked up our pace, negotiating bones and rubble in a stumbling dash for freedom.

  In the dark behind us crossbows sang, Malik roared, and men screamed.

  Suddenly, one of the boulders at the mouth of the cave moved. A head snaked up, emanating a sickly green light, and two tattered wings unfurled. As the Horror stood up, the dragon of the Harodhi leader stretched its wings and rose behind it. They’d been waiting for us.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE BLOOD DRAINED from my face as I staggered to a halt.

  Darian sagged against me. “Korruzon, pissing blood . . .”

  The Harodhi leader barked an order, and the Horror started forward. Malik had ripped huge chunks of flesh from the Horror’s legs and neck, wounds that now glowed with sickly green light like vents in some outlandish, walking furnace.

  I nearly pulled Darian over in my effort to retreat. He stumbled with a cry, and I tripped on him, caught myself, but then lurched backward off-balance into a giant, crumbling dragon’s nest. Keirr grunted at the impact.

  It was hopeless. We could never outrun this monster, and there were soldiers closing behind us. We were trapped.

  I staggered between Darian and the Horror and stepped into my crossbow to draw it, shaking. Keirr bleated in terror, ending with her poppa-honk at volume in my ear.

  Bracing myself, I loaded a quarrel into my bow, aimed, and loosed. It careened harmlessly off the eyeless helmet of the Horror-dragon. The rider raised his crossbow and leveled it in my direction. His non-eyes glowed balefully from the holes in his burned face, sighting down the shaft of the arrow. I stopped breathing.

  Darian’s bow snapped, and his bolt struck the rider in the chest just as the rider loosed; the Horror’s quarrel went wide, lodging in the nest beside us.

  Keirr squawked. I gasped in amazed relief at Darian’s shot.

  The monster looked down at the arrow in his chest. It was a strike that would have felled an ordinary man, but the Horror simply looked up, cocked his bow, and drew another arrow from the quiver at his belt.

  I dropped to my knees, stunned.

  The Horrors advanced. Keirr scrabbled at the drawstrings of my knapsack, screeching in fear. Darian wrestled with his bow in front of me, as the Horror-rider put me in his sights again.

  Suddenly Malik’s giant form flew over our heads to land with a bellow in front of us. He charged with full fury into the Horror and rider, slashing and biting and roaring.

  Keirr squawked and tore at the knapsack. One forelimb emerged below the drawstring to rake at my shoulder.

  “Baby, NO!” I shouted, but the words meant nothing to her. I backed against the nest, effectively pinning her, and cocked my bow again. Shouts from behind reminded me that we were surrounded. I loaded another arrow and peeked around the nest. At least half a dozen Harodhi warriors twenty yards away spotted me and raised their crossbows. I recoiled as arrows cracked and splintered on the boulders around me. I took a deep breath and looked around the nest again, this time down the length of an arrow. At the first target, I loosed, but missed, then retreated again. No answering shots came—they must have all been reloading, indicating a breakdown in the discipline they had used on Malik before.

  “Maia!” When I turned my head, Darian thrust his bow at me, loaded and ready to shoot. I passed my spent bow to him.

  I glanced around the nest again to see that the Harodhi had all taken cover.

  Malik and the Horror battled in frenzied fury. Talons slashed through the air. Where the Horror struck, Malik’s blood sprayed. Where Malik connected, chunks of black flesh crumbled like coal, leaving glowing holes. The savagery of his initial assault had driven the Horror back, but now Malik gave ground, backing toward us, stumbling and clawing to maintain position. I marveled at the ferocity of his attack, given the extent of his damage, but I realized that his strategy had changed: he didn’t expect to survive. He held nothing in reserve. This was his last stand.

  “Look out!” Darian’s cry turned my head. A Harodhi soldier mounted the boulder to my left, raising a sword to strike. Darian’s arrow caught him under the chin and spun him over backward. Then Darian hopped backward to another boulder that might offer him better cover. I retreated to join him.

  “This is it, Darian. We have to get out of here soon.”

  “How?” He gritted his teeth in pain. “That thing is blocking the way.” His face was frighteningly pale. A trail of blood had followed him across the sandy floor. But he cocked his bow and reloaded it.

  He was right. We had nowhere to go, and even if we could get past one of our attackers, in one direction or the other, we would still be far from home, alone, exhausted, and wounded.

&nb
sp; Darian no longer had the torch. I spotted it in the gravel just a few feet away, snatched it up, and thrust it into the nest that had been our cover. The wood was ancient and tinder dry. Smaller twigs and grasses caught fire almost immediately.

  “What are you doing?” asked Darian, horrified.

  “Covering our rears and making smoke.” I pulled the torch out again and gripped it together with my crossbow.

  Two Harodhi scrambled behind boulders to our left, flanking us. I grabbed Darian by the shirt and pulled him behind another rock. A crossbow bolt whistled past my head.

  Darian’s bow hung in his hands, and he grimaced in pain. “Are you hit?” I asked in a panic. He shook his head no, pointing at his leg. I took the bow from him and slung the strap over my shoulder.

  “This way!” Soot from the torch stung my eyes. Darian hopped and cursed and scrabbled after me, onto a slab of collapsed ceiling that inclined upward, like a broad ledge against the cave wall. It would provide cover from every direction but directly behind us. But as I edged around an ancient nest, Darian slipped and tumbled over the slab’s edge, out of my grasp. I grabbed for him, but an arrow smacked next to my arm, sending a shower of dust and pebbles into my eyes. As I recoiled, I heard him land with a grunt out of sight, almost directly beneath Malik’s shuffling feet. I screamed his name, but he didn’t answer.

  Two Harodhi dodged to closer cover, stalking me. I couldn’t go after Darian without exposing myself to their bolts. I scrambled backward with one crossbow leveled, the other slapping on my side. Keirr had freed her other foreleg and now hung on my shoulders with her talons, keening into my ear. I was gaining elevation, effectively trapped on a high, canted ledge.

  Malik’s snarls weakened, his roars taking on a desperate tone. I could neither hear nor see my brother. The leader and his dragon skulked into the cave, seeking a path around his hideous thrall to join battle.

  Suddenly I saw Darian hopping and limping in a desperate dash for the outside. The Horror’s battle with Malik and the movement of the Harodhi leader had opened a gap. He found a boulder to fall behind, then scrambled out of my sight.