Shasta clung to his back, eyeing the two dragons. Cord wasn’t on Glimmer or Branstan. Now that they were on the ground, Branstan, at roughly a hundred feet long, dwarfed Glimmer.
“Branstan, Glimmer, it’s really good to see you.”
Branstan ignored her, but that wasn’t unusual. The first time she met him, he’d said he didn’t approve of having elves, witches, or half-breeds around. As far as she’d been able to tell, he didn’t like anyone but other dragons and brownies.
“It is nice to see you as well.” Glimmer bobbed her head. “What brings you out here like this?”
“We were training, but something attacked us. Matilda vanished. Can you help these three get back to town? I want to go after her.” Shasta had to suppress the urge to hold her breath as Glimmer exchanged a lengthy look and several whistles and a trill with Branstan.
After a few moments, Branstan swung his head around and looked at her group. “What kind of attacks?”
“One that stole the very air from under our wings,” Randolph answered.
“Will you truly find Matilda?” This time Branstan focused solely on Shasta.
She nodded. “I’ll do everything in my power to find her and bring her home safely.”
“I will hold you to that vow, young one.” The dragon’s voice crackled through the air.
“I’ll hold myself to it.”
That seemed to satisfy the dragon. He bobbed his head and backed up a step. “Glimmer and I will ensure the three of you make it safely to town.”
Shasta untied her legs and dismounted. “Romeo, would you mind taking the saddle back to town?”
“No.” He glanced at Glimmer. “But you’re three hours of walking from where we landed. How will you get back?”
“My own two legs will do well enough.” It wouldn’t have mattered if it was three days of walking to return. She was going to find Matilda.
“Move the saddle to my back.” Glimmer came up beside Shasta. “I will take you closer to where you were attacked and then return to accompany this group home.”
“You understand the danger? I wasn’t attacked, but the dragons were.” She didn’t so much as twitch in the direction of the saddle. She was going to give Glimmer every chance to stay safe.
“Yesss.” She drew out the sibilant. “It is my contribution to aiding Matilda.”
Shasta bowed. “Then I accept.” She transferred the saddle from Romeo. The three boys watched her, and Byron even took a step closer. “You need to get to town. You did your part—you survived—and now it’s my turn. This is what I do. I’m Shasta, from Oaks Consulting, here to solve your magical problems.”
“Come back to us. We haven’t finished class yet,” Randolph told her.
“I will. I’ll be back, and all of you will have to run that obstacle course again.” She climbed onto Glimmer’s back and tied herself into the saddle.
“Good luck, teacher.” Romeo called after her as Glimmer took off.
Shasta was too busy clinging to Glimmer’s back to do more than wave at him. That morning the dragons had set an endurance pace, but Glimmer was flying for speed. Shasta kept herself low over the dragon’s back, alternating between the strap on the saddle and Glimmer’s spine ridges. What had taken them hours to traverse on the ground, Glimmer covered in less than fifteen minutes. Shasta hardly had time to think about how she was going to go about finding Matilda before Glimmer was touching down.
Shasta slid off her back. “Thank you.”
Glimmer bobbed her head. “Find my young cousin.”
“I’ll do my best.” They weren’t the best words, but they were what she could offer.
It must’ve satisfied Glimmer because she turned, trotted a bit away, and then jumped into the air.
Shasta stood there with land stretching for miles in each direction and a sky that looked like it could span eternity. It was up to her now. No one else was close enough to help. She sucked in a shaky breath. She could almost hear her mom’s voice. “If you work here long enough, the day will come when you’re alone and there’s no one else to help you with the task. That’s when you’ll know who you really are.”
She tightened the straps on her backpack and rubbed a fist down her aching hip and thigh. She was Shasta, half elf, half witch, born of the earth, and this was something she had to do. Not only had to do but had been created to do. Abducting a dragon was evil, and she was here to rebalance the scales.
Of course, it would be easier if she had any idea how to find Matilda. There weren’t any tracks to follow, and while her personal energy was slowly rebuilding, she wasn’t up to doing complex spells. Nor was her body up to scouring every inch of the countryside. Though there was one thing she could try. Her mom also liked to say that sometimes less was more. Shasta hoped this was one of those times.
Shasta knelt down and scooped up a palmful of soil. She lowered her shields enough to pour most of her remaining magic into the dirt. Then she reached out with the part of her that was connected to nature. There’s a dragon, she told the mixture of dirt and magic. She was taken from my group in the sky. She doesn’t want to be where she is. Guide me to her. Shasta filled her lungs to capacity, lifted the soil to her lips, and blew it into the air where a gust of wind could carry part of it away and the rest could become part of the earth again.
As the half spell, half elven desire spread, Shasta stayed there, one knee resting on the earth, one hand surrounded by nothing but air. It had to work. It had to work because she didn’t have any better ideas and she’d vowed to find Matilda. She wouldn’t be forsworn.
She stayed there as seconds turned into a minute and a minute turned into two. Then there was a tug, the lightest of pulls. She stood up. It almost felt as if the earth were rotating under her. Her vision blurred, and she was facing northeast. Ignoring the dull ache from her hip and most of the rest of her, Shasta stepped forward. That step turned into another with her feet moving faster and faster until she was running. Even then the earth seemed to be pushing her along with each step until she was darting along, her feet skimming across the ground.
The scenery became an indistinct haze as she ran with the pull of the spell. She sent a silent prayer to Mother Earth and anything else friendly that happened to be listening. Help me find Matilda in reasonably good health, and help me get both of us back to town safely. She didn’t request more because the universe had a strange way of honoring the words used and not the intent behind them. That was a simple enough request that it shouldn’t get misinterpreted.
Seconds later the ground began to angle down and she was nearly gliding down a hill. It leveled out, and the earth no longer pushed her on her way. Shasta slowed to a jog before stopping entirely. The tug was an almost perceptible rope binding her to the dragon, pulling her close. She hardly needed it. The rough hillside was dotted with dark crevasses, though none of them held her attention like the house-sized hole that swallowed the sunlight and could easily swallow a dragon.
Nature had hidden it well. Even from a short distance away, the shape of the hill made it appear as though this was a spot where the earth had long ago crumbled away, leaving a shadow on an already speckled sweep of land. From above, where dragons were likely to be, there would be nothing of interest here. From Shasta’s position, the rock twisted into pillars holding up the massive arch of the entrance. Dirt and shale flaked off from above, tumbling down the hill face, a stark reminder that the earth would embrace her the same if she was alive or dead.
Shasta knelt down and pressed her palms against the ground. “Thank you for the much-needed aid.” She stayed like that as the seconds passed, hoping the earth would be generous and gift her magic, but other than a soft surge of warmth, the land was still under her hands. She knew better than to ask for gifts—the earth helped in its own way and didn’t appreciate someone who depended on it rather than utilizing their own abilities.
She stood up and adjusted the pack, more out of nerves than discomfort, before her eyes
dropped to her right wrist. The wooden bracelet, with inlays of vines, was still there. As long as it was on her wrist, she could summon her sword to her hand. The elven smith who’d crafted her sword had tried to explain how it worked, but he’d gotten into a level of magic theory that sounded like gibberish to her. The important part was that it allowed her to always have her sword available. Her hands itched to summon the sword, though she wasn’t sure that holding a weapon as she entered was the best idea. There were spells and traps that only worked against those who intended harm to the creator of the spells. Having a sword in hand was a pretty sure sign of intent to harm. Since her main purpose was to find and rescue Matilda, going in unarmed was likely the wiser, if less comforting, path.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward. Her hip didn’t hurt, or at least no more than it would have after several days of healing. Sometime during the run, the earth had done more than speed her along. It had also eased her various aches and pains down to a more tolerable level. That bit of aid bolstered her spirits, and she strode into the mouth of the cave a great deal more confident than she’d been a moment ago.
The dirt was churned up where light faded into darkness. There were five long gouges that could’ve been from a dragon’s talons or any number of other things. There were also plenty of scuff marks and other disturbances, but one area, in the transition from sun to shadow, caught her attention. First she could only see a curving line, but as her eyes adjusted, the texture resolved itself into knobs and grooves. It was a boot print. There wasn’t enough of it to tell size, but its existence proved there was someone hiding in this cave, someone who didn’t want the dragons to know they were here.
She lifted her eyes from the path and opened her shield enough to attempt communication with the earth. Outside the cave it would greet her, but everything below the surface and behind the entrance was closed off. She wouldn’t be getting any help from the earth while she was in there. That was unfortunate, and she hoped it would choose to communicate with her, but it didn’t change her plan.
Ahead she could see shadowy rocks and a twisting path more than large enough to accommodate Matilda. She stood up and stepped into full shadow. Seconds passed slowly as she let her eyes adjust. There was no point in hurrying this, her eyes could see in near pitch-dark, but she’d have to let them adjust gradually, and that meant taking her time as she moved into the cave.
Step by step she worked her way back, moving with the earth instead of across it, careful not to disturb petals or crunch twigs. She moved as her father had taught her, silent as only an elf could be. The cave stayed large and airy with a curious lack of formation in the middle. Along the walls there were ripples and texture that brought to mind water flows. Perhaps this had been dug out of the heart of an ancient mountain by drops and then streams of water that worked their way through the soil. While it was possible the cave could flood, there’d been no feeling of rain in the air, and she should be safe enough for a few days.
She rounded a corner near the back of the entrance tunnel. The light dropped off significantly, but she could still see well enough to navigate around uneven ground and the occasional outcropping. A short distance later the corridor turned again, and this time not a drop of light from the entrance penetrated the dark. She stood pressed against the wall and waited, hoping her eyes would adjust. Seconds ticked by, but the area ahead of her stayed as dark as it had been moments before. Even her eyes couldn’t see in this.
Her magic reserves were still essentially nonexistent. Any of the spells to enhance her eyesight would take more energy than she had, and summoning a light would not only alert anyone who was watching as to her location but would also tell them that she had some command of magic. The flashlight had the same handicap of alerting whomever was ahead, but at least it wouldn’t clue them in as to her abilities.
It was far from ideal, but she settled on the flashlight. It took only moments to ease the pack off one of her shoulders and unclip the tiny light from the zipper pull. She resettled the pack and poked the button on the bottom of the light. She blinked rapidly as the light shocked her eyes. Objectively she knew it really wasn’t that bright, but to her eyes it was a brilliant beacon alerting anyone ahead that she would be tromping through the cave.
Once the spots faded from her eyes, she saw a flurry of footprints. The tread looked to be the same as the one she’d seen at the mouth of the cave. She set her foot next to one. It was larger than hers, closer to Cord’s shoe size. On the bright side, there was little visible variation in shoe tread or size, so it was likely there was only one person attacking the dragons. That individual was a large-footed woman or an average-footed man. She snorted quietly. That hardly limited the suspect pool.
She started moving forward again, careful to leave as little in the way of footprints or signs of her passage as possible. The cave had two more switchbacks, and then air no longer stirred. It was still fresh enough, there was no hint of sourness or bad air, but it was absolutely still. With that stillness came a silence so absolute she could hear her own blood pumping through her veins. If there were sounds coming from farther in the cave, they weren’t reaching her ears.
As unsettling as it was, she could still feel the pull tugging her deeper into the cavern and hopefully closer to Matilda. With that goal in mind, she kept moving one silent footstep at a time. The cave twisted back and forth as it wormed deeper underground. The main passage stayed large enough for even a dragon much more sizable than Matilda to pass through. At the edges of the corridor, columns as big around as her waist stretched from the ceiling to the floor where stalactites and stalagmites had long since joined in one piece. For roughly a hundred feet, the entire roof was decorated in slender, hollow tubes descending nearly three feet. She rounded the bend, leaving the breathtaking sight behind, only to be greeted by a wall covered in thick lines of blues and greens.
The air left her lungs in a sturdy whoosh. She stood there, absolutely enchanted by the play of colors and the shapes and textures. There was an entirely different world underground, one she’d never imagined or seen the like of on the surface.
When she was able to breathe in again, a putrid sourness came with the air. She turned away from the wall, moving the light around. The floor was mostly the same as it had been, a mix of sand and rock, with a large clear area through the center and formations on each side. The ground was a little more uneven here than it had been in some of the previous sections, but nothing she hadn’t seen before. She angled her light to reach as far back as it could. There was another large formation ahead, but so far no sign of anything that would be causing that smell.
She was extracareful as she continued, even glancing behind her from time to time to see if she’d been flanked. Though her eyes weren’t much good in this environment, she listened and felt. It was still deathly quiet, and nothing moved except for that smell, which had taken on a life of its own and was getting stronger.
The flashlight hit the formation again. It was a four-foot-tall blob that seemed to soak in the light. There was something odd about the shape. A few feet closer, she stopped. It looked less like a formation and more like a pile of something. Shasta transferred the flashlight to her left hand, leaving her dominant one free in case she needed to fight.
Her toe caught on something, and she teetered on one foot as she fought to regain her balance. She finally set her foot back down several inches behind her leading foot. At least her boots had protected her toe from injury.
She shone the light on the ground around her. There was a sickly orange-brown lump that was pointed at one end, wide and jagged on the other, with bowed edges connecting the two sides. Another partly crumbled object with the same general shape sat where she had stubbed her toe. She swept the light across the ground. There was another and another. Bile rose up in her throat. Those were dragon scales, ones that had been ripped out of the still-living dragon and somehow drained of every bit of magic and power that lingered in them.
&
nbsp; She jerked the light up so it illuminated the formation again. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she could pick them out. Scale after scale was stacked atop another, each of them with the drained look of the one she’d hit with her foot.
Shasta fought to keep what little she’d eaten that day where it belonged. Scales were part of a dragon. They lost them from time to time, much like any creature sheds its skin, hair, fur, or feathers. But to rip them out was cruel. They were part of the dragon; it was a torture akin to ripping nails off a humanoid.
There weren’t many magical uses for humanoid nails, but dragon scales were different. Dragons were rather magical in and of themselves. With pieces of a dragon, like scales, an ordinary human could become a sorcerer. A witch could have the power of a clan of witches. Other creatures could supercharge their own abilities. It was illegal to trade poached scales, but there was a market for them and every other part of a dragon.
She could still feel a faint connection between her and Matilda, so she was sure the dragon was here. Unfortunately, that didn’t guarantee Matilda was alive and well. However, the pile of scales was half as tall as Shasta and wider than she was tall. That took time, more time than Matilda had been missing. Her stomach rolled uncomfortably. Whoever had done this had taken more than one dragon, and Shasta very much doubted the previous dragon was still alive.
A faint sound, much like scales scuffing across the ground, broke her out of her reflections. She mashed the off button on the light and froze. Her heartbeat hammered so loud it felt as though someone else would be able to hear it. Though, unless they had a dragon or elf’s hearing, that was unlikely.
Time felt like it slowed to a crawl. Shasta took three silent breaths. Two more scuffs reached her ears. Her eyes slowly adjusted, and there was the tiniest haze of light far in the distance. When minutes had gone by without any other sounds reaching her ears, Shasta turned the light on long enough to plot the next two feet of her path. She flicked it off as she carefully stepped around the scales in front of her, angling away from the pile. When she thought she was about where she’d intended to stop, she flicked the light on again. She moved a few more feet.
Earth Born (The Earth Born Cycle Book 1) Page 9