The beast shook its head. “Our one is taller.”
It was right; Ma was taller. Tomaaz turned back to his sickening task, sifting through littlings, men and women. All these lives ending here, in Death Valley. It was hopeless, daunting.
They had to fight back. Free slaves. End the terror caused by Zens.
It was nearly evening. Soon they’d stop for gruel. He smothered a cynical snort, not daring to let the tharuks notice. He’d never thought he’d ever look forward to that sloppy weevil-infested muck. But after he’d eaten, he could feed the beast and escape with Maazini, Ma and the boy, to meet Pa and Handel.
Way before mealtime arrived, 568 ordered them back to the latrines. Tomaaz had never been so glad to shovel excrement.
Closing In
Tomaaz didn’t dare strain the weevils or cockroaches out of his evening gruel. Hundreds of tharuk guards were scrutinizing the slaves’ movements, hovering over them like giant vultures. Burnt Face had been staring at him all afternoon, red eyes slitted in concentration, as if their earlier trip to Maazini had cheated him of a chance to have fun.
Tomaaz kept his eyes hooded and his face slack. The tips of all his fingernails were now pink, so he kept them curved around the base of his bowl as he drank his soup from the rim. Something wriggled in his mouth. A weevil? A roach? Red eyes bored into him. He fought his gag reflex, swallowing the squirming insect.
Shards, he hated this place.
He washed the insect down with another gulp of gruel and shambled to the dish barrel to dump his bowl. Then he sat, away from Burnt Face’s gaze, to await his next orders. It wasn’t long until sunset.
He’d be leaving all these people behind, condemning them to this horror. Why did Zens have slaves? The latrines crews weren’t important; they were only servicing the latrines for the hundreds of slaves that disappeared into those crevasses in the hillsides. Tomaaz had never seen what came out of the earth, and there was no way he’d find out now. He was leaving.
A scream cut through Tomaaz’s thoughts. Tharuks were still observing them, so he tightened his muscles against the urge to look. But it got harder to act numlocked when another scream was followed by grunts of pain and cries. More than one person was being hurt.
Slowly, as the slaves around him shifted, Tomaaz adjusted his position to see.
Burnt Face and a few other tharuks were kicking slaves—not littlings or the elderly, but able-bodied men and women. Each time a tharuk kicked a slave in the gut, their fellow guards observed the slaves’ reactions.
Tomaaz sucked in his breath. They were testing to see if everyone was numlocked. If they didn’t find anyone, they’d probably start on the littlings. This was his fault. If he hadn’t stolen those things, the tharuks wouldn’t have known he was here.
“Maazini, they’re hurting the slaves to find me. I should give myself up.”
“No!” Maazini roared in his head. “Stand strong. We’ll come back and hunt down Zens and free the slaves. Your ma, the boy and I need you.”
Burnt Face was closer now, kicking a man, four slaves over. Through hooded eyes, Tomaaz watched the slave moan and curl in on himself. The man hadn’t tensed as the tharuk had neared, and he hadn’t made any move to defend himself. Acting numlocked was going to be harder than he’d thought.
Burnt Face skipped a littling and kicked a woman in the stomach. She sprawled on the ground, whimpering, then curled up, holding her middle. The tharuk’s stench wafted over Tomaaz as it swung its boot at Tomaaz’s neighbor.
It turned to him.
Tomaaz didn’t dare look up. Relax, relax, relax.
Burnt Face’s boot connected with his gut in an excruciating thud. Pain bloomed through his middle. He flew backward, sprawling on the ground. He gasped for air, letting out a moan, and curled up. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe. Gods, his stomach hurt.
“Tomaaz!” Maazini mind-melded, his concern spiking through Tomaaz’s head.
Two tharuks loomed over him. Yanking him to his feet, they held him up. He tried to hunch over to ease the pain, but they refused to let him, pulling him by the shoulders until he was dangling from their sharp claws, his feet hanging in the air. “Maazini, they know. They’ve found me.”
“Stay calm,” Maazini melded.
“You,” Burnt Face bellowed, “feed the beast.”
The tharuk followed Tomaaz as he stumbled toward the tool pile, clutching his stomach with one hand, and picked up his shovel.
“Fall in,” Burnt Face called, gesturing to other tharuks, who formed a wall behind Tomaaz. Wiry, the tracker, was among them.
His pain receded to a dull ache as they marched him along the valley, prodding him with their claws and breathing their foul stench over him. “Maazini, coming now, with five tharuks. Tell Ma.”
“We’re prepared.” There was malice in Maazini’s tone.
He hefted rats off the rat pile. Maybe with a dragon on his side he had a chance.
But Ma was weak, the boy too, and Maazini wasn’t in the best shape either. The tharuks escorting him were carrying quivers and bows. Their arrows could be drenched with limplock. All he had was a shovel. He’d be lucky to get any of them out of here alive.
“Keep moving,” 568 growled, hurrying him along.
They were trying to catch him out. He shambled along, as if he couldn’t go any faster.
“Faster,” Burnt Face roared.
Tomaaz ignored it.
They rounded the last corner in the waning light. The entrance to Maazini’s cave was shrouded in shadow. The dragon was nowhere to be seen. Tomaaz’s neck hair prickled. It was a dead end. The only way out was on dragonback.
Moving forward like a numlocked slave, Tomaaz staggered to the mouth of the cave, holding out his shovel of rats.
Burnt Face hung back, pushing Wiry forward. “You! Go too.”
With the tracker breathing down his neck, Tomaaz’s chest was tight. He threw the rats. They thudded to the stone. With a roar, Maazini leaped out of his cave, brilliant orange, his chain rattling.
Wiry twitched.
“Coward,” barked Burnt Face. “It’s chained up.”
“It’s orange! Not numlocked,” Wiry snapped, lunging at Tomaaz.
With a roar, Maazini flew at Wiry. Dropping his spade, Tomaaz ducked and rolled. Maazini swung his leg at Wiry’s head. The chain whipped around the tracker’s neck. With a yank, Maazini pulled it tight, strangling the tharuk. Maazini kicked out. Wiry flew through the air, his corpse knocking Burnt Face to the ground.
Maazini pounced on another tharuk, crushing it with his jaws and flaming its corpse.
“Get them!” yelled Burnt Face, jumping to its feet.
Scrambling up, Tomaaz snatched his shovel and hefted it in front of him as a tharuk charged. He whacked the brute in the neck, but the shovel blade bounced off.
The beast swiped with its claws, raking Tomaaz’s side. His ribs stinging from a flesh wound, he danced away, swinging his spade again. Shards! If only he had his sword.
“Their matted fur’s like armor,” Maazini melded. “Try its head. Fur’s thinner there.”
Another tharuk ran at Maazini. The dragon pounced, shredding the tharuk’s torso with his talons, spilling its stinking guts.
568 lunged at him. Raising his shovel high, Tomaaz brought it crashing onto the monster’s skull. It stumbled, then lunged again, scratching his face. Tomaaz whacked its head again.
Groggy, the beast reeled and fell. Tomaaz brought his shovel smashing onto its head one last time, and the beast lay still.
Everything had gone quiet. Panting, Tomaaz looked up.
Burnt Face was facing him, bow nocked, with an arrow pointing straight at his heart—an arrow dripping with green grunge. Limplock.
Maazini was silent, crouched near the cavern, haunches tense, his green eyes slits. His tail twitched. Tomaaz’s heart pounded as his eyes flitted from Maazini to Burnt Face.
“Beast move and male dies. Zens play with him.” Burnt Face laughed, his tusks
gleaming in the last rays of the sun.
Shards, the sun was setting! Pa was on the far hills. No chance of getting there, now.
Maazini’s low growl bounced off the canyon walls. The tharuk overseer increased the tension on his bow.
Oh gods, this was it.
With a shout, the boy ran out of the cavern, rushing at Burnt Face. Eyes wide in surprise, the tharuk swung its bow toward the boy. No! Tomaaz closed his eyes. There was a hiss of an arrow releasing.
No! Not the boy. Tomaaz’s eyes flew open.
Burnt Face was toppling to the ground, an arrow embedded deep in its eye.
Ma ran out of the cavern, her rucksack and quiver on her back, and her bow in hand. “Quick, Tomaaz! Get on Maazini! Grab the boy.”
Tomaaz scooped up the lad, running to the dragon, and threw him up onto Maazini’s back. Ma was in bad shape, breathing hard. He gave her a leg up behind the boy, and then climbed up in front and clung to Maazini’s spinal ridge. Skinny arms wrapped tight around Tomaaz’s waist.
“Hold on.” Tomaaz called. “Fly, Maazini, fly.”
The hills were swarming with tharuks. Beasts were vaulting over rocks, charging down the sides of the canyon toward them.
Tensing his haunches, the dragon sprang, flapping his wings. “I’m not so strong,” Maazini said. “Numlock, no food for weeks …”
They slowly gained height, but Maazini was right, he wasn’t strong. The combined weight of the three of them was too much. Melded, Tomaaz could feel Maazini straining, the drag on his muscles. The tips of his wings were dangerously close to the canyon walls.
Arrows hissed past Tomaaz. “Oh, shards, Maazini! Their arrows are limplocked. Don’t let them hit you!”
Maazini swerved toward the opposite wall, tilting. The boy’s arms tightened around his waist. Tomaaz hung on as the chain on Maazini’s leg whipped out toward the hillside.
With a roar, a tharuk leaped off the hill, grabbing the chain. Maazini lurched, losing height. He beat his wings desperately as they plummeted toward the canyon floor. With a roar, he strained upward. Slowly, too slowly, they gained height. Tharuk arrows zipped past them.
Maazini grunted. Melded, Tomaaz felt his dragon’s searing pain. “Are you all right?”
“Arrow. Chest,” Maazini replied, tipping from side to side.
“It’s not far, just to that ridge. Pa will meet us.” But what then? How could Maazini ever make the arduous flight back to Dragons’ Hold?
“Tomaaz, below,” came Ma’s urgent cry.
He whipped his head around. What? Maazini lurched again. Then Tomaaz saw it. Climbing up Maazini’s chain was a tharuk, a knife between its teeth. Its red eyes gleamed as it pulled itself up the chain. “Maazini, tharuk on your chain!”
“I … know …” Even Maazini’s thoughts sounded weak.
§
The tharuk was clambering up the chain, pulling the dragon off center and dragging him down. The hillsides were swarming. If she didn’t act soon, Marlies could kiss her son and Zaarusha’s goodbye, and forget about saving this slave boy, too. As soon as that tharuk slashed Maazini’s gut with his knife, it was over.
Pushing the boy forward against Tomaaz, she urged, “Hold on tight.”
Marlies leaned sideways, increasing the grip of her legs on the dragon’s sides. “Swing the chain, Maazini, so I can shoot,” she yelled, nocking an arrow on her bow.
The dragon tipped. The tharuk on the chain swung out beneath her. She released the bowstring. Her arrow went wide and the tharuk swayed back under the dragon, out of sight. She nocked another arrow. The dragon was flying erratically, affected by the tharuk’s weight.
The chain swung again. The tharuk was hanging on like a roach, climbing higher. Her next arrow missed, too.
Gritting her teeth, she leaned out further, her injured arm screaming in protest as she fitted another arrow into her bow. The chain flew out. Holding on with one arm, the tharuk grabbed its knife from between its teeth to plunge the blade into Maazini’s belly. Marlies fired. The arrow struck the tharuk’s forehead. Maazini rocked as it plummeted to the ground.
Marlies slipped sideways. Hands grasping at smooth scales, she plunged after the tharuk.
§
“No!” a scream tore from Tomaaz’s throat as Ma dropped earthward.
Maazini dived. A whump shook Tomaaz’s teeth, then his dragon flapped, rising in the air again. “I caught your mother, but I need to land. Soon.”
“Is she all right?”
“I can feel her heartbeat.”
Tharuk arrows rained around them. Maazini zigzagged back and forth up the hillside, ducking the tharuks’ shots. Zings of pain shot through Tomaaz’s mind as three more arrows met their target, lodging in Maazini’s hide. They drew level with the hilltop, in clear sight of tharuk archers.
“Go, Maazini, go.” Tomaaz willed his friend to fly faster, higher, anywhere but here.
An arrow zipped straight for him. Tomaaz ducked. The arrow hit Maazini’s neck. The dragon bellowed, gusting flame along the hillside, scattering the tharuks.
Finally, they shot above the ranges, into a sky of blazing orange sunset. Tomaaz yanked the arrow out of Maazini’s neck, and ripped the sleeve off his shirt, wiping at the green grunge on the wound. Despite his efforts, limplock was rapidly dissolving into Maazini’s bloodstream. With flagging wings, Maazini made his way across Death Valley to the western range of the Terramites.
Below, a battle horn echoed in the valley. Tharuks spewed out of the mines and caverns, racing up the hillsides. Shards, they were fast. Where was Pa? By now, Handel’s bronze form should be clearly visible. He scrabbled in his pockets for his calling stone. It wasn’t there; he’d left it with Ma. No healer’s pouch either. He clung tightly to Maazini’s spinal ridge as the dragon headed toward the watchtower.
“Maazini, avoid the tower, it’s full of tharuks with more poison.” He shared the memory of Pa being injured.
Maazini bellowed. “Done.” He swerved toward the hill beyond. “Can’t fly much further.”
“Land behind that pile of rubble.”
The battle horn rang again. Tharuks were swarming over the neighboring hills, around the watchtower. Some aimed arrows at them, but they fell short. Thankfully, none were on the hill they were heading to. But it wouldn’t take long for them to get there.
Tomaaz strained his eyes. Where was Pa?
“Tomaaz! I can’t hold on. My talons are cramping. I might drop your mother!”
§
“I have to go, Ezaara.” Deep lines etched roads of weariness in Pa’s face.
She hugged him. He still wasn’t fully recovered, but thanks to the piaua, at least he had a fighting chance. She pulled back and looked at him again. No, he didn’t have a fighting chance. She could be sending him to his death. But how else could they save Ma and Tomaaz? “Pa, there has to be a better way. You’ll be facing hundreds of tharuks on your own.”
He laid his hands on her shoulders, looking her straight in the eye. “We’ve been over this, Ezaara. I can get there within moments, sneak in and then bring them home. I shouldn’t be gone long at all.”
“Zaarusha and I could come.”
“Not with the ring, you can’t. You know that.”
And if she rode behind Hans, there may not be space for Ma and Tomaaz, especially if Ma was injured. Ezaara shoved her fists in her pockets. “Give them my love.”
Pa smiled. “Tell them yourself when we return.” He hugged her again and climbed onto Handel.
“I’ll take care of them all,” Handel melded with Ezaara, letting Pa hear.
“Please do.”
Pa shot her a surprised glance. “You can meld with Handel, not just Zaarusha?”
“I can meld with all dragons.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Just like Anakisha. I’ll be back soon.” He slipped a jade ring from his pocket, rubbed it and called, “Ana.”
With a loud snap, Pa and Handel were gone.
Dread dogged Eza
ara’s steps as she paced on the ledge. Below, dragons flew about their business, people harvested crops in the fields and gathered fruit from the orchard. Ezaara’s feet pounded out an anxious rhythm.
Roberto arrived. “Adelina’s got a few supplies ready in the infirmary, in case they’re injured when they return.”
He stood near her, but didn’t touch her. A dragon was flying past, carrying Lars, head of the Council of the Twelve Dragon Masters. Ezaara took a step back, distancing herself from Roberto. Lars mustn’t suspect a thing.
“If they return,” she replied. Ezaara’s chest ached. Pa didn’t stand a chance. She’d probably just seen the last of her family.
§
Golden clouds surrounded Hans and Handel, making Handel’s bronze scales gleam. Strange, Handel wasn’t flapping, just hanging in midair with his wings outspread.
“Last time, you were too sick to notice,” Handel said.
Anakisha appeared before them. “Hello, Hans. Someone must be in grave danger for you to be traveling with the ring again so soon.”
Hans nodded. “Marlies and my son are stranded in Death Valley. Marlies has been deathly ill.”
“Very well.” Anakisha’s eyes were sad. “Is Death Valley your destination?” Hans kept a picture of the hill north of the watchtower in his mind. “Here,” he said. “Thank you, Anakisha.”
Past Handel’s wingtip, a dark ripple moved through a cloud, like a fracture in an icebound lake.
A snap rang out. Anakisha and the golden clouds disappeared.
§
Hans and Handel appeared in the air with a pop, behind the mountain just north of the watchtower. Handel flew cautiously, zigzagging his way up the mountainside.
“Right, here is good, Handel. It’s only a short way to the top.”
“I’ll take shelter behind those rocks further down,” Handel replied.
“If you stay still, they may mistake you for a boulder.”
Handel snorted. “Me, a rock? An inanimate lump of stone?” As Hans dismounted, Handel blew a gust of air over his head, ruffling his hair. “You’re lucky that’s not flame,” his dragon huffed.
“That would definitely disrupt your disguise.” Hans chuckled, taking his bow and quiver from Handel’s saddlebag. “I’m good.” He scratched Handel’s snout. They’d fallen straight back into their old pre-battle banter. It used to help calm his nerves, but today was different—today he had to free his wife and son.
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