My heart in my throat, I hurried over to the thicker end of the pool. We needed to get out of here before these rock walls collapsed on top of us!
Nasataa stood on the edge of the pool, dancing frantically from foot to foot while Olfijum struggled in the mouth of the pool. At least he wasn’t drowning. His head was above the water and he looked like he could breathe.
I can breathe, but that doesn’t mean anything right now.
Why not? I was afraid to even ask.
I’m stuck.
How stuck? I studied the pool here. Like the end we’d come up in, this one was sheltered by a low ceiling of rock that hid the pool, but there should just be enough room for a dragon Olfijum’s size to crawl out. Maybe one of his wings was stuck ...
I think it’s the saddle.
Okay. We could fix that. I’d just jump back in and free the saddle.
I think I’m wedged too hard.
There had to be a way.
The ground shook again, and I began to run, stumbling as the ground rolled beneath my feet like water. There would be a way.
“What’s happening?” Heron asked as I passed him, leaping toward the little cavern and rolling under the ceiling to get to the narrow entrance to the pool. I still held the staff. I laid it on the ground in front of the pool.
“Hold onto that for me. I need to free Olfijum. He’s stuck.”
“We’ll hold onto it,” Bareena assured me as she straightened on the other side of the cavern roof. “But you’d better hurry!”
I nodded briskly and ducked under the surface of the water, sputtering on my first breath of water. I had thought it would be a simple enough matter, but as I swam toward Olfijum I realized it would be more complex than I thought. He writhed against the grip of the rock, his tail and wings thrashing in the water. It was all I could do to duck under one wing, but I couldn’t see the pack.
I swam closer in, catching a swipe from one of the claws on his wing. Could he not relax for just a second?
Sorry.
There it was! I swam in closer still, grabbing the saddle with both hands and heaving.
Nothing.
I felt for the buckles and made sure they were undone and tried again. It was wedged with him. Maybe if he eased backward a bit ...
I can’t.
I tried again, placing my feet on the rock for leverage and pulling with all my might.
Nothing. I was going to have to cut it off. And then what would we do? It had all our water and a little food – if that was still good. And blankets. And everything.
Or I could just die wedged in this rock.
Frustrated, I pulled out my belt knife and began to saw at the straps holding the saddle to him, releasing them one by one until they were all severed. I cut off the saddlebags, trying to hold them with my feet, but one fell, drifting down to the bottom of the pool.
Frustration throbbed through me.
Imagine how I feel!
But it was no use.
He was still stuck, stuck, stuck.
I pulled at the saddle with every ‘stuck’ that I thought, but it was no good. I put the knife away, abandoning the last saddlebag to fall from my feet and braced myself for a final tug with both hands on the saddle.
The earth rippled around us just as I heaved. Something slipped.
I heaved harder as the earth rippled again and then something hit me – a wing, I thought – and I went tumbling away through the water.
Pain bloomed in my head and everything went black.
Chapter Eight
“Seleska?” Someone was saying my name so softly, so tentatively that I didn’t recognize it at first. I must be dreaming. The world swam around me, shaking and rolling. “Hang in there. I’ve got you.”
“We don’t dare dive in there to get them. And if we wait here, the rocks will tumble down on us. We’ll just have to leave them,” another voice was saying. But none of it made any sense at all to me. “Here, put her on the dragon’s back. Don’t moan at me, you big purple oaf! Those are only scrapes. They’ll be healed by tomorrow.”
There was a scuffling sound and it felt like I was being carried in strong, warm arms. I snuggled into the warmth. It was clearly a dream – but I wanted to keep on dreaming it forever.
“It’s okay,” a deep voice crooned to me. And then there was singing. A low, gentle song that reminded me of the lullabies of my island home.
The world shook again, and something crashed nearby with a scattering sound like stones being thrown against rock.
“I don’t care how you get her on his back, just do it quickly! No, you have to ride with her. There’s no way to tie her on. Would you look at her head? It’s streaming blood and there’s nothing to do for it. Ugh.” There was a pause and some whispering. “No, no, I’ll ride the Blue one. Don’t look at me like that, you Blue demon. I know you’re plenty big enough to carry me. Don’t even try that helpless act.”
And then there was a sense of weightlessness as we lifted in the air, but the warmth and safety of those arms never left me. I sank into them and lost consciousness again.
This time when I awoke, it was dark except for a flickering fire.
“I can hear you breathing over there,” Bareena’s voice whispered. If that was a whisper, then I was a Blue dragon. It was ridiculously loud, cutting through the night like a sword.
I was warm, still, leaning against something firm but comfortable. There was weight over my waist and around my arms. I squirmed a little and someone snorted.
Was I in Heron’s arms?
“He insisted on holding you. Didn’t believe me when I said you’d survive. In fairness, you were bleeding a lot, but that kind of thing comes with a head wound. I told him so. He just kept saying, ‘I know she matters to me.’ Tell me straight up, girl, is he an idiot? If he is, you should be kinder to him. Don’t drag him around through this kind of danger.”
Her words echoed my own thoughts so closely that I felt my face go hot.
“I think I object to the term, ‘idiot,’” I said frostily. Patterns glowed silver on my arms in the faint light of the moon – a wreath of leaves and flowers of some kind. Were these the Ko the Ko’roi had given me? They were kind of beautiful.
Bareena snorted.
“If you mean, does it seem like his brain has been a bit foggy and he seems lost, well yes. His memories were stolen.”
“And now they’re coming back,” Bareena stated.
“I don’t think so. I think he is just getting his regular mind back. The memories may never return.”
“Then why not set him free?”
I’d thought that. I’d been wrong.
“Because he’s still my Heron and I can’t let him go.”
“Not even if it’s better for him?”
I leaned into the heavy rise and fall of his chest. It was shocking how comforting that felt.
“It’s not better for him to be away from me. Because no one can love him like I do.”
She snorted. “You have a fine way of showing it. You’ve barely looked at him or exchanged five words in the time I’ve known you. If you’re so fond of the boy, then maybe you should try showing him that.”
“I did!” I protested. “It didn’t matter.”
“Try harder. Skies and stars, girl! If I could have my Ervan back from the dead there’s not a price I wouldn’t pay to be with him, not an obstacle that could come that I wouldn’t vault over.”
Under us, the ground shook again.
“Do you know what that is?” I asked.
“Nothing good,” she replied.
But she didn’t sound defeated, she sounded determined. And that helped because I was determined, too. I wasn’t going to let an earthquake stop us. Or – my thoughts stuttered over the word – the Draven. They’d caused quakes when they came from under the ground in Ko’Torenth. Could these quakes be from them, too?
“Do you know where we are?” I asked.
“On the ground above that cre
vice we surfaced in. There’s some kind of battle going on just over the ridge. Started a few hours ago. We were too busy trying to keep you alive to worry about figuring out our location and the battle is far enough away that it shouldn’t get this far while we rest. I’ll keep watch while you rest, and we can figure out the rest tomorrow morning. Now, try to sleep. It’s been a long day.”
Chapter Nine
This time when I awoke, it was to a pain in my neck. I reached for it, trying to shove it away, but the thing pressing on my throat would not move.
My eyes shot open. A dark figure blocked out the light of the rising sun in the distance. Behind the figure, mist burned off the desert ground in little trails, and a line of horses stood with silent riders.
“What have we here?” a heavily accented voice asked. “Visitors from the Dominion?”
“No,” I gasped. There was a strange sound like metal being sharpened or a fire being lit with a flint, but I couldn’t turn at all to look.
“Arriving in our moment of weakness?” A woman with long flowing hair and bright eyes was staring into mine with more intensity than the sun.
“No!” From this angle, I couldn’t even see if Bareena or Heron were okay. I couldn’t feel his warmth anymore.
“Arriving with our enemies?” There were voices far in the background – calling? Yelling?
“That’s not –”
The butt of the sword – I thought that might be what I was looking at – jammed harder into my throat and I gasped at the pain of it.
“You think that because you are a young girl you will be spared? And the old woman, too? You are wrong. We in Baojang are not weak like Dominion women. We do not spare our women from the difficulties of life.”
“You have me all wrong, I –” Again, the sword handle was jammed into my throat.
“Today, the evil darkness of the enemy floods up into Baojang like a flesh-eating swarm. And we will exterminate this swarm to the last insect. And today, we find these strangers so close to the battle that they could be a part of it.”
“Please,” I gasped. But now I realized what I was hearing – the sounds of men fighting and blades clashing together. And under it all, the ground still shook.
“Please what?”
“Please spare us. We fight against the Draven and their Manticore servants.”
“You are not much of a fighter,” the woman enunciated every word as she leaned back from me, tossing her long black curls over her shoulder. Her clothing – what I could see of it – was white and filmy but over the white clothing was chainmail and armor – greaves and a cuirass, a breastplate that was definitely made for a woman’s shape, and chainmail wherever the plate didn’t cover.
“And you are,” I agreed. The butt of the sword pulled back a little.
“I am Kavva, daughter of the Bone Prince and leader of his third spear. I and my spear – these warriors with me – will kill as many as we can today as we die. We will not spill our own blood without taking three times the toll from our enemies.”
As if she’d said something positive, the warriors behind her cheered.
“Is that a joke?” I asked.
But now she was the one who laughed. “Oh, this one is funny. It is a shame we will have to kill her.”
I struggled away enough to look around for the dragons. It was one thing to pin a single human, another thing to stop dragons from fighting.
Olfijum and Nasataa stood side by side, surrounded by a ring of creatures so strange that I didn’t know what to call them.
Sentries.
I’d wanted adventure, but I’d never guessed that anything like this existed in the world!
I swallowed down bile as the first Sentry came into focus. Nothing should look like this.
The men and women in the ring around the dragons sat astride horrifyingly huge eyeballs – one single one under each of them. Billowing behind the eyeball, and on either side – like the frill of a gold dragon – were hundreds of scintillating hair-thin tentacles with barbed hooks on the ends of them. Lightning flashed in tiny bursts from the tips of the tentacles, like the edges of a storm. And a buzzing almost-sound just outside my hearing set my teeth on edge.
Well, they looked spooky, but what could they really do to a dragon? Other than maybe wrapping their tentacles around them and using the lightning to freeze them into immobility, they seemed impractical.
Yes. That’s what they do. Their mouths are hidden on the backside under all the tentacles. They have an acid in them that dissolves their prey.
I didn’t need to know that. Gross.
Slowly.
I really, really didn’t need to know that. They were like exterior stomachs. Like flying bellies.
I’ll tell them you said so.
They could talk?
No, but it will make a nice speech for my famous last words.
“Look,” I said with my best smile. “There’s been some kind of misunderstanding. Let’s talk this through. We can’t escape with so many eyes on us.”
Ha ha.
Kavva showed her teeth in a way that might have been a smile on anyone else. “Ha! See? You are truly a funny one. But I have no time to make you my pet.”
“None of us wants that,” I agreed. “Besides, you already have plenty of eyes to feed. Why don’t you just let us get on with what we’re here for, and you can get on with what you’re here for – dying and spilling blood and all that.”
“Look,” Kavva said, reaching down and grabbing my hair.
She pulled me to my feet and jerked me roughly around to look where she was facing. Clouds of smoke, spiraling with interwoven flames, rose into the sky in the distance. Across the sand, I saw hundreds of small figures charging into what looked like a mass of black. They disappeared when they hit it, like they had never existed. It took me a moment to realize that had been a line of horses just like these ones with Kavva. A second line charged forward and I shut my eyes so I would have to see them be absorbed by those horrific black blobs.
“What are those?” I gasped in horror.
“Draven,” Kavva said. “Now, do I have your attention?”
Chapter Ten
“And those are what you’re going to go and fight?” I gasped in horror.
“You see the necessity,” Kavva said sternly. “We must not allow these aberrations anywhere near our women and children.”
“Aren’t you a woman?” Bareena asked from where she was being held at spear-point.
Kavva sniffed. “I am a war leader. My warriors and I go to die this day.”
She sounded so proud of the fact, like she was conferring an honor on them.
“But how will you stop ... that?” I asked, my absolute loss for ideas clear in my voice. “And why can we barely hear an entire war so close to here? We slept right through it!”
Bareena looked embarrassed. She must have nodded off while she was keeping watch.
“They block the senses. First, sound. Then, when you get closer, sight. They steal your senses before they steal your life, but we will not let them win without a battle.”
I didn’t care about her sword anymore. My eyes were fixed on the Draven. These were our enemies? No one could beat an enemy like that. No warrior or dragon could get close enough to destroy them without losing sight and hearing. And we had no magic because they’d taken it all.
Fear and despair coursed through me, mixing in equal measures.
All was lost. I could see that now, lost and lost and lost.
Bareena was speaking in the background, but I barely heard her as my heart plummeted.
“By the agreement made by our human ancestors in the age before this, I call on you, war leader,” she said. Around me, our guards froze, their faces surprised. I had no room for surprise under the tide of my black despair. “By the agreement forged in blood and paid in pain, I call on you. By our pact of blood, when one comes to seek the keys of the Haroc, all must honor the request, no matter who asks, no matter
when they ask. The way to the key must be shown and the test offered.”
Kavva gritted her teeth together so loud that I could hear them.
“Are you claiming your right to search for the Key of the Ancients right now, old woman? In the moment of our battle? In the moment of our death?” she sounded frustrated. She wanted to die?
She is not motivated like you are. Love means little to her, but honor is everything. Death for her family and tribe is of the greatest honor. You are keeping her from the desperate want of her heart with this request. Olfijum explained. His mental voice sounded sleepy. I don’t like admitting it, but I was dead asleep, too. We shouldn’t have left an old woman to stand watch. But it was easy to accept her offer and sink into sleep.
I wasn’t the one requesting that Kavva leave her personal war with the Draven.
Well, you kind of are.
“I am not claiming my right,” Bareena said clearly. The shoulders of our guards sagged in relief. “I claim it for Seleska, Guardian of Nasataa.”
My eyes felt like they’d opened so far that my eyeballs might fall out.
“What?” I gasped aloud.
“You are asking by the vow of blood?” Kavva asked, looking now at me.
“Yes?” I wasn’t sure if I was asking or answering.
“The vow which may not be broken?”
I nodded, but I had no idea what she was talking about. She was just so intense and aggressive. I had never met another woman like her before.
Kavva cursed. “The Winged Prince will want to be informed of this. Bravetta, ride out at once with this message, ‘To the Winged Prince, Jalla, this message is from your war leader Kavva, daughter of the Bone Prince. I am hereby charged by the vows and blood of our people to abandon my sworn death and lead them to the Key of Ancients. I will leave my horse under the command of another, riding only the Sentries needed to achieve our goal. There will be no delays. There will be no quarter given. Honor to the blood of our people.’”
One of the men guarding us stepped back from Bareena with a quick, jerky bow and then ran as if his life depended on it toward the horses, leapt on one like he was in a race, and galloped off into the distance.
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